Four Books I Began and Now Must Read ...

I don't have time to read these books now but I got them, read the first chapter of each, and then realized they are so good that I must put them on my "to read" stack. So many books, so little time ...

I list them here so that if your "to read" stack is not as tall as mine then you may find and begin them sooner. They look fantastic, I'm tellin' ya.

The Word Made Fresh: Communicating Church and Faith Today
by Meredith Gould
I'm a fan of Meredith's books. However, the title made this look like something I should pass along to our deacon so he can lend it out to the church's office staff. I should have known better. The first chapter alone had some good, solid spiritual commentary that made me realize, "The deacon can't have this book! I have to read it myself!" Also, practically speaking, any Catholic blogger is also in the business of communications for the Church. So there might be some good tips for us bloggers in here as well.

A Well-Built Faith: A Catholic's Guide to Knowing and Sharing What We Believe
by Joe Paprocki
I'm looking at the cover to this book and thinking, "Another book explaining Catholicism! We've got enough!" Well, no, we don't and it only took the first chapter for me to see that. Joe Paprocki uses plenty of real life examples and the four pillars of the Catechism to write in an engaging way about our faith ... and it got me interested and looking at a couple of things afresh. Good stuff there...

Life of Christ
by Fulton Sheen
This one needs no introduction to me. I have read it halfway through several times! A spiritual classic written by one of America's great communicators, Archbishop Fulton Sheen, this melds the four Gospels and looks at Christ's life as a whole. Brilliant. I am going to take this as a prompt to finally pick it up again and finish it. Highly recommended. (For samples of this book, look for this tag. I see that I have excerpted it extensively.)

Treasure in Clay: The Autobiography of Fulton Sheen
This one didn't need any selling to me (see Life of Christ commentary above). However, I dutifully read the first chapter and realized that if anyone was a patron saint for bloggers, it might well be Fulton Sheen (yes, I know he isn't a saint yet). His commentary in Life of Christ always seemed very humble and I am looking forward to reading this book which looks as if it is told more from an interior point of view than being events-based.

Baton Twirling, Ribbon Twirling, and Contortionists

You know, I can go to the circus and see that sort of thing. It is not really what I would call a "sport" and certainly not what I am looking for in the Olympics. (Which mirrors my disgust for ice dancing.)

I'm not necessarily opposed to new sports in the Olympics. The BMX racing last night definitely required athletics to just make it to the finish line, never mind in what order.

But this rhythmic gymnastics? No. I don't think so.

Next we'll be having dance recitals with gold medalists.

Happy Birthday, Dear Hannah!

Hannah's is at A&M today...we celebrated her birthday last week. She called last night and made this mother proud because she made herself a Chocolate Cheesecake. I know this because she called from the store last night with questions about chocolate cookie crumbs. I said, "But you don't have a springform pan." She replied, "I have one now!" (Yes, that's my daughter!)

I'm am repeating this birthday post from last year of the things she loves best ... nope, not cake ... simply lots and lots o' critters. I found them irresistibly cute so wanted to see them again. I am betting Hannah will like them too.

Happy birthday and we miss you, Hannah!

Cat Closeup

Goose

Colt

Mallard in Flight

Bunny

Friends

Pelican

Dinner Guest

Crystal River Heron

Hawk Landing

Pink Dolphin

Geese

Christianity and Cheeseburgers

You can always count on Jen at Conversion Diary to have a real-life way to consider your faith.

There are just enough cheeseburgers for the family, her little neighborhood friends stop in, everyone is hungry ... what do you do ... what do you do?

Jen isn't telling until tomorrow but she's inviting everyone to tell what they would do in her comments box. I just left the solution that popped into my head ... go read the whole thing and then think about what you would do.

Worth a Thousand Words

Red Door
2008 D L Ennis, All rights reserved. Visual Thoughts
Used by permission. Click through on the link for more fabulous photography.

27 min., 21 sec. !

That's what happens when you have the Set Game in a set of bookmarks, toward the back, and finally work your way around to that tab.

On the plus side, the second time through my time was much better ... 1 min., 53 sec. ... still shamefully slow considering I'd done it once already that day!

Now and Forever by Ray Bradbury

In some ways the most interesting part of the two novellas that make up this book are Ray Bradbury’s introductions. He explains that both “Somewhere the Band is Playing” and “Leviathan ‘99″ have their origins in his long ago days as a Hollywood screenwriter. These explanations hang on in the listener’s mind and provide insights and color for the stories that follow. ...

My review of the audio book is up at SFFaudio. Highly recommended for Ray Bradbury aficionados!

There Will Be Blood ... and Judgment

Blood and Judgment
by Lars Walker

After reading a great review for Wolf Time by Lars Walker I turned to the library to see what they might have by him. Turns out they had only one book ... Blood and Judgment.

A combination of Shakespeare, fantasy, time travel, and parallel universes, this is an action-filled book that manages to also examine relativism, political correctness, honesty in education, and many more issues of our time.

The story in a nutshell is that in the midst of putting on a local production of Hamlet, the entire cast is whisked off to the "universe" where Hamlet is real. It turns out that there really was a person upon who Hamlet's character was based. He and the actor playing Hamlet wake up having had their souls put in each others' bodies ... which are also in different dimensions from each other (so to speak).

If this sounds confusing, it accurately reflects my state of mind as I delved into the book. I really enjoyed the beginning when the author took enough time to introduce to some characters, allowed them to interact enough to examine ideas, and gave us background on motivations. However, once the dimensional "switch" took over, I felt as if just when I started enjoying a scene the author was grabbing me by the hand and telling me to "no more time for that; run over here and see this!" I am no expert but I believe that more time taken with the characters, as well as fewer characters and subplots would have been a plus. Or perhaps a much longer book in order to adequately allow Walker to discuss all the ideas therein. It did not need to be densely packed as Eifelheim but it simply was not fair to the author's concepts to handle them in a book this short. More importantly, this author has something to say about Christians and Christianity that needs more space and discussion so that it doesn't just "preach to the choir" but opens others' minds to the elemental concepts here.

I did enjoy this book. It just was not all that it could have been and the potential was clearly on display which became a frustration toward the end. I definitely will be on the lookout for others of Walker's books, hoping that they are not as rushed.

Worth a Thousand Words

Red-Backed Sandpiper, taken by Remo Savisaar.
Click through the link for more amazing photography.

Canadian Price Gouging

Quick background ... Schering-Plough is building a new factory that will open next year to provide that allergy-fighting wonder, Drixoral, to the yearning American masses. Many people besides us can testify that Drixoral works when most other products don't. In the meantime, Schering-Plough has shut down the only American plant that did manufacture Drixoral (the logic of this move escapes us), leaving us wandering blindly through pharmacy aisles buying whatever we can get our hands on that might work halfway well. Which is not much, let me tell you.

I turned to the internet and began buying Drixoral from Canadian providers because their Drixoral plant is working perfectly well and they are more than willing to exchange drugs for dollars (so to speak).

The average cost for a package of 20 Drixoral tablets - $11.99. Fairly comparable to the U.S. price of $9.99 that I was paying at Krogers.

Until last night.

Tom went cruising to make an order and found that those same 20 tablets are now $46.99.

Oy veh!

Assiduous searching can find a Canadian supplier here or there who is not making hay while the sun shines but they are few and far between. Far more are charging anywhere from $35 on up for 20 tablets.

Shameful.

How do you know when it's been too long since you've played the Set Game?

When it takes 5 minutes, 15 seconds to find all 6 sets.

Aargh!

I used to be in 2 minutes or less territory. Must play daily ... must play daily ...

Now This is Just What I've Been Looking For!

Introducing the new Bio-Optic Organized Knowledge device–trade-named: B.O.O.K.

BOOK is a revolutionary breakthrough in technology: no wires, no electric circuits, no batteries, nothing to be connected or switched on. It’s so easy to use, even a child can operate it.

Compact and portable, it can be used anywhere — even sitting in an armchair by the fire — yet it is powerful enough to hold as much information as a CD-ROM disc....

I. Love. This.

Read the rest at Coffee Klatch.

Worth a Thousand Words

57 Chevy Bel Air by James Neil Hollingsworth
Click through on the link above for more wonderful art.

Amazed by monsters ...

[...] Some remain unexplained. Some are laughable. Some are both. But they don't bother me at all. It's not that I believe in them. Or don't. But their existence would fit quite nicely into my view of things.

I just love the documentaries of monsters and mysterious beasts you see on the History Channel or A&E. I really do. You have the 50 year old pot bellied hunter standing in the woods recounting his tale of how he narrowly escaped death at the hands of a (insert monster here) and even though his camera was around his/her neck they just didn't think of it in time. If only, huh?

But then they cut to the man or woman in glasses and a sweater who, sitting in their air conditioned office at some local college, explain how this sighting could easily be explained away as the work of imagination (meaning a case of beer), or just fabrication entirely (meaning that ol' son of a gun is lyin' through his teeth.) Then they talk about how little chance there is that something exists which we don't know about yet.

I know it says something about me. Perhaps I have a strong anti-authoritarian streak in me but I almost always find myself siding with the beer swiller in the woods mainly because we agree on one underlying principle: We don't know nuthin'. We agree fundamentally that there's more to this world than we think we know. The beer swilling hunter can still be amazed. [...]

Plus they've had the fun of drinking the beer. Which any Catholic can understand!

Creative Minority Report uses Bigfoot et al as a springboard into the nature of faith. Nice. Check it out.

Worth a Thousand Words

The Cloisters (Vertorama), originally uploaded by Paul Cook Photography.
Found at Flickr Scotland.

We finally caught up on Lost

So it turns out that Hannah is taking one of our cars to college (we have managed to inherit a couple from Tom's mom as she gave up driving) and all her stuff fit into the car! And she drove herself so we effectively have an extra day at home. Woohoo!

Also, our email is down. Which is a pain to Tom who is dealing with our server, but nice for me as I am cut loose from a couple of obligations I need to send out to people.

SO, Lost ... only three months after the finale. Ha!

1. Long ago I thought the guy in the coffin had to be Locke. Then they faked me out enough so that I figured it had to be someone else from the slender group of possibilities. Dang! I was right the first time.
   
   
2. Ben. So why does he give a rip about The Island? He can't go back. Why does he care at all? Rose says it is about vengeance for Alex. Huh. His heart doesn't have those layers. There is something else going on.
   
   
3. It was nice to see Desmond and Penny get to have a happy ending. Though I will be very sad not to see Desmond anymore.
   
   
4. When they moved The Island they didn't mess around, did they? I don't know what I expected but for sure I didn't expect it to essentially sink below the surface of the water. Now, that was an interesting concept ...
   
   
5. I guess the fact that Locke had been visiting people was the reason Kate was telling Aaron that she was sorry while sobbing prettily. Because she must be planning on going back.
   
   
6. I liked Hurley and Mr. Eko playing chess. Even if I had to imagine Mr. Eko. And Sayid ... his "safe place" surely must be The Island, right? Because he's working for Ben now?
   

All Hail Your Cyborg Queen ...

... or so The Anchoress would have us believe as she chants vespers for us during the retreat.

Myself, perhaps I have been assimilated and am so cyborg-ish that I couldn't hear it. I think she sounds lovely and I love that she cared enough to do this for us.

And, yes, Anchoress, we can now put you in our iPods and carry you with us wherever we go.

Do go listen. It was a real treat for me.

Thank you, Anchoress.

Jeffrey Overstreet's Insight into Woody Allen's Newest Movie

As he broadens his geographical interests beyond Manhattan, Allen's understanding of love seems to be narrowing. His work should be taking him deeper into complex and revealing stories about the heart. Instead, he's becoming more and more preoccupied with the lurid and the lewd. In the end, like Cristina, he comes away knowing only what he doesn't want, never managing even a glimpse of what he, his characters, or his audience, really need."

Jeffrey Overstreet reviews Vicky Cristina Barcelona at Christianity Today. He does a great job, as always, in a comprehensive review.

However, the excerpt above really struck me as this is something I have been noticing as well. It is sad, really, as one would have hoped that Allen's horizons would have broadened over the years. Of course, Allen has always been bewitched by sex, oftentimes to the exclusion of broader visions. And there is that old saying ... there's no fool like an old fool.

Worth a Thousand Words

Amish Farm Stand
from Chez Pim who has been touring Amish country lately

Are We Remembering to Retreat?

The Anchoress is working her fingers to the bone, or so it would seem to me, to give us five or six daily helpings of good material for contemplation.

I would start you off with a favorite but I honestly have gotten something great from each of them. So go do a little leisurely wandering through the great writing over there.

Well, I do have a favorite but it is a personal thing ... The Anchoress used Rose's presentation intended as a starting point for prayer in this post. Scroll to the bottom for the link. I watch it every few months and always find it a good reminder about Jeremiah and the fire inside.