With the coming of cooler weather, my long-standing resolution to build the kids a tree house began to bear fruit this weekend. I went to the hardware store and read through their various tree house plans, finally settling on something that looked like it ought to be sturdy enough to withstand my children. I settled on an 8′ x 8′ plan, which will itself stand about 8′ above the ground. The view from up there is great, affording both excellent visibility to the street by the house and the swimming pool. We built most of the structure that will support the floor over the weekend. Next up will be installing the actual flooring and then building walls so that Liam doesn’t hurl himself (or anyone else) into space more than absolutely necessary.

After climbing up onto the framework of the platform and seeing what a nice space it is, I’m half-considering commandeering it for use as a Tree Office.

I’ve been thinking a fair bit recently about Joy, and its relationship to God. Christians are promised a deep and lasting Joy in their lives, though are also pretty much guaranteed that it won’t always be accompanied by happiness. (Incidentally, I think much of what is percieved as pollyannaism among Christians stems from confusing the Joy we’re supposed to have with the happiness that we may or may not experience at a given point.)

In any case, it seems that a corollary to that promise of Joy as we participate in the Divine life is that the presence of Joy may give us a clue as to where God can meet us as individuals. I get a great deal of Joy out of being with my family, immediate and extended, of playing music, of going for long hikes, and spending time with a few of my dearest friends. On the other hand, I don’t often get much from work, and spending 2 hours a day in the car actively drains it from me. (And to continue to make the distinction clear, there are a number of things that tend to be enjoyable and make me happy that aren’t tied to joy: playing interesting games, adventure/mystery novels, Mystery Science Theater 3000, etc.)

So I’ve been trying to figure out if my life can be reordered to focus more on those Joyful aspects (even at the potential expense of some of the happy facets), and if indeed that does offer some individual clue as to where I need to be to be attuned to God’s operation in my life, or whether it’s simply borne out of pleasure-seeking.

I’m starting on Madeline L’Engle’s Walking on Water, a book with some of her reflections on Faith & Art. She seems very much convinced that each artistic act is a reflection of the creative portion of the imago dei planted in us — that in creating, she reflects the Creator in whose image she’s made. Interesting food for thought.

Last Saturday night, Kathy and I made the pilgrimage to Lockhart’s Gaslight Theater for the closing night of Dial “M” for Murder. Having never seen the film version, we weren’t entirely sure what to expect, but had high hopes given the quality of the previous performance we’d seen at the theater.

The show revolves around a man’s discovery of his wife’s infidelity, and his subsequent calculating plans to do her in. Those plans go awry in various complicated ways, making for a gripping and unpredictable drama.

The cast for this show was even better than the last we’d seen. The principals did an especially good job, pulling off the delicate balance between the clear diction the stage demands and natural-sounding speech admirably. The theater was cut down to 60 seats from their usual 90, creating an even more intimate setting than usual. Altogether, another great experience at a theater we’re glad to have discovered.

Next in their season is Ionesco’s Rhinocerous, which should be an interesting departure from the shows we’ve seen there so for. We’re looking forward to it.

Apple today released their portable MP3 player, the iPod. It looks very nice, and very much in line with Apple’s positioning themselves as a “digital hub”: hyper-simple to use, excellent sound quality, new battery technology, super-fast, and doubles as a portable hard drive. Neat.

What I really want it to have, though, is a low-power FM transmitter so that you can easily play it through a nearby car stereo. (Or pull off some interesting pranks, for that matter, if you can figure out what station the guy next to you at the stoplight is listening to.)

At $400, I’m not rushing out to buy one, but I think I know some people who will be. A solid entry into the non-computer market for Apple. If what my Apple friends tell me is true, it won’t be the last either.

(Disclosure: I own Apple stock, which has been the only one in my portfolio that’s been kind to me lately.)

More layoffs at EA.com today. My former officemate Seth Goldberg was released, which upsets me both because I really like Seth and because I’m probably going to get saddled with the billing system that he’d been taking care of. Cuts in Austin were comparatively light, given that from what I hear, about 50% of EA.com’s people were sent packing. (EA.com is the online subsidiary of EA which is responsible for Ultima Online, Majestic, the soon-to-be-released Motor City Online, and various other online game projects.)

I guess it could have been worse. But it could have been a whole lot better too.

From my good friend Ross Richie:

What follows is one of the most inspiring pieces I have read regarding our
work as Christian artists…and it doesn’t come from the pen of a
“Christian” artist. Of course, he was one of the most theologically astute
filmmakers western cinema has known. I find this especially poignant coming
from this filmmaker knowing his “searching” heart. Forget our visions and
purposes, this is what we all should ultimately be striving for.

I would always have great success when I would use this giving talks to
churches about Christians and the arts.

Ladies and Gentlemen — Ingmar Bergman:

“People ask what are my intentions with my films-my aims. It is a difficult
and dangerous question, and I usually give an evasive answer: I try to tell
the truth about the human condition, the truth as I see it. This answer
seems to satisfy everyone, but it is not quite correct. I prefer to
describe what I would like my aim to be.

“There is an old story of how the cathedral of Chartres was struck by
lightning and burned to the ground. Then thousands of people came from all
points of the compass, like a giant procession of ants, and together they
began to rebuild the cathedral on its old site. They worked until the
building was completed-master builders, artists, laborers, clowns, noblemen,
priests, burghers. But they all remained anonymous, and no one knows to
this day who built the cathedral of Chartres.

“Regardless of my own beliefs and my own doubts, which are unimportant in
this connection, it is my opinion that art lost its basic creative drive the
moment it was separated from worship. It severed an umbilical cord and now
lives from worship. It severed an umbilical cord and now lives its own
sterile life, generating and degenerating itself. In former days the artist
remained unknown and his work was to the glory of God. He lived and died
without being more or less important than other artisans; “eternal values,”
“immortality” and “masterpiece” were terms not applicable in his case. The
ability to create was a gift. In such a world flourished invulnerable
assurance and natural humility.

“Today the individual has become the highest form and the greatest bane of
artistic creation. The smallest wound or pain of the ego is examined under
a microscope as if it were of eternal importance. The artist considers his
isolation, his subjectivity, his individualism almost holy. Thus we finally
gather in one large pen, where we stand and bleat about our loneliness
without listening to each other and without realizing that we are smothering
each other to death. The individualists stare into each other’s eyes and
yet deny the existence of each other. We walk in circles, so limited by our
own anxieties that we can no longer distinguish between true and false,
between the gangster’s whim and the purest ideal.

“Thus if I am asked what I would like the general purpose of my films to be,
I would reply that I want to be one of the artists in the cathedral on the
great plain. I want to make a dragon’s head, an angel, a devil-or perhaps a
saint-out of stone. It does not matter which; it is the sense of
satisfaction that counts. Regardless of whether I believe or not, whether I
am a Christian or not, I would play my part in the collective building of
the cathedral.”

Kathy went in today to have some uterine polyps which had been causing some bleeding for about 11 weeks removed. Though the doctor allegedly used local anaesthesia, the “calming agent” they gave her was strong enough that she wasn’t conscious for much of the procedure anyway. In any case, she’s back home, safe and sound, and though she’s still very tired, she’s doing fine. I’m taking most of the day of work to herd the children and take care of her. Special thanks to Andrew Lopez for helping with the kiddos while I was picking Kathy up!

This was my first experience with Charles Williams, in spite of having had a couple of his books sitting on my shelf for more than a decade. Reading in A Severe Mercy about how much value the Vanaukens had found in Williams’ writing, I decided it was finally time to take the plunge — and am I glad I did.

The Place of the Lion is a novel of ideas, in both a figurative and literal sense of the phrase. It revolves around the incursion of certain forces into our world — embodiements of ideals from a Platonic perspective, celestial beings from a Christian. As these beings, which manifest as giant animals, take on more solid existence, the people who have devoted themselves to the qualities they represent (strength, guile, etc.) begin to fall under their control. Conflict quickly emerges among the forces and people involved, and we follow the three principal characters as they struggle to come to terms with this new existence. A philisophical and theological speculation cleverly disguised as a novel, the book makes for engaging (and sometimes befuddling) reading which kept me thinking for a long time after I closed it. And now I have three more of Williams’ novels in my reading queue.

Now I’m perfectly aware that it’s good marketing to include recipes with a food product so as to give the impulse buyer a possible use for the random food product that he’s shoved into his grocery card in a hunger-fueled bit of poor judgement. However, as with most good ideas, it’s important to use good discretion and taste for it to work correctly. Case in point: I bought a container of Athenos Garlic & Herb Feta Cheese, a product with more than enough merit of its own to sell without any clever marketing. But if you’ve got to pay those marketers for something, it makes sense that they might give you some ideas for the product’s use. But what to my wondering eyes should appear when I open the package? Not guidelines for greek salads. Not instructions for mousakka.

“Savory Feta Burgers”

The apocolyse is surely nigh.

Since Abigail has now reached 5 years in the world, and is more than ready for Kindergarten, we began evaluating schooling options for her several months ago. There’s a public elementary school a block from our house, and since we’ve been home schooling Emily, we have everything pretty well ordered for that option as well. When we were about to make a decision, we unexpectedly received a mailing describing the Texas Virtual Charter School, a program initiated by William Bennett, who we knew from his The Book of Virtues. We weren’t as familiar with his work in education, but were excited by the description of the school, which seemed to combine some of our favorite aspects of home schooling with many advantages of public schooling.

In the Virtual Charter School program, the state-funded school provides supplies, curriculum, and a computer, all of which are mailed to the student at her home. Additionally, though the parents are repsonsible for the lion’s share of the direct instruction, there is also a teacher on call who can answer questions and provide help with the teaching. We’re fortunate to be able to have Kathy at home with the kids, so this sounded like a great fit to us. We’ve signed up Abigail, and she’s gotten more excited with every box of supplies that has arrived at our house. (In fact, Emily is starting to show signs of wanting to do the VCS as well, but it will be a year or two before they have classes in her grade level.) We’re excited and optimistic to see how this combination of parental involvement and state structure plays out over this school year.