Monday, March 31, 2008

Suffering

I have been thinking a lot about suffering. In my "ponderings", I have read The Problem of Pain, by C.S. Lewis and A Grief Observed, also by C.S. Lewis. The Problem of Pain was written almost like a commentary on doctrine.
  1. "When God becomes a Man and lives as a creature among His own creatures in Palestine, then indeed His life is one of supreme self-sacrifice and leads to Calvary."
  2. "Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment."
  3. "We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin."
  4. "From the moment a creature becomes aware of God as God and of itself as self, the terrible alternative of choosing God or self for the centre is opened to it."
Though I found the book incredibly thought provoking and surprisingly insightful in many ways, it does not offer comfort. It is not intended to. It is an account created from the mind - not the heart.

A Grief Observed, on the other hand was written after C.S. Lewis lost his beloved wife. His understanding of suffering and of living through pain and grief is real and his writing on the subject really is a masterpiece of the heart. He shows how much courage and strength it takes to live through suffering. It's an astonishingly honest account of how a person can lose their bearings, when all reality is shaken under their feet, and yet how it (reality/understanding of truth) slowly returns, though perhaps changed.
  1. "Nothing will shake a man - or at any rate a man like me - out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself."
  2. "No one ever told me that grief is so much like fear."

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

This Week's Cutest Baby Winners!




Introducing Jasper, Alexei and Moyer. I know people are not supposed to have "favorites", but I've got to admit, these are some of my favorite babies of all time! I mean, seriously people... can we get any cuter?

Monday, March 17, 2008

Photos from this weekend




More riding... Fancy is back! :-)

Check out that little bucking boy!

Monday, March 10, 2008

Riding



This past weekend, I was able to ride Fancy quite a bit and it was WONDERFUL! I was able to jump her for the first time in over 1 year! It is so good to be back on her... it's like having my an old friend back!

I've attached some photos here. Caspian is really good about staying with us and keeping up, though we wore him out yesterday! (No, he doesn't jump the jumps :-)

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

You know you're addicted to chai when...

  1. You dream of chai
  2. You drive up to the Starbucks drive-thru window and your puppy starts barking in anticipation (not that we ever share)
  3. You spend all your breaks scouring the internet for a chai recipe that might measure up to the frothy marvelousness of Starbucks chai; all this in effort to somehow justify partaking of the wonderful goodness, daily, without facing financial peril
  4. Your office smells like chai from the old (fully consumed chai) cups in your trashcan
  5. You resist indulging for one day and feel like a conquerer!

Monday, March 03, 2008

If it was up to me...

I would spend this entire rainy day in the barn. I would be sitting in a lawn chair in Fancy's stall, reading my book and drinking hot tea from my hot cup. I would be savoring the smell of alfalfa hay and listening to my horse contentedly munching.

Of course, Fancy wouldn't actually let me just sit there and read... she would be insistent that I rub her tummy and give her cookies.

As for Caspian... well, he'd probably be nibbling on my book, kicking up his heels or napping.

Unfortunately, it isn't up to me, so I'm at work, instead.