"Long Love Stories"

I read emails from Gretchen Rubin writing on happiness. This week she sent out one with this quote: 

“Collectors are basically of two kinds; those who aim at completing a series, and those who long to possess things that have bewitched them. The former, of whom stamp and coin collectors are the obvious examples, enjoy the pleasures of a limited aim, and its comforting certainties. The latter may suffer ups and downs, changes of heart and deceptions, but they have several great advantages. They never know when some new love will inflame them; they learn a great deal more about themselves from their possessions; and in the end they are surrounded by old friends, with long love stories which they must try hard not to tell their friends.”Kenneth Clark, Another Part of the Wood: A Self-Portrait

The last part of that quote resounds with me. I find myself telling stories of something I care deeply about and not too sure if my friends want to hear it or not. I guess that is one reason I like writing. You all can choose to come to my blog or not, I will never know the difference, read it or not, comment or not, roll your eyes or not. And I can share my long love stories regardless. 

Bean Report, Finally

I am a slow reader these days, not sure why. I finally finished reading Orson Scott Card's Ender's Shadow. Miss Language has been a fan of this series and shared it with Mr Music. Mr Music saw I was ready to read Ender's Game and was quite vocal that I must read Ender''s Shadow first, so that I would not "judge Bean ahead of time." Whatever that means. 

So, I finally did. 

Mr Music keeps asking what I think. 

Well, what do I think? I think I am not crazy about books where babies hide in toilets and children kill other children. And I never have understood why children have to command in this army, anyhow.

But. There were some interesting ideas and some good quotes. Those I marked were: 

"Do you know why Satan is so angry all the time? Because when he works a particularly clever bit of mischief, God uses it to serve his own righteous purposes."

"So God uses wicked peoples as his tools."

"God gives us the freedom to do great evil, if we choose. Then he uses his own freedom to create goodness out of that evil, for that is what he chooses."

So in the long run, God always wins."

"Yes."

"And in the short run, though, it can be uncomfortable."

"And when, in the past, would you have preferred to die, instead of being alive here today?"

"There it is. We get used to everything. We find hope in anything."  (from chapter 16)

~ ~ ~
and

"... the thing with brothers is, you're supposed to take turns  being his keeper. Sometimes you get to sit down and be the brother who is kept." (in chapter 18)

Seems like I have read these ideas somewhere before. :)