(1)

This morning's sermon was co-delivered by my minister and her husband. Part of it appeared in yesterday's Tennessean: Parenting is all about partnership

(2)

Gail and Jim also co-read the benediction, a Judy Chicago poem. Over the years, Jim has frequently worked as a handyman: at the line "And then compassion will be wedded to power," he said, "I always want to read that as "welded to power." Gail responded, "It still makes sense..."

(3a)

I started learning how to play the piano when I was six. If I think of myself as someone who's played the piano for over thirty years, that depresses me, because I'm not good at it, period. If I remind myself that I only routinely practiced during the first ten of those years - and I specifically use the word "routinely" rather than "regularly" or "actively" - it doesn't sound quite as bad, but it's still depressing. So then I have to remind myself that it doesn't matter - what matters is that I'm a smarter and more patient musician now, and while I don't yet have the chops to do right by the sounds I'm striving to create (and in some instances, never will - I'm still in the process of making peace with my physical limitations, never mind the what-I-want vs. what-I-feel-I-ought-to-want boondoggle) -- while it's maddening to feel so bloody inadequate so bloody often, there's also the thrill of finally (however belatedly) getting things that were completely outside of my clue-range before - the sheer excitement of hearing and playing and singing things that had always been in the texts and the notes, but which I hadn't had the wit to pay attention to when I first encountered them years ago.

(3b)
Something about there being (at least) seventeen types of radishes to be grown tickles me, as does this this man's claim "that he lay awake wondering how to grow a better radish." (New York Times 6/14)

(3c)
In a similar vein, there's a sushi chef in my neighborhood who recently discussed with interviewer Jennifer Justus how

making perfect rice can be the most difficult sushi task. Too much water can cause the rice to break, but too little water leaves it hard. Even after nearly 10 years of experience, it's a practice [Hide] Watanabe continues to try to master.

"I feel like I'm still learning how to cook rice," he says. [Nashville Rage 6/12)

(4)
From Lois McMaster Bujold's Shards of Honor [names redacted to avoid spoilers]:

character A: "...I've always thought--tests are a gift. And great tests are a great gift. To fail the test is a misfortune. But to refuse the test is to refuse the gift, and something worse, more irrevocable, than misfortune. Do you understand what I'm saying?
character B: "No."
character C: "Yes."
character D: "I've always felt that theists were more ruthless than atheists."
character A to character C: "If you think [accepting an offer C's just received] is really wrong, that's one thing. Maybe that's the test. But if it's only the fear of failure -- you have no right to refuse the gift for that."
character C: "It's an impossible job."
character A: "That happens, sometimes... Failure doesn't frighten me as much as it used to. But I'll quote you a quote, if you like. 'Exile, for no other motive than ease, would be the last defeat, with no seed of future victory in it.'"