Texas Trip

We took a road trip! Upon reflection, we think it's the first time we have gone on the road with the whole family since 2010, possibly since 2009 (the year we drove from Illinois to Texas and back two times, first for my father-in-law's burial and second for my mother-in-law's).

It's not that we haven't done a lot of driving the last few years. We have. But it's all been to transport college kids back and forth, earn income, or move. This trip was purely for pleasure, and although it was short, it was very, very sweet.

Our destination was the Texas bay area (Houston & Galveston). We packed up the car and drove away Wednesday after lunch, arriving at about 10:30 p.m. Along the way we saw some of the flooding that has beset Texas this spring and summer.

While in Texas we stayed with my sister-in-law, who has a very nice 2 BR/2 BA guest cottage. We spent the first day taking it pretty easy.

Relaxing on the porch

Squeezing and picking

Relaxing in the yard

Playing in the yard and the pond

Playing with the pups

And just generally being silly.

The second day of our visit, we spent the day at Galveston. We started with the Ropes Course at Moody Gardens. It proved a formidable challenge for me and Evan, and we did not last long. The advantage to that was it freed me up to take pictures of the others.

After the ropes course, Trevor, Caitlin and Phillip rode the Moody Gardens zip line. I stayed on the ground with Evan. I like the ground. :-) (But in retrospect, I wish I had spent the money to do the zip line rather than the ropes course. The ropes course was way more scary than I expected, even safely harnessed in, and according to those who did it the zip line was less scary.)

From Moody Gardens we went to the Rainforest Cafe for lunch. (Yes, it is a restaurant with a gimmick. But the food is also very, very good! Check out the picture of my lunch--a portabello wrap with sides of steamed vegies and cole slaw. It was delicious! )

After lunch we hit the beach, of course.

On the seawall we snapped a picture of a cross carrier.

We came home Saturday. But before leaving the area we took a short roots tour. After years and years of making annual trips to Texas, we don't go as often these days. With a 22-year-old and a 19-year-old,  who knows when we'll go again with the whole family. So we made time for a few bonus stops. This is the first house Phillip and I ever rented, in League City, Texas. (It's also the first house in which I experienced a hurricane!)

This is the second house we rented, in Dickinson, Texas. Trevor came home from the hospital to this house (baby's room was the one sticking out in front, on the right.)

We also stopped at Hope Lutheran in Friendswood, where we attended for several years, where Phillip got his start as a church musician, and where Trevor was baptized. The original sanctuary is no longer there. The new sanctuary is in the distance. Trevor is standing under the old church bell on the site of the old church.

For a whirlwind trip, it was most excellent. Goodbye, Galveston Bay.

Hello, Oklahoma!

That moment . . .

. . . when you scoot over in church to create a little more personal space, and your 11-year-old son immediately scoots over just enough to fill it in. ♥

Inside Out

Great movie, highly recommended. We saw it Sunday. We don't see many movies in (or, for that matter, out of) the theater. My 11-year-old has been to the movie theater very few times in his life, due in part to our family's practice of not going very often but also in part to his own resistance. Highly sensitive one that he is, he does not feel safe in front of a movie or television screen when he doesn't know what's coming.

So when the two adult children and I decided to go I was prepared for Evan to say no, but I guess he is growing up a bit because this time he decided to join us. And it turned out to be a fitting movie for him. The main character is a young girl of 11 whose parents have decided to move from Minnesota to California. The reason for the move is not entirely clear, although it seems to be related to the dad's effort to start a new business. In the movie the parents are distracted and worried and counting on their daughter to continue to be her happy-go-lucky self. (This all sounds too familiar.) At its core it is an initiation story. Riley, the little girl, tries for a while to maintain her customary cheerfulness but ultimately can't. The emotion named Joy (personified as a character in her head) has to learn that Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust all have important roles to play and that she (Joy) can't get Riley through life without them. I was a weepy mess for about the last 15 minutes of the movie, trying to contain my sobs in the movie theater so as not to disturb the other patrons.

This movie is earnest and pure. I can't recall any bathroom humor or gratuitous gross-outs. The relationship between Riley and her parents is a loving one. The parents are good people trying to do their best as they navigate the challenges of adulthood. The importance of family is crucial.

And, there are some great laughs along the way, as we get peeks at the personified emotions that are also working to direct the actions of Mom and Dad and a few other characters. (Classic moment: when Mom picks up that something is wrong with Riley and tries to alert Dad with some non-verbal cues, the focus shifts to Dad's emotions, all of which are inside his head sitting on a couch watching television sports. It takes them a few moments to jump to attention and try to figure out what message they are supposed to be receiving. :-))

We are looking forward to watching it again with the dad in this house when it comes out on DVD.

The Peace that Passes Understanding

There was much comfort to be had in this morning's service. One of our amazingly gifted musicians sang an exquisite setting of Psalm 121 by Lee Dengler.



"I Will Lift Up My Eyes" (Psalm 121) from Cheryl on Vimeo.


Later for the Voluntary she sang my husband's arrangement of LSB 846.

"Your Hand, O Lord, in Days of Old" (Lutheran Service Book 846) from Cheryl on Vimeo.

I could hardly get through one phrase of "Gracious God, You Send Great Blessings" during communion. I was reminded whence our joy comes by the closing hymn, "In Thee is Gladness."

And in Mark's Gospel, there was this: "Do not fear, only believe."

Amen.

College Graduate

Five weeks ago today our son graduated with honors from University of Nebraska in Lincoln. He now holds a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance and has been accepted into the Master's program at Texas Christian University.

I was not able to attend Trevor's graduation ceremony due to the need to retrieve his sister, who concluded her freshman year of college in another state the same weekend. But my husband attended and of course took along the camera so as to provide a pictorial record of this momentous event!

Awaiting the entrance of the graduates

I think that is Trevor walking behind his departmental banner.

I think Trevor is third row from the bottom, fourth student from left.

Son and proud father. :-)

In front of the music building.

Outside his piano teacher's office for the last time. 

In August of 2011 we dropped a high school graduate off in Lincoln to begin a four-year program in music. This was our last view of him as he walked into his dorm before we left to drive back to Illinois. For about five minutes after this picture was taken we sat in the car while my husband tried to help me stop sobbing uncontrollably before we drove away.

Fast forward to four years later. Different dorm, same Trevor. In some ways he hasn't changed all that much. He is still my son. He is still frighteningly smart, incredibly talented, and blessed with admirable integrity and strength of faith. But this is not the same guy in the picture above. Below you see not a fresh high school graduate but a young man of 22 about to embark on the next phase of his studies and his life. In a few months we'll take a picture of him in his new apartment on the campus of TCU. I daresay the shirt will be purple instead of red. And I daresay I'll have another good cry before we drive away.

Goings and Doings

Time for a "here's what we've been up to" post.

Hubby is on the road this week, doing some teaching and playing in South Dakota. I always look at these times as an opportunity to focus on neglected tasks. I can let the bedroom get even messier than usual while I create stacks and move them around. Time will tell if all that creating and moving leads to anything worthwhile.

Both of the college kids are earning bucks this summer. Caitlin is babysitting about 30 hours per week and Trevor is teaching with me at Sylvan and also doing some sub organ playing. They are both making great strides in their driving and hoping to get their licenses by summer's end. Yes, by today's standards they are old for getting drivers' licenses. It just hasn't been a priority for us, and with the craziness of life the past few years it was one of the things that got pushed aside. To kickstart the process we hired a driving instructor for some behind-the-wheel practice and now are just letting them drive as much as possible as we go hither and yon. I am getting to the point that I don't feel compelled to be a second set of eyes for them every second of every trip. Progress!

Evan has been taking swimming since early May and is also making great progress. He is counting the days until he goes to Lutheran summer camp next week. I have still not quite figured out how my Highly Sensitive Child who is deathly afraid of bugs and hates to be in wet or dirty clothes does so well at summer camp, but he does. He would go for more than one week per summer if we could afford it. This time he is going with one of his best friends from church, so he is even more excited as it is his friend's first time at camp, allowing him to be the experienced camper. I am so thankful for this opportunity for him.

Allergies have been horrible, just horrible, with symptoms of such severity that they make me feel ill. It was bad this time last year, too. I am loading up on OTC medications and hunkering down until it passes. For many years in Illinois I was on allergy shots but quit them when we moved. I may have to revisit immunotherapy but right now don't want to invest the time or money.

I finished my re-read of Pride and Prejudice. I liked it better this time around, but I am still not a huge Jane Austen fan. I will not be going on to another any time soon.

I am finding it difficult to reset my shopping and laundry habits for the increased numbers in the house. Probably about the time I succeed in doing so, they will leave. Sigh. The summer is going by too quickly.

It's Really Not That Hard

My friends wrote a book about female vocation. You should buy it and read it. The purpose of the book is to ponder what it means to be a Christian woman, living under the Cross, in these gray and latter days. Beyond that, there is no one kind of woman to which the book is addressed. It is for single women, married women, young women, old women, mothers and those who are not, sisters, widows, and any other kind of woman you can think of who looks to Jesus and Him Crucified for purpose in her daily life.

I am confounded, then, how negatively the book has been received by a few (a very few). The tone of the book has been attacked as being angry and resentful (nothing could be further from the truth). It has been implied that the authors are hypocrites because here they are doing something (writing a book, or editing, or teaching online classes) beyond what they see as their primary vocations of wives and mothers. (Quick aside: as the authors define it, vocation is something that God gives you to do that you can't quit doing (at least, you can't quit without its being a sin). So writing is not a vocation. Music is not a vocation. Such things are hobbies, jobs, interests, and aptitudes. But the callings of wife, mother, daughter, sister, and neighbor--these are vocations. They are the stations in life into which God has placed us and from which we are called to serve.)

Okay, I guess that wasn't a quick aside. Back to the point of the post. There are those who seem to think that because LadyLike suggests that service to the people God has placed in one's life should come ahead of other stuff that they are therefore saying there is something wrong with, or no place for, the other stuff. That is not what they're saying. They are actually not saying anything different for female vocation than they are for male vocation. Whether we are male or female, our most important calling, after that of baptized child of God, is to serve our neighbor. When it gets to the specifics of how men and women do that, yes, there are differences because men and women are different (does this really need to be said?). But for both men and women, vocation is about service to others. Those in our immediate family are the ones we are called to serve first. From there the circle of service can expand to church, neighborhood, town, country and world. So if there's time after the family has been taken care of, then by all means, write a book, learn a Beethoven sonata, teach a class, volunteer at the library, draw a picture, engage in politics, or do some work for money. But don't let those things take precedence over serving the people you love, the ones God has placed before you in the life He has given you. How you work that out, on your own if you're single or with your husband if you're married, is a matter of Christian freedom.

Seems pretty simple to me. There is no conflict here, no contradiction, no hypocrisy. Why some people have such a hard time with it and insist on setting up what in Logic 101 is known as a false dilemma is a mystery to me.

LadyLike was the Issues, Etc. Book of the Month in May, and the authors spent some time talking to Todd Wilken, the host of Issues, about their book. Yesterday was their last appearance, and listeners were invited to submit questions, which I did. Here is the question I asked:

How do you respond to those who say you are being hypocritical by promoting a traditional view of womanhood (one that says a woman's highest calling is to care for her family) when you are taking time from your family to write a book, go on a book tour, and give radio interviews?

There wasn't a lot of time to answer on the program, so Rebekah wrote a blog post yesterday that provided a more detailed answer. If you would like to read it, go to the LadyLike blog. And stay tuned for information about how you might be able to win the LadyLike book I won for asking what was determined to be one of the three best questions on yesterday's show. (I already have a copy, and as great as it is, I think one is enough and so desire to share the love.)

Tooting My Own Horn

I'm allowed to do that here, right? :-)

My most recent article at The Federalist has gotten noticed by a few other sites. First, it was linked by Instapundit and Hot Air. I knew about those. But I recently discovered that it was also mentioned at The American Conservative as well as a couple of other blogs. WOOT, Or maybe that should be . . . TOOT!

Pentecost

Today was our second Sunday with the new piano. It is still settling in to its new home and is not holding the tuning it received after the move. The Cantor does have a tuning hammer, though, so last night we downloaded a tuning app to my iPhone and spent some time trying to adjust some of the worst strings. It helped, but if you have a good ear for such things you will still be able to hear some discrepancies.

For right now the piano has been located at the back of our sanctuary to one side. Several pews had to be removed to make room for it. The long-term goal is to remove even more pews and relocate the entire music area to the same place, walling off the current music space and turning it into a storage and warm-up area. Big plans!

Today I videotaped for the first time in a while. The new set-up makes it a lot easier. For several of the pieces I was able to prop up the camera and just let it roll. Evan helped me with a few others. So for those who are interested and not on Facebook to see these, here's a sampling of our worship today. One of these days maybe we will be able to permanently install equipment that will get much better picture and sound than I am able to get with my little handheld. I think people would be greatly blessed by it. I don't know why, but it always surprises me to hear how many people enjoy these videos that I post.

The Prelude.
Even though we were down a few choir members for the three-day weekend, I think this is a wonderful illustration of how far our choir has come in the last few years! The balance is a little heavy toward the men because they are closest to the microphone. Luckily they sound great!


"Lord, Make Me to Know Thy Ways" (Psalm 25:4-5) from Cheryl on Vimeo.

The Entrance Rite with Opening Hymn (organ & trumpets), Russian Kyrie (a cappella), and special Hymn of Praise (Alabare with trumpets and percussion).


Pentecost Sunday Entrance Rite from Cheryl on Vimeo.

The Verse of the Day (from Liturgy Solutions) with a solo by my eldest.

Verse for Pentecost from Cheryl on Vimeo.

The Voluntary, arranged, played and sung by my husband.


"To God the Holy Spirit, Let Us Pray" from Cheryl on Vimeo.

Forgiveness

There were two items on the topic of forgiveness in my news feed this morning, both excellent, both from (surprise!) Lutherans.

The first is a Federalist article by Mark Hemingway that asks, " . . . [D]o we want to live in a society where everyone feels they’re justified in their self-centered critiques, or do we want to live in a society where when we’re confronted with something that offends us, we seek to understand and forgive?"

The second is from my friend Susan. It is a clip from a Milwaukee call-in show. The topic is a recent random killing in Wisconsin in which one of the victims, before he died, called for forgiveness for the shooter. The caller in the clip is Susan's pastor. I only wish the host had let him talk a lot more. 

Church Pianist

A Facebook friend shared this. She did not make it and we have no idea who did! She found it on the "Christian Memes" Facebook page, which has 384,000 followers. For readers who may not know, that is my husband, bottom right. I love that he is the "what I really do" picture because yes, that is what he really does. :-)  

Speaking of being a church pianist, here he is doing that today for the first time on the grand piano our church just acquired!

First Sunday on the new piano!
Posted by Katie Wogisch Haddad on Sunday, May 17, 2015

A Week of Goodbyes

My son is about to graduate from college. I was talking to him a few days ago and it hit me that as we prepare to have him come home for the summer and prepare for the next phase of his life (grad school!), he is in the process of leaving an entire world behind. For four years now he has spent the majority of his days in a different city in a different state. He has built a whole life there, going to classes, making friends, working, and attending church. He will spend this week saying goodbye to all of it.

So often as parents we look at our kids as extensions or reflections of ourselves. When they are little, we experience everything with them. As they grow, they do more and more on their own. But while they are still living at home we at least get daily reports and see them frequently enough to keep pretty close tabs on the landscape of their lives.

But then they move away. And sometimes days pass when we don't directly communicate with them. They handle more and more on their own. They experience things, small and large, that we will never even know about. That is as it should be, and is something I knew intellectually but was reminded of in a more profound way as my son shared with me his plans for his last week at school. I was focused on the beginnings: the beginning of summer, the beginning of his graduate school career, the beginning of the rest of his life. But before all those beginnings, there is an ending.

God bless your week of goodbyes, Trevor. And thank you, city of Lincoln and University of Nebraska, for being such a good place for my young adult to build his first adult life.

2015 Reading Challenge 4-Month Update

Since February, I have finished two more books and have another in progress. Looking for Alaska is done (I appreciated it, but didn't like it nearly as much as The Fault in Our Stars), as is LadyLike (previously unnamed mystery book). Moreover, a review of LadyLike has been written, submitted and accepted by Touchstone magazine! I think it will be published in the July/August issue. (Woot.) 

I am now reading Pride and Prejudice, one of the re-reads on the list. It is one of those books I read years ago because as an English major I needed to. I didn't particularly enjoy it at the time. This time around is going better--I am understanding more the enthusiasm some of my friends have for Austen. But I still don't think I will ever be a huge fan.  

All in all, I don't have quite as much to show for the last two months as I did in February. But it has been a very hectic time and summer is coming. I will need to pick up my pace to finish my list by the end of the year!

Luther on the Importance of Literature

“I am persuaded that without knowledge of literature, pure theology cannot at all endure, just as heretofore, when letters have declined and lain prostrate, theology, too, has wretchedly fallen and lain prostrate; nay, I see that there has never been a great revelation of the Word of God unless he has first prepared the way by the rise and prosperity of languages and letters, as though they were John the Baptists. There is, indeed, nothing that I have less wish to see done against our young people than that they should omit to study poetry and rhetoric. Certainly it is my desire that there shall be as many poets and rhetoricians as possible, because I see that by these studies, as by no other means, people are wonderfully fitted for the grasping of sacred truth and for handling it skillfully and happily. To be sure, 'Wisdom maketh the tongues of those who cannot speak eloquent,' but the gift of tongues is not to be despised. Therefore I beg of you that at my request (if that has any weight) you will urge your young people to be diligent in the study of poetry and rhetoric. As Christ lives, I am often angry with myself that my age and my manner of life do not leave me any time to busy myself with the poets and orators. I had bought me a Homer that I might become a Greek. But I have worried you enough with these little things. Think as well of Luther as you can of your Captiva, and farewell, strong in Christ." 

Luther's Correspondence and Other Contemporary Letters, Vol. 2, pp. 176-77, Letter to Eoban Hess, March 29, 1523

National Poetry Month, Day 13

One of the fundamental tools of any poet, writer or speaker (that pretty much includes all of us!) is connotation. Connotation refers to the emotional content or "baggage" carried by a word, whereas denotation refers to a word's objective or "dictionary" meaning. Some words are naturally more connotative than others, and some are more denotative. For example, the word "house" is more denotative, signifying a dwelling place, whereas the word "home" is more connotative, suggesting not just a dwelling place but one that is safe and welcoming. So if you wish to express the idea of "house" in a way that emphasizes its positive associations, you might use the word "home" instead. On the other hand, if you want to use a word that does not have positive associations, you might stick with the more objective "house," or you might pick a word with a negative connotation, such as "shack."

Of course, individuals may have different associations for words based on their own experiences. Someone who grew up in a home that was marked by abuse may have a different reaction to the word. But we can make generalizations about connotations of words that grow out of the experience of the majority of people in a particular group or culture.

Closely related to connotation and denotation is tone. Tone is the attitude of the writer or speaker towards his subject. More denotative word choice contributes to a more objective (emotionless) tone. More connotative word choice contributes to a more subjective (emotional) tone.

Below are two poems about snow. What is the tone of each? What words, through their connotations, help create that tone?


"Snow Flakes" - Emily Dickinson

I counted till they danced so
Their slippers leaped the town,
And then I took a pencil
To note the rebels down.
And then they grew so jolly
I did resign the prig,
And ten of my once stately toes
Are marshalled for a jig! 

"October Snow" - Lew Sarett

Swiftly the blizzard stretched a frozen arm
From out the hollow night- 
Stripping the world of all her scarlet pomp,
And muffling her in white.

Dead white the hills; dead white the soundless plain;
Dead white the blizzard's breath- 
Heavy with hoar that touched each woodland thing
With a white and silent death.

In inky stupor, along the drifted snow,
The sluggish river rolled- 
A numb black snake caught lingering in the sun
By autumn's sudden cold.

"Snow Storm" - Igor Medvedev

Learning Has Nothing to Do with Age

Evan started swimming lessons last week. He has taken lessons before and has some basic skills but is behind where most kids are by this age. This is largely due to the fact that we are not a big swimming family. Nor are we a big soccer family, a big baseball family, or a big [fill in the blank with the physical activity of your choice] family. We have always tried to have our kids do something physical, but jocks we are not and never will be.

For lessons we are going to a local swim school that offers classes during the day all year long. Evan is taking class twice per week. One of the classes is made up of him and three adorable, tiny little girls that barely come up to his belly button. When Evan and his classmates climb out of the pool to walk to the diving board it looks like a scene out of Gulliver's Travels. The other class has several boys that are a tiny bit bigger, but not much. In fact, Evan is by far the oldest child in the entire place both days that we go to class.

Evan has not uttered a single word of concern about being in a class with younger children. I don't think it has occurred to him that some kids might be bothered or embarrassed about the situation. I attribute this to homeschooling. He simply does not equate learning with age but understands that people learn at different paces and different times according to their readiness and their circumstances. This comes of growing up in a house where different-aged people learn together all the time and where it is not unusual for someone younger to be "ahead" of someone older. (Exhibit A: his mother, who is still trying to learn the Small Catechism that his brother and sister mastered years ago.)

Let's hear it (again) for homeschooling.

Of Mommies and Babies and Moments

Last week I did some piano accompanying for a local school. On Tuesday I went to the school for several hours in the morning. At one point, between rehearsals, the choir director went to her office and returned excitedly, cell phone in hand. "I just got a text from the babysitter! My baby just rolled over for the first time!" She was thrilled, and if she felt any sadness at missing this milestone, she didn't show it.

On Saturday I drove almost two hours to meet the same director and her choirs at a choral festival in a different city. I left at 5:45 in the morning and returned five hours later. The choir director had told me at our Tuesday rehearsal that the school buses would be leaving at 5:15 a.m. and not returning until 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. since after the festival the students would be spending the day at a nearby amusement park. That mommy who missed her baby rolling over on Tuesday spent all of Saturday, her supposed "day off," apart from her baby.

When I had my first child I was teaching high school English. I would usually leave for school at 7:00 a.m. so as to allow myself sufficient time to drive to work (a 30-minute drive) and prepare for the day before students came. Leaving as soon as I was allowed to do so at the end of the day, I would get home at about 4:15. I am thankful that after my baby was born he did not have to spend time in day care or with paid babysitters, as my husband's schedule at the time allowed him to care for the baby several days per week and my mom watched him the other days. That first day I drove away at 7:00 a.m. after six weeks' maternity leave, knowing I would not return for over nine hours, I could hardly drive for the tears. But at least I got to come home after school, and I got my weekends off (albeit with plenty of grading brought home). I can't imagine having to go back to school for evening or weekend events (common for public school music teachers). By God's grace this situation lasted only about six months, as the summer after my first child was born my freelance musician husband received a full-time job offer, whereupon we decided that I would no longer work full-time. From then on I have been a full-time stay-at-home mom/part-time wage-earner. Having experienced what it was like to leave my baby for over 40 hours per week, I have never looked back nor regretted that decision.

To you mommies who are staying home with babies: may God strengthen you for these very hard days, and may He grant many moments to remind you why it's all worth it.

To you mommies who are spending days away from your babies, missing too many moments but doing the best you can with the situation you have been given: may God grant excellent caregivers to watch over your babies while you're away, and may He minimize the time you have to spend apart from your children. As much as possible, babies should be with their mommies. The moments are too quickly gone.

National Poetry Month, Day 12

A literary technique that is commonly used in both poetry and prose is that of symbolism. A symbol is something that has both literal and figurative meaning. In other words, a symbol is both an actual physical object and something else that it stands for. It is different from a metaphor or simile because it is not a comparison between two things but instead a single thing with multiples levels of meaning. Some symbols are fairly obvious, easy to understand, and common to many writers. For example, the color white is often used to symbolize purity or innocence, while black may represent evil or death. A seed may represent hope, and a tree strength. Below are some things that could be used to represent other things. What might each symbolize?

a clock

the color red

rain

a snake

a cave

a house

Bonus word: a symbol that recurs over and over with the same meaning is an archetype. An archetype is so common to the human experience that we hardly even think of it as a symbol and we almost universally associate the object with its symbolic meaning. 

One of the most famous poems ever written is "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. What is the main symbol in this poem? What does it stand for? Do you think it's an archetype?

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

The Brook in the Woods, Theodore Clement Steele (1889)

An interesting piece of trivia about "The Road Not Taken" is that, while readers tend to interpret it as a serious reflection on an important decision, Frost is said to have written it to tease a friend of his, another poet named Stanley Burnshaw who was having a hard time making up his mind about something. Is there anything in the poem that might suggest it is not completely serious?

April 20

Three years ago on April 20 a bad thing happened. The last two years I was painfully aware of the approach of the date on the calendar. Yesterday I didn't even think about it until about halfway through the day. I write this today to encourage you, if you have recently had an April 20 in your life, to take heart. I know it doesn't seem like it now, but there will come a time when that date on the calendar won't be completely overshadowed by what happened in the past. I'm not saying you will forget. Your April 20 may be a hundred times worse than mine, and the last thing I want to do is make light of anyone's pain. It may be that you haven't had just one April 20 but a series of them in quick succession, and you are wondering when they're going to stop. In that case, I pray God's care and protection of you. I also pray that in time your April 20s, however many of them there are, hurt less and the day comes that you wake up to discover that April 20 came and went and you didn't even realize it because you were too busy enjoying a life that is better than you ever imagined it could be. Until then, be ye glad and trust in the One who took the worst day in history and turned it into the best day there ever was.