Bibliophiles

I'm so proud to come from a family of biblioholics. We are quite literally addicted to the written word. I think of the one ring...how Bilbo said, "I'd just like to hold it..." Yeah, that's my family and books.

For example, my sister got a book called "The Life of the Mind" for my dad for Father's Day. I picked it up and started reading the back and a certain giddiness overcame me. There's a very pure pleasure in simply holding a book that is obviously a vessel of wisdom and knowledge. And it's not just me, either. Same aforementioned sister received a philosophy book after graduation from one of her profs and she showed it to Dad. He said, "Can I see it for a minute?" Sally replied, "No, I'll never get it back!!" So Dad asked, "Well...can I at least hold it?"

Ria and I were sitting on the screen porch (I was engrossed in Fear and Trembling) and she interrupted to ask, "Do you have a huge list of books to read this summer?" To which I excitedly and enthusiastically rattled off my (growing) list of Readables for the next three months. She smiled at me and said, "I thought so."

I love my family.

Updated Reading List

adding (upon recommendation by Christian Leman)

11. Lilith
12. Orthodoxy

Summer Reading Ideas

I won't say "Summer Reading Plans" because, well, it might not happen. But these are on my list for now:

1. Degenerate Moderns by E. Michael Jones
2. The End of Racism by Dinesh D'Souza
3. Roughing It by Mark Twain
4. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
5. Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
6. God in Search of Man by Abraham Joshua Heschel
7. Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard
8. Democracy in America (to finish) by Tocqueville
9. The Everlasting Man (to finish) by G.K. Chesterton
10. The Divine Conspiracy (to finish) by Dallas Willard

Peter and the Sea (and Random Vacation Memories)

Well, well. It's a wonder that this blog is even titled "Seaweed and Seashore" yet I've never mentioned my favorite Kreeft book, The Sea Within: Waves and the Meaning of All Things.

What can I say but that this is the most peaceful book I've ever read. Once again, this man gives words to my soul's schizophrenic thoughts. He puts things in a layman's terms while describing things in such detail--sometimes even erotic detail--that it brings me further and deeper into the God-realm of things.

"Why does the image of God feel such passion for the cold salt water? Why do immortal spirits created only a little lower than the angels fall so desperately in love with a trillion tons of H2O laced with NaCl? Most books about the sea are full of external data. They tell you what causes storms, for instance. But they don't tell you what causes our fascination with storms: they don't tell you about the storm within. They tell you how the wind raises waves. But they don't tell you how the waves without raise waves of wonder within."

(Confession: the first time I've really swam in the ocean was over spring break when I was in Nicaragua. Lake Mich and other freshwater paradises have been my home for the last 19 years. I never realized the real sea was so salty!)

"We know where we find what we want: at the sea. But we don't know what we want there. We know what we long for -- the sea -- but we don't know what it is that we long for when we long for the sea. Perhaps we never will. Perhaps the infinite sea can never fit into finite mental or physical cups. Perhaps all that can be clear is this: that all there is can never be clear."

Best vacation ever: last summer when I spent hours -- straight up HOURS -- lying on a floating raft in the middle of a bay in Lake Mich. I slept on the dock at night and when the sun got warm, I swam out 200 yards to the little wooden raft with the sketchy ladder and probably Zebra mussels underneath and I slept in the sun, getting super hot and way tan (by August I usually have such a solid base tan that I don't even care about sunscreen anymore.) It was the most perfect week I can remember. And when I wasn't sleeping under the sun in the middle of the lake, I'd either read David McCullough in the hammock or the chicas and I would bike into town for ice cream or to read Howl's Moving Castle at the marina.

"The mind as well as the body can drown in the sea. If you have the habit of staring into it like a lover into the eyes of the beloved, its eye can hold you like Medusa. The spirit of the sea is far stronger than the human spirit, and captures it easily, especially in storms, the most exciting of all the sea’s charms and also the most destructive...
Why do we find the most destructive things the most captivating and enrapturing things?...
But she gives the poet, and the poet is in all of us, a strange, deep pleasure that is a kind of pleasant terror; not just a contentment and satisfaction but a wonder and fear that we find more delightful than the contentment that calms fear. For the fear is not a fear for our personal safety but simply a fear at her size and majesty...
We feel this wonderful fear most when we are alone. The sea looks tame when seen from a crowded beach full of blankets and umbrellas and chairs; but the same sea looks very different at night when the beach is deserted and you are alone. The water seems to leap up and bow down. It rises and falls like a drunken sailor. It is unpredictable. Little waves seem big at night when you are alone. And this is when we love the sea in a peculiar way, when we fear it most.

Why do we love what we fear?"

When we were swimming in the Pacific over spring break I experienced the beach like never before. Waves twice as tall as me (or were they? Constantly moving, I could hardly even tell.) And I was so overwhelmed. It was exhausting just to keep breathing and no shit. I kept thinking, "It's sure as hell good that Mom isn't here -- she'd never let me swim in these conditions!!" (Love you, Mom!) But being overpowered like that?? Oh, was it good. Like apologizing or being humiliated or failing. Utter incomptetence. It could have killed me at any second.

I've mentioned this before, but one of the most excellent moments of my life was when I was on the beach at night (mostly by myself except for Dad who was praying at a picnic table nearby) and it was storming. Baby, was it ever. That wind picked up the most wonderful waves and I could hardly hear myself in the roar of it all. And I shouted at the very top of my lungs (though you probably couldn't hear me anyway) "WHAT THEN CAN WE SAY IN RESPONSE TO THIS?" I wonder how loud God's voice is...

"All waves speak, but they speak in tongues, and we can’t interpret their speech. That’s probably because it’s too simple, like God’s. Maybe all they’re saying is I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU until the end of time. Like God."

Bully Politics

Amity Shlaes is a pretty sharp writer. Unfortunately, she has picked up on a trend in the writing world that threatens straight, unbiased journalism. Article here.

Is this really possible? Can the government really do all of this so blatantly? I don't know, and I suppose I wouldn't put it past some people. But I'm a little skeptical and I'll be intrigued to follow this in the future.

Consolation

I've been living in the netherworld lately. Neither here nor there, pretty much not anywhere.

Lots of uncertainty and that bugs me. I'm not an uncertain person. I think and I conclude and I act. But there's no solid ground these days. My plans have been thwarted left and right, replaced by new plans, and then those change, and still nothing is decided. Even my thoughts have all been half-baked lately. I just can't figure it out. The only respite I find is when I mob over to the prayer chapel and admit to God that the words just aren't there. They aren't sufficient. My prayers begin, "Oh, Father..." and even my mind simply babbles something like, "I'm tired...don't understand...how?...thank you for...I can't begin...what will happen?...am I beginning or ending?...what now?..." etc. etc. until I just say, "God, you know my heart. Accept my silence." It's a profoundly humble feeling.

But still, I don't like the constant wandering. Lewis talked of it in A Grief Observed. He called it "empty successiveness," "a permanently provisional feeling," like my life is just something temporary, waiting to be traded in for the real thing.

Jars of Clay: "You know who you are and you know what you want. I've been where you're going and it's not that far. It's too far to walk, but you don't have to run. You'll get there in time."

Obviously I'm not the only wanderer.

Hebrews chapter 11 pt. one (summary): lots of men and women of great faith were wanderers, too. They had no city to call home. They were exiles.

I think I'm an exile.

Lewis wrote about a certain sense of unbelonging in the Horse and His Boy, my (probable) favorite of the Chronicles of Narnia. "We were made for something greater." I've always resonated with Shasta. "What about all my troubles?" Oh, yes. Haha, my troubles. "'Who are you??' the boy asked. 'Myself. Myself. Myself.'"

Hebrews chapter 11 pt. two: The people who were exiles lived in anticipation of a better world instead of looking constantly backwards. Like Shasta, they were made for something greater.

"God was not ashamed to be called their God,
for he has prepared for them a city."

That's consolation if I've ever heard it.

Reminisce

I've been thinking about Outward Bound lately. I was looking at a map of Colorado and I happened to stumble upon Leadville, our final location. Then I got to looking around to see if I could recognize any mountains or rivers we trekked. Then I ended up tracing our entire route. I couldn't believe I remembered it, actually. But Oh! the memories.

Here's a map of our great and grand journey.



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