{Five Favorites} Things We're Doing These Days

#1.

Coloring.  Lots of coloring.  I love to do it with them too.

#2.

Turtle's Egyptian Pyramid.  I love to see her creativity and focus -- some of her strengths!

#3.

Eating peanut butter out of the jar, with a dollop of raw honey on top. 

#4.

Audiobooks

D. has been gone/working/sleeping/playing hockey many of the recent evenings.  I love having an audiobook to keep me company.  I sweep, wash dishes, fold laundry and collect tax information, all while reading a book!  

Last year, some of the audiobooks I enjoyed were The Moonstone and The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins, and All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr.

This year, my first one is Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver

#5.

This book I am reading to the girls is such a blessing. To me, at least, if not to them!  The stories are simply and beautifully told.  The author doesn't dwell on gory or scandalous details.  The way she subdivides the saints is lovely too, and through this division, the main aspect of each saints impact upon the world is made clear.  She has a way of making even the lives of the stranger saints (like St Simeon Stylites) and the loftier saints (like St Benedict) understandable, relevant, and compelling.  

This is passage from the story on St John of the Cross:

John lived in that tiny, filthy, dark cell for almost a year.  He had nothing to write with and nothing to do but pray.  So pray is what John did.  

At times he felt alone and abandoned, even by God.  But he kept praying.  At times he wondered why he had followed God at all.  But he kept praying.

And there in the dark, John wrote poems in his head.

In beautiful Spanish, John wrote poems about God and God's love.  He wrote poems about how God's love is always with you, even if you are suffering and even if you can't feel that love.   . . . . John's poems are some of the greatest poems ever written in the Spanish language.  People love them because they are good poetry.  But people also love them because they are like any good story: they help us understand the world.  . . . [T]he awful things that happened to John helped him write poetry that has helped millions of people love God more and get through their own times of suffering and loneliness."

Has anyone ever explained the impact of St John of the Cross to you any better than that? 

(On the Barnes and Noble site you can read a long piece of the book -- the subdivision of the saints and the first few stories.)

Visit Ashley at The Big White Farmhouse for more Five Favorites.