Tag Archives: quotes

Unfathomable

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“A fathom,” he showed me stretching wide
in his black three-piece suit and silver watch chain,
“is the measure of the arms across the body from fingertip to fingertip
because fathom, or a word like it, faethm,
was the Old Northern European word for embrace.”
   
~Frank Delaney in Simple Courage: The True Story of Peril on the Sea.

This is the kind of stuff that makes my heart race:  using a word for a measurement from the universally understood action of embrace.  Here’s more.

A fathom is now a nautical measure of six feet,
but it was once defined by an act of Parliament as
“the length of a man’s arms around the object of his affections.”
The word derives from the Old English faethm,
meaning “the embracing arms.”  

from The QPB Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins   

When we speak of mysteries beyond comprehension, we call them unfathomable.  You can’t wrap your arms (or your mind) around it.  Carson, my son who worked on a seiner fishing for salmon in Alaska, said, “Something is unfathomable when you run out of rope.” 

Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgments and how incrutable his ways!

~ Paul in the espistle to the Romans

   

Third World, Cheerios and Little Things

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Here are a few tasty morsels that I’ve relished in my reading:

The world came apart into three segments —
the “First World: of free market trading nations,
the “Second World,” or Communist bloc,
and the economically underdeveloped
but politically emerging “Third World.

~ from Coming Apart, Coming Together  by Edward Kantowicz

[Do you know how many years I have wondered
about Third World countries?  If they are Third,
who is First and Second?  Never had it make sense
until this week. This is a ta-da! aha! wow! moment.]

~     ~     ~

The name Cerignola meant land of cereals,
and it was thus the origin of the word “Cheerios.”
It grew hard wheat, the best in Italy and possibly
the best in the world for making pasta.
The Romans stored the wheat in the ground,
silos in reverse.

~ from The Wild Blue by Stephen E. Ambrose

[Think c as in ciao!  I had to Google Earth Cerignola.
It is just south of the the spur on the back of the boot.
I zoomed in, trying to find the Roman holes in the
ground, but, alas, they are too small. ]

~     ~     ~

A little thing is a little thing,
but faithfulness in little things is a very great thing.

from A Chance to Die, The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael,
by Elisabeth Elliot

[How encouraging is that?  I’ll write a full review when I finish.]

The photo reflects my craving for spring.
We’ve awoken to snow for the last ten (?) days.
These are “four season days”. 
If you don’t like the weather, just wait an hour or two.
It will change.

The Herb of Grace

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After Hitler, Churchill, D-Day, Band of Brothers, Pearl Harbor, staggering holocaust memoirs — heaviness and grief — it was time for a change.  My son is hacking, coughing, aching … and just needs to rest.  I’m on the edge [insert well-placed sniffle, cough-cough] and want to land on the healthy side of the equation.  This is the one day this week I am not obligated to go anywhere.  Melting snow, crackling fire, a pot of tea…what to read?

My friend Lynne suggested Elizabeth Goudge.  I haven’t yet read The Herb of Grace, purchased at Oxfam (charity shop) last year in England for £1.  It is such a treat, such a balm, such a comfort.  I’m too impatient to wait until I’m done with the book to write a full review.  One must share quotes.  I found the attitude to telephones fascinating in light of our recent pop culture technology discussions.

And she [Sally, the protagonist] vastly preferred writing a letter and walking with it to the post to using the telephone and hearing with horror her voice committing itself ot things whe would never have dreamed of doing if she’d had the time to think.

All the water-sounds are unforgettable, he said gently.  The best sound of all, I think, is the sound of ripples slapping against the hull of a boat.

And the smell of Damerosehay was just the same: the mingled scent of wood smoke, flowers, furniture polish, dogs and oil lamps.

She [Grandmother] had always been beautiful, was beautiful now, and had every intention of remaining beautiful until the end of her days, and she did not in the least begrudge either the spending of a great deal of time and trouble upon the outer facade of beauty, or the curtailing of her activities by the elimination of those which she could no longer accomplish with grace. It seemed to her children and grandchildren that she did not mind growing old.  There was nothing of desperation in the firm hold she kept upon her beauty, it was rather that she appeared to be taking good care of something entrusted to her care, but did not seem to regard it as an integral part of her.  [Don’t you know an older lady, always put together like this?] 

Lucilla knew always, and Nadine knew in her more domesticated moments, that it was home-making that mattered.  Every home was a brick in the great wall of decent living that men erected over and over again as a bulwark against the perpetual flooding in of evil.  But women made the bricks, and the durableness of each civilisation depended upon their quality; and it was no good weakening oneself for the brick-making by thinking too much about the flood.

Her feeling for her mother-in-law swung always between reverence and exasperation, according as the selflessness of Grandmother’s autocracy, or the autocracy of her selflessness, was uppermost.

Her [Grandmother’s] voice was full of distress.  She hated these modern inventions, telephone and wireless; they did nothing but make a noise and pour out information one was generally better without.

Lady Eliot is afraid you will not be willing to live in London?  ~ I’ll be perfectly willing, Madam.  I did tell Lady Eliot, when she asked me, that I liked the country best; but of course wherever the children are I will make myself contented. [Jill interviewing for Nannie position, emphasis mine.]

This book was published in 1948.  It’s gentle, unsentimental narrative seems appropriate post-WWII literature. Elizabeth Goudge.  A light but nourishing read.  [Don’t get confused: Eileen Goudge, Elizabeth’s niece, writes romance novels.  I know nothing about their quality.] 

Other Elizabeth Goudge books I’ve enjoyed: The Little White Horse, Green Dolphin Street, Linnets and Valerians,  The Scent of Water, The Dean’s Watch.  

     

Wisdom in My Inbox

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I don’t know how you manage yours, but the state of my inbox often mirrors the state of my fridge.  It all revolves around your definition of fresh.  I don’t always often send fresh responses the way I’d like to.  Periodically I take time and write dozens of apologetic notes:  supplying addresses needed a month ago, the name of the book I think the writer wanted, thanking someone for a great quote, asking a question, responding to a line that I really liked…you know!

The good part of this pathetic non-system is that I get to ponder all the good stuff more than once.  Here are a few things I copied into my journal, all from normal, everyday, unpublished friends.

Staying connected to people has a price.
That price is walking beside them and helping shoulder the burdens they carry.  Loving them, laughing with them, encouraging them, carying with them, praying for them, caring about them…whatever it takes.   ~ MAS

I have to say that I am enjoying growing old.  It’s wonderful to grow old with a man you are in love with – to watch children mature, not just physically but spiritually, desiring to give Christ preeminence in their lives. I’m thankful for everyone’s health and safety and for all the numerous blessings I enjoy.    ~ MDC

The Lord kindly made up for being so far from my British blood family by giving me “friends of my right hand” as Madeleine L’Engle would say.    ~ FP

Aren’t those wise words?

Do you use folders to separate your emails by sender?  Years ago, my son took one look at my inbox and said, “Mom, you NEED folders” and proceeded to set them up for me.  I don’t put an email into a separate folder until no further action is needed. 

Occasionally, when I get just plain weird, I sort through my Sent folder, deleting trivial emails and putting other ones in folders too.  That way emails sent and received to the same person are all together.  I’ve never had zero emails in my Inbox and Sent folder, which would be the apex of organization.  For one moment.  It’s a happy thought.

What’s your email system? 

Savoring Life, Wondering Child

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This savoring of life is no small thing.

The element of wonder
is almost lost today
with the onslaught of the media
and gadgets
of our noisy world.

To let a child lose it
is to make him blind and deaf
to the best of life.

~ Gladys Hunt in Honey for a Child’s Heart  

I’m giving a talk on children’s literature tomorrow.  I’m thankful for the impetus to read through this excellent book again.  I buy Honey for a Child’s Heart in bulk, because it is my first choice for a baby present.  Often I mark the brand new book, noting our family’s favorites. 

Each ramble through this book resurrects moments of warmth, joy and laughter.  The deliciousness of receiving a new Little House book each birthday of my girlhood; the echoes of “keep reading” from my sons; the books that broke our heart and incapacitated us; the hide-and-seek games my oldest son and I played with the Ralph Moody books we were reading concurrently; how right it feels to have a toddler on your lap while you are both absorbed in a book.

It will be a challenge to keep this talk to one hour…
 

Sponge, Sand-Glass, Strain-Bag and Diamond

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Girl Reading   ~ Renoir

Readers may be divided into four classes:

1. Sponges, who absorb all that they read
and return it in nearly the same state,
only a little dirtied.

2.  Sand-glasses, who retain nothing
and are content to get through a book
for the sake of getting through time.

3.  Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs
of what they read.

4. Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable,
who profit by what they read,
and enable others to profit by it also.

~  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Thank you to all you diamonds who have enriched me.

Feasting on Stories

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Why does anybody tell a story?
It does indeed have something to do with faith,
faith that the universe has meaning,
that our little human lives are not irrelevant,
that what we choose or say or do
matters,
matters cosmically.

~ Madeleine L’Engle

What is better than
good food and drink
on a table,
chairs crowded round,
laughter, chatter
and
stories?

Smiling…remembering yesterday.

The Gathering Storm

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If you condensed The Second World War, Volume 1: The Gathering Storm into one sentence, it would be: “See, I told you so!”  Churchill’s Theme of the Volume is

“How the English-speaking peoples
through their unwisdom,
carelessness, and good nature
allowed the wicked to rearm.”   

I am ambivalent about Sir Winston.  He sounded the warnings, raised a ruckus and was unconcerned about opinion polls and minority viewpoints.  Sadly, what he predicted came to pass.  Reading the section on German rearmament and European appeasement is an exercise in frustration.  Thank God for Winston Churchill.

And yet…  There is a know-it-all attitude that I find off-putting.  Too many details included for vindication’s sake.  Too many speeches reproduced verbatim.  What kept me going through the pages was his command of English: the satisfying sentences, the robust words, the grand oratory.   

…amid a ceaseless chatter of well-meant platitudes…

Death stands at attention, obedient, expectant, ready to serve,
ready to shear away the peoples en masse…

British fatuity and fecklessness which,
though devoid of guile, was not devoid of guilt…

So they go on in strange paradox,
decided only to be undecided,
resolved to be irresolute,
adamant for drift,
solid for fluidity,
all-powerful to be impotent.

One can hardly find a more perfect specimen of humbug and hypocrisy…

I always went to bed at least for one hour
as early as possible in the afternoon
and exploited to the full my happy gift
of falling almost immediately into deep sleep.
By this means I was able to press a day and a half’s work into one.

The_Gathering_Storm_2002_poster  

Not everyone has time for chunky books: voila the DVD!  Albert Finney excels as Winston Churchill.  There are moments of mild vulgarity: some backside nudity (of an old man getting into a bathtub – ewww!) and some tacky language. But the movie tells the story of the people who made history.  I loved how Churchill composed speeches while he dressed and shaved, the interactions between Clementine and Winston, the long-suffering private secretary, the pontificating in Parliament, the scenes at Chartwell.  If you love England, if you love the BBC, you will like The Gathering Storm.