Brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Phil. 4:8

I don’t know exactly why, but lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my Grandmother Mal. She died nearly five years ago on Thanksgiving Day less than a month shy of her 104th birthday. She was a character. Rebecca Reynolds posted a photo of Queen Elizabeth yesterday. The Queen was sitting at a little scuff-marked writing desk which was covered in knick-knacks, and she was talking on a beige rotary-dial phone with a curly-que cord. The photo didn’t feature the rest of the room, just this immediate scene. The Queen seems to be listening intently to whatever is being said by whomever on the other end of the line. There is care in her expression and a dignity in her appearance as well as a kind of ordinariness; she looks like a grandmother.  

My Grandmother was quite grand, and this photo of Queen Elizabeth reminded me of her. Grandmother Mal was not a granny or a grandma, she was a Grandmother. She had a fine air about her, a stateliness. But, interestingly, she was in no way stuffy. That dignity she inhabited reminds me of Tolkien’s Elf-queen Galadriel, who, in my opinion missed in the movie version from what I’d imagined her to be like, except for the moments when she laughs or smiles. One of the things I remember most about Grandmother Mal was how easily she laughed. And when she told stories, which happened often because she was a natural-born Southern storyteller, she was all expression, character voices, hand motions, and laughter. Laughter was often bubbling up, brimming over, barely containable.

Right up to the very last months of her life, Grandmother was always nicely dressed with her long white hair pinned neatly in a bun. As an aside, as a little kid, I was always fascinated by her long grey hair and the fact that, unlike most older women I knew, she kept the length and never curled or treated it. Her house was a very comfortable place to me, ironically because it was always orderly. Everything had a place, and everything seemed always to be in its place. But I have no memory of feeling that I couldn’t touch anything. She was orderly and clean, but not precious about it. Again, she had a playfulness about her that seemed to be empowered by orderliness rather than inhibited by it.  

Like Queen Elizabeth in the photo, Grandmother had all kinds of interesting art around the house, beautiful furniture (my Grandad, who died before I was born, had been a designer and woodworker), and all manner of fascinating knick-knacks on the shelves. I remember an ancient bugle that sat by a little hand-carved recorder on top of her piano. I squeezed all kinds of distressing exclamations from that bugle growing up, but was never reprimanded. 

Right now, I’m in my bedroom writing from the blue chair I bought for myself this past Christmas, and a photo of Grandmother and me is on my bookshelf not three feet away. In the kitchen, every morning, my brother and I sit at the same table that we sat at growing up in my Grandmother’s kitchen all those years (made by my Grandad, by the way).   

I don’t know why she’s been on my mind so much lately, honestly. I really don’t. But today, I’m thinking about all the things she showed me how to love, by loving me and by loving those things. We really do pick up on the loves of those we love. Grandmother’s house had lots of books, and she was always reading a few at a time, my Mom is the same way, and our house always had books. So, when I built a travel van for touring, it had to have a bookshelf, because otherwise, I couldn’t be comfortable in it. Books are necessarily furniture to make a home a home, necessary as chairs, couches, and beds. 

Along with my Mom and Dad who are both natural-born Southern storytellers and laugh as they tell their stories, Grandmother taught me to love people and people’s stories. Really they taught me to enjoy people, to see how interesting and delightful they are.  

I love birdsong, and Grandmother always noticed birds. She loved to see them at play, and to hear them chatter and chirp. One entire wall of her kitchen leading out to the backyard was glass, and she had several bird-feeders and bird-baths. She daily scattered seed for them. She showed me how to pay attention to certain things and to love them.  I’ve written before how my Dad has done this for me in so many ways, and my Mom has done the same. My Mom has always been passionate about traveling to other countries, enjoying various cultures, and learning about great masterworks of art. Before I graduated high-school I’d been to England and France two or three times, Italy two or three times, Spain, Morocco. I’d seen Notre-Dame, all the great museums, St. Paul’s, The Vatican, Florence and so on.  

Mr. Rogers said somewhere that the best teachers are those who stand up in front of others and love something deeply and well.  

In the Christian tradition the term for this kind of thing is “the ordering of the affections.” What do you love? How did you learn to love it? Who taught you? Who did you see loving that thing you love so that you learned to love it too? How do we turn our hearts towards “whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, whatever is admirable — excellent or praiseworthy”?  

One night a year or so ago, I sat on my friend’s Terri and Steve Moon’s porch, while Terri told a fascinating story about the composer Bach and how he used his gifts to manifest awe and love for God. Terri is a violinist herself, and a lover of Bach’s music. Her love made me want to listen to Bach. Something in her joyful storytelling stirred my affections for something I hadn’t paid a whole lot of attention to up till then. 

C.S. Lewis said somewhere that the whole point of education is to teach us to call good what is, in reality, good and to love what is, in truth, lovely. It’s worth paying attention to who’s teaching us what, isn’t it? And not mainly on the intellectual level. I’m talking less about ideas here, and more about affections, what are we being taught feel about this or that? I’ve just begun to notice in the last few years that some kinds of music, media, and stories teach me to feel good about bad things and bad about good things. By manipulating the affections or emotions, artists can change the way we feel about things.  

There’s a certain movie with a very good-looking, charming male lead who is a substance abuser, promiscuous and a womanizer, but you just love him because they show you he’s a widower with three cute little daughters that he builds blanket-forts with on the floor in the living room. In a movie, you can make anything happen, you just write it into the script. You can make the addicted womanizer a great dad, for instance, especially if he’s good-looking enough. But watching this movie, I felt played. I felt my affections being tricked into feeling good about someone who wasn’t good. “Charm is deceptive,” because it feels good, but isn’t. 

On the other hand, a more responsible storyteller like Tolkien, shepherds our affections with great care in his fiction. Don’t you love Sam’s capacity for friendship? You should, because Sam is actually an incredible friend. Don’t you just love the way wisdom, authority, strength, and sincere love mingle in Gandalf? What about how integrity, passion, toughness, tenderness, and delayed gratification marry in Aragorn and Arwen? Joy and responsibility in Frodo? Simple contentment (which is really gratitude) and willingness to sacrifice in Hobbits, generally? Great power, good humor, mutual submission, and the glory of domestic life flow together in Goldberry and Bombadil? I could go on. Tolkien helps us order our affections so that we call good what is good, but more than that, that we actually feel good about what is good, and feel badly about what is actually bad. 

This is hard to learn, and it’s an ongoing lesson. This is what Psalm 119 is all about, and that’s why it goes on and on for page after page, because the psalmist is trying so hard to get his affections to align with reality, which is to say, God’s way of doing things. The last verse of that psalm is telling, isn’t it? He says he’s wandered off like a stray sheep, but he wants to come home to love what God loves. 

A few feet away from me right now is a little wooden kneeler with a pillow at the base embroidered with a cross and a shelf at the top. It was made by my Grandad, and it used to stand in my Grandmother Mal’s bedroom. When I was small, we’d kneel together there before bedtime, her with her arm around me and her long hair unpinned, me in awe but wiggly, and we’d pray. I struggle to pray to this day, but it’s not the Lord’s fault, I’m mainly uncomfortable with myself. I struggle to pray, but I feel my heart turn toward prayer nonetheless, because it’s a place I know my wiggly, frightened heart isn’t alone. I feel uncomfortable, and loved, which is comforting. It is a good place. However uncomfortable, “it is good to be near to the Lord”. (Ps. 73:28)

Collect for the 5th Sunday in Lent: 

Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.