Flying Giraffes and Marbled Peanuts

So what is on or in or around my little mind today? Well as you see... nothing too mature... just kinda goofy really, but it's fun to be that way sometimes, isn't it? I decided on a random title for attention seeking purposes and thus i am arrived at the present arrangement of words. Words... oh how i love them. To play with them, manipulate them and bend them to fit my purposes and ideas, is so fun! I was very blessed to have parents who raised me to love reading and literature and such... and so i keep reading, learning, doing crosswords (and the occasional Sudoku to which my friend Joyce got me addicted!) and reading the dictionary. Oh, okay, i'm not that crazy but i do have an acquaintance of mine who made it her goal to read a page out of the dictionary every day in order to increase her knowledge base (mind you, i'm not sure she made it much past acorn before the habit became old!). Reading stretches and works the mind and causes us to think outside the box. I have made it a point over the last few years to be more open in what i have selected to read, not merely content to swim around in circles in the same fishbowl of literary genre. Many many titles have passed through my hands and mind - Hardy Boys (who could not like them, those dashing heroes who always got in trouble at the end of every chapter - getting bashed on the head or tied up or the like - who could not like them!), Pride and Prejudice, The Black Stallion (not Black Beauty - just too sad for my poor little heart!), The Hunt for Red October, The Kite Runner, books by W.J. Vanderhulst, Scout, Brock and Bodie Thoene and their wonderful Zion series, A Walk to Remember (if you ever need a quick read that will make you cry!), Roald Dahl and so many others... But then there's all the wonderful books (i imagine they're wonderful) that line my shelves and make me look more literary than i actually am and which need to be read yet - not enough hours in the day it seems - someday hopefully i will get around to that.

But recently, hmmm, what have i read? I spent time enjoying Paradise Lost on audio cd. I fully believe i can write that title on my "read" list since it was unabridged and included all the words in the book. It was a fascinating story, detailing the creation of the world, the fall of the Devil and the subsequent temptation and fall of man and all the while, the threads of God's redemption plan woven right through. I realize that it is not all of a Reformed knowledge base but Milton's wording choices pleased my ears and tickled my literary senses. If you ever get the chance, give it a go sometime. Be persistant or do the audio thing, but finish it. A classic to be sure.

But then i also finished recently The Homecoming Man by Hugh Cook. He is not a long-dead British lad but rather a homegrown, Redeemer College associated author who writes of life as the child of a Dutch immigrant and his "homecoming". But it is also the story of his father's past, his history during the Second World War and the journey that he must make to come to grips with all of that and to find forgiveness. I cried when i read it - felt rather melancholy afterwards but realized the strong impact that our past can have on our whole lives.

I wonder what it is in my life that impacts me strongly now, what memories will live and form who i will be, who i already am? Sometimes i worry that my memory will not hold out for me - i fear already that i seem to forget really important things and remember inane little things like the way a certain thing smelled when i was young or the exact position i was in when something happened to me. I fear sometimes that i won't be a very good crime scene witness if ever i am required to do such a thing. I can drive down the same road twenty million times and not see something very obvious and along comes someone who has only gone there twice and they see the fact that there is an amazing tree or a wrought iron eagle that needs to have some sort of prank played on it or they see the obvious. Maybe that's the way it is with life, we need others around us to help point out the sometimes obvious and sometimes obscure things so we can appreciate things more. God did have a plan for how he meshed us all together, one part complimenting the other. Aaah, the master Designer at work, intricately weaving our lives together and creating patterns of beauty and richness. Uh oh, i now sound like the person who writes peppy little things for magazines and cards so i'll halt here and make this the ending of my babble. So i will end this little musing on literature and it's intellectual benefits and leave you to do your own reading of something more profound than this blog.