Declining Roast Beef

I may have mentioned before that I'm teaching Latin to my daughter, Aimee. This year I went with a new Latin curriculum, Latin for Children. I got the kit, including the instructional DVD. We started on it this week. It is excellent. It's got Aimee running around the house chanting Latin declensions and conjugations. She is genuinely excited about Latin, and I am thrilled.

I know it's only the first week, but the curriculum seems to have exactly the right mix of rigour and fun that I was looking for to grab my fourth grade daughter. I hate to buy (expensive) curriculum online without having an opportunity to preview it. But I went ahead and got it based on the catalog description and now, I'm glad I did.

Now if Aimee ever finds herself in a position like Master Tom Tulliver from the Mill on the Floss did, she will know that it's better to decline the Latin word for roast beef than to decline the roast beef itself at the dinner table. At least she won't have to leave the dinner table hungry.

Here's one of my favorite excerpts from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot:

Not that Mr Stelling was a harsh-tempered or unkind man - quite the contrary: he was jocose with Tom at table, and corrected his provincialisms and his deportment in the most playful manner: but poor Tom was only the more cowed and confused by this double novelty, for he had never been used to jokes at all like Mr Stelling's, and for the first time in his life he had a painful sense that he was all wrong somehow. When Mr Stelling said, as the roast beef was being uncovered, `Now, Tulliver! which would you rather decline, roast beef or the Latin for it?' - Tom, to whom in his coolest moments a pun would have been a hard nut, was thrown into a state of embarrassed alarm that made everything dim to him except the feeling that he would rather not have anything to do with Latin: of course he answered, `Roast beef,' - whereupon there followed much laughter and some practical joking with the plates, from which Tom gathered that he had in some mysterious way refused beef, and, in fact, made himself appear `a silly.'

Speaking Pieces

Today my son Eric started "back to school". I get to drive him. I could rant about how it took 35 minutes to go 3.2 miles from our house to the High School where he started his sophomore year today. But I won't. Instead, here's reminder of days when schools were simpler and expectations were higher.

It's describing an afternoon at school when all the children recited poems or speeches that they had memorized for the occasion. If you want to read some popular poetry from that time period, (1878) click on the names of the pieces.


An exerpt from Under the Lilacs by Louisa May Alcott

Speaking Pieces

The next day was Wednesday, and in the afternoon Miss Celia went to hear the children "speak pieces," though it was very seldom that any of the busy matrons and elder sisters found time or inclination for these displays of youthful oratory. Miss Celia and Mrs. Moss were all the audience on this occasion, but Teacher was both pleased and proud to see them, and a general rustle went through the school as they came in, all the girls turning from the visitors to nod at Bab and Betty, who smiled all over their round faces to see "Ma" sitting up "'side of Teacher," and the boys grinned at Ben, whose heart began to beat fast at the thought of his dear mistress coming so far to hear him say his piece.

Thorny had recommended Marco Bozzaris, but Ben preferred John Gilpin, and ran the famous race with much spirit, making excellent time in some parts and having to be spurred a little in others, but came out all right, though quite breathless at the end, sitting down amid great applause, some of which, curiously enough, seemed to come from outside; which in fact it did, for Thorny was bound to hear but would not come in, lest his presence should abash one orator at least.

Other pieces followed, all more or less patriotic and warlike, among the boys; sentimental among the girls. Sam broke down in his attempt to give one of Webster's great speeches, Little Cy Fay boldly attacked

"Again to the battle, Achaians!"

and shrieked his way through it in a shrill, small voice, bound to do honor to the older brother who had trained him even if he broke a vessel in the attempt. Billy chose a well-worn piece, but gave it a new interest by his style of delivery; for his gestures were so spasmodic he looked as if going into a fit, and he did such astonishing things with his voice that one never knew whether a howl or a growl would come next. When

"The woods against a stormy sky
Their giant branches tossed; "

Billy's arms went round like the sails of a windmill; the "hymns of lofty cheer" not only "shook the depths of the desert gloom," but the small children on their little benches, and the school-house literally rang "to the anthems of the free!" When "the ocean eagle soared," Billy appeared to be going bodily up, and the "pines of the forest roared" as if they had taken lessons of Van Amburgh's biggest lion. "Woman's fearless eye" was expressed by a wild glare; "manhood's brow, severely high," by a sudden clutch at the reddish locks falling over the orator's hot forehead, and a sounding thump on his blue checked bosom told where "the fiery heart of youth" was located. "What sought they thus far?" he asked, in such a natural and inquiring tone, with his eye fixed on Mamie Peters, that the startled innocent replied, "Dunno," which caused the speaker to close in haste, devoutly pointing a stubby finger upward at the last line.

This was considered the gem of the collection, and Billy took his seat proudly conscious that his native town boasted an orator who, in time, would utterly eclipse Edward Everett and Wendell Phillips.

Sally Folsom led off with "The Coral Grove," chosen for the express purpose of making her friend Almira Mullet start and blush, when she recited the second line of that pleasing poem,

"Where the purple mullet and gold-fish rove."

One of the older girls gave Wordsworth's "Lost Love" in a pensive tone, clasping her hands and bringing out the "O" as if a sudden twinge of toothache seized her when she ended.

"But she is in her grave, and O,
the difference to me!

Bab always chose a funny piece, and on this afternoon set them all laughing by the spirit with which she spoke the droll poem, "Pussy's Class," which some of my young readers may have read. The "meou" and the "sptzz" were capital, and when the "fond mamma rubbed her nose," the children shouted, for Miss Bab made a paw of her hand and ended with an impromptu purr, which was considered the best imitation ever presented to an appreciative public. Betty bashfully murmurred "Little White Lily," swaying to and fro as regularly as if in no other way could the rhymes be ground out of her memory.

"That is all, I believe. If either of the ladies would like to say a few words to the children, I should be pleased to have them," said Teacher, politely, pausing before she dismissed school with a song.

"Please, 'm. I'd like to speak my piece," answered Miss Celia, obeying a sudden impulse; and, stepping forward with her hat in her hand, she made a pretty courtesy before she recited Mary Howitt's sweet little ballad, "Mabel on Midsummer Day."

She looked so young and merry, and used such simple but expressive gestures, and spoke in such a clear, soft voice that the children sat as if spell-bound, learning several lessons from this new teacher, whose performance charmed them from beginning to end, and left a moral which all could understand and carry away in that last verse, -

"'Tis good to make all duty sweet,
To be alert and kind;
'Tis good, like Littie Mabel,
To have a willing mind."

Of course there was an enthusiastic clapping when Miss Celia sat down, but even while hands applauded, consciences pricked, and undone tasks, complaining words and sour faces seemed to rise up reproachfully before many of the children, as well as their own faults of elocution.

List of Speaking Pieces:

Marco Bozzarisby Fitz-Greene Halleck

John Gilpinby William Cowper

Song of the Greeks by Thomas Campbell: Again to the battle, Achaians!

Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The Coral Grove By James Gates Percival

Lost Love by William Wordsworth

Pussy's Class

Little White Lily by George MacDonald

Mabel on Midsummer Day by Mary Howitt

God is Watching

I ran across this while web surfing this morning here, and I thought it was so funny I wanted to share it:

Thanks to Steve Brown in his book Scandalous Freedom: I am reminded of a convent school where a basket of apples sat on the dining room table. A note under the basket said, "Take only one. God is watching."

At the other end of the dining room sat another basket filled with chocolate-chip cookies. In a child's handwriting, a note under the basket read: "Take all the cookies you want. God is watching the apples."

The entire article is well worth reading also:
Leader's Insight: Why Must We Always Criticize? The tension between honesty, contentment, and encouragement by Gordon MacDonald

Unbecoming Jane

I was looking forward to seeing the new Jane Austen biopic, Becoming Jane. My dear husband agreed to go see it with me, which pleasantly surprised me.

However, the movie itself was not a pleasant surprise. I knew going in that the story was mostly fiction, based loosely on Jane Austen's "romance" with Tom Lefroy. I knew that the filmmaker's vision of who Jane Austen was would be different from mine, and I was prepared for that. What I wasn't prepared for was that they would make Tom Lefroy into a spineless, womanizing "cad" who more closely resembled "Mr. Wickham" than "Mr. Darcy". I just can't believe that Jane Austen would fall for someone like that.

I had the pleasure of viewing Miss Potter on DVD recently. Miss Potter is a biopic based on the life of the children's book author, Beatrix Potter. Now that was a pleasant surprise! Superb acting, superb scenery, music, costumes, the whole thing worked. Unfortunately, Becoming Jane, didn't work, at least for me.

If you're interested, most of what is known about the relationship between Jane Austen and Tom Lefroy comes from Jane Austen's letters. The only three that mention Tom Lefroy are below. I found out after I watched the movie that Tom did name his oldest daughter Jane, and that he told someone late in his life that he had once loved Jane Austen. So, there was some basis for the premise of the movie. I just wish that they had given the characters more "character". According to the first letter below, Jane says he was a "very gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young man." Well at least the movie got the "good-looking" part right.



From Jane's letters:

"He is a very gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young man, I assure you. But as to our having ever met, except at the three last balls, I cannot say much; for he is so excessively laughed at about me at Ashe, that he is ashamed of coming to Steventon, and ran away when we called on Mrs Lefroy a few days ago."

letter to Cassandra
January 9, 1796

"After I had written the above, we received a visit from Mr Tom Lefroy and his cousin George. The latter is really very well-behaved now; and as for the other, he has but one fault, which time will, I trust, entirely remove--it is that his morning coat is a great deal too light. He is a very great admirer of Tom Jones, and therefore wears the same coloured clothes, I imagine, which he did when he was wounded."

letter to Cassandra
January 9, 1796

Tell Mary that I make over Mr Heartley & all his Estate to her for her sole use and Benefit in future, & not only him, but all my other Admirers into the bargain wherever she can find them, even the kiss which C. Powlett wanted to give me, as I mean to confine myself in future to Mr Tom Lefroy, for whom I do not care sixpence."

letter to Cassandra
January 14, 1796

Sky Watching

Tonight is a great night to do some sky watching. The annual Perseid meteor shower reaches its peak tonight between 11pm and dawn tomorrow. It's a good year to catch the shower because the peak coincides with a new moon, so there will be less moonlight to hinder the view.

A few years ago our family got up at 2am to camp out on our trampoline and watch the meteor shower show. It was amazing. Shooting stars burst across the sky every few seconds. It was better than a fourth of July fireworks show.

For information on when and where to watch, here's a link to an MSNBC article, Night Owls Make the Most of the Meteors.

On Great Authors and their Libraries

I collect stories and quotes about books and libraries. I ran across this piece at WNYC about "Loving Libraries". It features three "stories about the power of libraries to alter lives and draw out surprising aspects of ourselves."
The three stories are:

Clavino's A General in the Library, "in which a team of military men sent into the national library of a fictive town to week out subversive literature find themselves disarmed."


Ray Bradbury's Exchange which "documents a twilight encounter between an overworked librarian and a lonely soldier, returning to the one place that gave him pleasure as a child."

The third is from author Edith Wharton's memoirs, entitled, Backward Glance:Henry James, it describes how her friend Henry James and his "impassioned readings (of works by Walt Whitman and Emily Bronte, among others) used to entrance her in the very library to which her books have returned."

I should mention that the WNYC piece was done in honor of the return of Edith Wharton's (2.6 million dollar) rare book collection to the library at her home, The Mount, in Massachusetts.

Here is an excerpt from Edith Wharton's memoir about the pleasures of listening to great literature read aloud in her library:

"One of our joys, when the talk touched on any great example of prose or verse, was to get the book from the shelf, and ask one of the company to read the passage aloud. There were some admirable readers in the group, in whose gift I had long delighted; but I had never heard Henry James read aloud-- or known that he enjoyed doing so-- till one night some one alluded to Emily Bronte's poems, and I said I had never read "Remembrance." Immediately he took the volume from my hand, and, his eyes filling, and some far-away emotion deepening his rich and flexible voice, he began:
Cold in the earth, and the deep snow piled above thee,
Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave,
Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,
Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave?

I had never before heard poetry read as he read it; and I never have since. He chanted it, and he was not afraid to chant it, as many good readers are, who, though they instinctively feel that the genius of the English poetical idiom requires it to be spoken as poetry, are yet afraid of yielding to their instinct because the present-day fashion is to chatter high verse as though it were colloquial prose. James, on the contrary, far from shirking the rhythmic emphasis, gave it full expression. His stammer ceased as by magic as soon as he began to read, and his ear, so sensitive to the convolutions of an intricate prose style, never allowed him to falter over the most complex prosody, but swept him forward on great rollers of sound till the full weight of his voice fell on the last cadence."

http://www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/kjohnso1/jameswhitman.htm

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/shorts/episodes/2006/12/17

C.S. Lewis on Great Literature

But in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do. (C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism)

C.

Becoming a Better Writer

I think I should blog more, here's why:

Copyblogger Brian Clark's 10 Steps to Becoming a Better Writer:

1. Write.
2. Write more.
3. Write even more.
4. Write even more than that.
5. Write when you don’t want to.
6. Write when you do.
7. Write when you have something to say.
8. Write when you don’t.
9. Write every day.
10.Keep writing.

Copyblogger has some great advice about blogging and writing in general.

Achy Breaky Heart

Did you know Billy Ray Cyrus has a new CD out? And that he was at our local WalMart today signing copies of said new CD? And that Aimee's friend's dad works for Disney as a producer? And that they invited us to go to the signing and meet Billy Ray? Well if you didn't know all this you do now.

Of course meeting "Hannah Montana's dad" is almost as good as meeting Hannah herself, so it was a fun opportunity for the girls and for me too.

Thursday Next

I just picked up the new Jasper Fforde book First among Sequels, A Thursday Next Novel. Looking forward to reading it in bed tonight. I'm a big fan of the imaginative world that Jasper Fforde creates, where people jump in and out of classic books.

Fforde's novels remind me of a C.S. Lewis anecdote I read recently, by E. R. Eddison:

...a writer's task, I maintained, was to lay bare the human heart, and this could not be done if he were continually taking refuge in the spinning of fanciful webs. Lewis retorted with a theory that, since the creator had seen fit to build a universe and set it in motion, it was the duty of the human artist to create as lavishly as possible in turn. The romancer, who invents a whole world, is worshipping God more effectively than the mere realist who analyses that which lies about him.

It's a Slow Summer for Blogging

Two books I bought today:

Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton

From the Library of C.S. Lewis, Selections from Writers Who Influenced His Spiritual Journey Compiled by James Stuart Bell

They spoke this to me:

A Book by Edgar Guest

“Now” - said a good book unto me -
“Open my pages and you shall see
Jewels of wisdom and treasures fine,
Gold and silver in every line,
And you may claim them if you but will
Open my pages and take your fill.

“Open my pages and run them o’er,
Take what you choose of my golden store.
Be you greedy, I shall not care -
All that you seize I shall gladly spare;
There is never a lock on my treasure doors,
Come - here are my jewels, make them yours!

“I am just a book on your mantel shelf,
But I can be part of your living self;
If only you’ll travel my pages through,
Then I will travel the world with you.
As two wines blended make better wine,
Blend your mind with these truths of mine.

“I’ll make you fitter to talk with men,
I’ll touch with silver the lines you pen,
I’ll lead you nearer the truth you seek,
I’ll strengthen you when your faith grows weak -
This place on your shelf is a prison cell,
Let me come into your mind to dwell!”

Kids in Church

I can't believe I haven't written a blog entry in two weeks. Well if I can't come up with something new to blog about, then I'll just "borrow" someone else's inspiration. Since it's Sunday, and I thought these were amusing here goes:
("borrowed" from Ben Worthington)

KIDS IN CHURCH
3-year-old Reese: "Our Father, Who does art in heaven, Harold is His name. Amen."

A little boy was overheard praying: "Lord, if you can't make me a better boy, don't worry about it. I'm having a real good time like I am."

After the christening of his baby brother in church, Jason sobbed all the way home in the back seat of the car. His father asked him three times what was wrong. Finally, the boy replied, "That preacher said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home, and I wanted to stay with you guys."

I had been teaching my three-year old daughter, Caitlin, the Lord's Prayer for several evenings at bedtime. She would repeat after me the lines from the prayer. Finally, she decided to go solo. I listened with pride as she carefully enunciated each word, right up to the end of the prayer: "Lead us not into temptation," she prayed, "but deliver us from E-mail."

One particular four-year-old prayed, "And forgive us our trash baskets, as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets."

A Sunday school teacher asked her children as they were on the way to church service, "And why is it necessary to be quiet in church?" One bright little girl replied, "Because people are sleeping."

Six-year-old Angie and her four-year-old brother, Joel, were sitting together in church. Joel giggled, sang, and talked out loud. Finally, his big sister had had enough. "You're not supposed to talk out loud in church." "Why? Who's going to stop me?" Joel asked. Angie pointed to the back of the church and said, "See those two men standing by the door? They're hushers."

A mother was preparing pancakes for her sons,Kevin 5, and Ryan 3. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson. "If Jesus were sitting here, He would say, 'Let my brother have the first pancake, I can wait.' Kevin turned to his younger brother and said, "Ryan, you be Jesus!"

A father was at the beach with his children when the four-year-old son ran up to him, grabbed his hand, and led him to the shore where a seagull lay dead in the sand. "Daddy, what happened to him?" the son asked. "He died and went to Heaven," the Dad replied. The boy thought a moment and then said, "Did God throw him back down?"

A wife invited some people to dinner. At the table, she turned to their six-year-old daughter and said, "Would you like to say the blessing?" "I wouldn't know what to say," the girl replied. "Just say what you hear Mommy say," the wife answered. The daughter bowed her head and said, "Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?"

Competitive Rose Gardening?

It's official, anyone can write a book about anything. I was browsing in Borders the other day and came across this gem of a title on the newly published hardcover table in the front of the bookstore:

OTHERWISE NORMAL PEOPLE: INSIDE THE THORNY WORLD OF COMPETITIVE ROSE GARDENING by Aurelia C. Scott

Huh? I'm sure there are some people for whom this is a topic worth spending $22.00 on, but I personally had to be convinced that the title wasn't a joke. Nope. It's for real. What's next, competitive door slamming?

Why Read "Great Books"?

Because

"Some things are good in and of themselves, not merely because they please our peculiar taste or passing fancy."

The above quote is from an article by author, John C. Wright entitled, "The Judgment of Paris". Read the entire article for an insightful explanation of reasons to read the "Great Books".

At the end of the above-mentioned article is a link to an interview with the author of the article,John C. Wright in Sci-Fi Weekly. In this interview, John C. Wright discusses his conversion at the age of 42 from committed atheism to Christianity. The interviewer asks:

At some point after your first three epics were completed, you converted to Christianity, having been a resolute humanist before. How did this come about?

Wright: Now, this is a difficult question to answer, because to talk of these deep matters automatically provokes half the audience, and bores the other half. I will try to be as brief and delicate as I can.

Humanist is too weak a word. I was an atheist, zealous and absolute, one who held that the nonexistence of God was a fact as easily proved as the inequality of five and twice two.

Read the interview, John C. Wright continues the adventures of A.E. van Vogt and turns Roger Zelazny's Amber saga inside out.

Summer Reading Plans

I belong to an online reading group that is reading “The Great Books”, as I wrote back in a post on April 2, 2006 . The group has gone through some changes since I wrote about The Great Conversation last April. The online reading group changed leadership and then it split into two different “tracks”, and then into two different groups. I am attempting to keep up with both of them.

One of the groups is (more or less) following Adler’s 10 year reading plan listed in the first volume of Encyclopedia Brittanica’s Great Books. We’re currently reading Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. If you're interested the website is at greatconversation. I was happy when the group decided to extend the reading time through July, since I am still on Book One. But I intend to finish it by the end of July to stay on track with the group. In August we’re reading Plato’s Statesmen, Euclid’s Elements of Geometry, Book 1, and Aristotle’s On Interpretation and Politics. That should keep me busy.

The other “track” is called “Mare Nostrum” and it’s focusing on Greek History for the rest of the year and then on Roman History next year. This group is finishing Thucydides in June and moving on to Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens by James Davidson
in July and Fox’s Alexander the Great in August. I have some reading to do…
(You can find the Mare_Nostrum reading group in yahoo groups.)

But I also have my own list of books I want to read this summer…

Books I’m currently reading:
Thucydides (as mentioned above)
The Holiest of All by Andrew Murray
Studies in Words by C.S. Lewis
Genesis and the Big Bang by Gerald L. Schroeder
Decoding the Universe by Seife
Kenilworth by Sir Walter Scott
Rahsi’s Daughter: Joheved by Maggie Anton
Under Crescent and Cross by Mark R. Cohen

Other Books I want to read:
Biography:
John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace by Johnathan Aitken
Infernal World of Branwell Bronte By Daphne DuMarier
Time to be in Earnest by P.D. James

Science:
Privileged Planet by Guillermo Hernandez
The Edge of Evolution by Michael Behe

Novels
Waverly Novels Sir Walter Scott
Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers
Lucky Jim by Amis
The Collector by Balladuci
The Bronte Project by Jennifer Vandover
The Nanny Diaries Emma Mclaughlin and Nicola Kraus
How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved my Life by Mameve Medwed
The new Jasper Fford Novel: Thursday Next scheduled to be released on July 24

I've got to run, I've got some Thudydides to read!

Be Thou My One

Be Thou my Love and my Compassion
my Beauty and my Truth
the One that I seek always
the Voice in my heart of hearts
the Goad in my conscience
my All-in-All.

Be Thou the Restorer of my righteousness
the Lifter of my head
the Lover of my soul
my Friend in every season
the One I want to please
the Source and Aim of all my passion
my one Desire
my Comfort in the multitude of my thoughts within me
the Straightener of my crooked paths
my All-in-All.

Be Thou My Answer to the unanswerable
my Speech to the unspeakable
my Groanings that cannot be uttered
my Crown of lovingkindness and tender mercies
my ever-present Help in time of need
my All-in-All

Be Thou my Glory and my Grace
my Boldness and my Access to the throne of grace
my One who answers when I call
my deep calling unto deep
my One who shows me great and mighty things which I do not know
the Delight of my soul
my One who wipes the tears from my eyes
my One who calls me to awake from my sleep
and gives me a lamp for my feet
my Way Out from every temptation
the one Spirit to which my spirit joins
my All-in-All.

Be Thou my Shelter from the storm
my safe Harbor from the rocky shore
my Beauty for ashes
my Oil of gladness for mourning
my Joy and my Strength
my All-in-All.

Be Thou my Healer
my Anchor of hope for the future
the Substance of all that is real and true in my life
the still small Voice within me
my Strong Tower
my One who leads me by still waters
my All-in-All.

Be Thou my Rose of Sharon
my bright and morning Star
my new Day dawning
the Giver of my daily bread
my Song in the night
my Heavenly Father in whom there is no variableness neither shadow of turning
my Rock of Ages
my life Sustainer
my Fountain of living waters
my All-in-All

Be Thou my Door of the sheepfold
my rivers of Living Water flowing out of my belly
the Fire in my bones that cannot be quenched
my burning Bush
my Ancient of Days
my Alpha and Omega
the Author and Finisher of my faith
my eternal Life
my All-in-All

Be Thou my Holy of Holies
my Sabbath Rest
my High Priest and Passover Lamb
my new and living Way
my Peace that passes all understanding
my Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that I can ask or think
my Love that never fails
my All-in-All


Copyright 2007 by K. Masterson

Advice on Writing from Two Great Authors

Emory University recently unsealed a set of 300 letters between O'Connor and her friend Betty Hester, who donated the letters to the Emory in 1987 with the stipulation that they not be released for 20 years. Read more about it here.

Here's a bit of advice O'Connor wrote in one of the letters:

"You would probably do just as well to get that plot business out of your head and start simply with a character or anything that you can make come alive. Wouldn't it be better for you to discover a meaning in what you write rather than to impose one? Nothing you write will lack meaning because the meaning is in you."

Reading this reminded me of some other advice on writing I recently read. This is from C. S. Lewis, On Three Ways of Writing for Children.

Let the pictures tell you their own moral. For the moral inherent in them will rise from whatever spiritual roots you have succeeded in striking during the whole course of your life. But if they don't show you any moral, don't put one in. For the moral you put in is likely to be a platitude, or even a falsehood, skimmed from the surface of your consciousness...The only moral that is of any value is that which arises inevitably from the whole cast of the author's mind.

Father's Day

We had a really nice day celebrating Father's Day. The day started with church. We've been attending a local church that just opened in our area on May 1, 2007. It's the north campus of The Church on the Way that opened in Santa Clarita in an old movie theatre. The Church on the Way is a large church in Van Nuys (about 20 miles away from us) founded by Pastor Jack Hayford. They purchased a closed movie theatre in our city of Santa Clarita several years ago. It took several years of work on the building for the church to meet the zoning requirements of the city and it finally opened. (It doesn't look like a movie theatre any more.) We're enjoying attending a church that's about 15 minutes from our house.

After church we drove, literally, across the street to our new favorite restaurant, Karma Indian Restaurant (Dad's choice) for their incredible lunch buffet. Everyone in our family loves Indian food! It was also my choice for Mother's Day.

Then we hopped on over to the local Mall to catch Surf's Up. (Dad's choice) For a cartoon, it was very entertaining, even for our 15 year old son. I saw him laughing, even though after the movie he said it wasn't that funny.

The day was topped off by a dip in the Jacuzzi. I actually skipped this one but, Chuck, Eric and Aimee had a nice relaxing soak. All-in-all a very fun and relaxing family day.

Happy Father's Day to the World's Greatest Dad!

It's a Grand Ole Flag

Happy 230th Flag Day!