Friday Freewrite Fifteen

I have not done a "Well" Update in a very long time. So, I will do that for my F Cubed today. 

Well-Watered Soul 

Vacation did get me a little off kilter, but I was back on track very soon after I came home. Walking for the world has been hard to "restart" since vacation though, but I did have a nice walk and prayer time last week praying for many different people. I find that printing out the pages really helps.

Since I finished the Old Testament the second week of August, I am on a break from the BBC, but I am soaking in the first eight chapters of Acts. Hey, Acts in August sounds so very catchy!  Anyway, I have probably been processing Acts 1 more than anything. 

I feel really well-watered even though I am not spending as much time as I usually do. But I guess that life-long goal of 24/7/365 is feeling more real to me this way. I love our talks. Even as I type, I have a profound sense of His presence and communion. 

This fall will be that "slow" march through Acts with Christmas reading. I want to soak in the Messiah again. It made for the best Christmas EVER as the songs of Scripture were constantly playing through my head and focusing me on what is REALLY important!  I loved that. 

I also am waiting to hear what we are doing with our Kingdom Community. We have not heard a thing from any of them and wonder if they even want us to come back and advise after our summer break. I certainly hope so!

Well-Educated Mind

Here are the books I have left on the "100 Great Books" List:

1. All Quiet on the Western Front – Remarque (Book Dames reading for Oct 4)
2. All the King’s Men – Warren 
3. Catch22 – Heller 
4. A Farewell to Arms – Hemingway
5. Faust: Part 2 – Goethe 
6. House Made of Dawn – Momaday (reading) 
7. The Joy Luck Club – Tan (Listeing on playaway)
8. Light in August – Faulkner (Listening on my iPod)
9. The Plague – Camus
10. A Separate Peace – Knowles 
11. Sons and Lovers – Lawrence (Starting on Kindle)

I have to finish The Joy Luck Club soon. That is why I started it before I was done with Light in August (my second time checking out and still only about half way). 

It is a good exercise, but I told myself that after I am done with the Invitation to the Classics List I am swearing off lists for a while and just reading what ever is my fancy. 

Light in August and Joy Luck Club are both depressing. That is why I took a little break and got The World of Downton Abbey with many pictures and fun information. :)

Well-Adjusted Heart

Very good. I am a happy woman in many ways these days. The balance is very good. 

Well-Tuned Strength

I have been walking, but I sit far too much. When we were on the East Coast, I hardly sat and hardly had any back pain. I need to walk more and putter around the house more to balance with my many "sitting" projects (photos, BBC, and genealogy). It would be so great if I had interest that involved walking more. :)  

All that said, I just had one little back episode because my hamstring curl weight was WAY too much. Dumb. Other than that, I had not had any back episode for five weeks! So, I am making great progress in that area. I want to get back to where I didn't have a back episode once for THREE YEARS! That would be so sweet!

(Ok, the freewrite timer ended, but I am going to go on with what I did Wednesday because I plowed through procrastination!) 

BHAG Update

Maybe this should be under well-adjusted heart because I love to move forward in Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAG).  I made huge strides with my photos being my only real household goal for 2012. I put it off all month even though every day said, "Photos" on my calendar. I chose to do genealogy instead (with very fruitful results).  I was waiting for a sale, but I could have had all the pictures uploaded, but I guess I didn't know which service had the better sale: Shutterfly or Snapfish.  Well, the sales were even with Shutterfly having 40% off with free shipping over $30, but it took a lot of pictures to upload to get to the $30. So, I spent a TON of time on Wednesday with ordering, but the end result is that I got 2008 and 2009 ordered for Michael, Paul, and Family pics with Snapfish, and I got 2011 ordered for Michael and Paul and 2012 365 to picture number 238 with Shutterfly! 

So this is what I have left to do:

1) Find, process, pick, and order photos for 2010 Family, Michael, and Paul (not 365 that year because of my back so there are a lot LESS pictures to pick through!)
2) Process, pick, and order photos for 2011 Family 

3) Order photos through June for 2012 Michael and Paul

4) Process, pick, and order photos June - August 2012 for Michael and Paul (with Michael and Paul doing the picking for themselves for those months)

5) Journal for Family and kids for 2007-2012

6) Scrapbook Christmas December 23-30 for 2007, all of 2008-2011

7) MAYBE make photo books for Las Olas and our East Coast Trip (more expensive and time consuming though and really that much more valuable than just looking at the pictures in a photo album?). Each book will probably be at least $30 verses about $6 in prints for each of those events. 

7) Back up all of the culled down printed pictures for easy reprinting of the "best of" those years for future projects that may come about. :)

I do like my Memory Manager. It is not the greatest photo processing tool, but I find Photoshop organizing software really lame and confusing. So, what is a girl to do. Again, I don't want to spend my life sitting!!!

In my next post, I will do a comparison of the two services I have narrowed my printing needs down to. STAY TUNED! 

Wednesday Well

Summer breeze
Makes me feel fine
Blue sky beyond leaves of Green
I look up as a cloud floats
Listening to slow Southern fiction
On the campus lawn
On my back — at Kidder Hall.

I wrote this yesterday and thought I would repost it here since I cannot search my pages on Facebook.

God is good all the time. I felt good then.

My friend and I walked over Glen Eden this morning and talked about the summer. Her two weeks of traditional camping and my epic trip to the East Coast. It was fun to catch up. 

I still feel a bit slow and lethargic because of my sickness, but I am going to purge my body today by fasting and drinking lots of water. There is a bug still inside of me me, and I think I need that purge. I felt fine until after I came back from the bike ride. Then, I crashed. Not 100%, but I cannot keep sitting! 

I think I am meeting with Rebekah this morning, but I have not heard back from her yet. I ended up getting sick last Friday. So, I am glad we postponed it.

I wish I had gotten myself some water when I came down here to hide in the guest room this morning while Valentina and Pieter clean. I forgot. Need to drink water and tea. 

I could easily go back to bed and feel fine!

Sunday Sickness

I have been denying for several days. I really thought I was better yesterday, but as I walked on flat ground, I could barely move forward. I wanted to turn around and go right back home, but I trudged on. That is when I know I am still sick: when there is no kick to my step on even the simplest of walks (flat was a strain).

I easily deny it when there are people for dinner. I so enjoyed last night with Micah and Christen, newly married and obviously insanely happy -- they are an excellent match, and I have no doubt they will continue to be insanely happy.  So, joy was followed by a crash of my body. 

It is time to stop denying reality and just lay in bed all day and drink plenty of liquids and watch Downton Abbey YouTube videos. :) I was pretty intense on Saturday with my genealogy research and didn't let up from 6:30 am until the family came back from Newberg in the evening. It was not physically taxing, but it was mentally so. I couldn't stop though. The compelling stories of my ancestors like Theresa Lorenzini who came from Italy as a child for new opportunities for her father in Cross Fork,PA. Eventually she married my grandmother's cousin, William. They suffered the loss of their ten room home to fire only to lose their tavern to fire two months later. On top of that, they eventually lost their farm to the Kinzua Dam project!  I also concentrated on the Quaker roots of George's Brown side of the family who were part of the radical Hicksite branch of the Quakers. They founded a "utopian" society of Friends in Ohio. 

These ancestors are crying from their graves with these truly American stories yet to be told. The light green and white pages of Ancestry.com call to me but  not today. I need to rest. I am sometimes to intense. I can easily go 15 hours doing research without even noticing. It kept my mind off how yucky I felt, but George's sickness ran four days, and I am now beginning the fourth. If I rest today, tomorrow will be the day for more research.

52 in 52 Week 35: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

I saw the movie in 1977 with my dear friends from our "Fearsome Foursome," Sandy, Bene, Betty, and me. Once we had a crazy late night when we started flickering lights saying, "It's medication time." You had to be there.

This is written by Ken Kesey, an Oregon native whose family owns the dairy that makes my favorite Nancy's Yogurt. Here is some background on Nancy:

Born and raised in California, Texas and Iowa, Nancy’s was the third generation in a lineage of health food enthusiasts. In 1966, Nancy moved to Haight Ashbury in San Francisco to attend college. It was 1969 when she met Ken Kesey, counterculture leader and author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and she was invited to take care of Ken’s Pleasant Hill, Oregon farm while he was in London recording stories with the Beatles. When Nancy heard Ken’s brother, Chuck, had a little creamery in Springfield, Ore., and was looking for a bookkeeper, she applied and soon found herself sharing her knowledge of making yogurt. (from:http://www.nancysyogurt.com/index.php/springfield-creamery/who-is-nancy)

Ken was a brilliant author. The book was hard to put down and hard to take. I sobbed at the end. It isn't pretty. It has bad language and crass references,  but just as the movie grabbed me in 1977, the book did the same.

What is wonderful about the book is that it is written from the perspective of the Native American, Chief Bromden. You don't know that when you watch the movie.

It is sad. It is about power and mental illness. Amazing book. Sorry that it has bad words though. 

Also, Jack Nicholson NAILS McMurphy. Just sayin.'

Friday Freewrite Fifteen

I have not been writing much lately. There was a time that I would write almost every morning. It hasn't been because I was burned out or that I didn't want to write. I just have not. I went on a vacation, and I am had pictures to process (1250 more or less) and genealogy to follow up on that has filled my cup to overflowing with gratitude for the great time we had as a family, as a descendant and relative of wonderful people in Pennsylvania, as an American, as an art lover, etc. The ball was hit out of the park and into the stratosphere on this trip. It is like those Master Charge commercials where I could add up all the costs of hotels and travel and admissions, but it would be concluded "Time as a family on a trip of a lifetime," and the tag after is would say:

PRICELESS

Just like the commercial. 

To say that we accomplished and exceeded our goals on our trip would be an understatement. The boys were so engaged, and their age and maturity level was perfect for travel from obscure Caldwell/Gurnsey/Wardrop graveyards in Cross Fork and Adrian to the Holocaust Memorial Museum.  

The pictures of the entire trip are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/52364318@N00/collections/72157631177874138/

But here is a slideshow of the highlights (from my Carol365):




Much of coming back from a trip is preserving the memories, and I have done that very well. It meant I put other things on hold. I had planned on hitting the photos from the past five years pretty hard, but these are part of those photos. So, I am good with that. 

Actually, I don't think I am that far off from all those photos. The heaviest load  of all the backlogged 365's was completed last December/January. Now, I just need to do the extras and the boys albums, and they already picked them out for two of the years. Now, I am waiting to order with a great deal from one of the photo sites. So, that will be my project this weekend.

I made space for all of this by almost completing YEAR TWO of the BBC before I left for our East Coast trip. I did Esther on our trip and came back and completed that. Then I only had Ezra, Nehemiah, and the two prophets associated with them: Haggai and Zechariah. So, I completed it in the first week back.

Now, I could take a break until April 2013, but I will slowly work my way through Acts and also do Romans as I study Romans 5-8 with Rachel and Kim from October to May. That will be very nice. 

Wow. I am really loving writing again. 

And this is where I might do something that I have always dreamed of doing. It may be my destiny to do it: Write an historical fiction novel based on the life of my great grandparents and the town that became a ghost town: Cross Fork. Actually, I want to write a series that chronicles the life and loves of my ancestors. I have uncovered SO much since I returned home from our trip to Pennsylvania, and it is almost as if my heart is still there in some strange way. I want to tell the story of my grandmother who was orphaned at 11. Oh, my head is stirring. A truly Americana novel. I see it in my head, but I think I see it more as a movie or mini-series TV script than anything else. 

First I want to finish the BBC project though. Lord give me the path for doing both!

George is up now, and he is going to the farm to check on some things. I was supposed to meet with Rebekah at 10:30 but asked to postpone so I could go with George. Now I am sick (headache and general yuckiness). I may have to stay home sick. I am not sure what I will do. 


But I will close. I have more to say, and I think that I am going to go back to writing daily again. I love this. 

(Reminder to anyone reading this that a Freewrite is where one writes unhindered by spelling and grammatical errors. The idea is to get everything out on the page and let it flow. Therefore, there will be typos and errors. It is part of the process. I do know the difference between there, their, and they're, but sometimes I freewrite, and it comes out wrong because I am not thinking. So, do not be alarmed!)

Battle Cry of Freedom Author McPherson

I read the definitive one volume classic Battle Cry of Freedom from The Well-Educated Mind List, and I just found this excellent interview for his newest book on Lincoln. Enjoy:

52 in 52 Week 34: The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

What a hauntingly beautiful play of family dysfunction. The whole time I was reading it I thought, "Sam Waterston would have been a perfect Tom in the movie version." Then, I get the movie, and he is Tom! I really and truly did not know it.


This is about a family that was abandoned by a father many years ago, and the long-term toll it takes on the ones left behind. I felt empathy for the mom and her desire to see her kids settled in life, but I do not agree with the methods she uses in trying to see it come about. 


Loved it even though it is sad. And Hepburn also nails Amanda. 


This book so reminded me of the dysfunction of Long Day's Journey into Night, and Katharine played the dysfunctional mother in that movie too!

52 in 52 Week 33: The Aeneid by Virgil (Robert Fagles Trans)

I was always told that this was a "rip-off" from Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. It is definitely in the style of Homer's poems, but it has a thrilling plot of its own.


I almost liked this better than The Iliad and The Odyssey! This narration really made it though. Simon Callow is amazing as a narrator. The Fagles translation also made it easier to comprehend, although the more scholarly translations make it rhyme which is nice since it is an epic poem!


This poem was written during the time of Augustus around the time of Christ.


It is about Aeneas who escaped after the sacking of Troy to found Rome because it was his destiny! He has many setbacks along the way with the gods always interfering.  It is a great story. 

I sing of warfare and a man at war.From the sea-coast of Troy in early daysHe came to Italy by destiny,To our Lavinian western shore,A fugitive, this captain, buffeted. . .Till he could found a city and bring homeHis gods to Laetium, land of the Latin race,The Alban lords, and the high walls of Rome.Tell me the causes now, O Muse, how galled. . .From her old wound, the queen of gods compelled him—. . . To undergo so many perilous daysAnd enter on so many trials. Can angerBlack as this prey on the minds of heaven?  (I.1–19)

One of the characters is Dido from Carthage. It was great that the "Art of the Day" today was this painting:

Dido building Carthage, or The Rise of the Carthaginian Empire (1815)

• J.M.W. Turner

Turner imitates his hero Claude in this ambitious painting. Inspired by Virgil’s epic poem the ‘Aeneid’, Dido appears on left sporting blue robes, bossing people around as she establishes Carthage. In his will, Turner asked for this painting to be shown alongside Claude’s 'Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba'. To his delight, it appears there in London’s National Gallery today. For more see http://www.artfinder.com/listing/uk/london/turner-inspired-in-the-light-of-claude/

• 
  

Post and Pictures of Our Vacation To Come

A trip of a lifetime. I cannot tell you how much this East Coast trip meant to us. I will sit and write a long post with pictures very soon, but I must get to some time in the word and reorient myself more to the daily bits of life first.

52 in 52 Week 32: Plato's Euthyphro, Apologia, Phaedo, and Crito

My "Great Books 100" list has all four of these titles under Plato, but once I started reading I wondered whether this was the book, The Last Days of Socrates, which Michael had read five years ago in classical literature, and it is! 

This is written by Plato with dialogues Socrates had with others related to his trial and execution. I will make a general comment that many times I felt like I was reading Paul the apostle. I believe Paul was educated in the classics and borrowed wording from the Greeks in order to relate to the Greeks!

Apologia is not his apology but his defense before the court. He was accused of  not recognizing the gods recognized by the state, inventing new deities, and corrupting the youth of Athens. It is clear and easy to understand. 


Euthyphro is about Socrates' encounter with Euthyphro outside the court of Athens. It is a discussion about holiness. This link is helpful in understanding:



http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/christian-ethics/divine-command-theory/the-euthyphro-dilemma/

Phaedo is a recounting of the final hours of Socrates by Phaedo. Socrates proposes that suicide is wrong if one is a true philosopher because a true one should look forward to death. He suggests that the soul is immortal. Since the philosopher spends his life trying to separate from his body that this is appropriate that he should look forward to death since this is the ultimate separation of soul and body. 


I read this article about how Plato's Phaedo and Symposium influenced one of my favorite dead Russian authors, Tolstoy: 

Tolstoy first read the philosophical dialogues of Plato, who lived from 427 B.C.E. to 347 B.C.E., in French translation as a young man. He returned to them when he learned to read Greek in the period just before writing Anna Karenina. Plato's dialogues showcase Plato's teacher, Socrates, often even presenting him in an almost beatific light. They usually also show Socrates in action—or rather in dialogue with his pupils. Using what has come to be known as the "Socratic method," Socrates does not come out and tell them the truth, but rather involves his pupils in the process. He asks a series of leading questions, designed to lead to the truth indirectly. Scholars have felt that Tolstoy engages in a similar process in his novels. 

The two works that Tolstoy singles out, the Symposium and the Phaedo, are about love and death, respectively. These are two topics at the heart of Anna Karenina. In the Symposium, friends discuss different forms of love at a gathering that features drink and food. The dialogue culminates with Socrates advancing the notion that there is, in addition to physical love, a love of the soul. (He does not necessarily exclude physical love but suggests that under the right circumstances lovers may move from physical love to something higher.) Tolstoy pays direct tribute to the Symposium in Anna Karenina. Chapters 10 and 11 of Part One (pp. 33-43) are a remake of Plato's Symposium featuring Oblonsky and Levin, eating and drinking while discussing love. Oblonsky argues that there's nothing he can do about his sexual appetites and what's wrong with indulging in pleasure anyway? Levin takes a different line, arguing that love can be clear and pure. He even cites the Symposium to back it up (p. 42). 

In the Phaedo, Plato meditates on death and the immortality of the soul. In this dialogue, Socrates and his friends gather together one last time in his prison cell. Socrates was tried and condemned to death by the Athenian state. (The parallels between what happened to him and what happened to Jesus were certainly not lost on Tolstoy.) The dialogue reenacts what takes place between him and his friends in his final hours as Socrates takes the poison hemlock that kills him. Socrates faces death with equanimity as he argues for the immortality of the soul. Facing death is a major concern of all of Tolstoy's writings and Anna Karenina is no exception. Part Eight shows Levin struggling to achieve a Socratic acceptance of his own mortality. Tolstoy pays tribute to Plato the philosopher by having a peasant with the same name—Platon is the Russian form of this name—serve as an example to Levin of what it means to love God and live for the soul. (p. 794)
Read more: http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/What-Was-on-Leo-Tolstoys-Bookshelf/8#ixzz1pooE8EGz

(Fun fact: I participated in Oprah's reading of Anna Karenina in 2004 and even was part of a video montage when the book was reviewed)


Crito recounts the last minutes in Socrates' prison cell as recounted by his old friend, Crito. Crito wants to help Socrates escape, and Socrates gives all the logical reasons why that would not be appropriate. 


I was surprised at how readable these were and easy to understand!

Thinking of My Brother As I Watch the Olympics. RIP Bill

52 in 52 Week 31: Babylonian Captivity of the Church/The Small Catechism by Martin Luther

These two are on my Invitation to the Classics Book List. I am combining them today. The "Small Catechism" (1529) is really short (13 pages).  "The Babylonian Captivity of the Church" (1520) is much longer.

Luther said, "unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason -- I do not accept the authority of popes and councils. . . . My conscience is captive to the Word of God."  

With this he wrote the "Captivity":

"laid down a fearsome gauntlet. Its these was that the Catholic Church used it seven sacraments to enslave the conscience of Christians. There were, Luther argued, only three true sacraments, that is, rites to which Christ himself had attached promises with a visible sign: baptism, the Lord's Supper, and confession." Protestants later reduced the number even further to include only baptism and the Lord's Supper" (Invitation to the Classics, p. 123). 

The writing is very bold and gutsy, and I am sure he made some people really, really mad. "The Babylonian Captivity" also "demonstrated a revolutionary willingness of individual conscience to question the authority of the church" (ibid., p. 123). 

Print from Original Catechism Book

"The Small Catechism" is much milder. :) 
Luther wrote this for churches and household to be used in the education of children in the basics of the faith. It is sweet. I wished I could have had it when I was raising my children. It is Luther's teachings on the Ten Commandments, Apostles' Creed, and Lord's Prayer. In addition there is teaching on the sacraments of Baptism and Communion. I have a different view of baptism than Luther, but it was good to read. 

Addition: I wrote this in July and now it is November, and I found my mother's copy of The Smaller Catechism from 1939. She would have been 12 years old. So cool!

Print from German Small Catechism of 5th Commandment: "You shall not kill."

52 in 52 Week 30: The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses

This has been on my Kindle since June 2010 because, while reading Desiring God by John Piper for our Jesus Community, I wanted that famous quote from "The Weight of Glory":

"If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased" (The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis, p. 1-2).

When I read this quote John Piper's excellent book Desiring God (one every follower of Jesus should read IMHO) about 20 years ago, it mesmerized me. Yet, I had never read the quote in context, and now I have! The introduction by Walter Hooper is very interesting because it gives insight in how the man "walked his talk" since Hooper was an associate of Lewis. I think we all would have liked Lewis. He rates up there in "people of awesomeness" for me. 

Even though he is awesome, C.S. Lewis has always made my head hurt (like Dallas Willard). His mind is beyond brilliant. So, as hard as it was to listen to all these addresses this morning it was good for my soul after having just finished Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises last night.  The juxtaposition between these two men, born only 234 days apart and both injured in World War I, is startling. One wrote depressing fiction as part of the "Lost Generation" and the other wrote uplifting fiction and non-fiction as part of the "Found."  Praise God for C.S. Lewis. 

Here are more details about this book from http://www.disciplemagazine.com/www/articles/149.552:

The Weight of Glory is a collection of nine sermons and essays originally composed by Lewis between 1939 and 1956. An original collection was published in 1949, and reworked into its current form in 1980 by trustee and literary advisor of Lewis’ estate, Walter Hooper, whose introduction to this volume sheds light on the many ways in which Lewis lived out the truths he wrote about. 

The title sermon, which appears first in the book, represents Lewis’ most direct work on the value of individuals to God; he affirms that men are immortal souls who have more intrinsic worth than all the cultures and achievements of history. He builds an eloquent case for our responsibility to evangelize and care for our fellow man, reminding us that through every action we are helping our fellow eternal beings toward becoming either “immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” 

The second major statement in the book is the essay ‘‘Transposition’’ in which Lewis undercuts the Roman Catholic teaching that the elements of communion are actually transformed into the body and blood of Jesus upon receipt. Instead, he posits that the Lord chose those elements to evoke the imagery of His sacrifice through the bread and the cup as a powerful sensory reminder for us. 

Lewis’ lecture “Is Theology Poetry?” explores the artistry of God’s story of creation and redemption and leaves us to marvel at the precision which it describes reality. This piece is one of the fundamental texts on worldview thinking, that is, understanding that one’s beliefs and presuppositions form the basis for his values, ideas and behaviors. It is probably best remembered for his oft-quoted statement, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” 

The remaining portions of the book, “Learning in War-Time”, “Why I Am Not a Pacifist”, “The Inner Ring”, “Membership”, “On Forgiveness”, and “A Slip of the Tongue” cover issues from relationships and exclusivism to education and courage to participation in the life of the Body. 

Lewis wrote from standpoint of wonderment at the mystery of God informed by his conversion from atheism relatively late in life. Each essay, lecture, or sermon in this volume contains pearls of wisdom that inspire and challenge the reader to love the Lord with his mind. Taken as a whole, it is an invaluable resource to give form to the ideas that make the Christian life what it is. This book belongs on the shelf of every believer. 

Justin Lonas

I agree Justin!

Table of Contents:

"The Weight of Glory" (1), (2), (3), (4) (Brilliant) 

"Learning in War-Time" (1), (4), (5)

"Why I am Not a Pacifist" (4), (6), (7)

"Transposition" (1), (2), (3), (4)

"Is Theology Poetry?" (2), (3), (4)

"The Inner Ring" (1), (2), (3), (4) (Really liked this one!)

"Membership" (1), (4), (5)

"On Forgiveness" (4), (5)

"A Slip of the Tongue" (2), (3), (4) (I liked this one too)

Notes:

(1) The original, 1949 version of this work included only these works. The other works were added in the 1980 edition. Also, the 1949 version was published in the U. K. under the title "Transposition and Other Addresses".

(2) also published in "They Asked for a Paper"

(3) also published in "Screwtape Proposes a Toast and Other Pieces"

(4) also published in "Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces"

(5) also published in "Fern-Seed and Elephants and Other Essays"

(6) also published in "Timeless at Heart: Essays on Theology"

(7) also published in "Compelling Reason"

Sunday Afternoon Freewrite

It is 3:15 pm on a warm and overcast summer Sunday. George is outside of Philomath at a memorial service for Scott Overton (http://www.gazettetimes.com/news/local/obituaries/w-scott-overton/article_5028d71e-ca57-11e1-bcc7-001a4bcf887a.html).

Scott was George's major professor for his Ph.D. in Statistics, and he loved George best of all of his graduate students, and everyone knows it. (Who wouldn't love my husband?) George knows the whole family, and he has written such a lovely thing to share at the service.


I wanted to go, but I am not feeling well, and I needed some downtime after a very big week. But George says my idea of being sick is working just a little less hard than I usually do which is true. One of the Bible Book Club members wrote me wondering why the posts were disappearing. WOOPS! I meant to only work through the end of our vacation in August, but I ended up working through to the beginning of November! I rewrote old posts and rescheduled them for future dates forgetting that many people read on their own schedule for the BBC! 

Thankfully, she was in Daniel and not reading chronologically according to the old schedule. If she had, it would have meant 48 chapters of Ezekiel would be missing for her! (Remember I said that last Sunday I got through all of Ezekiel accidentally by working all day?). As it is, she only has the minor prophets. Since I do them chronologically, most have already posted, and I only had to send her five short books! YAY! 


Actually, I will need to eventually cut and paste everything when I publish the eBooks. So, this just gave me a head start.

What I am so encouraged by is hearing from three people in the last couple of weeks whose lives are being transformed by the Holy Spirit speaking truth and transformation into their lives through His word!!! WOOHOO! I LIVE FOR THIS!!!! Anything that I can do to help in that vein is time well spent, even if I am sick!!!! 


I tried to write a bit of Ezra this morning. While cutting and pasting and organizing posts in the Gospel Harmony Book Club have been great, I cannot seem to concentrate on the new posts. So, I am OK with that.


Well, I have four more minutes, and I am already tired. This is enough for my sick brain right now.


No proofreading. Please excuse my mistakes if you are reading this. 

52 in 52 Week 29 :The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Cover painting by James & Ruth McCrea (1974)

"The Sun Also Rises portrays the lives of the members of the so-called Lost Generation, the group of men and women whose early adulthood was consumed by World War I. This horrific conflict, referred to as the Great War, set new standards for death and -immorality in war. It shattered many people’s beliefs in traditional values of love, faith, and manhood. Without these long-held notions to rely on, members of the generation that fought and worked in the war suffered great moral and psychological aimlessness. The futile search for meaning in the wake of the Great War shapes The Sun Also Rises. Although the characters rarely mention the war directly, its effects haunt everything they do and say." 

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/sun/context.html 

This story is pretty pointless, but I guess that is the point: the lost generation was truly lost, and these characters just wander aimlessly through Paris until they make it to Spain for fishing, bull-fighting, and infighting while drunk and aimless and debauched. 


Sound fun? Then you too can take a ride through this book!


Again from Spark Notes, "A Note on the Epigraph":

Before the novel opens, Hemingway quotes Stein ("You are all a lost generation.")  and a biblical passage from Ecclesiastes:

"One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever . . . The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to the place where he arose . . . The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. . . . All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again."  

The passage contrasts the transient nature of human generations with the eternal survival of nature: the world endures, and the sun continues to rise and set despite the inevitable passage of each human generation into death. Hemingway’s juxtaposition of the two epigraphs produces an ambivalent tone. On the one hand, there is hope, because there will be a new generation after the aimless generation that populates The Sun Also Rises. On the other hand, there is bitter irony, since every generation is lost, in the sense that each generation will eventually die.

I was halfway through the library copy when I found the copy with this neat cover in our bookshelf. George had forgotten that he read it in college. Believe me, the only thing I really liked about the book was the neat cover. :) 

Freewrite Fifteen

I haven't been writing much here lately. So, I thought I would do a quick fifteen. 


Well-Watered Soul


I have dropped off on my "World Walk" prayer in the last week. About a week ago, I did a very hard elliptical interval training, and I think I overdid it. I must just go back to my easy walking again! It is so much better for my body. It doesn't help to do a hard work out and then be incapacitated for the rest of the week!  


All that said, I have spent more time in the Word than World Walking which isn't such a bad thing, but I like BALANCE!  


I don't know how it happened but I got all the way through Ezekiel this last weekend. Yesterday (Sunday), I was particularly focused, and it was so enjoyable! I like Ezekiel. I was most intimidated by it when I first started the BBC, but I am no longer intimidated. 


The meditation on the glory of God filling the temple at the end is thrilling! Come Lord Jesus!


I am going to go for a little world walk right after this freewrite. It will do me much good and good to do before it gets too hot.



Well-Educated Mind 


I am almost done with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I don't care for some of the content and language, but Ken Kesey was a brilliant writer and an Oregon native. So, I felt it was important to read one of his books. 


We have also been watching film adaptations of Anthony Trollope novels. So interesting that i had never heard of him before a couple of weeks ago. We are currently watching The Pallisers.  I do enjoy it. It was slow, at first, but it has picked up and so fun to see a young Susan Hampshire in the role of Glencora. 




Well-Tuned Strength


I was doing so well until my overdoing it on the elliptical. My back has been tight but not out for a week now. I have been walking lightly. Well, I guess not, I did go hiking on Friday and met my calorie burn goal. I guess I just didn't meet it on Saturday, even though we walked for two hours downtown, but it was very slow walking, but that isn't all bad. Sunday was a rest day. SO, I am probably not as bad off as I think I am, but I just don't feel very motivated this morning to do anything. 


I also think I overdid it on the eating. Nok served us a Thai FEAST at Tarntip on Friday night. Amazing but I know that I have not been good with my eating from Friday-Sunday.


I am back to my FOUR DAY WIN for Monday-Thursday! Then, I will reevaluate again. Back on the wagon after a very fun visit from friends. 


I have three more minutes . . . 


Well-Adjusted Heart


It is great, but I think I am going to have to say NO to meeting with people for a chunk of summer. I wish I had someone who could arrange my calendar. I spend much of my time trying to coordinate meeting with people. I wish people could just be set at a certain time instead of needing to reschedule and fudge all over the place. WHO AM I KIDDING? I cannot even hope for that to happen, but much of time this morning was trying to juggle J, S, and S when I already have M, K, and C scheduled this week. That is meeting with six people PLUS M wanting to "touch base" with me on the telephone "some time" this week! I don't have time to figure out your "some time."  Please just give me some times to call, and I will see if I can fit it in.


On top of that are a "tentative" once someone finds out their work schedule. We also have a going away party and getting my books ready for the Homeschool Curriculum book sale.


I am not complaining, but I think I just need a break from scheduling my life and just get through my photos! I think my mental health would be so much better if I could just have CLOSURE on that and get that monkey off of my back. :)


Well, the timer went off, and now I am going to FORCE myself to get out in the sunshine and walk and pray!!! 


Bye (No proofreading on freewrites so I apologize ahead of time for typos and misspellings. Freewrites are meant to not let those things hinder you. It is a great exercise and helps with your perfectionism [something I obviously don't have a problem with])

52 in 52 Week 28: Faust Part One by Goethe

By Richard Roland Holst (1868 – 1938) ([1])
 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I read Steppenwolf a couple of months ago, and Hesse kept on talking about "GER-TA." Since I was listening to it on audiobook, I didn't realize until I looked at the actual text that he was talking about Goethe! This inspired me to read the play. 

I had seen this volume in my father-in-law's Franklin Library collection (the fancy and expensive books with the gilt edges) about 22 years ago and had no idea who "GER-TA" was and  what Faust was about. I just thought it was a pretty book. 

Now I know. It is  a tragic poem/play  that is a take-off of Dr. Faustus by Marlowe, a play from medieval times.  

It is about a German scholar who sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for knowledge and power. The first sounds much like the Book of Job, where Satan tells God that he can make one of His faithful servants fall, and God allows Satan to do it.

It is considered the finest piece of German literature and the two parts took Goethe over 60 years to complete. Part One was written in 1808. The first draft (Urfaust) had a different ending. Apparently, the first night audience who saw the new ending cheered. You'll have to read it to know what that ending is!

Faust Part Two came out in 1832. I might take a break before tackling it!

Meme for the Classic Girl

The Well Update Freewrite Fifteen

I thought it would be good to update from the homefront being that it has been over a week. There will be typos in this everyone. Don't be alarmed. Freewrites are meant to allow you to write freely without a concern about grammar, spelling, or typos. Those things can impede the writing process. I did this with my sons so that they would not see writing as a negative thing. They wrote freely. Eventually, they learned to proofread and correct, but freewrites were meant to just teach them how to get their thoughts down on paper, which is really what writing is all about!

They do really well now in college having used this method. :)


Well-Watered Soul


I continue to LOVE my "World Walking"!  I think I am putting in about 30-40 miles a week. That means many different unreached people groups are being prayed for. George and I have done it several times together after dinner, and I really like having a husband who loves to pray with me! Kathleen has done it with me too. If anyone local wants to do it. LET'S!

I had this block with Isaiah, but then I asked for prayer, and it flowed right on the blog. So, the one of the MAJOR prophets is down! I got past the halfway point of Jeremiah yesterday by staying home from morning activities yesterday. I was tired from the Civil War Reenactments in Salem on Saturday and just needed some time alone with the Lord. I love Jeremiah. I love how he was hurt that people didn't want to receive his message. So real, and that is how I feel sometimes. SO, I can relate to him.

After Jeremiah, I have Lamentations, Ezekiel, and Daniel of the major prophets, and Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi of the minor prophets. I also have three more history books sprinkled in: Ezra, Esther, and Nehemiah. Oh, I also have 37 more Psalms. Then, I am done with the whole Old Testament. It is really a spiritual journey and not just a task though. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this God-inspired BHAG given to me on Christmas Day 2007!

Personal prayer has been so good too. God is really leading me into deeper places.

Oh, I think I have decided, on second thought and reflection, that the Spiritual Direction class in Mount Angel would not be a good thing at this time. George job is being cut back to 32 hours a week (with a subsequent cut in pay), and we have many major expenses: art school for Michael and dental work for both me and Michael. So, maybe another time! I am very peaceful about that! Plus, I think I already do Spiritual Direction as I read the books from the class. I just wanted to fellowship with others who are doing it. That is the main reason I wanted to take the class.


Well-Educated Mind


I loved The Aeneid by Virgil, and I am so shocked that I did! I dreaded that on my "100 Great Books" list!  But the audiobook of the Fagles translation, narrated by Simon Callow was the BOMB. I started listening to it on my way to Ginny and Lorraine's on Wednesday, and I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN (or, in this case, stop listening). It was great. YAY!


I am also listening to The Federalist read by this man on the internet. You can download all 80 MP3. The founders of our country were BRILLIANT men, and we owe our freedom to them. They presented the need for our Constitution with such foresight! I am loving that too. I take it in little doses of 10-15 minutes each.


(DRAT there goes the 15 minute alarm! I will continue this fine discussion tomorrow for the other "Well" concerns! BYE!) 


Remember NO PROOFREADING. Sorry if it drives you crazy! LOL!




Well-Adjusted Heart 
Well-Tuned Strength

52 in 52 Week 27: The Ascent of George Washington by John Ferling

Just in time for Independence Day!

This is about the myth versus the man. Excellent. I like this review of the book by The Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/02/AR2009070201735.html 

This book is long. It was 438 pages in print, and it was over 17 hours of audiobook listening, but it is so well researched and written that I heartily recommend it. The narrator was also great on the audiobook. I listened to it leading up to our time on the East Coast visiting Valley Forge and Mount Vernon. I always try to read a book about American history around 4th of July. I have read biographies on Ben Franklin, John Adams, and 1776. It was Washington's turn, having been a character in all three of those books. 

Well worth the investment of time. I read a review on library thing that said "One of the rare accounts in which a political idol is not diminished by the revelation of his human imperfections. If anything, his ability comes out enhanced. Singular & thought-provoking" (Niels Peter, Library Thing). I agree.


Here is a really great, short summation of the book by the author: