Category Archives: Reading

Evolutionary Hymn

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Another C.S. Lewis poem I read years ago. I didn’t “get” it at that time, but it’s very thought-provoking now.

Lead us, Evolution lead us
Up the future’s endless stair:
Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing
Lead us nobody knows where….

Ask not if it’s god or devil
Brethren, lest your words imply
Static norms of good and Evil
(As in Plato) throned on high;
Such scholastic, inelastic
Abstract yardsticks we deny.

Far too long have sages vainly
Glossed great Nature’s simple text;
He who runs can read it plainly
“Goodness = what comes next.”
By evolving, Life is solving
All the questions we perplexed.

On then! Value means survival–
Value. If our progeny
Spreads and spawns and licks each rival
That will prove its deity
(Far from pleasant, by our present
Standards, though it well may be).

In Praise of Solid People

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I came across a blog with Bilbo’s tagline, “It’s no bad thing to celebrate a simple life.” And it made me think of this poem from my Quotable Lewis.

Thank God that there are solid folk…
Who feel the things that all men feel
And think in well-worn grooves of thought
Whose honest spirits never reel
Before man’s mystery, overwrought.
Yet not unfaithful nor unkind
With work-day virtues surely staid
Theirs is the sane and humble mind
And dull affections undismayed.
O happy people! I have seen
No verse yet written in your praise
And, truth to tell, the time has been
I would have scorned your easy ways.
But now thro’ weariness and strife
I learn worthiness indeed
The world is better for such a life
As stout, suburban people lead.

The Reading List

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Things I have actually started, and not finished, that I do want to finish. In no particular order:

Continue reading »

Debt-Proof…Reading?

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I read Debt-Proof Living from cover to cover while I was still at home. That is, before I was married. And I had *no* debt. And planned never to have any debt (“except, maybe, a house.”)

I have no idea why I did this.

Still not in any debt (except for that house-thing), but was thinking about her “method” of debt reduction as I was observing my stack of reading.

What if I could apply that system to what I’m reading?

To summarize her “method” (without reviewing the book or checking if this is a violation of some intellectual property law), the aspiring freeman destroys the credit cards currently owned (so they are unusable, and no longer racking up debt). Then the budget is designed to maintain the minimum payments on each card.

When the card with the lowest balance is paid-off, the amount that was being used on that debt is added into overpaying on the next-smallest debt.

In this way the payout remains consistent, but the pay-off continues to accelerate.

~~~

I will spare you (for now) the entirety of my reading list. Things get on my “list” by me actually starting them. The list is long and varied.

I liked this idea of looking for the shortest one first, in order to finish it and move my reading time on to the next-shortest.

This of course would somehow have to include Bible Reading time (as the largest debt) as frequently as “other” reading.  That is, every day of reading would include Bible reading.

The downfall of this is the reality of two things:

  • I really do read only one book at a time.
  • I am notoriously awful about not finishing what I’m on before starting something new.

Is this what you call serial monogamy?

Callings and Being: a patchwork of thoughts.

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God makes each soul unique. If He had no use for all these differences I do not see why He should have created more souls than one. Be sure the ins and outs of your individuality are no mystery to Him; and one day they will no longer be a mystery to you.

C.S. Lewis

I discovered this quote the summer after my freshman year in college, and latched on to it. I still love it.

  • What you do doesn’t determine who you are; who you are determines what you do.
  • No person can consistently live in a manner that is inconsistent with how he perceives himself.

Both from Victory Over the Darkness by Neil Anderson

I know some people take issue with his writings. I also still think these statements are valid.

His [Jesus’s] divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

2 Peter 1:3

We’re not just hanging on until we go home with the get-out-of- jail-free card he bought us. We have also been equipped to live this life while we’re here. He’s given us everything we need.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age

Titus 2:11-12

The same grace that called us away from what is destructive also trains us to live a life pleasing to God.

All this is mixed-in with my mis-reading of this post which gave me the great line:

We all have things that He [God] did not give us.

As a multi-talented (multi-interest) person, it is a good reminder. There are things I’m just not meant to do.

And because God’s design has purpose, the not is as much my identity as the doing. Or, so it seems reasonable to assume.

Something to think on, anyway.

Tonic for the “drags”

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I don’t know what everybody else calls it. I talk about someone being in a funk. I say I’m feeling “dragy.” Basically it’s that not- feeling-like-doing-anything that isn’t (I think) quite depression.

I was brainstorming about useful things to do when “down in the dumps” (another descriptor), and was surprised with how much I came up with. (This originally began as a comment elsewhere). So here’s my list of tips:

  • Put on “happy music,” whatever that is for you.
    • I found my happy music was the stuff I listened to in High School or college and hadn’t heard in a long time. It brought me a startling joy.
    • Pick music from a light era of yours.
    • A book I’ve been reading recently describes the reason books get fatter as you read them is because it preserves a part of you between the pages– like a pressed plant– the you that was, at the time you read it, and you see that former self whenever you re-read. That’s the way of me and music too.
    • ETA: Classical or folk instrumentals collected for children are a fantastic pick-me-up.

My dad loaned me the “Rhythmically Moving” series from his classroom for the summer– my kids had heard something on the radio they’d wanted to hear again.

I put the first one on while I was stressed-out and racing to finish dinner. Almost instantly I had to laugh. My mind was rebelling at the cognitive dissonance between my mood and the atmosphere. It was nearly like being in a river and resisting being moved by it.

Didn’t “fix” my stress, but it made me smile, even laugh, and that had to be healthy.

  • Start a new book, even if you haven’t finished your current one.
    • Anything you’re interested in will do, as long as you don’t feel obligated to finish it if it doesn’t suit you.
    • It may take a couple tries to find the right fit. (Write me if you want suggestions ;-))
    • This is where Books-on-tape are so essential to me now– with the three little ones I frequently feel I’m stealing from them to sit and read a whole novel.
  • Read “Good Poems” or Poem a Day V. 1.
    • Both of those are great for finding concise (no pages-long), interesting poems.
    • I’ve found the right poems to be tonic to me, because they were a sort of deep-thought pizza: Delivering filling new ideas and ways of looking at things, sparing me the effort of looking (cooking) for myself.
    • Very good for when I’m tired and can’t focus on longer or “more meaningful” works.
  • Do mindless research about something that interests you but you can’t act on.
      • I read about new-born and toddler care while I was pregnant the first time.
      • Last fall (after Grandma died) I started reading a lot about dogs. Still do, occasionally– though I won’t be able to get one until the end of April. Or later.
    • I found this activity helpful because engaged my mind without the obligation to do more. I couldn’t/can’t do more at the time of the research.

These probably won’t pull you out of a funk (If you can get the energy to clean, the activity and the result very frequently can), but they will help you tread water while you’re there. Sort of help keep you afloat.

There are those times when that’s all you’re looking for.

I’m reading a novel again.

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It’s when I get pulled into a story that makes me forget myself—or, more accurately, just as or after I am yanked out— that I want most to write, and write well. I want to make that kind of magic.

~~~

Lately, I’ve been hesitant to start (or continue) an unread novel, almost for the same reason I can’t take any kind of sleep aid (“Before taking our product, make sure you have 8-hours to devote to sleep.”), but I finally did.

Personalizing Books

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I have something of a ritual I go through with books that I buy. Like many people I write my name in the front of the book, then I add the month and year (1/07) under my name.

Best as I can remember I started this the summer I was 19. I has attended a 2-week… camp? seminar? called Summit.  Where I bought a stack of books. I think I put the dates in as a reference point (8/98), to gauge how long until I finished reading them (some of them, never– they’re still sitting unopened on my shelves).

Since then the labeling seems to have become something of a “need” for me. I just finished dating a stack of books I bought in the last two months (vacation and going-out-of-business buying), along with several I’d found with no dates.  With those I had to do a little homework and associative remembering to nail down the exact months.

But with it done I feel a ridiculously comfortable sense of accomplishment.

~~~

My next big-deal will be finding a home for all these new acquisitions and loosening my hold on a few special ones I really did buy for the kids, so I shouldn’t hold too tightly to them myself…which means letting them endure

the comfortable abuse
of frequent use.

*sigh*

First torn page this evening. I see a sort of parallel between a nice book’s first tear and a guitar’s first ding.

Gifts

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I might do another post someday about gifts, but for now I’ll say that my favorite kind to give or receive is the kind that “fits.” Something that the recipient can use or enjoy.Some gifts, I’ve noticed, are just given because it’s the way the giver expresses s/he values the recipient (I’m thinking here of the sometimes-useless wedding gifts every couple must decide what to do with).

There is a quote (in a slightly different context) in the book I read for Sunday school some months back. It was said to be an old Chinese proverb:

“Nothing can atone for the insult of a gift except for the love of the person who gives it.”

The author’s point is that the gift represents a need of the recipient, and insults by implying he or she can’t meet that need alone.

Especially in terms of the weird/useless gift category this proverb means something else to me: The love of the giver adds value to a gift that otherwise has none. Picture the wilting bundle of dandelions, their hollow stems half-crushed by excited little hands, being put in a vase on the table. Its whole value comes from

“the love of the person who gives it.”

First Fig

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My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and oh, my friends
It gives a lovely light!

Edna St. Vincent Millay

This summarizes quite well the lunacy being enacted as I write now. I am stretched beyond words (physically, that is), but I can’t want to go to bed. After I post this I will be working on my novel until I can’t see straight or until Jay comes in from the garage. Which ever happens first.

Currently he is disassembling his baptized snowmachine. Snowmobile, for you non-Alaskans. (Though he did get a nice picture of the freshly changed headlight fluid first.) He says he wants to get the engine to turn over before he comes to bed. I have prayed. And now my thoughts are too thick.

I learned in November I can still write in this mind-state though.