My Ebenezers

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Some of you might recall the line in the hymn “Come Thou Fount” which says, “Here I raise mine Ebenezer — hither by Thy help I’m come,” and you might know that it echoes 1 Samuel 7:12: “Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, ‘Till now the Lord has helped us.’” “Ebenezer” means “stone of help,” and it was not uncommon in Old Testament times for Israelites to set up a pile of stones for a monument marking God’s help. You can read more of the background on this story here.

A couple of years ago, Do Not Depart called for some modern day Ebenezer stories: those situations in your life when you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was the Lord who helped you, those seeming “coincidences” that you knew were really evidence of God’s hand at work. I wrote most of this out then and added a little to it. There are numerous encouragements in the Bible to remember what God has done, not only in His Word, but in our own lives: it reminds us of His care, power, and provision, and encourages us to pray, thank Him and trust Him in our current circumstances and for the future.

Here are a few of my Ebenezers:

  • A move during junior high led to a school that was extremely cliquish. Sometimes people toss that word around lightly when they’re feeling a little lonely, but this school had definite, well-defined cliques with very little interaction between them, and I didn’t seem to be accepted in any of them. I’d had a circle of friends before, so I wasn’t sure what the problem was. I had a crush on one guy in the most “cool” group, but of course he and that group were impossible dreams. In later years I found out it was God’s great mercy that kept me from getting “in” with that crowd as they were involved in a number of things that would have been detrimental to me.
  • When I was 15, my parents divorced. It had not been a happy home for years, but the break-up of a family still hurts deeply. Besides that, we were moving from our very small town to the teeming metropolis of Houston, I was leaving my friends and all that was familiar and going into the unknown right in the middle of high school, and I was told I would not be allowed to contact my friends or relatives for a while because my mom was afraid of my father finding us and what he would do if he did. I laid on my bed clinging for dear life to Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Even though I had only a surface understanding of that verse, God honored that faith and fulfilled His Word. As a result of all those changes I began seeking Him earnestly, God led to a Christian school and a good church, I heard about the college where I would one day attend and find my husband.
  • After we moved, when we visited the high school I was to attend, I was convinced I could never go there for various reasons. We didn’t know what the alternatives could be, but we saw an ad for a Christian school. We visited and interviewed, and I wanted to go, but my parents could not afford the tuition. One day we drove to the school to tell them I wouldn’t be able to come. My mom went in, and I stayed in the car. The pastor and his wife drove up, saw me, and came over and told me someone offered to pay my way that year, and someone anonymously did the next year as well. It was through this school and church that I got stabilized in my faith in Christ and grounded in His Word.
  • My parents could not pay for college, either, but through various means God got me through five years at a Christian university. Lots of Ebenezers there! But one stands out: an offering from my Sunday School class at my home church allowed me to buy some necessities like deodorant and toothpaste. Coming back to my dorm room, I heard our hall was having a party and everyone was asked to contribute a dime for ice cream and toppings. I had literally only one dime left. As I gave it, I began to feel panicky about not having any money at all to my name. Then God reminded me of the offering just given. He was taking care of me in big and small ways.
  • One Christmas Eve morning shortly after our first anniversary, we were driving from SC, where we lived, to visit my family in TX. Our car broke down near Biloxi, MS. It was an old German car called an Opel, and when we’d had problems with it before, it took weeks to fix because the parts were hard to find. I wasn’t sure how everything was going to work out now, how we’d get home and then get back to get the car, etc. My husband found a phone booth (no cell phones in those days), and found a random mechanic with a tow truck in the yellow pages. He explained the problem and then said something like, “By the way, it’s an Opel, so it might be a problem to get parts for it.” The mechanic answered, “No problem — we just bought out the local Opel dealership.”
  • I could heap up a whole pile of Ebenezers from my experience with transverse myelitis, but I’ll share just one: when I was scheduled for an MRI, everybody kept asking me if I was claustrophobic. I wasn’t sure (nowadays I would say, “YES!”), but their questions were making me nervous. I was told the day before that I would have to be very still for the procedure, which I think lasted the better part of an hour. The day before, in my Daily Light on the Daily Path devotional book, all the verses were about being still. A few of them: Ruth 3:18: Sit still, my daughter; Psalm 46: 10: Be still, and know that I am God; Psalm 4:4: Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still (more are here). Those verses kept running through my mind while I was in the MRI machine, and God kept me very calm: I even dozed off.
  • For years my husband had to travel quite a bit. At first I was a total basket case beset by fears, but God gradually enabled me to cope. Three years ago I wrote a post about coping when a husband is away, and it has become one of my most viewed posts in 8 years of blogging. Though I inwardly whined and wailed about having to be alone so much at first, I am thankful to be able to testify of God’s grace and help and to be able to encourage other ladies in the same situation.
  • When my son was planning to be married in OK and we were making plans to drive there and back from SC, my husband planned to rent a U-Haul there in OK to bring back our new daughter-in-law’s furniture and the wedding presents. But U-Haul wouldn’t rent to him because someone with his type of car had sued them once before because of some problem. We couldn’t find any other rental options in OK, so we ended up having to rent a trailer from a local business and take it with us there and back. Everything was fine on the return trip until the trailer blew a tire. I don’t even remember where we were at the time — some stretch of Interstate between cities. We tried calling AAA, but they don’t deal with tires on rental trailers. Thankfully my oldest son had a data plan on his phone and looked up local businesses and found a Wal-Mart a few exits up. But we’d have to unhitch the trailer and leave it while we went for the tire. I remember looking out the window and praying that my kids would see God’s hand in this. We were nervous about leaving the trailer there alone, but we also didn’t want to leave any one of us alone to guard it while everyone else went to Wal-Mart. I was praying fervently that no one would break into it and steal any of my son’s and daughter-in-law’s things. When we went to Wal-Mart, they were just closing their tire service center and didn’t really want to let us in, but we explained the situation, and they did. Meanwhile we got a call from our newly-married son, on his way East on his honeymoon trip: “Dad…did you leave the trailer on the side of the road?” They were passing by just at that time and saw it. We explained what had happened, and they circled back to stay with the trailer while we got the new tire, then we went back, put the new tire on, and went to get something to eat together. Though it’s a bit unconventional to go out to eat with one’s parents on one’s honeymoon, there were so many evidences on God’s hand at work in this situation: if we had rented a generic trailer, Jason would not have recognized it as the one we had and wouldn’t have called about it; if they hadn’t been passing that way at that time, they wouldn’t have seen it; if we had been even a few minutes later, we wouldn’t have gotten into Wal-Mart, and as our other calls hadn’t led to any other options, we would have had to spend the night in town and leave the trailer out on the Interstate all night.

There have been so many other situations…wrecks narrowly averted, running late and coming upon the scene of an accident that might have been mine if I’d been on time, financial needs met right at the needed time, finding something that was lost after earnest prayer about it, praying for wisdom and receiving it, a word of encouragement at just the right moment, help for a task that was too big for me, something from the Word that was just exactly what I needed for the day. I am so thankful for His loving, intimate, wonderful care!!

 Help me, O Lord my God: O save me according to thy mercy:
That they may know that this is thy hand; that thou, Lord, hast done it.
Psalm 109:26-27

My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food,
    and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,
 when I remember you upon my bed,
    and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
 for you have been my help,
    and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.
 My soul clings to you;
    your right hand upholds me.
Psalm 63:5-8

Book Review: The Princess and the Goblin

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Princess_and_the_GoblinMy interest in George MacDonald was first piqued when I read of his influence on the life and writings of C. S. Lewis, whose imagination, he said, was “baptised” by reading MacDonald’s Phantastes. I’ve seen him quoted by various others, but somehow I don’t think I have ever read one of his books. I was especially interested in The Princess and the Goblin after listening to the funeral service of a young wife and mom who passed away last year (Julie Herbster, for those who knew her). Her pastor spoke of her love for literature and mentioned her hanging on to the truth she knew in the face of such devastating circumstances, just like the princess followed her great-great-grandmother’s thread through the goblin cave even though no one else could see it or believed it was there (more on that later). So I was delighted to see this title listed for this month for Carrie’s  Reading to Know Classics Book Club. That’s one of the values of these kinds of challenges and book clubs: they spur me to read books I might not otherwise have ever gotten around to.

The story begins with a bored 8 year old Princess Irene, inside on a rainy day, restless and dissatisfied with all her many wonderful toys. Her “King Papa” has sent her out into the country to be raised at first because her mother was not very strong, later because her mother died and her father was often away on kingdom business. On this rainy day her nurse, Lootie, leaves the room for a moment, and Irene notices another door left ajar, one that goes upstairs. She decides to investigate but gets thoroughly lost amidst seemingly myriad doors. She can’t find her way back down and gets quite upset until she finds a very old lady at a spinning wheel in one room. Though she was obviously very old and wise, with white hair, her skin was smooth. She told Irene she was her great-great-grandmother and that she was also named Irene. After her great-great-grandmother  wipes the tears from Irene’s dusty face and shows her her pigeons, she shows her the way back downstairs so that Lootie won’t be worried about her.

Irene tells Lootie all about her great-great-grandmother, but Lootie thinks she is just making up stories. Irene is quite offended, but after a while she wonders if perhaps her visit to her great-great-grandmother was all just a dream.

One thing the princess doesn’t know, but everyone else does, is that the mountains’ underground passages are full of goblins who used to be people but chose to live underground after some disagreements with the King. Eons of living “away from the sun, in cold and wet and dark places” had transformed them into hideous and grotesque creatures. Lootie is supposed to be keeping Irene safe especially from goblins, but one day as they are out exploring, Lootie realizes they’ve gone too far and won’t make it back home before dark. Frightened, she grabs Irene and starts running without having the time to explain why. They take a wrong turn and begin to see odd shapes in the rocks and hear laughter, when suddenly a young miner’s son named Curdie comes across their path singing a rhyme. He tells them the goblins can’t stand rhymes and songs, but they are out and about, and they need to get home as quickly as possible, so he helps them find the way and escorts them back.

Later, when Curdie works late in the mines one night to try to earn money to buy his mother a red petticoat, he overhears some goblins talking and hears reference to a plan that would endanger Irene, and another “Plan B” that isn’t exactly clear. In trying to find out more about it, he eventually is captured. Irene had found her great-great-grandmother once again, who had given her a ring filled with fine thread she had woven for her. She told her that when she needed to, she could put the ring under her pillow and follow the thread to guide her. One day she follows the thread to where Curdie is being kept, and helps him escape. Curdie can’t see the thread and can’t see Irene’s great-great-grandmother, either, when she tries to introduce him. He thinks Irene is trying to make a fool of him; Irene is hurt.

But Curdie determines that he will still try to find out the goblins’ plan and protect the princess. I’ll leave the story there for you to find out the rest if you choose to read the book, but you can be sure a confrontation with the goblins will occur.

One one level, this is a fairy tale with a classic good vs. evil battle and with young people learning and growing in the course of it. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any Spark Notes or Cliff Notes that discussed the plot, theme, and symbolism. Just Googling “symbolism in The Princess and the Goblin” and perusing a few of the posts that came up led to a wide variety of interpretations. Some see Irene’s sreat-great-grandmother as a fairy godmother, a goddess, or the Virgin Mary. Some sympathize with the goblins as victims of a classist society. Some took umbrage to MacDonald’s view that a princess (or anyone of royal blood) should have certain inherent qualities.

Since MacDonald was a Christian (though I’d disagree with some of his views as described in Wikipedia), I think we have to interpret the story in the light of basic Christian teachings. I don’t think the story is meant to be an overt allegory, but it does portray a beneficent being who cares for, heals, protects (and sometimes rebukes) its charges, who can’t be seen unless allowed and with some degree of faith. Light is associated with it, light that guides and protects, and a bird showing up at certain moments seems to invoke Biblical instances of the Holy Spirit in the form of a bird (though in the story the bird is a pigeon rather than a dove). I think the thread does represent truth, and Irene has to discern between what appears to be true and what her great-great-grandmother told her and choose which to trust, even (especially) when others don’t believe. I don’t think that royal blood really influences one’s behavior (except in fairy tales) – both history and modern times have given us royals with less than commendable character. But we can agree that a royal should have certain characteristics, and if Irene and Curdie are supposed to represent children of God, then, yes, they should have certain characteristics and should also be growing in them.

Besides the overall story and symbolism, there is a lot of humor in the book, especially in regard to the goblins. In one of my favorite passages, a goblin father is telling his son that humans have toes, which goblins apparently don’t have:

‘Why do they wear shoes up there?’

‘Ah, now that’s a sensible question, and I will answer it. But in order to do so, I must first tell you a secret. I once saw the queen’s feet.’

‘Without her shoes?’

‘Yes—without her shoes.’

‘No! Did you? How was it?’

‘Never you mind how it was. She didn’t know I saw them. And what do you think!—they had toes!’

‘Toes! What’s that?’

‘You may well ask! I should never have known if I had not seen the queen’s feet. Just imagine! the ends of her feet were split up into five or six thin pieces!’

‘Oh, horrid! How could the king have fallen in love with her?’

‘You forget that she wore shoes. That is just why she wore them. That is why all the men, and women too, upstairs wear shoes. They can’t bear the sight of their own feet without them.’

A few of my other favorite passages:

When Irene in fear unwisely runs right into the path of danger, “Not daring to look behind her, she rushed straight out of the gate and up the mountain. It was foolish indeed—thus to run farther and farther from all who could help her, as if she had been seeking a fit spot for the goblin creature to eat her in his leisure; but that is the way fear serves us: it always sides with the thing we are afraid of. “

“Lootie had very foolish notions concerning the dignity of a princess, not understanding that the truest princess is just the one who loves all her brothers and sisters best, and who is most able to do them good by being humble towards them.”

“…it is so silly of people to fancy that old age means crookedness and witheredness and feebleness and sticks and spectacles and rheumatism and forgetfulness! It is so silly! Old age has nothing whatever to do with all that. The right old age means strength and beauty and mirth and courage and clear eyes and strong painless limbs.”

“Here I should like to remark, for the sake of princes and princesses in general, that it is a low and contemptible thing to refuse to confess a fault, or even an error. If a true princess has done wrong, she is always uneasy until she has had an opportunity of throwing the wrongness away from her by saying: ‘I did it; and I wish I had not; and I am sorry for having done it.”

A comment I saw on Goodreads said that in one person’s edition, the story starts this way:

“THERE was once a little princess who—
“But Mr. Author, why do you always write about princesses?”
“Because every little girl is a princess.”
“You will make them vain if you tell them that.”
“Not if they understand what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“What do you mean by a princess?”
“The daughter of a king.”
“Very well, then every little girl is a princess, and there would be no need to say anything about it, except that she is always in danger of forgetting her rank, and behaving as if she had grown out of the mud. I have seen little princesses behave like children of thieves and lying beggars, and that is why they need to be told they are princesses. And that is why when I tell a story of this kind, I like to tell it about a princess. Then I can say better what I mean, because I can then give her every beautiful thing I want her to have.”
“Please go on.”

I love that – I don’t know why it is taken out in some editions.

Overall I loved this book and am so glad Bekah chose it for this months Reading to Know Classics Book Club selection.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

 

 

 

What’s On Your Nightstand: September 2014

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 What's On Your NightstandThe folks at 5 Minutes For Books host What’s On Your Nightstand? the fourth Tuesday of each month in which we can share about the books we have been reading and/or plan to read.

This is one of those months when the fourth Tuesday comes a week before the actual end of the month. Thankfully I remembered in good time this time. 🙂

Since last time I have completed:

Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity by Nabeel Qureshi, reviewed here. Excellent – likely will be one of my top ten of the year.

Undetected by Dee Henderson, reviewed here. Excellent.

The Girl in the Gatehouse by Julie Klassen, reviewed here. Not excellent, in my opinion. Very disappointing.

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, audiobook, reviewed here. One of the best of the Holmes books.

Persuasion by Jane Austen, audiobook. I read it for the first time 7 years ago (reviewed here), and very much enjoyed listening to it.

I’m currently reading:

Why We Are Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be by Kevin DeYoung, Ted Kluck, and David F. Wells. I started it, anyway – need to get going with it.

The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald for Carrie’s  Reading to Know Classics Book Club. (Just finished this one shortly after posting, reviewed here.)

Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good, NEWEST Mitford book by Jan Karon! Loving it!

The Pound a Day Diet by Rocco DiSpirito – I’m not convinced that that’s a healthy plan, but I’ve seen him on the “Extreme Weight Loss” show this summer and liked what he had to say, so I thought I’d read the book and possibly gain some tips and recipes.

Gospel Meditations for Missions.

Next up:

The Last Bride by Beverly Lewis

In Perfect Time by Sarah Sundin

The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

How I Know God Answers Prayer by Rosalind Goforth for Carrie’s  Reading to Know Classics Book Club. We were originally going to do To the Golden Shore by Adoniram Judson, but the book club is running a bit behind just now due to some lengthier classics earlier in the year and to busy life circumstances. I’m leading the discussion this month, and I was concerned that with the length of the book, the fact that there is no Kindle version, and it probably won’t be in most public libraries, that therefore few people would read it. I was thinking about How I Know God Answers Prayer for next year, then suggested to Carrie that under the circumstances we might want to switch and do it this year: it’s shorter, there is a free Kindle version, and the text is online at Project Gutenberg. If you’ve never read of the Goforths, this will be a good introduction: if you have, it will be a good refresher.

Also starting Oct. 1 I’ll be sharing 31 Days of Inspirational Biographies as part of The Nester’s 31 Days. I invite you join me!

31 Days of Inspirational Biography

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For the past few years Myquillyn Smith (The Nester) has hosted 31 Days on her blog, a writing challenge wherein bloggers can choose a topic to write on every day in October in 9 different categories. It has gotten so big that this year it has its own site: 31 Days. You can find more information at What is 31 Days?

I really enjoyed participating for the first time last year with 31 Days of Missionary Stories. I decided this year to write about 31 Days of Inspirational Biography. I was originally going to call it Christian Biography, but rather than just give you an overview of someone’s life that you can find on Wikipedia, I want to share what inspired me about that person’s life. It may be an overview in some cases, or it may be one incident.

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Reading Christian biographies has been one of the most influential activities of my life: I’ve learned so much by seeing faith in action, growth, example, victories as well as defeats, all of which has aided me in my own walk with the Lord.  I hope to share some of that with you.

I got several comments last year about how much time it must take to write these posts: most of them will come from newsletter articles I’ve already written. For nine years in a previous church I compiled a newsletter for our ladies’ group with a biographical section, for the same reasons listed above, and the Lord has opened the door for me to do something similar in our current church. I’ll be editing and tweaking them, but for the most part I won’t be writing these “from scratch,” so it is not taking as much time as it might appear to be.

I hope you’ll join me! As I post each day, I’ll put the links on this post so that they’ll all be in one place.

And in the meantime you might check out the 31 Days site and see if you’d like to participate. Let me know if you do!

Day 1: Frances Ridley Havergal’s Response to a Rude Waitress.
Day 2: If I Perish. Refusing to bow down to falsehood.
Day 3: A Sense of Him: One of Isobel Kuhn’s “Second Mile People”
Day 4: Facing the Darkness.
Day 5: Lady Huntingdon. Saved by an “M”
Day 6: One Woman Against the Reich: The True Story of a Mother’s Struggle to Keep Her Family Faithful to God in a World Gone Mad.
Day 7: Bill Maher, “Missionary to the Handicapped”
Day 8: Mimosa: Great Faith From Small Seeds.
Day 9: Dr. Sa’eed of Iran.
Day 10: Margaret Paton, Missionary to Cannibals in the South Sea Islands
Day 11: Walter Wilson, Caring Ambassador For Christ.
Day 12: Georgi and Natasha Vins, Christianity Behind the Iron Curtain
Day 13: William Tyndale, Bringing the Scripture to the People at Risk to Himself
Day 14: Anne Bradstreet, Puritan Poetess
Day 15: The “Uncommon Union” of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards
Day 16: Sarah Edwards As a Mother
Day 17: Rosaria Butterfield: How a Leftist, Feminist, Lesbian Professor Who Hated Christians…Became One.
Day 18: Darlene Deibler Rose learns “faith stripped of feelings, faith without trappings”
Day 19: Corrie Ten Boom Repurposes a Concentration Camp
Day 20: Louis Zamperini: Olympian, POW, Christian
Day 21: Ann Judson, Brave and Faithful First American Woman Missionary
Day 22: Margaret Baxter, Overcoming Natural Fear to Face Persecution and Hardship
Day 23: Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon
Day 24: Rosalind Goforth: How I Know God Answers Prayer
Day 25: Rosalind Goforth Learns Submission
Day 26: Rosalind Goforth As a Young Mother Tries to Find Time For Bible Reading
Day 27: The Last CIM Missionaries in Communist China
Day 28: Charlie Wedemeyer, Living With ALS and Giving Hope to Others
Day 29: Nabeel Qureshi: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity
Day 30: A list of several other good biographies
Day 31: Why Read Biographies?

I Could Not Do Without Thee

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The first time I heard this hymn was from an ensemble visiting our church, and I was riveted. I thought it was a new hymn, but looking it up after I got home, I saw it was written by Frances Ridley Havergal in1873. I like the newer melody better, but I don’t know who wrote it.

I have usually only heard it sung with these four stanzas, but cyberhymnal.org lists several more.

I could not do without Thee
O Savior of the lost,
Whose precious blood redeemed me
At such tremendous cost.
Thy righteousness, thy pardon
Thy precious blood, must be
My only hope and comfort,
My glory and my plea.

I could not do without Thee,
I cannot stand alone,
I have no strength or goodness,
No wisdom of my own;
But Thou, beloved Savior,
Art all in all to me,
And weakness will be power
If leaning hard on Thee.

I could not do without Thee,
O Jesus, Savior dear;
E’en when my eyes are holden,
I know that Thou art near.
How dreary and how lonely
This changeful life would be,
Without the sweet communion,
The secret rest with Thee!

I could not do without Thee,
For years are fleeting fast,
And soon in solemn loneness
The river must be passed;
But Thou wilt never leave me,
And though the waves roll high,
I know Thou wilt be near me,
And whisper, “It is I.”

The first time I heard it I was struck with the repetition of “lone,” “alone,” and “loneness.” I was feeling very much alone at the time because Jim was traveling a lot, and I was reminded that I am never alone with Christ, and that’s not just a trite saying but a meaningful reality. And then the second stanza has been a help to me so many times. We truly have no strength, goodness, or wisdom of our own, but because of the redemption mentioned in the first stanza, we can experience the strength in the second stanza.

Laudable Linkage

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Here are some reads that piqued my interest this week: you might find some of them beneficial as well.

We Must Believe. A good explanation of what exactly it means to believe on Christ for salvation.

6 Reasons Women Should Study Theology.

Mentoring 101, HT to Challies.

Emotional Control.

What a Pastor Wants From the Music Ministry.

The Books Boomers Will Never Read.

Read Slowly to Benefit Your Brain and Cut Stress.

And this from a Facebook friend brought a smile:

The E

Hope you have a great day!

Friday’s Fave Five

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FFF fall flowersIt’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and other friends.

This is another week I was away from the computer more than anticipated. It seems my life is in a state of never knowing what a day will bring forth just now. 🙂 Here are some favorite aspects of the past week:

1. Jesse’s birthday. My youngest turned 21 this week! So hard to believe!

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2. A refund. I had ordered something for Jesse’s birthday via eBay, and the item arrived damaged. When I contacted the seller, at first he only wanted to give me a partial refund, but after a second e-mail with some photos he gave me a full refund and did not require me to send the item back (I wouldn’t have minded, but it was bulky and I didn’t want to pay for return postage).

3. Sleep. I mentioned that last week, I know. 🙂 A couple of nights this week I conked out about 10 p.m. – earlier than usual, but it helped with the sleep deficit. And a couple of 10-15 power naps a couple of afternoons helped get me through the day. I don’t mind naps but I don’t want to take a chunk out of my day to sleep – I’d rather sleep at night!

4. Chicken Chimichangas. I had been craving Mexican food, and the restaurant we used to frequent went out of business. I finally made these on Thursday. I use this recipe – it’s supposed to be a little healthier because it is baked rather than fried, but since I top it with queso sauce, that probably cancels out the healthy advantages. 🙂

Chimichangas
5. Jan Karon’s newest book, Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good. I’m almost halfway through and loving it. She is always such a cozy read.

That’s about it for my week – hope yours was a good one!

Book Review: The Hound of the Baskervilles

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HoundThe Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was written 8 years after The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, in which Holmes supposedly died, but is set before that time. According to Wikipedia, its success prompted Doyle to write more Holmes novels, and it’s rated as one of his best Holmes stories.

It opens in typical fashion with Holmes wowing Watson with various deductions before they’re visited by a client. Dr James Mortimer has traveled to London to ask Holmes’ advice. It seems that the most recent baronet of Baskerville Hall in Devonshire (and Mortimer’s neighbor) , Sir Charles Baskerville, died of extreme fright apparently after being pursued by a large hound. A mysterious, monstrous hound killed one of his ancestors, and this and the ancestor’s evil deeds grew into a legend that the Baskervilles were cursed. Though the hound didn’t attack Sir Charles directly, its nearby footprints seem to give credence to the legend. Dr. Mortimer’s problem is that the new heir is supposed to arrive from Canada, and Mortimer doesn’t know whether it is safe to conduct him to Baskerville Hall. Holmes asks Mortimer to bring the new heir, Sir Henry, to him when he arrives. By the time they meet, though, Sir Henry has received an anonymous warning to avoid the moors at Devonshire, and one of his boots has been stolen. When they leave Holmes’s apartment, he discovers that Sir Henry is being followed. Henry wants to go to his estate despite the weird occurrences and warnings. Holmes is busy with another case but sends Watson to the Hall with Henry and Mortimer to observe, meet the staff and neighbors, and report back to Holmes.

Holmes says early on that there are several strands to the case, and he has to try various ones to find out which will lead him to the truth. His investigation and Watson’s reports put some strands to rest easily, but others cause more excitement and concern. An escaped convict hiding out in the moor complicates the case. When Holmes does arrive in Devonshire he discerns who was responsible for Sir Charles’s death and realizes Sir Henry is in imminent danger himself, but he does not yet have enough concrete evidence to make a case. While he waits to close the net on the perpetrator, will he be too late to prevent yet another crime?

In my venture through the Holmes novels in publication order, I’ve been piecing together his character as a whole and comparing it to some of the modern characterizations and adaptations of him. Most modern portrayals present him as somewhat rude, but I haven’t found him to be so in the novels, as least not yet. He is pretty egotistical, though. In one amusing exchange, he and Watson are disagreeing about their deductions from a certain piece of evidence. Watson eventually concedes by saying, “You may be right.” Holmes responds, “The probability lies in that direction.” Another conversation is perhaps a little more snide:

“Really, Watson, you excel yourself,” said Holmes, pushing back his chair and lighting a cigarette. “I am bound to say that in all the accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it. I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very much in your debt.”

He had never said as much before, and I must admit that his words gave me keen pleasure, for I had often been piqued by his indifference to my admiration and to the attempts which I had made to give publicity to his methods. I was proud, too, to think that I had so far mastered his system as to apply it in a way which earned his approval….

[After differing over the evidence in question] “I am afraid, my dear Watson, that most of your conclusions were erroneous. When I said that you stimulated me I meant, to be frank, that in noting your fallacies I was occasionally guided towards the truth.”

Watson’s character continues to emerge as well. Some older film versions portray him as a dumpy old man whose only purpose is a foil for Holmes and a chronicler of his cases: thankfully more modern adaptations show more of his strengths. In this story he is described as “fleet of foot” in a chase scene, and though some of his conclusions are wrong, his observations are helpful. When Holmes sends him with Sir Henry, he says of Watson, “There is no man who is better worth having at your side when you are in a tight place. No one can say so more confidently than I.” Watson himself confesses, “The promise of adventure had always a fascination for me.”

I listened to the audiobook read very nicely by Derek Jacobi. He not only portrayed the different characters very well, but he incorporated the action into his voice, sounding like he was running when his characters were, etc. I also looked at some passages a little more closely at the Project Gutenberg online version of the text.

I do agree that this is the best Holmes novel I have read/heard so far. Doyle did an admirable job setting the scene for a Gothic-type mystery with the  depressing old house, the mysterious legend, and the dangerous moors, and the plot was adequately suspenseful.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Reading Challenge Update

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2014tbrbuttonI keep forgetting that Roof Beam Reader, who hosts the 2014 TBR Pile Challenge, has check-in points around the 15th of each month so we can summarize how we’re doing. I haven’t done one since June, and since that time I have completed (all links are to my reviews):

How to Read Slowly by James W. Sire

The Book of Three by Alexander Lloyd

The Girl in the Gatehouse by Julie Klassen

Just Jane, A Novel of Jane Austen’s Life by Nancy Moser

The last two were my alternates, and this completes twelve books from my list, so technically I am done. I have started Why We Are Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be, one of the books on my original list. I’d like to get to How to Be a Writer but I am not sure I will. I like to read a book about writing now and then to keep those fires stirred up, but the lack of time to write is a bit of a sore spot right now, so I am undecided.

classics2014I’ve completed everything for the Back to the Classics Challenge except To Kill a Mockingbird, both the book and the movie. We’ll be reading that title in December for Carrie’s  Reading to Know Classics Book Club, so I’ll pick that one up then, or maybe a little early.

 

bible-verse-christian-hebrews-12-1-2For the The Cloud of Witnesses Challenge, in addition to Mere Christianity and Crowded to Christ, which I had read earlier this year, I finished The Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer. I had planned to read four books in this category of nonfiction books written by a Christian who has passed on, so with these three and the devotional I am reading by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman, I’ll have no problem finishing my goals for this challenge as well, though I may read one or two more before the year is out.

As much as I have enjoyed the challenges, especially the impetus to work some titles into my reading that I might not have gotten to otherwise, I’m happy to be pretty much done with them and back to some of the fiction books that have been waiting for me.

Laudable Linkage

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It’s been a couple of weeks since I have been able to share some interesting reads with you. Here are some standouts from my recent web reading:

The Memorial Service of Tom Craig, Our Pastor. Brad is a member of our church who has been chronicling the journey of our pastor and church every week since our pastor’s cancer diagnosis, and here he describes the events on the day of his memorial service as well as the service itself. Our church originally had a fundraiser that had been scheduled that morning weeks before, and there was much discussion about whether to postpone it since the funeral was scheduled for the same day. Thankfully they decided to go ahead with it, but that’s what the description of the run and bike rides are about. A recording of the memorial service is here.

Losing the Language. Apt analogy about getting away from church and the things of the Lord.

10 Ways to Exercise Christlike Headship, HT to Challies.

What People Who Are New to Your Church Want to Know.

To the Girls in the Pew Ahead of Me.

That Day I Wore Yoga Pants: 5 Myths About Modesty. Most posts/articles/books about modesty tend to lean either toward the woman’s responsibility to watch how she dresses so as not to cause others to stumble or the man’s responsibility to guard his eyes and heart. I thought this one was nicely balanced.

A list of things you may not have known about paralysis from a fellow TMer.

5 Things You Must Do To Protect Yourself Online.

10 Things I’ve Learned After 30+ Years and 70+ Books.

Dear Pinterest, We Need to Have a Talk About Bookshelves. Loved this fun, incredulous look at how people decorate their bookshelves with something other than the best thing: books.

I Quit Liking Things on Facebook For Two Weeks, HT to Kim, shows how what we click that we “like” affects what we see there. I’m not going to quit using the like button, but I am conscious that whatever I “like” feeds into algorithms to give me more of the same.

My friend Lou Ann sent out a survey to readers about decluttering and has posted a series about the results. My favorites are Finding Balance in Decluttering (it’s so easy to get off-balance even in good things) and Disadvantages of Decluttering (did you know there were some? There are! Or at least can be), probably because I rarely see anyone discussing those aspects. Other posts in the series are Advantages of Decluttering and Systems for Decluttering.

I think I have shared this before, but if you haven’t seen it, it’s the story of the pilot who was originally scheduled to fly one of the planes that was highjacked on 9/11: