The Day After Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day was fine. We gathered out in Front Royal, VA. with my wife's family, as per tradition. A few people couldn't make it but we still had a crowd, close to thirty people, some of whom we hadn't seen in awhile. A good time was had by all.

Yesterday, the day after, was even finer. My wife and I stayed in the living room all day long reading, her in the chair, me on the couch. We listened to no radio, watched no television, read no blogs, did no posting. We did take a two-mile walk around 4 o'clock just to shake out the cobwebs but other than that it was a lazy, do-nothing day. Being a lazy do-nothing in general, I love those kind of days. Neither of us wanted to do anything more than read our books, her Laura Hillenbrand's brand new Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, me Paul Johnson's A History of Christianity, which I'm reading in conjunction with listening to The Teaching Company course, The Catholic Church: A History. Hillenbrand, who wrote the terrific Seabiscuit, apparently has another winner: my baby couldn't put it down, gobbling it up in a couple of days.

As for me, this particular autodidact is realizing that he has lots of gaps in his learning, among them Christian and Catholic Church history and theology, so I've set out to do something about it. I'll follow this Teaching Co. course with another that looks brilliant: History of Christian Theology. So far I'm enjoying both the book and course immensely. Paul Johnson has always been one of my favorite historians - I've read ten of his books - so picking his history in this case was an easy call. Besides, I purchased it years ago and it's been sitting downstairs on my bookshelf, patiently waiting to be picked up. Johnson is a master of synthesis, which one must be to condense 2000+ years of Christian history to a little over 500 pages. Each sentence in this book seems loaded with information, and Johnson can satisfactorily summarize the arguments about particular points of doctrine, many that went on for centuries, in a few succinct paragraphs. It does mean that one must read carefully, slowly, to catch everything Johnson is trying to convey.

I also knew I couldn't go wrong with Professor Cook, the instructor for the Teaching Co. course, having previously listened to his course on Dante and The Divine Comedy. He is unfailingly interesting. (As a sidebar my wife and I have also begun watching his DVD series on The Cathedral - ain't we cultured!)

But I am digressing from my main point: yesterday was a lovely day, spent in the company of my wife, a good book, and also, late in the evening, some good music. My eyes got heavy and I knew sleep would come soon if I continued to read so I closed the book and popped in my iPod earphones and listened to some Beethoven, Bruch, Bach, and Schubert. Then to bed. Today it's back to real life. Many of us are heading downtown to visit the World War II memorial and tonight we will gather for dinner to celebrate a birthday. Hope you're enjoying the holiday break as much as I am.