A stormy night, the mysterious death of a bitter old man, and an estranged granddaughter arrested for murder—thus the stage is set for one of Augusta Evan’s most thrilling tales.  The spell cast upon the prosecuting attorney by the marble-featured Beryl Brentano, who proclaims her innocence with righteous tenacity and a feminine swoon or two, is one that will affect the whole course of his life.  By the time she is sentenced he is more sure of her innocence than of anything else—but is it too late?

At the Mercy of Tiberius was a book that I simply could not put down.  This was also the novel from which my sister and I plucked the useful phrase, “She was the consummate flower of his heart’s dearest hope”, which has proved indispensable upon those occasions when expression eludes.     

This story takes you from a South still in the grip of Reconstruction to the wilds of Canada in a sweep of romance, adventure and Christian devotion.  Lovers of St. Elmo will be delighted; newcomers will be enchanted, I feel quite sure.  Augusta Evans is a romantic of romantics…

Okay, I never do these…but this was a personality test that I just couldn’t resist!

"Which Jane Austen Character Are You?"

 Here is my very predictable result…

 Feel free to leave a comment and let me know ‘who’ you are!

Every year or so my husband reads Thoreau’s Walden again.  Last Christmas I tucked a pocket version in his stocking, and I honestly think that it was his favorite gift.  He keeps it by his chair in the den; I love to see him come in from a long day and an embattled drive home, sink into the leather depths, prop his feet on the coffee table and crack open that slim red volume.  I especially love it when he calls me in from the kitchen to share a passage out loud.  And then together we speculate and dream aloud about the Simple Life, about shedding unnecessary possessions and ideas, about the free pursuit of the aspirations God has set alight in our hearts.  We are dreamers and unashamed, and the things that we dream of are pleasant and pastoral, ambitions of useful work and tranquil minds and quiet evenings in which to savor the Life that is rushing by in a timeless current.

Philip’s perusal of Thoreau invariably recalls one of my very favorite quotes, and one that I believe with all of my heart:

            I have learned that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

Mama and I were conversing in this vein yesterday afternoon at my kitchen sink.  She had come to help me prepare for my book club meeting, and as she snipped russet chrysanthemums and tucked them in silver julep cups she exhorted me as only Mama can to live the way that I know God has called me to.  To treasure silence; to protect quietness; to cultivate creativity through intimacy with God.  Her words fell on weary, willing ears, like a lullaby to a tired child, like rain on a thirsty land.  I looked up from the potato I was slicing with wet eyes.  Why is it that things we believe, things we think we know, carry such weight when spoken aloud by another woman?

            “You know,” she mused, flower in hand, “if you think about it, most of the people we admire from the past, who’ve have had any influence on us artistically or otherwise, lived so differently from the world around them.  And truthfully, they were probably thought rather odd even in their day!”  

Another word from Thoreau chanted mirthfully in my head and I smiled.

            If a man does not keep pace with his companions perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music he hears however measured and far away.    

The music I hear has a decidedly old-fashioned resonance.  And I know that when my life gets too busy and noisy to pick out its dulcet strains that I am denying who God made me to be.  I think I’ll rest under a tree by the wayside and listen to the music for a while.   

Two more pieces have been added to the Stories category:

As Strong as Death
…A sob caught in her throat and she rose, trembling.  There was a reason she had kept that chest of memory so tightly locked all these years.  It was a Pandora’s Box, full of things she couldn’t bear.  And now that it was opened she had a dreadful feeling that she’d never get it closed again…

Finding the Beautiful
It was our last Big Adventure as a family, though we didn’t know it at the time.  Perhaps only Mama had some premonition of the changes that lay in wait for us upon our return from the trip to Boston, Bar Harbor and Prince Edward Island.  Of course, she couldn’t have forseen…

Those who know me best would never label me a ‘big camper’–that is, until the Airstream came along…

Here is a little story about our summer vacation with my sister and her husband…

I believe that if my husband and I were limited to one choice of music for the rest of our lives that choice would unequivocally rest on The Innocence Mission.  We have very broad musical tastes: 1960’s samba, early English church music, Mozart and Tchaikovsky, classic bluegrass, and a hundred things in between.  But nothing else touches our souls like the songs of Don and Karen Peris.  A poet in her own right, Karen has a way of expressing things that we never dreamt anyone else had felt.  Hearing Befriended for the first time I had a strange sense of exposure, like someone had drawn forth my yearnings and secret joys and placed them in the open for all to see.  It came at such a timely season in my life—of inner change and spiritual renewal—and the lyrics rang with my inarticulate desires for life and godliness.  I remember the first night we had it Philip and I sat out on the front porch and listened to it through without a word.  None was necessary.  Don and Karen had said it all.

We regard them as our friends, for transparency is the hallmark of true friendship, and they have shared their delights, their wonder, their heartaches with an endearing openness that is never indiscreet.  God bless them for it.

Here is a link to their wonderful website…please sample some of their mp3s…especially Tomorrow on the Runway…

Oh, be the music in my head, the air around my bed,
Oh be my rest.
Replace the small disgraces of the times and places that I never really left…

The leaves are falling from the walnuts in the backyard today in showers of pale gold; I like it that they shed their raiment before the other trees–it only heightens the sense of anticipation abroad.  And though the temperature will undoubtedly top 85 later on, early this morning I caught the unmistakable sweetness of woodsy decay in the air that is the essence of September to me.

Here is a little poem from dear old Streams in the Desert that expresses my desires for quiet living.  It is a good word as autumn approaches, espousing a much-needed contemplative season in my life…

I need wide spaces in my heart
Where faith and I can go apart
And grow serene. 

Life gets so choked by busy living,
Kindness so lost in fussy giving,
That love slips by unseen. 

I want to make a quiet place
Where those I love can see God’s face,
Can stretch their hearts across the earth,
Can understand what spring is worth,
Can count the stars, watch violets grow,
And learn what birds and children know.

Birds and children know that moments are precious, that a loving Father watches over them, that life is a gift of wonder.  Adults need reminders at intervals, but what creative means God can employ to awaken us.  Falling leaves,  scents that stir us with the joy of blended familiarity and change, a slight shifting of the afternoon shadows…