this & that

I've been sick for a couple weeks, but there has also been a lot of nice stuff.

Let's see . . . for music, I've been listening to Gillian Welch a lot lately.  (At first I typed Dave Rawlings, but actually, I have been listening to her rather than him.) I just have music fads where I listen to something until I'm sick to death of it, and then move to something else. (I usually come back to them later, after I'm unsick of them again.) I don't know why I do this.

For reading, I've got two separate books with the same title going: Humility by CJ Mahaney, and Humility by Andrew Murray. They're for a small group I'm in that meets once a month.  I recommend both. 

Mahaney's working definition of humility is "Honestly assessing ourselves in light of God's holiness and our sinfulness." That works for me, and jives with what God says in Isaiah 66:2: "This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word."

Andrew Murray, who is from the nineteenth century and more flowery with his prose than Mahaney (who is our contemporary), is a bit more nuanced in his examination of humility, and I can't really give you a one-line definition of what he says it is.  He points out that we're humble because we're human, and we're humble because we're sinful, and we're humble because we're recipients of God's grace. He breaks it down into those three different categories, and then focuses in his book on the idea of our humility related to our "creatureness" . . . because Jesus, who did not sin, was also humble. Here is one of the very beautifully written bits. I do love Andrew Murray.

When we see that humility is something infinitely deeper than contrition, and accept it as our participation in the life of Jesus, we shall begin to learn that it is our true nobility, and that to prove it in being servants of all is the highest fulfillment of our destiny, as men created in the image of God.

So that's good stuff there, I tell ya.

I am also lazily and slowly reading the Percy Jackson books . . . I know, weird segue, huh? Monsters and Greek mythology.  I'm on number two. The one with the eyeball on the cover. Which one is that?  I'm not completely in love with these books yet, because I can't help but compare them to Harry Potter, and they're not as rich.  But several readers have said to me, keep going, so I'm keeping going, at least until I decide what I think.  I mean, they are fast-paced and fun, but I am a very critical reader and I am sorry about that.  (Actually, no, I'm not.) 

I did throw the first book right at Bob when I finished it, though, because I knew he'd love it, and yes, he gobbled it right up. (I'm not saying he's not a critical reader. I'm just saying I knew he'd just love that Greek mythology stuff. And he did! He told me to hurry up with the second book, or he'll steal it.)

Sea of Monsters! That is what it's called. 

As a family, we've been reading a chapter from the Narnia books out loud every night. (Bob and I take turns reading.) We haven't been doing it too long, so we're just about to finish up The Magician's Nephew. This has been really fun. Claire likes it when Bob does voices. I don't really do voices when I read, although I do try to have good inflection. :D

I finally (!) have gotten around to watching North and South (via Netflix) and am loving it. (Don't tell me what happens.) I used to have the three-discs-at-a-time Netflix plan, but that seemed excessive, and so now I have the one-disc-at-a-time, which simulates the olden days of watching a show on t.v. because there is a short time lapse when waiting on the next disc. :)  I think I shall need to follow it with a re-viewing of Cranford, and then a first viewing of Return to Cranford, which I haven't seen, but have heard tell is fabulous.

I started boycotting my local grocery store a couple weeks ago after I had a little discussion with the manager about the store's placement of the latest issue of S.I., right at kid-level and featuring a cover that has nothing to do with sports or illustrations, or swimsuits, either, for that matter. He agreed that it shouldn't be where kids could see it, but wouldn't take responsibility for moving it (he blamed it on "the magazine guy" . . . the cause of all pure evil in the world, that magazine guy, and so powerful, apparently, that the store manager is powerless to challenge his magazine placement) and so I said that I heard what he was saying, but he was the manager and needed to do something about it, and if he wouldn't, I was happy to be living in a country chock full of other grocery stores where I could shop.

And frankly, no great loss. That was the worst grocery store I've ever had to shop at, but pretty convenient. So! I've been shopping all over the place. Mostly Trader Joe's, because nowhere else is really convenient besides the store I'm boycotting, and if I'm going to be inconvenienced, might as well go where I can get some good Mediterranean Hummus. Oh, yummers.  

I've also been watching Claire do a lot of fancy jump-roping and hula-hooping tricks lately.  She is learning cool stuff at recess. I never, ever learned to hula-hoop. Did you? Claire and her cousin can do it around their knees, even. I'm astounded.  I tried it all last week in the kitchen when nobody was looking, and it just plunked straight down onto the ground every time.

What have you been listening to and reading and watching and boycotting and eating and trying out lately?

xxoo