Mount Zion Ryan

Random stuff

• As I write this I’m listening to the Album “Immortal Memory” by Lisa Gerrard and Patrick Cassidy. The reviewers at Amazon get it right, IMO. It’s good background music. It actually sounds quite a bit like a film score. “Dark and subdued” is how I would describe it.

• I’m reading a few things right now:
  1. Vladimir The Russian Viking by Vladimir Volkoff is a lot of fun. It is conversational and reads more like a novel than a bio/history. I highly recommend this book. I found it at a used bookstore and happily marked it off my amazon wishlist.
  2. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. Technically I am having Michael York read it to me just like Dad did when I was little. I haven’t read it since, but it had been on my radar for rereading. With the movie coming out soon (and boy does it look cool) I decided listening during my commute would be a great way to “read” it.
  3. The latest issue of Divine Ascent from the Monastery of St. John The Wonderworker has arrived and it looks like some good reading. I’ll pass along anything particularly edifying.
  4. Treason’s Harbor is the ninth book of the Aubrey/Maturin series. I’m reading them as quickly as the librarian can get them from inter-library loan. If you’ve never read these books, they are highly regarded in literary circles, not just by naval enthusiasts.
     • “O’Brian has rightfully been compared to Jane Austen, but one wonders if even she would have done justice to ‘those extraordinary hallow dwellings, sometimes as beautiful as they were comfortless.’ To use one of Stephen’s favorite expressions, ‘What a Joy!’” -Publishers Weekly
     • “The best historical novels ever written.”—Richard Snow, The New York Times
     • “O’Brian has chosen to set his novels in the early 19th century, and to use the genre of the historical novel to say something important and interesting not only about the times, but about a set of passionate human beings. Those who dismiss the historical novel as a piece of pish-tushery should recollect that Tolstoy’s War and Peace was also a historical novel.”—Helen Lucy Burke, Irish Press, on The Ionian Mission

     Well, that should serve…

• Recently a friend asked me to pray for them. Friend quoted the Apostle James, the Brother of the Lord, saying, “The prayer of a righteous man avaith much.” (James 5:16) The implication, I believe, being that I am a righteous man. I’m not sure how I feel about being called righteous when I know so many ways in which I am not. Yet there is grace at work here that amazes me. Even if I know I am NOT particularly righteous, God allows other to believe me so in order to affect their salvation. I am probably saying this in a muddy, stupid way. I am not talking about being two-faced or deceitful. And, this just occured to me, by God allowing that person to see me as a righteous man, I now have a dose of “Godly guilt” to meet my friend’s expectations.
  To my friend: thanks for the underserved compliment and a healthy dose of guilt that I am not the person God calls me to be.
• Job is going well; can’t wait to be paid. With no unemployment benefit and no paycheck until the 23rd, money’s very tight.
• If you haven’t read Stephen Paul’s “Pithless Thoughts” blog recently you really should. Start with “I Went to Prison Today” , you can skip “I Had a Dinner Date”, and read “Bad Company” (especially good) and “Harsh or Real?”
• Alright, that should answer for now. Have a blessed Nativity Fast.

P. S. I read every comment and honestly enjoy getting them. I am sorry I don’t respond to them as much as others. Be assured I appreciate your pats on the back.

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