A Gift for Matthew

A lovely and meaningful book written by my friend Nick Muzekari.

A Gift for Matthew

Matthew is excited to visit a monastery. A monk there is teaching him to paint icons! Matthew learns about sketching images, mixing pigments, and painting all the layers of the sacred images. And when he gets home, he finds a surprise gift just for him.

About the author: Nick Muzekari is a writer who lives in Hatfield, Pennsylvania, with his wife and five children. He enjoys conveying truth, mystery, and beauty through story. One of his most recent writing projects was a literary/art magazine for Christian teens which he founded and published. This is his first picture book.

About the illustrator: Masha Lobastov is a classically educated figurative artist. She graduated from the Russian State University for Humanities of Moscow in 1996 and moved to the U.S. to continue her artistic goals. Mostly known for her portraiture, especially children’s portraits, Masha collaborated with Ancient Faith Publishing and the authors E.C. Johnson and Jane Meyer in bringing to life the books And Then Nicholas Sang, What Do You Hear, Angel? and The Hidden Garden. This is her fourth picture book.

Format: Hardcover
Dimensions: 8 X 10 inches

Page Length: 32 pages
Publisher: Ancient Faith Publishing

To purchase go here.

High Summer

August
Lizette Woodworth Reese

No wind, no bird. The river flames like brass.
On either side, smitten as with a spell
Of silence, brood the fields. In the deep grass,
Edging the dusty roads, lie as they fell
Handfuls of shriveled leaves from tree and bush.
But ’long the orchard fence and at the gate,
Thrusting their saffron torches through the hush,
Wild lilies blaze, and bees hum soon and late.
Rust-colored the tall straggling briar, not one
Rose left. The spider sets its loom up there
Close to the roots, and spins out in the sun
A silken web from twig to twig. The air
Is full of hot rank scents. Upon the hill
Drifts the noon’s single cloud, white, glaring, still.

In Defense of Kate Breslin's For Such A Time

Kate Breslin

Political correctness does hinder creativity. Nothing authentic and original comes out of social conformity.

In this interview with Vampire author Anne Rice she claims that attempts to ‘take down’ Kate Breslin’s concentration camp romance For Such a Time with bad Amazon reviews amounts to censorship.

It appears that some people don't like the fact that a main character in Breslin's concentration camp romance leaves Judaism and becomes a Christian and a Nazi officer finds redemption. The argument is that Breslin is trying to reframe history. Some people are too easily offended! Breslin wrote a romance that speaks of personal transformation. That's a subject we all should consider and take to heart.

Alice C. Linsley

Abe Lincoln Remembering and Remembered

"I have endured a great deal of ridicule without much malice; and have received a great deal of kindness, not quite free from ridicule. I am used to it."-- Abraham Lincoln

Bed where Abraham Lincoln died on 15 April 1865
He was pronounced dead at 7:22 am.

My Childhood Home I See Again
By Abraham Lincoln

My childhood home I see again, 
    And sadden with the view; 
And still, as memory crowds my brain, 
    There’s pleasure in it too.

O Memory! thou midway world 
    ‘Twixt earth and paradise, 
Where things decayed and loved ones lost 
    In dreamy shadows rise,

And, freed from all that’s earthly vile, 
    Seem hallowed, pure, and bright, 
Like scenes in some enchanted isle 
    All bathed in liquid light.

As dusky mountains please the eye 
    When twilight chases day; 
As bugle-notes that, passing by, 
    In distance die away;

As leaving some grand waterfall, 
    We, lingering, list its roar— 
So memory will hallow all 
    We’ve known, but know no more.

Near twenty years have passed away 
    Since here I bid farewell 
To woods and fields, and scenes of play, 
    And playmates loved so well.

Where many were, but few remain 
    Of old familiar things; 
But seeing them, to mind again 
    The lost and absent brings.

The friends I left that parting day, 
    How changed, as time has sped! 
Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray, 
    And half of all are dead.

I hear the loved survivors tell 
    How nought from death could save, 
Till every sound appears a knell, 
    And every spot a grave.

I range the fields with pensive tread, 
    And pace the hollow rooms, 
And feel (companion of the dead) 
    I’m living in the tombs.