Opening crisp pages, to get lost in another story,
Something different and beyond, my own limited experience,
An escape which opens my eyes, to the depth and breadth of life
This is especially true when I read historical fiction. It is both a fun adventure and a learning experience. Right now I am reading a novel called The Paris Library and am enjoying it. For Ronovan Writes’s sijo prompt.
As usual, here is my sijo for this week’s prompt, “gift,” the night before it is “due.” 🙂
About a dozen gifts for me, wrapped under the Christmas tree:
There is much to appreciate, but among my favorites are
A book to take me far away, and a blanket to keep me warm.
(Another favorite was a very squishy and cute plushie cat, which I have decided to name Squishy.)
I’ve been reading a book called I Love Jesus, but I Want to Die, by Sarah J. Robinson. The book title was what attracted me because of how blunt it is. I appreciate that the author didn’t mince words. I’ve had this book for over a year but only started to read it a couple of months ago because, before, I couldn’t get through the first page without sobbing.
I read a chapter today which mentioned psalm 139. Not the verses that are supposed to be hope-filled, such as “I praise You, because I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” but the part where it says, “If I make my bed in hell [or Sheol, or the grave], You are there.” That inspired me to make this piece of “art,” using good old Microsoft Paint:
It might not be finished, but I wanted to share. Nor am I finished with the book, but I wanted to write about it because it is the most real book on dealing with depression from a Christian perspective that I’ve ever read. Sometimes it gives me some hope. Other times it doesn’t, but it doesn’t claim to have all the answers. That verse helped a little today but it might not tomorrow; we will have to see.
Another quotation from the amazing Archbishop Fulton Sheen for One-Liner Wednesday!
Books are the most wonderful friends in the world. When you meet them and pick them up, they are always ready to give you a few ideas. When you put them down, they never get mad; when you take them up again, they seem to enrich you all the more.
My effort for this week’s Sijo prompt, for which we are to use REALITY as our inspiration.
Much as this writer also loves to peruse many genres,
And she could read and write for hours each day, she does wonder if
She should do more living, instead of only writing about it.
All week I’ve had a vague idea of what I wanted to write in response to FFFC #173 and WDYS #138, and this morning I wrote this cherita for it. This is based on reality. 🙂 As a kid I would go camping once a year or so, but it wasn’t my favorite vacation, especially since I hated nighttime.
She likes the great outdoors, but camping
Isn’t her thing; and, unable to swim well,
She feels a bit sick and nervous in small boats.
If she must be dragged camping, she might
Go hiking, but she prefers to find adventures
Within pages, of the novels she escapes in.
“‘Oh.’ the priest said, ‘That’s another thing altogether — God is love. I don’t say the heart doesn’t feel a taste of it, but what a taste. The smallest glass of love mixed with a pint-pot of ditchwater. We wouldn’t recognize that love. It might even look like hate. It would be enough to scare us — God’s love. It set fire to a bush in the desert, didn’t it, and smashed open graves and set the dead walking in the dark. Oh, a man like me would run a mile to get away if he left that love around!
Another quotation from The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene, which I am still reading. For One-Liner Wednesday. I have read that one of the Church Fathers (I don’t remember who) said that the fire of God’s love is the same as the fire of hell. I don’t pretend to really understand that, but this quotation reminded me of that. Hell is eternal separation from God, and although it is terrible, I have read that those in hell do prefer it to being with God in heaven.
I’m not a theologian, though.
I have been reading Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory and came across this observation while reading it a few days ago:
Hope is an instinct that only the reasoning human mind can kill. An animal never knows despair.
Our challenge at DVerse on Thursday was to write a “Sparrowlet” poem. I’m now too late to link up, but I would be remiss if I didn’t at least try to write in a form that sounds like a little bird. 🙂 I wrote 2, single-stanza sparrowlets. Linking up with the Friday Writings.
The prompt for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge is fascinating: “Picturing the past.” I figured, why not take part again. These photos are the ghosts of Valentine’s Days past. 🙂
revivedwriter 