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Excersus CXXX: With Slight Praise
First off, some publishing updates! In the Freethinker's February Edition, I have an article on the Christian
Tradition of Rape, and in the March one on the five stumbling blocks of atheist parenting. A bit later, in Secular World
Magazine's May issue, I've got a piece on The Good News About Atheism which hopefully will make a few people feel a
bit cheerier about this road we're on. Then there's another bit for New Humanist which the details are still getting
nailed down for, so if you happen to be in jolly old England, you're going to be getting more of me than you probably
want in the coming months!
And now for something that's just beautiful: here are the last three paragraphs of Laura Ingalls Wilder's
Little House in the Big Woods. I've been reading it to my daughter and we just finished tonight and
this last bit just came out of nowhere. It is great, and since there aren't any particularly big axes to grind
from the comic today, a bit of great is a fine thing:
"But Laura lay awake a little while, listening to Pa's fiddle softly playing and to the lonely sound of the wind
in the Big Woods. She looked at Pa sitting on the bench by the hearth, the fire-light gleaming on his brown hair
and beard and glistening on the honey-brown fiddle. She looked at Ma, gently rocking and knitting.
"She thought to herself, 'This is now.'
"She was glad that the cosy house, and Pa and Ma and the fire-light and the music, were now. They could not
be forgotten, she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago."
Right? How much would we all benefit by stopping to remind ourselves from time to time, "This is Now."
- Count Dolby von Luckner
Hate mail and notes of luscious thanks may be sent to The Count at CountDolby@gmail.com.
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