"Strangers and Sojourners"

This was today's epistle. I should have realized that the title of O'Brien's novel was a Biblical reference. But I didn't. Anyway because I thought it was worth pondering:

Ephesians 2,19-22.

So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

Yes, I can see how the novel is really about that process of being built into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. But the title I think also refers to the way the characters, especially Anne, feel during that process when they aren't always aware of the work of the builder and don't recognize themselves as members of the household.

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The River by Rumer Godden

The River is a coming of age story set in India, where Godden herself grew up. The heroine, Harriet, is the second daughter of an English family and a budding poet. Born in India, she's never known any other world. Harriet encounters death and birth and with this new awareness begins the journey toward adulthood. Lush scenery and beautiful language, many flavors of life in India.

One of my favorite scenes was when Mother brings the girls into her room to have a talk about growing older. I love the way it is so beautifully presented. (The scene gracefully skips over the part where Mother presumably goes into the actual physical details.)

"We had better begin from the beginning. . . . You know it is the women who bear the babies, carry them in their bodies--as I am doing."

"Yes Mother," said Harriet, and she and Bea both averted their eyes from Mother."

"We--women have to make our bodies fit for that," said Mother. "Like a temple."

"A temple?" asked Harriet surprised.

"Yes," said Mother. But still it did not seem quite certain, the idea did not quite fit.

"Because you see, Harriet, the bearing of children, for the man you love, and who loves you, is very precious and sanctified work."

"Do you love Father?" asked Harriet immediately.

"Yes," said Mother, "I am glad to say that I do."

At that small statement, typical of her mother, the conversation became suddenly and intimately true. Harriet felt a surge of love for her.

Very Catholic, though I'm not sure if Godden was Catholic yet at the time she wrote it.

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Her Father's Daughter

Dom is something of a worrier and I'm under strict orders never to leave the house without my cell phone. Bella knows now it's part of my routine whenever we go anywhere. She's all ready to go, standing by the door and I scurry off to find my shoes, my phone, and a half dozen other things.

Well this morning on the way to the grocery store I had Sophia in the car seat and Bella all ready and checked the diaper bag and didn't see the phone. thought's I'd left it by the couch when talking on it last night. Nope that was the night before. It actually was in the diaper bag and I found it on the second search. But the battery was dead and so I plugged it in to recharge and picked up the keys and Sophie and was ready to head out without the useless phone.

But Bella was having none of it. She started sobbing-- big tears and running nose, the works. "Cell phone, cell phone!" she cried. You'd have thought we were leaving a precious toy behind.

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Bella and Pooh

I've started reading the Winnie the Pooh stories to Bella and she seems to be enjoying them despite the length and lack of big shiny pictures.

It started because she has a little board book of Eeyore's Birthday that she's latched on to recently. It drives me crazy because it is so poorly abridged that the story no longer makes any sense, as if that isn't important since it's a book for the toddler set. For example, it says Eeyore is gloomy because it's his birthday but skips over his bemoaning the lack of presents so one is mystified by why a birthday would make Eeyore sad.

Anyway, I pulled out my The World of Pooh volume to look up the real story and to see if reading it to Bella might be a possibility. I was dismayed by how long the story was and gave up on the idea. But I left the book laying on the couch. A dangerous thing with Bella around. She found it and recognized Pooh and started to flip through it. Soon she was asking me if I could read it to her. I picked it up and started to read, thinking she would grow bored and wander off long before we came to the end of one story. Which she did. But then we came back to it another day and she sat through a whole chapter. And so we've returned again and again. Sometimes we finish a chapter, sometimes we don't; but Bella doesn't let that stop her from asking for Pooh again another time.

I've found that it is a perfect book for us at nap time or bedtime precisely because it is so long. When I read shorter picture books she frequently wants me to read the same book over and over again and I soon grow bored and surly. Pooh is much more restful to read, with more complex sentences and little jokes that are only funny to adults, and we don't run the danger of needing the constant repetition--- at least not yet.

I think too many people censor what they read to children, keeping only to materials they think the child can understand. But I've often found with Bella that she has patience for books that I would have thought much too old for her. I have no idea how much of the story she understands, probably more than I'd guess. But really at this age comprehension isn't the point (though I don't think that lets us off the hook and makes it excusable to give them stories which are incoherent.) She enjoys the rhyme and rhythm of the language, she enjoys the attention from me and the cuddling up close while I read and the drifting off to sleep to the sound of my voice. The story is secondary. She will gradually grow in understanding and one day will surprise me by how much she suddenly grasps.

And that isn't true just for small children. All of us, even adults, have this experience of being enchanted by the sound of something even when we don't quite catch the meaning. Just go to a poetry reading sometime. T. S. Eliot wrote somewhere (I can't recall exactly where I read it; but I'm almost positive it was Eliot.) something to the effect that in poetry the music of the language is primary and the meaning is secondary. In fact, I still find that to be the case with some of my favorite of Eliot's poems, The Four Quartets. There are long passages that I love the sound of, the feel of the language in my mouth, the play of the images, but I'm still not sure what it means. When it comes to poetry, understanding the meaning is overrated. And also, to some extent, this is true of novels as well.

And so I am committed to reading to Isabella books that are far above her "level", whatever that is. I do think limited-vocabulary books have their place in encouraging young children who are learning to read and who may become discouraged when faced with page after page of unfamiliar words and complicated sentences. But even at that stage, children can and should enjoy being read to from books that are beyond their ability to read on their own.

As usual the bear called Pooh leads me very quickly into deeper waters. He may be a bear of Very Little Brain; but he certainly challenges my mind.

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