Research Days, Stormy Nights

 

With summer heat upon us (as we reach the Summer Solstice), we get into the cycle of repeat weather. The nature of bright, sunny, hot mornings and days lead into the afternoons brewing menacing clouds and thunder - it's on constant rotation. A storm was swirl and build together over our heads and we don't even notice it. Sometimes the storm hovers just a few miles away, sitting there like an angry dog guarding something. I can hear it and see it lurking, but it sits just over the road (seemingly). But then it eventually crosses over the road and pours out the built up heat in the form of heavy rain. I take full advantage of the darkened stormy atmosphere by grabbing my current read (The Return of the King) and getting cosy in my armchair to enter the world of Middle-earth. Stormy weather warrants curling up with a book. 

Then, later in the evening as the sky clears a bit and the sun lowers nearer to the horizon, the sky is ablaze with fire from the sun. It's amazing how the dark and light contrast so dramatically in the sky. The dark is darker and the light is radiant. Glory to God for His creation.

I am still working my way through the huge book of Christina Rossetti poems, loving every page of it. This poem I read this week seemed oddly, aptly appropriate, titled "For one Sake":

One passed me like a flash of lightning by
To ring clear bells of heaven beyond the stars:
Then said I: Wars and rumours of your wars
Are dull with din of what and where and why;
My heart is where these troubles draw not nigh:
Let me alone till heaven burst its bars,
Break up its foundations, roll its flashing cars
Earthwards with fire to test and purify.
Let me alone tonight, and one night more
Of which I shall not count the eventide;
Its morrow will not be as days before:
Let me alone to dream, perhaps to weep;
To dream of her the imperishable bride,
Dream while I wake and dream on while I sleep.

While the heat rages endlessly outside, I sit at my desk reading and researching, working on my next book. I make tea or coffee, put on some instrumental music, and get focused and working. This atmosphere is conducive to thinking. I have nowhere I need to be, I will have time later to run an errand, but for now, I can completely focus. I get up and search my bookshelves for reference material. Today, I need to reference some of my Owen Barfield books. I quickly grab four of them, and plop them down on my desk to dig into. It gives me such joy to search my own bookshelves to find books to reference.

So onward I go, back into the books, waiting for the next storm to arrive later on.