After reading about my reading goals you might (or might not) wonder what I am reading. As featured on my sidebar "On the Nightstand", I am reading Sister Wendy on Prayer. Actually, the book was so good I finished it and immediately started rereading it. Sister Wendy's approach to explaining prayer (if it can be explained at all) is simple and direct. This might be obvious but this is not a "how-to" book. She writes very short essays on topics as broad as Silence, Guilt and Virtue. Each essay can be considered for a long time. There is also a succinct and thoughtful biographical sketch at the beginning of the book. I learned quite a bit about her life. The book also include a discourse on thirteen paintings included in the middle of the text. I must say that I would not see God in many of the paintings she has included and that is the beauty. She explains her interpretation so well.
I saw this book on the sidebar of Uncommon Grace. She writes as explanation
"I normally don't go for these "how-to" parenting books. But this one has been so very useful to me. It's about self-discipline rather than strategies for disciplining children. It has been helpful to me as I've worked on conquering my own depression."
Her comment sold me on at least checking out the book. I've given up reading most parenting books because my children just don't seem to fit the children described by authors. Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline appears on the cover to be a parenting book but it is so much more. It really is a book about embracing what the author calls "The Seven Powers for Self Control" such as "what you focus on, you get more of" and see the best in one another. It all might be a little too much like a self help book for some but I am finding it to be very helpful. I'm reading about 3 pages a night and trying to think about the content. The most useful tool that I have discovered is to focus on what I want from Citcat. Instead of saying twenty times a day "please don't hit your brother", I am redirecting her to a more positive activity. Sometimes, I suggest that she "give Si a gentle touch" or I might redirect her away from Si.
She has also responded to the notion of helping to create a good life for our family. She will often parrot, "Daddy works hard to make a good life for us." I turn this around and say "when you bring your dishes to the sink or you are nice to your brother, you are making a good life for mommy and daddy." She likes that.
Also in the basket pictured below
Little Women (I've still not started it.)
The post-adoption blues
Fifty Famous Stories Retold
Real Learning
Also, you can see there is a small pile of books to consider, Karma Wilson's new book Give Thanks to the Lord, a new issue of Wondertime and All through the Day, All through the Year (recently received from paperbackswap.com) and truth be told, a trashy celebrity magazine picked up at the library.
As you can see, I still have a lot to read. :)
Day 2 of Thirty Posts in Thirty Days