Kindness is a beautiful human attribute.When we say, "She is a kind person" or "He surely was kind to me," we express a very warm feeling. In our competitive and often violent world, kindness is not the most frequent response. But when we encounter it we know that we are blessed. Is it possible to grow in kindness, to become a kind person? Yes, but it requires discipline. To be kind means to treat another person as your "kin", your intimate relative. We say, "We are kin" or "He is next of kin." To be kind is to reach out to someone as being of "kindred" spirit.
Here is the great challenge: All people, whatever their color, religion, or sex, belong to humankind and are called to be kind to one another, treating one another as brothers and sisters. There is hardly a day in our lives in which we are not called to this. {February 4}
favorite words... {02.04.11)
...from Henri Nouwen's Bread For The Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith:
favorite words... {02.03.11}
every once in a while you make a discovery.
yesterday i discovered Ann Voskamp, and her beautiful book, One Thousand Gifts {click on 'read now' under the book to read the first chapter}.
here is an excerpt from chapter one...
From all of our beginnings, we keep reliving the Garden {of Eden} story.i encourage you, go to the link above and read the whole first chapter. and then do yourself a favor, get the whole book, read her blog. you won't be sorry.
Satan, he wanted more. More power, more glory. Ultimately, in his essence, Satan is an ingrate. and he sinks his venom into the heart of Eden. Satan's sin becomes the first sin of all humanity: the sin of ingratitude. Adam and Eve are, simply, painfully, ungrateful for what God gave.
Isn't that the catalyst of all my sins?
Our fall was, has always been, and always will be, that we aren't satisfied in God and what He gives. We hunger for something more, something other.
* * * * *
p.s. i finally decided on a reading goal for this year, and for this year i'm going a little more conservative, and will go with a goal of reading 60 books in 2011. it works out to five books per month, and since you can see by the widget to the left that after january, i'm only at two, well, it looks like i have already got some catching up to do.
do you have a reading goal for this year?
do you have a reading goal for this year?
favorite words...
Exodus 33:15-17
Then Moses said, “If you [the Lord] don’t personally go with us, don’t make us leave this place. How will anyone know that you look favorably on me—on me and on your people—if you don’t go with us? For your presence among us sets your people and me apart from all other people on the earth.”
The Lord replied to Moses, “I will indeed do what you have asked, for I look favorably on you, and I know you by name.”
favorite words...
i love my Kobo. so many books, so compact, so {or perhaps too} easy to buy books and begin reading them immediately.
but tonight, i made a cup of tea, and read a good, old fashioned, paper book. one that i got a
while ago, but twistedly enjoyed it so much, i didn't want to keep reading it, because then it would be over. yes, my logic is faulty, but at least it's my own.
A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg, creator of the Orangette blog, which i love, wrote these words in an essay entitled, 'Summer of Change'...
but tonight, i made a cup of tea, and read a good, old fashioned, paper book. one that i got a
while ago, but twistedly enjoyed it so much, i didn't want to keep reading it, because then it would be over. yes, my logic is faulty, but at least it's my own.A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg, creator of the Orangette blog, which i love, wrote these words in an essay entitled, 'Summer of Change'...
"There's been so much said and written about Paris that it's daunting to hazard a statement of my own. That city just has something. I can't think of any other place so idealized, so longed for, so sighed over. My Paris isn't always such a sweet one, with kisses a la Doisneau on every street corner, but I like it better that way. It's the place where I've been loneliness, and where I've been happiest. Sometimes I've been both at the same time. It's where my father introduced me to croissants and pain au chocolat. It's where I met my first love, and where, six weeks later, he stopped calling. I sat on a bench at the Champ de Mars and filled an entire Kleenex mini-pack with my snot and tears. It's a place where even crying feels romantic somehow, where heartbreak makes you feel like part of history. It's who and where, for a long time, I wanted to be...i couldn't agree with her more.
I say Paris is the place where I've been loneliest, and also where I've been happiest. But what I mean is harder to say. The thing I call loneliness is delicate and lovely, like a blown-out eggshell. It's both empty and hopeful, broken and beautiful."
favorite words...
every once in a while, as i read myself through life, i come across a combination of words that takes my breath away, causes me to stop reading, go back, and read again, simply for the sheer brilliance of the words.
my favorite sentence of all time comes from The Book Thief, and even though i am reading it for the second time, when i came across this sentence on the weekend, even on my second time through, my heart beat a bit faster.
call me a word nerd if you want—wait, that rhymes—i'd be happier if you called me a book nerd, but i really don't care. when you are in the presence of genius, you must give credit where it is due.
so, since i haven't yet decided on a reading goal for this year, i have decided to do something different. i will share with you the best words that i've read {or listened to} every day.
today's words are from Listening To Your Life: Daily Meditations With Frederick Buechner...
what's the best thing you've read today?
my favorite sentence of all time comes from The Book Thief, and even though i am reading it for the second time, when i came across this sentence on the weekend, even on my second time through, my heart beat a bit faster.
"When she came to write her story, she would wonder exactly when the books and the words started to mean not just something, but everything." {Markus Zusak, The Book Thief}i can tell you exactly when and where i was the first time i read them {December 24, 2008, pearson international airport, waiting for an airplane that was going to be six hours late due to too much snow}, and in that moment, i knew that i was in the presence of brilliance.
call me a word nerd if you want—wait, that rhymes—i'd be happier if you called me a book nerd, but i really don't care. when you are in the presence of genius, you must give credit where it is due.
so, since i haven't yet decided on a reading goal for this year, i have decided to do something different. i will share with you the best words that i've read {or listened to} every day.
today's words are from Listening To Your Life: Daily Meditations With Frederick Buechner...
Long after Roger Mouse's death, Godric bids him a proper goodbye:
When friends speak overmuch of times gone by, often it's because they sense their present time is turning them from friends to strangers. Long before the moment came to say goodbye, I think, we said goodbye in other words and ways and silences. Then when the moment came for it at last, we didn't say it as it should be said by friends. So now at last, dear Mouse, with many, many years between: goodbye. {January 31 reading}
* * * * *
what's the best thing you've read today?
daily meditations
as i wrote in my shards of light blog, there was simply no way to choose between the three books of daily meditations that i wanted to read this year, so i've chosen all three. which, really, given that daily meditations are not the longest of readings, i don't see as a problem.
the three are all by favorite authors of mine, and i have read and loved books by them all.
Listening To Your Life, by Frederich Buechner
while some of the readings are from his fiction, and others non-fiction, this book has what seems to be the longest of the readings, depending upon the day. but there is no disputing his genius. just this morning's reading proves it. "When a man leaves home, he leaves behind some scrap of his heart... It's the same with a place a man is going to. Only then he sends a scrap of his heart ahead." {Jan. 21}
Bread For The Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith, by Henri Nouwen
this book is the most different of the three, as it Mr. Nouwen wrote each of them specifically for this book, while the other two are excerpts from the previously written words of the other two authors. you can read a quote from January 21's entry here.
A Year With Rilke: Daily Readings From the Best of Rainier Maria Rilke, by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
i have made no secret of my love for Rilke and his words. he wrote my favorite poem, my favorite quote, and the more i read of his, the more i love. i fully expect to love every page.
what about you? are you reading any daily readings this year? if you've read them in the past, what is your favorite?
the three are all by favorite authors of mine, and i have read and loved books by them all.
Listening To Your Life, by Frederich Buechner
while some of the readings are from his fiction, and others non-fiction, this book has what seems to be the longest of the readings, depending upon the day. but there is no disputing his genius. just this morning's reading proves it. "When a man leaves home, he leaves behind some scrap of his heart... It's the same with a place a man is going to. Only then he sends a scrap of his heart ahead." {Jan. 21}
Bread For The Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith, by Henri Nouwen
this book is the most different of the three, as it Mr. Nouwen wrote each of them specifically for this book, while the other two are excerpts from the previously written words of the other two authors. you can read a quote from January 21's entry here.
A Year With Rilke: Daily Readings From the Best of Rainier Maria Rilke, by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
i have made no secret of my love for Rilke and his words. he wrote my favorite poem, my favorite quote, and the more i read of his, the more i love. i fully expect to love every page.
what about you? are you reading any daily readings this year? if you've read them in the past, what is your favorite?
57 out of 75
well, the year is over, and i have fallen short of my goal of reading 75 books in 2010.
while not disappointed, as the 57 books that i did read were all amazing, especially the last one, the brilliant Bonhoeffer biography {which at 542 pages should count for at least 2-3 books, if not the entire missing 18!}, i really did think that i would do it.
truth be told, i probably could have. after yesterday's wedding reception for my baby brother, instead of watching an episode of Glee, sat down with the stack of Dr.Seuss books from my childhood and finished those off, but since i have already read a great many children's books last month, searching for the perfect Christmas present for the nephews, i opted not to.
so, i've been asked what my favorite books of 2010 were, so here's the rundown:
Juliet by Anne Fortier
without a doubt, this fictional tale of a young woman's discovery that she is related to Giulietta, the character Shakespeare immortalized in his Romeo and Juliet is my favorite of the year. i didn't want it to end, and i think that if a movie isn't made out of the book, it will be a tragedy.
the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series by Rick Riordan
not only do i love this series, i also love the movie and cannot wait for the next one.
School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
i went through a 'food lit' phase this summer, and this book, lent to me by my friend Angie was the highlight of that phase. simply a beautiful story of all the members of a cooking class.
The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud by Ben Sherwood
one of those surprising books that i read ridiculously fast, simply because i was swept up in the story. if you have to choose between the book and the movie, there is no choice. pick up the book.
How To Catch A Star and Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers
while searching for books for my newest nephew, i came across these two board book gems. they are, especially Lost and Found, quite simply the sweetest stories. i will not be surprised if somehow they end up on my own coffee table one day very, very soon...
Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas
yes, it's a big book. but even if it will take you all of 2011 to read, go out today, buy this book and begin reading it. {my review is in the previous post}
while not disappointed, as the 57 books that i did read were all amazing, especially the last one, the brilliant Bonhoeffer biography {which at 542 pages should count for at least 2-3 books, if not the entire missing 18!}, i really did think that i would do it.
truth be told, i probably could have. after yesterday's wedding reception for my baby brother, instead of watching an episode of Glee, sat down with the stack of Dr.Seuss books from my childhood and finished those off, but since i have already read a great many children's books last month, searching for the perfect Christmas present for the nephews, i opted not to.
so, i've been asked what my favorite books of 2010 were, so here's the rundown:
Juliet by Anne Fortier
without a doubt, this fictional tale of a young woman's discovery that she is related to Giulietta, the character Shakespeare immortalized in his Romeo and Juliet is my favorite of the year. i didn't want it to end, and i think that if a movie isn't made out of the book, it will be a tragedy.
the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series by Rick Riordan
not only do i love this series, i also love the movie and cannot wait for the next one.
School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
i went through a 'food lit' phase this summer, and this book, lent to me by my friend Angie was the highlight of that phase. simply a beautiful story of all the members of a cooking class.
The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud by Ben Sherwood
one of those surprising books that i read ridiculously fast, simply because i was swept up in the story. if you have to choose between the book and the movie, there is no choice. pick up the book.
How To Catch A Star and Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers
while searching for books for my newest nephew, i came across these two board book gems. they are, especially Lost and Found, quite simply the sweetest stories. i will not be surprised if somehow they end up on my own coffee table one day very, very soon...
Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas
yes, it's a big book. but even if it will take you all of 2011 to read, go out today, buy this book and begin reading it. {my review is in the previous post}
* * * * *
well, i guess this wraps up 2010. it didn't go exactly as i had planned, but what does, really? i haven't begun thinking about a goal for this year, so we'll have to see what happens there. but i will say that my Kobo is filled with exciting books just waiting for my attention. i believe i will go and pay some attention right now.
happy new year!
happy new year!
