Quote for the day: “Everything that is done in the world is done by hope.” -Martin Luther
Louisiana Life magazine recently featured my beloved uncle Bill Iles and his art. You can read it by clicking here.
I’m reviewing my journals from 2010 as I plan for the coming year. Here are tidbits that struck me as I read and reviewed:
I seek to be a man God can use and have the respect of my wife, sons and their families. Everything else is “Lagniappe.” A portion of Curt’s mission statement for the year
Toni Morrison: “I start my novels with a question. In the book, I try to answer it.”
“Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we often might win by fearing to attempt.” Jane Addams
“Lord, be our first thought and our best thought.” DeDe Iles in a prayer
“Fortune assists the bold.” Virgil
Tegucigalpa (Honduras) Airport description: “A last minute left turn followed by a steep dive and a controlled crash landing onto a postage stamp runway.” From 100 Most Dangerous Places on Earth.
“Hard work is a prison sentence only if it doesn’t have meaning.” -Malcolm Gladwell His three books, Outliers, Blink, and Tipping Point are three of my favorites.
“One of God’s best barriers against post-modern living is camp ministry.” One of the reasons I believe so strongly in Dry Creek Camp.
Thoughts on riding the train:
1/ know whose train it is 2/know where it’s going 3/know who’s riding with you relationships!/4 Know when to get off/ 5 Train up engineers and brakemen
Thoughts on driving through Dry Creek:
My hometown is where I still live. When I drive through it in my truck, I remind myself: I don’t own this town, it owns me.
Rick Bragg on Southern writing: We write pretty about ugly things
Bragg: If you want people to cleave to your reading/writing, be humble.
Bragg: If you want your reader to stay with you, change their mood. Use Sad, humor, insight.
Approaches to questions about the South:
Jimmy Carter: Yes, southerners have eaten dirt in the pasto. I haven’t and don’t know anyone who does.
Billy Carter: Hell yeah, I do. You aint never eaten dirt until you eat blackened red dirt.”
La. Tech president F. Jay Taylor on Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones (longtime President of Grambling) “If RWE Jones ever used a back door it was so someone else could get through the front door.”
C.S. Lewis “If Christianity is false, it is of no importance.
If it is true, it is of infinite importance.
But it cannot be of moderate importance.”
Does anyone know the date of Lewis’ death and why it is important as well as obscured?