Good Gollie (and Bink!)

Good Kate has done it again. And this time she's done it in a different medium than her usual masterpieces - a medium that, as it were, is not all too far from Calvin and Hobbes. Not that she's started a new comic series - no, none of that. But her newest book (co-written with Allison McGhee) is more about images and colour than narration. In fact, there isn't any narration - the entire plot is told in dialogue and watercolour - an a fabulous duo it is.

The medium she chose, of course, is no accident. Just like The Tale of Desperaux glories in the fact that it's a book, Bink and Gollie glories in the fact that it's a picture book...if that's what you can call it. It feels like an altogether new genre, really - taking the best from the world of picture books (beautiful watercolour illustrations) and the best from the world of comics (dialogue that develops character, dialogue that says "this is true").

I won't tell you anything about the story, of course, because it's far to cruel to give anything away in a book so short. You could read the whole thing just standing up at the book store (which I did), and laugh out loud when Bink smells pancakes (which I also did), but that shouldn't keep you from buying it and reading it again and again and making all your friends read it too (which I will, have no fear).

Everyone who plays Calvinball, everyone who appreciates harmony and joy, everyone who just needs a good story every now and again - everyone, in fact, should read this book.

How to talk to Mice...

If you ever get bored, fear no longer.

If you're ever lonely, rest a ease.
If you ever want a small rat to talk to...

your days of waiting have come (at long last) to a timely end.

Reepicheep (!) is here. The mouse talked to dragons, fought with giants, the mouse who sailed to off the end of his own world - has come back (that's right!), and now awaits you in the cyberworld.

Why? we have no idea.

Truth be told, he's probably an imposter. The real Reepicheep would have him tarred and feathered in a heartbeat. But that's no reason not to talk to him. And you can! Here: http://www.thelionscall.com/activities/talk_to_reepicheep.cfm

...and do let me know if you get him to say anything as strange as this...

Me: What is my purpose?
Reep: Hopefully, all of us are here to do our Creator's work.
Me: Who is our Creator?
Reep: King Edmund.
Me: That, my friend, is blasphemy.

...later...

Me: Why are you here?
Reep: Because Aslan created me.
Me: But you said that King Edmund created you.
Reep: Oh dear, I gave the wrong answer.
Me: You should be ashamed.
Reep: Name one other Mouse who is ashamed.

psalm eight

"...I landed in the peace of evening. Punta Arenas! I leaned against a fountain and looked at the girls in the square. Standing there within a couple of feet of their grace, I felt more poignantly than ever the human mystery.

In a world in which life so perfectly responds to life, where flowers mingle with flowers in the wind's eye, where the swan is the familiar of all swans, man alone builds his isolation. What a space between men their spiritual natures create!

...I lean against a fountain. Old women come up to draw water: of their drama I shall know nothing but these gestures of farm servants. A child, his head against a wall, weeps in silence: there will remain of him in my memory only a beautiful child forever inconsolable. I am a stranger. I know nothing. I do not enter into their empires. Man in the presence of man is as solitary as in the face of a wide winter sky in which there sweeps, never to be tamed, a flight of trumpeting geese..."

Wind, Sand and Stars - Antoine de St. Exupery

Ludwig's First Sunset

Written on the Way to Deborah's Weddin'

Josh, Anna, Michael and I wrote this jolly poem in honor of Deborah and Evan's wedding. and yes, the existence of a real Kevin is completely fabricated... enjoy. :)

Leaven La Vida Loca

(based on a true story)

There once was a boy named Evan,

A lad who baked bread without leaven.

"Alas, O my soul,"

Said the lad to his roll,

"I wish I could bake like that Kevin."

The boy that he spoke of, this Kevin (fiend)

Was a sprightly young lad of just seven (teen).

He made cakes a la carte

And strawberry tarts

That could satisfy angels in heaven (winged).

Now Deborah liked Kevin, not Evan.

And Evan liked Deborah, not Kevin.

"Alas, O my soul,

"A lass make me whole,"

Said Evan whilst looking towards heaven.

An angel then came down from heaven

To help the poor leaven-less Evan.

"Deborah, don't fear,

"The right man is near.

"The lovin' lies not in the leaven."

The angel receded to heaven

And Deborah looked up and saw Evan.

"Alas, O my soul,

"This lad makes me whole,

"But a cake we will need at the weddin'."

So Deborah was married to Evan,

A match that was made up in heaven.

The party was swell.

The cake was as well,

Its baker none other than Kevin.

brown.

It will all sound contrived,

the forest being hungry

for naught knows what --

the sea of ivy,

poisoned. And the thorns

- the ones I'd rather have than spiders.

And just after saying it,

running into webs - one

after the other.

What of it?

A shattered pile of sticks from childhood --

one unrotten log.

And all of it

coming together just in time

for me to run back and wash it off --

if it was on time.

But there it is, anyways. We'll call it

brown.

The Fuller a Life, the Fuller a Death

Yesterday I had the joy of attending a funeral. Yes, the joy. It was everything the funeral of a Believer should be - full of grief - the pouring out of hearts "like water in the presence of the Lord" - and yet still so full of hope. There were uncomfortable moments, yes - but to heck with comfort. It was beautiful. Tears came down my face during the whole service and yet I left rejoicing. That's the way, I think, a funeral ought to be.

Stewart Bieber died just last Saturday, doing one of the things he loved most in life - barefoot waterskiing - what he called "walking on water." For some reason ("Why?" asked his wife, Rachel, at the funeral - "Why doesn't matter. I don't have that answer. What matters is that life comes out of death...'unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies'...") for some reason, while he was on the water he suddenly hit a dock and died instantly.

Rachel was there when it happened. You would think she'd have struggled to speak clearly at the funeral. What grief compares to such loss? She did not struggle - or as she put it - the Rock of her salvation carried her through it - and you couldn't convince me more that this was absolutely true. She reminded us of all the things Stewart was in life, all the pain of seeing his face in the water at his death, all the rage and numbness that resulted in the coming days, and then all the grace that permeated her life and the lives of others in Stewart's wake. Everything she said was riveting - it was clear this was no ordinary man. Stewart changed the world by embracing the power of relationships. Stewart lived for the joy of life, he sang with the tune of hope - and in doing so, his death was full of life.

When Rachel wailed with open arms at the funeral's close, it was the most welcome noise I've heard since Eponine's beautifully tragic voice joined in the final chorus of Les Mis. It was a wail full of real, a wail full of true. It was a wail of hope - a paradox that rivals only this: the fullness of life coming from the fullness of death.

I am reminded of Katherine Paterson (author of Bridge to Terabithia), whose son lost his best friend suddenly to a lightning bolt on a summer afternoon. After struggling to do all she could to comfort him, she said this, and it still fills me with wonder: "How many people in their whole lifetimes have a friend who is to them what Lisa was to David? When you have had such a gift, should you ever forget it? Of course he will forget a little. Even now he is making other friendships. His life will go on, though hers could not. And selfishly, I want his pain to ease. But how can I say that I want him to "get over it," as though having loved and been loved were some sort of disease?....He is not fully healed. Perhaps he never will be, and I am beginning to believe that this is right."

I, too, believe that this is right. Grief is real and loss is real. And Hope is real, too. So much Glory from so much Mess.