Back in mid-January I wrote about my intentions for Bible reading in 2024. The basic plan was to read three chapters of the Old Testament a day and one chapter from the New Testament. At that pace I would finish the OT in mid-October and the New Testament in latish September. Furthermore, the plan was to read the Bible in a different order to how it appears in modern western Bibles.
My total for August was 1,553. The primary works were finishing Frank Peretti’s The Oath, reading the first 25 pages of Robert Stone’s Damascus Gate (before deciding to not read further), and reading two further works by Peretti: The Visitation and Monster. I also commenced reading The Complete Works of E.M. Bounds on Prayer.
After an early and fast start to the day, Eliza May arrived. Well done Emma and Ben. Thank you Lord!
Total pages read in July were 1,187. This included finishing George Bennett’s The Heart of Healing; Donald Whitney’s Praying the Bible; The Prayers of Kierkegaard by Soren Kierkegaard and Perry Lefevre; Prophet by Frank Peretti and the first half (or so) of Peretti’s The Oath.
I’ve been reflecting a little on the different Bible versions I’ve bought, tried, used, read, given away or filed away over the years. The first Bible I ever had or was given was the Gideon’s red public high school edition I received in my first year in high school in the mid-1970s. It was, I believe, the Revised Berkeley Edition. I still have this Bible. The second Bible I got was a Good News for Modern Man New Testament received, again from memory, for being the ‘prayer monitor’ in my year 8/second form Scripture class.
Pages read in June totalled 829. It included the bulk of Howards End, all of Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon and a good chunk of The Heart of Healing by George Bennett.
Total pages read in May were 540. This includes the two books I’d lined up to read on holidays: How to Think, and Breaking Bread with the Dead - both by Alan Jacobs. I also started E.M Forster’s Howards End. I got about a quarter of the way through it in May and (spoiler alert!) finished it in June.
Day 19 was the last day of photographs on our holiday. Day 20 was spent travelling home. Day 19 saw us visiting the Warrumbungles again after previously visiting two years earlier. Our day began earlier than expected because it was freezing (literally) outside. We went for a walk around 7:30am to warm up! Later that morning we did a few short walks in the national park. Many of the sights in the park are simply awesome.
Day 18, the third last day of our holiday, involved a drive from Lightning Ridge, through Walgett, Coonamble and Barradine to Coonabarabran. Emu somewhere south of Lightning Ridge Coonamble I think they forgot an air conditioner Driving east towards Barradine Neilson Park, Coonabarabran
Day 17 was a ‘recovery day’ spent in and around Lightning Ridge after our 700km drive to get here. It’s an interesting place - eclectic; dusty but attractive; reputedly one of the poorest towns in NSW; beautiful and clear light. It seems that places with such clear light attract many artists. It is the same with Broken Hill. Plenty of tragedy and hard, physical work and plenty of artists as well.