Category Archives: Books

Bonhoeffer Quotes

For my Friday’s Fave Five hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story this week I’m sharing 5 quotes from this biography on Bonhoeffer. I’m almost half way through it. It’s not a quick read book but one with so many things to consider along the way.

1. “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

2. “Bonhoeffer began to wonder whether he ought to pursue the life of a pastor rather than that of an academic. His father and brothers thought it would be a waste of his great intellect, but he often said that if one couldn’t communicate the most profound ideas about God and the Bible to children, something was amiss. There was more to life than academia.”

3. ” Only if we will venture to enter into the words of the Bible, as though in them this God were speaking to us who loves us and does not will to leave us alone with our questions, only so shall we learn to rejoice in the Bible…”

4. “The church has only one altar, the altar of the Almighty…before which all creatures must kneel. Whoever seeks something other than this must keep away, he cannot join us in the house of God…the church has only one pulpit, and from that pulpit, faith in God will be preached, and no other faith, and no other will than the will of God, however well-intentioned”

5. “A true leader must know the limitations of his authority.”

A bonus quote:

6. “If you board the wrong train, he said, it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction.”

These quotes of course are more powerful to read in context and considering the time period that Bonhoeffer lived in Germany. Bonhoeffer is eventually executed just weeks before the end of WWII.

Taken from the jacket of the book: “Bonhoeffer gives witness to one man’s extraordinary faith and to the tortured fate of the nation he sought to deliver from the curse of Naziism. It brings the reader face to face with a man determined to do the will of God radically, courageously, and joyfully – even to the point of death. Bonhoeffer is the story of a life framed by a passion for truth and a commitment to justice on behalf of those who face implacable evil.”

I highly recommend this book to all of you.

To a lighter subject…I’m looking forward to our weekend and spending time with Josh, Laura and Katie at the opening game of our Sounder’s soccer season and then next week Katie, Dear and I are traveling across the mountains for Katie to see her brother Dan’s new home. Good times together…

What’s happening in your part of the world? I’ll leave you with this photo I took today that promises me that Spring is on it’s way…

Susanne’s new button also says Spring is coming!

See What He Will Do…

 

About two years ago the Billy Graham Association was asking for email stories of how Billy Graham’s Evangelical Outreach had touched our lives. I sent in the story of my Pop’s conversion. Previously to this request, when our daughter was at Wheaton College in Illinois we were able to visit the Billy Graham Museum on campus. Emotions came to the surface when I saw the photos from the Los Angeles Crusade at the Coliseum in 1963. I knew my dad and I were somewhere in that photo of the stadium filled to overflowing.

 

I sent in my story hoping that Billy would hear and know that I thanked God for his devotion to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how it impacted my family.

 

What a thrill to get this book in the mail this past month, skimming through and seeing my story about Pop published.

 

 

I can hardly wait to show my Mom and Pop the book…

My parents are soon turning 86 and 85.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Katie on the Hobbit…

 

  • The Hobbit brings me back

A little girl, tucked into bed, Daddy reading confidently from a book with a soft green cover, always knowing what all the words meant and how to say them and how to shift his tone as he read for the dwarves, that mysterious wizard, and poor poor Mr. Baggins who was so imposed upon when they scratched his pretty green door, tramped into his house, and dragged him on an adventure. It was years before I would pick up “the sequel” Lord of the Rings that my Daddy said I needed to be older to read, in the three pretty red-bound volumes on that high shelf. I loved Tolkien’s world and I loved the bedtime ritual, stories from Daddy and songs from Mommy and all my stuffed animals tucked around me sleepy-eyed and relaxed as we dreamed of dragons and magic rings and floating down a river in barrels. Hmmm maybe I need to pick this one up again. 🙂

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Welcome September!

 

I finished the 6th book in the Anne of Green Gables Novels last night and wanted to share this quote for the beginning of September.

“Well, that was life. Gladness and pain…hope and fear…and change. Always change! You could not help it. You had to let go of the old go and take the new to your heart…learn to love it and then let it go in turn. Spring, lovely as it was, must yield to summer and summer lose itself to autumn. The birth…the bridal…the death…”

~Anne of Ingleside, L.M. Montgomery.

After typing this quote my mind went straight to the great truth in this hymn and the verses in Philippians that follow…

Great is Thy Faithfulness

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.

Refrain

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Refrain

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

Refrain

Philippians 3:12-16 (The Message)

“I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.

So let’s keep focused on that goal, those of us who want everything God has for us. If any of you have something else in mind, something less than total commitment, God will clear your blurred vision—you’ll see it yet! Now that we’re on the right track, let’s stay on it.”

Things change, God doesn’t

We press on without fear.

We’ll make it to the end.

What a wonderful future we have in Christ.


The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter

 

I’ve really been enjoying this series by mystery writer Susan Wittig Albert. Beatrix Potter has been a favorite of mine for years and escaping into the Lake District with Beatrix and talking animals and mystery is a joy for me. I’ve finished the first two books in the series. Right now there are two more books already published.

 

I found the first book in the series at the Friend’s of the Library for 50 cents. I checked out the second book from the library. I’m going to have to request or get on a waiting list for the next ones, The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood and The Tale of Hawthorn House. If you like English village life, a blend of fact and fiction, and mystery, not to mention great animal characters you’ll love this series…

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and they have blacked them all out. I’m slowly working at restoring my posts without their help. Such a tiresome bother!

Before Green Gables ~ Review

Before Green Gables

The Prequel to Anne of Green Gables

by Budge Wilson

I finished this wonderful book this week. If you are an Anne fan and have been skeptical of this book put your skepticism aside. You can enjoy Budge Wilson’s talent to bring Anne’s days before Green Gables alive, heartwarming, tear jerking, endearing Anne to us again. I love the other characters she weaves into the story during this time period in Anne’s life, too.

To see more Spring Reading Book Reviews click over to Callapidder Days.

A Book Meme

I was tagged by Mog to do a book meme.

The deal is that you pick a book you are reading and turn to page 123. Then copy out the 6th, 7th and 8th sentence down from the top.

 I’m reading Before Green Gables (the prequel to Anne of Green Gables) by Budge Wilson. Some Anne fans are wary of this book but let me just say that it has been a delight to read. I have 100 more pages to go before I’m done and I don’t want to put it down. Budge Wilson has done a fantastic job in capturing our Anne and weaving some very heart-warming relationships around Anne before we see her in Avonlea.

Here are the sentences from page 123;

“I’m going to the Egg Man,” Anne shouted back. And then, unnecessarily, “For eggs.” She held up a cloth bag – now sodden from the snow.

I so want to add the whole paragraph but I’m going to stick to the rules.

If anyone wants to play along, let me know..

ABC Wednesday ~ K is for

 K is for Katie

 

K is for our Katie. Katherine on her birth certificate.

 

Our Katie has an amazing amount of knowledge stored in her brain and I will show you some photos that might explain where some of that knowledge comes from.

 

At a very young age if Katie went missing this is where you would find her.

 

She was most drawn to books with words, not picture books. We had a few old school reading books and these are the ones she’d pull off the shelf and carefully go through.

 

As you can see she did not have a shortage of toys but she always seemed to go for the books.

 

We didn’t realize how well she could read until a trip to Meadowdale Beach Park with our friends the Spiro’s. Jody was walking hand in hand with Katie when they came to the tunnel under the railroad tracks that took you to the beach side of the park. As they approached this tunnel with this sign Katie said quite clearly to  my friend Jody, “Caution Low Head Clearance”

 

We realized then that we had a little 4 year old who definitely knew how to read. Who knows how much she was reading without us knowing before this experience.

Well this is all about Katie so for my last photo to throw in another “K” word, here’s Katie in a Kilt that I bought in Scotland in 1973! It fit me once too 🙂

For more ABC Wednesday take a trip across the pond to Mrs. Nesbitt’s.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and they have blacked them all out. I’m slowly working at restoring my posts without their help. Such a tiresome bother!

The Wind in the Willows ~ Grahame

road to Henly day11 142

I read this the first night in Washington from California and in a way it spoke to my situation in life right now…

From the Wind in the Willows ~ by Kenneth Grahame

“The weary Mole also was glad to turn in without delay, and soon had his head on his pillow, in great joy and contentment. But ere he closed his eyes he let them wander round his old room, mellow in the glow of the firelight that played or rested on familiar and friendly things which had long been unconsciously a part of him, and now smilingly received him back, without rancour. He was now in just the frame of mind that the tactful Rat had quietly worked to bring about in him. He saw clearly how plain and simple – how narrow, even – it all was; but clearly, too, how much it all meant to him, and the special value of some such anchorage in one’s existence. He did not at all want to abandon the new life and its splendid spaces, to turn back on sun and air and all they offered him and creep home and stay there; the upper world was all too strong, it called to him still, even down there, and he knew he must return to the larger stage. But it was good to think he had this to come back to, this place which was all his own, these things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome.”

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage. I’m working on updating my blog posts very slowly.

Litera Tea ~ Anne of Green Gables

I just recently read Anne of Green Gables for the first time. I had seen and enjoyed the movies. This is a great quote from the book during a conversation with Anne and Marilla as Anne anticipates going to tea at the manse (a clergyman’s residence).

“But all things have an end, even nights before the day on which you are invited to take tea at the manse. The morning, in spite of Matthew’s predictions, was fine and Anne’s spirits soared to their highest.

“Oh, Marilla, there is something in me today that makes me just love everybody I see, ” she exclaimed as she washed the breakfast dishes. “You don’t know how good I feel! Wouldn’t it be nice if it could last? I believe I could be a model child if I were just invited out to tea everyday. But oh, Marilla, it’s a solemn occasion, too. I feel so anxious. What if I shouldn’t behave properly? You know I never had tea at a manse before, and I’m not sure that I know all the rules of etiquette, although I’ve been studying the rules given in the Etiquette Department of the Family Herald ever since I came here. I’m so afraid I’ll do something silly or forget to do something I should do. Would it be good manners to take a second helping of anything if you wanted to very much?”

“The trouble with you, Anne, is that you’re thinking too much about yourself. You should just think of Mrs. Allan and what would be nicest and most agreeable for her.” said Marilla, hitting for once in her life on a very sound and pithy piece of advice. Anne instantly realized this.

“You are right, Marilla. I’ll try not to think about myself at all.”

Enjoy a little tea in my library in celebration of Litera-tea!
My first Litera post about Russian Tea is here.

For more Litera-Tea click over to Gracious Hospitality.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage. I’m working on updating my blog posts very slowly.