Influence

A good book is the axe for the frozen sea inside us. Franz Kafka I’ve been reading Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky lately. Both were fantastic Russian authors without parallel who lived in the later half of the 19th century. It’s fascinating that in the time period following Dostoevsky’s life and at the end of Tolstoy’s life that the Soviet state sought to abolish the Christian religion, using total control of whatever influenced the minds and lives of its citizens. As Malcom Muggeridge points out in his book, A Third Testament, “As it turns out, all its (Communist State) efforts have been frustrated by the irresistible presentation of Christ and his teachings in Dostoevsky’s and Tolstoy’s writings, which continue to be avidly read by their countrymen.” Isn’t it incredible that after almost a century of Communism, resulting in millions of Russia’s own people being slaughtered in its name, that the influence of these authors lives on but communism (in Russia) doesn’t? But maybe that isn’t so incredible since both of these men wrote about a way of life that has had withstood even harsher persecution for two thousand years. Proverbs 33 “...his intentions can never be shaken…”

The Brothers Karamazov

I finished “The Brothers Karamazov” a few nights ago. Ok, it’s long and deep and wide… I’m not a literary critic or anything but the book has more substance (spiritual, emotional, relational and psychological) than any book I have ever read. And to think that Fyodor Dostoevsky (the author, who’s considered to be one of the best writers in world literature) had the mental capacity to include all this in a novel is incredible. I don’t really know what to write about it at this point because it’s so vast but it just seems to me that when you’ve experienced something overly impressive (grand canyon, ocean, some amazing relational thing, etc…) you owe it to someone… I don’t know who exactly… but to someone to at least mention it.

If I Had Only

If I had only…
forgotten future greatness
and looked at the green things and the buildings
and reached out to those around me
and smelled the air
and ignored the forms and the self-styled obligations
and heard the rain on the roof
and put my arms around my wife
… and it’s not too late.

From Notes to Myself by Hugh Prather
For more on Prather see www.beliefnet.com

Three Kid Night

I mentioned the band name “Three Dog Night” last Sunday at dc… who knows exactly why I mentioned it but anyhow my friend, Nancy, emailed me this week and brought me up to speed on its origin. The name "Three Dog Night" supposedly refers to an expression meaning a night so cold that one needs to sleep while embracing three dogs.

I have experienced cold nights before. Not here in Phoenix, of course, but growing up in Iowa I did. The coldest night I remember as a boy was one night when the wind chill was something like 40 or 50 below zero. We didn't have dogs... I did have a few hamsters though... I guess I could have curled up with them. It happened to be the night that my brother and his girlfriend were coming home to visit us from college and their car broke down. Good timing on his part.

There are no “Three Dog Nights” here in Phoenix but I do have three children and there have been on more than one occasion whether it’s cold or not outside a “three kid night” in our bed. For those keeping score at home that’s five all together in one bed. Your initial thought might be that that’s sweet. But it’s not. Usually on those nights I wind up finding my way to the couch. In fact, a couple of different times my wife and I have given up and moved to the kids beds. So, in the morning we’re in their room and they are in ours.

But I can’t complain… we do have beds to sleep in which is more than many people have. And speaking of my brother (which I did earlier in case you forgot) he had to sleep in a crib until age 7. That’s right. Age 7. (It’s tough to have your friends over and invite them to play in your room when you still sleep in a crib!) Fortunately by the time he had brought his girlfriend (soon to be wife) home from college on that truly “Three Dog Night” my parents had purcahased a real bed for him.