Hospitality

“That house was...'a perfect house, whether you liked food or sleep or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all.' Merely to be there was a cure for weariness, fear, and sadness.”

Some recent challenges from friends who own and run a local café, combined with some other things, have had me thinking about hospitality a lot lately. 
It started with their challenge to post about someone with whom we had experienced incredible hospitality.  And I realized I had such a flood of names and faces that came to mind. 
I grew up surrounded by extended family, blessed to be part of a small community that cared for each other, was welcomed into the homes of many friends throughout my childhood and early adulthood, have been part of church families that felt truly like families, enjoyed sharing life with wonderful colleagues, and have lived in cultures beyond my own that have embraced me and my family and that model true hospitality.

One of the people who has been on my mind a lot lately is my great-grandmother.  She had a gift and she used it faithfully to bless anyone around her with loving presence.  I think of the quote about Elrond's house.  Her home and her presence refreshed body and soul.  She was a great cook, but more than that, everything she touched just tasted wonderful, even Wonder bread and bologna sandwiches.  Hospitality has usually been linked closely in my mind to food.  There is something about breaking bread with someone, about someone sharing of their sustenance and their time and their culture to offer something to feed the person that has been welcomed into the home.  My great-grandmother always kept a batch of these cookies in her freezer, along with other treats, so there was always something to pull out when a visitor stopped by.  The cookies were tasty, but I think it was also about the fact that she had prepared herself for your visit before you even considered it yourself.  She made her food and offered it with love, gracefully refreshing the person in front of her.

In her later years, when she or great-grandpa needed various nurses to come in to check on or work with them, all of them consistently commented on the time they spent praying for people and the peace in their home.  She cared deeply for people, and she poured out herself in time and effort and presence to bless those with the gifts she'd been given.

As I've thought again recently many times over the topic of hospitality, I have felt a loss in the current times.  I miss having people in my home.  I miss preparing food to treat those who enter.  I have struggled to know how to bless those around me in this time, and I still don't have a lot of clarity on that.  But I know that, in any season, I hope to have some small glimpse of Elrond or my great-grandma in their presence and grace to BE that kind of place that blesses and refreshes weary souls, that is grounded in the Presence and a humble enough vessel to offer some small glimpse to dear ones of Home.  As I prepared a batch of these cookies that make me feel so nostalgic, I once again prayed for those who I hoped to extend these simple offerings to.  I don't doubt that the cookies themselves are a very small thing indeed, but I hope they speak even some small whisper of Home and of being loved and welcomed into a much bigger and greater Presence than mine!  I have been incredibly blessed in my life, not just with resources and models for hopefully cooking well, but with love and grace, and whether I can have people in my home right now or not, I pray for those to be poured out on the precious lives around me.

2019 in Reading

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted anything!
I have a whole pile of "drafts" that I never finished or at least never posted.
But, rather than go back and edit/finish/decide on sharing those, I'm just going to roll forward a bit.
There are heaps of wonderful sites reviewing and sharing book recommendations and insights on literature.  I don't have much unique to add to that realm, but I just figured I would use this space to share some of what I've especially enjoyed in the bookish realm.

Getting back to a reading habit in the past several years has been an absolute delight!  I actually realized how much it has come to me when I had a rougher year with it this last year (especially the latter half) than many recent years.  But, I still was able to read some great books and feel thankful that I think I have sorted out a few things to get some good reading habits back on track.

Some favorites for me (and if you see middle grade fantasy overrepresented in the list, draw your own conclusions/judgments; some haven't even been read by/with my kids!):

The Door Before by N. D. Wilson

I love Wilson's storytelling!  I also finished The Last of the Lost Boys early on in the year, and while I liked it, that Outlaws of Time series is my least favorite of his (time travel tweaks with me).  But, The Door Before tied together 100 Cupboards and Ashtown Burials and was brilliant!  I loved it!  (Ashtown Burials was my favorite series, by the way, but I do recommend starting with 100 Cupboards, and it is also great!)
Boys of Blur was technically my first completed read of this year, but it was also thrilling!  I could not put it down!

    

The Princess & the Goblin and The Princess & Curdie by George MacDonald

This was the first I had ever read from MacDonald.  I read these aloud to my boys, and we all really enjoyed them.  They are a little odd but delightful.

     

The Wilderking Trilogy by Jonathan Rogers

The first of this series was a reread for me, but then the other two were ones my son had gone on to tear through in his earlier independent days as a voracious reader, so I only had read bits and pieces.  This is a fantastic series!  We had a book club for the first one, which was a heap of fun!  I forgot how funny these are!  And, wonderfully insightful without being preachy.  The stories are engaging and adventurous.  We had so much fun reading these.  My son still often runs around the house shirtless claiming to be a bare-chested feechie!  Read them yourself and find out! ;)



      

Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

This was my first time reading these.  I had read The Hobbit with the boys a couple of times before, but I had been waiting for my older son (11) to be ready to read these, thinking we would read them at the same time and share about them.  Well, he flew past me, started rereading them and nearly finished them a second time before I finished once!  And, he was constantly bursting to talk about them.  The books are obviously wonderful, but my favorite part was the conversations with my son and his intense enthusiasm for these stories and Tokien's genius.  The one request he had for homeschool this year was to learn Elvish, so yeah, we're in deep.
I have to admit that this is one series that I almost felt nervous reading because it seemed like a series I would/should love to the point that, if I didn't, I was afraid of a potential identity crisis!  Only mildly joking.  Thankfully, I did love them.  I got a little bogged down in the Dead Marshes, but I just absolutely loved so much in these.  It's hard to deny Tokien's genius, and it was a privilege to live in Middle Earth for some time.

         

His LOTR obsessions meets with his Great British Bake-off love
Stöllen crafted as Galadriel's ring, complete with elanor flowers and mallorn leaves

My son every day lately!

Son's gingerbread house

The Narnia series

We're actually still finishing up the series, and it's a reread, but it just doesn't get old!  These are so, so good.  We had a book club for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader this year, and my younger one was quite young for our last read, so it has been great fun revisiting Narnia.

Please read them in publication order and NOT the order you'll find printed on most sets!  You MUST enter Narnia through the wardrobe, in my opinion!

Beauty in the Word by Stratford Caldecott

One of the areas I did not read nearly as much as I had hoped was educational philosophy or just other nonfiction even as well.  But two that I did read I really enjoyed!  This one was in a stretch when my reading was just very choppy and interrupted in terms of time, so I felt like I wasn't getting the best out of it, but as I've been going back and adding the things I highlighted to my "commonplace notebook," I've been enjoying thinking over those insights again.

Know and Tell by Karen Glass

This is the other nonfiction/education book I really enjoyed.  Honestly, I'm not even finished with it yet because I wanted to dive into using it and let the things connect into my mind and practice more before finishing off the practical stuff for the later years/stages.  I had been sort of doing narration for awhile, but this book really helped to solidify by understanding of it, the value and richness in it (which lends insight into the learning process, in general), and some very practical bits of how to implement it well.  Though narration had seemed that it should be simple, I found this book was just what I needed to really connect to it and use it.  

The Iliad by Homer

Wow, I can't say this was a favorite, but I definitely feel pleased to have completed it.  I want to like Homer.  I'm not sure I'm there yet.  Maybe it's the pacifist upbringing that struggled to drag myself through the series of who killed who and spilled their guts all over in gory displays.  There are parts I can genuinely say I found really poetic and interesting and even insightful.  But, it was a bit of a discipline overall.  What I do love, though is the class I'm trying to go through related to it and others of The Great Books---Old Western Culture from Roman Roads.  I met Daniel Foucachon (founder and CEO of Roman Roads) at a homeschool conference, and the enthusiasm he and his wife have for what they do was so contagious!  I think they are a great company putting out high quality educational materials and resources!  And, Wes Callihan is so great teaching on the great books!  I want to love Homer because they (and others I respect) love Homer.  Maybe I'll get there. ;) I'm plugging away through The Odyssey now and, hopefully, I will have completed the first unit of Greeks:  The Epics by spring.  It is one of FOUR units that are supposed to make up a year of study for high school, and it's only taken me a year and a half.  Ha.  I do have to say that, as I was watching one of the videos for the class, I thought, Is it really realistic to think of a high school student reading these and going through this?  My son had slipped in next to me and was watching the video and started making comments and asking questions and was, at 11 years old, already intrigued and able to engage in the conversation, and it just made me thankful for the education he is getting that I wish I had.  I bought these with a mix of motivation to both preview as a possibility to use for the boys for high school but also to continue with and fill in gaps for my own education.

Bookish Things

Beyond the books themselves, there are some delightful bookish things that are either highlights from last year or that I at least haven't shared before.
I am a fan of The Literary Life podcast.  I don't and up listening to every episode (I have a hard time keeping up with any podcasts!), but I thoroughly enjoy their recommendations and insights!

They just recently did an episode on their year in reading, and I thoroughly enjoyed that one!
https://www.theliterary.life/031/

Angelina Stanford is one of the people who does the podcast, and I have been blown away listening to her talk about and teach about literature!  These are old episodes of podcasts, but I believe my introduction to her was an episode of Pam Barnhill's podcast on which she spoke about fairy tales, and then she also later did an episode on the same podcast about myths.  Both are wonderful!  I have listened to both more than once, and I frequently recommend these two episodes to parents especially.
https://pambarnhill.com/ymb41/ Why Fairy Tales Are Not Optional
https://pambarnhill.com/ymb60/ The Truth about Myth

Angelina also did a web class on Dickens's A Christmas Carol that was thoroughly delightful! I'll share more about it in a post about favorite Christmas/Advent resources.

I am not great at making things look beautiful. I don't have a gift for aesthetics, and I've struggled to value it, at times, even though I've come to believe very much in the value of it in recent years. One very small thing that has helped me add just a touch of beauty is Jennifer Trafton's reading log. Somehow it has been a good access point for me because I think my brain feels like it's organizing and tracking something and somehow feeling productive or a sense of seeing what is completed. I'm not the best at picking color schemes or doing artistic things with it, but that is one of the things I love about it--it's simple enough to easily access with not a heap of investment of time (or money) but also could be extended to look even more lovely. Also in her Etsy shop, she has some absolutely lovely art prints of book quotes or scenes, including one that she did for us on a quote from The Wingfeather Saga, which is a very beloved series in our family, as well as some fun coloring pages with book quotes. I think her art is whimsical and insightful. (She's also a great author and creative writing teacher, by the way!)

The last one I'll share for now was a bit of a random and fun find on Etsy, and that is the shop SaltyandLit. She has such fun natural soy scented candles with bookish themes! We could not resist The Shire candle! She has a whole bunch for Middle Earth and Narnia and other ones that look great as well!

There are heaps more wonderful books and bookish things, but those are just a few highlights. I would love to hear from other friends on favorites or highlights from your reading and bookish life from recent seasons!