A Marked Stop Brings Right Perception

Taking into account where he was, the interest that had first brought him there when he had been free to keep away, and the gentle presence that was equally inseparable from the walls and bars about him and from the impalpable remembrances of his later life which no walls nor bars could imprison, it was not remarkable that everything his memory turned upon should bring him round again to Little Dorrit. Yet it was remarkable to him; not because of the fact itself; but because of the reminder it brought with it, how much the dear little creature had influenced his better resolutions.

None of us clearly know to whom or to what we are indebted in this wise, until some marked stop in the whirling wheel of life brings the right perception with it. It comes with sickness, it comes with sorrow, it comes with the loss of the dearly loved, it is one of the most frequent uses of adversity.

Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit

I read this to Tom and he said, "That is just simply true." Yes. It is. Little Dorrit ... what a book.

The Valkyrie

The Valkyrie via Brandywine Books

Ceres, Queen of the Asteroid Belt

Ceres, Queen of the Asteroid Belt, JPL Visions of the Future posters

This always makes me think of  Leviathan Wakes. We have a few of this poster series in our hallway. I love all of them.

From NASA/JPL Visions of the Future, a wonderful series of "what if" travel posters.

Ceres is the closest dwarf planet to the Sun. It is the largest object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, with an equatorial diameter of about 965 kilometers. After being studied with telescopes for more than two centuries, Ceres became the first dwarf planet to be explored by a spacecraft, when NASA's Dawn probe arrived in orbit in March 2015. Dawn's ongoing detailed observations are revealing intriguing insights into the nature of this mysterious world of ice and rock.

Human science and God's science

Human science is but the backward undoing of the tapestry web of God's science. ... Is oxygen and hydrogen the divine idea of water? There is no water in oxygen, no water in hydrogen; it comes bubbling fresh from the imagination of the living God, rushing from under the great white throne of the glacier. The very thought of it makes one gasp with elemental joy.

George MacDonald

That idea of picking apart God's tapestry is so apt. Science has its own delights, but in this context it does take the wonder away from nature to think of water as molecules. It makes me think of C.S. Lewis's book Out of the Silent Planet where he pulls from the medieval mindset and makes one feel the wonder and joy and life of outer space instead of the vacuum that we learn first from modern science. It really is all about context.

Feast of the Transfiguration

Theophanes the Greek. The Transfiguration. Early 15th century.

Christ's Tabor radiance is a kind of mirror in which we glimpse the glory that God wills to give his friends. The resplendence of the Transfiguration reveals the fullness of life destined to be ours. The Transfiguration invites us to configuration. We peer into the glory that pours from every pore of the transfigured Christ, we cast off everything unworthy of our personal relationship with the Infinite, and we take on the luster of the Son of God. Jesus gazes back at us with a luminous look of love that make us desire to live his transparent beauty -- to be luminaries. Silently from Tabor's splendor, the Savior begs: "Become what you behold!"

Meditation from Magnificat 

What is revealed here is not only the glory of pure, angelic spirit, but of the spirit through the body, glory of the spiritualized body of man. Not the glory of God alone, not a piece of disclosed heaven, not only the sheen of the Lord as it hovered over the ark of the covenant, but the glory of the God-Logos in the Son of Man. Life above live and death; life of the body, but issue of the spirit; life of the spirit, but issue of the Logos; life of the man Jesus, but issue of the Son of God.

Romano Guardini, The Lord

The Hammock

The Hammock, Joseph Rodefer DeCamp, 1895

Yes, please! Except it's too hot here in Texas (103 yesterday). But when it cools off some, I sure love a hammock.

And the Winner Is — 1947

 Our family is working our way through Oscar winners and whichever nominees take our fancy. Also as they are available, since some films are hard to find. 

We zoomed through this set since we'd seen three of them already and simply couldn't bear the thought of watching the other two — The Yearling (Old Yeller with a deer) and Henry V (even with Olivier we just didn't care).

WINNER

Three very different men return from their time at war only to discover that they have been unalterably changed by their experiences. Can they and their families adjust? I loved knowing that families all over America watched this movie and saw that they weren't alone in their struggles. A truly great film.

 NOMINEES

Simply wonderful and equally good to the winner, in its own way.

A young man, traumatized by his experiences in WWI, rejects conventional life and seeks deep meaning while his frivolous, rich friends experience many setbacks in life. Just as painful as the description makes it sound.

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All the Oscar viewing is here.

Dinner with a Long Spoon

 My people tell a story about the great Ever After, one that reminds my mother of Sis. In the story, a rich and selfish man is condemned to hell, and is ushered into an endless dining hall. He sees a great banquet laid out before the assembled people there, a feast of dripping, roasted meats and savory soups and sumptuous stews. The devil's imps file down the table to pass out spoons, but the spoons are longer than the arms of the men and women gathered there. They cannot, as hard as they try, get the delicious food into their mouths, and a wailing and gnashing of teeth echoes and echoes through the great hall.

Meanwhile, in heaven, Saint Peter welcomes another new arrival, a common and generous man, into a similar great, long banquet hall. The newcomer sees another grans feast laid out before the diners assembled there. But, disconcertingly, the man sees the waiters pass out the same spoons as the ones passed out to the diners in hell, all of them too long for people to feed themselves. "How then," the crestfallen man asks Saint Peter, "can this be heaven?"

Saint Peter smiles.

"Because in heaven," he says, "we feed each other.

Rick Bragg, The Best Cook in the World

This is one of my favorite stories.

Zebra Back Rub

Zebra Back Rub
taken by Valerie of ucumari photography
some rights reserved

You're really missing a treat if you don't browse Valerie's photography. There are some simply wonderful candid animal shots.

Bernini Self-Portrait

Self Portrait as a Young Man, Gian Lorenzo Bernini

I love painters' selfies and this is a doozie!

Stewed Cabbage and Perfect Validation

My uncle Jimbo is not a gourmet, or an unbiased and veracious critic; he once ate a bologna sandwich sitting on a dead mule, to win a bet, and can out-lie any man I have ever known. But he would tell her, hot tears rolling down his cheeks, that he has not eaten stewed cabbage that fine since his momma was alive. My mother never needed much validation beyond that, no grander praise.

Rick Bragg, The Best Cook in the World

From one of my favorite books which is family memoir, light-hearted history of family cooking, and a loving memory of his mother.

She does not own a measuring cup.

She does not own a measuring cup. She does not own a measuring spoon. She cooks in dabs, and smidgens, and tads, and a measurement she mysteriously refers to as, "you know, hon, just some." In her lexicon there is "part of a handful" and "a handful" and "a real good handful," which I have come to understand is roughly a handful, part of another handful, and "some.

Rick Bragg, The Best Cook in the World

The Sea View of Cliffs

Guy Rose, The Sea View of Cliffs

This just looks so refreshing to eye, ear, and soul. And it makes me think of summer travel somehow. Probably because I've never been to the ocean in winter. Growing up in the midwest and now living in Dallas, I've only traveled to the ocean on vacation.