by Roseanna White | May 31, 2018 | Thoughtful Thursdays
There’s a passage in Matthew. We all know it. But I admit it always baffled me a little. It’s from chapter 9, verses 14-17.
14 Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?”
15 And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends
of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the
days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. 17 Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
I’ve read this countless times. But not until recently, when we got to it in our Bible study, did it finally click. And I think in part it’s because our culture doesn’t make wine like they used to.
In Jesus’s day, wineskins were made of leather. Now, leather has a bit of give to it–it can grow, and it can shrink as it cures. Back in Ye Olden Days, when you wanted a leather garment–gloves, pants, etc–to fit you perfectly, you would buy it a bit large and then soak it in warm water on your hand, etc., until it had shrunk to fit you. Then when you let it dry, voila! Perfect fit.
The leather used for wineskins would expand with the wine. As grapes ferment, they release gases, and the leather would grow with it because it was supple and new and hadn’t been cured yet. So you could fill it up, and the container would grow as the contents demanded. Pretty cool, huh? But that only works with new leather. If you put the wine into an old wineskin that had already been stretched out . . . well, that’s not going to go so well. The gases are going to be released, but the leather isn’t going to have any more give. So it will break. Burst. And all the wine is lost.
That part I’ve known for a while . . . but I still wasn’t sure how it applied to the question that John’s disciples were asking Jesus. What does that have to do with mourning? For me, the key to understanding why this an appropriate reaction from Jesus required going back to the key point of the wine in wineskins. What was the basic problem? The wine doesn’t fit.
That’s what Jesus is getting at here. There are times in life when mourning doesn’t fit. His disciples were still in celebration mode–their Savior was there! Among them! Teaching and performing signs and wonders. Preaching the gospel and healing the sick. This thing that humanity had been waiting for millennia–it was happening!
That, my friends, is cause for
Joy. So how could His disciples have partaken in the things of mourning, like fasting? Had they tried it, it would have burst its confines . . . and then what would have happened? The wine would have been lost.
But Jesus knew well a time was coming when they would mourn. The new cloth would age. The wineskin would grow to its limit. The relationships He cultured so carefully would mature, and then the disciples would be sent out on their own to become the teachers in His absence.
This is life. This is the way of things. Celebration eventually gives way to mourning. Life contains, always, both good and bad.
But here’s what I really loved about this analogy as I paused to contemplate it. In His analogy, mourning is represented by the wine. The disciples are the wineskin. If you tried to force mourning into something unstretched, it would break. But wine itself wasn’t a drink of mourning. It was a drink of celebration. And the oldest wine is the better wine, traditionally.
So what is best for the celebration? That which has grown and stretched, that which has mourned. That which is tested and tried.
Mourning is a part of our celebration . . . and celebration is a part of our mourning. The two are meant to go hand in hand. Celebration will eventually give way to sorrow, yes . . . and sorrow will give way again to
Joy. There’s a cycle to it.
And the wise man is the one who knows which time is which and can see the presence of each in the other.
by Roseanna White | May 30, 2018 | 20th Century, Remember When Wednesdays
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| The cast of ABT’s Coppelia, a classical comic ballet |
Last weekend, my daughter danced in the final ballet for Appalachian Ballet Theater. After 23 years, the only classical ballet studio in our area decided to shut down…their building is being sold, Beth, the founder, is ready to retire, and Leah, who choreographs all the shows, is expecting baby #2 any day now. This mother-daughter duo built an amazing studio and instilled passion and discipline in a generation of local dancers. It’s bittersweet to say farewell to the dance family that has nurtured my daughter since she was 5.
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| Our last rehearsal in the studio on Tuesday! |
Anyone who’s read my Ladies of the Manor Series knows that ballet plays a part in my stories…largely inspired by the classes I took my daughter to twice a week for the last seven years. In
The Lost Heiress, Brook has been practicing with Ballet Russe–a group of dancers trained in St. Petersburg at the Imperial school. So I thought I’d take a few minutes to look back at this ground-breaking, iconic ballet group, in honor of ours.
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| Xoe, left, with friends Saylor, Heaven, Phoebe, and Marina, before their final show |
The Ballet Russe was formed in 1909 by Sergei Diaghilev. In 1908 he had presented a season of Russian art, music, and opera in Paris, with great success. The upper class of Europe quickly became enamored with all things Russian, and so Diaghilev was invited back the next year to share more of Russia’s culture. He responded with the Ballet Russe (the Russian Ballet), a dance troupe made up entirely of dancers schooled in the finest of Russia’s schools. These dancers brought something to Europe that no other ballet had ever offered–passionate, energetic dancing that pushed the boundaries of what had always been accepted. Their dancing was considered avant-garde and contemporary in the extreme.
For 20 years, the Ballet Russe toured the major cities of Europe and even America. I, of course, had fun with this–they were stationed a good while in Monaco, which is how Brook came to know them. And also in Paris, which is where they are when we meet Kira, the injured prima ballerina who plays a vital role in the third book in the series,
A Lady Unrivaled. I had so much fun digging deeper into ballet and Russian culture with this character, who had been friends with Brook during her months of practicing with the group.
As most of you probably know, anything that involved the stage in the early 1900s was considered scandalous–the elite loved to be entertained by them…but it was well known that most women who made their living upon the stage had, er, looser morals than “ladies.” Now, obviously, this isn’t always true. But it was assumed. Which is why a young woman born to a respectable family would never consider a career upon the stage…which made things interesting for Brook, who was raised by an opera singer. She’d lived the first half of her life in a very different world from where she ended up–an heiress, a baroness, the daughter of an earl.
Today, ballet isn’t the edgy stuff–it’s the “tame” stuff. We chose classical ballet rather than modern dance because it isn’t risque…rather hilarious when one considers that it used to be THE risque dance. But in this world of hip-hop and gyrating moves taught to our primary schoolers, give me ballet’s moves any day! Because it isn’t just a passion–it’s a discipline. One I’ve loved watching my daughter learn and embrace.
Learning more about the history of ballet and its ground-breaking years during when my books have been set was so much fun. And looking back from our current viewpoint and seeing how it’s turned into the classical, respectable institution as opposed to the scandalous one is always interesting. I loved writing about it, with Brook and then with Kira. And I look forward to taking Xoe to a new studio next year and seeing where she goes with this dance from here.
Have you or your kids done any kind of dance?
by Roseanna White | May 28, 2018 | Word of the Week
Time for a sweet treat of a word!
Cookie. In American English, we all know what this means. Yummy…
Tasty…
Delicious sweet treats…
My favorites are soft and chewy. Some prefer crisp and buttery. But in my opinion, all cookies are awesome. What they aren’t, however, is called the same thing everywhere, or in all of history.
I noticed when finding Colonial-era recipes that cookies were at the time called “little cakes.” What I didn’t realize was that the word cookie, which infiltrated American English by 1808, is from the Dutch koekje, which literally means “little cake.” Interestingly, while the Dutch had koekje, the Scottish also had cookie, as early as 1730, meaning “small, flat, sweet cake.” It’s thought that the American came from the Dutch, but it must surely have been influenced by the Scottish word of the same sound and meaning.
In the 1920s, the word was occasionally applied to people, especially women. The phrase “that’s the way the cookie crumbles” is from around 1955.
I admit, cookies are one of my favorite desserts. I can pass up cake, but not a cookie. What’s your favorite sweet treat?
by Roseanna White | May 23, 2018 | Book News
Last Saturday, my family drove a few hours down the road for the Gaithersburg Book Festival, where I would be presenting a panel with two other amazing Christian historical fiction authors, Cathy Gohlke and Carrie Turanksy. Having never attended this festival before, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But it was so much fun!
First, it was raining. I’m talking, we’ve had 2 solid weeks of rain in the mid-Atlantic. Trees are coming down just because the ground is so soggy it can’t hold them up. To say it was a bit wet for this outdoor festival is an understatement.
But you just can’t dampen the spirits of book nerds. They still showed up by the thousands.
The GBF is a really great, really big event. There were hundreds of authors present in every conceivable genre for every conceivable age group. My family and I sat in on a panel with writers and illustrators of the Science Comic series and learned how they turned topics like The Plague and Sharks into fun, accessible stories for kids, and then we got to watch them draw for us on the spot. We caught the tail end of a non-fiction talk on the founding and building of Los Angeles. And then I joined Cathy and Carrie for our panel on weaving history into fiction.
It rained off and on all day, and the ground was a muddy mess. I had mud splatters all up my legs, and at the time I’m writing this, I haven’t even summoned the bravery to check out the shoes that we just shoved in a plastic bag after the event was over, before we drove home. [Update: they all cleaned up just fine, LOL.] We juggled umbrellas and raincoats and had to try to figure out how to keep our bags off the sopping ground. The bookstore had a lot of books with slight curls to their pages.
And it was SO AWESOME.
Because we got to see hundreds and thousands of other book lovers, coming together in a community. I got to meet two members of my launch team (hello, Kat and Kathy!!!) and finally meet two authors I’ve long respected but have never actually gotten to see in person. And of course, I got to talk about books! These sorts of panel conversations are always so much fun for me. A chance to talk about writing in general, the stories I love in particular and share a glimpse into the crazy life of a homeschooling writer.
And it’s so cool to then walk to the book signing area and get to meet some of the people who sat in on the panel. To meet people I’ve talked to online. To hear new readers say they so enjoyed my talk they had to run and buy my book. To hear another young woman say I’m one of her favorite authors and she had to come to the GBF to meet me (she said that to the
NEWS camera!). To sign one book for a sweet lady’s friend and then see her back in the line with her family, because her husband bought
her a copy.
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| Me, Cathy, and Carrie…and a bit of the mud. |
The folks who put on the festival gave the authors a regal welcome and thanked us for coming, thanked us for writing. But I think I speak for most of the other authors when I just smile and laugh and turn that right back around–because I’ve written for years in a vacuum, without my words ever going anywhere beyond my computer. Writing itself doesn’t accomplish much. It’s the interaction of writing with readers that matters. It’s the readers who make it all worthwhile, and seeing all those dedicated readers braving the mud and rain to come and listen to a bunch of authors talk, to stand in line in the rain to get a book signed…they’re the ones who deserve the thanks.
(Video from the local news station–you can see me a fair bit in the background as they interviewed Michelle, the young lady who was so excited that I was going to be there!)
It was a wonderful day, and I’m so grateful to everyone who turned out to say hello! I had a great time, and I hope to see the diehard readers of Montgomery County, Maryland back at the GBF in years to come!
(Sorry I didn’t take more pictures–my hands were filled with umbrellas and books I was trying to keep dry, LOL!)
by Roseanna White | May 21, 2018 | Word of the Week
Nice. Such a simple word, so well known…and so surprising! I happened to click onto it on www.etymonline.com because it was a trending word, and I was so shocked to see its evolution!
Did you know that nice used to mean “foolish, stupid, senseless”? Apparently it’s from the Latin nescius, which is literally “not-knowing.” (Same root as science.)
Etymologists are struck by the development of this word. From that “foolish” use in the 1200s, the earliest days of English, it progressed to “timid” round about 1300, to “fussy, fastidious” by the end of the century, then to “dainty, delicate” around 1400. By 1500 it had moved into a meaning of “precise, careful” and stayed with that until the mid 1700s, when it came to mean “agreeable, delightful.” By the early-to-mid 1800s it could also be applied to people in a sense of “kind, thoughtful”–of course, those last two meanings are still in use today…but who knew that it started out meaning something so different?
The transformation is so big that many times when we read writings from the 1500s and 1600s, it’s impossible to tell which meaning the author intended!
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.