“Thank you for your custom,” quoth the smiling Devonshire gent as he saw us out of his bookshop, our arms laden with treasures. We’d never heard anyone use that phrase and we thought it was charming. He thought it was charming that we were charmed. He stood in the doorway and waved as we threaded…
Note: I wrote this piece two summers ago, and while circumstances don’t find me quite as artistically drained as I was then, it’s still a good word to myself in a historically thirsty time of year. This August was plenished in an unprecedented way by the creative immersion of Hutchmoot, the first-ever in-the-flesh Rabbit Room…
Go then, my little Book, and show to all That entertain and bid thee welcome shall, What thou dost keep close shut up in thy breast; And wish what thou dost show them may be blest To them for good, may make them choose to be Pilgrims better, by far, than thee or me. Louise…
“It is the most friendly vocation in the world,” he announced…“A bookseller is the link between mind and mind, the feeder of the hungry, very often the binder up of wounds. There he sits, your bookseller, surrounded by a thousand minds all done up neatly in cardboard cases; beautiful minds, courageous minds, strong minds, wise…
They’re lying in wait outside the kitchen door like children whispering over a surprise, giddy with the secret they keep. Blousy bright maids amid the tired leaves and blossoms, the only ladies of the garden tough enough to look fresh after what July’s dealt them. And though I pass them every morning on the way…
Disclaimer: the post that follows professes to no merit or significance, literary, theological or otherwise. It’s just a silly story. And it’s quite long. Consider yourself warned. 😉 It was too easy. We had come laughing over the golden sands, we six: my husband and I and his brothers and their wives. It was an…
Overcome with this image of prayer from George MacDonald’s brilliant and bewildering 1895 romance, Lilith: Some people are always at their prayers.—Look! look! There goes one!” He pointed right up into the air. A snow-white pigeon was mounting, with quick and yet quicker wing-flap, the unseen spiral of an ethereal stair. The sunshine flashed quivering…
…and a thousand golden memories littering the shore we left behind. And for the first time in over a month, my blue train case has been tucked away and the suitcases have been stowed and our beloved tea thermos and aluminum cups have been washed and hung in their plaid case on their peg in…
I often feel so completely unequal to the dreams and visions that God stirs in my heart. That is, until I remember that my best bet is to continually pray that I would be ‘small enough and weak enough’ that He could actually use me, rather than bumbling around in His way in my own…
‘T is heaven alone that is given away, ‘T is only God may be had for the asking; There is no price set on the lavish summer, And June may be had by the poorest comer. And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries…
I want to begin by saying that I have no intention of titling every post henceforward and forever after Innocence Mission songs. It just so happens that I’ve had a lot of poignant moments lately—some happy, some not so much; all under the Mercy—that Karen Peris’ lyrics have been a literal soundtrack to. One for…
Innocence Mission again. Same album; different song. But that loaded phrase has been a song of its own in my heart and mind these past few days. A token of grace and a good word of God’s love poured out through other people. You aren’t really strangers, of course. Some of you heard of our…
That snippet of an Innocence Mission lyric has been running through my mind the past couple of weeks: newly weighted with meaning; warm like the steadying handclasp of a friend. For over two years now, we have known the almost unclouded joy of a dream-made-real here on our farm-in-the-city. We have stood amazed as God…
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens is one of those books that was just meant to be read aloud. Literally. Dickens considered himself the novelist of the common man and his works were originally published in the relatively inexpensive serialized form. I heard that in nineteenth century England, whole neighborhoods would go in together to…
When I was seven or eight, my grandparents went to England. And among the things that they brought back to me was one of those coveted little books bound in green cloth and wrapped in a gorgeously-familiar glossy white dust jacket. Not to date myself, but it must be pointed out that this was at…
I can’t believe that it was fifteen years ago. How could anything be fifteen years ago? It was April. One of our number was turning 21 and we had spirited her away to one of the most enchanted places on earth to celebrate: the coastal isles of Georgia. Twelve girls in one hotel room (don’t…
We’ve always called him Uncle Will. And we always make much ado about his birthday. We toasted his memory–and his gift to us all–with gallons of hot tea and a Queen’s Cake laced with rosewater. In recitations and tokens and songs. But it was our five year-old Juliet that stole the show and carried the…
It was a regular free-for-all. An unlatched gate, a freakish puff of passing wind, and in moments the bucolic tranquility of a sleepy afternoon unraveled into a three-ring circus. I came downstairs just in time, glanced out the window with serene satisfaction (I should have known better), and gasped in horror. Slamming down my freshly-brewed…
The End
The End