March 13 & 20, 2008 Susan’s Newsletter Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard by Isak Dinesen
Hi all of you! It's so SILENT this morning. Eerily so. No birds singing. The cats aren't even making noise snoring. They look dead in their funny positions. Just the click of my fingers. Oh - the heater just turned on to say hi! I'm not alone in this world (I think in The Little Princess Sarah talked to her furniture, too, so don't chalk me off as completely out of touch with reality today!)
Last week a book was recommended by one of you full of short stories called Anecdotes of Destiny by Isak Dinesen. Don't be intimidated by that title (I was!) for the author has made that her pseudonym, she wrote Out of Africa and these are her short stories. I'm trying to come up with a name like that for me to write under!!! The short story within this book that I was recommended to read was Babette's Feast. You may have seen the movie made from this story (I had not)... I have debated on writing about it, for the difficulty of consolidating a story into a paragraph that you'll be able to get something from is hard for me! But here goes (I almost cheated, stayed in bed, and just sent you a poem - but I want you to think about this!!!)
Two beautiful daughters of a clergyman have chosen to not marry and give their lives to helping others in their town (poor and needy). A woman arrives at their doorstep with a letter from a man that had loved one of the girls, but had moved to France knowing marriage was not what the girl wanted. The note asked if they would take this woman on as a housekeeper/cook because her son & husband were killed in the war and she needed to escape. For twelve years this woman quietly worked behind the scenes in their home. I love one line that reads, ...she would sit immovable on the three-legged kitchen chair, her strong hands in her lap and her dark eyes wide open...At such moments they realized that Babette was deep, and that in the soundings of her being there were passions, there were memories, and longings of which they knew nothing at all. Isn't that a beautiful sentence? Well, after 12 years of working quietly and diligently in their home she receives a letter that she has won 10,000 francs. The daughters assume sadly that she will leave them and go back to France. Babette asks them if she can do a favor for them - cook them a celebration dinner. This is hard for them to accept (living prudently)... she orders and prepares a lavish dinner of the most expensive foods and wines available to her. One at her table for the meal recognizes the food and makes a beautiful speech on grace. As the dinner unwinds the guests unwind and over the course of the evening in their talking and eating have many ties broken that had been between them for years. (how do I explain this!?!??!?) The story goes into detail the beauty of the evening - as the air is cleared of such pain and sorrows and misunderstandings - all as Babette is in the other room not observing any of this.
The daughters at the end of the story express their deep gratefulness. They ask her when she will be leaving to go back to France. She informs them that she will not be going back to Paris..."How would I go back, Mesdames? I have no money." "No money?" the sisters cried as with one mouth. "No," said Babette. "But the 10,000 francs?" the sisters asked in a horrified gasp. "The 10,000 francs have been spent, Mesdames," She states then that 10,000 francs was the cost for a meal for 12 at the Cafe Anglais where she had been the main chef. The ladies did not find a word to say. The piece of news was incomprehensible to them, but then many things tonight in one way or another had been beyond comprehension. The girls then were overwhelmed with the "unforgettable proof of human loyalty and self-sacrifice." Babette responded, "For your sake? No. For my own." She rose and stood before the sisters. "I am a great artist!" Silence from the sisters. "I am a great artist, Mesdames." Again, silence. Then they responded that now she would be poor her whole life. "Poor?" She smiled as if to herself. "No, I shall never be poor. I told you that I am a great artist. A great artist, Mesdames, is never poor. We have something, Mesdames, of which other people know nothing..."
Oh, goodness, how do I explain this to you!?!? She did an act for her own pleasure, with no guilt. She wasn't cooking to satisfy those that would receive her food. She was doing it so she could BREATHE, so she could LIVE, so she could be HER FINEST. The final sentence in the book from one of the daughters is, "Yet this is not the end! I feel, Babette, that this is not the end. In Paradise you will be the great artist that God meant you to be! Ah!" she added, the tears streaming down her cheeks. "Ah, how you will enchant the angels!"
So, they had seen her distant looks those twelve years. We all have longings and hopes, and some of you have shared that you will not have a chance to see them realized in this life because of your personal circumstances. What do you do that is only for you - for the deep part of your soul? Anne Lindberg wrote after visiting a woman she respected, "She is a hostess to herself, she surrounds herself with what she loves." What are little pleasures you can do during your day that is for yourself? Extra filler in your coffee? Buy a daisy bouquet at the grocery store? Turn off the TV and just stare? Hold your kitten. Hold your son. Call your daughter. Call your friend from college. What can you do for YOU? Feel no guilt calling no one!! (grin!)
I would like to read A New Earth that Oprah has been recommending just so I could try to have a decent conversation with you on it. Find what we agree and disagree with on the writings on the ego. For I believe that Babette's Feast may be an interesting tie to the same process, but maybe in a more spiritual sense.
Ahhhhhhhhh! There is your Susan just trying to tell you that this book of short stories has BEAUTIFUL writings in it. I love to read the way Anne Lindberg uses words. I also love the way words are used in these short stories. God gave us our specific longings, desires, hopes. We do not need to feel guilty for having them. For doing little things (or great) for our own pleasure. Daily I hear, "Susan, you can't GIVE me that book!" and I reply - "I can if I want to." - for what I realized when I read this story, this brings me pleasure. You may or may not get out of the book I give you what I did. That is secondary to me (at least I'm honest) - the book affected me deeply that I'm giving away - but to tell you the truth, the giving it to you brings me pleasure. Does that make sense? Go take on your day! Easter is coming. The greatest holiday for us to celebrate the reason that we live and breathe. The reason to have silence in our prayer. To reflect and thank our God for his sacrifice in the pain of giving his son for us. But - the pleasure he took in this sacrifice, for he was giving himself a personal relationship with us. God feels. He loves. He created us for his pleasure. He created us for companionship. For friendship. He receives pleasure in being with us. Psalm 18:19 - The Lord brought me out into a spacious place. He rescued me because He delighted in me. He desires us to step heavenward - to speak all day to him as we go about our lives. May you fall to your knees and look up to our God. The peace that passes your understanding is only that distance away. Go make yourself proud with your decisions today! Susan
Latin for this week: (grin!) Nosce te ipsum - Know thyself.
March 20, 2008 Susan’s Newsletter – Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard by Isak Dinesen
Good morning! Not only did the birds come to sing for me this morning, they even sang away outside my front door for me last night! Spring! Oh, the beautiful word. My cats played all evening outside and I realized, "They don't even realize what spring is - they've never experienced birds, worms, grasshoppers, SPRINGTIME!" How fun to live in an area with the four seasons. How great to know every day is a little bit longer with the beautiful morning light!!!
I really want to write out for you another passage that has replayed in my mind several times this week as incredibly creative writing. I hope you appreciate this beautiful writing, too. This is from The Diver, another short story by our author of last week's Babette's Feast. A young student was studying birds and made the observation, "Birds, must be, of all creatures, most like angels. Whatever moveth both in heaven and on earth worshippeth God, and the angels also - and surely the birds move both in heaven and on earth..." so he began a quest to study birds and create intricate wings to then have the ability to fly with the angels. At one point in the story his hope and dreams are shattered and he ends up as a diver searching for pearls to make his money. This is the section on fish (of all things - don't roll your eyes!!!) that I just loved reading. For the only reason of the beauty of the words, the ideas gave me a new facet of thinking about God's creations (written from the voice of a wise old cowfish)...
"The fish, amongst all creatures, is the one most carefully and accurately made in the image of the Lord. All things work together for the good of her, and from this we may conclude that she is called according to His purpose. Man can move in one plane, and is tied to the earth. Still the earth supports him only by the narrow space under the soles of his two feet; he must bear his own weight and sigh beneath it. He must, so I gathered from the talk of my old fishermen, climb the hills of the earth laboriously; it may happen to him to tumble down from them, and the earth then receives him with hardness. Even the birds, which have wings to them, if they do not strain their wings are betrayed by the air wherein they are set, and flung down.
We fish are upheld and supported on all sides. We lean confidently and harmoniously upon our element. We move in all dimensions, and whatever course we take, the mighty waters out of reverence for our virtue change shape accordingly.
We have no hands, so cannot construct anything at all, and are never tempted by vain ambition to alter anything whatever in the universe of the Lord. We sow not and toil not; therefore no estimates of ours will turn out wrong, and no expectations fail. The greatest amongst us in their spheres have reached perfect darkness. And the pattern of the universe we read with ease, because we see it from below...
When God created the heaven and earth, the earth caused him sore disappointment. Man, capable of falling, fell almost immediately, and with him all that was in the dry land. And it repented the Lord that he had made man, and the beasts of the earth, and the fowls of the air.
But the fish did not fall, and never will fall, for how or whereto would we fall? So the Lord looked kindly at His fish and was comforted by the sight of them, since amongst all creation they alone had not disappointed him.
He resolved to reward the fish according to their merit. So all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened, and the waters of the flood came upon the earth. And the waters prevailed and were increased, and all the high hills that we under the whole heaven were covered. And the waters prevailed exceedingly, and all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl and of cattle, and of beast and of every man. All that was on dry land died.
...How will real security be obtained by a creature ever anxious about the direction in which he moves, and attaching vital importance to his rising or falling? How can equilibrium be obtained by a creature which refuses to give up the idea of hope and risk? We fish rest quietly, on all sides supported, within an element which all the time accurately and unfailingly evens itself out. An element which may be said to have taken over our personal existence, in as much as, regardless of individual shape and whether we be flat fish or round fish, our weight and body are calculated according to the quantity of our surrounding which we displace.
Our experience has proved to us, as your own will some time do it to you, that one may quite well float without hope, ay, that one will even float better without it. Therefore, also, our creed states that with us all hope is left out.
We run no risks. For our changing of place in existence never creates, or leaves after it, what man calls a way, upon which phenomenon - in reality no phenomenon but an illusion - he will waste inexplicable passionate deliberation. Man, in the end, is alarmed by the idea of time, and unbalanced by incessant wanderings between past and future.
Isn't that all so interesting?!?!?! I've honestly never contemplated the beauty of being a fish. I especially loved the line...We move in all dimensions, and whatever course we take, the mighty waters out of reverence for our virtue change shape accordingly. Isn't that a beautiful scene in your head?!??! I am always amazed at how beautiful the details of all I do not even realize were woven into the thoughts of God as he created every facet, even to the fish in the sea! I just wanted to type all of that for you - too intriguing not to! I received copies of this book yesterday if you'd like me to save you one, just let me know.
Thank you for coming in for your little gifts if you like to give a present at Easter time. I am so proud of our little store & love to see your pride in having it be "yours" too! Make sure we make decisions that make yourself proud, whether anyone besides will you ever know we made. I hope you have private time to thank God for creating us for his pleasure, and because of his great immense love with us, sent his son to die so that we could spend eternity in his presence. What a weekend - EASTER. This week I said to Camden (after the idea at an thought-provoking funeral) - "What is a verse you know that we can think of today?" His simple response, "IT IS TRUE! The Lord has risen!" - Said with absolute sincerity and stated with pride!!! Amazing that a six year old can be so understanding of something that can become complex!! May you have a peace that passes understanding as you get on your knees and look to the hills - where your help is promised to come from. Susan
Latin for this week: Nosce te ipsum - Know thyself.
Work Cited: Isak Dinesen. Anecdotes of Destiny. New York. Vintage. 1993.
