If I’m lucky, a sunny day, warmed with golden rays and cooled with gentle breezes will find me in the El Salvadorian hammock: its rainbow colors stretched between apple trees, the smell of baked grass and farm work well-done envelopes me while I hold onto him, with both hands. But I’m not just a fair weather friend. I’m as equally eager to curl up with him, wrapped in the softest blanket by a crackling fire while a thunderstorm rages outside the window, splattering snaking drops against the panes. Snow flurries drive us together, and I never drive anywhere without him.
Our times together are cut short by real life, but remembered always. He’s told me about nearly everything I know: history, science, knights, fashion, gardening, knife throwing, contentment, cake decorating, mathematics, color, penmanship, Hitler, beautiful women, truth, mystery, and the future. I’d say we’ve been going steady since I was…four. (And for the record, the list above is not everything I know. Thank you.)
He is an “it,” technically. Right, well, English grammar is persnickety and I am playing with it, and you.
Books have always been my closest friend and ally in my raging desire for knowledge and truth. Every book I read is run through a sieve of my foundational knowledge: God is eternally right and His Word is the basis for all truth. If something I read bounces off that wall of my mental Scriptural immersion, I refute it and continue. That is unless the author seems entirely twisted page after page – then I wish him the best and round file the selected literature, permanently. My friend, without a standard to swing from, you will be lost in knowledge.
I think I should start a fan club for my all time favorite book: “Authentic Beauty” by Leslie Ludy. Beauty done right from the inside out with God at the center is fascinating. I asked my brothers to read it so they know what to look for in a good woman. And I want to make you read it, even if it means using sundry items like garden tools on you to force you to read it. Our culture and world is so confused about this thing called “beauty” and how to get there, that we have become stuck in a fantastically ugly world. Read the sequel if you are intense like me, “Set Apart Femininity.” If you’re younger than me, read “The Lost Art of True Beauty” instead.
Let me count the ways I love you “The Count of Monte Cristo”! All I have to say is loud screaming and jumping around ecstatically. Actually, the words themselves and the way they piece together in the entire piece to form Edmond Dantes into a great, mysterious avenger is delicious. Alexander Dumas, the author, isn’t my role model by any means, but he writes a fantastic story.
I could be all smart and say I love Shakespeare. But, I do. I eat his poetry. I say it out loud. It makes me close my eyes and breathe deep. I use my collection of his masterpieces as a booster seat for little children. I don’t know what else to say about his wonders that leave me speechless. Finely crafted language that forces my mind to action, inevitably stirs me to another plane.
But the Complete Works of O. Henry makes me smile just to type the words….”O. Henry. O. Henry. O. Henry”…. Sadly and to my recurrent boredom, in the past when I have read a story or experience life, I just seem to know what’s going to happen next. O. Henry changed that for me. He does short stories right, whether they are set in The Big City or the Wild West, ever morphing and bending into astonishing endings that make me laugh—if I’m not crying.
“To Kill a Mockingbird;” “Five Aspects of Women;” “Les Miserables;” “Brokenness, Holiness, and Surrender;” “Little House on the Prairie;” “A Fine and Pleasant Misery;” “Food Rules;” “Large Family Logistics” and “His Chosen Bride” are my random list of loves. But, I cannot forget the mesmerizing “Peace Child,” “Lords of the Earth,” or “Eternity in Their Hearts.”
Please don’t leave me alone without Oswald Chambers, my Bible, or “Streams in the Desert.” Those are everyday books. They don’t run dry. They sink me deep in thought. They break my heart. They put me on top of the world. They scare me to death. They make me sing. And I’ll read them again tomorrow.
Oh no! I’m afraid I will be blogging for the next few days on this one post if I actually list every book I adore…
C.S. Lewis is a FAVORITE. World history FASCINATES. Life sciences and recent statistics are absolutely MINE. Pass me a book on current events. And then hand over the one on “Textiles of Europe throughout Time.” Oh, let me see that one on “trust” and that allegory. You say it’s only 500 pages? That’s terribly sad. I will have eaten that before bedtime and be most ravenous again.
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