One Line a Day

After reading One Thousand Gifts I was inspired to once again keep a journal. However, I knew it would be really hard to me to stay consistent with it. Then, voila! I found the One Line a Day journal at my favorite store, Paper Source. Who can be intimidated when you're only obligated to write just one sentence to summarize your day? The unique part is that this is a 5 year memory book. As you can see in the picture, you keep re-visiting the same page year after year. I keep mine on my nightstand and jot a quick note about the day or what I am grateful for - if you are looking for a new journal, give this one a try!

poetry

reading some of ee cummings tonight. love this one. makes my day turn around a little bit:

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it (anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)
i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

literary schizophrenia

My nightstand is running out of room and so is my brain. August was such a tiring month. I felt like I was swimming underwater and couldn't reach the surface. I kept trying to come up for breath, but even my most purposeful efforts failed. Now we are in a new month and I still feel unmoored. I climbed into bed last night and went through about 5 books in 20 minutes - I couldn't focus, I would read whole paragraphs and have no recollection of any of the words, I would toss the book aside and move to the next - all trying to get into that space - that space where you fall into the words, your mind relaxes and you slip from one world to another and... you breathe.

Here are the books on my nightstand:
1) Bel Canto. A loaner from my dear friend Erica, who made me promise I send her beloved copy back when I am done. It's a 'tragicomic' novel - absolutely spell bounding thus far.
2) Cold Tangerines. An unexpected gift from another dear friend. A spiritual autobiography that feels like settling into a comfortable old sweater when you read it.
3) One Foot in Eden. A Celtic view of the stages of life from birth to death.
4) The Strong Willed Child. A parenting book - enough said.
5) Authenticity. A business book about the experience economy, one of my favorite business philosophies.
6) Lone Survivor. A book I borrowed from my grandfather - an eyewitness account of operation redwing and the lost heroes of seal team 10.
7) The Crowning Glory of Calla Lilly Ponder. A delightful novel from the author of "Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood".
8) A Thread of Truth. The second in a series that my book club is reading about female friendships.
9) The Year of Living Biblically. A unique story about one guy's attempt to follow the Bible literally for a year.
10) Christ of the Celts. A basic primer for understanding Celtic beliefs.

While I want to be able to read them all simultaneously - this schizophrenic collection of books has become a picture of my larger problem. This last month and more I have been cramming everything in - running faster and faster, still unable to reach the surface for that needed breath. So, tonight, I am removing all but 2 books. I will put the others back on the bookshelf in my room. I will read and thoroughly digest the 2, then move on until I am done. I will slow down. Step one: uncluttering my nightstand.

Defintely read 'The Road'

I can't really remember, but I was probably about 18 when I first picked up Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses. I couldn't get into it and quickly abandoned my efforts. Brad bought his recent book, The Road, and something about it intrigued me. I am so glad I branched out of my comfort zone to finally read one of his books. I truly believe that future generations will read McCarthy's work as part of high school literature classes just as they now read Faulkner and Hemingway.

The Road is unlike any book I have ever read. Here is the summary from the back of the book: A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food-—and each other.

I can't summarize it better than the publisher: The Road is haunting in its desperation. It is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.

Not since The Kite Runner have I read a book that got so inside of me. I finished it weeks ago and I still think of it from time to time, for it explores themes that speak to some of the most basic fears and questions about life. There are no chapter breaks, I think because the father and son never have the luxury of resting in their desperate struggle for survival. The ending was not what I expected, or even wanted, but the more I've thought on it, I think it its further proof of McCarthy's brilliance as a writer, because how you decide to end the book ultimately reveals how you personally answer most of the questions about life that the book poses.

While the story was overwhelmingly painful to read at times, I kept going in part because McCarthy mesmerizes you with his writing. Here is just a sample that gives you a taste of his skillful writing: "He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it."

Even if this genre is way outside of your normal reading sphere, I encourage you to pick up a copy and see what you think. In October The Road is being released as a major motion picture. I can't even begin to think how they are going to translate this story to the big screen, but I already know that there simply won't be a way to compare the novel with the movie. Once you read it, let me know what you think!

Girl Meets God

I recently finished Girl Meets God by Lauren Winner and it was a fabulous read - I give it 4 stars for sure. It's a spiritual autobiography, the story of how she chose to become an Orthodox Jew and then was drawn to Christianity. It's a very honest, witty story and contains a lot of details about the ins and outs of both Judaism and Christianity. I found it interesting, inspiring, and just plain fun to read.

Some of my favorite parts...

Winner attends an Episcopal church and thus begins to learn the liturgy. She writes, "What I am learning the more I sit with liturgy is that what I feel happening bears little relation to what is actually happening. Work is being done whether I feel like it or not. Sediment is being laid. Words of praise to God are becoming the most basic words in my head. They are becoming the fallback words, drowning out advertising jingles and sometimes even my own interior monologue." The reason I appreciated this is because Brad and I are becoming more avid readers of Philip Newell and are trying to start a more regular routine of evening prayer. There is something so sacred about the time when we light a candle at the end of our day and begin to say together the now familiar words of our evening prayers. While I am more accustomed to extemporaneous prayer (having been in a Baptist church for so long), I am beginning to explore fixed prayers and have found that they are adding a richness to my experience since they so often give precisely the right voice to my feelings. Winner's words about liturgy also reminded me of Brian McLaren, who wrote in his book "Finding Our Way Again" that "learning something by heart can save you when your heart is broken so nothing can come from it except tears and spontaniety is simply another burden on an already overburdened soul."

If you are unfamiliar with Jewish traditions and holidays, then this book is a great primer, because it explains many Jewish customs and observances - many I knew nothing about. One chapter that I really liked talked about how we read the Bible. As a Sunday School teacher, whenever I teach the Old Testament, I rarely read it by itself. Meaning, in the back of my mind, I hear the New Testament themes that support whatever is going on in the OT and I often try to think of words that Jesus taught that would give any sort of meaning to the text as well. Winner writes about the book of Ruth and says, "To read Mary's inversion of Naomi's words as a statement that what's empty and incomplete in the Hebrew scriptures is fulfilled only in the coming of Christ is to miss the meaning of the book of Ruth. When Mary utters her famous line, when she reverses Naomi's speech, she is repeating a reversal that is already there in the text. The Hebrew scriptures open up the possibility of a Christian reading, but they can also be read, complete, by themselves." I liked this chapter because it reminded me that Christianity and Judaism were forever linked together long ago and it challenged me to remember that in my reading of scripture, to come to the text alone.

Perhaps one of her last chapters was the one that most struck home. It was a mere 3 pages long, but contained the most that really moved me. The subject is the Apostle's Creed, something I learned by heart growing up in the Methodist church. She writes that, "believe comes from the Old English, belove, making clear that this too is meant to be heart language. To say 'I believe in Jesus Christ' is not to subscribe to an uncertain proposition. It is a confession of commitment, of love. Saying the creed is like vowing to love your bride forever and ever. That vow is not a promise to feel goopy and smitten every morning for the rest of your life, It is a promise to live love, even, especially, when you don't feel anything other than annoyance and disdain." Later in the chapter she notes the passionate faith of teenagers and others who are new to the faith and she confesses that many of her friends wonder when she'll tire of Christianity and move on to a different faith. Then she writes, "I am not sure I have the passion to fall in love with a religion again. How to fall in love is not, now, what I need to learn. What I need to learn, maybe what God wants me to learn, is the long grind after you've landed". A couple of weeks ago, I was cleaning in our spare bedroom and noticed all of my journals from college. I could hardly recognize the girl that was writing in them. She seemed so full of faith and optimism and passion. I sat down and wondered where the intensity of that passion had gone. Then, when I read Winner's words, it struck me that I am in a different place now. I fell in love during college, but now, I am learning the commitment part of my faith - how to live love, and that's okay - it's just part of growing up.

Sabbath

My book club at church has gone through almost 30 books over the past 4 years. We've read some great ones, but Sabbath, by Wayne Muller is one of my favorites. We are meeting next week to discuss it and I can't wait. We have our meetings at a home out in the country with a huge screened in porch. When you drive up, there is a sign outside that says in a script font "Linger Longer" and that is always what I want to do at that house.

In his book, Muller examines traditions from a variety of faiths and provides practical ways to begin new rituals that promote rest and renewal. This is one of those books that if you start underlining significant passages, you'll end up underlining the whole thing.

This past year has been an interesting one for me in regards to rest and renewal. Before I quit working full time, I was juggling all these responsibilities: work, motherhood, being a wife, and being the wife of a pastor at that. I remember feeling like the whole world was closing down on me because of the pressure and the ever mounting list of demands on my time. In those moments, I would often just bear down and keep going, keep doing; anything to keep from my confronting my own unhappiness. Muller writes, "This is one of our fears of quiet; if we stop and listen, we will hear the emptiness. If we we are terrified of what we will find in rest, we will refuse to look up from our work, refuse to stop moving. But this emptiness has nothing at all to do with our value or our worth. All life has emptiness at its core; it is the quiet hollow reed through which the wind of God blows and make music that is our life. Without that emptiness, we are clogged and unable to give birth to music, love and kindness." In the space that has been created over the past year, I have learned this is true. I wish I had rested more in that busy season of my life, but I was afraid to. And when everyone around you is running faster and faster, it is hard to be the only one slowing down for rest. I know that my life will at some point have another time of intense responsibilities. I think I will be better prepared next time around, for I know resting is not optional - it is essential.

One of my favorite chapters was on the 'theology of progress'. Muller writes, "this then, is the theology of progress. Only when we get to the end can we lie down in green pastures, be led beside quiet waters, and allow our soul to be restored. This is the psalm we save for death, because in the world of progress, you do not rest in green pastures, you do not lie beside still waters, there is no time." If I am more aware, then I can see this flawed theology at work in the lives of those around me and in my own life all of the time. Even in what I sometimes deem my 'simple stay at home mom' life, I can easily think up a 'to-do' list that is 100 pages long that would keep me from ever sitting still to rest and reflect. Our mantra these days is "I am so busy". As Muller would say, it is our badge of honor. And true enough, we are often are very busy, but this book has reminded me that just because I am sometimes busy, I don't have to have a hurried heart or spirit. I can devote the same attention and priority to times of rest and renewal that I do to my other obligations. Muller says, "Sabbath dissolves the artificial urgency of our days, because it liberates us from the need to be finished."

The book speaks a lot about our consumer culture and its devastating effects on us. He recounts how the concept of a calculating a countries wealth, it's GDP, was started and how it gives such a distorted view of true wealth. He writes, "How do we count friendship or laughter? How do we count the value of honesty, or bread from the oven? How can we count the sunrise, the trusting clasp of a child's hand, a melody, a tear? So many truly precious things grow only in time and we can only begin to know their value when we stop counting. If we do not rest, if we do not taste and eat and serve and teach and pray and give thanks and do all those things that grow only in time, we will become more impoverished than we will ever know". We have had to penny pinch a lot this year, but I feel wealthier than I ever did before because I am learning to rest and really taste life. In surrendering to Sabbath, it is enlivening my senses so that I can see, and hear, and taste more fully.

I could write and write, but those are some of the reasons that I recommend this book so highly. It's going to take up permanent residence on my night-stand. I'm looking forward to hearing how it has influenced the lives of my friends next week...

On My Bookshelf

It all started back in January when Brad had to attend a seminar in Kerrville as part of his doctorate program (he is almost done with year 2!!!) entitled, 'Creative Reading for Imaginative Preaching'. Before the seminar, he was assigned a list of about 30 books to read in preparation (mind you, this was just about 3 weeks before the actual seminar). They covered all sorts of genres and in an effort to help him prepare, I read several of them too we could discuss them together. One of our favorites was a book we both missed somewhere along the way in junior high - The Giver by Lois Lowery. If you need a short fiction book, this is a great read! Anyways, Brad was really inspired during the week and all of the attendees shared their favorite books, so he came home with a huge new reading list.

I've been reading so much lately, and inspired by my good friend Christine, I am trying to change my reading style so I can soak up all the words. I have always read so fast. I can typically finish a novel in 2 days and its because I skim. I move my eyes over the page and quickly assess whether its important enough to actually read - if not, I just catch the overall meaning of the page and move on. Consequently, I can read a large volume of books, but I often can't really remember the storyline or the precise details of specific characters.

So, I think that I will use the next couple of posts to reflect on what I've learned from some of my recent books. Stay tuned and let me know what you're favorite books are!