Summer Morning

 

Oh that my word were done
As birds that soar
Rejoicing in the sun:
That when my time is run
And daylight too,
I so might rest once more
Cool with refreshing dew.

- Christina Rossetti

You wake up on a summer morning. It is still dark, but the sky is beginning to glow at the horizon. Warmth surrounds you and the humidity holds the air in its embrace, but you had a good, restful sleep.

Stretching out under a thin cover, you listen - - silence of the early morning is only penetrated by a bird across the street, chirping its pre-dawn call. You ponder the silence and let it calm you as your thoughts come out of a dream you now cannot recall. It faded seconds after you opened you eyes, shimmering for a moment as you hovered between the dream world and the waking reality.

Notions and recollections of the previous day might be starting to shift into your mind, but you hush them with a prayer of thanks - -

    Lord, thank you for this day

Recognizing the gift that a new day is, your mind begins to reflect on that. The temporal nature of our everyday warrants a response from you. Do you ignore the significance and keep trudging into the day to day activities without thought, or do you pause to recognize something beautiful or lovely that occurred, and give thanks to God for it. No matter how small. You might simply say - -

    Lord, thank you for the rain shower last night.  It restored the sunburnt soil. The air felt refreshed afterwards.

Nothing is too small (or too big) for God, and to be thankful for. In all honesty, do we reflect with prayers of thanks for the things we so easily do not take notice of? Turning over some thankful thoughts, lifting them in prayer before rising from the soft sheets, your heart is already set to a state of thankfulness - - ready to see and recognize all the reasons the morning is a gift and filled with beauty.

Now you rise and peak out the window - the glow of the dawn deepens and light casts aside the velvet sky. Soon you find yourself making tea or coffee and your mind leans into a little prayer - thankful for the hot drink to wake you and get you started for the day ahead. And you feel the possibilities of the day rise to meet you like the steam off your drink.

You begin to notice that the quiet of the morning stirs you into a deeper reflective state. Something in you wants to address that. Sitting at your desk or table you take a notebook and pen and linger over some pages of reflections sipping the tea or coffee as you go. Filling blank pages with your current words.

Nothing big or dramatic, but you notice how good it feels to let out some thoughts on paper. No matter how jumbled they might seem. Every page becomes a tale of a day, idea, creative notion - captured at a moment that is already gone by the time you finish the sentence. But now it lives on in the notebook. Its temporal nature as a thought becomes something lasting - you can re-visit sometime in the future.

That's the gift of notebooks and writing by hand. A tangible way to see your own handwriting, unique to you, and some ideas you may forget in a day, but could read again and feel inspired by. 

It's a lovely summer morning as you close the notebook. The sun is up and brightly casting the sunshine outside your windows. Until tomorrow...

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. 

Summer Weather

 

Heat rises steeply, vertically, highly
Accumulating utmost height in the sky,
Swirling and festering clouds form
Not gentle, but heavy with storm
Winds beset, precede the clouds
A call to the indoor, safe haven now
Wild and fierce, relentless, no release
I wait for it to slow; it doesn't cease
Lightning flashed, its power too much
An otherworldly tap, with its milli-touch
And power is gone, overwhelmed by power
All I really wanted was a cooling rain shower
Not today, says the storm, my power is today,
But in a couple hours, the wind swept it away.

The wonder of weather during the summer months. Infused with heat and moisture are all the day. The morning awakens with clear blue hues, sun, and heavy air. As the hours progress the heat rises into the atmosphere and builds up in the formation of clouds. Sometimes a storm will develop and form right overhead, crashing suddenly onto the hot landscape. I peak out the window and see the wind blow and the rain falls in sheets. I watch in wonder and pull out a book to read - isn't that the natural thing to do to enjoy the atmosphere inside? The awe of creation fills me when weather acts like it was created to do. Until the power flickers out....but then it's all swept away and the atmosphere clears.

The heavens were made by the word of the Lord,
and all the stars, by the breath of his mouth.
He gathers the water of the sea into a heap,
he puts the depths into storehouses.
Let the whole earth fear the Lord;
let all the inhabitants of the world
stand in awe of him.
For he spoke, and it came into being;
he commanded, and it came into existence.
Psalm 33.6-9

Stack of Books

 

Current and recent bookstack. Some of the books I've read or currently reading now. It makes me so happy to have a little bookstack of good books. 

Alice's Oxford - People and Places that inspired Wonderland, Peter Hunt

Well this was fun. After coming back from Oxford, I was right back in Oxford, visiting all the places associated with Alice. There was a little bit of history about each place, and how it showed up in the Alice books - many of which I had not seen before. The author also included many of the Tenniel illustrations and insights how Oxford shows up in many of those scenes, such as the Queen of Hearts scene in the garden. In the drawing there appears in the background the Lily House of the Oxford Botanical Garden. The Botanic Garden might be where Alice met some of the flowers in Looking-Glass, who were rather philosophical.  

Loss and Gain, John Henry Newman

The story of Charles Reding, a young undergraduate at Oxford in the 1840s, who journeys through the tumultuous religious times in the Church of England, as liberal enlightenment ideology entered the church, the Oxford Movement rose against it, and Catholicism was deemed as antichristian. Charles navigates the deep discussions with his fellow undergraduates, his family, and elders. Written as a fictional autobiography by Newman, it is the story of his conversion.

At the beginning of the book:

"But how are we to arrive at truth at all", said Reding, "except by reason? It is the appointed method for guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason."  

Sounds a bit like pre-conversion C.S. Lewis, doesn't it?

The Manuscript's Club - The People Behind a Thousand Years of Medieval Manuscripts, Christopher De Hamel

With beautiful color photographs of the manuscripts this is a visit with 12 different collectors or scholars of these manuscripts. Manuscripts have survived for this many centuries because they are valued and preserved. Why were they important and why are they still important? Why were handwritten manuscripts still produced after the printing press was developed? We travel through history to visit each person and their role - from Saint Anselm the Benedictine Monk (1033-1109) to more modern times of Sir Sydney Cockerell (1867-1962) and the space in between. It is an interesting study of the people who had influence on these manuscripts, and their reasons for it. A bit of history and bookish detail along the way. 

1984, George Orwell

I have been wanting to re-read this book. It's the kind of book that warrants a re-read every few years as our world changes, it is that warning reminder of the importance of truth, freedom, words, and meaning. Orwell builds this soon-to-come future of how life could look if we do not continue to fight for freedom, a totalitarian regime would control every single aspect of your life: Big Brother would be watching you from all your screens at home, what you read, where you go, what you write, what you say. Even what you think (the Thought Police will eventually catch you). Once they have your thoughts in their control it's a total loss of humanity.

"The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary. This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death." (pg. 7)

Black Coffee, Agatha Christie

Such a fun read. This is adapted from the play that Agatha wrote. A family mystery in a large estate home. A poisoned coffee leads to death, but who put the poison in the coffee? And why? Poirot is called in to help discover the truth, and as he talks to members of the family, additional motives for murder are revealed. You try to make your own assumptions based on the conversations who did it, but some new tidbit of information makes you question your theory. 

Christina Rossetti, The Complete Poems

I've mentioned how I have been reading through her poems and it is wonderful. Such a mix of topics from family, seasons, nature, religious, dream-like, creative. Some are so beautiful I read them a few times:

Time was I bloomed with blossom and stood leafy
How long before the fruit, if fruit there be:
Lord, if by bearing fruit my heart grows heavy,
Leafless and bloomless yet accept of me
The stripped fruit-bearing heart I offer Thee.