Category Archives: Reading

Quote Round-up

Posted on by

I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.

–John Burroughs

Perfect love, we know, casteth out fear. But so do several other things– ignorance, alcohol, passion, presumption and stupidity.
~
It is quite useless knocking at the door of heaven for earthly comfort; it’s not the sort of comfort they supply there.

–C.S. Lewis

How great the illusion that beauty is goodness

Added 1/21

A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down… If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book, nothing can help him.

–Edna St. Vincent Millay

Added 1/29

It’s not that I believe in miracles – I depend on them.

–Anne Lamott

Added 2/23

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.

G.K. Chesterton

Thank you Kendra Fletcher

Posted on by

Kendra Fletcher of the Preschoolers and Peace website and blog posted this last week.

If you are the mother, grandmother, sister, friend, father, or brother of a homeschooling mom, here are some things you should know:

1. Educating children at home is a full-time job. Don’t get irritated if she consistently allows the answering machine to do its job. If she were a teacher in an institutional classroom, you probably wouldn’t think of calling her during school hours, so try to realize that while still at home, she is keeping regular school hours, too.

2. Unlike homes in which the children are gone for eight straight hours, her home is in a constant state of activity. The children are not only home, they are home making messes. All day long. Their mother doesn’t even have the opportunity to go into their rooms while they are at school and weed out the junk. And if she is like me, you might find odd homeschooly things lying around- like the month we had a dead turtle in the garage fridge.

3. Housekeeping and homeschooling are mutually exclusive. If she is doing her job educating her children academically, then her house is not being cleaned. If she takes the day to clean the house, then school will not be accomplished. Continue reading »

My Use for Poetry

Posted on by

Poetry, the right poetry, is like a cold glass of milk– refreshing and familiar, even if you haven’t had that *exact* one yet.

~~~

Jay and I are both stressed by our current house project, and yesterday he asked me to pick up some more chocolate for him while I was grocery shopping. He’s been though quite a bit already during this project.

I got him a big bag of mini-bars.

~~~

Today, as soon as the boy was down and Jay was reading to the girls, I left the house and returned to our closing bookstore. 25%-off sometimes beats the Amazon prices, and the times it doesn’t, the instant gratification of a fresh book in-hand is worth the extra $2.

I came home with Snow for Natasha’s Birthday, Inkspell, and Poem a Day. This last was the thing I didn’t know I would buy before I went. I was just browsing, enjoying my hour to myself, and came across this title. I didn’t even look at it much before I wanted to bring it home. The experience was very like how I felt on the way home from New Mexico, 3 years ago, when I bought Good Poems in an airport’s bookstore.

When I was showing/explaining the purchases to Jay, I said, “Gift, sequel, *my* chocolate.”

That instant was the first connection I made between our coping mechanisms. “Come to think of it…” I was feeling pretty crummy in that airport too– with a tired 1-year-old, and me being pregnant, tired, and annoyed with somebody– and the book of the hour was one of poems. Continue reading »

Symbolism

Posted on by

This was written by Frederica Mathewes-Green in her forward to The Sign of the Cross by Andreas Andreopoulos, Paraclete Press, 2007.

The discription was so tender, while being so funny, I wanted to share it.

At my Orthodox church every Sunday I see families arrive at church and go up to the iconostasis, to greet the icon of the Lord. The parents stand before his searching gaze and make the sign of the cross fluidly: the right thumb and first two fingers together to recall the Trinity, and the last two fingers together and pressed down to the palm, to recall Christ’s two natures and his descent to the earth. They touch forehead, abdomen, right shoulder, left shoulder, then sweep the right hand to the floor with a deep bow. After making two of these “metanias,” they kiss Christ’s hand, then make one more sign of the Cross and a last bow.

With practice, what sounds like a very complicated ballet becomes second nature. Behind the parents come their children, who execute the same moves but have a shorter trip to reach the floor. And then there are the toddlers. If you’re seated to the side, you can see a look of stern concentration come over the chubby face. Then there’s a blur, as a tiny fist flies from ear to elbow to knee to nose, or just makes quick wobbly circles over the tummy. If these gestures were literally analyzed as to their symbolic meanings, they might be signaling heresies not yet imagined. But all this commotion is concluded by the little one stretching up on tiptoe to kiss the hand of the all-compassionate man in the painting. That hand is giving a blessing; it is making the sign of the Cross.

These children are doing what we all do to some extent: we take part in mysteries we can only partly comprehend. We do it within the safety of our Father’s home, following in the footsteps of our elders.

Dog quotes

Posted on by

This was not researched, and I don’t know most of the people credited with the lines, but I enjoyed them.

I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult.
–Rita Rudner

A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down.
–Robert Benchley

Anybody who doesn’t know what soap tastes like never washed a dog
–Franklin P. Jones

If your dog is fat, you aren’t getting enough exercise.
— Unknown

Ever consider what our dogs must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul — chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we’re the greatest hunters on earth!
— Anne Tyler

You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, ‘Wow, you’re right! I never would’ve thought of that!’
— Dave Barry

And when I saw these two I thought, hmm, maybe this is it.

Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.
— Roger Caras

We give dogs time we can spare, space we can spare and love we can spare. And in return, dogs give us their all. It’s the best deal man has ever made.
— M. Acklam

The first sounds a little sacrilegious, but dogs make our lives whole the way children do: they add a richness and variety of experience the uninitiated may never understand.

And the later articulates perfectly my point of awe about dogs. At least the ones I consider good dogs. No matter where they fit your life, they’re thankful to fit. They’re happy to be along for the ride and are endlessly positive about the adventure.

I once stopped going to a Mom’s group largely because it was too negative. I am really hooked on positivity.

LOTR on faithfulness (Co-habitation vs. Marriage)

Posted on by

I have the Recorded Books Inc. unabridged production of Lord of the Rings, and frequently listen to it (now on my iPod, so I don’t have to change disks) while I do housework and make meals.

This exchange, begun by Elrond as the fellowship of the ring is about to set out from Rivendell, has frequently come to mind when I hear the “optional-ness” of marriage discussed:

“The further you go, the less easy it will be to withdraw; yet no oath or bond is laid upon you to go further than you will. For you do not yet know the strength of your hearts, and you cannot foresee what each may meet upon the road.”

“Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens,” said Gimli.

“Maybe,” said Elrond, “but let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.”

“Yet sworn word may strengthen quaking heart,” said Gimli.

“Or break it,” said Elrond. “Look not too far ahead.”

 

As may be expected I definitely fall hard on the side of Gimli’s reasoning. Especially when looking at the adventure of a lifelong partnership.
To Elrond’s rebuttal (were he truly arguing about marriage) I’d respond that as my heart is going to be broken either way, I’ll go with that most likely to shore it up– rather than break it down. That is, every ending is painful. Why not take what care we can to strengthen what we’ve begun?

God likes me liking what I like

Posted on by

At least, if his provision for my delight is any indication, He does.

Last week, okay, two weeks ago now, our family was in Anchorage. While there I visited this fabulous new/used bookstore called Title Wave Books. Cool name, yes?

I’ve never been in a bookstore before that shelved new and used side by side, really great for browsing. As might be expected, I limited my purchases to titles that had a used copy, since the cost was less, and, well, there were still loads of neat titles.

My first night there I found (and bought):

The last three (*) have been on my amazon wish list for months, the second (Uses) has been on my story-telling radar, and the folktales book (in addition to being part of a useful series I have two books from already) opened with a very thoughtful essay that included insights about the structural differences between male-centered and female-centered tales that gave me an insight I needed for the novels I’ve been writing.

“I was supposed to buy this book,” I thought to myself over and over again as I read the essay and stories.

“I feel so validated,” I kept telling my husband, cycling from book to book. Kid in a candy store just doesn’t cut it. I would take a bite from one, say “This is so good,” know this was the one I would read while Elisha kept me up tonight, then “taste” the next one. “This is so good,” I’d say again, and experience the delicious pain of this type of indecision.

So many choices and all of them good. (If you can give me the context/title of the work with the opposite quote–So many choices, and all of them bad– I’ll give you great thanks, assuming it’s one I’ve read/seen. The line keeps circling through my head).

I felt validated, as I mentioned earlier, because these were all used books. They none of them had to be there, but God allowed/brought together the circumstances that gave them to me to encourage me. And they did.

The goodness of Children, revisited.

Posted on by

We all admire the intelligence of people who think the way we do.

Bruno Bettelheim wrote a book called The Uses of Enchantment designed (as far as I can tell) to defend and promote the use of fairy tales in bringing up children. Naturally it is referenced in a number of storytelling articles I have read. I have only just started the book, and so far it is quite intriguing. Here is a quote that reminds me of the arguments I began articulating earlier.

There is a widespread refusal to let children know that the source of much that goes wrong in life is due to our very own natures– the propensity of all men for acting aggressively, asocially, selfishly, out of anger and anxiety. Instead we want our children to believe that, inherently all men are good. But children know that they are not always good; and often, even when they are, they would prefer not to be. This contradicts what they are told by their parents, and therefore makes the child a monster in his own eyes.

I have often thought about how ridiculous it is that adults continue to assert the inherent goodness of children (as one who has cared for/observed them most of my life), but I had never before considered how it must seem to the honest and thoughtful child who is aware of his or her own shortcomings.

Indeed, if a sensitive child is told that children’s goodness comes naturally, and honestly observes that his own goodness does not– I can see that being rather distressing, even if not completely “mak[ing] the child a monster in his own eyes.”

Writing and Writing

Posted on by

“Where did you get your copies?”
“Out of my head.”
“That head I see now on your shoulders?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Has it other furniture of the same kind within?
“I should think it may have: I should hope–better.”

I think it was the first two books I read about novel-writing that planted the four most impactful ideas.

  1. Never save anything for your next novel
  2. Don’t expect to publish your first novel
  3. Expect writing a novel to take a long time
  4. Publishers aren’t interested in a one-book wonder. They want to create a brand.

I wonder now if these statements had the most impact on me because they were in the first books I read, or because they are what I most needed to hear.

One of the authors said his first published novel was the third he wrote, but the first two weren’t wasted because (aside from helping him develop as a writer and learn/perfect his craft) having those manuscripts proved to his publisher that he was serious about writing. Eventually he did rework at least one of them for publication.

My challenge sometimes seems to be remembering that I have enough material to make more books. I like that opening quote (from Jane Eyre) because it reflects my feelings about producing more than one work.  I continue to write because it is like moving– I can only be still so long. But more than just having something new to write, I want it to actually be better.