32 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 6-26-18”

  1. Morning all. Did you know that in the Cairns Night Market you can pay to have little fish nibble your toes? Not me, that sounds way too ticklish, but my friend did. She was making lots of faces as the fish nibbled on her toes.

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  5. No. I decided to stay home today and work. I have a lot to catch up. I am behind in my calls. “Lead generation”. Clean out my email. There is so much “stuff” in the two email accounts I use for work that it is hard to tell what is important and what isn’t.

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  6. Chas- It looks like “Waldo” is a rock face with small cave opening. If you look at the rock above the opening you can kind of make out a large nose and two eyes. I think it is an evil cave as that grin says, “Come explore me, little one. I won’t hurt you. Bwa-ha-ha-ha!”

    But then, that’s just my imagination.

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  10. Chas, as far as I know there are no animals in the photo, just rocks and trees and a flowering bush in the middle. It’s the state park my husband I hiked yesterday, McCormick’s Creek. We’d have gone tomorrow (my birthday) except it’s supposed to rain tomorrow, and it is doing so now, too.

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  11. No rain expected around here any time soon, but we have had quite a bit until now.
    Today is oldest son’s birthday. Thirty eight. I would not change places with him, I love my age.

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  13. Morning! Ok I scrolled back up there to see the caveman….I stared at it for a while and I made my imagination see the face and the sinister mouth desiring to eat up all who dare enter!!
    Sunny blue skies around this forest today and the air is fresh and piney!! At home day to accomplish chores and take a hike about the area with my neighbor….then I shall sit on the front porch rocking chair and read….glass of iced tea close at hand….I love summer in Colorado! 😊

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  14. Well, the park makes note that because of all the limestone, they have sinkholes (we could see a couple of them). In the nature center, they have framed a letter from an older man, telling a story from his childhood, when he was seven and he and his six-year-old brother were camping there, and they heard that a crack in the back of one cave led to another cave that had been unexplored because it was too small a crack for anyone to go through. So he took a flashlight and a rope, and he and his brother managed to get through the crack and explore the cave. Getting out was trickier than getting in, since they had to get back up to the rope. When they came out, covered in mud, they proudly told a ranger of their find. Instead of being pleased, he looked horrified, and told them to go home immediately . . . but the ranger drove ahead and told their mother what they had done, so there wasn’t a happy welcoming committee at home, either! Since then, the park somehow filled in that back cave for public safety, so he and his brother may be the only people ever to see it.

    We did go by one small cave that visitors are allowed to crawl through (we saw the back of it a bit later), but we elected not to do so. 🙂

    I also sent AJ a photo of the waterfall, which was the prettiest spot we saw. We could hear birdsong everywhere, but the trees and undergrowth were so dense (and it was overcast) that we didn’t actually see very many. I have heard it is a great park for birds, and my guess is that in early spring, when birds are singing but trees aren’t fully leafed, it would be exquisite.

    I did manage to hurt myself, though, first time ever to do so while hiking, and I thank God it wasn’t worse. I was going down a flight of steps, on the very last step, my husband ahead of me and already down them, when my feet simply slipped out from under me (apparently because of the pine needles) and I landed on my knees, skinning both and bloodying the right one. Had I been wearing shorts or lightweight pants, I would have fared worse (I was wearing Lands’ End slacks) . . . and had I slipped on a step other than the bottom one, I imagine I could have fared far worse. (And probably would have broken my camera.) The steps weren’t wet and didn’t feel slick. No algae or anything that might make them seem treacherous. But my feet just slid forward and I went down.

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  15. It is amazing what you can get done with no distractions. I also got to have lunch with my husband. Speckled butter bean, black eyed peas, collard green, cornbread, and potato salad with a glass of tea. He had a hamburger and fries then peach cobbler.

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  16. Sometime in the past, during the WMB years, I’m pretty sure, there was talk among us about the order of the Narnia books. Someone gave the order they would be in to read them in the chronological order of the stories rather than the order they were written and published in. But recently I read something that said that to get the full effect of the unfolding themes, reading them as written and published is better.

    Since I would like to someday soon read them to The Boy, I am interested in your opinions on this.

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  17. Kizzie,

    The order in which they were written and published (or approximately that order) is probably better . . . simply because the introduction to Aslan in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the best way to meet him. The Magician’s Nephew is chronologically first, but a slower introduction into the series. It’s really a “prequel” and it goes back to answer questions about where things came from–which matter more once you’ve read a different book or two.

    I just e-mailed you . . . if the address I have for you is still valid. If it isn’t, then please e-mail me.

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  18. Kizzie, I recently reread the Narnia books, except the last. While in the past I have read them chronologically, this time I read them in this order:
    The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
    Prince Caspian
    The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
    The Silver Chair
    The Horse and his Boy
    The Magician’s Nephew
    The Last Battle (have yet to reread it)
    Beyond knowing that the The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was the first published, I am uncertain of the publication order. It had been many years since I had read them. Beginning with the first published book establishes the world of Narnia in the imagination. Then, of course, one wants to follow the Pevensies through their adventures in Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Eustace’s story goes quickly into The Sliver Chair. The story of The Horse and his Boy is mentioned in The Silver Chair – Eustace & Jill hear it sung at a Narnian banquet – so it makes sense to read that next. Then, of course, reading how Narnia began in The Magician’s Nephew should come before reading how it ends in The Last Battle.

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  19. I like the original order of publication, which matches Roscuro’s listing above. The book 6th Arrow was gifted, though, with all of the books in one huge paperback, published by Harper Collins, is in this order:

    The Magician’s Nephew
    The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
    The Horse and His Boy
    Prince Caspian
    The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
    The Silver Chair
    The Last Battle

    You may find this article an interesting read:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Narnia

    Fans of the series often have strong opinions over the order in which the books should be read. The issue revolves around the placement of The Magician’s Nephew and The Horse and His Boy in the series. Both are set significantly earlier in the story of Narnia than their publication order and fall somewhat outside the main story arc connecting the others. The reading order of the other five books is not disputed. …

    When first published, the books were not numbered. The first American publisher, Macmillan, enumerated them according to their original publication order, while some early British editions specified the internal chronological order. When Harper Collins took over the series rights in 1994, they adopted the internal chronological order.[5]:24 To make the case for the internal chronological order, Lewis’s stepson, Douglas Gresham, quoted Lewis’s 1957 reply to a letter from an American fan who was having an argument with his mother about the order:

    “I think I agree with your [chronological] order for reading the books more than with your mother’s. The series was not planned beforehand as she thinks. When I wrote The Lion I did not know I was going to write any more. Then I wrote P. Caspian as a sequel and still didn’t think there would be any more, and when I had done The Voyage I felt quite sure it would be the last, but I found I was wrong. So perhaps it does not matter very much in which order anyone read them. I’m not even sure that all the others were written in the same order in which they were published.”[22]

    In the 2005 Harper Collins adult editions of the books, the publisher cites this letter to assert Lewis’s preference for the numbering they adopted by including this notice on the copyright page:

    “Although The Magician’s Nephew was written several years after C. S. Lewis first began The Chronicles of Narnia, he wanted it to be read as the first book in the series. Harper Collins is happy to present these books in the order in which Professor Lewis preferred.”

    Paul Ford cites several scholars who have weighed in against this view,[23] and continues, “most scholars disagree with this decision and find it the least faithful to Lewis’s deepest intentions”.[5]:24 Scholars and readers who appreciate the original order believe that Lewis was simply being gracious to his youthful correspondent and that he could have changed the books’ order in his lifetime had he so desired.[24] They maintain that much of the magic of Narnia comes from the way the world is gradually presented in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – that the mysterious wardrobe, as a narrative device, is a much better introduction to Narnia than The Magician’s Nephew, where the word “Narnia” appears in the first paragraph as something already familiar to the reader. Moreover, they say, it is clear from the texts themselves that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was intended to be read first. When Aslan is first mentioned in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, for example, the narrator says that “None of the children knew who Aslan was, any more than you do” — which is nonsensical if one has already read The Magician’s Nephew.[25] Other similar textual examples are also cited.[26]

    Doris Meyer, author of C. S. Lewis in Context and Bareface: A guide to C. S. Lewis, writes that rearranging the stories chronologically “lessens the impact of the individual stories” and “obscures the literary structures as a whole”.[5]:474 Peter Schakel devotes an entire chapter to this topic in his book Imagination and the Arts in C. S. Lewis: Journeying to Narnia and Other Worlds, and in Reading with the Heart: The Way into Narnia he writes:

    “The only reason to read The Magician’s Nephew first […] is for the chronological order of events, and that, as every story teller knows, is quite unimportant as a reason. Often the early events in a sequence have a greater impact or effect as a flashback, told after later events which provide background and establish perspective. So it is […] with the Chronicles. The artistry, the archetypes, and the pattern of Christian thought all make it preferable to read the books in the order of their publication.”[25]

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  21. Kizzie, I would start reading them to him as soon as possible. My children loved listening to them. It was a bedtime ritual before devotions. We then moved on to the Hobbit and LotR but son couldn’t wait and finished the himself in grade 2.

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  22. I agree that you simply have to begin with the Lion, the Witch nd the Wardrobe. It opens up Narnia in an enchanting way that makes you see it and experience it with the children.

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  26. Nice waterfall picture. Hiking to see a waterfall is time well spent. The summer after I came home from West Africa, an aunt & uncle took me on a waterfall tour. They had a guidebook to all the waterfalls in the waterway that serves as a connection between Lake Ontario & Lake Huron across southern Ontario. The three we got to that day were well worth seeing.

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  30. I guess you didn’t look at my link. The Idiot’s Guide to the World of Narnia was written by Cheryl and James Scott Bell. 🙂

    IOW, we have an expert in our midst. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  31. Michelle, FYI, James S. Bell and James Scott Bell are two different men.

    Not an expert–in the right place at the right time to see a dream come true, and be asked to be the writer on a book I dreamed of writing but didn’t expect to get a chance to do so. (But I’ve never identified my writings on here, as doing so identifies me . . . so I won’t do so in the future either, FYI.)

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