An introduction

So, for years I've had this Xanga blog that I never updated because, well, it was a Xanga blog. I guess at some point it was cutting edge, but now trying to put up a blog post there feels like I'm hewing the thing out of raw wood, sanding it down and putting it up without having a chance to put on a coat of varnish or anything.

So, then someone mentioned Blogger having all sorts of nifty tools, and I thought, "I read blogs and I like Blogger - I can totally do this."

So I am.

The title of the blog comes from the first book I ever fell in love with. I read from an early age, but in grade two, at the tender age of eight, this was the book that I gave myself to, body and soul, the one that changed from from the inside out, from the tips of my toes to the ends of my still-atrocious hair.

The book is "Knee-Deep in Thunder," by Sheila Moon. In the perspective of time I recognize that it is not the best book in the world, but the content changed me utterly. I'd grown up in a very conservative evangelical church where it was made obvious to me from a very early age that there were two groups of people in the world: the Evil and the Good. One of these groups - the Good - would triumph and the Evil would be destroyed, thrown into a lake of fire. If someone was Evil there was nothing you could do about it but hope that by taking about God to them enough, they'd learn not to be evil. The precise mechanism by which this would occur was unclear.

In Sheila Moon's book, a young girl named Maris and her dog, Chiaroscuro, end up in a land right out of Native legend. They and a group of giant insects have to stop a group of great beasts from despoiling the land. In any other book, the plucky young girl would find the weapon that's need to destroy them. In this book, she gets captured by them, barely escapes (losing several friends in the process) and manages to capture them.

After they're captured, there's an effort made to rehabilitate them. I remember being shocked by this. The idea that someone that Evil was even worth saving was remarkable, let along that it was the responsibility of people no greater than I to do so, was a revelation.

There's a lot more I could say here about that and maybe in time I will. I don't know what this blog wants to be about, although for now it looks like it's going to be home to some philosophical meandering. Hopefully there's more exciting stuff on the horizon.

For now, welcome to Maris' Vision. Please wipe your feet on the mat.