What I've Been Reading

How is it already March?  I guess the days would go by more quickly with some good reads to pass the time.  This cold weather makes nostalgia sit in the air and it has made me want to turn to familiar childhood classics, so you'll see a number of them here.  These old characters, fuzzy slippers and a warm cups of tea have made for cozy afternoons in.  Anywho, this is what I've read so far in this 2014 year!

 

1.  Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie- "To live will be an awfully great adventure."
    I've always been curious to see how the Disney adaptations stand up to their original stories.  I'm surprised to say that they stayed pretty true to Peter's character- a haughty and irreverent (but sometimes sentimental) boy who fancies himself invincible.  How ironic that children, as fragile as they are, are also teeming with a boundlessness that really does make them untouchable.  I think that Peter Pan, at least in part, is celebrating this duality.


2. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde- "Nowadays people know the price of everything but the value of nothing."
    It's a lesson about facing yourself and it's a hard lesson at that.


3. Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery- "It is such a mysterious place, the land of tears." 
   Very few books can make you change the way you see the world in so few pages.  Reading this book is like walking through a dream where the concerns of your everyday life seem to fall in distance.  By the end of it, you hope that you will love better and live more simply.


4. Tattoos on the Heart by Fr. Gregory Boyle- "Can we stay faithful and persistent in our fidelity even when things seem not to succeed?  I suppose Jesus could have chosen a strategy that worked better (evidence-based outcomes) - that didn't end in the Cross- but he couldn't find a strategy more soaked with fidelity than the one he embraced" 
   Stop me now, lest I quote the entire book.  What a wonder- this is a must read.


5. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame- "...and still as he lived, he wondered."
    A book about being content- all you need are loyal friends, a warm hearth, good food, and a patch of grass near the river.  Mmm, I feel like I could read this book at every Spring and rejoin the merry company of Mr. Mole, Ratty, and MacBadger.


6. Making Room for Leadership by M.K. Morse- "A leader who uses his or her power well seeks to understand other views"
    I read this book as part of a women's leadership book club.  It was helpful to talk about power dynamics and how we must use what power we have to influence for God's purposes on this earth and it includes creating space for the marginalized to come to the center.  An interesting read for anybody in even non-religious leadership.