There is the knee-melting-est guy in with his girlfriend?wife?fiance this evening. He's not absolutely beautiful, but he's british and has an Ewan McGreggor thing going on. Wow. he walked up to the desk and we all just stood with our mouths open. And I'm not a drooler by nature. Holy cow is it hot in here.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day

Ah, the inimitable day has arrived. I'm working a triple shift today, so I don't have time to whine and bemoan the fact that I don't have anything special to do....! I guess I figure, one day of gross spending wouldn't make up for a year of neglect, and if a guy is just getting you something out of social pressure...well, I'd rather get the gift on April 2nd or something. Or maybe I should just stop having opinions of something I know nothing about. Anyway.

I'm working the early shift at my morning job, the lunch shift at my night job, and the night shift at my morning job...tomorrow I work the early morning shift, then the lunch shift and I'm done. Thank goodness. I need the money -- payday is coming, as are the bills!

My car drives so nicely! And it's really really really nice to be sitting in the apartment realizing that, if I wanted to, I could go somewhere because I don't have to wait for Andrea to get off work with the car.

Speaking of Andrea, she spent all evening yesterday balancing her checkbook and updating her spending program in her palm pilate. We are being so good! Starting on payday we are switching to the ultimate cheap cost of living diet. Oh yes. We're making and taking every lunch, and keeping our spending to the barest of all possible minimums. She so she can fund her wedding budget and make car repairs, I so that I can pay off more loans as quickly as possible. We'll see how creative we can be on the littlest possible income. I'm ready to be done with this now!

I have an audition coming up in two weeks. I hadn't decided for sure if I wanted to do the program. It does cost a little because its "educational." I don't know if it pays anything or not. If I could get a part, it would be a great program to be in since it's local. If not, it will be good to get up and actually do an audition since I've been out of practice for a while...I need a good Shakesperean monologue though. Can I learn on in two weeks? And a good modern one. I wonder, can I even do a passable job at Shakespeare? I've never really tried before. The last older play I read was Tartuffe. Great maid role in that one...

This is just the rantingest rant I've published in a while. I got a call last night from Adrian that it is really and truly snowing in Waco. Not just spitting that you can see sort of if you squint just right, but atual inches. At least I think. I was asleep when he called, and not terribly coherent when I woke up enough to say hi.

Ok, I've run out of things to say...and my brain is still asleep.

Car

My new baby is a 2000 Chrysler Cirrus. It (I haven't decided on name or gender, or if I'm even going to give it one....My favorite toy throughout childhood was just "lambie") Has Alloy wheels, automatic everything, a V6 engine, a spoiler, moonroof, and a 6 CD changer. It is dark blue-ish purple-ish. Oh, black leather interior....And I got a really really really really good deal on it. The finance department almost cried. Thanks so Sharane my fabulous dealer!

I bought a car today. It's beautiful. I'm picking it up tomorrow...

CS Lewis on Spiritual Reading

Wherever you find a litle study circle of Christian laity, you can be almost certain that they are studying not St. Luke, or St. Paul, or St. Augustine, or Thomas Aquinas, or Hooker or Butler, but M. Berdyaev, or M. Maritain, or Mr. Niebuhr, or Miss Sayers, or even myself.

Now this seems to me topsy-turvey. Naturally, since I myslf am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But I would advise him to read the old. And I would give him this advice precisely because he is an amateur and therefore much less protected against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet. And new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in the position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to light. Often it cannot be fully understood without the knowledge of a good many other modern books. If you join at eleven o'clock a coversation which began at eight, you will often not see the real bearing of what is said. Remarks which seem to you very ordinary will produce laughter or irritation and you will not see why - the reason of course, being that the earlier stages of the coversation have given them a special point. In the same way sentences in a modern book which look quite ordinary may be directed "at" some other book; in this way you may be led to accept what you would have indignantly rejected if you knew its real sifnificance. The only safety is to have a stndard of plain, central Christianity ("Mere Christianity" as Baxter called it) which puts the controversies of the moment in their proper perspective. Such a standard can be acquired only from the old books. It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one til you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.

(Transcribers Interjection. I think the same rule should hold true for all reading. While some modern books are very good, and entertaining, a steady diet of them can make you either one-dimensional, or undernourished intellectually. For example. Le Divorce. Pretty intertaining socially, but not really that deep. Certainly not edifying. Substitute a classic.)

For a good ("popular") defense of our position against modern woffle, to fall back on, I know nothing better than G. K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man. Harder reading, but very protective, is Edwyn Bevan's Symbolism and Belief. Charles Williams's He Came Down from Heaven doesn't suit everyone, but try it.

For meditative and devotional reading (a little bit at a time, more like sucking on a lozenge than eating a slice of bread), I suggest the Imitation of Christ (astringent) and Traherne's Centuries of Meditiation (joyous). Also my selection from Macdonald, George Macdonald; An Anthology. I can't read Kierkegaard myself, but some people find him helpful.

For Christian morals I suggest my wife's (Joy Davidman) Smoke on the Mountain; Gore's The Sermon on the Mount and (perhaps) his Philosophy of the Good Life. And possibly (but with a grain of salt, for he is too puritanical) William Law's Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life...

You'll want mouthwash for the imagination. I'm told that Mauriac's novels (all excellently translated if your French is rusty) are good, though very severe. Dorothy Sayers' Man Born to be King (those broadcast plays) certainly is. So, to me, but not to everyone, are charles Williams's fantastic novels. (Another Interjection by Rachel: An allusion to Tolkien, who had a very big aversion to William's style of writing, declaring that his books were vulgar and farcical. The eventual erosion of their friendship started when Lewis befriended Williams and allowed him into their writers circle) Pilgrim's Progress, if you ignore some straw splitting dialogues on Calvinist theology and concentrate on the story is first class.

St. Augustine's Confessions will give you the record of an earlier adult covert, with many very great devotional passages intermixed.

Do you read poetry? Geore Herbert at his best is extremely nutritious.

I don't mention the Bible because I take that for granted. A modern translation is for most purposes far more useful than the Authorized Version (Aka, King James).

As regards my own books, you might (or might not) car for Transposition, The Great Divorce, or The Four Loves...

Have you read anything by an American Treppist called Thomas Merton? I'm at present on his No Man Is an Island. It is the best new spiritual reading I've met for a long time.

About prides, superiorities, and affronts, there's no book better than Law's Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life where you'll find all of us pinned like butterflies on cards-the cards being little stories of typical characters in the most sober, astringent, eighteenth century prose.

Sunday Reading

Today I am reading today "The Joyful Christian" by CS Lewis. Someone asked me about it. And the first thought that came to my head is, I am reading it because it is Sunday. Which raises a quandry in my mind. One hundred years ago, people read only their Bibles on Sunday, or maybe various church published tracts. There was a sense of keeping separate the sacred and secular on that particular day of the week. Some Sundays, I feel the need, since I am always working (lets ignore the serious issues on that subject for a moment) to read something devotional.

But.

Shouldn't we read such books that we shouldn't be ashamed to read on Sunday? Or, since to most of us that thought rarely occurs, should we ever read anything we would be embarrassed for someone to "catch" us reading? So, in a sense, shouldn't all our reading be "sunday reading?" Not, necessarily sacred in nature, but things that are edifying. Books that are uplifting, and of good content. "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely ...think on these things."

It's worth at least a passing thought.

Hows this for an image. It take $3,200 to make a foot-high stack of dollar bills. My student loans, if stacked, would almost cover the top of my head. Isn't there a scene in Wagner's Ring Cycle about that?

I'm back with my nose to the grindstone. The lady who is looking for the "perfect car" for me called and has a nice one. But, I'm not ready to buy yet. I will not go into debt for a car, I don't care how nice it is. So whatever cash I've saved when I absolutely need one, will be how much I spent. Everyone should buy cars cash if at all possible. It costs you far less money in the long run, you don't have to scrimp for monthly payments, and you can get a better deal on the car in the first place if you wave cash under their respective noses!

Anyway, I'm back, and on a financial roll again!

Can anyone tell me, Jeff perhaps, if the song "speed test" from Thoroughly Modern Millie was reused in the movie version of Pirates of Penzance, or did it happen the other way around...the part that clicked for me was the "So it really doesn't matter, no it really doesn't matter...no it really doesn't matter matter matter matter matter!" chorus. Did that actually come from another Gilbert and Sullivan operetta? Any clues?

LAST DAY!

My last day in Texas! I'm really going to miss a few friends, but other than that? Back to the coast! Back to work....that sucks!

I'm heading out to lunch with some friends from church. Then I'll go to Baylor in the hope that VC will have time for one last lesson. Tonight, its off to The Grape! Adrian and I are going to celebrate his birthday early. Then tomorrow its off to Austin to catch a plane. I'll be home, with any luck, by 10 tomorrow night.

Now for the big question...do I want to come back to Waco? No. For a visit and lessons, yes. To stay, never say never, for God loves to stretch your definition of the impossible, but I hope not! I'm almost home!!!!!