Newsletter - February, 2000

Dandelions and Roses

Sometimes I do odd things. Once I picked up a copy of Joan Baez's memoir at the flea market. I had been reading a lot of Chuck Colsen's work, and as I finished AND A VOICE TO SING WITH, I was struck by a similarity between these two. Each had strained after righteousness and had found it in concern for the littlest and lost, those bound and imprisoned.

It was so odd to taste a common flavor in the depth of these two hearts; two people who on the stage of public life were polar opposites...the right and the left hand of God, making the sound of one hand clapping.

So I sent Chuck Colsen the memoir, and I sent Joan Baez GOD OF STONES AND SPIDERS by Colsen. I received a nice note from their respective secretaries, who probably shook their heads at the ignorance of someone so clueless as to what the boss would actually like. Even back then I knew that people almost never read the thing you think they should read.

I felt very satisfied by this act, despite the fact that I didn't want each of them to be 'more balanced.' When I try to imagine Chuck Colsen and Joan Baez watered down into something more like each other, the composite picture is ludicrous.

In my yard both dandelions and roses grow and blossom. Who's to say which is the weed? To the five year old with a wish, a dandelion gone to seed is far more precious than those thorny things mom clips for the house. Both flowers have the life of creation hidden within and glorified without.

I don't know if Joan Baez or Chuck Colsen would recognize the flame in each other. But I recognized it. That's one of the joys of reading.

****

Here's a few 'D' books (used D-authors {like Dobson} two for one through the rest of February.)

FIRE WITHIN - Thomas Dubay $17.95 (new)
St. Teresa of Avila & St. John of the Cross and the Gospel - on Prayer

FIRE UP YOUR LIFE - Ken Davis $3.00
Living with nothing to hide & nothing to lose.

FRAGMENTS OF MY LIFE - Catherine de hueck Doherty $3.00
Ripening of love of the Founder of Madonna House(s)

INVITATION TO LIVE - Lloyd C. Douglas $4.00
Small old paperback novel

THROUGH THE FIRE WITHOUT BURNING - Dumitru Dudman $3.00
True story of a Romanian Pastor in Comunist persecution

ABLAZE FOR GOD - Westley L. Duewel $3.00
The spiritual Dynamics of Leadership

May your heart be aflame with the love of God.

Blessings,
Alliee +