Here are Four Great Things from the week of 08/16/2024.

Live Like the Weasleys

I just love good commentaries on young adult fiction, especially this one about the Weasley family from Harry Potter. It's a low-stake reminder of contentment and keeping the main things the main things.

"We have to recover a wonder in the ordinary and the simple that enables us to be content with what we have. But we should also embrace a bit of Molly and Arthur’s craftiness: their delightful habits of creation, which are truly ingenious. What if we bought less and learned to mend, tinker, repair, and maintain? What if we delighted in homes in which things do fall apart, but we put them back together? What if we invited folks over even when our lives are imperfect and messy?"

The Most Romantic Line In All of Literature

This one is different because the comments are what make this great. "The Books that Made Us" posed this simple question, and the responses are (mostly) incredible reminders of books with lovely prose.

From Jane Eyre "Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still..."

Siblings

Selah Bell has incredibly interesting thoughts here about how many books and movies defer to creating only children because siblings are difficult to write.

"All sibling relationships have their own unique components that make them a powerful character study. Siblings can bring out aspects of each other that no other relationship can. Writers should use this to their advantage, but too few do."

I immediately thought of J.D. Salinger's lesser known novel, Franny and Zooey. It's about a brother/sister pair, specifically Zooey's life and difficulties with their mother. This one needs a revisit!

A Quintet of Songs for Mary

Malcolm Guite has written 5 sonnets for Mary the mother of Jesus. What's even better, he embeds a recording of himself for each one—just picture the pipe smoke surrounding it, and you're all set.

"It is true that some Christians have disagreed with one another bitterly about her, but equally, in every age and every church she has been, for many Christians, a sign of hope, an example of prayer, devotion and service, and an inspiration."

What I'm working on:

I'm still sketching out an article about translating. John Donne paralleled it to death and eternity, so I am pulling at that thread to see what could be. 

Quotable:

“Those people cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them because they see and covet what He has not given them. All of our discontents for what we want appear to me to spring from want of thankfulness for what we have.”
― Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

(This is my current piece of fiction I am reading ahead of my oldest—filling in all the gaps from my youth!)

Worth the Memory

Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem for boys called "If"—it's a call for their maturity and manhood. I recently discovered "An 'If' for Girls" by JP McEvoy from 1924. It's now our first memorization piece when school resumes.

‘If you can hear the whispering about you,
And never yield to deal in whispers, too;
If you can bravely smile when loved ones doubt you,
And never doubt, in turn, what loved ones do;
If you can keep a sweet and gentle spirit
In spite of fame or fortune, rank or place,
And though you win your goal or only near it,
Can win with poise and lose with equal grace;

If you can meet with Unbelief, believing,
And hallow in your heart a simple Creed,
If you can meet Deception, undeceiving,
And learn to look to God for all you need;
If you can be what girls should be to mothers:
Chums in joy and comrades in distress,
And be unto others as you’d have the others
Be unto you – No more, and yet no less;

If you can keep within your heart the power
To say that firm, unconquerable “No”;
If you can brave a present shadowed hour,
Rather than yield to build a future woe;
If you can love, yet not let loving master,
But keep yourself within your own self’s clasp,
And not let dreaming lead you to disaster,
Nor pity’s fascination loose your grasp;

If you can lock your heart on confidences,
Nor ever needlessly in turn confide;
If you can put behind you all pretenses
Of mock humility or foolish pride:
If you can keep the simple, homely virtue
Of walking right with God – then have no fear
That anything in all the world can hurt you-
And – which is more – you’ll be a Woman, dear.’

What are your great things from the week?