Spilled Ink

Pestilence has smitten the Edgren household, and, as my father fondly reminds me, through me. I brought some variety of cold back from church last Sunday, which cold soon settled into an acute earache for me and then colds round the rest of the family. Samuel remains more or less hale, but we watch him expectantly for signs of disease. Though I still can't hear quite up to parr, otherwise I have mostly recovered, leaving my family still in the throes of illness.

In other news, my first wisdom tooth has begun to come in. If I were the competetive type I might gloat about being "dentally advanced," but since dental advancement in this case merely means I get to experience the pain of tooth extraction that much sooner . . . The gloating can wait, I think.

Which things being said I have not only used up my spare time before church but also exhausted my stock of intriguing news.

It was ten o'clock. I was getting ready for an early bedtime. The house was quiet. But from the bathroom window I could see a huge, golden moon rising behind the rooftops. So I begged Mother, grabbed the camera, slipped on some shoes, and we hopped in the car. In ten minutes we were at Solastrand with the beach to ourselves. The moon hid behind the clouds, but we could see a simply delicious sunset over the ocean.



All was quiet at the beach, and Mother patiently endured a quarter of an hour in the chilly evening while I took pictures and got my feet sandy. And we were home before the boys realized we had left for anything but a walk.



Except for such moments of peace as last night, the pace of life has picked up. The guys went backpacking earlier this week, but the experience was indeed . . . experiential, and the story is not mine to relate.

Timothy and I spent the afternoon at the beach yesterday, farewelling a youth group member. We ate cake, listened attentively to our youth pastor's instructions about body slamming, played a silvan variation of our dear Mr. S.'s "Go 'Round the House," and generally chatted. Some kids even went swimming.



All our wayward church members have returned from summer vacation, so church attendance is back up and church activities will gradually recommence over the next couple of weeks. School begins in September, which means we are preparing to desperately prepare for school. By my figuring, if I make it to Thanksgiving break I'll be able to make it through the whole year. So I've been reviewing my Spanish (Steve Green songs in Spanish, anyone?), practicing math for the infamous SAT, and wading through our camera manual. Which reminds me, I must read the first module of my marine bio book soon. I have switched to a more demanding piano teacher, which is good in theory but I find that more self-discipline is required on my part. I have also found a few spare half-hours in which to take up my brushes again. I haven't painted any daisies on the proverbial "big, red, rubber ball" just yet, but soon. Sewing lessons have recommenced; thus far all is fairly simple, but since I've never done much but quilt piecing before, 'tis still educational. And, finally, I've even managed to sit myself down to work on some writing.




So I've read, baked, and wasted my time away in a truly summerish manner. I am almost ready for the school year.

Undoubtedly one of my favorite books from this last year’s reading, The Plague by Albert Camus poses some interesting philosophical questions. Though not, certainly, the best choice for fun reading, The Plague is well written and gripping, and Camus’s characters are complex (a facet I have come to value more and more as I have learned to predict plots). Most of all, The Plague is food for thought.

The Plague follows the lives of several people trapped in the town of Oran by an outbreak of plague. From the days prior to the plague to the day when the city emerges from quarantine, this book follows a handful of city dwellers through their struggles with the disease and with themselves. A doctor, a priest, a criminal. A do-gooder, an invalid, and a love-sick man. These people compose the primary players in Camus’s book as months of confinement and sickness reveal their natures. Well portrayed through good writing, the strength of the characters, I believe, made the story for me.

As I said, The Plague also has a deeper side. Seen allegorically, the quarantined city of Oran may be seen as the world, closed to all outside (or divine) influence. Upon examination, each character reveals a slightly different worldview, and the struggle with the plague shows where each philosophy leads its owner. When this sampling of worldviews has passed through the fire, however, and the remaining options are examined, the picture is anything but hopeful. Camus himself was no Christian—the priest reveals only an incomplete and confused form of Christianity—and so the book’s conclusions are (I must warn you) hardly uplifting. Nonetheless, as a depiction of the philosophy of his time, of the hopelessness of the problem of suffering without the light of truth, the book is impressive.

I came away from The Plague queerly overawed. Impressed as I was by the writing and characterization, I think I was more impressed with Camus’s realization of where the philosophy of his time pointed and the clarity with which he displayed on a small scale the philosophies of a world. But the final taste in my mind as I set the book down was one of pity. And I still pity the author who could see so clearly and yet never found the one hopeful solution by which we can fight evil while serving a good, omnipotent God.

As we come to what Samuel tells me is the fifth day without Mother and Timothy, I can only shake my head and kick myself for not thanking Mother more often for all the little things she does around the house. From emptying the bio bin and putting away the dry dishes every morning to bringing in the mail and doing the laundry, I can only marvel. So many little, daily activities (besides the obvious cooking and cleaning) go into making a household function smoothly. And when I even consider doing it all with a few small children to educate and clean up after . . . Good thing I have a few years to practice the basics first.

Aside from these revelations, we are doing well. Samuel and I have planned some ways to spice up our days at home, and Dad took us on an only partially rainy (and therefore quite successful) hike today. Hopefully I can get some pictures of our hike up here soon. And, to my great delight, the guys have been doing the dishes every night. So on the whole we get on well together and the men-folk don’t make much of a mess. Actually, it’s only the little lapses that cause me to shake my head and either sigh in frustration or chuckle, depending on the day. Apparently not all that I find obvious is actually obvious. Things like “Bowls dry best upside-down,” and “Don’t leave open knives in the middle of the floor.” But on the other hand there are obvious things that they remember quite well, like “Don’t annoy Rebecca,” for which I am extremely grateful. Besides, as long as my kitchen be clean, let the rest of the house be a pig sty (well, almost).

Which brings me to the meaningful part of my blog (or as close as you’ll get). As Romans 3:4 says, “. . . Let God be found true, though every man be found a liar.” It strikes me all too many professing believers in our generation try to compromise between God and men (people who try to reconcile Christianity and evolution for instance, or support female clergy and any number of other things). But Christians are called to acknowledge God first, no matter the strength of the scientific consensus or the social inclination to a certain view. Let God be true and every man a liar. That involves denying the pressure of the world to think and act and believe in certain ways. It also means choosing God’s commands and ways even above our own impulses—every word of man, including our own, is a lie before God’s word is a lie. I find this verse uplifting in its assurance of the absolute truth of God’s word and its confirmation of how completely we may rely on Him. In a world of depravity and subjectivity, we may always turn back to God. . . . At any rate, ‘tis interesting food for thought.

(As a side note, today is Midsummer’s Day. Eighteen and a half hours of daylight, with another nearly two and a half hours of twilight on top of that. It’s a little after 11 p.m. as I write this, and the sun is just set. Almost twenty-one and a half hours of visible light. Tomorrow we will have nine seconds less daylight. ‘Tis a pity.)

And so our dear ones have departed. Barely. The local airport staff went on strike the day before our cousins' planned departure, which put a few kinks in our plans. However, after my mother scurried around town most of the afternoon, we were able to get the relatives on a train to Oslo the next morning. They continued their journey from the Oslo airport, and to our best knowledge have arrived at home safely. A fantastic visit was had, movies were watched, books were read (mostly on Rachel's part: she devoured my bookshelf), an inordinate number of pictures was taken, games were played, and much laughter was indulged in by all. Many thanks to Uncle Ptum and Aunt Koffee for their sacrifice.

Now, with the house quiet and dull once more, we are trying to return to our typical routine. A task made all the more difficult by nice weather, long daylight hours, and the slow decrease of school work. I am done chemistry for the year (and hopefully forever)--an event welcomed with much rejoicing on my part. I took my final exam for Advanced Composition yesterday and feel quite pleased over how it went. Looking back over the year, I have written close to 30 compositions this school year. Overall, I quite enjoyed the class. Now, however, with a smattering of punctuation rules memorized and the ability to shoot down a "Be verb" at a few dozen paces, my nervously-typing fingers eagerly await a long rest. I will finish Spanish and geometry in a couple of weeks, and worldviews a while after that. My brothers have also almost finished school, and I doubt anyone is as relieved as my mother.

Other than that, news-worthy material has been scarce of late, so I shan't bore you further.