Deep thoughts on book piles #ThreeShots☕️📚😇
The Great Moose Migration, book piles, and St. John Houghton
Well hello there from the midst of all the things that a normalish spring brings: mowing and more mowing, outside work, deadlines, sports, and new books. (Come on. You didn’t think I was going to forget those, did you?)
There’s no comparing this year to last year. A year ago, I was running away. And the year before that, we had no idea what was ahead of us.
There’s a blessing in all that, I think. So hey, bring it! To paraphrase what my six-year-old told me the other night as I insisted on scrubbing his face before bed, we’ll redirty again. And again.
1. Have some moose with your coffee ☕️
It’s the Great Moose Migration. Maybe, like me, you had never heard of that before. But, thanks to the internet, we can all tune in and watch it happening in Sweden. You might not see any moose, but the view is great, all the same. Perfect for the second monitor, I’d say. 🖥
2. Let’s talk book piles 📚
If you’re like me, you have books and books and books. (In fact, in a recent rearranging, I had to remove books from my house and store them in my mother-in-law’s basement. I’m still sort of twitching about that.)
I’ve been struggling, in the last few years, thinking about how it’s not so much that I’m a reader and a lover of books, but that I’m a bit of a hoarder and maybe I’m too attached to the books as things. (This is not comfortable reasoning, I assure you.)
I do have book piles, and they’re more because of necessity—the books need to go in the storage bin, because yes! I am keeping them! They will have a shelf-home someday!
And the books I’m reading? Well, they’re mostly in a small pile. Because where else would they be?
I have a working TBR pile (that includes library books)…
…and a TBR bookshelf (behind that pile in the first picture). And then there’s the sole surviving bookshelf (which will be lonely no longer in…a few years? Decades? 🤷♀️)
And what about the book BOX (the one that gets donated to my parish), because they’re books I (a) won’t reread, (b) think I should share, and/or (c) just can’t get to reading. Or the box of books that will be donated to not-my-parish (probably the thrift store, if I’m honest).
Books and books and books. I do love them for so many reasons…
I’m averaging over 10 books a month this year (!!!), so I guess, according to a Penguin article, that makes me a “Legendary Bookworm” aspiring to be an “Unstoppable Reading Machine.” (I need to write my own version of this, I think.)
Then there’s the question of how you organize your books.
Are they haphazardly on shelves? (Guilty of this, not gonna lie.) Are they arranged alphabetically by subject and size? (I’ve tried this and aspire to achieving it someday.) Are books part of your decor and thus integrated into nooks and crannies and color-coded? (This makes me wish I had decorating taste.)
Apparently, we could discuss book piles (and organization) all day. Feel free to share your philosophies, approach, and what-not. This doesn’t get old for me. 📖
3. Saint of the Day: St. John Houghton 😇
In case you were looking for a guy to turn to when things are looking grim, let me point you to St. John Houghton.
He was a Carthusian hermit and priest with the dual distinction of being the first English Catholic martyr to die as a result of King Henry VIII’s Act of Supremacy and the first member of his order to die as a martyr.
Along with two other monks, John was taken to be hanged. After he was hanged—and before he was dead—he was taken down and the process of drawing and quartering him began.
The story goes that as the monks, still clad in their habits, were being taken to their execution, St. Thomas More could see them from prison. His daughter was visiting him at the time, and he turned to her, saying, “Look, Meg! These blessed Fathers be now as cheerfully going to their deaths as bridegrooms to their marriage!”
(I guess it’s one way of turning the macabre and horrible into something that is wonderful and full of opportunity. Heaven, after all, awaited them, or so we hope.)
Before he was quartered, the executioner tore open John’s habit to expose his chest. John exclaimed, “O Jesus, what would you do with my heart?”
In case that gives you the heebie-jeebies instead of the inspo-motivators, well, I’m with you. I can’t help, though, look at him holding his heart out and think of all the ways I have felt my heart torn from me. Maybe he’s got something here…and I’ve definitely got a lot to learn.
Prayer for today 🙏 Father, you’ve given us the wonderful example of St. John Houghton. Allow us the grace to better appreciate his sacrifice and be strengthened to offer our heart to you, however you need it. Pray for us, St. John Houghton. Amen.
As I tell my kids, make it a great day. As my kids tell me, 🙄.
Blessings and coffee,
Sarah