Live Out Light

  I am thrilled to have finished another fabulous book this month! Life Worth Living (by Volf, Croasmun, and McNally-Linz) was a perfect follow-up to Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death .  Let's dig into what really resonated for me.   This book was based on a very popular course offered at Yale. Its aim is to take the reader on an excavation of sorts. Uncovering what exactly it is to YOU that makes a life worth living.  First, I want to share this cautionary tale from the opening of the book. A man named Albert Speer was an impossibly talented architect.  He fancied himself an architect to his very core.  His ultimate dream was the chance to build the unimaginable.  Unfortunately, Hitler made him an offer he decided he couldn't refuse.  He would build the New Reich Chancellery. Hitler's foreign headquarters which included a marble gallery, along with many other massive, groundbreaking structures. See them here .  His work was funded b...

  I love this cross stitch, it was made by my Great Aunt Margaret and it hung in my Mema’s house. That is actually HER farmhouse in the picture. When they moved her the house had no plumbing or electricity. There was an outhouse and a well on the property. A great big pecan tree. I grew up on the property right behind her home and barns. Wow, this sounds about as southern as you can get.   Anyway, it hangs in my home now, and I don’t know if you can read it, but it says “Let me live in the house by the side of the road and be a friend to man” This was basically Mema's rule of life, not that she would have called it that.   She was a friend to everyone she met.  She never had an Instagram account or a Facebook feed.  I have no idea how social media would have shaped her for better or worse. Her life was lived out in those flesh-and-bone days that we seem to be stepping away from. My memories of her are all wrapped up in my senses. I remember the feel...

“Cannot you see, cannot all you lecturers see, that it is we that are dying, and that down here the only thing that really lives is the Machine? We created the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot make it do our will now. It has robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love to a carnal act, it has paralyzed our bodies and our wills, and now it compels us to worship it. The Machine develops – but not on our lives. The Machine proceeds – but not to our goal. We only exist as the blood corpuscles that course through its arteries, and if it could work without us, it would let us die”   -The Machine Stops E.M. Forster I love a chilling quote, and this quote from The Machine Stops DELIVERS.  If you have not read this short story, I highly recommend it. I first heard about this story on Tsh Oxenreider's podcast: A Drink With A Friend.  Her guest was Autumn Kern, a fellow Charlotte Mason Homeschooling ...

This week Jason was on vacation. We kicked it off with Trunk or Treat at church, Sunday night. Monday we had Halloween at Kim and Heather’s and I can’t believe I took zero pictures! We had pizza and watched Insidious. I love traditions. The boys stood out front and scared the older kids that were trick or treating.   Tuesday the kids had Fall Festival at Vanguard and I only got one photo of Jason manning the balloon game. The kids had a blast though.  Thursday we headed to Landrum for lunch and then stopped by Landrum Eclectics. What a cool place.  We snagged Saint Francis and he’s in our front yard now.  Rounded out our week with some cooking and games. What a fun staycation we had.  

   One of my favorite things about church is seeing everyone face to face.  So many of us spend a lot of time in front of a computer or some other screen.  Sometimes we are just so busy going about our days that we don’t just stop and really see each other.   Can you imagine for a minute, what it would have been like some 2000 years ago, to have met Jesus face to face, in the flesh? To have him come over and just gaze at you? Can you close your eyes and picture that in your mind for a moment?  Jesus face to face.  Him seeing you.   On any given day,  I am honestly often too distracted to notice the spirit of love that dwells within me.  But noticed or not He is still there,  loving me, holding me, and gazing upon me with grace.   And that is one of the things I love about church.  For a few hours, we all get to come together, and for a bit, we lay down our distractions and SEE each other.  We set our ga...

  I finished a great book last week, The Gift by Edith Enger. She is a 94-year-old renowned psychologist and also a Holocaust survivor. She arrived at Auschwitz at age 16. Her parents were executed the day they arrived at Auschwitz, and that first night, Edith, a young ballerina, was made to perform for Josef Mengele, a nazi known as the Angel of Death. Her life was spared and she spent months in Auschwitz before going on to the so-called Death March. She was rescued by a black American soldier in Gunskirchen, who saw her hand move in a pile of dead bodies. She weighed 70 pounds.  If you have not read her story, please go check it out!  The book was a collection of her clients' stories from years of her practice, interwoven with pieces of her own story. She shares the 12 most common imprisoning thoughts/behaviors she has encountered over the years and her tools for overcoming them.   My favorite story from the book was near the end.  Several years ago Edith...

  “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. For all the peoples walk, each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.” ‭‭Micah‬ ‭4:3b-5‬ ‭NRSV‬‬ Looking at this picture of my son right before he was baptized. The face of God's love on him, and on his Dad.  How does a young man cover himself in body armor, take up rifles and murder a classroom's worth of children.  Why? And what on Earth, God, can we do about it?  I am so so tired of praying over all of the hate. I am tired of the words God keeps giving back to me: Love, it's love, Aimee.  Love is what fills a heart to such fullness that evil will not find a space to creep in.  Th...