Life with Jocelyn

Jocelyn Larsen

the best book I read in 2018

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Out of the books I read in 2018, my book of the year comes from the reading I did for my particular vocation* as a writer. But since all of us write something occasionally (for our jobs or in our relationships), and since all of us could use help discerning good writing from poor writing, I recommend it without hesitation.

 

On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction, 6th ed. by William Zinsser (1st ed. 1976) 294 pages

Zinsser writes insightfully about the writing process; your respect for good writers will grow! He identifies the characteristics that make good writing good, a campaign that begs visiting and revisiting. Best of all, he is an encouraging teacher for the writer in all of us – even if the bulk of our writing is in emails to our co-workers and birthday cards to our intimates.

Plus – get this – it’s really well written. 😉

Happy reading (and writing),

Jocelyn

 

 

* Do you read/listen much for your vocation? I mean: Have you found a few communicators who are the kind of humans you’d like to be when you grow up? Have you found anyone who is ahead of you as a Christ-ian, a parent, a child, a whatever-your-job-title-is-currently, and a whatever-you-hope-your-job-title-will-be-eventually and can offer some empathy and leadership through life?

If you haven’t found such people, I’d encourage you to keep looking. They’ve been an essential part of the salvation of God in my life. The search itself is often discouraging, but once you find them you can cling on for a little while like a suckerfish on a whale.

the best books I read in 2018, part 1

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Happy New Year! And what a better way to begin the new year than talking about books, my favorite inanimate things.

A side note to young parents: The age of one’s children and the amount of reading one does must have a direct relationship. I had some very lean reading years. But my kids are getting older. I am reading more and more. If your kids are still very young, don’t worry! You’ll make it. And in the meantime, you’ll have to settle for reading just a few books. Make sure they’re books worth reading. Maybe I can help save you some time by passing along my recommendations.

This year I’m just sharing the best of what I read and I’m not writing a review of all of them! (Sorry, just stars 1-5.) But please feel free to comment or email me back about any particular book or about other recommendations. (One of the highest honors in our family is to give or be asked for a “book stack.” A book stack is a physical stack of books (or a photo of a physical stack of books) that have been personally and specifically curated for the recipient – a mix of books they would love, books that will challenge them, and books they wouldn’t normally read but maybe should.)

Here is the first (of two) book lists / reviews:

the best book I read for my own spiritual development

The Celtic Way of Prayer, Esther de Waal (1997) 211 pages. *****

A brilliant look into the earthy, everyday, deeply rooted spirituality of Celtic prayers and spiritual practice. De Waal writes very accessibly about ancient Celtic ways of life – a way of life that is very practical and very challenging for all of the ways it embeds prayer and practice in everyday life.

other excellent spiritual books worth reading

The Challenge of Jesus, N. T. Wright****

Marked for Life, Maria Boulding****

The House of the Soul, Evelyn Underhill*****

Mysticism, Evelyn Underhill****

(A tome, if there ever were one.)

The Spiritual Life, Evelyn Underhill***

Reversed Thunder, Eugene Peterson***

Mudhouse Sabbath, Lauren F. Winner***

spiritual classics

I read several spiritual classics this year, all were shortish and definitely worth reading.

The Way of a Pilgrim, Anonymous***

The Divine Milieu, Teilhard de Chardin****

The Mind of the Maker, Dorothy Sayers****

The Glory Road, Ylvisaker***

 

the best fiction & poetry I read that the largest majority of people will also like (ha!)

Astray, Emma Donoghue (2012) 271 pages. *****

Extremely ingenious and imaginative, Astray is a collection of short stories in the genre of historical fiction. Ms. Donoghue collected short newspaper articles, a printed line from here or there, or a snippet of advertisements and then invented stories to explain or expound on them! True creativity and brilliance, if you ask me. She (along with Flannery O’Connor and John Cheever) helped me find again in 2018 my fondness for the short story.

other fiction & poetry worth reading

The Complete Stories, Flannery O’Connor *****

There are two kinds of temperaments in this world: the kind who love Flannery O’Connor and the kind who are alarmed and sort of disemboweled by Flannery O’Connor. I am of the former. I do not know which you will be. But if you are comfortable with the fact that life is dark and sad and complicated, you will probably love Ms. O’Connor. If not, skip it. There will surely be copies of her collected stories floating around in the life hereafter. You can read them then.

East of Eden, John Steinbeck ****

Farenheit 451, Ray Bradbury ***

Small Porch, Wendell Berry ****

Stamboul Train, Graham Greene ***

The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton ***

 

a few great books we read with our kids (aged 9, 7, and 4)

The Fledgling, Jane Langton ****

Roller Skates, Ruth Sawyer ***

Socks, Beverly Cleary ****

Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis (again!) *****

James & the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl ****

Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl ****

Charlie & the Great Glass Elevator, Roald Dahl ****

Matilda, Roald Dahl *****

Roald Dahl was more willing to address the dark side of life than most other children’s authors. He was also more [justifiably] critical of adults. Our older two kids are becoming mature enough to face the nuances of the reality that life, the world, and people are not all-good or all-bad. Dahl’s characters have been welcome contributors to our ongoing conversations in this regard!

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Barbara Robinson ****

What’s the big deal about Advent?

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Actually, Advent not a big deal. I mean it depends on what you think a big deal is. If you’re comparing it to the “big deals” of Christmas gifts to buy, Christmas events to attend, Christmas traditions to uphold… It is not that kind of a big deal. It is a wonderfully quiet, secretively radiant, anticipatory deal. It feels to me like the exact opposite of what usually feels like a “big deal.” And that has made it an even bigger deal to me.

I am still a newcomer to the liturgical calendar. Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Pentecost, Ordinary Time… I grew up in church, but not that kind of church. I haven’t really sought out these seasons; it seems as though I’ve just bumped into them and liked them instantly, like those encounters with a stranger where you leave thinking, “I bet we could be friends.”

Anyway, most of the people I know do not observe any sort of traditional Advent, and a lot of people ask me something to the effect of, “What’s the big deal about Advent?” So, abandoning thoroughness, here are a few of my humble thoughts.

What is Advent? Advent is the season that anticipates Jesus’ birth. Its traditional components are simple. (The following traditions are all a little bit different depending on which church’s calendar you use. I just thought I’d give you the bare bones, as I understand them.)

  1. Candles – traditionally three purple + one pink gathered around a white “Christ” candle, sometimes placed in a wreath. The candles are lit accumulatively at specific times throughout the season. Most people I know who celebrate Advent light them during dinner or during their daily reading time.
  2. Readings – traditionally found in The Book of Common Prayer and comprised of two morning Psalms, three daily readings, and two evening Psalms. They are on a two-year cycle and if you follow them, you will read the New Testament through twice and the Old Testament through once in two years.
  3. 4 weeks – beginning on the fourth Sunday before Christmas. Each week has a traditional theme – Hope, Peace, Joy, Love – in that order. (This year Advent began on December 2.)

There are a lot of things to love about Advent. Here are my top three right now.

  1. Anticipating. My oft critical mind and judgmental heart cannot sustain their criticism when steeped for weeks in the ridiculous idea that God became a baby and Mary pushed him out and her first visitors were a random group of salt-of-the-earth men from the sewage plant.*
  2. Secret. I feel like I’m in on one. One big secret that most people ahead of me in the Target line or sitting across from my booth in the restaurant aren’t even thinking about. Or maybe they are. Because it’s actually a very well-known secret, one almost everyone has heard. It is just one secret that has gotten old for some people and hasn’t really sunk in for others. Well, observing just a few simple Advent practices helps me let it sink in, more in and more in every year. Plus when you find someone else who practices a little bit of Advent – like the readings, for example – it’s delightful to think that you two read the exact same thing that morning, even if you already can’t really even remember it any more.
  3. Rootedness. I love the way that Advent tethers me to the Coming of God. My idea of time requires reorienting. The seasons, ordinarily defined only by observable changes in weather are now also reoriented to the life of Christ. I used to rush through life, hardly batting an eye at the ice, the crocuses, the blooming yucca, the crunching leaves, the ice, the crocuses, the blooming… Now I get to enjoy all of those things in the present while also feeling more rooted in the past realities of a baby God, a man on a cross, a man not in a grave, ordinary time, a baby God, a man on a… God comes to live in my present because God – Emmanuel: God has come to live with us – in the past.

Friends who practice something for Advent – share your thoughts below???

Warmly,
Jocelyn

 

* I know, I know, it wasn’t the sewage plant, but I think that’s a very fair equivalent, don’t you? It might actually be too sterile a comparison – our sewage plant workers are much more sanitary than probably anyone back then, seeing as how in some places, their sewage plants were their streets. Yech.

“Lord, help.”

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Almost all of my prayers right now seem to end with these two searching words: “Lord, help.”

“Lord, help,” might sound desperate, but God can handle desperation. He can do something with despair. He just can’t do as much with its opposite: the buttoned-up and the already-got-it-all-figured-out.

“Lord, help,” might sound simple, but God does not need you to impress him with your flowery intellectualism. He can do something with simplicity. He just can’t do as much with its opposite: the it’s-complicated and the smarty-pants-snob.

“Lord, help,” might sound irresponsible, but God does not need you to prove that you can do anything without him. He can do something with the humility of letting someone else help. He just can’t do as much with its opposite: the I’ve-got-this-all-on-my-own.

“Lord, help,” might sound like a catch-all, but isn’t that exactly what God is, in a manner of speaking: the Catch-All for all of Life? If Christ’s Death was the catch-all “I’ve got you” for everything bad that happens in our lives, then Christ’s Coming Back to Life was the the catch-all promise that there is always, always, always Hope.

“Lord, help,” might sound trite, but is isn’t trite if you mean it, so mean it just as much as you can mean it, and God’ll know it. He can do a whole lot with the wholest-heart you can give him.

Lord, help. Help us all. Amen.

walk through the leaves

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hiking at Mt. Rainier National Park last weekend #nofilter

Have you taken a walk through the leaves yet? Consider this your friendly reminder to do so.

(Unless of course you’re one of my southern hemisphere, arctic, equatorial, or Montana(!) readers. Sorry.)

At the risk of sounding like a positive-thinking life coach or ethereal breathing instructor, I just can’t stand the thought of any of us making it through fall and into winter without spending at least twenty minutes sometime at a leisurely pace, tromping through the leaves. It is such a rich sensory experience: leaves crunching, leaves sogging, leaves whisking, sun pouring, sun beating, wind biting, wind bending, rain misting, rain drenching, rain dripping.

I know you’re busy, but please-oh-please just put it in your calendar right now and do it sometime this week. I’ll sleep much better. 😉 You can even take a photo of it and tag me on instagram if that’ll help motivate you.

This season never fails to catch me off guard: that one of the most vivid and splendorous times of our year is brought to us by all sorts of death. Death = beautiful. Ha! There’s an upside down idea to think about while you traipse through the leaves.

(Unless of course you bring your kids and they won’t let you get a quiet thought in edgewise. But still take them; it’ll be better with them, anyway.)

Warmly,
Jocelyn

something better than Good, Fine, Great

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photo by Camille Orgel for Unsplash

 

“How was your weekend?”

“Good.”

“How’s work going?”

“Fine.”

“How’s your friend, so-and-so?”

“Oh, he’s great. Yeah, just great.”

Sounds familiar, right? Isn’t that pretty much the sum of 95% of our in-passing conversations?

I’ll let you in on a little secret: Sometimes, in-passing, I’m flat out lying. And I know you are, too. Sometimes it’s not Good, Fine, or Great. Sometimes it’s Meh, Ugh, and Blech.

Here’s the thing: our problem isn’t our in-passing lying. No, there’s a time and a place for everything, even quick and semi-dishonest answers. Our biggest problem is that we expect life to be perpetually Good, Fine, and Great, with absolutely no Not-So-Great interruptions. We keep working so hard to achieve Good, Fine, Great and we get sad, frustrated, and sometimes despairing when we keep coming up with Meh, Ugh, and Blech instead.

Maybe we’re expecting the wrong things. Maybe God has better things for our lives than just Good, Fine, Great.

Like salvation.

Salvation has taken on a much bigger meaning in the past few years of my studies. (I’ve written about it before at Life with Jocelyn: here and here, for example.) It has been a wondrously freeing and humbly eye-opening experience to learn that I’d been using the word “saved” and thinking of the concept of “salvation” in a completely different way than Jesus and the Bible use that word. Furthermore, I have read and met a widening cloud of Christians who have a very different – much broader, much more ongoing – idea of salvation than I had had. And they got their ideas from the same Bible as me! To think!?

Salvation is the ongoing healing, restoring, rescuing, re-making, re-forming work of God in, of, and through all creation. All of creation is being saved. All of God’s work is salvific. Much of what is already happening in this world that is healing, restoring, rescuing, re-making, re-forming things is God doing God’s salvation work. Count on it. The more hidden and unknown, quiet and humble it is, the more you can be sure of it being so.

You have already in your lifetime received many tastes of the salvation of God, whether or not you’ve given God credit. And the salvation of God is ready today for further tasting, if you will only stick out your tongue. And tomorrow you’ll receive the salvation of God again, if you know what’s good for you.

One more thing: healing, restoring, rescuing, re-making, re-forming are nice sounding words, but when God does them in my life and heart, they are not always nice feeling. In fact, usually they do not feel nice at all. Ideas I’ve clung to for years must be broken down and thrown out. Coping mechanisms I’ve used for decades must be wrenched from my white-knuckled grip. Things I’ve always really treasured must be exposed for the sub-par loves that they are. When I finally experience the freedom that results, that is a nice feeling. But there are many good reasons why the symbol of the salvation work of God is a cross, a death.

This week in The Way of a Pilgrim, first written in Russian by anonymous, I came across the following. A starets, or monk, gave this encouragement to the pilgrim brother whose had encountered a series of very grim life events:

God orders every event for the help and salvation of man; ‘He willeth that all men should be saved.’ Take courage then [in the midst of your many distresses]… Soon you will be rejoicing much more than you are now distressed.

I’d always thought, unthinkingly, that ‘He willeth that all men should be saved,’ meant that God doesn’t want anyone’s soul to go to hell when their body dies. I’d never before connected ‘He willeth that all men should be saved,’ with God’s ordering every event in our lives for our help and salvation. What a refreshing perspective on all of the stuff that goes wrong in life! God wants everyone to be saved. Sometimes salvation can only come about through distresses and Meh, Ugh, Blech. Do not expect only Good, Fine, Great; you will only be disappointed. Expect salvation, knowing that salvation cannot come only through perpetual, uninterrupted Good, Fine, Great.

Next time your weekend is rotten or your workday goes badly or you’re sure your friends don’t like you, just pray to God in your heart: ‘He willeth that all men should be saved.’ God wants you to be saved! God wants to save you. God wants you to experience – today – more and more salvation. God is at work. God is saving you, vigorously and vibrantly!

You don’t have to be happy when your weekend sucks and your work is going nowhere and your friends never text you. You can still feel plenty sad about all of that. But make sure just to be sad. Do not let yourself become sad and despairing. You must not despair: God is at work. God is saving you, vigorously and vibrantly! Maybe God will even use your Meh, Ugh, and Blech life to do so. How then can you despair?

a mature life of faith: living between the poles

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The great sociologist of religion, Max Weber, placed the religious life between the poles of charisma and routine, between the spontaneous, excited outpouring of new life in the spirit and the dogged institutionalization of truth in everyday responsibilities. The mature life of faith is lived between the poles, not around either of them.

Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder, x-xi

 

Between the poles.

Between the poles of charisma and routine.

Between:

Charisma / glory / wow-factor / attractiveness / charm

and

Routine / mundane / dutiful obligations fulfilled

Neither are to become the settled-for, default, gathering pole for my life? Really, neither?

We have all definitely spent seasons of our lives being drawn to one pole or the other, each in their turn. We have fluttered, unwittingly, like moths to a porch light in the dark.

We’ve all had seasons of being drawn to the charisma of a certain leader or teacher, writer or pastor. Sure, their message was mostly(?) good, but if we’re honest it was their good looks, way with words, or the affirmation of our being “right” because we agreed with them that most attracted us to listen.

We’ve all had times of being drawn to the charisma of a fanatical life – whether celebrity or wealthy, skilled or knowledgable, ascetic or missionary – the extraordinary life that amazes and inspires. Sure, our motives were mostly(?) good, but we can’t deny that we craved the attention and accolades, the feeling of being “known” and the large and regular helpings of self-importance.

And: we’ve all had seasons of being drawn to the routine of a regular life with a reliable salary and the comfortable luxury of fast wi-fi. Sure, reliability and comfort and watching The Office reruns every night are mostly(?) good, but they make a small and terrible story as the lived-glory of our lives.

We’ve all had times of being drawn to the routine of memberships and involvements, the security of belonging somewhere that was sure to “count.” Sure, our motives were mostly(?) good, but we can’t deny that we loved the reassurance of being an insider on the inside, and the endless tasks and needs to fulfill that gave us a sense of accomplishment within and significance from without.

So: somewhere in-between? I wonder where that is. I wonder where that will be.

It makes me think of Jesus’ life: a life containing, indeed, a mix of charisma (authoritative preaching and amazing miracles and impassioned calls to repent) and routine (touching sick people and eating dinner with his friends and disappearing to pray alone). But Charisma did not mark his life, nor did Routine. Jesus the God-human was marked by the in-between things, things like: Love, Humility, Self-Control, Salvation. Character things. Lasting things. Things  far more glorious than any charisma, far more reliable than any routine.

Some of the best (albeit invisible) work of our lives will be praying and disciplining ourselves to remain content with the in-between, resisting the undertow that pulls us willy nilly toward the cheap glamour of charisma and back again toward the false security of routine. It will be a fantastic working together of the miracle of God’s grace and of our tenacious self-mastery if we will live our lives marked by the character of the in-between: Love and Humility, Self-Control and Salvation.

Toward which pole do you most naturally gravitate? Why?

What will it take for you to remain in the in-between?

the salvation of loss

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I’ve heard a few stories of loss this week. No deaths or anything that would make the church bulletin prayer list, really — just more of your everyday, behind-the-scenes, run-of-the-mill kinds of loss.

Loss of friendships. Loss of psychological bearings in a new season of life. Loss of inheritance. Loss of what were sunny expectations in a long-term relationship.

I have some of my own stories of loss; in fact, some of them sound a lot like these. I’m sure you have your stories, too.

Whenever I hear stories of loss, of course I feel extremely sad for the person suffering, my heart swells with empathy and I grieve their loss, no matter how small or foreign it may seem to be.

These stories have made me think again about the story of rich, successful, accomplished, self-made Zacchaeus   and how his story is a story of loss. (Scroll down to read the story in its entirety; I pasted the text at the very bottom.) It was voluntary loss, but it was loss nonetheless. Zacchaeus’ life was going so well!! You would have loved it, wanted it, envied it. Upon coming face to face with Jesus, Zacchaeus impulsively stripped himself of his wealth, his success, his status, his honor, his best efforts to save face. Zacchaeus was already “in” in all of the ways that it was good to be “in.” In one fell swoop, he lost it all: “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” And instead of empathy for what would prove to be great personal loss to Zacchaeus’ popularity, bank account, security, and personal comfort, Jesus unexpectedly burst out with my favorite line in the story: “Today salvation has come to this house!” Because stories of loss are stories of salvation.

Then, Jesus again: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

*    *    *    *    *    *

We tend to think of the salvation of God as mostly sunny, like a beautiful summer day. We tend to picture the salvation of God as mostly ooey-gooey and delicious, like a brownie. We tend to think of the salvation of God as mostly emotionally triumphant, like a happy-tears-filled altar call.

No, the salvation of God often comes to us in the gloomiest, most bitter, most emotionally defeating places in our lives. The salvation of God often lies on the other side of loss. Whenever you lose something, voluntarily or involuntarily, you have come to the edge of salvation. In your most dismal moments of loss, you have arrived at the precipice of experiencing more of God and God’s salvific way of things.

Because stories of loss are stories of salvation.

In whatever areas of your life you hear yourself saying, “I feel so lost…” those are precisely the areas in which God is in the very midst – saving, restoring, healing, transforming: salvation. In whatever areas of your life you sense loneliness or hurt or grief or loss, those are precisely the areas in which God is inviting you to walk with him through the difficult mess and into newer, fresher, even more life-giving life: Eternal Life.

It is exactly in those lost places that the Son of Man comes to seek and save you. It is perhaps only when you are willing and ready to admit that you are, indeed, utterly and self-hopelessly lost that the Son of Man is able to seek and save you.

Don’t get me wrong: even if you let your loss lead you to the salvation of God, the salvation of God will not make you feel immediately, permanently sunny. You will still have a lot of muck through which to walk. (I mean, at the very least, your loves will need re-ordering, your vices will need confessing, and your pride will need humiliating.) Yes, the loss will still sting. In fact, the salvation of God may not alleviate any of the sting of the loss. Ever. But if you choose to let your losses lead you to the vast landscape of the salvation of God, you can be sure of a few things: that you will be with God (even if you can’t feel it) and that God will become more known to you (over time) and you will eventually benefit from knowing God more (and that will probably make you least a little bit happy).

Today you lost your inheritance? “Oh, how great! Today salvation has come to you!” Today you suffer a loss of psychological bearings in a new season of life? “Oh, how great! Today salvation has come to you!” Today you’ve lost another friendship? “Oh, how great! Today salvation has come to you!” Today you seem to have lost your sunny expectations in a long-term, established relationship? “Oh, how great! Today salvation has come to you!”

Loss leads to salvation? It’s an upside down world with Jesus, again, friends.

 

 

 

Luke 19: Zacchaeus’ Loss

He entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

An open prayer to God-Who-Shows-Favor

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This may come as a surprise to you (I know it definitely has to me!), but the longer I walk down the path toward God, the more drawn I am to already-written prayers. I find such ease in just reading, such comfort in finding my own feelings and thoughts already amply expressed, such unity in knowing that these are all prayers God has already fielded from so many holy mouths. I also find tremendous freedom of focus, having only to coax my heart into alignment with the words rather than to invent the words with my brain and coax my heart into alignment.

Today I offer you a prayer. I suppose that you could consider it an open prayer, along the lines of the open letter which is a cultural norm in our day. It is both a prayer for your sake and a prayer for your employ. I mean, I have already prayed it to God on your behalf and now I share it with you as a prayer that you may read to God on behalf of yourself and others. Don’t just read it. Try praying it.

God-Who-Shows-Favor:

I imagine your favor as being always in my periphery, as if you inhabit every corner of my home, my workplace, my neighborhood, my city, our world. You are too humble to appear front and center in every frame of my life. You prefer to sit at my side, to wait in the wings, to condescend yourself into a position of steady support. And yours is not the shallow support of a cheerleader – a baseless, arbitrary romance toward one team and a baseless, arbitrary hatred toward the other. No, yours is a deep and particular support for however and whatever leads ultimately to the Best Good for all. Couched in Wisdom. Founded in Reality.

I imagine turning occasionally to glimpse you and that whenever our eyes meet you are wearing a broadly goofy grin, nearly beside yourself with excitement just to be thought of and to have caught my attention for a moment. “Just admiring you,” you say. The smile takes over your entire face. It is almost an ugly smile, it is so robust. It makes me a bit uncomfortable. Anyone who has seemed to like me so much has always had ulterior motives. But there is something different about this grin. You seem simply, blissfully not to be aware of the social graces that keep most of us from expressing our uninhibited enthusiasm for whatever, whomever we love. It occurs to me that you are exactly like a child in this way. I cannot help it – a laugh bursts from my throat and out my mouth. It sounds fairly like a guffaw. I guess it is just that your face so caught me off guard. It is so unabashedly sincere, so indescribably splendid, and yet so innocently light-hearted. For a moment I am embarrassed at the abruptness of my laugh; it must have seemed fairly rude, to laugh essentially in your face. But you show no signs of embarrassment, even on my behalf. Social graces drown in the wake of instinct — of spontaneous reaction to life as it comes to you. 

And so: what else could I do? In the face to so much emanating favor, and that directed so intently, so unobligatorily… toward me.The only thing to do was: laugh.

I suppose that it was my receipt of your favor.

I suppose that it was your receipt for your favor.

I think it might have been all you wanted.