"Shall we not take the adventure that Aslan hands us?" (one of the Narnia books)

Which is kind of an unnatural (for me) way of viewing life. I so envy those people who can embrace each new day with courage and confidence, who can glory in hardship because to them it is just another "adventure", just another opportunity to explore God's grace. I don't know, are there those people? Maybe hardship creates those people?

Isn't it funny how when you go out of state for just a few days the time speeds by, but you feel like you've been gone forEVER (and your homework testifies to this...)

"The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God." (1 John...something?)

Cinnamon toast is a wonderful thing. So is autumn. And isn't Cinderella a great story?

Deep Poem

I started learning Greek today!
The Greek alphabet is really neat. I'd show you but...I can't. This is not a Greek keyboard.

Here's a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins from this poetry anthology I was reading when I felt stressed out today. (Poetry is a good tonic for stress. At least good poetry is. Bad poetry is extremely stressful.)

God's Grandeur

"The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And through the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs-
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings."

I just love the sounds in that. Especially "...have trod, have trod, have trod."
I'm not so good at analyzing poetry, but I think it's about how used up the world is, except that it isn't, underneath it is tingling with the glory of God. Everything new every morning. Including us, including our hearts?

Books

Yesterday I accumulated new books, which is always extremely satisfying. It makes me feel sort of warm for days. :-) I went to a library book sale, and the best part of that, besides cheapness, was that all the children's books were unalphebetized in boxes on a tarp on the ground, so you had to crawl around on the tarp and dig through the boxes to find your books. It definitely added to the experience. Very rewarding. Anyway, I also went to Borders and I found a really wonderful book called "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane" by Kate DiCamillo. It's about a self-absorbed china rabbit who is separated from his little girl and goes through a series of very different owners. Here are just a few quotes from it:

"It was a singular sensation to be held so gently and yet so fiercely to be stared down at with so much love..."
It made me wonder, is that how God...?

"I have learned how to love. And it's a terrible thing. I'm broken. My heart is broken. Help me."
Do we ever think about love this way?

"You must be filled with expectancy. You must be awash in hope. You must wonder who will love you, whom you will love next."
Is this how we should live?

(the beginning quote) "The heart breaks and breaks/and lives by breaking./It is necessary to go/through dark and deeper dark/and not to turn."--Stanley Kunitz
Sobering.

The thing is, there are these bubble trees in Perelandra. Everyone should read Perelandra, and not just to find out what bubble trees are.