Tuesday Ten Minute Freewrite

I am going to go great guns for 10 minutes on this freewrite. I am meeting with a person (not sure if she wants direction - she just wanted to talk to me) at 6:30 am, and I want some Centering Prayer time before we meet. The house will be a bit "a buzz" because George is going fishing with John and Mer this morning, and they are leaving at the same time I am meeting with this person. I tried to see if we could move our meeting up a bit to 1) not have a commotion going during our meeting time, and 2) go fishing with them! 

But when I woke up this morning, I realized that I am "peopled out" and need some downtime. Yesterday was a full workday. I know most people work full-time, but I could never be a full-time spiritual director. I had one extra hour of direction yesterday because the person I was meeting with thought we were meeting yesterday and came in on the end of another direction session, but I went ahead and met with her yesterday (thinking that maybe I could go fishing after all), but that was too much because I also led the Silent Prayer time for OMS, and I led a two discussion on Orthodoxy and GK Chesterton which was probably the most difficult Renovare Book Club discussion I have ever led because I just don't think like him AT ALL! So there you go!

I should also add that I spent Sunday going to church, walking home from church because George had to do announcements in the second service. Then I spent a good part of the day listening to all the podcasts and reading the handouts for Orthodoxy in addition to making bread for communion and going to group for a send off for Mer, worship, and Brazilian dinner. So that is a LOT of people time together. 

So, even though I am meeting with her, I will not be going fishing. I am going to rest for a good part of the day. I will read, and I want to start cataloging my photos all the way back to the Fall of 2016.

I am really glad we are NOT going to Groundwork! There is just too much going on right now.

Oh, I heard from F who moved to the Gulf. She sent oodles of pictures.

Oh, I also had to field questions about having someone stay with us in the middle of the month. And had to think about how to fit in a meeting with these people who have this internet thing they do. 

So, those were two other things from yesterday.

All in all, I am still having lots of "reservoir" time with God. I have loved this devotional guide (I will find a picture and post it in the post later). I am meditating on the Lord's Prayer right now, and I am loving it. I really love every bit of it. Wondering if this is something I can do with people in small contemplative cohorts in the future? 

That is something else I will do today: type up the rest of the Contemplative Cohort things. 

I think...yes, it just went off. BYE! 

Brief Lives: Volume I by John Aubrey

This is really monotonous and a bit boring, but it has some interesting things. I started listening to the LibriVox narration, but that narrator had a very drab voice. So, I switched to the "read-aloud" option on Windows and went to Project Gutenberg. It is a much better voice even though it is digitized. I could also follow along if there was something I didn't understand in the text. (I also skipped all the Latin portions for obvious reasons.) 

The most famous people in this were Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and George Herbert. The rest were pretty dull.

I am looking forward to Volume II where I get to hear what Aubrey has to say about Shakespeare. 

Stay Tuned! (After I take a break!)

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

James Mustich

Thanks to the jumbled manuscripts that are now known as Brief Lives, John Aubrey deserves to be considered Britain’s first genuine biographer. He is also one of the liveliest, most colorful, and most likable presences in all of English literature. Hopeless with his tangled finances, incorrigibly convivial, interested in everything and everyone, Aubrey led a rackety life as an “antiquary,” which might be defined as a cross between historian, archaeologist, and gossip columnist. The Lives, like his other writings, were composed haphazardly: Hodgepodges of picturesque anecdote and deftly concise portraiture, they were “tumultuarily stitched up” by Aubrey for the benefit of a fellow scholar. For centuries, the chaos of Aubrey’s papers awaited an inspired editor. He finally arrived in 1949: Oliver Lawson Dick selected, or, more accurately, assembled, 134 Lives, and introduced them along with a superb ninety-page essay on Aubrey’s own life and times. The result was published as Aubrey’s Brief Lives, and it opened both a new window on the past and a perspective on human nature nonetheless fresh for being timeless.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner) by Philip K. Dick

I am not the biggest science fiction fan, but I liked Man in the High Castle by the same author. So, I read this one on the "list," and I liked it! I hope to watch the movie soon. (Although my kids say it is violent, and I don't like violence.)

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

As the basis for the first and best adaptation of a Dick novel to film (Ridley Scott’s 1982 Blade Runner), this book occupies a central place in the PKD oeuvre. But its virtues and affect are different from the cinematic interpretation, more in line with Dick’s core preoccupations. All told, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a vital excursion into imaginatively uncanny territory that seems more eerily prescient with each passing year. 

A Visit from the Goon Squad

This series of interconnected short stories go back and forth in time. I was intrigued, but I cannot say that I loved the characters. It is about getting older and wasting your life. 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

What kind of novel would Marcel Proust have written if he’d listened to the Rolling Stones instead of Beethoven’s late quartets? The answer might well be something very much like A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan’s virtuosic and open-hearted tale of music and mortality. Like the music it evokes, Goon Squad is catchy, and inviting in both form and duration: It moves with the tempo and tunefulness of rock ’n’ roll. In fact, like a vintage pop LP, it’s divided into two “sides,” A and B. Each chapter is a kind of music track as well, a freestanding “song” that slots into the larger concept album; each takes place in a different time period, from the late 1960s into some year in the near future; each focuses on a different character; and each is written in a distinct narrative style (one chapter, devoted to “Great Rock & Roll Pauses,” is composed in PowerPoint slides). All of us, Egan suggests, get mugged by the “goon squad” of time. And none of us really sees it coming.

This House of Sky

This was such a beautifully written book (see James Mustich's blurb below because he uses the same word). The picture of his growing up in Montana is so vivid. I loved how he told the stories of his father and grandmother. This might be my favorite of the year. 

I had to pick one that I knew my hubby would like. It was a hit. We didn't finish it, but he checked it out to finish reading it himself. Score!

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

This House of Sky is one of the most beautiful books you will ever read. It is the story of three survivors (Ivan, his father, and his maternal grandmother), and of the environment—the hardscrabble world of Montana sheep ranching—that shaped them all, and which they each outlasted. Doig was blessed with a gift for refreshing common experience and everyday struggle with the benediction of the right words. In powerful writing about the landscape of Montana and the influence it has exerted on the spirit and culture of its inhabitants; about ranching and its associated works and days; about memory, family, and all the ramifications of kinship, Doig poignantly charts the translation of experience from labor to language across the generations.

The Hunt for Red October

I love the Jack Ryan series on Amazon Prime. So, I was glad to see a Jack Ryan book on my list. What a hero of heroes! This is an intriguing story. Another page-turner and my first Clancy read. 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

Published by the US Naval Institute Press in 1984, The Hunt for Red October became an unexpected but modest hit for the generally under-the-radar publisher, whose mission is to promote an understanding of sea power and other issues of national defense. But soon, abetted in no small part by President Ronald Reagan’s praise for its page-turning excitement, Clancy’s novel grew into an extraordinary commercial success. Deploying complex knowledge of espionage and military science to both tether the book’s flights of transporting suspense and direct its characters’ passage—via cunning and courage—through rough seas of duty, loyalty, and honor, Clancy created what would prove to be a pioneering work in a new generation of techno-thrillers, paving the way for a legion of bestselling successors from the likes of Stephen Coonts, Vince Flynn, and Dale Brown.

Gone Girl

This is incredibly well-written. I have really enjoyed reading more contemporary fiction this year. I don't know if I would have put it on a 1000 Books to Read List, but it was a page-turner. 

It is written in both the husband's and the wife's voices. Wow! Really intriguing. (Had to watch the movie, and it follows it really well. I had to skip one part in the movie though.) 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

Gone Girl is the story of a marriage’s unraveling and the suspicion that falls on the husband in the wake of his wife’s disappearance. But it is author Gillian Flynn’s knowing exploitation of the intimate pact between writer and reader, her head-turning violation of it, that tightens the story's grip on our attention. The workings of Flynn’s chilling novel turn on issues of faithfulness and trust, not only between husband and wife, but between author and audience. This last intimacy Flynn violates with such deviousness that she turns a standard thriller of love gone sour into a stunning psychological puzzle that seduces us in the way it’s told, and then is deepened by keen insight into the disappointments, duplicities, and distortions that derail speeding plots from the track toward happy endings. 

Sunday Seventeen Freewrite

 

New Tea Pot and One of the Cups

I have not written a freewrite for so long. I thought I would write in a different font. I am going to try to do this for the next three days. Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Wednesday, we are off to Anne's wedding, and I don't think I will be able to type out anything because we will be on the road.

So, I wanted to write about Centering Prayer. I just came out of a 30-minute sit with the Corvallis group. They are seasoned in this, and I like sitting with them in silence for that long. It seemed like it went really quickly this time. Sometimes I am tempted to look at a clock when it is that long. I find I started out looking 8 minutes in when I tried the longer sits about 4 1/2 years ago, but then it stretched to 12. Then it was 16 and sometimes I went all the way through a 20-minute sit without looking. Then I started doing it with the nuns in London, their sits were 25 minutes. So I would go into 21 minutes without looking. I think this is the first time I have done a 30 minute sit without peaking or wondering when it was going to be over. I was surprised when the 30 minutes was over today.

The fruit of it is that I am pretty settled right now. So, when I am in the middle of something in my day, and the opportunity comes to sit, I need to stop everything and just sit! It will be so good for me. I feel like it truly does CENTER me and ground me. It is a good middle of the day practice to recenter myself on the presence of God. He read a nice reading from John Philip Newell. I am not sure if I have ever heard of him before. 

Today, Manar and I are cooking a big Saudi main dish of Chicken and Rice. I am excited about that. She will not be over for a couple of hours. So I am resting.

I was able to clarify with someone about my leaving a text loop. I am part of so many loops and Signal/WhatsApp Chats. When I realized I was not going to be able to go to the thing they were planning, I exited the conversation. I was a bit hurt, AT FIRST, that they were not willing to entertain another date because the one they were planning was just not a good one for me (the worst day of the month, by far), but that was only at first, I really needed to ask God what He wanted me to do, and I just need to stay out of the loop on some things. And that was one thing that I was going to need to stay out of the loop on. Originally, I was hoping for a cozy dinner with just one other couple asking deeper questions, but it was just not going to work out for their busy lives. So they wanted to combine it with two other families and kids. No longer a cozy dinner, and not my cup of tea! 

Speaking of "cup of tea," I love my new tea pot and cup set that came about three weeks late and missed Christmas entirely. It just has stars on it. So I am using it for January!

I hope that this trip to Arizona is a good time for George and I just to be together. We have not had a vacation together with just the two of us since November 2019. We had just one little two nighter at the coast for our 30 wedding anniversary (at the same place we had out honeymoon). So it is time to have multiple days with just the two of us (except Saturday night and Sunday of the wedding we are going to). I just felt we needed to drive which is so weird. I am not sure why I want to and may regret all that time in the car. I am hoping we can listen to a book or two together. :)

Well, I don't have much time on the timer left, but I want to say I am SUPER PEACEFUL. Oh, by the way, I have been Immanuel journaling with my adaptations, and it has really been helpful. I had something that triggered me yesterday at the memorial service, and it was good to journal through that, and then read my journaling to George. He felt the SAME WAY about the person we interacted with. He just thought, "There problem. They are kind of a cold and awkward person." I think, "What did I do wrong?" So interesting how we both see the same things, but I always think things are because I have done something wrong or they have heard something negative about me which is weird because I cannot think of what they would have heard that is negative. 

So, it was good to journal through that.

Freewrite over. The timer is ringing. Good-bye. 

The Civil War: A Narrative Volume I

Why, why, why? Could this have been solved diplomatically? This is an EXTENSIVELY detailed account (810 pages and this is only 1/3 of the narrative) of the beginning of the Civil War. The 1000 Books to Read Before You Die recommends all three volumes, but I think I need a break! Whew!

It just made me so sad. The reference to fellow Americans as "the enemy" really made me sad. 

It was detailed, but if you like detail, this is your book. I have a friend who works as a Chief editor for a Military communications group. He recommends:

Bruce Catton's The Army of the Potomac trilogy: Mr. Lincoln's Army, Glory Road, and A stillness at Appomattox.

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

James Mustich

Shelby Foote set out in the early 1950s to write a short (hahahahaha - Carol's addition), single-volume history of the Civil War; two decades and three thousand pages later, he completed his monumental trilogy, which details the combat from beginning to end in meticulous detail. Although other writers may better illuminate the economic and political underpinnings of the war, Foote evokes its heroic and tragic dimensions on a scale no one else has approached. As a result, The Civil War: A Narrative is more than just a historical record; it earns a place alongside the most significant works of American literature. 

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

This was beautifully written but sad. It is hard to believe it was written by a 23-year-old! 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

Published when its author was only twenty-three, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter still stands as one of the most acclaimed debuts in the history of American fiction. Set in the 1930s, in a southern town much like the one in which McCullers was raised, it revolves around the enigmatic figure of John Singer, a thirty-two-year-old deaf-mute who finds himself on his own after ten years of sharing a silent routine with his only friend and fellow mute, Spiros Antonapoulos. When Antonapoulos, after a stretch of increasingly erratic behavior, is committed to an asylum, Singer finds himself more isolated than ever, until he comes to board in the house of the Kelly family and becomes the confidant of four of the town’s loneliest souls: the café owner Biff Brannon, the heavy-drinking political radical Jake Blount, the black doctor Benedict Copeland, and the curious twelve-year-old girl with unattainable dreams of a musical future, Mick Kelly. These four uneasy characters, estranged from family, friends, and community by the remoteness of their longings, find consolation in the hushed politeness of Singer’s company. 

Daily Reflections for Advent and Christmas: Walking in Joyful Hope 2020-2021

I don't remember where I picked this book up, but I found it in my Christmas book basket and decided to give it a whirl. I love the subtitle of Walking in Joyful Hope since joy is my theme for 2023 (even though this book is a devotional from two years ago). 

It goes from the first Sunday in Advent to the 10th of January. It was hit or miss as far as the entries were concerned. Sometimes, some of the verses did not match what she talked about in the devotional (I am wondering if it was just the Catholic verses for that day?) Some were lovely though. I would recommend it (with some skips - especially the veneration of Mary stuff because I am not Catholic). 

I did like how she talked about different poems (although she doesn't put the poems in the book - wondering if there is a need to pay the publishers of the poems for their use). 

I will say I love the colors on the cover! 

The Sweet Hereafter

This is about what a tragedy does to a small town in upstate New York. It was beautifully written, but it was hard and sad to read. 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

James Mustich

Russell Banks writes books about ordinary people trying to live decent lives in less than ideal circumstances. In the case of The Sweet Hereafter, the terrible calamity is a school bus accident in an upstate New York town; the mundane reality is that the town’s life must go on after its children have been killed in the crash. Providing different perspectives on events, overlapping stories told by four different people portray how each narrator must process grief, and struggle for meaning, in his or her own way. Banks’s novel allows us to see into the heart of a community that is speechless with sorrow. With the same magnanimity through which he imparts the lessons of calamity, Banks imparts the lessons of community as well.

The Fo'c'sle: Henry Beston's "Outermost House"

This is a beautifully illustrated children's book based on The Outermost House: A Year in the Life of the Great Beach of Cape Cod.  It was delightful.

It was nicknamed the "Fo'c'sle" comes from the navel term "forecastle" and is the forward part of the ship. The author of The Outermost House nicknamed his house this because it was the farthest house toward the sea. 

Guys and Dolls

Well! I thought I was reading the book listed in 1000 Books to Read Before You Die, but it was just a copy of the play that is based on two of his short stories. 

I found a plethora of the books at the OSU Library, but then I found all his short stories in the public domain here:

https://damonrunyon.neocities.org/Broadway_Stories/

I found the short stories that the musical Guys and Dolls are based on, and as I suspected, the movie/musical is very different. 

I plan on watching a free version of the movie above tonight. This was a fun foray. 

All that said, reading the musical and then listening to the songs from it was a delightful way to spend a couple of hours last night! 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

James Mustich

Jul 30, 2018

Told by an unnamed but well-connected narrator who knows his way around racetracks, delicatessens, and assorted dens of high- and low-life, Runyon’s tales travel from the street-smart to the sentimental with unrelenting attention to the human comedy. Their narrative charm has no better validation than the number of films based on them: to mention just a few, Lady for a Day (three versions); Little Miss Marker (four versions, beginning with the one that launched Shirley Temple’s stardom); The Lemon Drop Kid (two versions). Runyon’s world and characters were also the inspiration for one of the greatest American musicals, Frank Loesser’s Guys and Dolls. For all their cinematic and theatrical adaptation, the tales remain an undiluted pleasure when encountered on the page

Joyful Journey: Listening to Immanuel

My word for 2023 is JOY. Somehow Amazon knew that (they are everywhere) and recommended this book while reading another book on Kindle. So, I took the plunge, and it was interesting to read. 

This is about the practical working out of brain science from a book I read last year called Renovated. 

It is a guide for a process called Immanuel Journaling. It is about making that connection to the statement in Matthew 1:23 (from Isaiah 7:14) that Jesus is "God with us." 

Most do not live in this truth, and this is one process for making that connection. 

It purports three steps:

1) Interactive Gratitude - Think about something you are grateful for and share your heart with God and take a moment to listen to God's response to your gratitude. (That is an interesting addition to expressing gratitude.) 

2) Thought Rhyming - Imagine God... 

•  seeing your situation, environment, and inner experience
•  hearing your spoken and unspoken thoughts 
•  understanding and validating your experience with compassion because he knows you well
• assuring you he has the power to help you and give you everything you need. 

This is much like the Ignatian concept of "beholding God beholding you." This involves a dialogue rather than just monologuing about your stuff. It is about interacting with God over it. (You are not just talking to a wall.)

This gets to the attachment of love that Wilder talked about in the book Renovated. 

3) Reading your interaction with God out loud to someone you trust - this is based on brain science about what happens in two brains when they are interacting. 

I can see myself doing this with some tweaks. It is a little bit too structured and transactional rather than relational.  But I cannot knock it because these people have been using this for years, and it seems to be really helpful in their practice as therapists.

I could see this going with Examen prayer really nicely. I like the concept of Interactive Gratitude which is one of the steps in the Examen. 

I like the thought behind it, and I read mine to George, and it was great. He agreed it was a little canned and glad he didn't have to do it. I think the concepts are great, but many roads lead to Rome. 

Update: I have been practicing this since I read the book, and I think it has great value. I did adapt it and made it less "canned" and changed some of the names which don't communicate anything to me. I also only do it when I am experiencing emotions that I cannot identify. It really helped me yesterday (January 11) before I was going to lead a contemplative cohort and was feeling mild anxiety. It was really helpful in giving me direction for the time. I will continue to adapt it to make it more usable for others. 

The authors suggest a group dynamic. They have a downloadable form for the process on their website. 

This is Jim Wilder's website for the application of brain science:

https://lifemodelworks.org/ 

 

The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod

Loved this book. So beautifully written. I listened to an interview with his biographer, and he thinks he isn't as famous as Thoreau because he wasn't as politically active. He is often thought of as the father of the modern environmental movement. He comments on how we have lost touch with the elemental things of the earth.  His book saved the Cape landscape. (The house was washed away to sea in 1978.) 

What a perfect book to read on the first day of the new Bible Book Club cycle where I read Genesis 1. It is such a beautiful appreciation of God's creation. 

He was equally fluent in French and English. There is a rhythm in the way he writes that is beautiful. 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

James Mustich

Henry Beston’s account of a year spent in a small house at Eastham Beach on Cape Cod is a stirring evocation of nature and of solitude. Though it first appeared in 1928, The Outermost House remains vivid and satisfying, with an imaginative reach and stylistic eloquence that set it apart from most nature writing.