How to use this site

George MacDonald's Diary of an Old Soul is something analogous to the modern daily devotional, or more properly, a book of daily prayer. The idea is that each poem is to be read on the appropriate day of the year, and with this blog you can have each day's seven-line poem delivered to your computer, phone, tablet, or eReader by subscribing via email or RSS feed. You can start reading along the very day you find this site: you don't need to start on January 1st!

Obviously no one's holding you to reading it strictly daily, and it certainly won't hurt anything to read several at a time, but I certainly suggest reading one poem a day and giving it time to soak in as it was intended to do.

Give yourself a few minutes to ruminate, and if you feel so inclined, leave a thoughtful response - in verse or prose, to your heavenly Father or our elder brother George - on the "white page" (that is, the comment section at the bottom of that day's post).

Comments will be thoroughly moderated -- not for how impressive the writing is but for attitude. I ask you to honor the humility of this man of God by responding in a manner not unlike that in which he offered these poems, i.e. not out of a puffed-up desire to impress or pontificate, nor thoughtlessly sowing bitterness; offer your "golden ears" to God so that He may feed faith and hope in your fellow readers, and me as well.

~ Steve Douglas