Winter Wind

The wind is howling tonight, gusting so hard that it can not only be heard but felt as it shakes the house.  It is the type of wind that may cause me to find that the ambient temperature in my room when I wake tomorrow is less than 50, in spite of the thermostat being set to 65.  What good is one little heater against the fury of such a wind, seeping in any crack it can find, furious at the small creatures who dare to try to shut it out, determined to find them in spite of walls and windows and join them in its misery.

While the sun is setting, this same wind lifts the snow, playing with it, making artistic designs with sun and shadow.

Once the sun disappears, though, the wind begins to howl in rage and loneliness at its abandonment.

Hearing it howl I am always reminded of this sonnet by Shakespeare:

Blow, blow, thou winter wind
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.


Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most freindship if feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.


Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky,
That does not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As a friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most freindship if feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

The Old Mission

Late one blizzarding night, as we made our way across the pass to Coeur d'Alene, we saw a sign for a historic site.  It was not the time, nor the proper weather, for a stop, but we agreed that when we returned this way, we would make an effort to stop and see Coeur d'Alene's Old Mission. 

On our return trip the weather was intermittently snowy and sunny.  With better daylight and better road, though, we decided to stop and take a look.  

View of the mission from the highway

Large flakes of snow threatened when we first arrived.  

 Our first look at the church was impressive, as the sun broke through the clouds and bathed the freshly fallen snow in its radiance.

 Our awe only increased as we went inside the church and discovered that it had been built in the 1800's (completely in time for Christmas Eve 1842 according to a plaque inside), at a time when there were no roads or reliable forms of transportation - much less construction companies.

According to the brochure,

Before the first white men began entering the land, a tribe of Indians lived along the shored of Lake Coeur d'Alene and the surrounding territory.  They were a proud people - peaceful, intelligent, attractive.  They lived in teepees and moved throughout this area in search of game, fish, berries, and roots.

The tribe of 2500 to 4000 Indians was originally called the "Schee-chu-umsh" or "Schitsu'umsh."  They were renamed the Coeur d'Alene Indians, meaning "heart of the awl," by French trappers who considered them shrewd bargainers.  The Coeur d'Alenes were very spiritual, and when they heard that a neighboring tribe had "medicine man" of great powers, they decided they wanted this magic for themselves.  They sent out word that the "Blackrobes," Catholic Jesuit preists, would be welcomed among their people.  So in the early 1840's, Jesuit missionaries came into north Idaho.   


These Jesuit missionaries designed and built the church that you see pictured here.  They had trained and studied in various areas, including architecture and medicine, before arriving in this Rocky Mountain wilderness, and their various skills and talents were put to good use here.  Father Ravalli painted at least  one of the pictures below (quite possibly both).

 He also carved the two statues of Mary and John out of wood and painted them to look like the stone that was usually seen in churches.

This altar is also his work, again, formed out of common materials (pine) but made to look like the traditional marble of altars.  

There are similarly impressive works in niches to Mary and Joseph on either side of the main altar.  Each of the smaller altars, though looking like stone from a distance, are merely painted canvas.  In the case of Joseph's altar, the original writing on the canvas (from the wine they used) shows through, overpowering the ancient paint.  

The man working their told us about their ingenuity and ability to plan ahead and use whatever materials they had available.  Below he is demonstrating how the hooks on the wall could hold both candles and lanterns.  They only had candles to use at first, for they were able to make those on their own, but they knew that eventually they would get lanterns, and so planned ahead.

In the back rooms, behind the altars, one can get a glimpse of what the walls originally looked like, before they were paneled.  Mud and straw were the materials they had, and mud and straw were what were used.

Though much of the floor has been redone in the restoration, behind the altar the rough-hewn original wood floors can still be seen.  All the wood in the original structure was hewn with broad axes.

In the picture above you can also catch a glimpse of the walls, hand-painted to look like wallpaper.  Most of that is gone now (the original remains are near the floor on the right), but what can be seen gives an feeling for how impressive it was.


There was no foundry there, as our guide informed us.  The metal work?  It was all made from tin cans and such.  Use what you have.  Waste not, want not.  

There were pictures around the church depicting the stations of the cross.  Though the original pictures had been brought with them, they had painted the flower border to match  the "wall paper" and had created the frames.

Below is a view from the front of the church looking back.

The last thing our guide talked about was the ceiling, and that was an interesting enough subject to take up considerable time.  Brother Francis Huybrechts carved the ceiling, taking only 10 years to complete it.  Twelve panels make up the ceiling, each with their own symbolism and significance.  Though most of that has been lost, we can guess at some.

One notices that the panels get increasingly more complex as one moves from the back of the church to the front.  This seems to follow a tradition of decorations becoming more wonderful nearer to the altar to point to the glory of God.


As mentioned before, there are 12 panels.  The center ones have the boards oriented "vertically" (as they appear in this picture) while in the side ones the boards are oriented "horizontally."  Except for one.  The third from the back on the right is oriented differently.  Since ten painstaking years saw the creation of these panels, it is unlikely that their creator made a mistake.   More likely it symbolized something.  One suggestion is that the twelve panels are the twelve apostles, and the mistaken one represents Judas.  Another theory is that nothing made by man can be perfect - and so a minor imperfection is inserted to the work to remind us of that truth.


Of less symbolic interest, one also notices that the ceiling is blue.  Though the center panels have been restored with modern oil paint, some of the original stain can be seen on the side panels - from huckleberry stems.


The church, restored and still standing, is  a great reminder of the kingdom of God, pressing on, in spite of what seem like insurmountable odds.  I find I want to be like the Jesuits there: facing the challenges with ingenuity, stubbornness, and faith.

Judging by the cover...

These are a few thoughts that have been floating around in my head lately, and I thought they would make an appropriate Valentine's Day post...

You can tell what I've been studying lately...

Do you ever pause and ponder just how connected appearance is to essence?  We often hear, "Don't judge a book by it's cover" and it's often good advice.  Old, ugly, beaten up covers can conceal wonderful stories that have stood the test of time.  On the other hand, if you ever get distracted and  accidentally stumble into the romance section of your local bookstore, any covers that might assault your eyeballs before you can flee will leave you with little doubt as to what is contained in the books. 

Of course, this isn't exactly what was meant by that proverb.  The real warning is not for books but for people, as God warned Samuel: "The Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7)

Still, we constantly judge people on their appearance, and I'm not certain that's totally wrong.  It's not totally right either, but that's an argument for a different day. 

I was listening to a song the other day which describes the magical meeting between a boy and girl: the enchantment, the infatuation, the hopes, the fears.  I'm not sure how common such magical meetings are among the general populace.  (I can recall no such meetings in my own experience, but I am hardly considered normal.)  As I continued to ponder, though, a thought struck me.  In the realm of romance this magical moment might not be a part of my experience, but in the realm of friendship it might be.  You meet someone new and there is just something about  them that attracts you almost immediately.  If they are the proper gender, there may be some romantic attraction, but there doesn't have to be.  There's just something about them - their face, their smile, their voice, the few words they speak, something - and you think, "We could be friends.  They're my type of person." Perhaps, in the words of Anne of Green Gables, they are a "kindred spirit."  And often that initial instinct is correct. 

This ties in to something else I've been pondering for a while: the idea of "type."  It's an assumption that I've run across a number of times: the idea that a man will always tend to be attracted to the same (physical) type of woman and a woman will tend to be attracted to the same type of man.  I'm not sure how well this claim is substantiated, but it seemed fairly reasonable in my experience.  If I had ever been asked what my "type" was, though I would have shrugged and said that I didn't think I had one.  That is, until recently, when, for some unknown reason, I began to think back over all the guys in whom I had had more than a passing interest or (for the sake of having a larger sample) who had been good friends.  Two distinct types emerged.  Not everyone fit, but most did.  Interestingly enough, guys in "group one" shared many of the same physical AND nonphysical traits, as did the guys in "group two."  Now, this is entirely unscientific and the "groups" are grouped very loosely (i.e. roughly the same color of eyes and hair.)  Still, in my two groups, physical appearance and personality seemed to have some connection.   It was enough to make me wonder (bringing us back to the original topic of the post), "How much connection is their between the material and non-material?  How much does our body influence our personality, and how much of our personality is portrayed by our body?"

For a further example, I had an argument with a friend a while back about which of us is more defined by our hair.  I'm not sure who won in the end, but I think I can say with certainty that  if both of us were forced to shave our heads, we would both feel rather unlike ourselves for a while.  For my part, I feel rather like I'm known by my hair.  There aren't that many red-heads around.  At my high school reunion someone commented that I was easy to recognize - the hair was unforgettable.  In college there were roughly 4 girls in my major.  Two of us had red hair.  I was often called by her name by people who failed to look past hair color.  The point?  My hair appears to be an important part of the way people see me and as such can't be entirely separated from my personality.  Of course, cause and effect can be hard to determine: do I act like a red-head because that's what I am, or because that's a mold I've been forced into by society - that sort of thing. 

While I don't want to make any broad generalizations, I think I would tend to argue that the physical and spiritual are irrevocably joined in us humans (in opposition to Gnosticism) and because of that, sometimes physical appearance does reveal personality. 

Of course, wolves can still wear sheep's clothing and battered covers can still conceal beautiful stories. 

What do you think?

(Wo)man alive!

I have been reminded recently, by book and by experience, of the necessity of living while alive.

For those reading this who have not (yet) read Manalive! by G. K. Chesterton, may I advise you to quickly remedy that lack in your literary education.  If you don't mind digital sources, it can be found numerous places online (and is free on Kindle), so it's easy to find.  And it's pretty short.  Go now.  (Warning: spoilers ahead.)

While the whole book is full of delightfully quotable quotes, one of the best summarizing quotes is found at the end:

Yes, Innocent Smith has behaved here, as he has on hundreds of other occasions, upon a plain and perfectly blameless principle. It is odd and extravagant in the modern world, but not more than any other principle plainly applied in the modern world would be. His principle can be quite simply stated: he refuses to die while he is still alive. He seeks to remind himself, by every electric shock to the intellect, that he is still a man alive, walking on two legs about the world. For this reason he fires bullets at his best friends; for this reason he arranges ladders and collapsible chimneys to steal his own property; for this reason he goes plodding around a whole planet to get back to his own home; and for this reason he has been in the habit of taking the woman whom he loved with a permanent loyalty, and leaving her about (so to speak) at schools, boarding-houses, and places of business, so that he might recover her again and again with a raid and a romantic elopement. He seriously sought by a perpetual recapture of his bride to keep alive the sense of her perpetual value, and the perils that should be run for her sake.


There are many wondrous things to be seen and experienced in life, where ever I am, but all to often the old adage is true: familiarity breeds contempt.  When I have been a long time in one place I find that experiencing new sights and places and help me re-awaken my zest for life, my wonder at the things I see.  Seeing the oddities and foibles of another place reminds me to laugh at the familiar oddities as I see them again with renewed eyes.  The mundane again becomes wondrous in comparison with the new.

With these thoughts in mind, I was blessed to spend a few days in Arizona.  My dad had business (of a sort) in the area, and when we found a good deal on plane tickets, I got to tag along.  We didn't have a lot of time to do much sight-seeing or exploring, so most of my pictures are taken from inside a car and most of my new experiences involved restaurants that don't exist in Montana, but I think I still managed to get a considerable amount of enjoyment from even these small adventures.

The first thing that was noticeable was the landscape.  I was ridiculously excited to see palm trees again.  We arrived at night, so not much was visible that night, but I do recall driving past a house that had a palm tree in their front yard, and I was really jealous.  Later in the trip we noticed all the citrus in the Phoenix area and both my dad and I were rather jealous of the ability to grow orange and lemon trees in one's front yard.  Here in Montana, though, we can grow snow drifts in our front yards, so I think that's a fair trade.  ;)

The next morning (Tuesday) we drove north, the plentiful cactus growing more infrequent as we rose in altitude.

We tried to imagine herding cattle in the area.  There was much more vegetation than in the Judean Wilderness...even more than in eastern Montana.  However, most of the vegetation looked too prickly to make good cow food.  I suppose they could manage (mange?) if they needed to.

The next day (Wednesday) started in the Prescott area.  I went for a walk and my still-wet hair froze.  Still, it's a pretty area.

Later in the day we drove even further north, to Flagstaff.  We saw the red cliffs of Sedona from a distance on the way.  I was reminded of the red stones of Petra.

The Flagstaff area reminded me much more of Montana...just, generally flatter.  And, ironically, higher too.  And their elk crossing signs look like an odd blob with and elk head sticking out.

 We spent the evening at Lowell Observatory, though it was too cold to go outside to see the stars.  I was the only girl in a group of 7 and there were many science-y things discussed.

 Thursday found us headed back south to Phoenix, though we did pause in Prescott for a moment to see these colorful houses:

As I got a clearer view of the geography of the Phoenix area, I realized that it reminded me of Wadi Rum.  Well, Wadi Rum as it would be if millions of people lived there and they somehow found enough water to support them all.  Still, it had the flat desert look, interrupted often and suddenly by randomly placed mountains.

(And for comparison, here's Wadi Rum:)

 Besides observing the geographical and botanical differences, I enjoyed eating at different places, including In'n'Out, Chili's, the Olive Garden, Popeye's, and Manuel's.

I enjoyed seeing the situation and decoration of different hotels (and they made me appreciate my own room and bed much more.)

I enjoyed driving around Mesa with one of my dad's childhood friends and finding out that there are other towns with random metal sculptures on display.

 I got to experience one of those famous Arizona sunsets.

I enjoyed reconnecting with an old friend...

...and some relatives.  

And I enjoyed riding the airplane,

and arriving home, having been reminded that I am alive.