Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Recent readings
I barely read when I was in Oregon. I had time. I had all late afternoon and evening Wednesday, and evening Thursday. I had the plane rides there and back. But my mind wasn't staying put enough to read. On the plane, I was able to study the Eden Gray Tarot book. I think because I was nervous and jumpy and not totally focused on the conscious party of reading that I was able to discern a great deal about the patterns within the minor Arcana. I killed time with the crosswords in the airplane magazines. I could do the crosswords and the Sudoku, but I did NOT have the attention nor discipline for the Kakuro. I felt glum about that. I like to think of myself as good at math and logic.
I've been working to catch up.
I've been working to catch up.
- Protect Us From All Anxiety: Meditations for the Depressed, by William Burke (priest at the Archdiocese of Chicago). Even Wiccans can read Catholic books. "It must be true of any illness: the difficulty of talking about it. Where does honesty leave off and self pity begin?" Burke tells the story of his descent and return openly, as he lived it openly and in full view of his congregation. The book is a narrative built by 2 page long chapters that depict scenes or thoughts, introduced by short Bible verses and ended with a sentence or two written as a prayer. Each chapter is self-contained, but they describe a complete human being and the disease of depression. Despite the Bible verses, I never felt preached to. Perhaps that was because the priest readily acknowledged that his faith didn't save him from becoming sick. Maybe because he didn't offer faith as the answer, he merely showed how he used it to hold on as best he, a human being, could.
- Combat Corpsman: the Vietnam Memoir of a Navy SEAL Medic, by Greg McPartlin. Exciting, at times breathtaking, heartbreaking, and more than once demanding of shouting out loud at some of the characters. I loved this book and expect to reread it. I picked up the book hoping for an examination of the medic / infantryman dichotomy I've seen referenced to in my killology research, how its easier to run out into a battlefield when you're unarmed than when you're armed and expected to shoot the enemy. McPartlin didn't talk about that much. But he did write a wonderful and engaging memoir of his experience as one of the "men with green faces."
- Logic for Mathematicians, by A. G. Hamilton. I'm returning to this because I need something concrete, with problems to solve.
- The One-Minute Home Organizer, by Emily Barnes. Because its succinct, there are good tips buried in it, and yet it feels like fluff.
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