Assorted Variety

I have no greater purpose for this post than to challenge myself to be somewhat regular, or at least less irregular, in posting on this blog. Consequently, I am also challenging myself to think back on these books that I finished last month (or the month before) and remember enough of what I read to share some coherent (if not brilliant) thoughts about them with you.
Thomas Howard's Chance or the Dance was a wonderful read. I am not ashamed to admit that more than once, it felt almost over my head because of many cultural references that I was unfamiliar with and lots of new-to-me deliciously large and many-syllabled words. Thanks in large part to my friend Kelly at Landscape, Plotted and Pieced, the talks of Angelina Stanford at House of Humane Letters, and lectures by Cindy Rollins, and the wonderful podcast The Literary Life which Angelina and Cindy host, I had enough of a working knowledge of the medieval mindset to follow Mr. Howard's thesis, which he states in the last paragraph of the first chapter: 

"...the old myth saw the world as image; the new sees it as a chance concatenation of physical events. This book is an attempt to describe how our experience might look if we looked at it once more under the terms of the old myth."

What are "the terms of the old myth" Howard is referring to? In the very middle of page two, he writes: 

"The myth sovereign in the old age was that everything means everything. The myth sovereign in the new is that nothing means anything."

The rest of the book is a lovely, varied fleshing out of his main point. Howard's tone is humorous without being mocking, and serious without being overly solemn. He writes in a way that reminds me of the cliche description of one who "had a playful twinkle in his eye."
This book was a pleasure to read because it was a pleasure to be so well-reminded that the universe we live in is a universe bursting with meaning. We are not concatenations of chance. We are image-bearers welcomed into an eternal, joyous dance.

Alan Jacobs' How to Think was also an enjoyable read, though the title is somewhat mileading. Jacobs doesn't tell you exactly how to think - he doesn't give you directives - but rather principles to guide you as you practice what he calls, "the art of thinking." There is a checklist at the very end of the book, but it is more of a summary of his principles than a "to-do" type of list. 
My biggest take-away from the book was the reminder to be the kind of person with whom you would enjoy having a conversation. If you enjoy talking with people who speak in sweeping generalities, who have a very black and white mindset, who freely engage in name-calling and gross exaggerations of the positions of their opponents, by all means, keep those people engaged in conversation with you so the rest of us can discuss ideas in a civil and lively manner. 

Anyone who thinks or discusses, or attempts to discuss, ideas of any kind at any level would benefit from reading this book, but I think teenagers might especially be helped by it. There are a few instances of cursing (I'm looking at you, Martin Luther and Thomas More!) but that shouldn't keep you from introducing them to this book. It is short, engaging, and humble - in the sense that it does not attempt to be the definitive voice in telling you how you ought to think. It is not telling so much as showing. Jacobs gives his readers friendly reminders of principles which they most likely already know. The books as a whole is a refreshingly calm, realistic, conversational voice of reason in an era exploding with abrasive, didactic, braggadocious rants. 

I haven't listened to it yet, but the Schole Sisters newest episode is on this book. I am interested to hear their take on it.

I finished Book 1 of The Faerie Queene during Eastertide. It was such an excellent literary pairing with that season of the church calendar that I hope to reread it again next year at this same time. 

I am nearly finished with Tillyard's The Elizabethan World Picture which has been wonderful. 

I haven't yet started A Preface to The Faerie Queene.

I found this shell during a family walk some weeks ago. 

It stopped me in my tracks.

Glory be to God for dappled things.