Assorted Pieces of Information

I have three short weeks remaining in my sabbatical. Where have the previous thirteen weeks gone?

My days between now and the time I return to my work at First Church are filled with play (fishing -- tough going given our drought -- and golf -- I have shaved a lot of strokes off of my game), reading and writing, and practicing both the guitar and the bagpipes. At some point in the near future, I will attempt to put into words some of what my sabbatical has meant for me. There have been a lot of notes in this sabbatical song. I want to order them into a lyrical melody, a singable tune.

I kept you abreast of some of what I have been reading in areas pertaining to pastoral leadership, worship, and theology. I thought I'd list some of the other -- namely, recreational -- books that I have read. In England, I discovered the British crime novel. I was introduced to two authors: Colin Dexter and Ian Rankin. Dexter's main character is Inspector E. Morse of the Thames Valley Police. His setting is the city of Oxford and its environs, mainly the many colleges of Oxford. I've read and would recommend, if the genre appeals to you (and even if it doesn't, Dexter's use of the English language is worth reading for its own sake): Last Bus to Woodstock, Last Seen Wearing, The Riddle of the Third Mile, and Death is Now My Neighbor. Ian Rankin's main character is Inspector John Rebus of the Edinburgh Police. His setting is Edinburgh. I've read and would recommend Knots and Crosses, his first novel. Rebus is less literary than Dexter, for my taste. His strength is the countless ways he describes his home city -- he well captures its people, its architecture, its weather, etc.

I reread Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. I may have said this in an earlier post. I reread it primarly because it is set in Christ Church, Oxford and Oxfordshire before, during and after WWII. On the lighter side, I reread P.G. Wodehouse's Summer Lightning. It's laugh-out-loud British farce with very silly characters and equally silly plot twists.

In the area of history, I read John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage. My visit to the JFK library in Boston with Molly prompted this read. Additionally, I read Old Dominion, New Commonwealth: A History of Virginia, 1607-2007. Reading a review of the book in The William and Mary Quarterly, the College's journal of early American history and culture prompted this read. The book is a project of four historians -- Ronald Heineman of Hampden-Sydney College, John Kolp of the US Naval Academy, Anthony Parent of Wake Forest University, and William Shade of Lehigh University. The book was published by the University of Virginia Press to commemorate Virginia's 400th anniversary. In my humble opinion, this book should be on the shelf of every Virginian. Valley Virginians will be interested in the chapter on the rise of the Byrd Organization, 1915-1930, following the death of Senator Martin in 1919. All Virginians should reacquaint themselves with Virginia's painful and shameful history of massive resistance and racial desegregation. This is well chronicled in the chapter entitled The Politics of Race, 1945-1960.

That's if for the moment. Peace.