Christmas Cheer and Cups of Cosy

 

By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into a way of peace.

-Luke 1.78-79

Recipe for adding Christmas cheer:

- Ring the bell for Salvation Army 

- Advent Tea Calendar - a different tea to make every night. Cosiness in a cup

- Pressed Books and Coffee Christmas decor and book shopping

- Soft twinkle lights and candles to light to darkness of every evening

- Time with family and friends with gifts and good food

Directions:

- Add all ingredients to the daily agenda or the calendar (sprinkle love onto each one and enjoy the moments in your heart) and allow for reflection time on the great gift given by the tender mercy of God.

- May your heart be full, may your life be never the same when Christ comes to enter in.

Christmas is Near

What's this feeling like a pop of cheer?
Truly it is because Christmas is near.
More of Christ and less of us
Can we somehow let go of fuss?
To dive into love, the truest love of all
Separate from noise to hear love's call
A gift we have before us, unlike any gift
Something we scarce imagine; if we sift
Our minds and hearts, we find a need within
the deep place - a longing like something akin
To the mystical between worlds desire
We often fill with worldly mud and mire
Instead of looking up from said mud to see
The glorious present of Love, come down to you and me. 

Prepare - Wait - Trust - Faith

 

To prepare is to harness that usually unlikeable practice of waiting, for you don’t need to prepare for something already here. Preparing leaves in its essence the unknown. To prepare is to be in the darkness before the light is switched on. Preparing is filling your oil lamps and keeping them filled. To prepare for a future hope is to trust. You may not know when or how exactly it will happen, but you trust that which you are preparing for will come. Trusting leads to faith-faith in what you may not be able to see.

We have but faith: we cannot know;

For knowledge is of things we see

And yet we trust it comes from thee,

A beam in darkness: let it grow.

(Alfred Lord Tennyson)

Advent is a season of waiting. The Latin “veni” in Advent speaks of ‘coming’, which invokes an invitation to prepare and then wait in an eager expectation of the coming. For Advent, imagine yourself in the unknown pre-Christ’s birth time of history when the people of the world were in a darkness because the Ancient of Days was coming, but had not yet come. They could not see. That which was ‘yet-to-come’ was left to images and metaphors, the only way was to imagine in ways humans can. The O Antiphons are prayers/poems that lead us up to Christmas, each one describing Christ from ancient days without ever naming Him. They call Him by other names in their expectations and understanding of Him being all these things. These are poems  of anticipation, of waiting for the promise to be fulfilled. They are prayers of hope and longing at the same time. The names of each one:

-Sapientia (wisdom)

-Adonai (Lord)

-Radix Jesse (root of Jesse)

-Clavis David (key of David)

-Oriens (dayspring)

-Rex Gentium (king of nations)

-O Emmanuel (God with us)

In the spirit of preparing I read poems. Poems that cause me to pause. Words that squeeze so much meaning into very few lines. Poems that encourage imaginatively living before Christ’s birth to better understand the Advent hope. The Advent miracle of Love-the freely given Love that came down to meet us where we are. Poems allow a hidden divine presence to dance in light between the words and carefully coined phrases.

Poems invite us to dive into their words and images, in anticipation of what is to come–

If thy first glance so powerful be,

A mirth but open’d and seal’d up again;

What wonders shall we feel, when we shall see

Thy full-ey’d love!

When thou shalt look us out of pain,

And one aspect of thine spend in delight

More than a thousand suns disburse in light,

In heaven above.

(George Herbert)

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness-on them light has shined. (Isaiah 9:2)

Lord, You are our Lord, You are wisdom, the root, the key, the day spring, the king of all nations, and You are with us. May we seek You in all our preparation and through any darkness that surrounds us. May we pause with poetic words that draw us closer to You. To seek You always, in all things. Amen. (Written for my church's Advent Devo this year)

Slowing Down in Advent

Isaiah 40:3

The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

“Prepare the way of the Lord;

Make straight in the desert

A highway for our God.

It may seem counter-cultural. It sure is. It may sound challenging. Yep. That's right. You'll say, well that's not possible, my schedule is too full. I have too much going on. I don't have time. Especially this time of year when the calendar is jam-packed. Who has time to slow down to be mindful, meditative, and prayerful? 

Why do we resist slowing down so much? Is it our culture? Is it us? What are we afraid of? Missing out?

I think about this in the context of our culture and the idea of always having to keep up with everything. No matter what it is - trends, fads, music, business, slang, events. There is a sense of needing to check social media for the latest trend to latch onto, as if it is going to fill some hole in our lives, which by the way you didn't know existed until the trending video told you. 

It's not that there is anything wrong in these things in themselves, until and unless they become the thing you idolize. And we all idolize something. If it's not God, then it's something of this world. A person, a trend, any other thing, anything can become an idol. It is so easy to let something other than God fall into your number one place of idolizing.

Advent is all about preparing. Why do we need to prepare? Because our hearts so easily gravitate toward selfish desires rather than opening to the heart of God and letting go of our desires. We need the reminder to draw back closer to Him and let go of those things that keep us "needing" the things we idolize, being chained to them. 

Advent comes once per year, and we most definitely need the reminder to re-tune our hearts. But we can casually shrug it off and keep on going business as usual indulging in the cheerfulness of secular Christmas, or we can pause and take this time to draw closer to God and see how it changes our lives. This could be through many different avenues that cause us to go deeper such as (these are all reminders to myself and things I will be focusing on):

- Prayer time: Set aside 10 minutes (or an hour if you have it) to be in a prayerful posture. Sit with the Lord. You don't have to have words. A simple line to prayerfully repeat is all that's needed, such as "Lord, You are the true Light, prepare my heart for You."

- Advent readings and devotionals: there are so many to choose from, books, videos, downloads. They are usually short and offer insightful reflective prompts to set the tone for the day. 

You can read my church's Advent Devotional online HERE. Contributions are by pastors and laity of the church, and you may catch my own small contribution. 

- Decorate and feast with meaning: practice for the coming joy. Hold the mindset of everything being in celebration of Christ. His coming, His love, the gift of Him is why we give gifts. The feasts we have are in preparation for the banquets He prepares for us. The comforts of home can remind us of the dwelling He has for us in His Kingdom, which is here, begun already. We can see glimpses of that by curating such beautiful reminders in our days.

- Quiet times for reflection: funny enough my quiet times usually revolve around a cup of coffee or tea. Why is that? Making a delicious hot drink causes me to slow down and stay somewhere with it. It offers the perfect time to sit and be reflective. That can be alone or with a loved one. It can be journaling or some Bible reading and refection alone or with the other person.

Happy Advent  - may this season bring the light and love of Christ into your heart.

Early Sunsets, Religion Lecture, and Two Excellent Books

Writing this from the horizon of Thanksgiving, eager to see some family and eat yummy traditional American Thanksgiving food (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, etc). The last few weeks have been packed tightly with things to take my attention away from being an acceptably consistent blogger. Attempting to remedy that now!

So as schedules are busy and the holidays invite many times of lovely gatherings, it is my study to focus and enjoy the little things that bring some joy to an everyday. Here are some things I've been enjoying lately:

- Early sunsets might be disliked by the majority of people (with that pesky time change a few weeks ago), but you cannot deny these Autumnal sunsets are beautiful and they remind me that Winter is coming. Colder air is on the way, which delights me and I get set in my mind to all sorts of dreamy notions. Also, when the sun sets before I leave work, I get to see Jupiter and Venus in the sky on my way home. I love seeing the planets in the clear sky. Yes, I will always be an astronomy nerd, but also the mysterious creation of God is astounding. Sometimes we lose sight of what is beyond our small lives as we grind through our everyday workflow. 

- A religion lecture at Florida Southern College. Having the opportunity to return to campus and sit in my favourite room "The Hollis Room" (the original library was in this room; it's a Frank Lloyd Wright treasure) was so fun for me. The lecture was given by Dr. Ian McFarland from Emory University. His talk was titled "Christian Hope and the Goodness of Creation".  He had written books on this topic, so he knew what he was talking about. He read an academic paper that was dense and so full I had a hard time keeping up with notes I wanted to jot down. There were many interesting ideas I would like to dive into sometime, such as escatalogical forgetfulness, and he used an illustration of Dante forgetting after drinking from the river Lethe. I was fascinated by his ideas on re-memory in the process of redeeming sin or painful experiences. He argued how scars are resistance to the evil that caused the harm and that this present life is where the contours of eternity are showing themselves. So many deep insights I could swim in for awhile. Getting to be a student (there were lots of students there, but it was open to the public), listen to a very knowledgeable professor, take notes, and learn more about something I am keenly interested in sums up many of the best ways to spend an evening. I wish there were more of these kinds of events!

- Two books I am reading right now are absolutory delightful. One is a book of aphorisms The Pocket Oracle and the Art of Prudence, wisdom on how to work well with people and live a life ruled by prudence. It was written over 350 years ago by Baltasar Gracian, a Spanish Jesuit Priest who published this book of wisdom in 1647. These nuggets of advice are often rather cold and calculating, and so applicable to the world we live in today. It's uncanny, and I am taking notes. 

The other book is White Holes (a black hole in time reversed, so fascinating) by Carlo Rovelli, who is the poet of theoretical physicis.  He imaginatively takes the reader on a journey into a black hole and across the quantum line briefly before magically exiting by way of a white hole. Time is in reverse and I am utterly astounded and love following this journey. What I love even more is his use of the parallel journey of Dante in The Divine Comedy, with his trek through the Inferno, Purgatorio, and rising to Paradiso. It's beautifully corresponded, these two stories, and I absolutely love the marriage of science and literature through the imagination. I have been aching to re-read The Divine Comedy again, and now even more so. 

Happy Thanksgiving! Many blessings to you and your loved ones.

What are you reading this Autumn?

 

Does the Autumn weather inspire your reading? Or are you a mood reader? Or do you run by a list of what to read next? I have my stack(s) of TBR and when I finish a book I have the great joy of picking out the next one to read that jumps out at me. I like to read seasonally with a book now and then which fits the time of year. I read many books at the same time, so it's fun to throw a seasonal one or two in there. 

Books Parts edited by Dennis Duncan and Adam Smyth
This fascinating book deconstructs the book as an object - as a collection of essays on the different parts of a book. It felt like analyzing the anatomy of a book and it was such fun to read the history of such book parts as the front pieces (does any book have those now?), end papers, table of contents, copywrite page, notes to the reader, footnotes, pagination,  indexes, blurbs, etc. As someone who is not only interested in good books for their thoughts and words, I am also keenly fascinated by the object itself - the history of how a part came into existence and how that might have changed through the centuries. So, I am a self-confessed book nerd in all aspects of the book.

Thomas Aquinas Selected Writings
This is my morning book. It's a whopper - over 800 pages, and it's just a "selection". As I am drinking my coffee I read a few pages of Thomas Aquinas. If I am reading a book of philosophy, I read it early in the morning - it's my most clear-minded, well-focused time to read something that needs deeper attention. Aquinas is a Saint, he lived from 1225-1274 and was a theologian and philosopher. He draws on the ideas of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine and is one of the greatest medieval philosophers. He asks the deep questions on faith, goodness, God, conscience, being, faith, reason, etc. He was able to argue both sides of the answer, and then answer based on Christian belief. It's fascinating, thought-provoking, and I am learning so much about building the argument and being able to see both sides of it as if in a debate. I am almost halfway through enjoying my morning philosophy with Saint Thomas.

Poetry by Heart edited by Andrew Motion
I stumbled upon this book of poems as I was looking for a new collection to enjoy (you can never go wrong with a good collection of poetry) and this one was based on the premise of memorizing poems and also reading them aloud, as poetry to meant to be read. It's a collection of poems ranging from the first English poetry to modern days and I am reading some poems I've never heard of before. Another  thing I love about this book is there are QR Codes with a link to The Poetry Archive where I can listen to the poem being read, and enjoy it as it is meant to be enjoyed. Hearing a poem read forces me to slowly read each line with the speaker, and process the words in a deeper way.

The Brontës by Patricia Ingham
I will read any book on the Brontës. The lives of the creative siblings as they lived in the early-mid 1800s Yorkshire England endlessly intrigue and inspire me. I've read many books on them and still learn more with every book. I found this book on my last visit to Oxford, at an Oxfam charity shop. Reading about this familiar family of siblings (Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and brother Branwell) I thought about how intelligent they were by their own pursuits. They read all the old and new books, with no restrictions from their curate father, and kept up on all the political news, which would include the wars with Napoleon and triumph of the Duke of Wellington. It all inspired them to create their own worlds with characters and political turmoil that drew from what what going on their world at the time. 

Leaf Peeping by Erin Vivid Riley
I am such a sucker for books on trees, leaves, and the world of forests. I can probably thank my Dad for that. His father worked for the U.S. Forest Service, so he spent his childhood travelling as a family to all the many national forests as grandpa had to travel there for work (he had a supervisory role of some kind). Therefore, in my childhood, Dad always wanted to go camping and hiking. To be out in the forests of North Carolina, Georgia, and everywhere else we journeyed to. His idea of a vacation was being out in nature. It reminded me of my childhood when we would go to North Carolina almost every Autumn to see the leaves - we were "leaf lookers" and even had the sweatshirts to prove it. This little nature book was pure delight. I loved the lessons on why leaves change colour, a guide on how to identify different types of leaves and trees, the varieties of trees and where they grow best, the regions of the U.S. and some other countries forests for the Autumnal trees. Dotted with some quotes, cute ideas for a nature outing, and fun facts. I will revisit this little book many times again.

I leaf you with our classic family shot of one of our roadside stops in North Carolina - my mom and I wearing the very stylish Franklin, NC leaf looker sweatshirts (none of the boys seemed to want to be so stylish), and I hold a vintage camera to capture all the magical scenes of trees and leaves. I wonder if any of my photos actually turned out. :)

Author Spotlight Night - Epilogue

 

Last week was the author spotlight night at our downtown independent book shop Pressed Books & Coffee, which was such a delightful evening! I am so grateful I was included in the event and that many family and friends came out to support it. It was the first time I've been able to talk about my trilogy, Selador, in public!

There were four authors there that night. We each had a table we could set-up and decorate to sell our books to the lovely people who took time to come out and hear what we had to say about books. Then we sat up on tall chairs in front of the attendees (I always feel odd sitting in tall chairs when I can't touch the ground) sharing a bit of our writing journey and our books. You know, when I dreamed about becoming an author years and years ago, I never thought about the aftermath of finishing a book - the "selling it" part! 

Here was my first chance to "sell" my books to folks who came out to Pressed with curious minds. Many people I did not know. It was my job to talk about my journey as an author and explain why they should read my books. To be honest, I wasn't sure how that would feel - would it be stressful, would it be well received, would I hate talking in front of people? Well, to spare you, dear reader, the anticipation, I loved it! I loved having the opportunity to share some of my writing journey, throwing in a few older/wiser authors who inspire me, some of my passion for reading, explain why I think everyone should read more good books, and give a little glimpse of what deeper truths I tuck away in my books. I was hoping it would inspire those present to read more, whether it's my books or not, but to engage with good books written today and from older and wiser authors. 

It was a great joy to have dear family and friends present. Some of them haven't read my books and might have heard something to stir their hearts. I loved meeting several friendly people who bought the full set of my books, sharing with me why they were super interested in my talk and my story (many fans of fantasy!). I loved watching my ten year old niece buy each author's book and carry them in her arms the rest of the time, not letting them go, like the treasures they are. 

I am so thankful to everyone who came out that evening. It meant so very much. I deeply appreciate Christina, the owner of Pressed, who had this lovely idea of having local author spotlight nights these last few months, and who helped direct the evening beautifully. Thank you to my friends and family who took photos since I couldn't. These memories will stay with me for many years to come. My first public book event! 

Author Spotlight Night - Intro

 

Attention bookish friends and locals! 

You are invited and warmly welcome to join me at Pressed Books & Coffee on Tuesday 10/24 at 6 pm where I will be part of a local author panel discussion. I am so thankful to be part of this event, where I will have the opportunity to talk about my books and my love of books!

I haven't had the opportunity to talk in public about my Selador trilogy, so I am really excited to share more about it and inspire some readers. Anytime I have the chance to insert some notion about the imagination and deeper truths in good stories, I am thrilled, because it gives me the open door to talk about those authors who are much older and wiser than me, who offer insights into what we strive for - the good, the true, and the beautiful. 

If you haven't read my books, feel free to check them out here.

Come at 6 pm to grab a drink from the coffee/tea bar and a comfy seat. Bring cash to buy my books after the talk and Q&A session (there will be special one-night only pricing!). I look forward to seeing lots of lovely locals and introducing them to the realm of Selador. 

Autumnal tones with T.S. Eliot

 

Autumnal tones for October. T.S. Eliot's book of poems offer that look of browned leaves on the trees about to fall and twirl into piles on the ground. I’ve been revisiting with depth and appreciation the mysterious poems of T.S. Eliot. His poems are stunningly deep, mystifying, musical, and wonderful to get lost in. I look forward to every snippet of time I can steal to pick this up.

Dust in the air suspended

Marks the place where a story ended.

Dust inbreathed was a house -

The wall, the wainscot and the mouse.

…

The only hope, or else despair

Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre -

To be redeemed from fire by fire.

I have written about Eliot before, because I revisit his poems every now and then and it comes out into the form of a blog post. He was born in St. Louis but moved to London, went to Oxford, but preferred London so he lived there and eventfully became the literary editor and director of Faber & Faber (publishers in London - notice this is a Faber and Faber edition, which only seemed appropriate). He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. 

Eliot's poetry is notoriously difficult to understand - tending toward elusiveness and obscure notions sometimes. Nebulous yet rich with imagery. Modern and in the style stream-of-consciousness, my re-reading of his poems is now causing me to notice how musical and rhyme-filled his verses are, which I am really enjoying. I can see all the details of well-structured and well-thought words selected.

His poems kind of split in two - his pre-Christian writing and then when he became an Anglican his themes were changed to reflect his deep spiritual transformation and deeper exploration of the mysteries of faith. 

Reading his very early,  well-known "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" I am struck with how I love his word usage, repeating phrases or words, personification of the yellow fog, and alliterative usage that slips off the tongue with enjoyment. I bold the beginnings of the lines below, so delightfully alliterative (you can hear the L sound leading each line):

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,  

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-pane,

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, 

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, 

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 

And seeing that it was a soft October night, 

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.  

In his later poems, he charges his language with mystical notions and then comes back to similar images and themes through his poems, especially in his wonderfully mystical and mysterious "Four Quartets", a set of 4 poems circling around the ideas of time, space, love, the infinite, light, roses, and fire. He is pulling from numerous literary sources, many I am sure I don't even know of, but I recognize the ideas of Dante and Julian of Norwich throughout. 

The light is still
At the still point of the turning world.

The paradoxical nature of his wordplay makes me pause, smile, and read again.  Read the line again, and let it swirl in your thoughts. He revisits this idea later.

And he ends his Four Quartets with some of my favourite lines of poetry, well-known, I won't include the whole passage that I am so fond of, but just these last lines are straight out of Julian of Norwich (all shall be well) and Dante (fire and the rose). It's just stunning poetry.

And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

Darkling Mornings

 

We enter the time of year when the mornings are slow to rise. We wake when it's completely dark. The seasonal shift is starting. It may not feeling like it outside yet - wait, was that a drop of 3 degrees overnight? A little happy dance proceeds in my head. Still, it comes slowly. Subtlety. Do we notice? I try to shake the vibes of summer off with some autumnal decor inside my home, but it only goes so far. It fools me inside, but stepping out I am jolted back to reality.

Atmosphere. That's one of my favourite things about Autumn. We are moved into the atmosphere of warmth and spices, sweaters and academic beginnings. I always loved the start of a new academic year with new pens, notebooks, and fresh classes. Do you ever miss anything about a new school year or are you glad those days are well behind you?

Isn't there something mysterious and inviting about a beginning? Even if it's not a beginning for us, we are well out of school perhaps, and yet, a seasonal shift can remind us of new beginnings. We can make a new beginning anytime, mark the calendar. No need for a new year, simply call it a new day. The Autumn season of fruitfulness and harvest reminds me that it's something new (the paradox of being annually new to us, the revolving cycle we seem to need reminders of) and something mysterious in that aspect of life. As T.S. Eliot wrote - But our beginnings never know our ends!

Yet each start to a season gently reminds us that a beginning is hopeful. A darkling morning is shrouded in darkness. It may seem like the darkness goes on and on, but it doesn't. Just below the horizon is a star that will rise as a gift of a new day. And every day is a new beginning. We start everyday not knowing how that day will end. Sure, we have our calendar and schedules set. We plan it out. Yet there may be a good or perhaps an unwelcomed interruption that takes us off to an alternative.  

Welcome Autumn. Welcome darkling mornings. I reach for my thick black notebook and deep navy pen to sketch out the jots of my mind. Balancing sips of coffee and ink marks on the pages, I hold dear these quiet spaces that the start of a day can give me. Meditative, thoughtful, mind awakened. Reflections on the past and present - they collide on the page sometimes in an ink explosion fueled by the mind at work. It's here in the darkling space that I prepare most diligently for the light and duty of a new day. 

Emily Brontë - Notebook of Poems

 

I have fallen into the world of amazing manuscripts. These are images of the original manuscript (notebook of poems) of Emily Brontë. The British Library has these kinds of images of priceless manuscripts online, and this was the first one I clicked on to view. These were the first set of random pages I turned to, and as I took a moment to look closely, I felt  like I had just stepped into the reading room at the British Library in London. I am here to do research for the book I am writing, which of course required me to view the original notebook of Emily Brontë's poems. How amazing that more an 180 years later, I can view this handwritten notebook from a secluded poet who lived in Yorkshire England?

The manuscript is in her handwriting of course, and it is a bit difficult to read some words, same with all my notebooks. So I am practicing my transcription skills for my future self to visit The British Library or Bodleian Library, you know, for when I am writing a book and need to do research by viewing several original manuscripts or rare copies of books. Here is a little bit of one of the poems above, which I had never read before, and couldn't find in my Emily Brontë collection of poems.

October 29, 1839

The wind I hear it sighing
With Autumn's saddest sound
Withered leaves as thick are lying
As Spring-flowers on the ground.

This dark night has won me
To wander far away.
Old feelings gather fast upon me
Like vulture round their prey.

Emily invokes all those Autumnal feelings of melancholy and nostalgia for something dear that has been lost. The wind and withered leaves sweep around her like memories which remind her of such a loss. Perhaps her walk on the windswept moors that early evening brought these words into her head swirling with the leaves on the ground. She hears the sighing wind, the sad sounds. She associates the withered leaves to a time of Spring time blooms which hold an abundance of promise, whereas Autumn takes the bloom away. It's a darkening night and she is caught into a time of melancholy. Wrapped in a shawl perhaps, sitting over a slowly diminishing candlestick, she scribbles these words in her notebook. Sitting near a window she hears and sees the Autumnal night grow deeper and more raw.

She climbs into her comfort - her words - flowing out of her pen with ease. It's her source of getting feelings out. Onto the page and out of her cluttered mind. She still has chores to do, but the poem only takes the time of drinking a cup of tea to write. She empties her cup and closes her notebook, sliding it into a small alcove of the bookshelf. Then, rises with a stretch, takes her tea cup to wash up, and works on making bread for the next day, with these words still rummaging around in her mind. 

Tea Break Daydream (Oxford)

 

Pausing for a happy tea break daydream moment. Oxford style.

When life brings along a cold/sinus situation and you feel somewhat disheartened because you just don't feel your best and as a result carry that pretty worthless vibe, you might start to daydream about a time and place where you are simply filled with joy and in the happy-mode. 

Pardon my daydreaming - these were all photos from this last visit in March 2023, but I hadn't shared yet. I take a lot of photos, you know, every few steps offers another stunning view, building, or quintessential scene of Oxford that fills me with joy. Even if I have seen that view 1,000 times before, the light is different that day, the mood of the sky changes, the people passing differs. It makes for the best kind of photography - always something interesting to observe. I love watching academic scenes in an ancient city. It's just marvelous. Bikes clacking by (I still don't know how they bike along High Street in all the hectic bike/bus chaos - I watch in amazement), students with books filling their satchels/backpacks, raincoats and trenches adorn everyone if there's a cloud in the sky, but when it's bright out, everyone's outside clinging to the sunshine. The flowers burst a bit more openly when the sun comes out. Yet even in a shadier spot at the base of an old tree, the Hellebores look quite lovely and content.

I love the way the light slants into big windows at Christ Church and along the narrow roads and how the light shifts through the day. I love how some of the best people and city watching spots are at Waterstone's bookstore and Black Sheep Coffee on two of the very busy corners in the centre of the city. They are essential places to spend some time. I love moody and picture perfect Turl Street, my favourite street in the city. It gets filled quickly each day with delivery trucks but if you can catch it without any cars looking down toward the grand Lincoln College Library spire (used to be a church) with the craggy branches of the huge horse chestnut tree peaking into the periphery you just can't help but smile at how beautiful it all is.

I wish we paused more. In England it is a culturally normal thing to take a tea break - I'm talking a fresh brewed pot of tea and maybe a treat to go with it, multiple times a day. Maybe not everyone does that, I am totally romanizing my experiences, but there's a reason why there are countless cafes - because people go there all hours of the day, for a tea/coffee break. I love it so much. I'm going to go make a small pot of Earl Grey in honour of this paragraph. 

Oxford has secrets - doors and passages that are ornate and inviting but you may not know what lies beyond. Sure, the street view is a stunner, but the colleges themselves are within walls as you walk by on the streets. Pass through the doorway and you enter another world. It might be a garden so quiet and peaceful. It might be a chapel, ancient and beautiful. It might be a dining hall buzzing with students and clanging tea cups and saucers filled with tea. 

I could carry on with this tea break daydream for awhile. but eventually one runs out of tea in the pot. Until the next tea break... 

Freshly Brewed Reads

 

Philosophers say that nothing is visible that is not endowed with light and colour. 

- Leon Battista Alberti

The coffee is freshly brewed (working on my barista skills over here), but the books are quite old. Older than this country. But I love when old books lean into this modern age speaking to the reader from the past in ways we don't pay attention to these days. Funnily, I have read these two books right alongside each other, and they are roughly written from the same time period, around 1400-1435.

I have been aching to go to one of the amazing art museums I have been to in England. My favourites being The Ashmolean in Oxford, the V&A in London, and the National Gallery in London. Note, I am not including the libraries in this listing - I am thinking of art and artifacts. Books and libraries are their own category which I need not even say how I yearn for places like The Bodleian in Oxford and the British Library in London all the time. I need to go back to The British Museum as I only saw some of the ground floor on my one visit there. 

Painting was honoured by our ancestors with this special distinction that, whereas all other artists were called craftsman, the painter alone was not counted among their number.

When I stumbled on this slim volume On Painting by Leon Battista Alberti, it felt providential to meet with a master of the art of painting, to give me just a glimpse of that world I am seeking to enjoy more of. The cover painting, by the way is "The Hunt in the Forest" by Paolo Uccello, which is in The Ashmolean, so I have seen on several occasions in person. From 1435, Alberti sets out his theories of dimension and perspective on painting. It is written for the painter, and was hugely influential to the Italian Renaissance artists and Leonardo da Vinci later on. It brought me back to geometry class in high school, which I enjoyed, and he notes that you cannot be a painter without having skills and knowledge of geometry. After a geometry lesson, he details some of his thoughts on the conviction that it's our human duty to make praiseworthy and beautiful things. These creations arise mathematically, yet are rooted in nature. 

Alberti adopted what may be broadly described as a Christianized Stoic viewpoint in his advocacy of the inherent and divinely ordained rationale within nature as the ultimate source for our standards in art as in life.

Delightfully revisiting Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in a translation I haven't read in recent years, by J.R.R. Tolkien. The version I have read more recently a few times is Simon Armitage's translation, which he signed for me when I met him at his talk in Oxford years ago. I loved Simon's style of his translation, which focused more on the alliterative qualities of this anonymous ancient poem dated around 1400. Tolkien's translation still embraces the alliterative qualities and yet in true Tolkien style there is a beauty and flow to the language, so it feels very different. 

Then they looked for a long while, on that lord gazing;
for every man marvelled what it could mean indeed
that horseman and horse such a hue should come by
as to grow green as the grass, and greener it seemed,
than green enamel on gold glowing far brighter.
All stared that stood there and stole up nearer,
watching him and wondering what in the world he would do.

It is so interesting to read the same poem by different translators. Each version invokes a different feeling of the poem, language, story, and emotion. Sir Gawain is a great example of that. His journey is emotional, as he travels into the unknown he has to face his fears, overcome temptation, and face the huge green knight in the end carrying a guilt with him. At the centre is this medieval idea of morals and chivalry with a Christian perspective, in contrast to the world and its morals. Gawain had to fight that as he was pushed into situations that challenged him. He stayed honourable and true, going against the grain and ultimately that is what saves his life.

Those Philosophical Thinkers

 

When the background to our lives changes, our words may no longer work as they used to, and possibilities for seeing and understanding each other and the world may be lost. Sometimes, when it matters most, what another person is doing (what we are doing) can be obscure and dark. This is when philosophy comes into its own.

- Metaphysical Animals

What could appeal to me more than a romp around Oxford in the 1930s - 1950s, visiting one of the best bookshops, Blackwell's and the Oxford colleges for lectures and meetings, studying philosophy with those thinkers of the time, discovering how these four women entered daringly into a man's world and stood their own, becoming philosophers, showing they have the brains and courage to stand up the new standards of logical positivism and other newer versions of philosophy that fitted life's meaning into equations but choosing to leave morality out of the equations. These women (Elizabeth Anscombe, Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgely, and Philippa Foot) wanted to go back to moral philosophy teaching - about how to live a good life, asking what is moral and good, what is truth? Back to Plato and Aristotle. 

Side note, I was thrilled to read the recap of the debate in the Oxford Socratic Club with President C.S. Lewis and Elizabeth Anscombe on her criticism of one chapter (on naturalism) of Lewis's book that had just been published, Miracles. That debate has become a widely spread false story that her critique made him scuttle away and write children's books after that. Lewis invited debate, he encouraged it. He thrived on debating and was one of the best. He might have been caught in a good argument in that debate, and he proceeded to modify/edit that chapter in Miracles. Elizabeth, a Catholic, even noted in a letter to Wittgenstein afterwards that Lewis was more civil that she expected. 

WWII came along and cleared out the Oxford scenes so that as the men left for war, the old male tutors and the women who all stayed continued their education and the old ways of philosophy were able to be resurrected. At least for a time...

Philosophy asks the impossible questions. 

I enjoyed Iris Murdoch's first philosophical question at the age of 6 - "The snowdrop hangs its head, why?" "A thought provoking question," she reflected as an adult, "a good introduction to a world which is full of mysteries."

I've grown to love the idea of living into the unanswered questions and thereby embracing mystery. Rainer Maria Rilke introduced me to this amazingly poignant idea of how to live with questions in Letters to a Young Poet. Perhaps that seems lazy or passive, but it is actually an invitation to be actively watching and observing when you might live into an unanswered questions. One day, Rilke wrote, you may just live into the answer. But you must be awake to notice it.

This is where philosophy comes in. Our world shows us the shadow things, the crumbling is before us. We have deep questions. We want a nicely summed up answer, even though we know that isn't likely going to occur. In fact, it may only raise more questions. This, we don't like. However, this is what we should participate with, in a philosophical sense.

We can take consolation in philosophy, following the ideas of Boethius, who was wrongfully imprisoned and put to death. He wrote Consolations of Philosophy in 524 whilst in prison. In this slim book, he has a conversation with the "nurse" philosophy. Why would he turn to philosophy in his last weeks/days? Because it can tackle the toughest questions about life, circumstances, fortune, good and evil, fate, free will. It's a way to ask God these tough questions, just like Job did, and approach Him, not necessarily expecting answers, but taking comfort in the exploration along with knowing you don't have to rely on answers, but only God and His goodness. 

Hidden away in peace
And sure of your strong-built walls,
You will lead a life serene
And smile at the raging storm.

(Consolations of Philosophy, Boethius)

Reading one book leads to many other books, providing branches outward to other books and thinkers. That's exactly what this book did and it's one of my favourite things when that happens.