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On Wednesday evening, Alvin Alexsi Currier shared his book,
|How the Monastery Came to Be on the Top of the Mountain, with our church.
It is a beautiful tale of a village in Romania.
Alexsi Currier spoke with many people in the area of Lapus, Romania, to put together this book of how the Monastery of Rohia came to be at the top of their mountain.
The “story is obviously founded in fact, for it is filled with names and dates, and yet its majesty lies in that it is neither fact nor fiction. Instead it flows, clear and innocent, from the wellsrping of faith hidden deep in the heart. It is the flowering of the rich living spirituality of Romania, lovingly tended by the faithful and the more than three hundred monasteries of this Orthodox land.“
My children love this book and, since Wednesday evening, have asked me to read it to them many times. The illustrations are vivid and perfect for both children and adults. Our family highly recommends this book!
What saves and makes for good children is the life of the parents in the home. The parents need to devote themselves to the love of God. They need to become saints in their relation to their children through their mildness, patience and love. They need to make a new start every day, with a fresh outlook, renewed enthusiasm and love for their children. And the joy that will come to them, the holiness that will visit them, will shower grace on their children. Generally the parents are to blame for the bad behaviour of the children. And their behaviour is not improved by reprimands, disciplining, or strictness. If the parents do not pursue a life of holiness and if they don’t engage in spiritual struggle, they make great mistakes and transmit the faults they have within them. If the parents do not live a holy life and do not display love towards each other, the devil torments the parents with the reactions of the children. Love, harmony and understanding between the parents are what are required for the children. This provides a great sense of security and certainty.
- Elder Porphyrios
My husband and I were talking about this just this week. I always find myself yelling at the children, when it is really a problem with myself and not them. Yes, they can be infuriating at times, but I need to learn to be patient. “Patience” and “mildness” are not words a person would connect with me. Although, I do have “love”- lots of it! I love my kids like crazy, sometimes too much because I spoil them and let them walk all over me. I have found that when I am not doing my prayers like I should or reading the Scriptures, I tend to be a crankier person. There is definitely a connection there.
As Lent approaches, I am meditating on all of the things that I want to accomplish during this time of the year. As I’ve already said, I want to get my life organized, and one of the most important parts of that is getting on a schedule. I want to wake up in the mornings and pray as a family and read the Bible with the children. I want to teach them about Lent and Pascha (Easter). I also want to share stories of those who have gone before us, the saints, important people in the Bible, etc. I have ordered two books that I plan to read; although, one is 500 pages, so I am not sure if I’ll get all the way through it. I want to say prayers at night, and not just the prayers that we do with the children. I want to take time to prayer by myself before I go to bed.
I know that paragraph is full of ‘wants”, but I feel like we completely missed Lent last year (with being sick from my pregnancy, moving, packing, etc) and I want to point my eyes toward Christ’s death and resurrection this year. If I can make these things my desires, I will then be able to shift the focus on Christ. Then I can be a better example to my children. Our children do understand, as well as they can, Christ’s death and resurrection. But it is just as important for them to see our faith lived out in the day to day.
I hope this coming season is a blessed and fruitful one for all.
Thanks, Emily, for the quote!
I was so pleased when Jane G. Meyer contacted me asking if I would like a copy of her new children’s book: The Life of St. Brigid. After much waiting, the book finally arrived, and Spunky tore open the package with excitement. She was enamored with the colorful drawings and slowly turned each page. Then she turned to me and asked me to read it to her. Punky enjoyed the stories and asked many questions along the way.
This book isn’t just for children. It is for anyone who wants to be inspired by the life of a humble Christian woman, an example of love and generosity, written with great detail and poetical language. Jane G. Meyer was able to take a story passed down through oral tradition and turn it into a beautiful work suitable for readers both young and old.
Listen to an audio reading from The Life of Saint Brigid.
T h a n k y o u , J a n e , f o r s h a r i n g y o u r b o o k w i t h u s .
You can see Jane’s books for sale here.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
I have been in London but a week or so and have already read this book twice. The first time, I rushed through it because I was entralled with the plotline and the characters. But the second read, I took slowly and enjoyed it even more.
The title alone (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society) was enough to have me hooked because I needed to know just want this “society” was. The book takes place in London and on the island of Guernsey, just south of England– what perfect timing for my reading of the book.
In short, this story– all written in letters between the many characters– tells the story of Juliet Ashton, a British author, and her getting to know the people of Guernsey Island through their letters and eventual meeting. The story takes place following the second World War. The people of the island share their stories with Ashton, which eventually gives her the idea of writing a book about the German occupation of the island– and of their Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
It has been a long time since I have been so captivated by a story. My only criticism is that is ended too suddenly. I would have been happy with another one or two hundred pages. As it is, the book is an easy-read of 274 pages. I was able to read it in a few hours (the first read, I stayed up until 2:15 in the morning reading it- that’s what vacation is for!). The style, written in letters, makes it very easy to pick up and put back down again- not that you will be able to do so.
I won’t share any more than this, but I encourage you to take a trip to your local library or bookshop and find a copy of this book.
I must give credit to my friend, Mimi, who recommended this book to me. Thank you.
My husband left “On the Incarnation” by St. Athanasius on the coffee table, and Spunky picked it up and sat down on our new bench to read it aloud to herself. She was really into it; so I had to take a photo. And, yes, I do let her walk around in just her diaper from time to time. Hopefully next week we will start potty training so he diapers may be taking a break until the baby comes.
And the bench:
I just picked it up on Wednesday morning from an Auction House. It is made without any nails or screws. And I am in love with it.
Why does this
always lead to this?
But I can’t complain, since they always clean it up while Mommy sits in the chair with her feet up.
Yes, I have a great pair of kids!
I can’t wait to meet the next one!
The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here:
How do your reading habits stack up? BOLD those books you’ve read in their entirety.
1) Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2) The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien– I tried to…
3) Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4) Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
6) The Bible
7) Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 ) Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9) His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10) Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11) Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12) Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13) Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14) Complete Works of Shakespeare– not quite all, but a lot
15) Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16) The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17) Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18) Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19) The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20) Middlemarch – George Eliot
21) Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22) The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23) Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24) War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25) The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26) Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27) Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28) Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29) Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30) The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31) Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32) David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33) Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis (I read them in a row right before Spunky was born)
34) Emma – Jane Austen
35) Persuasion – Jane Austen— I’ve been trying to get my hands on this one!
36) The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37) The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38) Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39) Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40) Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41) Animal Farm – George Orwell
42) The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43) One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez (again, halfway through)
44) A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45) The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46) Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47) Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48) The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49) Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50) Atonement – Ian McEwan
51) Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52) Dune – Frank Herbert
53) Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54) Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55) A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56) The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57) A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58) Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60) Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez (ugh! another gabriel garcia marquez? sheesh!)
61) Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62) Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63) The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64) Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65) Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66) On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67) Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68) Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69) Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70) Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71) Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72) Dracula – Bram Stoker
73) The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74) Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75) Ulysses – James Joyce
76) The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77) Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78) Germinal – Emile Zola
79) Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80) Possession – AS Byatt
81) A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82) Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83) The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84) The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85) Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86) A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87) Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88) The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89) Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90) The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91) Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92) The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93) The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
95) A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96) A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97) The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98) Hamlet – William Shakespeare (part of the complete works)
99) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100) Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
I’ve read 47. That’s not bad, I guess. Although there are several on this list that I want to read- I just never read as much as I would like.
How well did you do? Reply in the comments or on your blog!
