MY Molsey Life

Clutter

2007-11-05T22:54:00.000-05:00

I have two staplers on my desk. One is sleek, black, compact. The other is nasty brown, wrapped in packing tape, and clunky.

I need both of them because I tent to fixate on anything that secures things to things. I have ample supplies of many tapes, several types of paper clips, a box of various sizes of clamps. And I need both staplers to stay in my sight because they are not just staplers to me.

They, to me, are signs of completion and order. I print a paper, I copy a reading, I stack some bills, basically anything that I can squash down into about a quarter inch, I put under these devices and slam my fist down. Suddenly, with a satisfying thunk and crunch, my life is in complete control for the half second as the sound of the mechanism reverberates against the walls of my desk. It's an almost permanent binding, but reversible if I so choose. In just as prominent a place I have a menacing staple remover-- almost as important to my sanity as the fantastic machines and my arsenal of staples. I can bind. I can loose. All is well.

Nothing. I mean nothing. Disturbs me more than when I can't staple something that seems to me to be eminently staple-able. I begin to perspire. I pace. I create a stack of the failed, traitorous staples at my right hand, just to the side of my mousepad. I stand and begin to pound on the staplers, alternating as my efforts further chew the front and back pages of the document, creating a pocketed battleground of half-hearted holes up and down the top left corner. Horizontal, vertical, diagonal both ways. It has to work somehow. I rip the tangled metal bits from the stack of white pulp. It doesn't even work if I flip it over, as if the loose pages wouldn't notice my flank of its iron resistance to my attempted penetration. I pound harder, I snap the pages straight. The even edges satisfy me, but I have to--I must--freeze them where they stand.

Eventually I punch through, my vision blurring and my palms sweating. It is finished.

Now all I have to do is read the article. Understand it. Talk intelligently about it. Or turn in the paper. Edit it. Review it. Read the comments and rewrite. Over and over. Or pay the bill. Again next month. And the month after.

I need a life sized stapler.

On the Margins

2007-10-27T23:04:00.000-05:00

I felt the impetus to write this blog several weeks ago, but with busyness etc., I didn't. I'm now glad I waited to let it percolate a bit more. This would have been a very different blog a couple weeks ago. Between then, when I was feeling increasingly and (as is always the case) forcibly marginal-ized and now, when I am feeling very comfortable on the margins, much has changed.

My recognition of marginal living came with a phone call, as I have said, several weeks ago. I was, at the time, at Trinity (College, Deerfield), just finished talking to the bookstore people about course texts for next semester, and was making my way to Chicago (that is, University of Chicago) to work at the coffee shop. With the joys of cell phones, I can be reached, even here in my car--my first intimation of the transitory living that I was only beginning to realize.

I pick up the phone call, from a number I didn't recognize, and hesitantly said "hello." Quickly, the voice on the other end says, "Hi, this is JoAnn, calling from the Dean's office about your application. Are you on campus?" Immediately several questions begin swirling in my head: "what campus? I am on A campus..."; "what dean's office?"; and most importantly, "what application?" The only applications that I was thinking about at the time were those I was planning on writing in a couple months to PhD programs. Did someone in the Dean's office of DePaul have a vision that I was going to apply again and manage to find my new cell phone number just so they can send me the important message to not even bother? You may laugh--but I am telling you, this seriously went through my head in those interminably long seconds of utter confusion and panic. I stammered an apologetic, "I'm sorry, what campus are you talking about?"

It turns out that it was Chicago--where I was heading. Ok, but what application? And what was the problem? I had been working at the Coffee shop for some weeks already, and things were going fine. I thought the application was a mere formality.

It wasn't.

I soon found out that because I wasn't a student at Chicago, it wasn't so easy for me to work at the coffee shop. Turns out I wasn't supposed to be there at all. Thankfully, there seems to be some loophole where if I apply for a temporary position, I may work for a time--no more than 6 months. Whether or not I will be able to fill out another temporary application, I don't know. Actually, 3 weeks later, I still don't know. And incidentally have still not been paid. 8 weeks after my first shift.

Needless to say, I suppose, this entire incident got me thinking about what I was doing. I am
a student (but only non-degree, and for only one class) at Loyola. I am a faculty member (but only adjunct and part time) at Trinity College. I am a barista (but only on a temporary worker permit) at University of Chicago's coffee shop. Making this scatteredness even more, well, scattered, is the reality that all of these places are very far away from each other and 2/3rds are very far from home (hour commutes, at least). No wonder I was feeling a bit threatened on the margins. I am going out of my way to be in all of these VERY good places, but exactly because of my outsider status I was called out and my continued employment was in jeopardy.

Thankfully, the seeming marginalization of earlier this fall has given way to my current contentedness with this marginal existence. I can imagine no better places than Trinity, Loyola and Chicago to meet the best collections of students, professors and staff to meet me exactly where I currently have need. My engagement is, necessarily, limited in all of these places, but it is enough, for now, as I am figuring out my place in several conversations, and preparing to succinctly state what that is, exactly, on PhD applications.

Margin living is good. It gives me an interesting perspective on myself, with various hats (or aprons, as the case may be), and institutions.

Borrowing privileges at three great Chicago-area libraries is pretty good too...

Hello, Autumn, my old friend

2007-09-28T10:36:00.000-05:00

Nothing says, "Goodbye, and hope to see you real soon" to summer like a cloudless, warm day with family, pizza, new friends, cheap books and half-price gelato at midnight. It makes fall in Chicago--the harbinger of never-ending winter--a little easier to take. Thankfully, that is precisely the kind of solstice that Mike and I were privileged to celebrate this past Saturday. Beginning late, as do all the best Saturdays, we listened to our favourite radio programme--"Wait, Wait, Don't tell me!", cleaned and had a leisurely lunch of delicious leftovers from the gourmet dinner the night before, when Mike's parents came by to begin the afternoon's festivities.

We walked through the tree lined, sun spotted streets of Hyde Park to U of C where we met up with new Div School friends from the previous night's downtown excursion. Loading on to the yellow school bus, we headed up LSD to Navy Pier where we met up with some of Mike's siblings and took an architectural boat tour to find out the history of Chicago's very distinctive skyline. Faces kissed by summer-feeling sun and the reminder-wind telling us that fall was right around the corner, it was a wonderfully pleasant and informative trip with fascinating history of may buildings that were before nameless to me.

Leaving downtown, we all went back to Hyde Park and continued our architectural sensitivity by looking around U of C. After a bite to eat at Giordano's we were all pretty tired. However, after the family left, midnight madness was only beginning. 57th street came alive after 9:30 where Powell's had a fabulous 50% off sale, and so did the Istria cafe. We got to scope out and enjoy the deals and deliciousness that was the last few hours of summer in Hyde Park with some of our new friends from the Divinity School. Now that is the way to ring in the fall, summer style!

So after just over a month in our new place, we are finally settling in to our fall routine with Mike in class full-time and doing work as a research assistant. Not the first day of school, but it was close...:

Venturing out in Hyde Park

2007-09-15T19:38:00.000-05:00

Well, for maybe one of the last days before it got pretty cold here, we took a long walk around the neighborhood. We got as far south as 57th street, under the Metra tracks where we tried out a coffee shop/cafe' that we had heard a lot of good things about--The Istria Cafe'. And let me tell you, it was worth the wait and worth the hype. Here is us enjoying some FANTASTIC gelato--I got coconut, and Mike, lemon...

Then, since it was such a great night, we went for a walk along Promontory Point, and saw the sunset (of course it wasn't over the lake, but it was nice nonetheless). Here are some shots by the lake, and of the skyline...

two months, three moves, four jobs, and 1 international trip later...

2007-09-14T18:02:00.000-05:00

Yes, it has been awhile. And yes we have had several requests to post. But after all this time, too much has happened to fit in a blog. We are going to get better about posting, and when I say "we" I mean, undoubtedly, me. So, here is the skinny.

Two months--
In the last post we showed you pictures of our future place, just about a month before we moved into it. Now we have been here for a month and are all settled in and loving it. Here are some pictures of the view:
And here are some pictures of the sunrise near our place:
Three moves--
Leaving our DeKalb sublet situation in the beginning of August, we moved briefly into my former boss' house (also in DeKalb) while they were on vacation and we were otherwise homeless. Unfortunately, the wanted to come home much before we wanted to leave their very comfortable, spacious and quiet house, and we moved for the second time in two weeks to my very generous in-laws home for a couple days. Then comes the discrepancy about the third move--two days later, we moved all of our stuff (REMARKABLY) into U-Haul's very biggest trailer, and a truck bed, and an emptied out van (and the trunk of our car, and another couple trips...). While I just count this as step one of the final BIG move into our Hyde Park home, you may differ, and are welcome to it--it helps the pitious sounding-ness of the end of our summer. Finally, on August 15 we moved into the apartment that we have no intention of leaving anytime soon. Here are some move pictures:

Four jobs--
And that's just in the last week! After saying good-bye to the sweet situation at the Laundry Lounge and Tan (and with it my fakey tan), I have been in high job-search gear--maybe a little TOO high. Of course, I have been teaching at Trinity College ever since August 23, but this was still going to leave me quite a bit of time on my hands. So, I started a job dog walking near where I am taking a class (at Loyola) in Rogers Park. Realizing at just about the same time as I got another job as barista at The Grounds of Being coffee shop that it was a huge toll on me and the car to have the burden of a daily additional commute to the entirely opposite side of the city, I, not so gracefully, backed out of it just recently. This takes away some of my car-dependency and allows me to stay nearer home, two things that I really like (especially since "home" means Hyde Park). In addition to these permanent situation jobs, I also joined Mike and the Fay's crew at the yearly Sandwich fair this past weekend as table-wiper-upper and meat server. What a fun, though very tiring couple days. I can't complain though, since I was only there for part of the day, and got to be inside the tent--not near the fires outside for the whole day like Mike. Anyway, next week, dividing my time only between the coffee shop and TIU, should be just right--for now, that is...

1 International trip--
Yes, for those of you who haven't yet heard, this was the trip to Toronto to finish my MA with my MA defense. Thankfully, it was just days before I needed it done-- to teach undergraduates at Trinity. Our next Canadian trip is planned for Mike's defense in early November--how exciting! Here are some pictures of Ontario, but not the defense:

As of recently...

2007-07-14T16:01:00.000-05:00

Hello, friends...
My mom informs me that we have not posted recently, and she is absolutely right. So, here is a quick update on what we have been up to since in DeKalb, IL (beginning June 1).

Hanging with Bob. As a celebration of our return to the States (I'm sure), Bob Phelan threw a BBQ at his house just days after we arrived. Even though it wasn't really for us, it was a great excuse for everyone to get together to kick off the summer!

Writing our respective theses. Yvana has sent hers in, (yeah!) and will traveling up to TO sometime in the next five weeks to defend. Mike is plugging away, working on chapter three currently and on schedule for finishing before he starts at UofC.

Attending the CRC's yearly Synod meeting. Yvana had the joy of being able to go with Lori Evenhouse to Grand Rapids in June to join with hundreds of women in support of overtures for women (and men) in the CRC. It was a wonderfully encouraging time with fellow women in the CRC.

Listening to the DeKalb Municipal Band. Bob and Paul came out to visit, and we took them to several DeKalb specialities--the free concert in the park, Ollies' frozen custard, and Borders right before closing. It was quite the night, and I even learned how to waltz...

Watching the Evergreen Park fourth of July Parade and Fireworks. As has become our yearly tradition, we journeyed out to the south suburbs once again for fourth of July festivities in Evergreen Park. Together with the Reppmann family, we watched the parade over a picnic dinner and then enjoyed fireworks. We had wonderful weather, and, as always, great company!

Working at our respective jobs. Mike is currently in his eleventh summer/year at Fay's, still catering deliciously MSG-ed porkchops and chicken for hungry mid-westerners. Notably, he has cooked for former speaker of the house Dennis Hastert. Yvana has been working at the nearby Laundry Lounge and Tan and in between cleaning and closing, working on her tan and catching up on reading.

Working out our many moves. As many of you know, we moved from Toronto to DeKalb early in the summer and have been enjoying immensely the city here and the proximity to the library! We are also preparing for our new home in Chicago (facebook us--see sidebar--if you would like our address as of August 15). Unfortunately we need to move out of DeKalb before moving into Chicago and will have a week or so in various houses while our stuff is in storage before the big move in the middle of August. If anyone is free on the fifteenth and willing to help for a first look at our new Hyde Park apartment and some pizza, let Mike or I know! (In case you are confused about how classy DeKalb is, the above pictures are of our Hyde Park apartment)

Preparing for the GRE. Yvana is taking the GRE once again in just over a week. Hopefully my vocabulary and writing has improved enough through thesis writing to help my verbal score... Prayers on July 26, please!

Visiting with Family. Yvana's mom, aunt Norene and cousin Blake came for a visit just recently where we went out to eat, visited extended family in Rockford, got lost in Northern Illinois, and went furniture and yarn shopping. It was a full 36 hours!

Well, it will hopefully not be another six + weeks before we post again, but if it is, bug us about it (it works!)
YM

Traffic interview

2007-05-16T22:13:00.000-05:00

We were sitting in the Hindsdale Oasis, enjoying the feel of ice cream sliding down our throats and the sight of steady traffic passing into the shadow beneath the underpass of what could only be called a combination of American's two lasting monuments to humanity: the superhighway and the mall. The experience was made complete by the conspicuous McDonald's and Mobile Oil corporate logos placed before the exits that no doubt thousands of cars passed in the twenty minutes we sat observing the cardiovascular pulse of logistics in the early afternoon--before rejoining it a short time later.

Back in the USA. I was in the midst of chauffeuring Yvana back from her interview at TIU--her second of the day.

"It was a good experience," she said as she mixed her half of the TCBY sundae until the sprinkles blurred into an ovular rainbow. "I think the conversation went well."

"From what I saw of it, you got along great with everyone." I moved to segregate my half of the ice cream bowl, preserving the integrity of the sprinkles before she could blend them all into a nondescript pudding. "Once that other guy showed up."

"Yeah, but it was good to catch my breath a little after the first two. But really, I don't think anything will come of it." She looked up as a break in traffic collapsed in on itself, the slower cars of the advance wave falling to meet the faster cars of the next.

"The other interview at U of C went great though, wouldn't you say?" The process that just occurred in the southbound lane repeated itself on the northbound; I observed while I scraped the smooth dessert off the spoon and enjoyed the crunch of the candies. She was trying not to get her hopes up, since we had done this often enough, and failed in supposedly easier situations, to know that nothing was worth remaining either excited or depressed over for too long. "And the phone interview at UIC was pretty decent."

"They both went better than I expected, except for that weird U of C setup." The stream of motion in both directions reached a crescendo, and breaklights reflected a pool of red on the right. We both had high hopes for U of C, since that would mean we would both live and work in the neighborhood, which would among other things allow us to renounce car ownership for at least another year. True, we didn't want to get our hopes up. But it was certainly better to balance expectation between hope and disappointment, maintaining secret ambitions and untold terrors reflected in the horrifyingly mute future we both foresaw.

"Still," she said after taking another bite. I was surprised to hear a crunch when she chewed her sprinkles. I assumed they would have dissolved. "Still, it would be something if I got the Trinity job. Now that would be an affirmation."

"Would you want to live on the north side then?" One lane sped up, the cars quickly disappearing after a quick turn down the road, obscured by the sound retardant cement walls on either side of the tollway. Then it slowed, and the northbound lane seemed to take its cue to go faster. The play of cars was tempting my belief that the same few cars simply circled our vantage point, performing the same dance with each other on an endless cycle.

"Not really. I--we--were so excited about living in Hyde Park." We both hated commuting with unbridled conviction, cars in general nearly as much. Two years as dedicated cyclists and TTC'ers entrenched a distaste for single person automotive travel rivaled perhaps only by a U.S. border guard's hatred for pretty much anybody. But the opportunity for her to have her own classroom, teaching two foundational courses at a respected institution like Trinity College would certainly do no harm to her CV. She bit down on another sprinkle that she had picked out of her molar.

We sat in silence for a while. "Something will work out," I chirped over the hum of vehicles passing under our feet. Maybe something would, but if it did we both were haunted by the anticipation that it would be less than ideal. Hopes raised too often: Southwest (both times), Timothy, Mishawaka, Charlotte. Even Borders. Didn't want to add Trinity to the list.

I thought of the first time we went through the process. We were lying on the beach in Puerto Vallarta, trying to hold down the few days we had left to enjoy the Pacific surf, forcing myself to forget about the waiting messages from principals back in Illinois. Other things pressed themselves onto my waiting memory while the ocean drew me into a trance of motion and sound. The soft, pebbly sand held your footprints for only a moment before they vanished into the surf, the foam slowing at your toes before rushing under the cuff of your pearl white wrap back into the steady turmoil of the deep water. When I saw you laughing, the strands of your sun bleached hair prying themselves free of your ponytail, holding the camera as I emerged from the wave that surprised me with the force it used to knock me over, the concerns of our new life seemed far from my mind. They were thousands of miles from that beach, that ocean, but only a few hours away from the moment you would get a phone call while we were still in bed from one prospect telling you that the school had decided to hire someone with more maturity.

Two horns cried foul when a small Toyota decided to pass through two lanes of traffic, seemingly on a whim. I took my last bite of ice cream, and let it turn to liquid in my mouth while I preserved the last few sprinkles on my tongue. "But what if they do offer? Do you want to accept?" The flow of incessant cars and trucks soon corrected the Toyota's faux pas, absorbing the disturbance moments after it occurred.

"I think so. But I doubt it will happen."

"Yeah." We threw the small dish away. She ran to the bathroom before we headed out, and I walked through the sparsely utilized lot to our borrowed car, savoring the flavor of the candies still lingering on my gums. When she came out, we merged into the rush of other cars, holding each other's hand.

***************
Just at dusk, two weeks later, we heard the Ice Cream truck approaching on St. Clarens. Like a sucker, I ran out to the sidewalk and stood in eager anticipation. She emerged moments later with an accusatory smile. "I wish I had a camera to show you how ridiculous you look."

I suppose I did have time to put on my shoes instead of slippers, and don a more appropriate shirt, but on this sleepy sidestreet, cars rarely passed, and I didn't care what they thought anyway.

When it finally arrived, we each ordered a cone, and our friendly ice cream man dipped them both in a dish of multicolored, sprinkle candies.

"A congratulatory ice cream to you." I raised my cone.

"Thanks." She took the first bite. "I deserve it." We walked back into the house. She had already checked out several logic textbooks, and was perusing philosophical anthologies that focused on ethics. The melody from the truck faded into the quiet evening.

Those sprinkles were delicious.

Chicago, New York, Toronto... Our life in April

2007-05-06T16:30:00.000-05:00

Dearest Friends,

I know it has been awhile since we have posted anything, but I so much wanted to share our pictures with you, and was so reticent to fight with Mike's laptop to download them, it has taken me till now--in high thesis writing and apartment packing avoidance mode--to actually do it. I am hoping for another post later (sooner, rather than later, though...) about our current plans for the summer and the fall, so I will just stick with the fun stuff for now.

Two weeks ago, just a day after the ICS spring retreat, Jeff, Angie, Mike and I headed down to Chicago. It was a whirlwind trip where I got to stay with my sister, Katrina, on her wonderfully comfortable futon in the (almost) only current TCC dorm I had never before stayed in. This was my homebase for the couple days of non-stop interviews all over the city (more on the results in the coming post...) Mike stayed with various friends around Chicago--shadowing Bob Phelan at school and attending class at the University of Chicago (If you want to know more, you'll just have to ask him--I really wasn't there most of the time!). Anyway, we got back after a couple of days and I promptly got sick--really sick. Not that I minded so much, yeah I had a course paper to do, and the ever-present thesis to write, but I had just received from my sister-courier a book that I had been dying to read: *French Lovers* by Joseph Barry. So good. I didn't mind a bit staying in bed and reading more about Heloise and Abelard, the courtly love tradition, and royal scandals with Catherine de Medici and Diane de Poiters.

Just about the time I was getting better, I was packed off and heading to Syracuse, NY with Jim Olthuis and his wife, Arvilla for a conference put on by their good friend Jack Caputo entitled "Feminism, Sexuality and the Return of Religion." What an awesome trip. As an added bonus, we made a stop off at Seneca Falls, NY on the way to see where the Women's Rights movement really got started, and the current National Women's hall of Fame. It was amazingly empowering to see all the women that had come before, making it possible for me to attend a school of Higher Education, vote, and have so many other opportunities. (Pictures here--Me and Jim outside the National Women's Hall of Fame, and the plaque commemorating that important day in 1848 where Elizabeth Cady Stanton called together the first women's convention in the US.

So, from there it was off to the conference. It was somewhat of an ICS reunion, that I was honored to be a part of, meeting current students who are living outside Toronto, and re-connecting with ICS graduates that I had known before. (To the right is a picture from dinner on Friday night--from left, Clarence Joldersma (Calvin Professor and ICS senator), Neal's friend Will, Neal DeRoo (ICS grad and current Boston College PhD student), Yours Truly, RuthAnne Crapo (Current ICS PhD student and Professor in Kentucky), Beatrix Prinsen, Dianne Bergsma (Current ICS PhD student and Professor at Brock in ON), Christina DeGroot (Chair of the Gender Studies Department at Calvin College), Arvilla Sipma, Jim Olthuis (ICS emeritii professor).

The speakers (well, most of them) were also fantastic. They had been brought in from all over the world from prestigious institutions of higher learning, and it was very impressive. As a result of Sarah Coakley's tantalizingly brief reference to Simone Weil at one point in the question part of her talk, I couldn't help talking to her afterward, and find out what she really did think about this woman who was becoming such an important part of my life. We had a good discussion (if you really want to hear about it, please ask me!). (See Sarah's picture to the right--->) Another of the interesting lectures was Judith Butler's. She couldn't make the conference, so they piped her in by interactive video. People got to ask questions still, and we all could see her face on the giant projector. (See picture to the left <--- of her on the screen and people coming up to ask questions) Such a great presentation! I also got to sit down to dinner on Saturday night with Jack Caputo, Merold Westphal and Jim Olthuis. Nothing like feeling like the little kid at the grownups table!

Well, I hope to write an update soon of work and housing plans... Enough for now.

Reflections on Virgina Tech

2007-04-22T12:43:00.000-05:00

Since we have been gone for the last couple days in Chicago, I haven't had a chance to transcribe my thoughts about Virgina Tech. This journal was written in the car after arriving an hour early to the last of my blitz krieg of interviews in the beginning of the week. It was good to take some time and reflect on the changes that had been happening over the last couple days. More about the trip to Chicago soon.

******************
18.April.2007
Last night I participated in a vigil at Trinity Christian College with my RA sister and close to, if not more than 100 other Trinity students. It was a striking experience for me, recalling a time just over five years ago where as an RA, I also had to lend support and sympathy and be a strength for people at TCC. It was 9-11-2001. As I looked across the circle of faces in the courtyard last night, though--dimly lit by torches and other (all too-breakable) tea light holders, I saw some familiar faces--now in positions of leadership at Trinity, and some faces that seemed familiar, until I realized that the people I was thinking of had graduated years before. Regardless, the continuity was striking. Where my peers had taken roles of leadership, so did these current college students step naturally into those roles. I was reminded of the French saying that I had read only that afternoon: Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose (the more things change, the more they stay the same).

By catching a glimpse of continuity at my alma mater, I was overwhelmed with a sense of time's cyclicality. Though we often use a linear model of time, that seems to me, quite a human and rational imposition on reality. Nature moves in cycles. The seasons, the days, the very sphericalness of our earth, connote a cyclical understanding that what has come before will come again, though we might be in a different place, and see a different perspective on it. This metaphor also made me think of the labyrinth experience at the most recent ICS retreat. In my constant circling around, I gained a sense that I had been in this spot already, though it was already a ways down the path (if it was stretched out linearly). The power of the cyclical metaphor also translates well to Buddhist mysticism that Mike introduced to me. He said that Buddhists see life as on a wheel. There are people hanging on to the outside, desperate to stay connected, always in danger of falling off. There are also people who sit peacefully in the center, as the good and bad pass through them. What a powerful image for me as I stood in the center of the labyrinth circle and once again in the Trinity circle, surrounded by people that were seeking that inner peace in the face of a tragedy.

Continuity and change--what powerful human concepts. Our ability to pick them out is striking and profound, and so very human. Maybe our human linear understanding does help us project into the future... By realizing how tragedies like what happened this week in Virgina share with other prior tragedies, we can make a commitment to change the future. By realizing our responsibility for building community instead of isolating people, we can see ourselves as quite a ways down the path, though it may not seem so very different, after all.

Important! Short! Pleae Read!

2007-04-02T09:36:00.000-05:00

This is Mike again--but I promise that this time I won't go into an angst-filled soliloquy. Really.

Basically, this is just a feeler relating to our plans for the near future. Since we are heading back to the states, we will most likely jump back on the cellphone train and ride it into the sunset. But we are up in the air about which company to sign on with. That is where you, dear friends, come in. If you anticipate or want to talk to us on a semi-regular basis without eating up your minutes or waiting ever so impatiently for 9 pm to roll around, let us know your wireless carrier. Or, if your wireless carrier is rubbish and you are going to switch as soon as that 50 year contract you signed runs out, warn us.

I'm gonna tag some people on facebook; if I don't tag you it's probably because I know your carrier. Or I forgot. Or I don't like you. So take a hint.

How to (not) write a thesis on textualized monastic despair

2007-03-29T20:27:00.000-05:00

One-- Wake up late after telling yourself the night before you will get up early. This gives you a fantastic start for your attitude of failure that will carry you through those slothful afternoon hours.

Two-- take three hours to “just check your email” before you start work for the day. Few things are as excellent time wasters as the Internet, and you want to exploit them fully. However, if you are able, watch some morning television news magazine such as Good Morning America, or convince yourself that you should go out and read a newspaper.

Three-- Find some appropriate music to set the soundtrack of your day. Make sure it is something good 'n depressing, especially on a cultural level. I usually go with Bright Eyes, although there is certainly a wide selection of indie emo you can choose.

Four-- Open your document on the computer. Now you can try to fool yourself that you will get some work done.

Five-- Change the first line as many times as possible before your skin begins to crawl. For
me, this usually begins at the back of my knees, but I recognize the full effect when my lower back begins to sweat. A favorite at this stage is to change word order in one or two sentences. Should that phrase be a genitive, “of Bernard?” Or should I change it to a possessive: “Bernard's?” Or, should I re-structure the sentence entirely as a prepositional phrase, “in the system wherein Bernard is situated?” Usually go with the most convoluted result, but don't hesitate to continue with this until you hands are completely sore from cracking and re-cracking your knuckles.

Six-- Decide you need some coffee. Of course, this means you also have to do dishes, scrub the counter, sweep the floor, and start a load of laundry. Also feel free to inspect the mail and leaf through the Liturgical Press catalogue for an hour or so.

Seven-- Return to writing after three cups of coffee. You're jittery, so you will probably write at least three more sentences. Reward yourself with a game or seven of free cell, since not everybody can write a whole 65 original words in the span of four hours!

Eight-- Realize that you have realized that everything you have done today is a diversion from the underlying dread of staring at yourself in the reflection of the blank page on your monitor. In response to this, begin thinking about your plans for next year and how they resemble a jenga tower teetering on this fulcrum of this thing you are failing to write.

Nine-- pace around the room for at least fifteen minutes. Pick up a book and start furiously reading and underlining. Make sure it is one of yours, or else somewhere a librarian will have a conniption.

Ten-- turn off the Bright Eyes CD that has been repeating for the past five hours. Slap yourself around physically, mentally, or both.

Eleven-- Your constant rumination on the failures of the past several hours, along with the overload of caffeine, have probably depressed you to the extent that your mindset is approaching the point required to posses the realization of your own depravity required for true monastic reflection. Write two paragraphs, then read a bit more before you put the laundry into the dryer, and while you are doing that, welcome any other distraction that presents itself for your exploitation.

Twelve-- Pour your frustrations into the chapter you're writing, turn it in, receive glowing feedback from your advisor, do the same for the other chapters, and finish your thesis in record time with an exemplary grade.

Except the last point hasn't happened. And it probably won't. But it's a hope for the future that is the corona slithering behind the eclipse of the present despair, the shadowy light that reveals your true being in what is written by your hands. Read what you wrote again. Then read your proposal and modify it a bit. Then notice how this slice of the past and the plan for the future completely miss each other in the present. Now you write about writing, again. Now you are distanced from yourself once more, but for a time it is close enough to be the present. And even that contains another model condemning your understanding of you right now, since here you see yourself clearly by seeing exactly what you aren't, but should be. Et jam incepit...

Lucky number thirteen, with a bullet-- Stare at the computer screen, losing yourself in what you have written so that your skin is wrapped in the words of the page. Every letter is a molecule of your flesh. Every period is a blink. Each phrase a dying gasp. You see yourself more clearly than you ever could have, and all you want to do is look away, but the alphabet of failure is everywhere around you. You try to utilize the known as an escape hatch, fleeing into the nameless terror of the unknown future, but when you pass into this dull razor of the immediate present you discover to your horror that you've been there a lifespan before you arrived, sitting outside a closed door with knuckles bloody and raw from your incessant knocking. You aren't pounding the walls though. You rap over and over against your skull, trying to reach the idea(l) you believe is in there with every false fiber of your being, and with each stroke another key clicks--another letter onto the page sounding out a first person passive future subjunctive, “would that I could be written.” Just when you think you're beating the thesis-daemon back into the submissive state it never knew with blow after unconvinced blow, you look up and only see yourself before you; you see that the shiv lodged in your soul as you bleed to death is your own wild insubordinate will. Then you realize that the choice to look away you thought you possessed in your moments of distraction and procrastination is simply an illusion, because as soon as you turn away from the mirror in front of you, weakly hoping that you might cleverly dodge your own gaze, you see that what imprisons you is the prism of your mind that cruelly rejects every twitch of your guilty conscience from escaping into the world outside your head. No, you cannot look away, because only the blessed dead are able to stave the flow of torments that vision and consciousness utilize to scourge the damned. For only a moment are your eyelids loosed from the wrenching bonds that your hands, encased in the gloves of your thesis, have used to sew them open. They close briefly to picture the rusting and abandoned hope that is the completion of your task, which appears at the fringes of your imagination only when you watch every movement of your flesh transforming into the virtual words projected onto the computer screen.

The despair of the only past and present and future that you can imagine hedges you in—like the eye of a hurricane that tears the bones from your sockets—forcing you to search for whatever textualized hope you can't find. And you long to imagine the possibility that this sandcastle of a dream can survive the storm surge of the reality of yourself that encompasses all you can see. Because only in the greatest despair can you have the greatest hope.

But who the hell wants hope anyway? Time to drown my sorrows in facebook.

Fall plans are coming together!

2007-03-22T11:56:00.000-05:00

After nearly 6 months of anxious waiting for what our fate would be next fall (school? in the same city as one another? work? through AmeriCorps? in a coffee shop? in Chicago? in Boston? in the US at all? homelessness?) We have been blessed with direction and some answers... So, here is what we have so far:

School? YES! Mike got into the University of Chicago Divinity School's MA in Religion--and a half tuition grant guaranteed for two years. For those not in the academia fishbowl that has become our whole frame of reference, this is a REALLY BIG DEAL! UofC has the best (or maybe second to Harvard Divinity School) program in Religious Studies in the Nation. Check out their faculty...

In the same city as one another? YES! Well, I don't know if I will be attending school, teaching school, working at AmeriCorps or working somewhere else this fall, but it will be in Chicago as well. We received letters of rejection both from Boston University (Mike) and Boston College (Me).

Work? While Mike will be busy in class, I still have hopes for gainful employment this fall. I have had one interview for a not-for-profit affiliated with UofC (they have been good to us so far... ;)) and am in the process of lining up two more interviews in the coming several weeks. More details as they become available.

Homelessness? Well, we certainly hope not, but housing is still a bit up in the air right now. We are interested in finding one bedroom apartments in the following neighborhoods: Lincoln Park, Hyde Park, Lakeview, Wrigleyville, Logan Square, or other places that are nice and have access to public transportation... If anyone reading this has any leads, we are very interested, let us know!

Thanks again to all our dear family and friends who have held us up in prayers in these past difficult months. UofC will offer its own set of challenges, but ones that we are eager to embark upon!

Right place, wrong time; Wrong place, right time?

2007-02-06T19:32:00.000-05:00

Since we have been in Toronto, media personnel asking our opinions have twice approached us. The first time was Good Friday last year, as we were entering St. Mary Magdalene's Anglican Church (this is many of our friends' church, as well as the one that was Robertson Davies inspiration for his book The Cunning Man and the church that the queen goes to when in Toronto--in order of my engagement and interest with these random facts). Anyway, we were there with our priest from St. Anne's Anglican (see Course Papers, Community Dinners and Consuming Beverages, below), who had suggested that we experience High Anglican Mass at this highly impressive church on this highly significant day, and we willingly agreed. Because of the special-ness of the day and the special-ness of the church, I suppose (in retrospect) that it shouldn't be surprising when all of a sudden we hear...

"Did you give up anything for Lent?" There is a cameraman holding a camera next to a TV station's van right in front of me.

But, at the moment, walking into a new church on the most somber day of the church year, it did catch me a little off guard. So much for attaining a mood proper to the occasion...

"Well, yes. I gave up desserts." Not a difficult feat, since we didn't really have room for them in the budget.

"Did you keep it?"

I said, "Yes, I did, as a matter of fact." Probably wasn't the right answer. I could imagine he was waiting to hear about how someone blew it and all the appropriate details. But, better he asked me than Mike. Mike had given the intangible negative attitudes toward people that he had realized in himself as a product of soul searching and desire for Christ-likeness --something that marks the true spirit of Lent.

I felt pretty good about myself walking into church that night. I had curled my hair (good choice), I kept my lenten covenant, and I had some publicity about it--at least potentially. It was Good Friday and I was feeling good. Through the self-reflection and desire for Christ-likeness that the service provoked in me, however, much of that smugness disappeared. Why couldn't I have said something meaningful!?

Flash forward to today (Monday): Toronto Media Encounter #2. This time it's AM 680 talk radio. Unlike the first encounter, this one is a highly unremarkable day in the beginning of February--except of course for the extreme cold (-30 degrees Celcius wind chill!) that keeps us from biking--but little did we know it would turn into a subway fiasco.

Paying our fare, we rush downstairs as we hear the train stopping--hoping we can just hop right on. Alas, when we do arrive, it was only the other side--the doppler effect concept doesn't work so well when you are standing above the moving object. Instead of hopping right onto an on-schedule train, we descend into a veritable sea of people also waiting to head East-bound into the city. It's rush hour--this is normal. Three minutes--another train heading West-bound. Ten minutes--another West-bound train, then the third, fourth, fifth Over a half hour later... What is going on!?

"We are experiencing some mechanical difficulties at the Dundas W train station... There are crews on the scene... You may experience delay... Thank you for your patience." Not two stops to the West of us. So we wait. We leaned against the wall and chatted for awhile until a microphone was thrust in our faces:

"Do you take the subway often?"

"No, not really--this is our first time in a month--just when it is really bad weather." Of course, we have used it within the month--not only for the bad weather days this January, but also to visit friends that are beyond the possibility of biking distance in a Toronto January. That's probably not important here, though... I gloss over Mike's generalization--caught up in the anxiety of someone recording our words.

"So, what do you think about it so far?"

Truth be told, I wasn't thrilled to be waiting in a dismal crowded tunnel for the better part of an hour, but it was warmer than biking, even if we weren't going anywhere at the moment. Besides, this happens all the time, as our interviewer was well aware.
"I am going to be late for work, and since this happens so often, I was thinking about writing a story about how the TTC isn't really a better option." (By the way, this is the Toronto Transit Commission's current advertising slogan)

I admired her dedication to her job--which was seemingly off the clock, and her desire to make Toronto transit better. We told a bit of our story, the hours we normally take transit (rush hour, generally), and how we felt about the current delay (miffed, as any other honest person down there). We chatted a bit more, mostly making generalizations into the hear-all microphone and tape recorder that didn't really do justice to the specific situations that they were meant to make sense of.

When we finally crowded onto a slowly moving sardine can of a subway car, I watched her as she continued interviewing. Sometimes she recorded, sometimes she just got to know the people she was talking to, off the record.

If I was more prepared for this, I would have said something totally different! Why did I want to generalize my experience--'we usually...' when it was usually so specifically situational?! Aren't the specific stories more human--more helpful for provoking change? Besides, by telling our story, what she was really after, we could have given a particular perspective--showing that our situation was different, as unique as anyone else in that underground tube." Mike and I had both wanted to sound like everybody else, to fit in, that we had said, well, nothing.

Well, anonymous woman from AM 680 talk radio--this is my short and less interesting but more real story.

"No, we don't take transit often. We are students who are deeply thankful for our bikes that transport us all the limited places we need to be for significantly less than the couple hundred a month it would cost us to rely exclusively on public transit. Even so, I am grateful for Toronto's commitment to public transportation and am nearly always more impressed with its punctuality and coverage of area and overall cleanliness in comparison to Chicago's system--where we used to live. We are also appreciative that we have lived here for a year and a half without a car and have rarely missed it--especially since this public transportation is so much better for the environment."

Yes, that is what I could have/would have said, if I was thinking, if I was ready to. It's not very interesting, it wouldn't have fed her anger at the TTC, but it's true and it's my story. Why is it that when I am faced with the very real possibility of having my words go public--when someone is recording what I say with intention to release it to the world--I attempt to give some self-perceived right answer instead of my answer? I don't know the answer to Toronto Transit hiccups (I know there are many)--but I know why it is good for me, even when it's bad. I don't know what sexy thing I could have given up for lent until I broke down in weakness--but I do know why we do it, and what that means for me.

I hope that most people aren't like me--that most people can say what they mean and give their unique story when faced with mass-media exposure. Mostly because I would prefer not to think that the stories 'from the street' that I hear on TV and radio are just people trying to fit in to what they think someone wants to hear. I guess even more so--I hope that I can stop being one of those people.

Mike's book tag

2007-02-04T14:07:00.000-05:00

Now its my (M) turn:

1) Grab the book closest to you.
2) Open to page 123; go down to the fourth sentence.
3) Post the text of the following three sentences.
4) Name the author and book title.
5) Tag three people to do the same.

"When she met him, she said to him 'Abba, where does Abba Longinus, the servant of God, live?' Not knowing it was he. He said, 'Why are you looking for that old impostor? Do not go to see him, for he is a deceiver. What is the matter with you?'"

From The Sayings of the Desert Fathers translated by Benedicta Ward.

That is a bit out of context, so I guess you'll just have to read it, eh? Kind of Luke meets Yoda--very interesting...

Ok, I'll tag Erin M., Aron R., and Stu B.

Institutionalization

2007-02-04T14:05:00.000-05:00

Over the last few months (more broadly, the last 30 years) a lot of energy has gone into conversations discussing our identity here at the Institute for Christian Studies. What have we been all about? What are we doing now? Where will we be in twenty, five, or even one year? A crisis of identity is no surprise for anyone or any institution; the interesting thing is that ICS has never had a point where this wasn't the pressing institutional question.

One small aspect of life here presented itself recently when I was waiting for my class to begin at Regis College, a wonderful Jesuit school in the Toronto School of Theology. As I sat on a small bench in the hallway, people began coming and going. They stopped for pleasantries, but the drive of leaving or arriving for a seminar was unmistakable, for they all had a destination firmly in mind. As I watched my colleagues arrive for class, my amazement grew, because the whole thing seemed like magic. Everyone in the class came from different areas; some commuting in over an hour by train or car, others walking from the subway, a few cycling. But within minutes, seven people from all over the region assembled in one particular room.

For a moment, I imagined individual molecules of gas floating around in some ephemeral space. In the GTA there were millions of people bouncing off each other, all flying in random chaotic directions, often beyond their control. But somehow, the same little molecules congealed on a regular basis at the same time and in the same place with the help of schedules, calenders, and PDA's.

Traditionally, the Institute has a unique spin on this concept. Sure, people rotate around the few classes we offer this semester, but this intentionality is more diffuse. Most show up a significant amount of time before or after class begins, and stay for a while after it ends. They loiter in order to have conversations with each other, about projects and life in general. They have tea. They play checkers. They sit in the lounge and make fun of an article in Christianity Today.

Much to the chagrin of the administrators who value professionalism, the front desk is a popular gathering place. People hang around, make comments about senior members, the fax machine, the weather, the book you're holding, your hat; pretty much anything. Jeff told me once that he thinks this is a natural place to gather at ICS since it doesn't force you to make a choice or a firm commitment to what you're going to do. If you sit in the lounge, you have staked a position to socialize, and there is no backing out prematurely. Not that this is a bad thing. It simply rules out so many other potential decisions. But if you stand in the hallway, there is room for the unknown, the surprising. Maybe you'll stay. Maybe you'll walk away. Maybe you want to chat. Maybe you want to look at the art hanging on the wall. Maybe you're waiting for someone or something. Maybe you loiter without expressed intent. Whatever it is, you don't have to define yourself and cut off all other possibilities, since the hallway and reception areas could be a transitional place, but they could also be a place where you make your home for a little while.

From what I understand, ICS started with a bunch of people hanging out in Toronto listening to what each other had to say about life. Now, we might own a building (or 30 percent of one), pay people and issue degrees, but I don't think the heart of the Institute is in the classroom or even the lounge. It's in the hallways—the wild spaces where we molecules arrive from hundreds of different places to come together for a short time, then scatter to hundreds of unknown destinations. These spontaneous encounters, the true hallmark of ICS, are the ones that change us. And they can only happen without the magical restrictions of schedules, calenders, and PDA's.

--M

An Interesting Exercise...

2007-02-02T09:29:00.000-05:00

In response to Chris' latest blog ("I'm Important and People Like Me" [How very humble of you, Chris]) , I/we have been tagged to

1) Grab the book closest to you.
2) Open to page 123; go down to the fourth sentence.
3) Post the text of the following three sentences.
4) Name the author and book title.
5) Tag three people to do the same.

Because I (Y) am sitting by the computer with the internet, which happens to be Mike's computer, which happens to be on the desk Mike works at, which happens to be the place where all Mike's books are, I am going to walk 4 feet to the bookshelf where I keep my books and grab the first one at random. He can quote you something from one of his books, but it just won't be the same to do this exercise with a book I haven't read (or plan to read in the near future). So here goes...

"Herein is a capital truth. It is not the natural capacity, the congenital gift, nor is it the effort, the will, the work, which in the intelligence has way over the energy capable of making it fully efficacious. It is uniquely the desire, that is, the desire for the beauty. This desire, given a certain degree of intensity and of purity, is the same thing as genius."

Intimations of Christianity Among the Ancient Greeks by Simone Weil. Trans. Elisabeth Chase Geissbuhler. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957.

Ooh, goody goody, now I tag people.
Kidgit, Allison, Benjamin A. (you can post in a comment on this blog since you don't have your own..., or you could get your own blog, they are the coolest!)

--Y

Course Papers, Community Dinners, Consuming Beverages

2007-01-28T14:32:00.000-05:00

For all of our good friends and devoted readers who spent part of their life reading that last, long post--a break! In typical Yvana fashion, I'll be right to the point with very little flowery language, and focus on the update. With pictures! (To the left is a picture of the last part of our walk to church on Sunday mornings--the week after the snow one we posted about. Of course, straight ahead is our church--in the Byzantine style. On the left side of the picture is Saint Anne's Place, a retirement community, and on the right is an enormous building with a theatre, a fellowship hall, and other rooms that we rent out to drama groups etc.)

As many of you know, our grad school (ICS) gives students 6 weeks after the completion of courses to complete their course papers. 6 weeks after courses was two days ago. This means, the last few weeks have been pretty intense. Not only are we reading for current courses (and, for Mike, still working on Latin) we are also trying to finish thinking about classes that ended over a month ago. In addition, since one of our courses this last fall was a guided reading which results in our thesis proposal, we also had to be thinking a whole lot about what we were writing for our theses. Anyway, with how orderly Mike is, he works well at a desk, to have all of his books/papers/coffee laid out nicely. I think it is a picture of how his mind works. If this is true, though, what does this picture of my workspace on our bed (right) say about how my mind works? This was taken after 30 hours of nearly un-interuppted time writing and thinking about my thesis. (yes, I did sleep, but I moved the books for that!)

[Because points are fun, and Sara started this trend, I'll give a point for every unique book you can name from the chaotic mass--I know there's a couple obvious ones--those are just freebies for the first viewers... Maybe I should give more points for anyone who can see the connections between these books... Of course then points would just turn into thesis help for me--not a bad idea!]

Of course, coarse course papers aren't the only things we have been up to since we have been back in Canada. We are continuing many traditions, one of which is continuing to attend St. Anne's Anglican Church. It is a short walk from our apartment, and we have been attending there regularly since last October. It is on the list of historical sites in Toronto, which--though you can't see inside, in these shots, is plain enough to see why. If we had a picture of inside, you could see some of the paintings of the group of seven--before they were famous.

We also help out with their community dinner. The people from the church offer a free, hot meal to needy people in the community once a month. So, last Sunday we were chopping potatoes and cauliflower, making coffee, serving desserts (see Mike at left) and fellowshiping with our fellow parishoners and the people that came in from the cold. We had quite a group this past Sunday!

We have also been savouring tea (Thanks again, Paul!) in our favorite mugs--a short and stubby one for Mike (we bought this at a thrift store around the corner for 75 cents, and then we saw it at the University of Toronto for $13CDN!), and a tall and skinny one for me :) (unfortunately this belongs to the apartment, so it won't be ours for too much longer...)

So, that's what we have been up to, in brief... On the docket for this week: Gilbert and Sullivan's *The Grand Duke*--I doubt we'll get pictures, but it should make the next post a little more interesting!

Cleaner

2007-01-25T20:31:00.000-05:00

Most people give a sporting chance to the idea that you shouldn't pre-judge people based on the small amount of information you know. Even if they don't, they pay lip service to it for the sake of our current cultural climate. Overall, I think this is good, and many people I have met have a certain sense of consistency one way or another-either they give everyone as fair a chance as they are able or they give everyone a once over and come to a conclusion about them that could take years, even decades to seriously challenge. In reality, there is nobody in the first camp, since there is always some process of sizing up another person when you meet them. This occurs before you have any sort of extensive information about the actual individual, since this is often based on past experiences or habits passed on from a previous generation that may or may not be applicable to the current situation.

This unavoidable process of sizing someone up may be the nearest thing humans have to what you might call an animal instinct. It acts a bit like scent does for a dog, although thankfully we don't have to circle up and nuzzle each other's behinds. Certainly this instinctual judgment is helpful in many situations since there are times where you have to act without all the facts, but often this flares in surprising ways. For instance, when walking to the grocery store, I assume that when I pass a hunched old woman wearing a babushka she won't suddenly turn and attack me with a flaming trident: a legitimate fear based on a freaky dream I had after watching Best of the Best 4 one night, although it seemed to have nothing to do with that movie. Justified or not, I give the old ladies a chance, for one reason simply because if I carried a daikatana around to defend myself I might get arrested, or more likely cut some appendage from my body. Aside from over the top neuroses I still make quick and often unfair judgment calls about people that may or may not be true that invariably prevent a good relationship from developing from the get go.

I think about this in connection to something that happened before Christmas. I was looking for a relatively inexpensive dry cleaner to care for my suit and sport coat, both of which badly needed refreshment. After three years this would be the first time my suit would receive such treatment. I decided that after a wedding last summer, when I spend most of the evening dirty dancing while slightly intoxicated with my friend Bob, it needed some loving care to restore the fabric to a respectable level for a Christmas party. My sport coat was in a similar situation, since I wore it far too frequently and often used it as a second layer while riding my bike to school. It acted like a veritable sponge for bodily secretion and would have made bloodhounds turn up their noses if anyone ever needed my scent to track me through the wilderness. So I looked through the phone book to find a place close to school where I could have my ripe outerwear get a good cleaning.

After an extensive search of approximately two minutes I found a shop close to the Institute. When I gave them a call, what quite possibly was a man answered the phone with a guttural sound. Momentarily phased, I asked how much it would cost to dry clean a sport coat, completely forgetting about the suit since only the coat was within olfactory range. A response that I took to mean eight dollars followed, to which I asked how long it would take. Some muttering, then nothing. I asked again, and almost immediately I heard a shout that was probably “one day,” but I couldn't be sure. After I hung up I felt a bit uneasy about the whole thing, but I felt obligated to patronize this shop since I had extended the digital handshake of a phone call.

As I biked down College St., searching for the address, I felt myself dreadfully propelled past a bevy of slick, professional looking laundry and dry cleaning shops. I maintained the hope that the address was for some kind of professionally managed garment service I had never noticed before. This was unlikely since I have driven the length of this road innumerable times for over a year. But still, I pictured bright, polished linoleum, stainless steel, and the buzz of automation hovering in the air. To me, these things guaranteed rejuvenated clothing that would actually look better than when they were originally purchased. Perhaps even the wear on the elbows, missing button, and frayed cuffs of my sport coat would be miraculously healed by the expert clothing professional, looking not unlike my vision of a domestically oriented Jesus.

When I pulled up to the correct address, I knew this would not be the case. It was a dilapidated building housing an even more dilapidated shop, with a yellowed, partly illuminated sign cleverly announcing to the citizens of Toronto that in here there resided simply a “Cleaner,” unlike the other places I passed that offered, “Expert Cleaning Services,” “Suds and More,” or “Dry-Cleaning with Care.” I couldn't even see through the stained and dirty windows as I locked up, and I wondered how I could trust my precious coat and only suit to a place that couldn't even keep itself fresh and squeaky. As crestfallen as I was at that moment, I looked down the block to just catch a glimpse of the last place I passed that looked so much nicer that his one. I came close to turning back and declaring to this place, “launderer, clean thyself.” But I didn't.

Immediately inside the door was a short flight of stairs leading to the main floor of the shop, which was about three feet above street level. At first, I wondered if my glasses were fogged or had a smudge, since things seemed a bit hazy at eye level from where I was standing. But after I removed my glasses the haze remained, and I wondered if there was some malfunction with a machine that was causing a bit of smoke in the shop. This did not bode well. But when I took another few steps into the shop this fear was dismissed in favor of a new one, for I was overcome by the distinct smell of cigarettes. There was a man at the front counter of the crowded room with one in his mouth and another in an ashtray, both burning away. Since it was a one room business, I saw a small old woman just behind him operating what looked to be a large ironing machine. Beside her was several racks of clothes, all engulfed in a cloud of tobacco. As I was walking up the stairs into the haze, the old woman started shouting in a language I wasn't familiar with. She was pointing to the slacks she was working on, and the old man replied with a guttural noise similar to what I had heard on the phone. He went over and picked up the pants and after he held it inches from his face, since he seemed to have failing eyesight, he started yelling and threw it into a rumpled pile on the floor. The woman shrugged and reached for another pair. As the man came back to the counter I noticed a large sign on the wall, which stated in no uncertain terms that the business would not be responsible for any damage to clothes while in their possession. This did not make me feel good in light of what I had just seen. Where was the shiny metal? Where were the cleaning robots? Where was Jesus? There were just crazy people here; why should I trust them?

But I silently handed my suit and coat to the short, half-blind old man who I assumed was the manager and resident dry cleaning expert. After I stroked them fondly one last time, the man gave me a small sheet of paper scribbled with indecipherable symbols, followed by a verbal injunction that probably meant that these would be done by this time tomorrow. I left with a meager wave.

If I ever saw them again, I was sure both would be irreparably damaged, or at best smell like smoke until they underwent some expensive form of nicotine detox for the addiction my fabric would have developed from its time in the shop. Maybe this guy had it in him to be a good cleaner, but all signs indicated otherwise. I felt like I had placed my trust in someone entirely unsuited to the task, even if they were a nice person. I felt like I had inadvertently placed my faith an armless mountain climber. Now I simply had to wait for the assured failure, tangibly resulting in my ruined clothes. My anticipated loss of possessions caused a number of reactions based on what I knew. I knew that cigarette smoke stinks up clothes, so I pre-blamed these smokers for what I knew would happen. I didn't know what goes into the dry cleaning process, but if they were apparently incompetent in something as simple as properly ironing pants, something I could do, how could they carefully clean my suit, which I couldn't? This amounted to funding gross incompetence. I anticipated a lot of things, none of them good.

A day later I walked to the shop from school, dreading what I would find in return for my fifteen dollars. When I entered, the cloud still encircled the counter, and the man still said nothing when I handed him my ticket. The old woman in the back was gone. He shuffled over to a rack and pulled out two bags, immediately handing them to me. I paid, then scooted out to the street where I could inspect the damage without actually having to confront the keeper about it. To complain about and ridicule him behind his back seemed like a much more civilized approach that actually trying to talk to him. I pulled both articles out under a bright streetlight on the corner and looked for the damage.

Nothing. Nothing but crisp seams and the familiar tight weave of the fabric. All the buttons in place. I smelled them everywhere, searching for the clinging smoke I knew would be there, but could sense nothing. Nothing but clean clothes. No smoke, no body odor, no overpowering chemicals, no ashes. It was a perfect job.

Oddly, there was no immediate relief from all the anxiety I had stored since the beginning of the whole affair. My climber had somehow managed to gnaw his way to the rocky peak, yet I was not relieved. I realized that in my mind I had snowballed this whole event into an uncalled for insult to this man and his business. I had no knowledge of anything involving dry cleaning or this man's business, but accused him of incompetence based on my own expectations, funded by my limits and fears. I expected linoleum, robots, and my own personal Jesus, and was angry when I got a man. This was shameful.

But I was also hopeful. Maybe this whole episode would put some sense in me and show me that people can be surprising no matter how many expectations we place on them. Maybe I was cleansed from a few of the prejudices by this small, half-blind, chain smoking old man. It was a very small even when put into perspective, and really, I only got what I should have expected had I been reasonable. But just maybe this would in a small way change the way I looked at some people.

Then I saw an old lady in a babushka pass by. I tensed up for just a moment and, after nothing happened, scurried back to school.

M

Three portraits of Winter’s First Snow

2007-01-16T22:47:00.000-05:00

Sunday we woke up to the gently falling snow, covering the earth with a beautiful, clean blanket. After getting ready, as we walked to church and then especially as I walked home alone with my reflections, I remember thinking: “I have never before been so happy to see the snow.” Well, maybe I was this excited after moving from California to Chicago for my first real snow ever, but this was right up there with it. Don’t get me wrong—as a California girl, I was delighted to be able to wear a windbreaker on US Thanksgiving, and to have no need for bundling up, even through December. But I think it hit me on Christmas break, when we were in Iowa with the gray and gloomy mud-causing rain—I wanted the clean covering that a fresh snow gives. What a beautiful sight!

On Monday, the beauty and the bliss were a distant memory. The radio woke us up to: “the roads are clogged, everything’s closed, public transit’s slow, its –10 (Celsius, that is) with freezing rain right now turning into freezing with some other kind of precipitation later in the day. We can laugh at you now because we are here in our warm studio, since we had to be here by 4 a.m., so stop your whining and get out of bed.” Good Morning! Realizing that throwing the alarm clock on the floor and rolling over in bed was not an option for either of us this Monday, we grudgingly got up out of bed to face the horrors. Not only was the precipitation very different (I am hard-pressed to think of a poet who could, in good faith, praise freezing rain or the descriptive ‘ice pellets’), but Monday brought no Sunday walk to church. We were going to have to choose our bikes, risking life, limb, and equipment, or to pay for (and also risk) the sardine can that is public transit. After wedging ourselves out of the subway car and walking through the “rain,” I noticed some bike tracks, that’s for sure. But there weren’t many of them, and, Thank God, they weren’t mine.

When there is a snowfall I begin to notice the particularities of a Toronto approach to life. In the U.S. we have a well-established ritual surrounding severe weather, or really any type of weather at all. Before the skies are even so much as cloudy great fleets of monstrous vehicles appear, pre-spreading salt and sand should the snow be sneaky and come from the ground without the warning of cumulonimbus formations. Media coverage is essential, because it isn’t truly a crisis without a good dose of sound effects, flashy graphics, fearful statement from local officials taken way out of context, and suffix statements such as, “of the century,” “of the decade,” or at least, “of the last 5 minutes.” These things are all done in order to get the suburbanite out of their couches in sufficient time to swamp their local super store in order to buy silly things like snowblowers, Bud Light, and canned rutabaga should people become stuck in their homes or cars due to the massive amounts of traffic entering and leaving local Home Depots or Walmarts. This is quite honestly the only way stores can move their stockpiles of snowblowers, Bud Light, and canned rutabaga. They are thankful for the opportunity since stores are required to carry these unpopular items due to a FEMA mandate. When the snow actually does come, politicians make appearances and say things. Years ago, Chicago had some snow and Daley appeared without a suit coat and his sleeves rolled up on WGN that night (the Tribune and Sun-Times the next day), apparently to prove that he was hard at work bribing the snow with lucrative alley paving projects in return for the menacing precipitation to “just go away.” He did truly order an unprecedented number of plows and jockeys to curb the crisis, and these crews corralled the snow into massive piles throughout the city in the process burying mini coopers, lower Wacker Drive, the city budget, and other snow crews. These crews remained in suspended animation Han Solo style until late the following October, when they emerged and voted Democratic along with a dozen of their closest dead relatives.

They do things differently here in Toronto. During some inclement weather I was able to observe the response which, to my knowledge, included no plows whatsoever. To include snowplows would be a drain of money away from more important pastimes such as building new corporate arenas for the Maple Leafs, constructing superfluous subway lines, annexing neighboring cities, and elections. As the snow begins to fall here, the City of Toronto promptly deploys masses of kindly volunteers in official looking caps to stand at the corner of major intersections and politely ask the snow to refrain from loitering on the roads and sidewalks. You won’t find a volunteer on a corner with a bank, since everyone knows that if you come within 5 meters of a BMO or CIBC you will be automatically charged 12.50, and quite frankly snow can’t afford that, or the volunteers. But even though they are good sports the volunteers fail, at which time the city utilizes their backup plan. They send out three to five pickup trucks with the mandate to drive along major roads while honking at people and telling them to go home and watch Corner Gas. This usually has no effect, so the snow stays on the roads and freezes into treacherous ruts for the rest of the winter. The government is learning from its past failures and has constructed something called the PATH, which is an underground collection of un-navigatable passages in the financial district lined with perpetually closed stores that apparently sell many different types of chewing gum. The goal of PATH is to get you very lost and frustrated, and to make you more thankful when you do get back out onto the snowy streets.

In the Mols household, our approach to hazardous meteorological situations has proactively developed into staying at home and writing about what they make us think of.

Reflections on resolving not to resolve

2007-01-10T12:38:00.000-05:00

Looking back on the new year, more than a week in by now, I find comfort in my shift of practice. Though not conscious of it at the time, I can see now a definitive move to resolve not to resolve this new year. It may not have been fully intentional, but I find it significant all the same. Often the new year brings untold anxiety for me—mostly centering around my desire to “be a much better person this year!” How ironic that this compulsive anxiety was what was truly keeping me from being the “new and improved” person I wanted to be.

So, what was different this year? What was it about this year’s turning that gives me more peace about the coming year? Probably a lot of things but in keeping with my focus on simplicity this year, let’s just say it has to do with resolving not to resolve. Actually, since it was unconscious I should say it was just not resolving period, but the other way sounds so much better… So, my experience with the new year 2007. I can’t really describe it so much a give a sense of the feeling of it. Mostly, I was tired. And not just sleepy-tired (though I was that, too). I felt body and mind and soul and talking tired (see below...). I was tired of being anxious about PhD applications, tired of working out how we were going to see all the people we wanted to see over Christmas break, tired of thinking about papers and the looming thesis; tired.

This year I didn’t want to add to that tiredness by focusing on all the things about myself that I wanted to change(I think especially of a dark new year’s, in my late High School years—and the panic that I felt when I realized that just a day into the new year I missed the marks that I had set for myself…). I just wanted to stop being tired—including all the being-anxiousness that made me tired in the first place. Instead of constantly thinking about my need to cease undue anxiety, I just stopped. I started living more intentionally, something I had begun doing before the new year, and therefore something that didn’t have all the hang ups as a “resolution” would have had. Anyway, I have been more at peace—and as I fall short, feeling anxious again or wanting to be more in control, I just hope for a better response in the future.

Enough (way too much) about me. There are a couple ways that I have come to think about this shift of perspective. One I heard on the radio a couple weeks ago and stuck with me, and the other one I heard in class on Monday. I think both contribute to a fuller understanding of this phenomenon.

First, the story on the radio. Flipping through stations we ran across a book review from this woman who wrote a book about her experience of quitting smoking. Her first “last cigarette” was a dramatic one—surrounded by pomp and ceremony. Her real last cigarette is hardly remembered—there was no ceremony around it, making the quitting more a growing in a different direction than a focus on what you are leaving. See, she shifted her fixation from what she wasn’t going to do anymore (smoke) to just going about her life—putting off her cravings by waiting, and waiting and waiting, till she didn’t really even crave it anymore.

It is indeed difficult to change the categories in which we think. The example from class yesterday about the body in the history of thought may be a paradigm example. To oversimplify (and try to stay in understandable terms!), Descartes reacted against the body-SOUL split that he perceived in ancient and medieval philosophy/history by introducing a new (well, in one sense) term—the MIND. Of course, however, through his new articulation, as well as its application in later philosophers, the MIND didn’t get past the duality that it was intended to, but rather only replaced the SOUL as the privileged term to the body—once again suppressing it. When post-structuralists determined to leave the body-MIND duality, they centered on language as the third and ultimate term—doing away with the split. Predictably, however, this new term also fell into a dualistic trap, replacing MIND, but also being the greater term in relation to the abstracted/unreal body.

In other words, it is not so easy to transcend a dominant paradigm by adding a new term or a new resolution to the equation. By focusing on what needs changing, we fixate on it, and end up—usually against our will—moving in that direction anyway. We cannot move forward in the direction of our hopes while our attention remains fixed on the pitfalls to either side.

So, what does all of this high language really mean? I think it is indebted to Simone Weil’s (of course it is!) notion of attention. Indeed, the direction of our attention is the direction of our movement. Think not to what you have resolved against, what one is leaving behind but rather the hope for what is to come—thereby making the steps clearer and straighter as you grow forward.

ICS (Chris)tmas Party

2006-12-18T20:14:00.000-05:00

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, so in our blog we will be posting the equivalent of all of our course papers for the semester (if only it was that easy...). We also figured that you might not want to hear what we might post this week, since we have been working on said course papers all week and might inadvertently blurt out a sentence containing more than 40 words that are the size of your right leg. Actually, that last sentence may be a great example of that... On to the pictures.

What will we be seeing pictures of? Well, funny you should ask. ICS just had its annual Christmas party last Friday, and one of our friends brought a digital camera--hip hip hooray! So, you can have the insider scoop of what Christmas is like at ICS. The first big one is Mike and I before the party--excuse my funny talking face, I guess that spontaneity is just what you risk for catching a tender moment...

First of all, there is mood lighting and decorations. Our good friends set up all the little christmas lights, and filled the centerpieces, and lit the candles, prompting it to look so VERY trendy and chic on the fourth floor of 229 College Street. Wow--I think the blurryness makes it look even more exciting, don't you think?

Then, of course, there is alcohol. But, my friends, this is no ordinary wine. Jeff, Chris and Mike are drinking nothing but the finest homemade Borolo that you can find in Ontario. I know, because I made it. Ok, they picked it out (and then told me that it was Borolo instead of what it really is--Barolo), but I got to bottle them right before the party and affix the fancy label you can see in the picture ( I love rubber cement!). The "V" you can see stands for our wine-making crew, "The Five philosophers" as well as the first letters in our title "Vino Veritas" Oh, it is so chic!

And then, of course, there is the entertainment. Chris is a fantastic guitar player, but I can't tell you about his ivory-tinkling abilities because this picture was taken later. But it is a fine picture of our MC, doing something not-really-MC like. The real entertainment was legendary, so I guess you'll just have to wait to hear about it as the legends go! But seriously, it would be impossible for me to tell you about it--it was the entertainment that can not be named...

And who would stay at a party without any friends? Here is a picture of Me and Sara, and then of Mike, Jeff and Chris, once again. Though the mood lighting is gone (they turned on the lights to clean up afterward), here is a less-ambient picture of Sara and Lorraine--the one behind the camera for most of the shots. So often we just see each other in "school clothes" that it was great to be able to have an occasion to dress up. I think we all rose quite well to the occasion! Don't we all look great!?

Finally, the afterparty--Back downstairs in the ICS kitchen. Clean up is over and none of us wants to say goodbye for Christmas break. We had a good time, as you can tell... Need I even say--Our very own Critty-Boy...(Chris, that is...)

Journeys

2006-11-20T15:34:00.000-05:00

I was asked last week to give the reflection at our school's "Wednesday Worship," and since it was an autobiographical reflection about my academic journey, I thought I would share it with you as well.

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When I was asked last week to reflect autobiographically about my academic and faith journeys, I thought it would be pretty straightforward. Afterall, I have been thinking a lot about this recently in preparing applications, and journey, as a metaphor, is fairly rich. Or is it? Before beginning, I want to be careful to qualify my growing understanding of "journey" as a metaphor, both because I believe it is on the verge of becoming too trite and overused, and because I am coming to a deeper understanding of it.

"Journey" has always connoted to me an active movement from A to B, but with the added benefit of also appreciating the in between, the "getting there". I feel like this is a far too simplistic understanding, however, that needs further unpacking and qualification, since I have been growing, recently to a more richer understanding of journey that is not nearly so active (in its traditional sense). This more difficult understanding of "journey" which is maturing in me, puts emphasis on the meaning-laden pauses, the patient waiting, the sinuous detours, and the attentiveness to the surroundings that you can only get by stopping. I want to be careful to say that this understanding of journey is active, though it may not be physically so. The reflective work that is necessary in these pauses is significant and should not be minimized. I say this is a more difficult understanding of journey for me because, for those of you who know me-I am very concerned with the "getting there," and have been of the mind that any hesitation or sidetrack should be seen as a result of my fallenness or my inability, and therefore minimized or suppressed.

I suppose this understanding of pauses as sinful comes in part from a simplistic reading of the exodus-that the wandering in the desert was purely a result of Israel's sinfulness. If they had only been less whiny, better listeners, more obedient-they would have been enjoying the milk and honey so much sooner! I think now, however, that the exodus-spanning several books of the Older Testament-can be better appreciated as a meaning-filled pause, an encouragement to not be so worried about "getting there" that one misses the significance of "being here."

One such passage from the Exodus story is particularly striking in this regard-it comes just after the Israelites fled Egypt, crossed the Red Sea, saw their captors drown, and had a party on the banks. I can imagine that they have an unbelievable amount of momentum for their journey-a kind of "what are we waiting for, let's get to the Promised Land" attitude. But no. Right after "the horse and its rider God has hurled into the sea" comes this story:

Exodus 15: 22-27

"Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place was called Marah.) So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, "What are we to drink?" Then Moses cried out to the Lord and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. There the Lord made a decree and a law for them, and there he tested them. He said, "If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord you God and do right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord who heals you." Then they came to Elim, where there were 70 palm trees and they camped there near the water." (NIV translation)

Instead of moving right into the promised land, the Israelites had to wait. God was to test them, it says, though it wasn't specified whether this was just for this moment, or whether it could encompass the entire desert wandering (or even more!). But God would also heal and provide for them. This was to be a meaningful pause, a patient waiting-taking time to appreciate the "being here." This passage comes to me as such a gem-right in the middle of the desert at the beginning of their journey to the promised land, God provides the Israelites with Elim-the place of large trees. The desert isn't just something that is to be hurried through to get to the other side-the Israelites had a lot of growing to do as God's people before they got there. While not always pleasant (could these large trees be on a white sandy beach instead of in the middle of the desert?!), God still promised to provide for them in the waiting.

What I find especially striking and a bit ironic about this biblical waiting, is how it coincides with one of my own meaningful pauses. After college graduation, full of momentum (escaping Trinity Christian College; crossing the graduation stage; having a big party... doesn't this sound familiar?), I found myself in a humbling period of extended unemployment, with no promising possibilities in my field of teaching. I wanted to go to graduate school, but it wasn't the right time. I found myself needing to wait, though I wasn't patient about it, and at the time, it didn't seem very meaningful. Interestingly, I found myself, like the Israelites, at Elim. Though not quite the picture of palm trees and waterfront property that the Bible makes out, this was Chicago, afterall-it was a job. My time at Elim was very much still a time in the desert, though there was a providence in that desert that I could hardly see as anything but graciousness. It is striking to me looking back, how I interpreted ironically the water and the palm trees that was on Elim Christian Schools' sign. This was no picnic year for me. But maybe it was the year of reflection that I needed in order to get ready for the next step. I have consistently resisted calling this year of working with boys with autism a "year off," as is typical language for people in graduate school who don't go "straight through." However, I am still in the process of truly appreciating my year in Elim, in finding the meaning in the pause, in being grateful for the "being there."

I feel so painfully slow in learning my lessons. Before fully comprehending the meaningful pause that was my literal Elim, another, figurative one is upon me. While I am still in school, and there has been no pausing to speak of in recent history-the uncertainties of the coming year are looming large. Elim Christian School is miles behind me, but I am once again in a place where I must wait patiently upon decisions and live faithfully in the "being here." I am not yet ready to go on to the next step in my educational journey-that is for a time that is yet beyond me, maybe next fall and maybe later than that. Right now I must do all that I can to take advantage of these moments of reflection that PhD applications have been granting me, and continue till completion the journey already before me.

Forced or chosen-there are numerous opportunities in our daily lives to benefit from meaningful pauses. I am still learning to rest in God's providing and the assurance of God's testing. Will it be in my current "Elim" that I rest in the shade of the palm trees near the water? Or will I miss this meaning-filled pause on my journey? Will you?

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Since I do much better extemporaneously than I do with a manuscript in public speaking, this is a rough summary of what I said last Wednesday. I did like that after my reflections we opened the floor for everyone to share about their meaningful pauses. I would love to hear how you all reflect on difficult times in your journeys...

Christmas Flood

2006-11-17T15:46:00.000-05:00

When you live in a basement apartment, you must accept certain risks. One of these is that in times of heavy precipitation you may find that some areas of your dwelling will develop a certain level of saturation.

It rained a lot one day, but this particular risk did not come to our minds. After a busy day, Yvana had nothing on her mind aside from getting home in one piece while attempting to slip through bouts of rain, both of which she accomplished. I was thinking about making dinner, about what I was reading, and about my upcoming meeting with my adviser. This meeting was causing me a fair amount of anxiety, mostly because I secretly get anxious about everything. Usually I conceal this through outright denial. But that day I chose my fallback: procrastination. So I prepared cookie dough instead of completing my report essay.

The rain had just started up again when Yvana was a block away, but this was just the light precursor to the downpour that started after she was inside. I had expected her later, so I began the fried rice-making procedure when I heard her keys at the door. The eggs were scrambled in the oil by the time her helmet was on its shelf.

We exchanged our stories from the day. A stressful experience on the phone. Good seminar, but concluded a half-hour late. Copied readers. Success in returning a bicycle pump. Failure in replacing a watch battery. Dinner was now ready, and shared in the spaces between conversation.

We preheated the oven for the cookies. When the first batch was coming out, there was a knock at the door. Our landlord wanted to see if there was any seepage in some problem spots since it had been raining most of the day. Yvana showed her around as I prepared the second batch. No leaks by the furnace, and I had successfully banished my upcoming meeting from my mind while resisting the urge to sample the batter.

Yvana was leading the way to the bathroom inspection when the sheet was in the oven. I didn't think there was much I could contribute to the situation, so I stood in the kitchen and read the bank statement we had just received.

They were finished with the bathroom and were moving into the utility room while I attempted to understand why, “As of November 30 Citibank will no longer offer World Wallet Drafts for purchase,” was under the Suggestions and Recommendations heading. I heard some commotion in the front of the apartment as I searched for the promised “more information listed on this statement.” Stymied. This didn't seem to offer any recommendation, while the suggestion seemed to be too vague to be of any good. Finance mystifies me. I wondered the context of this bank statement would count as some kind of Wittgensteinian private language game.

Just before the timer called out, I noticed Yvana and the landlord taking things out of the closet and placing them in the hallway, followed by some kind of exclamation. I scraped the cookies off the sheet bitterly—they were flat. I had mixed the dough when I got back from the coffee shop, so it had sat for several hours before baking. That probably did it.

When the last batch was in the oven most of our belongings, formerly in the utility closet, littered the hallway and bedroom. The landlord offered some apologies, then ascended the stairs to get some towels. She scattered them around the closet, then left with the cookie we offered her. The last batch of unleavened baked goods was out, and I finished washing the dishes. I sealed the cookies up after they were cool enough, hoping to preserve what moisture was still in them.

We assessed the damage over cups of tea—peppermint for Yvana, orange pekoe for me. Most of the stuff we stored was in plastic bins, or on makeshift shelves. We had some experiences last year with this same location, so we were prepared. The only thing that sustained worrisome damage was a cardboard box full of Christmas decorations. We steeled ourselves for the worst, and opened the container.

The leak in the closet must have been fairly recent. Although the outside of the cardboard was soaked, it had for the most part not touched the items inside. We aired them out for good measure.

As we removed the ornaments, we realized that we had not seen them for two years, since we have never had a proper Christmas tree on which to hang them. They were mostly Yvana's. Her relatives had a tradition of giving ornaments every year, a tradition that began the year her sister was born and continued to the year we were married. She had memories attached to each one, some more significant than others. One was labeled as a gift from her great aunt just before she passed away. It was three winged humans holding hands around a star. On one side, the hands of one figure had broken, creating a rupture in the circle. Yvana reminisced.

“She was Catholic. I never understood why she only had one kid. But my uncle was protestant. So there you go.”

The only ornaments I recognized were the ones we received in 2004. Thin, crystal things with, “First Christmas Together” etched in calligraphy. I tapped my ring against one. Thin, plastic things with, “First Christmas Together” etched in calligraphy.

“You're going to break them.”

“I did the same thing to your ceramic “Precious Moments” one and it was just fine.”

“Well, you'll break those too.”

I held up an ornament consisting of a snowman's head attached to a string.

“We should start a snowman theme.” She glanced around the collection, noticing the snowman paraphernalia scattered on the floor. “I guess it's already started.”

I turned back to my snowman head.

“Somewhere, there is a decapitated snowman wandering the aisles of a Hallmark store.”

She laughed. As we sat on the living room rug she explained that she would line them up in chronological order before she hung them every year. We ordered them accordingly, and as she explained the significance and story surrounding each one I lost interest around 1993. Glancing at the bookshelf I noticed my copy of The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature. I pulled it off the shelf and opened it to the entry on Muriel Spark. I began to read. Yvana graciously overlooked my rejection, and started to go about the process of gathering the undamaged ornament boxes.

“Is there a small box for these?”

There was no catalog of our empty boxes in my memory. I wondered why she couldn't get up and look for herself. I was working my way back in my gloss of English literature and had already reached Forester. She looked at me with her hands full of ornaments when I grunted in response to her question. She asked it again.

“No.”

“So what are we going to do with these?”

I was perfectly enjoying the moment I was having with late 19^th century novelists and didn't understand why she had to keep pestering me.

“Don't you have a report to write anyway?

“...”

“Mike, is this really the best use of your time?”

I felt blood rush to my throat, which I should have known was a bad sign. I set the book aside at George Eliot.

“Why can't you get the box?”

“I thought you said there was no box.”

“To my perception there was no box. Do you see any boxes right here? I don't know what we have. You know where we keep them. Why did you have to ask me?”

She stared at me incredulously.

“I figured you would help.”

“Well, I thought this was a poor use of my time.”

“Fine, we'll leave them here.” She got up. I had every intention of continuing the argument. I have found that sometimes doing what it was that was asked of you before the fight began needlessly escalates the situation. So I grabbed a box.

“Mike, I said just leave it if that's how you want to do this.”

“Fine.” I dropped the box in the middle of the room.

I stalked back to the desk, picking a path through the Hallmark and Precious Moments figurines littering the hallway, and attempted to resume my reading of Jean Leclercq on Bernard of Clarivaux. Page 169 of The Love of Learning and the Desire for God contains a quote from Bernard where he is explaining a passage from the Rule of Benedict.

“Then come the spiritual gyrovagues: their inconsistency carries them from reading to prayer, from prayer to work, preventing them from obtaining the benefits of their undertakings: stability in effort and perseverance in devotion. Victims of acedia, they think it better at one moment to do one thing, and, at another, something else; they begin everything and finish nothing.”

I looked back at the ornaments on the floor. I smelled the lingering odor of burnt, flat cookies. I saw the anthology open on its spine to George Eliot. I glanced up at the half-written report. I continued reading—“loving only themselves, pursuing only their own interests, they go about...” I thought of the box in the middle of the floor—“creating cliques and divisions, never ceasing to sown unrest in the flock of the Lord through the obstinacy with which they defend their egos and their individuality.”

I sipped my tea. It had grown cold. I thought, why didn't I chose chamomile?

Mike's Encounters...

2006-11-10T13:26:00.000-05:00

I wandered through the labyrinthine nylon straps, tensely interconnected. I would have detached one end from its post to cut through the needless path, but remembered that when I tried this trick before the barrier promptly escaped my hand under the mystical force of a retracting spool. This caused a loud, satisfyingly awkward snap and gained me the irate glare of a clerk at the Bank 1. I was pretty happy with the result at the Bank 1, but I figured this particular situation did not call for such defiance straightaway. This could all be resolved through peaceful, diplomatic skill if the encounter went according to plan. I had a brief vision as I snaked toward the empty service desk: the aftermath of an encounter gone bad. I pictured myself unhooking or charging through each tape, dragging the posts along behind me. Then I bumped into one of the stands and found they are surprisingly sturdy. Instead I imagined how ridiculous I would look lying on the floor tangled in a sinewy mess of black belts.

With an air of graciousness, I approached the final bend and leaned against the faux-granite countertop. I have one recourse in such a situation, an attitude I call my disarmingly helpless charm. I attempted to activate it. The librarian glanced up, unimpressed.

“...”

“Hi. I have a problem... With my account.”

“Card.” I wasn't sure if this was a statement, request, or command. I assumed it to be a combination of all three, and fumbled my student identification to her. She swiped it over a scanner reminiscent of a grocery check-out.

“They say... well, the computer says... my account shows that I haven't returned a book and I have a fine now. But I know I returned it. I put it in the outside slot last week because I was on my bike. I have done that before, and never—“

“This the one?” She swiveled the computer screen to a position where I could half see it. This obliged me to lean over the broad counter in an awkwardly suggestive manner, which made me uncomfortable. Part of me wanted to answer snidely that there was only one entry listed as delinquent on my account. Did she think I was complaining about a lost return that I imagined was going to happen in the future?

“I think so,” I answered humbly, my frustration beginning to well. A few moments of silence as the mouse clicked and various things flashed across the screen.

“Why did you renew it twice?” She glared at me.

“Because I wasn't done reading it.” I was a bit incredulous since the question seemed to have only one reasonable answer. Or was she accusing me of having lost the book, and extending the return date to postpone the inevitable fallout? And if such was the case, did she really expect me to crack under her Matlock-like questioning?

“Hm.” More silence. “It shows here that it wasn't returned.” It was readily apparent to me that this was precisely the reason I was speaking to her at this moment, yet this observation was offered as a prophetic utterance. The visions of my triumphal march through the crowd control maze began to take shape again in my imagination.

“But I did return it, to the outside slot, last week on the day it was due, and I want to check it out again. If the library lost it, is there another copy I could check out?” Contemporary Hermeneutics by Josef Bleicher. An excellent book, and I did need it again. The six weeks total of borrowing time including all renewals was ridiculously short, and I couldn't help but think that if I had been extended the proper borrowing privileges befitting a grad student this whole sordid affair would never have happened. But I realized too late how aggressive this must have sounded, and wondered if she had somehow been privy to the tirade babbling through my brain.

“...” More clicking. “You have to contact the Fines and Overdues Department and file a formal appeal with them. Your account will continue to accrue fines until a decision has bee reached.” I admit, this was a bit stunning. I half expected an argument or something of the like, but instead I was referred to another mound of bureaucracy. How could I respond to non-action and non-recognition?

“Fine. Do you have another copy of this particular text?” I was insistent on this point.

“...Yeah. Copies here, OISIE, and Vic.”

“Thank you.” I stalked away, following the ropes to the exit where I spilled out into the crowd of students sweeping toward the elevators. There, I dutifully flashed my identification again, realizing that the attendant at the elevator never even looked at me. The only thing important was the digital image of a person on this flimsy sheet of plastic.

On the way to the ninth floor I tried to imagine what I looked like to the system, how I fit into their understanding of the ordered universe. “Delinquent.” I was branded. They had no idea what I cared for. What my interests were. Why I wanted to read this book. Why I would renew it twice. But apparently she knew the only answer that mattered: I was a delinquent. A delinquent would obviously take any book out indiscriminately, renew it twice, hide it somewhere, then complain to her that I had a fine. I was completely one dimensional to the Nazibarian.

I marched to the section, then down the dimly lit aisle. After a quick scan of the shelves, I found the familiar cover, but the call number in the computer indicated that copy one was on the shelves. The only one I could see was copy two. Which looked quite familiar.

Hm.

I remembered that there was some fairly unique marginalia in the table of contents. Someone had written brief descriptions next to selected chapters, as if this had been assigned as class reading to be copied and distributed. I flipped open the cover, and stared at these same marks.

Hm.

I straightened my shoulders and marched toward the elevators. Pounding on the call button a few dozen times for measure, I clutched Contemporary Hermeneutics close to my body determined that someone would have to pry it from my rigor mortis corpse if they wanted to snatch it from me. On reaching the ground floor I tried to check it out from the machines, just to see what would happen. Item is already checked out to user. I had the truth now, and damned if I wasn't going to clobber someone with it.

I lined up at the service desk, allowing someone to go ahead of me to another employee so that I might reminisce with my friend the Nazibrarian. Maybe I should clarify: it wasn't the lost book or the process of appeal that irritated me, it was the arrogance and demeaning attitude they forced on me. Now it was time for some arrogance payback.

I self-confidently slid the book across the counter. Again, she looked unimpressed.

“I think there is a problem with this book. You see, it was on the shelf—but oddly!—this is apparently the same book you say I didn't return.” She scanned the book, then my card, which I duly produced. She sighed, and took the book to the back room. She was gone maybe two minutes.

“I'm sorry. It's all cleared up. I'm sorry.” This time she sounded a bit softer, much less arrogant.

As I slid my card back into my wallet, I noticed certain things about her that I hadn't before. Tired, baggy eyes. More wrinkles on the right side of her mouth than left. A small scar on her right ear. I wondered what her interests were, why she worked at Robarts, what life was like when she wasn't behind the service counter.

As I walked through the rotating exit doors, I thought about several of the essays in Contemporary Hermeneutics. The ones I especially liked examined the ubiquitous role of interpretation in our everyday lives, how the expectations and experiences we bring to each situation effect what we find—or what finds us. How the truth we encounter is in many ways dependent on us and what we bring to the present moment.

I thought about that librarian's face several times in the past week, both the first and second time I saw it. I wondered what or who had changed between those two encounters.

Close encounters...

2006-11-03T22:42:00.000-05:00

I promised to write about my experience at the ICS Worldview Conference with Richard Middleton--no I haven't forgotten, though it seems that everything takes longer when I am only online when I am at school. As it happens, I am here for another "academic event"--listening to lectures by two faculty from Calvin College. We are between lectures now, and just after dinner, so I thought I would steal a few minutes to write while all my friends (and my husband) are probably cracking into one of ICS's bottles of homemade (by us) wine, and playing cards or some such thing...

The conference last Saturday was enlightening. Middleton's take on biblical interpretation is near Nik Ansell's (they graduated in the same year from the same institution!), and focused on the narrative of the biblical story as our clue to interpretation. A welcome perspective, I think, which opens up a lot of the possibilities of the Bible to speak to us today. I am not going to dwell on this point, however, but rather the workshop I attended by a fellow ICS student, working on her PhD in NY right now, which was entitled "The Role of Encounter in the Story of Creation." I think the work she did in the workshop to get us thinking about the idea of encounter was so good, I want to take it as the theme for this blog. Encounters can be scary, but they can also be a source of possibility and discovery that is very positive. I think that the story of our last week can be told by a series of these vulnerable and possibly frightening encounters that have led to the unfolding of possibilities (well, maybe not all of them, but we will see how I can stretch them!)

Dangerous Encounters: Yvana and the too-close-to-her-bike van--Yes, this is the story of my first biking "accident." (There are a series of ad's here in Toronto up on the subways and on TV (apparently) about workplace safety and avoiding using the term "accidents" since most of them are preventable, and this is no exception, I am afraid). I was biking to school with Mike behind me, and after crossing an intersection (one of my least favorite spots on the way because of poor visibility and bumpy roads) I looked behind me to see a van trying to get around the streetcar, just as I was trying to get around a pothole. Needless to say, I'm sure, I had a very close encounter with this van, getting bumped twice and flying over the right side of my bike to bruise my pride fairly badly and scrape my knee (through two pairs of pants--good thing I had them on!). Thank goodness I had my helmet on--when I knew I was going to be falling I just let myself go, in a sense, knowing that I had lots of padding to protect me, considering it is nearly winter! and it would be better than fighting it at that point. I wasn't badly hurt, as all the good people of Toronto within sight came to discover. We even got to speak to a fellow biker who had been in a similar situation at this very intersection, who did what he could to right me and calm me afterward as well. Not a pleasant encounter, but also one that, if it has to happen, worked out about the best that it could. I believe that the possibility is opened here for a new pair of jeans!

Embodied Encounters: Yvana versus seminar presentations-- I had the daunting task this week of presenting for both of my classes--which are, as some of you know, on adjacent days: Thursday and Friday. I think they both went fairly well, and at least got some related discussion started... I spoke today about the relationship between the mind and the body in knowing--something that is very important to me, and something that I hope to do a lot more work with. Without getting into the specific and dirty details, I hope to get beyond the dualism between mind and body (as many of my professors have advised me) and talk about the embodied mind, or rather the body as the mind, or the mind as the body... I don't know what formulation exactly that I am going to work with, but I am somehow hoping to see these together.

To be continued with:

Confrontative Encounters: Mike versus the (un)penetrable bureaucracy of Robarts Library...

And
Disembodied Encounters: Mike versus the world...

Oklahoma, OK!

2006-10-27T14:49:00.000-05:00

I know we have countless fans waiting impatiently for an update (Hey, my mom does too count!), so I don't want to disappoint. Unfortunately, I am at work right now (don't tell...) so I am going to have to make this quick. So, though I would love to share the same "little details of our life" update that Mike wrote last time, you will have to deal with a general broad strokes update, once again.

Trip to OKC, OK. What a great conference last weekend! For those of you who we haven't talked incessantly about it, we went to the "After Ricoeur" Conference at Oklahoma City University, where we each presented course papers from our Ricoeur class last spring. The conference went well--we met students and professors from various colleges and universities, some of which we are applying in just a few short weeks! As far as touristy things, we went to Ground Zero, or rather the Murrah Building, the Oklahoma City National Memorial, the OKC famous spaghetti Warehouse (not to be confused with the chain restaurant--the spaghetti Factory, comon people!), lovely Bricktown, and the beautiful Myriad Botanical Gardens. Of course we also toured around Oklahoma City University campus, finding Paul Hansen Drive, and Paul Hansen Fitness Center (HA! That's for you, dad!).

Reading Week. We have been reading, of course, and also working. Some of the latest: The Cunning Man (finally finished by Y), Lectures on Philosophy (Y), Plenty of journals about pedagogy in higher education (Y), Freakanomics (M), Bernard of Clairvaux's sermons (M).

Well, that's about all for now, expect more later, I promise! We have the internet at home now, so hopefully we will be able to update more frequently! ICS Worldview Conference tomorrow, it is going to be a good one, I'll tell you all about it when I get back...

The stories of Mike's life...

2006-10-14T12:48:00.000-05:00

Hello to all,
Yvana has already written a more comprehensive note just a few days ago, so I will write on some fragments of life here in Toronto.
*Went to our neighborhood coffee shop Cafe 2 Day, Bloor Street, on Thursday. I like the place: robust fair-trade coffee, plenty of comfortable seating, and clean but unsexy. It's kind of like Kubata, our other local place, but closer, slicker, and a bit cheaper. I like Kubata as well, and I have a bit more heart for it, because I think the lady is the owner operator (at least she's there every day) and a Starbucks opened right across the street from it last January. How evil. Anyway, I like Kubata's jazz better than the stuff they play at Cafe 2 Day. It's a top 20 mix station that grates on me. Also, the sound system in Kubata is better, with several built in speakers, while Cafe 2 Day is one boombox at the front of the store that irritatingly echoes against the pane class. But I stopped by there on the way back to our apartment last Thursday, and a friendly guy was working there. So I'm hoping to make it a customary Thursday thing to go by for a cup of coffee-maybe become a "regular". There's something about being a regular thats mysterious to me... I heard David Sedaris on This American Life address this issue a few weeks ago. At one point, he had been living in Paris for over a year and a half, and every morning David stopped by this one kiosk to buy a newspaper from the old woman who owned it. For 18 months she said nothing to him; never acknowledged his continued patronage with even so much as a nod of recognition. Then, one day she looked at him quizzically, and asked, "Are you a tourist?" He was at once elated and deflated. She finally acknowledged him as a person, not just someone who gave money in exchange for goods, but refused to acknowledge that he belonged, after a year and a half of seeing him every day. I really liked that story, and I'll pay 1.35 a week until I am recognized as a regular in Cafe 2 Day, or maybe Kubata. ...Sponsors anyone?
*I don't really remember the point of that last story, but here is another. We were riding home along College the other day, and there was a huge traffic backup from Ossington to Dovercourt. As cyclists, we zipped right through to Dovercourt in no time, and saw that the traffic light was out. But the civic mindedness of Canadians knows no bounds, for there, in the middle of the intersection, was a scruffy young man directing traffic: cars, bikes, streetcars, you name it. He was taking his calling serious as a brain surgeon, and people were obeying and expressing their thanks as they passed by him. Pedestrians were hailing him as a hero. I'm sure this scene could have occurred in any city at any time, but to me the image of a unkempt twentysomething neo-Marxist looking guy dutifully directing traffic at rush hour, while people submit to his guidance and thank him in the process, completely embodies the Toronto spirit. I love this place.
*Act Three. Yvana, Ben Austin and I went to a party hosted by some Toronto School of Theology folk last Saturday. Mostly Regis, St. Mike's and U of T people there, but ICS made a good showing when Stu and Chris showed up. Everyone had a wonderful time, and I realized that I was more connected to this community than I thought. Saw a guy I'm taking a class with now- did his MA at Notre Dame on Augustine's malleable conception of the good life. Met someone who's a sessional instructor at St. Mikes, working on some things very similar to my own area of interest and, ironically, his dissertation director is my adviser: crazy things happen here at TST. Met a professional musician who is over at U of T faculty of music and spoke with her at some length about public art, fine art, and John Dewey. When we left, Chris was firmly in control of the liquor table, making White Russians for the whole kitchen crowd. ICS... so much better than the rest...

Miss you and love you all. M

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

2006-10-12T15:51:00.000-05:00

Quick update post:
We are having to make do with far less time on the internet this week, since we have found ourselves unable to access the wireless network at home. (And considering that I only come into school on Thursday and Friday, both for class, my Internet time is short indeed!) It has been a helpful forced discipline, helping me especially get far more work done than I had thought possible before. It is also interesting in terms of self-reflection on my dependancy on the internet. Do I need to check my email several times a day, or even every day? (some people think so... but, happily, no!) It has been quite a release--giving up. I would love to say how wonderful it has been in terms of making my life more full, but I do miss what the Internet provides by way of contact with people who I don't see regularly and keep in touch with a larger world of information instantaeously--yes, I miss it, but am trying to make the most of it. [What am I saying, it has been four whole days without the internet... poor me!]

Celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving on Sunday (and Monday), which is only called Canadian Thanksgiving when you are talking to people in the States (by the way). Wonderful trip to the (Andy and Jenny) Bouma's home in Bowmanville, ON--where we saw Ryan, and got to spend time with his siblings Kristen and Chad (Jack, for those of you who are in the know...), and of course Ben, who came with us. In addition to the enormous meal of turkey, ham, and all the "traditional fixin's," we invented a new game, based on components of Yatzee, Scotland Yard, Pictionary and Trivial Pursuit--a great game, we will have to play it with you sometime!

Took the GRE yesterday, for which studying for has been eating up a lot of our time lately. Mike and I both did well enough to feel confident sending our scores to the schools to which we are applying... In case we hadn't told you personally which ones: Boston College (Boston, MA) and DePaul (Chicago, IL) for Yvana; University of Chicago Divinity School (Chicago, IL), Harvard Divinity School (Boston, MA), Nortwestern University (Chicago, IL), and Boston University (Boston, MA) for Mike [roughly in order of preference... it is quite a debate at home, let me tell you!]

And, as a last weekly feature, what we are reading right now (or, in this case, what we would like to or should be reading...)
Yvana: The Cunning Man by Robertson Davies (a very popular Canadian author that I had never before heard of... This is for our book club which meets the end of the month); The Christian Platonism of Simone Weil (still...); Critical Essays on Simone deBeauvoir (This is just for fun, though I haven't started it yet...)
Mike: Sermons on the Song of Songs by Bernard of Clairvaux; Eros and Allegory; Voice of My Beloved by Matter; Paul Ricoeur: Owl of Minerva by Richard Kearney; Freakanomics by Levitt (though not nearly enough time for this one!)

Well, that's about all for now, we will try to get back on a regular schedule with posting, though next week we will be in Oklahoma City, OK--lots of news from there, I am sure! Stay tuned!

Amos Lee for free?!

2006-09-30T14:56:00.000-05:00

So, I guess it's been a few days (weeks?) since I wrote a depressing and wordy blog... so I'm about due...

Really, I'm just going to try to keep this short and sweet. It's been a good past few days, although busy, and to give you a rundown of the highlights I will work backward. Just a few minutes ago, Yvana was searching for a constructive waste of time and decided to put in a counter on the blog. Now we can both fulfill our middle school dreams and really see how quantifiably unpopular we are!

Yesterday we (along with a whole host of other ICS'ers) attended the Symposium and Festschrift for George Vandervelde, emeritus professor of theology here at the Institute. A good time was had by all, with such big names as Mike Goheen and Al Wolters appearing on the panel. The conversation centered on George's interest in ecumenical dialog, especially with Roman Catholicism. Afterward, we were able to introduce the inaugural batch of ICS wine (Shiraz and Ruisseau Blanc)! It was received with muted enthusiasm, with much more enthusiasm directed at the lack of charge for consuming such wine. Junior members languished long into the night in discussion and tomfoolery, ingesting cheese, crackers, cornbread, and purloined wine with everyone packing it in around 2.

Lotta work this week, with a day of running stuck. Guided reading, beginning Ecclesiastical Latin, presentation on Monday the 1st for my Gadamer class.

But last Monday evening was a blast. Yvana and I, along with Jeff, Chris, and Janna, went down to the Drake Hotel to see Amos Lee in concert! Even more exciting, it was to be taped and broadcast on Sympatico/MSN! The only problem was that it was an exclusive event, meaning that riffraff like us weren't allowed because we weren't on the list. Although the males were immediately deterred and turned away in defeat, Janna and Yvana talked their (and our) way into the venue. Thankful and amazed, we enjoyed an intimate concert with fantastic music... and free domestics on tap. Afterward, we retreated to Jeff's and had cake in celebration. Chris and I went to look for a beer store, but none were open. So we spent zero dollars on the whole evening of fun, food and fellowship.
Enough fun for now. Back to the grinding stone.
M

Why do I obey God? Reflections on Simone Weil

2006-09-26T18:44:00.000-05:00

My reading of Simone Weil in the past couple weeks has deeply renewed my commitment to take the sometimes contradictory acts of "living" and "thinking" together. Because of this renewed commitment, and because of the impact on my "life" that her "thought" has had, I wanted to share with all of you what struck me today in reading Simone Weil's Waiting for God. Here is a slice of my journal:

"As answer to a question that has troubled me for nearly two decades, and has never been satisfactorily approached, Weil makes this statement: "If it were conceivable that one might be damned by obeying God and saved by disobeying him, I would nonetheless obey him." This paradox approaches my longtime dilemma and dissatisfaction with the understanding of Christianity and loving God as some kind of cosmic/eternal vending machine that produces our eventual eternal dwelling place in Heaven. The need for comfort above all else that this implies leads us also to desire that comfort now, at the expense of the love of others as love of God. Were we to truly love God--as its own end--we are freed from the self-pursuit that "staying out of hell" implies and are freed to love extravagantly in this world as well. Never have I seen such consistency of thought as she implies here--that our love of others above self translates even to our eternal destiny. It seems she goes even beyond Paul in his letter to the Romans (chapter 9:1-3) here--though perhaps it is just another way to say it: Paul says that he would give up his own salvation for the sake of his fellow believers--he would embrace damnation if it resulted from love of others. Indeed, Weil translates this love of others to love of God as well--or perhaps sees them as equivalent?

Why do I obey God? Is it for the benefits I will accrue? Is it for the eternal reward I will receive? Or do I obey God PERIOD for God's sake--and the sake of those others around me for whom Christ gave up all his self interest, indeed was forsaken by God, for the sake of this love for God and love for others?

Have we protected ourselves so much from the difficult truths of the Bible that we need continual jolting out of it? Jolting that can only be obtained by reflecting and focusing on the extreme paradoxes that make up Christianity--seeking the extreme implications and living out the contradiction--as Weil lived, loved, thought and wrote.

She wants to remind us, through this reviving of paradox that "we live in a world where eternal values are reversed...that we do not truly believe those things to which we declare allegiance."

How do we live paradoxes instead of stale and easy platitudes?"

Has any of this struck you like it struck me?
Listening, loving and waiting, Y

Back in Toronto, A week in brief

2006-09-17T15:01:00.000-05:00

We are back in full swing now, one week strong! This week was full of first readings for classes, which all met for the first time, extra work for the front desk at ICS, since there are no work study positions filled for new students yet, hammering out a preliminary Thesis bibliography and reading plan for the semester, and enjoying Toronto in its beautiful, warm fall glory. It was a lot for a week, and we come to this Sabbath rest in desperate need of it. This busy week was also a cause for deep thanksgiving, which I will try to capture briefly here:

* The breathtaking Toronto Islands: We spent our Saturday in carefree wonderment, eating lunch outside, walking on the beach, splashing in the lake, cruising down the boardwalk, enjoying ice cream, and spending time with good friends. And we are thankful for the physical stamina to bike the 10-12 miles we needed in order to enjoy it!

* Encouraging advising meetings: While we worked out our schedule for the year last week, our advising meeting on Friday was crucial. In it we talked about our proposed Thesis topics and the texts that we wanted to tackle this semester in order to become fully prepared to start writing. Both mine and Mike's meeting was a success, so far--more on Thesis topics later, you will undoubtedly get sick of hearing about them!

* Stimulating first classes: Since our focus is turning from intensive coursework to reading for theses, we have less courses this semester, and even less the semester after that. However, the two classes we meet this fall are challenging us with new authors to read, and interesting classroom dynamics (team teaching, larger classes, more students from outside ICS) that will be interesting. More on this later, as well...

* Promise of friendships begun and rekindled: Wednesday was the first "Junior Member" meeting of the year, giving us hope about new possibilities this year. The new students are already fitting in to the community here, and seem to be passionate about the work of ICS, renewing our excitement about this unique place as well.

* Challenging and exciting texts and authors: Of course we have to bring up what we are reading now! Mike for his class with Lambert on Mondays has begun *Truth and Method* by Hans Georg Gadamer--it is pretty dense, as you can imagine, or already know, so he has been working on it all week, though he is excited about what it and the class has in store for him this semester. I have been reading more about Simone Weil in preparation for my thesis--*Simone Weil: Thinking Poetically* and *The Christian Platonism of Simone Weil*. These two have got me thinking about possibilities for writing in the coming months, so stay tuned!

* Fulfilling and necessary work: Mike and I have put in quite a few hours this week and last at ICS' front desk, hours that have been fulfilling in their own right, but also encouraging to us by providing a means for us to continue our work here.

Well, that was a rough sketch of the week, backwards--we miss you all and hope that you are finding gratitude in the work set before you as well!

"Say Goodbye" and saying "hello"

2006-09-10T16:09:00.000-05:00

We have already been in Toronto for a few days and we are picking up our old habits once again. Tuesday we drove in with both Mom Mols and Hansen, arriving in the late afternoon. We unloaded quickly and easily-the place looked just like home... kind of. The most exciting items for us were the gently used bikes we picked up in the states for our use during the school year, with thanks to Katrina for unwillingly donating her bike to the cause. (Vive la revolution Kat!) Yvana spotted her own "Schwinn Approved" J.C. Penny cruiser at a garage sale and picked it up for a song. It is tricked out with full front and rear fenders, air ride saddle and cargo rack, all in chrome-like finish for a mere 30 U.S.D; a blessing indeed.

A greater blessing yet was both moms bringing Yvana and I here and in many ways setting us up for the year. After many misadventures our pantry is more stocked than it ever has been before, and our refrigerator is overflowing with a bounty of fresh food--even meat! (for those worried about sexual orientation...) IT was wonderful to have them both here and great to see them getting along so very well. They scouted out the T.O. Islands and highly recommended visiting, so be on the lookout for an excursion update...

After a whirlwind few days with the Moms, they sadly departed on Friday morning. We were already working around ICS on Wednesday and Thursday, so we didn't have as much time to spend with them, but evenings were fun and active. Our routines will gain a bit more stability as soon as classes begin again on Monday- I have class with Lambert on Monday and the IDS (with Yvana) on Friday.

(Here is where the blog gets long and ranting, and some may have already heard this or might not want to hear this, so proceed with caution, if at all.)

On the inside track, this has been a tough few days. I'm feeling fragmented, small, and big all at the same time, or maybe Bilbo's analogy gets at it better: Like butter scraped over too much toast. Not even a week ago we were back in central Illinois, listening to country music (I can still hear "If your goin' through hell, keep on movin'...") and watching the soybeans begin their transition of color that marks their final stage of growth to parched orange, gold, and eventually sagging crisp skeletons of their former verdant glory. We were enjoying a labor day breakfast with my summer co-workers, who are more aptly described as my friends and family. We bar-b-qued with many close friends at the Reppmanns in the suburbs of Chicago. Now, we are in Toronto, biking along College and meeting new students whose geography is Hamilton, St. Cathrine's, or Ethiopia and reconnecting with old friends from Hong Kong and the U.K. We want to be invested in each community so deeply that it becomes a perilous exercise in mental discipline to hold our shattered psyches in tact...

The goodbyes were harder this time around. It surprised me, because I assumed it would be habitual by now- we have done the solemn goodbye several times before to many of the same people. This time, it seemed to me within myself a goodbye of resignation. I knew that God willing I would see all these people again. The sorrow of goodbye is still there, but the shock and awe of it is gone. Only the acidic pain remains. However unwillingly, I am becoming more accustomed to seeing life as a series of goodbyes, of separation, and maybe more than that. Am I saying goodbye to the hope that some day we will be rooted in a unified community where we aren't constantly forced to horribly wrench ourselves from the people with whom we are so intimately connected? I suppose this time around I was saying hello to goodbyes, to the fact that the people we care deeply about are inevitably going to be separated from us by distance- geographical, emotional, intellectual... giving up on the hope of unfallen, pain-free fellowship. Jer Junkin's song was ringing in my head, prompting me to "Say Goodbye." I hope that real community doesn't just exist in my head, but I'm pretty sure the kind I ideally want is a phantasm, or at least an eschatological vision.

But Jeremy responds, observing that there is something binding us to you. All the pain wouldn't be there unless the relationship mattered when it was broken. So we look forward to restoration with you all. And I'm going to work on becoming more intentional with greetings, to try to give them the depth and character we normally ascribe to the grief of departures.

Maranatha; become all in all.

Reflections on a Summer

2006-08-25T21:29:00.000-05:00

At long, summer's end--we write again... I guess our vacation didn't seem as interesting to us as we thought it might, but for those who would like to know, a brief update about our summer vacation:

*Lots of traveling-we have been in Toronto once (with Amanda Backale for ICS convocation and our anniversary); stopped through NW Washington (for a going away weekend extravaganza with the Hansen clan); drove overnight to NW Iowa and a stop over in Des Moines (again with the Hansen clan, this time settling in, and hanging out with the Van Til's, respectively); drove up for a wedding in Holland, Michigan (Lori and Steve Evenhouse); went to a family reunion in Sterling, Illinois (Yvana's side); and of course visited SW Chicago numerous times for graduations, convocations, paper presentations, birthdays, library booksales, and just to get away and spend time with our friends out there. Okay, so we didn't go to any really exotic places, but considering work schedules (see following) it is really pretty amazing!

*Catering at Fay's Porkchop BBQ-this is mostly Mike's baby, though I got to put a couple hours in here and there--lots of weekends of work here too, fundraisers, the Steam Power Show, and private catering jobs (and taking some food home for the family! :))

*French 101 and 102--Yvana's non-paying job for the summer, though it kept me quite busy--feel free to ask me about the past/present participle or the subjunctive mood, or any of various tenses: past composite, imperfect, present perfect and also various limited vocabulary related to weather, fashion, current events, colors, and pleasantries, and I will feel free to pretend I know what I am saying...

*Reading--We both had an opportunity this summer to spend a bit of time reading (fortunately my time was spent simultaneously soaking up some UV rays, and Mike's was in a van driving to work, or at work in front of a blazing grill), both for work and for pleasure. Mike's top three books this summer were: In the Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, Interpretation Theory by Paul Ricoeur, and The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. Yvana's top three: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, Simone deBeauvoir: A Critical Introduction by Kate and Edward Fullbrook, and High Fidelity by Nick Hornsby. These are listed in no particular order, of course.

Well, there's the run down--We are leaving for Canada again in just over a week, and hope to update you all with exciting things then! Blessings to everyone as they get back in the swing of a school year, or as they continue working as Fall approaches--hope to hear from you all soon!

Y

May for the Molseses...

2006-06-14T22:20:00.000-05:00

Excuses about slow-dial-up internet connections aside, it has been far too long since we have updated you all about what is going on with us. To be brief, we have been on several trips, and have more to come. We were in Toronto with our friend Amanda for ICS's convocation ceremony, and the events surrounding it. It was a whirlwind weekend--we got to see the White Sox beat the Blue Jays, hear some jazz at the Rex (this is getting to be a common place to take our friends...), enjoy friends and fellowship at ICS's local pub: Einstein's, snag some grub at the Canadian favorite Tim Horton's hear Nik Ansell give his inaugural address, watch John Suk be installed as president of ICS, experience Jim Olthuis' festschrift, and return all of our library books (none were overdue!). It was a lot to fit into just a couple days, but it was all very enjoyable!

Just a few days after getting back, Mike and I traveled out to our Alma Mater to present alongside Ben some works-in-progress for colleagues there. It was a rewarding experience, and I hope only the first of many more alumni symposia!

It has been settling into life since then--Mike continues to work long hours (especially on the weekends) and I have been trying to keep busy reading while looking for a summer job (still...), and getting to work at Fay's (where the rest of the Mols' family works) last Saturday.

So, for those of you that are interested--my reading list so far this summer has been (after the books I read for course papers, of course):
*She Came to Stay* by Simone de Beauvoir--A novel, but one that contains existentialist philosophy before Sartre wrote about existentialism. Very intriguing descriptions of life in relationships.
*The Poisonwood Bible* by Barbara Kingsolver--Another novel (and an Oprah book) which deeply affected me. Though it isn't necessarily a "happy" story, it contains a wonder about the world around us, and an appreciation for its diversity that is awe-inspiring and encourages me to enjoy life instead of control and change it.
*The Ragamuffin Gospel* by Brennan Manning--On recommendation of my sister-in-law, also deeply affecting about the amazing love and grace of God that reaches out to all of us as ragamuffins. This book contains lessons that I need to learn and re-learn about how to live out of love as the rule of life instead of living from a place of fear. A fantastic book!

2006-05-23T09:24:00.000-05:00

The Chapel Unchanged

2006-05-19T15:33:00.000-05:00

Just got a few minutes to write a bit, but for all those friends praying for our paper writing situation, I am proud to say that I am over the hump--three of four papers in, and the fourth will be gone on Tuesday!!! They aren't my best work, but I am getting increasingly hard on myself, and it was time to be done--I am having trouble putting coherent thoughts in a row right now! I will let Mike share with you his good news in good time, but he has been busy keeping up with friends in Illinois (I know, not enough of you, but we will get there, I promise!), getting sick, and most importantly (well, not REALLY) working tonnes and tonnes so we can do this graduate school thing for another year...

I am still looking for gainful employment to keep me busy, so if anyone knows about work in DeKalb (I'll do just about anything) or the vicinity, let me know!

We are up to Toronto again next weekend for Convocation at ICS, so we will regale you with international mysteries when we get back. For now, though, Au Revoir!

2006-05-09T13:48:00.000-05:00

It was my intention this week to add another school to our already-lengthy list of "Institutions of Higher Education Attended." Instead, I added to our "Notable Notables of the Mols' that Noone Really Cares About." I can tell you are dying to hear about it, and I will have to oblige. Because I am such a "special case" (no comments from the peanut gallery about this one), I have called to the attention of the "Powers That Be" at Northern Illinois University a need for a policy change in their admissions documentation. WHOOO HOOO!

Problem is, I couldn't even sneak through that little loophole I found in order to make this application procedure just a little bit easier for me before it closed up, prior to the official change. If anyone really cares about the particulars, I am more than happy to relate them, but the long and short of it is that I have to send in my graduate school transcript (from The ICS) and get a credit evaluation (of their credits--which are on the European system--confusing as all get out for Americans...) in order to take an undergraduate, entry level French 101 course for three weeks about a month from now. How long do you think all of that admissions fanangaling is going to take? I am afraid to find out--well, I will keep you all posted...

To add to our "Notable Notables" list, Mike's hair is currently as short as it's ever been: That is, shaved (with the exception of a teeny-tiny-just-a-couple-of-hairs-bit that I missed with the shaver that is located on the side of his head--Think Ancient Egyptian Prince...got it?).

Well, when I run across any more, I will be sure to let you know... Until then, we remain faithfully yours!-Y

2006-05-07T18:57:00.000-05:00

For those who are curious about our current status, we are now in the process of settling into the Mols homestead in Illinois. After an enjoyable auto trip through eastern Ontario, a stop at Niagara, and around lake Erie through New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, we arrived safely in Illinois. I have secured work with a local caterer for the summer, which will hopefully allow us to stockpile for the leaner winter months and "support our habit" at school. (I love that phrase! My manager said that to me recently and I will contemplate it for some time.) Yvana will be taking classes at Northern Illinois as soon as the bureaucrats have been sated or slaughtered. She is also seeking something part time in DeKalb, to cut down on unstewardly fuel use. A few promising leads, but no bites yet.

To acknowledge the elephant in the room, no, we have not finished our papers. Yvana has 3 drafts and is working on her fourth, but I'm still stuck on my second. We have faith, but we also have anxiety; and a lot of books.

We hope to keep you updated on the goings on, and our thoughts concerning these goings, as they unfold. -M

2006-04-29T15:58:00.000-05:00

I can't say about death, and taxes are in, so right now it seems as if nothing is sure except paper deadlines and the fact that Kidgit is going to comment on this blog... But as we are self-involved in the first of those sureties, life continues to swirl and swirl around us. While we can't be much more specific than that right now, please pray for us through the coming months as we try to find equilibrium again. As we find ourselves in process, as seems our most "stable" state, your friendship and God's strength alone are our guiding stars, thank you!

In other, more upbeat news, we have just found a new way to waste time on the internet... Warning--those of you with lots of books and little time, don't read farther, you most likely will regret it--though you will have an unbelievably fun time before that regret strikes!

LibraryThing.com is a book cataloguing website that allows easy, free entry of up to 200 books in a personal collection, allowing you to "tag" books with helpful categorization (fiction or 18th Century Women's Literature--depending on your pickiness!), and also gives you reccomendations from other, real users who have collections similar to yours (Kinda like Amazon's reccomendation, but a whole lot better, believe me!). Anyway, I'll stop gushing and let you see for yourself--but remember my warning; I'll assume no responsibility for missed classes, meetings, meals... you get the idea.

Curious? Here is our library!-Y

2006-04-29T08:14:00.000-05:00

Concerning this engaging conversation about the merits and failures of Robbin Williams, Slate has this posted a review of his latest train-wreck, RV. Check it out if you're interested to get in on this. -M

2006-04-22T20:24:00.000-05:00

Dara just sent me a picture from our visit with her a month ago, so here is a beautiful shot of Lake Ontario, and The Beach. Makes you want to jump in, eh?

2006-04-22T20:11:00.000-05:00

I drink warm milk. Right before bed, or in the middle of the afternoon to just relax me, take the chill off, whatever. I know, it sounds a bit gross and maybe a bit more "old-grandmother-ly," but hear me out.

My creation of this delicious beverage is very particular. That is, it follows particular steps, not that it is particular at all in its measurements--but hey, it still is me, after all! I have found, however that the very steps that eventually produce the finished product can be soothing in their own right. Maybe you'll see what I mean as I write--or maybe you will have to try it yourself...

You have to start off with a mug full of cold milk. Then, when you pour in the slug of vanilla extract it first sinks in a single stream right to the bottom and then mushrooms up to the top again, coloring the milk a warm and welcoming tan color. Nuke-ing the vanilla milk for a minute or a minute and a half will get you the warm milk, but it isn't nearly done yet.

The sprinkle of cinnamon comes next, but this is no insignificant step in this process. You see, when the first particles of cinnamon hit the warm beverage, they spread out as thin as possible, trying to cover the entire top of the milk, but never sinking to the bottom. I have grown to have quite a fondness for this characteristic of the cinnamon. But that's for later.

The next ingredient was a suggestion by Mike. The first time he tried my warm milk he did kinda like it--with one addition--nutmeg. So, I guess this is a Mols' original, not just my own. When the first tiniest bit of nutmeg hits the protective cinnamon spread sitting on the top of my warm milk, the cinnamon begins to crack. I have never tried it the other way, so I don't know if it would also work in reverse, but who likes that much nutmeg? and anyway it would destroy my analogy!

As you probably would guess, for this to truly be a delicious, relaxing drink, a teaspoon of sugar is a must. When you stir in the sugar with the now-cracked cinnamon covering and divisive nutmeg, both the nutmeg and the cinnamon seem to dissapear into the quickly moving white cyclone. As soon as the spoon halts, though, so does the assumption that the spices would easily dissolve into the liquid. The cinnamon rises up and attempts again to keep the high ground and spread its goodness over the whole surface of the drink, but this time in more definite clumps than before--the strain on it was too great to stay as spread as it was in the beginning. The nutmeg, however, doesn't show itself again as it had before.

Ok, before I get into my clever analogy, there is some complaints from the peanut gallery--aka Mike (sorry to mix metaphors). I, in no way, intend to identify any person with any ingredient. Mike's addition to the warm milk creation was gratefully recieved and very important. The nutmeg gives it a spiciness that it would have otherwise never had, and I could now never go back to the way it was before that suggestion. Again, I repeat, the personification of the warm milk ingredients in no way relates to real people, any resemblence is coincidental, but hopefully inspiring...

So, for the much awaited (or maybe not) metaphor, which is probably already way too obvious: I see cinnamon as taking the high road--making connections across all the possibilities it can, but never separating from those who made it what it is. Cinnamon is resilient and seeks this high road even through great adversity, where some closer and more lasting connections are made (the visible clumps). On the other hand, the nutmeg only splits what has already been made, highlighting weakness and exploiting them until they become cracks. Once its work is done, however, it descends in obscurity--losing its specific identity. As for the other ingredients, the milk, vanilla and sugar--I'll leave that up to you, my readers--try your own hand at a warm milk analogy!

Thought for the week: What kind of warm milk ingredient are you? (50 points for answers that promote discussion, 75 points for new analogies and answers...)

Other thought for the week: So, do the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs or do the prettiest birds sing the silliest songs? (100 points to the first person who gives it a answer, a wherefore AND can place my obscure partial allusion here...)

2006-04-14T15:02:00.000-05:00

So he shall startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which had not been told they shall see, and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate. -Isaiah

I'm not sure what one can say when one seems to have nothing which can be said. The difficulty, if not impossibility, of expressing or reducing thoughts and experiences to language, especially to words, is increasingly the subject of my contemplation. Many of the meaningful thoughts and non-spoken/written reflections I have seem to overflow in abundance beyond the capacity of language.

Paul Ricoeur has provided me with some helpful tools understanding this aspect of a "worded" existence, so to say. Language has everyday uses: I tell you that I see a bird flying. Basically, someone is saying something about something to someone. But what does it mean for me to tell you that my heart is a soaring bird? Or that I am a dead bird on a cold day? Or that someone is cold? My heart is not literally a bird or really soaring, I am not really dead, an a person may not be experiencing bodily temperature fluctuation. But in transgressing the bounds of language, in stretching it and in a way misusing it we open our world of communication and understanding to new possibilities. Someone is still saying something about something to someone, but in many instances we break the rules of the dictionary to really say something about our experiences. This non-dictionary saying is often meant to shock and surprise others—leading others to (hopefully), a new view of the mystery of reality or at least further contemplation together of the realities most meaningful experiences. In other words, it explodes the established meaning in order to say something new.

Is this just me rambling on about foolish philosophy garbage? Maybe... but what does it mean that the kingdom of God is like a man going on a journey... or that the kingdom of God is in the midst of us... or that just as we are all like sheep, so also is the Lamb of God. Our goal is to understand these things, each other, and ourselves, but when we simply attempt to capture meaning, tame it, and put it in a dictionary, we kill it, and take away the "real" meaning altogether. Our hope for meaning is that we can move beyond meaning.

Does this mean that I'm excused from writing papers? Unfortunately, no. Just because communication is always hard work doesn't mean that we can escape from it... -M

2006-04-11T21:55:00.000-05:00

For those of you with lingering doubts about our (well, at least MY) radical geekiness, let me put them to rest. First of all, I am using "radical" in its original meaning--"root"--not its 80's meaning of... well, you know. There are SOME geeky things that are even beyond me.

In a blog that is about our adventures in TORONTO, one would expect non-stop exciting tales about delicious, exotic restaurants, hopping clubs, breathtaking sights... But, in a blog about US in Toronto, you are going to have to settle with the everyday, but no less exciting (sometimes) tales of home-cooked vegetarian fare, holy week at St. Anne's Anglican Church and libraries at the University of Toronto. Leaving aside our daily bread at home and church, I wanted to acquaint all of you with the campus libraries of our dear University of Toronto. Don't leave yet! There really is a point!

The University of Toronto is home to no less than six Colleges, each from a different denominational background. St. Mikes is Catholic, Wycliffe is Anglican, Victoria is affiliated with the United Church, Knox with the Presbyterian, Regis with the Jesuits, and Trinity with the high Anglican. Anyway, each one of these small, lovely colleges has its own library, specializing in its particular tradition, but that also has books of general interest. Each one of these libraries is immaculately designed for not only a studious experience, but also an aesthetic one. As ICS students, we are allowed borrowing privledges at all of them. And of course, University of Toronto's own... Robarts.

Robarts is a 13 floor (yes, it has a floor thirteen, I am on it at least once a week) mostrosity of a building, designed in the sixties/seventies and the inspiration for Umberto Eco's *In the Name of the Rose* (I haven't read it, but I plan to this summer--you'll see why in what follows). For those of you who haven't read it and want a picture, Mike says, "From the moment you walk in your nose is assaulted by a stench of indeterminate origin, you are confronted with surly and unhelpful staff, half the time anything mechanical or computerized is broken, you are all but strip-searched to get into the stacks. Once in the stacks, after waiting an eternity and a half to get in an elevator that has a four in five chance of being broken, you squeeze down the claustrophobic row of seemingly endless, obscure books with no particular order to them as you squint through the dim and horrible fluorescent lighting, emitting a constant buzzing hum, which gives you a headache. If you are lucky enough to find the book that you need, which is truly a miracle, you had best get it back in plenty of time before it's due, because as often as books are lost in the shelves, they are lost in the book return. It truly is a monument to what happens when economists and mathematicians run wild with building projects." Everyone hates Robarts. If you are looking for another opinion, you could find about a thousand up here, but they would all sound about the same.

Now that you have a bit of the lay of "Library-land", I suppose it would surprise you (hey, it surprises me every day!) to know:

I can only work in Robarts.

While Mike is sitting reading away by the fireplace in an overstuffed chair in an acoustically savvy, hardwood floor room at Trinity Library, I find myself only really productive sitting in a partially broken, hard-backed chair in a graffiti-covered cubicle on either the 9th or 13th floor. I don't want this to be the case. I tried reading in those overstuffed chairs at Trinity, writing on the top floor of Victoria's library--overlooking the amazing striking art they hang. I can only account for my boorish-philistine-ness by claiming distractedness at the obvious aesthetic qualities of the other buildings. What else could it be?

As paper-writing season is in full swing, I have a feeling I am going to again get real cozy with the ugliness of Robarts--what can I say? it works for me! Though going into next year, I welcome any suggestions about interventions. I don't think this can go on much longer... Am I going to have to keep a "the ugly room" at home, too?

2006-04-06T22:34:00.000-05:00

Thinking, as I have been of late, almost exclusively: "What am I going to write my course papers about this term?" has kept me from something suitable to post, though I have been meaning to for several days. Because we want to keep this blog accessible and about our LIFE (this is not MyMolseyThoughts, afterall--though that might be a future development...), I have hesitated sharing with all of you what I have been THINKING, though in light of experiences yesterday, and Michael's and my conviction that philosophy (and thinking about philosophy...) comes out of life and experiences, I now write. Whether it lives up to my lofty expectations, well, that is for you to decide.

As I mentioned in opening this post, my life (and dare I speak for Mike's as well?) has been preoccupied with my thoughts--an occupational hazard, I suppose, for graduate work in philosophy--of my coming papers. Since we would really like to have them (eight between the two of us...) done before we head back to Illinois in the beginning of May, I am beginning to feel the crunch. For those of you that don't know me well, this usually means that I become singularly focused to the extreme until I meet my goal. My agenda for yesterday, as should therefore be no surprise, was packed to the limit with visits to numerous of the University of Toronto Libraries, reseaching articles online, reading and taking notes on various texts, etc. I am proud to say in retrospect that I accomplished very few of those lofty (yet important) goals. I started off fairly well, but upon visiting the Institute for lunch and Wednesday Worship, I "fell" into several exceedingly "unproductive" hours of not visiting libraries, not reading, not taking notes...

I put the two negative words in quotes, since I refuse to see those hours (as I am tempted to) as wasted. In fact, I am convinced now that my very attitude that my conversations yesterday afternoon were more important than any textual work I could do gave these many conversations the fruitful quality that they ended up having for me. Instead of (alone) researching paper topics that I was confused enough about, I talked to, engaged with people that were essential for me to clarify what I really wanted me to do, thereby giving me direction for the solitary research work that was to come. By sticking to my singular focus (Research, Read, Write!), I would have not only damaged relationships with people I care about, but also would have actually (ironically, or maybe not so...) wasted time, by direction-less-ly pursuing papers that I had no idea how to go about.

I am not going to sit here and tell you that I am ready to go, write my papers and be done (as one part of me still secretly hopes). And, I am not going to tell you that this was an easy realization to make (how often have I neglected relationship to pursue my GOAL?). I am going to say, however, that this relational learning together, this kind of practicing of philosophy, is something that I want to keep practicing, beyond paper-writing season (is there a beyond?), and through the rest of my life. As I am reading currently in Hannah Arendt, thinking is essential in its culmination in moral action--getting stuck in thinking for the sake of thinking more (as I was in my focus on finishing papers) is of little worth if it is not connected to others and action.

I realize with this post that I am risking turning this blog into a therapeutic tool (as Mike seemed to begin last post...what's wrong with that?), but for those of you who care enough to have read this far, you deserve to know our life, which for now, will be some of our thoughts as well. We are not always on the grand Toronto adventures of last week, or the traveling adventures that are past and coming soon again. But we are still here, thinking (actively!) and writing, wanting to be in connection to all of you. So, till next time, Y

2006-03-30T19:35:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a few days since Dara, Bob, Paul and Autumn returned to the states, and life is adjusting back to normal just in time to be done with classes. This coming week will be the last for two of ours (three for Yvana!), which leaves us the rest of April to work on research. But returning to our friends, it was sad to see them go, especially since we looked forward to them coming up so much and the time passed so quickly...

It just seemed like a lot of things have been happening in the past few weeks that have been impossible to explain, even face to face with my wife, and I suppose now heading into paper season it will get no better. The closest thing I can liken it to is an identity crisis, but I don't think that completely captures what I hope to describe. I have simply been confronting a lot of aspects in my professional work that I just can't grasp: the technical, analytical, syllogistic philosophy that seems so integral to this discipline. This realization reminded me why I studied what I did in undergrad; history and literature are storied subjects. It is my hope, then, that I can get some help from people to figure out a way to see the storied nature of philosophy as integral to philosophy itself- that the message is in the medium( I’m finding Paul Ricoeur to be a tremendous help in applying some philosophical leverage in that respect), and, most importantly, that at the end of the day the ultimate medium is in life itself.

So what does all this have to do with our recently visiting buddies? Well, I can't make it clear abstractly, so let me give you a brief sketch. I was dealing with my own inadequacies professionally and personally, when I said something to my wife that should never have been said. It hurt her, it hurt the people I said it in front of, and it hurt the love relationship between all involved. So I guess this is a belated confession and apology (in the many senses of the words) to all the people I love, whether victims of this instance of my own hatred or others. Anyone who might be reading this probably has some painful memories of how I shamefully treated them, but space won't allow, and the time cannot be found to make things right. Know, however, that I constantly remember them (even if you don't think I do) as I do the best I can to make my life the medium for my philosophy. -M

2006-03-27T19:23:00.000-05:00

Spring has Sprung in Toronto...
...and Michael, Dara and I made the best of it in quite a sight-seeing-extravaganza yesterday! We were blest this past Saturday to visit with FOUR of our good friends from the Chicago-area, who flew like (and with?!) the wind to spend their Spring break/vacation time with us. While Bob, Paul (M and Y's Trin friends) and Autumn left after church to head even farther East, to Montreal, Dara (friend of Y's from WA, and now IL!) gave us a great excuse to see the best of what our fair city of Toronto has to offer, on one of the most beautiful sunny days this year! A run-down, with commentary, of our expedition:

First off, as good, cheap graduate students, we packed a lunch. While this is a wonderful city, you just can't beat the price of making your lunch at home! This ended up being a great idea, taking into consideration all the walking we would do in the next few hours...

Next, we headed off to the subway stop and bought our day passes, which gave the three of us the ability to travel all day on the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) vehicles for just 16CDN--what a deal! In the course of our travels, we made good use of our passes by using (at various points) the subway, streetcar, buses and our feet--seeing more of the city than Mike and I had ever before.

Our first detour was to walk around by Bay and Yonge street (Chicagoans, read Michigan Ave.), where we showed Dara a part of "The Longest Street in the World" (Yonge). Thankfully we didn't have to walk it... As it was getting to be long after lunch time and our picnic destination was still a ways off, however, we hopped back on our trusty TTC and headed to our second major stop:

The Beaches (Following this link, we were at dot "7")! What a wonderful day for the beach. Though it reminded me of the beach behind the resort we stayed at in Puerto Vallarta (briefly... Ok, it is a bit of a stretch) the wind and the remainders of winter forced us to keep winter coats and gloves on nearly the whole time. After sitting down for a bite and watching the waves lap the shore and the dogs lap the waves (and Dara's apple core--FROM HER HAND!) we got moving again, walking up the boardwalk and picking up rocks as we went along. Realizing it wasn't really as warm as we had hoped, we ducked into a coffee shop for a warm up before getting on our way again--taking the Queen streetcar this time--to...

The Distillery District. I had suggested this kind of on a lark, since some people had reccomended it to us, but we gave it a shot--what a treat! The Distillery District is an old Victorian part of the city, where gobs of Holywood flims have been shot (Not that I have seen any of them... Cinderlla Man comes to mind, but there are plenty more). Tinsel Town was on to something when they found this place, though--it has old-timey buildings with tons of art galleries (we went into two), a chocolate-maker, paper-maker, ceramics-maker, a few restaurants (probably with some good brews, considering it is the DISTILLERY district!) and tons more.

Leaving the turn of the century (I guess I need to clarify that more now that we are in the NEXT century--20th) behind, we headed off into the sunset (literally) on our walk down Front Street past the St. Lawrence Market (closed, unfortunately). We headed for Union station, via the Hockey Hall of Fame (we are in Canada, eh?), the entrance to the Eaton Center (or should I say "Centre"??) and BCE Place (a very picturesque place with indoor gardens and lots of glass). I guess we were too busy "VIA-ing," and we missed Union station, but caught the subway at the next stop, taking it to College--our favorite and most traveled street--and then to home.

After dinner we went out again, this time for dessert close to home at the delicious Sicilian Sidewalk Cafe (Mike and I had been there before, but Dara was in for a treat!), and then we headed out to The Rex Jazz Bar--"More Great Jazz than anywhere else, all the time!," where we got to listen to some wonderful live Jazz/Blues performed by Sienna Dahlen. Exhausted after her set at about Midnight, we chatted with her for a bit before taking the TTC home again. Quite an eventful day, but we got to cover a bit of the city, and note some place that we will definitly want to hit again!

2006-03-23T16:26:00.000-05:00

Small victories eventually add up, so I might as well share it. Our daily bicycle trek between apartment and school takes us approximately 3 miles along College Street, along which the streetcars run. Now, let me tell you, it's no fun to be caught riding next to a streetcar for a number of reasons, foremost of which are: 1) these things are constantly stopping in order to pick up and drop off passengers, meaning you must do the same or risk running over the elderly as they hobble to the curb, which I'm sure would add a few minutes to your stay in purgatory (don't freak out, I'm just saying that to be funny... I haven't bought into popery... yet). And 2) the autos are usually impatient to get past these streetcars and end up doing stupid and risky things in order to get by. But what might be an inconvenient fender-bender for a car could pretty easily turn life threatening for a cyclist. Anyway, today I started off next to a streetcar at school and hooved it to pull ahead... but by the time I got to our street, I had passed 3! I realize that many of you might ridicule my enthusiasm at my self-perceived biking prowess, but hey, I don't got much else... So back off my bike! -M

2006-03-22T18:40:00.000-05:00

Just another case in point--this blog thing can get to be quite a time-waster if I so choose... Hey, it's my favorite color, I had to take it!

I am "Grass Green"

Down to earth and a bit of a hippie, you are very into nature and the outdoors.
You accept the world and people as they are. You don't try to change things.
You are also very comfortable with yourself, flaws and all.
Optimistic about the future, you feel like life is always getting better.

What Color Green Are You?

"A bit of a hippie?" It is amazing what a couple months at grad school in Canada can do to you... "Optimistic about the future?" Definitely. Dare you to take the quiz, too... --Y

2006-03-19T14:38:00.000-05:00

Since our last email, for which I entirely assume responsibility, was dour and spiceless, this post will begin a (re)new(ed) and joyous approach of fun and quirky moments in our lives. Some bland, abstract philosopical things might sneak their way in, but we hope that the truly philosophical can be the minute narrative of our lives... so, fun things!

To begin, I, Michael, have taken up knitting, proving the folk wisdom that married folk grow more alike as they live together (and after only 1.5 years!). To date, Yvana has not picked up any of my habits, she hopes, but we wait with bated breath. I hope to knit and purl my way to a scarf first, and eventually a sweater, but time will tell.

Yvana has had a rash of winter clothing loss recently... a scarf, and one glove each from two pairs. She is down to one pair of thinsulate gloves and one pair mittens- doing fine with the scarves though. I must specify, however, that it has not been her fault; the weather has been unusually windy and has blown these gloves away rather quickly, especially while biking; it's a hard thing, because when we begin we are usually cold, but about halfway to school/home, the activity of biking makes us uncomfortably warm, which means we shed some outer shells, which leads to lost articles. But we hope to make it through the winter without any further regresses.

A short posting, but I suppose that's the point. We are off this afternoon to volunteer at our church's community dinner, where we offer free, hot meals to whoever needs or wants one, so it promises to be an enjoyable, rewarding, and interesting time. -M

2006-03-18T22:42:00.000-05:00

Well, we have broken yet another barrier in the long, barrier-filled information superhighway, just after I had gotten used to my CB and 8-Track... We'll post some more sometime soon, as our blog-addicted friends have no doubt paved the way for us. -M