The Trad Pad

Readers of this blog will have noticed that I like to mark the changes of the seasons whether natural or spiritual or both together. To-day is Holy Cross Day, an ancient feast day or memorial day in the Christian Calendar. The excerpt below which I consider is a meditation on the Cross by one of the world’s greatest writers in English, is from Paradise by Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, Alfred A Knopf, NY, 1998, pp 145-147

…Misner walked away from the pulpit, to the rear wall of the church. There he stretched, reaching up until he was able to unhook the cross that hung there. He carried it then, past the empty choir stall, past the organ where Kate sat, the chair where Pulliam was, on to the podium and held it before him for all to see – if only they would. See what was certainly the first sign any human anywhere had made: the vertical line; the horizontal one. Even as children, they drew it with their fingers in snow, sand or mud; they laid it down as sticks in dirt; arranged it from bones on frozen tundra and broad savannas; as pebbles on riverbanks; scratched it on cave walls and outcroppings from Nome to South Africa. Algonquin and Laplanders, Zulu and Druids – all had a finger memory of this original mark. The circle was not first, nor was the parallel or the triangle. It was this mark, this, that lay underneath every other. This mark, rendered in the placement of facial features. This mark of a standing human figure poised to embrace. Remove it, as Pulliam had done, and Christianity was like any and every religion in the world: a population of supplicants begging respite from begrudging authority; harried believers ducking fate or dodging everyday evil; the weak negotiating a doomed trek through the wilderness; the sighted ripped of light and thrown into the perpetual dark of choicelessness. Without this sign, the believer’s life was confined to praising God and taking the hits. The praise was credit, the hits were interest due on a debt that could never be paid. Or, as Pulliam put it, no one knew when he had “graduated”. But with it, in the religion in which this sign was paramount and foundational, well life was a whole other matter.

See?….See how this official murder out of hundreds marked the difference; moved the relationship between God and man from CEO and supplicant to one on one? The cross he held was abstract; the absent body was real, but both combined to pull humans from backstage to the spotlight, from muttering in the wings to the principal role in the story of their lives. This execution made it possible to respect – freely, not in fear – one’s self and one another. Which was what love was: unmotivated respect. All of which testified not to a peevish Lord who was His own love but to one who enabled human love. Not for His own glory – never. God loved the way humans loved one another; loved the way humans loved themselves; loved the genius on the cross who managed to do both and die knowing it.

But Richard Misner could not speak calmly of these things. So he stood there and let the minutes tick by as he held the crossed oak in his hands, urging it to say what he could not: that not only is God interested in you: He is you.

Would they see? Would they?

Paris has installed five book vending machines. Yeah - that’s right book vending machines. The books are cheap. They cover the widest range of genres. And they are finding a book buying public.

At a time in Australia when we wonder out loud about the future of the book and bookshops are going out of business, this may mean that we can’t write the book off just yet. (Oops, I didn’t really mean such a woeful pun!)

Have you been frustrated or bored by Sudoku yet? Or are you one of those smarty pants who is able to solve this puzzling pastime? As you may have guessed from my turn of phrase, I am one of the frustrated ones. I haven’t really managed it yet - I get so far and no further.

The Washington Post has a slew of Sudoko books listed. Google has over 8 million listings on the word sudoku. I think I am going to have to spend a bit of time at this site and see if I can get a really good handle on it.

I had a conversation with my newsagent when I saw my first Sudoku book on his shelves. He said that he thought it was a bit like the Rubik’s Cube. I found that less than encouraging since I was never successful there.

Oh well - I’ll soldier on a little while longer and if I don’t have any success I’ll give up and declare myself b-o-r-e-d,

It is with a great sense of relief and encouragement that I have come across a review of the book, THE SURPRISING POWER OF FAMILY MEALS: How Eating Together Makes Us Smarter, Stronger, Healthier and Happier, by Miriam Weinstein.

I recently heard or read that Kathy Letts, that well-known expatriate Australian, has rid her London house of the dining room table so that the room could become a home theatre. I was horrified. She said that, if the family wanted to eat together, they went out to eat. More horror! What about privacy - what if something unforeseen invaded mealtime: argument and debate, outrageous laughter and hysteria, practical jokes. All of these I have known to arise at family meal time and a good thing too. But what happens in a restaurant or some public eating place: a child’s terror of having to behave?

I loved the outcome that eating together correlates with kindergarteners being better prepared to learn to read. Food, family, and reading. A wonderful combination.

How many times do we mean to read a particular book or seek out books by a particular author and fail to do so? I have made lists to keep me up to the mark without success. Best-selling author, Barbara Kingsolver, falls into this category for me.

Eventually I got to read The Poisonwood Bible after hearing so much about it. It is a tour-de-force novel told in the female voices of a mother and her daughter. It is a contrast of cultures as an American family goes as missionaries to Central Africa and it traverses the modern history of African self-determination and independence. I can’t remember reading a novel before which had a serious and extensive bibliography including US State Department documents. Kingsolver had included these because she knew how disbelieving her compatriots might be regarding US activity in Africa.

So - with no decent excuse at all - I have not read a Kingsolver novel since. Then this week, I went past an Opp Shop at the Burnt Bridge Shopping Centre on the Maroondah Highway and there was a Kingsolver novel sitting atop a stack of books outside the store. Open the cover to see the price - 50cents. Mmm…. and so The Bean Trees came home with me.

I am enjoying it. You will see a description of the book and some reviews here.

I loved and identified with this snippet on page 88. Taylor says:

So one time when I was working in this motel one of the toilets leaked and I had to replace the flapper ball. Here’s what it said on the package; I kept it till I knew it by heart: ‘Please Note. Parts are included for all installations, but no installation requires all of the parts.’ That’s kind of my philosophy about men. I don’t think there’s an installation out there that could use all of my parts.

I feel this in so many ways - no one person, no one church, no one political party and so on can use all of my parts. I am not so simple. I am complex, complicated, and multi-faceted. Traditional and conservative on one side: postmodern and radical on another. What do we do?

I love reading. I have always been a bookworm. I have been a librarian too. I love children’s books and - with some of them - wonder if they are really written for children and not for adults. (Drop by my Ebay store, Buy the Buy, and see some old fashioned charmers.)I married a bookworm and I have three well read children.

My daughter decorates houses. She says she sees quite a number of houses where people want things to look beautiful - but they are homes with not a book in sight! In many cases, she introduces books - if only as a decorating accent.

A house without books! For us, it might as well be a house without food. Books open up worlds of experience, ideas, values, emotions. They take us outside ourselves. Long live the book - even if it comes in digital fashion. But that will spoil things a bit.

I love a smaller book: one that is more or less the length of your hand (I have a large hand) and that feels a good weight as it lies open there. I love clear san serif font with lots of white (or creamy buff) space surrounding the text. And if I have all that and the pages are deckle edged - well, I am near to swooning with ecstasy and delight.

And bookshops! Well they are smack for literate addicts. In one delightful bookshop in Adelaide, I have never been more than ten feet inside the door, never to the back wall because I have usually exceeded the budget and I have to get out of there quickly. Ebay is a delight for buying books on my esoteric reading list - things like Rufus Jones and other old Quaker writers.

So transmitting this joy to new generations is something I regard of great importance and that’s why I want to post this item which tells pre-school centres to promote reading aloud to children as surely as promoting immunisation.

I second the motion!