Today marks the end of the Hickman family summer break. The term "break" is a bit of a misnomer, especially for this coach of a first-time triathlete. (If I thought I had much to do with it, I might brag about my successful stint as a first-time triathlon coach and training partner.) Seasons are an interesting idea. They provide life with regular, somewhat predictable change. I agree with C.S. Lewis that we were created with a need for a break from monotony yet a need for regularity and predictability [Screwtape Letters]:
"He [God] has balanced the love of change in them by a love of permanence. He has contrived to gratify both tastes together in the very world He has made, by that union of change and permanence which we call Rhythm. He gives them seasons, each season different yet every year the same, so that spring is always felt as a novelty yet always as the recurrence of an immemorial theme."
Tomorrow, the coming academic season starts at the Hickman household. This will be our eleventh season for the Hickman Institute. This will also be the last for our eldest child. That means that one aspect of regularity and predictability will never again be like the coming year. Change is a-comin'! This will be the last year I am frantically reading and listening to keep up with Luke's studies in humanities, history, economics, and literature. Looking ahead, here's my required reading list:
- Darwin on Trial
- The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict
- The Old Man and the Sea
- The Plague
- Walden Two
- That Hideous Strength
- Pollution and the Death of Man
- The Second American Revolution
- Sophie's World
- The New Tolerance
- True Spirituality
- Of Pandas and People
- Economics in One Lesson
If I can keep up, this list should provide good material for this weekly forum for sharing my thoughts.
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