Tag Archives: reading

Joanna and the sleeping bees.

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It felt very coastal this morning with high fog and chill breeze. Along the front walk where I have allowed a volunteer sunflower to grow in the middle of the germander, one flower was close enough for me to notice the cluster of bees.

How did they happen to all bed down for the night on that one flower? Were they even alive? A half-hour later on my way to the car to drive to church I stopped by again; one or two had left, and the others had shifted position, but were quite motionless. About noon, not one remained. [Update: the next morning they were back, and after watching them off and on for an hour, I think they are not bees, but hoverflies. I’ve mistaken them for bees before.] [UPDATE No. 2: I was right the first time. They are bees. They fold their wings over each other, but flies leave theirs splayed out. I think I’ve learned this more than once, on a site such as Beekeeping Like a Girl. And other differences…]

Today was the day we celebrated St. Joanna, and it was also the meeting of our parish women’s book group — in my garden! The weather was as perfect as could be for that. Our group of six included several gardeners who didn’t sit down until we’d discussed borage and the borage flowers hanging into the pathway. The bees draw your attention to them! I quickly dug up a few of the many little borage volunteers for a couple of women to take home later.

It just so happened I had made two trays of borage ice cubes and it was time for me to add them to the lemonade so we could start talking about Frankenstein.

The table where we sat is near my garden icon stand with the stone icon of Christ’s mother; for the day’s commemoration I nestled a TV tray under the olive tree to hold a few more icons. You can read here why I included St. John the Baptist among them.

Early in our talk about Frankenstein I showed the group this adaptation of the novel that had been given to me, and it got passed around the table so that everyone could take a look at the illustrations.

We had a lively discussion about elements of the story, and also concerning ethical questions about the uses of science that are still pertinent in our day. I read only a few lines to the group from this article in the current issue of The New Atlantis about recent questionable experiments.

Various of the readers in our group knew more than I about the historical and philosophical context in which Frankenstein was written, which made it a pleasure to be with them and muse about much more than what had impressed me personally. I think we all were glad to have read the book, especially those who before had only known the movies, but no one exactly loved it.

It didn’t have a satisfying ending, in that, as our moderator said, she had hoped for redemption and there was none. We all agreed it was too long and repetitive. Several women said they definitely wanted to read something “lighter” next time. What constitutes a light novel? Here are the (not necessarily light) possibilities we had brought with us. As we went around the table making our suggestions, it seemed to me that the enthusiasm mounted with each one.

  1. A Long Walk with Mary by Brandi Schreiber
  2. My Cousin Rachel by Daphne De Maurier
  3. The Giver by Lois Lowry
  4. Shades of Milk and Honey
  5. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
  6. The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge

My Cousin Rachel and The Giver were deemed too heavy. Milk and Honey didn’t engender any discussion, and I was personally torn between Potato Peel Society and Scent. Several had already read Potato Peel so they were leaning toward Scent; I was the only one who had read it, and I told them what I loved about Goudge’s books generally. A Long Walk with Mary seemed like a good one to read during our Orthodox Dormition Fast.

So, we voted in a very informal way, and decided that in six weeks we will meet again and discuss two books: The Scent of Water and A Long Walk with Mary.

Before everyone went home, we toured the other side of my garden, and I told them about acanthus and why I used to not like it, but now I do. The acanthus is more beautiful than ever, its spires taller, and in their prime right now. My 24 lavender bushes are at the height of bloom, too. We got to hear from our sheep farmer lady how she made lavender simple syrup to use in cool summer drinks.

How sweet it was to have these friends to be with me for my name day. After they were gone, there was still lemonade left in the pitcher, and floating among the melting ice cubes, the lemon-bleached borage blossoms.

Abibliophobia – is it a problem or not?

books,

I think of Deb at Readerbuzz as omnilegent,  someone who has read everything. There’s no denying, in any case, that she reads a lot of books. She is a librarian who often comes up with much more than book reviews on her blog, like this recent post about words for book lovers. One of the words is abibliophobia, the fear of running out of reading material. At first I thought, Ha! I don’t have that, although I am a little sad (not fearful) that I’m running out of time to become omnilegent. But maybe abibliophobia is exactly what I am demonstrating when I obsess about which and how many books to take on a short trip, when I will probably not have time to read a chapter of anything.

If I had a vade mecum, it would take care of a good deal of book angst. Well, perhaps I do, if you count the pocket-sized one I sometimes carry in my purse. You might like to go read Deb’s list, with definitions, for yourself. But for me, it’s time to move on to other less mind-y work. Please tell me if you have, or ever did have, a vade mecum. My friend Di told me recently that when she was in high school, hers was Sartre’s Being and Consciousness. I had planned to use that bit of trivia in a future post but in case I don’t get there…

Enjoy your reading and your whole life.

Lists, letters, and taking leave.

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During a 20-minute phone call with a friend last week, I mentioned all of the books pictured above, only one of which I have read, long ago. After he asked me about a couple of them, “Did you finish ____ ?” I blurted, “I don’t read books, I only buy them!”

It’s partly true; three of the books pictured I am in the middle of reading. I think I will take The Cross of Loneliness with me on my travels this week, because it is little and is likely to be encouraging to my spirit, without demanding too much of my analytical abilities. It sets down the correspondence of Saint Sophrony and Archpriest George Florovsky from 1954 to 1963. These illustrations from the book of their kind faces make me eager to peek in on their friendship.

I’ll be flying to Colorado to visit my son Soldier’s family, and from there to Idaho to see friends Jacob and Rosemary, before heading back to California. Both of these families are in new towns since I last visited them! The excitement of navigating airports, riding in airplanes, being in strange places and beds; playing with grandchildren and chatting  with everyone will keep my mind plenty busy. It’s already buzzing with the challenges of getting myself ready for the big day, and incrementally taking leave, in my heart, of my home, and my garden with all the plants I have been nursing along; like the first golden zucchinis that will ripen while I am far away. I will say farewell to my stack of To-Read books, which if it actually were just one stack would be higher than my house.

But I know that I will like to read on the plane, and read in my room before going to sleep at night, so I must choose what to take along. This book that I discovered in my Kindle, Make a List, looks appealing for a few summery reasons.

(List of) Reasons why it’s a good book for this summer:

1 – Only a couple hundred pages.

2 – Not demanding content:

2a – No long list of fictional characters to keep straight.

2b – No complex-thinking philosophers to follow.

3 – It will help me keep engaged with my philosophical self and my life back home by simply jotting down a list here and there.

4 – It will prompt me to keep writing without my always having to make quality whole sentences, which are a lot of work. I might even compose travelogues entirely of short lists!

It occurs to me that my attempt at Bullet Journaling was kind of list-y. Unfortunately I always felt the need to elaborate and my bullet points swelled into paragraphs. It will be necessary to keep these lists in a different category from journaling altogether. I haven’t written one thing in my journal for a month or two, which feels scary. Maybe I’ve already made the break?

My college roommate Ann has been an inspiring list-maker all her life. She makes lists of the lists she needs to make. You might say that is the idea that Marilyn Chandler McEntyre has elaborated on; you can hear her talking for three minutes on the subject here.

Now I need to get back to the lists I have recently been working from, like:

1 – To-Do Before I Depart, and
2 – Carry With Me On the Plane.

Once I add “Kindle Reader” and “Notebook for Writing Lists” to that second list, I’ll be good to go! …. or will I…? One more very important list must be completed, before I shut the door on my tottering stacks:

Books I Really Want to Read Soon But Must Sadly Leave at Home.

But I’ll come back, Dear Friends!

A monk learns a lesson.

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A story I found in my files:

The Importance of Reading
the Gospels Every Day
A Monk’s Story

During my initial monastic service at the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow, there was a period when I stopped reading the Gospel. At that time I had a lot of work, and there was not enough time to concentrate, open the Holy Scriptures, plunge into the meaning of words. I did not attach much importance to this, but simply continued to perform obediences, working from four in the morning until late at night. There were no external changes, but I gradually began to notice that I was more and more burdened by a feeling of strong spiritual and bodily fatigue, which I could not “throw off” neither with sleep, nor food, nor rest. I fell asleep and woke up, went to services, worked, but the feeling that someone seemed to be digging into my neck and sucking all the strength out of me did not leave. I walk – my legs buckle, I sit behind the wheel – my hands are shaking. Body and soul were exhausted every day, and I still could not understand the reason.

Once, in this state, I came to the office of the abbot, father Agaphodor, to discuss some labor issues. He, as an insightful person, as soon as I started a conversation, asks me: “What is happening to you?” In an almost exhausted voice, I quietly answer: “I don’t know … Something is wrong with me, it’s hard.” He fixed his gaze on me, as if in a couple of seconds he could see my soul and find the source of the disease, and suddenly asked the question: “Have you been reading the Gospel?” I began to think: indeed, I had stopped reading the Gospel. How could this have happened? How long have I been living without the main spiritual food? I began to remember and with horror discovered that I did not remember the last time I took the Bible in my hands.

With the strongest inner excitement, I ran to my cell, grabbed the Gospel and began to read. I opened it and, like a man dying of thirst, I read and read, read and read… An amazing impression: the more I read, the more acutely I felt that I was getting better. The teeth, which dug into my neck and sucked my strength, gradually unclenched, I breathed more freely. With each new chapter (and I read about ten at once) it became easier and easier. I turned page after page until I realized that I was completely free of the disease. The feeling of depression is gone. The enslavement that I was in all that time was a great lesson for me, which does not need to be repeated twice. Since then, I read 365 chapters a year – that is, I read one chapter every morning.

Man consists of two parts – soul and body. We saturate our flesh, but the soul remains hungry. The main food for the soul is the Gospel. We do not forget to charge our cell phone in the evening, but we forget about the soul. When we read the Gospel, we receive grace. In the morning we read the chapter – grace for the whole day. And the day will go in a completely different way – with grace. We will also reflect on what we have read, and some of this will come true, although the Gospel is not a fortune-telling book. This is the book of life that every Christian should live by.

We sometimes do not even think about what great power is hidden in this book. If we ever saw how the devil shies away, like from fire, when we take the Gospel in our hands, we would hug it and never let it go. For my confessor, Father Kirill (Pavlov), the Gospel has always been in the first place: he found it in the ruins of Stalingrad during the Great Patriotic War and went through the whole war with it. So I too, but much later, had to visit my battlefield to understand: without the Gospel you cannot win.