Five for Friday

Today I'd like to share five items I have recently been enjoying listening to.  I hope you will enjoy them as well.

1. I recently completed listening to the Librivox version of Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  There are such wonderful characters and plot twists in Dickens that I am always willing to put up with his occasionally annoying wordiness and repetition.  And this is a really fun story. I enjoyed it while sewing.

2. After completing the Dickens, I began listening to The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams, also from Librivox, during my sewing time.  I love his beautiful language and fascinating history so far, though I am only several chapters in. He is the great-grandson and grandson of presidents, and knew all the political and intellectual world of the Eastern seaboard at a pivotal time in history.  He writes about the changes from the 18th to 19th centuries, and his word play often makes me smile.

3. Before bedtime, Dave usually reads to me: first from Spurgeon, then from some fun novel or other.  We just finished Orson Scott Card's Earth Afire. We had listened to the first book in this series, Earth Unaware, on a recent trip.  The third book in the series is not yet out, and we likely need to wait at least a year for the end of the story-- always a bit frustrating.  These are the prequel novels to the Ender series.  We enjoyed the stories here, but were a bit dismayed by the writing.  Mr. Card had a co-author here, and I wonder if that was partially responsible, or if there is a rush to have these books out before the Ender's Game movie arrives.  Whatever the case, these are classic Card stories that are compelling, told in less-than-perfect grammar and prose that sometimes disappoint.  They have been enjoyable stories nonetheless.

4. I have also started the new online course from Hillsdale College on Economics.  This is apologetically free-market, Austrian economics, presented by the college president, Larry Arnn, and economics professor Gary Wolfram.  I have only listened to the introductory lecture by Dr. Arnn so far, but it is interesting.  When I was teaching more, I signed up for several of these courses, but didn't have the time to complete them.  Hopefully I can do more of that in this year of rest.

5.  I have also recently found and been enjoying The Briefing, a daily podcast of news and cultural analysis from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler.  I have signed up to receive an e-mail when a new podcast comes out, and I tend to listen to this 20-minute-or-so podcast as I begin the day. I find Dr. Mohler's take on things biblical, refreshing, gracious, and balanced.

What have you been listening to or reading, Gentle Reader?  Any recommendations you want to send my way?

Wednesday without words

The power of myth

And no, I have not been reading Joseph Campbell.  Instead I have been pondering the power of the moral imagination, and revisiting one of my favorite books about classical education.

We live in an age of technology and interpersonal disconnect.  We live in a time when our cultural literacy (as Hirsch would call it) is practically nil, and children grow up with dark "realistic" or dystopian literature and have never elevated their eyes to what is noble, so are incapable of articulating  noble dreams. Many live alienated, harsh lives, where early pregnancy takes the place of love, and gangs replace families. I am reminded of the imprisonment of the human soul in minds that are ignorant and uneducated (as Dalrymple would say.) And I sigh at that heart-breaking reality. After reading a recent article about young adult fiction, and watching part of a provocative Fontline show, I have been pondering the importance of good literature and well-formed moral imagination. And here are some wise words from David Hicks on the subject:

A good myth, like a good map, enables the wanderer to survive, perhaps even flourish, in the wilderness.  To this end, classical education, like Hebrew education, carefully preserves the best myths within its tradition and insists that each new generation of students learns these myths, imprisoning them in their hearts....
...[O]ne's chances of survival in a wilderness are greater when one is not alone...Myths provide each member of society with something to dignify and lend coherence to his life, as well as something of quality he can share with the other members of his community.
~David V. Hicks, Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education, pp.29-30

A sense of shared cultural literacy leads to some coherence in the culture, and fuels the moral imagination of a child.  It is a gift we can give our children and our students, Gentle Reader.

One of those days

This has been one of those days. I'm sure you have had them. I woke up with a weary, aching body. My first bit of news was the unexpected death of a friend.  That was followed by the eminent death of a friend's mother.  That was all before I got dressed. And that is when I wrote an e-mail to my dear husband and asked if I could please die before he does.  The sweet man said he would happily grant my request if it was in his power to do so.

Then I dragged my sorry body around my exercise routine at the Y, feeling worse than I did the first time I ever worked out there. At the Y, I ran into a long-time friend whose husband has some serious health issues, and came home to find an e-mail about a newly prodigal child of dear friends, and another friend having disappointments in her cancer battle. 

It's just one of those days. And on these sorts of days, our spirits can be brought very low indeed.  But then I remembered last night's Spurgeon, and reminded myself of the truth:

“When my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the Rock that is higher than I.”

~Psalm 61:2

Most of us know what it is to be overwhelmed in heart; emptied as when a man wipeth a dish and turneth it upside down; submerged and thrown on our beam ends like a vessel mastered by the storm. Discoveries of inward corruption will do this, if the Lord permits the great deep of our depravity to become troubled and cast up mire and dirt. Disappointments and heart-breaks will do this when billow after billow rolls over us, and we are like a broken shell hurled to and fro by the surf. Blessed be God, at such seasons we are not without an all-sufficient solace, our God is the harbour of weather-beaten sails, the hospice of forlorn pilgrims. Higher than we are is he, his mercy higher than our sins, his love higher than our thoughts. It is pitiful to see men putting their trust in something lower than themselves; but our confidence is fixed upon an exceeding high and glorious Lord. A Rock he is since he changes not, and a high Rock, because the tempests which overwhelm us roll far beneath at his feet; he is not disturbed by them, but rules them at his will. If we get under the shelter of this lofty Rock we may defy the hurricane; all is calm under the lee of that towering cliff. Alas! such is the confusion in which the troubled mind is often cast, that we need piloting to this divine shelter. Hence the prayer of the text. O Lord, our God, by thy Holy Spirit, teach us the way of faith, lead us into thy rest. The wind blows us out to sea, the helm answers not to our puny hand; thou, thou alone canst steer us over the bar between yon sunken rocks, safe into the fair haven. How dependent we are upon thee—we need thee to bring us to thee. To be wisely directed and steered into safety and peace is thy gift, and thine alone. This night be pleased to deal well with thy servants. 

I am praying to be safely piloted to that Rock, Gentle Reader.  Won't you join me?

Thursday thought: Ordinary

I have been blessed to sit under good, biblical, expository preaching in my home church for many years.  As my pastor has worked through the scriptures, several themes have emerged that have touched me profoundly.  One such theme is the idea of the God of the Universe being a God of the ordinary, and working through ordinary people and ordinary means for the most part to bring about His extraordinary plan.

I have sometimes wondered if the contemporary church's proclivity to follow the world in its love of celebrity is caused largely by our dismissing the ordinary means and works of grace.  I have been in that group where my ho-hum testimony of God's quiet, gentle faithfulness in my family and my life has been seen as suspect because I could not point to a time and date or dramatic event for my conversion.  I wonder if our love of great preacher-personalities, national conferences, and contemporary Christian music personalities is nothing more than the church following after the world.

I have struggled in this period of my life-- when I am fighting disease and needing to retreat from activity-- with God's purpose for me.  I must admit that I have asked God if He didn't have something better and bigger for me to do than rest in my chair in the afternoon. Or make dinner for my husband.  Or teach two students how to write. Or care for aging parents.  Or pray. The fact that I ask that question might tell me much about the idols of my heart.

Ordinary acts of service and obedience are perhaps the big acts, not the little ones.  They may not be noteworthy, but they do the tough work of building a Christian character. May we be brave enough, Gentle Reader, to be faithful in the little things.

I have found the series of discussions at the White Horse Inn on all things "ordinary" found here to be helpful.  You will find the podcasts posted in the upper right-hand corner.  Look for the word "ordinary" in the title.

Wednesday without words

Ithaca

Ithaca by Constantine P. Cavafy

When you set out for Ithaka
ask that your way be long,
full of adventure, full of instruction.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - do not fear them:
such as these you will never find
as long as your thought is lofty, as long as a rare
emotion touch your spirit and your body.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - you will not meet them
unless you carry them in your soul,
unless your soul raise them up before you.

Ask that your way be long.
At many a Summer dawn to enter
with what gratitude, what joy -
ports seen for the first time;
to stop at Phoenician trading centres,
and to buy good merchandise,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensuous perfumes of every kind,
sensuous perfumes as lavishly as you can;
to visit many Egyptian cities,
to gather stores of knowledge from the learned.

Have Ithaka always in your mind.
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
But don't in the least hurry the journey.
Better it last for years,
so that when you reach the island you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to give you wealth.
Ithaka gave you a splendid journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She hasn't anything else to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka hasn't deceived you.
So wise you have become, of such experience,
that already you'll have understood what these Ithakas mean.