Things I Learned This Month | August 2018

As usual, as the month winds down, I'm sharing some of the things I've learned this month. There are some heftier ones that deserve their own posts, but for now here are some fun discoveries.

1. Brits don't use the term "sassy." I spent last week at a church retreat, and I spent a lot of time playing pool with a nine-year-old Englishman named Judah. At first I was so abysmal that trash talking was pointless, but as I got better, he got more smart-alecky. At one point I commented that he was getting quite sassy. He looked at me and asked: "Wot's sass?" After some failed attempts to describe what I meant (apparently the Brits don't have smart-alecks), I hunted for his parents to get a translation. "Oh! You mean he's been lippy. Does he need discipline for giving you lip?"

2. I am Matthew Crawley. (Insert laughter emojis here.) Mom and I have been rewatching the first two seasons of Downton, so I took an online quiz to find out which character I am. I would have been surprised, but the hilarious thing is that I took a similar quiz on a different website around 5 years ago and got the same result. Make of that what you will.

3. Brian Jacques' Redwall books bear returning to. I loved these books as a kid, and I picked up Lord Brocktree, one of my favorites, on a whim for the first time in six or seven years. I was surprised by how compelling, well-written, and well-characterized it is. These books are going to remain favorites for a long time. 

4. The story behind MLKJ's name: "In 1934, and African American pastor from Georgia made the trip of a lifetime, sailing across the Atlantic Ocean, through the gates of Gibraltar, and across the Mediterranean Sea to the Holy Land. After this pilgrimage, he traveled to Berlin, attending an international conference of Baptist pastors. While in Germany, this man - who was named Michael King - became so impressed with what he learned about the reformer Martin Luther that he decided to do something dramatic. He offered the ultimate tribute to the man's memory by changing his own name to Martin Luther King. His 5-year-old son was also named Michael - and to the son's dying day his closest relatives would still call him Mike - but not long after the boy's father changed his own name, he decided to change his son's name too, and Michael King Jr. became known to the world as Martin Luther King Jr." (from an article by Eric Metaxas ) 

5. Dorothy Sayers, mystery author, theologian, and apologist, masterminded one of Guinness' most renowned ad campaigns. Mystery writing was Sayers' side job: in the 1920s she was a copywriter at an ad agency. Guinness requested that their ad campaign not mention beer (vulgar and not family-friendly) and emphasize the health qualities of Guinness. The result:

Poetry Corner | the poet Mary Oliver regarding trees

Green, Green is My Sister's House

Don't you dare climb that tree

or even try, they said, or you will be

sent away to the hospital of the 

very foolish, if not the other one.

And I suppose, considering my age,

it was fair advice.

But the tree is a sister to me, she lives alone in a green cottage 

high in the air and I know what

would happen, she'd clap her green hands, 

she'd shake her green hair, she'd

welcome me. Truly

I try to be good but sometimes 

a person just has to break out and

act like the wild and springy thing 

one used to be. It's impossible not

to remember wild and want it back. So

if someday you can't find me you might 

look into that tree or - of course, 

it's possible - under it.

                 ~ ~ ~

Foolishness? No, It's Not!

Sometimes I spend all day trying to count
the leaves on a single tree. To do this I
have to climb branch by branch and
write down the numbers in a little book.
So I suppose, from their point of view,
it's reasonable that my friends say: what
foolishness! She's got her head in the clouds
again.

But it's not. Of course I have to give up,
but by then I'm half crazy with the wonder
of it - the abundance of the leaves, the
quietness of the branches, the hopelessness
of my effort. And I am in that delicious
and important place, roaring with laughter,
full of earth-praise.