Good Literature

I remember hearing from a librarian a few years ago that Tom Sawyer was a banned book. I was shocked. How could such a classic of literature be banned? The librarian said it was considered racist. I had to go read it again to find out why. I had read other of Mark Twain’s books and didn’t believe he was racist; so how could his book be considered racist?

If you’ve read Tom Sawyer, you will remember Injun Joe. That perhaps is explanation enough for the racism. Injun Joe is a drunk, thieving, murdering Indian – the only Indian in the book, portrayed stereotypically and negatively. Okay, that’s racist. I’ll agree with that. I won’t agree with banning the book. I didn’t assume, the first time I read it as a child, that Mark Twain’s portrayal of Injun Joe meant that all Indians are like that. If anything, Injun Joe is a great way to bring up discussion about stereotypes, historical and cultural influences on literature, and the portrayal of character in literature.

Recently I came across a web site condemning Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book Little House on the Prairie for improperly portraying Indians. The readers’ comments to me seemed more biased than the book. The writer was Aboriginal and took offense to Wilder’s brief mentions of Indians. I wondered if, as a child observing the circumstances, Wilder knew enough about them to give them the full details that this person seemed to think she should have included. My memories of the references to Indians in her works are that she treated them with respect. She certainly didn’t stereotype them as Mark Twain did. This person’s comments seemed to be overreacting to me.

Perhaps all of this comes from my perspective as a book-lover. I see no reason that good literature should be banned or condemned merely because it is now no longer politically correct. Books reflect the history and the culture in which they were written. Most readers, I think, are smart enough to understand that times change and we no longer refer to Indians as “injun.” I don’t believe that such references detract anything from the literature, however; they merely provide the discerning and questioning reader with further material for thought. Instead of banning books like Tom Sawyer and Little House on the Prairie, we should use these books to teach readers how to read critically and thoughtfully.

Good literature is worth reading again and again, because it raises questions and thoughts and makes the reader think rather than merely entertaining them. Good literature is deep, something that we can dive into again and again, and enjoy it more and learn something different from it each time we do.

Surprise!

I should have figured something out a lot sooner in the day. By now, you’d think I’d be getting suspicious when my fiancé is planning things, but no, I was blithe and oblivious. His “49” clue on Friday night should have alerted me that he had something more planned than just a “nice dinner.” 49 is an old inside joke with us, going back to before his proposal (in that case, it was the number of months until he was going to propose). In this case, as he later explained, it meant 49 hours from Friday night to the surprise on Sunday.

Perhaps it threw me off because the weekend wasn’t really a special occasion, as most of his other grand surprises had been (such as our six-month and seven-month anniversaries). He had been working night shift on our ten-month anniversary, so we hadn’t done anything. I sort of forgot we agreed to postpone celebrating until this weekend, which was the next free weekend we both had. So I just figured we were having a fun day out together. I did know enough to ask a few times what I was supposed to wear – how fancy was the restaurant going to be?

I waited on Sunday morning for him to show up before I chose to wear, so I would know how he was dressed. He was wearing a shirt and tie and his fuzzy brown sports jacket. I wore a nice skirt and blouse. We went to Mass, then had lunch with my family before heading to the conservatory. He’d heard about a display there, and it was “free day” at all the attractions in the city. So we wandered around looking at flowers, cactuses, and trees for an hour, and then went on to check out the zoo, which also free.

At the elephant cage we ran into one of my friends and her boyfriend – an unplanned surprise in my fiance’s day of planned surprises. They had already toured the zoo, and so we went off to the a cafe to grab a coffee together. After catching up on all the news, we said goodbye to them and went for dinner. I’d noticed that my fiancé was watching the time, wanting to be certain places at certain times; that should have clued me in to the fact that he wasn’t just being spontaneous – he had deadlines. However, I thought nothing of it. I even forgot to ask him what he’d told my friend when he hugged her goodbye.

We found a parking place downtown and wandered onto the terrace of a fancy hotel for dinner. My guess about somewhere “nice” for dinner had proved right, and I thought that was the extent of the surprise. Had he told me we were going there, I would have dressed up a bit more, but luckily the terrace was slightly casual. We had a nice dinner and some wine, and then thought we’d go catch a show. I suggested checking the newspaper to see what was playing before we left, but he insisted we’d just run over to the theatre. At first he said were going to take the train, to avoid finding parking again, but then he decided we wouldn’t get there quick enough, and so we hopped into his truck and dashed across the river.

At the theatre we found the film had already started, so he drove right past, saying we’d park and catch the train back downtown. I didn’t see any point in doing that, but he parked and started marching down the sidewalk, barely waiting for me to get out of the truck. That pace should have struck me as unusual, as I’m the one who usually walks like that. We hit the train station with me still protesting we could drive instead of ride, and so he walked right past it. Then I thought he was mad at me for not going along with his plan, and I was getting extremely ticked at him, but he just kept walking.

It was about when we hit the auditorium parking lot that something clicked. Lots of cars, lots of people, something going on at the auditorium – something I’d wanted to see. I gave him this sharp look, and saw that twinkle in his eyes, and knew. He’d gotten me tickets to Phantom of the Opera. I’d looked into tickets, but decided that they were too expensive, though I really wanted to go. I went from being very annoyed to being very excited. We got there just in time for the show to start, and had perfect seats on the edge of the balcony.

He was laughing all the home afterwards about how he’d surprised me and I hadn’t caught on. He thought that somehow I’d discovered the tickets, as he’d had them for the past month in the same place that my engagement ring had been for a month before he proposed – the glove box of his truck. He thinks that someday he’ll run out of ideas for surprises. I think I’ll start checking that glove box regularly.

Contemplating Catholicism

Last week I started RCIA (Right Catholic Initiation of Adults)—or the course on joining the Catholic Church. I’m taking it at the church I’ve been attending for the last year and will be getting married at in May. There are about fifteen of us in the class. Most of us are there because our spouses or fiances are Catholic and we have some questions. We are at different places in our faith walks, but our walk has brought us together for the next nine months.

For me, getting here began a year ago, when I started thinking about dating a friend of mine. The biggest question for both of us was the fact that he was Catholic and I was Lutheran. Or rather, I preferred to say I was currently attending a Lutheran church. I had also been to Alliance, Baptist, Catholic, United, Anglican, Evangelical, and Pentecostal churches. To me, it’s more important to focus on the things we all believe—like the Apostle’s Creed—than the ways we differ. As I see it, we are all Christians serving the same God.

Because it's important to me to attend the same church as my significant other, I began investigating the Catholic Church. One of the first presents he bought me was the Catholic Catechism. We started attending Mass together whenever we could and went to adoration occasionally. (For my Protestant readers, Mass is the Catholic communion service and adoration is simply praying in the presence of the Eucharist.) I read the Catechism and threw all my questions at him—the usual Protestant questions about Mary, the saints, etc. He patiently answered and explained, and I’d think, “Oh. Okay. I agree with that.”

My family and friends had mixed reactions to my becoming Catholic. When I was contemplating dating a Catholic, my dad offered to go with me to the Catholic church, “so I could see what I was getting myself into.” My mom told me not to even date this guy, as our different faiths meant too many differences between us. My best friend (who’d grown up Catholic) bought me a book about the Mass and her family was happy to see me on Sundays. My great-aunt told me she hopes I don’t ever become Catholic and to hang onto my Lutheran faith.

It seems to me that society in general, and Protestants especially, have a set of stereotypical ideas about Catholics and what they believe. I have noticed myself reacting strongly to various things in the Church, but when I stop to think about it, I realize part of that reaction is from growing up Lutheran. We non-Catholics have a negative view of anything Catholic. As I delve into what Catholics believe, and meet more Catholics who have put their faith into action, I’m intrigued by what I see.

Most stereotypes about Catholics apply to Christians in general. We’re a human lot, whether we’re Catholic or Protestant, and there are Christians in every denomination who fail to live their faith as they should. I’ve met as many twice-a-year Lutherans as I have twice-a-year Catholics.  And I’m sure the same could be said of every other denomination.

Other stereotypes—such as those about Catholics praying "to" Mary—are misconceptions about the Catholic Church. Most Protestants know a little bit about Catholicism and assume the rest, or have heard only part of the story. When I started asking questions about these misconceptions, they were cleared away. Most of the things I thought were major problems about joining the Catholic Church became nothing to worry about when I had gotten all the information.

There have still been times when I have doubted what I’m doing. My fiance has always said the only reason for joining the Catholic Church is Jesus and what He does for us in the Eucharist. At times, I still felt I was joining just so we could attend church together and raise our kids without having to explain why mommy and daddy don’t believe the same thing about God. At the first RCIA class, I almost didn’t want to mention that I was there because my fiance was Catholic—until everyone else mentioned their reasons for being there.

The thing that keeps me going back is my desire for God. There is something deep inside me that hungers and thirsts for God, and finds an answer at Mass. Before I started dating my friend, I asked him why he became Catholic. He said it was about the Eucharist; if that was where God was, then that was where he wanted to be. That struck a chord with me. I go to Mass, and to adoration, and I feel  God is there. My questions attack when I forget about that and feel swamped by other peoples’ opinions and all the changes in my life.

I keep coming back to the one thing that matters: my relationship with God. Because if He is there, then that is where I also want to be.

A Sense of Belonging

I started a new job a week ago. So far I have met most of the people in the branch (once or twice), been to several orientations (for various department levels), attended the monthly branch meeting, gotten a new chair, put my name up outside my cubicle, moved my begonia and my coffee cup to my office, received my access card and photo ID, signed a few dozen forms (more or less), and edited four or five documents.

I’m starting to feel like I belong there. And I like that feeling.

My previous jobs have all been rather temporary—part-time jobs before university, summer jobs in university, casual jobs at the university. Nothing serious or permanent or long-term. Usually that meant I was part of the team but not really part of the team. When everyone else trooped off to a department meeting, I got left working at my computer. When the other staff got some training, I didn’t, because I would be leaving at the end of the summer.

I sat in the branch meeting on Friday, looking around at all the other employees—some who had been there twenty years and some who had been there twenty days—and thought about what it meant to be part of that group. They made me feel welcome there. They were passionate about their work. I liked it.

Besides the novelty of actually having my name outside my cubicle (instead of being the nameless summer student who will disappear in a few months), I am enjoying the feeling that what I am doing is worthwhile. I'm not just mindlessly typing or entering endless numbers into a database. I am doing something I am skilled at, something that requires some thinking, something I enjoy doing. I am bringing my talents to the team, contributing something significant, shaping and polishing the documents that cross my desk so they will be readable and understandable to all the teachers who will use them.

It’s a few small things, but they make me feel like I’ve found a place where I belong.

Following Trails

There’s something irresistible about a trail going somewhere. I want to know where it goes. I have a book called The Canadian Rockies Trail Guide, and I consider it my checklist. There are trails I’ve checked off the list – I know where they go and what there is to see. Other trails remain mysteries to be discovered, notes and pictures in my trail book, waiting to be followed.

Some trails have definite destinations, a place you are striving to get to. Perhaps that place is the top of a mountain, with an awesome view of the valleys all around you. I climbed Whistler’s this spring with some friends. It was a steep, tough hike to the top, but once there, it was like standing on the roof of the world. We had a panoramic view of everything for 360 degrees. Mountains all around us. Definitely a destination worth getting to.

Other trails are journeys, where the exciting part is the trail itself. You travel these to see what you can see along the way – the mountain passes, the alpine meadows, the lonely valleys. Each day you wake up and break camp and hit the trail again, following it to see where it will lead you and what it will show you along the way. The best of these is North Boundary, meandering along the northern boundary of Jasper National Park to Mount Robson. Mount Robson is not the destination; it is only where the trail ends. What is important is what you see along the trail, a trail which goes dead-straight along a cut-line through towering pines or meanders up over the Snake Indian pass or curves back around to another valley.

Finally, there are trails which are neither journeys nor destinations, but invite exploration. These sorts of trails just start you in the right direction – sort of like a pointer – and then let you go on. They leave every possibility open – valleys to explore, mountains to climb, rockslides to boulder over. They are like treasure boxes, inviting you inwards. One such trail leads into the Fryatt Valley and then leaves you to explore that valley, and the upper valley, and the mountains that surround the valleys. Here you may wander at your leisure, with nothing to do but find out what is over that ridge or at the top of that mountain or on the other side of that moraine.

Trails demand to be followed. This weekend I climbed the alpine meadows on Mount Edith Cavell with my fiancé and a friend. We made the demanding climb up through the meadows to the promised lookout, and admired the view. But there was a trail that left the lookout and continued down the ridge and up another mountain. A higher place. A better view. I looked at it, and longed, but thought that I had already dragged my friends far enough. Then my fiancé saw the trail, and knew what it demanded.

We followed it. I said we had to get down, we couldn’t leave my friend waiting. He said we weren’t stopping until we got to the top. And what a top it was. A rocky point of mountain, with Mount Edith behind us, Jasper in the distance, and the river and highway curving away through the valley towards the Columbia Icefields, and mountains behind mountains as far into the distance as you could see. We had conquered the mountain and followed the trail, and it had rewarded us.

We followed the trail into Geraldine Lakes the next day. I hiked that trail last year with my mom, and made it as far as the Second Geraldine Lake. There is another lake, beyond that, and a few more, beyond that. First Geraldine is easy to get to, a nice half-hour jaunt up a broad trail. The next lake is only for the hardy; after leaving the first lake, the trail climbs up a boulder-strewn route beside a waterfall to the next valley, and from there, up another steeper, slipperier rockslide to the valley in which is nestled Second Geraldine.

We sat there by the lake, like marmots on a rock, and admired the cold water and warm sunshine and surrounding mountains. There I turned back once again, but the trail meanders on around the shore, to the other side of the lake, and from thence… onwards and upwards… into valleys and meadows unseen except by the very hardy and daring… into places where few men have been… into places where the trail dies out and leaves you to make your own for the next person to follow.