Things I Love

Gideon Strauss on his blog recently wrote the following:

"As long-time readers know, I post a list of things I love every now and then, every time with a few tiny updates. Making lists of things we love is an important practice, I believe, because we learn more about ourselves from thinking about what we love than from any other kind of reflection on ourselves. Our deepest loves, our strongest commitments, our most intense concerns and cares - these are the most basic forces shaping who we are and how we live.

I do an exercise with people in my workshops and with students in my Introduction to Philosophy classes in which I ask them to list about fifty or so things that they love, ranging from the really small (the kind of pen they like) to the really big (their most intimately loved person; their gods). I then ask them to circle on that list the five or six things they love most deeply, and to reflect on the relationships among those things. How do some of our deepest loves shape others of our deepest loves? How do our deepest loves shape our convictions, our character, and the communities in which we take part? There is a "force field" generated by the connections among our deepest loves or commitments, our convictions or worldview, our character and the heroes and mentors that shaped it, and our communities and long-term friendships. This force field, if you will, helps shape us by generating a limited set of things that will cause us deep gladness, and by making us peculiarly attentive to a limited set of the deep hurts and hungers that abound in the world, in our context. The intersection of our deep gladness and the world's deep hungers is - as Frederick Beuchner says - the place where we should listen for our vocation, or calling."

If you visit Gideon's site, scroll down through a week or two to find his list and links to the lists of others.

Here's a start at mine, in no particular order.

This hymn, Jesu, the very thought of thee

My husband, Tony

My sons, Sam and Chris and Sam's wife Marlene

My sister, brother and their wives and families

My mom and my deceased father

My dear friends

The Cathedral of the Annunciation

Kanata Baptist Church

The Book of Common Prayer

Riding my bike

Mattins and Evensong

Traditional Anglicanism

Sung Eucharist

Incense

Candlemas Day and the candlelight during the service with snow falling outside

Christmas Eve services

Good Friday at the Cathedral where we kiss the Cross

The Church Calendar

The lectionary

Blogs, especially The Master's Artist, Faith in Fiction, Church of the Masses, Relapsed Catholic,Gideon Strauss, Andrew Sullivan, Mystique et Politique, Siouxsiepoetuncensored, author intrusion


Blogging

Email

Email lists: The Fiction Workout, The Word Guild, The Writer's View

Sarah Vaughan

Barbecued ribs

Bacio gelatto

Tea

My Health Club at this great hotel, because it has both an indoor and an outdoor pool

Flannery O'Connor, Graham Greene

The Rodin Museum in Paris

Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford

The bike paths in my neighborhood

The ravine outside my patio doors

Praying for the sick and laying on of hands

Cream sauces with wine and maybe Gorgonzola cheese in them

Fresh pasta

Ace baguettes

Popcorn

Lamb

Conversation about spiritual things

Tuberous Begonias

Fragrant pink lillies

Ballet pink and salmon and coral

Alvin Ailey style jazz dance
Choral music, Russian, Baroque and earlier

Singing plainsong at our cathedral

Hearing Bishop Robert read an excerpt of one of St. Paul's letters

A sermon from Bishop Robert, or a confirmation homily

Virtuouso recorder music

My sons singing or playing the guitar

My husband laughing

My husband watching sports

Little boys who remind me of the way my sons used to be

My husband's grace while playing sports

My father's singing and speaking voice

Nova Scotia, especially Bear River

Boston

The United States of America

Swimming in the ocean--PEI in the summer, Martinique beach in Nova Scotia, Duxbury, MA

Talking about my fictional characters

Talking about another author's fictional characters

Seeing with Asher Lev eyes

Chaim Potok

Icons

The interior of old churches like the Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica here in Ottawa

Stained glass windows

Autumn color in Vermont and Gatineau Park

A capella singing in harmony--hymns, carols and 50's songs

T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets and Ash Wednesday

White Christmases and the smell of a balsam fir Christmas tree

The Levine Holiday Album

A roaring wood fire in a fireplace and the scent of wood smoke