an amazing novel about Jesus

I just finished reading Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana by Anne Rice. I didn't plan to read it but just stumbled on it when I went to a used book table last week. Yeshua bar Joseph was a winsome character and so was his mother, in particular. There are some fictional parts of the book, unsurprisingly, but I was pleased that the novel did what I was hoping: made Jesus easier to identify with as a human. The book finishes with Jesus' miracle at Cana, and a theme is about Jesus coming to understand his mission clearly.

"I'd always known who I really was. I was God. And I'd chosen not to know it. Well, now I knew just what it meant to be the man who knew he was God."

The happiness of everyone at the wedding leads Yeshua to muse,

"Oh, if only I could indeed stop time, stop it here, stop it forever with this great banquet, and let all the world come here to this, now, streaming, out of Time and beyond Time, and into this--to join with the dancing, to feast at these abundant tables, to laugh and sing and cry amid these smoking lamps and twinkling candles.... If only I could hold them in one great embrace?"

Jesus gains a greater and greater understanding of what he is to do with his life and sets out to do it as the novel closes. "But I did not come to stop [time].... I came to live it, to surrender to it, to endure it, to discover in it what it was I must do, and whatever it was, well, it had only begun."

Wonderful - I really enjoyed it. Rice wrote another novel called Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt about Jesus' childhood that I will look for next.

the ninety-nine and the one

Yesterday I had a new insight into the parable of the lost sheep (Matthew 18:12-14, Luke 15:4-7) that related to being a teacher and a leader. In the story, the shepherd has one hundred sheep and one wanders off. He goes to search for the one sheep, leaving the other ninety-nine on the hills. Then he is happier about the one who was found than the other ninety-nine. "In the same way," says Jesus, "your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish."

This is a story about a loving Father who is willing to go in search of someone he loves who has wandered off from him. The story was told so that we would know that he seeks us and wants us to know him closely. And that we should also seek others and not look down on those who are not currently close to God.

The story was alluded to in a book I am currently reading, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. This is not a Christian book, though the author is open about the fact that he is a Christian. This makes it very interesting reading for me. It's the grandfather of modern success and productivity writing and has been very helpful on both a personal and professional level. A fair few Christian ideas have popped up, some overtly and some not.

I was reading about how we can make emotional investments in our relationships with others. One way we do this, the book says, is by showing personal integrity in our relationships. We can show integrity by being loyal those who are not present. This is a reason not to gossip or talk about someone behind their back. If you do this, the person to whom you are gossiping learns that you will do the same to them when they are not around. This lowers trust.

Also, a way to show integrity is to confront someone when your relationship needs to be mended or improved. "Confrontation takes considerable courage…. In the long run, people will trust and respect you if you are honest and open and kind with them. You care enough to confront."

Another way integrity is displayed is the care you show for one person who needs it. Your care for that person shows the others how you would also care for them. "The key to the ninety-nine is the one." 

Covey says that he learned this in the context of being a teacher and a parent. "It is the love and the discipline of the one student, the one child, that communicates love for the others." I realised that the care I show for one of my students can been seen by the others as the care I would also give to them when they need it. This also applies to the way I treat my team members. As I treat one of them with honour, the others should see that they will all be treated with the same respect.

This gives us an insight into Jesus' parable. Not only is the focus on the one person who is brought close to God, but the other ninety-nine see the care the Father shows. Those of us who are already in the family of God can see the care God shows to others and know that he loves us in the same way. We can take to heart that love.

I felt really blessed by this insight. It takes Jesus' story and helps me see how God's love permeates my life and can be the model for the way I treat others as well, in all of my diverse roles.

library loot

So it was my first time visiting the library in a long time. I was so happy to go! Just the pleasure of seeing and browsing among all those books. Wonderful!

 I wanted to get a book about fermenting foods and there were a few. This one, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Fermenting Foods, seemed to be comprehensive and full of easy ideas. Also I've been taking a more structured approach to trying wine lately and I realised that just figuring out what the bottles on the shelf contain is quite tricky. So I got Understanding Wine Labels to help me out. Finally, the Kitchen Reader book this month is Below Stairs, the memoir of a 1920s kitchen maid.

This post is a part of a weekly blogging event called Library Loot. It is co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Linda from Silly Little Mischief that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. I was introduced to it by our new Kitchen Reader member, Vicki from I'd Rather Be at the Beach.

Fracking, Bonobos, and the Three Gorges Dam Region in China

My recent reading helped me learn about fracking, short for hydraulic fracturing, a method for getting oil out of deep horizontal seams. It had exploded in use in North Dakota since 2006. It has provided huge economic benefits for the area and also put massive pressure on the infrastructure and employment market. It is not sustainable and the boom is due to end within a generation.

 

Bonobos are a species of ape who are separated from chimpanzees and gorillas by the Congo River. They have a distinctly matriarchal society and are much more interdependent than other apes. Bonobos don't have "alpha males", instead mothers and sons remain close and females share power.

 
"Return to River Town" was an article I read about a Western man who taught English in Fuling, China, on the Yangtze River in 1996. He returned there to visit since the town was altered by the Three Gorges Dam, 450 km downstream. The dam's construction raised the water level by 120 m and displaced the city's residents (and had many other impacts). He described an underwater museum where visitors can see a historical carving which is now submerged under 40 m of water.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua

I just finished this book - you may have heard about it a couple of years ago. It's about a first generation American-Chinese mother who wouldn't allow her two daughters to have free time or go to friends' houses. She forced them to practice music (piano for the elder, violin for the younger) for several hours every day and demanded their excellence in every academic subject.

Her book is somewhat tongue in cheek - and hilarious if you read it that way. But it also makes some valid (and scary) distinctions between Chinese and Western parenting (grand generalizations though they are). Western parents make an conscious choice to allow kids to choose their activities - even if it means Facebook and spending time at the mall. Chinese parents make all the choices for their children and demand compliance. This is why so many Asian children are so accomplished, Chua argues. She speculates that teenagers of both types hate their parents. And she also implies that adults of both types love their parents. So she is proud of her parenting style.

A lot of my students have parents like her, at least to some extent. They are driven by their parents' desires and they make academic gains because their parents ensure that they do. I can really tell the difference between those children and those whose parents acquiesce to their kids' wishes.

The real question is which is the right way (or better way) to parent? And how do you decide which is right? (Fortunately for me, I am only pondering in a theoretical way. Many of my friends and acquaintances are making these decisions every day.) What about you and your family?

Guernsey Island

I recently read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. It's a novel set in London and on Guernsey Island just after World War Two. I didn't know before that Guernsey (in the English Channel) was occupied by the Germans during the war; they were hoping to use it as a stepping stone to occupying the UK. Children were sent away from Guernsey for their safety to live in the British countryside.

This was a brilliant novel, written as a series of letters to and from a young writer in London. She makes friends with the members of a literary society on Guernsey and eventually visits them.

I bought this book at the Oxfam shop in Central HK and I think it came from Costco in Canada - see the bilingual sticker.

what I'm learning: Libya, venom, and Kyrgyzs

I do not keep up to date much with current affairs. I also am terribly bad at the history questions in Trivial Pursuit. You could say I'm a little selfish about where I give my time since I don't often look outside my immediate surroundings.

As it turns out, I will be teaching a course called Theory of Knowledge next year. And it requires a broad general knowledge base. It's time for me to start paying attention to the world around a bit more.
So to start with I picked up National Geographic Magazine. I had about an hour to use in Central. Usually I would go shopping, but this time I decided to get some reading material and a snack and settle down to learn something. And so here are some two (ish) sentence summaries of what I have learned this weekend.

Libya, recently democratic, has a lot of archeological sites from Roman and Greek times and they were neglected, and hence preserved, all through the previous leader, Quaddafi's, time in power. Now they are being rediscovered, and hopefully actively protected.

Venom from poisonous snakes, insects, and reptiles can be used as cures. Researchers are collecting venom sample, analysing them, modifying them, and testing lots of new drugs.

There is a group of about 1000 people called the Kyrgyz, who live in the remote mountain ranges of isolated Afghanistan. They live in extremely harsh conditions but have close, happy families. The article I read hints that they may be connected to medical support and the modern world if a road is built to their area, but this is currently not the case.

feeling happy?

Answer me this: Which of these two options makes you happier?

1. Tidying the living room?
2. Ignoring the mess and watching TV?

As it turns out, I have discovered that a quick way to feel happy today is to get something done. I have realised that I actually feel better after a little tidying than if I ignore it and choose to "relax" instead. Funny, isn't it? And I've been reading a bit about this in the book Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal: "It turns out that almost nothing makes us happier than good, hard work." She's referring to "work" that we choose ourselves, that has some positive feedback when we've done it. That's because we enjoy the sense of accomplishment of improving something.

McGonigal actually says that things we think of as relaxing, like chilling out, TV, eating chocolate, don't make us feel better. They are actually mildly depressing because they are so undemanding and low-engagement. We are happier avoiding those passive entertainments and seeking out a more positive, active task. "We'd be much better off," she writes, "avoiding easy fun and seeking out hard fun, or hard work that we enjoy, instead."


What do you think? Do you enjoy some "good, hard work"?

my summer holiday in numbers

34: days away from home



5: cities and towns visited:
Kelowna (BC, Canada)
London (UK)
Halifax (NS, Canada)
Miramichi (NB. Canada)
Ann Arbor (MI, USA)
Shanghai (China)

14: take offs and landings


14 hours 52 minutes: longest flight, from Chicago to Hong Kong
1 hour 3 minutes: shortest flight, from Detroit to Ann Arbor

17: sleeping tablets used in the avoidance of jet lag
12: times I went out jogging in the avoidance of jet lag
6: jogging partners: Pari, Judith, Claude, Nyarku, Andrew, and Katie

4: farmers' markets visited



21 kg: luggage with which I left
37 kg: luggage with which I returned
900: the number of snack-sized zip lock bags I brought back to HK to use in my classroom
1.2 kg: mass of 900 snack-sized zip lock bags

1: wedding attended, for Sarah and Eric


1: bridal shower attended, for Dawn
2: baby showers attended, both for Helen


3: pregnant bumps I stroked, and 1 smaller one that I admired: Sonya, Helen, Sara (below), and Carolyn


1: happy-you-finished-your-PhD party attended, for Micah


1: baby baptism attended: Julia Iris



5: novels read: Room by Emma Donoghue, Who Do You Think You Are? by Alice Munro, Safely Home by Randy Alcorn, Still Alice by Lisa Genova, Little Bee by Chris Cleave
0: airline movies watched

1166: photographs taken

sick day

I can smell the remenants of cinnamon toast. The warm bread had melting butter glistening on it. I wanted to cut the rectangles into thin fingers, like my Dad used to. A sick day treat--toast fingers and a glass of juice. Instead of being looked after by Mum or Dad, I'm home alone on my sick day. The quiet afternoon sun, a little breeze from a cracked-open window. Drinking lots of fluids, yes, mother, and I've eaten two oranges. I hope the enlivening vitamin C starts working in me soon. Other people talk about eating chicken soup on their sick days, but I don't remember ever doing this. I did feed myself some lunch with the leftover fried rice that Ant made last night. My darling husband has carried the cooking AND cleaning load this weekend. I hope to be able to cook the steak that's thawing for dinner in his honour.

I have been sitting or lying on the couch, and I've fallen asleep there several times. During the real sleeping time, at night, I have been coughing instead of sleeping. Ant can't sleep because of it. "Cough syrup doesn't work," I read today. Well, I'm willing to try. And I keep a big glass of water at the foot of the bed to sip when the hacking begins. Trouble is, I have to sit up and slither down there to get it. (My side of the bed is against the wall--ah, the Hong Kong life.)

(I'm reading Creative Journal Writing by Stephanie Dowrick between naps. Hence the more freely associative style.)

recent discoveries

I have recently discovered that:

• "reader" is my favourite one-handed typing word.
• sharing magazines with others is a clever type of recycling.
• the laundry dries more quickly in the guest bedroom than in the living room (due to the morning sun)--and it's out of the way there, too.
• pruning and washing the leaves on my indoor tree has revitalised it. (And I bet the same is true for people.)
• falling asleep on the couch for a nap with a book in hand is one version of luxury.
• persistence in rearranging my classroom furniture has finally led to a more open, spacious feeling. It's still the same number of desks and children, but they finally feel as though they fit.
• lesson planning is sometimes just "activity sequencing".

What have you discovered recently? Please share your pithy wisdom in the comments.

chinese parenting

A recent Wall Street Journal article titled Why Chinese Mothers are Superior has sparked an intense debate about parenting styles around the world. The article is written by Amy Chua, the author of the bestselling book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and she argues that effective parenting does not allow children choices such as TV, sleepovers, or the school play. Today I read this insightful article in The Guardian; it's a reponse to Chua's article by parent and professor Peter Singer. In it, he argues that elephant mothers are more what we need. It's an intriguing read. Please let me know what you think in the comments!

Anna Karenina read-along

Here's today's plan:


I'm taking my guide book as I wander off to Lamma Island. My goal is to find a nice cafe and sit there, reading Anna Karenina and watching life go by. It's too hot for much walking about, but I'll have a ferry ride to enjoy and a modicum of sight-seeing on the island.

This idea has been prompted by my friend, Andrea from Inspired by Hope and Surprised by Joy. One of her 2010 goals is to read Anna Karenina, which is a rather large book, and so we have decided to do it together. And I'm here to invite you to read along, too! Neither of us has read any Tolstoy before, so we are excited to embark on this project. Two bloggers on opposite sides of the world, and YOU!

We are setting a modest pace. The book has eight parts, each of which are about a hundred pages. The plan is to read one part each month from August until next March. Even if it takes you a few days to get a copy (hello, local second hand bookstore!), you will still have plenty of time to read the first part during August.

What do you think? Who's up for joining us? In anticipation of your answer in the positive, I am posting a character list here! Unless you want the plot spoiled, don't go reading around on the web for help with Russian names. Just stick to this list!

Note: Every Russian has three names: first name, patronymic, last name. The root of the middle name is that of the father, plus a suffix meaning "son of" or "daughter of." Thus Anna's middle name is "Arkadyevna," while that of her brother is "Arkadyevitch." Russians call each other by the Christian name and patronymic, rarely by surname. For the sake of clarity, however, English translators use the characters' family names wherever possible.

Anna Arkadyevna Karenina: High society heroine

Alexey Alexandrovitch Karenin: Anna's husband; he is a frigid, lonely man with an influential government position in St. Petersburg

Sergei Alexeyitch Karenin (Seriozha): Anna's son

Count Alexey Kirillovitch Vronsky: An honorable, rich, handsome aide-de-camp with a promising army career

Konstantin Dmitrich Levin (Kostya): Autobiographical hero of novel

Princess Katerina Alexandrovna Shtcherbatsky (Kitty): The eighteen year old debutante

Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky (Stiva): Anna's brother who is a pleasure-loving socialite

Princess Darya Alexandrovna Oblonsky (Dolly): Stiva's long-suffering wife and Kitty's older sister

Nicolai Dmitrich Levin: Levin's profligate brother

Sergei Ivanitch Koznyshev: Levin's elder half-brother who is a famous writer and intellectual

visiting the south bank

Today it was a wet and grey London day. But I had a lovely wander around the South Bank anyway. One of my favourite places to while away time in London is at the used book market nestled under a railway bridge near Waterloo station.


The tables are groaning with books and your can browse there for as long as you want while the sellers perch on their stools next to the Thames and read. I don't always buy books, sometimes I just walk up and down and enjoy looking at them!

Also at the South Bank this weekend is a slow food market. Many stalls were selling hot food that smelled delicious: steaming sausage rolls, lentil soups, and hot mulled wine. I bought a couple of cheese straws (to take home for Ant) and some hummus for Pari and I. I mused over clotted cream butter--what an idea!


I stopped by at Pari's new flat on the way home to give her hummus, and convince her to come home with me for roast chicken, roast potatoes, and cabbage cooked with Worcestershire sauce. (Thanks to Geary for lending me the Jamie Oliver cookbook that taught me this cabbage recipe.) Ant whisked up some gravy and we ended the night with tiramisu that Pari brought. What a great weekend.

childhood revisited

I have only a very few of my childhood books with me here in the UK. One of them is Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Jodi and Ron Barrett. My copy (which actually has Micah's name scrawled moving upwards on the title page) is published in 1978. It's a story about the tiny town of Chewandswallow. There are no food stores in the town since the weather comes at three times a day and feeds the citizens. There could be soup, burgers, pancakes, or any food at all. It's a beautifully illustrated story that captivated me as a child. I have it here in the UK because I used to take it with me when I would go primary supply teaching. It was a sure-fire hit with young kids, especially because there were never any who had seen the story before.

Earlier this week I saw this amazing poster. They have made the book into a movie! I will have to go see it at some point. Hopefully it will be just as whimsical and captivating as I remember.

recycling

I recently rediscovered the joys of my local library. It is very close to me and there is really no excuse for not popping in there quite regularly. As well as loaning books, they also sell withdrawn books and I like to browse through the two trollies of odds and ends there. Every few visits, I pick something up for 40 pence. In the spring, I found a little city guide of Sydney, which came in handy when we were in Australia. I get Ant some of his spy thriller books there as well. I also love used book shops and charity shops where I browse for books. I have signed up to Green Metropolis, an excellent online UK-based book exchange website.

The photo shows my new-to-me books books over the last part of my holidays. The bottom two books are on loan from the library: The Kitchen Revolution and Julie & Julia (on which the current film is based). The top two books I bought from the library's withdrawn stock: Reading Lolita in Tehran (which Bree recommended) and Cryptic Crosswords and How to Solve Them. And the other three are from used book sales and shops: Homestead by Rosina Lippi, A Cook's Book of Cheese, and The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.

So these are going to keep my busy for quite some time! What are you reading (or hoping to read) at the moment?

Oh, and I also recycle the books away again after I've read them. My charity shop takes them from me. (Sometimes I've wanted to buy them back months later when I find them on the shelves!)

a day of rest

I spent a lovely Sunday today. A few weeks ago we were studying the Sabbath in our home group. I think we all become much more convinced that a day of rest, worship, and serving God was an essential part of our lives. Today I really had a good day or rest. After church I bought The Observer (the Sunday version of the Guardian). I had planned to do this because of the Observer Food Monthly magazine that I wanted to read. After lunch Ant was trying out his new Wii game and I was curled up on the couch with my many newspaper sections, including the Food Monthly. I think I sat there, reading, for about an hour and a half. It was so nice to relax properly--quite often I am quite driven to do chores when I am at home, or to worry about them if not actually do them. This was a nice change that I think I will repeat again soon.

Other parts of my nice Sunday included a great church service, veggie laden food, baking a loaf of Irish Brown Soda Bread (below), and doing a little clearing of clutter. How was your Sunday?

books I want to read

Here are two food books I want to read at some point. Or maybe I'll start with one of them.

Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating, Mark Bittman
The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan

Here are some maths books I want to read at some point. They are taken from a list that is given to incoming Oxford maths undergraduates as things they could choose from to read over the summer before they enter the university.

The Music of the Primes, Marcus Du Sautoy
How to Solve It, George Polya
The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, Paul Hoffman (the story of Paul Erdos, which I think might be in the flat somewhere)
1089 and All That: A Journey into Mathematics, David Acheson

cooking and relaxing

Since we both stayed home from work today, we kept ourselves busy with the internet, books, a movie (Michael Clayton), a bit of TV, some organising, and cooking. I made these zucchini/courgette muffins to eat with tea as we curled up under the duvet on the couch. They were a bit dry and I ate mine with Greek yoghurt.

For supper we had some slow-cooked beef and a coleslaw (recipe from Sarah's gift of How to Cook Everything). Mum and I managed to talk with the webcam again and she used her new headset and did some ironing at the same time while I was filing in the study--very productive for us both and we got to chat about more "random" things. It was more relaxing that some of our busier chats.


I finished my book club book (for February), Then We Came to the End, the first book I have ever read narrated in the first person plural. It's set at work in an advertising agency and I found it a bit depressing from time to time with the ennui and drudgery. And I started a book I picked up at the little second hand book store near the station: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. It's a family story, which is more my style. Our next book club book (for March) is the new Sebold read, The Almost Moon.

feeling a bit overworked

It's busy period at work at the moment. We are buried under reports, paperwork, and parents' evenings. I am struggling to keep up with my usual lesson planning and marking. Thursday and Friday were manic; I was observed by visitors four times and I was madly trying to get a set of reports finished as well.

I went into work today for two and a half hours and, surprising, that was a really encouraging thing to do. I finished the reports (a bit past their deadline, oh, well) and did some paperwork I have been putting off. One can only put off those things so long because all of them are time-sensitive, regardless of how much work I have on my plate. Now I feel a bit more on top of things and hope that Monday morning might not be quite so hectic.

As I mentioned before, I am reading a book about work in an advertising office in Chicago called Then We Come to the End by Joshua Ferris. I was reading it on the way to and fro work on Thursday, when I was so stressed by everything and I marked this passage about motivating oneself to work in the afternoons.

Heading back from the couches, knowing we had to toss out our ad concepts for the fund-raiser and start over again in the disagreeable hours of the afternoon--which tended to stretch on and on--we felt a bit fatigued. All that work for nothing. And if we happened to case back, in search of edification, to days past and jobs completed--oh, what a bad idea, for what had all that amounted to? And anticipating future work just made the present moment even more miserable. There was so much unpleasantness in the workaday world. The last thing you ever wanted to do at night was go home and do the dishes. And just the idea that part of the weekend had to be dedicated to getting the oil changed and doing the laundry was enough to make those of us still full from lunch to want to lie down in the hallway and force anyone dumb enough to remain committed to walk around us.

Well, at least I am feeling a bit more positive now but it still irks me sometimes that I have to do all the rubbish chores on the weekend! Such is life.