Books, Let's Talk Books

I've been reading as well as sketching, and I keep meaning to tell you about the books I've finished since I wrote about the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. There is now a list of six of them, so I'd better post at least cursory reviews.

My former manager recommended the novel Revolutionary Road, which was recently made into a movie with Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. I really enjoyed this book, although it's not a happy story. The novel tells the story of a disaffected couple during the 1950s. They hate the materialistic, smug culture of the time and see themselves as special and apart from their suburban neighbors, but their lives do not bear out their self-image. Their delusions about themselves and the lack of honesty in their marriage lead step by step to disaster. Even though it is about a different period, I think it still has a lot to say about our culture.

I read several mysteries. As I've mentioned before, I love both Donna Leon's Guido Brunetti series, set in Venice, and Elizabeth George's Thomas Lynley series, set in England. In The Girl of His Dreams, Commisario Brunetti investigates the death of a gypsy girl and finds him coming up against some typically Venetian institutional obstacles.

In Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley), Thomas Lynley is grieving for his wife, murdered in the last novel, so he is hiking the Cornwall coast to get away from everyone. When he comes upon a body at the base of a cliff, he is drawn into the investigation and discovers more than one mystery in the surfing town where the murder took place.

A couple of months ago, I had a thread about mysteries and some of you recommended Julia Spencer-Fleming's mysteries about Episcopal priest Clare Fergusson. Well, I bought the first one in the series, In the Bleak Midwinter, and I really liked it. The main character is complex and has some unexpected aspects to her, not least of which is her attraction to the married chief of police. I'm definitely going to keep reading this series.

I also read one spy novel: Secret Asset (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard). The author, Stella Rimington, was once director of MI5, so her novels have a great feeling of authenticity. I like that the protagonist is a woman, Liz Carlisle, and not a James Bond clone.

Finally, I've read Susan Vreeland's novel Luncheon of the Boating Party. It is a fictional account of how Renoir painted his masterpiece, but it is very well-researched and I've learned a lot from reading it. It's written in an engaging, readable style. For me, the best part is getting inside the head of a painter.

So that's the list of books I've read since the last time I posted a review. I'm up to 17 books this year. Not as impressive as people who read a book or more a week, but still not too shabby.

A Bust of a Self-Portrait

I hate being a beginner at anything. Ever since I was a kid, I have wanted to prove that I sort of intuitively grasp everything I need to know. (I could posit theories for this tendency based on the dynamics of my family of origin, but I'm just not in the mood to go into all that right now.) The main thing you need to know is that I'm always fighting against the habit of perfectionism.

Anyway, I did this self-portrait last night, the first that I've drawn in about ten years. And while I like some aspects of it, seeing the uneven size of the eyes and the odd weight to the jawline on the left just makes me crazy. Part of me wants to crumple it up and start over. I decided to post it instead even with what I see as its major flaws—as a discipline for myself, an exercise in humility and a way to remind myself publicly that I am a 50-year-old beginner. I'm not some prodigy sprung full-formed like Athena from the head of Zeus.

Speaking of classical allusions, the other thing I see when I look at the self-portrait with its overly big eyes and stern expression is echoes of the bust of the emperor Constantine. Funny resemblance, isn't it?

Views of Heaven

What do you think heaven will be like?

I'm not asking how you think it will look—streets of gold, pearly gates, all that jazz. How do you think it will feel?

When I was in my twenties, I was part of a counter-cultural church that had about 20 to 30 minutes of free-form worship every Sunday. Anyone could suggest a song. People could even suggest doing a worship dance. (Usually these were celebratory line dances, similar to an Israeli hora.) For the period of time of that worship lasted, I always felt that I was one with a body of other believers adoring God and being lifted out of myself.

Ever since, that has been my primary image of what the experience of being in heaven will be like. It meshes with some medieval conceptions of heaven that use the image of a great rose--all the faithful are like petals circling God and focusing totally on him/her.

However, yesterday, I began to wonder if it won't be more nuanced than just one eternal, never-ending worship session. You see, I started thinking about the experiences here on Earth that make me feel most connected to the divine and the eternal: worship, certainly, but also losing myself in serving a hurting person, doing my creative writing, sketching, meditating, sometimes gardening.

In fact, anytime I lose myself in doing something that is one of the characteristic actions of God (healing, creating, nurturing, etc, etc.), I can get that feeling of being lifted out of time.

So I wonder, will we lose all that in heaven? Doesn't it seem like heaven will lose some of the richness of Earth if we aren't allowed to do that wonderful variety of things? And yet what need will there be for our creativity and service and nurturing in heaven?

Maybe that's why I usually don't think about heaven very much. I don't want to contemplate the idea that it might lack the very things that help give my life meaning now.

So I'm asking all of you:

Do you have an idea about heaven? It can be personal or it can be theological. I'm interested in anything you have to say.

Great Blue

I am the heron

standing in the shallows

of a man-made lake,

balanced on bamboo legs,

feet splayed firmly

on a precarious bed of eroded stones.

Focus on the water,

waiting so intently for a sweet-fleshed fish

that I do not heed the humans

gawking on the bank.

There beneath the shimmering surface

just a flicker of racing shadow.

Plunge toward it, beak open . . .

The sudden displacement of water

stirs up a silty murk

yet cannot obscure the vision

of my self grasping the future.

P.S. A couple of comments have made me realize that I forgot to explain something. This isn't my photo. I lost all my digital photos last week because of a hard drive problem. I snagged this off a government site (hoping that would make it public domain).

Gorging Myself

Whenever I get a new interest, I tend to gorge myself on things related to it. I've been watching movies about painters (an old one called Rembrandt and the recent Girl with a Pearl Earring) and I'm currently reading a novel about Renoir. And I wanted to recommend a DVD series that was shown on PBS a few years back.

It's called Simon Schama's Power of Art and it was written, produced, and narrated by art historian Simon Schama. There are eight episodes, and each one examines one artist through the lens of one significant work that had a profound impact on culture. For example, the 7th episode analyzes how the non-political Pablo Picasso came to paint the profoundly moving Guernica.

The other episodes deal with the following artists:

Caravaggio (a brawler who painted about Christian grace)

Bernini (a sculptor who captured movement beautifully)

Rembrandt (a brilliant painter who fell out of favor--and into poverty--in his own time)

David (a painter who used his art to fuel the French Revolution)

Turner (an artist popular for pretty English landscapes but who broke out of that mold)

Van Gogh (his struggle to use art to show his vision of God and to save himself from madness)

Rothko (I know he's a modernist, but I haven't watched this one yet)

The series is fascinating, and if you have any interest in the history of art or its emotional impact on the human spirit, I'd recommend trying to rent it, buy it (it's not that expensive), or check it out from a library. Truly, it is one of the most compelling series I've ever watched.

Bits and Pieces

Life hasn't been conducive to blogging lately. At the moment, I can't even imagine composing a coherent blog post on any kind of single theme or topic, so I guess I'll just post snippets.

Technology has been an issue lately. I recently downloaded the latest version of Safari, and it was not compatible with the stuff I was doing for my job, so I had to go through a huge ordeal Tuesday of archiving all my files and system preferences and then reinstalling my computer's basic operating system and updating all my software except for Safari. It took most of an afternoon. Not fun. Then, I took my computer into the shop for two days this week getting the memory upgrade and tune up I wanted to do a month ago. (Just a coincidence that these two things happened in the same week.) Now I have some more new software to upload, but I really haven't had time this weekend to do it. I guess that's how I'll start my workday tomorrow.

My mother's doctor called my brother Thursday and said Mom probably has breast cancer. She's 90 and her health is very poor, and so they're not going to do anything to treat it. (I'm guessing that treatment would probably kill her faster than the disease.) I'm not sure I've processed this new situation yet. At one level I think I should be really upset and yet . . . I already knew that she was in failing health and probably wouldn't be with us too much longer, so in one sense, it seems like just one more thing. I don't know if I'm being realistic or just numb.

The day I found out about my mom I happened to be doing a sketching session at the Botanic Garden and, afterward when I took a walk, I was able to see a Great Blue Heron stalk and then catch and eat a fish. That doesn't really have anything to do with anything except that it was a remarkable and rare thing to witness and I was grateful for it.

Today we spent some time with Michael's sisters and one of our grand-nieces. We went to see a performance of Lipizzan horses doing classical dressage and a series of moves called "airs above the ground." It's hard to describe. The horses are trained to do amazing foot work and to do some tricks while they are reared up on their hindquarters. The performance ends with four stallions doing a very intricate routine together. This type of horse and performance originated in Europe centuries ago, but at the present time, the world's largest private herd of Lipizzans is located on a farm about 20 minutes from where I live. It's just another one of those things that I thought was a privilege to experience. I found a couple of youtube videos that someone else took there last year. Here's one of the airs above the ground.

Finally, my class and the work I'm doing for it is keeping me busy. I'm liking the class a lot better than I did at first. The instructor figured out that we needed more basic help than she assumed at first, so she's giving us color blending exercises to do this week. I also had a chance to talk to her yesterday about what I should do next. She thinks I have a good eye and a good hand, and I already draw pretty well but I'd benefit from a good basic drawing class to learn the techniques to help me get what I see down on paper. I won't be able to do that at the Botanic Garden, so I might take a class with the same instructor at an Art Center in a nearby suburb. If we can afford it and it fits into my schedule.

Here are two of my recent practice sketches and the latest version of my class project. It's almost done--I still have about an hour's worth of refinement to do to it, but it's complete enough for you to get the idea. Clicking on it makes it bigger.

Prayer Request

Please pray for Evan. He has not had a relapse of the leukemia, but he is very, very sick with a host of post-transplant issues. They involve blood pressure, blood sugar, his pancreas, and an infection, among other problems. You can read more details in the journal entries here.

This family has been through so much. He and his parents could really benefit from widespread prayers.

Thanks.