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Old Journals: Notes to Self
While convalescing from illness, I picked up one of my old journals to read through. There’s something magnetic about revisiting words you yourself have written, especially what was written years ago. What’s different? What’s remained the same? This particular journal was given to me by my friend on August 1, 2001. I didn’t start writing in it until July 2002, and it covers the period when I was in seminary up to 2007, a year before I graduated. My friend died in 2006––the kind of death that makes anyone in the wake of tragedy both sad and mad. I wrote about my grief in a different journal. Throughout this journal,…
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Read a Book in October: National Book Month
Who knew? I didn’t know until yesterday there’s a National Book Month. “Since 1950, the National Book Foundation has highlighted the best fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and YA literature. In 2003, the organization created the first National Book Month.” [1] That month, October. “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” Anne of Green Gables I’m so glad to read books that arouse my imagination. While walking my dog Kona, I’ve been listening to Rachel McAdams read Anne of Green Gables on Audible. Rachel’s narration is rapturous, positively and elegantly expressive. One characteristic of this classic novel relates to Anne’s extraordinary imagination, her ability to…
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Not All Who WONDER Are Lost
On August 15, 2022, Frederick Buechner died at age 96. My daughter said, “I thought he died a long time ago, like Shakespeare, or some of the other people you quote.” I laughed. “Authors pass but books persist.” [1] And books offer a window into the soul of their writers. Introduced to Buechner’s writing while I was in seminary, God has used his writings to help me think. About life. About doubt. About how Christians fear the challenge of thinking deeply about their faith and default to letting others think for them. Frederick Buechner, author, preacher, and theologian, shared life-giving words through books and sermons that conveyed deep faith underlying…
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Develop Discernment by Reading
C.S. Lewis wrote in The Screwtape Letters how devils would plot strategies against a newly converted Christian: simply keep him from reading. Or at least keep him from reading and learning things written in the past. “Great scholars are now as little nourished by the past as the most ignorant mechanic who holds that ‘history is bunk.’ . . . And since we cannot deceive the whole human race all the time, it is most important thus to cut every generation off from all others.” C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters Reading Between the Generations Is it enough to simply read old books, as if referencing and then checking off a…
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A Labor of Love
Dear Readers of Footnotes2Stories, “I am writing this to you, and I hope that you will read it so you’ll know . . .” how much I care. When summer ended and school used to start after Labor Day, often the first day assignment included writing: “How I spent my summer vacation.” Writing was good practice for thinking about what I had done, what I read, and which experiences stood out. Swimming lessons, Camp Fire Girls Day Camp (raising and lowering the flag each day), and weeks spent at the Friends of Youth Camp at Mt. Charleston outside of Las Vegas, Nevada made summer fun. Although I never had an…
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Read to Expand Your Heart
My husband bought me two toy giraffes. I had admired these in the hardware store after I had finished reading the novel West with Giraffes. Surprising me, he said, “I guess you are in your Giraff-ic period. It follows your Llam-ic period.” He knows how to make me laugh. Previously, I have been a bit obsessed with llamas. Although I still “llove llamas,” I have a newfound love for giraffes. I am smitten. And here’s why. Nancy H. recommended this book. I have come to trust the recommendations of certain friends. They are like a rudder on a boat, steering me to discover books I would never come across otherwise.…
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The Gift of Imagination: Use It or Lose It
Imagination occupies space in the mind. But unless you and I use this space, it remains small. Truncated. truncated––cut short; less than it could be Merriam-Webster What feeds imagination? Curiosity. Eleanor Roosevelt’s book You Learn by Living, Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life, struck some of the seldom-used keys on a piano’s eighty-eight keys, reminding me that simply knowing musical notes is not all it takes to make music. Her book made me think about curiosity––how using our minds to think and learn expands imagination. “Keep alive one of the most valuable qualities a person has––curiosity.” Eleanor Roosevelt She makes the point that when a child’s questions are ignored,…
