I'm Becoming a Rabbi Sacks Groupie

When the crazy toxic culture we are living in gets me down, I do two things.  1)  Try to find something that gives me comfort and distraction.  Lately it has been watching homesteading youtube channels.  Fouch Family Off Grid, Off Grid with Doug and Stacy, Out of Goshen, Swedish Homestead and Darci Isabella are my current favorites with Justin Rhodes (he's taking a break right now) and Big Family Homestead as close runner ups.  

But 2) I also look for wise leaders who can rise above the noise and give a hopeful perspective while cutting through the chaos and pinpointing just what's wrong.  I like Pope Francis and Bishop Barron for this.  But in the last week or so I've become a groupie of Rabbi Sacks.  I had seen or read things by him occasionally, but during Chanukah I started to really focus on him.  He's wonderful.  

Here he is on how the breakdown of marriage puts children at risk.

Here's his TEDx talk on How We Can Face the Future.

Here's a wonderful series he did on prayer.

No Surrender; A Tale of the Rising of La Vendee - Book 32

My reading has slowed way, way down.  It's depressing me.  Anyway, No Surrender; a Tale of the Rising of La Vendee is by G. A. Henty, the English writer of children's historical novels in the late 1800s and around the turn of the last century.  This one was published in 1900, in fact.  According to Wikipedia he wrote 122 books of this sort.

The books are intelligent in that they really delve deep into the historical context they are set in.  However, Henty has a way of using long, stilted, laborious dialogue as a tool for exposition.  It makes for very clunky writing.  The heroes are all brave and noble and everybody sounds exactly alike.   But when you finish reading them, you really feel you've learned the history Henty was presenting.

During the French Revolution, the Republican government made law the Civil Constitution of the Clergy which tried to undermine the power of the Roman Catholic Church by only allowing priests who swore their allegiance to the state to say Mass.  Many priests refused and many were imprisoned and eventually guillotined.  The western area of France near the Atlantic just below Brittany was a very Catholic and traditional area.  They were angered at the attack on the clergy and gave refuge to the nonjuror priests.  When the government tried to draft the peasants into the Republican army, they went into full fledge rebellion.  This book traces the events from the first acts of rebellion through the eventual defeat of the Vendean peasants.

Patsey is from England and has married her French merchant sailor, Jean Martin, whose father runs a successful shipping company.  She brings her favorite younger brother to live with her when she moves to France to be with her new husband.  They live at first in Nantes, but when trouble begins, Jean decides it is safer to move to his country estate in the Bocage, the forests of La Vendee.  Leigh the younger brother moves with them.  The struggle begins and both Jean and Leigh are passionate about fighting on the side of the peasants.  Leigh turns out to be quite a military strategist, even though he is young.

The plot has four or five storylines that move chronologically.  The first is about the exciting beginnings of the revolt and the great peasant general, Cathelineau, who dies in battle and how Leigh shows such courage and precocious military genius.  The second is when Patsey and Jean Martin's father are taken prisoners in Nantes and Jean and Leigh must rescue them.  Then is the long sequence of battle after battle as the peasant army becomes more and more depleted and battle weary until they are being hunted cat and mouse style all over their beloved Vendee.  Then in the wake of the final defeat, Jean is separated from the two others;  Leigh and Patsey must smuggle themselves out of France.  This was quite a difficult feat as the Reign of Terror was at its highest peak.  And finally, they are reunited with Jean Martin and learn how he too made his escape to England.

Chateau d'Angers - I was here almost 40 years ago!

It was an entertaining book.  I've been teaching about the French Revolution to my co-op class and this book made it come alive for me.  Since I've been poring over maps of France, all the geographical references (and there are many) made sense to me.  Way back when I was 18, I actually spent a month in Angers and I don't think I even knew anything about the Vendean Revolt there.  This is a chapter in the French Revolution that doesn't get much attention, except in Catholic history circles.

For more book reviews, go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

Update!

Gee, I have really lost my blogging groove.  I haven't even thought about it.  Time really is flying by at an incredible rate! 

Anyway, the big news around here is that my oldest son is donating a kidney for a colleague at work.  Actually though, his kidney isn't a good match for hers, so he's putting his kidney into the kidney pool, which means she gets one that matches out of the pool.  This is supposed to take place on Tuesday.  The woman was actually going to get her kidney this past Wednesday and then Will would donate one of his on Tuesday, but they briefly called everything off for a day because the kidney they had designated turned out not to be a good match.  But everything is on again now.  Let's pray it stays that way. 

No one ever told me motherhood was going to include worrying about one's heroically generous son giving away a kidney.  I am basically freaked out about it.  Kind of numb really, when I don't feel a horrible sense of anxiety.  Now and again I think, wow!!!

Rick and I are going up on Monday evening and staying until Thursday we think.  If he isn't doing well, we might stay longer.  But he is 25 and he's made plans to stay at his girlfriend's to recuperate for a couple of days after he is released from the hospital on Friday.  Then hopefully he'll be fit enough to fly home.  I really want someone to fly with him though, even though I hope he'll be well on the mend and it is not a long flight.  But you never know around the holidays with weather and flights backing up and being overbooked and such.  I think he needs someone with him.  We'll see what we can arrange once we get up there.

It's supposed to snow tonight!  Winter is really here.  I noticed today that the leaves really are all off the trees.  I kind of like seeing the lacy bare branches.  And noticing all the birds' and squirrels' nests.

Well, must run.  So that's the update.  Please pray for my son, his surgeons and medical team, the recipients of the kidneys in his little circle of kidney donations, and all people who are suffering from kidney disease. 

Things Have Gotten Busy!

We had a great Thanksgiving.  I forgot to take photos of people! 

First pumpkin pie I've made in ages.  Usually we just buy them.  This had a gluten free crust which was ok.  But I didn't care for the filling!  So I am going to try again, maybe next Sunday.

Will/Eli was home and made things so much fun.  He is so kind and generous to everyone.  And he fills the house with music and laughter.  Well, Sean and Becky do that too, but they do their own separate thing music wise, and they still have a tendency to bicker.  With Will everybody plays together and he has an anti-bickering magic about him.

I've gotten busy again with the American Solidarity Party.  I've also have started getting busy with working with two different organizations for the homeless.  Tomorrow morning I've got to really get rolling with making phone calls and drafting stuff for them, etc.

On top of this I finally wrote my quarterly reports for my students.  I hate that sort of thing.  Dread it, really.  I am so glad I've decided this is my last year teaching at co-op.  Next year will be my last year homeschooling and I'm going to cut out a lot of extra stuff and just concentrate on that.  Speaking of which I also need to take over literature with B.  She was taking an on line class but had fallen so behind on everything because of her rough start due to her health that we decided to cut our losses and just do it ourselves.  So we gotta get that up and going tomorrow.  I do think B is on the mend though.  I see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Will, whipping up a gluten free, vegetarian dinner with flare.  He just bought that dinner jacket at a thrift store this weekend.

So life has been rich and interesting and slightly stressful and just so busy.  Time is moving at breakneck speed!  But I am savoring some things.  This evening Eli and I made dinner while listening to Chopin.  It was fun (and delicious!).

Rick built the first fire of the season tonight.

Sharpe's Triumph - Book 31

Sharpe's Triumph is by Bernard Cornwell.  I know I've read at least one other Sharpe novel, Sharpe's Rifles but this is actually a very long series of historical novels about Richard Sharpe and all his military escapades in the British army mostly during the Napoleonic wars.  Sean Bean starred in a popular British TV series based on the novels.  He's pretty perfect for the role!

Anyway, I've also read a history on Waterloo by Cornell.  He is a very good writer.  He really seems to know his history and he is great at creating plots and keeping you on the edge of your seat to see what happens to likable but rather disturbingly violent Richard Sharpe.

I picked this book up at the library as I wanted a light, absorbing read and I was in the mood for something historical.  This particular book is set pre-Napoleon when Sharpe is younger and just cutting his warrior teeth in India.  I know next to nothing of the British wars in India, so I thought it looked interesting.

The book started out great.  It is an interesting and engaging tale.  Basically Sharpe is working with a Col. McCandless who is out to find a British Lieutenant who defected to the other side and is fighting with the Mahratta army.  But in the meanwhile, there's an evil crazy sergeant who hates Sharpe and is working to frame him for murder.  So while McCandless and Sharpe go hunting for one bad guy, another bad guy is hunting for them.  All of this is going on while the British army, partly lead by Arthur Wellesley (who later becomes the Duke of Wellington) is about to go to battle against the native army.  It gets quite complicated with lots of interesting characters.

Of course this is about armies at war, but honestly the last part of the book where the battle actually takes place is just page after page of description of gruesome death.  After a while I just started flipping through to get back to the narrative.  I can only take so much death and destruction.

The annoying thing about this book is that it makes no sense in terms of continuity.  Sharpe's Rifles has Sharpe saving General Wellesley's life later on during the Napoleonic war.  Wellesley doesn't know who Sharpe is but he promotes him to Lieutenant as a reward.  Since Sharpe came up from poverty and isn't wealthy enough to buy a commission as officer the whole plot of that novel was how he struggled to get respect from fellow officers.  But in Sharpe's Triumph Sharpe saves Wellesley life in a most spectacular way where he literally slays like 15 enemy soldiers trying to get to the General.  How is Wellesley not going to know who Sharpe is after that?  It doesn't make sense.  And the fact that Sharpe is like a superhero killing so many men with one blow or stab and only getting a tiny bit hurt is, well, I mean it almost had me laughing out loud.  Except the whole battle scene is so vicious and gory that I couldn't really laugh.  More like I was rolling my eyes.

Oh and earlier in the book lady lover Sharpe manages to bed the abandoned wife of a French officer fighting with the Mahratta.  But right before the seduction, which is inferred rather than described, (which I prefer when dealing with such plot developments, so thank you very much Mr. Cornwell. I wish you could be a little more circumspect about the beheadings and horrible death scenes as well!)  But right before this, the author goes on about how neither party had bathed in quite a while.  So when the seduction scene was implied, my first response was  Guhrossss!

And the ending leaves Sharpe the victor but even so, he's so brutal, I couldn't quite cheer.

So it was an enjoyable read but a bit over the top for my tastes.   There is something addictive about this series though.  Sharpe is an intriguing and somehow sympathetic character.  I told my brother in law about these books after I'd read Sharpe's Rifles and he went on to read the whole series!

For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

This week has flown!

Wow!  I can not believe a whole week has gone by.  Just think, at this time last Friday I was fighting a migraine and trying to finish packing for a weekend get away.  We did have a lovely, lovely time.  It was not long enough.  I could have stayed a couple more days quite happily.

This young man keeps us busy too!

This week has been super busy.  The good news is my knee only went out on me twice and my back only twinges a bit when I pick up something heavy.  My neck continues to be a bother though.  Still, with the subsiding of major pain, I got my groove back, sorta.  I even cleaned my bathroom, dusted and vacuumed my room this week!

Today is H's 27th birthday.  Her husband's birthday was yesterday.  Hopefully, we'll see them on Sunday evening for dinner to celebrate. 

Poor B is exhausted and overwhelmed from everything and tonight is opening night for Man of La Mancha.  She came home from their full dress rehearsal late last night actually feeling pretty good about it.  So that's hopeful.  I think I will go see it tonight.  Maybe R and others can see it Saturday night.  Not sure about the Sunday matinee.

S has started his job at Chipotle yesterday.   He got to work at 4 and didn't get home until 12:30 a.m.  He took an Uber home.  He is exhausted and overwhelmed too.  R and I keep telling him he has to advocate for himself.  He said he wanted to work 3 or 4 days a week.  He's going to school full time and he can't work full time too.  But they scheduled him for 37 hours this week.  He had to work the cash register all night.  Everyone else there speaks Spanish but him so he felt kind of awkward.  And then he said it took him 2 hours to clean up.  He had to sweep and then mop the 'lobby,' wipe down all the tables and chairs, clean the soda machine area and take out the trash.  He said the other workers were all in the kitchen and it took them 2 hours to clean the whole thing as well.  I think they'll probably get faster and more efficient as they get accustomed to it.  It's a brand new restaurant and I think everybody but the manager is brand new.  And six people they hired quit during the training session.  I think they are understaffed right now.  So hopefully, S will get things ironed out about how much work they schedule him for.  Also he needs to register for next semester at the CC. 

Alright, my thoughts are just rambling.  Time to move away from the keyboard and do something!

Anniversary Weekend!

You can't really tell but the candle was still burning inside the jack o lantern All Saints morning!

Well, Halloween has come and gone.  All Saints Day too.  Today is All Souls Day and I usually go visit my family's graves on this day, but I had to work and then didn't have quite enough time before I had to get B to rehearsal to really go there and back.  It's only about 25-30 minutes away, but in rush hour traffic. . . . I am always sad on this day though because this was my Mom's birthday.  I still miss her every single day.  My head was full of memories of her as I drove to work this morning.  And then as I got out of the car I heard a train whistle and a train rumbling by.  Those are sounds of my very young childhood.  When I was six or so the trains stopped running and they eventually became a bike path.  But when I was very young the train went by my house (a half block away) and we'd run down and ask the engineer to blow the whistle for us.  And he would!  It was loud!  My little 4 year old knees would tremble but I loved it too!

Tomorrow Rick and I go away for the weekend!  This Sunday we'll have been married 29 years.  I think we need a weekend away.  I feel like we are on autopilot lately when it comes to our marriage.  I always like traveling with him though.  He's the perfect travel companion.  We just get into sync and relax so easily when we travel for some reason.    Not that we are traveling much but just going to a town a couple hours away to stay at a bed and breakfast.  We are going to see the Blackfriars players do Much Ado About Nothing.  I want to visit Polyface Farm, the Frontier Culture Museum and Rick, who has coincidentally been reading a book about Woodrow Wilson would like to see his home and library.

Update:  We've delayed leaving because I have a stupid migraine.  But it's mostly gone now, so here we go!