Some things i've learned from Louis L'amour

The indomitable Sackett clan: longtime feuders, hillfolk, and woodsmen - eking out an existence on the sidehills, hunting and trapping, and defending their own.

Logan Sackett - a clinch-mountain Sackett, the less respectable branch of the clan, inadvertently runs into one of his kinfolk out in Colorado Rockies. She's in trouble. Widowed and old Em Sackett is tough as nails. Her sons have been sent word that she is dead and a local bigshot is determined to take her lush well set up ranch and vindicate his knees that she broke defending her place with her gun.

Logan rescues a put upon girl and takes her to Em, then he takes on the role of knight errant once he realizes her situation. 

The funny thing is I don't really remember ever reading this one. 

Here are some things I've learned from Louis L'amour, that are totally applicable to my daily life.

1. Don't ever undertake something hoping for help. If you can't do it alone, best not start out at all.

2. Watch your backtrail.

3. build your fire under a tree that will screen your smoke.

4. Don't go into the rocks after a wounded apache.

5. Tell your love interest they will marry you, don't ask.

6. Don't wait for them to come to you - take the fight to your enemy.

7. Choose the spot and timing for your battle.

8. Your enemy may expect to "yo'mama" for awhile before the actual fight, skip that and punch/shoot first.

9. Be mean enough to refuse to die even if you're shot multiple times.

10. Use moccasins for scouting, not boots.

11. Put your cowboy hat on first, when you get dressed.

12. Make your first shot count.

13. Don't pull the trigger. Squeeze it.

14. Take care of your horse first.

15. Read Plutarch's Lives. 

Maybe my readers have a few things to add to this list?

retreat reading

I was recently blessed to attend a three day silence and solitude retreat in the mountains near where I live. 

During the time, I included two books. 

This one is an old favorite of my mom's. It's packed with thoughtful, wise words - and written from a mother in the middle years of life (to a mother in the middle years of life so it seems).

As she secludes herself on an island for a holiday from her busy Connecticut life, husband, and five children, she writes and meditates on the art of contemplation, and how difficult it is in "modern" life.

She doesn't idealize the past and its many hardships, but she recognizes how the luxury of time and labor saving devices have given women the possibility to fill their time with many pursuits and tasks, many of which are not conducive to contemplation. This is even true today many years later. I am reminded when I do take the time to chop vegetables, pull weeks, or herd cattle that there is something - a call to simpler life and a quieter mind.

So it's a call to build in contemplation so that we can remain true to our hub - the inner life that sustains creativity and fruitful life. 

Each chapter is dedicated to a different sort of sea shell with a metaphor relating it to human life or to her own life - very tastefully.

I hope to have a chat, no a walk on a beach somewhere someday with Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Perhaps we will talk and then perhaps we will be in companionable silence. 

I love the chapter describing her time with her sister - the possibility of natural artless compatibility. 

A wonderful conversation with Lois here. 

I won't try to summarize the book. You know how I hate doing that. Suffice it to say - this book is part of a pursuit my family and I have ambled into through a longtime friendship. The pursuit could be described as the attempt to learn more about Jesus and his teachings in a Jewish and more historically accurate context. 

It is so refreshing to move away from the controversies that have imbued the church over the past centuries and to merely try to look at the scriptures with (less) of a lens of the ages. As we recognize that we no longer identify with a particular sect, movement, denomination of the Christian Church - we can unreservedly pursue knowing God through the tapestry of his text and stories - and through our own hearts and experiences as well.

This book will be a good companion for my little shelf. (the one that's easily accessible - not too high,)

Nature worship at its best

I confess, I have read this multiple times as an adult, and I love it more now than I ever did in my girleenhood. I cried twice this time. Once when Bets dies and then in the end when Jingle goes off to college and Pat is convinced that things will never be the same as their idyllic threesome is disbanded. He wants more than friendship and she shakes hands with him warmly.

I love how Lucy Maud weaves the scotch/irish folklore into humorous little tidbits. I laughed out loud a few times - to be completely fair to the whole spectrum of human emotion.

The housekeeper Judy really is who makes up the bread and butter of this yarn - literally and figuratively. She's always cooking and I got so hungry while I was reading this.

I have to be very cautious whilst reading LM because she triggers my nature worshipping tendencies and I begin to research greener pastures. As Pat wanders the garden soaking in the beauty of the moon, lingering in her secret spot with Jingle by the brook that they have dubbed "happiness," and loitering beneath the birch trees, or meandering down the lane towards the sea - I wander the paved earth amongst the roar of traffic. sigh. Or worse- walk the trail wherein lie the fragrant deposits of those too lazy to find the dump.

Anyhoo - the sun still rises and sets in Bakersfield or in the enchanting isle of Mistawis and at Silver Bush on PE Island.

the silver disk rises - Construct 11 Part 2

The characters that were introduced in Construct 11 Part 1 really came to life here. I really like the vulnerability that I experienced in the characters as they begin to realize that not all is at it seems in their hyper-controlled world that seems to be coming unraveled. 

Parts of this book really reminded me of how I felt as a teenager - especially the guy/girl dynamics. So sweet!

The book ends with plenty of mystery. Not only are there relational questions that need to be untangled, but what is the outside really like? How will this group of teenagers manage their emotions after their discoveries?

This carefully crafted tale is well worth the read!

"They all paused to watch as the full circle of the silver disk rose big and golden, actually, over the jagged edge of the sky..."