Nothing has changed!

December 19, 1955 - a half a century ago - C.S. Lewis wrote:

“I seem to have been writing Christmas letters most of this day! I’m afraid I hate the weeks just before Christmas, and so much of the (very commercialised and vulgarised) fuss has nothing to do with the Nativity at all.  I wish we didn’t live in a world where buying and selling things (especially selling) seems to have become almost more important than either producing or using them.”  Yours, Jack

Maybe one thing has changed.  It isn’t the weeks before Christmas; it is now the months before Christmas!  Also, I am taken with his opinion regarding the lack of regard for “producing or using” of things – which seems even more spot-on in our culture today.  Sadly, we seem to be best at simply acquiring things!

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A 712 Page Challenge!

I have two new books at the top of my reading pile. One is an easy 226 pages long and the other is 712 pages.

My natural inclination is to grab the 226 pager and get started while reshuffling the 712 pager into another slot on my pile.  I have always avoided long books. In fact, it might be pretty safe to say that I have never ever read a really long book – other than maybe a text book. They just look totally insurmountable to me.

Now the reasoning side of me knows this is silly. What difference should it make if I read three average books or one very long book? But the feeling side of me just can’t seem to understand that. So I avoid long books like the plague, which is definitely my loss.

However in my current endeavor to go to places I’ve never been before, I am going to grab that huge 712 page book, with both hands, and take it on.  I know I have a fight on my hands – at least for the first 100 pages - but I am feeling up to the challenge. I think I can do it!

So with great fortitude and grit I now begin The Book of Abraham by Marek Halter!

(You’ll know how long it is taking me by how long it stays listed on the sidebar; hopefully it won't be there forever!)

Happy reading!!

Publish Post

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Morning Coffee

"Rejoice in knowing that you belong to God and that He is conforming you to the image of His Son. See every event of this day as part of that process. Yield to the Spirit's prompting,and take heart that God will accomplish His will."

~~ John MacArthur

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Dogs, Cats and Pharisees

“We were talking about dogs and cats the other day and decided that both have consciences but the dog, being an honest, humble person, always has a bad one, but the cat is a Pharisee and always has a good one. When he sits and stares you out of countenance he is thanking God that he is not as these dogs, or these humans, or even as these other cats!”

C.S. Lewis, Yours, Jack

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A few years ago someone introduced me to the art of Bonsai.  Wanting to give this gardening technique a try, I purchases several small bonsai plants.  It wasn't long before they were gone - dead - defunct!  I was deflated.  However, I had purchased several intro to bonsai type books at Half Price Books so I continued to study the matter.  And eventually I discovered that not all bonsai has to be small exotic plants; that one can create interesting plants simply by pruning and reshaping common household plants.  I have had much more luck - and much more fun - with this simplified and less precise method.  These are some plants I've been playing with this summer.

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Morning Coffee - a feeling of Fall

"This was one of those perfect New England days in late summer where the spirit of autumn takes a first stealing flight, like a spy, through the ripening country-side, and, with feigned sympathy for those who droop with August heat, puts her cool cloak of bracing air about leaf and flower and human shoulders."

~Sarah Orne Jewett

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C.S. Lewis the Man

Snippets of Lewis from Yours, Jack:

“I don’t think evil, in the strict sense, can create. It can spoil something that Another has created. Satan may have corrupted other creatures as well as us. Part of the corruption in us might be the unreasoning horror and disgust we feel at some creatures quite apart from any harm they can do us. (I can’t abide a spider myself.)”

“No, my rheumatism is not really bad. It only produces extreme footsoreness in the left foot, so that after 50 yards, though the right one is fresh as a daisy the left keeps on whimpering ‘Stop! Stop! We’ve been 25 miles already.’”

“All joy (as distinct from mere pleasure, still more amusement) emphasizes our pilgrim status: always reminds, beckons, awakes desire. Our best havings are wantings.”

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Peppermint Patty Day!

On this day, August 22nd, in 1966, Charles Schultz introduced us to Peppermint Patty - as Charlie Brown’s new love interest.

According to Wikipedia:

“Schulz said that he had developed the Peppermint Patty persona in response to the burgeoning Women's Liberation Movement that was sparked in the latter half of the 1960s, and that he desired to create a character that defied gender stereotypes and embraced social norms that had yet to become fashionable. Peppermint Patty was the first female character outfitted with shorts and sandals, rather than dresses; and had a personality much more tomboyish than the girls who played on Charlie Brown's baseball team; and the first character to be the product of a single-parent household.”

I knew there was a good reason that I liked Peppermint Patty! She never wore dresses! I believe I am the only girl in my 1953 West Ward  Kindergarten picture who is NOT wearing a pretty little dress. Nope! I am wearing corduroy pants and a shirt – and I’m sure I know I was much more comfortable on the playground!

 Happy Peppermint Patty Day!

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