Ben can rest!

Our youngest son, Ben, is home from the University of California Santa Barbara where he is doing his PhD work in Material Science Engineering. While he has enjoyed the West coast weather (yea, dad, it’s just another warm day here in Santa Barbara–how’s the snow storm in Boston?) the challenge of graduate studies his first quarter was straining beyond imagining. I think he was shocked at the speed and the degree of self-dependency that was expected. He studied like never before – and he is a man who has been faithful to his studies. But the grades are in and found that the first quarter was a success. This Christmas is one for relaxing!!!!  Good job, Ben. You faced the giants. The fell. Now eat, drink, sleep for a while. There are other giants to go face again soon.

CS Lewis on Old Books

There is a strange notion abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books…This mistaken preference for the modern books and this shyness of the old ones is nowhere more rampant than in theology…Now this seems to me topsy-turvy. Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read on the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old…It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones…We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century…lies where we have never suspected it…The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.   CS Lewis