I just found out about Art*Music*Justice while surfing this Piper Family blog.
Now I’m bummed because I found their Facebook entry and it says they were right here in Cornelius 2 weeks ago. I was happier not knowing what I was missing.
Oh well. Maybe next time.
Here is Sara Groves
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSdP6PqsbJY
It’s that time again. I went back and looked at last month’s entry and I am happy to report that I actually got some books read. I finished 4 Elizabeth Goudge books, The Grand Weaver, and At Home in Mitford. I am reviewing Battling Unbelief and preparing for the beach retreat in one week!
So, what have I added to my stack to read this month?
Antsy Does Time and Everlost by Neal Shusterman. I picked those up after reading Orson Scott Card’s review this week.
I have requested two books by David Servan-Schreiber, Anticancer and The instinct to heal. A friend at work has breast cancer and has been reading Anticancer.
Now that Anthony is through reading it, I am going to add Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands by Paul David Tripp.
I’ve done most of this over the weekend while Connor was at home with his dad. But I need to find a way to explain that on the one side, people send cards and flowers to express love and provide comfort and sympathy, and that is why we have received these:
And for each one of those, plus the visits, the flowers, and memorials… we send these:
And the time spent doing this is not drudgery spent over a chore, but a time to cherish the love of others and the memories of a loved one.
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
You, who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?
In every condition, in sickness, in health;
In poverty’s vale, or abounding in wealth;
At home and abroad, on the land, on the sea,
As thy days may demand, shall thy strength ever be.
Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen and help thee, and cause thee to stand
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.
When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.
Even down to old age all My people shall prove
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,
Like lambs they shall still in My bosom be borne.
The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.
I am really late with this blog entry. I obviously got busy and blogging wasn’t on my list last week.
Dad passed away last Tuesday, October 14, 2008.
One more picture:
I found this blog post and found the rules for gaining contentment to be very encouraging.
* Allow ourselves to complain of nothing, not even the weather.
* Never picture ourselves in any circumstances in which we are not.
* Never compare our lot with that of another.
* Never allow ourselves to wish that this or that had been otherwise.
* Never dwell on the morrow; remember that this is God’s and not ours.
Plenty of food for thought here.
I struggle the most with the first one. I could quibble over a statement of fact versus a complaint, but I know which is which.
I also struggle with the last one and wrote about my latest struggle here.
Occasionally I’ll spend time wishing something had been different. I often agree that the Omega 13 device from Galaxy Quest would be great, so many things that I would change the instant they are done. But they can’t be changed and they pile on top of the things I realize later I really should have done differently. Then add in the things I had no control over that I wish had been different. However, I’m too practical to spend too much time there and usually stop wasting my time on what-might-have-been and just move forward with what-is.
I have a few friends who have recommended books by Elizabeth Goudge for a few years. I finally requested some from the library and decided to dig in. The first two I skimmed more than read. I felt like Gentian Hill and Green Dolphin Street were about twice as long as they needed to be. She writes wonderful descriptions of landscape, people, and concepts. Maybe I just felt like I had too much to do and didn’t take the time to appreciate the books. It certainly felt like I was reading to reach a goal, not to enjoy a book.
I stuck with it. The books were good enough that I didn’t feel it was a total waste of time. And I trust the women who recommended her. The next book I tried was The Castle on the Hill. She had me from the very beginning where she describes Miss Brown sitting on a bench and leaning against the roar of traffic and the street musician that draws her back into the pilgrimage. The characters were wonderful and varied and the ending was satisfactory. One thing that Miss Brown learned from the experiences in the book and from the always-happy Mrs. Heather was the foolishness of the fear that “life could cast one away. Yield yourself to it, and it will use you to the end.”
The book is set around England during World War II and we meet landed gentry, a Jew who has suffered and survived atrocities in Europe, children sent to the countryside by parents living in London, and Miss Brown, a woman who lives to wash and cook for others. I found the character of Mrs. Heather to be the most inspiring, as she has come to peace with life and death.
Then I started The Heart of the Family. This is the third book about the Eliot family. Obviously I’m not reading these in order as I haven’t read the first two. I want to find them and read them now. The characters are very interesting and real. The interactions seem too good to be true, but typical for an Elizabeth Goudge novel. I haven’t finished it, but I highly recommend it based on the 143 pages I’ve read so far.
This book has spoken to me this past week. I started it the middle of last week, and I was reading chapter 2 on Thursday the day of the visitation for my dad. At one point that day I read the pages where Lucilla, the 91 year old grandmother is thinking about how at “her age one was already beginning to live a little in the life to come and to know as they know who are set free from all deceptions and disguises of existence in the body.” She talks about her oldest son dying in WW I and how it seemed he vanished utterly from existence at his death.
“And yet now, after a lifetime of absence, here was Maurice back again, returned from the great distance and the deep silence with an ease that suggested that they were neither so deep nor so great as she had thought. He had made himself known to her as an enfolding of warm joy, as though her small soul was held within his, that was so much greater.”
Then she says to herself “And so, with you so constantly here, Maurice, my lifelong grief for you seems slightly foolish. If I had my time over again I would weep for nothing but sin.”
The whole book has spoken to me. The deep darkness, hatred, and fear of Mr. Weber. The strength of Hilary Eliot. The domestic daydreams of Caroline. The continuity of family over generations.
I can now say I understand why women are so drawn to the books by Elizabeth Goudge. She talks about the deep, inner life of a person. I am too distracted by the busy surface and need this encouragement to slow down and look deeper.
