Gone With the Wind

About a month ago I picked up Gone With the Wind at a little, hole in the wall book store in Cambria. When I started it I told my husband that I was reading it, not out of any sense of it being a book that as an English teacher I should read, but rather out of a sense of obligation as a girl who likes to read. And after reading it I still feel any girl who enjoys reading, must read this book. It has quickly become one of my favorite books, and as much as you despise Scarlet at times, you can't help but admire her "gumption," which in the end becomes her only redemption. As you read the book it becomes apparent that it is much more than just the story of Scarlet's perseverance and ultimately her redemption, but the the perseverance and redemption of the Confederacy itself. Despite the slightly racist bias that runs through the portrayal of slavery, you can't help but feel compassion for the side of the torn nation that always gets the bad rap. Even this decidedly "yankee" reader was able to see why they say "the Confederacy never dies."

Temporary Things

“While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:18

I waste so much of my time looking at temporary things- how clean my house is, the pile of grading sitting next to me, the shoe my dog just ate, not to mention the salmon I just realized should have been taken out of the oven 5 minutes ago. And yet what significance do any of these things have? Sure, all of us, believer and unbeliever alike, want to spend our time on what truly matters, to not sweat the small stuff. But as a believer my goal should be to move beyond that. My call is to look not at the temporary but at the eternal. So when the dog eats my shoe and my dinner doesn’t live up to my expectations what is eternal? Well, if I back myself up to verse 16 & 17 I realize that what God is working through all those things is a renewal of the inward person. This “light affliction” (and oh, how light it truly is!) is working for me a “far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory”! God is working on my inward person, sanctifying me and changing me into His likeness. Oh, how small my faith and how long the road of sanctification ahead when all it takes is a destroyed bit of leather to try my patience and teach me to depend upon the Lord. But praise be to God who having begun His work in me will not finish until it is completed! 

The Two Images of Fall

I know it’s autumn. Unfortunately, in Southern California the tell tale signs of the season are not the glorious reds and oranges of my child hood. Well, the colors may actually be the same, but the glowing flames of a brush fire jumping the freeway and the majestic, throbbing reds of a maple tree are no comparison. So while breathing in the ash and smoke of yet another fire and reassuring my mom over the phone that “We’re fine,” I can’t help but be homesick for a real fall. One that goes beyond fires and Santa Ana winds, or even pumpkin spice lattes. I want the smell of dirt and slowly dying leaves. I want a hillside aflame with fire that doesn’t involve smoke and ashes. I want that feeling of wonder as you travel down a lonely road and are engulfed by autumn leaves.