The mountains tremble

The size of a mustard seed. That's how big my fifth baby is right now—one itty-bitty millimeter. Doesn't seem like much, does it? But, come to think of it, Abraham was once that size. And the Queen of Sheba. And Alexander the Great. And Caesar. And Saint Augustine. And Charlemagne. And Joan of Arc. And Martin Luther. And Rembrandt. And Shakespeare. And J.S. Bach. And Jane Austen. And Winston Churchill. And You.

There was a time when every celebrated character in history was invisible to the naked eye. 

A tiny mustard seed. Not even enough to add some zing to a sandwich. But great and terrifying things are happening under the microscope. The womb is a fearful and wonderful workshop—secret and dark and mysterious—where, out of the formless void, a "let there be..." calls forth something that once was not and now is.

Only a mustard seed. But a mighty tree is in the making, in whose branches the birds of the air will come to build their nests.

Just a mustard seed. But I can feel the mountains tremble. The mountains, after all, know something we do not; they know what moves them.

The Digital Muse

While we're on the subject... As I was writing the last post about digital communication it crossed my mind that the great stories of history and literature—and of our own lives—might have been drastically altered by 21st century communications technology. For example:

Remember that fateful letter from Friar Lawrence to Romeo, telling him that Juliet was only mostly dead? The one that arrived too late? If Shakespeare had instead given each of those two men a Motorola Razr, timely communication would have been established and tragedy turned into comedy. ...Except that the Capulets and Montagues would have continued biting their thumbs at one another until the world's end.

Or how about Robinson Crusoe? If he'd made a satellite phone call from the sinking ship, he might have been rescued about 28 years sooner. And nobody would ever have cared much about his survival story. Oh, and Friday would never have been rescued from murderous cannibals.

Then there's the whole Midnight-Ride-of-Paul-Revere thing. One if by land, two if by sea? Totally unnecessary. "Through the night went his cry of alarm, to every Middlesex village and farm"? A waste of breath. Just text it, Paul, and all those colonial farmers will be ready with their muskets and their night-vision goggles.

And if Odysseus had bought matching iPhones for Penelope and himself before heading off to battle the Trojans, the trip home would have taken on an entirely different tone:
P: Honey, where are you? I left you like ten voice mails yesterday. 
O: Long story, Penny. After a rough day on the wine-dark sea, we took a pit stop on some island. I had already checked Google Maps, and I told the guys that there was a nice, authentic Greek gyro joint on the next island, but did they listen? They were so hungry for a steak, they just couldn't wait. They came across this herd of grass-fed, free-range cattle and just went nuts with their battle axes—had a big ol' Texas barbecue.
P: Typical men.
O: Yeah, well, it gets worse. It turned out that those cows belonged to Helios the Sun god. Seriously bad news. Let's just say I'll be home a bit later than we'd planned. I'll tell you all about it in dactylic hexameter when I get there.

Poetic, no?

It seems pretty clear to me that our modern hyper-connectedness would have drained a lot of the color from many of history's best stories. And even from my own life's stories.

When I was 13, my family lived in Kenya for 6 months. Without a cell phone. Or a home phone connection, for that matter. My dad did have a phone at his office, but the line would mysteriously go dead whenever he mentioned anything negative about events taking place in the country at the time. E-mail was in its infancy, and few people ever thought of communicating via computer. (This is making me feel old.) Our contact with home was minimal and normally involved letters that might take weeks to arrive.

While we lived there, a day came when my brother and I could not get home from school because of a riot taking place in the city through which we needed to travel. Cars and trucks—so loaded with people that the bumpers nearly touched the road—were streaming out of the town, and ours was the only car going toward it. Our driver stopped to ask what was happening, but we could only get hints and rumors. A few people said that they had fled because everybody else was doing it. So we waited. Meanwhile, news of tear gas and gunshots spread through the surrounding area, and my parents had no way of finding out where we were—or whether we were alive. For a few nervous hours they felt the way that many Haitian parents must be feeling now: fearful and wondering where their children might be. With today's technology, a quick text message could have told my parents that we were safe, and spared them those hours of distress. But then we wouldn't have had much of a story to tell afterward. Every good story involves some kind of conflict or tension waiting to be resolved. Who wants to hear about the day that started happy, went along happily, and ended with smiles all around? I want to live that day. But I don't want to hear about it. Without those hours spent in fear, this story wouldn't be worth telling. And a cell phone, I'm quite sure, would have removed the uncertainty that made the afternoon memorable.

Another event that my sons love for me to recount is the day in 1998 when I was driving alone through the barren wasteland of Central Washington and slid off the highway into a field. My car came to a stop directly on top of an ancient, rusty plough that was half-buried in the dirt. After trying everything I could to free myself from the grip of that antique piece of machinery (4-wheel-drive, reverse, digging, pushing), I only managed to spin my tires deeper into the dust. I was stranded and clearly needed help. With a cell phone, I would have let my fingers do the walking. Without one, my feet had to do it.

The nearest sign of civilization was a dilapidated farm house about 40 yards away. I waded shakily through the dry grass, climbed up the steps onto the collapsing porch and knocked insistently on the ripped screen door. A couple of hung-over teenage boys dragged themselves off of their bare living room mattresses to answer my persistent pounding. "The party ended like three hours ago," they informed me. When I explained my situation  and asked for a phone, they said that theirs had been disconnected for months. In an act of selfless heroism, they pulled on some shoes and walked back with me to my car. After helping me try unsuccessfully to push it off the plough, they shrugged and walked back to the house to sleep off the last night's beer binge. But before they did, they sent me to search for a man who was wandering the property seeking antique farm machinery to weld into fences. I found him behind an old silo. He turned out to be a fifty-year-old, three-hundred-pound Mexican immigrant with a great dane. And red pickup. After laughing a bit at my predicament, he drove his truck to the scene of the accident and used it to push my car free of the plough.

Unfortunately, once he did, the radiator began to empty its green contents into the dirt. He raised his eyebrows and whistled through his teeth. "There's no way you're gonna make it to town like that," he told me. We climbed into the cab of his pickup, and he drove me to the next farm with a phone, called a tow truck for me, and drove back to my car to wait with me. For the next hour, we sat  on his tail gate and learned each other's names. I told him I was an art student. He told me he'd sent his daughter to the Art Institute of Seattle with money he'd made from welding fences out of farm junk—the kind of farm junk my car was stuck on. He offered me a cold Pepsi. I showed him the design projects I had in my car.

Thanks to my lack of a cell phone, I ended up spending a ridiculous and fascinating hour on the back of this man's pickup, exchanging stories and sharing soda under the baking sun, next to a dog the size of a pony.

It's true that the story could have turned out differently—so differently that I'd never want to repeat it. A cell phone offers a sense of safety, and I wouldn't want to find myself in a similar situation again without one. But it's also true that if I'd had my little flip phone at my disposal, I would never have made human contact with the people at that farmhouse, and I would have one less memory to laugh about with my kids. In retrospect, I'm thankful that I (and Romeo and Crusoe and Paul Revere and Odysseus) didn't have a phone that day. But I think I prefer the way things are now. Mostly.

Black Friday (With Apologies to the Prince of Denmark)

It's not called "Black" for nothing, this Friday. Enticed by promises of unbeatable prices, I ventured out before sunrise, through the rain and foggy darkness, to make my mark on the "Consumer Confidence" charts. (Watch for my percentage point on tomorrow's news.)

When I arrived at the massive chain store across town, the parking lot was already an oily sea of minivans and pickups, SUVs and sedans, abandoned shopping carts and discarded seasonal red paper coffee cups. I had a sinking sensation as I stepped uneasily across that sunless sea. My faith in American capitalism was failing faster than the real estate market in LA.

Nevertheless, I rode the swell through the automatic doors and waded with my squeaky cart through wave after crushing wave of bleary-eyed customers. I sloshed my way against the current toward the sale items that had lured me in. But when I saw the checkout lines stretching around the corner, down the aisle, and away toward the garden center, the sinking feeling left me; I had hit bottom. It's dark down there—Black even—despite all the fluorescent lights. With nowhere to go but up, I swam for fresh air, buoyed by my empty cart. No $3 pair of pajamas is worth drowning for.

Gasping, and dripping, I fell back into the driver's seat of my car and pondered a bit. Defeated. That's how I felt. The native hue of resolution was sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought. And doorbuster sales of great pith and moment with this regard their currents turned awry, and lost the name of action.

To shop, or not to shop? That was definitely the question. Whether 'twas nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous consumerism? Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by going home for coffee end them?

I considered Christmas. I considered the potential savings on gifts. From the great height of the big-box store parking lot on the hill, I considered the yawning abyss of the mall down below. I considered the coupons stacked in my wallet. I considered the hordes of people crowding the stores in search of a bargain. Last year on this day, somebody somewhere was trampled to death in a shopping stampede. Was it worth the risk? Shouldn't I rather bear those ills I had than fly to others I knew not of?

In the end, I resolved to take my life in my hands and descend to the Macy's parking lot. (Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.) The sun was beginning to rise, and the outlook appeared slightly less bleak as I plunged into the mall. I slid past crimson signs printed with swirly fonts saying "Yes" to Virginia. Perky clerks who'd been up since 4:00 A.M. wondered if I was "finding everything all right." Bing Crosby crooned somewhere over my head, trying to put me in the mood to spend.

It must have worked. Bing, unlike me, knows what he's doing when he's at the mall on Black Friday.

As I set sail for home through the fog, I brought with me bags full of stocking stuffers and craft projects and games and articles of clothing. I also brought back a much lighter purse and a much lighter head. (Ay, there's the rub.) It had taken me four hours to paddle through the mall. I stayed afloat, and yet, somehow, I still feel a bit soggy and defeated. I managed to avoid getting caught in the Black Friday undertow, but it may take me a few days to dry off and get the sand out of my hair.

I'm no thrill seeker. I wasn't altogether ready to test my strength against the storm surge of bargain shoppers. The only surfing I'm comfortable with is the kind I can do from my computer desk, where I can dip my toes in the kiddie pool version of Christmas shopping. Going out on Black Friday was a true test of nerve. Although I snagged some great deals, I really don't think I will attempt it again.

Well, not for another year, at least.