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Can You Guess What I Am?

Book Meme

I was tagged by the Headmistress over at The Common Room to answer this question:

Imagine that a local philanthropist is hosting an event for local high school students and has asked you to pick out five to ten books to hand out as door prizes. At least one book should be funny and at least one book should provide some history of Western Civilization and at least one book should have some regional connection. The philanthropist doesn't like foul language (but will allow some four-letter words in context, such as expressed during battle by soldiers). Otherwise things are pretty wide open. What do you pick?

Well, I fear that I was not able to keep my list to the "five to ten" asked for above. I suppose I would have to donate some of them on my own.

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
(I took this book with me on a family camping trip in New Hampshire. Needless to say, I had my flashlight on well into the night in our little tent. My husband was patient, but really didn't understand what all the giggling was about.)

Since I grew up in New England, these two books would have to be my regional picks:

2. Walden by Henry David Thoreau

3. The Poetry of Robert Frost

4. Young Folk's Story of the World by Lou V. Chapin
(This is a huge tome and is long out of print, but it has a special place in my heart. It was written in 1896 and includes beautiful pen drawings. The book has sections covering Egypt, Ethiopia, Assyria, Media, Babylonia, Persia, Asia Minor and Neighboring Kingdoms, India, China and Japan, Carthage, Greece, Rome, France, England, Germany, Scotland and Ireland, Scandinavia, Russia, Spain, Modern European Kingdoms, Netherlands, Austria, Turkey, Italy, America, British America, and Spanish America. The introduction to this book, written by the author, is a prize in itself. From the introduction:

"Fact and truth, in a historical sense, are of course nearly related, but the seed of the highest truth may lie in a legend or tradition created by the poet or a story-teller, while the most undeniable fact may have in it no spiritual truth, no impulse to quicken the mind, enlighten the soul and make men truly wise.

There are millions of facts that have no real bearing upon historical truth in the story of a nation. They are trivial, even though considered so important by the old historians that all who came after them religiously copied them in writing history.

To be sure these records of fact should be kept as works of reference, and they will always be so preserved, but the age of twenty-volume histories has gone by, and the historian of to-day who would reach the public, and especially that portion of the public that is to become the nation-builders---the youth---must tell his story in a few words, and must have some rational excuse for telling it at all.

That "the noblest study of mankind is man" is not empty vaporing of a poet. The individuals compose the nations, and the biography of individuals is the history of the world. Their great deeds raised nations to power, their mistakes wrecked empires, and from them all we may draw lessons of incalculable value.

No man can be accounted truly educated who has not a general knowledge of the world's history. No man can be truly enlightened who is not able to trace the development of his kind from a lower to a higher plane, and above all, no man can have that deeply reverent attitude toward the God who created our earth and all of its creatures, which is the natural relation of a soul towards its Maker, unless he is able to see in his own existence the outworking of the immutable laws that since the beginning of time have ruled the universe.

Through all the ages one increasing purpose runs like a thread of flame, lighting up dark and bloody pages in the world's story, showing to all men, God in the humblest and highest places, manifesting Himself as unchanging, teaching men over and over the folly of trying to disarrange the rules of cause and effect, and endeavoring to stem with the puny strength of mortal hands and wills the resistless current of the Divine.")

5. The Bible

6. The Complete Works of Josephus

7. Eusebius, The Church History

8. Plutarch's Lives Vols. 1 & 2

9. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

10. The Kingdom of God Is Within You by Leo Tolstoy

11. Collected Shorter Fiction Vols. 1 & 2 by Leo Tolstoy

12. The Complete Works of Shakespeare

13. The Oxford Book of American Verse

14. The Oxford Book of English Verse

15. The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

16. The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien

17. How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn

18. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

19. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Those are just off the top of my head. I know I could keep adding more, but I will spare those poor high school students. Anyway, I am now tagging Amanda at Wittingshire, Kristen at Walking Circumspectly, Javamom at Take Time To Smell The Coffee, Anne at PalmTree Pundit, Amy at Amy's Humble Musings and anyone else who wants to join in.

Sorrow & Thanksgiving

It would be so much easier if I could find a poem that could tell you of the ache that is in my heart, but that would be too easy. It wouldn't be creating something that was mine to turn over and over in the sunlight and in the rain. Such things as this may seem like silliness to most readers and, indeed, I keep reminding myself that it is silly to cry over such things. Yet, still I weep.

I have two beautiful girls. While crouching around in the cramped, hot attic today trying to find the boxes of summer clothes for my girls, I stumbled upon a great cache of little girl clothes. I have been handing down my girls' outgrown clothes for years, but I knew there were a couple of boxes still up there that I could never seem to locate. Today I found about five boxes of clothes. Big boxes. They were right there like they were mocking me for not having seen them before. Boxes full of baby and toddler clothes. Sweet little church dresses, colorful play dresses, little bubble outfits with snaps for easy diaper changing. Oshkosh overalls with little flowers embroidered into the material. And matching shirts. Onesies and thick, cotton training pants. My little girls' clothes.

How did these manage to escape the grand parade of handed down clothes that is still marching out our door and into other homes? I know. I know all too well and therein lies my heartache. These were clothes for my next baby. For the one to come. For that sweet little child that would smell of something not quite of this earth. Something like the smell of warm sugar cookies and that heavenly smell that you aren't sure whether it begins with you and ends with the baby or begins with the baby and ends with you. Or if it has a beginning or an end at all.

When I first found the boxes and brought them down from the attic, I was so happy for my friend. She just had her sixth child and I knew that the hand-me-downs were starting to get tattered in that family since the last five babies were all girls. I kept telling my friend that I thought I had some stuff up in the attic. And, of course, I did. I said it casually since I have been handing down clothes for years without too much thought. I have seen God bless me in so many ways that it wasn't difficult to know that he would always provide for me and my family. Everything I have is God's and I often consider the fact that he might redistribute things at any time, but I don't worry about it. Why would God quit taking care of me now? This doesn't have anything to do with my faith that God will provide for me in any situation. If I were to tell you of all the ways God has blessed me and carried me through the storms, I wouldn't be able to finish this post. Perhaps I should think of posting about such things in the future. It certainly would keep my blog more frequently updated.

My sorrow comes from the fact that, as I sort through these clothes, I see my babies nursing, cooing, smiling, crying, rolling over, sitting up... Looking back at me with their sweet blue eyes and chubby cheeks. My sorrow comes from the fact that ten years ago I had my last baby and I didn't even know it. She was born on Fathers' Day. There was no sorrow that day. I woke up a little after nine that Sunday morning and four hours later, I had a ten pound three ounce baby girl. Chubby little Clara. A little sister for Lily.

I wish I could be as happy today as I go through these clothes. Some of them still smell vaguely of the soap I used back then. That's just not fair. But it is what it is. I am washing them for my friend. Washing out the smell of my babies. Some things you just can't get back.