Posts filed under 'Writing'
Shook foil
The Writer’s Almanac reminds me that today is the birthday of Gerard Manley Hopkins, the poet of sprung rhythm, born in 1844.
This poem has never left me:
God’s Grandeur
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed.
1 comment July 28, 2009
Comma-tary Vol. 4: Blinker pen
In a pencil cup on my desk is a blinker pen from the Stillspeaking store. It joins a collection of kitsch, including the “Magnify Your Faith” binoculars or the handy “Wash Away Your Sins” bath and body sampler received as a gift.
The logo on the pen reads, God is still speaking,
A button on the pen controls 3 light settings: quick blink, slow blink, and solid light. I’ve lost the plastic cover that immobilizes the button on the side of the pen, and the red light will flash if something in the pencil cup jostles against the pen and pushes the button. Sometimes as I work at my desk, I’ll reach for the stapler, and see the red light beating a quick rhythm.
I begin to wonder if the pen starts blinking on its own. Maybe I’m missing something.
I think of Moses. Did his pen strobe with a quick blink before he jotted down the 10 Commandments? Perhaps Paul saw a slow blink on his pen, like a beacon, and knew he couldn’t put off writing that letter to the Romans any longer.
Perhaps a woman wakes from a dream about a blinking light and records a story her grandmothers have told her, about a woman at a well. God is still speaking, what have you heard? Perhaps the prophet Hosea stares the unyielding red light on the pen, and sighs…his wife certainly won’t like this. Never place a period where God has placed a comma.
I sit at my desk and open mail, read mail, code invoices, draft reports, write bids, and reach for the phone to return a call. I sneak a glance at the pencil cup to see if my pen is blinking. I hope that somewhere in this punctuated world a pen is blinking.
Full Comma-tary Series:
2 comments April 5, 2009
Fun to be 1
Seems like a good time to celebrate the first birthday of the Inktarsia blog.
Have some cake.
Photo of little Ruby by Kristina Provinsal of Visual Empathy. Used by permission.
3 comments March 30, 2009
Comma-tary, Vol. 3: Stillspeaking
Gracie Allen said, Never place a period where God has placed a comma.
This quote inspired a “proclamation, identity, and communication” effort in the UCC (United Church of Christ), with the tagline “God is still speaking,” The comma was intentional.
This appeared in messages, church bulletins, TV ads (or not), media, banners, websites. The focus of the media blitz was to emphasize welcome and inclusion at UCC churches. But I was stuck on that comma.
In a sermon, our pastor asked, “God is still speaking, What have you heard?”
We were a little dazzled that God still had something to say. That God had something to say to us. We knew this, of course, but the big black comma brought it home. If something came after the comma, we needed to listen and share and discuss what that was. All of us. We needed to hear what God might be whispering to each person.
The comma logo became shorthand for this welcome listening. A large black comma presided over the monthly newsletter. Ushers at our church wore small white stoles with a black comma, and still do. There were comma t-shirts and comma earrings. The Stillspeaking cycling team wore a comma on their jerseys. People made themselves into human commas, the UCC version of Lake Woebegon’s living flag.
I hoped we would not stop saying to each other, “God is still speaking,” That we would not forget to explain. Perhaps Sunday visitors met by greeters wearing a mysterious comma (apostrophe? quote?) would have no idea what it was all about. Perhaps the comma would become stale, and we would fall back into our old assumptions, sheltered from the wind.
“God is still speaking,” would be our church’s focus for a year, for 3 years at the national UCC level. I welcomed this. I wanted to think about all 3 parts: the stillspeaking, the comma, the what have I heard.
The comma became like an irritant thrust into the flesh of a mollusk. It bothered me every time I saw it. That’s not correct punctuation, my editing self would say. The comma should have been a dash or semi-colon (a period being ruled out by Gracie).
Something whispered, It’s meant to trouble you, Rules are sometimes meant to be broken. Are you listening? A pearl might form (or not), but the mollusk was mighty uncomfortable in the meantime.
Confession: I remain in this world burdened with an abiding concern for the comma.
Full Comma-tary Series:
Comma-tary Vol 1: The Oxford Comma
2 comments March 5, 2009
Comma-tary Vol. 2: Proof-punct
Confession: I came into this world burdened with an abiding concern for the comma.
In college, I read a newspaper article critiquing the campus dating scene. I agreed with the student’s assessment when she quoted the apostle Paul:
“We would not have you, ignorant brethren.”
It was clever, that shift of comma.
The translation of this Bible verse usually places the comma after ignorant. The King James version of I Thessalonians 4:13 reads, “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep…” The student journalist had tidied the awkward usage of infinitive, as well.
In required Essential Christianity courses, students at my school learned about the perils of proof-text, the practice of ripping portions of Bible verses out of context in order to support a particular point.
Here, the author had engaged in an ironic bit of proof-punctuation. I realized this was actually a fair move, and very funny, though it might not hold up to close academic scrutiny.
Earliest New Testament manuscripts were copied with scriptuo continua, with letters run together. No spaces to separate letters or words. No capitals, no punctuation. Bart Ehrman illustrates this with godisnowhere. This could read “God is now here” or “God is no where.” Which?
Spaces, commas, periods, paragraphs. All Bible readings and translations (every one!) make interpretational decisions about these things. Context is intended to be the compass for translational decisions. In a large classroom in the old barracks that housed the Biblical Studies department was a sign printed on tractor-fed computer paper. The five-foot banner over the doorway shouted, CONTEXT.
The idea of a migrating comma intrigued me. How could a creative shift of punctuation change meaning? (Were other funny proof-puncts to be found?) How much punctuation in our modern Biblical translations is controversial, or not clarified by context?
And what about section breaks? Some of these impacted interpretation considerably. Did the sentence in Ephesians 5:21 go with the paragraph before, or after it? Was Luke 8:2-3 one sentence, or two?
Could something as small as a shift in a comma or carriage return change a doctrine?
Could a migrating comma shift the world?
Full Comma-tary Series:
6 comments March 3, 2009
Comma-tary Vol. 1: The Oxford Comma
Confession: I came into this world burdened with an abiding concern for the comma.
In 7th grade, I paid close attention when we learned punctuation rules, because those with highest scores on a test could sit at the back of the class for the next unit.
Our English teacher was kind and precise, with a faultless pageboy and sensible pumps. Each year she had pit-crew passes to the Indy 500 from friend Bobby Unser (Andretti?), and we failed to picture her in the grease and noise, her lacquered blonde hair blown wild in the acrid smoke of burnt tires. Strangely, this detail of her personal life leant credibility to what she taught. We had assumed she spent her free time alphabetizing the canned goods in her pantry.
Punctuation functioned like traffic signs, she said, telling readers when to pause, yield, stop. To me, semi-colons and commas seemed more like galvanized rivets that bolted together the scaffolding of sentences. Missing rivets meant the framework sagged or tipped; solid rules meant the structure would hold.
It was a tedious topic, until we came to the serial comma. In an architecture of rigid rules, the serial comma presented a stylistic choice. The window sash opened, just a bit, for interpretation.
The teacher preferred strict usage and graded accordingly: This, that, and the other. Yet the final comma in the series was optional, and omission of the said comma might be successfully argued if meaning remained clear without it.
A legal loophole. The imp of artist’s anarchy appeared on my shoulder and whispered in my ear. You can be wrong, and still be right. You can break the rules, get an A, and keep your seat at the back of the class.
Debate over usage of the serial comma, also called the Oxford comma, continues to rage. The serial comma has a page on Wikipedia. The Oxford comma has fans on Facebook. September 24 is National Punctuation Day. Wars have started, duels fought, inky blood shed, over the usage of the serial comma.
John McIntyre quells the riots, instructing folks to sheath their steel. The former president of the American Copy Editors Society says:
The old principle of cuius regno, ejus religio — “whose region, his religion,” or follow your prince’s practice — can be applied here. Follow whichever style your employer dictates, and indulge your own taste in private.
Mrs. Patrick Campbell said, “It doesn’t matter what you do in the bedroom, as long as you don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses.”
Full Comma-tary Series:
Add comment March 1, 2009
Tip of the Day
Smart Energy Living Alliance offers this Tip of the Day: 
“UNPLUG SOMETHING!”
Seems like a good way to start Lent.
Add comment February 25, 2009
Boxes full of silence
“Jesus, where…is everybody when they first deliver the typing paper?
Where are all the “helpers” when those boxes full of silence come in? Blank. Both sides.
No clues, no instructions enclosed on how to take just 26 letters and endlessly rearrange them so that you can turn them into a mirror of a part of our lives. Try it sometime.” - Larry Gelbart
Add comment February 23, 2009
Be creative!
After discussing creativity and writing, the Amazing Third Graders supplied awesome words for our Wordle. Merci, les étudiants!
For a larger view, just click on each box.
Add comment February 18, 2009
Listening for meaning
Fountain by Tyler, age 5
“We write, we make pictures, we make music because we are listening for meaning, feeling for healing.
And during the writing of our story, or the painting, or the composing or singing or playing, we are returned to that open creativity which was ours when we were children.”
–Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water
Andrew by Jake, age 10
2 comments February 15, 2009
