I have officially traveled from a Western American state to a Midwestern American state–nay, to Eastern Standard Time–and this involved going through some airports. And here is what I have seen.
Men, wearing short, wavy or curly hairstyles with a small mustache and no beard. I have seen this both in life and on a big, sophisticated advertising billboard, so you know it’s real. It used to be that the young, handsome guy look might include any kind of hair, from bald to Jason Momoa, but one thing you were definitely not going to see was a solo mustache. Now, it’s the reverse.
I’ve seen women wearing cotton dresses with large, colorful, odd-looking, semi-abstract prints on them. Colors that are either primary, or slightly off shades of pastels that I once asked myself why any of us would subject ourselves to them. And the reason was: because they were on sale.
Worst of all, friends, I have seen adults wearing short shorts. Lots of them. Men and women both. Sometimes, these short shorts are worn in conjunction with the aforementioned mustaches.
I really don’t know what to do about this. I’m at a loss. I ask the universe, “Why?”
We can only pray that this phase will pass quickly, and (if fashions are going chronologically), we will soon pass on to the 90s. Everyone will be wearing low-slung, baggy jeans; plaid flannel shirts; and knit caps over choppy hair. They will have smeary makeup and bags under their eyes. They’ll look like they either just rolled out of bed, or are in the midst of surviving a zombie apocalypse.
Last year, I taught Ancient History to a group of third, fourth, and fifth graders.
One pair of brothers in my class were very knowledgeable, and very enthusiastic, about the Greek monsters, myths, and pantheon. This was great. Some of their “knowledge” was a little overly specific, however. They gave me to understand that they had learned all this from reading the Percy Jackson books, which were so good and I really ought to read them.
So, when I decided to spend a year reading Greek-mythology-inspired fiction, I added “at least one Percy Jackson book” to my reading list.
The library had a bunch of the Percy Jackson series, but curiously, not the first one. So I checked out books #2 and #3. Sea of Monsters is #2 in the series.
Having read it, I get the idea. It was enjoyable enough, but I don’t feel the need to read any more of them.
Riordan has done some nice, internally consistent worldbuilding where the ancient Greek gods, monsters, and even locations, move around the world depending upon where the center of Western Civilization is at the time. So, in the Bronze Age, they were based in the Mediterranean. Now, in modern times, they are based in and around New York City (with the ocean conveniently nearby). The titular Sea of Monsters, which used to be the entire Mediterranean, is now (spoilers) the Bermuda Triangle.
Percy (short for Perseus) Jackson is a son of Poseidon, who lives with his mother in New York City. During the summers, he attends Camp Half-Blood, a training camp for children of the gods. It is staffed by the centaur Chiron (who, in the original myths, trained Achilles — very appropriate). In this book, Chiron has been fired, and one of the camp directors is Tantalus. Tantalus spends the entire book chasing pieces of food (donuts, burgers, etc.), which flee from him so that he never gets to take a bite.
We also meet Hermes, a fit, middle-aged man in a jogging suit, whose caduceus has been transformed into a cell phone around whose antenna twine two small green snakes by the names of George and Martha.
You get the idea. The book is a lighthearted blend of ancient Greek characters with modern technology, slang, and what is supposed to be teen culture.
Like many books that are supposed to be relatable for tweens, it’s told in the first person. There is some generic slang (“Dude!” etc.), and many of the adult authority figures are clueless and/or careless about the teens’ well-being. These are the pitfalls of such books. The use of technology and slang runs the risk that the books will not age well. The portrayal of the adults, while it might facilitate the requisite adventure, does not encourage respect. Surely, there could be ways for the author to show teachers that actually care about their students, and still get Percy away from the camp and off on his own.
As a teacher, I’m also concerned about the portrayal of bullies in Percy’s private school in New York City. The idea that there is a vicious hierarchy in middle- and high- school is definitely a Hollywood trope. I’m sure this is true in some places, but in the schools I’ve been in (both as a student and teacher), the successful, “popular” kids were mostly very kind. Kids who are less socially adept (like I was) tend to be fearful and envious, and project their feelings of inferiority onto the “popular” kids. Stories like this are not helping them gain social confidence or believe the best about others’ intentions, as we are told to do in I Corinthians 13.
This book had some poignant moments, especially near the end, but the author kept it mostly lighthearted. The series is clearly building towards some big showdown, having to do with a plot by Kronos. If I didn’t have such a long reading list, I might finish it.
They say, “If someone knits you something, they like you. If it’s made of black yarn, they love you.”
I love my teenaged son. He’s been asking me to make this knitted Black Otter Rex rabbit for years, ever since he was a rabbit-crazy little boy.
By the way, Black Otter Rex rabbits are almost unbelievably sharp-looking. Here’s what they look like in real life.
My son owned a black (not Black Otter) rex rabbit.
To make this rabbit, I used a pattern purchased from Claire Garland on Etsy. For the most part, it’s a really great knitting pattern. It starts at the rabbit’s nose and works back over its head, adding the ears as you go. Then, we do the black portions of the rabbit … down the back (with forearms attached but not stuffed yet), tail (stuffed and sewn on the spot). Then, we change colors and work back up the belly, to the neck and chin. Only the hind feet are knitted separately and then sewn on. Pretty ingenious! The pattern instructs you how to do so-called “short rows” for shaping in the face, upper hind legs, and belly. Then, you essentially just attach the front to the back, and stuff. The pattern includes plenty of pictures of the developing rabbit, with instructional dotted lines and so forth, so you can visualize what you’re doing. It also has multiple pictures of the finished rabbit, so you know what you are aiming for.
Now, about the few hiccups I had.
To get that beautiful color gradient, nearly all the pattern calls for you to hold up to four different colors of yarn together while knitting (for example, black, black mohair, petrol, and copper). These yarns that you are meant to be using are generally very fine (4-ply or mohair). Since I was working from my stash, I adapted this aspect of the pattern. I didn’t have “petrol,” but I assumed it was pretty close to black, so I just used my thicker black yarn on the sections that call for “black, petrol, and black mohair.” I did have white, grey, copper, ochre, and black, mostly in worsted or sport weight, though my black yarn was chunky. So, my end result was a little stiffer and a little less fuzzy probably than the original. Sometimes, having multiple yarns on the needles became a challenge when, for example, I was occasionally told to “knit three together.”
Making up, the part where you sew the contoured belly onto the contoured back & legs, presented a few confusing moments. I don’t know whether I mistakenly skipped or added rows in various parts of the pattern (it’s’ quite possible), but I seemed to have a lot more material on the back/hind legs than on the corresponding belly part, and I had to do some finessing to make it work. If I make this pattern again, I’ll pay special attention when I am knitting those parts.
Still, I’m pleased with the result, and so is my son. This rabbit has been at his side since yesterday, when I completed it.
The ESFP came to my attention recently as I decided, this summer, to read through The Lord of the Rings with my youngest. And as soon as you start LOTR you run up against an obvious ESFP: Pippin.
ESFP (Extraverted, Sensing/Concrete, Feeling/Social, Perceiving/Responsive) is among the friendliest and most fun of the types. They are not quite the force for chaos that you find in the ESTP, since their Feeling preference means they care a lot about the effects of their actions upon others. But they are chatty, impulsive, and distractible, and may need to be “managed.”
Here are a few of the ESFP things that Pippin does in the course of the trilogy: He tells the story of Bilbo’s disappearance in the Inn at Bree, almost exposing the secret of the Ring. He drops a stone into the well in Moria, probably waking the Balrog. He looks into the Palantir. He impulsively pledges his loyalty to Denethor as a gesture of thanks for Boromir giving his life to protect him.
Pippin is a young ESFP. I have known a few older ESFPs. One was a boss, one a parent in law. Older ESFPs may get stressed out if they have to be the ones organizing everything, but give them a structure to work within, and they are wonderful. They create a sense of fun and closeness in their family or team. They keep alive family stories and in-jokes. They remember names and anniversaries. My ESFP boss (at a farm-type job) frequently said, “Make it easy on yourself.” He created such a relaxed atmosphere on our crew that rumors flew we took naps in our break room (we didn’t).
Pippin may seem a bit flaky, but his cheerfulness is actually very sturdy, even, some might say, invincible. He remains social, optimistic and good-natured even when captured by orcs. Lost in Fangorn Forest, and with every reason to be frozen with trauma, he and Merry go on chatting lightly in their, what Treebeard calls, “nice little voices.” At Isengard, they manage to find food and tobacco (ESFPs can always be counted on to find food), and endure the teasing of Gimli, who cannot believe he found them “smoking. Smoking!“
And crucially, Pippin remains sane even when surrounded by people who are losing hope. He responds to the crisis when Denethor tries to burn himself and Faramir alive. He stays at the side of Merry, who is stabbed with a Morgul-knife and is halfway in the world of the dead (a parallel state to depression). Eventually, he and Merry ride back into the Shire singing.
Now, about my own novels. I have one, possibly two, possibly three, ESFPs among my characters. Hyuna, daughter of Hur, is lively, chattery, and “always laughing.” She makes the perfect foil for the quiet, intense, and burdened INFP Ikash. Sha, Ikash’s kid brother, might also be an ESFP, but as an artist (he does wood carvings), Sha is probably closer to an ISFP. Finally, Hyuna’s mother, Ninna, might be an ESFP or perhaps an ESFJ.
ESFPs bring the fun. See if you can get an ESFP in your life.
The Septuagint translation of Isaiah 11:10 references the root of Jesse, the one who “rises up to rule the nations; nations will put their hope in him, and his repose will be honor.” The Septuagint has anistamenos for “rise,” and this is reflected in Romans 15:8 – 12 where Paul quotes Isaiah and refers to the Messiah who “arises” (anistamenos) and is both the ruler and the hope of the gentiles. This same concept is also present in Psalm 82:8, where Yahweh “rises” (anasta in the Septuagint) to judge the earth and inherit the nations. As we will see below, this language closely resembles the ascension language of Paul in Ephesians.
Joel Muddamalle, The Unseen Battle, p. 113
So, in this context, the word “rise” or “rise up” implies a warrior/king rousing himself to battle and conquering (in this case, conquering the gods of the nations). Like the word “inheritance,” it’s a clue that the Scripture is talking about which god has legal rights to a geographical area or a group of people: the unseen battle.
I believe it is also linked to the name Anastasia, which means resurrection.
Not sure why, but it feels very appropriate to me that the word for resurrection should have four or five syllables.
This past Spring, my son’s school put on a production of Les Miserables (School Version). For a bunch of high schoolers, they did a very very good job. My sons had never heard or watched Les Mis before, so naturally, we had to go to the school musical multiple times and then check out DVDs of more professional productions of Les Mis from the library.
The power of the story cannot be denied. Depending upon where you are in your stages of life, different parts of it hit differently. For me, this time, the part that made me bawl was when Fantine, the dying prostitute, hallucinates that she is taking care of her daughter Cosette. “Cosette, it’s turned so cold.” (Because Fantine is dying, and her body temperature is dropping.) “Cosette, it’s past your bedtime. You’ve played the day away, and soon it will be night.” All that Fantine wants is to be living with her daughter, watching her play, doing a bedtime routine with her and so on, like I was privileged to do with my kids when they were small. As a mom, this really hit me. When I was a teenager, it did not hit me so hard. I was more take by the love triangle later in the play. More later about how different things become salient when you are younger or older.
So, let’s talk about the young people. The way the play is written, it’s impossible not to identify with the students, who want to lead a revolution in the wake of the death of General Le Marc. Their songs (“Red and Black” and “Do You Hear the People Sing”) are certainly stirring. Now that I’m the age of the students’ mothers, one of the many emotions stirred by these songs was trepidation. I wanted to ask Enjolras, “Honey, what is your plan to bring about a better world?”
As far as I can tell, the students’ plan is as follows:
Build a barricade in the street
Fight police
?
Utopia
Much as I sympathize with these young people’s feelings, I worry that this plan is not going to be workable.
Actually, the students did have an additional step in their plan.
Build a barricade in the street
The people rise
Students and the people fight police together
?
Utopia
Now, as it happened, “the people” (the lower classes of Paris) did not “rise.” The result was that nearly all the students got killed. However, the people’s failure to rise is not the only weak point in this plan. I have a feeling that, if the people had joined the students in the streets, the result would have been that the people and the students who were fighting got killed. The people had this feeling too, which was why they stayed in their houses.
Either way, you need something in between “fight with the police” and “utopia” in order to build a better society.
You would think the characters in Les Mis would understand this. After all, France had had a bloody revolution just one generation before, when their parents were young.
As street urchin Gavroche sings in this clip, “This is the land that fought for liberty/Now when we fight, we fight for bread./Here is the thing about equality/everyone’s equal when they’re dead.”
The students are telling the people that a violent revolution will solve the problem of their being desperately poor. However, the end result of war (including revolutionary war) is more and worse poverty. When you destroy everything, what you find the next day is that everything is destroyed.
This is what James Lindsay means when he says “Communism doesn’t know how.” The “plan” that Marx presents in his “science of history” is exactly like the students’ plan:
Destroy everything, and kill a bunch of people
?
Utopia
This is a child’s view of how to solve problems.
Mind you, it’s quite understandable. As portrayed in Les Mis, a great mass of people in France at the time were living under horrible poverty and unjust laws that made it virtually impossible to get out of a bad situation once you had got into it. (Fantine, being abandoned by the father of her child; Valjean, being convicted of a minor crime that turned into a lifetime of parole.) So this desire to fight is not so much a political philosophy, let alone a plan, as it is an instinct. Freeze, flight, or fight.
Now wait a moment, you say. Aren’t the students in the right, here? After all, Valjean, the hero of the story and the representation of Mercy, joins them on the barricade. Doesn’t that prove that a good person would be involved in the revolution?
Not quite. Valjean joined the students on the barricade and even took some shots at the soldiers. But he did not do this because he expected the students’ “plan” to work. He went there to rescue Marius. Valjean had found out that the young student, Marius, was interested in his adopted daughter Cosette, and he was eager to get Cosette safely married to this young man, because he, Valjean, would not be able to take care of her forever. Even having just met Marius, Valjean had paternal feelings towards him, as he sings in the song “Bring Him Home.” (Another theme of Les Mis is how vulnerable a woman is when she does not have a man who is willing to marry her, as we see mostly clearly in Fantine’s dramatic fall into hell-on-earth.)
Valjean, as an older person, has spent his entire life trying to alleviate human suffering … first his own, and then, that of others. The way he has done this is to dedicate himself to God, and to save and protect individuals (especially women) whenever it is in his power to do so. Although willing, in principle, to turn himself in to the law, he eludes Javert for ten years in order to rescue and raise Cosette. This is actually how a better world is built. Men marrying women and raising children with them. Adults making sure that children, like Cosette, have steady, faithful parents to care for them. This is building. It’s the opposite of tearing everything down.
This is how Valjean fights back against the poverty and injustice in France. As an older person, he knows full well that the students, and especially the people, have a legitimate complaint. By his quiet presence in the story, he can show them a better way. He helps people one at a time, as far as his sphere of influence extends. He’s not willing to kill, or even demonize, Javert, representative of the often unjust law. “I have nothing against you. You have only done your duty.” This is very different from the Jacobin spirit of hating and wishing to kill the entire middle class.
Perhaps, if you were a student, you would be unsatisfied with Valjean’s approach to saving the world because it is too modest. Valjean, after all, only saved the child of one dying prostitute. He didn’t stamp out the sex trade in France. He didn’t even put a stop to the nefarious Thenardiers. He didn’t do a big, dramatic deed that brought about Utopia. Furthermore, all of this took him a good ten years to do. He had to strive and suffer all kinds of things in order to give one young couple a good life.
I am sorry, young Jacobines, but that is the way it is. Contrary to dozens of American movies, there is almost never a big, dramatic deed that you can do which will save the world in one fell swoop. I say almost. There is never such a deed. No almost about it.
What if I told you that being quietly faithful over many years and building a stable home for your children is literally the most that any one person can do, to bring about Utopia?
Kind of disappointing, huh?
This is wisdom from an older person. This is the wisdom that Jean Valjean has to offer the students who don’t have a plan, though Valjean himself might not even realize it. And it appears, at the end of the play, that Marius has accepted Valjean’s wisdom. He marries Cosette. Marrying her, instead of abandoning her as Cosette’s father abandoned her mother, is one solid step towards building a better world.
The call of Abraham was more than just a call to go to a strange, unknown land. This call had spiritual implications, perhaps akin to a declaration of war. Spiritual warfare is fundamentally about obedience.
Out of Babel Books 