Category Archives: Macaulay

goals, Harmony of the gospels, Life Group lessons, Macaulay, poetry, Writing

January Goals

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Again this month, my writing goals will be few, and not terribly difficult to achieve. I have much to do in other areas of life, and time for writing is unlikely to materialize this month. Here they are.

1. Blog 10 to 12 times.

2. Complete my review essay of T.B. Macaulay’s essay on the History of the Popes.

3. Return to typing the Harmony of the Gospels I wrote in manuscript over a several year period. If I finish the typing this month–and that is easily possible, I can start the editing process next month, including adding a bunch of notes.

4. Come close to finishing my current reading project, The Powers That Be, by David Halberstam. Only 453 pages to go as of last night.

5. Work on Life On A Yo Yo, which I begin teaching this coming Sunday, as a publishable Bible study.

6. Monitor five websites regularly. These are:
– Absolute Write, the Water Cooler
– Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent
– The Writing Life, by Terry Whalin, Literary Agent
– Advanced Fiction Writing, by Randy Ingermanson
– So You Want to Be Published, by Mary DeMuth

7. Critique 5-10 poems at various places, both public and private. This is probably an affectation, as poetry is a dead end for publishing and my limited writing time would be better used elsewhere, but it brings enjoyment to me and maybe help to others, so I’ll return to it in a small way.

goals, Life Group lessons, Macaulay, Writing

The December Report

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December was an extremely busy month, even with ducking one Christmas party and a New Year’s Eve party being cancelled. We had company from Dec 23 to Dec 30, in two waves. Lynda was out of town for a while, helping with baby Ephraim in Oklahoma City. So I accomplished little on my writing career, other than keeping up with a few web sites and the few things I’ll write below.

1. Blog 10 to 12 times. I did this, blogging 13 times.

2. Finish some more filing/organization of writing material. I thought I had finished this, except for buying file folders and filling them. Last night I bought those and filled them. However, I remembered I had a stack of writing stuff at work that I need to bring home and file. So I guess I’m not done yet. Writing seems to be a kind of paper chase. I did this. I can finally, honestly say that I have no loose papers lying around waiting to be put in their place. This is a very good feeling and, while I don’t anticipate generating many more writing papers, I hope I will at least have the habit of filing them immediately, and not let the clutter return.

3. More work on Life on a Yo Yo Life Group lesson series, which I begin teaching January 4. I did NOT do this. The lesson series is well planned, and for each lesson I have notes. I will begin intensive work on the first lesson tonight, only two days before teaching it.

4. See if I can flesh out the brainstorming work on the short Life Group lesson series from the Apocrypha. I looked at it a little last night, and unless I get something down on paper, I’m not sure I’ll have a legitimate series. I did some work on this, but am not finished. I did write some things. I’m not sure at this stage if the concept is valid; I need some more development work.

5. Buy one writing magazine, as a Christmas present to myself, and read it. Rather than buy a magazine, I went to Barnes & Noble one evening and read several.

6. Continue to work down my reading list. Since the book I’m currently reading is 736 pages, and I’m only on page 165, this may take all month. I found other things to read than my main book (although last night I reached page 283). I read some in Dickens’s Christmas stories.

7. Complete the review I’ve started of Macaulay’s essay on Ranke’s History of the Popes. I did nothing on this. It still sits on the computer at home, waiting for me to find an odd hour to complete my last thoughts.

So there you have it; a rather unproductive month overall, but probably as much as I could expect for a holiday season.

Bible study, Macaulay

Sleeplessness–again

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Monday night, after a second evening of stimulating reading and thinking, I fell asleep easily, but awoke about 03:15 and could not fall asleep again. I rose and read a number of chapters in Exodus, prayed, and journalled. I returned to bed about 5:15, but did not fall asleep and got up before the appointed time. I had no particular thoughts my mind was fixed on, just the jumble of the previous few days.

Last night was not quite a carbon copy, but was close. I had the same sort of evening after returning home late from church and eating a quick supper. This time I had stimulating writing to do (well, after unstimulatingly going through some accumulated junk mail), and this took me till 23:30. Went to bed and fell asleep easily, but was up about 04:15, and slept little after that: dozing, turning, throwing covers off, pulling them up. A colleague called at 05:33, saying he would not need that ride to work after all. That sealed the deal on sleep. I stayed in bed until the appointed time, then was up and at ’em and on the way to work. Again, no particular thoughts dominated in prohibiting sleep.

What was this stimulating reading and writing I did, you ask, that may have caused this? Well, over the weekend I completed my review of my son-in-law’s old term paper, “Athanasius’ Relational Epistemology: a search for adequate language to express the mysteries of incarnation and atonement“. I’d been working on this for over three years–not something I had to do, but something I wanted to do–but always had trouble understanding the paper. I finally found a method of writing the review, and finished it Sunday evening, subject to minor editing over the next two days.

You would think my mind would then have been tired simply from reading the title over and over. But no, at 22:00 on Sunday evening, I wanted something to stimulate my mind. The current book on my reading list would not do the trick, I didn’t think, so I went to the section of the living room bookshelf which contains the ancients, and pulled out my 1914 printing of Critical and Historical Essays by T.B. Macaulay. I don’t know if I’ve blogged on Macaulay before, but he is one of my favorite authors. I find his Victorian style difficult, and like others I question his scholarship, but, darn it, I just like him. His essays always get me to thinking.

This night I chose a 34 page essay titled “Ranke’s History of the Popes.” An odd thing for a Protestant reader to choose, perhaps, but choose it I did. I read about twenty pages Sunday evening, finishing it Monday evening. In it I found all the usual techniques Macaulay uses to tease his readers without significantly informing them; giving them evidence of his knowledge without analysis. This is probably excessive criticism, but hey, if Macaulay is going to take my sleep away, he deserves it!

Actually, I don’t know that it was Macaulay by himself. Sunday we had a great church service and sermon and Life Group class, and I left both with things to think about. In Life Group we continue to go through the life of Moses, using one of Chuck Swindoll’s books. Reading in Exodus and Numbers provided new insights, and I wanted to reread a group of chapters in each of them. Monday over-night was the Exodus group. I should have gotten up last night and done the Numbers group. So possibly is was the combo of church and Macaulay that kept me awake.

Having finished reading the Ranke essay Monday night, it was much on my mind Tuesday and Wednesday. I knew I wanted to write a review of it, mainly for my own amusement, and Tuesday night wrote some thoughts in my journal that could form the basis of a review. Last night after supper I began that process. Finding the couch and re-use paper, with the 1914 volume in hand, I wrote out four pages of analysis of Macaulay’s Ranke essay. The writing flowed easily as I re-read the beginning six or so pages of the essay. By 23:30 I had slightly more than four pages of manuscript, words I felt did justice to the material, though of course requiring editing and perhaps fleshing out. I suspect my entire review will be seven or eight manuscript pages, so I definitely left the work undone. Perhaps this undone-ness was what kept me awake in the wee hours, though you would think that more likely to have prevented me from falling asleep in the first place.

Or maybe it’s just a side effect of the steroids the doc has me on for my elbow injury, which occurred when I stepped in a muskrat hole back in late September. Either way, I’m now working on 15 hours sleep in the last 72, on a day when I must keep my mind sharp for the work I have to do in the office. I don’t think I will be working on my Macaulay review tonight.

Macaulay, Wesley

Not Without Cheerfulness

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Continuing from yesterday with the John Wesley letter. Here’s the applicable part.

You seem to apprehend that I believe religion to be inconsistent with cheerfulness and with a sociable, friendly temper. So far from it, that I am convinced, as true religion or holiness cannot be without cheerfulness, so steady cheerfulness, on the other hand, cannot be without holiness or true religion. And I am equally convinced that true religion has nothing sour, austere, unsociable, unfriendly in it; but, on the contrary, implies the most winning sweetness, the most amiable softness and gentleness.
Wesley writing from Savannah, Georgia to Mrs. Chapman, somewhere in England, on 29 Mary 1737

Down through the years so many people have thought that being a Christian meant giving up joy. Macaulay wrote how the Puritan would ban bear fighting not because it was cruel to the bear but because it would give pleasure to man. No doubt he was exaggerating, possibly misinformed about the full nature of Puritanism. But the view he expressed was by no means uncommon.

Wesley strongly disagrees. A relationship with God, which is what Christianity is, should give pleasure, not sorrow; joy, not depression. Wesley said it well in the letter. I can’t write much to add to it, and certainly not to improve on it. I have often prayed for joy, or myself or for a loved one I was concerned about. It seems to me that loss of joy in serving Christ is the first sign that something is amiss in the Christian’s life.

Pray for joy, for yourself and others, and practice it.

Carlyle, Emerson, Macaulay

Loving Books

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I was not going to blog about this today, but I can’t pass it up.

Each morning I arrive at work about 7:00 AM. I don’t have to start until 8:00 AM (though I’m not really on the clock and can set my own hours), but I come in early to miss traffic. That hour becomes mine. I have devotions and a prayer, a somewhat brief time with God, but becoming more meaningful the longer the habit continues. I print out my diary sheet for the day then lay it aside. I tear yesterday off my Dilbert desk calendar and enjoy the new laugh. I check out one or two of the writing web sites I either review or participate in, and sometimes make a post (made two this morning). Then I pull out something to read. For over a year I read a letter in the exchange between Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thomas Carlyle. These two giants of literature would speak to me through their words.

Once I finished both volumes of those letters, I picked up again Life And Letters Of Lord Macaulay, Volume 1, by Sir George Otto Trevelyan, Macaulay’s nephew and literary executor. I found this book on Project Gutenberg, downloaded it, formatted it for printing, and printed it front and back. Several years ago I began reading it and read a good way through it, then laid it aside for Emerson and Carlyle. Now, without something new to read, I have picked it up again and read it for twenty to thirty minutes during “my” hour. Today I read (actually reading–I interupted it to make this post) his Feb 8, 1835 letter to Thomas F. Ellis. Macaulay was living in Calcutta, India, and was in the depths of despair, having learned in the previous month that his youngest sister had died in England. He makes this statement:

That I have not utterly sunk under this blow I owe chiefly to literature. What a blessing it is to love books as I love them;–to be able to converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal!

I thought that was an excellent observation, and pretty much sums up my feelings. Of course, for me it doesn’t have to be “literature” per se. A textbook, and engineering book, even popular novel will do just as well.

Now back to Macaulay, to see what he says to Ellis about Pindar and Homer.