First Post (and about our blog title)

We're starting a blog, and I never thought I'd do it. I've never had quite enough to say for tweeting nor quite enough spare time in the day for dedicated facebooking. My conviction that our little world (specifically the apartment that Drew and I inhabit and the life that we lead) is so small in the grand scheme of things has probably also played a role in my limited use of most social media until now. I really like the way Wendell Berry's brother puts it:


Dust
by Wendell Berry
The dust motes float
and swerve in the sunbeam,
as lively as worlds,
and I remember my brother
saying, when we were boys,
"We may be living on an atom
in somebody's wallpaper."

Still, although our world is definitely small and although it won't matter much to most people, I think documenting our days will matter to us (and our future children) someday down the road when we'd like to know what we were up to way back when. I love hearing stories and seeing pictures of my parents and grandparents when they were my age; it's a shame that they're in such short supply. Drew and I have been married almost a year already, and we have relatively little to show for it in the way of documentation. We talk a lot about the need to start journaling, to keep track of the important and the less important details and happenings of our little lives, but the thought of sitting down with pen and paper each day hasn't exactly appealed to either of us (nor has the time to do so presented itself). But, we're ready to make a change, the summer is providing ample time for it, and we've decided that the solution is this blog.


There are some additional motives for the creation of this blog:


First, I work in the library at BYU in a section that gets very little traffic during the spring and summer, making me a slightly bored Reference Assistant these days. To pass the time, I've been reading blogs, and I've discovered just how much people have to say and how immensely helpful it can be at just the right moment. Some of the blogs I've read have provided a good dose of spiritual challenge and insight; from others I've gathered information on various people- and planet-friendly tennis shoes; another recently taught me how to make button holes without a button-hole foot for my sewing machine; and an untracked hundreds more have resulted in healthy, tasty meals for Drew and I and a few lucky dinner guests. We'd like to contribute something to the online storehouse of knowledge, too, even if our forum is quite limited in truly helpful content and reaches only our family and friends. 


Second, I miss my family on the east coast "like the dickens" (Shakespearean language courtesy of my grandmother. When I moved to Utah from North Carolina, she said she would miss me "like the dickens," and now every time I think about missing people, I do so with that phrase in my head. I looked up its meaning once, and apparently, "dickens" is a euphemism for the devil. So, I guess we could say I miss my family badly.) You don't realize how important just doing life with the people you love is until your daily lives don't cross anymore. So, this is a way to ease the feeling that our friends and family are missing out on the simple things that make us both who we are and that are making our marriage and life together what it is.


But most importantly, and if nothing else, this blog is a record that we were here and a virtual memory of what we did with our time.


So what about the name? I've been thinking about what to call our blog for a few days, and stumbling back upon what is probably my favorite poem provided the perfect inspiration. Here's the poem, also written by Wendell Berry (one of my personal heroes and favorite authors, you shall no doubt soon discover). It's kind of long, but absolutely worth reading:


Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

That's kind of what we're doing with our lives right now: planting sequoias, investing in the millennium. We're both in school, working determinedly towards who knows what. We both live a kind of faith that directs our attention and our actions towards that which we often cannot see or fully understand. Drew (with a little bit of encouragement from yours truly) and I also attempt to live keenly aware of the ways in which our habits and behaviors today affect our future selves, our future children, and every other person, living thing, and natural process on this planet. It seems like much of what we do is geared towards the improvement of a future that we may or may not live to see (and some things that we'll have to die to see anyway), but one that we will attempt to meaningfully contribute to while here and capable. Don't put it past us to live completely in the present at the same time, though. This blog will hopefully be a little bit like looking at the world simultaneously from the top and the bottom of the magnificent redwood trees we're supposedly planting: interesting, ethereal perspectives on the bigger picture alongside the amusing details of life being lived every day firmly on the ground. 


We'll see. :)