Great Book

I know a book is good when I catch myself beginning to pray for one of the characters. Talk about being absorbed into the novel!

I'm reading Sepulchre by Kate Mosse, and boy, is it riveting. It's a french, gothic tale that flip-flops between present and past and interweaves both sets of the characters' lives together.

Actually, I'm listening to it on CD, so I'm constantly thinking up places to drive to so I can listen to it. Yes, I could listen at home, but there are people there who like to interrupt at crucial moments. And rather than take the chance of me blowing a head gasket, I'd rather drive somewhere. I could take the trash and recycling off...and this would be a good time to buy school supplies!

Summer Fun and a New Quote

It's been a busy summer so far. Last week I was at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina for a week of intense classes in digital photography. We learned how to operate in full manual mode and how to use Photoshop. I learned tons; some of which was over my head. I may write more about that later.

But for today, I only want to quote from a book I'm reading by Elizabeth Goudge called The Scent of Water. I've always loved her writings. The stories are always good. She really develops her characters in a very slow, English village sort of way just like I like them. Here's the quote: "If you understand people, you're of use to them whether you can do anything tangible for them or not. Understanding is a creative act in a dimension we do not see."

I believe it's an act of love to really listen and understand another person. When we do this for another, it's a precious gift. I pray to be able to love with Christ's love and to be able to understand and appreciate my fellow human travelers as we journey together through this life.

Lessons For A Good Life

1.  Do not complain about your life.

2.  Do not blame others for things that you have brought upon yourself.

3.  Be content with who you are and where you are.

4.  Do whatever you can to bring to others such contentment, joy, and understanding that you have managed to find yourself.

So Many Books, So Little Time

I've not posted in about two weeks.  Last week I was fighting some virus/cold/nasty thing. Week before that I was in the midst of a mid-life crisis; more on that later.  Maybe.  

I finished the book So Many Books, So Little Time-A Year of Passionate Reading by Sara Nelson.  It was a fun read and introduced me to books I would never pick up in the first place.  My reading list grew by about fifteen books.

Here's what she says about not finishing a book.  "So I did something I have only in my maturity learned how to do:  I stopped reading.  Right there, on page 71, right after the hero, a brain-damaged soldier, encounters the little boy who will change his life.  I might pick it up again, I told myself.  And I might.  But I doubt it.  Allowing yourself to stop reading a book-at page 25, 50, or even, less frequently, a few chapters from the end-is a rite of passage in a reader's life, the literary equivalent of a bar mitzvah or a communion, the moment  at which you look at yourself and announce:  Today I am an adult.  I can make my own decisions."

I remember when I decided not to finish a book; something I had never done before.  I was reading 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez .  I was on the next to the last page and became so frustrated that I threw the book across the room shouting, "This is stupid!"  I never finished it.  

Thinking back on it, I have a hard time imagining being that frustrated by a book one page away from the ending.  But I was.  Since then I've had no trouble not finishing a book if I'm not really into it by about fifty pages or so.  That's three negatives in one sentence.  Is that allowable?

My new motto is "Life's Too Short to Read a Book That Doesn't Capture My Interest."

Here's something funny she said about trying to get interested in different books and failing.  "I'm like an animal off its feed.  I can't get into a novel to save my life.  Biographies bore me.  I've left so many open books belly down, on the green bedroom rug that the whole place is starting to look like an aerial view of a town full of Swiss chalets."  I think that's hilarious!

Something To Think About

Do your work...and step back.

Fill your bowl to the brim

and it will spill.

Keep sharpening a knife

and it will blunt.

Chase after money and security

and your heart will never unclench.

Care about people's approval

and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.

The only path to serenity.

I don't know where I read this, but I recognized the truth in it. How many times do we overwork something to the point of ruining it? Westerners want more, more, more instead of being satisfied with enough or even less.

And as a Christian, I don't believe that the only path to serenity is to do your work and step away from it. But the poem makes a good point, doesn't it?

I Know How She Feels

Excerpt from Traveling with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd and her daughter Ann Kidd Taylor. Sue says, "At times like this, I feel the small curse of my introspective nature and its obstinate demands, how it wants to be allowed, wants my unhurried and undivided attention, how the moments of life insist on being metabolized and given expression. As usual, having failed to stop and tend to this unmitigated part of myself, it has stopped me."

Quote of the Day

"We write to taste life twice," Anais Nin wrote, "in the moment and in retrospection."