Monday..And A Little Wendell Berry

Holy Crap, Hello 80degree weather!!! It went from being kind miserably cold to super hot in a matter of like three days.
So it's the start of a new week. HERE WE GO. last week was one of the longest, most tiring weeks I have had in the longest time. I am so glad that it's over. I have a feeling this week will be no better, but I'm starting the week off with a cheerful attitude. That's good, right?!







Top Music of Right Now: Lightening by The Wanted // Domino by Jessie J // any thing Gungor // my Walt Disney pandora station (I get particularly excited when Tarzan and Mulan show up..)







In American Lit we've been reading Wendell Berry. My mother is obsessed with Berry and I've always held him in high esteem. And then I actually started reading his work. Even though I don't agree with everything he says, I love his style and the way he explains what he's talking about. He's a good example of an excellent writer. I wanted to share one of my favorites. I agree with him here :)

Telling the Truth

Dear Friends,


Your teacher, Ms. Linsley, has written to tell me about your writing class, and to ask if I might have something encouraging to say to you. This is an assignment that I take seriously, and I have been asking myself what you should hear, at this time in your lives, from an older writer.

The thought that I keep returning to is this: By taking up the study of writing now, you are assuming consciously, probably for the first time in your lives, a responsibility for our language. What is that responsibility? I think it is to make words mean what they say. It is to keep our language capable of telling the truth. We live in a time when we are surrounded by language that is glib, thoughtless, pointless, or deliberately false. If you learn to pay critical attention to what you hear on radio or television or read in the newspapers, you will see what I mean.

The first obligation of a writer is to tell the truth--or to come as near to telling it as is humanly possible. To do that, it is necessary to learn to write well. And to learn to write well, it is necessary to learn to read well. Reading will make you a better writer, provided you will read ever more attentively and critically. You will probably read a lot of contemporary writing in your textbooks, in magazines and newspapers, in popular novels, etc. The contemporary is inescapable. You may more easily escape the writing that is most necessary to you. I mean the books we know as "classics," books that have been read for generations or for centuries and so have proved their excellence.

As you learn to judge what you read, you will learn also to judge, and so improve, what you write. Reading, I think, is half of your responsibility as students of writing. The other half of your responsibility, of course, is to write, and your effort to write well, as I hope you already know, will make you better readers.

But you must never forget that the purpose of all this effort is to become capable of knowing and telling the truth.


Yours sincerely,

Wendell Berry


Well, I'm off to read some church history, Berry, and a little Jane Austin. 
{My bestie and I were discussing yesterday how Jane's works are so applicable to life. Way to go Jane.}
Happy Monday everyone! I hope you have a fantastic week. 
CA