Creating a stimulating environment

This cute, whimsical bird caught my eye recently. I thought my younger students might enjoy seeing him as they leave the studio. It’s “perched” on the wall adjacent to the front door, and one might imagine him bidding them farewell as they leave!

My admiration for Carol Montparker has evolved into an enchantment that has kept me preoccupied lately. She has buoyed me up with her words and ideas; they breathe fresh vision and inspiration, as well as confirm ideas that have already begun to take root in my mind.

I have now read through the first half of A Pianist’s Landscape. My thoughts that for the past several months have been in flux regarding my purpose and vision for my piano teaching, are beginning to solidify–and this, even before reaching the block of chapters that I am so very anxious to read, “In the Studio”–those which focus primarily on Ms. Montparker’s  teaching, and which I am on pins and needles to read! Normally, I would have no qualms about skipping chapters to read others, but I haven’t been able to do so, not wanting to miss any possible background information that might help shed greater light on her experience of teaching.

I do love her thoughts on the interplay between the arts and senses. This relates to what I have been thinking regarding the type of atmosphere that I would like to create in my studio, aka…dining room. I am aiming for a light and airy, colorful room full of interesting items that might help to stimulate creativity.  Carol says it best:

In my own studio, within arm’s reach are art books and music reference books of any given period or subject that will enhance my understanding of music literature; I also read from certain collections of composers’ letters if I think they will serve to enlighten. I have gone about the business, over the past many years, of consciously surrounding myself with paintings, pottery, and books that help to put me (and I hope my students) in a sensitized, peaceful, receptive, and fertile state of mind. What seems to count a lot to me is not only the availability of reference material, but a harmonious space, with every corner balanced in form, color, design.

What I like about this approach is that this takes into consideration the whole person, nurturing a love for beauty, of which a love for music is just a part of a greater whole. I feel rather strongly that music, like other art forms, nurtures a deeper part of our beings, and I’m wondering if we are able to reach a higher level of fulfillment and joy when music is brought into a broader, more natural and artistic context.

Alright, enough philosophizing–just something I’ve been thinking about.

Here are a few other snapshots taken around the room.

Finding inspiration in the writings of Carol Montparker

In an effort to stir up fresh ideas for my piano teaching, I have come across numerous piano teachers who have various blogs and websites filled with unique, fun, inspirational ideas that seem to flow nonstop through their creative fingertips. Often I am encouraged and helped by their thoughts and ideas. However, to be honest, it can turn the other direction and zap me of energy and motivation if I allow myself to go down a mental road of thinking that if I’m not juggling 25 creative ways to incorporate 55 important piano pedagogy techniques then I’m not being the best teacher I can be. I can quickly become overwhelmed by all of the information and ideas available!

But sometimes gems can be found, as was the case when I recently stumbled across pianist / teacher/ artist / author / nature-lover, Carol Montparker. Her love for each of these things (that I happen to love also) led me to immediately request one of her books from inter-library loan. I ended up with A Pianist’s Lanscape. She has a gentle, straight-forward writing style that gives a clear glimpse into her interesting musician/artist’s life. It’s the type of book that I like to read in small bits and savor. She seems the type of person that I would like to spend time with over coffee–very personable, creative, inspiring.

The first chapter of the book is entitled Nature and Music, and introduces the close ties between her love for nature and music:

I have come to think of myself as both a naturalist and musician. Certainly I have found a great source of spiritual strength in both realms, and probing the relationship between the two has been an ongoing preoccupation and pleasure for as long as I can remember. Apparently even as an infant, I looked up into the trees and murmured to the rustling leaves. Now, my first love, nature, can subvert my work at the piano, for example, when a red fox emerges from the woods and catches the corner of my eye, or a bird song seems more beautiful than anything I could ever play.

Later..

The thrush, in particular, has a song that moves me as  much or more than any music. He had been missing from our property for a few years, although he stopped to sing and forage en route to more densely forested areas. Of late we have left our wooded tracts alone, neither tended or pruned, and it is almost too wild to walk there; the overgrown thicket not only attracted the fox, but brought back the thrush, and I take it as a compliment and a blessing. More often heard than seen, he is relatively plain, with speckled breast and umber plumage. But his full-throated, intermittent phrases, delicately ornamented, slightly and infinitely varied, render me a captive audience; I stand motionless wherever I am while his song reaches me over the trees and across the green expanse of lawn from his podium branch. No mere grackling, clucking, chirping, or whistling of ordinary birds, this fluting is what many years ago I told my little girl, Kim, to strive for in her music-making.

Later chapter titles include, “An Artistically Nourishing Environment,” “On Playing Chamber Music and Concertos,” ” Students I’ve Known and What They’ve Taught Me.” (Besides performing, she also teaches in her home studio.)

I have only read the first five chapters, but have found so much that has encouraged me both personally and as a piano teacher. I can tell already that this is a lady of widely varied passions and interests, and from what I’ve read so far, it would appear that she has found a way to balance them and live a life that allows her to enjoy them fully and share them with others– a goal that I would like to set for myself!

I’m really looking forward to reading her latest book entitled, A Pianist’s Journal in Venice. The description from her website says that the book is, “an exploration of how three modes of expression: music, painting, and writing coalesce into one inspired attempt to capture the magical atmosphere of Venice.” Included are several of her watercolor paintings.

You can read more about Carol Montparker and view some of her artwork, as well as listen to her piano music, at www.montparker.com.

A Novemberish day

A few leaves are still hanging on, even after windy Sandy blew through earlier this week!  Some chilly air and gray clouds have moved in making it feel quite Novemberish today.  Even so, it was a good day to get some yard work done.  The garden now has a blanket of leaves covering it, just waiting for God and nature to break them down and enrich the soil for next year’s crop.

The pleasure of eating should be an extensive pleasure, not that of the mere gourmet.  People who know the garden in which their vegetables have grown and know that the garden is healthy will remember the beauty of the growing plants, perhaps in the dewy first light of morning when the gardens are at their best.  Such a memory involves itself with the food and is one of the pleasures of eating.  The knowledge of the good health of the garden relieves and frees and comforts the eater.  (The Pleasures of Eating, an essay in Wendell Berry’s What Are People For?)

The beginning of fall color and the end of Anna Karenina

I took this photo during my morning walk today even though I had to take a break right in the middle of my routine.  I really don’t like to break my pace,but whenever I see beauty like this, I can’t resist running for the camera!    

It was a rather bittersweet morning walk as I listened to the last chapters of Anna Karenina, bringing an end to a summer long reading/listening project.  Like other books that take me a few months to get through, I have grown attached to the characters and feel pretty immersed in their lives at this point.  I will admit that a few days ago as I was finishing up Book 7 (there are 8 “books” total), I was beginning to think that Tolstoy had dragged things out a bit.  But by the third or fourth chapter of Book 8, I couldn’t put the book down.  (I did a mix of listening to a librivox.org recording while walking, and reading at other times.  It works out well if I need to reread a section or if I just want to continue the story without putting headphones on and becoming deaf to my family!)

Although at times it felt like I was reading a modern romance novel, it became apparent pretty quickly that there was so much more, really good content packed into the 950 pages of this Tolstoy treasure.  It was my second Russian novel within the year and so some of the Russian “scenery” felt familiar.   The ruling elite class juxtaposed against the working class was interesting to me.  And I especially enjoyed getting to know Levin, the “simple”  country farmer who had such depth of character and insight.  I felt drawn to the rich agrarian countryside where he worked side by side with the colorful peasants.  Of course,  Anna carried much of the storyline, and I couldn’t help but think about the subtle lure of sin and its enormous consequences.  How helpful it might be if every young person would read and contemplate this book prior to taking marriage vows.

But my favorite part was right near the end, and I won’t spoil it in case some of you have not read AK.  It has, however, to do with some deep spiritual insights that Levin came to grasp which really struck a chord with me.

(Sigh)

So, what’s next on the listening/reading list?  I’m thinking I might just stick with the Russian novel theme and switch back over to Dostoyevsky.  Crime and Punishment is on librovox’s list.  Maybe I could finish by Thanksgiving or Christmas?  I think I will take a break though and let Anna Karenina settle a bit.  It seems a shame to just quickly move on and forget those little gems that are still sparkling in my mind.  For now, I might just listen to some Josh Garrels during my walk and let his music provide some backdrop to my thoughts.

there is a better way

Some insightful thoughts from Brian Zahnd’s new book:

“The church always faces the temptation to turn its gaze from the beauty of the cruciform and look instead to ‘the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.’ (Matthew 4:8) The beauty of the cruciform is a subtle and hidden beauty, like the enigmatic smile of the Mona Lisa. …  When we lose sight of the subtle beauty of the cruciform we become seduced by the power, prestige, and pragmatism of politics.  To borrow Tolkien’s theme, we become seduced by the ring of power.  The ring of power is the enemy of beauty.”

“Of course we supply ourselves with copious reasons as to why our fascination with conventional power is a good thing: ‘We want the power to do good.’  ‘We want the power to do good in the world.’  ‘We have to take a stand against evil.’  But without realizing it, we are being subtly seduced into thinking there is a better way to go about achieving righteousness and justice than by taking up the cross and following Jesus.  We begin to think that if we can just get Caesar on our side, if we can just get the emperor to hold a National Prayer Breakfast, we can then baptize the ways and means of the empire and at least accomplish ‘great things for God.’  And here’s the thing: Caesar is more than willing to employ the church as a chaplain, as long as the church will endorse (with a bit of religious flourish) the ways and means of the empire.  Of course the ways and means of the empire are the ways and means of political and military domination.  There’s no beauty in that. Politics is never pretty.  Everyone knows that.  Thus the church sacrifices the beauty of Christianity when it chooses the political form over the cruciform.”

“But why would we do it?  Why would we sacrifice the enchanting beauty of Christianity for the ugly machine of politics?  Because political power is so—and there’s no other word for it—pragmatic.  We’re convinced ‘it works.'”

“To achieve good through attaining political and military dominance has always–always!— been the way of the fallen world.  We seem to lack the imagination to envisage any other way.  But it’s not the Jesus way.  It’s not the way of cruciform.”

“Jesus does not save the world by adopting the ways and means of political pragmatism and becoming the best Caesar the world has ever seen.  Instead Jesus saves the world by suffering the worst crime humanity is capable of—the crime of deicide (the murder of God).  On the cross Jesus absorbed our hate and hostility, our vengeance and violence into His own body and recycled it into love and forgiveness.  By His wounds we are healed. (1 Peter 2:24) By His beauty we are saved.”

“The third-century theologian Origen observed that ‘the marvel of Christ is that, in a world where power, riches, and violence seduce hearts and compel assent, he persuades and prevails not as a tyrant, an armed assailant, or a man of wealth, but simply as a teacher of God and His love.’  Commenting on this, Dvid Bentley Hart says, ‘Christ is a persuasion, a form evoking desire…Such an account (of Christ) must inevitably make an appeal to beauty.’ ...Christ persuades, not by the force of Caesar, but by the beauty of love.”

Heretics–On the Negative Spirit

The second chapter of Heretics has given me a fresh perspective on the importance of the person of Christ–not only (but especially) for the Christian, but for all of humanity.

Here Chesterton makes a very clear point regarding a major deficiency of modern morality.  In his own terms, a modern morality“can only point with absolute conviction to the horrors that follow breaches of law; its only certainty is a certainty of ill.  It can only point to imperfection.  It has no perfection to point to.”

I find this a rather interesting point.  For all time prior to Christ, mankind had no vision of the “perfect man.”  The focus was then, and remains until today, for the most part, on the imperfect man, for he is everywhere present.  But with the birth of Christ, the perfect man provides for “the monk meditating on Christ…an image of perfect health, a thing of clear colours and clean air.”

But with the rejection of that clear vision of Christ, what is mankind left with?

“All previous ages have sweated and been crucified in an attempt to realize what is really the right life, what was really the good man.  A definite part of the modern world has come beyond question to the conclusion that there is no answer to these questions, that the most that we can do is to set up a few notice-boards at places of obvious danger, to warn men, for instance, against drinking themselves to death, or ignoring the mere existence of their neighbors.”

And since ultimate good cannot be known to modern man, he must resort to his own standards.

“Every one of the popular modern phrases and ideals is a dodge in order to shirk the problem of what is good.  We are fond of talking about ‘liberty’; that, as we talk of it, is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good.  We are fond of talking about ‘education’; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good.  The modern man says, ‘Let us leave all these arbitrary standards and embrace liberty.’ That is, logically rendered, ‘Let us not decide what is good, but let it be considered good not to decide it.’  He says, ‘Away with your old moral formulae; I am for progress.’  This, logically stated, means, ‘Let us not settle what is good; but let us settle whether we are getting more of it.’ 

In speaking of progress, Chesterton shows the ludicrous reality of striving for “progress” without settling this question of what is good.

“As enunciated today, ‘progress’ is simply a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative.  We meet every ideal of religion, patriotism, beauty, or brute pleasure with the alternative ideal of progress–that is to say, we meet every proposal of getting something that we know about, with an alternative proposal of getting a great deal more of nobody knows what.  Progress, properly understood, has, indeed, a most dignified and legitimate meaning.  But as used in opposition to precise moral ideals, it is ludicrous.  So far from it being the truth that the ideal of progress is to be set against that of ethical or religious finality, the reverse is the truth.  Nobody has any business to use the word ‘progress’ unless he has a definite creed and a cast-iron code of morals….For progress by its very name indicates a direction; and the moment we are in the least doubtful about the direction, we become in the same degree doubtful about the progress.”

I come away from this with a fresh desire to fix my eyes on that perfect man; on Jesus Christ, whose pure beauty allures me like no other.

*To read the entire chapter go here.

On the Humor of Falling Down

Having recently listened to Chesterton’s COCKNEYS AND THEIR JOKES, I couldn’t help but recall an event that occurred well over 20 years ago.

There was a particularly bad ice storm that overtook campus one winter day back during my college days.  The memory stands out clear in my mind of the strong urge to laugh when I saw a student slip and fall on the ice as I was walking to class.  It was the sort of laughter that bubbled up from within, quite unexpectedly!  No sooner had I begun to snicker at the funny site, I was down on the ground myself.  I’m not sure who had the last laugh!  I love Chesterton’s insights on this type of humor that seems universal.

 In order to understand vulgar humour it is not enough to be humorous. One must also be vulgar, as I am. And in the first case it is surely obvious that
it is not merely at the fact of something being hurt that we laugh (as I
trust we do) when a Prime Minister sits down on his hat. If that were so
we should laugh whenever we saw a funeral. We do not laugh at the mere
fact of something falling down; there is nothing humorous about leaves
falling or the sun going down. When our house falls down we do not
laugh. All the birds of the air might drop around us in a perpetual
shower like a hailstorm without arousing a smile. If you really ask
yourself why we laugh at a man sitting down suddenly in the street you
will discover that the reason is not only recondite, but ultimately
religious. All the jokes about men sitting down on their hats are really
theological jokes; they are concerned with the Dual Nature of Man. They
refer to the primary paradox that man is superior to all the things
around him and yet is at their mercy.

Chesterton’s Heresy–Ch 1–The Golden Rule is That There is No Golden Rule

I mentioned last time that I have moved on from Chesterton’s All Things Considered to Heretics.  I am quickly becoming a fan of Chesterton and his ability to hone in on important, yet sometimes subtle realities of modern philosophies and their implications.  In an effort to solidify my understanding, I thought I’d jot down a few main points from each chapter.

The first chapter is entitled Introductory Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy.  He begins by rather humorously exposing the reality of the complete reversal of terms.  A person who was once considered orthodox, is now called a heretic–and vice versa.

The word ‘heresy’ not only means no longer being wrong: it practically means being clear-headed and courageous.  The word ‘orthodoxy’ not only no longer means being right; it practically means being wrong.  All this can mean one thing, and one thing only.  It means that people care less for whether they are philosophically right.

The heretic is now the person who has a system of belief; the orthodox, he who has cast aside “cosmic philosophy.”

It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher Smithfield Market because they do not agree in their theory of the universe.  That was done very frequently in the last decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its object.  But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy.  This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done universally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the great revolutionary period.  General theories are everywhere condemned; the doctrine of the Rights of Man is dismissed with the doctrine of the Fall of Man.  Atheism itself is too theological for us today.  Revolution itself is too much of a system; liberty itself is too much of a restraint.  We will have no generalizations.  Mr. Bernard Shaw has put the view in a perfect epigram: ‘The golden rule is that there is no golden rule.’ We are more and more to discuss details in art, politics, literature.  A man’s opinion on tram cars matters; his opinion on objects, but he must not find that strange object, the universe; for if he does he will have a religion, and be lost.  Everything matters—except everything.

It seems pretty evident to me that this mindset still prevails over modern thought over a century later.  It is in good taste to have opinions on the minor details of life, but poor taste to have an opinion on the major, overarching philosophies that tie all of the details together–what Chesterton would refer to as “cosmic truth,” and which will lead a person onward towards an ultimate goal.  Even (true) heretics were at one time allowed to speak because the value of finding out what is right would, in the end, be worth it.

This was certainly not the idea of those who introduced our freedom.  When the old Liberals removed gags from all the heresies, their idea was that religious and philosophical discoveries might thus be made.  Their view was that cosmic truth was so important that every one ought to bear independent testimony.  The modern idea is that cosmic truth is so unimportant that it cannot matter what one says.

Now, rather than seeking to understand and come to a conclusion regarding truth which in turn will drive a people to strive after an ideal, the practical or “efficient” is all that matters.  Chesterton goes on to discuss a few examples, primarily in modern literature and politics, where this new theory of practicality and opportunism had taken over (and continue to this day.)  He states,

Nothing in this world is so unwise as worldly wisdom.  A man who is perpetually thinking of whether this race or that race is strong, of whether this cause or that cause is promising, is the man who will never believe in anything long enough to make it succeed.

He comes to his conclusion:

And having discovered that opportunism does fail, I have been induced to look at it more largely, and in consequence to see that it must fail.  I perceive that it is far more practical to begin at the beginning and discuss theories.

I really like his ending parable which poignantly sums it all up.

Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post,
which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the
Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen,
“Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good—” At this
point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the
lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval
practicality. But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the
lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some
because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a
lamp-post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some
because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom
he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the
conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light.
Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.

*To read the entire chapter, go here.

On the ‘Reading of Old Books’

It is a sunny, rather cold Saturday, and I am sitting here nibbling on a Hershey’s Cookies’n’Cream candy bar.  I say “nibbling” because it makes me feel less guilty about this partaking of extreme doses of sugar.  I love the taste as it sits briefly on my tongue, but soon enough the sugar rush sets in a prompts me to put it away until the next “nibbling”.

I’m not sure what it is about January, but it seems to be the time of year that I like to nibble—not only on sweets (probably a remnant from undisciplined consuming of Christmastime goodies), but also on mental food, which thankfully, has been of the more nutritious variety lately.

I finished listening to Chesterton’s All Things Considered and have moved on to his Heretics, which I am also really enjoying.  I hope to put up a few posts on various points he makes (in his creative, witty way) that really strike me, but today I want to quickly jot down a neat, and I think, quite practical and wise insight of C.S. Lewis on the reading of old books.  I have been slowing reading my way through C.S. Lewis’ God in the Dock, and like what he had to say in his essay entitled, “On the Reading of Old Books.”

It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself  another new one until you have read an old one in between.  If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.  Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes of our own period.  And that means the old books.

We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century–the blindness about which posterity will ask, ‘But how could they have thought that?’–lies where we have never suspected it, and concerns something about which there is untroubled agreement between Hitler and President Roosevelt or between Mr. H.G. Wells and Karl Barth.

None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it , if we read only modern books.  Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already.  Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill.  The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds , and this can be done only by the reading of  old books.

I’ll have to give some thought on how to incorporate old books into my reading.  I know there are many good and important books, but knowing which to prioritize is rather difficult.  Perhaps I’ll begin with Lewis’ list.  In the essay, Lewis hones in on the importance of reading specifically Christian writing, though I think he intended it to apply to reading across the spectrum of topics.  A few of the authors that he includes are: George Herbert, Thomas Traherne, Jeremy Taylor (Holy Living and Holy Dying), John Bunyan (Pilgrim’s Progress), Boethius–470 A.D. (The Consolation of Philosophy), Francois de Sales (Introduction to the Devout Life and Treatise on the Love of God), Edmund Spenser (The Faerie Queen), Izaak Walton (Compleat Angler), Blaise Pascal (Pensees), William Law (Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life *note: in my book’s footnotes it says that this particular work “much influenced Lewis”), Sir Philip Sidney (Arcadia), Lady Julian of Norwich (The Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love)…..to name a few!

Well, I do think Clive was on to something here, and with all the books being put out on a yearly basis, it is a message that cannot be overstated.

 

Reading on a Sunday Afternoon

I awoke to rain pounding the roof this morning; a most pleasant sound and needed respite from the dry weather we’ve had for several weeks.  Hopefully the tomatoes and raspberries will get a needed boost as we move towards the beginning of their harvest times in the next couple of weeks.  Actually, we are already enjoying some deep red, juicy slices of our early tomatoes at the dinner table, but the Romas (all 15 or so plants) are filling out and will be ready for canning by the end of the month, maybe sooner.

This afternoon, the sun peeked out, and after clearing away the lunch dishes, I had a few minutes to pick up a book before driving Michaela to meet a friend who is camping with her family nearby.  I have two newish books on my reading table.  The thicker one, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Histoiographical Approach, I have had since  Christmas.  I began reading it at that time, but I think I was rather burned out from reading some other “heavier” books and just needed a break so set it aside.  Lately it has been appealing to me, so perhaps now is the time to delve in.  Though one might consider it to be more intellectual fare, so far it is not dry; rather I’m finding it to be quite interesting.  The introduction that I have read thus far is laying the foundation for how we know anything from the past.  I left off in the middle of a section that addresses the fact that all historians tend to approach any topic of history with from a perspective that is heavily biased towards their own predispositions.  Mr. Licona (Research Professor of New Testament at Southern Evangelical Seminary) calls this “Horizons” and says, “It is how historians view things as a result of their knowledge, experience, beliefs, education, cultural conditioning, preferences, presuppositions and worldview.”  He states, “When we read books about Jesus, we find ourselves in agreement with certain authors usually based on whether the Jesus they reconstruct is like the one we prefer.”  And, “They cannot look at the data devoid of biases, hopes, inclinations.  No historian is exempt.”

Mind you, I am only on page 39 in a 622 page book that apparently is going to move forward from a historiographical position to defend the resurrection of Christ.  But I think it will be quite interesting to see how it all unfolds, considering the influence of “horizons” on all historians, including the author.  It may take me another 12 months to make it through the book, but with pencil in hand, underlining and marking as I go, I hope to come to a better understanding of the resurrection from a rather scholarly point of view–even though I do not consider myself to be the scholarly type.  I happen to live with two very scholarly personalities which has prompted me to sit up straighter and take note from time to time.  I already know enough about myself to say with some confidence that my faith is just that….faith.  It rests mainly on more subjective criteria; mainly how the Lord has worked directly in my own life for so long, along with the fact that what I read in the Bible fits well with reality.  (I am thinking primarily of the effects of the fall and sin on people’s’ lives and redemption–as outlined in the book of Romans.)

Anyway, I didn’t plan to write quite so much about that first book but I guess it’s on my mind and I’m finding it rather intriguing.

The second book I came across at the Salvation Army last week.  (Every now and then I’ll peak in to see if I might come across some unique find.  The lamp in the above photo was purchased there; and most of my skirts, several of high quality come from SA.)  Green Dolphin Street by Elizabeth Goudge was this week’s find.  To me, Ms. Goudge’s writing is so relaxing and refreshing, with the fragrance of real spiritual truths woven easily and naturally into her storylines.  Perhaps it will provide a perfect balance to my more academic reading.