Some Wednesday Readings

Booknotes: Massacre at St. Louis – Civil War Books and Authors. 

Poet Laura: Chicken Dreams – Michelle Rinaldi Ortega at Tweetspeak Poetry. 

 

Beads and Buttons – poem by Renee Emerson at Story Warren. 

 

The ship that broke Wordsworth’s heart: UK government grants protection to wreck with connections to poet – Maev Kennedy at The Art Newspaper.

 

A Fan – Seth Lewis.

 

Live Like the Weasleys – Gracie Olmstead at Granola. 

 

A Mouldering Feast: The Dangers of Victimhood as Identity – Rebecca Brewster Stevenson at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Traveling Through Civil War New York – Evan Portman at Emerging Civil War.

 

Winter Bed – poem by D.C.C. Randell at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Protect Good Reading from Bad Schooling – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

One Rule for Frat Boys. Another for Violent Activists – Francesca Block at The Free Press.

 

Rosebery Topping, a Dark Teesside short story by Glenn McGoldrick, is free on Amazon today and tomorrow. I reviewed it here.

Painting: William Wordsworth (1770-1850).

"Dream Small" by Seth Lewis

Search for significance. Follow your passions. You’re the captain of your ship. You’re the author of your story. It’s all about you. 

The culture, and often even the church, constantly foster and reinforce these kinds of messages and belief systems. It’s no wonder we live in an increasingly atomized society of self-interested and (theoretically) self-sufficient individuals. These belief systems are reflected in our political parties, our schools, our literary and popular culture, and our traditional and social media. Our lives are, in effect saturated with these beliefs, and they’re so omnipresent that it’s difficult even to recognize them.

 

Seth Lewis has a suggestion: Dream small. 

 

“The world around you will constantly encourage you to follow your dreams,” he writes in Dream Small: The Power of the Ordinary Christian Life. “That’s not bad advice as fa as it goes, but I’m asking you to pause first, and take the time to ask an important question that often gets overlooked: just where, exactly, are your dreams leading you?” You need to aim your dreams, he says, and what consider what will you aim them at. His advice is to dream small.

 

Seth Lewis

His book is small, only 116 pages. But it packs a powerful wallop, because each succeeding chapter succinctly explains what it means to dream small. Size doesn’t matter. All of us, even the most famous and well-known, are a small part of a big story. That story is about life on an “upside-down ladder,” in which we’re tasked with helping. Small people (that’s all of us) dreaming small can result in a big effort, big value, and big success. Our significance lies not in what we accomplish but in who created us. That’s the story we’re a small part of.

 

Lewis, a native of the United States, lives with his family in southern Ireland, where he works with a number of Irish Baptist churches. He also blogs regularly at Seth Lewis.

 

It says something about us and our culture that a message that is the basic Christian message seems almost revolutionary. But these are times we live in. And the time is right – as it always is – to dream small.

“The Notorious Adventures of Nutt the Nefarious” by Seth Lewis

William Shakespeare has recently died. The King James Version of the Bible has nowbeen translated and published. A new world has been discovered by Europe. 

And John Nutt (born before 1600 and died after 1632) is ranging from eastern Canada to the western coast of England, making raids on settlements and towns and attacking ships. In short, Nutt was a pirate, one who inspired fear across the north Atlantic. He was finally captured by Sr. John Eliot in 1623, tried and found guilty, and sentenced to death by hanging.

 

Except Nutt paid the English Secretary of State George Calvert a sizeable bribe and was pardoned. As author and poet Seth Lewis would say, Nutt “nearly died.”

 

Lewis, who lives in southern Ireland and works with Irish Baptist churches, has created a short and fictional account of the famous exploits of Nutt, many of which have been lost. The Notorious Adventures of Nutt the Nefarious includes poems and stories, told over the course of a week. Aimed at children and perhaps to be read aloud to them, it is great fun for adults as well.

 

Seth Lewis

The adventures begin with an “epic poem,” which explains how Nutt found his way to the island of Timbukthree on a ship named A.Corn, after Nutt’s father Archibald Cornelius the Third. It sets the stage for the adventures to come, noting that, from early on, Nutt very nearly dies on a regular and often daily basis.

 

His very nearly dying experiences include being swallowed by a Wheel (a strange cross between a whale and an electric eel), having to replace a termite-infested main mast, a battle with the squirrelly Squire Rell, an encounter with the danger Mouth Sharks, or Marks, followed by one with the Cannibulls, or Bulls. We hold our breath as Nutt and his pirates very nearly die many times over. The story ends as it should, with the anticipation of future adventures ahead. 

 

The Notorious Adventures of Nutt the Nefarious is pure fun, filled with puns and zany adventures (including a forest of broccoli that doesn’t take kindly to visitors). It’s a treat for children and the child within us all.