When reading an article earlier today, I ran across a couple of C.S. Lewis quotes that I really liked.

Now the modern critical world uses 'adult' as a term of approval. It is hostile to what it calls 'nostalgia' and contemptuous of what it calls 'Peter Pantheism'. Hence a man who admits that dwarfs and giants and talking beasts and witches are still dear to him in his fifty-third year is now less likely to be praised for his perennial youth than scorned and pitied for arrested development.

In a sense a child does not long for fairy land as a boy longs to be the hero of the first eleven. Does anyone suppose that he really and prosaically longs for all the dangers and discomforts of a fairy tale?—really wants dragons in contemporary England? It is not so. It would be much truer to say that fairy land arouses a longing for he knows not what. It stirs and troubles him (to his life-long enrichment) with the dim sense of something beyond his reach and, far from dulling or emptying the actual world, gives it a new dimension of depth. He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted. This is a special kind of longing.

Some wonderful insights in both of those.

I was reading in Isaiah 45, and was reminded of this song by Loren Elms:

Does the clay ever say to the Potter, Tell me why you have made me this way,
For my sides are all thinning, I'm tired of spinning, around and around every day,
Does the clay ever say to the Potter, I'm afraid that I just don't agree,
For so often I feel that life on this wheel is not what it's cracked up to be.

It seems rather strange to imagine, that my life is also like clay,
Until I remember that God formed my members, and made me in His special way,
So instead of a life of complaining, about things that I don't understand,
I will simply be grateful that my God is faithful, to finish the work He began.

Does the clay ever say to the Potter, All my plans are much different than Yours,
And I do beg Your pardon, but if I must harden, I'd like a much different design,
Does the clay ever say to the Potter, This old oven is getting quite hot,
If this pot You're designing requires refining I really would much rather not.

Very meaningful to me, as a reminder when life is not going the way I want it to go.

Oh wow, I really like those lyrics, aileth! Thank you for sharing them; the meaning and the poetry is really lovely. I love the word choice, too. Do you have a link to the song, perchance? (Maybe post it over on the music thread?)

That I did. And there are some other ones by the same author if you feel like looking at them too.

Why do we think that hate's gonna change their heart?
We're up in arms over wars don't need to be fought
Pride won't let us lay our weapons on the ground
We build our bridges up, but just to burn them down
We think that pain is owed apologies and then it'll stop
But truth be told it doesn't matter if they're sorry or not
Freedom comes when we surrender to the sound
Of Your mercy and Your grace, Father, send Your angels down

Oh, Father won't You forgive them?
They don't know what they've been doin'
Oh, Father, give me grace to forgive them
'Cause I feel like the one losing.

I was recently researching Latin quotes for one of my novels and I came across this one that for some reason I really likeed (not quite sure why, it just stuck with me)

astra inclinant sed non obligant
(the stars incline us, they do not bind us)

one of my all time favorites is this one by Winston Churchill

History will speak well of me, for I intend to write it

I didn't know where else to put this, so I'll try here.

‘Grace, do you know anything about fan fiction?’

‘I do, actually. It’s where rabid fans who love a series – movie series, books, even a couple of long-running television dramas – actually write installments to the series. For instance, the Narnia series. Fans are still writing adventures in Narnia, and that series was completed how many years ago?’

Anne had no idea about these rabid fanatics’ habits. Maybe she should start paying more attention.

– Thomas, Emily. The Rightful Owner. Secrets of the Blue Hill Library. New York: Guideposts, 2014. [age 213]