Archive | January 2006

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born January 15th

Jan15


Martin Luther King: I Have a Dream

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.” And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Awesome God

Jan15

Awesome God is a praise and worship CD for kids produced by Sovereign Grace Ministries. I read about an offer before Christmas of a free CD for bloggers who would review the CD on their blogs. So I emailed Sovereign Grace, and my urchins are enjoying the fruits of my having done so.

Seriously, the urchins have been listening to Awesome God ever since I unveiled it at the beginning of the year. My younger children like to worship/dance, even if we are Baptist, and these songs are perfect for dancing and singing along. The songs are basic praise and worship type stuff, musically speaking, some with a beat and others slower and more contemplative. The accompaniment uses drums, guitar and keyboard, the instruments you would expect on this kind of CD. Vocals employ both children’s and adult voices.

The lyrics are the strength of this CD. Scripture-based songs alternate with others that present foundational theology in song. Scripture songs include You Are Always With Me (Psalm 139) and Who Is Like You? (Job). Jesus Came to Earth seems to be a restatement of the Apostle’s Creed. And others of the songs teach about God’s sovereignty and about the doctrine of the Trinity. The CD includes twelve songs in all. The words are meaningful and understandable, and a booklet with printed lyrics comes inside the CD case.

I can testify that my children, at least, are really enjoying and learning from Awesome God. If you’re interested in ordering a copy for your kids or for yourself, just click on the picture to go to the Sovereign Grace Ministries store. They also have T-shirts and sheet music available. I can see this CD being helpful to children’s worship leaders or for use in Vacation Bible School this next summer. Or just listen and dance before the Lord.

Hanging Out in Paris

Jan14

Eldest Daughter may volunteer at this bookstore, Shakespeare and Company, in Paris for a couple of weeks while she’s on break between semesters. I am officially envious of my own daughter.

I want to open an independent bookstore, sort of a quirky hangout for eccentric types. But no smoking allowed. Do all bibliophiles have daydreams about owning a bookstore?

Shakespeare and Company website
More information about Shakespeare and Company.

Rebuilding New Orleans

Jan13

“General Lee, I have no division.” –General George Pickett

Joe McKeever is Director of Missions for the (SBC) Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans. I found his blog via Kathryn at Suitable for Mixed Company. He writes plain facts about the difficulties inherent in rebuilding New Orleans, and he also writes about his hopes for a better New Orleans.

Three times in the last two days, I have had this conversation (or variations of it) with church leaders from other states interested in bringing teams of volunteers in to help us rebuild New Orleans.

The caller says, “Joe, what our church wants to do is for you to match us up with a good church in your area, one that has been damaged and we can come in and fix up. A church that wants to grow and reach its area for Christ, and we can send in our people for backyard Bible clubs and block parties and evangelistic events.”

I answer, “Sounds good. But I can’t help you.” “What? What do you mean you can’t help me. Don’t you have some churches in need?”

“We sure do. We have forty or fifty of them.” “So what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that the churches that need your repair crews to go in and fix them up have no one living in their neighborhoods. Nobody. They are smack in the middle of the flood zone and the homes are unlivable. For some of these churches, it will be years before enough people live there for them to have worship services.”

This is always followed by a long pause. Then, “Well, what do you suggest?” That’s when I’m able to tell them the choices that are available.

Before I read Mr. McKeever’s blog, I heard a piece on NPR, an interview with a 40-something woman from New Orleans, Sharon White, who was hoping to return to New Orleans and rebuild her home in a part of the city that is now slated to become parkland, not to be rebuilt. Ms. White was completely broken by the report of the Bring New Orleans Back Commission and its plans to turn some low-lying neighborhood, including hers, into parks and greenspaces. The report on NPR made me feel very sorry for Ms. White, but I later realized that the reporter failed to ask some key questions.

Ms. White says she can’t move back to her home because the electricity has been cut off for her entire neighborhood. Is her house otherwise habitable? What would it take to get the electricity turned back on? Is Sharon White planning to use her own money to fix whatever may be damaged in her home? Does she have any savings or insurance money to fix her home, or is she expecting the government to rebuild for her?

She also says that none of her neighbors have returned to New Orleans. Are the other houses in her neighborhood even salvageable?

Then she says that she wants to return to her home even though the area may be vulnerable to future flooding and hurricane damage. If she is planning to restore her home herself, then, yes, she should be able to do so without having the government come in and exercise its power of eminent domain. But if she’s expecting the government to restore her home every time it floods, . . .

Anyway, it seems that right now New Orleans “has no division” and may not for a while.

Friday’s Center of the Blogosphere

Jan13

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere. Blaise Pascal

The theme this week is simple: we’re all in need of some humor in our lives. Let the Funny begin.

The blogger at Writing and Living is purposefully addicting herself to coffee. If you don’t think that’s funny, you don’t want to hear about my sugar addiction.

If you appreciate satire and parody, this ad from Bill Dembski’s intelligent design blog will give you a chuckle, or maybe a wry laugh. Mammon: Because you deserve to enjoy life guilt-free.

Melissa Wiley on Ordinary Time–not funny, but joyous.

OK, so sue me. This post isn’t funny either, but Alan at Thinklings has written some interesting thoughts on the future of publishing. I still prefer my books, thank you, but I may become a dinosaur. “Yes, children, Granny still reads books printed on paper. Just can’t get used to that new-fangled iReading.”

Peggy Noonan on Joe Biden: “The great thing about Joe Biden during the Alito hearings, the reason he is, to me, actually endearing, is that as he speaks, as he goes on and on and spins his long statements, hypotheticals, and free associations–as he demonstrates yet again, as he did in the Roberts hearings and even the Thomas hearings, that he is incapable of staying on the river of a thought, and is constantly lured down tributaries from which he can never quite work his way back–you can see him batting the little paddles of his mind against the weeds, trying desperately to return to the river but not remembering where it is, or where it was going. I love him. He’s human, like a garrulous uncle after a drink.”
Now that’s funny.

Finally, if you haven’t seen the blonde joke that’s making the rounds, it takes a while to get to the punchline, but it’s worth it.

Jewel by Bret Lott

Jan11

Wow! I just found another author/book to add to my list of Semicolon’s 100 Best Fiction Authors Ever (a list which only had 68 authors on it, now 69). I read A Song I Knew By Heart by Bret Lott a little over a year ago, and I thought it was OK. I read it because I had heard that Lott wrote Christian-influenced fiction and because the book was based on the book of Ruth from the Bible. I thought that sounded interesting, and it was.

When I wrote about A Song I Knew By Heart I said that “the plot wasn’t much.” Well, Jewel isn’t about plot either. A Mississippi woman named Jewel grows up poor, marries, has five children, the last of whom is a girl with Down’s Syndrome. The family lives in Mississippi, moves to California, moves back to Mississippi and then back to LA. No thriller here. However, it doesn’t matter how much or how little happens externally in the book; the action is inside the characters. The reader gets to see inside a marriage– that of Jewel and her husband Leston. At the same time we get to see the unfolding relationship of a mother to her children, especially that of a mother and her child with special needs, Brenda Kay. The doctors call Brenda Kay a Mongolian Idiot when she is born; those same doctors tell Jewel to put her daughter away in an institution and forget about her. The attitude of unthinking cruelty and dismissal that most of society has toward Brenda Kay, toward all mentally handicapped individuals in the 1940’s is mirrored in the unthinking and racist attitude that Jewel herself has toward the black people that live all around her. She freely uses the n-word to refer to black people and expects them to wait on her, to defer to her because she is white. Jewel knows that she and her family are nothing but crackers, poor white trash. She calls them that herself. The attitude is captured so well. In Mississippi in the 1940’s black people are servants and children with Down’s Syndrome are freaks. In California, Jewel’s “promised land”, these attitudes begin to break down and change.

In fact, that contrast between California and Mississippi is the only thing in the book that I would argue about with the author. In Jewel Mississippi is a backwoods place; nothing ever changes there. No one has any idea of justice for black people nor of education for the mentally handicapped. And by 1962, nothing has changed for the better. California, on the other hand, is a paradise of racial harmony and opportunity for the mentally handicapped. It’s a story, so I guess the author can make the places the way he wants. But I don’t believe that one place was all good and the other completely dark and full of ignorance.

The language and the images in this book are beautiful. The details of a mother’s thoughts and feelings, of what it’s like to live in poverty, of what it’s like to care for a mentally handicapped child, of what it means to balance the needs of one family member against those of another–all these descriptions and more are drawn artfully and engagingly. The characters in the novel remind me of people I know. Leston is a little like my daddy. Jewel reminds me of my great-grandmother and of my grandmother. I’ve known her sons, Wilmer and Burton, poor, working class and moving up.

In this interview, Bret Lott says that what he writes about is family:

I don�t know what else to write about, that�s the bottom line. I don�t know what else there is to write about. I�m not saying that to be glib or a quick answer. Family, that�s basically everybody�s story. Whether you are writing away from the family or trying to extract from the family or trying to get hold of the family, or the family�s dying or being born, or are you meeting your soul mate or your lover or whatever; it�s all about the family. So, when I�m writing, I�m not thinking about trying to say something so much as to write clearly and in love�what I love and what I hold dear. I know that�s kind of a vague answer, but I don�t want you to think I�m trying to instruct or preach or anything.

If the only thing I know about is family, then what I�m trying to say is that family is all that matters; but that comes out of the fact that that�s all I know what to write about, for better or worse again.

If you like Southern fiction or novels about the inner workings of families, not “dysfunctional” families, just ordinary hard-working folks who are trying to make things work the best they can, Jewel is a masterpiece. I’m definitely going to read some more books by Bret Lott.

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born January 11th

Jan11

Alan Paton is a South African author, famous for his book Cry, the Beloved Country about the system of racial apartheid that kept South Africa in turmoil for so many years. I see that I’ve never written about Paton’s other novels, Too Late the Phalarope and Ah, But Your Land Is Beautiful.

If you read and enjoyed Cry, the Beloved Country, then Too Late the Phalarope should be next on your list. It’s the story of an Afrikaans (Dutch descent) policeman who finds himself involved in an affair with a black African girl. He is ashamed of his own inability to control himself sexually, but he also carries the false guilt of having broken the racial barriers that were ingrained in South African society (probably still are to some extent). Like Cry, the Beloved Country, the story is a tragedy, but retains some hope. And it’s beautifully written.

In Paton’s third novel, Ah, But Your Land Is Beautiful, he continued to explore the theme of racial injustice and the prison that apartheid had become for both black and white South Africans. Here’s a passage that captures a little of the tone of Paton’s writing, a sort of poetic tragic novel:

“Black man, we are going to shut you off
We are going to set you apart, now and forever.
We mean nothing evil toward you.

You shall have your own place, your own institutions.
Your tribal customs shall flourish unhindered.
You shall lie all day long in the sun if you wish it.
All the things that civilization has stolen
Shall be restored. You shall take wives
Unhindered by our alien prohibitions
Fat-bellied children shall play innocently
Under the wide branching trees of the lush country
Where you yourselves were born.
Boys shall go playing in the reed lagoons
Of far Ingwavuma, the old names
Shall recover old magic, milk and honey
Shall flow in the long-forsaken places.

We mean nothing evil toward you.”

So well-meaning, so patronizing, so ignorant of what can and what cannot be done, and ultimately so very wrong.

Alan Paton is a writer you should read. There are passages in Cry, the Beloved Country that bring tears to my eyes whenever I read them. A writer who can evoke emotion that well and who writes hope in the midst of tragedy is not to be missed.

Information on teaching Cry, the Beloved Country.

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

Jan10

Our read aloud book for December and so far into January was this survival-in-the-wilderness book by Newbery award winning author Jean Craighead George. Here are the views of two of the urchins on the book:

Review by Brown Bear Daughter (Age Eleven)
Book: My Side of the Mountain

Author: Jean Craighead George

Summary: It is about young Sam Gribley, tired of city life, who moves into the Catskill Mountains. He trains his own falcon, builds his own house, and finds his own food.

Review: I would give this book, on a scale from 1 to 10, an 8. Although, in my opinion, the ending was disappointing, the rest of the book was very well written and I liked it a lot. This book is a Newberry Honor Book, an ALA Notable Book, and a Hans Christian Andersen Award Honor Book.

Review by Karate Kid (Age Eight)
What the book was about: The book was about a boy named Sam Gribley. He ran away from home to the Catskill Mountains. At the beginning of the story, it tells what’s happening right then. He’s in a big snowstorm. But before you get to hear about that, he tells all about how he got into the big snowstorm.

What I liked about this book: I like the idea of living in a tree. I’d like to have a trained falcon.

What I don’t like about this book: I didn’t like the part where everybody keeps on finding him. I wish he’d still get to live in the tree in hammocks.

So there you have it: two reviews by two impartial reviewers. I think Brown Bear Daughter liked it anyway. She’s already reading the sequel, On the Far Side of the Mountain.

Jean Craighead George Website

Old Friends Rediscovered While Cataloging

Jan10

While entering books from my fiction shelf in to librarything last weekend, I discovered these old friends. It was all I could do to keep entering and resist the temptation to stop and read a bit.

Immortal Queen by Elizabeth Byrd. I’ve read this fictionalized biography of Mary, Queen of Scots more than once, but not in a long while. Mary was such a fascinating character, and her fate stands in such contrast to that of her cousin Elizabeth. Both of them were vain women surrounded by power-hungry men. Elizabeth survived and thrived; Mary succumbed to her own weaknesses and to the disrespect and insurrection of the Scottish nobles.

Abel Sanchez by Miguel de Unamuno. I read this book in college, in Spanish, and I haven’t re-read it since. I remember it being about two friends, almost brothers, one of whom is jealous of the other. An exploration of the meaning of the Biblical story of Cain and Abel.

I also came across C.S. Lewis’s space trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength. Engineer Husband and I read these out loud to each other a long time ago. I’d enjoy reading them again.

Lost Horizon by James Hilton. Ever heard of Shangr-la? The term for a utopia, heaven on earth, comes from Lost Horizon. In the book paradise is somewhere in the mountains of Tibet. Shangri-la sounds pretty good right now, a Shangri-la full of books.

Reading Lists

Jan9

What did you read this past year? What were your favorites? What did you try to read but couldn’t quite get into? Which books made a real impression on you? What was overrated? What did you waste time reading? What do you recommend?

What do you plan to read in 2006? Why?

Post a link in the comments to your own reading list for 2005–or your reading plan for 2006, and I’ll link to it here.

Writing and Living lists the books she read and the ones she planned to read in 2005: 31 books read in 2005 and a year of Dickens coming up for 2006.

Melissa of the Bonny Glen plans to read Dickens, Chesterton, and a few other books. Did you know that Chesterton wrote a biography of Dickens?

Todd is reading Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion and blogging about it.

Mental Multivitamin’s Year in Review, including a list of her ten favorite reading experiences in 2005 (scroll down).

Laura in a strange land posts her edition of THE LIST. She’s going to read Dorothy Sayers and Louisa May Alcott among others–two of my favorites.

Stefanie at So Many Books read 55 of them this year, and she lists the five best ones. C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces is at the top of the list. Yes! I love that book.

Fimble Fowl’s organized and ambitious list—from the bathroom floor??

Susan(Pages Turned) has her lists for 2004 and 2005 of books read in the sidebar. She’s read some of the books I plan to read: The March, Canticle for Leibowitz, Never Let Me Go. Maybe that’s where I found them, or maybe I should check them out at her place before I commit myself.

Tim Hutchison, missionary doctor in Nairobi, has read some good stuff, including a lot of Patrick O’Brian. (Master and Commander and all that nautical jazz). Who’s Neal Stephenson, and what kind of stuff does he write?

Kathryn Judson’s Book Recommendations from 2005. I added The Privateer by Josephine Tey to THE LIST because I like Josephine Tey’s Daughter of TIme very much.

A blatant display of Amanda’s lit-geekery. Her words, not mine. I think it just looks like an interesting year of books.

Here’s Carrie Mommy Brain’s Reading List for 2006. And here’s a list of the books she read in 2005.

Sparrow at Intent implies that THE LIST is much too long and shows no restraint. What can I say? She’s right. Her list for 2006, on the other hand, is much more ladylike and sane: Jane Austen, Edith Schaeffer’s What Is a Family?, Till We Have Faces (second appearance in these links). Her list is eminently respectable, but she cheats. Wodehouse, Sayers, McCall Smith, and Ellis Peters don’t count!

Chicken Spaghetti posts her 2005 favorites in the sidebar.

John M. is reading Gibbon.

Sandra at Book World confesses that she buys more books than she reads and that she is not really reading the classics she thought she was reading. Then on New Year’s Eve she posts a plan for the new year: science, poetry, classics, Shakespeare. Buy fewer books.

Ella has a picture and commentary about her first ten books of the new year. She’s already started on War and Peace. And she’s planning on reading Thomas Hardy, Edith Wharton, Oscar WIlde, and Thoreau.

Anita just started her book blog: It’s All About the Book. She’s planning to read modern classics, mostly twentieth century stuff. I think she should start with LOTR if she hasn’t read it.

A Somewhat Dated and Highly Subjective Real Book Lover’s Guide to the Ten Best Books of 2005 by Doppelganger at 50 Books. She likes Thackeray and Wodehouse and Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Anne in Hawaii (Palm Tree Pundit) has this list of books read in 2005. Ooooh, she read Kristin Lavransdattar which I am definitely planning to get around to reading this year. I’ve been planning to read it for a long time.

At Half-Pint House, Megan read 40 books in 2005, Her goal was three books per month. I see that she read The Eyre Affair; maybe she can tell me what it was supposed to be about.

Craig and Doug blog and list books at Twenty Someone. Twenty Someone is the title of the book they co-authored, and they’re a couple of young Christian guys just out of their twenties. It looks as if they run a good blog.

CDR Salamander list seven books he read and enjoyed this past year. Nonfiction as befits a military guy.

Cinnamon at Nose in a Book posts My Reading: Year in Review. She included some Alcott, some Austen, and two-thirds of LOTR. Keep going; the ending is a tear-jerker.

Danielle at A Work in Progress is planning to read the Modern Library 100 best novels. She’s starting at the bottom of the list and working her way up, hoping to reach #80 by the end of 2006. #100 is The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington. I’ve never read it, but I have read Penrod. Does that count for anything?

Jamie from Canada has his list, mostly theology, N.T. Wright and others. No fiction!?

Amy at Perpetual Thursday read a variety of genres and subjects. In fact, I think hers is the most varied reading list I’ve seen yet.

Jonathan would like to read Total Truth and God Is the Gospel, among others. I’d like to finish those two, too. I wonder which one of us will do it.

Tym all the way over in Singapore read 19 books, including LOTR, The Lion the Witch , and the Wardrobe and several dense-sounding philosophy books.

Circle of Quiet Reading for 2006. I am honored; she says she got some of her ideas for reading material from me.

Kate’s Favorites from 2005 I disagree with her about Case Histories, but I would like to add a couple of her other favorites to THE LIST.

The lady at Seasonal Soundings has a plan for 2006–morning reading, educational reading, evening reading, even beach reading.

Roger of the A-Team group blog is starting a new blog, Never Enough Tea: Reflections on all Th.ings C.S. Lewis “My goal is to blog 2-3 times a week reflecting on Lewis, his writings, and writings about him and his writings. Though I�m reading chronologically, I�ll likely pull from stuff I�ve already read anyway. I�ll also be reading and reviewing books on Lewis and his works. From time to time I�ll branch out a bit and go into works that influenced Lewis- such as Boethius, Chesterton, MacDonald, etc.”

Kate at The Little Bookroom, who recommended several of the books on THE LIST, read some fine books last year,including Madeleine L’Engle’s Ring of Endless Light which is also one of my favorites. She also has some interesting plans for this year, books from The Modern Library list of 100 Best Novels of the Twentieth Century. I’d prefer the 19th century, but we’ll see how it goes for Kate.

Last but certainly not least, I’m going to end this list of lists with Eldest Daughter’s Top Ten of 2005. I must gloat a little; one of her top ten I recommended, and another I gave her as a Christmas gift. Am I good or what?

***(This is really fun–seeing what everyone else has read and is reading and is planning to read.I’m moving this post to the top of the blog for New Year’s Day one more time since I’ve added several more lists.)