Archive | October 2005

Born October 10th

Hugh Miller, b. 1802. Scottish geologist and folklorist, contemporary of Charles Darwin, defender of creationism but not of a worldwide flood, evangelical Christian, one of the founding members of the Free Church of Scotland. “His books, such as The Old Red Sandstone, The Cruise of the Betsey, Footprints of the Creator, Testimony of the Rocks, Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland, and My Schools and Schoolmasters (autobiography) became bestsellers in many editions.” He was self-taught in geology, but respected by the leading scientists of his day. He committed suicide on Christmas Eve, 1856, because he feared that he was going insane. Read more about this fascinating scientist and Christian.

Henry Alford, b. 1810. Henry Alford was also a Christian, a cleric who became dean of Canterbury Cathedral. He edited the poems of John Donne, another Church of England cleric, translated The Odyssey into English, and wrote a four-volume commentary on the Greek New Testament. His deep commitment to God is shown in these words which he wrote in his Bible on November 18, 1827, when he was only seventeen years old: “I do this day, as in the presence of God and my own soul, renew my covenant with God, and solemnly determine henceforth to become His, and to do His work as far as in me lies.” Alford also wrote the hymn Come Ye Thankful People, Come.

Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;
All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied;
Come to Godï¿½s own temple, come, raise the song of harvest home.

All the world is Godï¿½s own field, fruit unto His praise to yield;
Wheat and tares together sown unto joy or sorrow grown.
First the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be.

For the Lord our God shall come, and shall take His harvest home;
From His field shall in that day all offenses purge away,
Giving angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast;
But the fruitful ears to store in His garner evermore.

Even so, Lord, quickly come, bring Thy final harvest home;
Gather Thou Thy people in, free from sorrow, free from sin,
There, forever purified, in Thy garner to abide;
Come, with all Thine angels come, raise the glorious harvest home.

It’s going to be a great part of heaven’s harvest to sit down and talk with some of the saints who have gone before us, to hear the complete stories of how God was glorified through their lives. Even those imperfect lives–like mine.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Oct9

Z-baby: Daddy, you need to be more constricable.

Engineer Dad: What’s that?

Z-baby: Constricable means kinda like an artist.

Engineer Dad: So I’m somewhat artistic already, but I need to be more.

Z-Baby: Yes, more constricable.

Several hours later:
Z-baby: God can make the world out of nothing so he’s an artist.

Me: So does that mean God is constricable?

Z-baby: Yes, ’cause He’s an artist.

You heard it here first, guys. One of God’s attributes is that He’s constricable.

Leif Erikson Day

Oct9

“in 1964, President Lyndon B Johnson, backed by a unanimous Congress, proclaimed 9 October to be Leif Erikson Day, in commemoration of the first arrival of a European on North American soil.” –BBC History

So, in honor of Leif Erikson and all those Viking-types, I’ve ordered these two books by Lars Walker of Brandywine Books. Cheapskate that I am, I was still hoping to check them out of the library before committing myself to spending actual money. But if I’m going to read them , I’ll just have to buy them. I’ll tell you how they were when I get them read.

The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith

Oct8

Isabel Dalhousie is the heroine of a new series of mystery stories by Alexander McCall Smith, author of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books featuring Mma. Ramotswe and her detective agency in Botswana. The Sunday Philosophy Club is set in Edinburgh, Scotland, McCall Smith’s home.

In this first book of the series, we find out several interesting facts about our protagonist/amateur detective. Isabel Dalhousie is a middle-aged single woman with a failed marriage and a lost love in her distant past. She is independently wealthy, or at least comfortably well-off, and she collects art. She plays the flute and is the part-time editor of an academic journal, The Review of Applied Ethics. Her job and her own personal tendencies lead Isabel to do a lot of philosophical speculation during the course of the story, and her musings tend to be both commonsensical and fascinating. Isabel’s housekeeper, Gracie, is a quick and excellent judge of character, and her niece, Cat, is goodhearted, but rather lacking in discernment, especially when it comes to men. Isabel is a member (maybe the initiator) of The Sunday Philosophy Club, a club that is “not exactly very active.” In fact, despite the title of the book, The Sunday Philosophy Club never mets over the course of the story, and I still don’t even know who the members are.

Notwithstanding the low profile club, Isabel Dalhousie is a philosopher, and the novel is an exercise in applied ethics. Isabel witnesses an accidental death (that, of course, may be murder) at the beginning of the story, and she must decide whether or not to become involved in investigating the circumstances surrounding the death. Later in the story, she must decide how much truth to tell and when a lie is permissible. She must deal with the limits of forgiveness and the demands of justice. However, that description of this mystery, although true, sounds much too heavy. The Sunday Philosophy Club is, first of all, a gentle and entertaining story about people and relationships and, yes, applied ethics.

If you like cozy mysteries or Scotland or if you liked Alexander McCall Smith’s previous books, you should enjoy this one. If you lean more toward thrillers and hard-boiled detectives, The Sunday Philosophy Club probably won’t be your cup of tea. (It does include a whiskey nosing, first one I’ve ever been to or read about.)

The next book in the series, Friends, Lovers, Chocolate, has a great title, which may again have very little to do with the book itself, but I’m ready to read it based on my enjoyment of The Sunday Philosophy Club and the chocolate in the title. A book with chocolate in the title must be worth something.

Born October 7th

Oct7

August 2, 1877, the following poem was printed in the Kokomo Indiana Dispatch:

LEONAINIE

Leonainie – angels named her;
And they took the light
Of the laughing stars and framed her
In a smile of white:

And they made her hair of gloomy
Midnight, and her eyes of bloomy
Moonshine, and they brought her to me
In the solemn night.

In a solemn night of summer,
When my heart of gloom
Blossomed up to meet the comer
Like a rose in bloom;

All the forebodings that distressed me
I forgot as joy caressed me —
(Lying joy that caught and pressed me
In the arms of doom!)

Only spake the little lisper
In the angel-tongue;
Yet I, listening, heard her whisper, –
“Songs are only sung

Here below that they may grieve you –
Tales are told you to deceive you –
So must Leonainie leave you
While her love is young.”

Then God smiled and it was morning,
Matchless and supreme;
Heaven’s glory seemed adorning
Earth with its esteem:

Every heart but mine seemed gifted
With the voice of prayer, and lifted
Where my Leonainie drifted
From me like a dream.

The poem was said to be the work of none other than Edgar Allan Poe, posthumously discovered inscribed in the flyleaf of an old book. Within a few days Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley wrote the following response to the discovery of the poem in his own newspaper:

THE POET POE IN KOKOMO
Passing the many assailable points of the story egarding the birth and late discovery of the poem, we will briefly consider first – IS POE THE AUTHOR OF IT? That a poem contains some literary excellence is not assurance that its author is a genius known to fame, for how many waifs of richest worth are now afloat upon the literary sea whose authors are unknown and whose nameless names have never marked the graves that hid their value from the world; and in the present instance we have no right to say, -“This is Poe’s work – for who but Poe could mould a name like LEONAINIE?” and all that sort of flighty flummery. . . . To sum up the poem as a whole we are at some loss. It most certainly contains rare attributes of grace and beauty; and although we have not the temerity to accuse the gifted Poe of its authority, for equal strength of reason we cannot
deny that it is his production . . .

On August 25th, it was revealed that the poem was the work, not of Edgar Allan Poe, but rather of James Whitcomb Riley himself, who perpetrated the hoax in order to prove that his own poetry was worthy of publication in the finest newspapers and journals and had only been rejected because he was not already famous and accepted as a great poet. Riley was also a great admirer of Thomas Chatterton, a forger of poems in his right, but Riley, unlike Chatterton, went on to become famous in his own right as the author of poems such as Little Orphant Annie, The Raggedy Man and When the Frost Is on the Punkin.

Read all about the Leonainie Hoax.

I learned a new word: kenotic. “The term derives from the Greek “kenos” or “empty” and stands for a poetry of humility or of experience “emptied” of ground for boast or pride. Riley’s kenotic poetry is nothing less than poetry that participates in the mind of a humble God situated on a cross noting human events. Such writing requires dialectical or “koine” (as it is called today) expression. No other American writer before or since has proven Riley’s equal. Much of its power derives from Riley’s fervent and pioneer Methodist roots but also much comes from Riley’s experiences in life.”

Riley wrote kenotic peotry, and I write a kenotic blog. Happy Birthday, Mr. Riley, b. 1849, d. 1916.

Bless the Lord illustrated by Johanna Bluedorn

Oct6

Bless the Lord; the 103rd Psalm is first of all a beautiful book. The illustrations reminded me immediately of Tasha Tudor, which is high praise indeed. Then I read in the back of the book that the ilustrator was “homeschooled by her parents and is self-taught in art.” All I can say is Ms. Tudor is more or less retired and needs a worthy successor.

The psalm that Miss Bluedorn illustrates is printed a verse or half-verse at a time, each portion embedded in a full color picture of children and parents in a country setting living out the words of the psalm.. The King James version of the words complements the old-fashioned look of the illustrations. However, don’t confuse old-fashioned with irrelevant. The words of Psalm 103 speak clearly of God’s mercy, His power, His blessings, and my responsibility to praise Him with “all that is within me.” The last few pages of the book are made up of Psalm 103 put to music designed to praise God just as the psalmist commands. The music was written by Harvey Bluedorn, Johanna’s father.

According to the Trivium Pursuit website, this book is the second in a series of illustrated psalms by Miss Bluedorn; the first, which I now need to request as a Christmas present, is The Lord Builds the House: Psalm 127. I can honestly say that this picture book will be a blessing, and an encouragement to bless the Lord, for the whole family.

Great Books; Old Friends

Oct5

Ariel at BittersweetLife is making a Master Book List, and he’s asking that age old question: “What makes a book great? What constitutes a classic?”

I started this post in Ariel’s comments by admitting that I’m growing older and older and my rememberer is getting old, too. So, I take my favorite literature professor‘s definition of a classic, ” a piece of literature that stands the test of time,” and add to that my own criterion: a real classic must stand the test of remembrance. In other words, if I still remember the book even though I haven’t read it in years, if I still want to re-read it when I catch a glimpse of it on the shelf, if I still recommend it to others and can tell them something to whet the appetite, then it’s made the cut. It’s a classic.

I’ve been cleaning off my shelves as I catalog my books into Library Thing, and I’ve discovered so many old friends already. I’m going to note a few of them as I go along since this cataloging thing promises to be a long, slow process. In the three shelves I’ve already done, I’ve found the following books that I wish I had time to sit down and revisit::

A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Van Auken Wow! If you’ve never read this one, you must. If you care at all about the meaning of marriage and the meaning of Christian commitment and a true story that gets to the heart of both of those ideals, A Severe Mercy is the book. Although I didn’t read them at the same time, I can see that reading this book alongside A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis would be a valuable study in theodicy. (my new word for the day: A vindication of God’s goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil)

The Peanut Butter Family Homeschool by Bill Butterworth. I think this one is out of print, but it’s worth picking up at a used book sale if you see it lying around. It was published in 1987, not quite the early days of the modern homeschool resurgence, but at least the medium-early days. Anyway, I can’t remember specific stories from the book, but I do know it was funny and encouraging.

Storytelling: Art and Technique by Augusta Baker and Ellin Greene This is an old book from my library school days. I would love to go back and read it again just to remind myself of the storytelling techniques I used to know and of the tremendous art involved in telling stories. I could use a refresher course.

Teach Your Own by John Holt I was actually introduced to the concept of homeschooling by Raymond Moore and John Holt, and I still believe that Mr. Holt had some fine ideas about children although ultimately his Rousseau-type (Rousseauean? No, too many vowels) attitude about the innocence of children just doesn’t work out in real life and isn’t very scriptural either. I especially love the stories in this book where John Holt shares his observations of children and adults and how they learn. Holt was a great observer and a good storyteller. He also had the ability to ask questions and then just sit back and listen to the answers, a trait I could afford to imitate.

Best Friends for Life by Michael and Judy Phillips I remember being intrigued by the ideas in this book. It falls somewhere between courtship and arranged marriage and yet neither of those models is exactly what the book is advocating. The most interesting idea I remember in the book was that of having your child’s prospective spouse live with your family for a period of time before the marriage. If I remember correctly, the idea was for the husband or wife-to-be to each live with or near their in-laws-to-be for a long period of engagement, six months or a year, maybe work on a project together, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law or father-in-law and son-in-law. The families could get to know one another, help prepare the young couple for marriage, counsel with them, let them experience the family dynamics in the family that each spouse is coming from. I don’t know how to work it out, but it is an interesting idea. The stories of courtship, dating, and marriage in the book are good, too. Excellent food for thought.

Vanity Fair by WIlliam Thackeray. I’ve been wanting to re-read this one ever since I saw the movie last year. Maybe someday.

Not all classics, but all worthwhile and well-remembered.

In the Beginning There Were No Diapers by Tim Bete

Oct4

Well, it’s not the fault of the author, but nevertheless this book was quite offensive–to my children. Karate Kid said, “OOOH! That’s disgusting!” Brown Bear Daughter asked, “Why do they have that picture on the front?” And several of the others just turned up their noses and sniffed loudly. You see my children believe they were born with diapers, or else born potty trained. When I try to tell them otherwise, they give me that incredulous look that says, “Mommy’s lost it again!”

Because of the very offensive cover art, I read Tim Bete’s opus on parenthood by myself. No one else in the family even wanted to touch it. Therefore, I got to laugh at all the stories Bete tells that parallel my own family and my own kids without offending the kids by telling them I was laughing at them. I, too, have children who were somewhat resistant to potty training (all eight of them), children who wouldn’t eat a vegetable if they were starving, and children who teach me lessons every day. I enjoyed the book because Bete’s hobbies–pushing his luck, skating on thin ice, and fishing his kids’ toys out of the toilet–sound a lot like my pastimes. As they say in the vernacular, I could identify.

The paperback book consists of nineteen chapters, each of which reads like a short course in parenting by Erma Bombeck. This humorous style is appropriate since author Tim Bete is director of the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop at the University of Dayton. The book would be good for recreational reading, a great gift for a new father (or an old one), and perfect for any parent in need of a dose of laughter. Sometimes I just need to lighten up and realize that if my children turn out to be couch potatoes or experts in sarcasm, they at least had a good role model–me.

Shanah Tovah

Oct4

shofar

Happy New Year! Today is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It’s a day of rest, a day for offerings, and a day for the blowing of the shofar, a ram’s horn trumpet. Traditionally, the blowing of the shofar has three purposes:

1. It is a call to repentance, beginning the Ten Days of Awe between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. During this time Jewish people are exhorted to seek reconciliation with those whom they have wronged during the year. “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” Matthew 5:23-24

2. The shofar is also blown to “remind” God of His covenant with His people Israel. Our Lord, of course, needs no reminder of His commitment to those who are in Christ. “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39

3. Finally the shofar is sounded to confuse Satan, the accuser, as he accuses the saints before the throne of God. “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Christ.
For the accuser of our brothers,
who accuses them before our God day and night,
has been hurled down.”

So Rosh Hashanah is a good time to remember God’s mercy through Christ, His faithfulness in Christ, and God’s power over Satan by the suthority of Christ.

L’shanah tovah tikatevu= May your name be inscribed (in the Book of Life).

Born October 4th

Oct4

Edward L. Stratemeyer, b. 1862, creator of the Bobbsey Twins, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Tom Swift series of mysteries for young readers. He and his Stratemeyer Syndicate published more than 800 titles.
Donald Sobol, b. 1924, author of the series of children’s books about Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective.
Isn’t it interesting that both of these creators of mystery series were born on the same day?

“Readers constantly ask me if Encyclopedia is a real boy. The answer is no … He is, perhaps, the boy I wanted to be — doing the things I wanted to read about but could not find in any book when I was ten.”–Donald Sobol

“Young folks are the most direct critics in the world. Any writer who has the young for an audience can snap his fingers at all the other critics.”–Edward Stratemeyer

“Stratemeyer would come up with a three-page plot for each book, describing locale, characters, time frame, and a basic story outline. He mailed this to a writer, who, for a fee ranging from fifty dollars to two hundred and fifty dollars, would write the thing up and “slam-bang!” send it back within a month. Stratemeyer checked the manuscripts for discrepancies, made sure that each book had exactly fifty jokes, and cut or expanded as needed.”

Oh, by the way, speaking of Banned Books, the library in my hometown engaged in a bit of “censorship” of its own when I was a kid of a girl; they would purchase books about neither Nancy Drew nor Trixie Belden, my two favorite girl detectives. The librarian said that they were not of sufficient literary quality to be shelved at our public library.
We’re rather fond of kid detectives around here: Encyclopedia Brown, Can Jansen, Nate the Great, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden, and Detectives in Togas are all favorites at the Semicolon household. Who are your favorite authors of mysteries for kids? Who are your favorite young detectives?