What? I don't know if that's a word.
Every time I start to write a post I feel this self-imposed responsibility that I should only share great profound thoughts. I wish I didn't feel that way. The truth is I'm not always profound.
Fact: Things going on here are 90% not profound. It's certainly dramatic, and it's entertaining sometimes, and other times it's just tiring, but not always profound. Well, you know what I mean. Ask any mother you know. It's the daily drama of who pushed who, who was on the stool first, constantly rounding up and herding children, the question of how many more bites of food one must partake of, and All That Sort of Thing. You know what I mean.
Therefore, a lot of times I feel like there's nothing to report. Nothing that isn't going on in countless other homes in the States, and there are all kinds of incredible mom's blogs to read if you want to read that.
So, whimsicality post!
I'm learning that sometimes the best way to teach piano is to sit back and tell them that you're not going to help them unless they ask you. It doesn't sound very nice, but I have one student (of the whole two of them) who suddenly gets serious when I say that. Student suddenly begins to sit up straight, and count and play TOGETHER with such ease that I feel like kicking myself in my shins. If I stand hovering and helping and correcting, Student fights me. If Student feels like it is up to Student to make anything happen, suddenly he wants it to happen. Stupid me! Took me five months to figure that out!
Last night I was out walking and it was warm and mild. I did not need coat, hat, or scarf, so I left them in my room. I ran and walked alternately, trying to let out some energy and clear my mind. I was wound up emotionally, so I needed some fresh air to blow out all the unanswerable questions that were smothering me.
It was a lovely night. It felt like a summer night. Cool and starry, with a red crescent moon. It's rather funny, but all the leaves are still on the trees here. It's the dead of winter, but everything is still green and leafy. I heard the wind making the trees whisper, and it thrilled me. The shadows of them slid across the ground and the lamps shone through the trees in every direction. I love the world at night. You can believe anything in the night-time.
George MacDonald says: "I have seen this world---only sometimes, just now and then, you know---look as strange as ever I saw Fairyland. But I confess that I have not yet seen Fairyland at its best. I am always going to see it so sometime." That was exactly how I felt. And as I walked, I thought more and more about my older brother, who knows more about Fairyland even then I do, and I longed to talk with him.
I don't have the time or the capabilities to explain what I mean by Fairyland. In that case, maybe it would have been better if I hadn't brought it up at all. First of all, by "Fairyland," I don't mean what you're probably imagining right now. I don't mean Neverland, or some kind of Pixie Hollow thing, or anything else that most adults want their children to "grow out of," by a certain age. For as long as I can remember, I was drawn to those kinds of stories and movies. I thought it was because I wanted the object itself. The truth was they drew me because I wanted something that they reminded me of, but that I didn't even understand. And when I grew into Lewis and Tolkien and George MacDonald, I always felt that those worlds were, in a way, more real than the humdrum world I saw around me. I suspected that our world was supposed to be the way it was in these kinds of stories, but it wasn't. In other words, I desire more than this world and what it has to offer.
C.S. Lewis explains it so much better in his autobiography, "Surprised By Joy." And the more I read of his different books, the more I begin to understand. So if I say that I still love Fairyland, don't think of me as clinging to childish ways. The Disney Princess movies only scratch the surface of the true Fairyland.
The thing that makes it all so real and so exciting is that I am beginning to see how,"the stories that really matter," are similar to the Great Story that we are all part of in this world. I mean the Gospel. I mean God's magnificent Design that makes all of us threads in His tapestry, as some have said before. True Fantasy does not make the Bible seem boring in comparison. It reminds me of the Bible's story, and helps me to see it as grander and more thrilling than I saw it before. True Fantasy does not weaken me or waste my time in this world. It builds me up and makes me stronger for every task I have to do. And it keeps my ties to this world loose. After all, I'm made for a different world. By God's grace, I am destined to worship Him forever!!
When I was younger, I thought of Heaven as a city where every thing was gold. Cold, heavy, yellow gold. And I thought it was like an eternal worship service, where everything was always serious and quiet and boring. What kid doesn't? As I've grown to love Christ more, I trust that I'm beginning to look forward to where I can actually see my Redeemer face to face. And the more I read of my Bible, the more I see of God's warm love to all of His children. His mercy, and His promised favor. And God actually invented fun and laughter and pleasure of every kind. He filled His fallen world with pleasures that are good. Heaven couldn't be a place where there was boredom or even all seriousness. I like what C.S. Lewis writes about it in "The Screwtape Letters:"
"He [God] is a hedonist at heart. All those fasts and vigils and stakes and crosses are only a facade. Or like foam on the sea shore. Out at sea, out in His sea, there is pleasure, and more pleasure. He makes no secret of it; at His right hand are 'pleasures for evermore'....He's vulgar, Wormwood. He has a bourgeois mind. He has filled His world full of pleasures. There are things for humans to do all day long without His minding in the least---sleeping, washing, eating, drinking, making love, playing, praying, working. Everything has to be twisted before it's any use to us. We fight under cruel disadvantages."
Yes, they do! Thank the Lord, the powers of darkness do fight under cruel disadvantages! The great thing is they aren't going to win in the end. I can't wait for that to happen!
Till next time then!
~Cadenza
