Category Archives: Reading

Boredom

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I’ve started reading Peter Kreeft’s The Angels and the Ants again (didn’t finish it the first time). I’m not Catholic (Kreeft is), but I like the way this guy thinks; this is the most useful book about combining sanctity with daily living that I have ever found. One chapter is entitled, How to Become a Saint While Changing Diapers. I’ll probably share some excerpts from that one later.
I started typing this excerpt to respond to another blog, and decided to include it here (in a more complete/expanded form), since I was writing it up already.

~~~

From the chapter entitled:

Boredom.

Every serious social problem that is tearing our society, our families, and our lives apart today– drugs, promiscuity, violence, infidelity, divorce– can be explained by this motive…

Here is an amazing fact: “The word boredom did not enter the language until the eighteenth century. No one knows its etymology,” according to the acclaimed novelist Walker Percy in Lost in the Cosmos.

Almost the same thing can be said of atheism: it hardly existed at all before the eighteenth century.

The relation between the two is evident: Only God and the attributes of God– Love, wisdom, beauty, joy holiness– are infinite and inexhaustible; therefore, without God everything is eventually boring.

Weren’t people bored before the eighteenth century? They got tired of cutting wood for ten hours, but they didn’t get tired of everything. That’s what boredom means.

The only possible explanation for this modern madness is this: It is not the world that is boring, but the self. Since it simply isn’t true that everything real, everything in objective reality, is boring, therefore the source of boredom must be within. The bored self projecting it’s own inner emptiness onto reality…. It reduces the big world to a small world by projecting its own littleness onto its world…

Heaven is not boring. In fact, only heaven (and heaven’s colonies on earth) is not boring…

The alternative to boredom, the cure for boredom and the cure for all the ills of the modern world that are rooted in boredom– is sanctity.

Sanctity– a relationship with God– is essentially letting God be present, letting heaven rule its colonies, establishing the kingdom of heaven on earth, in human hearts and human lives. Sanctity is essentially “the practice of the presence of God,” as Br. Lawrence put it in the title of his little classic.

Saints “do all for the glory of God” (1 Cor 10:31). Sanctity is not only willing to do God’s will, it is also thinking God’s thoughts. We are to love God with our whole mind as well as our whole heart (Mt 22:37). Sanctity means seeing everything has a purpose– in fact, that everything has the same purpose, that “all things work together for good” (Rom 8:28); and that that purpose is the most joy-filled, glory-weighted purpose any heart has ever imagined: receiving and giving back infinite, absolute, unconditional divine love forever.

~end of excerpt~

This is definitely a challenge to examine ourselves before we complain of our environment.

Poems and Grandma

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She died yesterday.

It is interesting to me that I found her poem right before my brother called to say the end was really near, and he was coming to bring me back to the hospital (playing musical cars has been one of the challenges of this time).

Here’s what we’re printing in the program, as a description of her. You must read by the punctuation, not the line breaks, to sound the best.

One Year to Live
Mary Davis Reed

If I had but one year to live;
One year to help; one year to give;
One year to love; one year to bless;
One year of better things to stress;
One year to sing; one year to smile;
To brighten earth a little while;
I think that I would live each day
In just the very self-same way
That I do now. For from afar
The call may come to cross the bar
At any time, and I must be
Prepared to meet eternity.
So if I have a year to live,
Or just one day in which to give
A pleasant smile, a helping hand,
A mind that tries to understand
A fellow-creature when in need,
‘Tis one with me, –I take no heed;
But try to live each day He sends
To serve my gracious Master’s ends. Continue reading »

Other People’s Words

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I subscribe (is that the right word?) to the theory that we never totally forget anything; that we only require the appropriate “trigger” to bring it back.

This is how I explain my tendency to speak in other people’s words.

What I’m thinking will frequently be encapsulated in a line from some show/movie/book, and I find myself thankful for a simple, apt way to convey what I’m feeling.

I suppose it’s only natural to find more pithy expression in lines that were (one may assume) designed to be effective.
Today’s examples:

“Good feeling’s gone.” Marlin (Nemo’s dad in Finding Nemo when he comes face to face with an angler fish)

An exchange on House M.D.:

“Think about him, he’s the one dying.”

“It’s easier to die than to watch someone die.”

We don’t know that Grandma is dying particularly faster than the rest of us, but it is becoming more obvious she’s not getting better like she should. And that is very had to watch. That “good feeling,” the sense of security I had about the operation, that’s been used up.

Telling details have always intrigued me in writing/reading, and now I have small painful examples in my own world.

  • Inability to make understand and decisions (“I don’t know,” is the most frequent thing she says).
  • numbers and colors being confused (she couldn’t line up the tiles in Rummikub tonight).
  • The bread at the hospital is always bad.
  • She cares enough not to eat it, but not enough to ask for something better.

We’re praying. Many people are.

~~~

The question that comes back to me–it first entered my “trembling mind” the day of her operation– is, “How do you prepare to lose someone?”

The phrase “practice dying” is in my head from somewhere. And the two are tied together in my mind. Here are two things you can’t possibly “practice.”

There is the exception of Mary/Martha/Lazarus, I suppose… I really wonder if they handled it better the second time around…

from Moon Tiger

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I haven’t read the book, but I loved this excerpt when I came across it:

“I can remember the lush spring excitement of language in childhood. Sitting in church, rolling it around in my mouth like marbles– tabernacle and Pharisee and parable, trespasses and Babylon and covenant.”

— Penelope Lively

C.S. Lewis on *Books*

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During my freshman year in college I bought a book called The Quotable Lewis, indexing his writings (both published and personal) on the catalogue of topics he addressed.

I liked so much the way he thought, that I would sit down and read Lewis by topic, circling or underlining the bits I liked, agreed with, and/or made me think. I wanted to be able to return to them.

Thinking about books (one of the forefront topics of this blog), it reminded me of a collection of his excerpts that resonated strongly with me. Reading them I felt that I’d found a “kindred spirit” (to borrow from another well-known book). The comments almost made me homesick for someone equally like-minded.

My Favorites:

  • When one has read a book, I think there is nothing so nice as discussing it with some one else– even though it sometimes produces rather fierce arguments. Continue reading »

Where legends come from

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I’m currently reading a rambling non-fiction “thriller” by a (former?) FBI agent involved in profiling serial criminals. Mindhunter. He points out early on that this (serial offenses) is a relatively recent phenomena, with “Jack the Ripper” in the late 1800s generally acknowledged as the beginning. I had never thought of this before, about crime patterns changing in this way.

Then, almost in opposition to what he’s just said, John Douglas muses that perhaps these types of crimes aren’t as new as we’d like to think, and suggests this may be where the stories of “witches, vampires and werewolves,” come from. Human beings just can’t do these sorts of things to each other, right? And so the peoples of Europe and early America had to explain what could treat humans so viciously.

Interesting theory. It builds on two ideas I buy into: 1) “There is nothing new under the sun.” and 2) Legends usually have at least some basis in reality.

I may do a longer post about it later, but I read once the idea of “changelings” (or the title) was very likely attached to physically and/or mentally handicapped children. I shudder to think how the “cures” would have been applied to such helpless individuals.

[Added 7-11-06]

Here are three links related to the changeling issue (in lieu of my writing more myself):

An Essay by D.L. Ashlimin, who does the Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts

A poem by John Greenleaf Whittier (1865) that has a different take entirely on changlings

An article that looks to be a defense of Martin Luther (shown negatively in the above documents). As of this writing I haven’t yet read it, but am linking it so I can find it to read when I have the time.

Elisha’s gone interactive!

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Currently Reading
Inkheart
By Cornelia Funke
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When a kid is this young, I don’t think it’s presumptuous to use two- or three-days-in-a-row to identify a pattern. This kid’s been consistently waking up (and staying awake, which bugs me more) between 4/4:30a.m. and resisting all efforts to crash him in less than an hour.

Last night I kept him awake a bit longer (and he kept himself up much longer) and it seemed to work. He didn’t wake until after 6 (wanting to stay-up, I mean).

During the evening “filler,” I read while I nursed him (which is normal evening routine) but after he was done, he was interested in “conversing” for a while. Lots of eye-contact, the “talking” mouth, and expressive face. Very fun.

We discussed my novel (I’m over 10,000 words now– that’s some sort of milestone, right?) and the book I was reading (finished it last night, but it’s still listed today), while Jay and the girls were off at the playground.

Boundaries for Behavior

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I came across this quote while reading an article on the Boundless webzine.

It was written by Susanna Wesley to her son while he was away at college. Apparently he had written to ask her for a list of sins he should avoid while away (?!). I can only presume this was to allow himself a human conscience (that might forget something) rather than invoking divine guidance that would doubtless be more thorough.

She did well though. Instead of making a list of vices she made a list of descriptions. I thought this was great:

Whatever weakens your reason, whatever impairs the tenderness of your conscience, whatever obscures your sense of God, whatever increases the authority of your body over your mind, whatever takes away from your relish for spiritual things, that to you is sin, no matter how innocent it is in itself.

More of the same, but different.

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Currently Reading
You Can Write a Novel (You Can Write)
By James V. Smith
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I’m still waiting, still reading, and still writing, but it’s all different too.

I have my laptop now (though nothing else of my many orders has yet arrived), and it’s already proving to be a wonderful resource/tool. I’ve been able to use it while “hanging-out” with the girls, during those times when they want me around (or I want to be there, to maintain the peace) but aren’t looking for direct interaction/play.

A good example of this is movies. I’ll usually let the girls watch one cartoon in a day, and they usually want me there with them while they do it. Since Thursday morning I’ve become very proficient at typing one-handed while I hold a snuggly bundle in my lap.

My reading is all over the place. One entertaining book is that “currently reading” selection above. It’s interesting b/c it’s different from nearly every other writing book I’ve read. The author starts out with the assumption you’re interested in writing b/c you want to be published, then lays down these formulae about what stuff a publisher will accept from an un-proven (1st-novel) author. He’s realistic-ish too, not too hard-line, and contradicts the other book I’m reading simultaneously (I’ll list it next time I blog, I suppose) which provides a fun contrast of views.

It’s just fun, b/c it’s so straight-forward (almost-but-not-quite a formula), and makes good sense.

For writing, I’m playing again (you’ll guess) with my novel. It’s been interesting applying a different framework (from this book) than I’ve used before. It’s almost like being back in a class, b/c I’m all motivated and focused again.

Well, as focused as one can be w/ the responsibilities of house and children hanging over me. I was up till (way-too-late) last night, just b/c my mind was so full, and I wanted to catch as much as I could.

I’ll be back at ToastMasters again tonight (took last week off) and that’ll be interesting. I’m going to have to reign-in my mind again and refocus it…

Maybe later…
Naptime’s just started, and in opposition to all good sense, I’m off to work on my story some more.