of dragons & worms

this makes me want to read The Hobbit again

Another Tuesday evening finds me in Blue Ash as the guys rock out downstairs to Katy Perry and Rihanna. Yesterday I finished not one but two books I've been working on (Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster and That Dark and Bloody River by Allan Eckert), and I got to spend some time catching up with Ams and watching The Walking Dead. Needless to say, it felt like a rather productive day. So productive, in fact, that I accidentally passed out around 9:00, only to be wakened by the Wisconsinite an hour and a half later. My call log says we talked for about forty minutes, but I can hardly remember it. I do remember her telling me that I slur my words when I'm half-awake, and that it was "kind of" cute. "Kind Of" is pretty classic, so I'll take it.

Celebration of Discipline is one of the best books I've read when it comes to the practice of some of the "classic" spiritual disciplines ("classic" because they have been disciplines since the birth of Christianity). For those who wish to study the mechanics of the disciplines, Foster's book is a goldmine. For those who wish to study the theology behind the disciplines, I recommend Dallas Willard's The Spirit of the Disciplines. You should even check out Willard's Renovation of the Heart, which takes some of the main points of his former book and stretches them out. Renovation of the Heart is rather technical, but he has a "student edition" which loses none of its value in the "dumbed down" version (and that's the version I prefer). That Dark and Bloody River is a phenomenal book about the first decades of the settling of the Ohio River Valley, focusing on a variety of conflicts with the Indians and culminating in a great recounting of the Northwest Indian War. Reviews of the book on Amazon can be pretty critical, claiming that Eckert's work is a shadow of his Wilderness series, and that the latter are far more intriguing and spellbinding. This only excites me, because I am planning on delving into the Wilderness series soon, and if I liked That Dark and Bloody River so much, I'm sure I'll be enthralled with his other works.

So what's holding me back? My reading queue is pretty long, and I've got a couple "good ones" up next on the list: two books on the French & Indian War, and another book which I stumbled upon all about the early beginnings of Cincinnati (up through 1799). The book was published in 1880, and I found a PDF of it online, and I'm pretty stoked to delve into more detail regarding Cincinnati's birth and all the conflict surrounding it (the Shawnees were not fond of the settlement, to put it lightly). 

Now they're singing "Wrecking Ball" downstairs.

It really doesn't get any better than this.

To close off this not-too-exciting post, here's a freaky picture of a worm: