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!

Paris Hilton gets a “Room of Her Own”

First the judge sentences her to 45 days. Then the 45 days is reduced to 20 something. Then the sheriff releases her due to an unnamed medical problem to serve the rest of the 45 days in in-home confinement. Then the Al Sharpton’s and others start complaining about favoritism and racismm and the judge, visibly and verbally annoyed at the sheriff, orders her back to jail. She is led in tears and hysterics from the courtroom calling for her Mommy. This time she’s sent to a maximum security prison where she supposedly can get treatment for her still unspecified medical condition.

What bothers me about all this, aside from the unrelenting media attention and insatiable appetite we Americans have for this non-news “news”, is the revealing look at the state of our justice system. I have no problem with the judge sending Paris Hilton to jail for her disregard of the laws. She is a hazard to herself and more, to any innocent person who happens to be in her path when she puts herself behind a wheel while intoxicated. She is in dire need of a life-changing experience. This jail experience could have been (and hopefully still may be) what she needs to wake up from whatever stupor she’s in and get her life on track.

It’s the power struggle between the judge’s ego and the sheriff’s ego that I find most troubling about the whole situation. If the justice system can ping-pong someone like Paris Hilton, with her expensive lawyers and cameras rolling non-stop, I can only imagine what the justice system has in store for the poor and not famous with no one to look out for them. Who has the authority to release someone early? If the sheriff has the authority, then why can the judge overrule and haul her back. Is there no clear cut line of authority? Are the authorities who have so many people in subjection to them by court order just winging it when it comes to who does what and when? Am I the only one bothered by this?

" Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Forces: You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere are with you...." (General Dwight D. Eisenhower - June 6, 1944. D-Day)

The National D-Day Memorial was dedicated on June 6, 2001 in Bedford, Virginia. Bedford, a small town in central Virginia, was chosen as the site for the memorial because it lost 21 of its sons out of a population of 3200 (in 1944). This is said to be the highest per capita loss from any one town. The Overlord Arch pictured above at the National D-Day Memorial is dedicated to the 170 soldiers who participated in the first asault wave on D-Day. Of those 170 brave soldiers, 35 were from Bedford, VA. Of the 35 boys from Bedford, 19 were killed in the first fifteen minutes of fighting and two more died later that day. Of the entire group of 170 soldiers in the first wave, 91 were killed and 64 more were wounded.

President Bush was present in Beford on June 6, 2001 to dedicate the memorial. This is an excerpt from his speech on that day:

The achievement of Operation Overlord is nearly impossible to overstate, in its consequences for our own lives and the life of the world. Free societies in Europe can be traced to the first footprints on the first beach on June 6, 1944.

What was lost on D-day we can never measure and never forget. When the day was over, America and her Allies had lost at least 2,500 of the bravest men ever to wear a uniform. Many thousands more would die on the days that followed. They scaled towering cliffs, looking straight up into enemy fire. They dropped into grassy fields sown with landmines. They overran machine gun nests hidden everywhere, punched through walls of barbed wire, overtook bunkers of concreteand steel. The great journalist Ernie Pyle said, "It seemed to me a pure miracle
that we ever took the beach at all. The advantages were all theirs, the disadvantages all ours. And yet," said Pyle, "we got on."

A father and his son both fell during Operation Overlord. So did 33 pairs of brothers, including a boy having the same name as his hometown, Bedford T. Hoback, and his brother Raymond. Their sister Lucille, is with us today. She has recalled that Raymond was offered an early discharge for health reasons, but he turned it down. "He didn't want to leave his brother," she remembers. "He had come over with him, and he was going to stay with him." Both were killed on D-day. The only trace of
Raymond Hoback was his Bible, found in the sand. Their mother asked that Bedford be laid to rest in France with Raymond, so that her sons might always be together.

Perhaps some of you knew Gordon White, Sr. He died here just a few years ago, at the age of 95, the last living parent of a soldier who died on D-day. His boy Henry, loved his days on the family farm and was especially fond of a workhorse named Major. Family members recall how Gordon just couldn't let
go of Henry's old horse, and he never did. For 25 years after the war, Major was cherished by Gordon White as a last link to his son and a link to another life.

Upon this beautiful town fell the heaviest share of Americanlosses on D-day, 19 men from a community of 3,200, 4 more afterwards. When people come here, it is important to see the town as the monument itself. Here were the images these soldiers carried with them and the thought of when they were
afraid. This is the place they left behind, and here was the life they dreamed of returning to. They did not yearn to be heroes. They yearned for those long summer nights again and harvest time and paydays. They wanted to see Mom and Dad
again and hold their sweethearts or wives or, for one young man who lived here, to see that baby girl born while he was away.
Bedford has a special place in our history. But there were neighborhoods like these all over America, from the
smallest villages to the greatest cities. And somehow they all produced a generation of young men and women who, on a date certain, gathered and advanced as one and changed the course of history. Whatever it is about America that has given us such citizens, it is the greatest quality we have, and may it never
leave us.

To learn more about the Boys from Bedford you can read a book called The Bedford Boys: One American Town's Ultimate D-Day Sacrifice by Alex Kershaw