Monthly Archives: October 2008

Yo-Yo’s New CD

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Oh yeah, bay-bee. 

Songs of Joy & Peace

Do you every listen to the 30 second samples at Amazon?
Follow the link and click on “Preview All.”
Stick around and see the six minute video of Yo-Yo and Diana Krall.

I am so getting this CD.

Alison Krauss.
Alison Krauss singing the Wexford Carol.
James Taylor.
Dave Brubeck.
Renée Fleming.

Four versions of Dona Nobis Pacem.

22 tracks
79 minutes of music
$9.99!

I don’t expect to love every track,
but I will be sure to obsess listening to a few.

By the way, ahem (blushing),
Carol means Song of Joy.
It has my name in the title.
I have to get it!

Video of Yo-Yo and Chris Botti play My Favorite Things.

Yo-Yo introduces the CD in this video.

Yo-Yo Ma.
One of my heroes.

Something Must Be Done

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Thank God every morning,
when you get up,
that you have something to do that day
which must be done…

Work will breed in you temperance and self-control,
diligence and strength of will,
cheerfulness and content,
and a hundred virtues
which the idle never know.

~ Charles Kingsley

*photo taken from my kitchen window this morning

Idleness, laziness, sloth…
call it what you will,
it is one of my besetting sins.
Like a malignant tumor,
laziness grows tendrils deep within me.
I can sit here and write about it,
and not see the dirty floor around me.

Does this quote strike you as inspiring or judgmental?

Copious Gifts

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I’m thankful for the autumn leaves –
bronze, lime, and sunshine,
copper and cinnamon,
beet red, butter,
pumpkin,
dun.

I’m grateful for developing lungs,
 hiccups, fingernails,
and kicking legs;
a swelling love for two babies grand
whose debut comes at Your command.

Grateful for answered prayer, O Lord;
a wedding for a special friend,
who has waited,
waited,
waited.
sigh…
Her waiting has come to a glorious end!

For babies – three!
born to a mom and dad
who rejoice and give thanks
after a season of grief.

 Slanted sunshine crawls across the floor,
crackling wood heat comfort radiates,
a light, a mug,
an engaging read;
my soul is fed and nourished.

For a brother who called,
for sons who write,
a husband who husbands
with care and delight.

For sisters by blood and sisters by love,
a neighbor who weighs,
Facebook and blogs,
for friends who phone
and company who come.

Digital cameras,
Albinoni’s Adagio,
Mary Cassatt,
Winslow Homer.

Bread dough rising and
butternut squash soup.

For internet radio,
downloaded books,
nocturnal stillness
and house-creaking sounds.

Forgiveness of sins,
-and can it be?-
I swallow great gulps
of Your grace and mercy.

For older women,
balm to my heart:
Mamapiano,
Elisabeth,
Lois, the Cellist,
Frankie, Marg.

For my pastor,
 a man who faithfully prays
that we don’t lose a child,
not even one stray.

Copious gifts,
bounteous and plenitudinous,
grace upon grace,
common, sacred and mysterious.

Previous Posts here and here.

These Slay Me

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Classic American Children’s Illustrators



Classic English Children’s Illustrators

I am completely incapable of resisting postcard books. 

Years ago, a book called Mommy, It’s a Renoir! suggested you introduce art to children with art postcards.  And that was all the justification/rationalization I needed.  One of the secret benefits to bibliophiles who homeschool is that an indulgence can morph into needed curriculum faster than you can say amazon dot com.  Who says this job doesn’t have bennies?

So these can function as picture books for toddlers; add a cute frame and you have a baby shower gift; write a note and you have a classy postcard.  Or if you are like me, they are just a delight-filled item that will make you smile.

Who are your favorite children’s book illustrators?

Who comes immediately to mind (but I’m sure I’ve forgotten someone important): Jessie Wilcox Smith, Beatrix Potter, Alan Lee, Kate Greenaway, Tasha Tudor, Garth Williams.
   

Beauty Displayed in Death

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Looking outside, I see thousands of dying leaves;
 my hope is that when I grow old and start to wither away,
 my life will reflect some small portion
 of the beauty
displayed in the death all around us…

…and until then
to live with the hope of resurrection
in that eternal spring
when I go to be with God.

~  our son Carson
commenting on a photo on Facebook

A Holocaust Robinson Crusoe

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I stayed up late last night reading The Island on Bird Street in one fell swoop.  Uri Orlev has written an exciting story based on his own experiences as a young Jewish boy in the Warsaw Ghetto.  In writing the book Orlev weaves themes from Robinson Crusoe into this WWII survival story.  After a roundup, Alex has been separated from his father; he waits for him in an abandoned building just inside the border of the Ghetto.

“This house is really not very different from a desert island.  And Alex has to wait in it until his father comes.  But his father does not come back right away and Alex begins to wonder if he ever will.  So he must survive by himself for many months, taking what he needs from other houses the way Robinson Crusoe took what he needed from the wrecks of other ships that were washed up on the beach.”
 ~ from the Introduction

Before his time of hiding, Alex’s mother and father had been preparing him for the unknown future, honing his survival skills. 

~ Whenever you pick a hiding place, always make sure that it has an emergency exit.
~ What counts most is the element of surprise. 
~  Look around you and behind you.  Danger doesn’t only strike from the front.

At one awkward encounter with a Polish looter, Alex offers to tell a joke to the man.  Their laughter diffused the tension.  Alex had remembered his father’s lesson.

~  With the Poles you’ve got to sound confident, even a little bit cheeky. And you’ve got to make them laugh.

Alex’s parents differed on the issue of trust. 

~  If you relate to people with trust and human kindness, they will always help you. (Mother)
~  Be kind but only trust yourself. (Father)

This story is full of courage, ingenuity, humor, resourcefulness, danger, friendship, and risk.  It parted from Robinson Crusoe in one disappointing way:  in his distress, Crusoe poured out his heart to God.  I thought it seemed unrealistic that a Jewish boy–well, any boy– left alone, in daily peril of losing his life, wouldn’t pray once or twice during the ordeal.  God was never once mentioned.

It’s A Corker

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corker 

(kôr‘kər)   n.

  1. One that corks bottles, for example.
  2. Slang. A remarkable or astounding person or thing.

~     ~     ~

For my birthday, my friend Katie and
my brother Danny (with sweet Valeri)
collaborated on a project.
Dan and Val cheerfully drank wine and saved corks.
Katie took saved corks and made a cork board.

All our years together, Curt and I have had a picture board in our kitchen.
Packed full of photos.

Now we have a cork board.

My favorite section below, because…
Dan calls his wife is la Bella.
Sigh.
I love la Bella. 
If you knew her, you would too.

I have instituted a new plan.
I found when the board is stuffed to the gunnels with pictures
we ended up not seeing anything.
Just like the front of your fridge, right?

So I plan to put a very few pictures up,
change them regularly,
and use the pictures as a reminder to pray
for our friends, especially when we give thanks for dinner.

Isn’t that just about the funnest gift idea?
Thanks KGB, dharperino, and la Bella.

Addendum:  Check comments for dear Katie’s instructions

 

How To Fold a T-Shirt

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Okay, this is ancient in terms of Internet lifespans, but I just found it when I was sweeping the corners of My Documents.  Just in case you missed it the first time around!

English versions now abound but this is the one I first saw, and the Japanese (or is it Chinese?  ack!) adds to the charm.  Our family all had to master this when we first viewed this video.

Why I Am Hopeful

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Andy Crouch nails it in this essay,
Why I Am Hopeful,
another blessing of receiving the free weekly newsletter
Books & Culture.
“We often seem incapable of seeing ourselves first as gardeners:
people whose first cultural calling is to keep good
what is, by the common grace of God, already good.
A gardener does not pull out weeds because she hates weeds;
she pulls out weeds because she loves the garden,
and because (hopefully) there are more vegetables or flowers in it than weeds.

This kind of love of the garden
—loving our broken, beautiful cultures
for what they are at their best—
is the precondition, I am coming to believe,
for any serious cultural creativity or influence.

When weeds infest the garden,
the gardener does not take the opportunity
to decry the corruption of the garden as a whole.
She gets patiently, discerningly, to work
keeping the garden good.”