Saturday, February 08, 2003

There is a family of eight, the Petrys, at my church. Six kids! The oldest is a thirteen-year old boy, John Paul, followed by three girls, Annabelle, Eleanor, Olivia (ages 11, 8 and 6) another boy of 3, Benjamin, and the youngest boy, Josiah, is a newborn. Wowza!

I'm privileged to take part in a community group hosted by this family, lead by their father, an attorney and their mother, an amazing woman who homeschools all of them!

I adore these kids. You'd think six kids would drive any person (however patient) insane, at least that's what I'd assume! But these children are incredible... they are so charming, personable, and loveable. Their parents have disciplined them so well - they are helpful, pleasant, cheerful... yes I know it sounds unreal! Eleanor (8) is an absolute doll. I arrived late last week, and everyone was already seated (cramped in a large circle that encompassed the living and dining rooms) and I looked for a seat in vain. Eleanor motioned with her hands for me to sit next to her by the fireplace. She also always sends me off with a big hug.

Olivia (6) had introduced herself to Jason and me, saying "My name is Olivia Rae Petry." We asked her where she wanted to sit, and she said immediately, "I want to sit next to both of you."

Whenever I don't show up, the girls will ask me on Sunday, "Where were you last Tuesday?" I'm so flattered that they would even notice... there's a good 20-30 people in this group!

I noticed that John Paul (13) is starting to grow up. He's this tall, really lanky boy who loves his baby brother. I can tell he really helps his mom out around the house and with his siblings. As I was leaving last week, Jonna (Mrs. Petry) called for John Paul, and before I knew it, he was racing out of the door ahead of me. She called him back, and gently scolded him.

"John Paul, you are supposed to open the door for the lady!"

"I did!" he protested.

"No you didn't. You opened the door and ran out in front of her."

"But I opened the door for her...."

"When you see a lady to the door, you need to open it and let her pass before you," Jonna said, as she stood by the door and demonstrated.

"Ohhh....all right."

Then he said to me, "I'm going to walk you to your car." And he did! It was very cute. He walked me to the other side of the street where I was parked. Of course I thanked him graciously and told him I was very impressed, and that someday he would appreciate his mom's training because all the girls would be just as impressed.

He, looking somewhat unconvinced, said, "Yea, that's what everyone tells me."

:)


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Tuesday, February 04, 2003

So I did a mock interview at the Prosecutor's Office. (My only exposure to that side is via The Practice on TV.) It was more like he was the interviewee, so it wasn't too helpful for practice. Very nice guy and really intent on helping me though. He did give good tips on how to land a job as an extern or intern there and some insights on that kind of job.

1. They're looking for certain characteristics - the intangible "prosecutor" aura, I think. Image, persona, etc.

2. They want people who think on their feet. "Objection!" "For what?" "Blah, blah, blah..."

3. He says you're not constrained to do what a client wants (unlike so many other fields) but that you can actually choose to do what is "right." That's very attractive to me, though they are constrained by certain ethics and protocol for Prosecutors. Whether they follow them is another thing entirely...

So the job thing overall is a little discouraging to me. I naively feel that we should be honest and describe who we are and our goals, our interests, etc and see if there's a good match. Yet it seems to be more of what can I say that will make you hire me, regardless of whether I really mean it? Then again, how do any of us know what we want at this stage anyway? (By the way, my interviewer had no idea he wanted to be a prosecutor until a year after he had done it.)


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Sunday, February 02, 2003

I was pretty shocked at the news of the space shuttle Columbia. I think it was particularly because they were so close to landing.

I read a few of the crew's biographies... one man was only 41 yet had three children, 22, 18 and 17. He had graduated second in his class. One of the two women was a mother of an eight-year old boy. They were all so young, and it was all so sudden. God be with their families.

Death hits and I'm sobered again by the brevity of our lives. It could be any one of us at any moment.

"Be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is." - Ephesians 5:15-16

"Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.'" - James 4:13-15


4:18 AM - add eprops - add comments - email it


Thursday, January 30, 2003

THE PLAYWRIGHT INCARNATE (by Sheldon Vanauken)

A play about a play about a play

One night some of the characters in Smith's play got to talking, right in the middle of Act II. They were all, drinks in hand, in Bob's comfortable rooms at the University. The windows were wide to the spring night, and the chapel bell was striking eight o'clock.

BOB: Look here, have you all heard this crazy story that's going around--a story that this play we're in is being written by somebody named Smith who made us and the whole University? What nonsense! Science says the University has always been there. And Smith--I've never met him. Nobody has. He's not even in the University--I checked.

TOM: Well, he couldn't be if he's outside the play writing it, could he? He's not in our time and space at all, supposedly. But Linda says she can hear his voice inside her somehow.

LIZ: That's why she's rooming with that awful Beth--because Smith wants her to be kind to Beth.

BOB: What's the matter with her? Voices! Where's this crazy stuff coming from?

TOM: Well, there was a fellow named Smithson at the end of Act I. Of course we weren't here then. Anyhow, he started it. All he talked about was Smith and what Smith wanted us to do. But he also said that he was Smith, in some way. He said that anyone who had seen him--Smithson--had seen Smith. If Smith exists, Smithson just could be his word to us.

KAY: Wasn't there some kind of trouble? I heard something about it. Didn't he get killed?

JIM: Yes, that's right. It was some sort of demonstration. He was talking to a crowd about Smith, and some minister called the cops. They said he was killed resisting arrest.

BOB: So the great author gets shot in a street brawl! (Laughs) So now who's writing the play? In fact, who was running things when he was alive and asleep? (Laughter) Some Smith!

LIZ: According to Linda, Smith was writing it--and still is.

BOB: Come on, Liz! Either he was in the play of he's 'out there.' He can't be two people!

TOM: He could be. I wrote a story once and put myself in it--but I was outside, too.

JIM: It's too improbable, though. I might buy the idea of Smith the creator, but not one that sticks himself in the play and gets killed. Undignified! Dumb! But a lot of fools do believe it. They've got a sort of club called the Smithsonian, and the Smithsonians say that Smith invented the play and put Smithson in it to tell us about Smith himself.

BOB: A lunatic! Saying he was the author! Megalomania! Getting himself shot proves it.

TOM: I was talking to that Jewish guy, Paul Bishop, the other day. He used to hate the very name of Smithson, but then he had some sort of experience on the way to Danville or somewhere--after Smithson was dead. He said Smithson spoke to him. So now he's a Smithsonian, one of the leaders. He says the play's a great experiment because Smith lets us choose. Smith wants us to help him make the play come out right because we want to. Paul says Smith loves us a lot. He put himself in the play to tell us what he wants us to do.

LIZ: And we killed him!

BOB: I'll do what I want to do! Dammit, there's no proof at all. Look at the play--each scene grows out of the one before through perfectly natural causes. Listen--we invented Smith!

KAY: Of course we did. And Smithson was just a character like us, only with delusions. A nut!

TOM: Still, it's possible, you know. I was outside my story, but there was a Tom that was me in it, too. If there's a Smith outside this University, how else coud he speak to us? But there'd be a risk: he'd have to be all character as well as all Smith--so he could be killed, you see. Maybe we ought to look into what Smithson said if he sort of died for us.

LIZ: If we can hear Smith in us--as he must be if he made us--Smithson is the only way.

KAY: Oh, Liz! You've been listening to Linda too much. Why don't I hear the voice of Smith?

LIZ: Have you ever tried to? Would you want to hear it? Smith's not going to make you listen.

TOM: She's right, Kay. Look, do you know what's so impressive about all this? It's the idea of a sort of trinity: Smith outside writing the play; and inside as a character; and with each of us, too. I don't know whether it's true, but it's exactly the way it would be if it were. Like that story I wrote. And, also, you know, it'd be all NOW to Smith, sitting there out of our time: this conversation or Smithson living and dying even the way it all comes out. This thing has the feel of something true. A sort of rightness.

BOB: Tom, for God's sake! You sound like a Smithsonian! It's just a cult, man! There's no Smith. (Shouts) All right, Smith! Show yourself! Speak! (Grins) See? No Smith!

Smith smiled slightly as his eyes ran down the page. Then he looked at the end of Act I, a little sadly. "Yes, that does it," he murmured to himself. "The way." Then he looked at the ending of the play, the last scene; and he smiled again.

Currently Reading
Under the Mercy
By Sheldon Vanauken
see related


8:37 PM - add eprops - add comments - email it


Tuesday, January 28, 2003

"...if a man diligently followed his desire [for Joy], pursuing the false objects until their falsity appeared and then resolutely abandoned them, he must come out at last into the clear knowledge that the human soul was made to enjoy some object that is never fullly given...in our mode of subjective and spatio-temporal existence."

--C.S. Lewis, The Pilgrim's Regress (underlines mine)


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