Breaking Up

“I have had a delightful windfall: £5 worth of books as a prize from College for getting a First. Oh ye gods, if this had come four or five years ago, what raptures and debatings, what making and re-making of lists had been! As it is was I had great difficulty in making them out at all, being perpetually haunted by the fear that I should afterwards find out that I had got all the things I really did NOT want. It is a dismal sign of breaking up and old age that I look forward to their arrival with very luke warm pleasure."     -  The Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves.

Lewis was 22 years old when he wrote this!

Hmmm. I don’t know what this is a “sign of” since I am probably “breaking up” with old age according to this, but yesterday when three books arrived in the mail and I was delighted. I felt excitement as Denis pulled the strap of the envelope and handed me a book carefully wrapped in white paper. All of them are available at  Hearts &Minds Books .

These are the books:

1.     The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley & the Unlikely Ascent of “Hallelujah” by Alan Light. Denis has dibs on this one.

2.     QU4RTETS a collection of art and essays from an Exhibition on T.S. Elliot’s poems “Four Quartets.” Anita gets this one first because of her constant art-making.

3.     The Pastor: A Memoir by Eugene Peterson. I’ve been eagerly waiting for this memoir of his journey through life. He was born in 1939 – now I want to hear Peterson’s wisdom. I want to know what he says about life, death, resurrection and how to keep on following Jesus through it all.