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| what a fun book!
angee gave it to me when she came back at the beginning of march. she saw it and thought of me since i had told her that it seems my life revolves around food now. :P it's true.... i think about food at work (i'm a nutritionist), eat food every day, cook food when i'm with ed, and love to try new restaurants and visit old favourites!
this book is about a food writer who visits all the new restaurants in new york city, has been trained in cooking in france so she's an amazing cook herself, and almost all her friends and relatives are great cooks too! who knew a book about food (filled with mostly detailed food descriptions) could be so entertaining!! | | |
| i took a break from reading this book over the holidays. now i'm back and reading lots again!
here's an excerpt that explains very well why bad things happen on this earth, but that ultimately good can and will triumph.
in highschool, i took pride in my ability to play chess. i joined the chess club and during lunch hour could be found sitting at a table with other nerds poring over books with titles like classic king pawn openings. i studied techniques, won most of my matches, and put the game aside for twenty years. then, in chicago, i met a chess player who had been perfecting his skills long since high school. when we played a few matches, i learned what it is like to play against a master. any classic offense i tried, he countered with a classic defense. if i turned to more risky, unorthodox techniques, he incorporated my bold forays into his winning strategies. even apparent mistakes he worked to his advantage. i would gobble up an unprotected knight, only to discover he had planted it there as a sacrificial lure, part of some grand design. although i had complete freedom to make any move i wished, i soon reached the conclusion that none of my strategies mattered very much. his superior skill guaranteed that my purposes inevitably ended up serving his own.
perhaps God engages our universe, his creation, in much the same way. he grants us freedome to rebel against his original design, yet even as we do so we end up "ironically" serving his eventual goal of restoration. if i accept that blueprint - a huge step of faith, i confess - it transforms how i view both good and bad things that happen. good things, such as health, talent, money, i can present to God as offerings for his use. and bad things too - disability, poverty, family dysfunctions, failures - can be "redeemed" as the very instruments that drive me to God. | | |
| a touching book of inspiring short stories.
but i find that it's mainly about people backed by big organizations who do good works for other countries rather than local people who use their talents to improve their own lives. i guess you can see what i'm partial to. but this book is sponsored by big organizations and writers supported by big organizations, so it's only understandable. | | |
| without an element of risk, there is no faith.
faith means striking out, with no clear end in sight and perhaps even no clear view of the next step. it means following, trusting, holding out a hand to an invisible guide.
faith is reason gone courageous - not the opposite of reason, to be sure, but something more than reason and never satisfied by reason alone. a step always remains beyond the range of light. | | |
| My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
~ Thomas Merton
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Those that say that they believe in God and yet neither love nor fear him, do not in fact believe in him but in those who have taught them that God exists. Those who believe that they believe in God, but without any passion in their heart, any anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only in the God-idea, not in God.
~ Miguel de Unamuno | | |
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