Shannon Costello

Our last small group study was about peace, then the sermon was from Matthew 20, about the vineyard workers that expected to be paid more because they worked all day.  We are all like those angry workers, the pastor said, all indignant because we didn’t get more than we deserve.  Spanish church was about the fruits of the Spirit- peace and patience.  I came away from all that feeling like I was making some progress, a mountain top moment where you really realize, deep down, that being barren really is a light and momentary trouble compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ…

I was telling my father about this and bemoaning the fact that it took me seven years to get to this point.  Yes, he said, and you’ll spend years more working through it some more.  He likened it to driving from my house to Yellowstone.  “The good news is that we just left Maryland behind…”

The next stage was a faint sense of irritation- had it really been that easy?  What about all that pain?

And by last night I was busy choking back tears again.

I find that it is hard to talk about it in person without laughing at myself.  No wonder…no wonder Sarah laughed…even though she was wrong….

Someday, though, I won’t be so dysfunctional…someday I won’t be dysfunctional at all.  Everything I thought last weekend is still true.  It’s only compared to the glory that is to come that our troubles are light and momentary…here they can still be pretty heavy.

Note:  authorities are looking for clues in the stabbing death of a two-year-old electric pencil sharpener.  The victim was discovered when a teacher in the building heard him whirring in pain.  She noticed the paper-clip end protruding from an opening and administered first aid by unplugging the victim.  The pencil sharpener was pronounced dead several minutes later.

We were supposed to have a special presentation on the history of hip-hop today.  A favorite technique in that kind of presentation is to embarrass the teachers, so I made a point of hiding by the drink machine.  Effective?  No!

What would you do in front of a cafeteria full of 200+ seventh grades who are screaming in delight because some cool hip-hoppin’ dude is in front of you gesturing for you to go up on stage?  I agree- you would be really embarrassed.  But I had decided in advance that I would refuse.  I tired to make the case to my class later that it is ok to say “no” sometimes, and I tried to feel as if I had been strong in such a refusal, but the truth is that there is no way I could even pretend to do a 10-second solo dance like that…just no way.

My SOP has been to shop at Food Lion regularly but to make regular (say, monthly) runs to Target for cleaning supplies, crackling oat bran, and altoids. Lately I have started to slip…I’ll just pick up dish detergent at FL…too lazy to go to T…

It got to the point where I started to get curious.  Was Target really any cheaper?  After all, Food Lion is a fairly inexpensive grocery store…can’t I cut out Target altogether?

So this morning after picking up my vitamin D prescription (it appears I’m deficient…not enough sun, shockingly, but that’s ok…a common side affect of vitamin D pills is weight loss) I meandered around Target, writing down the costs of items that I frequently buy:  Bounty select-a-size paper towels, laundry detergent, fantastik, (ahem) feminine accessories, liquid soap refill, shaving cream, crackling oat bran, Mott’s 6-pack of cinnamon apple sauce, Lysol toilet bowl cleaner, tinfoil, Angel Soft toilet paper, and tostitos.

Turns out that I would have spent 21% more had I bought those items at Food Lion and not at Target.  And four items at FL were on sale, compared to one at T.  This is not to say that everything at Target was cheaper, but the things that were cheaper tended to be significantly cheaper.

Conclusion?  I will go to Target for my cleaning supplies.

I dislike terms like “misadventure”, where “mis” is tacked on to an old word to make a new one.  But perhaps my use of it suggests I am coming to accept it…after all, like it or not, it is part of our language. My bigger pet peeve these days is writing like this:  How do I feel about mis-applied prefixes?  I. despise. them.  One word sentences.  YA writers love ‘em.

Anyway, THIS week in school I melted my purple sweater, that is to say, there are two rough shiny patches on the sleeves.  Not standard cotton, huh?

It happened this way.  In 8th grade Spanish the light on the overhead projector faded and finally went dead. (I use overheads in my 8th grade classes and LCD projectors in my 7th grade classes, mostly because that set-up works with what the classroom teachers already have.  I think I prefer the LCD, except when I am going over the workbook pages, when my collection of overhead transparencies is useless.)

Naturally my cart is equipped with spare overhead projector bulbs and, being (sadly) experienced in these matters, I know not to touch the hot bulb with my bare hands.  I thought my sweater sleeves would function well enough as a primitive sort of pot holder. And I guess they did…but for a fleeting moment, I imagined the smoke alarm being set off from the smell of melted sweater.

Sometimes my faith gets thin and I break through the crust and find myself in danger of falling, falling…

I have a tendency to imagine conversations with people.  They are generally not healthy conversations.  This one was the standard “have-you-considered-adoption” conversation (not intended to be offensive, of course, and not really considered offensive- I think it is a “let’s solve your problem” question as opposed to a “weep with those who weep” response which, as you can tell from my biased labeling, is what I wish I were better at doing for others, just listening to people…but I’m not going to go off the deep end over that- I’ll find something else :)).  Anyway, this was one of those break-through moments, when I shock myself with the strength and bitterness of my own reaction:  Don’t you realize that God doesn’t want everybody to have children?  (small sob appended here)

In case my meaning isn’t coming through here, I spoke as if God deliberately withholds children from some people just to do it, without any concern as to that person’s feelings on the matter…that God doesn’t care and behaves arbitrarily with individuals, like we are mere pawns on a chess board, easily sacrificed and scarcely missed- even those who are His. In those moments I feel like God has somehow betrayed me and I hurt. Whoa!  Talk about being dreadfully (sinfully?) wrong…

I lose perspective…so focused on what God hasn’t given me that I ignore what He has given.  Peter writes that we “through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation [there's a gift to think about and contrast with that of a child] that is ready to be revealed in the last time.  In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith- of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire- may be proved genuine…”

I’ve been thinking about that candy store analogy- a father denies his child a certain piece of candy and she looks back after it longingly, but he has something better for her at the back of the store.  This helped me when I was unmarried and still looking, but it is not so useful now, I think because it is such a hopeful analogy- it assume God does in fact have a spouse in mind for a given individual.  It doesn’t always work that way.  And it has to be ok that it doesn’t if I am to have a healthy relationship with God.  The analogy may also assume that God withholds some things because they are bad for you.  It is not reasonable for me to assume that I have no children because I would make a bad mother or because I sinned by being on birth control (or something unrelated).  It is reasonable to assume that this is a testing of my faith (boy oh boy is it!) intended to develop perseverance, to fit me to handle being in the presence of God for eternity.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a half day for the kids.  We get to work the other half, and I could use the time.  Since there is a half day, any kind of weather-related delay could mean that school is canceled.  I do NOT want that.

But then, if I woke up tomorrow morning, went to wtop.com, read the list of delayed/closed schools and saw my county, I’d be pretty pleased….

I had decided that my lack of understanding of economics and trade and agriculture interfered with my story line in my (ahem) novel, so I was in the library hunting for a book that would rectify this weakness when I bumped into this one.  The book is about a huge corporation known as the United Fruit Company and how its unrestrained capitalism caused all kinds of problems, particularly in Central America.

Curiously enough, it overlapped with a book I had recently read about a CIA guy, Our Man in Mexico. Both devoted time to the coup in Guatemala in the 50s, but while first book accused the CIA of arranging the whole thing, the second book implicated United Fruit for its involvement.  Either way it sounds like the US was way too involved in destabilizing a country that pretty much never recovered from the shock.  Ouch.

Turns out the term “banana republic” was coined by O. Henry in his novel (apparently a collection of interrelated stories?) Of Cabbages and Kings. According to Peter Chapman the fictitious fruit company in O. Henry’s novel represents United Fruit and the setting is an imaginary Central American republic…I’ve simply got to read that book and find out more.

He mentioned a guy named Edward Bernays who wrote a book called Propaganda.  Bernays worked for United Fruit and helped shape their image.  From what Chapman said and from the paragraphs I read on Amazon, it sounds like a truly horrifying book.  I can’t wait to read it.  Neither book is available in my local library system so I broke down and ordered them.

In the meantime I will have to content myself with a history of Central America (in English) and Breve Historia de Guatemala. In my ideal world, this is the way I read, one book suggesting another…

Back to Bananas. I have been inspired to actually eat a banana.  It is sitting on my countertop right now, the first one I have purchased in years, perhaps.  Yuck.  We’ll see.

Republicans are supposed to be pro-business.  This book is certainly not pro- big unregulated business (oh, and P. Chapman is British).  His whole point is that letting companies like these flourish without limits has had and will have major negative ramifications.  I think I see his point.  I have to say, though, that I thought he was so disgusted with United Fruit that he did not make his case as well as he might have in spots…the bias kind of muddied the waters.  I expected to come out of the book even more disgusted with what Chavez would call US imperialism, but instead I came out just needing more information.  I need to read something with a different perspective- which reminds me that both of these books were written by journalists.

When should “Petty Gluttony” be re-named “The Well-Rounded Me”?