Enoch Arden (An Oil Selection)

Enoch Arden
Watercolor heightened with bodycolour, 1924
George Goodwin Kilburne

The custom has been for the pieces in this Oil section to be paired with a literary passage or other medium to help flesh out both. However, in the case when the painting is actually based on a literary work we are free to break this bond in order to not lesson the former with the later (or vice-versa). So here, unrestrained by a rather disheartening work, is a lovely scene on which to write a new story. Have at it.

For simple reference here is the narrative poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson of the same title.

For more items of this nature please visit our Oil section here but not here.

The Happiest Place on Earth

This post originally appeared on my blog for the local paper, here in Newton. You can visit that blog here but certainly not here.

It was misting and grey when I looked out the window last Saturday morning, and the forecast was rain, ice and snow. Better still, my wife and I had no plans but to make no plans and relax. We had a breakfast of eggs, venison sausage, fried potatoes, milk and coffee. As we ate, the mist turned to rain which turned to snow and some of the snow began to stick on the grass, tree branches and the windshields of our cars parked on the street. A walk was clearly out of the question, so we decided I would read to her while she put together some crafts for an upcoming family wedding.

For months now, off and on, we have been reading The Hobbit aloud, usually in the evenings when my wife has a project to do that requires little brainpower. So, as the snow picked up and early morning turned to late morning, I read to her about Bilbo and Gandalf and giant spiders, elves and scary dark forests. At times I would wonder whether she was listening as she worked, but I was reassured when I read a particularly grisly description of a giant spider’s eight hairy legs and she said, “Ew, Nasty!” Every once in a while I would look up from the book out our large picture window and exclaim, “Look at it come down now!” or “Heather! Look how big thoseflakes are!”

It was one of those days that make me think to myself, “You know, living in Newton is about as good as living anywhere else I can imagine.” A morning in Trafalgar Square, London or a night walking along the Seine in Paris could not have been any more satisfying than sitting in front of that picture window, watching the snow, sipping coffee, reading to my wife and digesting that hearty breakfast. Oh I’ve heard the exclamations, and at times they’ve come out of my mouth: “I have to get out of Newton!” “This place is holding me down.” “Nothing happens here.” “If only I lived in_________.” There is nothing wrong with wanting to expand your horizons by seeing and experiencing new places. I’ve done that; it was life altering and perspective enlarging, but it’s no good thinking those other places will make you satisfied or happy; they won’t. Move for practical reasons; move for career reasons; move for study reasons; move for family reasons, but don’t move for reasons of happiness or satisfaction. Newton has about as much to do with your happiness or unhappiness as a plastic flower has to do with photosynthesis.

At the end of the broadcast of the 1998 Kansas State, Nebraska football game in which K-State had defeated the boys in red 40-30 for the first time in twenty-nine years, the TV announcer, Keith Jackson, declared, as he watched students swarming the field and goalposts, “So It’s a goodnight from the happiest place on Earth—Manhattan, Kansas.” Last Saturday evening, as I lay in bed thinking about the day, I think I could have said the same about Newton.

R. Eric Tippin
In The Study on 8^th Street

A Smoking Problem

Though it may be only a trifle, let me lay this problem before you...

It is a great struggle to drop a habit. Sometimes even more so before the habit is established! This is just the case with pipe smoking and myself. The shear value of smoking a pipe is growing on my mind by the day and great difficulty has arisen in finding a substitute for the habit that I seem to be driven to adopt. For, my only hope in this instances, as it appears to my mind, is the discovery of a substitute.

Before I go much further, I must further address the reason for the surmounting worth of such a habit. For, if value is found in necessity, these pipes may be worth the pawning of the kitchen table. As I see it, the worth advances upon me on two fronts.

Firstly, at the root, it seems I am unable to or at least absolutely inept at, sitting quietly and thinking for long periods of time without being engaged in at least some menial activity. I often have the desire to sit and think for mental rest and refreshment, but I find an overwhelming sense of guilt at the very point of sitting and doing nothing. I'm sure the underlying psychology of this is rather too torturous to be addressed here. None the less, this wonderful meniality of the task is the nitch that pipe smoking has filled with such gusto. It allows someone to be "doing something" while really doing nothing but sitting and thinking. One would assume that such a function could be picked up easily by some other means. Yet, all the possibilities that come to mind are either not peaceful or are quite distracting.

In looking for a substitute it had to be something that allowed my eyes to wonder around God's creation and not take too much thinking within itself. This ruled out whittling, reading, sketching, and writing. Knitting, although a man's game (see Flight of the Chonchords or just trust me), would not be acceptable simply because of a lack of skill on my part. Health concerns, though not completely ruling out smoking in this case, do seem to rule out chewing and the rather necessary aspect of spitting at intervals. Poking a fire would also have seemed to do quite nicely, but availability of said fire could often become a difficulty. Probably the most nearly adequate option could have been sipping a hot cup of tea or coffee. This however did not suit in that I quaf coffee in two shakes when I am not in conversation with another or absorbed in studying a text. It's brief duration, then, is its downfall as a true substitute.

Smoking, I'm afraid, has all of these benefits and none of the downsides. And for those of you, myself included, who may be slightly adverse to the health risks, any undue concern could be quite easily dispatched with a cost/benefit analysis. If an hour of introspection and contemplation could be gained, the value could far outweigh a week of thoughtless living that may or may not be granted by the LORD in a furthering of these earthly years.

Secondly (It seems quite a spell since I said firstly), its value as simply a reason.

One cannot underestimate the value of being able to give a reason for or description of what one is up to. Many of my ruminations are not well enough constructed to be described in a word or two. The wonder of a tied activity is that it fulfills this most important of requirements. To be able to say "I'm enjoying a pipe," or "I'm eating a bowl of cereal" is of utmost value. A true statement is thusly provided while allowing one to finish the mental construction project. If you are caught simply thinking all sorts of ramshackle tidbits, sentences and concepts may be required in an explanation, for, I'm afraid, "just thinking" is rarely an adequate response.

This was to be the end of the story with a subtle wrap up in defense of smoking in a rather un-smoking world, but it was not to be! At the moments of these finishing touches in the smoke tinged air, a very real blast of fresh air removed the cloudiness of my thoughts. Wouldn't you know it, I'd been assuming the necessity that I be "still" to be "still." This was a great folly. For, I found myself on a walk.

Phillip Tippin
Thought, but not written, under snowy oaks
Roeland Park, KS

Sneaky

Whether innocence does or does not define childhood, one thing that certainly finds its fullest expression in youth is sneakiness. Yes, that special trait that is not only present in childhood but actually pursued with vigor. For, the rewards are unparalleled: Laughter, excitement, freedom, discovery, and adventure, just to name a few.

Here is a young fellow coming to the realization that his sister does not know he is in the living room as she quietly reads her book. Is it not laughter which may be gained by embodying sneakiness before yelling "Bonanza!" at close range?

Here is a barefoot little girl, I would say about 6 years of age. The cuteness of the furry squirrels about her in the trees cannot be understated, but, Oh, to see them up close! Her motionless visage awaits the opportunity to bound around the tree for a close encounter. The joy of an explorer and the satisfaction of discovery.

Here is a youth on a warm sunny afternoon restricted to a time in his room for "rest." The minutes slowly tick by and although he is sure they forgot to wake him, just in case, he must tip-toe to the kitchen to find whether his time has been served. "Please, let the clock say three" runs through his head as he stealthily creeps down the hall to have a look. Is not freedom the hope of the sneaking lad?

One final picture must be described. Here is a gang of three young friends. The battle to gun down the outlaws has gone on for over an hour. The mothers seem to be oblivious to the dangerous renegades on the loose in the back yard as they sip their Diet Coke, but the boys will protect them just the same. Seeing that there is no cover by the sandbox, the boys simply must sneak behind the toy firetruck to have a clear shot at capturing the outlaws beneath the trampoline. They sneak for adventure and they fight for fun.

It seems quite established in my mind, therefore, that sneakiness can be a valuable asset in the young, but I have more than a sneaking suspicion that all of this changes about the time we find the wider world before us. At first blush it would appear that the change is one of roles. We simply are no longer the sneaker but rather the sneaked upon. This view is probably the one most accepted based on the language we employ. All kinds of things begin "sneaking up" on us from parenthood to the thirties to the forties to grandchildren! However, I would argue this is a blatant excuse and misuse of language. We have, rather, lost our own sneaking aptitude more than, in any way, we are being sneaked upon.

I would suggest it is a matter of expectations and preparedness. For, how can we say that things are sneaking up on us when we ourselves are steadily moving toward those stationary objects? The very things that we ought to be approaching cautiously and with great anticipation become the dreaded surprises when we simply stop and look around us at different intervals on our way. This is a shame, because it takes away so much of the reward and excitement of each new discovery.

Really, we impune the innocence of our current situation because of our woeful under preparedness to encounter the surprising. We must reclaim the sneaking for ourselves. Stop the defense and go on the offense. The effect of offensive sneaking in our old age may, in fact, surprise us! Who knows what we will find on the other side of the tree if only we will approach on tip toes and with bated breath.

Phillip Tippin
In 6/8 time
Roeland Park, KS

Mr. Musk on Mars

     Recently, in an interview with Rainn Wilson, Elon Musk—founder of Paypal, champion of atheistic science and aspiring Mars Colonizer—in response to a question about why he would want to colonize Mars said this: “Because, uh, I think that’s the best place where humans can become a multi-planet species, and a space-bearing civilization, cause I think that’s one of the most important things that we could accomplish. Uh, in fact I think it’s important enough that it would actually fit on the scale of evolution itself. You know, I think perhaps it is at least as important as life going from the oceans to land. The probability of consciousness existing for a long time, uh, would be much greater if we were on two planets.” Later, he answered the question, “What do you worship?” with, “Well, I don’t really worship anything, but I do devote myself to the advancement of humanity, uh, using technology.”

     So his highest goal in his life is to ensure the existence of the human race as long as possible. But, I suppose as an atheist, it is the highest “good” to which he can aspire. What struck me was how his words echo, almost exactly, the sentiments of the atheist, Mars-colonizing villain, Weston in C.S. Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet. When faced with an alien civilization that asks him why he would want to colonize Mars and disposes them Weston gives the following response:

“To you I may seem a vulgar robber, but I bear on my shoulders the destiny of the human race. Your tribal life with its stone-age weapons and beehive huts, its primitive coracles and elementary social structure, has nothing to compare with our civilization – with our science, medicine and law, our armies, our architecture, our commerce, and our transport system which is rapidly annihilating space and time. Our right to supersede you is the right of the higher over the lower . . . Life is greater than any system of morality; her claims are absolute. It is not by tribal taboos and copy-book maxims that she has pursued her relentless march from the amoeba to man and from man to civilization.”

       “Well, I don’t really worship anything, but I do devote myself to the advancement of humanity, uh, using technology.” “Life is greater than any system of morality.” You’d think Mr. Musk and Mr. Weston had been sharing notes. Even in our ironic era, the goal of atheistic materialists has not changed. And C.S. Lewis is still a genius.

R. Eric Tippin
In The Study on 8th Street
Newton, KS