10 Things I Love Today

1. A blanket (a Christmas present from D&E) big enough to cover both J and I comfortably while we read in the sunny quiet of afternoon naptime on the couch. We have plenty of big, comfy blankets in the house, but sharing one with another sweater-clad book-reading person means true comfort.

2. The Presbyterian Glory to God hymnal. Because there are sensible arrangements of modern choruses, all of the old Protestant hymns, a good bit of Catholic service music, and plenty of modern takes on old and obscure texts. It's a big hymnal--over 700 tunes. Last Sunday we sang Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing, which is currently James' favorite hymn. He was so excited about this that he told J about it as soon as we saw her afterwards. But he didn't sing himself, of course, because "James doesn't like to sing when there are other people around."

3. This passage from the Thomas Merton book that Mom lent me: Christian education at the university level remains important if we believe that we stand to gain something by keeping alive the Christian cultural tradition of the West....The Christian, according to Dawson, still remains responsible for communicating something of a traditional Christian wisdom and culture to a subreligious and neopagan world. He believes that the subrational and rational levels of social life need to be coordinated and brought to focus in a spiritual experience which transcends them both, and is entirely lacking in modern technological culture. And recovery of this experience, this outlook, is the task of Christian education.

4. Looking at pictures of Owen and Silas playing next to each other. Loving that they look so much alike. Looking at pictures of Abby and Hayden next to each other. Loving that they hardly look anything alike. Watching James and Owen race around the downstairs on their trike and walker, attempting to figure out whether they look alike or not.

5. Coming into a dark house after a 6 AM run in the chilling wind and snow and pouring a cup of steaming hot coffee, then sitting down at my desk under a big blanket under the light of a single bulb with a good pen and a beautiful old edition of the Iliad.

6. "This morning, before Prime, in the early morning sky, three antiquated monoplanes flew over the monastery with much noise, followed by a great heron."

7. Finishing the final sixty pages of Henry Esmond, realizing that I had no idea how it was going to turn out after all, and flipping page after page spellbound by the historical twist that closes the book.

8. Owen standing on a footstool by the front window, looking out and waving to all of the elementary schoolers and dog-walkers who pass in front of our house.

9. Watching J, wrapped up in a thick pea-coat, make her way out of the children's section of Barnes and Noble, past all the Curious George, Hungry Caterpillar, and Dr. Seuss books, over to the School Resources section to look at Kindergarten level phonics and math books for the little boy who is rapidly outgrowing his pre-K world. (We brought back about six George books he'd never read from the Webster library, and he hasn't even ASKED about them.)

10. Not teaching anywhere this year.