200 Books

The Confessions by St. Augustine Page: 61

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen Page:173

I got more than my allotment of pages done today and I’m happy to say that yesterday’s good mood continued through most of today. I did have a rough late afternoon because Alex was fussy most of the afternoon and Luc was awake, mildly restless and needing to be held. Alex has progressed to a new stage where he knows what he wants but doesn’t know how to communicate it, so yelling, screaming and pulling on mommy’s hemline are his current modus operandi. I have started to use a sling to carry Luc with and it was quite useful today with his restlessness. I never used one with Alex but then with one child the demands on your time and your arms are so much less. Once again I’m looking forward to Saturday and hoping to get extra reading done but I think my optimism will once again be misplaced.

I enjoyed the larger chunk of Augustine that I finished today and I’m sure that his Confessions will become a regular member of my re-reading rotation. He is so thoughtful and hard on himself that I begin to wonder if I have any grasp of the seriousness of sin. Then I remember that he was a saint and they are rather known for their impatience with any form of unrighteousness. Seriously though, his intense examination of his own sinful desires is much to be emulated and his serious theological analysis of all the vagaries of life is equally worthy of study.  I think each page is worthy of a day’s study and imagine that next time I read it I’ll take my time over it, using it as a devotional. I seem to remember hearing in a literature class that Augustine invented the literary “I” – was the first autobiographer and in this case I think first is likely best.

Mansfield Park is as enjoyable as it was when I first read it last year of the year before and I’m grateful for an easy-going book to help me get caught up on my average pages. It also has a contemplative and self-examining character in Fanny Price and while her observations are not even in the same vicinity as Augustine’s, she too can serve as a reminder toward self-awareness and humility.

We got to go home early tonight (thanks to Quinn watching the store) so I’m done for now and probably won’t get any reading done before bed…

This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 9:48 pm and is filed under Alexander Douglas, Fiction, Lucius Colby, Philosophy, History and Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.