Saturday 27 April 2019

GRIEVING A HUSBAND

'Oh, she thought, oh, this is how it is, it is the small things; a bonfire in the evening; this is what makes it so hard to bear. For what she missed now was not passion or important deeds, significant words, but the routine of everyday life, eating and work and sleep and talk of this and that, and the sound of footsteps about the house, the smell of wet boots on the step. Nothing could replace all of this, nothing, though she might live forever. It was not vows and fleshly love and the bearing of children she wanted, it was much less, and so much more.' 
Susan Hill, In the Springtime of the Year, p.125. 

WE LOOK FOR THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD

'He was talking about gathering the flowers, in the woods and along the banks and hedgerows, and moss from besides the stream. On Easter Saturday evening, people took them up to the churchyard and spent hours, dressing the graves, making beautiful floral patterns on the turf, they worked until it was dark and even later, by lantern light, so that, on the following morning, all the dead should be decked out with fresh-growing blooms, a resurrection.' 
Susan Hill, In the Springtime of the Year, p.102. 

Tuesday 23 April 2019

THE PROBLEM WITH FAMILY LIKENESS

'Vi loved her mother, but was too much like her not to get irritated after fifteen minutes.' 
Penelope Fitzgerald, Human Voices, p.104. 

THE BBC

'...a cross between a civil service, a powerful moral force, and an amateur theatrical company that wasn't too sure where next week's money was coming from...'
Penelope Fitgerald, Human Voices, p.43. 

Tuesday 16 April 2019

FINALLY WHOLE

'To affirm the resurrection of the dead is to confess that the God who made us will finally make us whole - spirit, soul and body (1 Thess. 5:23).' 
Richard B Hays, First Corinthians, p.279. 

Sunday 7 April 2019

PRAYER AS FELLOWSHIP

'Prayer is a divinely ordained means of living in fellowship with God and each other.' 
J Todd Billings, Rejoicing in Lament, p.123.