Lenten Reading

 This is a free e-book.  I probably read it a long time ago, but thought I didn't because it's not even 30 pages!  I finally re-read it, again and saw that it is just a short and sweet instruction manual by St. Theresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and St. Therese of Lisieux.  

   It consists of short maxims, e.i., The greater your trust, the greater your spiritual growth.  This would be a great meditation book for Lent.  One maxim a day, or even a week, to contemplate.

All Carmelite saints, pray for us.

Amen.

The Trial Separation

 Louise Penny's The Long Way Home, surprised me.  I can't tell you why because that would spoil the story.  In this book, Chief Inspector Gamache has just retired in Three Pines.  However, he is thrust back into the detective game by a request by his friend, Clara.

Clara and her husband agreed to a trial separation, for a year.  He didn't come back and that isn't like him.  If he didn't want to come back, he certainly would have--to tell her to her face.  

Gamache and his crew follow Peter's tracks, even into Europe, and accross Canada.  I will tell you, finding him wasn't easy, but I can't say more.

It's a fast pace, fun read.

Quiet Coyote

One of the most unattractive qualities of our human condition is our propensity to think the worst of the best of us.  When someone is extremely successful, some people accuse them of making a pact with the devil, or some other nefarious reason for their success.

  

Such is the example of Taylor Swift.  But I'm homing in on her friend Ice Spice, who was with her in a private box at the Super Bowl game.  Ice Spice is a rapper.  She was wearing a cross, but to some, it's an upside down Satanic cross.  She also is seen doing a "quiet coyote," sign.  Or is it?

The "quiet coyote" is a sign teachers of young children give to their students as a sign to be quiet. It's the same sign you may have used to make a shadow rabbit on the wall to entertain your children.

 It's similar to American Sign Language, I love you.

But it's also similar to the sign for White Power.

Good grief!!!  Look at all these hand gestures.  Maybe everybody is better off sitting on their hands.

Christian V. Jewish View of Forgiveness

 I've never read a book like The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal.  What a discussion ensued over forgiveness, with which the book struggles!  The book is 289 pages, 98  of which is the story.  All the rest are opinions.

The story is the autobiographical story of Simon Wiesenthal. As a victim of the holocaust, he is in a concentration camp.  His work team's job is the clean the waste out of a hospital. While there, he is ordered to follow a nurse.  The nurse takes him to the death bed of a dying Nazi.  He is ordered to sit beside the Nazi and listen to him.  The Nazi tells him his life story, including some atrocities he had a part in.  He obviously, wants Simon, as a Jew, to forgive him.  He couldn't.  He got up and left the dying man, without saying a word.

Back at the concentration camp, Simon tells a couple of close friends, what had happened.  Both say, "Never forgive him."  But one elaborates, fuller.  He tells Simon that he had no authority to forgive for the entire Jewish race.  The sin was against an entire people, not an individual, named Simon Wiesenthal.  So he had no authority to forgive what happened to entire people.

What do you think?

The rest of the book consists of other people's opinions.  I noticed that the Christians wrote the shortest opinions.  More or less they said, "Jesus said to love your enemies."  "You forgive seventy times seven."  Then the Jews mostly said, "no you don't forgive."  The difference is the Torah versus the New Testament.

Burls

 A "burl" is a knotty growth on a tree.  Artists make bowls and other art out of them.  Today, while walking, there was a sign that I thought was just an old broken down sign.  However, as I got closer to it, I realized that it was a burl that was beginning to grow over the sign.

Further along the walk, I thought I saw a sign very high up on a tree.  I thought it was a sign because it was perfectly round.  I also wondered who could read a sign that high up.  Again, as I approached, the sign turned into a burl, the largest I have ever seen.  

Palms or Pussy Willows

This is a pussy willow.  We were surprised to see it.  It's February, a little early for pussy willows.  Although, Father Lennie reminded me that some churches use pussy willows instead of palms, to celebrate Jesus' entry into Jerusalem.

It's a custom in Poland to gather pussy willows to decorate their churches during the Lenten season.

"The Pussy Willow is an Easter symbol.  One of the most prominent Easter symbols, because of the fact out of this dry, kind of twig all of a sudden bursts forth this beautiful flower of life, and it is the first bush that blooms," 

 

Willing the Good of the Other

 My next book in Louise Penny's Gamache series was A Trick of the Light. Gamache's friends, the artist couple, Clara and Peter play prominent roles in the story.  Clara is finally having her art show and Peter is jealous.  

Thomas Aquinas defines love as willing the good of the other.  Peter is torn.  He wants Clara to be recognized as the accomplished artist, that she is, yet he is jealous.  He can't help himself.  It wears on their marriage and the book ends with their separation.  

But that isn't the story.  Clara's childhood friend, Lillian, is murdered in her garden.  They had grown apart because Lillian's personality grew into a vicious bitch.  She destroyed two artists' careers, in her job as a reviewer.  Lillian became an alcoholic.  She tried to overcome her addiction and joined AA.  

Gamache finds that the entire art world consists of backbiting, competitive, mean-spirited, jealous, artists.  One of the artists that Lillian destroyed killed her.  Finding the exact one, is the story.  And it's a good one.