Pen and Paper

Last year, I began writing (yes, writing, with pen and paper) letters and cards to my friends, being intentional about staying in touch with people I care about. I was semi-successful at it, even sending Christmas cards, which I haven't done in years.
Now, thanks to A Month of Letters Challenge and Postcrossing.com, I am going far over my entertainment budget on postage. And so far, the score, if I kept one, is many pieces of mail out, zero in. But that's all right. This is something to do for me, something I like that takes me out of the mundane and away from the steenking television.
So, this week I have sent:
1 package to Kansas.
1 postcard to Russia.
1 postcard to Georgia (the state).
1 postcard to Belarus.
1 postcard to Poland.
1 postcard to The Netherlands.
1 postcard to Maryland.
1 postcard to Hawaii.
1 birthday card to Sugar Land.
1 letter to Oklahoma.
1 letter to Kansas.
1 letter to someone here in town.

Just Do It

I'm reading The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency -- recommend it, by the way. In it, Mma Ramotswe decides that she wants to open a detective agency, and she just does it. She doesn't worry about credentials. She got a van, a typewriter, a building, and a secretary, stuck her sign out, and just did it.


It would be fabulous if we could do something of the sort. Just step out in faith and do what we want to do. Not that I want to open a detective agency -- although as much as I love a mystery, the idea does have its appeal. But tonight I went a considerable distance to make a pastoral visit to a hospital room and although I am very well aware that it is Not About Me, it just felt so good to do it. I've been thinking this for two weeks, since the last time I did a hospital visit.


Which brings me to the question: If I think I am good at this, and pastoral care and leading worship, etc., feels so right, why in the world am I going to hell--er, the office--every day being a secretary? I am a minister of the Word, not a secretary. I believe that my gifts for ministry are God-given and that it is a waste not to use one's gifts, but I just can't seem to break whatever barrier I keep bumping up against. And I'm not getting any younger. Surely, there is some congregation somewhere that could use my gifts on a full-time basis.


Maybe I should be like Mma Ramotswe and just do it. Stop worrying about a church or church body and just do it. But it takes more than a leap of faith. I don't think I can stick a sign in the yard; anyway, what would it say? "Weddings, funerals, baptisms. Best rates. Call today."


Or, would someone like to gift me with the money to go to seminary full time for about three years?


The detective idea is sounding better by the minute. After all, Mma Ramotswe is  drawn to her profession to “help people with problems in their lives." Isn't that what a minister's job is, as well? 

I Blame It All on Nancy Drew

     I am a reader. I read almost anything I can get my hands on. Newspaper (who has those nowadays?), magazine (not so much), billboards, signs, blogs, web pages, but especially BOOKS. And no, I am not a print snob. I love print, but let's face it--you don't have to dust a Nook or a Kindle, and those weigh far less than most hardbound books.
     But I digress. What I meant to post about today is the big confession that I love fiction more than non, and that I also love genre fiction more than anything. There, I've said it. I don't like "important" or "literary" books. In my mind, those words just mean "depressing." Who needs more depression in their lives? Certainly not I. No, I love books that will probably not stand the test of time. And my favorite of all is . . . drum roll, please . . . mystery fiction (or, as they say in England, crime fiction, although I think that is a bad description). And if you want to get into subgenres, my favorite is cozy mystery fiction. Other than the hapless Jackson Brodie, my protagonists really need to be amateurs, preferably women, who just happen to get involved in stuff. And if you want a sub-subgenre, I love clerical cozy mysteries. If there's a dash of the supernatural--okay, you can argue that anything having to do with entities not seen, whether angelic, deific, or otherwise, qualifies as supernatural--so much the better.

     When I start to dissect why this is so, I think back to what kinds of books I read as a child and a teenager. As a child and preteen, I remember loving Cherry Ames, the nurse who went from place to place and always ran into a mystery while she was there. Books about camps and boarding schools were big sellers for me. (The very best Cherry Ameses were Camp Nurse and Boarding School Nurse.) I guess I always wanted to leave home for big stretches of time . . . but that's another story. Books about supernatural things attracted me. I remember a chapter book called The Blue Nosed Witch that I must have checked out of the school library twenty times during the second grade. Back then, we read comic books that weren't about superheroes. My favorites were Casper the Friendly Ghost and Wendy the Good Little Witch.  A trend has developed here.

     And then, there was Nancy Drew. It all started with Nancy.
     Nancy always had it together. She drove well. She was independent--she had Ned, but he wasn't always around hanging onto her (or telling her what to do). She had friends--Bess and George--but she didn't feel the need to constantly travel in packs. She was logical. She was smart. She was resourceful. And she always solved the mystery! Nancy was my heroine.
     And then, sometime around the 9th grade, I discovered the wondrous writing of Mary Stewart. You can have your Victoria Holts and your Daphne du Mauriers. NO one can touch Mary. Her heroines stood up for the helpless, solved the mystery, and always got the guy in the end--and all in really cool settings like France or Greece. After drinking that kool-aid, I knew I would never be the same. I have never gotten over wanting to see all those places and maybe solve a small mystery along the way.

     I've read a lot of genre fiction since then, some other popular fiction, lots of classics, some nonfiction, but I always return to mystery, or at the very least, mystery lite--the romantic suspense created by Mary Stewart. Along the way, I wrote a couple of romance books, tried my best (and at this point, I think I've failed) to become a professional church worker, and planned lots of trips to those exotic locations that I never took. And I'm still reading mysteries.
     Thanks, Nancy. And Cherry. And Vicky Loring . . . And, of course, Mary.




The supernatural sub-sub-genre:

And the sub-sub-genre:

Good riddance to bad rubbish

     2011 was not a stellar year.
     Oh, it had its good points. There was that bachelor's degree that I always wanted that is now in hand. Then that first grandbaby--beautiful boy Levi Carson. Those were the high points. Not as lofty, but still really good:

• Attending the Diakonia of the Americans and the Caribbean (DOTAC) meeting in July; 
• becoming friends with three lovely, like-minded ladies of a certain age whom I love;
• attending the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) in October. 

     These are the things I will remember about 2011. I will try not to remember the crushing financial problems, Levi's life-threatening illness, this soul-sucking depression, and my job turning to poo.
     I don't have any resolutions, but in spite of it all, here is what I hope to accomplish in the near future:

• New job. That would really fix a lot.
• Treat depression. 
• And take those French lessons! 

     You notice I did not add "master crochet." 

     Happy new year!

And now, a minute with Deaconess Jane

Christmas vacation (I refuse to say "Holiday Break" or "Winter Holiday") is more than half over. What. A. Drag. Only four more days before I have to go back to Hell. But since being off for a while has helped the sinkhole of depression in which I find myself . . . somewhat, I will try not to dwell too much on going back.

Anyway. While having coffee this morning at Barnes and Noble, my friend Gretchen and I were talking about--what else?--books we'd read recently. Since she is so much smarter than I, Gretchen reads about twice as much as I, and about twelve times more nonfiction than I. But we do read a lot of the same books. Case in point, The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz. We agreed that Horowitz nailed Conan Doyle's style, but Gretchen insisted there was something missing. She didn't finish the book because of it. I finished it, but was disappointed that I figured it out a third to halfway through the book, from one line of dialogue from a minor character. Very un-Conan Doyle. Who ever figured out one of his Sherlock tales? As I have reflected on it during the day, I have decided that what Horowitz missed was Conan Doyle's supernatural quality. There was always something otherworldly and unsettling about his Sherlock Holmes cases. I think that, coupled of course with the fact that no one figures out the end of them on first read, that is what makes Sherlock Holmes the endearing, enduring fictional character that he is.

Why on earth that was what I chose to blog about after a very long, dry, silent spell, I do not know. But the bright note is that the depression is sucking me down into the pit just a little less right now, so I actually CAN blog. An improvement over the last few months, when all I've managed are a few brief Facebook posts. There is the promise of a silver lining. I just hope that returning to Hell next week doesn't tarnish it. Pray with me.

Now Reading . . .

The last book I bought for my Nook is John Adams, the excellent biography by David McCullough. If you haven't read it, you should. I wanted to re-read it and could have saved my money by getting it from the library. However, it is inconvenient to schlep a seven hundred page book around with me for the odd moment when I have a few minutes to read, and I had a Barnes and Noble gift certificate, so the Nook purchase won.

Not only is this book a fascinating biography of a complicated man, it is also a glimpse into eighteenth century America. This is the kind of history we don't learn in high school or those American History survey courses we're forced to sit through in college. Looking through the lens of over two hundred years, we can't imagine the world or the people of the late eighteenth century, and we take for granted, and even scoff at, the political system they envisioned and for which they eventually shed blood. We Americans don't remember, if we ever knew, that what the founders conceived for their new nation was radical, an absolute departure from any way of life at the time. The United States of America was a great and noble experiment, one that the rest of the western world expected would fail.

I will avoid sounding like an enthusiastic history teacher, but will comment about Texas and being a native daughter. Though we are required to study American history in Texas, what is also required of us is the study of Texas history, much more interesting to us than the distant events of eighteenth, nineteenth, and the rapidly-being-forgotten twentieth century that took place north of the Mason-Dixon line and east of the Mississippi River. While nothing stirs a Texan's blood like "Remember the Alamo!" and the story of our own struggle against an oppressive regime, we often forget that, since 1845, except for a few shameful years mired in the Confederacy, the legacy of the American Revolution is ours as well. We owe it to ourselves to turn from the immediacy of the American Southwest to gain a sense of what the founders achieved and bequeathed to us. I am fully committed to the indisputable fact that Texas is the greatest state; but I also believe that it is both a good and a negative thing that one of our state's catchphrases is that it is " . . . a whole other country."

And all this due to the inspiration of a beautifully-written book. What I really should have been is a librarian!

To close, a few words related to the biggest news of the week past. No, not the trial of the doctor who attended the late MJ, thank God, but the death of iconic businessman Steve Jobs. Yes, we've lost someone who changed the way we see the world and communicate with one another, and that is a sad thing. I find it ironic that only a few days ago, I became the owner of my first Apple product: an iPod  shuffle that I received as a birthday gift. Even I can be dragged into the Apple world, though I will never want to give up my PC.

 That's all, folks!

Rain and elevenses

Another lovely Saturday afternoon with three lovely friends. Tea sandwiches, quiche bites, scones with jam and clotted cream, madeleines, lavender cookies, strawberries, and a beautiful Victoria Sponge. (All this from ladies who may be very well able to keep a cook, but have no need of one because of their own culinary talents.) And of course, lots and lots of tea to accompany the food and conversation. Elevenses turned into a pleasant, late afternoon. Today we had the added delight of rain, a rare phenomena of late. What a blessing!

We now know with certainty whom in the group is Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced Boo-kay), and I'm sure one hasn't far to look to determine who is, alas, Daisy (with her very own Onslow, not in attendance at elevenses). That only leaves Rose and Violet . . . can you guess who fills those roles? (Not according anyone's husband the more vexing character flaws of Violet's Bruce, of course. Life does not precisely imitate art--there are no "sensitive" sons from our intimate little group, either, those amongst us with issue having had the good sense to produce intelligent and independent daughters.)

Until next time, au revoir.