When young Carter Jones opens his door at 7:15 one morning, he never expects to find an English butler. Enter Mr. Bowles-Fitzpatrick, a gentleman’s gentleman from England, whose master, Carter’s grandfather, willed him to the family upon his death. When Carter’s mother, stating the obvious, suggests a dearth of gentlemen upon the premises, the butler merely eyes Carter, retorting, “Perhaps not yet…”
Review: Pay Attention, Carter Jones Read More »
I was recently troubled by a conversation that occurred in a book club I attend. We’d read The Five Wounds, a contemporary novel by Kirstin Valdez Quade about a dysfunctional, multi-generational Hispanic family. A participant expressed doubt about his ability to read Quade’s novel with proper understanding and “sensitivity,” because he doesn’t share the author’s heritage or gender…
The Wound of Individuality and the Literary Experience Read More »
National Book Award finalist Eugene Yelchin offers a poignant satirical portrait of his childhood in his 2021 autobiography, The Genius Under the Table: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain. With humor and sensitivity, he describes his experiences growing up in Cold War Russia…
Uncommon Talent: A Review of “The Genius Under the Table” Read More »
When five-year-old Khosrou’s Shiite Muslim mother converts to Christianity, his life changes forever. Soon he finds himself hurried onto a plane, leaving behind his father and the familiar landscape of Iran to live as a refugee in the United States. Rural Oklahoma’s flat and dusty landscape isn’t the only thing unfamiliar to him; his very self seems strange in his transplanted condition. Everything is new: new home, new father, new school, new language. He even has a new, American name: Daniel. Who is he now? Will he ever feel at home in this new place? Will he ever belong in this new life?…
Scheherezade and the King: A Modern Narrative Diversion Addressing an Ancient Problem Read More »
From the moment we are old enough to be self-aware, we are on a quest to discover who we are. This search for identity is complicated by the many, disparate voices around us, but what they all have in common is a fundamental presupposition that identity is created – that we, as human beings, make ourselves. Aristotle gets credit for saying something of this sort initially. He said that we are what we do continually, which I think explains a lot of the psychological angst associated with our self-concepts…
Homeschooling and Identity Read More »
As I sat rubbing sleep from my eyes this morning, wondering what new coronavirus mandates might come to disrupt our routines today, I found myself on social media. The comments and videos that most affected me were those from you moms who recently discovered that you were homeschooling by government mandate. You look tired, bewildered, and overwhelmed. You look like beginning swimmers who have been thrown in the deep end of the swimming pool – with your infants, toddlers, and teens in tow. My heart goes out to you…
An Open Letter to the New COVID-19 Homeschooler Read More »
In Holy Sonnet III, Donne finds himself in a state of violent and prolonged grief, yet unable to cry. He marks the tortuous effects of this condition, even as he admits responsibility for it. Speaking of tears as if they spring from a limited cask, he creates an image of his irresponsible and wasteful usage, which has left him with a water shortage when he most has need of the relief such “showers of rain” would afford him. He remembers the many tears he spent in his pursuit of idolatry and marks them wasted. And yet he cried and sighed and grieved. The waste was his sin, and from this he is forced to repent in his present need, finding himself dry and wasted…
Penitence and Pain: Donne’s Holy Sonnet III Read More »
Donne begins this meditative sonnet by giving himself up to God, an act which, he maintains, feels appropriate in consideration of the various titles he possesses and their diverse implications. “As due by many titles I resign / Myself to thee, O God…” He catalogues these appellations: First, he is a creature of God, made by and for Him (“…first I was made / By thee, and for thee…”). Next, he is a redeemed one, re-possessed by Jesus’ blood (“…and when I was decayed / Thy blood bought that, the which before was thine…”). He is God’s son, made for glory (“I am thy son, made with thy self to shine…”). Even so, he remains God’s servant, whom God Himself maintains (“Thy servant, whose pains thou hast still repaid…”). He terms himself God’s sheep, the implication of which is clearly God’s nurturing care. Moreover, in his person, he bears God’s image, the very imprint of the divine. Finally, he embodies the very temple of the Holy Spirit, a living, spiritual house for the Lord. Recalling these seven titles, Donne implies numerically the fullness of the divine claim to him…
Rhetorical Arguments and Private Desperation: Donne’s Holy Sonnet II Read More »
“Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?” questions Donne in this, his first Holy Sonnet. Using a poetic form that lends itself to question and answer, the poet poses the problem of personal sin even as he petitions his Creator for a solution. Will You allow Your own work to be compromised and destroyed? he asks. This provocative question recalls scriptures which proclaim the enduring nature of God’s work, like this one from Ecclesiastes 3:14: “I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken from it. God does it, that men should fear before Him.” Yet sin, Donne asserts, endangers him, God’s good work, so that death, sin’s certain corollary, continually pursues him, swallowing up his pleasures with fear…
Iron Hearts and Metaphysical Magnets: Donne’s Image of Man and God Read More »
For as long as I can remember, books have been my companions. I carried them to grocery stores, to doctors’ offices, to school, and to work. I toted tomes to movie theaters, to beaches, to park benches, and to parties. I never go anywhere without them. As a young girl, I remember reading while walking with my mother through the aisles of the local grocery store, my mom telling me to put the book away before I ran into someone…
Of Books and Boundaries Read More »
