September is here, quiet and bittersweet. It opens with a little leftover warmth from August, and it ends with a wet chill that annouces the arrival of October.

Spiders

I don’t like spiders. I don’t like the way they skitter along the ground; I don’t like their spindly, angled legs. I don’t like they way dangle from your ceiling and, wholly uninvited, build webs in inconvenient places. I know they are typically harmless, even helpful. I know they are a fraction of my size and avoid me as much as I avoid them. Call me a coward, call me any name you like, but every time I cross paths with a spider I have to fight off a shiver.

But in the past two days I have had two interesting encounters with spiders. The first one happened yesterday, when I was walking down the street and happened to notice an oddly shaped insect. It was black and irridescent green, and its back was covered with small white dots. I guessed it might be a spider, but it was small and compact, not long and spindly. I went back and leaned in closely to look at it, and it turned to face me. I guessed it was a jumping spider by the eyes: two big ones in front, six smaller ones along the side. Jumping spiders have phenomenal eyesight, their eyes more acute, in some ways, than human eyes. They are also immensely curious and quite brave. Instead of fleeing from humans or larger animals, they typically stand their ground and raise their front legs in a show of strength. Sometimes they even move closer to investigate.

The one in front of  me did exactly that: it turned to face me, looked at me with its two large eyes, and raised its two front legs. We stood there for a few minutes, I bent over and he bent back, motionless and still. I wished I had some way to capture that moment, to take a picture of a spider in a pose of curiosity.

The second encounter happened today, where a spider tried to make a web on my windshield as I drove to the store. This time I felt uncomfortable, not curious. For one thing, I wasn’t sure if the spider was on the inside of the windshield or the outside. I thought it was on the outside, but the thought of the spider deciding to let go and fly back in my face was utterly terrifying. As I drove it would stay motionless, but it would return to its work whenever I stopped. After a few blocks it was clear that neither he nor I was going anywhere, so I resigned myself to spending a few minutes with a spider inches from my face. To console myself, I thought of the biology classes where I learned that crabs are part of the same phylum as insects and spiders. This consoled me–a little. I have no strong feelings about insects, and, in complete and inexplicable contrast to my feelings about spiders, I’ve always felt an odd liking for crabs. I tried thinking of the spider as a ground crab, and that was reassuring; surely there isn’t much difference between a spider and this:

Or this:

Especially when close to your face, I’d imagine.

I should specify that it’s only small spiders that bother me, and large ones are less troubling. I even used to own a tarantula, a pet I gained when a neighbor moved away. I don’t know what kind it was, but it didn’t matter: it mostly wanted to be left alone, and it might as well have been a carnivorous rock. Until I gave it away our interactions were mostly confined to the occasional cricket feeding; had it been a human, I’m sure our relationship would have never moved beyond a mutual nod and a brief “  ‘morning” as we walked past each other on the street.

The Land of Do-As-You-Please

As it happened, real life and my own idle thoughts met the other day when Beth, Sarah, and I were discussing the iPhone. Sarah happened to mention how distracting a portable, always-on internet connection could potentially be. This, in fact, is the reason I’ve chosen to avoid getting an iPhone-like device for as long as I can. Most of my day is spent in front of a computer by necessity, and constant access to Google and Wikipedia would mean that I could conceivably spend upwards of 90% of my waking life on the internet. Could and would–I know my own tendency towards informational gluttony. The internet has made more information available to more people than anything in history save the printing press, and I doubt the printing press will maintain its lead for another century, and perhaps not even another fifty years. In the grand scheme of things, of course, the printing press will retain its status as the most influential piece of technology for the indefinite future; the internet will have to be around for a while to change as much about human existence as the printing press has.

At any rate, I know that for me extended internet use is like Paul’s food sacrificed to an idol: neither bad nor good in itself, but bad for me at my current level of maturity. The internet is an unmatched distraction engine, a sort of intellectual ground cover that is lovely in its place but a nuisance when it exceeds it. On the internet, there is nobody to tell you “No;” you can go to any website, affect any persona you can make believable, and learn anything knowable to humans–if you are willing to put enough work into it. You can find someone who has something in common with you, no matter how odd or obscure the point of commonality. These are not bad things, and they are not good things. They are merely things you can do for as long as you want, and absent the contraints of offline life you must decide for yourself how long is long enough.

Enid Blyton’s Magical Faraway Tree series contains a place called the Land of Do-As-You-Please. Not having read the series, I don’t know how the children manage in the Land of Do-As-You-Please, but I know that, left to my own devices, I can’t do-as-I-please for very long without running completely off the rails. Pleasures, as C.S. Lewis observed, are a tricky thing; pleasures have a temporal component to them that is vital for their full enjoyment. Simply put, pleasures fade, and it is right for them to do so just as seeds die to become plants.  Much of his Perelandra is dedicated to the exploration of this idea, and of how hard it is to fallen humans to understand that keeping the sensation of pleasure alive with more and more frantic repetition is not only ineffective but perverse.

Since this is all very abstract, let me give an example from my own life: blogging. It’s fun to read blogs and to write them, and for me receiving a comment on one of my blog entries is a singular joy. The temptation for me is to check my RSS reader repeatedly throughout the day to see if anyone has updated or posted a comment. This is something that can be done profitably maybe twice a day, and more likely only once. I know that I don’t think of it in these terms when I am waiting at the reference desk and somewhat bored; no, I know that I’m likely to do it every ten minutes if I don’t find something better to do. This isn’t news to most people, I’m sure, and I think you could argue that Facebook’s redesign is so annoying is that it forces you to think like this whether you want to or not.

The bottom line, I guess, is that the internet isn’t necessarily optimized for you any more than real life is.

Musings of a bored librarian

I’m at the reference desk right now. I started learning Japanese this week, so now I can fantasize about using my rudimentary Japanese to save the day during a reference question and thus justify my presence during the nothing else that will happen the rest if the time I’m here.

April 4

My plants just arrived. The lillies came as live plants, but the gladiolus came as bulbs. I was able to give half of them to my Mom, who had missed the sale, and that left me with a dozen bulbs–plenty for me. I’m even tempted to rig up a hydroponics setup in my room just to see if it can be done. I’ve always had an interest in hydroponics, but it’s not exactly a hobby you can pick up in an afternoon.

—————–

Some thoughts on Charles Wesley’s “And Can It Be”:

And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain—
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

’Tis mystery all: th’Immortal dies:
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine.
’Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,
Let angel minds inquire no more.
’Tis mercy all! Let earth adore;
Let angel minds inquire no more.

He left His Father’s throne above
So free, so infinite His grace—
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam’s helpless race:
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

Still the small inward voice I hear,
That whispers all my sins forgiven;
Still the atoning blood is near,
That quenched the wrath of hostile Heaven.
I feel the life His wounds impart;
I feel the Savior in my heart.
I feel the life His wounds impart;
I feel the Savior in my heart.

No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine;
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

The author is Charles Wesley, and it’s one of those hymns everybody is aware of but nobody sings. This is not surprising: the only melody I have ever heard it associated with is “Sagina,” a lovely but complex tune that gets positively acrobatic at points.(1) There is also the matter of the lyrics: though beautiful, they are undeniably dated. “Thine eye diffused a quickening ray” is language both antiquated and abstract, and a worship leader might feel an understandable reluctance to attempt to teach a congregation a song that can be sung or understood, but probably not both at once.

But it’s worth it. Oh, it’s worth it. The verse from which that line is taken hearkens back to the encounter between Paul and the jailer and uses it as a rich metaphor for God’s salvific work. I wish, I dearly wish that for every modern song that talked about how good it feels to be saved we would hear one about how good God is to save us.(2) In any case, what I love about this hymn is its achingly vivid description of the myriad experiences of the redeemed life: mystery, joy, hope, and, last but assuredly not least, awe. There is a sincere awe that permeates this hymn, and it’s hard not to be swept up in it as you sing.

(1) The only hymn I can think that is more difficult to sing is “St. Patrick’s Breastplate,” and I imagine it would be easier to teach a congregation to juggle mice than get them to sightread this hymn. Somewhat improbably, it appears that “Sagina” was not written until nearly a century after the lyrics. One wonders what melody Wesley had in mind.

(2) Since I want to talk about how good this hymn is and not about the common flaws of songs of our era, I won’t belabor this point. Suffice it to say that modern songs seem largely focused on how good it feels to be right with God, and while it does indeed feel wonderful, it is wonderful in more ways than that, and God is wonderful in myriad ways as to bring us to that state. It’s like praising a rainbow for having a lovely shade of red, and maybe acknowledging that other colors exist if there’s time left over.

Saturday, March 21

Until I checked my computer’s clock, I did not know that today was the twenty-first. I did not care. I knew today is Saturday, just as I knew each day of the week before it. It’s a tendency of mine to navigate time by days and not dates, and vacations exacerbate this habit. I don’t know how I picked it up, but I’ve done this for as long as I can remember.

Yesterday I ordered the flowers I’ll be trying this spring. Since Spring Hill Nursery is offering $20 of free plants right now, I picked out more exotic stuff than I did last year: a gladiolus mix and few toad lilies. For those who don’t know, I live on the third floor of a house converted into apartments. Since dirt is understandably rare thirty feet off the ground, my “garden” consistst of half a dozen pots in various shapes and sizes. The larger ones sit on the landing in front of my door, but most of the pots are small enough that I can keep one on each step leading up to my floor. This is the second year I’ve kept a flower garden, and I love the color they add to my world as well as the idea of a little extra life around. I’m also getting better at keeping plants alive, albeit slowly: last year I tried growing flowers from seeds, a plan that worked swimmingly until an unexpected late frost zapped them all. I managed to get a few ageratum and coleus growing later in the spring, but this year I decided to split the difference and try bulbs. We’ll see how that goes.

An interesting thing I learned today:

The Nazis drew up plans for a manned orbiting solar death ray with a life support ecosystem based on pumpkins. Really.