authors, reality, miracles February 9, 2010
Posted by philangelus in religion, writing.5 comments
I recently read a novel by a best-selling author only to find the ending deeply unsatisfying. The author could definitely write. In fact, that was the problem: the author had set up the protagonist’s main conflict so deeply and so well that by the end, it was dead-obvious the protagonist was going to make a destructive decision.
And therefore, 340 pages into a 360-page novel (rough approximation) a miracle occurred. With the protagonist literally seconds away from ruining everything with a bad decision, her cell phone rang, and she took the call. (Think about that for a minute: “But before I kill you,Mr. Bond, let me answer my phone.”) The call was from the protagonist’s sister, who argued her out of making this terribly bad decision (despite being unable to do so twice before), and the protagonist said, “Oh!” and lo the day was saved.
One of the primary things I tell folks whom I edit or critique is that the protagonist has to be the solver of the central problem, otherwise he or she is an ineffective protagonist. Why not tell the story of the person who solves the problem? Otherwise you have a limp, non-directive protagonist.
Ben Kenobi: “Use the Force, Luke!”
Luke: “I can’t do it!”
Ben: Oh, fine, I’ll do it. There, the Death Star is going to blow up. Go home, kid.
Help from outside works fine when it engages the side-conflicts enough to free the protagonist to take action. But in order for the reader to feel satisfied, the protagonist needs to take effective, believable action to solve the problem.
Which brings us to miracles. I frame God as an author, and as a character in a work, I love miracles because they’re thrilling. But is it possible that God Himself finds them as unsatisfying as I find the ending of that novel? God is willing to send secondary characters to help, or arrange circumstances so you happen to have Krazy Glue in your pocket when you need it, but having a piano fall on the bad guy’s head really is the climax of last resort because it disempowers the characters.
The reality is, the afternoon of the zombie invasion is not going to be the time I go to my mailbox to find the Susquehannah Rifle Company has sent me a carton of free samples.
The miraculous has its place. But think of how often the miracle itself is the start of something rather than the resolution. “Hey,” says Gabriel, “guess what?” and the story unfolds from there.
Having given us free will, God then gives us the chance to experience the full scope of it, and when there are miracles on a large scale, often it’s because we’ve truly worked ourselves into a corner: we’ve failed. The character can no longer make the good decision on her own. The circumstances are too dire and the author doesn’t want it to end that way. But as an author, God doesn’t often engage in that practice, and as writers, neither should we.
Searching…I mean, googling for meaning February 8, 2010
Posted by philangelus in pensive.3 comments
I’m a stats junkie. Even on my personal website, which gets maybe one page view per century, I’ll check my google analytics page to find out what people were looking at and what search term they used to get there.
This blog’s stats, however, are exciting because it gets a lot of action. I can see what search term was used to reach this blog, and how many times it was used (or, alternatively, how many pages the person viewed after arriving.)
The creepy: although I’ve never used my legal name on this blog, Google knows it’s mine. It’s the first or second result to turn up if I vanity-google. But Yahoo search and other search engines have not made the same connection.
The strange: I get a lot of hits for C H U C K N O R R I S even though the post that includes him (*the only one) doesn’t have his name in it either.
But far stranger than that are some of the bizarre search combinations that would definitely lead to a page on this blog, but not the way the searcher intended. For fun, some from the last week:
Cool things to do with a blow torch.
C h u c k N o r r i s versus Jesus
Kitchenaid: the carrot
evil cats
zoo tycoon shower
should we have two or three kids (alternatively, “should we have four kids,” “is three kids exhausting,” and all manner of questions addressed in “Why have three kids.” I always want to ask, “Do you really think Google knows the answer to that?”)
43-sided shape name
what is the difference between a carrot (that got truncated: I assume it’s “between a carrot and a parsnip,” but really, you can complete that any way you like. “What is the difference between a carrot and a Subaru Legacy?”)
цхуцк норрис (which is, as it turns out, he-who-must-n0t-be-named, in Greek.)
kjv bible search aspeger’s examples
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None of the ones from the past week have made me wish I could alert the police, although I used to get some of those. 
There are some sick people out there on our search engines. And every so often, I get the one where I want to apologize, such as to the individual who searched on “what are some deep theological questions?” (Dude, not here, they’re not.)
The neat thing about these searches, though, is the tiny window they give into the needs people have, the ways we’re all different and how, in many ways, we’re the same. Our trivial questions, our big ones (“Will respecting my husband change our marriage?”) and the fact that in some ways, all of us are always searching.
O that red frog February 5, 2010
Posted by philangelus in kiddos.5 comments
Kiddo#3 got moved to a red frog because: He refused to follow directions and complete his assignment, kicking the table and yelling.
Dear Mrs. KindergartenTeacher:
Kiddo#3 has negative feelings about his red frog, as you can see from the way he ripped it up.
Kiddo#3 said the situation unfolded this way: he was at a “center” doing the workbook for the letter U and wasn’t sure what to do because it was different from the books they’ve done for the other letters. “It had lines,” he said. He wasn’t sure what to put on the lines after coloring the pictures and circling the letter U.
He says he asked Mrs. Paraprofessional for help, “and she told me I had to do it myself.”
He says that is when he started kicking the table leg. I’m not clear when he started yelling.
Kiddo#3 says he does not know where you find a unicorn (neither do I, by the way — please let me know so I can go there!) and he did not know where to find an umbrella, which would be true in our household because we very rarely use them.
I’m at a loss for how to help Kiddo#3 avoid similar incidents in the future, since I would have told him to ask for help when he doesn’t understand an assignment, and Kiddo#3 believes Mrs. Paraprofessional refused to explain the assignment.
He did not refuse to do the work. He just didn’t know how.
What should we tell him to help him cope with similar problems in the future?
Sincerely,
Jane
PS: I’m not including this on the letter, but what the heck kind of stupid assignment is “Where do you find a unicorn?” Any kid who knows what a unicorn is will also know that they don’t exist, and I don’t expect a five-year-old to be able to write “In my imagination.”
This child is always willing to do his school work, but if he can’t do it because he doesn’t understand it, he gets frustrated. As would any adult. I think it would have been a perfectly reasonable accommodation to my son if Mrs. Paraprofessional had said, “Oh, this line says Where do you find a unicorn? and it doesn’t matter what you write because there is no correct answer because it’s a stupid question.”
When a five year old tells you he can’t read the question and you tell him he has to decipher it anyhow, then why bother teaching him at all? Why not just hand the kids each a copy of Moby Dick and tell them to figure it out for themselves?
In short, YOU set up this situation yourselves, and although I think I said it nicely, my takeaway is that you created no way out for my son, and he tried to create his own way out.
Thank you for your time. I’d love to get a letter back.
the bee in my bonnet February 4, 2010
Posted by philangelus in angels, religion.add a comment
Back when I was seventeen, I was still a neophyte Philangelus and was still devouring books on angels whenever I could find them. At one point, I came across one that messed up my spirituality for a while.
At the time, I didn’t realize I had the option of just saying, “Oh, that’s garbage” when I came across something a theologian wrote that didn’t fit with reality. (Something which I hope every one of you realizes whenever you read my theological musings, by the way — it will make life a lot easier for you. It’ll certainly make it easier to point out the flaws in my thought process.)
This particular author advocated that angels don’t mind when bad things happen to us, that they’re still filled with joy because even in horrible circumstances, God’s life is being enhanced in us. Or something like that. In retrospect, he probably meant something like, “If you find out your baby daughter is going to die of anencephaly, it’s a bad circumstance, but your guardian angel sees how God is going to use this in your life to bring you closer to Him.”
But at the time, thinking of immediate evils, my takeaway from his stupid statement was that according to this particular author (although I didn’t say “according to this particular author,” which would have made it easier to laugh rather than flinch) that if I were being stabbed and murdered, my guardian angel would be sitting around saying, “Oh, wow, God’s glory is REALLY going to shine through this circumstance!”
To reiterate: it was garbage. Yes, angels definitely comprehend and trust that God’s glory is going to shine through every circumstance because God brings good from evil, but that’s different from being delighted in the face of evil. Angels who are delighted while watching evil are, in general, called demons.
But at the time, I couldn’t articulate that. I started taking pot-shots at my guardian, almost trying to make him mad so he’d prove he cared. “Not that this matters to YOU, since you’ll only see God’s glory.”
Yesterday,the Happy Catholic quote of the day began with a statement that angels can’t give emotional support.
Garbage.
They can’t commiserate in an in-the-trenches way. They can’t say, “Yeah, I find it hard to pray when I’m sick too.” They don’t have that animal dimension to them that we have.
But at the very lowest common denominator, emotional support consists of emotions (which angels have, since they can experience joy) and loyalty (which again, they have because they’re loyal to God and at the very least loyal to their assignments) and the ability to communicate (which they can do.) Thus, “I’m here with you through this” is emotional support. And that they can do.
Last night, when I found myself thinking to them, “Sorry about all those times in the last two decades when I felt emotionally supported. Now I know you couldn’t really do that, my mistake,” I realized I needed to purge the garbage.
The rest of the quote was nice, but that garbage at the header became the bee in my bonnet, and I couldn’t think past it. So I’m posting this here in an effort to take the trash to the curb. That was just a damaging theoretical exercise by a theologian who had no experience in what he was writing about. Emotional support may not be in the written job description of a guardian angel, but they can and do engage in it, and in my opinion, they do it very well.
So there.
How to get your medical insurance to pay for a birth center birth February 3, 2010
Posted by philangelus in family, how-to.add a comment
I’m reposting this with permission of Petra (who wrote it) from one of my online groups. I’ve got two reasons: one, it’s important information, and two, I’m still feeling under the weather and a guest-post is a good way to post without having to post.
The problem: many health insurance plans will pay for a hospital birth with an obstetrician but not for a birth center birth with a midwife. For many women, however, a birth center is the optimal choice. Therefore, this was how Petra got her birth center birth to be paid for. Women who want a home birth can probably follow the same procedure to get their home birth paid for.
And now for Petra’s information:
—
My husband said that he ended up doing nothing to get us approved at the Birth Center – he let the billing department handle it. So I called the billing lady at the birth center and she told me that it may differ depending on your flavor of BCBS, but she has been able to get approvals (including maybe mine) this way:
- Call hospital you plan to deliver at, PLUS another local area hospital and get their estimated costs as billed to insurance (this is important! don’t get rates for someone paying OOP!) to that plan for:
- An uncomplicated, unmedicated vaginal delivery (IV hydration and other “standard” procedures will be included), plus standard hospital stay, plus whatever costs are associated with the baby’s care
- A delivery with epidural pain medication (she said do this one because even if you would choose something else, it’s the most common method of pain relief)
- A C-section, plus the approximate C-section rate at that hospital (they may not be forthcoming with this; you may have to do your own research)
Then have the birth center submit these quotes with a letter stating:
- Their charges for an uncomplicated vaginal delivery
- Which (if any) methods of pain relief are available at the birth center and what they will bill for use (if anything)
- What costs (if any additional) are associated with baby’s care
- Their transfer rate
- Their C-section rate (obviously, this is a subset of the transfers)
- The savings that they stand to see on YOUR delivery based on unmedicated birth at the hospital minus standard birth center coverage (now, this is not the real number because likely the insurance will not pay all they are billed, etc., but they can do that calculation their own self)
Also obtain from the birth center:
- A statement of philosophy behind their standard of care
- Information on their maternal morbidity and mortality and infant morbidity and mortality (these will probably be transfers plus in-center-births, but still)
She told me that she’s had to go ’round and ’round with a few insurance companies, but with persistence, she’s gotten all but one to agree to pay (or agree to some arrangement) for a birth center birth.
Grocery shopping on crutches February 2, 2010
Posted by philangelus in pensive.add a comment
Today at the grocery store, I saw something I’d never seen before: a woman grocery shopping while using a crutch. I had The Baby with me, and I’ve just been sick, but I realized she needed help. And I couldn’t help her. She was managing okay, but slowly, and I prayed, “God, please send someone to help her.” (I did consider the logistics. There really was no way I could help her.)
Today in my stats, someone reached this weblog with the search term, “how do I grocery shop on crutches.”
Odd coincidence, yeah. But whoever you are, I think I may have prayed for you today.
prayer request February 2, 2010
Posted by philangelus in religion.2 comments
I’ve received word that the cardiologist says my stepmother’s father is in his final days. He’s been coping with cardiac issues and dementia for a long time. Please pray that he has a peaceful and holy death, and that the consolation of the Holy Spirit settles on him and on the family. May the Divine Mercy enfold them all and embrace them in love.
Shapes and dimensions February 2, 2010
Posted by philangelus in Asperger's, kiddos.4 comments
On Friday, my oldest stayed home with the first rumblings of the illness that knocked all but my Patient Husband flat to the ground for the weekend.
While he was lying on the couch, I made lunch for Kiddo#3 before he went to kindergarten. Kiddo#3 said something about shapes: a three-sided shape is, for example, a triangle. I felt enlightened.
Kiddo#3 continued until he reached an eleven-sided shape, which neither he nor I knew, and I said, “I know it has a name, but I’m not sure what. I know a twelve-sided shape is a dodecagon.”
Kiddo#1 roused himself from death to let us know that he used to know all the names of the polygons up to a gazillion-sided shape because I’d printed off something from the internet for him when he was in 4th grade. And never one to leave well enough alone, Kiddo#3 said, “What’s a 43-sided polygon?” and Kiddo#1 said, “A tetracontakaitrigon.”
After two or three of those, I turned to him, grinning, trying to analyze his face. When he caught me, I said, “You’re making it up?”
No, he’d just remembered the formula and was applying it.
I asked if a point was a one-dimensional object, Kiddo#1 said, “No, it’s a zero-dimensional object.”
When I said I remembered that now, he continued:
“A line is a one-dimensional object. A polygon is in two dimensions. A three-dimensional object is a polyhedra, so the third dimension is depth. The fourth dimension is time, and the Fifth Dimension is a bad rock band.”
I looked around at him again, and he’d said that with a totally straight face. I know my Patient Husband has said that to him before. I’m pretty sure I have. I also know Kiddo#1 wouldn’t be able to pick a Fifth Dimension song out of a lineup.
But again, he wasn’t smiling. And this time, I didn’t ask if he was making it up.
Deep Theological Question #6 February 1, 2010
Posted by philangelus in religion, sarcasm.12 comments
(Do you remember this series? If you don’t, keep in mind that these questions are both deep and theological in the same sense that the Sahara desert is a water-slide park.)
Deep Theological Question #6: Is it sinful to read a library book while you’re sick?
I’m not talking about sneezing on the pages — I just mean, to turn the pages with your germy fingers and breathe on it in the normal act of reading.
It occurred to me this weekend while just about everyone was down for the count that maybe reading a library book was the height of selfishness, although to be fair, the book was in use before I knew anyone was contagious.
The book has some time before it goes back. If I return it on Tuesday just before closing, it won’t be reshelved until Wednesday morning, meaning it’s unlikely that any germs should have survived. But I’m still uncomfortable with the idea of treating others to a version of the weekend we’ve just had.
(BTW, if anyone knows a good technique for sterilizing a hardback book with that plastic library-type cover on it, the comment box welcomes you and so do I.)
a cold little gift January 29, 2010
Posted by philangelus in pensive.11 comments
Thirty-two degrees and snowing as I waited at the bus stop.
It was warm for snow, although I was bundled up in a black wool coat and boots. The snow came down thick, heavy, and it flattened underfoot without creaking because of the relative warmth. It had just begun to accumulate on branches, giving the world that open-faced-Oreo look you see on Christmas cards.
While waiting, I paced the sidewalk, noticing again as I did that for some reason, when you take your own footsteps backward, the stride length always seems to be a little too stretched, even though it felt natural while walking the first time. It’s just an odd thing I’ve noticed about myself: I know those are my footsteps, but going back through the same steps, it seems as if I can’t keep making the same pace. Although obviously I can, because I have.
I went to stand by the bushes alongside the sidewalk, and I shook down some of the snow, crunching it together so it stuck in a tiny cube. And then I looked closer.
Living in Serious Snow Country, I seldom actually look at snow. It’s something to be shoveled and avoided. But this time, I watched the snow clustering around the branches, and they were big enough that I could perceive flakes hanging from flakes. I shook the branch, and a bunch fell onto my hand.
You could see the individual snow flakes. For the moment, the world was hushed by the falling snow, and I focused on just those tiny blades, those barely-perceptible points. And then the transformation as my body heat came through the gloves, blunted the points, clouded the clarity, and then resolved the snowflake into a droplet the size of a pin-head.
For a minute, I felt just like a kid, collecting snowflakes for the few moments they were allowed to be mine. Sharp ones, fuzzy ones, conjoined ones — here and gone, and all for me because I was the only one there to witness them.
