Adversity

Adversity comes from so many different directions and in so many ways. Having felt the pain of the death of a young sister, the terminal illness of a spouse and his subsequent death, difficulties of unemployment and the financial worries associated with it, and just plain loneliness, I feel an empathy for those who suffer. While none of us can know exactly what another is experiencing, most of us know what pain is, and so many I know right now are experiencing great trials.

As I was editing away, I came across this passage from author David Roper, who offers great insight about adversity. He writes about the bristlecone pines, a type of tree that exists in the western United States. It's a tree that survives for many years (one is about five thousand years old) in high altitudes with little water in the face of strong winds. These are his comments:



Bristlecones know something we've forgotten: Hardship makes for
extraordinary strength and staying power.

We decry the parents who raised us or rail at present indignity and misery,
yet adversity is part of the good God has promised to do for us. Trouble, if it turns us to God, ceases to be evil. It becomes the best thing that could happen to us.

So we should pray, not for the relief of our affliction, but for the grace
to turn it into greater openness to God and to His will for us. That’s the
point of earthly life and the point of all our suffering.

Accepted as part of God’s will, difficulty delivers us from the necessities
that ordinary men and women cannot do without. It purifies us from our
earthly attachments and pride. It liberates us from ambition and the desire
for earthly prestige and power. It “digs in us a deeper place for God’s
grace to fill,” as a beleaguered friend of mine once said, and leaves us
wholly dependent upon God’s love alone. Thus we acquire extraordinary
strength and endurance that others never achieve.

That’s why Paul entreats us to rejoice in adversity, “knowing that
tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven
character . . .” (Romans 5:3, 4). We must dig deep in the hard times, with
unseen roots clinging “cramplike” to God. Thus we can be strong in calamity, at peace in the place where God has planted us. “I’ve not seen a
discontented tree,” John Muir said.

Les Miserables, Part Deux

It's interesting that at times we're able to get a look at something through someone else's eyes, and when we do, we come away with a different view, often a more appreciative one. It happened to me a couple of nights ago when my book group gathered to discuss Les Mis, a book I've been reading (and complaining about--see previous post) since late June/early July.

Two of us loved reading the classic, and two of us didn't. And I was one of the two who didn't. It was my turn to lead the discussion, and so I started off by asking, "So what did you two like so much about this?" And they told us. And while the novel still is not my favorite, I came away with a greater appreciation for it, wishing that I had read with eyes open to some of the nicer qualities that my reading sisters had seen all along.

Perhaps one of the richer themes of the story is the "advance from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from falsity to truth, from darkness to daylight, . . . from Hell to Heaven, from limbo to God." Hugo explores this theme through his main character Jean Valjean, who, at the beginning of the story, has just been released from nineteen years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread. (Another theme--and there are many in a novel of over a thousand pages--is the injustice of French society at this point in history.)

Valjean, homeless and hungry, is taken in for the night by a kind priest. In probably the most famous scene from the story, Valjean steals some silverware and candlesticks from the priest after everyone has gone to bed. He is caught with the items, but when the local authorities return Valjean and the stolen goods to the priest, the priest shows mercy and tells the authorities that he has given these things to Valjean. After the gendarmes release Valjean and leave, the priest tells Valjean he wants him to take the silver and use it to become an honest man. He tells him, "You no longer belong to what is evil but to what is good."

The rest of the novel traces Valjean's journey, as he becomes an honest man and shows mercy to everyone who crosses his path, even to those who are his enemies and wish to bring about his demise.

In that way the novel reflects the message of the gospel: We who are completely unworthy of mercy, who are enemies of God even when He has shown great kindness to us, have been rescued so that we may become holy. Like the priest and Valjean, God has purchased our souls so that we no longer belong to what is evil, but to what is good. At the end of the novel, Hugo shows the reader (you'll have to read yourself to find out how--I'm not giving everything away)that Valjean has never forgotten the mercy shown to him as he "advanced from limbo to God."

And I'm so glad there were readers in my book group who let me see this through their eyes.

Les Miserables

It's been difficult the last couple of months to find material for my "Great Stuff I Read This Week" posts. And it isn't because I haven't been reading. Quite the contrary! Since somewhere around the end of June--which, in reading time, feels like years--I've been working, nay battling, my way through Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

Every spare reading moment I've had has been spent reading this elephantine piece of literature. It hasn't been without its pleasant moments-- with a book weighing in at 1200 pages, odds are good that Hugo would hit on something once in a while. But for the most part, it's an experience that I could have missed and still led a full life.

It's interesting. I lug this thing around everywhere I go, and usually someone has a comment. Usually it's either, "What a great book! I love that one!" or "I just couldn't get through that one." No one has ever really said, "I read it through, and I'm wondering why this has been designated a classic." So I'm claiming that response as my own.

So why I have kept on reading? Through fifty-some detailed pages on the Battle of Waterloo and, this evening, a chapter entitled "Ancient History of the Sewer?" Through lengthy passages extolling utopianism and giving the history of a Parisian order of nuns? Two words: book group. I made a vow to my sister readers, and I will keep it. I'm down to a little over a hundred pages, and by Monday night when we reunite after a summer of reading French names that none of us know how to pronounce, I will lead a discussion that will last at least fifteen minutes. My first discussion question: Would you rather read Les Miserables again, or go through 18 hours of hard labor without an epidural to deliver an 11-pound baby after being overdue for two weeks? Either would be pretty painful.

At any rate, this is the great stuff I read this week, a little reward from Victor Hugo to me after 999 pages of reading:

"Women, poor souls, are not much given to thinking."

And it's a good thing, because if I were, I would have donated my copy of this book to the library book sale back in July.

Nine Eleven

It's hard to believe that it has been eight years since we watched those terrible images of fiery planes and crumbling buildings over and over. It's still a frequent question among conversing groups: "Where were you when you heard about 9/11?" And everyone always has an answer. We can't forget something that horrible. Can we?

I was teaching at the time at a small school in Hudsonville, Michigan. I was tired that morning because the night before I had been out late--an infrequent occurrence for me on a weeknight. I had been at the Allegan County Fair at a Michael W. Smith concert. It had been one of those balmy, beautiful late summer evenings. The weather and music combined made for a wonderful evening. Whoever would have dreamed what we would wake up to?

Since I was tired, I stopped at a drive-thru coffee place near school for a caffeine boost. As the woman at the window handed me my coffee, she asked,"Did you hear what happened?" What had happened had just happened, so all anyone could say at that point was that a plane (or two) had flown into the Twin Towers. When I got to school, I asked David, the principal, if he was aware of what was happening. Phone calls from parents and wives kept coming, and finally David called all of the students and teachers out onto the lawn to tell them what he little he knew and to pray--while we weren't sure what we were praying for, we knew where our Help had to come from right then.

Later, I drove home on 44th Street, usually a busy east/west road that runs past a mall, restaurants, office buildings, and, after several miles, the airport. The mall had been closed, as had all buildings that day that could accommodate large crowds. There was no one on the streets. There were no planes in the sky. It was like one of those eerily quiet times that occurs before a big storm strikes, except that something had already struck.

Our family had no personal knowledge of anyone killed in the 9/11 attacks. We shared the grief of the nation. My son, only seven at the time and in first grade, probably was impacted the most. His reaction was like one who passes an auto accident--horrified, fearful, and yet he couldn't seem to stop watching. We lived in a small tri-level house at the time, and his bedroom was on the upper level, next to mine. For weeks afterwards, he insisted on sleeping on the lower level, "in case a plane came." We eventually had to keep the newspapers away from him because he couldn't stop reading--and being terrified. It will probably be a memory he shares with his own children someday.

I've visited the site where the Twin Towers once stood, and I'm amazed at how ordinary it all looks. There really aren't any signs of the terrible scenes that we watched on TV of firefighters and other emergency personnel, black smoke everywhere, and people with fearful expressions running . . . somewhere. An old, colonial era church stands near the site--during the crisis a place of rest and triage for those who were injured and those who needed a break from their work. It's hard to believe that in a such a place of quaintness and quiet that something so terrible could have happened.

The big question is whether our children will remember this, the way some remember the assassination of JFK or the explosion of the Challenger. And, sadly, there are reports that some of the children who were Jonathan's age and younger already have forgotten the events of that day. But they need to remember--not in a morbid sort of way but in the way that memories serve us as a defense--that we can be attacked, that we can be vulnerable, that we do have enemies. A sad thing,that our children should have this memory. But sadder still if they would forget.

Magic China

You probably think that you're looking at a teacup, saucer, creamer, and sugar bowl--and you are. But that's not all they are.

They're magic. When I look at them, I see a large, extended family gathered for a meal--probably Thanksgiving. A couple of children (one looks like me) sit at the dining room table with the adults with smug looks on their faces while they listen to the rest of the kids, who have been banished to the kitchen. From the kitchen there is laughter and talking--and probably not much eating and not much of a sense of having been banished.

I hear children playing hide and seek somewhere upstairs, running and falling on hardwood floors, and women are in the kitchen doing dishes, chatting about the latest phase their children are going through. Snores come from the living room, where the men are "watching" the after-dinner game.

When I look at the dishes, I can smell raisin-filled cookies, the ones that even people who don't like raisins like. The ones that no one can ever duplicate, even though we all have the recipe. No one really tries anymore.

When I look at the dishes, I see Grandma wrapping a present, seams and corners perfectly matched and folded. I hold the tape for her while she cuts and folds, and then I watch in amazement as she curls ribbon with the edge of her shears.

When I look at the dishes, I am transported back to Grandma's bedroom. She's thrown a blanket over the headboard and got out all her flannelgraph for me to play with. Right now, Daniel is praying in the center of a mess of hungry lions.

And when I look at the dishes, I'm holding a hand of Author cards. I'm sitting across from my brother, next to Grandma. I'm wondering if Tim has Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

And after years of being wrapped in paper and stored first in an attic, and
then in a garage, these dishes have once again been lovingly washed and placed in a china cabinet--where there is finally room for them, where they belong. Their cheery yellow color and bright pansies brighten the room, just as their former owner's smile once did. They're very fragile, and some of the pieces have been glued together, and the old glue has made them turn brown. But they're still magic, because to look at them is to think Grandma and to brush away a tear or swallow a lump.