college

N is for NOT giving up!

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 9 Comments

It was tempting to post about N being for NOTHING, or NIHIL, or NADA or NONE.  It would be easy to note that and be done.  But I signed up for this challenge, so I’m NOT giving up or giving so little so easily.

“NOT giving up” isn’t really a very original idea, though, is it?  Who needs another blog about perseverance?  Let’s go with something a little more edgy…like NIGHTMARE.  To keep on theme, we could even call it a “Recipe for a Nightmare,” but that’s not really what it is.  You could toss all the ingredients it took for my nightmare into your brain bowl, and you wouldn’t come up with the same result.

My nightmare was me being in college – some college, somewhere – none that I ever attended – and realizing that I had forgotten my schedule and missed all my classes.  I’ve had this nightmare before – several times.  It’s always either high school or college and I’m like a mouse in a maze trying to find my way to some classroom when I realize that I’m already too late.  I will have missed the class. I will have failed to be where I was supposed to be and will have no good explanation for it.

I don’t know why I consistently have this nightmare.  This never happened to me in real life.

But dreaming about college last night actually does make sense in way.  I went to see a movie that was about a guy’s experience in college.  I couldn’t stop thinking about the movie, so I guess it makes sense that I would find myself on a college campus in my dreams.  The movie was based on one my favorite books, and even though I knew going into it that the movie had to be different to make the best possible movie, I couldn’t help but keep making comparisons as I was watching the movie.  This was a lot of work for my little brain.  The movie provides plenty for one to think about, so in this case, it might have been better if I hadn’t read the book.  I could have just watched it for what it was.  Still, I appreciated so much about it.  It made me think about some hard things, but it also let me think about them in ways that allowed me to draw my own conclusions and see the beauty and the truth of a situation just through the imagery and dialogue (or lack of it.)  It didn’t tell me what I was supposed to think, as if I couldn’t figure it out for myself.  And in the end, the breath-taking end that it is, there is an element of “NOT giving up” on something.

If you haven’t seen the movie, Blue Like Jazz, based on the book by Donald Miller, I hope you’ll go see it.  It’s NOT your average “Christian movie.”

Grinding out a prayer

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 7 Comments

An author whose blog I enjoy, recently asked readers to identify their 2011 “theme songs.”  Thanks to my friend, Jeanny, I knew exactly what I would choose.  After church last Sunday, Jeanny, who sings with the lilting, pulsating voice of an angel, suggested that I listen to Van Morrison’s version of  Be Thou My Vision.  Be Thou My Vision has long been a favorite hymn of mine, but it took hearing Morrison grind out the ancient Irish poem, to adopt it as my theme for 2011.  This is not Morrison’s  young and cheery Brown- Eyed Girl voice.  It is a voice weathered and rough-hewn like the stone fences that cascade down the green hills in the meadows of his native Ireland.  It is a chiseled plea.

“Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart; naught be all else to me save that thou art – thou my best thought by day or by night, waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.”

Jeanny didn’t say why she liked this version.  She is a quietly exuberant woman, undergoing the Scupltor’s  chisel herself, as she and her husband struggle to maintain their footing on the rocky path of raising an autistic child.  Though her burdens are immense she radiates the light of the One whose presence she seeks.

“Be thou my battleshield, sword for my fight; be thou my dignity, thou my delight, thou my soul’s shelter, thou my high tow’r; raise thou me heav’nward, O Pow’r of my pow’r.”

Jeanny’s son is in elementary school, but four of my kids have or will soon have “flown the coop” – a much better euphemism for the wing-growing process than the gentle, benign “leaving the nest.”  This period of pushing and pulling, pursed lips and prayer poses an assault on my ability to remain dignified.  Addictions, joblessness, car wrecks and college choices. Often I feel like the strains voiced by Morrison’s contemporary, Mick Jagger, “If I don’t get some shelter, oh yeah, I’m gonna fade away.”  The delights (scholarships, rehab successes, good grades and growth in faith)  though thoroughly penetrating when realized, aren’t fully satisfying apart from the power of my Power.

“High King of heaven, my victory won, may I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heav’n’s Sun!  Heart of my own heart, whatever befall, still be my vision, O Ruler of all.”

I think I’m going to stick with this chiseled plea for 2012, too.

The Birthday Game

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 2 Comments

For a time, a friend of mine was doing a “birthday game” on Facebook, where he used a famous person’s photo as his profile picture.  It was fun trying to guess the identity of the personality who was celebrating a birthday on the given day.  My friend ended the game on his own birthday.  I didn’t think much more about it until yesterday when Rolling Stone noted that it was Paul Simon’s birthday.  I was inspired to reinstate the birthday game, though I don’t know how long I’ll last.  I’m already struggling with the discipline of researching the birthdays.  I did look up the birthdays for this week, and found a few that struck a chord with me:

October 9 – Jackson Browne – Singer/Songwriter/Activist.   Infamous for alleged drama with Darryl Hannah.  I like him best for the songs he’s written for himself and others like the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt.  He penned one of my favorite lyrics in his song Doctor My Eyes: “Is this the prize for having learned how not to cry?”

October 10 – Tanya Tucker – Country Music Artist.  She had her first hit at age 13.  I sang that hit, Delta Dawn, as a junior in my high school’s Grand Ole Opry Revue.  I wore some tight western style polyester slacks, a fringed shirt and cowboy boots.  As horrid as it sounds, let’s just say I probably did better channeling her appearance than her voice.

October 11 – Joan Cusack – Actress. I’m no movie buff.  My sentimental connections to movies usually occur through experiences with my kids, and this is no exception.  My kids and I love Joan in School of Rock, especially the scene where she lip syncs/sings Stevie Nicks’ Edge of Seventeen.

October 12 – Edward VI – King of England and Ireland (1547-1553).  I love history and biographies.  One of my favorite books is The Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser.  It, of course, gives the low-down on Edward’s daddy.  The book is over 450 pages and I read it twice.  Does that make me some kind of nerd?

October 13 – Paul Simon – Singer/Songwriter. I must have been in the 8th grade when I got his Greatest Hits on 8-track.  My favorites: Slip Slidin’ Away, Still Crazy After All These Years, Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, Mother and Child Reunion, Loves Me Like a Rock, and the song that taught me about photography…Kodachrome.

October 14 – Roger Moore – Actor.  My favorite James Bond.  That blind date I blogged about last week took me to see Octopussy, which featured Moore.   I was more impressed with Rita Coolidge singing All Time High.  It would take the true love of my life, my husband, to help me appreciate Roger Moore and James Bond.

October 15 – Mother-In-Law – She turns 80 tomorrow, and after retiring more times than can I  count, recently accepted another position teaching college nursing courses.  She has endured much in her life, including the suicide of her first husband, my husband’s father.  I have learned many things from this amazing woman, but perhaps one of the most valuable is the Bible verse she used to have tacked to her bedroom wall: “I will restore  the years that the locust hath eaten.” (Joel 2:25)

You found your pizza where?

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 6 Comments

– “I was wondering why my car reeked…definitely didn’t notice my leftover pizza had fallen out of my lunch sack.”

– “I’ll pray this music keeps me awake on my way to school.”

– “Every time I drive through a yellow light I tap the roof of my car.”

Just a sampling of my daughter’s Facebook statuses.  She’s in college 1,100 miles away, a safe distance for keeping me from freaking on her for giving me heart palpitations.   Yes, I know she could be posting things far more alarming, and I’m truly thankful that most of her posts reflect what a determined, capable, thoughtful young woman she is becoming.  I’m not so sure my mom would have been able to say the same about me at the same age.

My college days predated cell phones, laptops and the internet (NOT electricity – contrary to what my kids think.)  Otherwise, my mom might have read things like…

– “Just drove across the entire state of Kansas BY MYSELF.”

– “Ran out of gas on mountain road to Kittredge, CO.  Walking to lighted house.”

– “Note to self: no more blind dates with friends of brother’s brother-in-law.”

– “Listened to roomie’s new record (U2?)  Think I’ll stick with Lionel Richie.”

All of which would have betrayed my 18-year-old ignorance.  Then again, the betrayal of ignorance is the most necessary of sign posts on these wild, amazing journeys.  Even the solo ones down mountain roads and across vast deserted prairie highways…and I suppose, even through yellow lights when you’re barely awake.