"Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior."
--Habakkuk 3:17-18 (New International Version, 1984)
A few years ago, when I first heard about blogging, I was reliably informed that it was basically mental regurgitation. Random, stream-of-conscientiousness effluvia. Inchoate plops of verbiage emitted whenever the writer had the impulse.
I discovered, of course, that this is far from the truth, at least for weblogs worth reading. In fact, writing a blog post is more like producing an essay than anything else.
And with one thing and the other, I don't feel like producing essays lately.
But I wouldn't mind occasionally emitting a few plops of verbiage, inchoate or not.
In no particular order and in no particular relationship:
I'm finding out why it's a good thing I don't have a working television and cable to supply it.
Because I can get programs I like on the Internet, and that's just as bad. Or worse.
Especially if you can get episodes on continuous stream.
Ouch.
So, I admit it. I've found someone on YouTube who posts back episodes of What Not to Wear and Say Yes to the Dress. What a guilty, addictive pleasure. The former can be helpful in helping me shop sales, but as for the latter? I've never tried on or needed a wedding dress, I don't foresee ever needing one (though it would be a nice surprise out of life, yes?); nor do I have any daughters or granddaughters who might take me wedding gown shopping with them.
Still, I watch. Let's say it satisfies the frustrated fashion designer in me-- after all, that's what I wanted to be all through high school. And sometimes the show gives food for thought-- in a not necessarily digestible or comfortable way.
Take the Season 1 episodes I've seen lately. It's just like a TV show producer to glom onto and follow around the most interesting consultants, the ones with the most personality or those who'll strike the most sparks. So in Season 1, they latched onto a newbie consultant named C--, whose combination of cluelessness, egomania, and crappy selling skills has the YouTube commenters wide-eyed with wonder.
I could tell she was headed for trouble in her first appearance, when a bride told her she wanted to see "Greek goddess" gowns and instead of fetching some, C-- basically told the bride (though in not so many words) she was stupid for asking, didn't she know that style made everyone look fat? I was sure that when the show was broadcast, she'd be mortified to see herself and want to correct her behavior. But as the episodes go on you see her committing error after correctable error. Couldn't she have asked to see the footage taken of the successful sellers? But you glean that she wouldn't be interested, because she continually tells the camera that she thinks she's doing just fine, there's no room for her to improve, nobody sells that many dresses anyway, etc., etc.
The Kleinfeld's management gives her chance after chance, and to her face and to each other they say, "C-- doesn't listen."
Oh, that. That's a song I know well. And from bitter experience, I well know the uselessness of vague job review terms like "X doesn't listen."
For C-- really thinks she is listening--according to her own definition of the term. Trouble is, it's not her definition that was going to rule. But if her supervisors really want to give her a chance to succeed, . can't they see she doesn't or can't catch what they're trying to convey, that she's interpreting it entirely differently than they mean it?
"You doesn't listen" in this Say Yes to the Dress situation could have meant
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| Not mine, but illustrative |
May I call you John? Perhaps it's disrespectful. After all, you are my five-times-great grandfather. I should honor you with a title at least. Will "Grandpa John" be appropriate? All right, then.
Grandpa John, I'm writing because I've learned some things that change things between us, and I thought you ought to know.
No, it's not that we are not related. You, John Wade of Virginia, certainly are my fifth great grandfather, the father of Otho and the grandfather of Sarah who married my third-great grandfather Sampson Zickefoose, father of Peter Hull Zickefoose, whose line leads down to my mother and to me. I make no complaint touching my descent from you.
The problem is with-- Ah, well, allow me to explain.
This past year when I set my mind to learning more about my family's past, I came across a-- well, let's call it a document, a family tree, authored by another one of your five-times-great grandchildren. This cousin of mine presented his work well, with thorough footnotes to document his findings. He wrote that your wife, my fifth great grandmother, was named Sophia Howard, and she might or might not have been descended from the Howards who were the Dukes of Norfolk. I respected the note this cousin made saying this lineage might be dubious, so I was apt to believe him when he said that your father was Zephaniah Wade and your mother, Verlinda Pottenger.
Zephaniah and Verlinda were very interesting people. I found an online copy of the inventory of Zephaniah's worldly goods when he died fairly young without a will (What's that, you ask? What does "online" mean? It means-- Oh, never mind. Please bear with me). He had a plantation next to George Washington's Mount Vernon, and the young Washington mentioned the family in his early correspondence. But even more interesting to me was the information the cousin gave on who your mother's ancestors-- and therefore yours and mine-- were.
Go back far enough here in colonial America, and we find a Nathaniel Bacon. Not the Nat Bacon of Bacon's Rebellion, but his cousin. And Richard Kingsmill, Nathaniel's father-in-law, who came to Jamestown in 1616 and so was one of the original Ancient Planters. Drawing on other sources, I traced Richard back to England, and found that he (and we, Grandpa John) were descended from one Bridget Raleigh (actually there were two Bridget Raleighs in the 1500s, aunt and niece, but I determined which one was ours), and her line goes back to-- amazing places. In one branch, I learned we were the offshoots of the Dark Ages kings of Northern Ireland and Scotland. There was early English royalty. Edgar of Wessex. Ethelred the Unredy (you see how I spell it to reflect his lack of adequate counsellors, or rede, not any lack of preparation). Coel Hen, also known as Old King Cole, belonged to us, and more beside. Especially pleasing to me, I found links to the old kings of Wales. Cadwallon Longhand, Maelgwyn the Great, and even Roman Emperor Macsen Maximus, Spanish-born but claimed by Wales. They, too, were our forefathers.
In another of Grandmother Bridget's lines, I found that we sprang from the race that included John Balliol and Devorguilla his wife, founders of Balliol College. I read about our many-times-great grandfather John "the Red" Comyn, who might have been king of Scotland in the early 1300s, had he not been treacherously murdered by Robert the Bruce in the Kirk of Greyfriars. I traced our line that married into the Balliols, which included the de Clares and the Earls of Pembroke and went back to William the Conqueror's sister and beyond.
But it was in the Pembroke line that I discovered the ancestor whose name and memory filled me with the most pride. For I found that our hearts beat with the blood of Sir William Marshal, the first Earl of Pembroke. Grandpa John, American schools teach nothing about him, so it was not as if I could boast of him to my friends and gain their admiration. But Sir William is a progenitor worth boasting of, indeed. "The Flower of Chivalry," he was called. And, "the greatest knight who ever lived." A man of strength and skill, never defeated in battle or single combat. A man of unblemished honor and valor, who with wisdom and prudence served four kings. The man who convinced King John to yield to the barons at Runnymede and sign the Magna Carta; who confirmed the precious charter and had it reestablished when he was regent for King John's young son and heir Henry III. A man who was no man's fool or toady, who gained and held the respect of all, a man who could so easily have seized power in those uncertain days and become king of England himself, but who faithfully followed the path God had laid out for him. Here was a longfather to inspire the highest of aspirations, to induce in me the deepest sense of responsibility and of strength. Noblesse oblige! The blood of Sir William Marshal flowed in my veins! Should I not strive to live up to such an illustrious heritage?
But, Grandpa John, there was one small problem. It had to do with the dates and places recorded for you and for your parents Zephaniah and Verlinda. The cousin I mentioned before had it down that you were born in western England or Wales in 1724, and you had an elder brother Nathaniel born there in 1720. But both Zephaniah and Verlinda were said to have been born in the colony of Virginia. And the pedigree said they didn't marry until 1727. This seemed strange to me. Though even in the eighteen century nice young couples might, ahem! get in a hurry, Zephaniah and Verlinda didn't strike me as the sort. Especially, not the sort to wait seven whole years with two young sons to have their marriage solemnized. And what about your place of birth? Had they travelled to England for some reason and had you there?
But as I said, this cousin's work seemed so convincing overall, that I put these concerns away from me. Perhaps the dates were transcribed incorrectly from the original documents. Perhaps the couple actually were married in 1717. There was an explanation, of that I was sure. Meanwhile, I added our illustrious forebears to my tree and revelled in how pleased my mother would be when she saw it.
Alas, dear Grandpa John, that's when it happened. I was engaged in further research, and I came across a . . . letter (we'll call it a letter) written by another of your descendants. And she argued-- and argued convincingly-- that you, John Wade, were indeed born in western England or Wales in 1724, but you and your brother Nathaniel were not the sons of Zephaniah and Verlinda Wade. They did have a son named John, born in 1741, and no one seems to know what became of him. His fate is cloaked in obscurity. But the same is true of your parentage. No one knows who your mother and father were. And so, goodbye Macsen, goodbye King Kenneth MacAlpin; farewall Balliols, farewell de Clares. They are none of ours. Ours not the Kingsmills, the Raleighs, the Potyngers, the Chamberlynes or the de Merlays. Nor ours, alas! the Pembrokes and the noble William Marshal. All gone, all fallen away-- all is changed.
Forgive me, Grandpa John, and have pity on me for my absurdity and pride. How I felt about you and our line has altered, and things between us can never be the same. So I bid you adieu, John Wade, son of Zephaniah and Verlinda, and scion of kings, queens, and nobility. And with due modesty I beg to make the acquaintance of John Wade, son of who knows whom, born who knows where. You have produced a goodly heritage, and I am honored to be in your line.
Affectionately,
Your 5x Great-granddaughter,
Blogwen*
PS: Nevertheless be assured, dear Grandpa John, that I would be immensely gratified if somehow you could lead me and your other progeny to discover who my Wade sixth-great-grandparents actually were. After all, noblesse oblige!
It may have been noticed that I haven't posted since last August. Some of that is busyness, some of it is laziness, a lot of it is childishness, but most of it has been cowardice.
Yes, cowardice. This past autumn I interviewed for a half-time position as an interim pastor with a parish in my presbytery. During the interview, I mentioned that they could see a sampling of my sermon style on my preaching blog. Makes sense, right?
What I forgot was that the sermon blog was linked to this one. And one of the committee members clicked through, found this blog, and, as she wrote me in an email, was deeply disturbed by what she read here. Seems I was too open with my revelations about how things had gone in my previous parishes, and although I had disguised church and presbytery names well enough, it bothered her.
We talked on the phone about it, and she professed herself reassured about my history and my explanation of it, and said she'd only mention it to the other committee members if she felt she should. But I didn't feel easy about it. Up to that time I was pretty sure I'd be offered this job. After this, I felt my past and my big mouth had come back to bite me again.
It's very like me to write and reveal and not expect what I've written to have any effect in the real world. Hey, I think in imaginary conversations where I work out how I would explain things to other people; isn't a blog just more of the same?
No. I guess it's not. You know the term "chilling effect"? That's what this had on me. I felt literally cold inside. I took the link to here off the sermon blog. And for months I've written nothing. I was afraid to write anything. Not here, at least. Too paralyzed thinking about how what I say can be misconstrued or used against me.
Chicken, chicken, chicken.
As it turned out, after observing certain things while guest preaching in that parish, I decided the position was not for me. It would have been impossible to do all that was wanted and needed on a mere half-time basis. But for whatever reason I didn't ring them up and say so. Maybe I wanted to be convinced otherwise, since I really need the work. Eventually I heard from the search committee chairman himself: they were going on with other candidates. I bit the bullet and asked what had eliminated me. The answers weren't totally convincing, I thought. Had the one committee member told them about this blog, and he didn't want to say so? Better not to ask. And as I said, by that time I'd tacitly withdrawn myself.
That's been almost four months ago, and I hope and expect they're beyond caring what I say here. But I guess it's a lesson. I have to be willing to stand up and take the heat for what I publish, or shut the dickens up.
Before I get to work on patching the ceiling in my study, I need to suspend my disbelief long enough to post what I found out this past Saturday: I did pass my English Language Arts ABCTE exam, after all. Not only did I pass it, but my incomplete essay on the set 20th century poem got me a mark of "5," while the finished one I produced for the Teaching Knowledge exam only came up with a "4."* There's no accounting.
I'm still in a state of amazement. I keep going back and staring at the online certificate, my only proof so far that this is so. Yes, the 5 is still there. It hasn't gone away. Too blinking strange!
So, praise God! I don't have to pay to take the test over, and I don't have to practice-practice-practice so maybe I can complete the essay the second time around. I'm still working on reading the books and poems on the recommended list, the ones I haven't met up with before. But I can be more leisurely about it.
The irony, though, is that two parishes, and maybe three, are talking like they're seriously interested in hiring me as their interim pastor. Wouldn't it be funny if I qualified to teach just when something breaks for me in the ministry department?
____________________________
*Oh, yes. I guess I never posted that I passed the pedagogy exam. Found out about that a couple of weeks ago. Mea culpa!
I guess.
Quick bulletin: Passed my ELA multiple choice exam with a scaled score of 377, which puts me in the "distinguished" range.
But I didn't finish my essay, which puts me in the flunking range.
So sometime in the next six months I gotta do it all over. Maybe by then I will have read all the stuff on the lit list and I'll already have a clue what to say about the prompt. The one I got I think I may've read before, but not so recently I already had any organizational ideas about it.
Other things were involved in me ploughing this, but no time to rant or moan about them now. Still have a sermon to write.
This afternoon at 2:00 I take the second part of my English teacher certification exams, over English Language Arts. In an hour and a half I saddle up and head down to the testing center. I'd planned to spend a few hours this morning doing some last-minute skimming in Wikipedia and SparkNotes for basic information on all the novels, poems, speeches, etc., I should have read in the past eighteen months but didn't.
But for the most part, I'm not. I can't. I'm just too lightheaded and tired.
It's what I get for not turning off the bedside light until 4:00 AM. Especially after a week or two when I pretty consistently turned in by 11:30 at the latest. So I couldn't sleep past 9:00 this morning, even if I wanted to.
Five hours. Not at heck of a lot of sleep before a big hairy test, especially one where I'll have to write a sudden-death essay on some work of literature that I've likely never seen before and know nothing about.
I'm not sleepy. Just dizzy and quilt-stuffing-headed. I've eaten a protein-rich breakfast in the past hour, so I doubt it's hunger. Insufficient sleep, it has to be.
I could have gotten to bed earlier. I finished the curriculum material and all its quizzes around 10:30 last night. But I figured I'd better go ahead and take one of the practice tests. 125 questions; they give you three hours to complete it. Goody for me, I did it in less than an hour and got 90% of them right. No, actually, nothing to brag about, considering I took the same test several months ago and most of the questions were absurdly easy. (I doubt the real exam will be the same.) Turning in at midnight wouldn't've served me too poorly, but no. I simply had to search online to find out about some of the questions I missed. And commence my quick-and-dirty knowledge fill-up, starting with the reading list dramatic works I've never read.
Great. That took me till a little after 2:00. I fed the dog, took him out to do his business, shut everything off and went upstairs, took a bath, and got into my nightclothes. And then I started thinking about a couple of things I still wasn't sure about. Like, how do you recognize an unreliable narrator? And what's the difference between irony and paradox?
Back downstairs, restart the laptop, read up on these matters till nearly 4:00. Learned some interesting things. Great food for thought. But this morning, as has been said so cogently in another context, "Teechur, my brayne iz full!"
So instead of cramming, I'm indulging in a nice whinge. Instead of reviewing my notes (Oh, gosh, what are all the different organizational modes for expository writing?), I'm writing in my blog. I'm not to the happy point where I can say I don't care if I pass or not. I just don't have the time or brainpower this morning to deal with anything more.
Yeah, there's a chance I may pass the multiple choice if I read the questions carefully and keep my response to what they actually say and not what I hurriedly perceive them to. And make sure to question my own assumptions about things.
The essay? Passing that will depend greatly on what the gobbet is (hee-hee, Brit-speak). And if it strikes any sparks. Maybe, if I can get my old BSing motor revved up . . . . If the online literary criticism I've been reading is any guide, all I have to do is say the work refers to the inherent corruption of capitalism and the futility of the American Dream, and I'm home free.
Cotton-batting-stuffed head and all.
Presently, I'm struggling to distinguish the various kinds of logical fallacies. More specifically, I need to determine the proper definition of the anecdotal fallacy.
This arises out of last night's practice quiz question treating of Socrates' Apology. It's the place where he's maintaining that in condemning him to death, the assembly really isn't doing him any harm, since death is either a dreamless sleep, or else a chance to meet and converse with the good and the great from the past. To buttress his assertion that sleep without dreams is a good and pleasant thing, he appeals to common experience. He asserts that everyone, from kings to slaves, including "you," the citizens sitting in judgement over him, knows by experience that this is true. Can't exactly recall how the question was phrased, but I chose the answer saying that he is appealing to empirical (or experiential) evidence which could perhaps be confirmed by formal study. (Or disproven, which is the nature of experiment). The official answer was that Socrates was appealing to anecdotal evidence, and his argument was therefore faulty.
Some thoughts while I'm studying for the English Language Arts portion of my teacher certification exam on Saturday:
First, I need to clarify some concepts, and blogging might be a good way to do it.
Second, I'm worried, because in addition to things I actually don't know in the material, I've come across some really screaming errors, including outright, verifiable errors of fact or premise* as well as contradictions to what the lessons had presented before. Then (more germane to this essay) there are what I would strongly argue to be errors in interpretation. The unknown curriculum author will draw a conclusion, or a review question will be posed, and the "correct" answer drives me to say-- no, often to scream-- "That's not what it's saying at all!! Are you out of your mind!?" So what am I supposed to do on the test? Shall I, all sheeplike, reflect the misinterpretations presented in the practice material? Or shall I answer as I truly think best, trusting that it's better to be hung for a wolf as for a sheep, and the makers of the real exam aren't the same folks who came up with the practice material anyway?
But, I reflect, maybe some of the disagreement is arising because I don't yet understand the principles that underlie some of these questions or their answers. I'm willing to admit that might be the case. So, rather than taking notes in my illegible handwriting and being unable to locate the right spot afterwards, I thought I'd do my musing here. That way I can get my thought processes clear in my own mind, and know where to find my "notes" hereafter.
_______________________________________
*One of the first I tripped over was on a review question dealing with Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." It asked why he used negatives in a certain place-- e.g., "It is no security . . . this is no evidence . . . that the next step will not be into another world." All four of the multiple choice options were weak, but I picked the one that said something like, "He wants his audience to be afraid." But nooooo! The favored answer was that he did it to make people pay closer attention, the answer explanation being that Rev. Edwards used deliberately convoluted language to force "the reader" to "go back" to untangle his line of thought! Hellsbells, you idiot, this is a sermon we're dealing with. It was preached!!! Many times!!! Orally! No preacher wants his hearers to get all involved in what he just said such that they don't catch what he's saying now! Obviously, the quiz maker hasn't the least clue about it. The correct answer should have been that Edwards, by asserting the negative, is implicitly bringing up the correlative erroneous affirmative, which he wishes to undermine and destroy. He did it, I do it, all good preachers do it. You have to disabuse folks of their erroneous assumptions! Break down those strongholds and bring in the truth instead!
Understand?
Thank you. Let us pray.
I've called the testing agency just now and postponed my English Language Arts exam a full twenty-four hours, to Saturday instead of Friday afternoon. If there'd been a slot available next week, I would have taken that instead.
Studying for the ELA is not going quickly. I'm working on it, but I keep getting off on interesting tangents. Like looking up and comparing different critical takes on Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsy and digging into the intertwinings of The Great Vowel Shift.
I need to keep moving and at least do a run or two through the basic ABCTE online material. Several weeks ago I took and passed one of the practice tests, but I daren't trust to my English language background knowledge and brazen BS to get me through the real thing. But another day's worth of study may make it possible.
Of course, the change will play merry hell with my sermon writing for Sunday morning. I'm sure I won't get home till 6:30 or 7:00 in the evening at the earliest. And I'm pretty certain I've never preached on the Matthew pericope I'm committed to this Lord's Day. So no pulling anything out of the drawer and touching it up. And given the distance to the church and the time of their service, I have to leave the house at 8:15 AM at the latest. So no staying up till two or three o'clock working on it.
Which means I have to keep my sermon really, really simple, right?
And that I"d need to stop blogging and get back to studying, right away. Right.
