Those Watchful Dragons Were Real (Kitty Foth-Regner) ~ BitterSweetLife

Monday, August 11, 2008

Those Watchful Dragons Were Real (Kitty Foth-Regner)

Lindsay and I have been reading a book by Kitty Foth-Regner, Heaven Without Her, and we've ended up talking about it a lot. The book, which is thoroughly autobiographical while making a case for belief in Jesus, ends up being unique in a number of ways, and I'll be reviewing it soon. (Hint: We really like it.) For the time being, though, thought I'd throw this passage at you. Check the imaginative chutzpah:

I looked at the first animal [on the Chinese place mat]: Dragon... How is it, I wondered, that the ancient Chinese had chosen eleven real animals, and one mythological critter?

I remembered hearing, too, that all major cultures have dragon myths...and that ancient dragon images have been found all over the world, from Babylon and Egypt to China; they've been found on Viking ships, shown in relief sculpture in Aztec temples, and carved into bones by Inuits. And when I thought about all the dragon drawings I'd seen over the course of five decades, they blurred into just a few types of creatures.

But, of course, scientists have managed to explain these similarities away. Because, of course, the alternative is unthinkable: we couldn't possibly admit the possibility that dragons had actually lived with man, that they were, in fact, dinosaurs...

Not exactly a typical excerpt, I know. You won't find Challies talkin' up this page in his review. But that's why you're reading this blog, right? Because we make off-hand assertions like, "If you do not like dragons, you are lacking as a person." And because we endorse authors who write cerebral books with a strong creative ethos. Props to Kitty.



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2 comments:

littlepeace said...

Ah, now I understand why Chesterton was so immensely sane.

Because his imagination was even more enormous than his person.

By the way, there's a great Olympics commercial featuring a dragon. Just thought I'd share that.

AJ said...

I think you're right about G.K. Didn't he say something about mathematicians populating the asylums while poets were the sanest people around?

I know the commercial you're talking about. It's pretty good. My only beef is that the dragon appears to be a vegan-dragon. Huh?

 

Culture. Photos. Life's nagging questions. - BitterSweetLife