Donald Miller

"I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. But then I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there and for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes. After that I liked jazz music. Sometimes you have to watch someboday love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way. I used to not like God because God didn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened."

from the "Author's Note" in Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

Iris Murdoch

"Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck."

The Inklings of Oxford: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Their Friends

Text by: Harry Lee Poe / Photographs by: James Ray Veneman

5 stars
If you are looking for an engaging and yet quick read on the Inklings (and particularly the friendship of Lewis & Tolkien) this is a book to grab. It is a fast read - I finished it the day I picked it up - it is put together in a souvenir or coffee table book format. Poe is a great writer and the visual tour of Oxford through Veneman's lens takes you into the world of these great authors. I highly recommend this quick biographical sketch. The book also includes an appendix that lays out a few walking tours around Oxford in the steps of the Inklings

The Princess & Curdie, George MacDonald

4 stars
Although I did not enjoy this book as much as the first one (The Princess and the Goblin), I still thought it to be a wonderful continuation of the story of Curdie and Princess Irene. MacDonald indeed knows how to do fairy tale. What I felt to be somewhat a slow middle emerged into an action packed ending. Here is a book lined with spiritual truth and good storytelling.

hope:

The binoculars of the present.

past:

The was of now.

present:

The gift of now.

living:

The insignificance of being significant and the significance of being insignificant.

Haiku XII

Dawn is appearing—
Blade of grass, shouldered with dew.
Light—lifting burdens.

Winston Churchill

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."

Abraham Lincoln

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know."

Up (2009, Pixar)

4 stars
Pixar has done it again - they are the masters of storytelling and this movie does not disappoint - in terms of both adult and child sensibilities. There were a couple of slow points but all-in-all the movie was a great tale filled with adventure and some very poignant scenes. The character development, delightful animation, and overall message were well crafted.

Haiku XI

Neighbors are moving—
We linger in our good-bye.
Tonight’s crescent moon.

independence:

The "I" which stands not for one's rights but rather for one's responsibility.

Christ The Lord: The Road To Cana, Anne Rice

5 stars
Anne Rice has written a bold and ambitious book. She writes the novel with Jesus speaking in the first person. I must say she did is beautifully. I ended the book with a sense of how appealing Jesus really is. She brings to the surface the humanity of Christ while not neglecting his divinity. I think this would be a great book for anyone who has heard the stories of the Gospel and has come to find them dull and dry. Rice's portrayal of Jesus in the flesh caused me to look back at the sacred text with new eyes and with a deeper appreciation of the larger story of Jesus' life and ministry. I loved the way she created a back story for the Gospel story—even if it didn’t happen the way she envisioned it, it was still a powerful reminder that something must have taken up many of Jesus’ hours that are lost to history.

This book is a sequel to Christ the Lord: Out Of Egypt but can be read alone.

Eric Carle

"We have eyes, and we're looking at stuff all the time, all day long. And I just think that whatever our eyes touch should be beautiful, tasteful, appealing, and important."

M.C. Escher

"Are you really sure that a floor can't also be a ceiling?"

Haiku X

The syllable swims
within a stream of summer—
sounds of splashing fish.

J.R.R. Tolkien

"Not all that wander are lost."

Anne Frank

"I see the world slowly transformed into a wilderness. I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too. I feel the suffering of millions. And yet when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better. That this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more." ~ 1944

Ian McEwan

"For children, childhood is timeless. It is always the present. Everything is in the present tense. Of course, they have memories. Of course, time shifts a little for them and Christmas comes round in the end. But they don't feel it. Today is what they feel, and when they say "When I grow up," there is always an edge of disbelief - how could they ever be other than what they are?"

Federico Garcia Lorca

"Give me back the soul I had of old, when I was a child mellow with legends, with a feather cap and a wooden sword."

Issa

Don't worry, spiders,
I keep house
casually.


-----


Face of the spring moon -
about twelve years old,
I'd say.

That Hideous Strength: A Modern Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups, C.S. Lewis

5 stars
The concluding book of Lewis' space trilogy that began with Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra. It has been a long time since I have read such a powerful and moving novel. Simply put, Lewis is brilliant. The book stands alone as a masterpiece and can be read without reading the previous two. If you don't have the time to read the whole trilogy at least find the time to read this work. The battle between good and evil is displayed with such genius that you will not be disappointed. This was a marvelous read. I personally think this is Lewis' best book.

H.W. Longfellow

"How beautiful is youth! How bright it gleams, with its illusions, aspirations, dreams!"

Eli Khamarov

"Poverty is like punishment for a crime you didn't commit."

Hellen Keller

"The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there had been no dark valleys to traverse."

Haiku IX

On the patio
reading. While pages of leaves
turn about the lawn.

Mary McCarthy

"Every age has a keyhole to which its eye is pasted."

Haiku VIII

Pulling garden weeds—
These sad songs of gravity.
The moon, bright yet blank.

Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

"Fantasies are more than substitutes for unpleasant realities. They are also dress rehearsals. All acts performed in the world begin in the imagination."

Peter Pan

"All you need is faith and trust and a little bit of pixie dust."

George MacDonald

"Our Lord never thought of being original."

# 43 from George MacDonald: An Anthology, ed. by C.S. Lewis

Haiku VII

A glint of glory—
A male cardinal crosses,
how these days pass us.

C.S. Lewis

"Everyone begins as a child by liking Weather. You learn the art of disliking it as you grow up. Haven't you ever noticed it on a snowy day? The grown-ups are all going about with long faces, but look at the children - and the dogs? They know what snow's made for."

from That Hideous Strength, 113

Maurice Sendak

"You cannot write for children. They're much too complicated. You can only write books that are of interest to them."


source ~ The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor: June 10, 2009

G.K. Chesterton

"Fairy tales are more than true, not because they tell us dragons exist but because they tell us dragons can be beaten."


source ~ Full of Grace: A Journey Through The History of Childhood, Ray Merritt (p. 187)

Buson

Chrysanthemum growers -
you are the slaves
of chrysanthemums!


-----


Before the white chrysanthemum
the scissors hesitate
a moment.

Haiku VI

Sea turtles emerge
into long moonlit labor—
I write with my pen.

The Finale, Calvin Miller

4 stars
The final book in The Singer trilogy. It has been compared to Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia and Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy but I think this is giving it a bit too much credit. Clever as it is, Miller writes a pure allegory whereas Lewis and Tolkien do not. Miller offers a creative interaction with the book of Revelation in The Finale and is well worth the couple hours it takes to get through it.

George MacDonald

A fantastic excerpt from MacDonald's The Princess & Curdie (the sequel to The Princess & The Goblin)

[Curdie had just killed a white pigeon and right after doing so begins to feel a great regret and remorse and is reminded of Princess Irene’s great-great-grandmother whose bird it might have been. Curdie sets out to find the great-great-grandmother and make amends.]

When Curdie saw how distressed [the great-great- grandmother] was he grew sorrier still, and said:
‘I didn’t mean to do any harm, ma’am. I didn’t think of it being yours.’
‘Ah, Curdie! If it weren’t mine, what would become of it now?’ she returned. ‘You say you didn’t mean any harm: did you mean any good, Curdie?
‘No,’ answered Curdie.
‘Remember, then, that whoever does not mean good is always in danger of harm. But I try to give everybody fair play; and those that are in the wrong are in far more need of it always than those who are in the right: they can afford to do without it. Therefore I say for you that when you shot that arrow you did not know what a pigeon is. Now that you do know, you are sorry. It is very dangerous to do things you don’t know about.’
‘But please, ma’am – I don’t mean to be rude or to contradict you,’ said Curdie, ‘but if a body was never to do anything but what he knew to be good, he would have to live half of his time doing nothing.’
‘There you are mistaken,’ said the old quavering voice. ‘How little you must have thought! Why, you don’t seem even to know the good of the things you are constantly doing. Now don’t mistake me. I don’t mean you are good for doing them. It is a good thing to eat your breakfast, but you don’t fancy it’s very good of you to do it. The thing is good—not you.’
Curdie laughed.
‘There are a great many more good things than bad things to do. Now tell me what bad things you have done today besides this sore hurt to my little white friend.’
While she talked Curdie had sunk into a sort of reverie, in which he hardly knew whether it was the old lady or his own heart that spoke. And when she asked him that question, he was at first much inclined to consider himself a very good fellow on the whole. ‘I really don’t think I did anything else that was very bad all day,’ he said to himself. But at the same time he could not honestly feel what he was worth standing up for. All at once a light seemed to break in upon his mind, and he woke up and there was the withered little atomy of the old lady on the other side of the moonlight, and there was the spinning wheel singing on and on in the middle of it!
‘I know now, ma’am; I understand now,’ he said. ‘Thank you, ma’am, for spinning it into me with your wheel. I see now that I have been doing wrong the whole day, and such a many days besides! Indeed, I don’t know when I ever did right, and yet it seems as if I had done right some time and forgotten how. When I killed your bird I did not know I was doing wrong, just because I was always doing wrong, and the wrong had soaked all through me.’
‘What wrong were you doing all day, Curdie? It is better to come to the point, you know,’ said the old lady, and her voice was gentler even than before.
‘I was doing the wring of never wanting or trying to be better. And now I see that I have been letting things go as they would for a long time. Whatever came into my head I did, and whatever didn’t come into my head I didn’t do. I never sent anything away, and never looked out for anything to come. I haven’t been attending to my mother—or my father either. And now I think of it, I know I have often seen them looking troubled, and I have never asked them what was the matter. And now I see, too, that I did not ask because I suspected it had something to do with me and my behaviour, and didn’t want to hear the truth. And I know I have been grumbling at my work, and doing a hundred other things that are wrong.’
‘You have got it, Curdie,’ said the old lady, in a voice that sounded almost as if she had been crying. ‘When people don’t care to be better they must be doing everything wrong. I am so glad you shot my bird!’
‘Ma’am!’ exclaimed Curdie. ‘How can you be?’
‘Because it has brought you to see what sort your were when you did it, and what sort you will grow to be again, only worse, if you don’t mind. Now that you are sorry, my poor bird will be better. Look up my dovey.’
The pigeon gave a flutter, and spread out one of its red-spotted wings across the old woman’s bosom.
‘I will mend the little angel,’ she said, ‘and in a week or two it will be flying again. So you may ease your heart about the pigeon.’
‘Oh, thank you! Thank you!’ cried Curdie. ‘I don’t know how to thank you.’
‘Then I will tell you. There is only one way I care for. Do better, and grow better, and be better. And never kill anything without a good reason for it.’
‘Ma’am, I will go and fetch my bow and arrows, and you shall burn them yourself.’
‘I have no fire that would burn your bow and arrows, Curdie.’
‘Then I promise you to burn them all under my mother’s porridge pot tomorrow morning.’
‘No, no, Curdie. Keep them, and practice with them every day, and grow a good shot. There are plenty of bad things that want killing, and a day will come when they will prove useful. But I must see first wheterh you will do as I tell you.’

pgs 25-28

George MacDonald

"[The miners] were not companions to give the best of help toward progress, and as Curdie grew, he grew at this time faster in body than in mind - with the usual consequence, that he was getting rather stupid - one of the chief signs of which was that he believed less and less in things he had never seen. At the same time I do not think he was ever so stupid as to imagine that this was a sign of superior faculty and strength of mind. Still, he was becoming more and more a miner, and less and less a man of the upper world where the wind blew. On his way to and from the mine he took less and less notice of bees and butterflies, moths and dragonflies, the flowers and the brooks and the clouds. He was gradually changing into a commonplace man.

There is this difference between the growth of some human beings and that of others; in the one case it is a continuous dying, in the other a continuous resurrection. One of the latter sort comes at length to know at once whether a thing is true the moment it comes before him; one of the former class grows more and more afraid of being taken in, so afraid of it that he takes himself in altogether, and comes at length to believe in nothing but his dinner: to be sure of a thing with him is to have it between his teeth.

Curdie was not in a very good way, then, at that time. His father and mother had, it is true, no fault to find with him - and yet - and yet - neither of them was ready to sing when the thought of him came up. There must be something wrong when a mother catches herself sighing over the time when her boy was in petticoats, or a father looks sad when he thinks how he used to carry him on his shoulder. The boy should enclose and keep, as his life, the old child at the heart of him, and never let it go. He must still, to be a right man, be his mother's darling, and more, his father's pride, and more. The child is not meant to die, but to be forever freshborn."

from The Princess & Curdie, 11-13

The Song, Calvin Miller

4 stars
Miller has written an fascinating and intriguing piece of poetic fiction as he allegorically parallels portions of the book of Acts from the Bible. His portrayal is gripping and well cast. This book is written as a sequel to his earlier work The Singer (which follows the gospels as its inspiration).

Although The Song is not as strong as the first book in the trilogy, it is a worthy read and a beneficial reflection on what happens to those who follow The Singer after His death and resurrection.

The final book of the trilogy is entitled The Finale and is built around the themes of the book of Revelation.

Calvin Miller

"We have heard that when the commandant presided at the execution of the first Jews, he faltered momentarily. A woman held up her infant to him, crying, "Please take my baby." He turned as though to spare her son the rifle fire. And then he clicked his heels and turned away. The next six million souls were paperwork. Occasionally he left the office with a headache, but only because he feared the gas was running low or the cattle cars were late."

from The Song, 145

Calvin Miller

"It takes a breeze to make a banner speak."

from The Song, 35

Perelandra, C.S. Lewis

5 stars
The second novel in the space trilogy which begins with Out of this Silent Planet. Ransom is on another adventure, this time to Venus (otherwise known as Perelandra). Weston also returns and what unfolds is a tale of genuine craftsmanship - this is Lewis at his best! The reality of sin and the demonic take on a new shape along with reality itself. A book that helps one read his or her own days.

Haiku V

The playful puppy
bounds through three-inch high field grass.
Spring—is in the air.

"The Giant's Heart" by George MacDonald

5 stars
This short tale is one found in The Complete Fairy Tales of George MacDonald. It is a retelling of a Norwegian fairy tale where a child-eating giant has hidden his heart and a two children (Tricksey-Wee & Buffy-Bob) seek it out to teach the giant a lesson. It offers some points worth talking about if read to kids (i.e. there's a moral that can be pulled out of the story).

Here's a favorite quote from the tale:
"Then Tricksey-Wee told them that there was a giant on the borders who treated little children no better than radishes, and that they had narrowly escaped being eaten by him; that they had found out that the great she-eagle of Mount Skycrack was at present sitting on his heart; and that, if they could only get hold of the heart, they would soon teach the giant better behaviour."

read the whole fairy tale here (it can be read in under an hour):
The Giant's Heart

A Little Princess (1995 film)

5 stars
A film as much for the adults as it is for the children - this one does not disappoint. It is based off of a 1905 children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett (who also wrote A Secret Garden). In my opinion it is a perfect story in all ways - filled with a fairy-tale that mimics reality woven throughout the storyline as well as villains and heroes, suspense and adventure, and truth, beauty and goodness.

Although the movie is rated G, I would put it at PG due to some scenes that deal with the reality of war and a ten-headed fantasy monster that shows up a couple of times. (It was an appropriate movie for my 7 and 9 year old however)

Haiku IV

My birthday is here.
Inside the dictionary
I find pressed flowers.

C.S. Lewis

“If the remains of Weston were, at such moments, speaking through the lips of the Un-man, then Weston was not now a man at all. The forces which had begun, perhaps years ago, to eat away his humanity had now completed their work. The intoxicated will which had been slowly poisoning the intelligence and the affection had now at last poisoned itself and the whole psychic organism had fallen to pieces. Only a ghost was left—an everlasting unrest, a crumbling, a ruin, an odour of decay. “And this,” thought Ransom, “might be my destruction; or hers.””

---

“She was still in her innocence. No evil intension had been formed in her mind. But if her will was uncorrupted, half her imagination was already filled with bright, poisonous shapes. “This can’t go on,” thought Ransom for the second time. But all his arguments proved in the long run unavailing and it did go on.”

---

The deceiving Weston speaks:
“A man can love himself, and be together with himself. That is what it means to be a man or a woman—to walk alongside oneself as if one were a second person and to delight in one’s own beauty. Mirrors were made to teach this art.”

from Perelandra, chpt 10, pgs: 130, 134, 137

The Witches, Roald Dahl

4 stars
You can never be sure when a witch is lurking about - but Dahl offers a few things one ought to look for. This is a fun and entertaining tale about a boy and his grandmother and their fate with the local witches. Dahl proves again he is a gifted weaver of story.

The Light Princess, George MacDonald

4 stars
A wonderful fairy tale of sacrifice and redemption. We listened to this one as an audio recording and enjoyed the playful interaction it offered with regard to the gravity of our world. A great book to nurture the moral imagination.

memorial:

a way of memorizing memory

C.S. Lewis

“How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of Him is of no importance except insofar as it is related to how He thinks of us.”

Basho

Year after year
on the monkey's face
a monkey's face.

The Road To Oz, L. Frank Baum

4 stars
So, we now own the complete Oz set in one volume and have completed the fifth book in the series. Baum did it again with this installment and has written a book that does not disappoint. Many are the roads before us but only one will lead to Oz and herein is a new tale of Dorothy's adventures as she attempts to reach the Emerald City in time for Ozma's birthday party. Along the way the reader is greeted by new and old friends: The Shaggy Man, Button-Bright, King Dox, Polychrome the Rainbow's daughter, King Kick-a-Bray, The Musicker, Johnny Dooit, Tick-Tock, Billina, The Wizard, Jack Pumpkinhead, Tin Woodman, Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion, Hungry Tiger, and Ozma to name a few.

Haiku III

Potted spring flowers -
Children are playing kickball
on the fenced in field

Dallas Willard

when defining love - "the genuine inner readiness and longing to secure the good of others"

in Renovation of the Heart, 24

Annie Dillard

"I always want to paint, too, after I see the Rembrandts."

from The Writing Life, 97

Margaret Thatcher

"When Abraham Lincoln spoke in his famous Gettysburg speech of 1863 of 'government of the people, by the people, and for the people,' he gave the world a neat definition of democracy which has since been widely and enthusiastically adopted. But what he enunciated as a form of government was not in itself especially Christian, for nowhere in the Bible is the word democracy mentioned. Ideally, when Christians meet, as Christians, to take counsel together, their purpose is not (or should not be) to ascertain what is the mind of the majority but what is the mind of the Holy Spirit - something which may be quite different. Nevertheless I am an enthusiast for democracy. And I take that position, not because I believe majority opinion is inevitably right or true - indeed no majority can take away God-given human rights - but because I believe it most effectively safeguards the value of the individual, and, more than any other system, restrains the abuse of power by the few. And that is a Christian concept."

from a speech in May of 1988

Margaret Thatcher

"What then are the distinctive marks of Christianity? They stem not from the social but from the spiritual side of our lives. I would identify three beliefs in particular: First, that from the beginning, man has been endowed by God with the fundamental right to choose between good and evil. Second, that we were made in God's own image and therefore we are expected to use all our own power of thought and judgment in exercising that choice; and further, if we open our hearts to God, He has promised to work within us. And third, that Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, when faced with His terrible choice and lonely vigil, chose to lay down His life that our sins may be forgiven. I remember very well a sermon on Armistice Sunday when our preacher said: "No one took away the life of Jesus, He chose to lay it down". I think back to many discussions in my early life when we all agreed that if you try to take the fruits of Christianity without its roots, the fruits will wither. And they will not come again unless you nurture the roots. But we must not profess the Christian faith and go to church simply because we want social reforms and benefits or a better standard of behavior - but because we accept the sanctity of life, the responsibility that comes with freedom and the supreme sacrifice of Christ expressed so well in the hymn:

When I survey the wondrous Cross
on which the Prince of Glory died
My richest gain I count but loss
and pour contempt on all my pride."

from a speech in May of 1988

Haiku II

Ants see peonies
March as spring into being
Crawling garden bloom

Haiku I

The rink of black sky
A shooting star skating by
Grandeur of last breath

quilt:

When the stitching of memory goes, the patchwork once again becomes scraps for another generation.

John Calvin

"Oh, how great we have advanced when we have learned not to be our own, not to be governed by our own reason, but to surrender our minds to God! The most effective poison to lead us to ruin is to boast in ourselves, in our own wisdom and willpower. The only escape to safety is simply to follow the guidance of the Lord."

George Mueller

"If we seek to discern Christ in each other, how we shall be drawn to each other!"

Anne Lamott

"I remind myself nearly every day of something that a doctor told me six months before my friend Penny died. This was a doctor who always gave me straight answers. When I called on this one particular night, I was hoping she could put a positive slant on some distressing developments. She couldn't, but she said something that changed my life. "Watch her carefully right now," she said, "because she's teaching you how to live." I remind myself of this when I cannot get any work done: to live as if I am dying, because the truth is we are all terminal on this bus. To live as if we are dying gives us a chance to experience some real presence."

from Bird By Bird: Some Instruction on Writing and Life, 179

mother:

like sorrow, it is one thing with which all humanity has been acquainted - wherein we are knit together

Dallan Forgaill

"Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart; naught be all else to me, save that Thou art. Thou my best thought, by day or by night, waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light."

William Temple

“To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God; to feed the mind with the truth of God; to purge the imagination by the beauty of God; to open the heart to the love of God; and to devote the will to the purpose of God.”

Dwight Eisenhower

"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."

L. Frank Baum

"Dorothy let Button-Bright wind up the clock-work in the copper man this morning - his thinking machine first, then his speech, and finally his action; so he would doubtlessly run perfectly until they had reached the Emerald City. The copper man and the tin man were good friends, and not so much alike as you might think. For one was alive and the other moved by means of machinery; one was tall and angular and the other short and round. You could love the Tin Woodman because he had a fine nature, kindly and simply; but the machine man you could only admire without loving, since to love a sewing machine or an automobile. Yet Tik-tok was popular with the people of Oz because he was so trustworthy, reliable and true; he was sure to do exactly what he was wound up to do, at all times and in all circumstances. Perhaps it is better to be a machine that does its duty than a flesh-and-blood person who will not, for a dead truth is better than a live falsehood."

from chapter 16 in The Road to Oz (book five in the Oz series)

L. Frank Baum

Upon seeing Nick Chopper's (aka the Tin Woodman's) Tin Castle

"It must have cost a lot of money," remarked the shaggy man.

"Money! Money in Oz!" cried the Tin Woodman. "What a queer idea! Did you suppose we are so vulgar as to use money here?"

"Why not?" asked the shaggy man.

"If we used money to buy things with, instead of love and kindness and the desire to please one another, then we should be no better than the rest of the world," declared the Tin Woodman. "Fortunately money is not known in the land of Oz at all. We have no rich, and no poor; for what one wishes the others all try to give him, in order to make him happy, and no one in all Oz cares to have more than he can use."

from chapter 15 in The Road to Oz (book five in the Oz series)

Igor Stravinsky

"My music is best understood by children and animals."

forty-two

So turns my wife today - like a fine wine, she only gets better with age...

journaling:

The process of discovering that leads to discovery; it is the unearthing of artifacts that they might be held in view in this museum of life.

maypole:

The cross between a mayfly and a tadpole: short-lived and yet wonderfully transforming.

George MacDonald

"Truth is truth, whether from the lips of Jesus or Balaam."

from Unspoken Sermons

conversation:

The fire by which humanity warms or burns itself.

Plato

“The power of the Good has taken refuge in the nature of the Beautiful.”

Dr. Seuss

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.”

Blaise Pascal

“We arrive at the truth, not by the reason only, but also by the heart.”

Boy: Tales of Childhood, Roald Dahl

5 stars
A marvelous and delightful book. Dahl's recollections of his childhood in this autobiography take the reader (or listener in my case) to another time. This reading was narrated by Andrew Sachs who enhances Dahl's reflections as he brings to life the colorful characters of Dahl's life and lifts them off the page and into the imagination. The book follows Dahl's lifespan from birth until about 20 years old. He writes with great wit and detail and my boys and I found ourselves laughing out loud many times as we entered into the adventures of his boyhood in the early decades of the 20th century.

C.S. Lewis

"We all agree that the story of Balder is a great myth, a thing of inexhaustible value. But whose version - whose words - are we thinking when we say this? For my own part, the answer is that I am not thinking of anyone's words. No poet, as far as I know or can remember, has told this story supremely well. I am not thinking of any particular version of it. If the story is anywhere embodied in words, that is almost an accident. What really delights and nourishes me is a particular pattern of events, which would equally delight and nourish if it had reached me by some medium which involved no words at all - say by a mime, or a film. And I find this to be true of all such stories."

in the preface of George MacDonald: An Anthology, 365 Readings, xxix

C.S. Lewis

[Weston speaking on the nature of the 'spirit' within] "Call it a Force. A great, inscrutable Force, pouring up into us from the dark bases of being. A Force that can choose its instruments. It is only lately, Ransom, that I've learned from actual experience something which you have believed all your life as part of your religion." Here he suddenly subsided again into a whisper - a croaking whisper unlike his usual voice. "Guided," he said. "Chosen. Guided. I've become conscious that I'm a man set apart. Why did I do physics? Why did I discover the Weston rays? Why did I go to Malacandra? It - the Force - has pushed me on all this time. I'm being guided. I know now that I am the greatest scientist the world has yet produced. I've been made so for a purpose. It is through me that Spirit itself is at this moment pushing on to its goal."

"Look here," said Ransom, "one wants to be careful about this sort of thing. There are spirits and spirits you know."

"Eh?" said Weston. "What are you talking about?"

"I mean a thing might be a spirit and not good for you."

"But I thought you agreed that Spirit was the good - the end of the whole process? I thought you religious people were all out for spirituality? What is the point of asceticism - fasts and celibacy and all that? Didn't we agree that God is a spirit? Don't you worship Him because He is pure spirit?"

"Good heavens, no! We worship Him because He is wise and good. There's nothing specially fine about something simply being a spirit. The Devil is a spirit."

in Perelandra, chpt. 7

memory:

The past living in the present - the spark that fans into the flame of history.

creativity:

Like origami, it is lifting the extraordinary out of the plain; it is the fold and turn that defines.

Pablo Picasso

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Music is the universal language of mankind."

C.S. Lewis

"I am His beast, and all His biddings are joy."

~ the Lady of Perelandra speaking to Ransom of her King

The Ice Dragon, George R. R. Martin

3.5 stars
A quick read - I read this one to my kids in under an hour (107 pages with good illustrations throughout). This was a good story and worth the time but is not amazing literature. If you are looking for a dragon story that can be read in one sitting it is worth picking up. The realities of life and death come through in the tale and there are some good lessons that help form the moral imagination. A great book for an elementary student to pick up and read on a rainy Saturday.

Elie Wiesel

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference."

anniversary:

It was nineteen years ago today that my mother died - "36 years young" as my father wrote it in the obituary. It was Easter Sunday that year and the years since have proven that life goes on and it is grand.

He is risen! He is risen indeed!

Anne Lamott

"If you are writing the clearest, truest words you can find and doing the best you can to understand and communicate, this will shine on paper like its own little lighthouse. Lighthouses don't go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining."

giftedness:

A vessel of grace - oh that I should be the carrier of grace to another.

Easter:

The reminder that these days do not end us.

tomb:

a symbol of sorrow - but not so when the stone is rolled away and what was becomes what is and what is to come...

kill:

What one can do to the body alone - and we are more than flesh and blood.

Gospel:

The appeal of Jesus.

service:

The eyes and ears set in the heart whose limbs run and reach into the world.

obedience:

The horse that carries the chariot of the heart.

oxymoron:

snow in April

palm:

Like ourselves, it can be curled into a fist of darkness or opened as unto light.

Frederick Buechner

"The Gospel is bad news before it is good news."

from Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy & Fairy Tale

belief:

The watchman of our soul.

The Princess and The Goblin, George MacDonald

5 stars
This story was first published in 1872 and is well worth the read over a hundred years later. (This book also has a sequel: The Princess and Curdie) MacDonald has woven together a brilliant fairy tale. I read the book to my children, but like any good fairy tale found myself enjoying it more than them at points. Complete with dreams and visions, goblins and escapes, love and heroism; it is a book filled with truth. If you are looking for a delightful and fun read that draws attention to what is good - pick up this story.

As W.H. Auden wrote, "To me, George MacDonald's most extraordinary, and precious, gift is his ability, in all his stories, to create an atmosphere of goodness about which there is nothing phony or moralistic. Nothing is rarer in literature."

MacDonald was also one who had a huge influence on C.S. Lewis as seen in these quotes:

"I know nothing that gives me such a feeling of spiritual healing, of being washed, as to read G. MacDonald."
from The Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves

"I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master; indeed I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him."
from the preface of George MacDonald: An Anthology by Lewis

For those of you who know Lewis' writings you may recall it is MacDonald who Lewis interacts with in The Great Divorce. Also, in a later introduction that Lewis wrote for MacDonald's Phantastes he states: "What it [Phantastes] actually did to me was convert, even to baptise my imagination."

fool:

The lumbering foe of virtue.

contentment:

Found in a gratefullness in everything, not a gratefullness for everything.

bitterness:

When on the palate, it furrows the brow, eyes wince;
in the soul, it is the heart that furrows, nerves wince.

might:

As in, the widow's mite.

RUMINATE: Faith in Literature and Art #10

4 stars
RUMINATE is a quarterly magazine of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and visual art with a nod to the Christian faith. This issue proved to be a pleasant read with three 5 star take-aways:

1) "Afternoon Poem" by Catherine Fiorello - a reminder to wake each day ready to live with the knowledge that in the living life happens...for the day goes on and with it so do we

2) "Ascension" by Marcy Campbell - a masterfully written piece on the hope that finds a hopeless man - it drew my attention to the ways we are rescued from the trial of our days, sometimes in unexpected ways

3) the write-up on the life and art of Paula Peacock - it wasn't so much her art, although I found it worthy rumination, but rather the story that led her to art that really grabbed me...a reminder that it is about the journey and its mix of confusion and conviction, inspiration and intuition

Check out RUMINATE

inspiration:

The language of the imagination.

Christian Wiman

"The effort is to make ourselves more real to ourselves, and to feel that we have selves, though the deepest moments of creation tell us that, in some fundamental way, we don't. (What could be more desperate, more anxiously vain, than the ever-increasing tendency to Google oneself?) So long as your ambition is to stamp your existence upon existence, your nature on nature, then your ambition is corrupt and you are pursuing a ghost."

---

"Life is always a question of intensity, and intensity is always a matter of focus."

---

"Human imagination is not simply our means of reaching out to God but God's means of manifesting himself to us."

---

"Contemporary physicists talk about something called "quantum weirdness," which refers to the fact that an observed particle passed through a screen will always go through one hole. A particle that is unobserved but mechanically monitored will pass through multiple holes at the same time. What this suggests, of course, is that what we call reality is utterly conditioned by the limitations of our senses, and that there is some other reality much larger and more complex than we are able to perceive."


from IMAGE Journal #60, in the essay, "God's Truth Is Life"

weather:

The metaphor of emotions.

Iris Murdoch

"Simple-minded faith in science, together with the assumption we are all rational and totally free, engenders a dangerous lack of curiosity about the real world, a failure to appreciate the difficulties of knowing it."

from Existentialists and Mystics

IMAGE Journal #60

5 stars
It is with great delight that I come to my mailbox four times a year and find my copy of IMAGE ready to read. It has never disappointed and with this twentieth anniversary issue and its expanded content I was all the more excited. The journal is a must for any who have an interest in fiction, poetry, essays, and the visual arts as viewed through the lenses of art, faith and mystery. Each journal is an invitation to pay attention and be human. I always put it down inspired. Click here to learn more about IMAGE or visit their daily blog: Good Letters.

Subscribe now to the print journal and you will get this issue for free!

Allso, check out the conversations taking place on IMAGE Forum.

"On Fairy Stories" by J.R.R. Tolkien

4 stars
First given as a lecture in 1939, it was first published in 1947 and then appeared again in 1966 as one of two essays in Tree and Leaf. It reads as an academic essay whereas Tolkien sets out to defend the fairy story. An important read for any one interested in this genre and the thoughts of one who mastered it. His reflection includes wrestling with definitions, a consideration toward the origins of the genre, the audience as child or adult, how we ought to think of fantasy and the role of fairy-stories with regard to recovery, escape and consolation.

Here was some of my take away:

"The definition of fairy story--what it is, or what it should be--does not, then, depend on any definition or historical account of elf or fairy, but upon the nature of Faerie, the Perilous Realm itself, and the air that blows in that country. I will not attempt to define that, nor to describe it directly. It cannot be done. Faerie cannot be caught in a net of words, for it is one of its qualities to be indescribable, though not imperceptible. It has many ingredients, but analysis will not necessarily discover the secret of the whole...a 'fairy-story' is one which touches on or uses Faerie, whatever its own main purpose may be: satire, adventures, morality, fantasy...if there is any satire present in the tale, one thing must not be made fun of, the magic itself. That must in that story, be taken seriously, neither laughed at nor explained away...The magic of Faerie is not an end in itself, its virtue is in its operations: among these are satisfaction of certain primordial human desires. One of these desires is to survey the depths of space and time. Another is (as will be seen) to hold communion with other living things."

"Even fairy-stories as a whole have three faces: the Mystical towards the Supernatural, the Magical towards Nature, and the Mirror of scorn and pity towards Man. The essential face of Faerie is the middle one, the Magical. But the degree in which the others appear (if at all) is variable, and may be decided by the individual story-teller."

"What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful 'sub-creator.' He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is 'true', it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken, the magic, or rather art, has failed."

"Fairy-stories were plainly not primarily concerned with possibility, but with desirability. If they awakened desire, satisfying it while often whetting it unbearably, they succeeded."

"If fairy-story as a kind is worth reading at all it is worthy to be written for and read by adults."

"Fantasy can, of course, be carried to excess. It can be ill done. It can be put to evil uses. It may even delude the minds out of which it came. But of what human thing in this fallen world is that not true?"

"Fantasy remains a human right, we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made, and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker."

"The analytic study of fairy-stories is as bad a preparation for the enjoying or the writing of them as would be the historical study of the drama of all lands and times for the enjoyment or writing of stage-plays."

"From the wildness of my heart I cannot exclude the question whether railway-engineers, if they had been brought up on more fantasy, might not have done better with all their abundant means than they commonly do."

read the essay here

Theodore L. Prescott

"All of creation has inherent dignity and value simply by having been brought into existence by a creator."

from IMAGE Journal #60, in the essay, "Desire and Longing: Image Artists after Twenty Years"

George MacDonald

"Her heart failed her, and turning from the stair, she rushed along to the hall, whence, finding the front-door open, she darted into the court, pursued - at least she thought so - by the creature. No one happening to see her, on she ran, unable to think for fear, and ready to run anywhere to elude the aweful creature with the stilt-legs. Not daring to look behind her, she rushed straight out of the gate, and up the mountain. It was foolish indeed - thus to run farther and farther from all who could help her, as if she had been seeking a fit spot for the goblin-creature to eat her in at his leisure; but that is the way fear serves us: it always sides with the thing we are afraid of."

from The Princess and The Goblin

Out Of The Silent Planet, C.S. Lewis

5 stars
This first book in Lewis' Space Trilogy is an adventure. Simply put, it is a fun and yet profound telling of human ways within the backdrop of another world. He has taken the sci-fi genre and woven a tale of intrigue. I'm ready to pick up the next in the series.

Henri J. M. Nouwen

"During our short lives the question that guides much of our behavior is: 'Who are we?' Although we may seldom pose that question in a formal way, we live it very concretely in our day-to-day decisions.

The three answers that we generally live--not necessarily give--are: 'We are what we do, we are what others say about us and we are what we have,' or in other words: 'We are our success, we are our popularity, we are our power.'

Jesus came to announce to us that an identity based on success, popularity and power is a false identity---an illusion. Loudly and clearly he says: 'You are not what the world makes you; but you are children of God.'"

from Here and Now: Living in the Spirit

C.S. Lewis

"Bent creatures are full of fears."

~ Ransom in Out of the Silent Planet

alive:

I find myself in a valley, but I stand in the shadow of a breathtaking mountain.

Vigen Guroian

"While fear may sweep us into nothingness, it is also the condition under which a finite and sinful human being finds the faith and courage to yield herself up entirely to God."

from Tending the Heart of Virtue, 158-159

gratitude:

The cornerstone of faith.

book:

If it's good, it is a bound cloister where one, like a monk, is able to enter.

J.R.R. Tolkien

"As all things come to an end, even this story, a day came at last when they were in sight of the country where Bilbo had been born and bred, where the shapes of the land and of the trees were as well known to him as his hands and toes. Coming to a rise he could see his own Hill in the distance, and he stopped suddenly and said:

Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.

Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.

Gandalf looked at him, "My dear Bilbo!" he said. "Something is the matter with you! You are not the hobbit that you were.""

from The Hobbit or
There And Back Again

Christian Wiman

"To every age Christ dies anew and is resurrected within the imagination of man."

from "My Bright Abyss" in The American Scholar

see his brief essay here:
"I never felt the pain of unbelief until I believed. But belief itself is hardly painless."

Wiman is an editor for POETRY Magazine

"The Imagination: Its Function and Culture" by George MacDonald

5 stars
This essay, first published in 1867 in A Dish of Orts, was a breath of fresh air. In a culture that has taken possession of our imagination, MacDonald's critique of and invitation to its proper function is lifting. It was an inspirational read and a call to think correctly about the role of the imagination and how to rightly engage it.

read the essay here

Dorothy And The Wizard In Oz, L. Frank Baum

5 stars
Baum did it again with his fourth installment in the Oz series. Makes one ready to go and pick up the next tale. In this one, Dorothy and the humbug Wizard again re-unite after Dorothy and Zeb (her cousin) and Eurika (her cat) and Jim (the horse) are caught in an earthquake and therein the Land of the Mangaboos. More magic and logical nonsense ensues along with visits of past Oz friends, some new creatures and a reunion with Ozma in the Emerald City. There were some laugh-out-loud scenes as I read this to my boys. A great story all around.

Evelyn Underhill

"Mystics, trying to tell us of their condition, often say that they feel ’sunk in God like a fish in the sea.’ We pass over these phrases very easily, and forget that they are the final result of a long struggle to find the best image for an admittedly imageless truth. Yet prayer is above all the act in which we give ourselves to our soul’s true Patria [founder; stronghold]; enter again that Ocean of God which is at once our origin and our inheritance, and there find ourselves mysteriously at home."

from The Golden Sequence

The Art of Art for Children's Books: A Contemporary Model, Diana Klemin

3 stars
A fun book that reconnected me with many of the pictures I was drawn to as a child. The book was published in the 60's and so lacks the color that would make it that much more enjoyable. As a survey of books out at the time, it serves its purpose and is an inspiring read for those who think about the pictures that a story calls forth.

regret:

Actively living in the past tense.

Jean Pierre de Caussade

"If we wish to quench our thirst, we must lay aside books which explain thirst and take a drink."

from Abandonment to Divine Providence

The Unstrung Harp: or, Mr. Earbrass Writes a Novel, Edward Gorey

4 stars
Gorey is interesting and hard to define. Known for his illustrations as well as his nonsense writing he reminds me of someone you would find drawing cartoons in The New Yorker. This book is for those who have ever thought about or began writing a book. It is a quick read - probably 20-30 minutes. Short paragraphs with corresponding drawings make up this small masterpiece. A creative reflection that would be a worthy read for anyone stuck in a writing rut...

Charles Malik

"There is truth, and there is falsehood. There is good, and there is evil. There is happiness, and there is misery. There is that which ennobles, and there is that which demeans. There is that which puts you in harmony with yourself, with others, with the universe, and with God, and there is that which alienates you from yourself, and from the world, and from God. These things are different and separate and totally distinguishable from one another."

from C.S. Lewis for the Third Millennium by Peter Kreeft

Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child's Moral Imagination, Vigen Guroian

4 stars
An inspiring read and one for anyone who loves good stories and the greater truth within them. Guroian traces the themes of the moral imagination, love and immorality, friends and mentors, evil and redemption, and faith and courage. Complete with a concluding bibliographic essay that would grow any reading list. Guroian explores these themes by turing our attention to: Pinocchio, The Velveteen Rabbit, The Little Mermaid, The Wind in the Willows, Charlotte's Web, Bambi, The Snow Queen, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Princess and the Goblin, and Prince Caspian.

Gregory Wolfe

"In theory, goodness, truth, and beauty—traditionally known as the "transcendentals," because they are the three qualities that God has in infinite abundance—are equal in dignity and worth…The thinker who has helped me most along these lines is the twentieth-century theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. His argument—and it is a rather unsettling one—is that of the three transcendentals, beauty is the one that is least troubled by our fallen condition. In a world plagued by sin and error, he says, truth and goodness are always hotly contested. How do you live righteously? What is the truth? As we debate these matters, we have axes to grind…Beauty must serve some other end; it is not an end in itself. But the transcendentals were always understood as infinitely valuable, as ends in themselves. When it comes to beauty, however, we are afraid to assert that much. We feel the need to harness it, because beauty is unpredictable, wild. Here's how I have tried to comprehend these deep matters. If you think about these three transcendentals in relationship to our human capacities, what are the faculties that correspond to these three transcendentals? Goodness, I would say, has to do with faith, the desire for holiness. Truth is pursued by reason. We are familiar with that pairing: faith and reason. That's standard-issue language in western tradition. But what about the third element? What faculty does beauty correspond to? I would suggest that it is the imagination. The imagination is the faculty honed to apprehend beauty and unfold its meaning. How often do we say the Judeo-Christian tradition is a tradition of faith, reason, and imagination?...Beauty allows us to penetrate reality through the imagination, through the capacity of the imagination to perceive the world intuitively…The intuitive perception of meaning that art provides helps us to see that imagination is akin to reason: both seek truth through the apprehension of order and pattern. Art employs beautiful forms to generate objects that penetrate reality…A work of art doesn't invent truth, but it does make it accessible to us in ways that are not normally available because words and images have been tarnished by overuse or neglect. Art fails when it merely tells us what we already know in the ways that we already know it. That is why art is so deeply related to the prophetic dimension and the place where it connects to truth. That prophetic shock, that challenge to complacency, that revelatory reconfiguration of the way things are, gives us a truer picture of the way that the world is…Thus goodness without beauty is moralism, holier than thou. At the same time, it is only fair to say that beauty without truth is a lie."

from "The Wound of Beauty" in Image: Art, Faith, Mystery (Winter 2007-08, #56), 3-6

disastrous:

As in the credit card of life that we swipe daily believing our choices have no consequences.

Julian of Norwich

"The best prayer is to rest in the goodness of God, knowing that that goodness can reach down to our lowest depths of need."

from, Revelations of Divine Love

revelation:

I think therefore God is.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

"You must know that there is nothing higher, or stronger, or sounder, or more useful afterwards in life, than some good memory, especially a memory from childhood, from the parental home. You hear a lot said about your education, yet some such beautiful, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man stores up such memories to take into life, then he is saved for his whole life. And even if only one good memory remains with us in our hearts, that alone may serve one day for our salvation...and keep [us] from great evil."

Alyosha in The Brother's Karamazov

musician:

A painter in sound.

Aristotle

"Without friends no one would choose to live."

from Nicomachean Ethics

George MacDonald

"The best thing you can do for your fellow next to rousing his conscience, is — not to give him things to think about, but to wake things up that are in him; or say, to make him think things for himself."

from his essay, "The Fantastic Imagination"

Hans Christian Andersen

"When flowers want to, they can fly. You have seen butterflies. Don't they look like yellow, red, and white flowers? That is exactly what they were once. They are flowers who have jumped off their stems and have learned to fly with their petals; and when they first get a taste for it, they never return to their stems, and their little petals become real wings."

from Little Ida's Flowers

quotation:

Words that are worth a thousand pictures.

now:

present - as in, a gift

stillness:

The restoring force of potential energy.

knot:

"Daddy, will you untie this knot for me?"

Seems a good metaphor for our way through life...

reality:

It can be as solid as bedrock and as shifting as clouds.

fantasy:

When done right, like Tolkien, Lewis or MacDonald, it leads into reality.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, "Love your enemies." It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. That's why Jesus says, "Love your enemies." Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption."

wife:

The great blacksmith who forges the sword of loneliness into a butter knife.

liar:

The earned interest in the investment of secrets.

Eric Carle's Treasury of Classic Stories for Children

5 stars
This is the kind of book you get when you place together great stories and a great illustrator. Carle's painted tissue fabric collages make the tales come to life and wake up the imagination. The book includes 22 stories of several great authors: Aesop, Hans Christian Andersen, & The Brothers Grimm.

For all things Eric Carle, check out his website here

labyrinth:

there and back again...

nothingness:

The devouring appetite of darkness. Its devastation lies in how you can take something, multiply it by nothing, and you are left with nothing.

G. K. Chesterton

"There are two ways to get enough: One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less."

prayer:

The illuminating torch that lets one see - revelation into awe into adoration into service...

The Divine Commodity: Discovering A Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity, Skye Jethani

5 stars
This is a very important book. I found it a thought provoking read. Skye's desire to engage the reader's imagination and inspire rather than tell is very compelling. His critique of our American evangelical tendencies is right on...this is a valuable book for anyone concerned about living out the life of Christ in a consumer driven world. I highly recommend it.

Click here for a link to the introdcution or to hear Skye tell about the book, see endorsements, buy, etc...

Skye is the managing editor of Leadership - visit the journal's blog: Out of Ur.

forgiveness:

It is the outcome of the Single Sacrifice that frees all the imprisoned - an eradication of the cage and the chains that bind. It is the gift named freedom (and not in the post-modern mindset where what is good for you is all that matters). Rather, it is a freedom from self so that we might live for others - we are freed into service.

value:

In art, it is the spectrum between light and dark. Herein the axiom holds true: life mimics art.

Practical Theology: An Introduction, Richard R. Osmer

5 stars
A truly beneficial work. Osmer, who is a professor of Christian Education at Princeton Theological Seminary, writes a book that all ministers need to read. If you care about the church you need to pick up this book. He weaves together a beautiful tapestry of theory and practice. His model is one informed by scholarly research and yet the book remains an easy read . Filled with insightful narrative Osmer addresses the practitioner and invites them to ask:

What is going on?
Why is it going on?
What ought to be going on?
How might we respond?

Beyond the application of this text to the life of the church, I found Osmer's insights and exploration of these questions to be a helpful guide within all the various relationships and systems I find myself.

Osmer will be giving a free lecture open to the public on Spiritual Formation as Practical Theology on Thursday February 5th @ 7pm on the campus of Wheaton College in Barrows Auditorium (east entrance of the Billy Graham Center)

Friedman's Fables, Edwin H. Friedman

5 stars
A brilliant and masterfully written book. Friedman takes the genre of the fable to a new level as he explores the outworking of human relationships and living. As an ordained rabbi and practicing family therapist he brings a valuable perspective on the human condition and how we might begin to look at ourselves by looking through 24 stories he has constructed. In reading his tales the reader begins to read him or herself and address the fears and lies we often entertain. Using storytelling as a means to foster transformation, Friedman's work is a valuable tool for therapists, clergy, and teachers.

I highly recommend the supplemental "Discussion Questions" that are sold separately - a great discussion and reflection tool that takes you into the nuances of Friedman's stories.

Link to Amazon & more reviews

prophecy:

A reversal of tense - what will be becomes what is.

Flannery O'Connor

"Most people come to the Church by means the Church does not allow, else there would be no need for their getting to her at all...The operation of the Church is entirely set up for the sinner, which creates much misunderstanding among the smug."

A Bear Called Paddington, Michael Bond

5 stars
What a delightful tale - and even more so when read out loud with a British accent. Here's the book that started the tales about the bear from "Darkest Peru" who loves marmalade and to whom unusual things always seem to happen.

silence:

The sound of melting snow.

disease:

An invasion. Whether through covert operations or a full frontal attack - there is always casualties...dis/ease

identity:

Whose I am.

Fairy Tales From Many Lands, ed. by H. Herda

5 stars
One of those books where the axiom, you can't judge a book by its cover, holds true. The copied I had was a pea green color, tattered, and the binding was beginning to tear. One of those random pulls from the public library that you take home and are quite delighted you did. This proved to be a well edited collection that stayed true to its title. Containing tales from a multitude of origins including: Greece, Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, Britain, Finland, Russia, Italy, Spain, and Africa. The illustrations were as enjoyable as the stories. If you are looking for a book of tales check this one out.

kaleidoscope:

The beauty of the created universe as we spin it in our mind.

jack-in-the-box:

The result of the inner self when wound and wound and wound...

pen:

The sword of legislators.

foible:

The skeletal structure of humanity.

epoch:

Another word that proves we are simply passing through.

inauguration:

A changing of the guard on the battlefield of history.

humility:

The raindrop, diminished, to surrender itself for the need of the dry earth.

The Man Who Planted Trees, Jean Giono

5 stars
It won the Academy Award for best animated short film in 1987 - an exceptional story told with outstanding cinematic interpretation that is well worth thirty minutes of your time. I highly recommend the link below to view the film.

In brief, it is the story of one shepherd's long and successful single handed effort to re-forest a desolate valley in the foothills of the Alps near Provence throughout the first half of the 20th century. An inspiring tale of what can come through the effort and determination of one man.

See the whole 30 minute movie by clicking here

Click here to read the story

teacher:

It is the soil, the rain, and the sun that nurtures the seed into the production of fruit and therein another seed.

play:

It is the heartbeat of childhood - pumping through the veins a life giving fluid called imagination.

Ozma of Oz, L. Frank Baum

5 stars
Baum did it again in book 3 of the Oz series. This book was particularly magical. It fills out the story of Ozma that was introduced at the end of book two. Dorothy also returns in this book and meets some new characters that accompany her on a new exciting adventure filled with puzzles and twists.

Edwin H. Friedman

"The colossial misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which a message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choicest words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech."

from, Friedman's Fables, p. 5

evergreen:

A soldier holding firm in the resolution of being.

loneliness:

The tension of friendship with oneself.

Elizabeth O'Connor

"The church that educates for a new society will live out in its structures what it proclaims. The very structures themselves educate. When our acts mirror our words, they give to our words a transforming power."

from, The New Community

testing:

Seems that every day is a series of tests with little time to study. As a fraction I suppose it would look like this:

------What you know------
What you ought to know

Multiply this by silence and you have a more rewarding outcome.

Thomas Merton

"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone."

from, Thoughts in Solitude

ant:

The oxymoronic insect that proves mighty and little can co-exist in one.

Richard Rohr

"The gospel is not primarily a set of facts but a way of seeing and a way of being in the world because of God. Jesus speaks to the heart, saying (1) God is on your side; (2) God can be trusted; (3) the universe is safe and benevolent; (4) trust yourselves, one another and God; (5) there is no reason to be afraid; (6) it's all heading toward something good."

from, Jesus' Plan for a New World

No Future Without Forgiveness, Desmond Tutu

5 stars

It is ultimately in our best interest that we become forgiving, repentant, reconciling, and reconciled people because without forgiveness, without reconciliation, we have no future. (p. 165)

Tutu recounts the the establishment and outworking of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission after the fall of apartheid. Anyone interested in the themes and ideas that surround reconciliation need to read this book. If you don't have the time for this book I would highly recommend chapter 7 to you at the very least. A haunting read but one that leads the reader to the hope that can only come through Christ. There is a deep evil in this world and Tutu understands it well. He recognizes also that we are capable of the vile realities as we are of the beauty that fills his pages. We serve and have been created by a good God which can be a difficult proposition when one begins to consider the horror that can be done by those He has created. Tutu's belief and testimony of this good God help ground my own belief and same testimony. Bottom line: truth will always win out.

then:

Proverbs 2:5

...then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.

Here it is...THEN...the ifs of the last two days come into fruition. The if is the treasure map; the then is the treasure.

insight:

Proverbs 2:3-4

...yes, if you call out for insight
and raise your voice for understanding,
if you seek it like silver
and search for it as for hidden treasures...

It is emphatic: as to say go, do it, call out, raise your voice for it would be like looking for something you know is there - you must find it...all your moments that follow depend on you finding it. Yes, It is in sight!

receive:

Proverbs 2:1-2

My son, if you receive my words
and treasure up my commandments with you,
making your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding...

A "then" is coming...but before it does one must ask, "How do we receive words?" - it is by listening; an attentive ear, an inclined heart...a gift given and then put in the store house of the mind...it is slow and quiet like snow but covers with such delight.


For anyone interested in a wonderful interpretation of Proverbs in heroic couplets see, Proverbs: A Poetic Paraphrase by Bill Billions


Proverbs: A Poetic Paraphrase

new:

The harbor of possibilities - filled with hope and what might be. It is the liminal space of New Year's Eve and the strike of the clock at 12:00:01 am...it is tomorrow and the next day and the day after that...it never needs to be lost only always born.

St. Augustine

"You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they rest in You."

from, Confessions - A.D. 354-430

end:

Enter now the future tense.

anger:

the cannon ball we choose to fire

onion:

A metaphor for life; the more you peel back, the more you are apt to tear up.

Frederick Buechner

“We learn to praise God not by paying compliments but by paying attention. Watch how the trees exult when the wind is in them. Mark the utter stillness of the great blue heron in the swamp. Listen to the sound of the rain. Learn how to say Hallelujah from the ones who say it right.”

from on “praise” in Wishful Thinking

The Marvelous Land of Oz, L. Frank Baum

5 stars
Pure fun. The first sequel to The Wizard of Oz (i.e. book 2 of 14). Baum takes the reader on further adventures of the Scarecrow, who is the King of the Emerald City, and the Tin Woodman, who has become the Emperor of the Winkies. The new characters of Jack Pumpkinhead, the Saw-Horse, the Woggle-Bug and the Gump along with the young hero Tip make for a book filled with more magical adventures.

intricate:

The needlework of relationships.

incarnation:

Jesus the lamplighter holding the lit lantern with the unending wick.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Are we prepared? Is our heart capable of becoming God’s dwelling place?..It is very remarkable that we face the thought that God is coming so calmly, whereas previously peoples trembled at the day of God, whereas the world fell into trembling when Jesus Christ walked over the earth. We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God’s coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God’s coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us. The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for everyone who has a conscience.

Only when we have felt the terror of the matter, can we recognize the incomparable kindness. God comes into the very midst of evil and of death, and judges the evil in us and in the world. And by judging us, God cleanses and sanctifies us, comes to us with grace and love. God makes us happy as only children can be happy. God wants to always be with us, wherever we may be—in our sin, in our suffering and death. We are no longer alone; God is with us. We are no longer homeless; a bit of the eternal home itself has moved into us.

It is not yet Christmas. But it is also not the great final Advent, the final coming of Christ. Through all the Advents of our life that we celebrate goes the longing for the final Advent, where it says: “Behold, I make all things new” (Rev. 21:5). Advent is a time of waiting. Our whole life, however, is Advent—that is, a time of waiting for the ultimate, for the time when there will be a new heaven and a new earth, when all people are brothers and sisters and one rejoices in the words of the angels: “On earth peace to those on whom God’s favor rests.” Learn to wait, because he has promised to come. “I stand at the door….” We however call to him: “Yes, come soon, Lord Jesus!”"

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906-1945, was a German theologian martyred under the Nazi regime. This excerpt is from “A Testament to Freedom, the Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer", edited by Geoffrey Kelly and Burton Nelson.

birthday:

Today my youngest turns seven...he still believes in Santa and has a deep admiration for the Tooth Fairy...and with the turn of time he grows further away from these things...If children's birthdays could be seen as hours of a day my son's would strike 7am today - he is alive in the morning of his life and the beauty of this is in how it happens to wind my own clock backward a bit and in my older age I find I'm striking 7am as well. So, in his growing older I am able to grow younger.

wonder:

The awe-someness of a thing. In its most appropriate manifestation it is the mingling of the imagination with The Transcendent. It might turn to wonderful: as in full of wonder...an encounter with that truth which inspires and draws forth awe which brings you right back to wonder.

Evelyn Underhill

"Our whole life is to be poised on a certain glad expectancy of God; taking each moment, incident, choice and opportunity as material placed in our hand by the Creator whose whole intricate and mysterious process moves toward the triumph of charity, and who has given each living spirit a tiny part in this vast work of transformation."

from, The School of Charity

hatred:

The long division of life that always carries a remainder.

cold:

A synonym for sickness, an antonym for awe.

safety:

The illusion of good circumstance.

Desmond Tutu

"We are bound up in a delicate network of interdependence because, as we say in our African idiom, a person is a person through other persons...Thus to forgive is indeed the best form of self-interest since anger, resentment, and revenge are corrosive of that summum bonum, that greatest good, communal harmony that enhances the humanity and personhood of all in the community."

from, No Future Without Forgiveness

wisdom:

The incarnation of transcendent light.

Esio Trot, Roald Dahl

4 stars
Read this one in 25 minutes to my six year old who enjoyed the story fully...often stopping me to tell me he knew what Mr. Hoppy was going to do. A backwards tale of longing and love...

Click here for the official Roald Dahl website!
very fun

The Wonderful O, James Thurber

4 stars
I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as the other two Thurber books I have recently read, however, it was still a witty and whimsical read. In complete Thurber style and oddity he creates a story where the letter O is hated and banished from the world causing much confusion and humor along the way.

truth:

The light that shines in the world.

goodness:

The law of gravity, holding us in our proper place...the outcome of being obedient to the way things ought to be.

satisfaction:

It is the result of a hungering and thirsting for righteousness.

It is the vessel that sails the seas of goodness, truth, & beauty.

Mahatma Gandhi

"My life is my message."

Source: Gandhi's Life in His Own Words

The 13 Clocks, James Thurber

5 stars
from the inside of the dust jacket: "How can anyone describe this book? It isn't a parable, a fairy story or a poem, but rather a mixture of all three. It is beautiful and it is comic. It is philosophical and it is cheery. What we suppose we are trying fumblingly to say is, in a word, that it is Thurber. There are only a few reasons why everybody has always wanted to read this kind of story, but they are basic: Everybody has always wanted to love a Princess. Everybody has always wanted to be a Prince. Everybody has always wanted the wicked Duke to be punished. Everybody has always wanted to live happily ever after. Too little of this kind of thing is going on in the world. But all of it is going on valorously in The Thirteen Clocks.

The White Deer, James Thurber

5 stars
In a word: whimsical. This was such a fun read and at several points I found myself laughing out loud. It had the great qualities of a fairy tale while Thurber has created his own style. It had a bit of Lewis Carroll feel with its nonsensical humor. A great escape from the serious and a welcome voyage for the imagination.

Emily Dickinson

"The Possible's slow fuse is lit
By the imagination."

rest:

lifting the blinds so the sun can shine in

Family Happiness, Leo Tolstoy

5 stars
This novella (just under 80 pages) is a must read for anyone thinking about marriage. It needs to be read in the honeymoon stage as well as in that season when the love is deep in a whole other way. Tolstoy masterfully depicts the inner-workings of human affection and distancing. And I think he paints a rather common though at times bleak reality that manifests itself in many marriages. This is an intriguing and insightful read. I came away with a renewed desire to foster a holy curiosity in my own marriage while guarding myself from the subtle tragedy that unfolds in Tolstoy's characters.

Advent:

The anticipation of fulfilled longing...the hunger and the thirst of the soul recognized and used to set the mind on that which will satisfy...it is the setting of the table in preparation of a feast.

Jesus

"Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."

Matthew 11:28-29

snowflake:

An image of humanity - formed by dust, each uniquely shaped, fallen...

Great Claus and Little Claus, Hans Christian Andersen

5 stars
I read this tale to my kids this evening. It was one of those finds in the library where you are just about to leave and you pull the book off the shelf and the cover of the book simply grabs you and thus finds its way into your house. The illustrations of the volume I checked out were by Rick Schreiter and are as well done as Andersen's masterfully crafted tale. The story itself is humorously violent with the point being one that is mainly moralistic as it records the effects of overwhelming greed.

To see the whole story on-line click here.

here's a view of Schreiter's artistic sensibilities from the cover of his book, THE DELICIOUS PLUMS OF KING OSCAR THE BAD:

F.H.C. Crick

"Few people realize what an astonishing achievement it is to be able to see at all. The main contribution of the new field of artificial intelligence has been not so much to solve these problems of information handling as to show what tremendously difficult problems they are. When one reflects on the number of computations that must have to be carried out before one can recognize even such an everyday simple scene as another person crossing the street, one is left with a feeling of amazement that such an extraordinary series of detailed operations can be accomplished so effortlessly in such a short space of time."

from "Thinking about the Brain," in The Brain, 1979, p. 130