Sentence Nightmares

Today I came across a real monstrosity of a sentence:
"Given all that Americans read and hear today about the "increasingly serious" problem of family violence in newspapers and on television news broadcasts and newsmagazines, along with the frightening statistics publicized by some organizations devoted to addressing family violence, it is tempting to assume that the prevalence of family violence has reached an all-time high and is getting worse." (Family violence across the lifespan: An introduction, 2nd edition. 2005, O. Barnett, C.L. Miller-Perrin, & R.D. Perrin, p. 24).
Technically, this sentence has a lot of correct things about it. But it's just such a multi-jointed mouthful, jammed with information, that I had to read it several times.
Now I love a good run-on sentence as well as anyone, but this was such an awful sentence to find in a textbook of higher education that it deserves comment. (Sadly, there are numerous such word conglomerations in this text!)

My students have a difficult time writing sentences properly, often resorting to catch-all sentences of shocking proportions. Here is a sentence written in a theoretical analysis of the movie, Tortilla Soup:

"The death of Gomez at the end of the video contributes to the transformation of Martin’s context represented by his openness and acceptance of his daughter's choices to move out of the family house symbolized by offering the house for sale, and the regain of his taste and smell that explains the alternative context he developed that helped him resolve his complexity also symbolized by him proposing to Yolanda after choosing to remain single for long time after his ex-wife passed away."
That string of gobbledygook takes my breath away.

Here's another beauty:
"Her grandfather was a victim of financial abuse and with family members not being close to him and still in relatively good health when he died no one was aware that his savings had been cleared out and his home and land was signed over to a neighbor who he had also written checks that were supposedly gifts."
Phew!

My private fantasy about people who write these sentences is that they are excited writers who are frantically putting down facts without regard to structure. They are caught up in the moment and just don't want to leave out anything so everything gets said willy-nilly. I believe that these people are not boring, but rather, they are quite interesting people. They have so much content that it fairly bulges out of their sentences.
These are not the individuals who write uninspiring narratives such as, "That dog laying by the cat was lame. I don't know why. He couldn't walk away from the barn. The cat didn't seem to like him, either."

No. The "loaded bullet," full-of-facts writer enthuses, "There was this dog near a cat and the dog just couldn't move away from the cat even though the cat scratched him and the dog rolled off to one side to try to get away from him while he pushed with his feet against the wall where the horse harnesses were hanging by the haymow. The dog never did walk away, even though the cat hissed, scratched, and yowled at him, as he laid in a ball on the old blanket in the entryway of the barn that my grandfather built before the Spanish-American War. A person can't see any nails in the beams of that barn because it was made with pegs and grooves like all the old buildings were made back in the days when Teddy Roosevelt and his "rough riders" were in the news because of the men he surrounded himself with, but also because he had to be a rough rider to travel through all the national parks that he set up in those years. Anyway, the dog is probably lame because he couldn't get away from that cantankerous cat--the one who has a blue eye and a green eye, and who has seven toes on all four feet, so he can really scratch his enemies if he gets mad enough, and he scratched the dog who didn't move. So yeah, the dog is probably lame, poor thing that had to be put out in the old drafty barn with that idiot, hyperthyroid fleabag who is half-crazed with cat hallucinations and delusions of grandeur most of the time, even though he's as ugly as a dung heap."

Well, dog my cats! I'll take the run-on sentence writer's stories any day if they're this interesting and full of amazing facts.

Perhaps those textbook authors are smarter than I originally gave them credit for...

Prayerful literacy

I don't know how the prayer started, but it was a long one. My mind had begun to drift, kneeling in the eighth row with my friend, Shelly. This was the morning to go to a new church and have a different worship experience.
The woman in the bright caftan and large African head wrap prayed on and on in thick, ecclesiastical tones, clearly moved by her own prayer. She was praying for patients in the hospital and a number of other issues that went on for some minutes.
I was aware of the hard floor under my knees, and of the smoothness of the wood pew ahead of me, upon which I leaned.
"And Lord, may we have the patience, that's I-E-N-C-E, because that's what we need."
Hearing the woman spelling something brought me back from my internal distractions. I raised an eyebrow and shot a questioning look at Shelly. Her expression was one of confusion.
"If we are with patients, I-E-N-T-S, we need thy patience, E-N-C-E."
Again, my mind had wandered and I rapidly came to only to hear this woman spelling something. Did the woman believe that the Lord wasn't sure which homonym she was using?
It was one of the funniest prayers I've ever heard, even though the supplicant was intent on communing with God. I've laughed about her literary precision many T-I-M-E-S.

Multiple Personalities

I understood something anew about multiple personalities last night. As a professor in the mental health field, it is incumbent upon me to pass along what I learned.
Bilingual people have more than one personality. Now perhaps I am slow, but it dawned on me in a new way last night that people can portray themselves one way in one language, and another way in a different language. My husband's first language is English. I know him as someone who speaks to me without an accent and who responds to me in English. But when he speaks Spanish--which he learned in another country at his parents' insistence--people howl with laughter and respond to him in a completely different way.
I watched this metamorphosis last night. His more serious English-speaking personality was out grilling salmon on the patio when our Spanish-speaking guests arrived. The man of the family quickly joined Sam on the patio and they immediately began chuckling about something or another. It continued until they came in carrying platters of steaming salmon.
Meanwhile, my sister and I conversed in broken Spanish-English with the women in the family. I was a bit distracted, as I had a mishap with the drink out in the garage, then again in the kitchen (we have been finding sticky pink patches in cutlery drawers, under the edge of the dishwasher, and frozen patches of it in the garage--what a mess!)
As Sam began interacting with our guests, I watched and listened carefully. He became someone else, and I loved being able to see this.
It is clear from hearing Sam speak Spanish that his phrasing is rather halting and imperfect. But his pronounciation is excellent and he doesn't let the choppiness of his speech bother him. He listened carefully to the women speak and responded with comments that made them all laugh. They all looked at him with unveiled admiration. He challenged the four-year old to finish her meal so she could have dessert and then followed up with admonishment that sent the family into gales of laughter. Even the serious father. As they left, his typical hugs and kisses were somehow different and warmer.
In English, Sam's humor is usually rather corny and based on literalism of speech. He gets a lot of sympathy laughs, the way I see it. But in Spanish, he is hilarious. I've observed his interactions with Hispanic people several times and come back to this hypothesis each time.
It reminds me of conversations I've struggled through with my spotty German language skills. My German friends have called me serious, ponderous, and associate my conversation contributions as being rather "Catholic" in quality. From what I can gather, that means melancholy, conservative, fixated on right and wrong, and somehow pious. Although I am somewhat melancholy at times, the other qualities don't ring true to me. Yet there they are, as soon as I start to articulate myself in German.
Italian is quite another story. Catholic or no, I come across as extremely sensuous and suggestive in that language. There is something about that language and the way I use the little of it that I know, that creates some sort of languid reclining personality in me. (It is a time when I wish more of an Italian dolorosa-type quality could be part of the mix).
So I began to think about these things last night, watching my husband's body language, hearing his voice, and seeing him make facial expressions--all that look somewhat familiar but not at all what I am used to. Who is this that I married? Whom did he marry? I guess it all depends on what language we are speaking at the time.

Light Hearted

Two days ago my doctor called me to say that the cat scan I had last week showed that I have a mass in my colon. It could be cancer, he intoned. I should get a colonoscopy right away and see a GI doctor. He told me I would have an appointment in two weeks with this specialist.
Is it anything serious?
Circuitous obfuscation.

Yesterday, I sat cold and exposed on the specialist's table--two weeks earlier than my appointment and very shaky. This doctor had a kind face and I remember thinking that if anyone had to tell me that I have a life-threatening illness, none could deliver such news with greater warmth or understanding.
His first words were, "I'm unimpressed by your CT scan. I don't see anything to be alarmed about on it."
But what about the other doctor's comments to me?
"I don't think you have anything like cancer, so don't even consider that."
Why would the other doctor even say such a thing then?
"Let's focus on getting this irritating twinge in your guts taken care of and don't go down that road."

At this Christmas season, I'm imminently grateful that I don't have a cancer diagnosis to deal with. Perhaps I'm even more grateful that for a day or two I had the opportunity to look at death in the face. As sobering as it was to linger over issues of how Sam would manage to lose me, what I should do with myself before I die, I experienced something very helpful: Waking up at 3:30 and listening to Sam's breathing and wondering how he would sleep if I were dying--wondering what would become of my students, friends, and family. Thinking about how I should move ahead with this illness--whether or not I would have an operation and even be able to teach this next quarter, etc.

Catastrophizing? Maybe. But it was frightening to think of Sam going through my death after he had lost his mother to colon cancer; wondering what it would feel like to be "full of cancer" and dying; living with questions of whether or not, or when it would come back.

In all of this, I feel that I learned something about what is important in life and how to see life differently.
What is important is how I love my family, friends and neighbors. What is important is that I live every single day saying, thinking, and doing all that I would do if it were my last day alive. And to live with the understanding that life on this planet is only a tiny jot on the radar screen. The rest takes place for eternity in heaven.
These are not original ideas, nor have I put them down in any particularly creative or gripping manner. But this is where I've been in my head for the last week. I have much to be thankful for this Christmas season.

What would you do?

I know that my last blog entry was a bit intense. It was driven by how struck I was that I could have been victimized as badly as other people I know.
Today, I have the same intensity but about something quite different. My question is this: If you were told you had advanced cancer and had only six months to live, what would you choose to do?

I've been thinking about this question today. Would I travel, and go see all the lovely things of the world? Would it make sense to climb mountains or paddle rivers--especially if it would take me out of contact with those who would miss me the most? Would I continue teaching, applying myself as never before? Would I take a medical leave and spend my time writing all that I could to as many as would listen? Would I spend my last days giving my husband and family all the attention that I could muster, so they would have good memories after my death? Would I start speaking at every event I could--about how cancer can be prevented? Or would I speak about the beauty of God's love and grace? Or, would I merely continue on in life hoping against hope that nothing would change and that I could beat the odds?

Some life events--near misses, or those interminable waits for test results--bring these questions to the fore. They also prompt us to think about what really matters in life. The events of the last week have reminded me that as Corrie ten Boom said, life is like a piece of embroidery. We can only see the underside with knots and incomprehensible stitches, in all directions. But God sees the top of the embroidery and can see the pattern and beauty that is being worked out. We can only look up and try to guess, from our vantage point, what is being created by God.

What happens on this earth is important, but it is very small in comparison to the greatness of God's overall picture. Heaven and God's view of life is the true reality, not what we see and do here. And thus, even having a shortened life takes on a different face and meaning. Choices and life becomes a bit less complicated. Oh, to see as God sees.

Why Me?

I usually ask the why me? question when something unfortunate has happened or somehow affects me. But I asked this question for quite a different reason last night. Here's what happened.
My neighbor, who is an immigrant from Eastern Europe, told me more pieces of her life story. I dropped by around 5:30 to take her something for her dinner, she being alone for the holidays. My knock on the door interrupted her time with God, but she was delighted to have me visit and offered me the padded kitchen chair. She sat at the edge of the wooden chair, thrilled to have someone to talk with. We sat in her stark little kitchen with two space heaters aimed at us. One small light fixture hung over the kitchen table where she had been listening to a recorded sermon in her language. Her Bible was spread out in front of her and she had several devotional books opened on the table.
Every time we talk she tells me more of her life story. I think I have a pretty clear sketch of most of it now, and this is why today I ask, why me?

Why was I born into an intact family where I was wanted and in which there was enough to eat? Why was I born in a part of the world where there was no war, where I was not a refugee, never went hungry and always had a warm bed? I have never had to move to another country to avoid religious persecution, losing all my meaningful personal effects. I have never been demoted from a well-paying, respected job to beg for work given to people who cannot speak English and who are considered unintelligent because they can't express themselves. I have not been made fun of because I had no money and my clothes were ragged. My life has not been a ceaseless grind just to survive.

I have not been abandoned by a spouse who took all my belongings and left me with nothing and a young child to find a way to feed. How did I ever get so fortunate to marry a wonderful Christian man who is faithful to me? I have never had children, but there may even be blessing in that. As my neighbor told me the excruciating story of the death of her young son, her hands shook and she fought back tears. I marveled that I have been spared this pain.

My health has not suffered like another friend who was reduced to gnawing on the frozen legs of dead horses that stuck up through the Siberian snow. I have not been forced to watch my daughters raped by drunken soldiers who were marauding my village. My eardrums have not been punctured by bombs that exploded only feet away from me. I do not have scars from flying shrapnel, or internal scars from having to keep my eyes open day and night just to survive. Yet as my neighbor finished telling her story, she clasped her hands together and raised them upward. "Prrrrase da Lort!" she said loudly. "I have everah-ting now."

Maybe the question is really, why not me? I am not growing old alone. I have a home that is warm, clean, well supplied, with full cupboards, and clothes to spare. There is love and life here, when in so many parts of the world people are dying from lack of clean water or lack of shelter.

"From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked." Luke 12:47-49.
I am so fortunate, so blessed. Why me?

Anglo Incognito

I am in a panic. I was asked to sing for a large Hispanic convocation in January at our church and I agreed to do it. I wanted to make my husband proud that I can fit into his world. And now I'm wishing I never said I'd do this.
There are few songs in Spanish that I can find, that are in the classics category required by the minister of music. I can't figure out how to search for Spanish titles that I don't even know, or where to do that.

My father in-law has sung for years at his Spanish church. Just this year he gave all of his music to someone else--all that richness and history--in several boxes. So all he could send me was "O Sole Mio" in Spanish. He said I'd need to change the words a little bit to give them sacred meaning, but he didn't give me any idea of how to do that.

I turned to my minister of music friend, Bobby. He reassured me that yes, he had music in Spanish, and in fact, had just received a number of pieces that he thought would be good for Cinco de Mayo weekend. Bobby graduated from Princeton, and has excellent musical taste. Knowing that he was working on this for me was very comforting.
Yesterday the music came in the mail. I proudly carried it to the piano and started playing and singing through it. Sam sat nearby at his computer browsing for something or another. The introduction to the first song sounded like the accompaniament for "La Cucaracha." Sam turned toward me in his chair as I began to sing loudly en Espanol. As the last note of the first verse ended, Sam cleared his throat. "What is that?"
"Beats me. But it's in Spanish. Did you understand what I was saying?"
Sam looked dubious. "Kind of. But the words are really wierd. I hope you aren't planning to sing that."
Deflated, I sang through a couple more of Bobby's choice songs. Another one had a mariachi-type sound and I sang with gusto. It made me feel like Carmen Miranda. Sam turned back to the computer shaking his head. "You're going to have to find something else. These songs are awful." I am now the owner of six awful songs in Spanish.

I think I have finally found something. I took my Spanish hymnal and found words with the right meter to superimpose on the English tune, "O Waly Waly." It's a beautiful tune, and the lyrics are majestic and wonderful ("O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing My Great Redeemer's Praise").
Sam informed me that there will be lots of evangelistic "big guns" in the Hispanic community who will attend the January convocation. I'm singing through my song every day now, so I don't sound like an Italian wetback up there. Just call me the Anglo Incognito.

Never Lost

Life can be a complicated maze of adult anxieties, missed opportunities, and the drudge of everyday imperatives. For years I have kept my nose to the grindstone, putting myself through private high school and college, and later, grad school and university. Work-study-sleep. Work-study-sleep. It was a pattern I lived for many years.
Somewhere in that seemingly endless, but predictable round of activities, I felt that I lost a sense of who I was. Sleep-deprived, lonely, and anxious that I wouldn't be able to get the grades or meet my life goals, I lost sight of that primal, inner me. When I realized that I felt disconnected and ungrounded, it was too late.
One day, as I idly leafed through a photo album, I came across this picture. I remember posing for my mother as she took it, out in the road in front of our Mississippi home. A neighbor lady had dropped off some old clothes for me to play dress up in, and I wasted no time donning her hat and gloves, scarf, and those wonderful blue high heels. I recall throwing my head back and looking over my shoulder at my mother, who was laughing at my antics from behind the camera.
Studying the picture, I had to laugh aloud--both because it is a funny picture, but also from the instant recognition that this was what I had been missing. I keep a copy of it over my desk. It is who I am through and through.

In another life

I saw Roy on Saturday, after 25 long years. I suppose you could say that Roy was my first real love: a gangly, Jamaican boy with a teasing shout of a laugh, warm black eyes, and an absorbing intensity when he was deep in thought. Roy was my friend and constant companion during the second year and a half of college. The White boys wrote me off when they saw us together, and the Black boys didn't know what to think of me.

Roy was the one who snuck into the girl's dorm while our friend Beverley, wearing only her underwear, was washing her hair in the janitor's sink in the hall. He raced in the back door, down the forbidden hall to her, blurted something into her hair and tore back outside onto the steps. There he doubled up with laughter as Beverley angrily rushed to her room, dignity askew.

Roy and I studied together as often as we could, however very little studying got done. We always found some sort of mischief to get into together. One night as I wrote a paper, we came to a disagreement about how to spell the word hence. He said it should be spelled hense. I was sure it should be hence. So sure in fact, that I vowed to run around the men's dorm naked if it was hense. Roy matched my vow with one of his own. As we sat looking at one another, taken aback with our rash statements, we suddenly had pangs of uncertainty. We loped across campus to the library where we found in the thick unabridged dictionary that we were both correct! Being Jamaican, he had learned the British spelling while I had learned the American spelling. Neither of us will admit to running around a dorm naked, even though one of us did do it naked under a trenchcoat!

Roy is a pianist without equal and I was fortunate to have him as my accompanist when I sang. We concertized in numerous New England churches. In fact, we could be called up out of the audience to sing and spontaneously could make flawless music together. The depth of the bond between us enabled us to blend together as only two well-matched musicians can.

Roy was like my warm, fun-loving brothers. I adored him. My family loved him. I would even go so far as to say that I loved him. But I was not in love with him and our friendship immediately ended when he realized that my playfulness was not marriage in the making. Being unsure of how to spare either of us the awkwardness of trying to negotiate a friendship in the face of his disappointment and my defensiveness, I played the race card. I told him that I just didn't think it was wise for us to have a mixed race relationship, even though I cared for him very deeply. He was terribly hurt and could not forgive me, reacting with hostility whenever I saw him over the next six months before I graduated. I have never forgiven myself for my unthinking, anxiety-driven blunder. I can still see the pained expression on his face.

And I never saw him again. Until Saturday.

I tuned in to a church service that was broadcast live on my computer. As the main speaker sat down, Roy stood up and sang a solo. He hasn't changed a bit except perhaps, his hair isn't as thick as it used to be. But I could see him, finally, after all these years. It filled my heart to hear him sing again, and later, play the piano. He was wonderful, playing with his whole soul, just as I remembered.

In another life, I wonder if I could have dated and married him. Watching him interact with an all-Black, inner city church group made me realize how his life has become different than mine and how I might feel welcomed or rejected in his group and he in mine. I watched him participate in the service, feeling admiration and nostalgia.

I talked with Sam about it later and he was interested and not defensive. After all, he noted, I live with him, not Roy. It was that straightforward as far as he was concerned.

I wonder what Roy would think if he realized that I'm now in a biracial marriage--Hispanic-White, not Black-White as he and I would have been. I wonder if he would have hurt less if he had known that I truly loved and adored him and was just lost for words. Perhaps we could still have been close friends for always. Sam would have enjoyed his friendship, I have no doubt.

A great deal happens when one is trying to grow up. Relationships and life choices can fill one's mind with unanswered questions for decades. Some stories can never be rewritten.
I love Sam with all my heart and cannot imagine being without him. And yet, an empty spot remains where Roy once was. I doubt I'll ever stop missing my beloved friend.

Photo Journalist

I came near to maiming someone last night.
I went to our school's annual Christmas concert. The church was beautifully decorated and people seemed energized and excited as they filled the pews. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of music and the wide variety of styles presented: chamber music all the way to steel drums. Just wonderful. The hair on my arms must have been tired from standing up at exhilarating musical moments. It was grand.
And it all happened in spite of the photographer who continually walked among the performers and stood in my visual path, down near the front of the church. I have to say that I've never seen anyone so blatant or intrusive taking photos during any event.
During the first number, I noticed this young man dressed in black shirt and pants, standing up in front of the front row of people, taking pictures of the orchestra. Assuming that he was taking photos for the yearbook or the school calendar, I didn't think much of it. That is, until I watched him walk up onto the stage in front of the performers, to take what he probably thought was a surreptitious place behind the percussion section. He moved about between the choir and the orchestra, taking shots of people singing, playing instruments, and the conductor waving his arms. Then, in full view of the audience, he rested his camera on the grand piano, pointed it at the audience, and started snapping pictures of us! I brushed it off, thinking that this was his final effort, and that he would now fade and be gone. He did go out the side door on the platform then.
A few minutes later, up he popped in the baptismal tank behind the choir and orchestra. He snapped several pictures as he stood straight up, then thought better of it and crouched down behind a pointsetta plant. I watched the black lenses of his camera move about through the pointsetta leaves and blossoms. He spent several minutes there before he stood up again, where he was was silhouetted against the red backdrop for the giant wreath with hundreds of tiny lights on it, hanging over the baptismal tank. He must have found this vantage point particularly good, because he took a number of photos of the conductor who appeared to be giving his all during an exciting piece. Finally, responding to my silent pleas, Mr. Photographer left the baptismal area and I began to finally focus on the music itself.
As another group started to sing, here he came again, standing upright, right in front of us, obscuring our view. He walked back and forth for the next several selections, taking pictures of all sorts of things. Then back up onto the stage he went, where he moved amongst the instruments again. At one point when he stood against the chimes, I wished with all my heart that he'd lean on them and knock them over: a carillon experience that would finally underscore how out of place he was. But that was not to be.
Down to the main floor, in the aisle next to the front row. Now he was talking and laughing with a woman who wanted to see what he was doing. I thought seriously about creeping up to him and demanding that he sit down and stop distracting everyone, citing faculty status and perhaps sheer physical force, if necessary. People around me were whispering and looking at him. There might have been applause garnered for such a brave action on my part. But I just couldn't make myself get out of my chair and walk the 10 rows down to where he knelt, playing with the many lenses and holding the camera up to the light to determine something about it.
For some reason, every time the music became intense, loud, or particularly moving, Mr. Photographer took pictures at a faster rate. Perhaps there is something that can be captured in the face of a musician that can't be seen unless he or she is playing loudly, but I wondered how many of these shots he really needed to have, because his actions were continuous and uninterrupted throughout the entire concert. Was this photo journalism? Or just a rookie who hadn't been instructed in how to take pictures at an event?
My seat mate was squirming about and starting to roll her eyes when the photographer walked up onto the stage again. "I just can't believe that guy!" she whispered. Her facial expression was nothing in comparison to what happened when he stood directly in front of the performers in a steel drum ensemble. He in front of one of them, unabashedly snapping picture after picture. I think by that time, whatever jitters he may have ever had about taking photos in front of a huge audience, were well nigh obliterated.

So the evening ended. I truly loved the music. I tried to blot out this guy's annoying presence so I could let my soul soar with the music. And I did soar, mostly with my eyes shut so I wouldn't be distracted.

This seems to be a rule about life on this planet. There is often a fly in the ointment when we have good things. I suppose that the question to be asked is whether we focus on the good parts: the beautiful, soul-expanding, heartwarming good in things. Or, on the irritating, niggling frustrations that almost always accompany such loveliness?
Oh for grace to know when to shut the eyes of my soul so nothing will obscure the beautiful.