Fencing Bear at Prayer

Check out Conversion Diary for more "quick takes"! 1. It's tournament season which means, yes, I'm upset about my fencing again. I really thought that I was finally getting better , not going to end up in anger and tears, just stay calm and accept that even though my fencing is definitely improving (and it is!), it is never going to make any difference to my rankings or tournament outcomes. As I was driving to practice this evening (in the rain, listening to Teresa of Avila on the Sixth Mansions of the soul), I was congratulating myself on how calm I was feeling, knowing that however things turn out in competition this season, I am a fencer. And then I got to practice and...well, you know the rest. Fencers who haven't been at practice all summer were there and I was just as hopeless against them as I ever was. Plus ça change . 2. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live on something other than an academic calendar. My husband tells me to stop kiddi...

Be sure to visit Jennifer at Conversion Diary for more stimulating "quick takes." 1. I got my dog ! Okay, so she's a little hard to take on walks seeing as she can't move by herself, but isn't she cute? We're going to an actual dog show tomorrow out west of the city, just to meet some real Corgis, but I've had to agree that we are not actively looking to adopt at this time. Life lesson for the week on how couples make decisions: nobody wins in a dog fight . 2. We're going ahead with our kitchen remodeling though. Can you say, middle-aged ? It's a little disconcerting standing in what you thought was a fairly stable arrangement of windows and walls hearing a contractor talk about lifting window sills and moving heaters so as to open up the space for countertops as much as possible. It's going to be wonderful after the remodeling to be able to make toast and tea at the same time, but I have to confess a bit of anxiety about (gasp!) wat...

Check out Conversion Diary for more "quick takes." Watch for nutz! 1. I've been sick all week with what I am convinced is the same flu I've had already three times thisyear . That's four weeks in total of sore throat followed by dizziness, sinus congestion, aches and pains plus that weird throbbing clarity you get with flu. I've still got the itchy-throat-with-mild-cough thing going now, but at least I can bend over without feeling like my head is going to explode. What I want to know is, why? I thought the whole point of getting sick with something was that you would be immune to it afterwards. This flu seems to have taken up permanent residence, just waiting for that moment when I'm slightly overtired to reassert itself. I know, I know, school hasn't started for me yet, but it did last week for my son, which meant waking up at 5:45am so as to be able to do my centering prayer and yoga before we set off for campus. It was just enough, ap...

Let's see if I can actually make these "quick" today.* 1. Sitting at my desk this morning, I remember this day eight years ago . I had just finished writing the acknowledgments for my first book, in preparation for sending the manuscript off to my publisher in New York. I called my husband (or maybe he called me, I can't remember) to tell him, and he said, "I'm not sure I should tell you this, but the World Trade Center Towers just fell down." I didn't believe him until I saw the first image of people covered with dust. Needless to say, I spent the rest of the day in tears, horrified at the thought of how many people must have died as the buildings collapsed. It was only partially a relief (if a relief at all) to learn that it was not 40,000, but "only" around 3,000. All I can still think now is what a terrible way for all those innocent people to die. R.I.P. 2. Psalm for the day: "And the daughters of Judah rejoiced: because...

More "quick takes" at Conversion Diary . 1. Life lesson for the week: cereal, specifically Grapenuts, really does taste better with milk . And no, it doesn't help to add the blueberries. It still tastes foul without the milk. Is it the sugar or the fat that's missing? 2. Thought for the week: most people believe that sin is real, they just don't believe that the things they do are sins . 3. Juxtaposition for the week: William H. Gass's review in Harper's (August 2009) of Richard J. Evans', The Third Reich at War (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2009) with Henry Suso's meditation on the punishments of Hell in his Wisdom's Watch Upon the Hours , trans. by Edmund Colledge (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1994). Which is worse: imagining a place in which "cruel judges, unjust rulers, clerics greedy for filthy lucre, lascivious monks, violent laymen, shameless women, dancing girls and streetwalkers and all the oth...

The "quick takes" fest continues over at Conversion Diary . 1. Yesterday my son and I "discovered" San Miguel Mission , the oldest church in continuous use in the United States . Well, at least it is the oldest in the territories now included in the United States, but of course it was founded long before the "United States" ever existed. Today it is a mission church without a parish, but it has stood on this site since 1610, despite having to be rebuilt and repaired more than once over the centuries. As if its sheer antiquity were not enough, it is even said (at least, according to the guidebook at the church) to be haunted by a wide variety of spirits. Visitors over the years report seeing a woman in white kneeling in tears at foot of the altar, a tall priest dressed in a black cassock, six Indians walking together across the front of the chapel, and several children running up and down the aisle, laughing and singing "with delight as only child...

For more "quick takes," visit our host Jennifer at Conversion Diary . 1. I need a tin foil hat. The inspirons are sleeting down faster than I know what to do with this week. It must be the thinner atmosphere up here in the mountains . Come to think of it, maybe that's why so many artists like living here: it's easier to come up with ideas about what to make or to write. On the other hand, it could get fairly exhausting, one's mind being constantly thrown open to the universe. Perhaps people make cities in order to protect themselves from God's influence: they need the noise and bustle and stress and day-to-day competition with other human beings in order not to go crazy. Or maybe cities grow up in places that are even more bombarded by inspirons and in actual fact there are fewer to be intercepted out here in the countryside, there's just less competition. It's a little bit like looking for signs , I suppose: how do you know when God is speakin...

Thanks, as always, to Jennifer for hosting our "takes." 1. Have you ever wondered why it is that people speak in such hushed and reverent voices when they're at a bank ? I used to think that it was out of awe at the presence of money (always a seductive idol), but when I was visiting my bank earlier this week to deposit a fairly large check, I started thinking maybe it's because everyone is so worried about making mistakes. Things need to stay quiet and calm lest the person doing the calculations or signing the papers misses something, e.g. drops a zero, neglects to read the fine print about the interest rates. Hushed and calm, after all, is much preferable to angry and loud, as, for example, one might be after one's bank lost a deposit or made a mistake in the balance on one's account. If only we had the same sense of terror at making mistakes before God. 2. Which brings me to my second quick thought: why is it that Westerners who say they dislike the ...

1. Yes, that's Kapla . In our living room, floor to ceiling. Jacob's ladder or the Tower of Babel? We're not sure. Whichever it is, it is certainly a good metaphor for the struggles I've been having these past few weeks with my book. Theories on what will happen when it comes down? 2. My father loved math, more even than cars. He spent most of his life thinking about math, reading about math, doing as many problems in math as he could. If he could have had one wish, it would have been to have someone to talk with about math who loved math as much as he did (Freudian typo: I originally typed "does"). If only he were here now to have this conversation with his grandson; he would be so proud. (And, yes, that's calculus on the white board in my son's bedroom; my son is 13.) [Update: My son says he's corrected the equation now.] 3. Elizabeth Gilbert has achieved turiya, the fourth level of consciousness in which one's understanding and...

1. We've finished our Dexter marathon and moved on to the second season of Mad Men . It's spooky, to say the least, watching my childhood (or close; I wasn't actually born until a little over a year after Kennedy was shot) reconstructed before my eyes . Most striking images thus far, other than all the smoking and sexual shenanigans: the plumptious size of the women in the country club bikini fashion show, and the little boy being scolded by his mother for trying to sneak a candy while she and the other grown-ups were playing bridge (and smoking). 2. I used to worry about sailing through stop signs on my bicycle until I learned about Hans Monderman's anti-design for the Drachten intersection . Now when I come to an unmarked or simply signed intersection, I watch, fascinated by the way in which the cars, bicycles and pedestrians negotiate the exchange and I wonder whether it's true that we would actually be safer without traffic lights and road markings. Eve...

1. I thought that this would be relatively easy given that I already have my list of seven things that I'd like to share about how things have been going this week, but I'm already finding myself tongue-tied. I find this happens fairly predictably whenever I become too aware that someone might actually be reading my blog. Curious, eh? I am perfectly comfortable writing to myself about my spiritual journey (at least, in my better moods, I hope that is what it is) and I am eager to find others who are also interested in thinking about the relationship between disciplines like fencing (or yoga) and prayer , but I'm not always very good about reaching out to make new contacts. I'm grateful to Jennifer at Conversion Diary for giving us this opportunity to find new ways to connect. 2. My feet have been hurting quite a lot lately after fencing practice, particularly the instep on my left, that is, back foot. I don't know whether it has to do with the way that I...