I love old books. I love Little Women, Jane Eyre and Anne of Green Gables. Such books are such a feast of word and thought that you can read again and again and you find such a balm in going back to them. The heroines inspire and amuse and wake up a well of creativety.
I don't know I have come accross a recent contemporary writer with a similar propensity with one notable exception. This writer is not well known and she has not written any published material in the normal sence of someone with such a gift.
Her name is Lanier Ivester and she is a housewife and lives in the state of Georgia. She has not published in the traditional sence but she blogs at http://www.laniersbooks.com/
Read here to find reviews that recommend, and teach just as much as they enthuse on the books themselves.
They are worthy of a review and the author should consider writing and publishing herself, as she has been told before!
Sunday, 9 May 2010
Friday, 7 May 2010
Extracts from Psalm 73
Surely God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart,
But as for me, my foot had almost slipped;
I had nearly lost my foothold,
For I envied the arrogant when I saw the
prosperity of the wicked
....
When my heart was grieved and
my spirit embittered,
I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you
....
Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterwards you will take me into glory.
....
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion for ever.
....
Those who are far from you will perish;
you destroy all who are unfaithful to you
....
But as for me it is good to be near God.
I have made the sovereign Lord my refuge;
I will tell of all your deeds.
to those who are pure in heart,
But as for me, my foot had almost slipped;
I had nearly lost my foothold,
For I envied the arrogant when I saw the
prosperity of the wicked
....
When my heart was grieved and
my spirit embittered,
I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you
....
Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterwards you will take me into glory.
....
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion for ever.
....
Those who are far from you will perish;
you destroy all who are unfaithful to you
....
But as for me it is good to be near God.
I have made the sovereign Lord my refuge;
I will tell of all your deeds.
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
The Love of God by Frederick M. Lehman
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.
Refrain
O love of God,
how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.
When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—The saints’ and angels’ song.
Refrain
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
By Frederick M. Lehman. Written in 1917, and published in Songs That Are Different, Volume 2, 1919, based on the Jewish poem, Haddumut, written in 1050 by Neir Ben Isaac Nehorai.
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.
Refrain
O love of God,
how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.
When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—The saints’ and angels’ song.
Refrain
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
By Frederick M. Lehman. Written in 1917, and published in Songs That Are Different, Volume 2, 1919, based on the Jewish poem, Haddumut, written in 1050 by Neir Ben Isaac Nehorai.
Mrs Mary Livingstone
Mary Livingstone
A Poem written for her husband David, after a long separation :-
Do you think I would reproach you with the sorrows that I bore?
Since the sorrow is all over now, I have you here once more.
And there is nothing but the gladness and the love within my heart,
And a hope so sweet and certain that never again we'll part
A hundred thousand welcomes! How my heart is gushing o'er
With the love and joy and wonder just to see your face once more.
How did I live without you all those long long years of woe?
It seems as if it would kill me to be parted from you now.
You'll never part me darling, there is a promise in your eye;
I may tend you while I am living, you will watch me when I die.
And if death but kindly lead me to the blessed home on high,
What a hundred thousand welcomes will await you in the sky!
Mary Livingstone (1821-1862)
Written for the 11th December 1856 after his return from Africa.
(Source : Good Wives? by Margaret Forster pg 57-58 Vintage 2001)
A Poem written for her husband David, after a long separation :-
Do you think I would reproach you with the sorrows that I bore?
Since the sorrow is all over now, I have you here once more.
And there is nothing but the gladness and the love within my heart,
And a hope so sweet and certain that never again we'll part
A hundred thousand welcomes! How my heart is gushing o'er
With the love and joy and wonder just to see your face once more.
How did I live without you all those long long years of woe?
It seems as if it would kill me to be parted from you now.
You'll never part me darling, there is a promise in your eye;
I may tend you while I am living, you will watch me when I die.
And if death but kindly lead me to the blessed home on high,
What a hundred thousand welcomes will await you in the sky!
Mary Livingstone (1821-1862)
Written for the 11th December 1856 after his return from Africa.
(Source : Good Wives? by Margaret Forster pg 57-58 Vintage 2001)
Thursday, 22 April 2010
Ode to a Nightingale
Read at the end of the film Bright Star.
Ode to a Nightingale
MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,
That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South!
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stainèd mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs;
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that ofttimes hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?
John Keats
Ode to a Nightingale
MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,
That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South!
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stainèd mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs;
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that ofttimes hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?
John Keats
Friday, 26 March 2010
Mending up holes and learning lessons.
"I must put down a dear little story told me by my friend this morning. Her small niece, aged somewhere between three and four, was heard telling the parable of the lost sheep to a cousin a year or two older. The finale was, "So the Shepherd put back the lamb into the fold, and then he mended up the hole where it had got out."
All of sanctification as well as salvation lay in the wisdom of those child-lips" (Ezekiel 34:15-16)
"Oh the desert is lovely in it's restfulness. The great brooding stillness over and through everything is so full of God. One does not wonder that He used to take His people in to the wilderness to teach them." (Mark 6:31)
Lilias Trotter from "A Blossom in the Desert"
All of sanctification as well as salvation lay in the wisdom of those child-lips" (Ezekiel 34:15-16)
"Oh the desert is lovely in it's restfulness. The great brooding stillness over and through everything is so full of God. One does not wonder that He used to take His people in to the wilderness to teach them." (Mark 6:31)
Lilias Trotter from "A Blossom in the Desert"
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Thomas Brooks and the right focus.
Focussing on the Right Thing:-
"The first device that Satan has to keep souls in a sad, doubting, and questioning condition, and so making their life a hell, is by causing them to be still poring and musing upon sin, to mind their sins more than their Savior; yes, so to mind their sins as to forget, yes, to neglect their Savior, that, as the Psalmist speaks, 'The Lord is not in all their thoughts' (Psalm 10:4). Their eyes are so fixed upon their disease, that they cannot see the remedy, though it be near; and they do so muse upon their debts, that they have neither mind nor heart to think of their Surety. A Christian should wear Christ in his bosom as a flower of delight, for he is a whole paradise of delight. He who minds not Christ more than his sin, can never be thankful and fruitful as he should."
- Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices
"The first device that Satan has to keep souls in a sad, doubting, and questioning condition, and so making their life a hell, is by causing them to be still poring and musing upon sin, to mind their sins more than their Savior; yes, so to mind their sins as to forget, yes, to neglect their Savior, that, as the Psalmist speaks, 'The Lord is not in all their thoughts' (Psalm 10:4). Their eyes are so fixed upon their disease, that they cannot see the remedy, though it be near; and they do so muse upon their debts, that they have neither mind nor heart to think of their Surety. A Christian should wear Christ in his bosom as a flower of delight, for he is a whole paradise of delight. He who minds not Christ more than his sin, can never be thankful and fruitful as he should."
- Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices
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