What 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader' Should Have Been But Wasn't

(More like this!)

Like all right-minded folks, I was very disappointed by the travesty that was the new Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie. As with The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe, the trailer looked promising (the visuals matched or at least approximated the books), but the execution, or perhaps I should say the spirit of the film, was all wrong.

It's not just changing the plot (although really, if you are going to change the plot you have GOT to do better than green mist and a 7 swords MacGuffin!) but the fact that the film doesn't feel like Lewis. Why, oh why do movie writers insist on throwing out the perfectly jolly dialogue of the books and substituting their own trashy dialogue? For example, just compare the dialogue from the movie and the book on the romance between Caspian and Ramandu's daughter.

Movie

Caspian: You are most beautiful.

Ramandu's daughter: If it is a distraction for you I can change form.

Caspian and Edmund: No!!

Lucy: [rolls eyes]

Book

"In the world from which my friends come" (here he [Caspian] nodded at Eustace and the Pevensies) "they had a story of a prince or a king coming to a castle where all the people lay in an enchanted sleep. In this story he could not dissolve the enchantment until he had kissed the princess."

"But here," said the girl, "it is different. Here he cannot kiss the princess til he has dissolved the enchantment."

"Then," said Caspian, "in the name of Aslan, show me how to set about that work at once."

[Later, when leaving]

"Lady," said Caspian, "I hope to speak with you again when I have broken the enchantments." And Ramandu's daughter looked at him and smiled.

The movie dialogue is good for a cheap laugh at best, and sexist at worst. The book dialogue is beautiful and subtle, the stuff of honor and fairie.

I'm not the only one has noticed this cheapening of honor, in a Narnia Web podcast, commentator "Rilian" points out (around 22:30) that the movie totally abandons the emphasis on honor which in the book provides the motivation for their quest to find the missing Narnian lords. As Rilian notes, the view of honor in the Dawn Treader is best articulated by Reepicheep, when they are contemplating withdrawing from the darkness around the Dark Island without exploring it.

"But what manner of use would it be ploughing through all that blackness?" asked Drinian.

"Use?" replied Reepicheep. "Use, Captain? If by use you mean filling our bellies or our purses, I confess it will be no use at all. So far as I know we did not set sail to look for things useful but to seek honour and adventures."

In stark contrast to Reepicheep's (and Lewis') valuing of honour over usefulness, the movie makers' plot change elevates pragmatism: the seven swords must be found to break the mysterious power of the green mist which is stealing people away.

The failure of the modern pragmatically oriented filmmakers to grasp what an essentially Medieval view of chivalry is not terribly surprising. After all, chivalry and honor belong in the same category as the list of words that Thomas Howard, in his C.S. Lewis: Man of Letters (which is, by the by, the best book on Lewis I have yet read) reports so bewildered his students. Howard would distribute a list of archaic moral words (majesty, magnanimity, valor, courtesy, grace, chastity, virginity, nobility, splendor, ceremony, taboo, mystery, purity) to his class at the beginning of term with predictable results. "The entire list of words lands in their laps like a heap of dead basalt meteorites lately arrived from some other realm. They don't know what to do with them" (Howard, 1987, p. 20). In the same way the filmmakers' inability to interpret and understand this critical element in the book is entirely predictable.

What is surprising is that the filmmakers similarly abandon (or misunderstand, perhaps) another theme equally central to the book but not so morally freighted, and moreover one which could only have aided their efforts at creating a blockbuster. This theme is the love of the sea and of ships--essentially all things nautical.

This theme is obvious from even a cursory reading of Dawn Treader. Just four pages in Lewis is describing the titular ship "She was obviously running fast before a gay wind, listing over a little on her port side" in a way that suggests both seafaring knowledge and love of the sea. This is confirmed by one of Lewis' asides:

"By the way, if you are going to read this story at all, and if you don't know already, you had better get it straight into your head that the left side of a ship when you are looking ahead is port and the right is starboard."

There is abundant other evidence of Lewis's nautical love: early on the Pevensies are taken on a tour of the ship (which is accompanied in the book by a cross section map of the ship), and the Dawn Treader is described in loving detail ("she was a beauty of her kind, a "lady" as sailors say, her lines perfect, her colors pure, and every spar and rope lovingly made."). Even our main characters' response to the ship serves as a key to understanding their characters: Lucy is rightly entranced by Caspian's snug cabin with its windows looking out on the sea while the depth of Eustace's folly is shown by his preference for submarines and ocean liners over the little ship's charming lines (at one point he calls it "a rotten little tub"). 

Lewis' description of the Dawn Treader and his use of correct technical vocabulary (starboard, port, aft, prow, spar, rigging, forecastle, galley, poop deck, amidships, tiller) demonstrate is that he is fully alive to the enchantment of sailing. The nautical details are not mere window dressing on the way to adventures and treasure, they are the source of keen pleasure and adventure in themselves. Of course these shipboard pleasures are inseparable from the appeal of the power and beauty of the ocean, which Lewis also depicts ("blue waves flecked with foam, and paler blue sky, both spreading without a break to the horizon", "they were alternately golden with sunlight and dim green with the sea", "a great grey hill of water far higher than the mast rushed to meet them"). A graceful ship moving on the immense, dangerous sea is a beautiful, poetic thing well worth depicting in its own right. That Lewis realizes this can be seen by the Pevensies' joy upon the conclusion of the tour of the ship:

"..the other two were delighted with the Dawn Treader, and when they turned aft to the cabin and saw the whole western sky lit up with an immense crimson sunset, and felt the quiver of the ship, and tasted the salt on their lips, and the thought of unknown lands on the eastern rim of the world , Lucy felt that she was almost too happy to speak."

Any child can tell you of the charm of a sea-faring life, how it joins the beauty of the sea and the promise of adventure in one intoxicating draught, and renders glorious even the most lowly vessel. Yet the Voyage of the Dawn Treader film makers seem to be entirely innocent of such pleasures. Despite (or perhaps because of) their big budget and resources, they clearly don't get it, and their realization of the ship fails as a result. Forget the ocean, they didn't even bother to shoot the movie in a water tank!--the ship was essentially a stage supported by hydraulics to make it pitch and move. The 'ship' is not a true ship--it has no 

The movie prop Dawn Treader

hull, so never touched the water. It was suspended above the water at an Australian oceanfront park and in front of green screens for the storm and sea monster scenes. As a result, it doesn't feel real, and the ocean doesn't look particularly beautiful. The Dawn Treader as it appears on screen is gaudy, weighed down with impractical ornamentation that undermines the simple beauty that characterizes real working ships. One of the creators of the set was apparently inspired by carousels, and this comes through--its feels about as real as the pirate ships rides in amusement parks.

Perhaps this criticism of the film seems unfair, or that I'm impossible to please, so let me give some examples which both demonstrate both what I am talking about and that it is possible to produce a literary product with a proper appreciation for the sea.  Without further ado, here are 3 works which get it--which clearly love seafaring and possess the spirit which was so missing in the Dawn Treader movie. 

1. Swallows and Amazons 

The story of a family of four children learning to sail and finding adventure during their summer holiday in the Lake District in England. Both in its book and movie form, Swallows beautifully demonstrates the pleasures of sailing which are accessible even to a child, and the beauty of a boat, even on a very small scale. We witness the children learning the rules of sailing (among them the gem from their father "Better drowned than duffers; if not duffers won't drown."), honing their navigation skills, and developing a fierce pride in their boat, Swallow.  Imaginative Titty's frequent literary references to books in the seafaring tradition (Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island) remind us of the close association between sailing and the best romantic adventures (deserted islands, pirates, maps, hostile natives, treasure, and intrigue!). 

Here is a clip of the 1973 movie that shows some sailing (watch to the end to see the Swallow under full sail). And Here's another clip if you can't get enough of this goodness. I'm a big fan of this version of Swallows and Amazons for a variety of reasons. I love that it accurately depicts children's imaginative play and the delights of camping without loudly calling attention to them. I also love the slower pacing of the film, which allows us to actually see what's going on, including some truly beautiful moments, like Titty looking at the shadows of the leaves on her tent when she first wakes up. Add this to the short list of movies that my children will be allowed to watch!  

Most important for our purposes, the movie version does an excellent version of capturing the beauty of the water. 'Dawn Treader' could have learned a thing or two from them! 

2. Master and Commander 

The story of a charismatic British sea captain "Lucky Jack" Aubrey, who leads his ship full of fighting men half way around the globe on a chase to capture a wily French privateer. If you thought Swallows and Amazons sounded too tame, this is the movie for you! The potential for maritime adventure is fully realized here, there are sea battles, exotic foreign ports, cunning strategy, and truly scary storms. A fair proportion of the movie's appeal comes from how real of the ship feels--its wood palpably groaning under pressure or damaged by war, decks crowded with men and cluttered with rigging. There is realism in the depiction of shipboard life too: it makes clear how the men are bound by strict hierarchy, obedience is mandatory and punish for infractions severe, and their time is precisely divided into a series of watches. Yet despite its realism the movie also has a romantic perspective, capturing the glory of the ship in battle and sailing under full sail. 

As an aside, did you notice the blonde boy in the trailer whose arm is broken and who is told he'll take command of the ship during the battle?  That's 13 year old Lord Blakeney, played by Max Perkis, and I think it's worth pointing out that this boy is much closer, both in age and appearance, to how Caspian is described in Prince Caspian. Ben Barnes' swarthy appearance not withstanding, according to Lewis, Caspian has golden, curly hair. So if it were up to me, you'd have cast Perkis (or someone like him) for Prince Caspian and a young man version of the same for Voyage (remember there is supposed to be a 3 year gap in Narnian time). This would clearly be a huge improvement over Barnes' simpering (and don't even get me started on his obnoxious Eurotrash accent!) and make the movie 100% more bearable at a single stroke. But the main thing to notice about Blakeney is that since he's a lord he's given a adult level of responsibility at sea (he is maimed and could easily be killed) and he performs magnificently! So basically the moral of Swallows and Amazon + Master and Commander = young kids at sea for the win! Luckily Lewis is brilliant enough to have figured this out for himself, if only the filmmakers would help him out by not casting actors far older than they ought to be. 

3. The Riddle of the Sands

The story of two British young men frolicking around in the North Sea, who through many daring feats of seamanship uncover a dastardly German plot. This spy novel is the least well known of my three examples, it was written in 1903 and has since fallen into obscurity.  But is well worth rediscovering (you can read it here), if only for the pleasure of getting to know the delightful character of Davies. Davies is a character completely in love with sailing and his boat, the Dulcibella. Davies takes a childlike delight in the cramped living quarters of the tiny vessel: a tiny kitchen in which things have a tendency to roll away and break, cramped bunks, little head space and knee room leading to bruised foreheads and shins, etc. Davies' perspective ("there's plenty of room to sit upright...Some people make a point of head-room, but I never mind much about it.") is contagious, both to the more sophisticated Curruthers, who narrates the adventure, as well as to readers. You can get a taste of Davies' character in the following passage, in which a chagrined Curruthers, who had imagined natty white flannels and uniformed sailors, not gumboots and a two man crew when he agreed to join Davies for "yachting", has just arrived on board the Dulcibella, and delivered Davies a a number of requested of ship-related items, including a new stove. 

'There's your stove, you see,' he [Davies] ended; 'I've chucked the old one overboard.' It was a weakness of his, I should say here, to rejoice in throwing things overboard on the flimsiest pretexts. I afterwards suspected that the new stove had not been 'really necessary' any more than the rigging-screws, but was an excuse for gratifying this curious taste.

But Davies is deadly serious about certain things: the state of the British coastal defenses, accurate coastal charts, and a certain young woman. He's also serious about seamanship and skillful navigation--the book contains descriptions of such ingenious uses of the characteristics of the  Dulcibella, the tides and sands, that you come away convinced that sailing requires as much clever strategy as spying itself. 

Speaking of strategy, there's plenty of that in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader book that is completely dropped in the movie version. For example, take the ruse that Caspian uses to retake the Lone Islands--it is eviscerated in the movie, becoming a contrived and pointless action sequence.

But it doesn't have to be like this. For proof that there is no reason that this scene can't be portrayed in a movie version check out this clip from the old BBC miniseries version of Voyage of the Dawn Treader:

In fact, despite (because of?) being low budget and literal the BBC version is a whole lot better at capturing the love of the sea and adventure. Even more important, this clip shows how the sense of honor present in the books could be simply and easily communicated in film--the restoration of Caspian's dominion over lost territory is an solemn occasion, in which all the players act formally in order to do honor to the majesty of Caspian's kingship and restored empire. This is important to get right in an adaption if you care at all about the integrity of the story (honor and kingship are clearly important to Lewis) but especially if you care about the potential Christian allegory in the story. 

But while I don't expect the filmmakers to get say, Lewis's allusions to mystical voyages, it really doesn't seem that hard to understand the basic appeal of a boat!

Toronto Goodness

When I had first arrived in Toronto, I had rather a hard time of it what with not knowing a single person in the city and having my backpack (with a lot of important things in it) stolen within the first couple months of arriving. I was experiencing a bit of culture shock (mostly the anti-Americanism that was particularly obvious during the US presidential primary) and so I wrote a rather annoyed blog post about Canadians. Although I still agree with the main thrust of my argument, I've since come to appreciate some things about Toronto, things that I will really miss when my grad school years come to an end. So in penance for my earlier anti-Canadian sentiment and to remind myself to be thankful for the many good gifts, I present the following list.

Things I love about Toronto
-watching the snow fall outside
-when the colors of the fall leaves are lit up by nearby streetlights at night
-when you can see the patterns of the snowflakes
-the amazing tulips and daffodils in the spring
-the lilacs and irises in the summer
-being able to buy ingredients for Ethiopian food (injera)
-being able to try all sorts of international foods (my first time to try Caribbean, Korean, Thai, Sushi = in Toronto).
-old buildings, particularly the U of T buildings, and particularly when transformed by snow
-Gerstein and Graham Libraries--both old buildings that have been renovated while retaining their old charm. My favorite places to study.
-Kensington Market--in particular the fruit market where I buy my fruit and veggies
-Toronto Brickworks and surrounding trails
-flowershops--especially the smell them when you walk by
-used bookstores, especially Balfour Books
-Bulk Barn (okay, I've only ever been to one in Guelph but I love the concept)
-E.D. Smith jam--apparently a Canadian brand, since 1883--the raspberry and apricot are delicious!
-buskers, especially the old man who plays strange but beautiful Asian instruments I don't recognize in the Spadina subway
-the cool houses on Palmerston Boulevard, especially their amazing brickwork.
-old oak trees, especially the ones in the neighborhood near Casa Loma. Cool houses there too.
-the sound of the wind rustling the leaves of the trees in the city--so peaceful!
-All the people on the subway (and my students) from such a wide range of cultures. Such beautiful, interesting faces, such a variety of dress.
-The Royal Ontario Museum
-cardinals--I love their song and their color and we don't have them in southern CA.
-watching and listening to little kids play games for P.E. in the field near my house as I walk by-- always some kids hanging out near the fence, rather than participating, so cute!
-watching the boys passionately playing hockey/ball hockey at the nearby park as I pass, only to realize they are all grown men in their 40s--oh Canadians, you amuse me!
-Guildwood Park and its amazing statuary
-also the Scarborough Bluffs
-iceskating--all those outdoor rinks
-Porter Airline--the way the flying experience should be! (and best mascot ever!)
-streetcars--they're pretty! and I pretend I'm on an amusement park ride when we go though tunnels. I like seeing the world from a bit higher off the ground.
-all the funny city animals--pigeons, squirrels, raccoons, sparrows. It's not like I would like to cuddle with them, but they enrich my life in their scruffy way.
-My street. Especially the way the old fashioned brick houses are sort of pastel colors, and when they are lit up at night remind me of dollhouses or decorative lanterns.
-My favorite Victorian house in the neighborhood, complete with gingerbread, turret, canary and African violets in the windows and adorable old couple.
-My church (meaning the people, obviously, although the building is nice too).



Postscript: To-Do While in Toronto
-Go to Niagara Falls (still haven't been!)
-Go to Toronto Islands (ditto!)
-Go to a ballet (was so annoyed that I missed this one)
-Go to another play or two (have been to 1 Shakespeare and 1 Stoppard so far)
-Go to the ROM more often (It's free to York students on Tuesdays)
-Go ice skating more
-Learn to play hockey
-Try snowshoeing
-Visit St. Anne's Anglican Church
-Go camping somewhere in Northern Ontario with friends
-Visit Montreal, Ottawa, and Prince Edward Island

Look, here are some other people collecting Toronto goodness! Mmmm...lovely!
Occasional Toronto
Blog TO
Daily Dose of Imagery

Interesting Faces

My sister and I collect what we call 'interesting faces'. We point out people that we see at events or on the street to each other: "Did you see that girl's face?" "Yup, I saw. So awesome." Recently during intermission at a concert I waited, craning, for several minutes for a gangly teen boy whose face Krista had proclaimed interesting to turn around. I never did get more than a glimpse.

Amazingly, Krista and I have a high rate of agreement despite never having laid out rules or guidelines about what constitutes an interesting face. Instead we seem to have an intuitive recognition of such faces. For example, while watching the Band of Brothers miniseries, we were both entranced by the face of a young soldier in the opening credits.




It wasn't until several episodes into Band of Brothers that one of us mentioned 'the soldier with the interesting face', and we both knew exactly who was meant, to the astonishment of the rest of the family. You can see him in the foreground at ~1:49-1:52. As you can see there are a whole lot of soldiers in the intro, most of whom have very pleasing, interesting faces, including, in the background of the very same shot, Damien Lewis, the actor playing the main (awesome) character Lt. Winters.



In fact, I think Lewis also fits into 'interesting face' category, and that most really good movies have a wealth of actors with interesting faces, but but more on that later. What I want to know is how exactly is it that Krista and I both identified the same anonymous young soldier as having an interesting face? What exactly constitutes an interesting face?

Let's take a look at a couple examples of actors and actresses whose faces Krista and I agree are interesting and see if there are any commonalities.

Honeysuckle Weeks


Rosamund Pike


Stephen Campbell Moore


Joanne Froggatt


James McAvoy


Romola Garai


Joseph Gordon-Levitt


Leelee Sobieski


Anthony Howell


Anne-Marie Duff


Simon Wood


Claire Foy

I notice a couple commonalities here. Deep set 'squinty' eyes are common. The men tend to have good strong noses, and the women to have wider cheekbones or rounder faces than are typically considered the ideal. But that doesn't get us very far.

Being actors and actresses they are of course a good looking bunch, with nice symmetrical, regular features. In fact, you might reasonably ask if Krista and I don't have a taste for people with interesting faces, so much as we have a taste for people with beautiful faces (which although totally natural is not particularly worth investigating).

However, consider the many beautiful people who don't make the interesting faces cut: actresses like Keira Knightly, Megan Fox, Penelope Cruz, Julia Roberts, Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Lopez, Natalie Portman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, or actors like Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, George Clooney, James Franco, Matthew McConaughey, Patrick Dempsey, Jude Law, and Jake Gyllenhaal.* Conventionally good looking I'll grant you (for most of them); interesting faces, not so much. Women in this sample tend to have thin oval faces with pronounced cheekbones and large eyes. The men vary a bit more but all seem to have some 'rugged' features such as a craggy brow and the traditionally strong jaw expected of a leading man. For an exemplar for these types consider Jon Hamm and January Jones of Mad Men fame.

See what I mean? Rugged good looks for Jon and a thin oval face with cheekbones for January. Given that they were cast to exemplify 1950s male and female beauty, I'd say that they do a pretty amazing job demonstrating the beauty ideals of today. But these ideals are rather boring if you ask me, so perhaps what we mean by beautiful faces is that they are beautiful faces that don't fit the cultural standard of beauty: too angular a face, too prominent a nose, too light of eyebrows, too round a face.

So Theory 1 for the existence of our 'interesting' categorization is reaction. Krista and I are reacting against the dominant and rather unimaginative standard of beauty, attempting to broaden the definition. For example our affection for rounder faces might be a reaction to the widespread favoritism for women with oval faces. If you need proof of this trend just check out this Justin Beiber music video -- they cast a girl with a thin, oval face as Justin's love interest in spite of the fact that the girl's sidekick has a way more interesting round face. You can catch glimpses of this girl (wearing white) at second 13, 16, 20 (and throughout the video, but I assume that you don't want to watch any more of it than you have to). Another piece of evidence in favor of this theory is the fact that many of the actors and actresses we consider interesting come from foreign films or period dramas--two venues that are also relatively reactive to the dominant culture's trends and beauty standards.

Or perhaps it's not that intentional, perhaps Krista and I, in our small community, have simply developed a consistent taste for a particular look.



If so, we wouldn't be the first. Take a look at the above photo of Sam, Milner and Foyle from Foyle's War (that is to say Honeysuckle Weeks, Anthony Howell and Michael Kitchen). Note that they all have similar faces, in particular, deep set 'squinty' eyes. Foyle's War is another prime location for finding interesting faces, but the actors often share have these similar eyes, including Foyle's son Andrew, not pictured here. But the three pictured above are not supposed to be related to each other, so I think what has happened here is that the director or casting agent (or both) has developed a taste for people with squinty eyes. So Theory 2 is a the development of a local aesthetic.

Or, Theory 3, perhaps we imprinted on people with round faces with squinty eyes.

Take a look at this picture of Krista and me, and you can probably spot a motive for wanting to elevate the squinty eyed, round face beauty ideal. Perhaps in finding these interesting faces we've actually been seeing and being attracted to resemblances to ourselves and our family.

But I tend to favor Theory 4, that we're really on to something here and have had the luck to stumble upon the Platonic form of the beautiful.

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*All very unscientifically selected from various 'hottest' and 'sexiest' lists floating around the Internet.

Prayer for Libya, Pakistan, and Toronto

I led the intercessory prayer at my church this evening. Seems like it might be of general interest, so here's what I prayed:

Dear Lord, we thank you that you call us your family and that you care about our needs, great or small.

Please hear our prayers this evening as we pray for our world, our city, and our community.

O Lord, our hearts are heavy when we think about all the places in the world where the results of sin are clear and your peace seems very far away.

We pray specifically tonight for Libya where conflict between the government and protesters is resulting in violence, death and suffering. We pray for the people of Libya in this time of turmoil and uncertainty, that you would protect them and be near to them. We pray that your justice and your peace might prevail in Libya.

We pray for the other places in the Middle East where protests are taking place. God, we know that you hate evil and love the poor and oppressed, so we pray for your justice to come to the tyrants and for your mercy to the powerless. Above all, God, work through these events for their good, for the ultimate good of the people of the Middle East, most of whom do not know you. Sweep away the lies and the oppression and open their eyes to your truth.

We also pray for Pakistan where Shabahz Bhatti, a Christian politician who was recently assassinated because of his stand against the blasphemy laws used to persecute religious minorities. We pray for his family and for his fellow Pakistani Christians who are now fearful for their lives. Comfort them and give them courage in this terrible loss. Lord, thank you for the life of Shabahz Bhatti, who before he was killed said he knew the meaning of the Cross, and he was willing to follow the example of Jesus, to lay down his life for truth, for the sake of the marginalized people in Pakistan.

What a humbling witness! Lord, would you work on our hearts to bring about such a sacrificial attitude, and would you raise up many such Christian leaders in Pakistan and in the Muslim world willing to fight the good fight despite the terrible cost.

Lord, we can hardly imagine the lives of those for whom being a Christian means persecution and perhaps martyrdom. Nonetheless we pray for our brothers and sisters who suffer for your sake. Sustain them, protect them, and encourage them. We know that they are precious to you—let them feel your love despite their trials. May their lives bear much fruit as others witness their love for you.

We pray for the city of Toronto—so far from such scenes of persecution and yet still home to injustice and lies. May your justice prevail here too. We pray for our leaders, that they would care for the needy and oppressed of the city. That they would consider the needs of the poor and homeless more important than playing politics; speaking hard truths more important than twisting the facts for political gain. Lord, somehow this seems a harder thing to ask than peace in the Middle East—it too needs the miraculous influence of your spirit to accomplish it. But we ask it anyway, in faith.

Lord, we pray also for your spirit to come upon those in this city who do not know you. God, so many people here live their lives totally unconscious of any sort of larger purpose or meaning, unaware that you are real and that you love them. Lord this too seems impossible, but we pray for the salvation of Toronto. Please, work in the hearts of the people of this city, drawing them to yourself. Be the hound of heaven in their lives, pursue them like a lover. We know that you are the Great Fisherman, that you can catch a man "with an unseen hook and an invisible line long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world, and still bring him back with a twitch upon the thread."* Use this power, we pray.

Finally, Lord, we bring before you the needs of this community.

We pray for the search committee, that you would give them wisdom in their task, and for the Knox leadership that you would strengthen and encourage as they serve. Lord, I pray for a spirit of unity at Knox and for growth in this time of transition.

We pray for the health needs of our community. We pray for Andresa and for Pattra. We thank you for the good news that they received, and we pray for their continued healing.

Lord, would you give strength to students struggling with their workload and healing to those dealing with strained or broken relationships. Lord, in all of the trials of our life, will you be with us, helping us to have the right attitude, to act rightly towards our neighbors and to you? May our lives please you.

O Christ, we long for the day when you come again and all things will be made right. Along with creation we groan at the wrong in the world, and eagerly await your salvation.

Come soon, Lord Jesus.

Amen.

---
*A slightly modified quote from G. K. Chesteron's Father Brown story The Queer Feet, also referenced in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited.

Happy End of Term!

This (by far the best comic that I have yet seen in the York newspaper--usually they're just terrible) is in honor of my poor history of psychology students who probably felt this way about their final. Tomorrow morning bright and early I'm off to torture...I mean proctor a make-up exam for those who missed a exam at some point in the semester, and from there back downtown to the Toronto bus station to take the Greyhound to Buffalo, and from there I fly to Chicago, and from there to LA, and from there home. Yup, I sure know how to take the direct route home. At least I'm not backtracking all the way to Boston this time!*

The upside to being a grad student is that you don't usually have scary end of semester exams--it's all papers and presentations. But the downside is that you aren't done when you finish your own work, you still have to do grading for the class you TA. So I'm heading home with 84 student papers to grade (or mark, as they call it here in Canada) as well as several unfinished projects of my own. Luckily the papers were electronically submitted, so they only take up space on my laptop, not in my luggage! At least it is an interesting paper topic: students are supposed to choose two women from the Feminist Voices website, one from the Women Past section which covers women from psychology's past and one from the Feminist Presence section, which profiles modern feminist psychologists and then write a fictional conversation between the two women about psychology, their research, their experience of being a woman in academia, or whatever! So it should be fun to see what the students have come up with. Some of the titles I've seen are quite clever (like "Hard Times at Harvard" or "Fierce Spirits Within").

If you have a couple minutes you should check out the profiles on the website. Each woman has photographs and a brief biography on their profile page, and some even have videos associated, like Psyche Cattell* (who not only has a video, but who also has the most awesome picture of her climbing a tree in full Victorian garb). Eleanor Gibson and Milicent Shinn also have profiles on the site, which I wrote. Did I mention that this website is the project of my advisor and that I've been responsible for adding most of the 'Women Past' profiles to the website? No? Ah, this must be one of the things I meant to blog about and didn't. Well, it debuted this summer at several conferences, and in the spring my colleagues will present on how to use the site in the classroom at a couple of psychology conferences. So marking the student papers is actually a meaningful task--I'll be looking to see if they understood the instructions, noting any consistent problems across papers that suggest we ought to modify the assignment in the future. But I had better get back to packing--despite the fact that I'm not carrying any student papers, I'm still having trouble closing my suitcase!

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* True story. It was cheaper. Not recommended.

* If you're marveling about the odds of a psychologist named Psyche you should know that Psyche's father was James McKeen Cattell who was an early psychologist. But he didn't think she ought to be a psychologist--for a bit more of the story, see Psyche's profile!

Chapter 7: In which Elissa gets her M.A.

It has been brought to my attention that I’ve been remiss in updating my adoring public on important life events. I hereby repent in dust and ashes and officially announce that I have completed my M.A.!

I successfully defended my master’s thesis in December and was most gratified by the positive reception I received from my thesis committee—they approved it with no revisions and even nominated it for a university thesis award! As far as statistics go, the thesis is called Eleanor Gibson and the Visual Cliff Myth: The Biography of a Scientific Object, is 151 pages long, and has 166 separate references. Whew! I don’t think it’s my best writing ever, and so don’t feel the fierce pride that I often do for my writing, however it represents a huge expenditure of time and effort. As you can imagine, I’m quite relieved and happy to have it finally finished.

What’s next for me? Well, as it turns out completing the thesis doesn’t portend huge life changes: I will stay on at York and complete my Ph.D., so about 3-4 years more. I’m happy about this, as I have gotten established in the program, have a church that I love, and feel at home in Toronto now. As for what’s next in terms of academic projects (i.e., for my dissertation.), I’m thinking I will probably leave Eleanor Gibson and her visual cliff behind and write on Milicent Shinn.

_____________

Eleanor J. Gibson _____________________Milicent Shinn

(1910-2002) _______________________ (1858-1940)

Milicent Shinn was a psychologist from California who published The Biography of a Baby in 1900, the first systematic observation of a baby’s early years conducted in America. Like my thesis, this (potential) dissertation project focuses on a woman psychologist who did developmental psychology, but I expect that, also like my thesis, Shinn’s biographical details will provide an interesting point of departure for investigating larger psychological and historical questions.

I am somewhat bemused to be choosing another developmental psychology topic, since I did rather poorly in my undergraduate developmental psychology class, and didn’t particularly like the subject matter (these two tend to go together in my experience). But it seems to have grown on me, and then again, who doesn’t like babies? If you need convincing of the charm of babies, just watch this trailer:

Eleanor Gibson photo credit: Dr. James Maas, Cornell University.

Christ the Companion

Time for another poem from Sayers' Catholic Tales and Christian Songs!





When I've thrown my books aside, being petulant and weary,
And have turned down the gas, and the firelight has sufficed,
When my brain's too stiff for prayer, and too indolent for theory,
Will You come and play with me, big Brother Christ?

Will You slip behind the book-case? Will you stir the window-curtain,
Peeping from the shadow with Your eyes like flame?
Set me staring at the alcove where the flicker's so uncertain,
Then suddenly, at my elbow, leap up, catch me, call my name?

Or take the great arm-chair, help me set the chestnuts roasting,
And tell me quiet stories, while the brown skins pop,
Of wayfarers and merchantmen and tramp of Roman hosting,
And how Joseph dwelt with Mary in the carpenter's shop?

When I drift away in dozing, will You softly light the candles
And touch the piano with Your kind, strong fingers,
Set stern fugues of Bach and stately themes of Handel's
Stalking through the corners where the last disquiet lingers?

And when we say good-night, and You kiss me on the landing,
Will You promise faithfully and make a solemn tryst:
You'll be just at hand if wanted, close by here where we are standing,
And be down in time for breakfast, big Brother Christ?

----

I am always hesitant to add explanations to poems, feeling that they can and ought to stand on their own. However, since it's just possible that you won't recognize the brilliance of the poem on your own, I will be less cryptic than is my wont.

This poem has long been a favorite of mine, but at the moment I find it particularly consoling. Amidst the loneliness and vicissitudes of grad school, it is good to remember that I have an older brother, my companion on the journey, who just happens to also be the firstborn over all creation. I could wax psychological about the burden I often feel being the oldest child and how comforting I find the idea of someone else having all the responsibilities of the firstborn, but I think what I really mean is something like this:

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Hebrews 4:14-16

But then again, this passage makes it sound more serious than I mean. These verses capture the 'solemn tryst' element, but not the playful, humorous Christ, who comes along when we are most fretful and cheers us.

It's this side of Christ that I think Sayers captures so well. I've been reading her passion plays 'The Man Born to be King' aloud with some friends and so I recognize this Jesus, the one who teases his disciples, laughs at his enemies and greets all of creation with a childlike joy. It's this temperament I desire; the ability to shrug off my cares and just play with Christ. I think the Hebrews passage gives a hint of why this is possible--we can delight in the pleasures of life because of the confidence that we have that Christ, our brother, has already won. We can be joyful and jubilant because he is. He has made it so that there is time for play and rest.

Image credit: Flickr

Back to School Reminder

Just rediscovered this old quote from The Practice of the Presence of God. I read the book way back in my sophomore year of college, (thanks, Mindy!), but I keep coming back to the quote--I think it's just the right proportion challenging and consoling.

"However, we must always continue to labor, since in the life of the spirit, not to advance is to fall back. But those who have the wind of the Holy Spirit sail even while they sleep. If the skiff of our soul is battered by winds or tempests, let us awaken the Lord who is resting there. He will soon calm the sea."

--Brother Lawrence

Image credit: The Agora

What I did on my summer vacation

the visual cliff experiment,

Sadly, it's only two minutes long and so doesn't show rats and chickens and goats being tested on the visual cliff like the complete version does, but at least you can get an idea what the apparatus looks like. If you really want to know how more about Eleanor Gibson or the visual cliff here's a fairly informative obituary and an online reprint of the original 1960 Scientific American article which first publicized the results of the study. Oh, and you can also look at some funny pictures of pigs and babies and goats on the cliff which were taken for an article in Life Magazine (click on any of the 'Related Images' to see the other pictures).

30 Years of Faithfulness

Today my parents celebrated thirty years of marriage. We dug out their wedding pictures, laughed at the '70s fashions, and marveled at how ridiculously young and good looking they were. Thirty years is an awfully long time to be with the same person in our culture, and I'm so thankful for the attitude my parents have toward their marriage. I remember being wonderfully comforted as a child when my mom told me (prefaced with a "just in case you've ever worried about this...") that I didn't have to be afraid that they would ever get divorced; that divorce wasn't something they would ever consider.

The anomaly of my parents' long lasting marriage reminded me of my own counter-cultural lifestyle. After years of Christian schooling, having secular friends who don't really understand the motivation behind the whole waiting 'til marriage thing, or worse, ask me to explain the vagaries of the Christian dating scene, have made me particularly aware of just how weird it is. And sometimes it seems strange to me too: waiting for the right guy, or in the words of the Facebook group, "Saving Myself For Wild, Passionate, Awkward Honeymoon Sex" just isn't all it's cracked up to be. That's why I found writing 'Musings on Love' for ReZound, my church's arts event I helped plan, to be such a helpful exercise. My friend Erika and I wrote the Musings to give the event a theological focus, but also found the writing process to be an encouraging reminder of the theological basis for our sacrifices. Speaking of ReZound, you can see some pictures from that love-themed ReZound here (I'm in there somewhere, reading the Goforth's story), and hear one of the songs that was played here ('Peace for Today' should start playing automatically).

It's a bit long, but I thought that in honor of my parent's anniversary I would reproduce the scripture and Musings that were read at ReZound. They are broken up into three parts, which corresponded to the tripartite organization of the event: Creation, Fall, Redemption. For my Christian friends the Musings are meant as encouragement to continue in the sacrificial love we're called to. And to my to my dear non-Christian friends, please consider the following a first stab at explaining what I believe about love and why it has subversive (and at times uncomfortable) results.



Part I: Creation

Genesis 2:18-25

The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."
Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib. The man said,

"This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man."

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

We were made for community. We need others. God made us in his image, male and female, with a potential for intimacy and relationship modeled on the community of his trinity. And it was good. We were able to be honest, naked, in perfect communion with God and each other.

But with this need for community came the potential for loneliness. God recognized this in his creation of Adam—being alone was not good for his human creature. Then came the fall. In the fall all relationships were fundamentally broken. Not only were we alienated from our creator, but we were alienated from our fellow creatures.

And so we are lonely. We crave intimacy; we want someone to truly know us; we want to be as vulnerable as in the Garden and feel full, shining, unconditional love. The fact is, we are not as good alone. Two are better than one, scripture says. A pair gets a better return for a day's work, has someone to help them recover from a fall, someone to keep them warm at night, someone who will help defend against a hostile world. A cord of three strands is not easily broken.



Part II: The Fall

Song of Solomon, 3:1-5

All night long on my bed
I looked for the one my heart loves;
I looked for him but did not find him.

I will get up now and go about the city,
through its streets and squares;
I will search for the one my heart loves.
So I looked for him but did not find him.

The watchmen found me
as they made their rounds in the city.
"Have you seen the one my heart loves?"

Scarcely had I passed them
when I found the one my heart loves.
I held him and would not let him go
till I had brought him to my mother's house,
to the room of the one who conceived me.

Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you
by the gazelles and by the does of the field:
Do not arouse or awaken love
until it so desires.

The brokenness of human relationships takes many forms. We are selfish in our loving, pursuing our own feelings rather than seeking the other’s best. We make love an idol. Love comes too early or too late. There is enmity between men and women; we envy each other, we fight. Sometimes even our best efforts at reaching out to each other are frustrated. One act of unkindness can lead to broken relationship. One broken relationship can divide a family, a church, or a nation.

God tolerates this brokenness, giving us instructions for dealing with the ugly consequences of our sin, like divorce and adultery. But Christ calls us to a radical new way: “You have heard it was said…but I tell you…” In this unexpected turn of events hateful thoughts and lustful fantasies are on par with murder and adultery! But the most difficult part of the new calling is the complete death to self modeled by Jesus. “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Our attitude is to be the same as the one "who being very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant." Impossible! Yet God promises his perfect love to sustain us as we struggle to approach relationships with humility and selflessness, ready to sacrifice.



Part III: Redemption

Ephesians 5:25-27
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

Revelation 21: 1-4
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

God promises a time when the trials of bad relationships will be washed away and we will stand in perfect relationship to him. This perfect knowing is foreshadowed in the good relationships on earth. Good marriages, families, and friendships offer us a taste of the joy of community in that awaits us in heaven, when the Lamb is united with his bride.

Meanwhile, we can act rightly in relationships, imitating Christ’s perfect agape towards his bride. Like Christ we want to die to self in our service of each other, while we wait patiently for the end of time when all things will be made right. Somehow through this self-death God is making us perfect: the filthy rags which are our acts of righteousness are transformed, clothing the Bride of Christ in clean linen. The time is coming when, with all of heaven and earth, we will say: "Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready."

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The illustrations are Marc Chagall's version of the Ruth love story (Naomi and her daughter-in-laws; Ruth and Boaz on the threshing floor; Ruth and Boaz at the end of the story), which I found while looking for ReZound Powerpoint images. I just love how Chagall's depiction of the threshing floor scene communicates the complete awkwardness of that situation. See? Weird and counter-cultural even then! (Although I'm not advocating this!)