the curator ~ edition #19 [and 6 years for the simmonses!]

We started the day with Enfusia yerba mate, piñon incense, and "quiet Bible time", as we've been calling it. Johnny took the sunny breakfast nook, and I curled up in my favorite spot of the couch under a blanket. The house was silent save for the coffee maker percolating tea and the wind chime on our back porch.

I love to read great books and there is nothing wrong with that, but lately I've felt that I need to "up" my Scripture-reading (again). At a friend's urging, I re-read Hebrews 11 though I had trouble getting past the first few poetic verses:

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible."
[vs. 1-3]

So, I keep re-reading the whole amazing chapter. With a tip from my husband, I've also been reading a Proverb a day. As of next week, I intend to read the Bible starting from the beginning like the Good Book it is. It was meant to be read that way, anyway ~ one big, beautiful story of redemption from cover to cover.

As a writer, it's actually important for me to read everything I can get my hands on - books, periodicals, essays, short stories, poems - to improve my work. But it's a deception to believe that those sources are more inspiring or relevant to my life. You just can't beat the very Word of God; well-written all the same, not surprisingly.

... Why look what we have here - a new edition of The Curator, a great way to spend this next part of the day:

All the Sad Young Literary Men
by Peter Jackson
Gessen's novel steps into three lives, watches them passively, and steps back out with only slightly abated passivity. Resent it as I do, Gessen’s book resonates somewhere with me.

The Art of Inspiration in the Crescent City
by Jay Urban
New Orleans lives and still breathes. It stays up all night dancing. It best showcases the problems and hopes most relevant to the United States today, and despite how old it sometimes look, it constantly stays young at heart.

Same Old Story
by Jenna St. Hilaire
It’s a very idiosyncratic thing, this compulsion to revisit a story so often in close succession. It isn’t systematic, it’s the impelling of magnetic force - a desire, almost a need, to imprint the very words into my mind, absorbing their content into heart and being.

And with that, I'm taking a lil' blog break until next week. Johnny and I leave on Sunday to celebrate 6 years of wedded bliss in Gruene and Austin! I can't think of any other way I'd have wanted to spend the past 6 years. Johnny is a handsome, talented, very-smart nutcase and I'm so glad he's all mine. He for sure makes me a better woman, thank God.

From our happy day on January 11, 2003:

[photo by YiMay Yang]

From last year's anniversary celebration:

[The Gruene Apple bed & breakfast. Photo by yours truly.]

[Hotel San José. Photo by yours truly.]

See y'all sometime next week!