reading messy handwriting...

I'm back in the archives again, this time mostly reading typewritten manuscripts & newspaper clippings. However, I do still come across the occasional handwritten item, including one with these excerpts:

... make him one for whom recognition is most difficult

OR, it could actually read,

... make him one for whom recognition is not difficult

How one letter can change everything!!!

Having a Reserve of Grace...

Vulken7 told me to do this, and I do whatever Vulken7 says.... Not really, but it was a good idea, Vulken7, so I did it. :) Here's some thoughts based on something I read earlier.

[God] desires us to have a rich deposit of grace... Being spiritually wealthy means to have a reserve of grace before God and not to rely on special grace. Poverty is banished by the surplus of grace within.

God is not treating us wrongly when He gives us more trials and difficulties; He is actually treating us very well. He has selected us and has granted us favor by providing us this big opportunity.... The amount of our spiritual wealth is based on the amount of experiences we have passed through.... our hope is not only that we would spend sufficient time before the Lord and pass through enough experiences, but also that we would become vessels unto glory after we pass through these experiences.

I was impressed that our life is about coming to know the Lord in a deeper way and having a wealth of His grace or experience within our vessel. It's not so much about our physical situation: where we live, how we feel, or whatever. As Christians, we should be persons building up a surplus of grace. It struck me that the Lord has me where I am because He loves me, and He wants me to know Him in a particular way. That's really a blessing.

Quotes from "Special & Reserve Grace" by Watchman Nee, a booklet excepted from The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, Volume 5, Chapter 5.

Every night...

It is probably high time that I update this blog. So, here it goes...

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Prompt: Every night...

Every night presents an opportunity to reflect, to reflect on who I am, what I'm doing, and where I want to be. What do you think about?

the trials of writing from a prompt book...

So, today's prompt is "rising early to begin a journey." Probably if I thought about it long enough, I could come up with a legitimate topic, but all I can think of at the moment is rising at 6:00 a.m. for the training, which seems like a topic that will quickly derail into a rant.

Yesterday's prompt is even worse: "This is the voice of my body". Um, really? You're asking me to write about this? We could start off with the fact that I really don't need a thirty-minute lecture to be convinced that my body "requires" far more sleep than is normal and that I should be worried about it. Or, how about my body's reaction to the accusation that by June I lost so much weight that you can tell from my senior picture which was taken in January? Yes, I told you I was sick. Or, what about the fact that a certain health care provider decided not to disclose lab results after four weeks but then had the audacity to send me a survey to assess my satisfaction with the quality of service rendered AND a bill for the service? All I got (so far) out of a phone call to aforementioned health care provider was that the person responsible for this information is not answering the phone; did I want to leave a phone number??? I'm thinking about canceling all future appointments with said provider... but this is turning into a real rant and since rants are censored...

... we move on to the next topic.

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Topic for yesterday's yesterday, also known as the day before yesterday: "Write about something that came out of a box."



There's a fantastic picture hidden somewhere in my graduation scrapbook of my great joy when opening a gift from one of my friends. I make it a rule not to open presents in front of people unless they ask me to. I never know what my reaction will be, and it's fun to open them without people interrupting with their own commentary. Anyhow, someone gave me a gift and asked me to open it because she wanted to make sure I liked it. Of course, that's why I typically don't open gifts in front of people, but she asked so I cooperated.

My joy was priceless, and I'm glad it was in public so she knew right away and so someone could capture it on camera. The gift came in a slender rectangular box and contained the most beautiful bracelet ever. I had just started wearing some jewelry, and I loved it! It was perfect to go with the graduation dress my mom made me, so I got to wear it right away!

write about something to hold on to...

I'm trying an experiment. I'm going to practice writing based on prompts. I need practice writing, and maybe you'll get to learn a little bit more about me and my personality.



Write about something to hold on to...

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart." It's so true. In all my college years, I've met a lot of people in my classes and other activities. So many people are there in all different moments of my life. Yet, when I look back, some people seem to fill up all my memories. And there's others that I'm left wondering what their name was.

The people who are the most special to you are the people who, for whatever reason, decide to take the time to become an integral part of your life. Sometimes, this means that you color coloring pages together or go on adventures together around the city. Other times, it simply means that they are willing to take time to sit down with you over homework or encourage you when you get frustrated for the nth time!

For me, the persons who mean the most to me are those who take the time to stop and listen to what I have to say. I know that we all go through sufferings and trials. For me, I need someone to talk to, someone who cares enough about what's going on in my life to hear me out.

In a recent publication, I wrote a brief acknowledgements page. In that page, I included a sentence that read something like this, "More than they realize, Ben and Samantha helped me through my most difficult year of college, the year in which this project happened to begin." Thinking back to the logic and feeling behind this sentence, I realized that what Ben and Samantha did the most was care about me by listening to me and sympathizing no matter how pathetic I was. Even more, they knew when to listen, when to encourage me to take a break and accept the situation for what it was, and when to push me to take the next step especially when I didn't want to.

It's this kind of friendship that I want to hold on to no matter which way the wind blows. While the outward situation may change, our companionships can keep us sane and happy.

Who do you believe?

One female student's observation:

MIss Valeria Gunn... was a brilliant student, almost a genius, and took her position equal with them and maintained it throughout the year. Her record was so nearly perfect that at the final reward of honors at Commencement, the judge had to divide the greatly coveted First Honor among the three contestants -- a very unusual thing. Poor Valeria had paid too dearly though, for at the time of Commencement she was ill from having studied too hard. It was that although there was a rule of lights out at ten o'clock, she used candles and continued her study far into the night. She never recovered from this illness; she gradually grew worse, later lost her mind and was sent to an asylum.

The command is to be temperate in all things. Ambition when carried too far is often destruction.

A male student's observation:

The plodding, dollar-worshipping, unscrupulous man who possesses energy and economy generally amasses wealth. I can now recall many instances of boys who were the dunces of the school and who became wealthy before they had attained half a century of years, while the bright boys of the school with all his classical attainments, apt quotations and witty repartee, has drifted off into the seedy pedagogue of a little village school, living in a realm of fancy... It is a difficult matter to decide which life is most of a failure, one had only capacity to accumulate and he succeeded, the other had capacity and dreamed his life away. Many men seem never to have a new thought after shutting up their text books when they leave school. Many others seem never to have exercised their minds until they passed from under the perils of the schoolmaster.

Perhaps we should follow this student's example:

The fact is I have done less this term than any since I have been in college. Neither of my texts are agreeable. I don't like mental philosophy and astronomy tangles my brain... I wonder if there ever was anybody who had patience enough to spend their time on that mind-confusing book unless they intended to sport among the stars. As for me, this planet, on which we figure, has enough to employ my thoughts if I were to live as old as Methuselah.

Or, perhaps "studying hard" was never consistent with your constitution anyway.

Contemporary: Past or Present?

In the multiple revisions of my thesis draft, I'm coming across some fairly common words in the English dictionary which have contradictory or odd alternate meanings.

For example, the word contemporary:
(1) living or occurring at the same time; dating from the same time
(2) belonging to or occurring in the present
So, if I say "contemporary historian", do I mean someone contemporary with my subjects or with me? That's a 150 year difference.

The word retire:
(1) leave one's job and cease to work, typically upon reaching the normal age for leaving employment
(2) withdraw to or from a particular place; to go to bed
So, if I say "Everyone retired early", do I mean that people left their jobs when they were only 50 years old or that everyone went to bed early? Strikingly different!

Context normally tells you everything, but not always. I guess that's what synonyms are for.

~ the well-spoken

looking forward to a new semester...

where a typical day might be described as

day passed as usual -- dull times & hard studying &c &c
~ Oglethorpe student, May 14, 1857

have you met a person like this?

In skimming through my primary source notes, I came across a very interesting personality. This young man, a student at Oglethorpe University from 1860-61, had rather specific views on studying.

Anticipating low grades at the end of his first semester, he feels that he must justify himself to his parents, writing:

The inference you have drawn, from my letter, of me having an easy time, is entirely a mistaken idea. I arrived here, in an unpropitious time for study, that is one reason why my [grades are] so low. (If, indeed it is so, for I have not seen [them.]) The Class were pretty far advanced in all the books, and consequently I had to stand an examination on a study that I did not get with the Class the first time going over.

Only three months later he writes to his younger brother:

...as I am not a fit one to give advice, I will not admonish you concerning your studies: for "studying hard" never was consistent with my constitution.

One week later he advises his mother regarding his sister, writing:

Above all things never urge upon her too strenuously the "necessity of study", for nothing is so distasteful to me, and I think she is similarly constituted."

Two months later in May of 1861, he attempts to use the outbreak of civil war as an excuse to disregard his studies:

I think, (you may not agree with me tho') that it is absolutely detrimental to the mind to try to study now. For the attention can not be fixed on a text book for any length of time. I greatly hoped to finish my education at this place, but now I see no probability of it. College may close in [less] than three or four weeks, and when that happens it will hardly open again, that is, until the war closes.

This young man was right in predicting that the school would close shortly. However, his views on education and disinclination to put an effort into studying seem to leave much wanting.

Are you constituted for studying? Or, do you find it absolutely detrimental to study?

the kind of thing that only happens once...

Thomas Molloy Meriwether was educated at Emory College at Oxford, Georgia. There he met Robert Watkins Lovett, Jr., of Screven County and they became friends and married sisters three times and twin sisters the last time.

All I will say is that this leads to a very complex family tree.

would you marry...

a "pheller"?

Kate wouldn't. At least, she wasn't discouraged when so many phellars left to fight in the Confederacy!

Because it's summer...

and I can be lazy, here's a post based on the blog post generator from Australia!

Wow! I just woke up to the fact I have not updated this since they invented sliced bread... You would not believe how insane my life has become. I prostrate myself in sorrow and beg thy forgiveness.

I am totally exhausted with only your readership as life preserver, sleeping, just generally being a terrible burden to anyone unfortunate to cross my path, my day is full to overflowing from the first cockadoodledoo from the rooster to whenever. I am not complaining though. I need a nap.

I hope you are having a good life I will try to remember my blog password more often in future. Well, I'll try. Just the way life is!

You can create your own here.

A New Way to Spell Daughter

In Samuel Richards' diary, the following sentence may be of interest:

Left Athens, in the sulkey, for Penfield upon my way to Cagburn's to meet a piano that we dispatched upon the previous for him, as "he has married" his lovely darter Sal and wants another piano for her.

the beauty of prose

What! are all my relatives in that land of disease and death yet spared though afflicted. Yes is the response that comes trough your letter and hail, blessed intelligence, which has for the moment quieted suspense, and the disturbing of anxiety.

Behold, the &c!

Ever paused to consider the depth of meaning behind the notation &c? What many things lie behind the innocent use of the two characters & and c? It's truly wonderful what those two characters can mean -- the only trouble is that they could mean so many things that we're still not exactly sure what you meant when you wrote &c.

In times past, &c denoted the words "et cetera," which is our times we write as etc. "et" literally means "and", so it can be properly denoted by the character &. Then, "cetera" abbreviated as c makes for the notation &c.

Which brings me to this point: If you're a college student in 1855 and you're writing a diary in your pocket calendar, you only have space for three half sentences. So, it's perfectly naturally to write,

Went to prayer meeting tonight, &c &c.

or

Went to town, visited Mr. C, &c &c.

The only trouble is that I as a historian have no real idea what you mean by &c &c.

'Twas what I ran across in a young man's diary while researching at Oglethorpe University. I was reading, writing, &c &c.

Some things just never change

While reading letters from college girls from the 1850's, I came across this line:

Oh! I am so glad that vacation is so near. I am tired, tired of studying.

My sentiments exactly.

Don't you just love non-standard spelling?

In all my work for my thesis, I developed a new appreciation for penmanship and spelling classes of my elementary years. One has to admit that one can become accustomed to anyone's handwriting when reading an entire semester's diary straight through. Even so, I look forward to reading documents by persons with legible handwriting.

I've learned that reading letters aloud can be very helpful, particularly if the writer is that well educated. If people are not that familiar with the spelling of the English language (which, albeit, is fairly tricky), they tend to spell phonetically. Here are a few examples:

- "You will not be a tol surprised if I tell you I have been to school my last day."
- "... except* my love also dear Mary"
- The Statutes of Emory College, and the bye-laws of the faculty [1839]

Reading through diaries and letters, you never know what people will talk about. I suppose that's why Hattie writes this to Katie:

Kate I am writing this letter for your eye alone. I am taking it for granted no one else will ever see it or else I wouldn't put so much foolishness in it.

If George had realized that his diary would become the main voice for the antebellum Emory student, perhaps he would have explained this entry further:

I attended recitations this morning but gitting my ankle sprained by jumping out of the Chapel this morning so I did not go to recitation this evening.

___
*This should read accept.

Knowing Him as the Sovereign & Ever-Present One

Still a whirl of emotions. So hard to control or to know what to do. Am sitting in a huge concert hall, waiting for an opera to begin of all things. Maybe being with friends will add some joy and vivacity to life. I need that now. But more than anything, I want rest and reassurance. My soul seems filled with sadness and burden.... O Lord, how I need You. Teach me to trust You this semester. Lord, grow in my heart. Be who I cannot be. Teach me to rely on You more and more. Thank You that You are always near. Thank You that You are always the answer.

I still remember writing those words. I was waiting for an opera to begin, and I felt all alone. Even as the house began to fill and people I knew came and sat around me, this lonely feeling rose up in my heart. I remember wanting to run out of the theater in tears but was so afraid of what my friends would think. That’s when those words came forth in silent prayer: O Lord, how I need You. I knew I just couldn’t do it any more. I didn’t want to be with friends at the opera, but even more, I was so overwhelmed by the various things happening in my life. In desperation, I cried out and found rest in the God of the universe. Sometime in those three long hours, Someone special reached me. I knew He was near and that He cared for me. He was what no one else could be – the peace, the assurance, and even the strength to go on in spite of everything.

In the weeks since that awful day, I have prayed that prayer over and over again: O Lord, I need You. Those simple five words uttered with a genuine heart have changed my semester. Jeremiah’s prayer in Lamentations 3:55-57 has become so real. “I called upon Your name, O Jehovah, from the lowest pit. You have heard my voice; do not hide Your ear at my breathing, at my cry. You drew near in the day that I called upon You; You said, Do not fear.” I am beginning to realize and experience how available our God is. No matter how low I am or how weak, He is always so near, only a cry away. O Lord, I need You.

The past few months have been really hard. At school, all my classes this term seem so hard and have apparently insurmountable piles of homework. I have found my function as a friend tried over and over as I tried to shepherd and comfort friends whose family members have died or have been diagnosed with cancer. To top it off, I am still struggling with a long-term illness yet to be fully diagnosed. In the midst of all of this, it is easy to question God and ask why He would allow yet another thing to happen. Isn’t it already enough?

Yet as I cry out to the Lord in prayer, I find new assurance. There is One who has arranged all these situations in my life. It’s true that it’s not how I would have planned it. It’s not even what I thought I wanted. But over and over again, I’m realizing how God is taking caring of me and answering my prayers. He still loves me and is using this apparently tumultuous situation to gain my heart.

In so many little ways, I see God practically shepherding me. There is the classmate who takes notes for me in one of my classes because my hands hurt too much to write in the morning. He’s my lab partner, too, and he does all the hand-intensive work. There’s no reason why we ought to be friends, or why he should go out of his way to do anything for me. I could have easily been stuck with someone else. But instead, I see the Lord providing me with someone to physically care for me. There’s the other former classmate who’s kindly offered to be around and help me actually get studying done. Then, too, there’s the stuffed animal my little sister randomly gave me last year; it’s always there whenever I’m in too much pain to sleep. My faithful prayer partner, the lovely couple from church, the list continues on and on.

Somehow when I see all these people surrounding me, I realize how much the Lord really cares for me. I confess that I don’t understand what He’s doing, but I know it’s sure to be marvelous. As He provides for me in all these little ways, He must be arranging my life in way that is best for me. Humbling myself before Him and acknowledging Him as the sovereign One in my life is no longer a fear but a comfort. I see Him as the One whose heart is always good towards me. And more than anything, I realize that He’s causing me to turn to Him more and more. As I realize again and again how weak I am, He continues to remind me of how available He is to meet my every need. Something as simple as whispering, O Lord, I need You, is all that I need to find rest. Turning back to Him always brings peace. Through all my struggles, the words of this hymn resonate with my experience:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

Turn...

This hymn more or less sums up my experience since school started. Everything -- school, friends, family, personal -- has been a whirlwind. I don't know what to think or what to base my hopes on. I wonder sometimes if my whole world as I know it has vanished. It is definitely overwhelming at points.

BUT there's salvation by turning to Him. Hidden in Him, I can soar over all my situations. I know He loves me and is taking care of me.

O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free!

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

Through death into life everlasting
He passed, and we follow Him there;
O’er us sin no more hath dominion—
For more than conquerors we are!

His Word shall not fail you—He promised;
Believe Him, and all will be well:
Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell!

Thank You, Lord.

History and what it is...

Haffer, in justifying his story, reveals what real history is:

I am convinced that by telling my private, unimportant story I am adding an important, unrecognized facet to contemporary German and European history -- more significant and more important for the future than if I were to disclose who set fire to the Reichstag, or what Hitler really said to Rohm.

What is history, and where does it take place?

...It may seem a paradox, but it is nonetheless the simple truth, to say that on the contrary, the decisive historical events take place among us, the anonymous masses. The most powerful dictators, ministers, and generals are powerless against the simultaneous mass decisions taken individually and almost unconsciously by the population at large. It is characteristic of these decisions that they do not manifest themselves as mass movements or demonstrations. Mass assemblies are quite incapable of independent action. Decisions that influence the course of history arise out of the individual experiences of thousands or millions of individuals. (182-3)