I'm Fixin' Tuh

For all you non Southern Americans, the above phrase is pronounced: "I-um Fix-in T-uh" Translated: I am getting ready to do something.

But lately, thanks to the wife, I'm getting more cultured: turning off the TV and reading. Thanks to my Mother-in-Law I am now reading The Letters of J.R.R Tolkien. In an interesting letter to his son Michael, J.R.R. talks about the virtues of preparation but also the dangers of always preparing for the future and never really doing anything useful NOW. I need to heed this advice. I am perpetually in a tizzy preparing for Sunday, which means that I'm missing many redemptive now moments.

Enjoy the quote:

From a letter to Michael Tolkien 6 October 1940

I am very sorry indeed, dear boy, that your Varsity career has been cut in two. It would have been better, if you had been the elder and could have finished before the army took you. But I still hope you will be able to come back again. And certainly you will learn a lot, first! Though in teams of peace we get, perhaps (and naturally and for the purpose rightly), too in engrossed in thinking of everything as a preparation or training or a making one fit - for what? At any minute it is what we are and are doing, not what we plan to be and do that counts.