creative artist Sat. Nite!

If you click on the little walk thru video of our place (made over a year ago), you will hear Jeff Miller playing one of his songs I love, “Waiting.”  Stop by Saturday night (the 29th), take a look towards our performance stage at the back and you can see how Jeff creates – how he put all the parts together (just by himself) and makes a great melody/story/concert.   I am always amazed with the (seemingly) ease that he weaves it all together.  This one is still free, so come see!

Book signing – August 22 & 29 – 11:00-1:00

We are repeating the Book signing on the 29th!.  Even though the parade didn’t conflict as much as we anticipated, we did run out of books on the 22nd.   And folks want Ms. Josephine to sign the ones coming in, so stop in for a visit.  And come back that night for a free concert by an amazing artist, Jeff Miller.

Stop by the bookstore right after the Fair Parade, Saturday morning ( the 22nd), to meet Josephine Duke McMahan, author of the just released Teacher Tales. Many long time local residents know this retired teacher who is from a large family of educators in the Cheatham County area.   They are eager to get their copy of this book (from Stone Bridge Book & Gifts, of course) and find the telling tales about their relatives or even themselves as students of Mrs. McMahan.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Today, on the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of England’s most beloved poets, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, I read some of his thoughtful poetry.  The famous line,

“Tis better to have loved and lost                                                                                                                          Than never to have loved at all.”

is from “In Memoriam,”  the elegy of his closest friend.  The King Arthur epic Idylls of the King, “Ulysses,” Locksley Hall, and “Charge of the Light Brigade” are among his many great poems. If you don’t get into poetry, read “Enoch Arden,” and you’ll be so into this noble story that you soon forget it is poetry.  This poem made him the poet of the people.   Tennyson was also the literary representative of the Victorian age, living many of the years of Queen Victoria, through most of the 1800s. He felt the conflict of the issues (such as evolution)  of those times, and evolved in his writings from faith to doubt to faith again.  The poem he requested be at the end of any reading or collection of his is “Crossing the Bar,” of which the first few lines are often quoted.  I will share the last four:

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place                                                                                               The flood may bear me far,                                                                                                                                  I hope to meet my Pilot face to face                                                                                                                             When I have crossed the bar.

I Became a Christian and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt (by Vince Antonucci)

I just read another fun book, but with real (and gutsy) messages about just how to live the christian life.  I love reading books about God by those who come from such a different background than myself.  (Vince was raised by a Jewish mom and abandoned by a gambling father. )  They often have a fresh and crazy way of looking at familiar Christian culture and concepts.

An important concept he builds in this book is that we need more than a “relationship” with God.  A relationship is better than just religion, but relationships come and go.  But to ”’abide”- this is so much more – like the little babe in the womb – that relationship is vital  – necessary to life itself.  That’s abiding.

The author – who started a church in Virginia Beach and is now starting one is Las Vegas – gives some honest, sometimes very funny,  personal examples of learning to abide.

Read this is you hunger for God, or if you don’t, but admire that passion.  Vince will tell you that hungering – really wanting to be close to God -  is great, but not enough.  For example, we can’t just want to get in shape so badly that it just happens.  There are things we must do if we want something.  If we’re needing sleep badly, we can create the right conditions for sleep.  If we need God, we can devote some time to reading, learning, experiencing,  “…going from hungry to being filled would mean walking to the vineyard to pick some grapes [and eating them], or going fishing and then cleaning and cooking the fish .”

Lest you think this book turns back to works and rules, listen to this quote from the middle of this book:  “Prayer is allowing myself to be gathered up into the arms of my heavenly Father, and listening as He sings His love songs over me.”  That gets back to abiding.