Let’s start off the Reading Roundup with a little Ogden Nash:

Laments for a Dying Language – III
In the nice-minded Department of Prunes and Prisms,
It’s I for you
And euphemisms.
Hence the phrase I would eagerly jettison:
“Senior citizen.”
Shall we retranslate
Joel 2:28?
To the sociologist squeamish
The words “Your old men shall dream dreams” are less than beamish,
So “Your senior citizens shall dream dreams” it shall henceforth be,
Along with Hemingway’s “The Senior Citizen and the Sea.”
I, though no Joel, prophesy that someday while the senior citizens
are projecting the image of an age-adjusted social group,
The old men will rise up and knock them for a loop.

Hear, hear! I still remember when the good old word “secretary” had to become “administrative assistant,” like some sort of linguistic upgrade was required. I note that this poem is the third of its kind, so I’ll have to find the first two.

And staying with the poets for just a moment longer, here’s another Emily Dickinson gem:

“The Day came slow – till Five o’clock-
Then sprang before the Hills
Like Hindered Rubies – or the Light
A Sudden Musket – spills –

I love the way she sees sunrises and sunsets – in this case as if a musket full of light, like red rubies, shot forth over the horizon at dawn.

Have you ever read anything by Louis L’Amour? I just read the book Sackett, narrated by William Tell Sackett, and found much to amuse, admire, and even occasionally inspire:

“You have been led upon evil ways,” I explained, “and the way of the transgressor is hard. Seems to me the thing led you down the wrong road is that mustache.”

But the fact of the matter is, no man can shape his life according to woman’s thinking. Nor should any woman try to influence a man toward her way. There must be give and take between them, but when a man faces a man’s problems he has to face them a man’s way.

Nobody ever said much about me being good-looking—except Ma—and even Ma, with the best intentions in the world, looked kind of doubtful when she said it.

No man has the right to be ignorant. In a country like this, ignorance is a crime. If a man is going to vote, if he’s going to take part in his country and its government, then it’s up to him to understand.

More from L’Amour in the future – I didn’t want to overdo it on the first go. Apparently he has a whole series on the Sackett family – now I want to read them ALL.

And lastly, I found this next paragraph from the introduction of Douglas Wilson‘s commentary on the book of Hebrews, Christ and His Rivals, to hit the spot for me:

The biblical faith, lived as it should be lived, will always generate resistance and conflict. This should not be a surprise; it should not come as a shock. The charge we are given in this context is the charge to be strong and courageous. This means that we are in the midst of circumstances where it would be easy not to be courageous, and not to be strong. What is God’s role in this? He does the “not leaving.” He does the “not forsaking.” What do we do? We believe him when he says this, and the natural response to this faith is courage. …no matter how grim it may look, God will never forsake us.”

Amen and amen!

A wintry scene done on the Paper App by my daughter, Ruth, many moons ago. Around 72 moons ago, give or take a few moons.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning, but not until the dawn has shot forth her hindered rubies of light o’er the hills.

Things I’m thinking about today:

1. Excited about the slew of books I just requested from the library. I have bookish friends who send me recommendations. If you’d like to be one of these bookish friends, let me know and I’ll send you an application for the position. It doesn’t pay anything and it wouldn’t mean anything on your resume. Oh, and I might not always like the books you recommend (or vice versa).

2. I ate too much lasagne for supper.

3. Saddened to think about relationships being “canceled” for differences in politics.

4. If I practice the piano piece “Pavane” by Ravel every day for fifteen minutes will it ever sound like it’s supposed to?

5. My husband and I are reading through the Psalms together again using the schedule found in the Common Book of Prayer. It gets you through the entire book of Psalms (150 of them) in 30 days with two readings a day. It sounds like a lot but it only takes 5 minutes or so each time. And right now, my husband is sitting in a chair in our living room with The Book of Common Prayer in his hand, waiting patiently for me to finish this so we can do our evening Psalm reading.

So that’s the Monday Musings for today. Very stream of consciousness.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning (never have I been so close to serious about that warning).

I love “Dear Diary” writings, or books that are written as letters (known as epistolary novels). These entries are sort of random, – not necessarily fiction, as much as they are a light-hearted and zany. If I ever were to write a story, I’d be very drawn to this type of story-telling. What about you? One of my favorites of this genre is “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society” by Mary Ann Shaffer (although I did not like her portrayal of Christians and her observations about God). I also enjoyed “Dear Mr. Knightly” by Katherine Reay. Please let me know if you’ve got a book like that to recommend to me. Anyway, I might follow through on this as a short-story fiction device. But not today.

This has sort of been Fiction Friday by Me.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning…

There’s something oddly appealing about this photograph. It should have gone to the trash icon and died a silent death, but I just couldn’t delete it.

Chiaroscuro
Black leaves, sharp edges,
Startling against the blue.
Dark defined by light.

Let’s finally admit this: I’ll probably never delete anything – in the morning or any other time.

I can take no credit for that image, other than the fact that I took the photo. Here’s how the original photo looked before I did some computer magic with it:

It looks good as a silhouette (although I now see that another pesky dust particle has crept into my camera). I wanted to know what kind of bird it was, so I brought it over to a photo editing app called PS Express to bring out some of the detail. Then I noticed that you can augment or enhance the background of the photo and, ooh! Look! Watercolor background! Is it still art if all you did was make some editing choices? You may weigh in on that deep philosophical question if you’d like. It feels like cheating to me.

Art Implied or Applied?
The bird, he was anonymous,
A mysterious black silhouette
“Twas an app that made his image clear:
A sparrow in a pirouette.

But that’s not all that this app did;
It wasn’t done interfering.
A pastel sky it drew out of its hat,
And flung it into the clearing.

There was no artist with a brush,
No palette of purples and golds…
Just a soulless app in the hands of a hack
But oh, what wonders it holds!

This has been Watercolor Wednesday…or has it? I’m having an existential crisis! Or am I?

I’ll probably delete this in the morning…or will I? Is anything really deleted?

What would you do if someone called you a “trull?” Or a “quean?” Worse yet, a “mandrake root?”

I’ve been reading Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. The story is narrated by Orual, the king’s oldest daughter. She tells of a time when he exploded with anger at her thusly:

“You!” He shouted. “You! You to raise your voice among the counsels of men? You trull, you quean, you mandrake root!”

Well, of all the nerve! If you’re like me and have no idea what any of those things mean, here’s the breakdown:

Trull: a prostitute
Quean: an impudent or ill-behaved girl or woman
Mandrake root: supposedly resembles the human form, allegedly shrieks when pulled from the ground.

Nice guy. Definitely not getting the “Father of the Year” award.

I wouldn’t recommend adopting those terms to use when you’re angry at someone, but it’s a useful tidbit to tuck away just in case those words get volleyed at you.

And here’s what Anthony Esolen wrote in the book Out of the Ashes, championing the role of the mother:

“Even the phrase ‘stay-at-home mom’ is patronizing and faintly derogatory, like ‘stick-in-the-mud mom’ or ‘sit-in-the-corner mom.’ Do we talk about a ‘chained-to-the-desk mom’ or a ‘stuck-in-traffic mom’ or a ‘languishing-in-meetings mom’? To do fifty things in one day for which you alone are responsible, for the immediate good of the people you love, is deemed easy, trivial, beneath the dignity of a rational person…

Chesterton put it well when he said that the work of a mother is not small, but vast. A teacher would bring to fifty children the arithmetical rule of three, and though that is an interesting thing, it is but small and limited. The mother brings to one child the whole universe. That is no sentimentality. It is exactly true.”

I love that: “The mother brings to one child the universe.”

Yes!

May the wind chimes in your life melt all the coldness in your bones.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning since it contains words like “trull” and “quean.”

I completed an important quest for Leonardo DaVinci today – just thought you all should know. I hadn’t known I was on a quest, but life brings the occasional delightful surprise. I’m not sure whether to be excited or embarrassed that it took me nearly 17 hours to finish this game – er, to complete this quest.

The first game of this nature that I played on my iPad a few years ago was called “The Room.” Each room in the game contains an ornate box or container and you have to solve puzzles of various kinds in order to unlock all the secrets of the box and then go on to the next level. Theres’ a story that goes with it, but it’s almost irrelevant to me. It’s all about the puzzles. I absolutely LOVED this game and could hardly wait for each sequel to come out and was never disappointed – each one surpassed the previous one in terms of complexity and design, as well as in the creative nature of the puzzles. Alas, after The Room 4 (“Old Sins”), the game designers decided to make The Room 5 only accessible to Virtual Reality platforms. Boo.

I decided to look for other games like The Room and came across “House of DaVinci.” Reading the reviews I came across someone who had given it a low rating, saying it was just a rip-off of The Room games. Just what I was looking for – sign me up!

Both of these games seem to be able to detect when you’re having trouble solving a puzzle and the “hint icon” begins waving its little arms (metaphorically), practically begging you to take a hint or two, but I’m loathe to do it, as it feels like cheating. And it’s so rewarding when you persevere and finally figure it out.

Having completed the quest of House of DaVinci 2 (although my character was in mortal peril at the end – cliff hanger!), I was instructed to invite my friends to play. And now I have.

This has been Monday Musings with Lynniebee. I’m pretty sure I lost 90% of my readership in the first paragraph, but I’m holding out hope that 10% of you got to the end and really want to try the game. Just do it!

I’ll probably go on another quest in the morning if I can find one. If not, I’ll delete this post.

Rats, Kelly thought to herself. She hadn’t wanted to come to this party, but had felt maneuvered into it. Well, not so much maneuvered as having fallen prey once again to her reluctance to say no when people at work included her in any sort of social gathering. And now she had gotten sucked into the orbit of a particularly high-brow group conversation. They were blathering on about something esoteric having to do with the intersection of art and literature.

Well, she’d played this game before. The trick was to nod your head thoughtfully and keep a pensive look on your face. She drew the line at laughing uproariously when everyone else did, however – this was a minefield she’d stepped onto before and regretted it when she laughed louder and longer than the others, causing them to lift the dreaded Eyebrow of Disdain. After that, she’d developed a new technique which consisted of allowing a mysterious smile to play on her lips – sort of the Mona Lisa approach. She was a devotee of the Advice to Hapless Party-Goers which came directly from the Good Book: “Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is considered wise. When he closes his lip, he is considered prudent.” This was easy enough since she was essentially an invisible part of the group, anyway – most of them probably didn’t even know her name.

She was in the middle of one of these mysterious smiles (which she’d perfected by practicing in front of a mirror), when the question came like a thunderbolt.

“What do you think, Kelly?”

She didn’t see who’d asked the question. Although startled, Kelly prided herself on her poker face. She hadn’t really been listening, but they didn’t need to know that. A bold note went zipping through her brain, accompanied by a little trill of mischief. She grabbed at the most random thing she could think of and threw it right out there. “I find it’s always helpful to reflect back on what Bennet said in one of his lesser known works – so simple and yet so profound.” She paused for effect, and said it, the words that had come to her in a dream fragment recently: “Encourage chickadees.” Uh oh…so much for staying silent and being considered wise.

Silence. Someone gave an uncomfortable half-chuckle as the group pondered this bit of fluff. Kelly worried she’d gone too far, but right on schedule, Brett, who never liked being caught with his academic pants down, nodded sagely and said, “Yes, I’ve always admired Bennet’s avant-garde views. His insights always take one by surprise – he makes you work for it, doesn’t he?”

At this the whole group, grateful for the cue, nodded thoughtfully and looked pensive. The conversation ebbed and flowed as they all tried to outdo one another with comments about Bennet and his seminal work. Kelly’s mysterious smile threatened to turn into an unflattering snigger, but she managed to stifle it. She’d been reading Pride and Prejudice again and “Bennet” was the first name to come to mind. It looked like she was off the hook, so she prepared to break out of the orbit of this conversational planet and head over to the snack table.

“That phrase – ‘encourage chickadees…’ – What do you think it means, Kelly?”

Rats again. She’d noticed that one of the guys in the group had been eyeing her with a mysterious, knowing smile of his own. It appeared that at least one person in the group suspected her intelligentsia credentials and meant to expose her. In fact, she’d bet he was the one who asked the first question. Nothing doing, buster, she thought to herself. All eyes were on her.

“The elegance of Bennet’s wisdom, of course, is that he means to let you come to your own conclusions, Alex.” More nodding from the group, but Alex merely stared and called her bluff. Very well. The gauntlet had been laid and she would pick it up. Time to nip this in the bud with a strong finish.

“But I think what Bennet clearly meant is that we need to return to an appreciation of the natural world around us for our inspiration. What could the chickadees represent, but the many delightful thoughts that arise when we leave our inner sanctums and take in the fresh air of this glorious and beautiful world in which we live? Do we want our souls to flourish? Encourage those thoughts, those chickadees! That’s what he meant, and I, for one, will always live by that rule.”

The group nearly applauded this burst of eloquence. Alex’s stare became a grin of admiration. She’d won the game.

Kelly walked over to the snack table. Alex followed.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

This has been Fiction Friday brought to you by Lynniebeemuseoday.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning, while wondering how much mileage I can get out of the phrase “encourage chickadees.”

I am trying to figure out why I’m so enamored with that photo. I think it’s the juxtaposition of the bright crystals against the dark background. It looks like a crystalline wave about to break over a dark blue sea.

The snowdrift began to rumble,
Each crystal tried to break free
With a mad desire to tumble
Down into the deep blue sea.

Short and sweet today! Well, at least short.

I’ll probably delete this in the crystalline morning.

Erasmus wrote a book called On Free Will. I’m currently tackling Martin Luther’s response to that book, called The Bondage of the Will. It’s definitely not light reading, but got off to a sizzling start with Luther’s scathing comments to Erasmus about his book:

“…your book is, in my estimation, so mean and vile that I greatly feel for you having defiled your most beautiful and ingenious language with such vile trash, and I feel an indignation against the the matter also, that such unworthy stuff should be borne about in ornaments of eloquence so rare, which is as if rubbish or dung should be carried in vessels of gold and silver.”

Luther was a little ball of fire, that’s for sure. It’s strong stuff, but almost lyrical compared to the kind of things people express on social media when a disagreement arises.

Elisabeth Elliot, Keep a Quiet Heart, p. 135

“Restlessness and impatience change nothing except our peace and joy. Peace does not dwell in outward things, but in the heart prepared to wait trustfully and quietly on Him who has all things safely in His hands.”

I am often impatient and assume I’m not the only one. Maybe you needed to read this today, too.

And here’s a little whimsical look at germs by the humorous poet, Ogden Nash:

The Germ
A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than the pachyderm.
His customary sleeping place
Is deep within the human race.
His childish pride he often pleases
By giving people strange diseases.
Do you, my poppet, feel infirm?
You probably contain a germ.

“Strange diseases,” feels just a little bit too relevant right now!

I hope you are able to wrap yourselves in warm light on these cold days as you cozy up with a good book.

I’ll probably delete this when someone tells me how mean and vile it is.