A short story.

Theresa read this book for her book group 

a couple of months ago . . .

She loved it.

She loaned the book to jan

and jan took the book to China with her.

jan loved it.

Once home, jan returns the book to Theresa.

That same day, Theresa gives me the book to read.

That same evening, I go to my book group.

Guess what the selection is for this month?

Yep, The Help by Kathryn Stockett.

So far, I love it.

Read a synopsis and reviews here:

Barnes and Noble

Yesterday evening in Mooresville . . .

I just love cloud watching,

ever changing, always captivating.

This is the same photo with a vignette . . .

much more dramatic . . .

Food for thought from "Time and the Art of Living" by Robert Grudin,

chapters 5 and 6:

V.4  Generally, experience is analyzed in either of two ways:

mechanistically (in terms of cause and effect) or teleologically

(in terms of goal or purpose).

V.7  As events pass into history, they settle into themselves and
compose themselves in a smaller context.

V.9  While daily journalism proliferates itself by exaggerating emergencies

and ignoring continuity, weekly journalism perverts continuity by
fabricating the illusion of grand historical shape and movement.

V.12  . . . for in a way that few moderns seem to understand,

the mind is as limited by what it rebels against as it is by what it accepts.

V.16  Written history is composed of actions;  real history is actions

compounded invisibly with refusals to act.

V.18  Patriotism . . . is a love of land, speech and culture so inexpressibly

basic that it may be seen as an extension of instinctive self-love.

Patriotism . . . is at heart one of the few truly unifying forces of

civilization and one of the few links we adults have with the natural world
and the [pure] affections of children.

V.22  One cannot plan to be lucky; but sensible planning and action

make one accessible to luck.

VI.2  An axiom which seems implicit in almost every traditional moral code

is that every action has a consequence.  A second axiom, more

debatable but nonetheless intrinsic to this study, is that action is continuous.
Action, in other words, includes what we commonly call inaction; and
consequence springs as much from our refusal to act as from our willed
deeds themselves.  This is nowhere as apparent as in our personal
relationships.  We lose what is valuable in these – love, joy, communality –
less through conflict and tragedy than through long series of shadowy
and often unconscious refusals.  Withdrawing, forgetting, falling out of touch,
ignoring or avoiding . . . destroy more relationships than death or anger
and tend to isolate their perpetrators. 

When I was a kid, I remember my mom

giving us cantaloupe in the summer,

especially at Lake Lemon.

She would buy small ones, cut them in half,

scoop out the seeds, and . . .

put in a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Cool.
   

Once we were adults, she would still

make cantaloupe for parties or gatherings.

She would cut it like this . . .

We would spear a wedge and eat all around it

until we just had a bite left on the fork

and then we ate that bite.

  

I cut cantaloupe in wedges for my family

and we all eat it this way.
  

(I forgot all about the ice cream in the middle
until I was typing this blog post.)

  

I now realize that my mom fixing cantaloupe

for all of us was even more of a blessing

because she didn't like it and never ate any.

Today was one of Indiana's lazy, hazy summer days . . .

which means the lens will fog as soon it's opened.

A summer afternoon for a kid,

Play-Doh and cartoons . . .

I'm re-reading the Mitford series; it's so wonderful, I want to live there.

Food for thought from "These High, Green Hills" by Jan Karon:

They walked home together after church, hand in hand, his sermon notebook tucked his arm.  He felt as free as a schoolboy, as light as air.  How could he ever have earned God's love, and hers into the bargain?

The point was, he couldn't.  It was all grace, and grace alone.

He liked the way her questions sometimes bolted in from the blue, contained within no particular context that he could see.  Good practice for a clergyman.

"We look for visions of heaven," Oswald Chambers had written, "and we never dream that all the time God is in the commonplace things and people around us."

He thumbed the pages.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer had talked of the small things, too, saying in Life Together:

     We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts.

     We think we dare not be satisfied with the small measure of spiritual knowledge, experience, and love that has been given to us, and that we must constantly be looking forward eagerly for the highest good.  Then we deplore the fact that we lack the deep certainty, the strong faith, and the rich experience that God has given to others, and we consider this lament to be pious . . .

     Only he who gives thanks for the little things receives the big things.

When we view the little things with thanksgiving, he thought, even they become big things.

Thank heaven they'd given the party, and not a moment too soon.  But if God's timing had been perfect for the party, he had to believe it had been perfect, as well, for allowing this hard thing.  Like it or lump it, nothing happened to a child of God by accident, and scripture inarguably proved that out.

One of my favorite things about summer,

other than sunshine and blue skies,

iced tea . . .

An everyday joy,

kitchen drawer full of clean towels and dishcloths . . .

Another one found me.

This one is in a Greenwood parking lot.

Hello . . .