Thursday, December 15, 2011

I love to read.

  • I'm thinking about making the previous link my 2012 book list. It would get me to try some new things, like Ender's Game. Just the cover in itself is enough to make it completely unappealing. However I've already enjoyed five on this list (and tried two more but didn't get into them.) So that would leave two a month for 2012. My goal would not be to read them all, the goal would be to try all the books on the list and hopefully find some unexpected enjoyment.
  • El Mas Hermoso - I was pleasantly surprised by this children's book today. All the animals in the jungle are deciding who will be the next king. The tortoise suggests doing something different and picking the most beautiful. Everyone agrees and goes to make themselves beautiful. The deer thinks he would look great with the lion's mane so he exchanges his antlers for them, and other animals do similar things. But no one wants anything from the camel, the camel knows he is ugly...In the end the camel is chosen as the most beautiful because while everyone else was stressed out trying to look good, a little bird helped the camel see how beautiful his own eyes were and this made him very happy. And the happy animal was the most beautiful! Amen.
  • Well, I've already got three related to books so I will just keep going. I am reading Jesus: What He Really Said and Did by Stephen Mitchell. These are two favorites from today's reading. Jesus said, "How can you say, 'I have kept all the commandments'? Isn't it written in the Torah, You should love your neighbor as yourself? Yet many of your countrymen are dressed in rags and dying of hunger, while your house is filled with abundance, and none of it goes out to them. (81)"
  • A man says to Jesus, "'But if it is possible for you to do anything take pity on us and help us.'
    Jesus said to him, ''If it is possible!' Anything is possible when you believe it is' (66)."



1 comment:

  1. I like that last one (Anything is possible when you believe it is).
    And, as the moment of looking back on the past year is approaching, I must say that I'm starting to believe this. Not just the words, but the true meaning.
    Only I'm afraid the complete frase should have been "Anything is possible when you believe it is, and when you are willing to suffer and to daily overstep your own limits.

    But surely Jesus knew this wouldn't make him very popular and so as all wise men do, he kept the stingy part for himself. and for us to find out on our own :)



    hmm... thinking about overstepping one's limits... if you get over your own limits time and time again, if less and less things make you suffer, in the end you become limitless... and maybe that's the point of real enlightment...


    never mind...
    I hope you are doing well.


    have a nice day,
    stephanie

    ReplyDelete