Roast Lamb, Asparagus, Sweet Orange Pepper
filled with Vivian's Fig Chutney, Eggplant Casserole, and Rosemary Ciabbata

Strawberry Cake from Jill's Cakes 'n Bakes
complimented with a freshly sliced berry and Dove Dark Chocolate

2008 Argentinian Malbec (right side of photo)

Recipes available upon request 

For further meditation, read John Piper's Overflow of Easter.

Pondering this tidbit ....

James M. O’Toole wrote an article in the publication Church History, in which he states that the earliest mention of  Easter services in the United States came in 1809 when the Rev. Anthony Kohlmann celebrated Easter Sunday Mass with his Catholic congregation. However, Easter was not widely celebrated in America until after the Civil War.

Holding this spot for my review of Eric Metaxas's biography, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy,

I hope you wont wait to buy the book because:

I'm a slow reader 

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to hear the author speak.

I am smitten.

More than a writer, Metaxas is an evangel, hoping to help us recapture God's vision for His people by reading about others who had a firm grasp.

Bonhoeffer certainly is a good example, having made his life a living sacrific.

So, until I completely finish Metaxas's almost 600-page volume, I will leave you with one of Bonhoeffer's poems.

Jonah 

In fear of death they cried aloud and, clinging fast

to wet ropes straining on the battered deck,

they gazed in stricken terror at the sea

that now, unchained in sudden fury, lashed the ship.

'0 gods eternal, excellent, provoked to anger,

help us, or give a sign, that we may know

who has offended you by secret sin,

by breach of oath, or heedless blasphemy, or murder,

who brings us to disaster by misdeed still hidden,

to make a paltry profit for his pride.'

Thus they besought. And Jonah said, 'Behold,

I sinned before the Lord 0£ hosts. My life is forfeit.

Cast me away! My guilt must bear the wrath of God;

the righteous shall not perish with the sinner !'

They trembled. But with hands that knew no weakness 

they cast the offender from their midst. The sea stood still.

Read another poem here and see how I plan to share the vision with new parents.

Metaxas continues to promote the gospel with Bonhoeffer.  Here's a link to

The South is like the ancient Greek plays.
Things happen in Idaho and Michigan but they don't happen the way they do here.

It's different.  relates Ginger to her brother J.J.

Disturbing news interrupts the normally tranquil lives of the citizens of sleepy Swan, Georgia, established 1875.

On a routine visit to the cemetery to remember the dead and cut roses for the Bridge Club centerpieces, Eleanor and Lily happen upon an exhumed body.

None other than their dearly departed friend, Catherine,
a suicide 19 years prior, is lying exposed.

Springing into action the only way they know how, the ladies  start talking.

Which means the town starts talking*.

Over the course of a week (September 7th to 13th, 1975),
Georgia born and bred, author and poet, Frances Mayes details the facts and clues in this crime drama, leading us to a satisfying resolution almost reminscient of *they lived happily ever after.*

The host of characters, most related by blood, others by location,  relives their reactions through the course of the novel, learns new information, and comes to an entirely different conclusion.

Easy to read and full of Southern charm, Swan is not dark like Pat Conroy's South of Broad; more like Gail Godwin's A Southern Family or Sue Monk Kidd's Secret Life of Bees.

Perfect vacation reading.

Here's a link to what other items are on my reading list.

*to give or reveal confidential or incriminating information

Think of the negative as the score and the print as the performance.*

Captivated by the personality more than the style, I decided to highlight this self portrait over the thousands of more well-known images of the iconic 20th century photographer Ansel Easton Adams.

Yesterday DH, DD#3 and I visited the Booth Museum of Western Art in Cartersville, GA just 30 minutes driving distance from our home.

The Ansel Adams: A Legacy exhibit had been held over for three weeks, closing this Sunday. 

Therefore, we rearranged our Thursday afternoon so not to miss the opportunity.

This *museum set* of over 75 photographs were personally selected by Adams in his later years, specifically ones by which he wanted to be remembered.

Does not the man's shadow make you think of a conductor?   And the white lightening-like bolts the cymbals clashing at his cue?

The self portrait was taken in 1958, when Adams was 56 years old, 43 years after he'd given up on traditional schooling and embarked on an educational experiment combining daily visits to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition with a regimen of musical instruction, specifically piano.

The following summer he took his first camera, A Kodak #1 Box Brownie, along on the family vacation to Yosemite.

Practice, discipline, and technique summarized the next five years as Adams found focus, applied himself, and prepared for achievement, even success.

*Often he used musical analogies to describe his work. 

Half Dome was the subject of perhaps a dozen of the pictures in the exhibit, but I never tired of examining the compositions.  Varied and engaging, the rock formation helped the photographer formulate an artistic breakthrough which he called visualization:  the"ability to reason out before the exposure how the final print will look and to control the end result by taking action before the exposure is actually made." (pg 12)

Fascinating! 

Have you had the chance to view Ansel Adams work in person?

I'm not sure where the collection travels next, but you can keep track at the Ansel Adams Gallery website (link).

Oh, one last thing ~

Do you have one of his prints hanging in your home or office ?

Which one?

Flowers are lovely;  Love is flower-like;  Friendship is a sheltering tree.*

Pulitzer-prize winning Southern author, Eudora Welty, teamed up with Kenyon College English Professor Ronald Sharp (who came to know each other through a mutual friend) to produce a fine anthology extolling the merits of friendship, a concept lacking in our post modern society.

From antiquity to the end of the nineteenth century, friendship was one of the enduring literary subjects.  By the mid-twentieth century, however, it had been relegated to the cultural attic.  In the rare moments when it has been brought downstairs, it appears to have fallen into the hands of pop psychologists and self-help enthusiasts.  More recently, the world has turned again - there has been a resurgence of interest in the bond epitomized by one of the finest words in the English language:

  friend.

Published in 1991, this volume qualifies not only as resourceful reference book for my library but also as veritable tonic, quickly picking up my spirits after drinking only a few sips.

I was prompted to remember this collection after reading a chapter in Anthony Esolen's book Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child in which the professor reminds us of the value of cultivating these special people in our lives.

While laboring over thousands of selections, the two editors became fast friends despite the 40-year age difference.  Each penned a short introduction to the anthology shedding light on the topic as well as offering a glimpse into their own personal lives.

*Samuel Taylor Coleridge's verse on friendship compliments this subject and one of my favorite paintings which just so happens to be a beautiful illustration of two girls being friends:  W. A. Bouguereau's Nut Gatherers which you can see above and at The Detroit Institute of Arts.

Does the scene make you think of a good friend?

Someone with whom you could share a good read?

Consider Norton's Anthology of Friendship.

It's introducing me to some new friends and helping me become reacquainted with old ones.

Advising that

The Manners of Women are the surest criterion by which to determine whether a Republican Government is practicable in a Nation or not,

and that

Mothers are the earliest and most important instructors of Youth,

President John Adams may very well have approved of this modern-day preschool etiquette book.

It came to mind as I am reading Anthony Esolen's Ten Ways to Destroy The Imagination of Your Child, as we book clubbers have reached the chapters addressing decorum (modesty and manners).

JoAnn Stover lays some foundational thinking when it comes to living within the family and then society with her everyday opportunities to exhibit manners.

So, for fun, how about a poll?

What etiquette books (reference or picture book) are in your home library?

The Boyhood of Raleigh,  1870                  by Sir John Everett Millais  1829-1896
Oil on canvas, 1206 x 1422mm                                      The Tate Gallery,  London

How to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child book author, Anthoy Esolen, mentions this famous painting in one of his three chapters addressing the ideal hero and how, if we parents are not attentive, we may very well kill the fire of adventure so necessary for strong leadership (soldiership).

Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1871, The Boyhood of Raleigh came to epitomize the culture of heroic imperialism in late Victorian Britain and in British popular culture up to the mid-twentieth century.  Imperialism, huh?  Why that's a different rabbit trail

Esolen references this painting as it appears in an American History textbook, The Making of Our Country by John C. Winston (1921).  The implication is that current history texts contain neither appropiately inspirational narrative nor especially worthy illustrations. 

Artist Millais depicts an episode from the childhood of the famous sixteenth-century explorer Sir Walter Raleigh. It remains one of his most popular pictures. The young Raleigh and his brother are listening with rapt attention to the tales of ‘wonders on sea and land’ told by a ‘sunburnt, stalwart Genoese sailor’.

Millais is thus showing us a national hero in-the-making. The toy ship in the lower left suggests Raleigh’s future adventures at sea. Millais painted the background to the picture on the Devon coast near Exeter, not far from where Raleigh had been born.

Note the boys attire.

Which makes me want to remind my book club buddies of Esolen's disdainful reference to the attitude of today's average boy which is typified in his facial expressions and how he wears his pants. (pg 154)

FWIW, here's a link to a list of heroes about whom aspiring knights might have read during the Middle Ages.

One more thing.....

When I think about Sir Walter Raleigh, I think also about his wife.  And so, my library contains this biography, My Just Desire, about her.  She sounds remarkable.

I think that the Church is the only thing that is going to make the terrible world we are coming to endurable;

the only thing that makes the Church endurable is that it is somehow the body of Christ and that on this we are fed.

It seems to be a fact that you suffer as much from the Church as for it but if you believe in the divinity of Christ, you have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it.

Letter to friend, A
from Flannery O'Connor
20 July 1955

On our recent visit to Adalusia Farm in Milledgeville, GA, we stayed long enough to attend mass at Sacred Heart Church.  Three WASPs and one RC (our Cincinnati friend) worshipped with this historic congregation, singing familiar hymns but feeling a bit distinct.

I was glad we came into the house of the Lord where the O'Connor family had attended for generations.  I learned that Mary Flannery's ancestors had immigrated as Catholics from Ireland and been instrumental in establishing Catholicism in their town, donating money and land.

During the service my thoughts wondered about the church worldwide;  the priest was from Korea; one of the lay readers from New Jersey; many obviously not originally from the South.  I reflected on my attitude toward the institutional church and her condition, especially in light of A Frowning Providence, a recent post by one of my blogging buddies.

Is she in a state of rubble?

How does the LORD God view His Beloved Bride?

Psalm 102  answered some of my questions, especially verses 12 - 22.   Link here to an excellent exposition at Sermonaudio.

I love Thy Kingdom, Lord, The house of Thine abode.  (Link to Hymn 280, Blue Trinity Hymnal)

Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise until him with psalms!

Blessings on your Sabbath ~

Newly released and apparently  not available at Amazon.com is this collection of Mary Flannery O'Connor's cartoons.

The cover is a graphic representation of the artist's signature.

What resembles a small fowl (duck or peacock?) is really an
*M* *F* *O* *C*.

Including the apostrophe!

See it?

The book features lino-cuts from O'Connor's years at Georgia State College for Women (GSCW) from 1942-45 where Mary Flannery was editor of the newspaper, The Colonnade;  wrote for the literary magazine, The Corinthian; and edited the yearbook, The Spectrum.

Dorothy Leland, current president of Georgia College, reminds us in the Foreward ~

"Although O'Connor's spiritual vision is central to her fiction,
she is also widely recognized as a brilliant comic writer.
  The cartoons in this collection are an early indication of that
humorous and satirical approach to the human condition."

Madame Chairman, the Committee has reached a decision.

Choosing just one to highlight today, I giggled over this caricature of committee work, especially in light of my recent review of Anthony Esolen's Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child, Method 2 ~
Never Leave Children to Themselves or
If Only We had a Committee.

Sarah Gordon, Professor Emerita of English at Georgia College (formerly GSCW) explains in the Introduction the tenor of O'Connor's collegiate artwork ~

"she was speaking inside and to a community, to young women whose shared experience made them co-conspirators in her enterprise."

"The cartoons were intended to elicit laughter and to please, unlike O'Connor's mature fiction, which assumed an audience indifferent to O'Connor's spirital concerns, an audience needing to be turned out of its comfortable chairs and complacency and made aware of the need for grace."

John Updike's brief essay, Writers and Artists, is also quoted ~

"the graphic artist learns to organize and to emphasize; and this knowledge serves the writer"

Waste no time procurring this delightful volume by contacting Georgia College and State University or the Gift Shop at Andalusia Farm.

Bonus Art ~ postcard reproduction of photograph of three year old Mary Flannery reading ~

So precious!

Thus ends my week-long fixation on MFO'C.

Walking down the front steps of the *main house* at Andalusia Farms,
we encountered proof that Spring in just around the corner here in the deep South.
  These miniature daffodils surrounded a large tree looking over the pond.

The trail started at the top of this hill and meandered
for almost one mile through the woods in the distance.

As I trailed behind my walking buddies, Jules Renard's words came to mind ~

Walks.  The body advances, while the mind flutters around it like a bird.

Empty bird house?
I heard a few singing, but spotted none perching.

Tobler Creek

  Strong-looking, green vine wrapping the life out of pine tree limb.

Scattered along the trail were markers labeling the types of tree, like sweet gum or pig nut.
How did we miss this sugarberry tree?!

I'm not sure what type this one is.
Is it dead?

Stay tuned.  I hope to post some pictures of the three peafowl.