The Urban Farmhouse: Feb 19, 2009

Thursday, February 19, 2009

The top of my bookshelf

So I'm re-booting this blog a bit. Making it more of a direct response to Candy over at KTH, and to all the fine ladies out there who insist that their way is the only way to be a great homemaker.

Today Candy put out a post bragging about how she is such a great reader, savoring the classics and taking part in the Great Conversation. And then she informed us that the top shelf of her bookshelf (She may have two shelves, but no more. She's published enough photos of her home to prove that.) contained three boxed sets of children's books, The Chronicles of Narnia, Little House on the Prairie, and one of the American Girl collections.

Ahem.

In reply, here is the list of what is on the top shelf of one of our book shelves:

A collection of the writings of Plutarch
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
The Journal of John Woolman
Fruits of Solitude by William Penn
Don Quixote by Cervantes
The Divine Comedy by Dante
A collection of Aseop's fables
A collection of Grimm's fables
A collection of the works of Hans Christian Anderson
Jonathon Swift by Thackery
A collection of essays by various authors, including Ruskin, Stevenson and Thoreau
A collection of poetry by various poets, including Tennyson, Emerson and Longfellow
A collection of essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson
A collection of the works of Homer
A collection of American documents, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution
1,001 Nights
1,001 Nights in the original Arabic
A collection of the works of Christopher Marlowe.
A complete Shakespeare
Howard's End by E. M. Forester
The Great Gadsby, by Fitzgerald
A collection of Emily Dickenson
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
The Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris andJean de Meun
The Glimpse of the Moon by Edith Wharton
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Nature's end by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka
A collection of writings by Edith Wharton
QV VII by Leon Uris
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.
And yes, a KJV

Now, I admit, I haven't read all of them. But I have read 2/3 -3/4 of them, including the KJV, and would like to read the rest in the near future.

And I have ten more bookshelves in the house just this big. Each one holding 3-5 shelves full of books. And I have read most of those.

So yes, I'm sorry. Reading the KJV over and over and over again, while not even reading a children's book is not my idea of a great reader.

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A few words on why...

...this blog exists.

I created this blog for three reasons

To show the world that someone can be a stay-at-home wife, mother and homeschooler and also be secular (even an atheist), feminist and liberal.
To provide a public place to recommend secular homemaking ideas, blogs and media I found on the web.
To be a place to vent about some of the topics, issues and comments I found while reading the Christian homemaker blogosphere.

One thing I have noticed, many if not the majority of Christian bloggers moderate their comments. That is, they delete the comments that disagree with their opinion or their faith. This is a place where I can record my comments to them and not have them deleted out of hand.

This is also a place where you can freely reply. I do not have my comments moderated, post as you will. Just remember, while my words reflect on me, yours reflect on you, and if you say they are based on a Christian perspective or the Christian faith, they may very well reflect on your religious community as well. Regardless, I will let them stand.

That said, please try to at least pick a name and not reply anonymously. If you cannot defend your opinions or your faith publicly, are either really that strong?

UPDATE: I will, however, remove obvious spam.

UPDATE #2: I will also remove anything that is solely bigoted garbage and nothing else.

-----

And one more point:

If the only source/authority you can use to back up your point is the bible, do not expect that argument to carry much weight with me. I do not believe the bible is the infallible word of god. And while I respect the teachings of Jesus Christ, I do not believe in or follow or respect the writings of the Old Testament or of Paul. I find both sources to be filled with hate, highly immoral and have little bearing on modern society. I believe human morality has moved past both.

So if your justification for your argument is either of those sources and nothing else, do not expect to sway my opinion. In fact, expect the opposite.

Just a few quotes

All will be well
And all will be well
And every kind of thing will be well.

- Julian of Norwich
1373

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

- Marcus Aurelius

True manliness differs also from the false in its attitude to woman. Its knightly feeling makes it wish to defend her rights, to maintain her claims, to be her protector and advocate. False manliness wishes to show its superiority by treating women as inferiors. It flatters them, but it does not respect them. It fears their competition on equal levels, and wishes to keep them confined, not within walls, as in the Mohammedan regions, but behind the more subtle barriers of opinion, prejudice, and supposed feminine aptitudes. True manliness holds out the hand to woman, and says, ” Do whatever you are able to do; whatever God meant you to do. Neither you nor I can tell what that is till all artificial barriers are removed, and you have full opportunity to try.”

- James Freeman Clarke, 1886

It's the awareness of the worth of the gentle arts that counts, the ability to see that the feminists of the 1970's (and '80's) were misguided when they thought that teaching young girls to devalue domesticity constituted progress.

- Jane Brocket, The Gentle Art of Domesticity, pg 11

Look through the Hubble telescope if you want to see something awe inspiring. Don't look through a blood-stained old myth.

- Christopher Hitchens, spoken in a debate with the Rev. Al Sharpton, at the New York Public Library, May 7, 2007

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

- Matthew 7:3-5 KJV

You lot seem to specialize in missing the point. What you seem not to understand is that most of us on the left don’t give two tosses about where and when grown-ups touch genitals with other adults - it is holier-than-thou hypocrisies we are so allergic to.

- Someone calling himself John McKee

The bible did not arrive by fax from heaven.

- Canon Martyn Percy

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

- Matthew 7:15

"I already knew Pastor Ledbetter’s position. He held that women’s duties consisted of covering their heads, their mouths, and their casserole dishes, and I’d done all three about as long as I wanted to.”

– from Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind by Ann B. Ross

The concept of a Hitler in heaven if he was saved, and a Ghandi in hell if he wasn't, is morally repugnant.

- Someone calling himself Taliesan

On Modesty....

Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.

-Titus 1:15 (KJV)

I was just telling ____ you are the most absolutely, quintessentially Puritan woman I have *ever* met. In good ways. Strong, intelligent, having faith on your own terms and expressing it in your own ways, practical and pragmatic, unselfish, unfond of scenes or wild excesses, and for you house and farm is altar. And on a night like tonight when I'm all woogie brain it's especially awesome

.-K, and one of the best compliments I have ever received.

I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.

- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

"I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs."

- Frederick Douglas

We're not looking to build moral, successful children. We're looking to build Christians.

-Pastor Star R. Scott, Calvary Temple

If God is willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
If he is able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
If he is both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
If he is neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

- Epicurus (33 A. D)

We (atheists) do think there have to be rules, a social contract, that helps tie together the diverse people of our culture and permits civilized interactions between us. The difference is that we believe those rules should be developed by humane principles that recognize the equality and interdependence of all people, rather than being rules contrived by priests to perpetuate their power by inventing arbitrary ultimatums from imaginary superbeings.

- P. Z. Meyers

The crust is delicious, but the cranberry tartlet is not as filling as I imagined it would be.

- Sarah Ban Brethnach on worshiping Homemaking Goddesses rather than creating your own home.

Stress comes from dissonance. When two things in your mind can’t be resolved and you start thinking you’re going to be stuck with the incongruity forever, you stress.

But, as much as our minds and our hearts encourage us to believe the fault goes to our will or our lack of industry — rather than our thinking and cognition — the true cure for stress is to cut the Gordian Knot. To change your mind about at least one thing you think you’re not allowed to change your mind about.

You alter the game when you re-write the rules.

- Merlin Mann on stress

I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage.

- Blane on the X-Files

If you accept yourself as you are, then you’re undermining the effort of those poor suckers who are trying to fit in.

- Kate Harding on Fat Acceptance (and what might go a long way toward explaining a lot.)