As I've mentioned here in the past, I love reading letters! Especially letters from many, many years ago, the letters of famous persons. But not only famous people. The letters of those who aren't so famous hold my interest as well. I don't know what it is, but this look at "unfiltered" history keeps me engrossed. I realize letters are not completely unfiltered history, as the letter writer may indeed have altered the historical record as they wrote. But it's much closer, in the aggregate, to unfiltered history than anything else we have.
I have a fairly large collection of published letters, some read, some not read. I have them in print books acquired used through the years. I have many downloads of PDFs of books of letters, through the miracles of archives.org and Google books. I even have some of our own letters that we sent home from when we lived overseas, and letters from the home front during World War 2. I also have access to various collections of letters available for reading on-line. The Library of Congress has a huge Thomas Jefferson collection of letters, and the Carlyle Letters On-line is providing me lots of good information in my current research. Sometimes they are collections of letters—that is, the out-going letters of a person. Sometimes they are collections of correspondence—that is, the letters that passed two ways between individuals. That's how the Carlyle-Emerson correspondence is, all the extant letters of both men to each other.
Through my reading of letters, I have come to the point where I long to have a correspondent, or even several, with whom I can discuss life, liberty, and the pursuit of many things, such as happiness, health, literature, genealogy, etc. I have a few people I've corresponded with who fit that description. But maintaining the flow of correspondence is difficult when other means of communication are so readily available. When you've talked with someone on the phone, it seems silly to then write a lengthy epistle to discuss things with them. When you drove 200 or 600 miles to spend a long weekend with someone, correspondence over the next week seems somewhat pointless.
In recent days I've had occasion to "post" a couple of letters to people via e-mail. One was a business letter to a professor concerning my Carlyle research. That chain of letters has grown to four in number, all related to Carlyle and the professor's project and my project. But they are short, especially the last one. And they are business related, not creative. Of course, that's okay by me. I enjoy reading the business letters. Heck, most of the letters I've written in my life have been business letters for my employer. If anyone ever wanted to gather my letters and publish them, they would have more from Black & Veatch, KEO, and CEI than they would personal letters.
Wishing I had correspondents isn't a bad thing, but I need to keep in mind that, even with correspondents, I will not be able to carry it on in a way that people did in the past. The world and technology has changed too much. People don't communicate as they used to, and, some kind of apocalypse excepted, probably never will again. I can seek correspondents, but will need to learn to be satisfied with something different, and undoubtedly diminished, from what they had in the past.
Showing posts with label letters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label letters. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
My Sunday Book
No, I'm not talking about the Bible. That's my everyday book. I don't read great quantities in it, but I read some every day.
No, I'm talking about the book I read a few pages in on a Sunday afternoon, after church. It might be while I'm eating lunch, or possibly after lunch. I have, for several years, kept a book or two in our sun room. This is an unheated, un-coolled room off the back of the house, elevated with a deck beneath it. It gets quite hot in summer and cold in winter. It actually has some heater elements installed, but I'm sure they are way too expensive to run.
But when I'm ready on Sunday afternoon, I fix a mug of coffee (maybe not in the heat of summer), and pick up one of these books. They are generally writing type books, either writing helps. My current read is Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters. As I've written here before, I love letters. And I love letters by writers. I have to confess that I have read very little of Doyle's work, though I've been accumulating them and they are definitely on the to-be-read list. But I knew something of his life, from reading it somewhere, and so his letters interested me. I picked the book up off the remainders table at Barnes & Noble a couple of years ago, and have been reading it on selected Sunday afternoons.
I've been reading in the chapter "Struggling Doctor", covering the time when Doyle had completed medical studies, and either worked for other doctors or set up his own practice. He finally set up shop at Southsea, in the south of England. While he looked for an office/residence, tried to get customers, struggled with money, tried to join some social circles, etc. All the while he was working on his writing. In letters to his mother during this time (1883-1884) he talked as much about writing as about being a doctor. He spoke about his struggles with money, how he extended credit to patients and had to pay his bills with credit as well.
In 1883, he earned about as much from writing as he did practicing medicine. He wrote mainly short stories at that time, on a variety of subjects, submitted them to a number or literary magazines, and then waited for an answer. Since he had no money to hire a scrivener to make copies, he sent off the original and hoped it didn't get lost, and hoped the magazine returned it to him if they rejected it.
I find this period in his life fascinating. Doyle was in his twenties, unmarried (having once been informally engaged but the woman broke it off). Sherlock Holmes and the fame that would bring him are a few years away. His delving into spiritualism are a couple of decades away. Right now he's sort at the point of his writing career where I am in my writing career. A big difference, of course, is I have a job that I'm well-established in, and don't lack for money to pay for necessaries and even some unnecssaries.
I normally read about 10 pages on a Sunday afternoon. I started the day at page 210. I looked ahead and was reminded that it's a 700 page book, and that if I didn't still want to be reading it in late 2013 I'd better pick up the pace. So I read to page 233, which was the end of the chapter. The next chapter is titled "Cracking the Oyster", which I assume will be where the axis of his life shifts much more strongly to literature. I'm looking forward to next Sunday.
No, I'm talking about the book I read a few pages in on a Sunday afternoon, after church. It might be while I'm eating lunch, or possibly after lunch. I have, for several years, kept a book or two in our sun room. This is an unheated, un-coolled room off the back of the house, elevated with a deck beneath it. It gets quite hot in summer and cold in winter. It actually has some heater elements installed, but I'm sure they are way too expensive to run.
But when I'm ready on Sunday afternoon, I fix a mug of coffee (maybe not in the heat of summer), and pick up one of these books. They are generally writing type books, either writing helps. My current read is Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters. As I've written here before, I love letters. And I love letters by writers. I have to confess that I have read very little of Doyle's work, though I've been accumulating them and they are definitely on the to-be-read list. But I knew something of his life, from reading it somewhere, and so his letters interested me. I picked the book up off the remainders table at Barnes & Noble a couple of years ago, and have been reading it on selected Sunday afternoons.
I've been reading in the chapter "Struggling Doctor", covering the time when Doyle had completed medical studies, and either worked for other doctors or set up his own practice. He finally set up shop at Southsea, in the south of England. While he looked for an office/residence, tried to get customers, struggled with money, tried to join some social circles, etc. All the while he was working on his writing. In letters to his mother during this time (1883-1884) he talked as much about writing as about being a doctor. He spoke about his struggles with money, how he extended credit to patients and had to pay his bills with credit as well.
In 1883, he earned about as much from writing as he did practicing medicine. He wrote mainly short stories at that time, on a variety of subjects, submitted them to a number or literary magazines, and then waited for an answer. Since he had no money to hire a scrivener to make copies, he sent off the original and hoped it didn't get lost, and hoped the magazine returned it to him if they rejected it.
I find this period in his life fascinating. Doyle was in his twenties, unmarried (having once been informally engaged but the woman broke it off). Sherlock Holmes and the fame that would bring him are a few years away. His delving into spiritualism are a couple of decades away. Right now he's sort at the point of his writing career where I am in my writing career. A big difference, of course, is I have a job that I'm well-established in, and don't lack for money to pay for necessaries and even some unnecssaries.
I normally read about 10 pages on a Sunday afternoon. I started the day at page 210. I looked ahead and was reminded that it's a 700 page book, and that if I didn't still want to be reading it in late 2013 I'd better pick up the pace. So I read to page 233, which was the end of the chapter. The next chapter is titled "Cracking the Oyster", which I assume will be where the axis of his life shifts much more strongly to literature. I'm looking forward to next Sunday.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Letters from Saudi Arabia
Regular readers of this blog, not so much recently but over the years, will know that I love letters as literature. I keep hunting books of letters, over the Internet, in used book stores, wherever I can find them. Today on my afternoon break, after I taught a brown bag class, I opened a PDF file I downloaded some time ago of Martin Luther's letters. I only read about 1/3 of the introduction and the first letter in the book, but I enjoyed it.
Every morning at work, in my before-starting time, I spend a little time formatting the letters of John Wesley. I downloaded these as MS Word files from the website files The Wesley Center website, year by year, volume by volume. I'm currently formatting volume 6 for better printing, putting footnotes where they should be, italicizing references, watching for those odd optical scanning things that the webmaster never corrected. I figure I'll be at that another year or so, then I'll have all eight volumes.
About six or eight years ago, maybe even longer, various relatives began returning to us the letters we had written to them from our years in Saudi Arabia (1981-83). We got them from my mother-in-law, her sister, my dad's house, which included those to my grandmother, Lynda's dad's house, and from her grandmother's estate. I quickly saw the value in these and typed them into MS Word files and saved them. Alas, that was at least two computers ago, and we haven't had that computer on for several years.
I thought those were all the letters we had sent that we were ever going to get back, but a couple of weeks ago Lynda was wanting to find a particular childhood picture that her brother had a question about. In looking for that, we searched through a box we took from Lynda's mom when she moved into her retirement apartment. In it were letters and from various people over a forty year span. I looked through them, and to my surprise found a bunch of letters of ours from Saudi Arabia.
One of those I immediately recognized, the first one Lynda wrote from there. I knew I had typed that, so I thought these must have been duplicates. Then I looked at the salutation on the letter: "Dear Mother, Dad, Norman, Grandma, & Grime,". What I looking at was the original. Had I typed from one of these duplicates? A couple of nights ago I found the originals that I had originally typed from copies. We now have the original of that letter plus two of the copies we mailed. Three out of five aren't bad.
As I began going through these newly discovered ones, I found it as fascinating as reading letters of Wesley from the 1700s, maybe more so, as the Wesley letters give me information, but these give me memories. Here's an excerpt from a letter Lynda wrote to her mom.
So, I have lots of pleasant reading ahead of me. Maybe it's good that we didn't have a phone. We had to write all these letters, and so the memories live through them.
Every morning at work, in my before-starting time, I spend a little time formatting the letters of John Wesley. I downloaded these as MS Word files from the website files The Wesley Center website, year by year, volume by volume. I'm currently formatting volume 6 for better printing, putting footnotes where they should be, italicizing references, watching for those odd optical scanning things that the webmaster never corrected. I figure I'll be at that another year or so, then I'll have all eight volumes.
About six or eight years ago, maybe even longer, various relatives began returning to us the letters we had written to them from our years in Saudi Arabia (1981-83). We got them from my mother-in-law, her sister, my dad's house, which included those to my grandmother, Lynda's dad's house, and from her grandmother's estate. I quickly saw the value in these and typed them into MS Word files and saved them. Alas, that was at least two computers ago, and we haven't had that computer on for several years.
I thought those were all the letters we had sent that we were ever going to get back, but a couple of weeks ago Lynda was wanting to find a particular childhood picture that her brother had a question about. In looking for that, we searched through a box we took from Lynda's mom when she moved into her retirement apartment. In it were letters and from various people over a forty year span. I looked through them, and to my surprise found a bunch of letters of ours from Saudi Arabia.
One of those I immediately recognized, the first one Lynda wrote from there. I knew I had typed that, so I thought these must have been duplicates. Then I looked at the salutation on the letter: "Dear Mother, Dad, Norman, Grandma, & Grime,". What I looking at was the original. Had I typed from one of these duplicates? A couple of nights ago I found the originals that I had originally typed from copies. We now have the original of that letter plus two of the copies we mailed. Three out of five aren't bad.
As I began going through these newly discovered ones, I found it as fascinating as reading letters of Wesley from the 1700s, maybe more so, as the Wesley letters give me information, but these give me memories. Here's an excerpt from a letter Lynda wrote to her mom.
June 23, 1982 WedI'd almost forgotten about that sewer backing up so often. What memories that brings up. Or, from the older batch, here's one I wrote. The location isn't given, but it would have been either my office in Al Khobar or our apartment at Palm Meadows Village just outside of Khobar.
Dear Mother,
...The sewer backed up again last night. I got to spend some of the AM cleaning the bathrooms. Hope it doesn't happen while we're gone. The dryers are still only working half the time in the laundry room. I still have a load in drying and it's almost 5 PM after washing this AM. We are now told BVA doesn't have the money for washers & dryers & we've heard nothing more of phones.
Next day: Well, Dave got home early from work yesterday, the kids got up from their naps & we went o laundry room to get the last load of towels. Later we went to Hardee's for dinner with the Jacksons. We hadn't been out for about a month & so it was good. Karen is flying with her kids to the states tonight....
We are excited about flying out the 30th. Charles is sure anxious "to go see Grandma."....
FridayIt was mailed at Rochester NY on 21 Oct 1981, and Dad endorsed the envelope "Received Oct 24, 1981 Saturday answered Oct 29, 1981. Nothing earth shattering but good to read, and to remember that anything below 100 degrees seemed cool to us back then.
16 October 1981
Dear Dad,
Just have time to write a quick note. I'm leaving for Riyahd in the morning to spend 2 or 3 days. I was supposed to go Sun-Monday, but just got a message today that I am to be there tomorrow.
We are all pretty well. Sara had an eye infection that has cleared up after we began medication. Chas. has had a cough, but does not appear ill except for that. My cold has been lingering for three weeks now – persistent cough & congestion. So far I have not missed any work.
The weather is cooler—below 100 deg F & not as humid. We have been swimming twice at the pool and once in the gulf. today we left the children with a sitter after church & at[e] at chinese [sic] food —it was excellent.
Enclosed are two checks to cover expenses. Say hi to all.
Love,
Dave & Lynda, Charles, & Sara
So, I have lots of pleasant reading ahead of me. Maybe it's good that we didn't have a phone. We had to write all these letters, and so the memories live through them.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Book Review: The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Part 2
I want to be careful with my statement about Tolkien's "Oxford snobbery". I'm sure some people would take offense at that. I don't want to denigrate a great institution that has produced many scholars and statesmen. My concern is that Tolkien seemed to put himself above the masses as far as literature goes. Maybe C.S. Lewis did as well, for when they were meeting one time and decrying the lack of good literature in English, Lewis said to Tolkien, "We shall just have to write the types of stories we like." [loose quote]
Tolkien was constantly correcting readers and reviewers about their misinterpretation of his works. This shows up in the letters. A reviewer would write something about The Lord of the Rings being excellent Christian allegory. Tolkien would write the reviewer and say it isn't an allegory, Christian or otherwise, and that he hates allegory. Then he would write his publisher about it, and then one of his children, then maybe even a friend. A reader would ask a question about the mythology that came before his published works. Tolkien would sometimes write pages about Luthien and Beren and the Valor and Numenor (apologies to the Elvin language for not adding the accents where JRRT did), or at times he would advise the reader to just enjoy what was written and not worry about what wasn't. His tone often seemed snobbish to me.
But, perhaps it is more a case of author pride than it is snobbishness. Tolkien worked years on his books, developing first the languages then adding appropriate myths that the languages must tell. He fought to have it published, even trying to strong arm his publishers into accepting a package deal of The Lord of the Rings and the unfinished The Silmarillion. He fought proofreaders who kept trying to change the spelling of words he wanted spelled a certain way. He fought his own personal schedule that never seemed to give him quite enough time to do all he wanted. Finally a book was produced. How dare a reader misinterpret something and then have the audacity to write him about it!
I don't quite know why I am so fascinated by letters. It began with the letters of Charles Lamb, and has spread in every direction therefrom. I think I like them because they tend to be unfiltered history. Read someones letter, something not expected to be published, and you might just find out about the real person, not something a biographer wants you to know. Since these Tolkien letters are selected rather than complete, and since many of the letters are excerpted, some filtration has taken place. Yet, the history comes through.
I always try to include in my book reviews a recommendation of whether my readers should read what I read. What about this one? It cost me $7.98 plus Overland Park and Kansas sales tax, a steep price compared to what I usually pay. Should you go off and do the same? Probably not, not unless you are an incredible Tolkien fan, or unless you love letters as I do. Don't worry about his references to Bilbo and Frodo and Gandalf. Don't worry about the twenty pages of explanation of Numenor mythology. These might be difficult--they were for me. I'm glad I read them, and the book is a keeper for me, so that my letters collection is that much more complete.
Tolkien was constantly correcting readers and reviewers about their misinterpretation of his works. This shows up in the letters. A reviewer would write something about The Lord of the Rings being excellent Christian allegory. Tolkien would write the reviewer and say it isn't an allegory, Christian or otherwise, and that he hates allegory. Then he would write his publisher about it, and then one of his children, then maybe even a friend. A reader would ask a question about the mythology that came before his published works. Tolkien would sometimes write pages about Luthien and Beren and the Valor and Numenor (apologies to the Elvin language for not adding the accents where JRRT did), or at times he would advise the reader to just enjoy what was written and not worry about what wasn't. His tone often seemed snobbish to me.
But, perhaps it is more a case of author pride than it is snobbishness. Tolkien worked years on his books, developing first the languages then adding appropriate myths that the languages must tell. He fought to have it published, even trying to strong arm his publishers into accepting a package deal of The Lord of the Rings and the unfinished The Silmarillion. He fought proofreaders who kept trying to change the spelling of words he wanted spelled a certain way. He fought his own personal schedule that never seemed to give him quite enough time to do all he wanted. Finally a book was produced. How dare a reader misinterpret something and then have the audacity to write him about it!
I don't quite know why I am so fascinated by letters. It began with the letters of Charles Lamb, and has spread in every direction therefrom. I think I like them because they tend to be unfiltered history. Read someones letter, something not expected to be published, and you might just find out about the real person, not something a biographer wants you to know. Since these Tolkien letters are selected rather than complete, and since many of the letters are excerpted, some filtration has taken place. Yet, the history comes through.
I always try to include in my book reviews a recommendation of whether my readers should read what I read. What about this one? It cost me $7.98 plus Overland Park and Kansas sales tax, a steep price compared to what I usually pay. Should you go off and do the same? Probably not, not unless you are an incredible Tolkien fan, or unless you love letters as I do. Don't worry about his references to Bilbo and Frodo and Gandalf. Don't worry about the twenty pages of explanation of Numenor mythology. These might be difficult--they were for me. I'm glad I read them, and the book is a keeper for me, so that my letters collection is that much more complete.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Book Review: The Letters of J.R.R.Tolkien
JRR Tolkien wrote three great works:
The Hobbit, 1937
The Lord of the Rings trilogy, 1954-55
The Silmarillion, posthumously 1977,
and a few lesser tales related to his invented mythology, a hots of professional essays, papers, and speeches, and his collected letters. Let me say right off that I enjoyed The Hobbit, but disliked The Lord of the Ring, bogging down in the second half of The Fellowship of the Ring, and not picking it up again. Someday I will finish it, when many things more to my liking I have read.
I was predisposed to dislike Tolkien from my college experience. IN Butterfield Hall, all the guys I disliked because of their politics, alcohol consumption, or drug use raves about him. I concluded that Tolkien wasn't for me, and gave him no more thought until reading a biography of C.S. Lewis. Still, I read nothing of Tolkien's until the movies came out and decided I should read the books.
Fast forward to March 2009, when I was in Kansas City to present a paper at an engineering conference and, as is my out-of-town-habit, sought out a bookstore. In a seconds bookstore on Metcalf Ave., I found volumes of both Tolkien's and Lewis' letters. I left the bookstore poorer in cash but rich in literary acquisitions.
I found Tolien's letters [The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien: Selected and Edited by Humphrey Carpenter with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien, 1981, Houghton Mifflin Company] fascinating. many dealt with publishing and writing. Beginning with Letter 9 (in the book, which excludes many of Tolien's extant letters) written on Jan 4, 1937, we learn about The Hobbit, already in production with mainly the maps and illustrations to finish. He was greatly concerned about the American edition, especially the illustrations: "...let the Americans do what seems good to them--as long as it was possible...to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing)."
This is an example of what I tend to call "Oxford snobbery" in Tolkien. It was just against Americans, but against anyone who tried to analyze his works. Tolkien commented to friends and publishers about negative reviews. He corrected those who misunderstood his invented languages. He corrected misconceptions about the mythology of Middle Earth, main after The Lord of the Rings appearance, and sometimes advised his correspondents not to worry about it.
Certain themes continually show in the letters.
The Hobbit, 1937
The Lord of the Rings trilogy, 1954-55
The Silmarillion, posthumously 1977,
and a few lesser tales related to his invented mythology, a hots of professional essays, papers, and speeches, and his collected letters. Let me say right off that I enjoyed The Hobbit, but disliked The Lord of the Ring, bogging down in the second half of The Fellowship of the Ring, and not picking it up again. Someday I will finish it, when many things more to my liking I have read.
I was predisposed to dislike Tolkien from my college experience. IN Butterfield Hall, all the guys I disliked because of their politics, alcohol consumption, or drug use raves about him. I concluded that Tolkien wasn't for me, and gave him no more thought until reading a biography of C.S. Lewis. Still, I read nothing of Tolkien's until the movies came out and decided I should read the books.
Fast forward to March 2009, when I was in Kansas City to present a paper at an engineering conference and, as is my out-of-town-habit, sought out a bookstore. In a seconds bookstore on Metcalf Ave., I found volumes of both Tolkien's and Lewis' letters. I left the bookstore poorer in cash but rich in literary acquisitions.
I found Tolien's letters [The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien: Selected and Edited by Humphrey Carpenter with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien, 1981, Houghton Mifflin Company] fascinating. many dealt with publishing and writing. Beginning with Letter 9 (in the book, which excludes many of Tolien's extant letters) written on Jan 4, 1937, we learn about The Hobbit, already in production with mainly the maps and illustrations to finish. He was greatly concerned about the American edition, especially the illustrations: "...let the Americans do what seems good to them--as long as it was possible...to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing)."
This is an example of what I tend to call "Oxford snobbery" in Tolkien. It was just against Americans, but against anyone who tried to analyze his works. Tolkien commented to friends and publishers about negative reviews. He corrected those who misunderstood his invented languages. He corrected misconceptions about the mythology of Middle Earth, main after The Lord of the Rings appearance, and sometimes advised his correspondents not to worry about it.
Certain themes continually show in the letters.
- The importance of literature: We all need literature that is above our measure--though we may not have sufficient energy for it all the time. April 1959, to Walter Allen
- His health issues: I was assailed by very considerable pain, and depression, which no ordinary remedy would relieve. ...We (or at least I) know far too little about the complicated machine we inhabit.... 31 July 1969, to Christopher Tolkien
- Friendship with and criticism of C.S. Lewis: But for the encouragement of C.S.L. I do not think that I should ever have completed or offered for publication The Lord of the Rings. 18 Dec 1965 to Clyde S. Kilby; It is sad that 'Narnia' and all that part of C.S.L.'s work should remain outside the range of my sympathy, as much of my work was outside his. 11 Nov 1964 to David Kolb
Monday, May 18, 2009
Once again, in my morning read of John Wesley's letters, I came across something that struck me. This is the closing paragraph to a letter.
And now, the advice I would give upon the whole is this: First, pray earnestly to God for clear light; for a full, piercing, and steady conviction that this is the more excellent way. Pray for a spirit of universal self-denial, of cheerful temperance, of wise frugality; for bowels of mercies; for a kind, compassionate spirit, tenderly sensible of the various wants of your brethren; and for firmness of mind, for a mild, even courage, without fear, anger, or shame. Then you will once more, with all readiness of heart, make this little (or great) sacrifice to God; and withal present your soul and body a living sacrifice, acceptable unto God through Jesus Christ.
Well, very inspiring words! What, you ask, was the little (or great) sacrifice being asked of someone that inspired Wesley to write as he did? What great spiritual adventure was one of his correspondents about to embark on? In fact, it was nothing more than weather or not to drink strong green tea.
Yes, that's it. Wesley, through twenty or more years of practice, had learned that tea disagreed with his body. When he drank tea, he was a nervous wreck; his hands shook. When he quit drinking tea, his nervous system was fine. His correspondent (who is not named) in this December 10, 1748 letter, had apparently questioned Wesley's motive for not only quitting tea but encouraging others to do so as well. Wesley laid out in 4,500-word detail his reasons for himself and anyone else to do this: health and frugality. He anticipated and answered objections that could be raised.
Such a discussion today would involve different substances, but might be just as relevant. Wesley said cutting out tea and drinking cheaper liquids--water and milk--allowed for greater administration of Christian charity. Even when dining at another's house, requesting water instead of tea allowed the host to have more money to support the poor. Whether that host did or not was not the concern of the person who had to make the choice to drink the tea as offered. Much of the discussion concerned giving offense. Would the Christian, laying off tea for reasons of health and frugality possibly offend his host? Wesley described how to follow conscious and not give offense.
So what today is affecting my health and my ability to give more to charity? I could name a number of items. But I prefer to just dwell on Wesley's words, and realize that this sacred message was really about the most secular of activities. Wesley sure tied the two together, reminding me that those who say we can compartmentalize our lives (the sacred now, the secular later, etc.) are probably wrong. The secular things we do affect our spiritual life, and the the sacred things carry through to the secular.
That's not an earth-shattering revelation. Such is part of the baby's milk for the Christian. Yet, being reminded of it is a good thing, and Wesley said it so well. "Pray for a spirit of universal self-denial, of cheerful temperance, of wise frugality; for bowels of mercies; for a kind, compassionate spirit, tenderly sensible of the various wants of your brethren; and for firmness of mind, for a mild, even courage, without fear, anger, or shame."
Going to do so.
And now, the advice I would give upon the whole is this: First, pray earnestly to God for clear light; for a full, piercing, and steady conviction that this is the more excellent way. Pray for a spirit of universal self-denial, of cheerful temperance, of wise frugality; for bowels of mercies; for a kind, compassionate spirit, tenderly sensible of the various wants of your brethren; and for firmness of mind, for a mild, even courage, without fear, anger, or shame. Then you will once more, with all readiness of heart, make this little (or great) sacrifice to God; and withal present your soul and body a living sacrifice, acceptable unto God through Jesus Christ.
Well, very inspiring words! What, you ask, was the little (or great) sacrifice being asked of someone that inspired Wesley to write as he did? What great spiritual adventure was one of his correspondents about to embark on? In fact, it was nothing more than weather or not to drink strong green tea.
Yes, that's it. Wesley, through twenty or more years of practice, had learned that tea disagreed with his body. When he drank tea, he was a nervous wreck; his hands shook. When he quit drinking tea, his nervous system was fine. His correspondent (who is not named) in this December 10, 1748 letter, had apparently questioned Wesley's motive for not only quitting tea but encouraging others to do so as well. Wesley laid out in 4,500-word detail his reasons for himself and anyone else to do this: health and frugality. He anticipated and answered objections that could be raised.
Such a discussion today would involve different substances, but might be just as relevant. Wesley said cutting out tea and drinking cheaper liquids--water and milk--allowed for greater administration of Christian charity. Even when dining at another's house, requesting water instead of tea allowed the host to have more money to support the poor. Whether that host did or not was not the concern of the person who had to make the choice to drink the tea as offered. Much of the discussion concerned giving offense. Would the Christian, laying off tea for reasons of health and frugality possibly offend his host? Wesley described how to follow conscious and not give offense.
So what today is affecting my health and my ability to give more to charity? I could name a number of items. But I prefer to just dwell on Wesley's words, and realize that this sacred message was really about the most secular of activities. Wesley sure tied the two together, reminding me that those who say we can compartmentalize our lives (the sacred now, the secular later, etc.) are probably wrong. The secular things we do affect our spiritual life, and the the sacred things carry through to the secular.
That's not an earth-shattering revelation. Such is part of the baby's milk for the Christian. Yet, being reminded of it is a good thing, and Wesley said it so well. "Pray for a spirit of universal self-denial, of cheerful temperance, of wise frugality; for bowels of mercies; for a kind, compassionate spirit, tenderly sensible of the various wants of your brethren; and for firmness of mind, for a mild, even courage, without fear, anger, or shame."
Going to do so.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Well, not quite normal yet
In my last post I reported that I was back to normal after the food poisoning the week of March 16th. I was wrong, though: I'm not really back to normal. Oh, physically I am, I guess. But mentally I'm not. All the good I was doing on weight loss is in danger of being reversed, as since the sickness I have no desire to eat right. The three days out of town, on conference fare, didn't help. But at home I just haven't felt like doing what I need to do to have the right kinds of foods for lunch or supper. Consequently, when I weighed in today, I was way, way up. I'm still a good amount ahead from where I started, but if I don't get back at it today.... It probably hasn't helped that Lynda is still away. No accountability partner.
This weekend I could not focus very well. I started Saturday with a couple of household things. We added a console TV to the living room, which hides the lower shelves of a corner cabinet. This cabinet (not a built-in) needed to be raised anyway, since it is 18 inches shorter than the built-ins on the other end of the wall. So Saturday morning, using some salvaged 2x6 boards, I "built" an 18 inch riser for it and installed it. Then I reloaded all the shelves with the nicknacks that had unceremoniously cluttered the hearth for a month. The console TV hides the riser very nicely. Oh, I also raised the console TV the thickness of two 2x6s, as it was a bit close to the floor for comfortable viewing. This all consumed the morning, much of the time working with the salvaged wood to back out nails and separate pieces prior to sawing.
After that, though, I had a very hard time tackling my next project: income taxes. I made a good start, but my concentration faded. As it was snowing outside, I didn't particularly want to walk as a means of clearing my head. So I puttered on the taxes, got a little done, surfed the web, played mindless computer games, and watch a little NCAA basketball.
I also read in my recent book purchases (the Tolkien letters, the C.S. Lewis letters, and misc. C.S.L. writings), in the Mark Twain Hawaii letters, and in a writers mag. Even with those, I found my mind wandering, and I went from item to item with little comprehension. I gave that up and, as the snow had stopped, drove to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things urgently needed (peanut butter among them), then did laundry and dishes. That got me through 6:00 PM, and a PB&J sandwich through 6:30 PM. I tried the taxes again, and made a little more progress.
Saturday evening was better as far as concentration was concerned. I worked on my outline for In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, and outlined the next seven chapters. That will get me about half way through the book. I was able to read with greater comprehension after that.
Sunday, at a church dinner, I thought my sickness was coming back. Fortunately, it was only one episode and I seem to be fine physically. Still, that gave me a too-easy excuse not to walk or exercise. The taxes again resisted the five hour concentrated effort needed to complete them. I outlined the rest of a political essay I started, then went back to my reading. I found some of C.S. Lewis' letters on his spiritual life quite interesting, Tolkien's letters to his son during WW2 less so.
So what will this week hold? I need to get back on the stick as far as exercise and diet are concerned, and get back in the form I was in two weeks ago. I need to have that concentrated time to complete our taxes. It looks as if we will get a nice refund, and I need to get that in the works. And I need to get back to writing, so that if I do get to go to a conference in May (hopefully the Blue Ridge one again), at least I'll have something to present to editors/agents.
Tonight I get my wife back. Yeah!
This weekend I could not focus very well. I started Saturday with a couple of household things. We added a console TV to the living room, which hides the lower shelves of a corner cabinet. This cabinet (not a built-in) needed to be raised anyway, since it is 18 inches shorter than the built-ins on the other end of the wall. So Saturday morning, using some salvaged 2x6 boards, I "built" an 18 inch riser for it and installed it. Then I reloaded all the shelves with the nicknacks that had unceremoniously cluttered the hearth for a month. The console TV hides the riser very nicely. Oh, I also raised the console TV the thickness of two 2x6s, as it was a bit close to the floor for comfortable viewing. This all consumed the morning, much of the time working with the salvaged wood to back out nails and separate pieces prior to sawing.
After that, though, I had a very hard time tackling my next project: income taxes. I made a good start, but my concentration faded. As it was snowing outside, I didn't particularly want to walk as a means of clearing my head. So I puttered on the taxes, got a little done, surfed the web, played mindless computer games, and watch a little NCAA basketball.
I also read in my recent book purchases (the Tolkien letters, the C.S. Lewis letters, and misc. C.S.L. writings), in the Mark Twain Hawaii letters, and in a writers mag. Even with those, I found my mind wandering, and I went from item to item with little comprehension. I gave that up and, as the snow had stopped, drove to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things urgently needed (peanut butter among them), then did laundry and dishes. That got me through 6:00 PM, and a PB&J sandwich through 6:30 PM. I tried the taxes again, and made a little more progress.
Saturday evening was better as far as concentration was concerned. I worked on my outline for In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, and outlined the next seven chapters. That will get me about half way through the book. I was able to read with greater comprehension after that.
Sunday, at a church dinner, I thought my sickness was coming back. Fortunately, it was only one episode and I seem to be fine physically. Still, that gave me a too-easy excuse not to walk or exercise. The taxes again resisted the five hour concentrated effort needed to complete them. I outlined the rest of a political essay I started, then went back to my reading. I found some of C.S. Lewis' letters on his spiritual life quite interesting, Tolkien's letters to his son during WW2 less so.
So what will this week hold? I need to get back on the stick as far as exercise and diet are concerned, and get back in the form I was in two weeks ago. I need to have that concentrated time to complete our taxes. It looks as if we will get a nice refund, and I need to get that in the works. And I need to get back to writing, so that if I do get to go to a conference in May (hopefully the Blue Ridge one again), at least I'll have something to present to editors/agents.
Tonight I get my wife back. Yeah!
Friday, March 27, 2009
Back, and Back to Normal
Yes, following my sickness of last week (food poisoning), I'm back to normal. All body functions functioning as they should, the pounds rapidly lost are back on again--and then some, and my energy level is as it should be. This weekend I should be able to tackle some projects.
And I'm back home after a three day conference in Kansas City. This was Urban Water Management 09. I presented a technical paper on stormwater pumping, and chaired a technical session. The conference was somewhat poorly attended, especially on the first day (when I presented my paper). This is my third stormwater conference to attend, and I found few of the exhibitors had anything new to show me. I'll need to sit out a year or two of going to these things.
And I'm back home to an empty house. Lynda is still in Oklahoma City, watching the grandson while our daughter has gone to Kansas City herself for a conference. I hope the old lady is up to the work for these four days. Ephraim's dad is there, and his sister, so it's not as if Lynda is alone and without help. It will be good to have her back, probably on Monday. I suppose that means I'll have to do my own laundry this weekend, as the draws and closet are getting a bit empty.
I got back yesterday afternoon in time to do a little work at the office. After work I made my pilgrimage to Barnes and Noble where I drank a large house blend, researched in World War 2 magazines, and purchased, off the remainders table, a C.S. Lewis book I hadn't seen before. I add this to two volumes I picked up in Kansas City at a discount bookstore. One was selected letters of J.R.R. Tolkein; many of them concern his literary life. The other was selected letters of C.S. Lewis; these are his letters to various correspondents wherein he gave spiritual advice. These three books will not go on the top of the reading pile, though I reads some in each of them over the last two days, reducing what had been good progress in Letters From Hawaii.
Last night I e-mailed a query to the target magazine for the story of my dad's time with The Stars and Stripes. It's a perfect story for that mag, so I'm hopeful. This is my first submittal of 2009.
And I'm back home after a three day conference in Kansas City. This was Urban Water Management 09. I presented a technical paper on stormwater pumping, and chaired a technical session. The conference was somewhat poorly attended, especially on the first day (when I presented my paper). This is my third stormwater conference to attend, and I found few of the exhibitors had anything new to show me. I'll need to sit out a year or two of going to these things.
And I'm back home to an empty house. Lynda is still in Oklahoma City, watching the grandson while our daughter has gone to Kansas City herself for a conference. I hope the old lady is up to the work for these four days. Ephraim's dad is there, and his sister, so it's not as if Lynda is alone and without help. It will be good to have her back, probably on Monday. I suppose that means I'll have to do my own laundry this weekend, as the draws and closet are getting a bit empty.
I got back yesterday afternoon in time to do a little work at the office. After work I made my pilgrimage to Barnes and Noble where I drank a large house blend, researched in World War 2 magazines, and purchased, off the remainders table, a C.S. Lewis book I hadn't seen before. I add this to two volumes I picked up in Kansas City at a discount bookstore. One was selected letters of J.R.R. Tolkein; many of them concern his literary life. The other was selected letters of C.S. Lewis; these are his letters to various correspondents wherein he gave spiritual advice. These three books will not go on the top of the reading pile, though I reads some in each of them over the last two days, reducing what had been good progress in Letters From Hawaii.
Last night I e-mailed a query to the target magazine for the story of my dad's time with The Stars and Stripes. It's a perfect story for that mag, so I'm hopeful. This is my first submittal of 2009.
Monday, July 14, 2008
When friends fall out
In my continuing (and slow) reading of John Wesley's letters, I came today to his April 27, 1741 letter to George Whitefield. Whitefield was in Georgia, America, and has written Wesley on December 24, 1740, a letter that appears to have been critical of a number of things Wesley was doing: handling money, deeds for properties, 'adornment' of sanctuaries. Most important, however, seems to have been the growing rift between the two over doctrinal issues. Wesley was an Arminian and Whitefield a Calvinist concerning the issue of the permanency of salvation.
This difference must have been under the surface, or seemed unimportant, as the two began the great work of the revival. Certainly, it is hard to imagine Whitefield begging Wesley to come to Bristol to substitute for him in a revival that was breaking out there (Whitefield having to be elsewhere) if he thought Wesley to be in error in his doctrine. I just now found Whitefield's letter on line, but have not yet read it. It contains five main points spread out over twelve pages of twelve point font, so it looks like I have lots of interesting reading in the days ahead. I will likely add this to the Wesley letters book, so that I have the full impact for when I read these again, perhaps in a decade or two. Apparently, Whitefield had the letter published in London, with a wide distribution.
Whatever their differences, and whoever was at fault, I'm saddened to see these two giants of the faith have a falling out. Somehow we have to make room in our hearts for those who interpret the gospel differently than we do. For Whitefield to have said Wesley preached a different gospel, and so they could have no fellowship together, seems extreme.
When Paul and Barnabas had their famous falling out, the result was the work was multiplied: two missionary teams went out, with more workers, than would have happened had they stayed together. Later in life, these two giants of the apostolic church were reconciled in friendship. Their dispute was over administrative issues, not doctrine, but still, could not Whitefield and Wesley have looked to their example? Well, maybe they did, sort of, for they divided their efforts.
I have much more to read on this, and possibly will come back and modify this post or make another.
This difference must have been under the surface, or seemed unimportant, as the two began the great work of the revival. Certainly, it is hard to imagine Whitefield begging Wesley to come to Bristol to substitute for him in a revival that was breaking out there (Whitefield having to be elsewhere) if he thought Wesley to be in error in his doctrine. I just now found Whitefield's letter on line, but have not yet read it. It contains five main points spread out over twelve pages of twelve point font, so it looks like I have lots of interesting reading in the days ahead. I will likely add this to the Wesley letters book, so that I have the full impact for when I read these again, perhaps in a decade or two. Apparently, Whitefield had the letter published in London, with a wide distribution.
Whatever their differences, and whoever was at fault, I'm saddened to see these two giants of the faith have a falling out. Somehow we have to make room in our hearts for those who interpret the gospel differently than we do. For Whitefield to have said Wesley preached a different gospel, and so they could have no fellowship together, seems extreme.
When Paul and Barnabas had their famous falling out, the result was the work was multiplied: two missionary teams went out, with more workers, than would have happened had they stayed together. Later in life, these two giants of the apostolic church were reconciled in friendship. Their dispute was over administrative issues, not doctrine, but still, could not Whitefield and Wesley have looked to their example? Well, maybe they did, sort of, for they divided their efforts.
I have much more to read on this, and possibly will come back and modify this post or make another.
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