As Barnabas Piper says, “There is nothing magical or super spiritual about reading the Bible in a year. But there is something super wise and spiritual about prioritizing the reading of the Bible. And every Christian should read the entire Bible.”
Here is a list of some different Bible Reading plans for 2025.
Yesterday I caught up with my Bible reading plan (the Chronological Bible Reading Plan) and finished Revelation. Tomorrow I start a new plan–the 5x5x5 Bible Reading Plan–which I have done before and liked. Having a plan and following through with it has been an anchor in my spiritual life now for three years. I highly recommend it.
Try it or don’t–it’s up to you–but you might like it!
“A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.”
–Theodore Roosevelt
*From “Year’s End” by Richard Wilbur; read the whole poem here.
Today we toast my darling sister on her birthday. We have been together through thick and thin. Now we are both old retired ladies, trying to stay healthy and keep out of trouble.
I enjoy watching Katie and Ida as they navigate the rocky road of sisterhood. (And watching them watching Betty and Judy singing about “Sisters”!)
I pray that they will stay as devoted to each other as my sister and I, and though the miles may divide them, they will stay in close touch.
*“For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands.”
(“Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti; read the poem here.)
And I thought this post by Ann, wherein she links to another post on X, is excellent on the subject of keeping the Christmas feast in a wayward and dark world. Read the whole thing.
We’re nearing the home stretch…but it rained all day Saturday which dampened everyone’s holiday spirits. We were grateful, however, that it was rain and not ice or snow. And we got the tree up!
It was a group effort. The boy came over Thursday evening to carry the tree in from the garage and put it in the stand. The OM and I strung the lights on Saturday morning. And daughter #1 came over after her DAR luncheon to help decorate it. Ain’t it lovely?
I missed the DAR luncheon because I had to go to our Historical Society Christmas party and membership meeting. It was actually quite fun. The house looked beautiful and festive. Of course, I didn’t take any pictures. C’est la vie.
The boy and his famille were in Kansas City this weekend, so the OM and I sat alone in church. They missed a good sermon on the Mosaic Covenant, some great hymns and solos, and a fantastic adult ed class, continuing on the angels and demons theme. The teacher even referenced Hermann Bavinck (see Friday’s post). I am learning a lot. My Bible Study leader made a really good and astute comment during the class and I told her so afterwards, and she said, “It was the Holy Spirit, not me”. Once again, I am humbled and grateful to be among these people.
We watched three Christmas movies: Home Alone (1992), The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)…
and White Christmas (1954), the latter on the big screen! We enjoyed them all.
What an absolute treat to see White Christmas on the big screen! In recliners! Can’t believe it wasn’t sold out! For the 50th time, it was great. And I had to laugh thinking of little Ida watching it for the first time at home on her TV and running to get her tambourine during the “Mandy” number! Perfect!
Have a good Monday, watch an old movie, feel the joy, read some poetry:
Let all mortal flesh keep silence, And with fear and trembling stand; Ponder nothing earthly-minded, For with blessing in His hand, Christ our God to earth descendeth, Our full homage to demand.
King of kings, yet born of Mary, As of old on earth He stood, Lord of lords, in human vesture, In the body and the blood; He will give to all the faithful His own self for heav’nly food.
Rank on rank the host of heaven Spreads its vanguard on the way, As the Light of light descendeth From the realms of endless day, That the pow’rs of hell may vanish As the darkness clears away.
At His feet the six-winged seraph, Cherubim with sleepless eye, Veil their faces to the presence, As with ceaseless voice they cry: “Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Lord Most High!”
Liturgy of St. James, 5th century (adapted by Gerard Moultrie, 1864)
Yesterday I spent three hours at the Mini dealer getting my Cooper ready to pass on to DN in a couple of weeks. It is not an unpleasant place to wile away a few hours. Steve, the service “advisor”, checks in from time to time and lets you know how it’s going and that they haven’t forgotten you. The Lounge is well stocked with a fancy coffee machine, water and treats. The TV was set to the Hallmark channel and I had come prepared with my phone and an actual book to read.
I read a good amount of A Day’s Journey by Tim Keesee, which tries to answer the question, “How do you make each day of your brief life count?” Keesee is a Christian and a cancer survivor. I am enjoying it. In each chapter he tells about an encounter with someone who has taught him something about a day well spent. They range from the well-known (Rosario Butterfield, Joni Eareckson Tada) to the unknown. There are a lot of good scripture references and quotes by people I like, such as this poem by Wendell Berry:
Anyway, the key to making a morning at the car dealership a pleasant experience, as with most things, is to be prepared and to have the right mindset. Be prepared to be there longer than expected and you will be pleasantly surprised when they call your name sooner than expected.
So be prepared, read some poetry and don’t forget to have some cash ready when you go to the grocery store and the Salvation Army person is ringing their bell outside the store. Give, give, give. ‘Tis the season.
We got more snow yesterday and it was very cold. I tell you I am not really ready for this…winter! October was balmy and November wasn’t bad, so digging out the Barbour storm coat was not on my radar. And gloves! Where are my gloves?
At least when it is snowing, it is very quiet in my neighborhood. No leaf blowers!
Anyway, I got a pedicure yesterday, which is something I do now regularly as a result of my chemo-induced neuropathy and getting old. I also scheduled a big trash pickup so that we can get rid of some of the junk in our garage to make room for my SUV which takes up a lot more room than my Mini. And I made a list of all the things I need to get new license plates before heading to the DMV. Oh joy. But I do like that checking-things-off-my-list feeling.
Today we remember Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish author and poet, who died on this day in 1894 while straining to open a bottle of wine for his wife.
He is buried on a spot overlooking the sea in Samoa where he lived at the time.
Based on Stevenson’s poem “Requiem”, the following epitaph is inscribed on his tomb:
Under the wide and starry sky Dig the grave and let me lie Glad did I live and gladly die And I laid me down with a will This be the verse you grave for me Here he lies where he longed to be Home is the sailor home from the sea And the hunter home from the hill
I always hear John Wayne’s voice when I read that, because, as you recall, he recites the poem at the funeral of two sailors (Slug and Squarehead) in They Were Expendable (1945). It is a great scene. The Duke does it perfectly and to great effect–
They were just a couple of blue jackets who did their job.
So a toast to Robert Louis Stevenson and to John Wayne and to all the sailors and hunters home from the hill.
Yesterday was a perfect fall day and a lovely one wherein to drive down to the city to pick up some “stuff” I won at last week’s auction. Forest Park was beautiful, sparkling in the sunshine. I drove by my old university and sighed contentedly that I no longer work there.
How happy is the little stone That rambles in the road alone, And doesn’t care about careers, And exigencies never fears; Whose coat of elemental brown A passing universe put on; And independent as the sun, Associates or glows alone, Fulfilling absolute decree In casual simplicity.
–Emily Dickinson
I had lunch with a friend and then later in the afternoon the boy and the bud came over while Lottie went to her dance class. We caught up on world events.
Then I had a Historical Society board meeting after dinner–quelle full day! Thankfully such days are not the rule.
Yesterday was such a dark, gloomy, rainy November day! Lots of leaves came down. Being Monday, I had a lot to do. C’est la vie. I was happy to see that the Prairie Girls were using their time to good advantage.
Oh Mylanta, cuteness overload.
Today we remember President Abraham Lincoln, who gave the Gettysburg Address at the dedication ceremony for the military cemetery at Gettysburg, PA on this day in 1863. Let’s just take a few minutes and read it:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Of course, not everyone at the time thought that it was a great speech. The Democrat-leaning Chicago Times observed, “The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat and dishwatery utterances of the man who has to be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States.” Yes, times have not changed. Especially within the ranks of our so-called intellectual elites.
Today we toast the great, but under-appreciated, writer Conrad Richter, who died on this day in 1968. Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote, “There are in the literature of the world few works of historical fiction that make the reader feel that the writer must have been a witness to what he describes; he was actually there and came back – a transmigrated soul – to tell a story. The Awakening Land is such a work… it would be a great novel in any literature.”
I would heartily concur. Richter wrote short stories and 15 novels. His novel The Town, the last story of his trilogy The Awakening Land about the Ohio frontier, won the 1951 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His novel The Waters of Kronos won the 1961 National Book Award for Fiction.
A strange, uneasy feeling ran over him. If he had been wrong about his mother in this, might he by any chance have been wrong in other things about her also? Could it be even faintly possible that the children of pioneers like himself, born under more benign conditions than their parents, hated them because they themselves were weaker, resented it when their parents expected them to be strong, and so invented all kinds of intricate reasoning to prove that their parents were tyrannical and cruel, their beliefs false and obsolete, and their accomplishments trifling? Never had his mother said that. But once long ago he had heard her mention, not in as many words, that the people were too weak to follow God today, that in the Bible God made strong demands on them for perfection, so the younger generation watered God down, made Him impotent and got up all kinds of reasons why they didn’t have to follow Him but could go along their own way.” (The Town)
Like all great fiction, his words still speak to us, even seventy-five years after being published.
Well, as you know, I am a great re-reader, so I will reward myself with some Conrad Richter today.
Yesterday the boy came over and fixed our shutters which have been buffeted around by the wind all year and thus we were beginning to look like that house in the neighborhood that looks like it is decorated for Halloween all year. He also took apart the crib which was taking up a lot of room in our spare bedroom and moved it to the garage. I am so grateful to have adult children who are still speaking to me. This is a blessing not everyone can claim.
So re-read an old book, count your blessings and remember:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
(Lamentations 3:22)
*Today is the poet Paul Valéry’s birthday (1871-1945)–“Le vent se lève… il faut tenter de vivre !” Read the whole poem here.
Yesterday Ron, my co-editor of the Kirkwood Historical Review, came over to discuss the issue I am currently getting ready to send to the printer and he grumbled about how nippy it was outside. Indeed, the frost will be on the pumpkin very soon! And about time, really. I am ready for nippy.
Today we toast Jane Darwell, the wonderful character actress of 170+ films, who was born on this day in 1879.
I was surprised to learn that she was born in Palmyra, Missouri, the daughter of the president of the Louisville Southern Railroad. You can actually visit her birthplace, which is on the National Register of Historic places. I just saw her in My Darling Clementine (1946) and she was wonderful as always. Other favorites include: Bright Eyes (1934) plus four other Shirley Temple movies, 3Godfathers (1948), Wagon Master (1950), and her final film, Mary Poppins (1964) as the old Bird Woman. She won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for The Grapes of Wrath (1940).
In October desiringGod is on a 31-day journey with Heroes of the Reformation. Every day they highlight a different hero, such as Thomas Cranmer. Not surprisingly, I am enjoying it a lot.
This is a very hopeful article about preaching the gospel in the wasteland of New England.
Meanwhile, the prairie girls went to the library and Ida was, as usual, too cool for school.
Mondays are for laundry, putting away toys and puzzles and games, vacuuming up crumbs, and generally getting situated for the week ahead. I also had to catch up with my Bible reading, which I had failed to do over the weekend. Now hear the word of the Lord:
And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. 14 And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.” (Ezekiel 37:13-14)
Now it is Tuesday. Time for a new ‘to do’ list!
And here’s a poem by Mary Oliver (1935-2019)–today is her birthday: “Invitation”
Oh do you have time to linger for just a little while out of your busy
and very important day for the goldfinches that have gathered in a field of thistles
for a musical battle, to see who can sing the highest note, or the lowest,
or the most expressive of mirth, or the most tender? Their strong, blunt beaks drink the air
as they strive melodiously not for your sake and not for mine
and not for the sake of winning but for sheer delight and gratitude— believe us, they say, it is a serious thing
just to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world. I beg of you,
do not walk by without pausing to attend to this rather ridiculous performance.
It could mean something. It could mean everything. It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote: You must change your life.
dual personalities 