Not much to say, today, but wanted to show off one of my favorite photos. Surrounded by the safety in many uncles (the blue stripes and the adult finger belong to two of them) a young boy learns about which wildlife is to be trusted, a family tradition meant to instill wisdom and fearlessness:
Tomorrow I’ll show you why this post was late.
I seldom use the suggestions for Postaday blogging but one recent topic has struck my fancy: explaining my name.
Katharine is a popular name, if you count all its variants, such as Ekaterina, Caitlin, Kate, Kitty, and even Karen. Chosen by Russia for its famous queen, by Shakespeare for his famous shrew, and by the parents of the famous actresses, Carlyle, Hepburn, Z-Jones, and Ross, it is now also the top hit on every search engine because of England’s recent joy.
Katharine is also a family name, for me, handed down from my mother’s side. According to her, the family, being Lutheran, chose the name of Martin Luther’s wife for one of their daughters. Eventually it came to me to bear the honor of sharing with this great woman who never really achieved fame, nor wanted it.
We go farther back than that, however, back to the foundations of language, itself.
Specifically, the First Century Greek language contains words like katharismos, meaning “purifying”, and katharos, meaning “pure”. With Greek being the dominant language of much of the western world for some time, it yielded the name, Katharine, a good choice for parents to name a daughter if they aspired to purity for her, and a popular choice if they were educated people.
In the early fifties, I discovered my name means “purity”. I wish I could say this discovery dominated my every act from then on. However, the thought of it did lend me a certain awareness of possessing a backbone, of wondering about purity. Although this awareness resided quietly in the back of my mind for many years, it would occasionally surface, especially when I learned a meaning of any other name. In fact, learning name meanings became a hobby I enjoyed from about age eight.
No kidding, at a young age, I read baby name books from cover to cover, comparing the names of my acquaintances to my perceptions of their personalities, and, later, comparing the names of various beaus and the implications of the meanings, to my future.
Even today, when a person introduces himself to me, I mentally scour the pages of names I memorized for clues to his personality. Fitting or not, it colors my first impression. Still, I also realize we cannot help the name our parents chose and not every “John” grows up to be “Baptist”, although I believe each one is “given of God”, which is what the name means.
This beginning made me a person who feels sorry for people whose names have no meaning. Chosen from thin air because they feel good in the mouth, like pablum does, these names often are misspelled by any definition of phonetics. Often they also imply absence of a daddy in the “family”, and sometimes the absence of even a granddad or great-granddad. It saddens me, for the bearers’ sakes, this having no definition or history, no foundation or instruction for the core of their beings.
Like candy, their names give only short-term gratification and leave behind no sustenance.
I would be unfair, though, if I did not tell you one more thing about those Greek kathar- rooted words: They also gave us our word “cathartic”, which word I will leave you to look up, and to chuckle about, to yourself.
Today let me tell you about one of the loveliest writers I know.
I don’t really know her, I guess, as we have never met in person, and she probably seldom reads my writings, although I read hers. She inspires me through her simple, sweet tales of taming chickens and frosting cupcakes, weeding and traveling, speaking events, and her little deaf and blind pooch, Dixie.
The dog is a profound parable to me. She loves and provides for it although it could hardly fetch slippers or newspaper, or ever protect her from much, and probably is more needy than anything else. Being deaf and blind, it revels in her touch, probably the main way it can feel “all is well”. I can think of only one reason she bothers with this pet: She just wants to, perhaps out of mercy. It reminds me of me and the Lord.
To top it off, her name is Hope. How prophetic for everyone she reaches!
Hope recently wrote a great introduction to her weekly writers’ post. Although it makes a point about writing, at the same time it is an appealing description of everything we should be. My blog is not about writing but I am a writer and I recognize great communication when I see it. I absolutely love this rendering of my exact thoughts and I have received Hope’s permission to copy it here, with her contact information.
Visit her soon!
DO YOU WRITE FROM SCRATCH?
There’s something about a box cake mix that shouts short-cut to me. I was raised by Martha Stewart, Jr. Actually Mom is a few years older than Martha, but she had all the moves before Martha became a household word.
No box cakes in the house. Uh-uh. All from scratch. And if you didn’t have a family recipe, you relied upon a Southern Living Cookbook for no-fail recipes. But you did NOT open a box. And heaven forbid you tried canned frosting.
That kitchen work ethic has stuck in my head. Having grown up on homemade fixins, I can taste the difference. Guess that’s why I garden. If I can cook with the real ingredients instead of freeze-dried, frozen or canned, I just feel more accomplished…healthier…proper.
Writing is a scratch recipe. No excuses and no substitutions for the long haul in developing a good story. If you want it quick and easy, it doesn’t taste nearly as good – to you or to those you serve it to.
There’s something about carefully measuring ingredients to get it right, even if you have to repeat the recipe to make it rise, brown, or bake properly. Nothing beats the look on someone’s face when he tastes an original combination of items married into a perfect recipe. You have to admit, when you savor homemade then taste a box mix, the difference is striking. Simply, one is memorable; the other is not.
It’s like comparing Gordon Ramsey’s gourmet risotto to powdered macaroni-and-cheese. Â
There may be times where five-minute mac-n-cheese fills the bill. Maybe you throw a cake mix into cupcake molds for a second-grader’s birthday party where all they want is the icing and sprinkles anyway. But memorable? Don’t think so.
It takes time to create anything from scratch. The trial and error aspect of it is what makes the end result so superbly satisfying. The balance is better, the flavor sublime, and the experience is one remembered for a whole lot longer.
After all, who marvels over a mix? Every church bazaar baker understands that made-from-scratch miracles make other cooks jealous . . . leaving them with a craving to duplicate the success.
Thanks, Hope! I’m going to work on my kitchen work ethic . . .
And now, Friends, here is where you can read more of Hope’s writings. What a treasure house she is building!
C. Hope Clark
Editor, FundsforWriters, www.fundsforwriters.com
Writer’s Digest 101 Best Web Sites for Writers – 2001-2010
A decade of recognized excellence
Blog – www.hopeclark.blogspot.com
Twitter – www.twitter.com/hopeclark
Facebook – www.facebook.com/chopeclark
Our five chickens would die without us. We have to check on them at least twice per day. It’s only natural: every critter in the four-state area wants to eat either our poor little hennies, or their feed. From time to time, a rat will even try to prevent their accessing their own water supply. It does this by piling rocks into the water trough, which is only about 1 ½” wide. One night of rat work can mean no water in the morning when the hens leave the roost and need a drink.
So we go down to the hen house every morning, remove rocks from the water, make sure no fresh coon tracks lie in the dust around the building, and hand out treats like bits of bread or cereal. They really love the first morning visit.
How about you?
Do you find yourself waking up to rocks in your water? What do I mean?
Maybe you have been asleep. Sleep is not bad; we all need rest. We can rest in the Lord or take an understandable nap. We suffer without it. Sometimes we might even snooze on the job—tsk! While our eyes are closed, though, sometimes the enemy slips in and harasses us in ways we don’t realize.
Once we wake up, we really need a drink. We haven’t met our hydration needs for a long while. That Living Water can be just the thing to quench that thirst, but where is it? Why is it not where it should be, where it always was?
Some rat has been inserting rocks. What we really need is the Solid Rock, but what we find is an irritating pack of pebbles. Foreign platforms, foreign ideas, foreign habits, small but many, are in the way, blocking our access to the life-giving, thirst-quenching water.
So we wait for the owner to come on down and help us. He clears the way to the water and we drink deeply of trouble-free water and find refreshing. Then, to make sure we love, trust, and remember him, he hands out treats: wonderful bits of nourishment we like better than the daily ration and that cause us always to wait expectantly for his return.
How is it with you? Have you been napping on the job? Thirsty? Not finding the water you expected where you expected it?
Wait. The Master will come to you and clear it all up for you.
And will treat you to something special.
God has blessed us with four sons. Sometimes I can hardly believe this. And I can hardly count the joys. But I will try.
This list could go on, but ten is a good place to stop. To summarize, my sons have been good to me.
They hoped he wouldn’t love me, but he did. They predicted we wouldn’t last, but we did. Vietnam tried to separate us, but it didn’t. They said we’d never get anywhere, but we did.
And at least half of it was due to the only man who would give up his seat to me, forty-something years ago.
We were hardly more than children, but love and stubbornness led the way. Milestone after milestone whizzed by until it seemed there was no stopping us.
Bumps in the road gave us strength, new direction, and adaptability, a great combination.
Now, six children homeschooled and raised up and out of the home, mostly it’s just us. And that was really all I needed in the first place—all the rest was frosting.
Buying and selling houses and cars, fixing broken things, building what we lacked, sweating at laboring, always taking the frugal route, he provided, always provided, so I would not have to leave our nest, was free to tend our babes in peace, not harried. I love the life I acquired with this man who spent himself so willingly for my freedom. Â
Then there is the wisdom. They say still waters run deep, and for him, it is true. When he spoke, the words were worth listening. When he spoke, other women feared.
And patience. Married to a woman who “needs a mute button”, he always listened, always listens. Always knows the answers to my confusions,
Let the world belittle marriage and commitment! Let them rant against fidelity and sanctity! Let them screw their brows into frowns and suspicions! Let them pretend they are happy without loyalty and truthfulness! Let them blow!
I cannot hear it.
I have spent my whole life with my best friend and would that I had another life to do it all again.
I wrote of my dad already, but left much unsaid.
A WWII veteran, my dad was a factory worker. He lifted heavy bags of plastic pellets into a machine that turned out knobs, duck calls, and laundry baskets, at high temperatures. He seldom took sick leave and came home exhausted every night. For that he received $100 per week and a party sometime in December.
Yet he had such energy left for tomfoolery! He played with us kids as if he were one himself. Airplane rides (on his feet), jigsaw puzzles, carom games, goofy drawings, and croquet were among his repertoire. He made the stand for our carom board, himself, without any plan or pattern. He also made several bookcases and two desks the same way. And he repaired our toys.
One play activity he initiated with us was about trust. Did he think it through and decide to teach us trust? Maybe not—he was having fun. He encouraged and coaxed us to fall backward into his hands, if we believed he was strong enough to catch us. Was that ever hard to do! And how insulted he acted when we were scared to try it! He never dropped us, though, and we learned something, I think.
When his family grew, he built an addition to the house, himself. Alone. He hired help with digging and pouring the basement, and with the rafters. All the rest he did with our help. We gained a new living room, bedroom, basement, and bath. It was hard, but he did it. He wired, plumbed, hammered, sawed, plastered, sanded, and varnished. And I still can back any nail out of any board, no matter how bent or stuck. Just ask my kids.
He kept a huge garden, too. Corn, tomatoes, beans, and cucumbers, I remember. Sometimes he hired it plowed in spring, sometimes he could only afford to burn it off and attack with a shovel. But he had a big-wheeled cultivator and we pulled weeds. And there is still something about pulling weeds that pulls me into the garden.
How I loved to sit on his lap while he watched television! Mostly I did not watch, but just nestled and played with his hands. I twirled his wedding ring round and round his finger and rubbed the calluses on his palms and ridges on his fingernails. Sometimes he would give me one quarter of one of his Throat Disks from their slender tin he kept in his pocket. He also had a smaller tin of tiny, black Meloids that were too spicy for me.
One thing bonded me to him more than any other. When I was very little, he would give me piggy-back rides. He sat on a big chair while I climbed up to grab hold around his neck, then he stood up and bounced me around the living room. What fun we had! The day came, though, when the ride was over, I slid down his back, and my leg caught on a screwdriver in his back pocket. I screamed. He was absolutely heartbroken. I had never seen a grown-up cry before and it riveted me.
Oh, to be that concerned about my own precious children!
Home's Cool! 