"Wherever you are, be all there."
- Jim Elliot
Showing posts with label Book quotes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book quotes. Show all posts
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Some homework...or Heather-work
So a good friend and I snuck out and had a great evening recently discussing life, kids and breakfast, schedules, books, music, Africa, and a multitude of other deep-to-shallow topics that only 2 mothers of 9 children could squeeze into 4 hours. A phrase that rose to the surface throughout the evening: "living well". She and I are going to continue the discussion - what does it mean to live well? As a Christian? As a mother and wife? As me?
I thought I might start to flesh some of that out here...feel free to add on, weigh in, disagree, etc. Brainstorming is on the agenda first, as all good students know, and since there is not much in my brain, I'll stimulate my thinking by seeing what others have to say.*
"There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living, and the other how to live." - John Adams
"If you can't make it better, you can laugh at it." - Erma Bombeck
"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Come now, you who say, today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit. Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.'" - James 4: 13-15
*Fine print disclaimer: just words that make me think...not necessarily an endorsement of the sentiment.
I thought I might start to flesh some of that out here...feel free to add on, weigh in, disagree, etc. Brainstorming is on the agenda first, as all good students know, and since there is not much in my brain, I'll stimulate my thinking by seeing what others have to say.*
"There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living, and the other how to live." - John Adams
"If you can't make it better, you can laugh at it." - Erma Bombeck
"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Come now, you who say, today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit. Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.'" - James 4: 13-15
*Fine print disclaimer: just words that make me think...not necessarily an endorsement of the sentiment.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Books, books, we got books
"A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest."
— C.S. Lewis
I feel a bit shortchanged from my childhood (in relative terms, mom!). There I was, reading for hours/days/weeks/years on end, with nary a book list in sight. Other than a deep, long-lasting and well-deserved love affair with all Laura Ingalls Wilder books, I basically grabbed whatever I could get my hands on. Most of it, I will say, was book-candy.
Reading is highly esteemed and elevated in this clique we call homeschooling, and book lists abound. However, after forcing myself through many "read-alouds" from some of these lists, I can see that the "it's a classic!" argument sometimes gets too high of priority. Sure, some books simply stand the test of time. But I also suspect that some have made it onto these lists because they have moved up after less "morally acceptable" classics got knocked off. I'm in the "learning the list-makers" phase.
Things I have learned:
1) Shorter is usually better at our phase. Honestly, some of these books must have been short stories that unnecessarily got stretched out.
2) We are NOT the Wisdom and Millers family. All books that detail the idyllic farm life where Johnny pleasantly brings in the milk each morning for his sisters to use the cream to make butter will be scrapped from our lists.
3) Yes, I have to force them a little bit to get them into deeper books and harder reading. But, I'd better be SURE that book is worth their time and effort or my reading suggestions will lose clout quickly.
4) If I can read us all one great, laugh-out-loud-and-cry-too book each year, we have done well.
5) Little House books still rule.
— C.S. Lewis
I feel a bit shortchanged from my childhood (in relative terms, mom!). There I was, reading for hours/days/weeks/years on end, with nary a book list in sight. Other than a deep, long-lasting and well-deserved love affair with all Laura Ingalls Wilder books, I basically grabbed whatever I could get my hands on. Most of it, I will say, was book-candy.
Reading is highly esteemed and elevated in this clique we call homeschooling, and book lists abound. However, after forcing myself through many "read-alouds" from some of these lists, I can see that the "it's a classic!" argument sometimes gets too high of priority. Sure, some books simply stand the test of time. But I also suspect that some have made it onto these lists because they have moved up after less "morally acceptable" classics got knocked off. I'm in the "learning the list-makers" phase.
Things I have learned:
1) Shorter is usually better at our phase. Honestly, some of these books must have been short stories that unnecessarily got stretched out.
2) We are NOT the Wisdom and Millers family. All books that detail the idyllic farm life where Johnny pleasantly brings in the milk each morning for his sisters to use the cream to make butter will be scrapped from our lists.
3) Yes, I have to force them a little bit to get them into deeper books and harder reading. But, I'd better be SURE that book is worth their time and effort or my reading suggestions will lose clout quickly.
4) If I can read us all one great, laugh-out-loud-and-cry-too book each year, we have done well.
5) Little House books still rule.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Troubles...what troubles?
"Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty." -- Socrates
"Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife." -- Proverbs 17:1
"But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that." -- I Titus 6:6-8
"Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife." -- Proverbs 17:1
"But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that." -- I Titus 6:6-8
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Quote of the week...month...
"I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of God to make me love a foreigner or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please."
Wilbur Rees
Wilbur Rees
Monday, April 27, 2009
A truth on many levels
"How dangerous it is for our salvation, how unworthy of God and of ourselves, how pernicious even for the peace of our hearts, to want always to stay where we are!"
-- Francois Fenelon
-- Francois Fenelon
Monday, February 16, 2009
Ahem.
Kierkegaard, Provocations:
"The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obligated to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh priceless scholarship, what would we do without you?"
"The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obligated to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh priceless scholarship, what would we do without you?"
Friday, January 30, 2009
Mommy-brain memory system
That's a technical title for "I'm putting this on my blog because I'm forgetting everything I try to remember".
As some of you may know, I'm always reading something(s). I have things I want to remember, or use again, or share. So I'm going to put some of these book/reading quotes on here from time to time in hopes that pulling up this category can be akin to opening my file cabinet. I use my real-life file cabinet. I will not, however, get a bigger file cabinet and physically store these quotes on some paper because I am a purger. Being a purger is a good thing -- in my opinion only, I'm sure -- but it doesn't mesh well with mommy-brain.
Anyway.
I think my m.o. will be: quote, author, source. I may or may not add commentary -- usually not.
"The disciple is one who, intent upon becoming Christlike and so dwelling in his 'faith and practice,' systematically and progressively rearranges his affairs to that end." -- Dallas Willard
Devotional Classics (R. Foster and J. Smith)
As some of you may know, I'm always reading something(s). I have things I want to remember, or use again, or share. So I'm going to put some of these book/reading quotes on here from time to time in hopes that pulling up this category can be akin to opening my file cabinet. I use my real-life file cabinet. I will not, however, get a bigger file cabinet and physically store these quotes on some paper because I am a purger. Being a purger is a good thing -- in my opinion only, I'm sure -- but it doesn't mesh well with mommy-brain.
Anyway.
I think my m.o. will be: quote, author, source. I may or may not add commentary -- usually not.
"The disciple is one who, intent upon becoming Christlike and so dwelling in his 'faith and practice,' systematically and progressively rearranges his affairs to that end." -- Dallas Willard
Devotional Classics (R. Foster and J. Smith)
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