Enjoying the Silence

The term ended on Monday, and this morning I dropped V off at the airport, leaving only Thomas and Katie to say goodbye to tomorrow. Bellevue is very quiet. I'm loving it.

We had a great final high tea on Sunday... the students this term were unbelievably talented. Andy on the piano, Laurence on the cello, Peter on the native flute... and my personal favorite was Rachel performing a song she wrote. She has an unbelievable voice, and with her guitar and Andy's mandolin behind it, it was pretty spectacular. I'd put up pictures and video except for the unfortunate incident involving my camera and a water bottle in my purse. C'est depressing.

But break has officially begun, and I'm looking forward to so many things. One of which is starting the next book here, if anyone is interested in going through it with me. I'll be doing much the same thing - commenting on a chapter at a time and then hopefully sparking some dialogue. I think I'd like to do The Disciplined Heart: Love, Destiny and Imagination by Caroline Simon. Here's the book description from Amazon:

Often what passes for love is a product of self-deception and wishful thinking. Genuine love, according to philosopher Caroline J. Simon, must be based on knowledge of reality, and Christianity affirms that reality includes not just who people are but the unfolding story of who God intends them to be. Taking the use of narrative seriously, The Disciplined Heart draws on works of literature to display a Christian understanding of love in its various forms: love of self, love of neighbor, friendship, romantic love, and marital love. Using instances of love and its counterfeits in novels and short stories by such authors as Flannery O'Connor, Leo Tolstoy, George Eliot, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Simon constructs an account of love's joys and obligations that both charms and instructs. Learned, astute, and elegantly written, The Disciplined Heart is a groundbreaking work at the intersection of theology, philosophy, and literary analysis.

I'll be posting the first chapter (there are only 6, I believe) on Tuesday the 31st, so if you want to grab a copy of the book, please do. But even if y'all don't want to read it, there will hopefully be plenty to discuss....