Almost Autumn: The Weekly Digest

Looking out the window.... 

Saw all these beauties in the flower beds outside my doctor's office.

Favorite quote(s) of the week...

Souls indifferent to the achievement of human things cannot be expected to exert themselves in divine things.- Robert Miner, quoted in Karen Swallow Prior's On Reading Well, p. 133. 

 

When people are treated as objects for long enough, they see themselves as someone else’s property. They don’t value self-stewardship because they relate to themselves the same way that significant others have related to them. Many people are told over and over again that nurturing and maintaining their souls is selfish and wrong. After a while, they develop a deep conviction that this is true. And at that point, they place little value on taking care of the feelings, talents, thoughts, attitudes, behavior, body, and resources God entrusted to them.. - Cloud and Townsend, Boundaries, p. 306.

 

We need our God. He is to be had for the seeking, and He will not deny Himself to any of us if we personally seek His face. It is not if you deserve Him, or if you earn His approval, but simply if you seek Him. - Charles Spurgeon, Faith's Checkbook, p. 242.

 

I'm thinking about...

Fall.  Most of my friends are in back to school mode right now.  Most--if not all--of the K-12 schools have resumed classes and both online and in-seat classes at CCU begin tomorrow (08/25).  Since my teaching schedule for the year started more than a month ago, I've been in school mode since late July (my own version of it anyway).  Football season starts for JSU on Thursday, Alabama on Saturday, and the Broncos on September 7th.  I'm just not sure how to get into the swing of Autumn.  Maybe I'll think of something by the time the first day of fall rolls around on the 22nd.

 

What I've read since the last digest...

• The Road by Cormac McCarthy ✮✮✮1/2  
• The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy ✮✮✮1/2   

I'm currently reading...

• Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
• The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
• Mansions of the Heart by R. Thomas Ashbrook 
• Streams of Living Water by Richard J. Foster 
• On Reading Well by Karen Swallow Prior
• Faith's Checkbook by Charles Spurgeon

Recent blog posts...

• My previous digest, "Mind Meld'" is here.
  
• Where No Couch Has Gone Before:  The Weekly Hodgepodge is here. 
• First Line Friday #38: The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard is here.  
• My "25 for 2025" challenge is here. (Updated regularly)
• My "I Can Only Blame MyShelf" reading challenge is here.  (Updated regularly). 

I am thankful for...

• Being able to work from the couch in my bedclothes when I don't feel well (and don't have Zoom meetings).
• YouTuber creators who curate TikTok videos so I don't have to swim in this cesspool of brain rot. 
• Modern medicine.
• The much-needed rain we've gotten the past couple of days.
• Cooler temperatures.
• My old faithful Singer sewing machine (I call her "Big Mama.")