Religion, sexuality and mystery in one short story

There is no creator indicated, so I can’t give credit where credit is very much due—I would if I could.

I received this picture in an e-mail message, and I laughed at its brilliant simplicity.

Given this assignment, most of us would make things difficult. While scribbling an outline and plot chart, we would worry about rising action, climax and dénouement. We might even create character bubbles and scene sketches.

We should ask: What is the simplest way to do this?

Because sometimes the simple way is the most effective.

 

Darwin fish and Jesus fish: complementary, not contradictory

I drove my son to his baseball game on Wednesday night.

[TIME OUT FOR PARENTAL BRAGGING: He hit a home run. He is awesome. OK, BACK TO BUSINESS]

We pulled up at a red light behind a Toyota with a Darwin fish on the back bumper.

Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremymiles/favorites/

“That is excellent,” he said. (My son is all about science.)

“Have you never seen that before?” I asked.

“No, I’ve only ever seen the Jesus fish ones, but that is great. It must really irritate fundamentalist Christians, though.”

“It might,” I said.

Then, struck by inspiration, I said, “Hey, I should get one of each.”

“Oh, right. ‘Cause you’re all science and story.”

“Yes! Darwin and the divine.”

“People would just think that there were two people in the house who couldn’t agree, so they got one of each.”

“Hmmm . . . You could be right.”

My son had hit on the key issue.

He’s right. People would assume conflict. We’re still shaking off the age of reason, so people would assume these two ideas to be incompatible. It’s still a reflex in our society to separate faith and science, when they are really comfortably complementary.

More and more scientists speak openly about faith without fear of being called looney-tunes for their beliefs. More and more people in churches, temples or mosques reject calls for blind faith.

Now I think I will get a Darwin fish and a Jesus fish.

I’ll place them on my car so they kiss each other.

Schrödinger’s Cat in 60 seconds

Have you heard about Shrödinger’s cat but never really got what that was all about?

The people at Open University tell the animated tale in 60 seconds. And it’s funny, too.

http://youtu.be/d1tn56vWU_g

I want to be Hermione

I subscribe to Bruce Sanguin’s Evolutionary Christianity e-newsletter which links to his If Darwin Prayed blog. This week he wrote a post entitled “I want to be Jason Bourne.” I read it with interest and pondered it, but I don’t want to be Jason Bourne. I’m a woman.

Who would I want to be then? What woman in the media represents my ideals?

I love The Good Wife. Could I be Alicia Florrick? She’s smart, very good at her job, and ethical but willing to push the boundaries for the side of right. I like all of that. But there is the affair. My ideal woman should not do things she has to hide from her family. My ideal should not have to worry about what people will find on a search through her laptop. She just wasn’t quite right.

How about Penny from The Big Bang Theory? She’s beautiful, frank, and smarter than most people give her credit for. But an actress I am not, and I prefer if people don’t have to work so hard to figure out the brains behind the beauty.

Erin Brockovich? She’s smart and driven to pursue justice. But I’m just not comfortable with that much cleavage.

I ran through a long list of female role models that just didn’t feel right until I came to Hermione from Harry Potter. She’s the one:

• Smart, and never tries to pretend otherwise
• Beautiful, but not aware of it
• Diligent worker
• Good at what she does. The best. She saves Harry and Ron many times.
• Relentless in her pursuit of the good
• Brave in the face of danger
• Loyal to her friends
• Independent (Unlike Bella from that other horrible series, she doesn’t need a man to make her life complete.)

Hermione is what I would wish for the women of the world. Feminine, yes, but strong, smart, independent, right-seeking and capable.

Who do you want to be?

What is the secret to long life?

“Discouragement cannot live in a grateful heart.”  —Anonymous

My friend is celebrating a birthday today. She is 103.

What is her secret? I can’t say for sure, but I suspect it might have something to do with joy and gratitude.

Three years ago, at the time of her 100th birthday, she wrote down some of her memories to give as a gift to her children. (It was her birthday, and she was the one giving gifts.) She asked me to prepare the printed manuscript of the stories, so  I received the lucky task of transcribing her memories from handwriting to computer.

At the age of 100 her handwriting had not deteriorated; I could read every word clearly. They taught penmanship in school in her youth.

Often, in the telling of a tale, she wrote, “That puts me in mind of a poem.” The poems followed, word-for-word perfect, as remembered from her school years 80 or 90 years earlier. When I searched the poems on Google, I discovered that, not only was every word perfect, she laid out the poems on the page exactly as the authors had decades ago, and every punctuation mark was in place. They did memory work in school in her youth.

But what I noticed most about her writing was this: joy and gratitude on every page. Story after story ended with, “How fortunate I am!” Or, “Why is everyone so good to me?” They taught humility and gratitude in school in her youth.

The formative years of her life involved World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II, and yet her memories overflow with joy and gratitude.

Are joy and gratitude the secrets to long life?

I can’t say for sure, but they make the time that we’re here—however long it might be—a lot more enjoyable.

Stranger than fiction

The headline, “I really did see that tiny horse guy” caught my attention. The Ottawa Citizen article by Elizabeth Payne described her encounter with a scenario so much stranger than fiction that she hesitated to tell people about it: a man with a dachsund in each arm driving a tiny cart pulled by a tiny horse.

Sometimes life really is stranger than fiction, and that exasperates me.

One day last summer I was gardening in front of my house. A white truck pulled up—the kind of truck you would see beside an oil rig or on a construction site with musclebound guys around it bragging about “Hemi” and “torque.” I expected to see Hulk Hogan driving the thing. Or Bruce Willis at the very least.

But no. When walked up to the window to talk to the driver, I saw what Kate Morton would describe as “a scribble of a man.” And, he was, if I could only use one word to describe him, Amish. He had the puffy white shirt with suspenders, a long beard that had never seen a razor and a wide-brimmed straw hat. The incongruity between the truck and the man struck me dumb.

Then he said, “Can you direct me to the lake?” The lake? I live in suburban Ottawa. There are no lakes—a very large river, yes, and a beautiful canal. But no lakes.

When he drove away, I shook my head. Did that really happen? I looked around but there was nary a neighbour in sight to verify the experience.

I said to my husband, “You know, if I wrote that scene in a story, no one would believe it really happened.”

Then a couple of weeks ago I was strolling through Centrepointe Park. A woman walking her Schnauzer came toward me from the opposite direction. She was in her late 50s, and she was nicely dressed in a linen pant suit. Her makeup was expertly applied, and she had done her hair in a careful bun at the back of her head. When she got to me, she said, “Pardon me. Can you tell me, is this Saturday or Sunday?” After a moment’s pause, I assured her it was Saturday. She closed her eyes, dropped her head forward and let out a sigh of enormous relief. “Oh, thank you, she said.

I walked away wondering how was it that she could get up, carefully choose a wardrobe, artfully apply her makeup and do her hair, and then get her dog out for a walk without first determining what day of the week it was? Especially when it so obviously mattered a great deal.

If I wrote that in a story, no one would believe it really happened. And that exasperates me.

What are we writers to do, when life is obviously so much stranger than fiction that we can’t write about it?