One

Today is my daughter’s first birthday! In honor of the occasion, I’ve decided to share the first and latest entries of the journal I keep for her:


March 24, 2009

Dear Mollie,

As you can see, the first half of this book was written to/about me by your Grandma. Last night, I decided that I should write the second half for you, my firstborn child.

Actually, you aren’t quite born yet. Your mom is 36 weeks and 4 days pregnant with you. As soon as we found out you were a girl, we knew your name would be Mollie (it was my idea to spell it with an I-E – I hope you like it that way). We live in a one bedroom apartment right now, but we have already set up half of the room to be yours, and it almost looks like a separate little nursery. Everything is pink and brown, and we already have lots of clothes for you, so we really hope the doctor wasn’t wrong about your gender!

Even though we haven’t met you yet, we love you very very much. We want you to be born as soon as possible, so we can see your pretty face and hug you and kiss you. I like to put my head on Mommy’s tummy and feel you move.

Well, I guess that’s all I have to write for now. I’ll write more when you’re born.

I love you,

Daddy


April 13, 2010

Dear Mollie,

Today is your first birthday! I have two jobs right now, and I have to work at both of them today, so I won’t get to see you very much. I’m sorry. But we’re having your party on Saturday, and Mommy and I are going to spend all day with you! We’re having it at [information omitted – I don’t want any of you creepers showing up], and there are a lot of people coming.

You have grown a lot since I last wrote in your journal. You haven’t walked yet, but you are crawling and cruising around on the furniture (very fast!) and can stand up on your own. You like to talk, but the only words we can understand are “momma”, “bear”, “pretty”, and “bye-bye”, which is your favorite (and the only one we’re sure you’re actually saying). Sometimes you say “bye-bye” when nobody is going anywhere. We think that means you want to go – you’re very adventurous. You like to be outside, but you don’t like the feeling of grass (just like a girl). You love exploring things – climbing the stairs when we aren’t looking, opening boxes and cabinets and pulling everything out, etc. You are also very interested in jewelry and flowers and other “pippy” (pretty) things. You love music and have started singing and dancing along. You love food and will eat almost anything. You aren’t afraid of strangers, but, just like me and your mom, you have to get to know someone before you really open up to them. Your blonde hair is getting longer, and your blue eyes are always shining. You are generally very well-behaved, and you capture the hearts of everyone you meet. Mommy and I love you very, very much and look forward to getting you know you better and better as the years go by.

Happy Birthday, my sweet princess!

Love,

Daddy

Wanderlust

Warning: This post contains material of a nerdy nature.

In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war...
- 2 Samuel 11:1a

The pleasures of spring have been jawed about so often that I am rather shy of saying anything about the lovely weather that has succeeded to the snow here. Do you know what it feels like when you go out for the first time without an overcoat and feel all the nerves funny up the back of your legs and see the clouds blowing about a really blue sky? All the same I know spring too well to really like her. She invariably makes you feel lonely & dissatisfied & long for “The land where I shall never be, the love that I shall never see”*.
- C.S. Lewis, Letter of February 20, 1917 to Arthur Greeves
* Paraphrasing Andrew Lang’s History of English Literature (1912)

Although I see my love every day, and although I live in one of the most beautiful parts of the world, I sympathize with Lewis. The arrival of Spring tends to produce in me a sense of longing. This longing has no specific object. Its manifestations are various. Sometimes at work, as I idly stare out the window, Spring whispers in my mind’s ear: “How great would it be if you walked out right now? No two-week notice, no clocking out, no ‘Goodbye, Susan. You’ve been a great manager.’ Just leave. Close your bank accounts, go to Bass Pro, and spend everything on supplies. Then head for some uninhabited mountain and spend the rest of your life living off the land. It would be awesome!” On Sundays, as my family and I drive home from church, she says, “Don’t go home. Roll down the windows and keep driving until the gas runs out.” Spring makes me want to listen to music of a different sort, read epic stories of adventure, go places I’ve never been, sleep on the ground, and eat meat cooked over an open flame. She leads my imagination through time and space to lands of great heroism. My thoughts are filled with kings, knights, explorers, pioneers, cowboys, soldiers, angels, monsters, and yes, hobbits.

It is a fair tale, though it is sad, as are all the tales of Middle-earth, and yet it may lift up your hearts.
- Aragorn, The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien (1965)

I am reading the Trilogy for the third time. My first and second readings were also in the Spring. I suppose that the richness of Tolkien’s work comes through in new ways with each visit. This time, however, it seems like I am aware of every detail. It has been seven Springs since my last foray into those blessed pages. I have, of course, kept contact with the peoples of Middle-earth through Peter Jackson’s incredible films, Rankin-Bass’ and Saul Zaentz’ trippy, yet charming cartoons, and the BBC’s thirteen hour radio drama, but none of these are as vastly beautiful as the original work. Because of these retellings, I have memorized the basic plot, but there is so much more to be found. Having re-read The Silmarillion and The Hobbit a couple of months ago, the history of Middle-earth and the Ring is fresh in my mind. When characters refer to Gil-galad, Tinuviel, Elendil, and even Sauron, I know the stories behind those names.

A college classmate of mine once described his high school library’s shortcomings by stating: “Our first copy of The Lord of the Rings had pictures from the movie on the cover!” My personal library is more fortunate. The books themselves are visibly well-loved. I received the 1978 “Revised Edition” paperbacks as a gift from my uncle. The covers are Dijon mustard yellow with red titles, a black Tolkien signature, and a small graphic of the Ring and its Elvish inscription surrounding the Eye of Sauron. The cover of each book is held together with clear packing tape. The pages are yellowing, with edges worn like a favorite pack of cards. The Kelly green box in which they reside is similarly worn, yet perfectly intact. Yes, this collection will surely hold a place in my heart and on my bookshelf until it is bequeathed to another.

You will have to excuse my adoring tangent. But, as is said of Aragorn:

Not all those who wander are lost.
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

And, as I have already stated, Spring inspires wandering. I read Tolkien in the Spring, because he both fuels and fulfills my longing. His work is laced with natural beauty, music, friendship, history, legend, and adventure: the very embodiment of the Spirit of Spring.

There are many lands “where I shall never be”, but that should not stop me from exploring the mountains, rivers, caves, and forests of my bookshelf, my imagination, and my beautiful Ozark home.

[Bilbo] used often to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary.
- Frodo, The Fellowship of the Ring


So I'm packing my bags for the Misty Mountains where the spirits go now, over the hills where the spirits fly.
- Led Zeppelin, "Misty Mountain Hop", The fourth album (1971)

I think I’ll take my girls on a hike this weekend.

Escape

I, Burgeon, am responsible for the present constitution of the firm of Burden and Burgeon. I am responsible for the professional existence, almost for the existence at all, of Burden. I deliberately called him forth from his obscurity - summoned him, as it were, from the realm of the Mothers, and set him up in space and time. It is not the fault of either of us that we have since become involved in a complex of responsibilities from which there may be no way out until the shadows lengthen, the busy world is hushed and our work is done. It may not be the fault of either of us - it is certainly not his - that he is turning into a sort of Frankenstein. But in all my present bewilderment I am at least certain of this: that if, without injuring anyone but him, I can do anything to arrest the process and keep my own end up, I ought to do it.
- G.A.L. Burgeon, This Ever Diverse Pair (1950)

G.A.L. Burgeon was a fictional character and pseudonym of Owen Barfield, author, philosopher, and member of the Inklings, an Oxford-based literary group of which C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were also a part. This Ever Diverse Pair is the story of Burgeon's struggles with Burden, his overbearing business partner, who represents Barfield's busy, practical “self”, as opposed to his creative, “true” self (Burgeon). Burden constantly demands Burgeon's attention, often interrupting or distracting him from the things he loves.

Like Barfield, we have all inherited Burdens from our first father:

To Adam [the Lord] said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."
- Genesis 3:17-19

Through our disobedience to the perfect Way, we have doomed ourselves to lives of “painful toil”. We have called Burden “from the realm of the Mothers, and set him up in space and time.” Our survival is now contingent on sweat, and we will never be rid of our Frankenstein until we “return to the ground”.

What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless.
- Ecclesiastes 2:22-23

However, in His mercy, God has allowed the fallen to keep some good things: things that (I am convinced) contain a piece of eternity, things that mean more than our inescapable obligations, things for our Burgeons to love.

A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
- Ecclesiastes 2:24-26

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
- James 1:17

I love my family. I love books, music, and movies. I love humor. I love good food. I love history and philosophy. I love pursuing my mysterious, yet knowable, just, yet merciful, holy and powerful, yet personal God. I love His Word and wish people had more respect for it. I love His Church, and I hope that my generation will strengthen, rather than hurt her. I love His creation and the fact that He gave me the ability to create.

This blog is dedicated to the things my Burgeon loves. My Burden, although an unfortunately necessary part of my life, will not be allowed to speak of his successes, failures, aspirations, or frustrations here. I was reluctant to begin blogging, because I did not wish to contribute to Narcissus' legacy, which has steadily increased with the birth of Facebook and Twitter. Barfield's Burgeon considered this as well:

Of course, someone will say that all this is a subtle form of exhibitionism or narcissism or some nastyism or other. It might be if I were writing to please others. But in point of fact it's a matter of complete - well almost complete - indifference whether anybody else ever reads it or not. I am doing it for my own salvation. Burden is eating me up, my time, my wit, my memory, my 'shaping spirit of imagination', my whole me.
- Burgeon, This Ever Diverse Pair

I invite you to read if you wish. I invite feedback and discussion. I hope to make you think, laugh, maybe even discover new interests. But this blog is for my Burgeon's salvation. I do promise that he is a gentleman. He will be honest, but he will not make you uncomfortable. He is not seeking a therapist or a punching bag.

Simply escape...