Category: Uncategorized (page 2 of 4)

Image: “Well Read and Lonely” HannahLeePhotography via Flickr: https://flic.kr/p/qSyf6j

This morning—actually, the last couple of days—I’ve been thinking about reading and writing and creating and curating and sharing and encouraging. I guess maybe it’s the steady diet of C.S. Lewis I’ve been on during that time. Anyway, in one of those serendipitous dark and early moments, I happened upon a few things that are resonating with me and rolling around in my brain. Here’s where a  few of them roll over toward the edge and drop out.

• I came to CJ Chilvers’s post from yesterday. The links at the end of that post are gold for me today. One of those links pointed me toward his post from January about how to post something every day. I have a birthday coming up in a week or so and that’s going to be my goal: to post something every day.
• I created a color theme from a Talbots ad. Why Talbots? Because the lovely and gracious MrsCharphar likes Talbots (and looks dang good in their clothes!), and the autumn colors are my preferred palette. Anyway, I played around with the “Monet brushes” in Photoshop and created a terrible and ugly picture I called Random Autumn 01. (It’s at the top of this post. Be gentle.) It’s ugly and uninteresting and reflects the artistic bypass I had birth. But I liked making it and I love the interplay of the colors in that palette.
• Did I mention I’m on a steady diet of C.S. Lewis? I’m currently working through the dead tree/dead octopus edition of The Weight of Glory I scribbled in my Moleskine one day that when I read Lewis, “the next word is the right word,” and that’s why I think he’s a great writer.
• I’m also restarting the Harper Trophy edition of The Chronicles of Narnia. My son told me the other day he’s started reading Narnia to our six-month-old grandson, and I figured every little boy needs his own brand-new copy of Narnia, so I ordered him one “like Grandpa’s.” Now I’m trying catch up with where they are in their reading.

Ah, September! And the beginning of fall—at least in meteorological terms. Thanks, JoAnne Feldman!

Once again, “fall” just doesn’t have the same elegance as “autumn,” which is still three weeks away. I’ve said it before: “Fall” is a very pedestrian word, denoting a school term or a baseball series. “Autumn,” on the other hand, is full of magic and beauty, an enchanted word for an enchanted season.

Give me autumn, and may it last until spring!

Always getting ready, never going.

Always preparing, never doing.

Always planning, never accomplishing.

Always mise en place, never cooking.

Always wanting, never having.

Always looking, never finding.

I want to sit and think and write and read and drink coffee and hide from the world. I want to be in the world among people with no fear or concern for a virus or such.

I want to laugh and I want to weep.

I want to fix the things that are wrong with my house and I want a new house.

I want to wake up from this funk and I want to sleep. I want to smile and I want to grimace.

I want to say I told you so and I want to hope for better things. I want to be right.

I want to be acknowledged. I want to make a contribution.

I want to shout and I want to pray. I want to sing and I want to mourn.

My own Ecclesiastes moment is here. Now. And vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Empty. Nothing. Chasing after the wind. A time to and a time to not.

Sound and fury, signifying nothing.

(This post first appeared in my morning pages on September 17, 2018.)

I used to love the South. Not the media caricature of the South as racist, crass, and ignorant. The South of grace and genteel charm and crisp October Saturdays and ma’am and sir and how y’all and all that. Polos and khakis and penny loafers with no socks and plaid in the spring, seersucker in the summer, and heather-toned Shetland in the brief winter.

I used to love shopping, going to the mall, browsing.
I used to love food. Cooking it, tasting it, sharing it.

I used to love Alton Brown’s podcast, where he interviewed creative folks of all kinds, not just foodies, but artists and poets and authors and whiskey connoisseurs and puppeteers and podcasters and such.

I used to love reading. Newspapers, magazines, books. Real dead-tree, dead-octopus kinds.

I used to love people. Meeting them, talking to them, learning about them, serving them.

I used to love this house. When it was new and big and cool and ours.
I used to love this community. When it was new and different and cool and ours.

I used to love to exercise.

I used to love preaching and preparing to preach and studying and standing in front of people and inspiring them and helping them think and act and do and become.

I used to love going and doing and seeing and experiencing and enjoying.

I used to love learning.
I used to love hoping and dreaming and anticipating and expecting.I used to love knowing there was always tomorrow, that things would work out, no matter how bad they seemed today.

I used to love going to church on Sunday. Even though it meant going to work, it was a good thing, a God thing. I was glad when they said unto me, and then I wasn’t.

I used to love.

I. Used. To love.
Once upon a time. In another time. As another person. As another me. In another place. In a different life. I used to love.

And then I didn’t any more.

Image: gordonplant https://flic.kr/p/5ToRh7

Reading.

I saw in someone’s blog today that they had read three books by simply setting aside 15 minutes with a timer each morning to read. Coupled with Elizabeth Gilbert’s admonition to curiosity in Big Magic, I realized I , too had reconnected with reading over the past couple of months.

I’ve always been reader. Well, let me clarify: I’ve always wanted people to think I was a reader. A voracious one. But truth be told, I’ve been in love with the idea of reading more than the reading itself. Kind of like writing. But that’s another story for another dark and early Sunday.

If I’ve cultivated a new appreciation for reading in the time I have, how much more could I read and enjoy if I really put my mind to it? For instance, if what’s her name could read three books by committing to just 15 minutes, could I do that, too?

What would I read? What am I curious about? What would nourish my mind and my soul?

There would be the Bible, of course. True confession time: I haven’t really read it beyond a snippet or two here and there for last-minute sermon prep in a long time. What if I invested just 15 minutes in reading the scripture? Surely the One Year Bible plan would facilitate that. And who knows where that might lead?

What if I added another 15 minutes of general interest reading to that? You know, whatever I happen to be curious about at the time. Maybe it’s making progress on some gigantic masterpiece like Tolkien. Maybe it’s something encouraging, challenging like Big Magic. Maybe it’s a feel good memoir like Ben and Erin Napier. Maybe it’s one of the hundreds of titles languishing in my Amazon Wish List. Maybe it’s one of the countless “to be read” titles that I never got around to reading. 

Fifteen minutes. Plus fifteen more. One half hour to rekindle a love for something that I’ve enjoyed, and benefited from forever.