I just finished reading Green Dolphin Street by Elizabeth Goudge. I was really impressed.

Goudge has some slightly unorthodox views of religion, I think, or at least there are hints of that kind in this book. However there is a great deal of wisdom contained within its pages.

It is not a nice book at all. Happiness is elusive for most of the characters in the book. Also it holds a mirror up to the selfish, striving complaining woman that I am, and that really wasn't pleasant at all.

The lessons to be learned about the nature of love and humility are priceless. Most wonderful of is for a book to show honestly what the cost of real self-sacrificing love. I have been encouraged to work harder, and more importantly to complain less.

This book would certainly be much more appealing to women than men. I think its intended audience is women, but I do believe that a guy could learn a lot from it as well. It has its silly, sentimental moments, but has many poignant, awesome insights as well.

Progress? What progress?

What did I learn from Winston Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples? I learned a sort of drearily hopeful thing: people have always blundered through life. Politics (at least in England and the US) have always involved crazy legislation that generally makes things worse...and yet the human race limps onward.

I learned that people are blinded by their own culture.

I learned that small mistakes have awful consequences.

I learned that few people actually do learn from history, and the mistakes of the past are repeated over and over again.

AND

I learned that the nobility, humility, power, brilliance, or virtue of some people can still inspire and fascinate hundreds of years after they lived and died, even when they seem to be on 'the wrong side' or when you've no idea which side is the right side.

Which leads to the conclusion that we should obey God and love our neighbors, be as wise we can be, and maybe not struggle too hard to always be right, because there are things we cannot see. This may be encouraging in the present chaos concerning money and politics and all that.

Keeping it Holy

Exodus 23:10-12 "Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat. In like manner you shall do with your vineyard and your olive grove. Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant and the stranger may be refreshed."

What is the Sabbath all about? It is about sitting on your butt and thinking holy thoughts? Sabbath also more about getting to church on Sunday mornings.

Isaiah 1:11-17

"'To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me?”
Says the LORD.
'I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams
And the fat of fed cattle.
I do not delight in the blood of bulls,
Or of lambs or goats.
When you come to appear before Me,
Who has required this from your hand,
To trample My courts?
Bring no more futile sacrifices;
Incense is an abomination to Me.
The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies—
I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting.
Your New Moons and your appointed feasts
My soul hates;
They are a trouble to Me,
I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your hands,
I will hide My eyes from you;
Even though you make many prayers,
I will not hear.
Your hands are full of blood.
Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean;
Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes.
Cease to do evil,
Learn to do good;
Seek justice,
Rebuke the oppressor;
Defend the fatherless,
Plead for the widow.'"

These people were bringing a multitude of sacrifices. Sounds like they're really on top of things. They forgot one little thing about the Sabbath, though, I think: ceasing to do evil, and doing good. While offering incense and sacrifices you can't just forget about the weak.

We all need Sabbath rest, I believe we were created (pre-fall) to need it. God made the earth in six days and rested, and we were made to do like him. So by all means rest, but consider: many of us are fortunate; we only have to work five days; we only have school fives days; overall we've got it pretty darn cushy. So give rest; don't just take it. There are lots of people who have to work on Sunday, and they dang-well can't help it because they have to keep their job. So help them however you can, and give rest to the single mother, give rest to the elderly, the poor, the miserable. Have them for dinner on Sunday, watch their kids, do their dishes, and for heaven's sake don't "keep the Sabbath" and keep someone else from keeping the Sabbath.

The worst (or best, depending how you look at it) example of this is the story I read in Touchstone magazine about a church that requested a diner to be open on Sundays so that the congregants could eat there, which forced a waitress who attended that church to work on Sunday, so she served them while they sat at their leisure. Ick. It makes me sick. (no, I don't doubt that I'm like that sometimes.)

That is backwards. They should have all been sitting together at the Lord's table in His house, serving one another and instead she misses the chance to go to the Lord's house, and they sit down and eat while she, less fortunate than they, serves them.

Baby Snatching

Keep a close eye on anyone who says "our children are our future," because they usually mean that your children are their future. Anyone who thinks that children are the collective property of the community is kooky.