Worthwhile Reading Challenge 2009

DHM is sponsoring a Worthwhile Reading Challenge and I’m taking her up on it because I have several books I’ve started but not finished in the last few years, or have been planning on reading but simply haven’t for one reason or another. I’m also including a few not-too-hard-but-still-worthwhile books in the list because this looks likes it’s going to be a busier-than-usual year for me.

Not listed in any particular order, except for the first one, which I’m reading right now.

1: The Story of French by Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow; Christmas gift; interesting reading on a subject that’s completely new to me — the life and times of the French language

2: Poetic Knowledge: The Recovery of Education by James Taylor; recommended by Cindy

3: Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education by David Hicks; ditto

4: The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century by RH Tawney; mentioned by Alan Carlson in Third Ways

5: Liturgy and Personality: The Healing Power of Formal Prayer by Dietrich Von Hildebrand; I think this one was recommended in Chronicles magazine; birthday present

6: Southern Tradition at Bay: A History of Postbellum Thought by Richard Weaver, author of Ideas Have Consequences; I’ve started this book two or three times at least and never gotten farther than the first couple of chapters

7: Religion and the Rise of Western Culture by Christopher Dawson; ditto

8: A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman; another Cindy recommendation, another started and not finished

9: Parents and Children, book two of Charlotte Mason’s Original Homeschooling Series — I read the first book, Home Education, last year and learned a lot from it; wish I’d read it fifteen years ago!

10: My Antonia by Willa Cather; Eldest Daughter received this for Christmas but I’ve never read it before

11: Descent into Hell, a Novel by Charles Williams, one of CS Lewis’s cronies

12: All Flesh Is Grass by Gene Logsdon; raising animals on pasture

As you can see — only two of these are novels and that’s because I mostly read novels. This year I read all of Jane Austen and all of Dorothy Sayers (except for the short stories), plus about a dozen Agatha Christies, Lewis’s Space Trilogy, some Wendell Berry, and I don’t remember what else. I lost the notebook with my list early in the year and never started another one, so I can’t even use my booklog to remind me!

Excellent post-election thoughts

from John Rabe: The Morning After.

I woke up feeling great today. Not because the election went my way, but rather because, in a sense, all elections go my way. The reason for this is that my God is an un-elected God, and He does not change with the winds of public opinions. He sits above all earthly rulers and authorities, and indeed He is their very creator. He builds up and He tears down. He raises up empires and overthrows them. He installs presidents and he removes them. In the words of the great Westminster Confession of Faith, “God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.”

Be sure to read the whole thing.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love Chesterton?

Not since last week, eh? Well, let me remedy that oversight. I’m reading his What’s Wrong with the World? and came across this gem, appropriately enough, just a couple days before we went off of Daylight Saving Time:

If I am to discuss what is wrong, one of the first things that are wrong is this: the deep and silent modern assumption that past things have become impossible. There is one metaphor of which the moderns are very fond; they are always saying, “You can’t put back the clock.” The simple and obvious answer is, “You can.” A clock, being a piece of human construction, can be restored by the human finger to any figure or hour. In the same way society, being a piece of human construction, can be reconstructed upon any plan that has ever existed.

There is another proverb, “As you have made your bed, so you must lie on it”; which again is simply a lie. If I have made my bed uncomfortable, please God I will make it again. We could restore the Heptarchy or the stage coaches if we chose. It might take some time to do, and it might be very inadvisable to do it; but certainly it is not impossible as bringing back last Friday is impossible. This is, as I say, the first freedom that I claim: the freedom to restore.

The freedom to restore. Love it.

Alfred the Great

Yesterday was Alfred’s feast day, and as has been our custom for lo these two years, we’re reading from my beloved G.K. Chesterton’s The Ballad of the White Horse each night after supper. Tonight we read Book IV: The Woman in the Forest, the part about how Alfred was tending the cakes on the hearth of a poor woman in exchange for a meal. He, musing, pitying her, absent-mindedly let one of the cakes fall into the fire, whereupon the old woman, now knowing who was her guest, picked up the burnt cake and smacked Alfred on the forehead with it. He towered up in his rage, but

Then Alfred laughed out suddenly,
      Like thunder in the spring,
Till shook aloud the lintel-beams,
And the squirrels stirred in dusty dreams,
And the startled birds went up in streams,
      For the laughter of the King.

And the beasts of the earth and the birds looked down,
      In a wild solemnity,
On a stranger sight than a sylph or elf,
On one man laughing at himself
      Under the greenwood tree –

May we all learn that lesson.

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Other posts on Alfred the Great:

Alfred the Great post from the 26th of October, 2005; history, prayers, and lots of cool links; don’t miss it!

And three selections from this year’s Poetry Month:
The Way of the Cross
The Great Gaels of Ireland
The King’s Laughter (includes today’s passage plus three more stanzas)

Next money question

We have a collection of Canadian coins that have been given to us over the years as change from MacBurger’s, the Stuff Mart, yard sales, and various other places. Being the honest citizens we are, when we notice we have them we put them away rather than try to use them in hopes no one else will notice getting them any more than we did at the time. Now, I’m not really interested in collecting Canadian money, but the only legitimate way I know of to get rid of them, besides giving them away or selling them to a collector, is to go to Canada and buy something with them. And that’s not going to happen, so I’m stuck with useless Canadian money.

I understand that something similar happens on the international scene — if we buy a million dollars worth of stuff from China, then China has a million US dollars that they have to do something with, and ultimately this money comes back to us in the form of someone somewhere buying American goods or services.

This would make sense if we were dealing with hard currency, but I’m pretty sure it’s virtual money.

Here’s how I imagine it happens: When Stuff Mart buys a shipload of Chinese doodads to put on the shelves in its stores, there isn’t really a guy with $1 million in Federal Reserve Notes handing it over to a guy at the Chinese factory. No, Stuff Mart’s bank debits one million credits, converts it to yen, and then those credits are applied to the factory’s bank account.

So this is a mechanical question — how does this really work?

There’s a philosophical question underlying it, but I’ll get to that later.

Money questions

Yesterday while reading Plutarch’s biography of Poplicola (d. 503 BC), we came across this interesting tidbit:

[T]he use of money was then infrequent amongst the Romans, but their wealth in cattle great; even now pieces of property are called peculia from pecus, cattle; and they had stamped upon thier most ancient money an ox, a sheep, or a hog…

My Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (fifth edition, don’t know what year, but the population information in the back is taken from the 1940 census) lists the first definition of the word peculiar as “belonging to an individual; privately owned; not common.” This dictionary also lists the word peculium, saying that it’s a term from Roman law and means “The private property of a wife, child, or slave.” Our word pecuniary, “relating to money,” comes from the same root.

The word capital comes from the Latin caput for “head.” Caput is also the root of the word cattle, from which we get our word chattel, and as Plutarch points out, our ancient ancestors measured their wealth in cattle.

This all makes sense to me. My question is, “How did we get from land and cattle to money?”

I’ve read a few accounts of how it happened, including RC Sproul, Jr’s in his Biblical Economics, all of which posit a kind of evolution from barter to tally sticks to pretty shells to hunks of gold to gold coins minted by a governing body. But none of these accounts offers historical evidence for this narrative so I’m wondering if that’s the way it actually happened.

Yesterday, after looking up the roots of the word peculiar, the kids and I looked up money. We had speculated that it would have something to do with manus, “hand,” meaning it’s wealth you can carry about in your hand. Boy, were we wrong! Money comes from the Latin word Moneta, one of Juno’s names. It was at the temple of Juno Moneta that money was coined, or minted.

This of course raises the question of what the money was for. Why were coins needed such that they were made at the temple of a Roman goddess?

Whatever the answer to that is, Juno’s money wasn’t the first. The temple of Juno Moneta was built in the year 344 BC, but money is first mentioned in the Bible during Abraham’s lifetime, more than 700 years earlier.

Summer is officially over

when I have to wear socks in the house to keep my feet warm!

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I suppose I should update the blog’s colors and stuff like I usually do to keep pace with the seasons, but life has been awfully busy lately. And my camera broke right after joining the 100 Species Challenge, so that’s why I haven’t done anything more on it. We bought a cheap one to make do with a couple of weeks ago, so maybe there’s hope yet. :-p

We’re still getting a tomato or two every few days from the garden, but everything else is done. We didn’t plant much this year, not wanting to repeat last year’s major loss on account of the drought.

In the flower beds, the Autumn Joy sedum is turning a beautiful red-burgundy and we have some late roses. We don’t have much fall color here — something I wish I’d remedied before now. I think asters would look really nice. What else blooms this time of year?

The maple trees are just starting to show yellow-orange.

It was drizzly yesterday and we’ve had a light shower today — such a blessing! This spring was wetter than I’ve ever seen it since we’ve been here, but old-timers tell us it was almost a normal spring. Summer was drier than usual, again. I haven’t heard whether last year’s officially declared drought is over or if it’s still in effect — I don’t know how that works.

My nineteen year old daughter has taken on some of the teaching of the younger set which is freeing me up for some extra responsibilities that have come my way in the last couple of months. A grown daughter at home is such a delight, and not just for helping me in my work. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to have another woman to talk to every day!

Life is good.

:-)

Favorite summer salad

Chop one medium tomato into chunks and put into bowl.
Add an equivalent amount of black olives and one or two ounces of crumbled feta cheese.
Sprinkle on a tablespoon or two or minced onions and some basil, then drizzle on a little cold-pressed flaxseed oil and extra virgin olive oil.

Toss and enjoy! Makes one main dish serving.

Clothesline meditations

Using the clothesline is one of my favorite activities in the whole week. I love clothesline season — even when it’s hot, sweaty work… which is really weird. I hate being hot and damp, but somehow it fits, and I enjoy it when it’s part of accomplishing good work.

I love the way the animals mosey up to me when I’m at the clothesline. Paisley swirls herself around my ankles. Chanticleer and his favorite hens suddenly realize that the bugs in that part of the yard are tastier. The goats wander over and nibble on the stuff growing along the fenceline nearest where I’m working. Apparantly they enjoy my company, and I’m glad because I enjoy theirs.

I love August in Virginia. When I’m hanging the first load out after breakfast, the air is cool and fresh and the crickets are still chirping. By the time I take the second load out, the crickets have gone to sleep but the cicadas are buzzing. There’s a family of funny fat green bugs that is very industrious — they’re busy with their saws and ratchets in the treetops. The heat is so heavy that everything seems slow and far away — even the traffic noises sound dull. The only birdsong I hear is the gentle crooning of a mourning dove.

I love the peacefulness of this work. It gives me time to notice things. When I first come out I think that nothing’s happening besides those noisy bugs and the mourning dove singing itself to sleep, but then I notice the butterflies flitting energetically among the cabbage and lettuce blossoms. After awhile I hear an occasional “chit” or “twit” from some unseen bird. A hawk circles lazily high up. Paisley’s kittens tumble and wrestle madly, then stop for a little wash, then dash into the shrubs for a climb…. So many details where I thought nothing was happening!

I love this late-summer feeling. The mad rush of growth in the spring and early summer is over. The apples are so heavy that the branches drag their fingertips in the grass. The summer thunderstorms are over and the fall ones haven’t begun yet. The days are shortening and evenings are full of heat-lightening. The whole world seems to be holding its breath in anticipation of the fall harvest and the rush into winter. It’s like the pause at the top of a swinging child’s arc before reversing and swinging back again.

It seems like this is the season of life I’m in — no longer the mad rush of early marriage with babies coming every year or two and no one old enough to help out around the house. But not yet the mad rush of children marrying and grandbabies aborning.

I love this life.

Thankful Thursday

Praise ye the LORD: for it is good to sing praises unto our God; for it is pleasant; and praise is comely. Psalm 147:1

For all the rain we had this spring
For bringing my children home safely after all the travelling back and forth to visit the grandparents
For the sounds of music and laughter that fill my house with all the children are home

For all these things and more, I thank you, Lord.