Positively (Im)perfect

I recently heard a truly stirring reflection on humility. Our priest talked about it following the Sunday readings, which covered the Visitation - when Mary, pregnant with Jesus, traveled to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who was expecting John the Baptist. Point after point resonated with me, and I thought, I have to ask him for a copy of this! But (since that would've been weird) I contented myself with scribbling a few notes on the back of a paint swatch from my purse while trying to remember as much as possible. So now I'm writing it down (with some liberal paraphrasing, of course, since my brain doesn't do the verbatim thing) before my memory bank dumps the remainder. First, our priest talked about the two women meeting, specifically Mary's words after her cousin's famous "Hail, full of grace!" greeting. In response to Elizabeth, Mary calls herself a lowly servant, but follows it by saying, "from this day all generations shall call me blesse

It's that time again. Time for my yearly if-I-call-myself-a-bookworm-I-should-be-able-to-back-it-up post. And I must say, though I started out slow, I'm pretty proud of my list this year. Here's the rundown... Couldn't Put Down Unbroken - Laura Hillenbrand The only thing that made the storyline of this work of art more incredible is the fact that every event is astonishingly, absurdly, 100% true. It made me think of Forrest Gump--that is, in the way that one single person could experience so many astounding things in one lifetime, from overcoming the odds of a not-so-promising childhood to encountering such famous and infamous events and figures to surviving the unthinkable--and the downright impossible. I think it was a good thing that I'd never heard the name Louis Zamperini before I started the book, because there were very few spoilers for me. I will admit, I did put this book down--quite a bit actually--while wading through the first chapter be