Learning Joy

the three kids

boys again!  

“I love you, Daddy!” 

Jonathan with a cheesy grin! 

trying again

found some old pictures … this is Jonathan & me. Taken just after we moved into our apartment – 12/01 

The Dixie Widow is book 9 in a series. Two books previously we read about Sky Winslow and how he lived in Oregon and married a mail-order bride. Then in the next book, Sky & Rebekah have magically moved back east – to Virginia, where they became plantation (and thusly, slave) owners. I don’t really know why Mr. Morris didn’t have Joe (Sky’s son from his first marriage) be the father in this book, since when we left the last book Joe was only 12. Things could have happened to bring him east and to influence his thinking toward plantation (and slave) ownership. But I guess Mr. Morris just wanted us to see Sky & Rebekah’s family.
Sky is part Sioux, and comes from a family of pioneers. I had a really hard time believing 1) that they would move back to VA (there was no real reason given) and 2) that they would own slaves. Rebekah was raised in VA, but ran away from home to marry some guy and lived in NYC for a while before joining the mail-order bride train west. In the 8th book, she is fearful of and doesn’t understand Northeners.
The story is about Belle, Sky & Rebekah’s daughter. Her husband was killed at Antietam, and she swore she would hate Yankees from then on. She became a spy for the Confederacy, though, and her whole family thought she’d gone loony (because she had to reverse all that she had said before). The story is about hate and forgiveness and God’s ever-present hand on our lives.
I liked the story of the book, but I didn’t find it as intriguing as usual. One of the reasons I really enjoy Mr. Morris’ books is because he involves you in history instead of just telling you about it. He didn’t do that as well in this book (or in the previous book).
While I finished the book, I began to wonder why the family stayed in Virginia. They had the means (it seemed to me) to pack up and move west again. But they continued on in an area where their views (like schooling the slaves and freeing them and schooling poor whites in the area) were not welcome and where they would have to struggle to survive. But I forget that it is not easy to take a leap of faith and trust God. Jef worked for Evergreen for seven years. It took us a long time to take the leap!

Jef & I recently watched “Grapes of Wrath”. Just before doing this, I had just finished reading The Dixie Widow by Gilbert Morris.

So back to teh beginning – The book and the movie both got me to thinking aobut the governmetn. There are times wehn I feel like certain things aren’t my responsibility. But in truth, they are, or should be.
“Grapes of Wrath” deals with sharecroppers who are kicked off the land because of industrializa tion of farms and farm equipment. You get the feeling that rich people are bad, and big companies and banks are bad, too. By the end of the movie, the family finally finds a nice place to stay – run by the government. Inside this camp, the people rule themselves. The police are corrupt, and the farmers/landowners are horrible, too. It is a very communistic thought – that the governemnt should take care of people and that they would do a better job of it. The guy ends up going off to be a labor leader or something. The movie presents an idyllic view of unionized labor and governmetn run programs. But none of the governemnet run programs actually helped alleve the troubles of the depression/dust bowl era. Personally, I think it was the war that brought us out of that.

Happy Independence Day!!!
Hope you all have a wonderful day celebrating America & a fun night watching (or not) the fireworks!!
God bless America!

Recently I have been reading Michael J. Fox’s book Lucky Man . Here is an excerpt to ponder. Will write more on the book as a whole later.

“I learned that in the mid-1990’s, the National Institutes of Health were spending and estimated $2,400 per victim each year on HIV/AIDS research, $200 on breast cancer, $100 on prostate cancer, $78 on Alzheimer’s disease, $34 on Parkinson’s, and only $20 each on diabetes and coronary heart disease.” (p. 232)

The two leading causes of death in the world (I think – at least in America) are regulated to the LOWEST amount of financial spending!!! And the HIV/AIDS research is so much more than any of the others! How dare anyone complain that we don’t spend enough on AIDS research?! Tell me what you think. 🙂