Month: December 2006

  • Meaning to Read More

     

    Sophia Kramskaya Reading, 1863 by Ivan Nikolayevich Karmskoy

    A humorous quote on reading lists from Emma by Jane Austen

      Emma has been meaning to read more ever since she was twelve years old.  I have seen a great many lists of the drawing-up, at various times, of books that she meant to read regularly through–and very good lists they were, very well chosen, and very neatly arranged–sometimes alphabetically, and sometimes by some other rule.  The list she drew up when only fourteen–I remember thinking it did her judgment so much credit, that I preserved it for some time, and I dare say she may have made out a very good list now.  But I have done expecting any course of steady reading from Emma.  She will never submit to anything requiring industry and patience, and a subjection of the fancy to the understanding.

    [Added later: the blue titles are finished, the green ones are in progress.]

    CAROL’S 2007 MASTER READING LIST

    CURRICULUM reading:

    The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Bede
    Beowulf
    The Song of Roland
    Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,     translated J.R.R. Tolkien
    The Divine Comedy, Dante
    Ascent to Love, Peter Leithart
    The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer
    Bondage of the Will, Martin Luther
    Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare
    Richard III, Shakespeare
    Top 500 Poems, William Harmon ed.  (read one aloud daily)
    Going Somewhere, George Grant
    From Playpen to Podium, Jeffrey Myers
    A Natural History of Latin, Tore Janson
    Study is Hard Work, William Armstrong

    CHALLENGE reading

    The Discarded Image, C.S. Lewis
    Civilization of the Middle Ages, Norman Cantor
    Autumn of the Middle Ages, Johan Huizinga
    book by Charles Williams, undecided which one

    CULTIVATING reading

    Reformed Pastor, Richard Baxter
    Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin (the first book this year)
    The Reformation in England, J.H. Merle d’Aubingné
    Breathe, Keri Wyatt Kent
    The Excellent Wife, Martha Peace

    COMFORT AND JOY

    Miniatures & Morals, Peter Leithart
    Emma, Jane Austen
    Doctor Thorne, Anthony Trollope
    The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope
    Nicholas Nickleby, Charles Dickens
    A Short Day Dying, Peter Hobbs
    The Loved One, Evelyn Waugh
    The Memory of Old Jack, Wendell Berry
    Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry
    A Place on Earth, Wendell Berry
    That Distant Land, Wendell Berry
    Kristin Lavransdatter, Sigrid Undset
    Phantastes, George MacDonald
    Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences, Ursula K. LeGuin
    Isaac and his Devils, Fernanda Eberstadt

    CREATIVITY

    The Mind of the Maker, Dorothy Sayers
    On the Art of Writing, Arthur Quiller-Couch
    Home Comforts, Cheryl Mendelson
    A Good Year, Peter Mayle
    A Year in the World, Frances Mayes
    A Short History of Art, Janson and Janson
    Good Poems for Hard Times, selected by Garrison Keillor

    CURIOSITY

    Kepler’s Witch, James Connor
    Mornings on Horseback, David McCullough
    Scarlet Music, Joan Ohanneson
    The Mendelssohns, Herbert Kupfeberg
    Life of John Calvin, Theodore Beza
    God’s Secretaries, Adam Nicolson
    Life is So Good, George Dawson
    Racing Through Paradise, William F. Buckley, Jr.
    Sailing Alone Around the World, Captain Joshua Slocum

    CHILDREN’S BOOKS

    The Phoenix and the Carpet, E. Nesbit
    Mr. Standfast,     John Buchan
    The Black Arrow,     Robert Louis Stevenson
    The Island on Bird Street,     Uri Orlev
    Mimosa,     Amy Carmichael
    Beorn the Proud,     Madeleine Polland
    Warrior Scarlet,     Rosemary Sutcliff
    Outcast,     Rosemary Sutcliff
    The Silver Branch,     Rosemary Sutcliff
    The Road of Camlann,     Rosemary Sutcliff
    The Hound of Ulster, Rosemary Sutcliff
    The River Between Us    , Richard Peck
    Words By Heart, Ouida Sebestyen
    Squalls Before War, Ned Bustard

    Each year I like to read a book by Austen, Dickens, C.S. Lewis and David McCullough.  Add to that list Anthony Trollope and Wendell Berry.  I wish there was a G.K. Chesterton included on this list, but I don’t think I’m up to reading Calvin’s Institutes and Orthodoxy in the same year.  I have a book of Chesterton’s essays that I can dip into to assuage my GKC thirst.  Rosemary Sutcliff is one of my favorite children’s writers – I’m excited to plan to read five of her books this year.

    I want to thank Janie at Seasonal Soundings for the inspiration to be more intentional in my reading.  There is something accountable, shall we say, about putting into print your intentions.  Like dear Emma, I’ve always been meaning to read more.

    Do you have a book you’d recommend?  The list can be amended, don’t you know…..

  • A Bookish Life

    I’m quite excited about A Natural History of Latin.  It seems an essential book for a homeschool parent wanting to know more about Latin.  The intended audience is those not familiar with Latin; it’s very accessible. I’ll read more soon and give y’all some quotes.

    The upright book to the left is Andrée Seu’s latest book, Normal Kingdom Business.  If you’ve read her incredible writing in World magazine, you will enjoy Mindy Withrow’s interview of Andrée here.  The upright book to the right is an unparalleled delight, Quotable Quotes,The Book Lover.  At the lower bottom is Cordelia Underwood by Van Reid.  If ever there was a modern day Charles Dickens with more humor than pathos, it would be Van Reid.  I consider him one of the best kept secrets in modern fiction.  The two oversized books, Italy, A Beautiful Cookbook and France, A Beautiful Cookbook are part of the “Beautiful Cookbook” series put out by Borders.  These books are just stunning.  I must show you more:

    My husband is just like Alsace-Lorraine: solid, rugged, joyful!
     

    There’s a good selection of Wendell Berry and Anthony Trollope.  Scarlet Music is a historical novel about Hildegard of Blingen.  George Grant wrote one line about Isaac and His Devils and that was incentive enough for me to order it! Tucked next to Wendell Berry is Dorothy Sayer’s The Mind of the Maker. Out in front is Kristin Lanvansdatter, George MacDonald’s Phantastes and two Dover books full of quotations.  

    The photo of my grandson Gavin deserves a close-up don’t ya think?  It was a Christmas gift from my dear friend Katie.

    These are garage sale bargains.  My daughter in-law spied them, nudged me and pointed.  There was no price indicated.  I asked the owner and tears came to her eyes.  ”If you would like them, you can have them. None of my children wants them.”  I gave her a token bill and took them. The blue set is the works of Dumas; the green set is Dickens.  They aren’t the complete works but the type is readable and large enough for my eyes.

    Finally, discoveries from our small, rural, local library.  An unabridged reading of Jane Austen’s Emma on CD. And a lovely book discovered while walking the stacks.  I’m a sucker for any book that begins with “Oxford Book of”.  The Oxford Book of Ages is a collection of quotes for all the ages of our life.  It would be a marvelous resource to have close by when you are sending birthday greetings.  

    I’m ready to start putting together my reading list for 2007 which I’ll post in the next few days.

    I’d rather be shut up in a very modest cottage,
    with my books,
    my family and a few old friends,
    dining on simple bacon,
    and letting the world roll on as it liked,
    than to occupy the most splendid post which any human power can give.  
    Thomas Jefferson

  • Killer Sudoku

    Call it sibling rivalry.  When I saw my two older brothers working on this level of Sudoku, I had to prove that I could do it too decided to give myself a challenge.   Why is Sudoku so engaging?  I did finish my first 16 x 16 grid.  All it took was time.  Lots of it! 

    Do you Sudoku?

  • Stamp Thine Image

    It is a particular delight to discover new verses to familiar songs.  On Sunday we sang a verse to
    Hark! the Herald Angels Sing     I had never heard before:

    Adam’s likeness, Lord efface,
    Stamp Thine image in its place:
    Second Adam from above,
    Reinstate us in Thy love.

    Let us Thee, though lost, regain,
    Thee, the Life, the inner man:
    O, to all Thyself impart,
    Formed in each believing heart.

    Hark! the herald angels sing,
    “Glory to the newborn King.”

    A line from Athanasius, On the Incarnation (the emphasis is my own):

    He made all things out of nothing through His own Word, our Lord Jesus Christ; and of all these His earthly creatures He reserved especial mercy for the race of men.  Upon them, therefore, upon men who, as animals, were essentially impermanent, He bestowed a grace which other creatures lacked–namely, the impress of His own Image, a share in the reasonable being of the very Word Himself, so that, reflecting Him and themselves becoming reasonable and expressing the Mind of God even as He does, though in limited degree, they might continue for ever in the blessed and only true life of saints in paradise.

  • It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

  • Barchester Towers

    My beloved Latin teacher thought I would enjoy reading Anthony Trollope.  Since he and his wife have a 100% record for recommending good books, I perked up and began looking.  My rural library had one offering (on tape) of Anthony Trollope and a huge selection of Joanna Trollope (a descendant of AT’s).  I listened to An Old Man’s Love with great enjoyment. Next, I logged on to Librivox and listened to The Warden, the first of his six Barset Chronicles. 

    Barchester Towers is the second book in the Barset Chronicles.  Happily, I purchased this book and could make it my own by marking it up.  I like Trollope better than Dickens, and I like Dickens very much.  Trollope, like Dickens, employs descriptive names:  Mr. Slope for an oily clergyman,  Dr. Fillgrave,  Mr. and Mrs. Quiverful,  Dr. and Mrs. Proudie.  Trollope doesn’t surpass Jane Austen, but then who does?

    Trollope inserts authorial comments, breaking the rule I pounded into my students: “Don’t write about your writing.”  Some critics (Henry James and W. H. Auden) found this very off-putting; it made me chuckle.  Trollope writes about everyday, ordinary life with grace and perception. What I particularly appreciate is that his bad characters are not entirely evil; his protagonists have failures. And the humor!  Wry observations are crammed with humor.  The best thing is to give you some samples:

    The venom of the chaplain’s harangue had worked into his blood, and sapped the life of his sweet contentment.  p.114

    Considering how much we are all given to discuss the characters of others, and discuss them often not in the strictest spirit of charity, it is singular how little we are inclinded to think that others can speak ill-naturedly of us, and how angry and hurt we are when proof reaches us that they have done so.  It is hardly too much to say that we all of us occasionally speak of our dearest friends in a manner in which those dearest friends would very little like to hear themselves mentioned; and that we nevertheless expect that our dearest freinds shall invariably speak of us as though they were blind to all our faults, but keenly alive to every shade of our virtues.   p. 185

    Mr. Arabin declared that the morning light at any rate was perfect, and deprecated any interference with the lime trees.  And then they took a stroll out among the trim parterres, and Mr. Arabin explained to Mrs. Bold the difference between a naiad and a dryad, and dilated on vases and the shapes of urns.  Miss Thorne busied herself among her pansies; and her brother, finding it quite impracticable to give anything of a peculiarly Sunday tone to the conversation, abandoned the attempt, and had it out with the archdeacon about the Bristol guano.  p. 220

    Mrs. Quiverful did not mention the purpose of her business, nor did the farmer alloy his kindness by any unseemly questions.    p. 237

    He wished to be what he called “safe” with all those whom he had admitted to the penetralia of his house and heart [...] His feelings towards his friends were, that while they stuck to him he would stick to them; that he would work with them shoulder to shoulder; that he would be faithful to the faithful.  He knew nothing of that beautiful love which can be true to a false friend.    p. 269

    By seven [a.m.] she was dressed and down.  Miss Thorne knew nothing of the modern luxury of déshabilles.  She would as soon have thought of appearing before her brother without her stockings as without her stays; and Miss Thorne’s stays were no trifle.  p. 346

    He [Mr Slope] longed in his heart to be preaching at her.  ‘Twas thus that he was ordinarily avenged of sinning mortal men and women. Could he at once have ascended his Sunday rostrum and fulminated at her such denunciations as his spirit delighted in, his bosom would have been greatly eased.  p. 399

  • Rembrandt – Simeon with the Christ Child

    The Song of Simeon

    Lord, now lettest thou thy servant
    depart in peace,
    according to thy word:

    For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
    Which thou hast prepared
    before the face of all people;

    A light to lighten the Gentiles,
    and the glory of thy people Israel.

  • Recipe for a Sweet Smelling House

    3 cinnamon sticks
    1/4 cup whole cloves
    sprinkle (or grind) of nutmeg
    3 bay leaves
    1/2 orange sliced
    1/2 lemon sliced
    1 quart water

    Combine in saucepan and bring to boil.
    Reduce heat and simmer.
    Add water as needed.

    Mixture may be reused for several days.
    Please don’t consume this: it’s all about aroma.

    This recipe was posted on a blog last year and I failed to note the source.  I’d love to give credit to the one who posted this.   I surely enjoyed it.

  • The Wind and The Wedding

    [I don't have one picture from the wedding on our camera.  Hey bros or friends, if you have one, could you email it to me so I could insert it here?]

    Condensed Version:   Last Thursday night a huge windstorm hit the Puget Sound region which left 1.5 million people without power.  One of the worst areas affected was the rural community near Taryn’s house and the site of the wedding.  Flights were canceled, our motel was without power, the restaurant providing food for the rehearsal dinner was without power, the winery (site of wedding) was without power.  The day before the wedding we were scrambling to find a place for the wedding.  Three hours before the rehearsal we were searching for a place to rehearse.  The Lord provided those places and the wedding on Sunday evening was exquisite.


    Cedar (and rhody) uprooted in Taryn’s front yard

    Details:  Jessie, my gifted florist daughter-in-law, and I traveled Thursday to Taryn’s house so Jessie could begin arranging flowers for the wedding.  The flowers were delivered safely just hours before the storm descended. We stayed in a motorhome that night as the tempest roared (the Advent winds begin to stir with sea-like sounds in our Scotch fir).  The wind groaned and shook the RV.  We woke early and surveyed the damage: a huge cedar down in the front yard and four trees down in the back pasture.  A different angle and the tree could have easily landed on the master bedroom and turned the weekend to tragedy. The horses were alive and hadn’t gotten out. There was no power; Taryn’s family had a gas stove that provided heat.

    As Friday unfolded, the extent of the storm became manifest.  It soon became evident that we would need to start developing a Plan B.  The cell phones were constantly in use as we worked through endless details in succession, one after another. [I humbly recant my rant about loathing cell phones.] We found a Costco that had power where we could at least purchase food to feed the group assembling at the house.  This Costco had gas for sale and there was a line a mile long in both directions.  Welcome to Soviet Russia!   The off-ramp from the highway moved at a snail’s pace, at the rate it takes to fill a car tank with gas.  Back at Taryn’s house we grilled burgers, lit candles, and ended up sleeping on the dining room floor in borrowed blankets and sleeping bags. 

    The Saturday morning dawn was quiet and dark.  Sea-Tac had reopened and my siblings were arriving.  We trekked down to pick them up, in yuckky, non-showered bodies.  A 1907 hotel in downtown Seattle had rooms and power so we dropped people off and worked our way back to homebase.  Don’t even get me started on Seattle traffic.

    A friend with bridal connections suggested a facility for the wedding that was available Sunday evening, but not available for a rehearsal Saturday night.  Cell phones roamed and the search for a rehearsal continued.  A church graciously allowed us to use their sanctuary and all the participants in the rehearsal were notified of the change.  We started making phone calls to the 200 guests to inform them of the new venue. 

    On Sunday afternoon Jessie did the most spectacular job making the new room perfect for the wedding.  She harvested greens from the downed cedar and firs and arranged them with magnificent skill.  The wood paneled walls were decorated with swags; the fireplace and mantel provided a focal point; bouquets of red and white roses, calla lilies, white daisies and deep red roses in tall, slender vases were on every table.  The soft light of  votive candles, dozens and dozens of them, made the room twinkle and glow. 

    The sweet, clear tones from a harp and violin played Christmas carols as the prelude.  There was a hush as the mothers were ushered in to the tender notes of Silent Night.  Taryn was radiant on her father’s arm as they proceeded down the aisle to the music of O Holy Night.  Both fathers spoke words of blessing to the couple. Our pastor, Bonnie’s husband, gave one of the best wedding sermons I’ve ever heard.  My brother Dan sang, lovely as usual. Vows were made, rings exchanged, communion received, pronouncement made, the kiss, and then the smiles…… Carson and Taryn were incapable of straight faces.  Smiles and laughter and good cheer and celebration and  Joy to the world.

    ~   ~   ~  slices of joy ~   ~   ~

    •  the moment before I took Collin’s arm to walk the aisle, Taryn’s mom leaned over and whispered, “You know what this means?  We’re relatives now.”

    •  singing Be Thou My Vision with wobbly voice thick with tears of joy

    •  watching all the groomsmen sing the first verse of Be Thou My Vision from memory.  There is something about men singing which melts me.  These young men were handsome, manly, and quite comfortable singing a hymn. 

    •  dancing with my husband, eyes full of wordless wonder

    •  standing with Taryn’s mom, arms around each other, watching our kids dance, soaking in the moment

    •  the body of Christ ministering in countless ways.  People pitched in to help and friends far away prayed. It’s so good to be part of community where burdens and joys are gladly shared.

    •  memorized scripture which came to my frazzled mind and comforted me:

    The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. 

    Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. 
    In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths.

    He gives us beauty for ashes,
    the oil of joy for mourning,
    a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness,
    that we might be trees of righteousness,
    the planting of the Lord,
    that He might be glorified.


    •      sharing the experience with all but one of my siblings.  Deep belly laughs punctuated our time together.  Here is a random family picture of us at the hotel together. I’m in the middle, my brother Dan is by the window trying to get wireless connection to find a motel closer to the wedding.

     

  • How I Feel

    We just arrived home from one unforgettable weekend in Seattle.  Carson and Taryn are married – but all the plans were changed because of windstorms which took out the power.  Tomorrow I’ll post the story….and maybe some pictures.  Thanks for your thoughts and prayers.  God is good.