Shannon always finds the best books. Two of these are on my Monday Classics book clubs selections for the year. I’m adding the other three to that neverending TBR list.
In 2014…no 2015… I resolve to… okay in 2016 I resolve to…
This is how I’m feeling about New Year’s Resolutions this year, too.
[repost while I’m traveling!]
A new year is about to start and that can only mean one thing. (Or two things if you include trying to figure out WTF “Auld Lang Syne” means…) All over the world, people are about to go to a lot of time and trouble to come up with New Year’s resolutions and then they will actually try to keep those resolutions. This is so wrong in so many ways:
- You have to list the things you don’t like about yourself and your life.
- Even though it makes you and everyone around you miserable, you have to attempt to achieve your resolutions.
- Eventually (often helped along by marital references to divorce attorneys, speculation about life insurance purchases, and the suspicious appearance of a long, narrow, deep new flower bed) you admit that you are a total failure and abandon your resolution.
- Then the next…
View original post 781 more words
Reflections on A Christmas Carol December 23, 2015
I just re-read this one, too–with a reading club. Dickens can really get on my nerves a lot of the time, but I have a bit of a soft spot for this one.
One of my favorite Christmas traditions is reading Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol (or at least watching one of the movies based on the book). Every time I experience the story, I take away something different. Some years I focus on the themes of redemption and second chances. Other years, I read as a writer and concentrate on Dickens’ mastery of characterization. This year, I was struck by how much social and political commentary Charles Dickens included in the text. In our current climate of political correctness and fear of alienating readers, it is valuable to note how critical Dickens (and many of his contemporaries) was of the society he lived in. He didn’t hold back in his condemnation of the rampant poverty in England and the prosperous Scrooge’s attitude toward the poor. As I am reviewing my achievements over the last year and contemplating what I want to accomplish…
View original post 60 more words
Joshua Dubois: What the President secretly did at Sandy Hook Elementary School December 12, 2015
Beautiful story. The world could use more human kindness instead of fear-mongering in the face of violence.
Below is an excerpt from The President’s Devotional by Joshua Dubois, the former head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. He’s recounting events that occurred Sunday, December 16, 2012 — two days after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children and 6 adult staff members. Dubois had gotten word the day before that the President wanted to meet with the families of the victims:
I left early to help the advance team—the hardworking folks who handle logistics for every event—set things up, and I arrived at the local high school where the meetings and memorial service would take place. We prepared seven or eight classrooms for the families of the slain children and teachers, two or three families to a classroom, placing water and tissues and snacks in each one. Honestly, we didn’t know how…
View original post 450 more words
Mirymom's Blog 