Life Marches Inexorably On...

I haven't written on here in a over a year and a half. I don't know if anybody will even read this, but I suddenly felt the urge to write again. The last year has been fairly normal for us, with a few exciting things happening:

Caroline got engaged and will be getting married next June. She's graduating from college in a little over a week.
Mary began dual-enrolling in college, taking one course last year during her junior year in high school, and now three courses a semester this year. She will graduate from high school next May. She also started learning how to play the violin a little over a year ago, and is doing well with it.
Bobby grew about five inches and is now taller than all three of us girls. He likes this.
Eric is still working at JCB, and I'm still homeschooling, teaching piano, tutoring, and teaching at the homeschool co-op.
Eric edited a book for which he wrote two chapters, and I wrote one, and it was published two days ago. We are excited about this.

Overall we are doing well, and I plan to get back into writing on here at least once a week. My next post will be about this school year and how our homeschooling is changing now that we are nearing the end.

I read two books recently....

....that really shook me up a little.  I got them both from our local library. The first was Making Supper Safe, by Ben Hewitt.

It's about our food industry and the lack of oversight which leads to food contamination. A good read, but also a little frightening. The only way we can ever be truly sure that our food is not contaminated is to grow it all ourselves, something which in our society today is nearly impossible to do. It makes me wish I had enough of a backyard to have a huge garden.

The other book was American Wasteland, by Jonathan Bloom.

This one is about the massive waste of food that goes on every day in our country, mostly due to the fact that we Americans want all types of food available at all seasons of the year, and we want it to look pretty and seem fresh-picked. Stores throw out thousands of dollars' worth of food every week. This book, more than the first, made me really stop and take stock of our own food consumption.  There isn't much I can do about food contamination in the supply line before we buy the food, but there is a lot I can do here at home to prevent wasting perfectly good food.

My current non-fiction read is The Smart-Aleck's Guide to American History, by Adam Selzer.

My sister-in-law and brother-in-law gave it to me for Christmas.  It's hilarious, but also a seriously well-researched book on American History. I'll blog more about it when I'm finished reading it.

Current Reading Material

About a month ago I gave a list in one of my posts of the books I was reading:
Family Driven Faith by Voddie Baucham
Culture Shift by Al Mohler
What's So Great About Christianity? by Dinesh D'Souza
The Power of a Praying Parent by Stormie Omartian
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham.

I have finished all of these except The Power of a Praying Parent, which is kind of an ongoing thing. More about these books in a second. My new list looks like this:

Non-Fiction:
Finding God's Path Through Your Trials--Elizabeth George
His Excellency George Washington--Joseph J. Ellis
Lies Women Believe--Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Christian Fiction:
Sommerfeld Trilogy--Kim Vogel Sawyer--currently on book two
The Sword of Lyric Trilogy--Sharon Hinck--currently on book three

I have previously reviewed Carry On, Mr. Bowditch and What's so Great About Christianity?
To those reviews let me add two short reviews:

Culture Shift--Al Mohler
This is a quick read, and an excellent book. In it Mohler explains how Christians must engage the culture, and delineates the areas in which we have dropped the ball as far as understanding the major shifts in our culture throughout the last generation. He addresses politics, education, law, science, morality, world news and Christian character. If you have the chance, read this book.


Family Driven Faith--Voddie Baucham
I actually finished this one over a month ago. If you have children, please read this book. You may not agree with everything Baucham espouses (he doesn't believe in children's church or youth groups, he does believe in homeschooling, etc.) but he backs up his assertions with both scripture and statistics that will knock your socks off. It is well-written, easy to read, and yet very convicting as he explains clearly that the responsibility for our children's faith and religious beliefs falls not on their Sunday School teacher, Youth Pastor, AWANA leader, or Bible class instructor, but on US--the parents. OUCH! This is such a good book I think it should be given to all new parents in churches.

Okay--that's it for now. I may blog more later tonight about our lives and what we're up to....

What's So Great About Christianity?

That is the question addressed by Dinesh D'Souza in his recent book of that title. In it, he uses evidence from history, theology, philosophy, and science to show the incredible impact Christianity has had on the world. If you are a Christian, as I am, you may be saying "Well, of course! I've always known this!" But wait--you may not be aware of many of the aspects of history D'Souza addresses in this book: the biased presentation historians give of the crusades while generally ignoring Muslim atrocities, and the numbers of people killed under atheist regimes compared to "Christian" killings i.e the Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, etc., D'Souza clearly elucidates these issues. His book is deep and complex, yet readable and understandable. I disagree with his position on reconciling evolution and creation,(At what point would man have been "evolved" enough for God to breathe a spirit into him? Were Adam and Eve not real people but rather archetypes of humanity as expressed in mythological literature? There are some questions here about the truth of the Bible) but in the other areas he addresses, I think he's right on the money. The last chapter becomes much more personal, as he describes what Christianity means to each of us as individuals. He ends the book with "Come quickly, Lord Jesus." D'Souza also has several other books that are worth reading:

The Enemy at Home
Letters to a Young Conservative
What's So Great About America
The Virtue of Prosperity
Ronald Reagan
The End of Racism
Illiberal Education

I especially appreciate the fact that he writes about conservative issues without becoming sarcastic, harsh, and vitriolic as some other conservatives do (Ann Coulter and Bernard Goldberg come mind.) If you want some good intellectual stimulation, D'Souza's books are just the thing.

I forgot...

to mention that a few years ago my in-laws went on a "small ship" cruise off the coast of New England on a ship named....the Schooner Nathaniel Bowditch. Pretty cool, huh? I'm glad there are still things being named for him. I also forgot to mention his method of learning a language: get a grammar of that language, a dictionary, and a copy of the Bible. Go to John chapter 1 and start translating! After having learned Latin and French, when he started learning Spanish he discovered he already knew most of the words. What a great guy. Reading the book has inspired me to continue with my Hindi studies, and perhaps one day to actually conquer French.

More later today on another book.

Sailing By Ash Breeze

One of the best books I've read recently is actually a children's book, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham. It was assigned as a "read-aloud" for my two younger children's curriculum, which means that the parent reads the book aloud to the child and they have discussions together about the book. Kind of like having your own tiny book club at home. But I digress...

Carry On, Mr. Bowditch is a wonderfully written account of the life of Nathaniel Bowditch, (1773-1838) who is famous in the history of navigation for writing what became the book on sailing for American sailors for over 150 years. It's worth reading the Wikipedia article on him--this man will amaze you. In a nutshell, he was a math genius whose family was too poor to send him to school--they needed him to work to help support the family. Instead of letting this get him down, he taught himself Latin so that he could read Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica, and actually found an error in that famous work. He eventually learned to speak French and Spanish, also, so that he could communicate with sailors from those countries on his travels. His dream had always been to go to Harvard, and later in his life that institution gave him an honorary degree based on his life accomplishments. It is an inspiring book, cleverly written with humor, and I would recommend it to anyone who loves history, sailing, or both.

And what does "sailing by ash breeze" mean? You'll have to read the book to find out....or I suppose you could Google it, you computer freaks out there. I encourage you to read the book.

How I'm Doing These Days....Really...

So, I've been nagged second-hand by a certain person, who shall remain nameless here, that I need to post on my blog after my last few weeks of silence. I believe the smarty comment had something to do with wanting to know whether my advanced age (40) has anything to do with my seeming inability to blog. Now, this particular person should know that this is not the case, as he seems as prolific as ever on his blog! No, the problem is that I've been thinking so many deep thoughts that I just don't have the time to write them down.

But seriously...I haven't been writing for several reasons, which I'll try to describe cogently but succinctly here.

First, when I've had time to be on the computer I have spent it updating Bobby's Caringbridge site or reading other people's blogs and commenting on them. Second, other free time has been spent reading "Desiring God" by John Piper, and "Eragon" by Christopher Paolini. How is that for juxtaposition? Both books are pretty good...I'll give my opinions in a minute. Finally, I haven't been writing because my brain seems scrambled and scattered these days, and it's hard to put thoughts together coherently. I am very tired and stressed, and honestly not doing as well as a few weeks ago when I wrote this.
I'll post tomorrow about why I think I've been feeling this way (some of you are thinking "Duh! Her little boy has cancer.") I don't think that's all there is to it, but today I want to write about the two books I just finished.

"Desiring God" should be required reading for all Christians. In it, Piper explains his thoughts on "Christian hedonism," the idea that we are to ENJOY God, not just fear and obey Him, and how this brings Him glory. He discusses the concept of duty vs. enjoyment and how it relates to loving others, stewardship, worship, marriage, missions, suffering, and other aspects of our lives. It took me a while to read through because it seemed that nearly every page convicted me of something in my life or made me stop and ruminate. I have begun to ask myself--Do I truly enjoy and delight in the Lord? Do I do things in my life out of a mere sense of duty or obligation or do I strive to honor the Lord by serving Him GLADLY? I finished the book feeling challenged, with a renewed sense of purpose and commitment. If you haven't yet read it, I would encourage you to get your hands on a copy.

"Eragon" was a much easier read, and I actually read it because my 13-year-old, who writes book reviews of her own, had finished it and enjoyed it. I did enjoy the book, but couldn't help noticing the plot's similarities to "Star Wars." Apparently I'm not the only person who thought this. Let's see: a young man living in an Empire, being raised by his uncle, finds something unusual, sees his uncle killed and the family farm burned, meets an old man who begins to tutor him in the ways of the Force, er, I mean magic, goes on a journey with the old man and is given a sword, meets a sidekick/friend, saves a beautiful princess from jail...you get the picture. The parallels are not perfect but are strong enough to seem annoying. The descriptions seem overblown and the dialogue somewhat forced. The fact that it was written by a 15-year-old mitigates the book's problems somewhat, and I do think that Paolini will be a name in the realm of fantasy lit for a long time if he continues to churn out books at his current rate. I haven't seen the movie yet, but since my sweet daughter has it on hold at our library I'm sure that will happen soon.

As for my current reading, I have moved on to "Suffering and the Sovereignty of God" edited by John Piper and Justin Taylor. I'll post a review of it in a few days.

Tomorrow I'll write about my general mind-fog...

Piper books in progress...

One reason I haven't blogged in a while is that I am currently reading "Desiring God" by John Piper, and it takes up a lot of my free time. When I'm done with that one, I'll be reading a book that he edited along with Justin Taylor about the sovereignty of God and suffering. That one includes essays from many different authors. When I'm done reading those I will post about them.