Books have always been both escape and educator for me. They have been friend and challenger. And always, they have been beloved.
I find Peace in their pages, and they disturb my Peace. What could be better?
And welcome to a month of the photos of Tedd Wenrick.
The past couple days have been cold and rainy. Today, because April, like her sister March is capricious, is going to be sunny and warm.
I, of course, had just written about the grey and damp.
So, some may want to pull the leaves off their plants today. Others may find it not quite that warm and choose to stay in and read.
And some wild souls may make time for both!
If you read, read at least a little that makes you expand what you know about Peace. Cool April days (and nights) are good for that. And don’t worry. It will be cold and damp and grey again if you just do the leaves today!
Books can give us Peace. They can stir us to pursue Peace.
It’s all quite wonderful.
My whole life books have been companion, refuge, friend and inspiration.
I have some books that I read over and over again because the characters in them are comfortable friends. I always laugh. I always cry. In the same places. I often discover something I’ve discovered before and forgotten just how much it soothes/pleases/stirs me. I read them at night to settle my brain. I read them during the day to move between one project and the next.
I have some books I’ll read only once, even though i may have underlined or dog eared it. Yes, I do that. it’s my book. It helps me remember what it’s teaching me.
There are other books I move out of my house because they are not “my” books.
There are so many ways I make Peace with books in my life.
And then there are those books that push me to think, to dream, to do something about a situation that needs attention. Ah, I cherish them as well.
What do they do for you those books on your shelves, or on your bedside table, or on a pile on the floor beside your favorite chair or in a corner?
Peace. Let’s open those pages and find it. Let’s close those books and make it!
Books have always been my friends. They are my teachers. They are my respite. They roil my mind and they soothe my soul.
I read things that are good for me and things that are good for nothing but a sweet hour away. I have discovered wonder, uncovered facts that changed everything I know to be true, and laughed myself silly.
What an amazing invention. People think and write things and you get to know what those things are. It’s amazing when you think about it. People you don’t know. People who live across the world. People who have been dead for centuries.
They’re a problem because they do seem to pile up around my house. Not as quickly as they used to do, since I keep the fluff on the kindle… but still.
What fascinates me, saddens me is that people use them to disseminate hate. Such sacred things, books, and people desecrate them. I know, they are dealing with their truths… which i decry as untruths… but there you are.
It’s many a book that has been toted around by me, many that have become part of my bedding, changed with the sheets. Books that I have reread, books I have tossed across the room in disgust, books that have place of pride on my bookcases, until they’re passed along to someone else.
I don’t know about you, but I’d do better to bring them in, read them, cherish them, and let them go…
But, oh, oh, oh, the Peace! Books are a wonderful thing in my life.
I have been alone in my life, but I have never been lonely. Books. The most amazing companions.They introduce me to new ideas and new places. They teach me ways to cope when I’m unsure. They hold my old friends and a whole bunch of new ones.
So this picture by Heather Adams… of a book, a chair and a shawl… Comfort, security, a goad, and Peace.
Books offer me Peace and challenge me to make it. I’m grateful for many things. One of them is Books.
Here I am having a reading summer unlike any I’ve had since about 9th grade AND I’m visiting friends I first met after my four year career in reading (what else IS graduate school if not a reading career?).
Not only are these people with whom I once talked (worked) and considered late into the night, they’re people who know what I used to think about… who I was before I was a married UU minister. There’s a wonderful joy in knowing people who hold your history. Friendships!
And today I’m joining friends from my church in PA who just happen to live in the same town as our daughter’s family and doing what I so rarely do on vacation — going to church! They’re here 5 months and then at home 5 months and It’ll be wonderful to see where they are making their spiritual home when they’re not with us. It’s going to be a slow Sabbath with some good visits thrown in.
And the morning started out watching my grandson play with his legos… what a wonderful unexpected joy and fabulous side effect of marriage. Kids and grandkids— quite the jackpot, one I’m only slowly learning how to enjoy… never having expected it…
It’s a great period in my life. That said, I’m really looking forward to home and the weddings and the swimming that are the last stage of my summer. If I don’t look too closely, I feel like a 9 year old! There’s a sweet Peace in all of this!
Questor long ago perfected the art of browsing the Universal Library!
The poetry group that I’m part of Poetry Under the Paintings, held at my friend Jody’s gallery Faustina’s, was invited to read last night for another poetry group last evening. It was held in the library that taught me to love libraries, the library where I read my way, alphabetically, through the great literature (and the lousy!).
Actually, I can’t say that’s the best way to absorb books, all of an author, one right after another… Russian novels are confusing enough one by one, five in a row? Ridiculous. But it suited my associative little brain and my devouring urge for more.
Until I started writing, I hadn’t realized how poignant this visit would be for me. I wrote about the river, I wrote about the rock, I wrote about the house I grew up in. It made me think about what I loved about living here, why I left, why I came back. It made me realize I’ve been avoiding Bloomsburg since my sister died. It made me remember how final death is and how that changes your memories.
It made me realize how incredibly lucky I am now and I was then. If we choose, memory is sacred and so is the making of new ones. Writing changes me for the better. It keeps me searching to identify my Peace. Lucky me. Peace is where we find it. Peace is where we make it. I choose then. I choose now. I choose Peace.
