Now All I Need Is A Title

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

All This, and Heaven Too by Rachel Field

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Wickford Point by John P. Marquand

Escape by Ethel Vance

Disputed Passage by Lloyd C. Douglas

The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

The Tree of Liberty by Elizabeth Page

The Nazarene by Sholem Asch

Kitty Foyle by Christopher Morley

To me faith is the absolute most important thing in my life. I have been working to become sure in God. I get overwhelmed at times and I lose sight of what God wants for me and what I want for myself. God put me on this world for a reason and I want to make him happy and fulfill all of his wishes.

Okay, I recognize three books here and five authors from this list of the top ten best-selling novels in the United States from seventy-five years ago (that's 1939). How fickle is fame and best-sellerdom. So I pick up with today's account after having arrived at work and THE SUN IS SHINING! I like this, good walking weather as opposed to the rain and slush that was occurring outside yesterday. Sarah and her class will likely get to have lunch outdoors in Oak Park after they tour a local recycling plant after all. Don't remember as big a deal (or even the existence of a recycling plant) made of separating your garbage when I was growing up … my introduction to recycling came about second, maybe third grade – so between 1979 and 1981 – with a character named Michael Recycle, a tall blond guy with a rainbow on his shirt and I remember the first two pages of this story-slash-teaching tool. A kid's asking Michael regarding a soda can he's about to throw away, “You mean that can is worth money?”

My belief in God means that I will always have someone to talk to about anything and I know I can ask him to help me with anything. Sometimes, it seems like things don't always work out the way I want them to, but I know that God has a greater plan than I can ever imagine.

Like a good little capitalist (yes, we still have them in this country)! Michael replies, “You bet, and so are [other things with aluminum in them; the big recycling craze started with aluminum, I recall]”. Then turn the page, and Michael in profile is saying, “Throwing away any natural resource is wasteful!” And from there this – although I hate this term, just now an understandable alternative is not occurring to me – devolved into being willing and able to use extreme force to protect the planet (i.e. Captain Planet and the Planeteers and its inspirations/real-life successors) and, from what I see of the current Michael Recycle, the tendency to denounce and ruin and make the opposition unredeemable and without merit. Almost a precursor to our own time with some issues you and I could both name … all of us want a stronger loving world, but we have to be willing to not kill or shame those who disagree with us. We want goodwill, and the minute we degenerate into an argument we've lost.

My faith means having someone to watch over me in good times and bad. When I've gone through hard times, like my grandparents' illnesses, God was there for me. In Confirmation I've learned so much more about God and how He created us and how he leads and guides us.

And that may be the first faith statement excerpt I've reprinted this week from Bethany Lutheran Church's confirmands (boys and girls who've gone through Confirmation) where the person capitalized He in reference to God. Or, in the words of my sophomore Funk and Wagnalls' English book in high school, “Capitalize words referring to the Deity.” Really! So last night I got a ride home from work because my car is still not running and we're not sure why – with our work schedules we'll likely devote more time to getting what we need this weekend, though our family friend Donovan stopped by to look for something maybe Robert (Martha's dad) or I missed. Lights turn out, but I turn the key and nothing happens … anyway, Donovan took the kids to the circus in town after school and they were telling me about the man shot out of a cannon and the camel and the zebra and the half-eaten cheese pretzel (oy vey). Today will be a beautiful day, and in closing let me give a list of the books I've read that I haven't had the time to go into here because other topics are like Calgon, they take me away.

LIFE 60^th Anniversary Collectors' Edition

Up to Jerusalem by Paul F. Kretzmann

The Man Who Was Different: Jesus' Encounters With Women by Gien Karssen

Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster

Rembrandt by Mike Venezia

Peanuts Every Day by Charles M. Schulz

The Great Waldo Search by Martin Handford

The Journals of Mihail Sebastian adapted by David Auburn

Candide by Voltaire

Not called on account of rain, David