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 60th 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
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