Diamonds and Lace

That's exactly what it looks like out my window as I sit here typing this post. For two days now that trees have been covered in ice and this morning it was snowing - the snow soft and light like lace and coconut shavings and icing sugar meandering down from the clouds. I was hoping we might have gotten a real snow storm so I could have ventured up to Blue Mountain to snowboard but I fear I'd just be sliding down on ice still.
Tonight I am going to Natasha's house because they offered to host a party/get-together for all of us from Trinity Baptist Church. You know that lovely feeling you get when you find people who just understand your sense of humour and your conversations merge seamlessly with jokes and everyone can contribute to make something funnier and funnier? It's as if you have found people who speak the same language as you. There are so many levels of language and I admire people who understand it well enough to be able to use language as a tool. Most of us seem almost hampered by language, as if it can't quite express what we are trying to say. But yes, I would say a very concentrated and devoted study of language through extensive reading will really help you to communicate with wider variety of people. The few times I have been able to listen to D.A. Carson have been truly enjoyable - Carson is a master of language and wields it with precision and respect - each word serves a worthy purpose. So, I find Natasha, Vanessa, and Victoria speak the same language as Milly and me. One of the first people, other than Milly, I did meet who spoke my language was Clarene. I think that's really why we are best friends. We share a similar taste in clothes, books, movies, etc. but I think the foundation of our friendship is our ability to communicate with each other. As I type that, it sounds so rudimentary. For me, that's what resonates; language.
This morning I was reading in Matthew and once again I thought of how thankful I am that the Bible is a book. There could have been so many other forms God might have chosen to reveal himself to us but He chose a book and I get to study His language, His book, for the rest of my life. I get to become so familiar with His language that I begin to memorize His words and the patterns of His words become the patterns of my speech; the patterns of life. "Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him..." It is truly an incredible mystery - that my devotion to His word, my study of His Son, my emulation of all He has set before me in the Bible somehow facilitates a change in my heart. I think it's at that point you see the incredible work of God. God uses my obedience, my copying, my emulation - all of it pitiful and broken - "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart..." and He changes my heart - He prepares the sacrifice He requires.
It has been good for me to concentrate on Him after finishing "In the Skin of a Lion". I did appreciate Ondaatje's poetry, the softness of some of his language but much of it was brutal, forceful, murderous. I know that this was a reflection of his themes but I found it hard to digest. His understanding of humanity boils down to physical desire and awareness. The book, for me, was a flash, a violence of lightning, the lashing of a lion's claw. After reading the book, the first of his books I have read, I could envision how the English Patient might have read. I loved that movie for the images but it was very savage too and I remember leaving the movie theatre feeling scarred, wounded.
Other books I've read during this Christmas break include, "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Catcher in the Rye". I am just about to begin "Total Truth" by Nancy Pearcey and hope to also delve into "Ideas Have Consequences" by Richard M. Weaver.
Just downloaded from itunes - Death Cab for Cutie, Melissa O'Neil, Janine Jansen, and the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack. A variety but all great albums - some parts of Vivaldi's Four Seasons played by Jansen on a Stradivarius are incredibly pure and raw - so nice to hear a boiled down version of an otherwise overplayed but lovely piece of music.
So tonight, off to a get-together with my crab dip in tow and a smile on my face. Happy New Years everyone and may it be a year of real spiritual growth and insight.

inauguration

I think many first time bloggers must have said something like this before - even if no one reads this blog, I am excited to have my words published on the internet! This blog will act as a type of notebook for me - part diary - part list keeper - part thought collector. I hope that my interests are of interest to others and that those eager enough to respond to my posts will help me to grow, learn and laugh. Merry Christmas.