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I have been meaning to blog about this event since it happened on May 3, because it was one of the best things that has happened to our family recently..or EVER!!!
Every year Missouri Southern University in Joplin hosts the Young Authors Conference. Here in Mount Vernon, only 4th graders go to it, but the conference includes kids in grades 1-6. This year, my 4th grader, Sabra, had her book picked as an entry into the conference, so she got to go to it...and since she got to go, so did the rest of us.
The guest speakers at this conference were authors Roland and Marie Smith. AJ was a little jealous because Roland Smith is one of her favorite authors, but it didn't take her long to be really excited that shew as going to meet him, however it happened. The day before the conference, I read one of Roland Smith's books, Sasquatch. It was great! Roland Smith's website is here. Since the conference, I've also read Zack's Lie, Jack's Run, and Cryptid Hunters.
Roland and his wife, Marie Smith, also write books together for younger children. I'm sure you've seen these books at the bookstore, they are part of the series that features every letter of the alphabet. Roland and Marie wrote B is for Beaver, E is for Evergreen, N is for Our Nation's Capital, and Z is for Zookeeper. They're also on Roland's book page.
The conference featured talks by each of the two authors to groups of kids. They were each very different, but both were great. They talked about how they got started in writing, the things they liked to write about, and the mistakes they've made as writers. They really took the kids seriously as writers, which impressed me so deeply. AJ moved up and sat with the kids and asked questions of both authors, and all three of the kids brought notebooks and pens. The girls took scrupulous notes on both of them, while David mostly drew pictures.
At the end, each child got a book for free that was autographed by the authors, and afterward, the authors stayed around and offered to sign any other books anyone wanted. Our girls showed them their notebooks full of notes on their talks, and Roland played as though he was going to tear AJ's notes out of her notebook. He said, "You're just going to use this information to become a famous writer!" It was pretty funny. They signed their notebooks, too, and let us take pictures of them with the girls. They were so very gracious and open and funny; I was so impressed.
Finally we left, with several signed copies of the Smiths' books, at least one for each child. It was the greatest day! We spent the day as a family at a writers conference! Matt and I also realized that it would be really easy to sneak back in there next year...we'd sit in the parents' section like we did this year...nobody would ever know...
Sabra's book was called 11:27, and is about three kids who discover a dragon named Narcissa Pendragon, but Narcissa is only visible to humans between 11:26 and 11:28 every day. It was really cute. Also, there was another girl there, a 6th grader, named Sabra! That was pretty amazing in itself.
Kathy
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Pentecost Sermon
This is actually last year's sermon, but I liked it:
Pentecost, 2007
I like war movies.
Of all the films in my DVD collection,
I think I have more war movies than anything else.
Not everyone likes war movies, of course,
but over the hundred-year history of film,
they’ve proven to be amazingly resilient.
It’s rather strange that I would like them so much,
because I don’t like war.
I have a cousin who just came back from Iraq,
who was involved in some of the historic
battles in Baghdad,
and I worry about him constantly.
I am the daughter and granddaughter of veterans,
and I am more proud of them than I can say.
But I can also see how war takes its toll on people,
steals pieces of their souls,
and I wonder how my loved ones
might have been different,
and if they will ever fully heal.
So, if we don’t like war, why do we like war movies?
I think there is a deep desire in people to be tested.
I think that people want to know
just how strong they are,
just how far their will-power
or love
or loyalty will go
when it comes down to it.
I probably like war movies for the same reason I have always liked the stories of Christian martyrs…
when you read how someone was fed to lions for her faith in Jesus Christ,
you have to ask yourself,
would I be that strong?
And your resolve strengthens,
and you think,
if I’m ever tested like that,
I could be that faithful, I could.
War movies do the same thing for us…
they give us the chance to ask ourselves,
would I be that brave,
that strong,
would I be that loyal to my companions?
Since most of us have not been in a war,
we can only ask ourselves…
would I? Could I?
These films offer us a test of our character,
without making us go through the real thing.
When we see someone else go through the test,
we go through it, too,
and if they can prevail, so can we.
But one of the things about actual war,
and so about war movies,
is that the people involved are never alone.
There comes a point where politics falls away,
where right and wrong are perhaps
secondary considerations,
and all that matters is the guy next to you.
You do what you have to do,
you get through what needs to be gotten through,
because you can’t let him down.
And you know he won’t let you down.
When you’re under fire,
you’ve got his back,
and he’s got yours.
That’s the bottom line,
that’s the reality,
and it’s a supreme test,
because it comes down to
whether you’re going to put
your buddy before yourself,
and whether you will trust him to do the same.
In the Middle Ages,
soldiers actually got assigned a buddy.
You had one other solider,
one other knight,
who was your buddy.
You went into battle together,
and these were battles where people got close up
to kill each other,
and you fought with your buddy back-to-back,
so that nobody could sneak up on you
with a sword or a battle-axe.
He had your back, and you had his.
He couldn’t keep you from having to fight,
from having to face the battle,
but he was there with you,
and nothing could sneak up on you
while he was there,
fighting with you,
fighting for you.
This soldier was called a paraclete.
Your Paraclete.
The guy who has your back when the going gets rough is your paraclete.
That’s a word we’ve heard before…
today we hear it translated as Advocate,
but it’s more than that.
In Greek it means, the one who comes to your side.
Or, perhaps, the one who has your back.
We translate it other ways, too.
Eve was Adam’s Paraclete, his helper.
Jesus was the disciples’ Paraclete, their teacher.
Our Paraclete is the Holy Spirit,
God himself,
and we call him Advocate,
Intercessor,
Teacher,
Helper,
even Holy Comforter.
It can’t be translated any more accurately,
because it’s a word that includes all those meanings,
but I think that’s a good thing.
Sometimes we need one kind of back-up more than another, but at different times we’ll need it all.
We’ll need all the help we can get, of whatever kind.
We’ll need someone—
an Advocate,
a Teacher,
a Comforter—
we’ll need that someone at our back
when we undergo our own tests,
face our own battles.
War movies are satisfying to watch
because the tests and battles that people undergo
are big ones.
There’s always life and death on the line,
at the very least,
and sometimes more.
We want to think that maybe we could be heroes,
like the people in the films,
at least insofar as we carry out what was asked of us.
And we can be heroes,
and sometimes we are,
but it’s not like it is in the movies.
The images of war and battle have always been used to describe the Christian life.
We fight against sin and temptation,
we battle forces of evil,
we arm ourselves against attack,
we claim victory in Jesus Christ.
We are being tested, too,
no less in our way than the soldiers in the films.
But our battles are not usually loud and bloody,
and they seldom leave casualties in the traditional sense.
Our battles are much smaller than that.
Our battles are small and personal and never-ending.
Our battles seldom require a heroic last stand,
Or a brave charge,
and they’re seldom accompanied by a swelling orchestral score.
No, they’re little choices,
little acts,
little niggling temptations
to things that aren’t all that bad
in the scheme of things.
Our test is not to survive a charge or a barrage of bullets, but it is to keep going in the face of tiredness,
to remain kind in the face of cynicism,
to have hope in the face of discouragement.
Not big tests, but never ending ones.
Once we think we’ve gotten some character flaw dealt with, we find that a different one has snuck up on us.
Once we think we’ve solved a problem,
we have to move on to the next problem.
Once we think we’ve made good choices and earned a rest, someone comes along with more demands,
more needs,
and we aren’t sure that we’re up to it.
And maybe we’re not.
And sometimes we’ve given our all,
done everything we knew how to do,
and it still wasn’t enough.
These are battles we lose more often than not.
But God doesn’t just send us out onto these battlefields to fight all on our own.
God is our Paraclete, God has our back.
He is our Defender,
our Teacher,
our Intercessor,
our Holy Comforter,
our Paraclete.
He’s fighting as hard as we are,
and while we might lose some of these battles,
we won’t lose the war.
The war is won.
He stands at our back and pushes, pulls,
and prods us toward that victory.
He has our back,
so nobody is going to sneak up on us
and take away that victory.
That’s what he did for the disciples on the very first Pentecost…
he told them you’ve got to get out there,
out in to the world…it’ll be all right.
I’ve got your back.
And that’s what he says to us, too.
We’re being tried and tested,
we get wounded and fall,
but we don’t have to look back,
because we know who’s there.
Our Paraclete has our back…
it doesn’t mean we don’t have to go into the battle…
we still do.
It does mean he goes with us.
The thing is,
we watch war movies
because we don’t really want to be heroes.
We don’t really want to have to be.
But that’s exactly what we’re called to be.
We are already victors in this battle we never stop fighting…
even when we’re tired,
even when we fail,
even when we lose the battles.
We won’t be tired forever.
We won’t fail or lose forever.
This war will end,
And these little ongoing battles are forming us into heroes.
But until then,
we’ll fight the best we can,
because we know we’re not alone.
We have a Paraclete, and he’s got our back.
Pentecost, 2007
I like war movies.
Of all the films in my DVD collection,
I think I have more war movies than anything else.
Not everyone likes war movies, of course,
but over the hundred-year history of film,
they’ve proven to be amazingly resilient.
It’s rather strange that I would like them so much,
because I don’t like war.
I have a cousin who just came back from Iraq,
who was involved in some of the historic
battles in Baghdad,
and I worry about him constantly.
I am the daughter and granddaughter of veterans,
and I am more proud of them than I can say.
But I can also see how war takes its toll on people,
steals pieces of their souls,
and I wonder how my loved ones
might have been different,
and if they will ever fully heal.
So, if we don’t like war, why do we like war movies?
I think there is a deep desire in people to be tested.
I think that people want to know
just how strong they are,
just how far their will-power
or love
or loyalty will go
when it comes down to it.
I probably like war movies for the same reason I have always liked the stories of Christian martyrs…
when you read how someone was fed to lions for her faith in Jesus Christ,
you have to ask yourself,
would I be that strong?
And your resolve strengthens,
and you think,
if I’m ever tested like that,
I could be that faithful, I could.
War movies do the same thing for us…
they give us the chance to ask ourselves,
would I be that brave,
that strong,
would I be that loyal to my companions?
Since most of us have not been in a war,
we can only ask ourselves…
would I? Could I?
These films offer us a test of our character,
without making us go through the real thing.
When we see someone else go through the test,
we go through it, too,
and if they can prevail, so can we.
But one of the things about actual war,
and so about war movies,
is that the people involved are never alone.
There comes a point where politics falls away,
where right and wrong are perhaps
secondary considerations,
and all that matters is the guy next to you.
You do what you have to do,
you get through what needs to be gotten through,
because you can’t let him down.
And you know he won’t let you down.
When you’re under fire,
you’ve got his back,
and he’s got yours.
That’s the bottom line,
that’s the reality,
and it’s a supreme test,
because it comes down to
whether you’re going to put
your buddy before yourself,
and whether you will trust him to do the same.
In the Middle Ages,
soldiers actually got assigned a buddy.
You had one other solider,
one other knight,
who was your buddy.
You went into battle together,
and these were battles where people got close up
to kill each other,
and you fought with your buddy back-to-back,
so that nobody could sneak up on you
with a sword or a battle-axe.
He had your back, and you had his.
He couldn’t keep you from having to fight,
from having to face the battle,
but he was there with you,
and nothing could sneak up on you
while he was there,
fighting with you,
fighting for you.
This soldier was called a paraclete.
Your Paraclete.
The guy who has your back when the going gets rough is your paraclete.
That’s a word we’ve heard before…
today we hear it translated as Advocate,
but it’s more than that.
In Greek it means, the one who comes to your side.
Or, perhaps, the one who has your back.
We translate it other ways, too.
Eve was Adam’s Paraclete, his helper.
Jesus was the disciples’ Paraclete, their teacher.
Our Paraclete is the Holy Spirit,
God himself,
and we call him Advocate,
Intercessor,
Teacher,
Helper,
even Holy Comforter.
It can’t be translated any more accurately,
because it’s a word that includes all those meanings,
but I think that’s a good thing.
Sometimes we need one kind of back-up more than another, but at different times we’ll need it all.
We’ll need all the help we can get, of whatever kind.
We’ll need someone—
an Advocate,
a Teacher,
a Comforter—
we’ll need that someone at our back
when we undergo our own tests,
face our own battles.
War movies are satisfying to watch
because the tests and battles that people undergo
are big ones.
There’s always life and death on the line,
at the very least,
and sometimes more.
We want to think that maybe we could be heroes,
like the people in the films,
at least insofar as we carry out what was asked of us.
And we can be heroes,
and sometimes we are,
but it’s not like it is in the movies.
The images of war and battle have always been used to describe the Christian life.
We fight against sin and temptation,
we battle forces of evil,
we arm ourselves against attack,
we claim victory in Jesus Christ.
We are being tested, too,
no less in our way than the soldiers in the films.
But our battles are not usually loud and bloody,
and they seldom leave casualties in the traditional sense.
Our battles are much smaller than that.
Our battles are small and personal and never-ending.
Our battles seldom require a heroic last stand,
Or a brave charge,
and they’re seldom accompanied by a swelling orchestral score.
No, they’re little choices,
little acts,
little niggling temptations
to things that aren’t all that bad
in the scheme of things.
Our test is not to survive a charge or a barrage of bullets, but it is to keep going in the face of tiredness,
to remain kind in the face of cynicism,
to have hope in the face of discouragement.
Not big tests, but never ending ones.
Once we think we’ve gotten some character flaw dealt with, we find that a different one has snuck up on us.
Once we think we’ve solved a problem,
we have to move on to the next problem.
Once we think we’ve made good choices and earned a rest, someone comes along with more demands,
more needs,
and we aren’t sure that we’re up to it.
And maybe we’re not.
And sometimes we’ve given our all,
done everything we knew how to do,
and it still wasn’t enough.
These are battles we lose more often than not.
But God doesn’t just send us out onto these battlefields to fight all on our own.
God is our Paraclete, God has our back.
He is our Defender,
our Teacher,
our Intercessor,
our Holy Comforter,
our Paraclete.
He’s fighting as hard as we are,
and while we might lose some of these battles,
we won’t lose the war.
The war is won.
He stands at our back and pushes, pulls,
and prods us toward that victory.
He has our back,
so nobody is going to sneak up on us
and take away that victory.
That’s what he did for the disciples on the very first Pentecost…
he told them you’ve got to get out there,
out in to the world…it’ll be all right.
I’ve got your back.
And that’s what he says to us, too.
We’re being tried and tested,
we get wounded and fall,
but we don’t have to look back,
because we know who’s there.
Our Paraclete has our back…
it doesn’t mean we don’t have to go into the battle…
we still do.
It does mean he goes with us.
The thing is,
we watch war movies
because we don’t really want to be heroes.
We don’t really want to have to be.
But that’s exactly what we’re called to be.
We are already victors in this battle we never stop fighting…
even when we’re tired,
even when we fail,
even when we lose the battles.
We won’t be tired forever.
We won’t fail or lose forever.
This war will end,
And these little ongoing battles are forming us into heroes.
But until then,
we’ll fight the best we can,
because we know we’re not alone.
We have a Paraclete, and he’s got our back.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Braggin' on my Girls
School's out Friday, so this week a lot of results from the year's scholarship have come in for the kids. The big one is that BOTH of my girls were the top readers in their entire grades--80-100 kids! Sabra got almost 400 AR points, and AJ read 73 books (of course they stopped counting last week, but she's read 3 or 4 since then).
They stand in a long line of great readers...from Grama to Mom to me and my siblings (not to mention their daddy!) to them. I am really really proud, but not really surprised, because my kids are AWESOME!!!
Kathy
They stand in a long line of great readers...from Grama to Mom to me and my siblings (not to mention their daddy!) to them. I am really really proud, but not really surprised, because my kids are AWESOME!!!
Kathy
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Finals Week
I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while. I have a lot of stuff to add, but we're in Finals Week at both colleges. For us that means that the last few weeks have been brutal, but that this week isn't so bad. For the last few weeks, Matt and I have both been trying to make up for time we lost during the ice storms and floods earlier in the semester: you can't always tell that early on how the lost time is going to affect your content. I had to completely drop Baha'i from my World Religions lecture, along with several New Religions/Alternative Spiritualities. Looking back on it, I wish I had dropped Zoroastrianism and possibly even traditional African religions--but it's very hard to know at the time how it's going to play out. Anyway, this week is just going to be grading papers and tests, and then we're done. Whoo hoo! And I can catch up on blogging and other writing.
More to come,
Kathy
More to come,
Kathy
Friday, May 2, 2008
It's Not About Being a Woman...Except When It Is
Army medic Pfc. Monica Brown pulled a fellow solider to safety, shielded him with her body, treated his wounds, carried him to an ambulance, and got him airlifted to safety--all under enemy gunfire in Afghanistan. For these heroic acts, Pfc. Brown received the Silver Star, only the second woman in history to do so. You can read her story in the Washington Post here.
What fascinates me about this story is more than just the same old question about whether women "should be" in combat. Dude, women ARE in combat. Of course, Pfc. Brown was taken out of the unit where she was serving as a medic and sent back to the big Army, because she wasn't supposed to be in combat. But there are two things about the contemporary situation that have got to be addressed.
One is that the ancient combat rules of 1992 (and in our era of technology, 16 years might as well be a century), define "combat" as being "forward," as in "toward the front lines." But in this war, there are no front lines. There are no lines at all. There are just people shooting at our soldiers, and people acting with breathtaking courage and generosity. Stories like Pfc. Brown's represent the best of our military and our nation, and heck, the best of our claims as human beings. She didn't go to "the front lines," whatever they are--she is a medic and went where soldiers needed care. That is her job and she does it incredibly well. Can we get the bureaucrats out of the way and just let her do it?
The other thing that the article points out, and which deserves some more attention, is the fact that far from a "gender-blind" military being the ideal, the US now finds itself in a position where it needs to send women into dangerous places...not only because they are fine soldiers, but specifically because they are women. We are dealing with conservative Muslim countries, and in these cultures, only women can interact publicly with women. When it comes to something as sensitive as giving medical care, it is absolutely out of the question for Muslim women to be treated or touched by foreign men. If we are going to stick to our moral claim that we are in these places to make the lives of the people better, we simply must respect these cultural boundaries--and that means sending women into any place where there might be women. And that's almost everywhere in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The US Army needs brave women soldiers like Monica Brown--because they are brave, because they are soldiers, and because they are women. If these rules don't change immediately, and if soldiers like Pfc. Brown aren't put back in action, we'll find ourselves back where we started this whole undertaking--one war behind.
Kathy
What fascinates me about this story is more than just the same old question about whether women "should be" in combat. Dude, women ARE in combat. Of course, Pfc. Brown was taken out of the unit where she was serving as a medic and sent back to the big Army, because she wasn't supposed to be in combat. But there are two things about the contemporary situation that have got to be addressed.
One is that the ancient combat rules of 1992 (and in our era of technology, 16 years might as well be a century), define "combat" as being "forward," as in "toward the front lines." But in this war, there are no front lines. There are no lines at all. There are just people shooting at our soldiers, and people acting with breathtaking courage and generosity. Stories like Pfc. Brown's represent the best of our military and our nation, and heck, the best of our claims as human beings. She didn't go to "the front lines," whatever they are--she is a medic and went where soldiers needed care. That is her job and she does it incredibly well. Can we get the bureaucrats out of the way and just let her do it?
The other thing that the article points out, and which deserves some more attention, is the fact that far from a "gender-blind" military being the ideal, the US now finds itself in a position where it needs to send women into dangerous places...not only because they are fine soldiers, but specifically because they are women. We are dealing with conservative Muslim countries, and in these cultures, only women can interact publicly with women. When it comes to something as sensitive as giving medical care, it is absolutely out of the question for Muslim women to be treated or touched by foreign men. If we are going to stick to our moral claim that we are in these places to make the lives of the people better, we simply must respect these cultural boundaries--and that means sending women into any place where there might be women. And that's almost everywhere in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The US Army needs brave women soldiers like Monica Brown--because they are brave, because they are soldiers, and because they are women. If these rules don't change immediately, and if soldiers like Pfc. Brown aren't put back in action, we'll find ourselves back where we started this whole undertaking--one war behind.
Kathy
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