wilmore: takin it to the skreets

title? i dunno, we're trying to think up ideas for an album. any input is greatly appreciated. anyway, merry beth morris came in town this weekend to see jen and me; it was really great. we hung out in dc friday night, and then they came out to see the op on saturday. we went out to dinner with some of the fellas (all of whom where girls), and i think mb got a better feel for what the heck this place is about. at any rate, it was great to spend time together as a band and really hone our skills (right). we played music all night saturday, like from 8 or 9 till 2ish (i think). it was incredible, a little slice of northern ireland (the real thing in 11 days! minus everyone else, though).

so now it's monday, and things are picking up at the lodge and with class again. so if you have a little time, pray about my QRE (our like big research thing) and discernment about next year (which it seems like most all of us need).

here's the journal from this week; i wrote it at 4am last night, so i haven't been too pumped about it. but everybody thought it was kinda funny at least. it's about the director's kids, noah (4) and asher (2). they're hilarious, and you should come meet them. love you guys.


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"Do It Again!"

Who in the world could have guessed it, but one of my favorite pastimes here has become taking care of the two small children who live in the barn. Noah and Asher have me hooked, I think, and particularly so after having reread “The Ethics of Elfland” in Chesterton’s Orthodoxy. On Thursday Hannah and I babysat the kids again and spent copious amounts of time just proving this chapter true. “It is supposed that if a thing goes on repeating itself it is probably dead; a piece of clockwork,” he writes. Of course, he immediately dismisses this supposition, “for the variation in human affairs is generally brought into them, not by life, but by death…The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction…The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy…Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again!’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.”

Ok, enough quotes. Noah and Asher love hide-and-seek like I love my Larrivée. It’s amazing. For seventeen minutes straight on Thursday, Asher would make me count to ten and then find him. He was in the closet every time. He never changed anything about the routine. The counting to ten part took, well, about ten seconds (wild guess); finding Asher took no time at all. It took maybe three seconds for him to exclaim, “You found me!” each time, followed by “My hide; you count.” So 17 minutes divided by 15ish seconds is 68. Ish. I played an identical game of hide-and-seek 68 times. And Chesterton’s right; as sad as I am to admit after reading about elfland, I quit way before Asher showed any signs of slowing.

Hide-and-seek is one of those areas of human existence where “the variation …[was] brought in…by death,” when “they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden” and “hid themselves from the presence of the Lord” (Gen 3:8). Death has robbed from us the glee of being found and replaced it with fear of being found in our sin. Asher hasn’t felt this Death yet, or at least he doesn’t know it as such. But the reversal in this is that “God is strong enough to exalt in monotony.” He never tires of searching us out even when we’re always wallowing in the same places. His smile at the finding never fades, and our delight at finding him faithful shouldn’t either.