So, it's December, and I choose hope...{mish-mash and encouraging links}

Where has the year gone? I sit surrounded by boxes of decorations and ornaments with idea and to-do lists nearly writing themselves in frantic fashion. 'Tis the season! I use this phrase so much (all year round) that my kids make fun of me.

Can I be honest? I feel like I cannot escape negativity and pessimism pressing in on many sides, from within and without. So, I'll share a few links~there is good stuff happening in the world around us. CNN, MSNBC, and media in general have skewed reality, they do not hold the patent rights on truth, they are not concerned with infusing people with hope or joy or kindness or peace, they are concerned with ratings. The media, the people around us should not dictate our ability to hope.

Take a moment to watch this short video and read the article about ministry in "The Forgotten Southern City" of Fairfield, Alabama. 

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I saw an interview with the man who created the non-profit "My Block, My Hood, My City"~check out his work and mission in Chicago here. 

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A shout-out to Toyota for a commercial speaking to what our country so desperately needs. Let's Go Compassion.

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25 days to quiet the crazy of Christmas. Enough said.

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I liked this post that documents the simple and the beautiful from the author's autumn, from food to books to every day life. I walk through this pseudo-scrapbooking-journal process on occasion and it's good for my heart.

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LOVE this quote from Pollyanna:

"The influence of a beautiful, helpful, hopeful character is contagious, and may revolutionize a whole town . . . People radiate what is in their minds and in their hearts. If a man feels kindly and obliging, his neighbors will feel that way, too, before long. But if he scolds and scowls and criticizes—his neighbors will return scowl for scowl, and add interest!”

(For an encouraging family movie, I recommend this version of Pollyanna.)

This season and coming year, I choose hope. I choose joy. I choose to find beauty. I choose kindness, patience, gentleness, and self-control. I choose Jesus.

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{Coming soon: This years "wills and will nots" for December AND Christmas book picks. 'Tis the season!}

literature threads, fabric of life

I feel as if I were born wired to love literature and the written word. I was writing stories at age six, I wrote my first book at age eleven (it was not good, by the way). I would devour stacks of books from the library and during summers, I would lavishly read into the early morning hours. Sweet memories indeed. 

Make Way For Ducklings! Boston Public Garden

Literature has woven itself through the threads of my life. I can see a book on my shelf and be momentarily transported to the place where I read it. Non-fiction and especially fiction has met me at crossroads in my life, helped me view my world through another character's eyes, it has helped mold me into the woman I am today.

I remember summer evenings devouring the newest Christy Miller book by Robin Jones Gunn. These characters became a part of my heart. No book series has impacted my life to a greater extent than these treasures.

I read Atonement Child by Francine Rivers curled up on a beanbag in my basement bedroom of the house I lived in during college. I now read this book every year. It pushes my heart to pray, to not become numb to the world around me, to see God's sovereign hand in everything.

I read Canary Island Song by Robin Jones Gunn the second time in a French hotel in Luxembourg City. My dear friend and I had walked the city (one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen) all day in brisk and damp weather. We were chilled. We ordered tea service and curled up under blankets to read our books. I finished it on the train, the Luxembourg and Belgium countryside creating a watercolor painting through the train windows. This is another story that I love. Each time I have read it, it speaks to my heart in a different way. And it makes me want to visit the Canary Islands....

tea in Luxembourg and Rhubarb my travel polar bear...

the lovely, terraced Luxembourg City

I read Pollyanna Grows Up (sequel to Pollyanna) by Eleanor H. Porter while visiting my brother in Boston. I walked down Commonwealth Avenue to the Public Garden and could picture Pollyanna's stroll and world perfectly. The story is so very sweet and it captivated me.

Boston's Public Garden

Commonwealth Avenue..."Comm Av"

Brownstones on Commonwealth Ave.

I read Rose In Bloom by Louisa May Alcott (sequel to Eight Cousins) sitting along the North Shore of Lake Superior where my husband and I celebrated our 10th anniversary. As the waves lapped against the rocky shore, we sat and read, chatted intermittently and ate our take-out lunches. It was a beautiful day accented by a beautiful story. A pristine moment.

The North Shore of Lake Superior

I read An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott curled up in my over-stuffed chair, covered in blankets on a cold winter evening. I wasn't expecting to get pulled in, but I just had to finish it. My husband came down at one point to see if I was coming to bed. I pretended to be asleep, so he would leave me alone. Yes, I did just write that. He went back upstairs and I finished the book by about three in the morning. Guilty.

This is a sampling, I have so many more. Moments with my husband, my kids, my friends, my family, and by myself. I've heard that the sense of smell is the strongest memory, I would probably agree, but for me, literature life moments are a close second. Pristine moments, carefree moments, introspective moments, cathartic moments, they are all sacred to me.

read it again, and again, and again

“The sure mark of an unliterary man is that he considers ‘I’ve read it already’ to be a conclusive argument against reading a work. We have all known women who remembered a novel so dimly that they had to stand for half an hour in the library skimming through it before they were certain they had once read it. But the moment they became certain, they rejected it immediately. It was for them dead, like a burnt-out match, an old railway ticket, or yesterday’s paper; they had already used it. Those who read great works, on the other hand, will read the same work ten, twenty or thirty times during the course of their life.”

—C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism

I have a "stack" of books I read over and over again. Once a year, twice a year, each year at Christmas, it depends. In the last number of years I've started to go back to classic authors. I had read Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and that was it as far as reading for fun and not for an English paper. Now three of her novels are ones I go back to again and again. It's sad to say that I never read Pride and Prejudice until after I graduated college (and I was an English major!). I've now added two of Austen's other novels to my repeat list. I see new details and dimensions each read. This choice to not only read those books labeled "best-selling" and "trendy" has been good for my soul. These works have stood the test of time.

My personal list of  "great works":

Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion by Jane Austen

Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery

An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott

Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott

Pollyanna and Pollyanna Grows Up by Eleanor H. Porter

Boston's Public Garden from Pollyanna Grows Up