Sup, y’all. Been a second.
I took my pedal off the gas a bit lately when it comes to making scribbles (my term of endearment for the time-honored art of literary practice), handling a move, job change, usual life drama, and all the rest have just gotten in the way. Those, and I’ve kept chugging along with this reading binge I’ve taken on this year.
I’m a sucker for New Years Resolutions. Like the rest of us, I’ve abandoned my fair share, but managed a doable list of items this time around for 2021. One of them was that I wanted to read/finish ten paperbacks before the years was up…
…I’m halfway through #23.
Of those, a fair share have been from the Dresden Files series of novels by Jim Butcher, stories about a Chicago-based wizard and private investigator. They’re fun. Well written, paced well, exciting, imaginative, and just plain good. From time to time, it gets deep, too. There come points here and there where the narration reflects on aspects of the human experience that resonate frighteningly well. We covered one life lesson a couple of months ago, and I’d like to share another excerpt from his work today about faith as he sees it:
“But there were some things I believed in. Some things I had faith in. And faith isn’t about perfect attendance to services, or how much money you put on the little plate. It isn’t about going skyclad to the Holy Rites, or meditating each day upon the divine.
“Faith is about what you do. It’s about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It’s about making sacrifices for the good of others – even when there’s not going to be anyone telling you what a hero you are.”
-Harry Dresden, Changes, pg. 251-252
Self-improvement, at the end of the day. You obviously can’t give all of yourself away, you can’t help everyone on the planet, you have to take care of yourself, but it’s a good compass heading, a good reminder of our shared responsibility to help those around you when you’re able.
Aaaaaand now I’ve gone and made it sound a bit preachy. So here’s something dumb to balance it out: “Why did the baseball stadium get so hot after the game ended…?”
…
…
Because it lost all of its fans.
Have a good night everybody!
Ciao.
The Light of Day 