Status Report: October

Reading:  the last bits of Isaiah and the Pauline epistles, the 70s Psalms and Proverbs 24 in my Bible reading.  At the beginning of September I was falling badly behind on my reading plan (which may or may not have something to do with Ms Austen...) so I gave September over to double and sometimes triple readings and got myself caught up again.  That included reading Job in fairly large chunks.  I have to say that for the first time in my life I started to get Job.  Maybe it was because I have been thinking a lot about the godly response to suffering in recent years.  Whatever it was, this year instead of enduring this part of the Bible I was completely swept away by Job and his godly response to his suffering at least.  Not sure I have nailed his friends yet.  Maybe next year. 

Also reading: Church History in Plain Language by Bruce L. Shelley.  I was up to "The Age of the Christian Roman Empire" - roughly 300 to 600AD.  But this last week I have zoomed to the last three centuries in order to brush up on the rise and fall and rise and fall and so on of evangelicalism, liberalism and fundamentalism in order to help a friend with Church History assignment.  This is a great book.  No doubt I shall tell you all about it in time to come.

Came upon: Isaiah 57:1 once again a couple of days ago.
"The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart;
devout men are taken away, and no one understands
that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil."
So often we don't understand this.  It is a thought worth pondering awhile.

Weeding: my garden.  It rained and rained and rained and rained some more for most of September.  And I dare not complain (although I have just a tiny bit) because we need the rain.  But it did make for zippo opportunities for gardening because it was either raining or too wet from the rain.  But the sun came out over the last couple of days and so I got to work on this...

 

The good thing about it getting to this appalling state is that weeds this large are easily pulled out.  Three or four hours work and it was done.  If you look along the back near the fence there are five standard roses.  There between the two roses on the left is a five foot thistle.  Quite impressive really.  It all looks so much better now but I'll post the "after" photo once the roses are out.  That is, provided I keep the weeds down...

 

Looking forward: to taking our kids to the Royal Show for the first time in their lives later this week.  I haven't been since I was a teenager.  Fun fun fun.

 

Also looking forward: to a trip to the symphony next week with a dear friend. 

MENDELSSOHN A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Overture

BERLIOZ Les nuits d’été [Summer Nights]
BEETHOVEN Symphony No.6 Pastoral

Very excited.

 

Stepping down: from a committee I have served on for the last ten years later this month.  I have a few bits and pieces that need finishing up but that will taper off some time into next year.  I don't leave this committee lightly or easily but current life circumstances have made it a necessity.

 

Thankful: to all who do their Book Depository shopping via this blog.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  Through the commissions I have received I've nearly saved enough to buy the women I read and study the Bible with during the week a Jerry Bridges book for Christmas...but shhhhh...don't tell them...  Keep buying those books.

 

Enjoying: a bit of conversation with fellow bloggers via email lately.  Nice to chat a bit deeper than comments on a blog post allows.

 

Signing off: because it is time to head out with the boys and a couple of their friends for today's school holiday adventure.  Have a good day everyone.