Borrowed Thoughts

Snow sculpture at the Winter Carnival in Quebec City.

Believe it or not, I'm still reading Walking on Water by Madeleine L'Engle (it's one of those books you can put down and come back to later). It is simply filled with great reflections, both by herself and other great thinkers of the past. A few are below.


If we had a keen vision of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of the roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well-wadded with stupidity.

[George Eliot]


It is not easy for me to be a Christian, to believe twenty-four hours a day all that I want to believe. I stray, and then my stories pull me back if I listen to them carefully. I have often been asked if my Christianity affects my stories, and surely it is the other way around; my stories affect my Christianity, restore me, shake me by the scruff of the neck, and pull this straying sinner into an awed faith. 

[Madeleine L'Engle]


The Jews would not willingly tread upon the smallest piece of paper in their way, but took it up; for possibly, said they, the name of God may be upon it . . .. Trample not on any; there may be some work of grace there, that thou knowest not of. The name of God may be written upon that soul thou treadest on; it may be a soul that Christ thought so much of as to give his precious blood for it; therefore, despise it not.

[Robert Leighton]

ami | amie

Walking along the old fortress, Quebec City, February 2013

One of the things I love about friendship is the way it sneaks up on you. One day you're thinking about someone in your life and you realize that they're not just your brother, or your brother's friends, or your childhood playmate--they're your friend(s).

*Please forgive the heinous use of "they." It's late, and I simply couldn't be bothered to write he/she. Also, please note that not all of my friends are pictured in this post ;)

Rachael and I at Avila Beach, Winter 2013. (My sunglasses are getting far too much face time.)

Welcoming Frank home for Christmas, 2012.

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

I miss . . .

. . . the Amalfi Coast. The warm weather here is reminding me of the spring sunshine and the flowering fruit trees and smoke and saltwater of late March / early April last year, when I stayed out in the country near Massa Lubrense. Someday I think it would be fun to go back, rent a convertable, and brave the buses and hairpin turns of the road along the coast--which reminds me so much of Highway 1 here. For now, I'll enjoy the California sunshine, and (hopefully) keep honing my surfing skills!