Classic?

What makes a book a classic? When was the term first used?

On this day in 1904 a Joseph Malaby Dent began to flesh out an ambitious vision of reprinting classic books in what would be called the Everyman's Library.

Are books of old dry, uninspiring, and hardly suited for the fast-paced world the Industrial Revolution brought to the twentieth century - and what do we call today?

I've read, read aloud to my kids, and listened to audio classics for years. I have to put myself into the shoes of the characters and author, desiring to see from their perspective what was going on in their culture. What of their culture drove the events, the inventions - what were the era's questions?

What if all we read are current era/popular books?

CS Lewis said, "A good rule, after reading a new book, is never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between ... A new book is still on trial and has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down through the ages."

How many of today's books will transcend beyond our culture?

This is what defines Classics: an ability to adapt themselves to various times and places and thus provide a sense of the shared life of humanity over the course of space and time. They stretch, shape, and confront us - and are ever new.

Could books help us rise to another level? Do we sometimes habituate ourselves to companions of small statures? I like to visualize it as standing on the shoulders of others, a great cloud of witnesses, for a better view. Reading can take us away from ourselves to where we can step back and see the whole, instead of just 'me, myself, and I', and self-success thinking.

Maybe the more books we can live in, we could be more rehearsed in life: knowing the stage, recognizing the plots and props - having tried out many characters and scenarios. With my kids I thought of the unencumbered time they had to invent their own images, explore thier own fantasies, to create their own possibilities - with both books and movies. They seemed able to get on with meaningful living when they left the nest of home.

Someone said, "In a very real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will not read ... It is not true that we can have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish."

"A good book is not problem-centered; it is people-centered. It reveals how to be a human being and what the possibilities of life are; it offers hope," wrote Gladys Hunt in her Honey for a Child's Heart, speaking about how many books are agenda driven, with many children's books being moralizing and sermonette style stories. These do not touch the heart.

"The importance of poetry and novels is that the Christian life involves the use of the imagination - after all, we are dealing with the invisible [like God]. And imagination is our training in dealing with the invisible - making connections, looking for plot and character."

- Eugene Peterson

Saint Christopher

Yesterday was St Christopher's day. I thought of his story all day and could have written from my memory, but I wanted to reread his story from an old 1914 book of children's stories we have, but the day got away from me. So this morning I read the story, enjoying the cool of the morning while watering the grass, and drinking my English breakfast tea.

Christopher, like Veronica, are possibly not real historic people. But stories have been told around campfires and hearths for centuries. Both of their stories seem to come from the root meaning of their names (or is it the other way around? like which came first, the chicken or the egg? belly-buttons or birth? did created trees have tree rings?). I posted about Veronica several weeks ago. So here's the legend of Christopher -

Christopher was a big man (and I think he grows as do fish stories) and said to be a Canaanite. He lived seeking and serving whom he thought the greatest in the world. Initially he served a king, said to be the greatest. But when he saw the king cross himself, or as my old english story is worded: "when he heard the name of the devil, made anon the sign of the cross". "Fearest thou the devil? Then is the devil more mighty and greater than thou art?"

So Christopher left the king's court and sought out the devil. He fell in with a group of marauders, whose leader declared himself to be the devil. But when the devil cowered and fled from a crucifix, learning of a man called Christ who hung on a cross, Christopher left seeking where he should find this Christ.

A hermit told him about fasting and prayer, which Christopher didn't feel he could do. Because of his stature, the hermit suggested he live by the river and bear people who needed to cross the river. "This will be pleasing to our Lord Jesu Christ, whom thou desirest to serve, and I hope he shall show himself to thee." "That I can do."

Christopher, with a great pole to support himself in the water, carried many people across the water. A small child asked Christopher to carry him across on his shoulders. It was stormy and the water was swelling and the child seemed to get heavier and heavier - "waxed heavy and Christopher suffered great anguish and was afeared to be drowned".

On the other side, putting down the child, he said, "You put me in great peril. Thou weighest almost as I had all the world upon me. I might bear no greater burden." And the child answered: "Christopher, marvel thee nothing, for thou hast not only borne all the world upon thee, but thou hast borne Him that created and made all the world, upon thy shoulders. I am Christ whom thou servest by this work."

Christophoror is Greek for "Christ-bearer". I'm sure you've seen medallions hanging from the rearview mirror of vehicles and people wear it as a necklace - this image of a man with a staff in hand and carrying a child on his shoulders. He's the patron saint of travelers.

The picture, by Titian, is out of a library book. Of all the pictures I've seen, it's my favorite. Off and on I've checked out lots of children's books looking for great stories for calendar celebrations, stories that grab your heart. Jesus taught primarily from stories for a reason.

There's so much in his story that touches me. So many scripture passages come to my mind. I'm not going to mention them, letting you sit with the story, and letting it touch you. What I will say, in having rereading the old golden legend, I so trust and believe that any who are truly seeking Truth, God will show Himself to them.

Who Am I?

I read two things this morning that got me thinking ...

A Nietzsche quote (he is so quotable, and tho he didn't understand what Jesus and his disciples was really about, he was so right-on in many of his comments on Christians and humanity) -

"We are unknown, we knowers, to ourselves ... Of necessity we remain strangers to ourselves, we understand ourselves not, in our selves we are bound to be mistaken for each of us holds good to all eternity the motto, 'Each is the farthest away from himself'--as far as ourselves are concerned we are not knowers."

This was in context with the subject of a book Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book - that we can learn more in ten minutes about the Crab Nebula in Taurus, which is 6,000 light-years away, than we presently know about ourself, even though we've been stuck with ourself all our life.

And I read James 1, and paraphrasing here, verses 22-24 -
"You listen, but you do not act upon what you read and hear ... Hearing and not doing is like looking at yourself in a mirror, and after walking away you immediately forget what kind of person you are ..."

I've lately been reading in both Numbers and Deuteronomy and see how ridiculous the Israelites were! So many times in frustration, God wanted to wipe them out! They 'saw' so much, and yet in the next instant would forget and grumble and live wrongly. If they, like children, had so much of God's personal attention and guidance, and saw so many miraculous things on a daily basis, can't 'grow up' into a mature faith - how can we?

They wandered the desert for 40 years, killing off a generation and growing up a new generation. Before they were to enter the new land, God did not want them to melt into the surrounding cultures. He wanted them to know who they were and not forget. How did he do that? He gave them rhythmical calendar celebrations and lots of visuals and imagery and ritual/tradition to instill into their lives so they would remember and not forget who they were/are in God.

We too can get so caught up in our current culture and learnings and not know who we are. How best to remember who we are? First: know and believe that God loves me first as I am, and that He desires a relationship with me. Then act on that!

The very nature of love means choice. Choice means I need to know something (or someone), so I can make good choices. But there's so much to know! I boil it all down to simply going about my days in love with God. The same tools God gave the Israelites, I have for my use too. I use the calendar days and all the connected stories of so many who have lived in love with God. If God was there for them in their midst, then He's going to be here for me today and tomorrow. I can know who I am, and live better ... live fully alive! live more whole.

Cracked Pot

A friend, Beth, sent me this story. I love it. After the story I'll tell you about the 'cracked pot' I made, pictured here.
_____________

An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots,
each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck.   

One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.

At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily,
with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water.

Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments.  
But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection,
and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do. 

After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure,
it spoke to the woman one day by the stream.
'I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side
causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.' 

The old woman smiled,
'Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path,
but not on the other pot's side?'
'That's because I have always known about your flaw,
so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path,
and every day while we walk back, you water them.' 

'For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers
to decorate the table.  Without you being just the way you are, 
there would not be this beauty to grace the house.'

Each of us has our own unique flaw.
But it's the cracks and flaws we each have
that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding.  

You've just got to take each person for what they are
and look for the good in them.   
SO, to all of my crackpot friends,
have a great day and remember to smell the flowers
on your side of the path!
________________
I was in a small group of gals - we've grown spiritually together. One evening we had some clay, and just did a quicky project of forming a pot that we imagined representing ourselves. So I did mine with very bright colors. I wasn't thinking of me as bright and colorful, but that I'm not a black and white person, nor gray, and prefer color (and that's not in dress, but my outlook on life)! And I intentionally did create holes and cracks, because I had just come to understand...

In striving to live so 'right', striving for perfection ... it seemed futile and I realized Pharisaical. The Pharisees were the main people Jesus railed upon. They didn't recognize their need. I started recognizing the beauty of my imperfections, realizing the more cracks, the more places for the light of Jesus to shine through.

But now, I'm going to be thinking beyond light, to dripping water that helps give life ...