If you haven't read Maria Augusta Trapp's book on which The Sound of Music is based, then you are really missing out!
I was pleasantly surprised at how much my children got out of my reading it aloud to them. Even little Martha sat patiently (for the most part) and took in the amusing way the Baroness describes her introduction to the Captain and his children, her resignation to becoming his wife and second mother to the children she already loved as her own, their flight from Austria, and their life in America during World War II.
What is utterly amazing is how perceptive she is about human nature. She makes a lot of observations about faith and love, but the advice that stuck with me most is this:
"Our age has become so mechanical that this has also affected our recreation. People have gotten used to sitting down and watching a movie, a ball game, a television set. It may be good once in a while, but it certainly is not good all the time. Our own faculties, our imagination, our memory, the ability to do things with our mind and our hands--they need to be exercised. If we become too passive, we get dissatisfied."
And this was in 1949! Imagine what she would say today.
Next up: James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small
No comments:
Post a Comment