Potpourri

Something to Wine About

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 2 Comments
Tuscan Dreams by Kenneth Schilling

I feel like I’m breaking a guiding principle of womanhood, but Michael’s (you know – the craft store) is not my favorite place to shop. I’m just not a very crafty person. Nevertheless, I gladly took my daughter there today so she could buy yarn to crochet slippers for some elderly friends. Unlike her mother, my daughter is a whiz with a crochet hook, and I’m eager to encourage her talent. Still, I opted to wait for her in the car while she shopped. (Getting too close to all those scrap booking aisles might send me on a major guilt trip.) It was a fortuitous wait.
As I waited I scanned the radio stations, and came across a local show that was featuring Kenneth Schilling. “Who is Kenneth Schilling?” you ask. Judging by his introduction on the program, I thought he sounded like a pretty interesting person. He’s a former high tech CEO who became an artist (at age 50) AND a vintner. When he started talking about how his art is featured on his wine labels, I knew I had to go home and look him up.
His website says that “Ken is passionate about providing fine art and fine wine to everyone bringing beauty and joy into our daily living experience through his work as an Artist and Vintner…Ken’s stated philosophy is, ‘Just as I use a palette of colors to create beautiful paintings, I use a palette of flavors to produce these beautiful wines.'”
I haven’t sampled the wine yet, but if it’s anything like his artwork it will surely be sumptuous. I recommend that you check out the Kenneth Schilling website and then follow me to the wine store.

Pomegranates for Slackers

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 3 Comments

I have had a fascination with pomegranates ever since my first grade class studied them. It was a very special study. My wee classmates and I got to get out of our tiny melamine-topped, paste-scented desks and go to a BIG table at the back of the room, where we were actually encouraged to speak out loud about our observations of the beautifully strange, bumpy sphere before us. Our diminutive white-haired teacher and our frizzy-haired hippie student teacher didn’t tell us its name until after this very scientific process was completed. Keep in mind that this was 1971 in northwestern Oklahoma, and Eastern/Mediterranean fruit (unlike horehound candy) was not readily available at the corner grocery. They recorded our keen observations and comments, and published them in little booklets, via the wondrous purple-inked ditto machine. My insightful contribution? “The yellow part tastes like hairspray!” I find it a little ironic that one of my closest friends here in Arizona grows pomegranate trees in her backyard AND has her own hair salon. And, I’m glad to report that my appreciation for the more flavorful nuances of the pomegranate have extended beyond comparisons to beauty products. I now consider the pomegranate a product of beauty itself.

So, why is this product of beauty occupying my thoughts this morning? I, along with others from my church, am currently attempting to systematically read through the Bible in a year. It’s too early to tell how successful I will be in this endeavor. Last year I considered trying Margie Haack’s method, i.e., the Bible Reading Program for Slackers and Shirkers, but I ended up being too much of a Slacker/Shirker to even start it. (You can find the program on the Ransom Fellowship website; just enter “Bible Reading” in the key word search.)

Using my current (non-slacker) plan, I’ve made it to that part in Exodus where things begin to get a little detailed and mind-numbing – the instructions for designing the tabernacle, the garments for the priests, etc. What keeps a Slacker/Shirker motivated in such sections? You guessed it. Pomegranates!

“And you shall make on its hem pomegranates
of blue and purple and scarlet material,
all around on its hem, and bells of gold between
them all around: a golden bell and a pomegranate,
a golden bell and a pomegranate,
all around on the hem of the robe.”
(Exodus 28:33, 34)

This is why I am ever amazed by the God of the Universe. Thousands of years before Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, the God of the Bible was using blue and purple and scarlet pomegranates (pomegranates!) for the garments He specifically designed for those He appointed to be His ministers. That thought leaves this Slacker in awe. The question is: will I be as inspired by the laws for the burnt offerings? The hope is in the pomegranate.

Meet My Neiman, Marcus

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 4 Comments

I am tempted to say that I spent the morning at Neiman Marcus and came home laden with finds of the Carolina Herrera and Christian Louboutin kind. That would only be half true. I didn’t set foot in Neiman Marcus; I only came home laden with luxurious finds. Well, borrowed finds at that. I just returned from the library.
The library has not always been my personal Neiman Marcus. My earliest memory of a library (from about age four) is rather traumatic. My babysitter had taken me and her grandson to Story Hour at the quaint little storefront library on Main Street in Gage, Oklahoma. The books, cramped as they were on the musty shelves, are a mere backdrop in my memory. What stands out to me is how I got in trouble – yes, got in trouble! – for trying to help Ronnie Loomis with his finger-painting project. He told his grandmother I was treating him like a baby. So, because of the bruised ego of a four-year-old male, I avoided libraries until…Until the summer of my tenth year on this fascinating, bewildering planet. That was the summer I made it my personal mission to read every horse and dog book available in the library of the next small town in which I lived. It was the library set on a hill that was great for sledding in the winter.
Since then my library experiences have been increasingly positive. Today I came home positively ecstatic about my finds: two poetry collections (one Billy Collins, one Anne Sexton), a biography of Georgia O’Keefe (from the “Youth” section – the 60 page bio is very under appreciated by adults), and The Truman Show DVD (because I always forget that it’s on my list when my eyes glaze over at Blockbuster).
Do I regret missing out on the real Neiman Marcus? Only this: that reading Anne Sexton in the glow of a Lancome make-over would have been aptly poetic.
*Just for kicks, check out my library trip-inspired poem in the column at right.

I Am a Small Bus Driver

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 8 Comments

In his excellent book, Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide to Parenting, Paul David Tripp says, “Don’t let the fear of the great ‘what ifs’ cause you to try to produce with human control what only God can produce by His grace.” I constantly need to be reminded of this grace because, let’s face it, parenting is often daunting. One might think that a mother of six would have a little confidence. I do. I am confident that I have a lot more to learn! Encouragement is priceless, and in our house we find a lot of encouragement (and grace) in music.
Last year I wrote about how my youngest daughter spent the morning talking in Classic Rock refrains. (See Classics from a Kid, February 17, 2009.) It’s one thing for your music preferences to rub off on your seven-year-old; it’s another thing when your teen and adult kids connect with you through music. I don’t mean they simply enjoy music you like (though I love it when that happens), I mean they find in the music some of the truths you’ve spent your life trying to teach them. This happened to me when my 14-year-old got hooked on the song Bus Driver by Caedmon’s Call. I’ve had that CD for about 12 years, and for most of those years my kids didn’t pay much attention to it. But last spring my daughter “got” Bus Driver. She got that this song is about the differences people make in their own little worlds, their own communities – no matter what their occupations. She got that it’s important to truly be interested in others, to know that some like “to be early” and others are “happy all alone.” She got excited about these insights and that excited me. At least for the first thousand times we listened to the song.
Something similar happened last fall. As we were out in the car running errands one day, my son (age 21) popped in a CD and said, “Mom, you have to listen to this song.” It was Small by J.J. Heller. The song is about how we can’t make God fit into our molds for Him, we can’t make Him small. Again, my son got it. Not only did he know I’d like the song, he connected a truth we’ve tried to teach him his whole life with the message of the song. He may be sorry, though – I haven’t let him have his CD back yet.

Confessions of a Fennel Fan

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 4 Comments

I’m not usually one to gush about cookbooks. I leave that to the gourmet cooks in my house; i.e., my husband and daughter. But over the past few months it’s become apparent to me that our cookbook library contains a pathetically underused resource – the Weight Watchers New Complete Cookbook. Keep in mind this book is not actually “new,” being published in 1998. I still remember the day we purchased ours at Costco when my husband was on a business trip in Washington state. I took it home, and over the next couple of years made about four recipes from it: Beef and Pasta, Southern Oven “Fried” Chicken, Tacos with Salsa, and Oven “Fries.” Notice how many of these recipes contain the words “fried/fries.” But we have turned over a new leaf at our house, and this time I am wearing this book out.

Novices like me can get easily discouraged with these kinds of cookbooks. They call for ingredients like capers and artichoke hearts and tonight’s featured ingredient – fennel! (I actually had to ask the produce guy to show me what it looked like. )

What I’m learning is that one can’t be intimidated by the ingredients. (Most really aren’t that unusual.) Tonight’s ingredients for Chicken and Artichoke Packets included boneless skinless chicken thighs, artichoke hearts, chickpeas, chopped fennel, shredded carrot, Parmesan cheese, minced thyme and Italian dressing. It was amazing!

If your New Year’s resolution includes eating healthier, you really ought to stir up the ambition to find one of these cookbooks. (They’re very reasonably priced on Amazon.) My red-meat addict hubby even admits to liking the Monterey Jack Turkey Burgers. Some of us think they’re better than the average beef burger. And who knows? You, too, might find a friend in fennel!

Never Fear, Stephenie Meyer

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 5 Comments

Stephenie Meyer had a dream, wrote a book and became a billionaire. Why can’t I do that? I’ll tell you why – I don’t have the right dreams. (That’s what happens when you don’t sleep much, I guess.) Oh, I’ve had some doozies (especially when I was pregnant) but none of the glittering vampire kind. I did have one that was so Alice-in Wonderland-ish that I wrote it down. Think Alice in Wonderland meets a Dr. Seuss jibboo meets C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy. When I remembered the dream it was apparent to me what had been on my mind: the book I was reading and my younger brother. I’d also been having thoughts about my son needing to…well, I’ll keep you hanging about that. You might not read this otherwise.

The “This is Not a Stephenie Meyer Dream” Dream

I am standing in a glaringly sunny, sand-colored, barren field. I look up at what I think must be an art tree, something like the ones described in C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength. The tree is a gigantic fir tree, but the smooth tan trunk is all bare except at the very top where there is half of a red and brown plastic cone. The cone sits atop the peak of the tree like an open Indian tepee.

I turn from the tree because I know I’m in that place for another reason, and I’m aware that some of my children are with me. I approach the steps of an arena that reminds me of the weathered wooden fairground grandstands in the small town where I grew up. The white paint is frayed and chipping on the battered steps, but before I can ascend them I must pay an entry fee to a dirty elf with an evil smile. I know that my two oldest daughters have already paid their fees, along with my youngest son’s fee. They are already in the arena. With my youngest daughter by my side, I stand at a table behind which the dwarf is sitting. I take a five dollar bill out of my wallet to pay our dollar entry fees. The dwarf teasingly refuses to give me my change. Even though he scares me a little, I boldly grab the oval money basket out of his grubby little hands. I rifle through the bills, searching for the correct change. I discover that while all the money has the color of real species, some of it is over-sized and obviously fake. Some of the bills have pictures of rabbit heads instead of presidents.

Next, I find myself seated in the shady grandstands. I am looking down at what is a racetrack, but I can only see one sunny section at the far end. As I wait for the race to begin, male announcers make comments about the entrants. To my surprise, they announce that my younger brother is in the race. I am confused because even though my brother lives in Virginia, they announce that he is from Talladega, Florida. They wonder aloud why he would be in the race since he has a newborn baby at home. (That part was a fact.)

I never see the race, but my brother apparently wins it. I see him, clad in blue denim coveralls and looking like someone who should be part of a pit crew, doing a victory lap. He is walking around the track, waving to people in the stands. Someone comes out of the crowd and hands him a bunch of over-sized electrical wiring. He drapes it around his neck like a gym towel. One strand is silver metal, twisted like rope; other strands are black, red and blue plastic tubing. A stranger next to me explains that this mass of wire and tubes is my brother’s trophy, comparable to an Olympic laurel wreath in ancient Greece.

I leave the grandstands and follow my brother and the crowd to the victory “circle,” a square of concrete outside the fairgrounds. My brother is told he can have one person be in a photo with him, and he chooses me! But when I start to walk up to be with him he decides he wants other people to be in the photo, too. In the end I am part of a group around my brother. I look out toward the crowd of celebrating on-lookers, and I see my 18-year-old son. He’s playing hacky sack in a circle of guys. He had gotten his hair cut.

A Mother Like Me

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ Leave a comment

“His mother said, ‘Young man, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been half out of our minds looking for you.” (Luke 2:48, The Message)

Several years ago I went to a very large mall to buy a wedding shower gift. Like most modern malls, this was a city unto itself. My sons, ages six and five at the time, went with me. Riding escalators and winding through aisles of house wares is always an interesting task with curious little boys. Mothers never cease to be amazed when they successfully achieve their shopping goals under such circumstances. That was true of me that day. The boys and I managed to find our way to the linen department of the store where I intended to search for the desired gift. Thankfully, I found the gift almost immediately. Just as quickly, I lost something else. When I looked up from matching the gift to the registry listing, my five-year-old was right by my side, but his big brother was nowhere in sight. We called his name and searched around the displays of towels and sheets, displays that surely seemed more like towers in the eyes of five and six-year-olds. “He couldn’t have gotten very far in that amount of time,” I reasoned to myself. As panic began to set in, I wondered if he had decided to go for another ride on the nearby escalator. No, he was nowhere near the escalator. People, people, everywhere and no sign of my son! Anger over his straying gave way to fear for his safety, as I headed back to the linen department and told a clerk that I needed to report a missing child. She called security; as I waited for a guard to arrive I paced around the corner into the electronics department. There, staring up at a mesmerizing television screen, stood my son. I’m not sure what I said to him (after I ran to hug him) but I’m sure it was something akin to, “Why did you do that to me? I was going crazy looking for you!”

I remembered this incident when I recently reread the story of the nativity. Though I’ve read the story many times this was the first time I found myself thinking about “Mariology,” the teachings and traditions of the Roman Catholic Church that exalt Mary, the mother of Jesus, in ways not supported by Holy Scripture. If you want an in-depth analysis of Mariology, this is not the place to read. My observations come from simply recognizing the common bond of motherhood with Mary. In reading Luke’s gospel this time, I was struck by the fact that in a mere two chapters, he takes us from a Mary to whom no other woman can relate (by virtue of the immaculate conception) to a woman with whom any mother can closely identify. I think Luke, anticipating potential heresies, intentionally and quickly gives us glimpses of Mary’s motherhood. After telling us of the one, unparalleled miraculous event that happened in Mary’s life in Chapter One, Luke then takes the time to relate two more “Mary” stories in Chapter Two. First, Mary gave birth under less than desirable circumstances. Second, she knew the panic of a missing child. Of both of Mary’s experiences, Luke says that Mary treasured these things in her heart.

How did Luke know that Mary treasured these things? Surely, it was because she marveled over these incidents to those close to her. This is what we women do; we recount our motherhood experiences. I can imagine Mary saying, “I remember the night Jesus was born…” or “I remember the time Joseph and I couldn’t find Jesus…” Of course, there were special, supernatural things at work in Mary’s experiences, too. Shepherds found out about Jesus’ birth via angelic beings and came to worship Him. Then, later, Mary found her Son amazing the temple elders with His understanding and answers. But these supernatural experiences don’t alienate Mary from me. That she marveled at these things assures me that Mary was just as human as I am. I don’t think it’s an accident that Luke goes out of his way to tell us (twice) that Mary was pondering and marveling over these events. Would a woman who herself possessed god-like qualities have been so amazed? I don’t think so. I think Mary, a mother like me, was also a sinner like me. When her Son later proclaimed, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me,” He was surely including His mother.

A note on the above work of art, Mary Consoles Eve: Thanks to my friend, Christine, for helping me to discover this beautiful crayon and pencil drawing by Sister Grace Remington of the Sisters of the Mississippi Abbey. Note how Sister Grace stays true to Catholic teachings by showing Mary (rather than Mary’s “seed,” i.e., Christ) bruising the serpent’s head.

An Open Letter to My Book Bag

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 3 Comments

Dear Book Bag,

I just want to say, “I’m sorry.” I have left you empty and neglected. This is not what I intended for you. When I took you from that Powell’s rack I had the best of intentions. I didn’t consider the fact that I was destroying your perfect view of the Blue Room. I believe my Annie Dillard collection was my last find there. But that was before your time, and I digress.
I thought you and I would become inseparable friends. Instead, I moved you fourteen hundred miles away and have not even taken you on any exotic adventures to other book stores. I only fill you with teachers’ texts and bulky binders and weigh you down with the three-hole punch and stapler. I know that has to be uncomfortable, especially once you’ve known the silky smooth covers of hardbacks. If it’s any consolation, it’s very possible I might have saved you from a worse plight – California. Did you hear the stories? I experienced the stigma myself when I first moved to Portland. The natives were very suspicious until I assured them I had not moved from the Golden State. I think it’s a real estate thing, and we shouldn’t take it personally. I see from your tag that you are from China; I’m pretty sure Portlanders don’t have any beefs with the Chinese.
I actually thought you might feel quite at home here in Phoenix. Phoenix and Portland might seem completely opposite given the desert/rain dichotomy. Actually, they have much in common. It is likely you met a tree hugger before I took you from West Burnside. Someday perhaps I can introduce you to a cactus hugger. That’s what we have here. Again, I have been remiss in not getting you out more, so you can learn these things for yourself. I know you’ve at least heard the song Tree Hugger by Kimya Dawson and Antsy Pants. I don’t know how closely you’ve listened to the lyrics, but personally, I find it interesting that the cactus (not the tree) is the one that talks about getting a hug. Yet the song is not called Cactus Hugger. This is why we love writers.
Is any of this making you feel any better? Trust me, I would like nothing better than to take you to a book store and fill you with inky-smelling treasures. I’ve been in a slump lately, though. I’m not sure what I would even look for, let alone buy. I’ve been considering Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. I always intended to read it before the movie came out, but like I said, “Slump!” I’ve read about the book…I was thinking about writing an apocalyptic work myself. In my story all the paper mills are closed down because words are no longer printed on paper. As scary as a paperless world sounds, you have to admit that at least a few people in Portland would not miss that sour, pulpy stench wafting across the Columbia. Yes, I know you are familiar with unpleasant odors. I’m sorry you were strangled by Katy’s sneakers during your stay in her closet. She loves you almost as much as I do. Try to remember that she is only 15.
Fifteen is really not very old. Surely, you saw souls of all ages during your stay in the City of Books. I wonder if you ever saw any of my book-loving friends. Diane, Julie, Sabina? Janice? I hope you saw my sons. How about anybody famous? Did you ever see Donald Miller? That reminds me: I still need my own copy of Searching for God Knows What. See, I have plans for you, after all.

In the Middle; In Manure

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 2 Comments

“Heidi could go no further; the remembrance of the past, the excitement she had just gone through, the long suppressed weeping, were too much for the child’s strength…The doctor stood up and laid her head kindly down on the pillow. ‘There, there, go on crying, it will do you good, and then go to sleep: it will be all right tomorrow.'” This excerpt is found right in the middle of the classic story Heidi by Johanna Spyri. Of course, if you know the story, you know the events that lead up to Heidi requiring a doctor, and you know what follows. But I’m leaving you right there – in the middle. I’m leaving you there because that’s where I am. Right in the middle of some story, a sub-plot of my life. Perhaps that’s where you are, too. Events have occurred, events are occurring, and events are sure to follow. We can’t even be certain that what we’re now experiencing is “the middle.” Maybe we’re actually a couple of pages before the climax; maybe we’re several chapters away. We don’t know what’s on the next page or even in the next paragraph. Sometimes I think it’s a stretch to call this a story – it feels more like a pile of manure. (I did grow up on a farm, so I don’t mean that completely figuratively.) In his book Tell It Slant, Eugene Peterson writes, “Jesus is best known for his fondness for the minute, the invisible, the quiet, the slow – yeast, salt, seeds, light. And manure…this apparently dead and despised waste is teeming with life – enzymes, numerous microorganisms. It’s the stuff of resurrection.” Sometimes I (and maybe you, too) think the story is a more derogatory term for manure. But we would be foolish if we ignore Peterson’s reminder of the potential life-changing components of manure. We can’t lose sight of its resurrective potential. We must believe it will sprout the hopeful words of Heidi’s doctor, “It will be all right tomorrow.”

Between Wool and Work

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ Leave a comment

It should have been there, between wool and work. Were my eyes deceiving me? How could something so foundational be omitted? It is core, central, indispensable. It paints vivid pictures, being “sharper than any two-edged sword,” a “lamp to my feet,” “pure as silver tried in a furnace,” and “sweeter than honey to my mouth.” It stands forever. It was in the beginning. But, it was not there, there where it should have been intentionally set – between wool and work…

The last two DVDs I rented were Adaptation and The Soloist. By mere coincidence these two very different movies, share a common dilemma. In both, lead characters (Charlie Kaufman in Adaptation and Steve Lopez in The Soloist) are writers, struggling to get stories onto screen and paper.

I am not a professional writer. I do not make a living by writing words. That is, unless by “living” one means the sustaining of one’s soul. In that case, I must confess that there is a lot of Charlie and Steve in me. I go a little nuts, get a little feverish and peevish when words fail me. And lately I’ve been existing between wool and work, between that which wraps me in sleep and that which occupies nearly every waking moment.

Charlie’s and Steve’s struggles with the written word were complex and unique. I would never presume to suggest what might have coaxed the stories from their hearts and minds. I do know the source of that which causes the words to flow from my soul. It is that which (for whatever the reasons of the editors of my Bible concordance) was left unnamed, yet is always, repeatedly, unfailingly there.