Inferno- Dan brown

The problem with reading Dan brown is that it's like watching a drama series. You find it hard to stop, Which explains the panda like eyes I have these past 3-4 days. Inferno is however, a diluted version of da Vinci code and angels and demons in my opinion. It's hard to top the successes of those two books. The same goes for the lost symbol. The formula of the Robert Langdon series is similar but in inferno, there's less of the puzzles and riddles going on. Whatever puzzle there is, lies only in a small excerpt of dante's poem. It was a little nice that in inferno, he moved out of his favorite settings-france and Italy, to turkey.  I don't know what else to say about the book, except that there are just too little things going on and there's really nothing new and exciting in this book. The only thing it did for me was inspire me to read the divine comedy. I'd started reading it halfway through reading inferno but boy, the language is really not that palatable. 

One other thing that came to my mind while reading the book was that the problem with the world is not exactly over population per se. If we had not advanced our technology this fast and human beings have not gotten into the habit of over consumption, then over population might not be that big an issue. if the population we have now had occurred say two centuries ago, would we have feared that the resources we have would be insufficient for the population? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. 

Inferno- dan brown

Trying to resist writing a book review before I actually finish reading it. 

The puzzle in this book revolved around (no prize for guessing) dante's divine comedy. The central problem in this book is over-population, which the villain( as of chapter 72) is trying to solve. 

But I guess throughout history, humanity has a way of culling itself, whether through calamities, pandemics, wars, etc. do we really need human intervention? 

Will write more about the book when I finish. Too sleepy for now. 

Painting

Guess painting by numbers doesn't really work. 

Acrostics

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrostic

While reading about Nabokov, I came across the fact that he used an acrostic in one of his books. So did Lewis Carroll.

I did something like that once but never realized that there was a word for it. I think acrostic was also quite popular in our autograph books.

Some samples:

Edgar Allan Poe 

Elizabeth it is in vain you say
"Love not"—thou sayest it in so sweet a way:
In vain those words from thee or L.E.L.
Zantippe's talents had enforced so well:
Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,
Breath it less gently forth—and veil thine eyes.
Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried
To cure his love—was cured of all beside—
His follie—pride—and passion—for he died.

In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, the final chapter "A Boat, Beneath A Sunny Sky"^[9] is an acrostic of the real Alice's name: Alice Pleasance Liddell.

A boat, beneath a sunny sky
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July -

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear -

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream -
Lingering in the golden gleam -
Life, what is it but a dream?

Nabokov's letters to Vera

Nabokov's letters to his wife, Vera. Quite a charming love story and about the art of letter writing.

http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/12/03/letters-to-vera-vladimir-nabokov/

I won’t hide it: I’m so unused to being — well, understood, perhaps, — so unused to it, that in the very first minutes of our meeting I thought: this is a joke… But then… And there are things that are hard to talk about — you’ll rub off their marvelous pollen at the touch of a word… You are lovely…

[…]

Yes, I need you, my fairy-tale. Because you are the only person I can talk with about the shade of a cloud, about the song of a thought — and about how, when I went out to work today and looked a tall sunflower in the face, it smiled at me with all of its seeds.

[…]

See you soon my strange joy, my tender night.

Love - a light

For love in its purest form,

Can bear no darkness,

Nor the slightest blemish.

It hides no secrets,

Tells no lies. 

It doesn't provoke,

Nor does it incite anger.

It doesn't create jealousy,

Nor does it inflict pain.

For love in its truest form,

Is a tower of light,

It shines on the path you are taking,

It gives you a glimpse of the future 

That awaits you,

In its brightness, 

There is no fear,

No shadows,

Nothing to stumble and trip you. 

Love, a clarity,

That awaken all your senses.

The happiness project- Gretchen Rubin

This was an okay read but there were "resolutions" and steps to achieving these resolutions that I felt like trying out. It's not exactly groundbreaking stuff but rather simple things like "if you think you are happy, you are happy", "cutting others slack", etc. I agree with the author that staying chirpy is actually hard work, as compared to being negative/ "heavy".

It's easy to be critical, judgmental, angry, etc but difficult to let yourself remain positive/ cheerful despite any circumstances.  

I liked her idea of publishing her own books through a website called lulu.com. Eg turning all her blog entries into a book, short stories she had written, etc. 

I think making resolutions is easy, but getting started and sticking to them is tough. I liked that the author discerned the difference between a goal and a resolution. A goal is something you set to accomplish and once achieved, that goal is finished. Resolution is something you set to achieve everyday of your life- basically becoming a part of who you are. 

My resolution is to be more encouraging and be able to pass compliments/ words of affection. I often have difficulty encouraging / complimenting others even when I really feel that the person is deserving of it or is needing to hear an encouragement. I don't know why it is a barrier for me. Shyness? Fear of appearing too "fake"? 

Case in point: niece said she hasn't seen me for a while and that she missed me. I wanted to say I've missed you too but just couldn't bring myself to do it. 

Merry Christmas

Could barely sleep and it's already 230 am in the morn of Christmas.

It just struck me how destructive self-centredness could be. Not only does it make the self-centred one unhappy, it also makes others ard the self-centered one unhappy. 

But I'm seeing more and more of this behavior happening around me, and it has no age limit. It afflicts the young and the old alike.

Well,what do we do ?

Life is life is life. Tonight was enjoyable for me. I love listening to mclean's when love begins on record and I've loaned my all-Time fav book the great gatsby out. And also Wodehouse and the John Lennon's letters. There's something beautiful about sharing what you love with others. 

Painting by numbers

Seems like a fun yet challenging project. Reminds me of a picture from a calendar called simplicity that I liked a long time ago. I had scanned the picture but it's now lost. 

There's something about red rowboats that gives it a pretty, rustic charm. 

The happiness project-Gretchen Rubin

Chapter 5 of the book. I just wanted to pen some thoughts down before I forget. The topic is about "fun". The author decided to take fun more seriously. Have I given any thoughts to what I think is fun for me? Or am I mostly going along with the flow? What is the one thing I can spend hours doing, without feeling bored? An activity that has no economic or constructive value but which i still enjoy putting time and effort into? So far, the one thing I can do for a long period of time without getting restless is reading (which is such a given). The second thing is probably writing (another given!). I used to like scrapbooking but got bored of it. I also enjoy playing the ukulele and piano to myself but enjoy it so much less when there is an audience. Cycling, taking walks I guess are also enjoyable. It does seem like the activities I like are quite mellow and solitary. I also like the idea of escape rooms but haven't tried them yet. Who doesn't love treasure hunt of sort? I think there are many things i like and find interesting but few that I am truly passionate/ dedicated about. Anyway, I'm not sure if anything useful would come out of the book. I guess the happiness the author described is likely to be ephemeral but will elaborate more when I finish the book.

On a side note, I got a bit excited too when the author talked about starting a children's literature reading group after finding a kindred spirit. She had debated about whether to bring up the fact that she liked Harry Potter, as it seemed shallow to like children's lit, especially when one was speaking to a literary agent. Lo and behold, she later found out that the literary agent was equally fond of Harry Potter. She later added this quote from CS Lewis's "on three ways for writing for children":

When I was 10, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up. 

I had read this excerpt in an article by brainpickings. I guess perhaps we shouldn't be afraid of being judged for what we like. We like what we like. 

To love or not to love

Sometimes I wonder if we should judge who are worthy of our help and who are not? The politically correct answer is of course that it is not our place to judge. Yet, sometimes after lending a hand to someone, you just feel as if you have unleashed a monster. People who feel that your help is their entitlement, people who want more than what they had asked for in the first place, people who in the end just decided that you being their crutch is the only way out for them. God commanded us to love and that is the highest order that is seemingly simple, yet perpetually unattainable. How do you love everyone? It's tough enough to love someone close to you and who loves you back. How do you love someone who is "unloveable", someone who makes loving them so difficult? I don't know. It's easy to say that we can find the good, even the tiniest bit of good, in everyone but the actually doing calls for tremendous efforts. I guess maybe I'm not trying hard enough. 

True grit- bear grylls

Thought it might be nicer if he had included some of his own stories, rather than purely those of others. It might be interesting to know more about the backgrounds of all those heroes grylls mentioned in the book. Is there a common characteristic amongst these people with high endurance and survival instinct? Most people would have given up when caught in their situations but they didn't. Very admirable. The three main groups of people he featured in his book were war heroes (spies, POWs, etc), mountaineers, and pioneer explorers (the first explorers to reach the south and north poles, Antarctica, etc). Truly amazing but it also makes me wonder if some of these people had a death wish. I think I liked the war stories better than the rest. For the rest, the stories all blended into one another and sounded very similar-of people meeting with avalanches, trying to survive hypothermic circumstances, frostbite, starvation, etc.

But nonetheless, not too bad a read. 

Bday

Sis brought me and mom for lunch at Daniel Boulud's as a bday treat. It suddenly struck me as odd this whole birthday thing. Why do we celebrate our birthdays? What great things have we done to deserve a celebration in our name? It seems more befitting to "reward" our moms on our bdays, rather than ourselves, for the sacrifices and pain they bore for our existence. I guess maybe I don't feel "deserving" of a celebration, coz what I have done really? Has anyone benefitted from my existence? 

Time

Fighting against time, 

The mortal enemy,

Created by men, 

Feared by kings,

The mortal enemy,

That assaults all.

The fight is futile,

Wise men know,

Even the fools,

Time, it runs,

The sprinter,

That we can't race against.

The lock

Only the stars know my secrets,

The secrets I would never tell,

The secrets you would never know.

My silence is my safe harbour,

My silence that could never be broken,

The silence that only my heart understands.

If you unlock all my secrets,

Then you will see but you will not comprehend,

That the pandora box once opened,

Can never be the same again.

And that lock you picked,

Is the heart that falls apart. 

And that heart, 

It belongs to me.

The John Lennon letters -hunter davies

Quite a collection I must say! Very nicely put together in a chronological manner. Must have been tough tracking down all the letters that Lennon had sent throughout his life, and also the accompanying stories+interviews. John Lennon struck me as a little of a mad man, especially during his youth and also during his time with Yoko Ono. I guess there's a little streak of madness in creativity. 

I really like the cover of the book as well- a young Lennon with his eyes closed. 

The ending was a bit sad. A seemingly ordinary day. He signing an autograph for a fan from Hawaii, who later shot him dead. 

Also realized from the book that Lennon and Yoko Ono were in Singapore during 1976, and had sent some postcards to friends from there. 

I liked some of his writings from his childhood, where he had written funny, short, nonsensical stuff, including a newspaper he made up. 

He emphasized several times that he just wanted to make others laugh. In some of his later letters to his family, he kept reminding them that "I am still me!" People naturally assume that fame, money change people but sometimes, on the off chance, they do not. 

On a side note I just realized today,I had finished the book a few minutes before the day he was shot (8 dec)  34 years ago. Talk about coincidences! 

Widow for One Year- John Irving

Have had this book for some years but never got around to reading it. Quite enjoyed it especially the beginning and the ending. I got bored around the middle. Story began with Marion and Ted Cole, Eddie O'Hare, and Ruth Cole. Marion and Ted had lost their sons in a freak car accident and Marion never got over the loss. Ted was a famous children's book writer and was often infidel. He hired Eddie one summer to be his assistant but it turned out that Ted had a more sinister plan in mind. as expected by Ted, Eddie, then 16, fell in love with the sad Marion, who was 39. The love affair lasted almost the whole summer but with Marion eventually abandoning her family, including the 4-year old Ruth Cole. Marion couldn't bring herself to love another child; afraid that one day she might lose Ruth too. 

I guess this is true for many of us. We are afraid to love because we fear losing. Love and lose, just a letter different. 

Anyway Eddie became a writer but not a very good one, as all his books were about that summer affair. He never got over loving Marion.

Ruth also grew up to be a writer and Eddie's life continued to be intertwined with the Coles. But he never found out where Marion was except that he discovered that she too, had became a writer under a nom de plume. She had included descriptions of her lost boys in her stories as part of her grieving process.

Ruth was the more successful of the three and had a love-hate relationship with her father, as she knew of his infidelity with other women. The last straw came when she finally learnt that Ted had been sleeping with her best friend, hannah. Ted Cole eventually committed suicide when he learnt from Ruth that one of his squash mates had abused her.

Ruth then married Allan, her editor, because he was a safe choice but he later died from cardiac arrest. She then met Harry, a street cop from Amsterdam, where she had been to research her story. She had witnessed the murder of a prostitute and had written to Harry with the clues. Harry only realized it was Ruth who wrote to him after reading one of her novels. 

I liked the ending when Marion finally got in touch with Eddie and then Ruth. Eddie and Marion fell in love again despite 37 years of being apart. When Ruth saw Marion and Eddie, she was in tears. Marion said to her," darling, it's just Eddie and me." The same phrase she said to her when Ruth had walked in on them together, when she was 4. 

Yeats

Had heard of Yeats but never truly took the time to read his poems. Until I read one of his poems in John Irving's widow for a year.
I don't know why I like his poems. But they are simple, maybe a little sorrowful and also beautiful.

When you are old
WHEN you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Dream of death-William butler yeats

I DREAMED that one had died in a strange place
Near no accustomed hand,
And they had nailed the boards above her face,
The peasants of that land,
Wondering to lay her in that solitude,
And raised above her mound
A cross they had made out of two bits of wood,
And planted cypress round;
And left her to the indifferent stars above
Until I carved these words:
i{She was more beautiful than thy first love,}
i{But now lies under boards.}

To whom, do I write these letters to?

To whom, do I write these letters to?
The honest words,
The unadorned truth,
Before they get stolen by the world,
Before they get stolen by time,
Before they get stolen by the thieves
That reside in the recesses of my mind.

Aedh wishes for the cloths of heaven-William butler yeats

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Yeats

Man as an island?

After the mad running around looking for gifts for the kids, had to cancel the trip after getting the flu which came without warning. Rather disappointed. Maybe I should not have kept so many late nights recently.

On a random note, I've always had this idea that we came into the world alone and would also die alone. But I guess that's not entirely true. When we came into the world we had our mothers and most times, other caregivers, be it nurses, doctors or midwives. When we die, I guess for some, they do go alone but for others, they have family members with them.
I'm not sure what point I'm deriving at. Just that if following my former thought, it
seems as if at the two most significant times in our lives, we are alone. So why are we so afraid of loneliness? But now I realized I guess we were never meant to live as a lone island, since we were surrounded by people the moment we were borne. And God had made 2 instead of 1 because He knew that human beings are susceptible to loneliness.

I was quite afraid last night when I was ill & told sis to give me a call in the morning just to check that im alive. Talk about being dramatic. But I guess that's the main fear when u live alone. So can one truly live in solitude without fear? I dont know.

I've brought myself here
To the place I didn't want to be.

Manuscript found in accra-Paulo coelho

Designated this as my MRT book as the ones I'm currently reading are quite a pain to lug around.
The book borders a little on the occult...which is quite typical of Paulo coelho's books. There's always a bit of religion + the new age spiritual stuff in his books. Although I couldn't agree with some things he mentioned in the book, ie, how we shouldn't share our faith/religion with others, I do like the parts about defeat and dreams.
Some excerpts I like:
Defeat is for the valiant. Only they will know the honor of losing and the joy of winning.

...there are people who have never been defeated. They are the ones who never fought....

In the silence of the night, they fight their imaginary battles: their unrealised dreams, the injustice they turned a blind eye, the moments of cowardice they managed to conceal from other people-but not from themselves- and the love that crosses their path with a sparkle in its eye.... But which they lacked the courage to embrace

Once-blue

The sun rages in its fury,
The days are getting longer,
The desert land grows ever larger.
The people's eyes
Were long blinded
By the brilliance of the sun.
The blisters on their skin
The parched lips
The ever thirsty throat.
The sun glows fiercely
In its final days
It burns out
And the world is covered in darkness.
A cold and a silence so deep
Settles over the little once-blue planet. The deserts turn to ice,
And we return to the beginning of time.

The words came to me in the middle of the night. Couldn't get up to pen anything down. And this is definitely not what was in my mind. The words are lost but I guess the gist is there.

Brevity of a lie

It is a perfect world we live in,
Each building block,
A lie.

A lie, shrouded in its threads of gold,
Beautiful and enticing,
A lie, we all want to believe in.

This lie, it grants us sleep,
Gives us a little hope for tomorrow,
When all that is out there is emptiness.

How long does a lie live?
How long can a lie live?
It is clothed in gold, but not eternity.

Spiritual gifts

Ss sent me a questionnaire to find out about our spiritual gifts. I actually got poverty and mercy... Seriously... Maybe there's this desire to live simply... As for mercy, not exactly sure how I got that.... !

Been talking about starting a spiritual journal but haven't done it... Procrastination....

Mph sales

Nearing the end of every year, MPH will host this major sales at expo. Think it's probably one of the best in Singapore, in terms of the pricing and selection of books. This year's crowd is much much lesser than the years before, which is great news for me. But I'm also wondering if this spells the demise of books... What with most major bookstores having to foreclose. I pray that the day when all books become digitized will never come.
On another note, I am thinking if it is possible to implement the Dewey system on my small little collection of books. A little of a time-waster but might be fun.
Anyhow I probably need to make a list soon as I don't remember what books I have bought and not read. Always the danger of purchasing the same book.
Quite happy with the purchase today. Of the lot, there's only one book I've read before- I know this much is true. I had borrowed and read it 14 years ago and liked it so much that I purchased a copy to keep. Subsequently loaned it to a friend and that was the last I saw of the book. I think I'm quite fated to re-purchase books.

She wept today

She wept today
Head buried in her hands.
The weariness of yesterdays
Caught up with her.

She had once lived dangerously
There was nothing she feared
Because she believed
That the world was good.

Yesterday, her faith was shaken
Her spirit was broken
Everything she once knew
Was just a smoke screen.

What was to come
Was shrouded in darkness
It mystified
And it crucified.

Nailed to the cross
The burden on her shoulders
The mountains to cross
She knew she couldn't
Wouldn't
Make it there.

Medium raw- Anthony Bourdain

First watched and fell in love with Anthony bourdain's shows when studying in Az. Thought he was really cool at that time- the devil may care attitude, the bluntness, the vulgarities...
I would never have thought a chef could be into literature but he writes pretty well. I've read practically all his books, be it fiction or the non-fiction ones. Kitchen confidential was pretty good. He managed to bring readers into his world- the world of chefs, drugs, alcohol, and everything that's supposedly bad for you... A world that not many of us could possibly fit or survive in. I can't say the same for medium raw... He did say he wrote this book for cooks and not exactly for the general audience. I do enjoy some parts of the book where he described some of his gastronomic experiences. I think this book felt more like a collection of small pieces of memories and people...
It's like his own personal journal sorta thing and not exactly meant for someone else to enjoy...
There was this section where he described all the different kinds of food he tasted over the world... And it just felt quite flat...nothing like hemingway's "A moveable feast", where u feel lured and enticed. It's an okay read, nothing to rave about.

Reading Together Even While Reading Alone

An article by Bryan Vandyke.
Haven't read a piece as neat as this for a while. One of the reasons I started this blog was to keep track of what I read and also capture some of my thoughts (if any) about the books I read. Quite similar to what the author said about keeping an excel spreadsheet of his readings. I like the part in the article where the author connected more deeply with his grandmother after recommending Lolita to her. Their relationship probably changed after that. My heart ached a little when he talked about her death, how she had nothing of value left except for her small collection of books. Also about how their readings overlapped despite their age differences. Got a little excited when I saw this side of paradise on the list. One of the best modern literature I've ever read (although I've not read much mod lit)!
Similar to the author, I do have a list of "want to read" but which I never got round to. I would hear people lamenting about this and that classic/author and my curiosity would be sufficiently piqued and I would add the book to my mental list. Some of these authors were Tolstoy, Nietzsche, Dante, Henry miller, Nabokov, etc. I think I read miller but haven't started on the rest.

As I read through this article, I started to search through my memory for what got me into books. Not much recollection. I only remembered I started reading and collecting books probably in kindergarten. And I remembered that one night when parents brought home this 365 bedtime stories by Richard Scarry and I was thrilled. I think I had wanted the book but didn't dare ask for it as it was quite expensive.
I loved that book to tatters and kept it till I was 9 and then mom threw it out coz the cover had fallen out. I was devastated and some years later I came across the same book with a different cover and bought it. I still have it now!

I also remembered reading my brother's literature book from sec school, which was full of poetries. I was probably about 8 then. I actually enjoyed reading it, especially the poem about some boy sneaking into the kitchen at night to have chocolate cake. Funny the things one remembers.

I also recalled reading my sister's sweet valley high books and reader's digest. My favorite section from reader's digest was laughter, the best medicine.

My favorite mall in the past was parkway parade coz it had one of the biggest bookstores then-MPH. Such a thrill to just smell the books and browse. My routine was always Tom yam steamboat and
then MPH, with a bonus treat at toys r us if I was lucky.

My birthday present for some years was for my mom to bring me to MPH and I would just buy a ton of books.

After school, I would lie in bed with my snacks (cuttlefish strands, kaka, chicken in a biscuit, spicy tapioca chips, beebee were my favs) and just read, which explained my extreme short sightedness.

I loved the bookworm club books and especially the bookworm classics vol 1, which I lost and had to re-purchase. I then worked for bookworm for like a month and boy, the owner of bookworm was a real pain in the ass! Such a disappointment.

I loved Roald Dahl when I was 10. Read practically every book of his. And then in p5, I liked the woodland gang series.

Also loved the lion the witch and the wardrobe and would hide in the cupboard, praying that the bloody cupboard would open up to Narnia.

Enid blyton's far away tree was one of my favorites too during lower primary I think.

Ok trip down memory lane should probably stop now. The article of Bryan Vandyke starts now:

I probably shouldn’t admit that I keep an Excel spreadsheet to track what books I’ve read in a given year. The file spans seventeen years, a book lover’s rap sheet, for sure; at my best, I was reading just under 50 books a year, a rate that I felt proud of. Unfortunately, I’ve been reading steadily fewer books over the years. I’m sure Excel could generate an instructive and depressing chart to illustrate this. After the birth of my daughter, I fell from tallies in the forties to the thirties. My son’s arrival in 2011 bumped me down to the twenties. Last year I was grazing the treetops just a few dozen feet above rock bottom.
I was once more casual about books, and I expected far less of myself as a reader. I read whatever was at hand, and I rarely tracked what I was reading. This changed—predictably—in college, when I joined a freshman class where I felt like everyone else had read everything important, while I had read nothing worthwhile. One boy in my Latin class seemed to have read Julius Caesar while in the cradle. Nietzsche was invoked often in late-night bull sessions at the dorm, and I knew the name, but could do little more than nod along. In one class, the professor and the students agreed The Great Gatsby was the solid-gold standard of all modern lit—tossing off references to the high-hatted lover, the ash heap, and West Egg, as if these were people and places they all knew personally as kids.
Looking back now, I can see how some of the people I thought knew everything had in fact just gathered enough knowledge to sound impressive. Such a nuanced understanding eluded me at the time, although such an insight even then would not have really made me feel better. I was a young man of no pedigree coming from the backwaters of Kalamazoo, Michigan, and I was contending with the ex-pats of the East Coast and the better-bred urbanites of the Midwest’s larger cities; all that mattered was what it felt like I had not done, had not read, did not know.
Being prone to rash vows, I swore then that I would henceforth read everything that mattered. That I would embark upon the reading journey of all reading journeys. I’d just have to read everything. Fair enough: except I didn’t really know where to begin. And I didn’t really have time to get started in between integral calculus and seeking out new friends. I made no real progress until the arrival of summer vacation, when I returned home to work as a messenger in a law firm.
For weeks I stumbled blindly through books by William Blake and Carl Sandberg, but nothing really clicked till I opened a copy of the ever-controversial Lolita. Before then, I often said that I wanted to a writer but that I’d probably be a lawyer because it was more practical. After reading Nabokov, I had an epiphany on the order of anything out of Dubliners: I cared more about art than legal arguments. And I admired Nabokov more than any learned attorney. Nabokov was a perfect specimen of art made man. His voice and tone were pitch perfect; he was deeply learned and sophisticated, and he had the charm to make a deeply disturbing story into a thing of terrible beauty.
That summer I put Lolita in the hands of everyone I knew. I urged it onto a girl I was trying to impress. I gushed to the point of self-abasement with strangers at Barnes & Noble. I even convinced my 85-year-old grandmother to read it. She surprised me by diving in so deeply that she read with a copy of a French-English dictionary at hand, the better to unlock the meaning of each filigreed phrase.
I was startled by her deep engagement with the text. Here was a woman who had not finished her last year of high school, and yet she could settle into Nabokov’s wordplay with a verve all her own. The night that I fetched the book from her, after she had finished, we sat in her kitchen in the dim light of a hanging pendulum lamp; we were surrounded by tall piles she had made of newspapers that she intended to read. She lived alone, as my grandfather had died the year previous. We spoke until well after dark, something that had never happened before. The world was full of new surprises.
After that summer, I would never again pretend to care about a career in law: I was mesmerized by the idea of finding, reading, and maybe even writing consequential books. I didn’t have a future path for gainful employment, but I did have The List, and that, at the time, felt like enough.
I call it the List, but its full name is The List of Every Book I Need to Read before I Die. The rules of The List are simple. Rule 1: the List is never written down. It can only be kept in one’s head because only thought can hold the list of everything worth knowing, because the entire universe is worth knowing, and the universe is infinite. Rule 2: you cannot remove a book from the List until you’ve read it entirely—because until the last paragraph, anything can happen.
I have not bothered with any more rules because those two have proved trouble enough.
Those first years of exploring the books of The List were like the beginning stages of love; when you and your beloved discover a shared appreciation for lazy afternoons on a blanket in Central Park, forgetting everything else exists; when you are startled and overjoyed at the simplest coincidences; when it feels like the entire world is made for you to discover its hidden connections and contradictions.
I remember in particular when I fell for the work of William Faulkner in March of 1998. We’d been introduced before, but always at the wrong time and place. This time, I was particularly weak and needy: my graduation was nearing, and having abandoned law school, there were many legitimate questions about where I’d live and how I’d afford living. I was also physically ill with a late winter cold. Into this ailing world, there arrived a Modern Library double-edition of As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury.
Faulkner was brash, confident, and utterly unconventional in all the ways that I was vulnerable to. He was not proper and neat, like Nabokov. He broke things. He seethed. I did nothing for two days but lie in bed and power through both novels. Once I could stand again, I became the evangelist of yet another Great Book. You have to read Faulkner, I kept saying. Have you read this guy? You have to read this. The man has no limits!
One evening at a small party on the patio deck of a nearby apartment, I was introduced to another graduating senior, a woman who had just completed her honors thesis. I inquired about the topic. She said, simply: “Faulkner.” I am not lying when I tell you thunder rumbled in the distance: it had just finished raining. I put my hand on the railing to steady myself.
“Explain something to me,” I said, eager to dive in, “Why does Faulkner put a tiny picture of an eye in the text of The Sound and the Fury? Why is there a tiny coffin hidden in the lines of As I Lay Dying? What’s it all mean?”
This woman glanced at the cloudy skies, as if hopeful for rain but quick. “I don’t know,” she said. I think in retrospect that perhaps she thought I was in the opening stages of a come on. Maybe I was, in a manner. We were all drinking and we were all young and I was desperate to find a way forward that could join the world of reading to the real world of adulthood and being.
>My way forward, eventually, led to New York for an MFA program that fall. And while there I began to meet more people tunneling through books, working their own Lists. To my great joy, among these people I could actually talk about what I was reading, and what I thought of Great and Important Books. Yet we were all also very busy and protective of our writing time, as we were all supposed to be composing Important Novels of our own. Also, I was still a laggard. I was reading fistfuls of Hemingway and Dostoevsky, but I still hadn’t read Moby-Dick, and whenever Jane Austen came up, I’d pretend to hear someone calling in another room.
Around that time I returned home again for the holidays and visited my grandmother. She was not living in her house any longer during the winters. Instead, her children prevailed on her to occupy a small cottage on a plot that my uncle owned near a deep pond called Gun Lake. The rooms where she lived were sparsely furnished; she brought little more than her clothes, a television, and dozens of books, which she stacked on the floor near a portable heater.
On a snowy Christmas Day, she and I sat on the divan near the windows where outside my uncle was shoveling snow and we talked about New York City, and what my life was like, and what I was reading there, what new authors I had to tell her about. I found these dialogues somehow more affecting than most of the ones that I had in New York because they were the most honest and true; neither my grandmother nor I had read everything we wanted to read, and we were both serious about fixing the score on that point.
This new relationship surprised me, but it was not without precedent. As a boy, after raking leaves or performing the prerequisite chores to help out, I would sit at my grandmother’s kitchen table with a finger to a page in her 2,128-page unabridged Webster’s dictionary, quizzing her on words while she baked. Pie-eyed; melancholy; puny – these were words we laughed over. This connection had matured into a kind of partnership when I was an adult, and we could speak honestly and like fellow travelers who met up from time to time.
After I finished graduate school, I kept up the tradition of the List; despite stepping away from a community of fellow readers, I did not find myself reading less. If anything, I began to read more. I crossed names off the List and added names on to replace the ones that have passed. I met and became smitten with the likes of Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster and Yukio Mishima.
Around the time that I got married, I fell hard for Graham Greene’s serious novels. During the settling in period of my first home, I binged on John O’Hara. The joy of those books is intermingled with the joy of those periods of my life. Sometimes, I wish just as much that I could forget all the Graham Greene novels and begin The End of the Affair again for the first time. I wish I could read with unspoiled eyes the startling first chapter of BUtterfield 8. But you can’t go back.
I was eating dinner with friends on the Upper West Side in January 2010 when my father called and told me that my grandmother, Valerie Cote, had died. Like a character from countless novels or plays, I was to return home. And home I went, packed up with heavy feelings and the sense that a long, winding conversation had been interrupted—and would never resume again.
At the time, I was reading a book by Nam Le called The Boat. The Boat is a collection of stories, about which I can now remember almost nothing. I carried the book in a knapsack on the 11-hour drive home; and during the three days that I spent in Michigan, I know that I took the book out a few times, but I never really read it with any comprehension or joy.
Instead, while home I helped my parents empty out the apartment where my grandmother lived her final days. We threw out tattered clothes and sun-bleached furniture. There was very little worth keeping. She did not really seem to care about possessions. Except for her small horde of books. She was alone but not alone. In the collection of books near where she died, I recognized many books that she had carried unfinished around for ages, such as Thomas Mann’s Joseph novels. She had neglected the real world at the end and lived in the world of the book, and yet she still did not finish her List.
If it stimulated her, the reading, if it propped her up at the end, as her body failed her, as the light went out, I can’t say for sure. I can, however, say for certain that standing in her apartment while my mother vacuumed and my father packed up boxes, I felt no trace of her presence. It was as if she’d already been gone for ages. I suspect I would feel the same if I stood in Borges’s tiny flat or Proust’s bedroom. It is possible to stop living in the world long before you stop living.
So, then, what is it all worth, all this reading? Is it all just a delusion, a way of killing time, before time kills you?
I don’t think so, and my proof comes—ironically—via one last list. This list is a partial one, a mere sampling from the titles of the books that I took from my grandmother’s apartment and added to my own library on the shelves of my home in New York. This is the list of the place where my List, the list of a boy born in 1976 and still alive, overlaps with my grandmother’s List, the list of a girl born in 1915 and who died in 2010; despite our differences, we share a set of books that neither of us have ever read but both of us feel like we should and hope that we will read someday, somehow:
Nostromo.
All the King’s Men.
A Clockwork Orange.
This Side of Paradise.
The last book in this partial list, This Side of Paradise, belongs to a set of hardcover F. Scott Fitzgerald novels which includes The Great Gatsby. And mention of Gatsby returns me—borne back ceaselessly on the tide of nostalgia—to the period in my life when I finally tasted of that great book, the golden apple of American literature, or so I’d been told to expect. I was almost twenty-three, and I read the book all at once over the course of an evening; from the start, Gatsby’s story sent a frisson of recognition through me, like when you approach a murky portrait in a dark room and discover that you are looking at a dusty mirror.
As every reader of Fitzgerald’s finest novel knows, Jay Gatsby fashions a new life out of the void of his past. Born in the Midwest, he rejects his birthright, changes his name, and moves to New York. He pursues an impossible dream. He remains slightly lost, ever in love with an ideal. He comes East to start fresh, but how do you escape the lonely heart you carry within you? Short answer: you don’t.
My grandmother was eleven when The Great Gatsby was published. Like a Jazz Age bon vivant, for a brief period in her teenage years she wore her hair short and danced the Charleston at a trendy club in downtown Kalamazoo. Her name at the time was Ruby Herrick. Years later, after marrying my grandfather, she took his last name—Cote—but she also did something unusual. She began to go by a new first name: Valerie. This was the only name I knew her by. I was a teenager before I learned that she’d once been known as Ruby.
She never left Kalamazoo, despite her name change. She never had to run, or never could. In contrast, I did not change my name, but I did flee to the East. And I do have my own ridiculous ambitions, especially when it comes to The List. I have fashioned a new life in a new city in the quest of an ideal, although I would be hard pressed to sum up all I am after in words. Jay Gatsby probably wouldn’t have been able to say precisely what he wanted, either. He also was a lover of books, by the way—as the owl-eyed man at a party at his house points out in the novel. Except none of the pages in Gatsby’s books are cut. Unlike my grandmother, he never read a single page. He had a different kind of List.
So, now, here I am, after seventeen years of reading my way through my List, and I am reading still, but not as often; and why is that? Perhaps I am too busy. Perhaps I am entering into a period when I can’t fit in time for reading, and so I am deferring much of it for later—as my grandmother began reading with a vengeance after her children were grown and her husband was away at the club with his semiretired friends.
>Or, perhaps, the number of books I read has dropped to a low now because after years of accumulation, I have gathered up enough stories and views and perspectives that I can at last wade through life with some confidence. I am no longer that 18-year old cub so cowed by what all the others around him have done. I see ways into the world other those of the milieu that I was born into; certainly there are countless more ways of seeing, but for now I can ease off the throttle.
I’ll never quit, of course. For me, reading is an act of personal tradition, something that belongs to me as deeply as a genetic signature; it is a kind of ongoing, hereditary faith. The images, characters and stories that I have gathered up are the templates for the stories, narratives, and analogies that help me interpret the world—like an ivy using a trellis to catch and claw its way to the light. I am not any more trying to gain admission to a mandarin club or rise up in standing against my rivals. I am going to read, and read, and the reading itself is and will have to be enough.
Reading is solitary and personal, but you aren’t necessarily alone in it. In some ways, we are all reading together; even if we are also reading alone. The List is infinite. My life is finite. I don’t need to finish everything. Finishing isn’t even the point.

Letter from St Clare

Not quite sure about the authenticity of the letter. The title says it was a love letter from St Clare to St Francis of Assisi.
Anyway saw both of their statues whilst in the church of St Francis Xavier in India and sorta reminded me to do a bit more reading on them. But I do question whether they were truly in love with each other as what some stories had claimed. I am sitting more on the side of, I don't know, agape? Something that's truly rare, especially between men and women. They were about 30 odd years apart in age, rarely saw each other during their lifetime, shared a mutual love for God, respect for one another, and although not seeing each other, always kept the other in mind (according to what I read in some accounts). Such platonic, unselfish love, is truly amazing- pure and uncomplicated.

Dear Francis,
Words are never large enough or small enough to write you but I try again. buona sera, good evening. I always think about you at this time of sunset. It is during this hour that I put aside everything about the day which is not important and hold to my heart our inner path, the love we know. It is a good practice. I can safely say that my small light in the garden of my heart has become a diamond. I feel quite strong and God shines very bright. In a few hours in the dark of night, I will be sinking inside to our Lord in gratitude. Then I go to sleep. Thank you, Francis, for leading me on this path of chasing God, instead of worldly things. Thank you for showing me it is not really a chase at all, but rather a great finding, finding God always very close at hand, as close as my heart.

Francis, we share the true relationship. Many couples live together under one roof and never share what we know together. Sure I miss sometimes not having more time with you in the small moments of life. Then I think of most couples living with one another day after day, but so separate from each other in their thoughts and feelings. Francis, we have fallen in love again and again landing in the great heart, the garden that extends forever. The eternity we know is the true poetry of life. The canticle you share is music for the heart inside every heart.
And you, Francis, how are you? You are a big fire on the mountaintop that many come to see. I wonder sometimes if they really know who they are visiting? I am sorry the Church confuses people saying you are great because you have suffered greatly. You and I both know human suffering gives nothing but perhaps a small push further into our heart, to rest on the lap of God. The empty times in life are small gifts we enjoy to be alone with the quiet, with God. We enjoy these times living in the sweetness of God's mystery. Our path is nothing more or less then receiving. Every day is the simple peace. You in the cave of your heart, me with my budding Roses, life is precious. Simple peace and our hearts wrestle with the Divine being so much for our simple human heart. The birds, animals, planets and stars are family in these moments. Francis, I know you have tried again and again to explain to the Bishops that they are no more special than our homeless friends, the lepers. The rich are no more rich than the very poor. Life's treasure is within us. Why don't people understand that everything is given in the silence of our heart?

Francis I want to tell you about a day dream I have been carrying all week. I see all the priests and ministers finally agreeing there is nothing to say! Every church large and small is just a house for God. People come and sit in silence. There is no preaching, no need to preach. In the silence is all and everything, so much peace. This is enough. And after sitting for a while, everyone absorbing the goldenness of God in our heart, the people share bread and medicine to any who have need. This is the real church! Why do they make it so complicated Francis? Why?

Anyway this is not the reason I write. I write today trying to put some words to where I have been led inside. I know you already know. But maybe my words support you as well. I know you are burning inside in this fire. Love lightens and overwhelms all my human edges. This very, very, very bright light rises from deep inside of me. I just pray to be available. Truly God knows we are only human. My selfishness is just part of my humanness. This is not to make excuses but Francis we really should not punish ourselves for being human. We are what we are. Can I say that in truth we are this light, only this light? When we leave this world and all our limitations, the angels will welcome us and we will know for certain. There is so much light!

Francis, I know some of the brothers are praying that your tears will stop for the sake of your health. But Francis, don't stop. I understand why you cry and cry so much. It is because of this light. Your tears are the blood of your soul and my soul as well. You cry for all of us. I pray you never stop crying. Know that each tear is milk and honey for my soul and the soul in everyone. May your joy cry out to all now and forever! In the great silence, only joy, joy, joy! I know it doesn't need to be said but thank you Francis. Thank you! Yours, forever in our Lord, Clare

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/2653317
Bruce Davis

Epitaph

While dining at Peramakan, I took a brochure off the counter. The restaurant was run by I guess, a Christian family.
One article that was written in Chinese, caught my eye. And I began googling for the English version and managed to find it. What got my attention were the below verses that were carved onto a tombstone of a woman with no birth and death dates:

Sleeps, but rests not.
Loved, but was loved not.
Tried to please, but pleased not.
Died as she lived—alone.

How sad could that be? I wonder what my epitaph would look like. Should I think of and write one now? Probably an empty slab would suit me more at this point of my life.
Anyway, below is the fuller version of the story by Max Lucado and which the author had cleverly linked to the Samaritan woman story in the bible.

Two Tombstones
I had driven by the place countless times. Daily I passed the small plot of land on the way to my office. Daily I told myself, Someday I need to stop there.
Today, that “someday” came. I convinced a tight-fisted schedule to give me thirty minutes, and I drove in.
The intersection appears no different from any other in San Antoni a Burger King, a Rodeway Inn, a restaurant. But turn northwest, go under the cast-iron sign, and you will find yourself on an island of history that is holding its own against the river of progress.
The name on the sign? Locke Hill Cemetery.
**************
As I parked, a darkened sky threatened rain. A lonely path invited me to walk through the two-hundred-plus tombstones. The fatherly oak trees arched above me, providing a ceiling for the solemn chambers. Tall grass, still wet from the morning dew, brushed my ankles.

The tombstones, though weathered and chipped, were alive with yesterday. Ruhet in herrn accents the markers that bear names like Schmidt, Faustman, Grundmeyer, and Eckert.
Ruth Lacey is buried there. Born in the days of Napoleon—1807.
Died over a century ago —1877.
I stood on the same spot where a mother wept on a cold day some eight decades past. The tombstone read simply, “Baby Boldt—Born and died December 10, 1910.”
Eighteen-year-old Harry Ferguson was laid to rest in 1883 under these words, “Sleep sweetly tired young pilgrim.” I wondered what wearied him so.
Then I saw it. It was chiseled into a tombstone on the northern end of the cemetery. The stone marks the destination of the body of Grace Llewellen Smith. No date of birth is listed, no date of death. Just the names of her two husbands, and this epitaph:

Sleeps, but rests not.
Loved, but was loved not.
Tried to please, but pleased not.
Died as she lived—alone.

Words of futility.

I stared at the marker and wondered about Grace Llewellen Smith. I wondered about her life. I wondered if she’d written the words . . . or just lived them. I wondered if she deserved the pain. I wondered if she was bitter or beaten. I wondered if she was plain. I wondered if she was beautiful.
I wondered why some lives are so fruitful while others are so futile.
I caught myself wondering aloud, “Mrs. Smith, what broke your heart?”
Raindrops smudged my ink as I copied the words.
Loved, but was loved not...
Long nights. Empty beds. Silence. No response to messages left. No return to letters written. No love exchanged for love given.
Tried to please, but pleased not...
I could hear the hatchet of disappointment.
“How many times do I have to tell you?” Chop.
“You’ll never amount to anything.” Chop. Chop.
“Why can’t you do anything right?” Chop, chop, chop.
Died as she lived—alone.
How many Grace Llewellen Smiths are there? How many people will die in the loneliness in which they are living? The homeless in Atlanta.
The happy-hour hopper in LA. A bag lady in Miami. The preacher in Nashville. Any person who doubts whether the world needs him. Any person who is convinced that no one really cares.
Any person who has been given a ring, but never a heart; criticism, but never a chance; a bed, but never rest.
These are the victims of futility. And unless someone intervenes, unless something happens, the epitaph of Grace Smith will be theirs.
That’s why the story you are about to read is significant. It’s the story of another tombstone. This time, however, the tombstone doesn’t mark the death of a person—it marks the birth. Her eyes squint against the noonday sun. Her shoulders stoop under the weight of the water jar. Her feet trudge, stirring dust on the path. She keeps her eyes down so she can dodge the stares of the others.
She is a Samaritan; she knows the sting of racism. She is a woman; she’s bumped her head on the ceiling of sexism. She’s been married to five men. Five. Five different marriages. Five different beds. Five different rejections. She knows the sound of slamming doors.
She knows what it means to love and receive no love in return. Her current mate won’t even give her his name. He only gives her a place to sleep.
If there is a Grace Llewellen Smith in the New Testament, it is this woman. The epitaph of insignificance could have been hers. And it would have been, except for an encounter with a stranger.

On this particular day, she came to the well at noon. Why hadn’t she gone in the early morning with the other women? Maybe she had. Maybe she just needed an extra draw of water on a hot day. Or maybe not. Maybe it was the other women she was avoiding. A walk in the hot sun was a small price to pay in order to escape their sharp tongues.
“Here she comes.”
“Have you heard? She’s got a new man!”
“They say she’ll sleep with anyone.”
“Shhh. There she is.”
So she came to the well at noon. She expected silence. She expected solitude.
Instead, she found one who knew her better than she knew herself.
He was seated on the ground: legs outstretched, hands folded, back resting against the well. His eyes were closed. She stopped and looked at him. She looked around. No one was near. She looked back at him. He was obviously Jewish. What was he doing here? His eyes opened and hers ducked in embarrassment. She went quickly about her task.
Sensing her discomfort, Jesus asked her for water. But she was too streetwise to think that all he wanted was a drink. “Since when does an uptown fellow like you ask a girl like me for water?” She wanted to know what he really had in mind. Her intuition was partly correct. He was interested in more than water. He was interested in her heart.
They talked. Who could remember the last time a man had spoken to her with respect?
He told her about a spring of water that would quench not the thirst of the throat, but of the soul.
That intrigued her. “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
“Go, call your husband and come back.”
Her heart must have sunk. Here was a Jew who didn’t care if she was a Samaritan. Here was a man who didn’t look down on her as a woman.
Here was the closest thing to gentleness she’d ever seen. And now he was asking her about . . . that.
Anything but that. Maybe she considered lying. “Oh, my husband?
He’s busy.” Maybe she wanted to change the subject. Perhaps she wanted to leave—but she stayed. And she told the truth.
“I have no husband.” (Kindness has a way of inviting honesty.)

You probably know the rest of the story. I wish you didn’t. I wish you were hearing it for the first time. For if you were, you’d be wide eyed as you waited to see what Jesus would do next. Why? Because you’ve wanted to do the same thing.
You’ve wanted to take off your mask. You’ve wanted to stop pretending.
You’ve wondered what God would do if you opened your cobweb-covered door of secret sin.
This woman wondered what Jesus would do. She must have wondered if the kindness would cease when the truth was revealed. He will be angry. He will leave. He will think I’m worthless.
If you’ve had the same anxieties, then get out your pencil. You’ll want to underline Jesus’ answer.
“You’re right. You have had five husbands and the man you are with now won’t even give you a name.”
No criticism? No anger? No what-kind-of-mess-have-you-made-of-your- life lectures?
No. It wasn’t perfection that Jesus was seeking, it was honesty.
The woman was amazed.
“I can see that you are a prophet.” Translation? “There is something different about you. Do you mind if I ask you something?”
Then she asked the question that revealed the gaping hole in her soul.
“Where is God? My people say he is on the mountain. Your people say he is in Jerusalem. I don’t know where he is.”
I’d give a thousand sunsets to see the expression on Jesus’ face as he heard those words. Did his eyes water? Did he smile? Did he look up into the clouds and wink at his father? Of all the places to find a hungry heart—Samaria?
Of all the Samaritans to be searching for God—a woman?
Of all the women to have an insatiable appetite for God—a five-time divorcée?
And of all the people to be chosen to personally receive the secret of the ages, an outcast among outcasts? The most “insignificant” person in the region?
Remarkable. Jesus didn’t reveal the secret to King Herod. He didn’t request an audience of the Sanhedrin and tell them the news. It wasn’t within the colonnades of a Roman court that he announced his identity.
No, it was in the shade of a well in a rejected land to an ostracized woman. His eyes must have danced as he whispered the secret.
“I am the Messiah.”
The most important phrase in the chapter is one easily overlooked.
“The woman left her water jar beside the well and ran back to the village, telling everyone, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did!
Could he possibly be the Messiah?’” ( John 4:28–29 nlt)
Don’t miss the drama of the moment. Look at her eyes, wide with amazement. Listen to her as she struggles for words. “Y-y-y-you a-a-a-are the M-m-m-messiah!” And watch as she scrambles to her feet, takes one last look at this grinning Nazarene, turns and runs right into the burly chest of Peter. She almost falls, regains her balance, and hotfoots it toward her hometown.
Did you notice what she forgot? She forgot her water jar. She left behind the jug that had caused the sag in her shoulders. She left behind the burden she brought.
Suddenly the shame of the tattered romances disappeared. Suddenly the insignificance of her life was swallowed by the significance of the moment. “God is here! God has come! God cares... for me!”
That is why she forgot her water jar. That is why she ran to the city.
That is why she grabbed the first person she saw and announced her discovery, “I just talked to a man who knows everything I ever did . . . and he loves me anyway!”
The disciples offered Jesus some food. He refused it—he was too excited! He had just done what he does best. He had taken a life that was drifting and given it direction.
He was exuberant!
“Look!” he announced to disciples, pointing at the woman who was running to the village. “Vast fields of human souls are ripening all around us, and are ready now for the reaping” ( John 4:35 tlb).
Who could eat at a time like this?
***

For some of you the story of these two women is touching but distant.
You belong. You are needed and you know it. You’ve got more friends than you can visit and more tasks than you can accomplish. Insignificance will not be chiseled on your tombstone.
Be thankful.
But others of you are different. You paused at the epitaph because it was yours. You see the face of Grace Smith when you look into the mirror.
You know why the Samaritan woman was avoiding people. You do the same thing.
You know what it’s like to have no one sit by you at the cafeteria.
You’ve wondered what it would be like to have one good friend. You’ve been in love and you wonder if it is worth the pain to do it again.
And you, too, have wondered where in the world God is.
I have a friend named Joy who teaches underprivileged children in an inner city church. Her class is a lively group of nine-year-olds who love life and aren’t afraid of God. There is one exception, however—a timid girl by the name of Barbara.
Her difficult home life had left her afraid and insecure. For the weeks that my friend was teaching the class, Barbara never spoke. Never. While the other children talked, she sat. While the others sang, she was silent.
While the others giggled, she was quiet.
Always present. Always listening. Always speechless.
Until the day Joy gave a class on heaven. Joy talked about seeing God.
She talked about tearless eyes and deathless lives.
Barbara was fascinated. She wouldn’t release Joy from her stare.
She listened with hunger. Then she raised her hand. “Mrs. Joy?”
Joy was stunned. Barbara had never asked a question. “Yes, Barbara?”
“Is heaven for girls like me?”
Again, I would give a thousand sunsets to have seen Jesus’ face as this tiny prayer reached his throne. For indeed that is what it was—a prayer.
An earnest prayer that a good God in heaven would remember a forgotten soul on earth. A prayer that God’s grace would seep into the cracks and cover one the church let slip through. A prayer to take a life that no one else could use and use it as no one else could.
Not a prayer from a pulpit, but one from a bed in a convalescent home. Not a prayer prayed confidently by a black-robed seminarian, but one whispered fearfully by a recovering alcoholic.
A prayer to do what God does best: take the common and make it spectacular. To once again take the rod and divide the sea. To take a pebble and kill a Goliath. To take water and make sparkling wine. To take a peasant boy’s lunch and feed a multitude. To take mud and restore sight. To take three spikes and a wooden beam and make them the hope of humanity. To take a rejected woman and make her a missionary.
*********
There are two graves in this chapter. The first is the lonely one in the Locke Hill Cemetery. The grave of Grace Llewellen Smith. She knew not love. She knew not gratification. She knew only the pain of the chisel as it carved this epitaph into her life.
Sleeps, but rests not.
Loved, but was loved not.
Tried to please, but pleased not.
Died as she lived—alone.
That, however, is not the only grave in this story. The second is near a water well. The tombstone? A water jug. A forgotten water jug.
It has no words, but has great significance—for it is the burial place of insignificance.

Tomorrow

The world is a scary place.
But You gotta have a little faith
With every step you take.

Do you not walk
For the fear of falling?
Do you not live
For the fear of dying?

The mountains you face today
Tomorrow, they will be behind you.
The seas you have to cross today
Tomorrow you will be home.

Tomorrow carries a hope
a secret that no one knows
It gives us a chance to dream
A dream that will always be sweeter
Than today's reality.

The old and the dying

The old and the dying
The constant yearning
For a little warmth,
A little love,
A little something
To make the days easier to pass.

The dying with dreams unfulfilled,
Wished for one more day
Just to dream once more.
Once our time ends,
Will we continue to dream,
Or will we be trapped in an abyss
Of eternal darkness?

My fear,
Our fears,
Of dying alone,
Grasping at straws
To have someone to hold on to,
Someone to quieten that fear,
That fear which eats at our souls each day.

Tbc

Human

Human beings are perhaps the scariest things around.
Too clever
Too mentally unsound.

A creature that's destructive
Yet vulnerable.
Vulture-like,
And yet, doe-like.

It hunts and devours
It nurses And nurtures.
Things flourish out of their hands
Things were equally destroyed.

Once upon a time
I believed in the goodness of man.
That once upon a time has come to pass.
The spell has been broken
And I am more awake than I should be.

The great divorce- CS Lewis

Re-reading this book. Bought this years ago when still in Az on recommendation by CIL, David I think. I couldn't really understand what the whole book was about then and so decided to read again last week. Still finding this a tough book and struggling to finish it. Anyhow I like this passage,"there have been some who were so occupied in spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ...did ye never know a lover of books that with all his first editions am signed copies had lost the power to read them? Or an organizer of charities that had lost all love for the poor? It is the subtlest of all the snares."
How true. In the process of doing, we lose sight of the purpose and what's truly
Important.

The way of the world

The way of the world is easy
No mountains to climb
No rivers to cross.
But it blinds you,
To what lies beyond.
All that glitters
And tempts you now,
They will all turn to dust
In a blink of the eye.
The faithless ones,
They get stolen away
On the road to el dorado.

Drucker and me-bob Buford

Cousin said because I have a rep for reading everything, she gave me this book she won on definitely books. Haha. Funny. .. Anyway read the sypnosis of the book and thought it would be something like "Tuesdays with Morrie". But it turned out to be something totally different from my expectations.
Peter drucker was the "man" in the management field. And bob buford was a self-made man who decided to apprentice under drucker.
Bob Buford's business became successful but he suddenly realized that there should be more to life than just making money. He got a calling from God and decided to invest his money into planting new churches. He founded the leadership network where he gathered pastors, priests to brainstorm/ discuss with drucker how they could grow and maintain their congregation.
I really like the concept of using business skills for God's work. I used to think that business, money and all that jazz do not mix with God. Couldn't be more wrong. We all are given gifts and no matter what that gift is, with some creativity, good intentions, and perseverance, it can all be put to good use.
I got the same idea when attending the mission conference, where a businessman/pastor talked about how he changed the mindset of farmers in Chiangmai and helped them make more profits by changing the crops they grow-from corn to cashew nuts. It sorta inspired me to want to spend some time away next year for mission work there. I wonder if it will happen in due time. All these idealization but no implementation...terrible.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time-mark haddon

The story was narrated through the eyes of a boy with Asperger's syndrome. Quite a fun read. It all began with a neighbour's dog being murdered and the blame being put on Christopher. And so he began his detective work and to write his story. Dad got furious when he found out that Christopher had been bothering the neighbours just so he could write his detective story. In a rage, he hid Chris' book. Chris began hunting for his book and chanced upon a whole bunch of letters that were addressed to him from his mother.
He had been told by his father that his mom had died of a heart attack but the letters told a different story. Chris found out that his mom had been living in London with the neighbour's ex husband.
Chris decided to up and leave for London and thus began his terrifying (for someone who couldn't stand crowds, yellow things, chaos) journey.
It was rather interesting to read how everyday simple things that we take for granted for, could prove to be challenging for others with psychological barriers.
Wouldn't say I love this book but entertaining read nonetheless.

Love and hate

These are things I can't put into words.
You and I,
Alike yet,
Apart.
Love and hate,
A thin line,
Which we tread to and fro.
You are a risk
I cannot take
Because I am afraid
Of losing more than I can gain.
We know the way love goes,
It brings you up and then makes you fall
And it brings the rain,
Always it brings the rain.
I wish the rain could wash away the pain
But it never does,
No, it never does.

Things unsaid

Some things meant to be said
Are left hidden.
Some things better left unsaid
Laid in the open.

What can I tell you
That will make everything new?
What can I tell you
That will end all that have been wrong?

Too many days have passed
Good times never last.
I am still standing here,
At the same place where I had last shed a tear.

The radio plays the old songs
You and I used to love.
You and I
The ones that had never been
The ones that will never be.
You and I,
A story that began in my mind,
A page that was never turned.

The world

The world continues to entice,
With its meaningless white noise.
I watch as it steals our souls away.

The rainbow-colored skies,
So pretty it is,
But it is not real and all is just a play.

WILD GEESE

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Mary Oliver

Always a sense of nostalgia when I'm in Pasir Ris. More so than when I'm in bedok. Countless good memories and the bad as well... What I miss most perhaps is those solitary rides to the beach, the Late night drinking at the old fisherman village, and star-watching with friends.

Uncertainty of life

The uncertainty of life,
The certainty of death.
The uncertainty of eternity,
What do you believe?

The theory of everything

http://youtu.be/Salz7uGp72c

Finally something I feel like watching. The last movie I watched if I remember correctly was tom cruise's edge of tomorrow. Probably went to the theaters less than 5 times this year and nothing quite memorable cept perhaps for Her.
Wonder how I used to be able to do a movie a week kinda thing but now, it just seemed tiresome to watch something for the sake of watching something.

Theory of everything is a biopic of Stephen Hawking's earlier life in Cambridge before he had ALS, and when he first knew Jane Hawking. Sounds like a guaranteed sob fest.

On another unrelated note, am such a sucker for fairy lights. They just pretty up things ordinary.

The wonders

Will I see all the beauty you have created?
This life is too brief,
To be filled with all the wonders
You have placed before me.
These legs you made
How far can they travel
Before they crumble?
These hands you moulded
How many lives can they touch
Before they fall by my side?
This breath I take,
Of each I count,
It may be the last,
Today or tomorrow,
Nobody knows.
The days are numbered
Just as you said.
And I sit here
Wondering which day is my end.
It may be today,
It may be tomorrow.
Everything is in your hand.
And I pray for one more day,
The longest summer's day,
To see, to feel, to hear,
Just one more wonder that you had created
Before time began.

The great gatsby- f. Scott Fitzgerald

Re-read the great gatsby. Still find it all rather tragic. I don't think anyone is capable of that much love as gatsby, well apart from God, of course. It's not quite believable that a short romance could last through 5 years of not seeing one another. And that one would be willing to mould and live one's life just so as to please another person. Gatsby had known that Daisy was married to Tom and yet continued to live for that hope that she still loved him and not Tom. During the absence of Daisy, he had schemed and worked his way to a huge fortune (albeit through underground means) just so he could afford a mansion that was close to where daisy was and which he thought, would impress her. The parties he threw each weekend were all for the hope that she would drop in one day and be impressed. Alas, it was all for nothing. Though she did want him, she wasn't in love with him enough to sacrifice a single
thing for him.
I do quite like the first meeting they had after 5 years apart. You could feel gatsby's anxiety and anticipation on seeing Daisy again. The awkwardness and embarrassment that hung in the air because each didn't quite know what to say in front of each other. I think it happens to most people. You just get all tongue tied and dumb in front of the person you like.
A tragic story which I'm beginning to like and which I think is worth re-reading.

Things are funny and have a way of
Working their own way out. Was deliberating for some time what i could possibly do at the orphanage. And teaching english was one of the ideas i had. was procrastinating and deliberating if I should really commit myself to something like that and also how to go about starting it. Then got to know a girl (whom ive never met) who has been teaching English there through Samuel. Still, I procrastinate about asking her for more details. But the thought and the urge of doing it never dissipated and i guess i was just bidding for time. But for no apparent reason today, she asked if anyone's interested in teaching English as she's short handed! The message is too in the face to not take up the offer. So I did.

The miraculous journey of Edward Tulane- Kate dicamillo

Got this ebook on the net. A very beautiful and touching children's book. It tells of a precious china rabbit who was loved by a girl named Abilene. But the rabbit's heart was closed and did not love or care for anyone, not even Abilene who loved him with all her heart. One day, Abilene's family decided to get on a cruise to England; Edward was of course, included in the trip. On the ship, Abilene was teased by two boys and the two boys snatched Edward away and flung him into the deep deep ocean. There Edward stayed season after season, never having a chance to see the stars that he so loved. Then a fierce storm came and threw Edward to the surface of the ocean. He was hauled in by a fisherman called Lawrence who gave Edward to his wife, Nellie. So Edward became Susanna and was well-loved by the old couple, who treated him like a little child. Edward was happy there until the old couple's obnoxious daughter came to visit. Lolly thought Edward ridiculous and dumped him into a trash bin when Nellie wasn't looking. As Edward was carted away by the garbage truck, he felt for the first time a sharp pain to his heart. His heart called out to Nellie and Lawrence. There in the garbage pile, Edward stayed till he was picked up by a dog, Lucy. Lucy belonged to a hobo named Bull. So Edward became Malone and travelled on the road with Bull and Lucy. He enjoyed Bull's stories and songs. Life was good for seven years until Bull and Lucy were caught hitching a free ride on a train. Edward was tossed out of the train. Something deep inside of Edward ached because once again, he was alone. An old lady picked Edward up and he became Clyde the scarecrow. Then came a boy named Bryce who worked for the old lady. Bryce decided to steal Edward for his very ill sister, Sarah Ruth. Edward became Jangles and he was loved fiercely by Sarah Ruth. Edward was happy.
One day, Bryce decided to fit Edward with strings and sticks to make him dance like a puppet. Bryce would play the harmonica and Edward would dance. Then Sarah Ruth's illness worsened and she died. Edward was devastated. He had fallen in love with Sarah Ruth and she had died. Bryce decided to run away to Memphis with Edward. In Memphis Bryce busked on the street,using his harmonica and making Edward dance. Edward was sad and felt hollow because he was dancing not for Sarah Ruth but for strangers.
With his earnings Bryce took Edward to a diner but didn't have enough to pay for the meal he had eaten. Edward was tossed by the owner against a window in a rage. Edward's head cracked into pieces. Whn he awoke he found himself in a doll mender's shop. Bryce had brought him there. However Bryce couldn't afford to pay the mender the fees to mend Edward. The mender gave Bryce two options:to seek other shops for assistance or to give Edward up when he was mended. Bryce chose the latter. This part was particularly touching to me. Bryce had knew that to love meant having the other party's interests at heart, even though it might mean breaking your own heart.
Bryce came back to the shop to have a last look at Edward. He was told by the mender never to come back again. Once again, Edward was alone and he felt his heart turn cold, determined never to love again. An old doll next to Edward told him to open his heart,that someday, someone will come for him. Edward's heart began to stir a little and began yearning for someone to love him again.
Many seasons came and went. Then a 5-year old named Maggie came into the shop. She looked around the shop and her eyes settled on Edward. She wanted him. Maggie's mother came and told her that she couldn't buy dolls that day. Then Edward saw a familiar object that belonged to him around the woman's neck- his old pocket watch. The woman was Abilene. So Edward returned to the girl who had first loved him, and who had loved him with all her heart. Edward reflected back and realized he had been loved by many and had also learned how to love.

In our current world, most of us are stingy with our love. In fact, some of us may never really understand or know the meaning of love. Sometimes love is used. We want love only for our own interests and not for the interest of the other party.