Richard W. Brown September 13, 2022
Humble as Apple Pie

Humble as Apple Pie

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 20 seconds

Remembering Jan at Camp Widow!With the arrival of fresh apples at Dryer Farms, I thought of humility.

Once as a young teenager, a teacher described me as humble as an apple pie.

At the time, I was not happy with the comparison.

Humility seemed like a not-to-subtle criticism. Was my teacher calling me weak?

But with age comes maturity. Now I see that being humble is one of my hidden strengths.

Humility has helped me during good times and bad times.

Would Jan and I have when if I had not been soft-spoken?

Be humble, and never think that you are better than anyone else. “For dust you are, and unto dust, you shall return.” Genesis 3:19

As a widow, it has given me the confidence to honor, cherish and love Jan even if she is not by my side.

Humility has helped me help others and work to preserve Jan’s memory and have her name spoken with pride.

One day my life will return to dust, but I will forever be grateful to Jan as her love was all I ever needed and transformed me.

I know that the love Jan and I shared is all that matters, and it will never die!

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

Subscribe

Contact Us

I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

Show thread (1)

Richard W. Brown
Humble as Apple Pie

Humility - Guided Meditation

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 20 seconds

Go back to Stream

Share your thoughts and ideas

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund!

Donate Now!
Humble as Apple Pie
×
Humble as Apple Pie
×
A Line in the Sand- A Novel

Read: June 2023

Get this book

A Line in the Sand: A Novel

by Kevin Powers

Today I started reading A Line in the Sand: A Novel by Kevin Powers. Listed as one of the books to read this week by The New York Times, which described it as “a stunning novel. Kevin Powers provides what any discerning reader desires the most — complex and flawed characters, precise use of language, succinct description, and believable dialogue.”

One early morning on a Norfolk beach in Virginia, a dead body is discovered by a man taking his daily swim—Arman Bajalan, formerly an interpreter in Iraq. After narrowly surviving an assassination attempt that killed his wife and child, Arman has been given lonely sanctuary in the US as a maintenance worker at the Sea Breeze Motel. Now, convinced that the body is connected to his past, he knows he is still unsafe.

Seasoned detective Catherine Wheel and her newly minted partner have little to go on beyond a bus ticket in the dead man’s pocket. It leads them to Sally Ewell, a local journalist as grief-stricken as Arman is by the Iraq War, investigating a corporation on the cusp of landing a multi-billion-dollar government defense contract.

As victims mount around Arman, taking the team down wrong turns and towards startling evidence, they find themselves in a race committed to unraveling the truth and keeping Arman alive—even if it costs them everything.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

Subscribe

Contact Us

I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

×
Black Sun

Read: November 2021

Get this book

Black Sun – Between the Earth and Sky

by Rebecca Roanhorse

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse.  Black Sun is the first book in the Between Earth and Sky trilogy, inspired by the civilizations of the Pre-Columbian Americas and woven into a tale of celestial prophecies, political intrigue, and forbidden magic.

I have always enjoyed fantasy novels like Black Sun, and this is the first one set in the Pre-Columbian Americas.

A god will return
When the earth and sky converge
Under the black sun

In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year, it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world.

Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as quickly as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.

Will Serapio be harmless or a villain? The answer, my friend, will be known when you read this book or perhaps the second one in the trilogy.

Before meeting and falling forever in love with Jan, I had dreamed of the life of an American Studies professor. Thousands of students are relieved to know I did not pursue that life. If I had opened that door, an area of focus would have been on Pre-Columbian Americas.

I recommend this book and will read the next two in the Between Earth and Sky trilogy.

Subscribe

Contact Us

When you buy a book or product using a link on this page, I receive a commission. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

×
Piranesi

Read: May 2022

Get this book

Piranesi: A Novel by Susanna Clarke

by Susanna Clarke

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke is about a man known as Piranesi who lives in a big house and explores the labyrinth of rooms and hopes of understanding the meaning. Is it any surprise that I would pick this book as my thirtieth of the year? As a widow, I journal and journey in a life I did not expect to live, and I still believe I will find meaning and purpose. 

In addition, a labyrinth is one of the options we have discussed for the next phase of the work in Hanson Park.

Piranesi is a page-turner, but that does not fully describe the beauty of the world that Susanna Clarke created. I highly recommend this book as it is one of my best this year. 

The Goodreads summary provides an overview of Piranesi by Susanna Clarke.

Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.

There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.

For readers of Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane and fans of Madeline Miller’s Circe, Piranesi introduces an astonishing new world, an infinite labyrinth, full of startling images and surreal beauty, haunted by the tides and the clouds.

Subscribe

Contact Us

When you buy a book or product using a link on this page, I receive a commission. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

×
The God of the Woods: A Novel

Read: July 2024

Get this book

The God of the Woods: A Novel

by Liz Moore

I started reading “The God of the Woods: A Novel” by Liz Moore today. Several reviews recommended it as a great summer read. The story is set in August 1975, the same month and year my spouse Jan and I married. Liz Moore weaves a multi-threaded story, inviting readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances.

The novel begins with a camp counselor discovering an empty bunk at an Adirondack summer camp belonging to thirteen-year-old Barbara Van Laar, who has mysteriously vanished. Barbara is not just any teenager; she is the daughter of the family that owns the camp and employs many residents. What makes this disappearance even more intriguing is that Barbara’s older brother went missing similarly fourteen years ago and was never found.

As the search for Barbara begins, the novel unfolds into a thrilling drama, delving into the deeply buried secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow. This novel is said to be Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching work yet.

×
The Sellout: A Novel

Read: August 2024

Get this book

The Sellout: A Novel

by Paul Beatty

Today, I embarked on the unique narrative journey of The Sellout: A Novel by Paul Beatty. This biting satire, which revolves around a young man’s isolated upbringing and the race trial that takes him to the Supreme Court, is a testament to Paul Beatty‘s comic genius. The Sellout, a part of The New York Times’ 100 Best Books of the Century, is a must-read for those who appreciate a distinct narrative style.

The Sellout is a bold and thought-provoking work that challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, and the civil rights movement. It also explores the father-son relationship and the pursuit of racial equality, symbolized by the black Chinese restaurant. This social commentary is a vital aspect of The Sellout, making it a relevant and engaging read for those interested in contemporary issues.

Born in the “agrarian ghetto” of Dickens—on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles—the narrator of The Sellout resigns himself to the fate of lower-middle-class Californians: “I’d die in the same bedroom I’d grown up in, looking up at the cracks in the stucco ceiling that’s been there since ’68 quake.”

Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject of racially charged psychological studies. Despite these challenges, he believes his father’s pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family’s financial woes. But when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that’s left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral.

Fuelled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has been removed from the map to save California from further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town’s most famous resident—the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins—he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in the Supreme Court. His determination to fight injustice is a powerful force that drives the narrative forward.

×
The Invisible Hour: A Novel

Read: August 2023

Get this book

The Invisible Hour: A Novel

by Alice Hoffman

Today I started reading The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman. It’s a story about love, heartbreak, self-discovery, and the magic of books. The Invisible Hour is the story of one woman’s dream. For a little while, it came true. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote: “A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.

Mia Jacob finds hope in the power of words on a brilliant June day. She reads The Scarlet Letter, a novel written almost two hundred years earlier, which mirrors her life. Mia and her mother, Ivy, live inside an oppressive cult in western Massachusetts called the Community, where contact with the outside world is forbidden, and books are considered evil. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s words perfectly capture the pain and loss that Mia carries inside her.

As Mia journeys through heartbreak and time, she breaks free from the rules of her Community. Along the way, she discovers the power of reading to transport and connect people, the fluidity of time, and the strength of love to overcome any obstacle.

As a young girl, Mia fell in love with a book. Now as a woman, she falls for a writer as she travels back in time. But what if Nathaniel Hawthorne never wrote “The Scarlet Letter”? What if Mia never found the book on the day she planned to end her life?

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

Subscribe

Contact Us

I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

×