Packing for a trip, even one that just means being away from home a couple days, is never easy for me. Deciding on what clothes to bring is only half the problem. The other half is deciding what books to bring.
What if I don’t like a book I have packed? Then what will I read?
What if I finish a book faster than anticipated? What will I read then?
What if I have more time to read than anticipated? (A good problem to have, as far as I’m concerned.) Will I have enough to read?
For me, these are bigger questions than deciding how many changes of clothes to bring with me. The good news is that generally we travel in our car, so I have room for a stockpile of reading material.
My most recent book decision dilemma was our weekend in Door County.
Books I Brought With Me
After hemming and hawing, I selected 4 books for this three day vacation (Two of the three days were mainly in the car.) I had just read two serious literary fiction books, Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange and A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power (see April 18 post.) and I knew I needed something lighter.
An Irish Country Courtship by Patrick Taylor. I have read others in this charming series and know I will read others in the future. This one focuses on the “love life” of physician Fingel O”Reilly, as he courts Kitty. He has mourned the death of his wife for a long time, and Kitty is sensitive to his hesitancy about a new relationship in his life. In the meantime his associate has been fluffed off by a woman he thought was “the one,” and now he wonders if life as a village GP is enough for him. He ponders a decision.
In these short months he’d certainly had a fair sampling of the medical side of general practice, but he hasn’t been prepared for the village. Gradually, he’s come to learn it wasn’t simply a collection of houses, shops, a pub, and a couple of churches. It was an entity, and as an animal was the whole of its parts, so too was the village a many faceted, living organism. p. 287.
I’m grateful the author includes a glossary of Irish words and terms in the book. This time my favorite word is “harpled,” walking awkwardly, favoring a sore leg or back.
A Match Made for Heaven #7 in the Lane Winslow series by Iona Whishaw. Much of this book is set in Tucson, AZ, rather than Canada and for a very good reason. I don’t want to say why for those you of you who have not gotten this far in the series yet. This was perfect vacation reading. I will soon start reading #8.
One Woman Show by Christine Coulson. This was my “just in case” book. Just in case I finished both of the other books. This is a short, new novel, meant to be read in one sitting. The book documents much of the life of Kitty (1911-1998), but it is the structure that is most interesting. Her life is described as a series of art works, with an entry on each page.
BRIDE, AGED 19, 1926 Mrs. William Wallingford III (known as Kitty) Collection of William Wallingford III (known as Bucky) Ex-Collection of Martha and Harrison Whitaker
Considered the apex of early twentieth-century production. Kitty is thoroughly polished, bound in white silk, and decorated with a clutch of pristine lily of the valley. The rest of her garniture joins her, but with deliberately less polish and packaging. The great and the good gather to see the exhibition and rave about the elegant lines and immaculate condition. Kitty glistens in the light of her new pedestal and foolishly considers herself now unbreakable.
Clever and thought-provoking.
The Eloquence of Silence, Surprising Wisdom in Tales of Emptiness by Thomas Moore. This books is one of my current devotion companions. Good food for reflection.
A Surprise Book Store
I selected my vacation book companions well–finished the Patrick Taylor, which I had started at home, and read in its entirety the Iona Whishaw mystery and read a couple chapters each day in Thomas Moore’s book. I saved One Woman Show and read it when we got home.
So well-done, Nancy. But then we discovered a bookstore new to us in Sturgeon Bay, which is at the entrance of the main part of the Door County Peninsula, and the book bag bulged. What a lovely and well-curated bookstore with a knowledgeable storeowner/bookseller, and you can bet we will stop there each trip we make to Door County.
Here are my selections:
The Mystery Writer by Solari Gentil. I read and enjoyed her earlier book, The Woman in the Library and so am eager to read this one. I also discovered that she has written a mystery series set in WWII, the Rowland Sinclair series. When I have completed all 11 of the Iona Whishaw books, I am sure I will investigate these.
An Irish Country Welcome by Patrick Taylor. This follows the one I just read, An Irish Country Courtship. The covers of these books, by the way, are so lovely.
Wild Atlantic Women, Walking Ireland’s West Coast by Grainne Lyons. To continue the Irish theme!
House Lessons, Renovating a Life by Erica Bauermeister. Bauermeister is the author of several novels as well, which I have not yet read, but this memoir is so beautifully written that I may add her other titles to my TBR. When I go to an independent bookstore I like to buy a WILD CARD book, meaning a book I have not heard of before, but for whatever reason it appeals. This was true for this book and the Wild Atlantic Women book, as well. Both my husband and I have now read House Lessons and loved it. Bauermeister and her husband live in Seattle, but decide to buy a ramshackle house in Port Townsend, WA. This is the story of that renovation, but also the life lessons learned along the way–the ways one’s life is a kind of ongoing renovation.
Book Presents
This weekend away was to celebrate my birthday and, no surprise, my favorite present is a new book. My husband is always nervous about buying me a book, anticipating I may have already read what he selects, but he did well. Now on my TBR bookshelf are these three–two mysteries and a nonfiction title.
Rogue Justice by Stacey Abrams
Mastering the Art of French Murder by Colleen Cambridge (Notice a similarity in title and cover to Julia Child’s masterpiece?)
Vesper Flights by Helen MacDonald. I loved H is For Hawk, but have not yet read this one.
Soon we will go on a road trip to visit our son and daughter-in-love in Cleveland and then spend a few days in Michigan, so the dilemma of what books to bring will resurface once again. Such a problem!
An Invitation
Do you take books on vacation? How do you decide what to bring with you? I would love to know.
NOTE:
I will post my April Book Report Summary on May 2.
Laying on of Hands at Our Grandson’s Confirmation Service
I often receive email confirmations.
“Your reservation for dinner at 7:00 for 4 people is confirmed.”
This is to confirm your order for… “
Hotel reservations, tickets for a play or concert–all are confirmed.
Verified
Acknowledged.
Validated
I appreciate those emails–knowing for sure that what I ordered or planned is now a step closer to reality. In a way that is what happens in a religious rite of confirmation.
The Rite of Confirmation
On Sunday our 16 year old grandson Peter was confirmed at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, St Paul, MN, where my husband and I and our daughter and family belong. Our granddaughter Maren was confirmed there several years ago.
Trust me, it was a two-hanky day for this GrandNan.
Each of the 16 young people were asked individually to affirm their faith, responding “I ask God to help and guide me.” The congregation was asked to promise our support for these young people and to pray for them in their life in Christ. We responded “We do, and we ask God to help and guide us.
Each confirmand and their loved ones then came forward for laying on of hands and a blessing.
God of Love, for Jesus’ sake, stir up in Peter Agneberg Ostrem the gift of your Holy Sprit; confirm his faith, guide his life, empower him in his serving, give him patience in suffering, and bring him to everlasting life. Amen.
In this moment in time his faith was confirmed, affirmed.
Verified.
Acknowledged.
Validated.
And celebrated, too.
Beyond Confirmation
Here’s the deal, the reality. Participating in the rite of confirmation, like those email confirmations, is not enough. I have to show up at the restaurant or the hotel. Or when my online order arrives, I have to open the package and use it or gift it to someone or in my case, read it because what I most often order are books. Sometimes what I ordered isn’t the right thing or doesn’t fit or is no longer appropriate. Or perhaps the restaurant or hotel was fine, but next time, I’ll look further for a choice that fits better.
The metaphor is not perfect, but confirmation is not the end. True, it is the end of a period of formal study, but it is also a launching into the possibility of a deeper faith. It is an invitation to grow, to participate in an evolution of faith.
No one knows what that will mean for each of these young people–what will challenge their faith; what will reinforce it. No one knows how it will change. More than likely they will each experience times when their faith feels secondary to everything else in their lives; when their awareness of the presence of God is not foremost in their everyday lives. But, my prayer for Peter and the other young people confirmed on Sunday, is that the groundwork offered during the years beginning with their baptism and leading them to this day of celebration, this rite of passage, will sustain them and lead them to live as the people they were created to be.
An Invitation
Has there been a time in your life when you were asked to affirm your faith or a belief in front of a group of people? I would love to know.
Both books are stories of generational trauma and intergenerational healing.
Both books offer windows into a culture that is being rediscovered and treasured.
Both books reveal injustice and yes, evil.
Both books reference the Carlisle Indian Boarding School.
Both books follow the lives of multiple generations.
Both books are about institutional violence and oppression.
A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power
Mona Susan Power is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and currently lives in St Paul. Perhaps someday I’ll see her in one of our coffee shops or the grocery store, and if I do I will tell her how important her book is, and how I hope she continues to tell the stories. Following the great success of her first novel, The Grass Dancer, Power experienced deep depression and learned she was suffering from P. T. S. D., as well. How grateful I am that she has found resilient reserves within herself to continue her writing
I’m sorry I didn’t buy this book, rather than read a library copy. Maybe I will buy it now, so I can read it again and underline favorite passages. Power says she is an “intuitive writer,” meaning the story and the characters come to her. Maybe that’s why the human and the doll characters seems so real.
The story follows the lives of three generations of Dakota girls/women: Sissy (b. 1961), Lillian (b. 1925) and Cora (b. 1880s) and their dolls. It is up to the reader to decide if the dolls are real, spirits with powers to heal and save the girls from further tragedy or are the products of the girls’ imaginations. I must admit, although my growing up couldn’t be more different from these women, I thought about the dolls in my life as a young girl and how they often brought me comfort and gave me a sense of purpose even.
Favorite Passages
Cora telling about her father says,
My father says that we should welcome all stories to see if they are worth remembering. “You can put ideas on and off just like moccasins. You can wear them and set them aside, hold onto those you find meaningful. Don’t be afraid of learning something beyond what we’re able to teach you. Even the wisest person doesn’t know everything, But it’s also important to preserve the ideas that make sense to you, even in the face of resistance–someone telling you that you’re wrong and only they know the truth. Such boasting is evidence of a fool, perhaps a dangerous one.”
p. 141
A last word from the dolls:
We’ve learned that healing the present doesn’t only clear waters flowing into the future, recovery also flows backward and alleviates the suffering of ancestors. So they can set down their tears and dark memories, their guilt and shame, their vengeance. And because Time is our relative, a flexible being that moves through every thought and memory, branching into a million rivers of possibility, healing even one of its streams will eventually heal the world.
p. 286
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange
I admit it took me longer to read this book than Council of Dolls, and I’m sorry I didn’t wait longer after finishing “Dolls” to read it. By the end I just wanted the painful stories of addiction and loss to end, but perhaps that is the point.
Tommy Orange is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma who was born and raised in Oakland, California, and this book often references the challenges of finding and knowing other Indian people in that part of the country. Wandering Stars is both prequel and sequel to his earlier much acclaimed novel There There. I suggest reading There There first, but it isn’t necessary. I am grateful for the family tree at the beginning of the book and referred to it often.
The book follows the descendants of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre, moving through the generations to the present day. The references to Richard Henry Pratt, who became the founder of the Carlisle Indian Boarding School, both the cause and the result of so much evil, are harrowing.
“Stars” refers both to the family descendants in the Bear Shield and Red Feather families, but also to one of the characters who is shot at a Pow Wow.
One of the doctors, who wore a faded-ass baseball cap with a fish on it he didn’t think the guy should have been wearing on the job, told him the bullet shard in him was shaped like a star, like that was some cool shit. Then the doctor told him he should be grateful that it stopped moving, that an exit wound could be what kills you. The doctor said they would keep an eye on it, the star shard, because, he warned, they’ve been known to wander, parts of them getting into your bloodstream and poisoning you. And then the doctor, still apparently trying to comfort him about the bullet staying in, said it wasn’t bullets that killed but the path they took, This seemed to him like some dumb-ass bumper-sticker wisdom, like: Guns don’t kill people, people kill people, or, The journey is the destination.
p. 119
There were so many times in the book I wanted to shout, “Don’t do it.” An indication of how well-drawn these characters are. And so many times I cheered for these characters, as they rose above addictions.
I felt good talking to my son and eating the bread I made there in our kitchen, on our land, in our home. I had a family now and the drinking was behind me. I’d lived enough life, almost died enough times to know when a good thing came along, a thing you didn’t know could fill you right up, which only when it filled you let you know there’s been a hole in you before.
p. 34-35
I initially went to using as a way to feel the world, when I’d learned somewhere along the way to numb it. But I wanted to feel the world without having to use, and not simply become obedient to the cold demands of a cruel world, or to an equally cruel addiction.
p. 304
Such good books. Heavy and meaningful. And now I’m ready for something lighter, but still well-written. Stay tuned.
An Invitation
What emotionally hard to read books have you read? I would love to know.
Paris and the Cotswolds may not be part of current plans.
We no longer live at our beloved Sweetwater Farm.
Living in Minnesota , instead of Ohio, means I can no longer decide on a whim to spend a day at Chautauqua.
Dear and as meaningful to me as those places are, however, they are not my only happy places.
I am happy most of the time wherever I am, but oh, how happy I was this last weekend to be in one of my happiest of happy places: Door County, WI, which is only 5 1/2 hours away from our St Paul home.
Over the years we have spent many happy times there, sometimes with family, sometimes with friends, sometimes just the two of us, which was the case this time–my birthday present planned by my husband. It is a place we gravitate to over and over again.
Do we gravitate there over and over again because being there makes us happy or because we are happy there do we want to go there again and again? Chicken and egg?
A Childhood Happy Place
When I was growing up my family moved many times. My Dad worked for a large corporation and was transferred frequently as he climbed the company ladder. At the end of the school year, the moving van would appear at our house, but before we moved into our new home, we returned to the same summer vacation spot in northern Minnesota. Year after year. Summer after summer. That was a place of both grounding and transition. Of memories and memory-making. Of ease and taking a breath before the work of resettlement. Of surety and stability. Of time to process the loss of friends and to hope for the presence of new ones. Of comfort. We knew what to expect and how we would spend our days.
That place was our past, our present, and a path to the future.
The Touch of Past, Present, and Future
Because we vacationed in Door County with our children when they were young and later, in their adult years with our grandchildren part of the scene, we have a history there. We reminisce about our son sketching on the sandy beach and about taking the ferry to Washington Island specifically to go to the book store there, and about playing miniature golf when the club was taller than our grandson and eating cherry coffee cake at the White Gull Inn. And more. So much more.
Going there now reminds us of some of the building blocks of our lives. The conversations we had while savoring the sunset or fruity daiquiris before a leisurely dinner. The dreams fulfilled and those that drifted away. When we laughed and what we treasured. Who we have been and how we lived.
And now in the present in this happy place, the past sits lightly, and we feel a simple, but rich gratitude for being here. For having this time to be together. The weather doesn’t dictate the gift of this time. We eat good meals. We browse in favorite shops, and we roam back roads, delighting when we spot sandhill cranes in an open field and a deer loping across a gravel road. We gaze at the water as the sky turns into evening pink. We read and doze in our room, no longer pulled to do something, go somewhere. Being here now is enough.
And the future? Well, who knows much about what the future holds, beyond our eventual deaths. But we envision more time in this happy place because we feel welcomed and at home there. But more than that it is a place that seems to support the people we are becoming, for that becoming continues until it doesn’t.
Past Door County Moments
An Invitation
Where are the places that represent past, present, and future for you? I would love to know.
Since the beginning of this year I have participated in several postcard campaigns to encourage people to register to vote and to actually vote in a primary. I have sent postcards to support specific candidates, including Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, Ruben Gallego in Arizona, and Tom Suozzi in New York. My total postcards: 300. So far.
I say this not to elicit praise or to pat myself on the back. Instead, I urge you to do what you can to save democracy. Fundraisers often say, “No gift is too small,” and I hasten to add “No action is too small.”
Doing What I Can
I am a terrible phone person. I don’t enjoy talking on the phone. I even dislike making phone calls and am so grateful for the ability to do much of what I need to do via email or text. I am grateful for all the people who participate in phone-calling events in support of candidates and campaigns, but that is not something I will be doing in the next seven months. (EEEK–only seven months before election day in November.)
I also won’t be walking door to door, passing out leaflets, engaging people in conversations. I did that decades ago, but that method no longer fits who I am now and what I am able to do.
What I can do, however, is participate in postcard campaigns. I can order postcards with a voting theme from Etsy. I can buy rolls of postcard stamps. In fact, the last time I did so, the mail clerk subtly asked me why I needed so many postcard stamps. Our conversation was brief and careful, but I could tell he was intrigued and you never know…
I can watch a movie on Netflix as I address and handprint the message provided by the sponsoring organization or I can sit at the dining room table and work on a few more postcards while dinner is baking in the oven. Soon I will be able sit at the bistro table in my secret “Paris” garden or on the patio and write postcards while I enjoy fresh air and birdsong and the glories of my husband’s gardening efforts.
I can drop the postcards in the mailbox a couple blocks away when I go on an afternoon walk.
I must do something because this is not a time for indifference.
Reasons for Doing What I Can
I receive several daily or weekly newsletters that keep me informed and motivated and help me focus. If I feel myself holding my breath as I read them, I know it is time to sign-up for another postcard campaign.
We live in a world where the only US president ever to attempt a coup has a too-close-for-comfort chance of being re-elected on a platform of overt fascism. That changes everything. We do not have the luxury of indifference.
We do not have the luxury of being “just” journalists, lawyers, elected officials, educators, students, co-workers, entertainers, parents, family members, or citizens. At this moment, we must be defenders of democracy in everything we do. If not, we betray and abandon the Constitution. There is no in-between. The question has been called.
Indifference is a choice. Cynicism is a choice. “Just doing my job” is a choice.
Democracy is a choice.
Defending democracy is a duty that appears unbidden when Americans least expect it. Every generation before ours has discharged that duty honorably. Ours cannot be the one to falter.
The media is not misrepresenting evangelical views. It comes from evangelicals themselves — they embrace the theology of Trump the Savior, a new political Jesus. They believe it. They believe that Trump is being sacrificed for them.
The most telling part in this video is the opening interview with two evangelical voters. They clearly understand the Bible and evangelical views of salvation — you could hear these verses quoted and this theology expressed on any given Sunday (or Wednesday night Bible study) in any evangelical church in the United States. They don’t get the theology wrong.
And then they apply it to Trump:
Man: “THE BIBLE SAYS HE WAS WOUNDED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS. HE DID IT FOR US. WHEN TRUMP IS FACING ALL THESE THINGS IS HE DOING IT FOR US IN OUR PLACE.”
Woman: “JESUS DIED FOR MY SINS. JESUS DIED FOR ME AND SO I — IT CONNECTS IN MY BRAIN THAT WAY. LIKE, HE IS DOING THIS FOR US AS A COUNTRY TO MAKE THE CHANGES WE NEED TO MAKE AND HE IS THE TARGET WHERE WE DON’T HAVE TO BE.”
Acting Instead of Feeling Overwhelmed
I choose the amount of time I spend listening to, watching, or reading about current events and the resulting commentary. I choose to spend part of my morning devotion time praying for the existence and renewal of democracy in this country and all those who are attempting to save it. However, I still feel overwhelmed and discouraged at times.
Yup, that’s when it’s time to sign-up for another postcard campaign.
Karen Hering in her remarkable book, Trusting Change, Finding Our Way Through Personal and Global Transformation advises:
Describe a practice you use to calm or settle yourself when experiencing strong reflexive responses of fear or anger. What do you experience when you do this?
p. 155
Writing in my journal always calms me and clarifies what I am feeling and often reveals a next step. I’ve discovered writing postcards also calms me and is a step I can take.
Name one global threshold you are concerned about, whether or not you have been actively engaged in addressing it. Share some of your skills or knowledge that might be helpful in that issue…
p. 155
I have the time. I print legibly. I can afford to buy postcards and stamps.
Simple.
One More Quote and a Companion Book
The human heart is the first home of democracy. It is where we embrace our questions. Can we be equitable? Can we be generous? Can we listen with our whole beings, not just our minds, and offer our attention rather than our opinions? And do we have enough resolve in our hearts to act courageously, relentlessly, without giving up–ever–trusting our fellow citizens to join with us in our determined pursuit of a living democracy?
One of the voices of wisdom who sits on my shelf is Parker J. Palmer. Right now I think I need to re-read his 2011 book, Healing the Heart of Democracy, The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit.
An Invitation
What is it you can do to resist indifference? I would love to know.
Some of the books I read this month were surprises, meaning I was surprised by how much I liked and appreciated them. Other books didn’t surprise me at all, for I was quite certain they would not disappoint, and I would love them.
First, No Surprise!
I’ve already reviewed some of my “No Surprise” books:
A Deceptive Devotion, #6 in the Lane Winslow Mystery Series by Iona Whishaw (See March 14 post.)
As It Is In Heaven by Niall Williams (See March 14 post.)
Graceland, At Last. Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South by Margaret Renkl (See March 7 post)
Two other novels I read in March were also “No Surprise” books:
The Distance Between Us by Maggie O’Farrell. I have now read all of O’Farrell’s books and can easily say she is one of my favorite contemporary novelists. This title, one of her early books, is not my favorite of hers. However, how two seemingly separate stories, the story of Jake who grew up in Hong Kong and the story of Stella and her sister Nina who grew up in the UK, eventually entwine kept me reading. Now I can re-read my favorite O’Farrell books, including Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait, but also earlier ones, such as The Hand That First Held Mine and After You’d Gone.
An Irish Country Girl by Patrick Taylor. I have read two previous books in this series, An Irish Country Doctor and An Irish Country Village. I own An Irish Country Courtship and intend to read that soon. These books, set in Northern Ireland, are fresh air, a palate cleanser, a gathering of old and dear friends, stories shared around a cozy fire, and a touch of nostalgia of a time you may yearn for.
The two books I read as part of my Lenten devotion time were also no surprise, for over the years I have come to trust both of these writers for their wisdom and insight.
A Different Kind of Fast, Feeding Our True Hungers in Lent by Christine Valters Paintner. Each week of Lent is further subdivided into a practice for each day: lectio divina, breath prayer, visio divina, meditation with the desert elders, contemplative walk, imaginative prayer, and a ritual for the senses. As always, Paintner is so adept at engaging the readers in spiritual practices.
Jesus, Guide of My Life, Reflections for the Lenten Journey by Joyce Rupp. Such a good Lenten companion this book was. I admire how in two pages for each day, Rupp is able to impart an insight that leads to deeper reflection.
Now the Surprises!
Three of the “surprise” novels I reviewed in one of my Thursday posts already: Go As A River by Shelley Read, Happiness Falls by Angie Kim (both on March 21), and The Women by Kristin Hannah (March 28). Today’s Book Report Summary, however, allows me to recommend all three of these books again.
Three others were pleasant surprises, too.
The Things We Didn’t Know by Elba Iris Perez. A fast read. A good read about a Puerto Rican family in the 1950s-1970s. Parts of the book are set in Puerto Rico and parts in Woronoco, Massachusetts, an enclave for Puerto Ricans who move to the mainland. Much of the book focuses on the conflict between remaining true to Puerto Rican values and assimilating into and adopting “white” values and culture.
Fellowship Point by Alice Elliot Dark. I loved this book. I repeat, I loved this book, even though I had a hard time keeping straight in my head the title–too close to Happiness Falls, which I also read in March. The stories are in no way similar to each other, however. First of all, I loved the setting in Maine, but I loved the characters even more. Agnes Lee is a children’s book author, but also has written anonymously a series for adults. Her closest friend is Polly, whose husband,a retired philosophy professor, never gives her much credit for anything. Both women are in their 80s and have summer homes in Maine and want to make sure the area is saved as a land trust and not developed. Polly’s sons have other ideas–that’s just one of the subplots. Mainly, however, this book is rich in character development. And such good writing
Writing is waiting. That’s the whole of it. If you sit in your chair not doing anything else for long enough, the answer will come. You do have to be in your chair, though, ready to write it down.
p. 570
But there was a last time. An unforeseen and uncomforted last time. I don’t remember it. That more than anything describes aging to me–the letting go of one activity after the next, with no fanfare. Just realizing later that the last time has come and gone.
p. 117
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. I resisted this book for quite some time. A talking octopus did not appeal to me, but many whose taste I trust recommended it to me, and I was surprised by its charm. I liked the main character, Tova, an older woman who cleans the local aquarium facility every night. That’s how Marcellus the octopus becomes her friend. Her life becomes entwined with Cameron, a young man who is a lost soul, abandoned by his mother and his father, unknown. Let go of your need for plausibility, and just enjoy this tale of friendship and connection.
Neither a Surprise Nor Not Surprised
The main character in The Other Mothers by Katherine Faulkner is convinced a nanny’s death was a murder, not accidental death. I was with the unfolding of the mystery till almost the end, but the last 25 pages or so felt both rushed and meandering. Kind of a mess. And the ending was both disappointing and frustrating and even immoral. Sorry, but I can’t recommend this one.
That’s it for March: 14 books. 11 fiction. 3 nonfiction.
Now it’s on to April.
An Invitation
What books read in March can you recommend? I would love to know.
Easter Sunday, 2016, Granddaughter Maren, age 14, participating in procession
My Disclaimer
I am not a theologian. I have no degrees in religion. I am not ordained. I have no revolutionary insights into what happened on what we Christians now think of as Easter Sunday. I hold few, if any certainties in my personal creed. Some days, maybe most days, I move from one task to another without giving much thought to the great “truths” of life and death. In fact, more and more I consider the implications of “multiple truths,” a term Rabbi Adam Spilker of Mt Zion Temple used during a recent adult forum at my church.
My Belief
Ok, given all I say I’m not, who do I say I am?
Well, on this day, two days after Easter Sunday, 2024, I say I am someone who believes in resurrection. As Joan Chittister says in her book, In Search of Belief, I am not specifically referring to the “revivification of an old life…It’s about experiencing a new kind of life entirely.”
I must admit I get hung-up on the word “entirely,” for I seem to experience resurrection in moments, in hints, in glimpses, in efforts, in unexpected gifts, in trial and error, in suggestions, in shimmers and glimmers.
In forgiveness. Or at least the desire to forgive. The movement toward forgiveness.
In grace, even when I don’t recognize it or acknowledge its presence.
Moments of Resurrection
Yes, I see resurrection in the loan daffodil that is almost ready to blossom in our backyard and in the song of a bird we can’t identify. And yes, I see resurrection in the pounds of rice and the cash collected for the local food shelf. I see resurrection in the overflowing crowds at all three of our Easter Sunday services –that pull towards hope and light. I hear it in the hymns and the inspiring sermon, and I receive it in the sharing of peace and the taste of the bread and wine.
I see it in the ways many are working for justice and peace and health and safety throughout the world. All the ways we are given to open our eyes and to respond to untruths and injustice and trauma and loss. All the ways we are invited to care.
My Own Moments of Resurrection
I often think and write about discovering the person God created me to be. The movement towards wholeness. The unfolding and enfolding of my own essence. Lately, another word has entered my reflection time: alignment. When is what I do, how I live my life, what I choose, and how I respond most in alignment with God? Those moments of alignment, however brief or intangible, nearly invisible, are moments of resurrection.
Most often I don’t perceive those moments as they are occurring. Rather, I perceive them as a kind of retrospective resurrection moment, but I am seeking to be more and more aware of Presence in the moment. Right now as I write these words to you.
My moments of resurrection are different from yours, but they share certain characteristics, I think. They lift.
They open.
They touch.
They grow.
They lead.
They transform.
Revisiting My Purpose Statement
Over the years I have developed a purpose or, if you prefer, a mission statement for myself.
My purpose is to deepen awareness of the movement and presence of God in my own life and the lives of others:
By writing.
By facilitating groups.
By listening and asking questions.
By living a contemplative life.
More and more I realize that my purpose/mission statement is a reminder to myself to practice resurrection, to notice resurrection, and to seek resurrection for myself and for others.
Wisdom from Joan Chittister
What we believe by resurrection is that life has a purpose and a quality that does not end at the grave. We believe that the God who created us does not create us to abandon us but brings us finally, somehow, home to the fullness of life. Resurrection is simply another part of the process of growing into God. “Life” as we know it, “time” as we chart it, are simply temporary points to an eternal journey in a universe of unlimited mystery, endless possibility.
In Search of Belief by Joan Chittister, p. 195.
We have now entered the season of Easter. May these days open you, no matter your belief system, to moments of resurrection.
An Invitation
Where and when have you noticed resurrection? I would love to know.
Author of historical fiction, Beatriz Williams in her New York Times review said The Women by Kristin Hannah “gathers women into the experience with moving conviction.” The experience is the Vietnam War –as it was experienced by military nurses both in Vietnam itself, but also when they return to the United States. This is a novel that needed to be written, and Hannah has done it well, indeed.
A Brief Summary
Frances “Frankie” McGrath is inspired when a friend of her older brother about to leave for duty in Vietnam says to her, “Women can be heroes.” In spite of the lack of support from her family Frankie enlists and becomes an army nurse-fresh out of nursing school and totally unprepared for what she will face in Vietnam. But she learns fast and overcomes her fears. She saves lives. She honors those whose lives she cannot save. She plays hard, loves deeply, and creates a new perspective on who she is and is capable of being.
Once her tour of duty ends and she is back home she faces not only the protests against the war, but the disbelief of others, including vets, who insist there were no women in Vietnam. She struggles with how to live her life without her identity as an Army nurse, often making bad choices. She is sustained, however, by the friendships of other women with whom she served.
What I Loved
Hannah is a master both of research and an ability to translate that research into clear and evocative scenes. A friend who has read the book says it is a “flashback to our era, music, and clothing.” As a woman who was in her 20’s during those years, I recognize the name of every song and remember the bellbottoms once in my closet. I graduated from college in 1970 and so remember going on marches to protest the war and, of course, the references to Kent State, and Walter Cronkite and other people and events of the times.
I was overwhelmed and amazed by the graphic scenes of events in the evacuation hospital where Frankie worked. How could Hannah not have been an Army nurse herself! And all those powerful scenes were balanced equally effectively by down time in the O Club and other brief interludes when the wounded were not incoming. We see and feel all this through the eyes of a woman, just as we saw and felt the experiences of the soldiers in Tim O’Brien’s classic, The Things They Carried–one of my most memorable books of all time.
What I Didn’t Love
Now first let me say that I don’t demand perfection. To love and recommend a book doesn’t mean I have to love everything about a book.
I have not read all of Hannah’s books (and she has written many), but when I read The Great Alone (2017) I seem to remember feeling there were a few scenes too many of things going wrong or the character making bad decisions. I don’t recall that feeling when I read The Nightingale (2015), which I loved, and I have not read The Four Winds (2021), which is the book prior to The Women.
I didn’t feel there were too many illustrations of the ugliness of war and the heroics that took place over and over again, but I did feel once Frankie returns home that her struggles, which are all valid, could have been treated more concisely and still delivered the same point.
Oh, and the men in her life and how she responds to them….well, you read it and let me know what you think. And the ending… well, again, let me know what you think.
Do I Recommend Reading This Book?
Yes. This novel is a well-written and vivid book of those Vietnam years. Even though I lived in those years, I confess I never thought about the powerful presence of nurses during the war, and for those who were not alive then, this book brings those years to life, a part of our history we must not forget. In recent years so many novels have been written about WWII, including The Nightingale, but Vietnam has been shoved into silence. The Women gives voice to those years, especially the women’s roles. Bravo.
An Invitation
What novels about a time in history have given you a new perspective or exposed you to something you did not know? I would love to know.
Late in the afternoon, since it was the Day of Preparation (that is, Sabbath eve,) Joseph of Arimathea, a highly respected member of the Jewish Council, came. He was one who lived expectantly, on the lookout for the kingdom of God. Working up his courage, he went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. Pilate questioned whether he could be dead that soon and called for the captain to verify that he was really dead. Assured by the captain, he gave Joseph the corpse.
Having already purchased a linen shroud, Joseph took him down, wrapped him in the shroud, placed him in a tomb that had been cut into the rock, and rolled a large stone across the opening. Mary Magdalene and Mary, mother of Joses, watched the burial.
Mark 15: 42-47 (paraphrased by Eugene Peterson in The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language)
Many years ago the Cleveland Museum of Art hosted a traveling show of treasures from the Vatican. Entombment, a large painting by Caravaggio, was one of those treasures. We were living in Cleveland at the time and were among the crowds of people who attended this exhibit. Our son Geof, who is a graduate of the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, became our unofficial guide as we moved through the galleries. In his quiet voice, he pointed out aspects of the paintings I would surely have missed otherwise. Many people listened to an audio tour prepared by the museum, but even so I noticed a number of people paying attention to what Geof was saying and watching where he was pointing.
How true that was when we entered a room where the only painting was Entombment.
After spending time gazing at the painting, trying to take in the lifeless body of Jesus, the grief of those in attendance, and the strength and struggle of the men as they placed the body in the tomb, Geof suggested we move to the left side of the painting and kneel–not as an act of adoration and devotion, although I remember feeling that, but in order to experience the painting from a different perspective.
Joseph of Arimathea seemed to be looking right at me, asking for my help. I was in that tomb, too, positioned to receive and to ease the body onto that hard slab of rock. When we eventually left that room, that tomb, I noticed others taking the same posture as Geof had shown me.
The Passion Story
During our Sunday morning worship service, Palm Sunday, the Passion Story according to the Gospel of Mark was read. How many times have I read the story in the quiet of my own space, heard the story, seen the story performed, even read aloud for others the story? I know this story, and yet, I am always stunned by the story. Sometimes I imagine myself as Peter, denying three times his relationship with Jesus. Or might I have been one of the Chief Priest’s servant girls who questioned Peter, “You were with the Nazarene, Jesus.” Sometimes I am the woman pouring the expensive perfume over Jesus’ head. Sometimes I am one of the disciples in the room preparing the Passover meal. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to carry the cross as Simon of Cyrene, did.
This story has room for each part of me. Each aspect of ourselves.
This time as Joseph of Arimathea’s actions were described, I remembered that Caravaggio painting and how my son had invited me to be in that scene, that moment.
I wondered about my openness, my willingness to receive.
When have I held someone else’s loss? How have I held my own losses?
How have I prepared the tomb for my own death?
Christine Valters Paintner in her new book, A Different Kind of Fast, Feeding Our True Hungers in Lent, invites us to enter the scene. “Help carry the weight of his body.” I see Joseph and his companion strain to hold that deadweight. How am I asked to lighten that load? To share that burden?
I don’t recall thinking much about the others depicted in the painting, but Paintner suggests:
Stand by the tomb as the mourners lay Jesus’s body to rest. Rest in the silence with them for a while. When the time feels right, consider engaging in conversation with one or more people there. Ask them what they have seen, how they feel, what they are going to do now. Have a dialogue with the garden, the plantlife, the tomb itself, Jesus’s body.
Sit inside the tomb for a period of time. Rest into the waiting. Recognize those places in your own life where you await new life.
p. 214.
This is what these Holy Week days are about–to see and to know ourselves in the story. To discover a new perspective and to lean into the new life awaiting us.
May these coming days deepen your awareness of the movement of God in your life.
An Invitation
When have you heard or experienced something familiar in a new way and gained a new perspective? I would love to know.
Set on a Colorado peach farm, this book far exceeded my expectations. I enjoy family sagas, but often I don’t remember them beyond the last page. This one will stay with me–both for the excellent descriptive writing, but also because of the characters and their resilience and strength.
Victoria’s mother died in a car crash, and at age 17 she is left to run the household, which includes her hardworking and unsympathetic father, wild and mean and alcoholic brother, and a paralyzed war veteran uncle. She falls in love, almost at first sight, with Wilson Moon, a Native American, and this is not acceptable in racist 1948.
I am tempted to tell you more, but, instead, I hope you will read this debut novel.
There he stood and eyed me so long I thought I’d melt like chocolate in the last rays of sun reaching lost across the porch. He said nothing, but I felt as if he knew impossible things about me. He moved closer. I took my first deep smell of him, musky and sharp and strangely inviting, and stared for an instant into his bottomless dark eyes.
p. 15.
But it is often the small fateful twist that alters our lives most profoundly–the beckoning cry of a coal train whistle, a question from a stranger at an intersection, a brown bottle lying in the dirt. Try as we might to convince ourselves otherwise, the moments of our becoming cannot be carefully plucked like the ripest and most satisfying peach from the bough. In the endless stumble toward ourselves, we harvest the crop we are given.
p. 18.
I had chosen to meet on these shores because my rising wisdom understood that I must carry my whole past alongside the new space I had created in myself for hope.
p. 300.
Happiness Falls by Angie Kim
I zoomed through this book. The basic story is unremarkable, a plot line that has been used many times: a father has gone missing. That’s where the similarities to other missing person stories ends. First, this is a biracial Korean American family. The father has become a stay at home Dad, which means his brilliant wife can pursue her career in linguistics. They have three children, 20 year old twins, John and Mia, and also Eugene, age 14, who is autistic and has a rare genetic condition, Angelman syndrome, and cannot speak.
Eugene returns to the house when only Mia is there. He is wild, out-of control, and bloody. The father does not return from their outing. As the investigation begins, the family wonders if the father has a secret life, and the police seem to think Eugene has harmed his father. LOTS of twists and turns, and the book begins to develop a true crime feel. In part that is because Mia, who is the story’s narrator, includes footnotes in the text, along with an occasional chart, as well as analyzing her father’s research into “happiness.”
The only thing that irritated me a bit about the book was frequent statements like, “If only I had known…” or “We would soon realize we should have…” or “it didn’t occur to me until later that…”
Even as the plot kept me intrigued, I was fascinated by the philosophical reference to the importance of language. For example, this footnote:
19 It’s a common mistake, saying verbal to refer to oral speech. It’s a pet peeve of mine when people say ‘verbal, not written,’ because written is verbal. So why do we call non speakers ‘nonverbal,” use the label ‘nonverbal autism’? It leads to the unwarranted assumption that those people are wholly without words. I’ve brought this matter up to people, and they dismiss it as ‘just semantics.’ But sometimes semantics matter. Words matter. They influence our thinking.
p. 229.
Kim has written another novel Miracle Creek, by the way, which received critical acclaim and a handful of awards. TBR anyone?
An Invitation
Is plot or character more important to you? I would love to know.
In my February 19, 2024 post, “Lenten Overload,” (https://wordpress.com/post/livingonlifeslabyrinth.com/3153), I noted my Lenten practices of recent years, when I focused on “letting go” and “decluttering.” I thinned out my shelves of spirituality and theology books–even though it doesn’t look that way–and incorporated that practice into my life as an ongoing project. I tossed multiple copies of published essays I have written and notebooks with writing ideas, plans, and the beginnings of other essays. How good that has felt and how necessary that is, especially at this stage of my life.
In that post I shared my decision to finally (FINALLY) deal with the bins of unorganized photos. A lifetime of photos. I had intended to also begin re-reading my journals, and I did read the first two (1977-1978), but quickly realized I could not adequately address both projects at the same time. I decided to focus on the photos and to enter into it with contemplation and reflection.
With my heart and soul. To pay attention to the movement of God in my life, as reflected in my inner voice. To approach these projects as more than physical decluttering and clearing of space. Instead, I hope to let go of what clutters my heart and mind.
The Beginning
No surprise, I am learning as I am doing.
I had vague ideas about how to approach the magnitude of organizing all our photos. Chronological seemed the most logical idea, but then I thought about certain themes. Maybe instead of organizing photos in albums, I should create some photo books a’ la Shutterfly. Our homes have been so important to us, and I have taken many photos to show the changes we made inside and outside over the years. Maybe I should select the best of those and do other photo books and should I integrate photos of family and friends into the settings? And what about trip photos? Do we really need the many photos of buildings and lakes and other scenery? And what about all the photos family and friends sent to us in Christmas cards? We have loved receiving them, but should I keep them all now?
I dug in–sorting into various categories. The grandkids. Our kids. Friends and other family. Homes. Trips. I subdivided big categories into smaller ones. I cursed myself for never writing helpful information on the back of each photo. Sometimes a date was stamped on the back and that helped, as did clothing and backgrounds, but what a mess.
I consider myself an organized person, so how did I let it get this way? And why do we have all these duplicates? How will I ever make sense of this all? Well, like Anne Lamott’s famous quote about writing, “Bird by Bird.” Photo by photo. One photo at a time.
My Made-Up Guidelines
Focus on one category or subject at a time. I decided to begin with all the photos of our first grandchild, Maren, who is now 21. Group all the pictures of her and of my husband and me with her. A sizable pile, to be sure, but it is a start, and it’s almost like getting to know her all over again.
Eliminate too similar or duplicate photos. Edit, edit, edit.
Set aside pictures to give to others. For instance, I now have a fun pile of photos to send to Maren.
Work in short spurts and work only as long as it is pleasurable and productive.
Print photos on my phone I intend to keep. Delete others.
Don’t even consider filling photo albums or other storage options until all photos have been sorted and categorized and organized.
Be flexible. Maybe I will decide to do things differently as I go along. Maybe other ideas or methods will present themselves.
Be patient. Remember to stretch, to breathe. Always a good thing.
A Practice, Not A Project
How easy it is to think about this process as a project–as something that needs to be done because of all the space these bins are taking or because I can never find a picture I want or because I don’t want to leave this mess for my kids to handle. Or because this is the time of life to intentionally declutter and deal with the stuff of our lives. If not now, when?
Those are worthwhile reasons, but I have committed to this as a Lenten practice. What does that mean?
Once again Joan Chittister comes to the rescue:
The wonder of being able to see life as whole, at any time and all times, is the great gift of memory. It makes all of life a piece in progress. With one part of the soul in the past and another in the present, we are able to go on stitching together a life that has integrity and wholeness. Because of memory life is not simply one isolated act after another. It all fits into the image of the self and the goals of the heart. It makes them real. It makes them whole.
The Gift of Years, Growing Older Gracefully, p. 155.
This practice is about gratitude for the many gifts in my life.
This practice is about remembering how the years have formed me and my loved ones.
This practice is about finding the whole in the parts.
This practice is about noticing the gaps and what they mean.
This practice is about sharing stories.
This practice is about making connections.
This practice is about being present as I recall the past.
This practice is about transforming burden into gift.
This practice is about being more aware of God’s presence in my life. My whole life.
Post-Lent
Today is day 24 in the 40 days of Lent, (Sundays are not counted in the 40 days.) and I am no where close to completing this project, but since it is a spiritual practice, that is ok. More than ok. This spiritual practice will companion me in the Easter season and into ordinary time and more than likely right up to and through Advent. And because I keep taking more photographs this project/practice will continue teaching and guiding me.
An Invitation
If you decided on a specific spiritual practice for this season of Lent, how is it going? I would love to know.
Reading the next book in a series and another book by a favorite author feels like coming home. The refrigerator is stocked with my favorite foods and beverages, and the light is glowing by my favorite reading chair. This feels especially true if a recent read was less than satisfying, and I need “a sure thing.”
A “Sure Thing” Mystery Series
I can count on Iona Whishaw’s Lane Winslow Mystery series when I need a pleasing, not too heavy, but also not too predictable book. Set in post WWII Canada, former English spy Lane Winslow somehow becomes involved in intrigue and murders in picturesque Kings Cove. And Inspector Darling often needs her help, even when he doesn’t know it.
A Deceptive Devotion, the sixth book in the series, involves a mysterious older Russian woman looking for her missing brother. Lane, who speaks Russian becomes her host and her translator. Is this woman who she says she is? Complications build when a lone hunter is found murdered near by. Is there a connection between these two plot threads?
One of the things that is important to me when I read a series is that the characters continue to develop, and that is true in these books. Lane and Inspector Darling have evolved, grown since their first appearance in book #1. Plus, I love getting to know the other characters in the book, including Constable Ames, who often provides some comic relief, and Lane’s neighbors –the postmistress Eleanor and the Hughes ladies who are master gardeners, and a variety of others, who all care for Lane. And then there is the ongoing relationship between Lane and Darling.
This is not deep reading, but is perfect when I feel the need for distraction. While I wait for the next Louise Penny and the next Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear how grateful I am to have four more in the Lane Winslow series available.
A “Sure Thing” Author
The first novel I read by Irish author Niall Williams was This Is Happiness published in 2019, and that led me to his first novel Four Letters of Love (1997), which I also loved. This past year I read History of Rain (2014). Again, another big love. Finally, I realized this writer never disappoints, and I need to read the rest of his back list.
I just finished As It Is In Heaven (1999). Yes, I loved it. Sorry to be so repetitive. The book grabbed me with its opening lines:
There are only three great puzzles in the world, the puzzle of love, the puzzle of death, and between each of these and part of both of them, the puzzle of God. God is the greatest puzzle of all”
p. 3
Stephen Griffin is a lackluster teacher who falls in love with an Italian violinist, Gabriella, the first time he hears her play. His father, Phillip, who continues to grieve the death of his wife and daughter in a car accident, realizes his son is in love as they play chess.
The magic begins. The miracles begin. And the writing takes my breath away over and over again.
I don’t want to say more, because I want you to discover this on your own.
How happy I am that I still have three more novels left to read: The Fall of Light (2001), Only Say the Word (2005), and John (2008). Plus, he has written several nonfiction books about his beloved Ireland.
Happy reading!
An Invitation
What book has inspired you to read all the books written by that author? What series of books do you love? I would love to know.
My morning meditation time includes not only reflecting on a selection from a spiritual text, writing in my journal, and lifting the prayers of my heart, but I also read Heather Cox Richardson’s daily newsletter, Letters from an American, which has over 1.4m subscribers. https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com Richardson is a Professor of History at Boston College and an expert on American political and economic history, and each day she manages to bring clarity to the chaos of the day’s news, adding the perspective of history into what swirls around us.
Heather Cox Richardson is a valuable and insightful and hopeful voice, and Sunday she spoke to an overflow crowd at House of Hope Presbyterian Church in St Paul, MN. Such a privilege to see and hear her.
I urge you, if you have not already done so, to subscribe to her newsletter. She also has a new book, New York Times bestseller Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America. Nope, I haven’t read it yet, but I own it, and I will read it, for sure.
In Person Energy
Sitting in her presence with all the others who made the decision to spend their Sunday afternoon in this way, I thought about the gifts of physically sharing space with others and how different that is from sitting in the snug reading a book or at my desk reading newsletters on my phone or laptop. How different sharing the same space with a speaker is from listening to a podcast or radio interview while I fix dinner. Now don’t get me wrong–I am so grateful for all those ways I can access news, ideas, and events, but being there strengthens commitment, builds energy, and reinforces beliefs and intentions.
Even though I know, as I listen to, watch, or read something meaningful or interesting in the comfort of my home, I am expanding my awareness, sharing that experience with others is a different, more personal, more dynamic experience. How good it is to be with others who are eager to hear more, learn more, and who may support a certain perspective.
An example: I am a big Barbara Brown Taylor fan. I own and have read most of her books, and whenever a new one is published by her I rush to buy it. That is true about Anne Lamott and Elizabeth Gilbert, for example, as well. But after attending in person events in which these women were the speakers, even though I was one of hundreds in attendance, I have a kind of relationship with each of them. I saw them pause and smile and take a sip of water and adjust their glasses or the hair that fell into their eyes and shift the papers of their prepared talk. I sensed them listen, really listen, as an audience member asked a question. They are now no longer only words on a page or a voice in a studio. They are individuals. They are women who decided what to wear that morning and have long “to do” lists, which may include grocery shopping or taking the car in for an oil change. And yes, they are brilliant and wise and often funny and charming, but they are also real. Real.
I realize that as I age I am not as likely to make the effort to attend these kinds of events. I think more about the logistics and the energy such attendance takes. Instead of going to a book signing or talk by someone who interests me at a local independent bookstore, I am more apt to decide in favor of staying home and reading. I am not going to beat myself up here, for sometimes that is the right choice. But sometimes I am drawn to be present.
Choosing to be Present
I also think about other ways and time we can be present and the benefits of doing that. I choose to attend Sunday worship. I choose to sit at tables with others during our adult forums between services. I choose to lead a weekly writing group, which includes time to meditate and write together, even though I write and meditate by myself at home.
Something different happens when we are sharing each other’s energy. Something different is felt when we share a space. Something different is created when we intentionally gather.
Now I realize that the day may come, more than likely will come, that my ability to physically be present will be limited, but that time is not yet.
For now I benefit from the coming together, and my sense is that each of us present benefit from the collective presence.
An Invitation
When have you experienced recently the value of being present? I would love to know.
There is something so satisfying about reading all the books written by an author, but at the same time it can leave the reader yearning for another one and hoping there will, in fact, be another one.
The first book I read this year was Margaret Renkl’s most recent book, The Comfort of Crows, A Backyard Year, and I loved it. Wondrous, lovely prose and gorgeous illustrations by her artist brother. (See my review, https://wordpress.com/post/livingonlifeslabyrinth.com/3083) In 2022 I read her first book, Late Migrations, A Natural History of Love and Loss, which also is illustrated by Billy Renkl. In that book of essays, her preferred style, she moves back and forth between essays observing nature mainly in Alabama and Tennessee and essays about her family. Sometimes the essay is a list, such as “Things I Didn’t Know When I Was Six.”
Graceland At Last, Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South is Renkl’s second book and is a collection of 60 essays published in the New York Times in the years 2017-2020, and yes, this brought forth many memories and realities from those years: Trump, COVID, climate change, and more. Issues that continue to plague us. Renkl lives in Nashville and grew up in Alabama.(I wonder what she would say about the recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling about embryos. I think I know, but I would value reading her words, for her writing is always clear.) and I appreciate the perspective she gives about an area of the country somewhat foreign to this Midwestern woman.
The book is divided into six sections: Flora and Fauna, Politics and Religion, Social Justice, Environment, Family and Community, Arts and Culture. The best way to explain the scope of her writing, as well as her writing style is to share some quotations:
Bald eagles typically mate for life, and each pair frequently uses the same nest again and again, adding a new layer of branches and sticks each year. A bald eagle nest can weigh more than two tons. From a distance, it looks as though someone has hauled a Ford Explorer into the sky and lodged it in the fork of a tree.
“The Eagles of Reelfoot Lake, (February 28, 2019), p. 22
Partly this divide comes down to scale: you can love a human being and still fear the group that person belongs to. A friend of mine recently joined a continuing-ed class made up about equally of native-born Americans and immigrants. The two groups integrate seamlessly, joking around like any co-workers, but the day after the election my friend said, “I think half my class might ‘ve just voted to deport the other half.”
“The Passion of Southern Christians,” (April 8, 2017), p.83
Changing our relationship to our yards is simple: just don’t spray. Let the wildflowers take root within the grass. Use an oscillating fan to keep the mosquitoes away. Tug the weeds out of the flower bed with your own hands and feel the benefit of a natural antidepressant at the same time. Trust the natural world to perform its own insect control, and watch the songbirds and the tree frogs and the box turtles and the friendly garter snakes return to their homes among us.
“America’s Killer Lawns,” (May 18, 2020), p. 157.
A condolence letter is a gift to the recipient, but it’s a gift to the writer, too. Remembering someone you loved is a way of remembering who you were, a way of linking your own past and present. Even when you love only the survivor–even if you hardly knew, or never met, the mourned beloved–you know something crucial: you know that person had a hand in creating someone you love. A condolence letter confirms the necessity of connection, one human heart to another. It’s a way of saying, “We belong to one another.”
“The Gift of Shared Grief,” (February 4, 2019), p. 211
One of the reasons this book resonated with me was that it recharged memories of the Civil Rights Tour my husband and I and other members of our congregation took the fall of 2018. Renkl writes eloquently about some of the places we visited on the tour. If you read only one essay in this collection, read “Middle Passage to Mass Incarceration,” pp. 129-132.
I checked Renkl’s website to see if another book is forthcoming, and nothing is mentioned. Nancy, give her a break, I tell myself, for Comfort of Crows was only released in 2023. I do not doubt she is observing and reflecting and gardening and writing, however, and when another new book is published, I will read it.
An Invitation
Do you ever read collections of essays? Any recommendations?
Sunday morning as we approached our church we spotted an eagle perched on top of our steeple. Perched doesn’t seem like the right word for a creature as large and as impressive as an eagle. In fact, “perched” sounds precarious, but, actually, the eagle looked quite comfortable. Balanced. Settled.
According to Medicine Cards, The Discovery of Power Through the Ways of Animals by Jamie Sams and David Carson:
Eagle medicine is the power of the Great Spirit, the connection to the Divine. It is the ability to live in the realm of spirit, and yet remain connected and balanced within the realm of Earth. Eagle soars, and is quick to observe expansiveness within the overall pattern of life. From the heights of the clouds, Eagle is close to the Heavens where the Great Spirit dwells.
p. 41
Seeing the eagle who appeared so at home against the backdrop of the clear blue sky, I thought about the importance of the eagle to Native American tribes. Again, Sams and Carson:
Eagle represents a state of grace achieved through hard work, understanding, and a completion of the tests of initiation which result in the taking of one’s personal power.
p. 41
Seeing eagle, I felt my heart lift. I felt beckoned by eagle to soar. I’m not sure what that means in my life right now, and more than likely, there are spiritual tests ahead as I live these elder days, but eagle reminds me to take heart and gather my courage.
So often I write about being grounded–in my faith, in my community, in the ongoing unfolding of my relationship with the Divine–but I also need to stretch, to soar, to expand. To open to the spaciousness of the skies. Again, I am not sure what that means in these elder years. How might I be called to become even more than how I currently think of my being? In what ways does eagle challenge me to become the person I was created to be?
Eagle teaches you to look higher and to touch Grandfather Sun with your heart, to love the shadow as well as the light. See the beauty in both, and you will take flight like the eagle.
Eagle medicine is the gift we give ourselves to remind us of the freedom of the skies.
p. 41
How grateful I am Eagle welcomed us to church Sunday morning.
An Eagle Story or is it a Peter Story?
Several years ago when our grandson Peter was only eight years old (He is now sixteen.) he joined us on a field trip to the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, MN. https://www.nationaleaglecenter.org Now here’s something you need to know about Peter: at a very young age he became a wolf expert. He became a member of the International Wolf Center in Ely, MN. https://wolf.org He read books about wolves, and we visited a wolf sanctuary where he asked knowledgeable questions. He knows all about wolves.
But he also knew a thing or two about eagles.
As we drove from St Paul to Wabasha, Papa started quizzing Peter about eagles. How many kinds of eagles are there? What’s the difference between a bald eagle and a golden eagle? What is the life expectancy of an eagle? What happened to make them almost extinct and now they are everywhere?
Peter tolerated the questions, answering with authority (and accuracy), but all of a sudden he had had it. “Papa, raptors are not my specialty.”
So there.
Oh, and by the way, once at the eagle center he stumped one of the docents with one of his questions. She responded, “I don’t know, but I will find out and let you know.” And she did.
I think Peter has both wolf and eagle spirit.
An Invitation
How do the birds of the air, the creatures of the earth inspire and teach you? I would love to know.
Biographical Notes about Jamie Sams and David Carson
Jamie Sams is a Native American medicine teacher and a member of the Wolf Clan teaching lodge. She is of Iroquois and Cherokee descent and has been trained in Seneca, Mayan, Aztec, and Choctaw medicine. She is the author of Sacred Path Cards, The 13 Original Clan Mothers, and Earth Medicine.
David Carson is of Choctaw descent, grew up in Oklahoma and has lived on Cheyenne, Crow, and Sioux reservations in Montana and Manitoba. He is the author of Lament.
How is it possible to read eight novels in one month and not be disappointed by any of them? Well, that’s my story this month. I am willing to say, however, that my absolute favorite of the month was Apeirogon (2020) by Colum McCann, which I reviewed in my post on February 22nd. https://wordpress.com/view/livingonlifeslabyrinth.com This is an important book, but you know how sometimes “important books” can feel like a slog. This one DID NOT!
Coming in with a close, photo finish second was The Bell in the Lake (2022) by Norwegian author, Lars Mytting. This book was not on my radar at all, and I am grateful for a friend’s recommendation. Set in a remote area of Norway in the 1880’s, the new pastor, Kai Schweigaard, decides a new, larger and more modern church is needed. The current medieval stave style church — wooden, timber framed– is in bad repair and besides the carvings referencing pagan legends seem inappropriate on a Christian church. The church is sold to historians in Dresden, where the church will be reconstructed, in order to preserve the stave style.
A complicating factor are the bells in the church, which are said to ring on their own at the sign of danger. And danger is on the horizon, including a love triangle: the pastor, Astrid Hekne whose ancestors had the bells cast and donated to the church–and such a story that is– and Gerhard, the artist and architect sent from Dresden to oversee the dismantling of the church. Wonderful book, and I am eager to read The Reindeer Hunters, also by Mytting.
I ended the month on a reading high. More than once while reading The Berry Pickers (2023) by Amanda Peters I felt tears forming. During the annual work trip to Maine from Nova Scotia to pick blueberries, four-year-old Ruthie goes missing. Instead of being taken seriously, clearly because the family is Indian, they are ignored and eventually must return home. The rest of the book is about what happens to Ruthie and also the stories of her family of origin. Heart-wrenching and well-written.
Along with these three I read:
We All Want Impossible Things (2022) by Catherine Newman. A hospice novel with hospice humor, along with an exploration of grief and loss. Well-done and not depressing.
The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections (2022) by Eva Jurczyk. Even though at times this book felt like some additional editing would be helpful, I thoroughly enjoyed the premise of a missing rare manuscript and the academic setting, and I hope there will be more by this author in the future.
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk (2016) by Kathleen Rooney. I read this book years ago and so enjoyed reading it again. The walk in New York City on New Year’s Eve (1984) is really a life review for Lillian now in her 80’s and such a life she has had–much more than what is on the surface.
Wench (2010) by Dolan Perkins-Valdez. You may have read her more recent book, Take My Hand (2022) and I liked that book, although I thought there were some some gaps, some undeveloped pieces. I think Wench, which is the author’s first book, is the better book of the two. Set in pre-Civil War, the slave owners in this story take their slave mistresses to a summer resort in Ohio. The story focuses on these women –what they endure, how they develop, and their attempts to achieve freedom.
Banyan Moon (2023) by Thai Thai. A totally absorbing book. Banyan House in Florida is owned by Minh, a Vietnamese woman who immigrated to the Unites States with her daughter. We learn the story of their life in Vietnam, but the main plot line is set in the U.S. When Minh dies, her granddaughter Ann returns to Florida from Michigan where she is engaged to a wealthy white man and professor who says she is “exotic.” Secrets are discovered, and relationships must be healed. Stunning writing, especially for a debut novel.
Nonfiction: Wise Words and One for Fun
First, the fun one, but there was wisdom there, too: Unraveling, What I Learned about Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World’s Ugliest Sweater (2023) by Peggy Orenstein. I reviewed this in an earlier post, in which I also told my own sheep story.
I read three books by Esther de Waal.
The White Stone The Art of Letting Go (2021). I had read this before, but a spiritual direction client mentioned reading it, and I decided to read it again. A chapter about “diminishment” was especially helpful as I think about these elder years. “I hope that God is going to work within my limitations.” p. 89.
To Pause at the Threshold, Reflections on Living on the Border (2001). I read this right before the beginning of Lent, which is one of those border times, and I especially appreciated the chapters, “Connecting Inner and Outer” and “The Time Between Times.”
Lost in Wonder, Rediscovering the Spiritual Art of Attentiveness (2003). The book is written as a preparation for going on a retreat, but is applicable to our everyday lives as well. At times I got lost in all the quotes from other spiritual writers and would have preferred more Esther. That is true in each of her books. However, I loved what she says about creating and living in our own cloister space. “But it is vital to see the cloister space in my own self as the pivot around which daily life revolves, the rock or anchor which holds it firmly grounded. This is what Christ meant when he said ‘Go into your room'”. p. 14
Finally, Cacophony of Bones The Circle of a Year (2023) by Kerri ni Dochartaigh. This book is a sequel to Thin Places, A Natural History of Healing and Home (2021), which I read in January. She is pregnant and it is the pandemic. “I am telling you here of a year that was like no other. I am telling you here of a year that was just the same as every other that had gone before.” p.ix. She feels deeply, struggles with depression, doubts herself, but she is a keen observer and creates links missed by most of us, I imagine.
Entering March
I have a stack of books from the library:
The Other Mothers by Katherine Faulkner
Graceland by Margaret Renkl
The View from Penthouse B by Elinor Lipman
The Hero of the Book by Elizabeth McCracken
Commitment by Mona Simpson
And I have a stack of recently acquired books:
The Women by Kristin Hannah
The Distance Between Us by Maggie O’Farrell
As It Is In Heaven by Niall Williams
A Deceptive Devotion by Iona Whishaw (#6 in her mystery series)
An Irish Country Girl by Patrick Taylor
An Irish Country Courtship by Patrick Taylor
And I continue to read during my morning meditation time:
Jesus, Guide of My Life by Joyce Rupp
A Different Kind of Fast by Christine Valters Paintner
Happy reading!
One Last Note
On one of our recent roaming days we discovered a wonderful bookstore new to us–in Buffalo, Minnesota. I was especially impressed with their backlist of books. We helped the Buffalo economy! https://buffalo-books.com
And Yet One More Note
If you are new to my blog, you may be interested to know that every Thursday I write about books and every Tuesday I write on spiritual topics–the ordinary and the extraordinary. Thanks for reading and I hope you will decide to subscribe and/or share my posts with others.
An Invitation
What did you read in February? Any gems? I would love to know.
Driving along the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River this past weekend we were entertained by eagles tumbling in the sky as part of their mating ritual. We lost count of the number of hawks perched on bare branches, enjoying the view of open water and dwindling patches of ice. A glorious day for roaming, and this is one of our favorite drives.
One of our favorite stops is Cultural Cloth, a shop that represents the work of artisans from around the world. We don’t always stop there because we know how dangerous and tempting it can be, but the landscape has been so brown and grey this winter, a shot of color would be welcome. (See what I did there!)
We laughed and wished each other “Happy Anniversary” (Our anniversary is in August!) as we carried our latest purchase, a gorgeous rug made in Guatemala, to the car.
We fell in love with the colors of this kilim style rug woven in the Mazir-Sharif regions of Afghanistan. Their rugs are woven from scraps of yarn left over from the production of their pile-woven rugs. And I knew exactly where it would go–in our entryway.
Once home I folded the rug already in the entryway, which we had purchased from Cultural Cloth the last time we were there, and I placed the new rug in front of the door. Lovely. Welcoming and happy.
But then I wondered what it would look like in the living room area on top of the sisal rug–a shot of color. Why not try that?
Perfect! I liked it there even better.
And that’s when my delight in change took over. My impulse to rearrange. And one thing led to another.
How would the more informal looking rattan chairs in the snug look in the living room? But then what would I do with the existing chairs, for they didn’t seem right for the snug? Ah, how about moving the chairs from the garret to the snug? Well, you get the idea. One thing leads to another.
The spiritual practice of hometending reminds me that nothing is static. Nothing stays the same, and being in the present moment leads to the next present moment. I allow myself to imagine how the present moment can look a bit different with just a bit of imagination and an openness to try something else.
One thing leads to another.
It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better
Fulfilling the vision takes work, and in this case it was moving around three sets of chairs and two tables and lamps and pillows and a desk and more. And as long as everything was in turmoil why not clean the ceiling fan in both the snug and the kitchen. Yes, why not? (Thanks, honey!)
That doesn’t happen in one fell swoop, and before the picture could be complete, things definitely looked worse before they got better. I had a vision, true, but I really didn’t know if it would all work in a pleasing way. The unknown remained unknown until most everything was in place.
Spiritual hometending reminds me that we may want to and, in fact, decide to cross a threshold, and we may know why we are doing that and have some idea of what is ahead, but not completely. We can’t see it all. There will be twists and turns on the path ahead, sometimes requiring trust and courage. When facing a decision, my husband and I often pose as part of the discernment process the question, “What’s the worst that can happen?” In this case, if we didn’t like how it turned out, we could move everything back the way it was. A loss of a day and some energy, yes, but nothing life threatening. We decided it was worth the effort.
Shop the House
I raided the pillow closet and opened up cupboards. I piled up books on tables and moved this here and that there. I thought I might need to buy new lamps, but then remembered the lamps in the guest bedroom, and sure enough, they added just the needed touch of color.
Spiritual hometending reminds me that so often, most often, I have what I need, if I am willing to open my eyes and my heart. At the same time I could not have accomplished the new look without the help and the support of my husband. Hometending–and all of life, often means knowing when to ask for help.
And, of course, what I most need to remember is that my inner house is grounded in the love of God, knowing, no matter what, I am beloved by God.
One More Thought
As I thought about words I often say, I remembered some of my parents’ guiding words. My father often said, “Your day will come.” How frustrating that was to hear sometimes, when whatever I wanted to do or have was denied, but I now hear the hope in that and even the joy in that.
My mother often said–just when conversation was becoming interesting–“Now we are just going to have happy talk.” She did not like disagreements or conflict, but now I also hear something else in her statement. Gratitude for what we have, including the love we have for one another. A desire to lift our lives with optimism.
Guiding Words are meant to lead, to open our hearts to possibilities, to offer direction without locking us into only one way of thinking or being. May it be so.
Excuse me if I sound a bit breathless, but I just finished reading Apeirogon by Colum McCann, and it is stunning, superb. I had not heard of this book, which was published in 2020, but then in the last couple months a good friend, who is one of my most reliable book sources, and another someone, whom I can’t recall, mentioned this book. I added it to my TBR list and then during a recent bookstore indulgence, there it was.
First order of business: What is an “apeirogon”? Is it a person, place, or thing? A made-up word?
Apeirogon: a shape with a countably infinite number of sides.
Countably infinite being the simplest form of infinity. Beginning from zero, one can use natural numbers to count on and on, and even though the counting will take forever one can still get to any point in the universe in a finite amount of time.
p. 82
Make sense? No, I don’t really understand it either, except that this book challenged me to open to more possibilities, more sides, more understandings than I could imagine.
Set that aside for the moment.
The story, based on a true story: Bassam Aramin is Palestinian. Rami Elhanan is Israeli. They each lose a daughter to violence. Abir is killed in 2007 by a rubber bullet when she is ten, and Smadar is 13 when she becomes the victim of suicide bombers in 1997. These bereft fathers meet and decide to share their stories, which they do over and over again and all over the world. Their core message, which is repeated multiple times, is “It will not be over until we talk.”
The story is moving, as is the wisdom because of the story.
Rami says:
The first choice is obvious: revenge. When someone kills your daughter, you want to get even. You want to go out and kill an Arab, any Arab, all Arabs, and then you want to try and kill his family and anyone else around him, it’s expected, it’s demanded. Every Arab you see, you want him dead. Of course you don’t always do this in a real sense, but you do this by asking other people to kill this Arab for you, your politicians, your so-called leaders. You ask them to slam a missile into his house, to poison him, to take his land, to steal his water, to arrest his son, to beat him up at the checkpoints. If you kill one of mine, I will kill ten of yours. And the dead one, naturally, has an uncle or a brother or a cousin or a wife who wants to kill you back and then you want to kill them back again, another ten times over. Revenge. It’s the simplest way. And then you get monuments to that revenge, with mourners’ tents, songs, placards on the walls, another riot, another checkpoint, another piece of land stolen. A stone leads to a bullet. And another suicide bomber leads to another air strike. And it goes on and on. And on.
p. 220
Bassam says:
You see the Occupation exists in every aspect of your life, an exhaustion and a bitterness that nobody outside it really understands. It deprives you of tomorrow. It stops you from going to the market, to the hospital, to the beach, to the sea. You can’t walk, you can’t drive, you can’t pick up an olive from your own tree which is on the other side of the barbed wire. You can’t even look up in the sky. They have their planes up there. They own the air above and the ground below. You need a permit to sow your land. Your door is kicked in, your house is taken over, they put their feet on your chairs. Your seven-year-old is picked up and interrogated…Most Israelis don’t even know this happens. It’s not that they’re blind. They just don’t know what is being done in their name…They can’t travel in the West Bank. They have no idea how we are living. But it happens every day. Every single day…
It’s a tragedy that we need to continually prove that we are human beings. Not only to the Israelis, but also for other Arabs, our brothers and sisters, to the Americans, to the Chinese, the Europeans. Why is that? Do I not look human? Do I not bleed man? We are not special. We are a people, just like any other.
pp. 236-237
A Unique Structure
The structure in the book is almost a character itself. The whole of the book is made up of small numbered sections. Some are only a line long and others a page or two. The content of these sections is not only the basic story, but also references to nature and art and philosophy and history and literature and other peoples’ stories–all suggesting the interconnection of everything and everyone. And not once did I feel bored. Not once did I wonder when the “real” story would continue. Did I understand every reference? No, but I was always intrigued.
But here’s how the plot is even more unique. In the first half the book the sections build from #1 to #500. Then there is a section #1001. Only much later does the reader understand the significance of that number. Then the section numbers decrease from #500 to #1. And sometimes a section in one half of the book is related to the same number in the other half of the book. I kept wondering if the author had a huge dry erase board where he kept track of the content. This method did not feel contrived or created for its own sake. Instead, it added to the interconnection of everything and everyone.
This is a novel for our time and one that contributes in a deep and powerful way as a way to understand, if that is possible, the current chaos.
I feel a need to fast before opening another book. I probably won’t do that, for my reading addiction is always present, but I do know this book will preoccupy and even haunt me.
An Invitation
What books have haunted you long after you’ve read them? I would love to know.
I felt prepared for Lent this year. I really did. After all, I had consulted my list of Lenten meditation books in my personal library and gathered some key ones. In addition I ordered two new books (of course)–Jesus, Guide of My Life, Reflections for the Lenten Journey by Joyce Rupp and A Different Kind of Fast, Feeding Our True Hungers in Lent by Christine Valters Paintner.
I even thought about a specific Lenten practice to note daily in my journal people, places, and things as a way to increase my awareness and become more present. Have I done that yet? Nope. Not really.
Instead, I feel overwhelmed.
My email inbox is full of beautiful and meaningful Lenten reflections –Joan Chittister, Richard Rohr, Nadia Bolz Weber, Diana Butler Bass, Steve Garnaas, Rosemary McMahon, Oasis Ministries, and others. And I am tempted by other new books: Field Notes for the Wilderness by Sarah Bessey,You Are Here: Keywords for Life’s Explorers by David Steindl-Rast, The Eloquence of Silence by Thomas Moore, Beguiled By Beauty, Cultivating a Life of Contemplation and Compassion by Wendy Farley, and Being Here: Prayers for Curiosity, Justice and Love by Padraig O’Tuoma.
Even the New York Times’ Sunday opinion section had an essay about Lent, “What We Give Up Makes Us Who We Are by Molly Worthen.
So many thoughts. So many suggestions.
So much to read.
What to give up? What to add on? So many ways to think about this time of the church year and about this season of my life. So many more items for my To Do list.
Time to back up.
First, I thought about the meaningful Lenten practices of recent years — lightening my physical load. For two years I challenged myself to let go of books in my spirituality and theology library–at least one book each of the 40 days of Lent. How good that felt and how that has become part of my ongoing practice. I no longer need to keep every book that enters the house.
Last year I extended that ‘letting go” to a big stack of magazines I have kept. I paged through each issue, saving some articles or images to perhaps use with the writing group I facilitate. The only complete issues I kept were the ones in which an essay I had written had been published. Do I miss them –not at all?
So is there any other THING that needs decluttering? Ah yes. At the beginning of this year I decided to begin two projects.
To finally go through all our photos–sort, organize, order and even compile some of them into thematic Shutterfly books.
To reread all my journals, beginning with my first one from 1976, and decide what to do with them.
What have I done on those two projects? Well, the above picture is the extent of my work so far. I have gathered the bins of photographs and some of the earliest journals. They are partially hidden behind my comfortable chair in the garret where I can see them from my desk.
They are calling me, beckoning me.
I hunger to respond to them.
I yearn to let go of what is no longer needed.
Ah, my Lenten practice. To enter into these projects with contemplation and reflection. With my heart and soul. To pay attention to the movement of God in my life, as reflected in my inner voice. To approach these projects as more than physical decluttering and clearing of space. Instead, I hope to let go of what clutters my heart and mind.
I recognize these projects will take much longer than the 40 days of Lent, but this is a set-aside time to begin that journey.
To do that, however, I do need to let go of the need to read everything that comes into my inbox or to order all the titles that entice me or even to respond to all the worthy ideas and suggestions about approaches to Lent that come my way. I need to leave my meditation space a little sooner and take that contemplative attitude back into the garret where my projects await.
Finally, I need to be gentle with myself. I am aware that moving into the new year now takes a bit longer, and movement from winter to spring is always challenging for me. Perhaps this slower pace is my new normal.
And I need to remember that my word for the year is enfold/unfold. Lent will enfold me and Lent will unfold.
Stay tuned.
An Invitation
What spiritual practice is calling you? What yearning is beckoning you? I would love to know.
Some in my family may argue that I read this book only to have an excuse to share my story about wrestling a sheep. (Do I have your attention?) Well, that may be at least partially true, but I also recognized the author who has written important books about young people in today’s culture, such as Girls & Sex, Boys & Sex, and Don’t Call Me Princess, and I knew I would learn something new and more than likely would appreciate the ride.
We are beginning to see books appear about the pandemic and/or written during the pandemic, and Unraveling by Peggy Orenstein is one of these books. Orenstein is a SLFHM (She learned from her mom.) knitter and during the pandemic she decided to experience the whole process from sheep to sweater. While there were too many details along the way for me, I did enjoy her reactions to each phase of the process. In addition, Orenstein shares her own life with the reader–feelings about a daughter ready to head to college, the ongoing grieving of her mother’s death, and the decline of her father. “I realize I am beginning a shift in my perspective from thinking about old age as a daughter…to reckoning with it for myself.”
As I said, at times all the details, especially since I am not a knitter and in fact, am not a craft kind of person at all, led me to skimming the text, rather than reading carefully. However, I will share one detail. About the color blue. Over the years both Republicans and Democrats tried to claim the color blue probably because “red” seemed related to communism, but in 2000 both USA Today and the New York Times used red for the Republicans (both words–red and Republican start with “r”) and blue for Democrats on the election coverage maps. Voila!
Ok, I promised you my story about wrestling a sheep.
Meet Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.
Once upon a time my husband and I lived at quite a magical place in the countryside outside of Cleveland. The original owner, Asa, was given the land for his service in the Revolutionary War, and in 1997 we became stewards of Sweetwater Farm, following a long line of previous owners. My husband, who worked full-time as a hospice physician and medical director decided having a hobby farm was just what he needed as an antidote to his days of death and dying.
I had always been a city girl, but I admit I fell prey to the charms of our country life. However, as Bruce added animals to the menagerie (llamas, goats, chickens, dog, cats, potbellied pig, donkey, geese named Cyd, Charise, and the sister Clarise, and of course, sheep) I was clear that the care and feeding of such animals was HIS responsibility.
Why was it then that the animals always seemed to escape when he wasn’t around?
One morning, as was my usual routine, I was sitting in my office in the front of the house, which faced the road, reading my devotions and meditating. I was disturbed by cars honking. Unusual. I looked out the window and saw a sheep on the road. One of our sheep.
I knew it had to be Blynken, for she had been sick, and Bruce had isolated her, confining her to the barn where he had piled up bales of hay to create her own healing space. Well, she apparently had recovered, and Bruce apparently had not closed the barn door all the way after feeding her before leaving for work. “Freedom,” thought Blynken.
Fortunately, I was dressed and not still in my pajamas, and I charged out the front door. By that time Blynken was running in the ditch. I headed after her. Now what you need to know about me is that I am not a runner, a sprinter, a pole vaulter. In fact, exercise is never my first or even second choice. I am a reader. But I booked after Blynken and somehow managed to catch up to her. Perhaps I was channeling our son who had played football in high school, but my adrenalin racing, I tackled that bundle of chocolate.
Now what? There I was — in the ditch flat on top of a bleating sheep.
Here’s the God-thing: A woman driving home after working the night shift at the hospital not far from us saw my plight. Blynken and I were hard to miss. She stopped and amazingly, she was driving a stationwagon and even more amazingly, she didn’t just laugh at me, but she jumped into action. She opened up the back of her car and between the two of us we managed to lift that blankety, blank sheep into the car.
I have no memory of our conversation–we were probably too out of breath — as we drove the short distance to our garage where there was an indoor dog pen. A new home for Blynken!
I know I thanked her profusely (and later found out from the hospital who she was–and sent her flowers), but she acted as if the Sheep Olympics were an every day occurrence in her life. I think we won a Gold Medal.
Oh, and best not to repeat the words I had with my beloved husband when he got home.
An Invitation
What have you read lately that reminded you of something that happened in your life? I would love to know.
As a friend pointed out, Lent is integrated into VaLENTine’s Day. Don’t you love it when someone gifts you with a new realization?
On Valentine’s Day we honor the love we have for one another. The special ones in our lives, for sure, but the day can also remind us of the loved ones no longer physically present in our lives. And the legacy of love we can leave beyond our own deaths.
And that brings us to Ash Wednesday when, using ashes, the sign of the cross is made on our foreheads. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. One of my pastors teasingly suggested, instead of a cross, how about a heart? I chuckled, but the connection between the cross and love felt real.
Think about all the scripture passages that include the word “love.” For example, how many weddings have you attended in which the following passage is quoted?
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.
I Corinthians 13: 4-8
The cross of ashes on my forehead can be a reminder of all those characteristics. Lent can be a time to become even more aware of the role of love in my life and how I might live that life every day. Lent as a time of contemplation invites me to become more aware of the presence of love, God’s love, and when I can be an instrument of love.
Lenten Practices
No surprise–I have chosen a book to companion me during Lent. This year Joyce Rupp’s Jesus , Guide of My Life, Reflections for the Lenten Journey is on the top of my devotional basket. I selected this book, because, well, because the author is Joyce Rupp whom I can trust to stretch me, but always with a sense of lovingkindness. I will also dip into a new book–so new it hasn’t arrived yet–by Christine Valters Paintner, A Different Kind of Fast, Feeding Our True Hungers in Lent.
And I have been preparing for Lent by reading Lost in Wonder, Rediscovering the Spiritual Art of Attentiveness by Esther de Waal. This book reinforces my thoughts about a Lenten daily practice I’ve been considering in which I will note in my journal People, Places, Things as a way of increasing my awareness and becoming more present. De Waal states the purpose of the book is to “awaken us from drift and drowsiness into a fuller and deeper sense of attentiveness to the world around and to the presence of God in that world.” (p. 1) I need that right now. She also stresses the need to balance looking inward and “looking outward beyond the self to the world around.” (p. 2)
One tool she suggests is a magnifying glass as a way to “take time and notice what you see.” I happen to have two small magnifying glasses–where they came from and why I have them, I have no idea–but I think I will carry one in my coat pocket to use when I go for walks. And the other one I will keep at home, not only to examine more closely familiar objects in my everyday life, but also as a tangible reminder to focus, to pay attention, to live with gratitude for the many gifts in my life. Not just what I see, but what enters each of my senses.
I feel ready to begin this Lenten journey, but first I will eat some Valentine chocolate.
An Invitation
Lent, of course, is a season in the Christian life, but a practice of paying attention is an invitation for all. What are you noticing these days? I would love to know.
I’m not sure what inspired me to re-read this 2016 book, Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney, but there it was on my TBR list, and when, during a recent visit to a favorite bookstore, Excelsior Bay Books, Excelsior, MN, I spotted it on the shelves, I couldn’t resist the stunning cover. True, 85 years-old Lillian is described as wearing a mink coat on her New Year’s Eve walk in New York, but still, the artist captured Lillian’s essence.
What didn’t capture the essence of the book, at least for me, were some of the back cover snippets of reviews written when the book was first published. I thought it was amusing, rather than “hilarious” or even “funny.” That is not a bad thing, however. Nor did I resonate with the focus and emphasis in some reviews on New York City presented over time. The view is of Lillian Boxfish’s life with the city as a backdrop. In some books place is clearly one of the main characters, but that didn’t feel true for me in this book, except perhaps for the ongoing reference to her work as an advertising writer for R.H. Macy’s.
I do agree, however, with the reviews describing the book as “elegantly written,” and “touching.” And “witty.”
It is 1984 and Lillian has reservations for herself on New Year’s Eve at a favorite restaurant not far from her apartment. That walk turns into over 10 miles of walking and not always in the best parts of the city. Along the way she meets a variety of people, including Skip who drives a limo and is concerned for her safety (In fact, everyone she meets is worried about an elderly woman walking alone at night.) She dismisses their concern and continues on her way, charming everyone she encounters, including a family who invites her to join them for dinner and three young thugs whose intention is to rob her.
Her story unfolds as she walks–her stellar career, which began in the 1930s, in advertising, eventually becoming the highest paid advertising woman in the country, a published and popular poet, but also the darker sides of her life. I remember the first time I read this book not being prepared for that aspect of her life, but this time I picked up on the clues along the way. And while I am not yet 85, I am more aware as I continue to age that there are dark sides in each of our lives.
The reviews also, rightly so, honor the book for its illumination of the power of human connections.
There is always a danger in re-reading a book that you have enjoyed the first time. Will it live up to those earlier impressions? This one did, and I am glad I spent more time with Lillian.
An Invitation
What have you re-read recently? How did the second time around measure up for you? I would love to know.
Several times in the past week I have quoted Christina Baldwin‘s simple, but oh so wise words:
Ask for what you need and offer what you can.
from The Seven Whispers, Listening to the Voice of Spirit.
I don’t recall the specific circumstances when I shared those words, but I know when a piece of wisdom is on my lips that it is meant not only for the person receiving it, but it is for me, too! Probably most strikingly for me.
Offer What You Can
Recently, I received two emails about ways I have volunteered in the past at my church. One was fixing and bringing a meal to individuals and families during times of stress or need, and the other was about being part of the hospitality team, serving at receptions etc. Did I want to continue participating in those ways?
I didn’t respond immediately, but instead I considered both of those ongoing opportunities during the next couple morning meditation times. In the meantime a request addressed to the whole congregation came, asking for helpers during the potluck before the annual meeting. Also, the weekly newsletter, as always, listed a wide variety of ways volunteers are needed in the church and in the larger community.
Oh, how tempting it is to spontaneously say, “I can do that.” And sometimes that is exactly the right thing to do. Sometimes that is the most genuine of responses. An expression of being in the present moment.
But as I age I am more aware of what makes most sense for who I am now. What are the ways I am called to use my energy, my time, my gifts? How does saying “yes,” affect other “yeses” in my life? The answer isn’t always clear, but what I am learning is that I need to honor the main ways I have committed to serve; the ways I feel I can best serve right now. Writing posts for this blog twice a week is one way, but also meeting with my spiritual direction clients and preparing for and facilitating the writing group I lead at church.
I don’t list these activities in a “look at me” way, but rather to remind myself of the importance of knowing what I can offer, how I can live my essence and in what ways I continue to discover the person God created me to be. These ways may change, probably will change, as I grow older, which reminds me of what Esther De Waal says in the chapter, “Diminishment” in her book The White Stone, The Art of Letting Go, “I hope that God is going to work within my limitations.” p. 89.
How did I respond to the various requests? I decided to step away from the two specific queries, thanking the people who lead those efforts. I didn’t I step up to help with the potluck either, but perhaps my “not this time,” left space open for someone else to say, “Yes I can do that.” Just a thought.
My plan and hope is to continue to exercise “sacred yes, sacred no;” to practice discernment as opportunities arise.
And finally, this must be said. I am aware more and more every day of the need to create spaciousness for time with family and friends.
Ask for What You Need
Well, I don’t know about you, but this is harder for me. Asking for what I need feels riskier. The notion of asking for what I need feels like I am declaring my inadequacy and vulnerability. EEEK! Baldwin says that asking for what we need is as much a spiritual practice as offering what you can. Asking for what we need is a way to pay attention, to be aware of the changes in our lives, and, in fact, it is part of becoming the person we were created to be. I often ask myself, “What is possible right now?” and sometimes the answer means asking for someone else and their gifts and time and energy to enter my life.
Baldwin says asking for what we need and offering what we can is a form of “spiritual trading” and that spiritual trading “creates flow.”
As long as the energy is flowing and cyclical, there is enough to go around. If any one of us stops asking or stops offering, the flow is disrupted and the balance destroyed.
p. 71
Be brave enough to ask fir help when you need it. There is no merit badge for Doing All the Hard Things Alone. Reach out.
Maggie Smith
An Invitation
How are Christina Baldwin’s words, “ask for what you need and offer what you can” showing up in your life right now? I would love to know.
Absolution by Alice McDermott. (See January 11th post) I keep thinking about this book–the story, the characters, the exquisite writing.
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. Another memorable book. The time is the 1950s and is mainly set in small town Pennsylvania where immigrant Jews and African Americans live side-by-side, but often not easily or comfortably. So many strong characters and making them come alive on the page is one of McBride’s strong suits. He describes one of the characters this way, “Chona had never been one to play by the rules of American society. She did not experience the world as most people did. To her the world was not a china closet where you admire this and don’t touch that. Rather, she saw it as a place where every act of living was a chance for tikkun olam, to improve the world.” p, 275.
Books That Surprised Me or Should I Say I Surprised Myself?
I was surprised I enjoyed both of these books so much because in both cases the language was often off-putting and the amount of references to sex could have become tiresome, but in both cases the characters interested me, sometimes intrigued me, and I entered cultures not familiar to me.
Olga Dies Dreaming by Xachitl Gonzalez. Olga is a successful wedding planner and her brother is a progressive New York Congressman. Their mother left them at an early age to return to Puerto Rica where she led a revolutionary movement. The brother and sister both pursue the American dream in their own ways and are distracted from their values and ideals along the way. I learned so much about Puerto Rican history and economics, especially since much of the book is set at the time of Hurricane Maria.
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo. One of the things that intrigued me about this 2019 Booker Prize novel was its style. Each chapter, which focused on one woman at a time, was written almost as a poem. Sometimes I found myself reading sections aloud, for the rhythm and the flow seemed to demand that. I wonder what the audio version is like. And in each chapter there was only one period–at the end of the last sentence. I know some reviewers found that technique to be too much, but I loved it. I felt as if I was in an unending conversation, especially as connections between the women were developed. Not one woman was perfect, not even close, but I appreciated their complexity, as they somehow surmounted deep loss, sexism, and racism in their lives. And the insights into gender and language were revealing as well. A favorite line comes at the end of the book, “White people are only required to represent themselves, not an entire race.”
Two Fun Mysteries
Murder Most Royal by S. J. Bennett. I gave this book to my husband for Christmas, knowing full well I wanted to read it myself. I had enjoyed other books in the series, The Windsor Knot and All the Queen’s Men. Who can resist a mystery where Queen Elizabeth II is one of the main characters? It is not necessary to read these books in order, by the way, and the next one, ADeath in Diamonds, will be published soon.
A Sorrowful Sanctuary, #5 in the Lane Winslow Series by Iona Whishaw. This series is set in Canada soon after the end of WWII. Lane is a young woman who immigrates to Canada from the UK after her service in the war. She seems to always be on the scene after a murder and therefore, develops a relationship with police detective, Inspector Darling. Easy and charming, and each one seems to get better and better. I do recommend reading these in order. The first one is A Killer in King’s Cove.
Good Reads
The Caretaker by Ron Rash. This author has written many books, but he was new to me. I don’t have his other titles on my TBR, but I don’t discount the idea of reading more. Jacob returns from the Korean War badly injured. His controlling parents have told him that his wife and baby have died in childbirth, and they have told her that he died in the war. Suffering ahead! The caretaker is Blackburn Gant, Jacob’s close friend, and his story of love and loss is just as important in the book.
The English Experience by Julie Schumacher. (See my January 25 post) How grateful I am to have read a book with humor this month. At the same time there was warmth and insight. This is Schumacher’s third book with an academic setting, but you don’t need to be an academic to enjoy them. The other titles are Dear Committee Members and The Shakespeare Requirement.
Indications of Things (Books) to Come
My Lover’s Lover by Maggie O’Farrell. You may have read Hamnet and/or The Marriage Portrait, more recent books by O’Farrell –each of them so good. Well, she has quite the backlist, and I have been reading and enjoying them. My Lover’s Lover was her second novel, published in 2002. One review says this book “brilliantly describes how old relationships can haunt new ones.” A Key word: haunt. Lily feels haunted by her boyfriend’s former lover Sinead and is determined to learn the truth about their relationship. While this book is not as good as O’Farrell’s more recent books, one can see the powerful writer she is becoming. I only have one more of O’Farrell’s books to read, The Distance Between Us.
Challenging
A Song Over Miskwaa Rapids by Linda LeGarde Grover. I wish I had listened to this book, for I would love to hear the Ojibwe words. The story wasn’t always easy to follow, for the ancestry, so important to the story, was sometimes confusing to my white context. It was worth the effort, however, and I loved the chorus of spirit women who observed and commented as the story progressed. A body is found buried in a state park 50 years after the fact. How and why that happens has many threads–all beautifully and sensitively written.
So-So
The Wildest Sun by Asha Lenmie. I never grew to care for the main character Delphine because she was whiney to the end. I grew weary of her saying “I am sorry” and feeling sorry for herself because she had a terrible childhood. Her mother always told her that Ernest Hemingway was her father and she goes to Cuba to meet him. Enough said.
NonFiction
The Comfort of Crows, A Backyard Year by Margaret Renkl. I LOVED this book, not only for its wondrous,lovely prose, but it is beautifully illustrated with collages by her brother Billy, also. Gorgeous! Renkl, who lives in Nashville is a journalist and an amateur biologist, passionate about the natural world and what we are doing to it. She weaves glimpses into her backyard with other places she knows, and we also meet her family and her life as a writer. Unlike me, she does not love winter, but I forgive her for that. I noted so many quotations in my book journal. Here’s just one: “Turn your face up to the sky. Listen. The world is trembling into possibility. The world is reminding us that this is what the world does best. New life. Rebirth. The greenness that rises out of ashes.” p. 57. And another, which truly endears her to me: “Rain was in the forecast for the weekend away, so I packed ten or twelve books to give myself options. I like to see books spread out on a table like a banquet. Every time I pass by I’m tempted to sit down and begin something delicious or to pick up where I left off the last time I played hooky from work…” p. 233.
Haphazard by Starlight, A Poem a Day from Advent to Epiphany by Janet Morley and Lighted Windows, An Advent Calendar for a World in Waiting by Margaret Silf. I started both of these books during Advent in December, and they carried me into the new year. Such good companions.
Thin Places, A Natural History of Healing and Home by Kerri ni Dochartaigh. This book can be appreciated on so many levels. Set in Ireland, the nature writing is stunning, especially about birds, but also because the author grew up in Derry, a major site of “the troubles.” I learned so much about that traumatic time. She writes beautifully about trauma and loss and the inability to face history, the clashes between religions and cultures and even the loss of language. At the same time she is honest about her personal struggles, including alcoholism, and all the work she has done, continues to do, to heal.
A good reading month indeed!
An Invitation
What books started your year of reading? I would love to know.
People my age often use the words “senior moments” to describe a lapse of memory or moment of confusion. Who hasn’t walked into a room and then wondered about the intention? Sometimes the most familiar of names escape me. More and more my husband and I supply missing pieces for one another. I know the first name of someone in our history, and he remembers the last name. He can describe a movie or a book, but I know the title. Senior Moments! We laugh and are grateful once again for each other’s presence.
It’s important to acknowledge and be aware of those moments, for sometimes these moments are a sign of something more serious. Knowing the difference is not always easy, and we need to stay alert. When I make a mistake, substituting an incorrect name or word or phrase, it seems important to say, “Whoops, I should have said…,” or at the very least “Where did that come from?” or “I’ll call you at 2 in the morning when the word comes to me.” Some people have a hard time, however, saying, “I’m sorry.” Period. Some people have not practiced that skill or nicety over the years, but that is a whole other topic. And some people are not even aware that they have used words incorrectly or aren’t making sense. I digress. Another senior moment?
Allow me to suggest other kinds of senior moments. The gift of senior moments.
Pausing to notice another new blossom on the mini-daffodil plant on the dining room table.
Focusing on doing one thing at a time, instead of trying to multi-task.
Letting go of past hurts and past expectations.
Honoring my being as much as and maybe even more than my doing.
Giving thanks for the many gifts in my life. And oh, there are so many!
Asking myself “What is possible now?” and “How do I want and need to use my energy and time right now?
Choosing to read another chapter in the mystery I’m currently reading, instead of cleaning the bathroom. (I hasten to add I did clean the bathroom later that morning.)
Allowing a memory to nurture my day. I just had this flash of seeing our grandkids walking down the block towards our house at the end of the school day when they were in elementary school. Pete is now a sophomore in high school and Maren is a junior in college. How glad I am we moved here when we did!
Diverting myself from my “plan for the day” and responding to a pleasing invitation.
Opening my heart to the losses I feel, instead of denying them.
Nurturing my contemplative side, spending more time in reflection and prayer.
Appreciating this time of my life for the growth it offers me.
How sad I am when I hear someone say, “I hate getting old.” First of all, I try to be very careful about using the word “hate.” and don’t use it nonchalantly. I realize that so far my aging has been easy, compared to many others in my life. I have a privileged life. I repeat, I have a privileged life.
I know there will be harder days ahead, but hating old age negates all the gifts of the previous days and years. Isn’t there a difference between accepting and hating? Between honoring what has led me to this time and hating? Between holding tenderly these present days and the days to come and hating? Between feeling and saying something is hard and hating it?
I appreciate what Maggie Smith says in her book, Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity and Change.
I thought that what I was living was the whole story, but it was only a chapter.
p. 2
I’m in my senior moment chapter, and I intend to live it in the best way possible. May it be so.
An Invitation
What “senior moments” are you noticing? I would love to know.
I finished reading each of the books I received for Christmas.
The Comfort of Crows, A Backyard Year by Margaret Renkl
Absolution by Alice McDermott
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
A Song Over Miskwaa Rapids by Linda Legarde Grover
The Wildest Sun, A Novel by Asha Lemmie
I read the last Maggie O’Farrell book, one of her first, I had on my shelves, My Lover’s Lover, and I even read one of the books I gave my husband, Murder Most Royal by S. J. Bennett. It was time to head to the library.
Anticipating the need to restock my shelves, I had requested a number of books and three of them were waiting for me.
Olga Dies Dreaming by Yacht Gonzales
Fault Lines by Emily Itami
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evisto
Plus, I noticed that one of the books I planned to request, Apeirogan by Colum McCann was on the shelves of my preferred library. I would nab that one, too, but first a stop at the Lucky Day shelf. Does your library have one of those?
Lucky Day books are new releases often with lots of holds on them. You never know what will be on that shelf, and you may just get lucky. I did, for The English Experience by Julie Schumacher (2023) was on my TBR list. Hurrah! The only catch with Lucky Day Books is that they can’t be renewed and one can only check out two Lucky Day items at a time.
No problem.
Schumacher is a faculty member in the Creative Writing Program and the Department of English at the University of Minnesota, and her novels are written with humor and warmth about life in academia. I thoroughly enjoyed two of her previous novels, Dear Committee Members (Winner of the Thurber Prize), 2014 and The Shakespeare Requirement, 2018.
This most recent book is set in England during a month-long study abroad program. Professor Fitger, who was strong-armed into leading the group at the last minute, accompanies eleven undergraduate students. One thinks he is actually going on a program in the Caribbean; another has never been away from her cat, and another disappears from the group immediately, heading to Paris. They all complain about Fitger’s requirement for weekly papers about their experiences, and we, the readers, can shake our heads at their meanderings and loose attempts to fulfill the homework. Fitger has his own problems to contend with, including his ex-wife who intends to move away, taking the dog they share. He is counting the days till he can return to his midwestern life.
A lovely change of pace book. Humorous, light-hearted, but also warm and insightful.
An Invitation
Has a book made you laugh outloud recently? I would love to know.
I begin most days in the area of the house I call the snug. An enclosed front porch is how it would be described in a real estate listing, I suppose. Not very big, but spacious enough for two comfortable reading chairs and two sets of bookshelves against the inside wall. A few months ago I rearranged the space to make room for a small desk.
Cozy. Full of light on sunny days. A welcoming space for beginning the day.
Before making the bed and getting dressed, I settle into the snug for my morning meditation and devotion time. Most days I am there an hour or so before moving forward into the rest of the day.
That was not the case this past Saturday.
My time in the snug began in its usual way by reading the day’s reflections in the two books I have selected to accompany me through the year. Joyce Rupp’s Fragments of Your Ancient Name, 365 Glimpses of the Divine for Daily Meditation and Margaret Silf’s Daily Readings with Margaret Silf. I have used the Rupp book before, and It is interesting to me to see what I underlined before and what resonates with me now. The Silf book is new to me, but I have loved other books by her and in 2023 I re-read one of her other books, Wayfaring, A Gospel Journey into Life.
Each reflection in the Rupp book is a “name” for God, a way to describe God, and on January 20 the name of God is “Joyful Journeyer.”
... When love accepts both ease and struggle, When prayer includes a heart of acceptance, ... When silence serves as a source of listening, When dying no longer frightens or dismays, ... Then we know how it is to engage with you As the Joyful Journeyer on our road of life.
Each line moved me deeper into stillness, pondering those hopes within me, but also how I yearn for the hope to become truthful reality in my life.
Silf quoted Mark 3:20-21. “Jesus went home, and such a crowd collected that they could not even have a meal. When his relatives heard of this they set out to take charge of him, convinced he was out of his mind.” Silf reflected on how “the ordinary cannot tolerate for long the presence of the extraordinary,” but that isn’t what struck me about these verses. Not this time.
Instead, I focused on “Jesus went home.” First of all, how glad I was that Jesus had a home and could return there. I thought about him being welcomed. I imagined him finding comfort; the kind of comfort that comes from knowing where everything is and not having to introduce yourself or even be on your best behavior, because you know you are loved.
I thought about all the times I returned home –my parents’ home and my own homes. When we lived in our country home in Ohio, I often drove or flew home to be with my parents or our daughter and her family. How fortunate I felt to be able to do that and to know they waited for me and wanted, even needed my presence. At the same time, oh, how my heart lifted as I approached once again the driveway to our beloved Sweetwater Farm. Home.
(I arrived home, but in my case the crowd that collected were all our animals always eager to be fed!)
I opened my Bible to see if I had ever underlined these verses, and I had not, but I noticed a difference in the word choice and translation. In the version Silf quotes, the word “relatives” is used, but in the New Revised Standard Version, which I read, the word is “family.” That feels so different to me. A change in intimacy and even acceptance. A difference perhaps in the way we know and see one another. I will think about that more.
I spent some time musing on these thoughts in my journal, and by that time the streetlight was off and dawn had become day. The young mom across the street had headed off to her exercise class–at least that is my guess–and several dog walkers had strolled past our house. Most days I would blow out the candle, my first companion of the day, and move into the rest of the day.
Instead, feeling chilled, I wrapped my shawl around me and read the last chapter of another book in my meditation basket, Thin Places, A Natural History of Healing and Home by Kerri ni´Dochartaigh, a memoir by an Irish woman born in Derry, on the border of North and South of Ireland at the height of the Troubles. One parent was Catholic and the other Protestant, and terror reigned around her. Not only did I learn about how it was to live during those harrowing (a word she uses frequently) times, but I thought how what she experienced is an aspect of what I imagine those in Gaza are experiencing now.
Much of the book, however, is about place and time — all places and all times.
There is a time for everything–for sowing, planting, harvesting. A time for holding on, and a time to let go. A time for sorrow, and a time for healing. More so, there is, simply, time. There is time for it all. We still have time to step in or out –of places, of relationships, of thought processes, or our own selves. Sometimes the snow will still be here on St Brigid’s Day, and sometimes we will have a year without it coming at all. There will be years when the autumn trees seem more vibrant, more sublime, than we ever remember them being before. There will be years when we have suffered so much that we can’t pick out one season from the other, never mind one day. Days when we cannot imagine ever feeling okay again, thinking that we have taken enough of it all, enough already, enough. Then, a change in the wind, the first bluebell, the smell of snow in the sky, the moment courses on, and everything has shape-shifted–everything is okay again, more than okay, maybe, even.
p. 247
Today was my time to move slowly, deliberately. Today was my time to soak myself in stillness.
My only goal was to make the bed and get dressed by noon.
I just barely accomplished that.
An Invitation
What does your Sabbath time look like? I would love to know.
Escombia County, Florida, went even further. Their new list of BANNED books includes:
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. BANNED!
Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie. BANNED!
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. BANNED!
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. BANNED!
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. BANNED!
Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak. BANNED!
You might as well ban English teachers and classes.
Oh, also on the BANNED list is Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, but that’s obvious, isn’t it? With SEX in the title. And there are the usual suspects, books by Toni Morrison, May Angelou, and Margaret Atwood. But the list also includes National Geographic Society’s Human Body Systems. Heaven forbid that young people learn about their own bodies. And five dictionaries and The Guiness Book of World Records. Huh?
These campaigns, of course, are not about books. They are about control and fear. What to do? Well, one thing is to encourage the young people in your life to read, to be curious and explore the wonders of books, and to talk with them about what they are learning and discovering. And to share your thoughts about banning books.
Why Didn’t I Think of This?
The New York Times Book Review, Sunday, January 14, published an essay about a new phenomenon called “Reading Rhythms.” Not a book club, but “a reading party.” People gather to read –whatever they are reading at the moment–and then after an hour or so they talk about what they are reading.
I’ve long believed that gathering in groups to meditate together or to write together opens a different kind of energy from doing those activities alone. But I had not considered the power of reading in groups, although I love the calm and pleasure of sitting in the same room with loved ones when we are each reading, but what an interesting idea to do that intentionally with a group of strangers or to invite friends over to read and then talk. A cozy winter activity, but I also imagine doing this outside in the summer sitting on the shore of a favorite lake.
Stay tuned–an invitation may be forthcoming.
An Invitation
What’s your favorite BANNED book? I would love to know.
More than likely, when you gather with friends or family, politics is part of the conversation. Our fears. maybe our hopes, but more than ever, our fears. Many in my circle go through periods of abstinence from the news or at least limiting time spent reading, watching, listening to commentary about recent polls, speeches, or outrageous statements made by he “who shall not be named.”
Wait a minute, he needs to be named. Loud and clear. Our fear is that Trump will be elected again. Our fear is for the survival of democracy.
This is not time for abstinence, but it is a time to be smart about what we ingest into our hearts and minds. And it is a time TO DO.
I am writing this post the day of the Iowa cacuses. I started my day, as I generally do, in the snug, reading my daily devotions, writing in my journal, meditating and praying. I have listened to NPR while getting dressed and scrolled through my inbox, which includes articles from the Washington Post and the New York Times, along with daily newsletters from Robert Hubbell, Heather Cox Richardson, and Jessica Craven, whose opinions, expertise, and knowledge I so respect. Now here I am at my desk, planning to carry on with my regularly scheduled activities.
However, this is not a time to carry on as if nothing is happening or as if “all be well.” Sorry, Julian of Norwich. Not only is today Iowa caucus day, but it is also Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. This is a time To Do.
In a recent post (January 2, 2024) in Jessica Craven’s Chop Wood, Carry Water blog, she posted her resolutions for 2024. They include:
I will do everything that I am able to do to help save democracy.
I will spread good news relentlessly.
I will ask everyone I talk to if they are registered to vote, and help them register, if they aren’t.
I will repeat the words “A vote for a third-party candidate is a vote for Trump” everywhere I can, as loudly as I can, as often as I can.
I will ignore polls.
I will stay in the day and do what I can.
I will do what I can. That means different things for different people, but for me that means participating in letter writing and postcard campaigns. Jessica Craven’s newsletter is an excellent resource for learning about those opportunities.
This weekend I spent a couple hours preparing letters and addressing envelopes to send to 50 parents of voting-age teenagers in Arizona who may not yet be registered. I copied the basic letter and added my handwritten note, following the directions. I supplied the envelopes and postage and the time. Not a big deal from my end of things, but a potential big deal when it comes to getting out the vote. (A project of The Civics Center, https://www.thecivicscenter.org/blog/tag/Arizona)
My intention is to participate in similar campaigns. This is something I can do. And I bet you can, too. Perhaps you can participate in phonebanks or can contribute money to key campaigns, too. Do what you can.
Robert Hubbell in his January 3, 2024 post responds to a reader who says “reasonable” Republicans (or independents) can support Trump. His words reinforced for me the need “to do.”
Supporting Trump means supporting someone who attempted a coup, incited an insurrection, denied women their reproductive liberty, instituted a policy of state-sanctioned discrimination against Muslims, promised to use the presidency for political ‘retribution,’ has been found by a federal judge to have committed rape, bragged about grabbing women by the genitals, mocked a reporter with a disability, threatened to pull out of NATO, retained national security documents after he left office, associates with white supremacists–and more…
It is time to declare where we stand-for or against democracy. There is no room for hesitation, doubt, false equivalencies, whataboutism, lack of enthusiasm, disagreement, disappointment, anger, or wishful thinking. And once we declare where we stand, our task is clear. We must work tirelessly to elect Joe Biden.
I must work to elect Joe Biden, and I hope you will, too.
I am grateful to Steve Garnaas-Holmes for these words of inspiration.
May my love be a guiding star for others. May my words and deeds show forth the reign of your mercy and justice. With humility and generosity may I offer the gifts you have given me. The treasure chest of my soul I open to you and the world. http://unfolding light.net
An Invitation
It is good to stay informed. It is good to lift our fears and concerns up in prayer and to pray for those who are actively engaged in saving democracy, but it is good and necessary “to do.” What will you do? I would love to know.
There were so many cocktail parties in those days. And when they were held in the afternoon we called them garden parties, but they were cocktail parties nonetheless.
You have no idea what it was like. For us. The women I mean. The wives.
p. 3
Alice McDermott‘s exquisitely, delicately written novel Absolution opens with those two spare paragraphs. It is 1963 in Vietnam, a time in history when women were apt to think of themselves as “helpmeets.” (As I type this I wonder why the word “helpmate” is not the preferred term.) It is also a time and place in history when the men are advisors, consultants to what becomes an untenable war.
But this novel is not about the men. When I was describing this novel to a group of women my age, the discussion immediately turned to the role of men, American men, in Vietnam. Interesting. When I think about novels about Vietnam, I immediately reference The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, who, by the way, gives a glowing endorsement on the back cover of Absolution. I don’t recall one woman in that stellar and memorable novel.
Yes, there were women in Saigon, American women, and there are stories to be told.
In this case the main characters are Charlene and Patricia, whom Charlene immediately re-christens Tricia, which is an early clue into her character. Charlene is on one hand a bully, but on the other a woman who desires to “do good.” At another time in history Charlene might have become the founder of a world-class corporation, but instead she devises a scheme to raise money to distribute baskets of treats to children in hospitals and orphanages by selling “Saigon Barbies.” She enlists Tricia to help her, and newlywed Tricia, new to life in Saigon, blends passively into Charlene’s realm.
The story is told retrospectively by a much older Tricia in correspondence with Charlene’s daughter Rainey. Absolution is the act of forgiving someone for having done something wrong or sinful, and one feels that in the telling of the story so many years later. McDermott reminds us in this story that we are each more than one thing. We are a collection of complexities. Even our urges to “do good,” on wartime or personal scales, are knotty and often grow out of lack of understanding a culture or context.
Over the years I’ve enjoyed other books by McDermott, such as Charming Billy,At Weddings and Wakes, and A Bigamist’s Daughter, but this book demanded more from me. More attention. More honor. More presence. More reflection. I loved this book.
An Invitation
Can you think of a book that enlarged your perspective? I would love to know.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a 13th month in the year? One between December and January. A transition month in which to bring a close to tasks related to the previous year along with time to move into the new year. A month that is not attached to either year. A threshold month.
This past weekend I accomplished one of those threshold tasks. I defrocked the house of its Christmas glow, cleaned, and renewed it for these winter months. Major!
DecemberJanuary
Earlier in the week I re-read my 2023 journals, which is always a beginning of the year ritual. I wrote thank you notes, but have yet to go through the Christmas cards to change addresses, where necessary, and I am sure there are follow-up notes I will want to send after re-reading the letters.
I moved into my new weekly planner and also a new book journal and cleared off my bulletin board, but I haven’t cleaned out any drawers yet, even though my sock drawer is a mess and the kitchen drawers feel cluttered and unorganized. How many jars of outdated spices need to be tossed?
DecemberJanuary
I have had my first 2024 appointment with my spiritual director and have met with some of my directees, but I have not yet prepared the content for all of the January sessions of the writing group I facilitate. I prefer to be prepared at least a month in advance. Oh well.
I’ve made a list of people I would like to see soon, but have not yet made any dates. Nor have I made a necessary dermatology appointment, but I did have my annual physical in December. Check that off the list!
Well, you get the idea, and you probably have your own tasks that signal the end of one year and the beginning of the next.
I understand how rare it is to have complete closure before a new stage begins. The journey is continuous. Even as we grieve the loss of someone or something in our lives, we peek around the corner to an opening, a beginning, a suggestion, an idea, an entry, a new place on the labyrinth.
DecemberJanuary
You may recall that my contemplative companion during Advent and Christmas was one of the Wise Men. (See my December 5, 2023 and December 12, 2023 posts) The Wise Men prompt me to think about the gifts I can bring to the world, but they also remind me about the gift of the journey itself.
Wise one, you who have come far, ...
Do not cease following that star, whose light you have seen at his rising. ...
You will kneel in unfamiliar places, you will uncover gifts.
And you will continue to journey, to search, to look with love-lit vision.
Under that star there will always be home,
always another road, and you will never travel alone. Steve Garnaas-Holmes, www.unfoldinglight.net
And so I continue to move from 2023 to 2024. One step, one task at a time. One day at a time, and I know I do not travel alone.
One More Thought: My Word of the Year
Last year my word of the year was “beloved,” and oh, how that nurtured me, and I hope enabled me to nurture others. For awhile I thought my word for 2024 would be “dwell,” but I now think it is a pair of words.
Between Christmas and New Year’s I moved into my 2024 Book Journal, and I am ready to record each book I read in the coming year plus begin new TBR lists. Actually, in the last couple days I have recorded the first two books read this year (to be shared later this month) and have added four TBR titles: The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections by Eva Jurezyk, suggested by a friend; and three titles recommended by Ann Patchett, Girl Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo,Her First American by Lore Segal, and The Wife by Meg Wolitzer. The titles recommended by Ann Patchett were all published several years ago–part of her weekly “new to me” initiative.
On the first pages of my new book journal I list all the books I read in 2023: 107 novels and 38 nonfiction books. In 2022 I read 150 books, so this year’s 145 falls a bit short of that, but who’s counting. Truly, it was another year of great reading.
I also included in my new book journal the compiled list of books I have not yet read from my 2023 TBR. I hope to read them this year. There are 32 fiction and nine nonfiction books on that list. And finally, I included a list of books I acquired during the past year and have not yet read. (Nine books) I am not going to tell you how many books I acquired during the year. Some of those books were gifts and others I found in Little Free Libraries, but let’s say I helped the financial status of a number of independent bookstores.
Christmas Gift Books
Friends and family are often reluctant to give me a book, because I read so much and may have already read what they give me. This Christmas my husband asked for a list of books I would like to read, and off he went to Next Chapter Books where he bought me A Song Over Miskwaa Rapids by Linda LeGarde Grover, The Wildest Sun by Asha Lemmie, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride, and The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl. Plus, a friend took a risk and sent me Absolution by Alice McDermott, which I am reading and loving now. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for my reviews.
Last Books of 2023
Early in December I lamented that I had only read three books so far, but my pace did pick up. I ended up reading four more books in December, plus finishing my year-long devotional reading. You Are the Beloved by Henri Bowen, compiled and edited by Gabrielle Earnshaw. That book was a gift from a friend and has been a treasured companion this past year.
I also read two mysteries by Anthony Horowitz, which I thoroughly enjoyed, The Sentence is Death and Moonflower Murders. Perhaps you’ve read Magpie Murders or watched the tv series on PBS. Finally, I read two earlier books by Maggie O’Farrell–her debut novel published in 2000, After You’d Gone and The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, published in 2006. At first the debut novel felt overwritten, but I am glad I continued reading it and actually liked it better than the later book, which, although the story was compelling, there were missing pieces, I thought. Still O’Farrell is an amazing writer, whose Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait I hope to re-read. She has written ten books (one of the 10 is nonfiction, I Am, I Am, I Am) and I have now read eight of them. I own one of the remaining, My Lover’s Lover and will also read The Distance Between Us–soon, I hope.
Reading Intentions
I certainly don’t have an intentions about number of books to read or about spending more time reading, but I would like to hold my TBR lists a bit more lightly–to think of them as suggestions, rather than To Do lists. Also, I would like to balance my reading more between new releases (I am attracted to the glittering new books!) and older books, including the backlists of favorite or new to me authors.
My last year’s intentions, which I plan to continue, include:
Read more carefully.
Continue to use the library.
Re-read favorite books. Out of the 145 books read in 2023, only 12 of those were ones I had read before.
Keep closer track of where and from whom I get recommendations.
Continue the process of letting go of books.
An Invitation
Any book and reading intentions for 2024? I would love to know.
At the beginning of each new year, I read my journals from the year just past. What were the highlights? The gifts? How well were intentions met or were they discarded? What themes evolved during the year? And what losses were encountered along the way?
At the beginning of 2023, I was trying to shed a lingering cold, not COVID, but a cold that zapped energy and enthusiasm. I was also feeling deeply the loss of a dear friend who had died at the beginning of December. On that first day in January, 2023, I remembered how we entered 2020 totally oblivious to the pandemic about to strike our lives, and I wrote, “What losses will this year bring, for there will be some. How close to my heart will they be? How major will they be in the way I live my life? Or will I be the loss?”
Typically, I’ve entered the new year with energy for new beginnings, new projects, and eagerness to meet new or continued goals, but in recent years I’ve learned to hold expectations more lightly. Perhaps I am learning how to hold life more lightly, too. And more gratefully.
What does this have to do with the photograph of the tree on our boulevard? Well, one morning right after Christmas, I settled into the snug for morning devotions and when daylight appeared I was stunned to see the trunk of this tree and 13 others on our block wrapped in bright green rings. Soon these diseased trees will be removed. The grief has begun.
I think I am grateful, or at least I am trying to be, that we will lose these trees during the bareness of winter. Perhaps the absence of these trees during the non-leafy, non-green months will help us accept the starkness, the lack of branches arching over the street and the sidewalk. I don’t know when the tree removal people will set to work on our block, but I’m trying to use this time to prepare my heart and soul for this loss–as well as other losses, known and unknown, to come.
How do I prepare?
My day begins in stillness, in silence. These winter days it begins in the dark, as I watch the light begin to make its appearance. I whisper my first prayers of the day. “Thank you for the rest of the night. Thank you for the promise of a new day. Thank you for your presence. May I be aware of your presence in all I do and all I am. May my loved ones be aware of your presence. May all who know the losses that life brings know your presence.”
I read the day’s selection from books I have chosen to accompany the year’s pilgrimage. This year I have chosen Daily Readings with Margaret Silf, along with a book I have read before, Fragments of Your Ancient Name, 365 Glimpses of the Divine for Daily Meditation by Joyce Rupp.
A new year and another mile of the journey. Three hundred and sixty-five new chances to watch the sun rise on God’s surprises along the way. Three hundred and sixty-five windows of opportunity through which to glimpse the face of God in the rock face of everyday life.
Margaret Silf, p. 3
Your intimate presence startles my soul…
I ask for the simplest of gifts from you…
The blessing of communicating with you.
Joyce Rupp, January 1
Even as I grieve losses of the past, as well as losses tender and new, and feel the flicker of losses yet to be, the amaryllis in the snug reminds me we are each living and dying at the same time. And we are each beloved.
May this new year bring you many blessings. Happy New Year!
An Invitation
What are you bringing into the new year? I would love to know.
Last December I read at my usual rate of 10+ books. In fact, I read 13 books, including Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver and Lucy By The Sea by Elizabeth Strout, and a memoir by Frances Mayes, A Place in the World, The Meaning of Home.
This year I have read 3 books. THREE BOOKS! Granted those three, which are each books I have read and loved before, are hefty tomes, but THREE!!!! I intended to re-read another favorite, but after 100 pages I put it back on the shelf.
Before I reflect on possible reasons for this change in my reading, here are the three I did read –re-read.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I am not sure how many times I have read this book, but what I do know is that I will read it again and again. Maybe it will be my new Advent tradition and treat for myself.
Fresh Water for Flowers by Valerie Perrin. This is one of my favorite books, too. The main character, Violette, is a cemetery keeper in France. Love and death. Misguided love. Misunderstood love. Beautifully written.
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I remember reading this in 8th grade, and I think it influenced me to become an English teacher. I have not read this book since that time and now realize what I read must have been an abridgment, for at almost 500 pages this book was at times quite the slog. (Saying that feels so sacrilegious.) At other times I reveled in the language and the descriptions. I cheered Pip, the main character, but also pointed my finger at him in frustration. Dickens didn’t miss a human emotion in this book! One of the movies I have re-watched this month–while wrapping presents–was The Man Who Invented Christmas about Dickens writing A Christmas Carol. Delightful.
I started, but did not finish re-reading Possession by A. S. Byatt. I will at some point, but it felt too dense, too slow, and it demands more focus that I am able to give it at the moment. Instead, I am reading one of the mysteries by Anthony Horowitz, The Sentence Is Death, and that seems to be just what I need.
So what’s the deal with my reading this month? The usual Christmas activities and tasks have taken up the space of my usual reading time this year, I think. As I age I have less energy and in December I needed that energy in ways not normally necessary. When I haven’t been engaged with my Christmas list, I have been more inclined to watch a movie or stream a series than read a book.
Also, instead of devoting or immersing myself to a book, I am grazing.
A friend sent me a wonderful anthology, Christmas In Minnesota, edited by Marilyn Ziebarth and Brian Horrigan, and it is a seasonal treasure. Stories and essays and memoir, along with nostalgic drawings and photographs. I can dip into Christmas moments, as shared by Minnesota writers–Garrison Keillor, Susan Allen Toth, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Jon Hassler, Faith Sullivan and so many more. Sometimes I read an offering from beginning to end, but other times I just open the book and read a paragraph or two wherever I land. I have no intention of reading this book from cover to cover, at least not this year, but instead this book is like an unexpected encounter with a friend in the grocery store or receiving a Christmas card from someone who has not been present in my life for quite some time.
Am I concerned that the number of books read this month has plummeted from my usual number? No, not at all. I can already feel myself looking forward to wintry days devoted just to reading. But I can also feel myself loosening my grip on the number of books I read and how much time I devote to reading. At this stage of my life, I have more freedom to make those decisions in the moment.
An Invitation
Have you taken time to read this month? Is there a book you are eager to read in the new year? I would love to know.
NOTE:
I am going to take a brief holiday break, but will begin posting again on January 2.
When I was in spiritual direction training, each of our monthly sessions began in silence.
Each of us enrolled in the program entered the gathering space quietly. We greeted each other with hugs or smiles or nods of our heads and then, sitting in a circle, we sat in silence. Not just for 30 seconds, but for minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. Never quite long enough for me.
I loved that time. Needed that time, and how surprising that was, for I had driven the six hours, often alone, from Cleveland to Lebanon, PA the night before and then retired to my small, dorm-like room in the retreat center. A night of silence.
How could I desire yet more silence?
I recall our program director saying, “Let’s move into silence.” (That was over 25 years ago, so I can’t vouch for the complete accuracy of my memory.)
MOVE into silence. Such an interesting concept, that is. The idea that we are called to MOVE into silence. To enter silence deliberately, intentionally.
Is that what the Wise Ones did as they followed the star? Did they hold on to the reins of their camels and lumber along in silence, only nodding to one another at a moment of decision? And somehow they got just where they needed to be.
I remember another journey taken mostly in silence. It was December of 2002, almost Christmas, and I was driving by myself, as I often did, from Cleveland to Minnesota. My mother was dying of colon cancer, and it was clear this would be her last Christmas. She seemed to be doing well at the moment, but I knew how quickly that could change.
Normally, I listened to the radio in the car, following the NPR stations as I drove that 14 hour journey. Sometimes I listened to an audio book. On that trip, however, I drove in silence much of the time. I thought about what I would say at my mother’s funeral. I conversed with God about all that had occurred in recent months, but most of the time I just drove. I moved forward in silence, into silence.
The silence helped prepare me for whatever was ahead.
Each Wednesday evening during Advent our congregation gathers for evening prayer, and during the service we sit in silence two different times. A gong is struck, an invitation to move into silence, and other than a child’s squeaks or the brief rustling as we settle into the quiet, the sanctuary is silent.
We are silent together.
Perhaps the time until the gentle tinkling of the bells signals the transition from silence to the next stage of the service feels long for some of those present. It is never long enough for me, even though much of my days are spent in silence, working at my desk, reading in the snug, meditating at the beginning of the day. There is something different about sitting in silence with others, however.
When we are silent together, we create silence and respond to silence, enlarging and deepening it. We rest in it, but also awaken to its gifts. I am aware of the breathing around me and feel supported by that life. I sense the Presence among us.
I felt that when I sat in silence with my spiritual direction colleagues all those years ago. I feel that at the beginning of a spiritual direction session when my directee and I sit in silence. And I feel that way Wednesday evenings when we sit in silence in the barely lit sanctuary.
I suspect the Wise Ones felt that as they followed the star in silence. Perhaps the camels were even silent.
May you create space in your life for the gift of silence.
An Invitation
What role does silence play in your life? I would love to know.
NOTE:
I will post on Thursday, December 21, but then will take a week off to honor the Christmas holiday. I will return the week of January 1.
I am always more inclined to read fiction, rather than nonfiction, but oh my, there are memorable books on this list of favorites. I am aware that most of the books I list have not shown up on various media “Best of 2023” lists, and, in fact, many, if not most, of the books were not published in 2023, but this list reflects my personal taste plus the direction of my heart and my interests. I imagine your list is as individual as mine.
I have listed books in the order in which I read them–within the created categories. Browse at your leisure!
Spirituality
Part of my meditation time each morning is to read a book classified as spirituality or theology. All of these books, by the way, are housed in my garret where I write and meet with spiritual directees.
Liturgy of the Ordinary, Sacred Practices in Everyday Life by Tish Harrison Warren
Faith After Doubt, Why Your Beliefs Stopped Working and What To Do About It by Brian D. McLaren
Do I Stay Christian, A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed, and the Disillusioned by Brian D. McLaren
A Prayer in the Night, For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep by Tish Harrison Warren
Embers, One Ojibway’s Meditations by Richard Wagamese
Alive Until You’re Dead, Notes on the Home Stretch by Susan Moon
Enchantment, Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age by Katherine May
Sacred Nature, Restoring our Ancient Bond with the Natural World by Karen Armstrong
Lost and Found, Reflections on Grief, Gratitude and Happiness by Kathryn Schulz
Why Did Jesus , Moses, The Buddha and Mohammed Cross the Road? Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World by Brian D. McLaren
Things Seen and Unseen, A Year Lived in Faith by Nora Gallagher (Re-read)
Practicing Resurrection, A Memoir of Work, Doubt, Discernment, and Moments of Grace by Nora Gallagher. (Re-read)
Winter Grace, Spirituality and Aging by Kathleen Fischer (Re-read)
The Summer of the Great-Grandmother by Madeleine L’Engle (Re-read)
Wintering, The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May (Re-read)
Writing
Memoir as Medicine, The Healing Power of Writing Your Messy, Imperfect, Unruly (but Gorgeously Yours) Life Story by Nancy Slonin Aronie
Writing Begins with the Breath, Embodying Your Authentic Voice by Laraine Herring
Other
The Hawk’s Way, Encounters with Fierce Beauty by Sy Montgomery (nature)
A Friend Sails in on a Poem by Molly Peacock
Bomb Shelter, Love, Time, and Other Explosives by Mary Laura Philpott (essays)
Leaving the Pink House by Ladette Randolph (memoir)
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, Native America From 1890 to the Present By David Treuer
South to America, A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation by Imani Perry
One Hundred Saturdays, Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World by Michael Frank
Catching the Light by Joy Harjo (memoir, poetry)
Fox and I, An Uncommon Friendship by Catherine Raven (memoir, nature)
You Could Make This Place Beautiful, A Memoir by Maggie Smith
An Invitation
What nonfiction books read in 2023 do you recommend? I would love to know.
My Advent companion this year is one of the Wise Men. Each of the other two companions have been my companions in recent years, thanks to the deck of cards, “Advent Perspectives, Companions for the Journey.” (See my December 5 post,https://livingonlifeslabyrinth.com/2023/12/05/advent-1-one-lit-candle/
This particular Wise Man (Woman, please) is having a hard time getting ready for the journey.
I keep thinking about the conversation these three wise people must be having.
Wise Person #1: “There’s this star, and I think we must follow it.”
Wise Person #2: “I’ve seen it, too, and it is so much brighter than all the other stars. That must be a sign.’
Wise Person #3 remains quiet.
#1: “I think we need to leave right away. Tomorrow, in fact.”
#2 “Sounds good to me. Let’s do it.”
#3 remains quiet, but as #1 and #2 get up from the breakfast table, #3 says, “I don’t think I can be ready that quickly. There’s a lot to do before we leave on a trip. And besides, where are we going and how long will we be gone and what about all the meetings and appointments we have–I have–in the coming weeks? Where will we be staying and what do we need to take with us? Are the camels ready for a long journey”
Both #1 and #2 assure #3 that all will be well and somehow everything gets done.
#3 under her breath says, “That’s because I do what needs to be done.” #1 and #2 pretend not to hear her, as they leave the room, and #3 begins creating a master TO DO List.
Cancel mail delivery.
Get out passports.
Hire neighbor to shovel snow.
Do laundry.
Empty refrigerator.
Cancel upcoming appointments.
Pay bills
#3 continues the ongoing dialogue in her head. “Why can’t I be as spontaneous and as trusting as my colleagues? I’ve seen the star, too, and I’ve had the same dreams about the need to follow that star, but I get so bogged down in my routines and wrapped up in my lists. How exhausting that is sometimes!”
#3 takes a deep breath, reminding herself to breathe in the love of God and breathe out her anxieties and fears. Her need to be organized and in control. She closes her eyes, lightly, not tightly, and breathes in and out gently, finding her own rhythm. This is what she must do now, even before getting out the suitcases or making a list of what to take with her on this journey.
Breathe.
Be still.
Open to the Presence.
Trust. Surrender.
See the beauty of that star.
#3 could feel an eagerness arise within her. A yearning to follow, to discover where the star takes us.
And when she opened her eyes, she saw #1 and #2 standing beside her.
#1 said, “We are on this journey together.
#2 said, “Let’s help one another prepare.”
And #3 said, “May it be so.”
I look as far as I can into future days, weeks, months, Desiring to see what is ahead and waiting for me. But my vision is limited and clouded with desire. I return to seeing only what is in this present moment. I do not need to know that which is far beyond. I have only to trust you to direct me, All-Seeing One.... fromFragments of Your Ancient Name, 365 Glimpses of the Divine for Daily Meditation Joyce Rupp
An Invitation
What is getting in the way of your seeing and following the star? I would love to know.
NOTE:
I will publish my list of favorite nonfiction books read in 2023 on my Thursday, December 14 post.
First, One more Book From November: History of Rain by Niall Williams
I was thrilled to find this earlier book (published in 2014) by Niall Williams at Northwind Books in Spooner, WI. I loved his most recent book, This Is Happiness (2019), and also an earlier book (1997) Four Letters of Love. And, no surprise, I loved this book, too.
As in his other books, The History of Rain is set in rural Ireland. I have never been there, unfortunately, but this book transported me there without a passport. Nineteen-year-old Ruth Swain relates her strange family history, even as her own story of being confined to bed with an unidentified and debilitating blood disorder is strange as well. What is not strange is the writing–always lyrical and poetic, sometimes comedic –I laughed outloud at times–but always warm, even as it teases. I shed a few tears along the way, too.
Ruth’s father was a poet, and she inherited all 3,958 of his books crammed into her bedroom where she sleeps in a bed shaped like a boat. I loved the bookishness of the narration, noting when a book is mentioned its specifics in the collection. “The Brothers Karamazov (Book 1,777, Penguin Classics, London)” or “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Book 1,980, Penguin Classics, London). Books by Dickens are mentioned so often that I have decided to re-read this month one of my all-time favorites, Great Expectations.
A review in The Guardian says the book is “pure eccentric entertainment,” and that feels right. Some may get irritated by the wanderings, but I loved the quirkiness of it all. Yes, it is about life in County Clare and about her family. (Her mother doesn’t fall in love when she first meets the man she will marry, but she “falls in Curiosity, which is less deep but more common.” p. 176.) But it is also about fishing for salmon and about the rain that falls without end. And about stories.
We tell stories. We tell stories to pass the time, to leave the world for a while, or go more deeply into it. We tell stories to heal the pain of living.
p. 176
I underlined so many passages in this book. Don’t get me started. Instead, read the book and decide for yourself what to underline.
Second: December’s Plan
My plan this month is to re-read some favorites. The only exceptions will be if a book I have requested from the library becomes available. After all, let’s not be rigid when it comes to our reading!
I started the month re-reading Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice for the ____ time. I have lost count, but never lose interest or delight. Now I want to re-watch the various film versions of this classic. Re-reading P&P may become my new Advent tradition.
Now I am re-reading Fresh Water for Flowers by French novelist Valerie Perrin. How could a book set in a cemetery be so charming? Well, take my word for it, it is! And it is moving and revealing about the many ways we love.
I intend to re-read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and also Possession by A.S. Byatt this month, but who knows what book distractions I will encounter as the month progresses.
Third: Favorite Novels of 2023
I read a lot of fiction. Out of the 99 novels I read in 2023, here are my top 25. However, if I sat down and listed my top favorites on another day, the list might look different, for I read very few books I didn’t like. I think I have mentioned this before, but I quickly discard a book if it doesn’t hold my attention in the first few pages or if I don’t think it is written well–or if I am not in the mood. Therefore, what I read I generally like.
For descriptions/summaries/evaluations of my favorites, I’m afraid you, dear reader, will need to do some of your own work. I have listed my favorites in the order in which I read them and I have written about them in my Thursday Book Report posts.
Now for the list. May I have a drumroll, please?
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
Our Missing Hearts by Celeste NG
Gone Like Yesterday by Janelle Williams
The Woman in the Library by Susan Gentill
The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez
The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear
Still True by Maggie Ginsberg
I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makai
Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
Astrid and Veronica by Linda Olsson
My Antonia by Willa Cather (for the 3rd time)
The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn
Homecoming by Kate Morton
Horse by Geraldine Brooks
The Postcard by Anne Berest
The Half-Moon by Mary Beth Keane
The Housekeeper and the Professorbby Yoko Ogawa
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St John Mandel
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip WIlliams
The Bookbinder by Pip Williams
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (Perhaps my TOP FAVORITE)
The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger
So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan
History of the Rain by Niall Williams
What’s missing? Well, there aren’t many books by men. Also The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, even though it is a major favorite of many, is a book I liked, but didn’t love. Lessons in Chemistry is not on the list because I haven’t read it yet, but at some point, I will. There is no new Louise Penny listed because there was not a new LP in 2023! Boo! And I am embarrassed to say there aren’t many books written by people of color on the list–I read more than the list indicates, but, alas, they aren’t among my very favorites.
So that’s it!
An Invitation
What were your favorite books of 2023? I would love to know.
NOTE:
I will list my favorite 2023 nonfiction books in my Book Report post on Thursday, December 14.
“Rouse us from sleep, that we may be ready to greet the Coming One.”
After these words were spoken, the first candle on the Advent wreath was lit.
Advent has begun.
Not only is our church sanctuary bedecked with stunning new blue paraments…
BUT our home also is awake to this blessed season of the church year.
I always begin the decorating in the kitchen, welcoming the Santas carved by a talented friend. I love the kitchen’s red walls throughout the year, but especially at this time of the year. Yes, I know this is a lot of stuff in a tiny space, but oh, how happy these treasures make me. Somehow I still find room to cook and bake.
Santa watches my every move in the kitchen!
In the dining room the Christmas dishes are on the buffet and the Nativity Scene in its usual place, and this year for the first time the Snow Village is in the bedroom.
The living room is ready for cozy evenings reading or gatherings with family and friends.
But here’s my favorite–a new collection of felt critters and trees. They make me smile every time I pass through the dining room. They may stay in place all winter.
Beginning the Inner Journey
I have always loved creating a setting for an event or holiday. For hospitality, as well as for the daily routines of my life. Unpacking the Christmas bins and arranging our treasures is a form of creativity for me, but it also leads me to the deeper invitations of the season.
After two days of turning mess into pleasant order and a kind of beauty–at least to my eyes, I needed to pause. To rest. To begin the unfolding into what this specific Advent holds for me.
I settled into the snug with my chosen Advent books at hand: Lighted Windows, An Advent Calendar for a World in Waiting by Margaret Silf and Haphazard by Starlight, A Poem a Day from Advent to Epiphany by Janet Morley.
I began the journey by discovering who would be my companion this Advent. I fanned the the deck of cards, “Advent Perspectives, Companions for the Journey,” in my hand and with my eyes closed, my right hand moved slowly over the cards, somehow knowing when to stop. I opened my eyes to meet my companion–one of the Wise Men.
This is not my first year a Wise Man (Woman) has been my companion. In 2020 and 2021 the other two Wise Men led me on the Advent to Epiphany journey. (I must be a slow learner.)
The questions for reflections are the same as for those previous years:
How would you describe the journey you’ve been on this year? What course corrections might be needed now to better lead you in the direction of your Bethlehem?
What precious gifts are you most eager to offer God in this Advent season?
Where in your life might you need to travel a different route in order to avoid danger or harm?
What do you do to follow Jesus?
The reflective questions may be the same for each of the Wise Men, and perhaps some of the answers may be the same or at least similar as in other years, but this is the first time I have taken this journey as a 75 year old woman. I bring this specific self into the journey. I have never lived through 2023 before, and I bring this year’s gifts and losses and joys and learnings into this Advent.
Yesterday morning I read these words in the Margaret Silf book:
So though we are urged to travel light, we must carry our dream with us, wherever the labyrinth of life may lead us. The dream is our energy for the road. It is our memory of those moments when God has unmistakably touched our lives.
p. 30
The journey begins.
An Invitation
What are you experiencing during these early December days? I would love to know.
One can read more when not fixing Thanksgiving dinner. (My husband and I enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner at a favorite restaurant while our St Paul family was traveling. We even had some leftovers to bring home.) I must be honest, however, about the number of books I read this last month.
Several books I read this month were less than 200 pages. I didn’t set out to read short books, but several rose to the top of the pile.
Short Books
Andy Catlett, Early Travels by Wendell Berry (fiction) 141 pages. See my review in my November 16th post.
Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop by Alba Donati (nonfiction) 193 pages. Also in my November 16 post.
The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt (fiction) 69 pages. Ann Patchett is wildly enthusiastic about this book, so how could I resist, and I did love it–and even read it twice. This book is part of New Directions publishers’ Storybook ND series, which publishes books that offer “the pleasure of reading a great book from cover to cover in an afternoon.” Love that! The book (story?) is described as a “modern morality drama” about a seventeen year old girl raised in Marrakech by a French mother and English father. The predominant theme in her life, as emphasized by the woman she knows as her mother, is to avoid mauvais ton or “bad taste.” The truth of her life is revealed, and she is confronted by the “publishing sharks of New York city.” Read it!
So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan (fiction) 118 pages. I love each book I have read by Irish writer Keegan (Foster and Small Things Like These). She writes with such clarity that one is almost fooled, thinking each story is simple. But oh there is so much going on below the surface, in the internal lives of her characters. So Late in the Day is the title story in this book of three short stories. The other two are The Long and Painful Death and Antartica. The book is small and would fit easily in a favorite reader’s Christmas stocking.
What Else Did I Read?
Fiction
The English Teacher by Lily King. I wasn’t sure how I would feel about this book by the end or what I wanted the ending to be. The English teacher is Vida Avery, who is a stellar teacher–until she isn’t. She teaches at a private school and has a quiet, private life with her teenage son, Peter. Unexpectedly, she marries, a recent widower with three children, and this new status opens her to an earlier trauma in her life.
Two books in the Lane Winslow mystery series by Iona Whishaw. #3, An Old, Cold Grave and #4, It Begins in Betrayal. Set in Canada, post WWII, Winslow is happy to be away from her life as a British spy, but at the same time she becomes involved as an unofficial detective when murder occurs in her small village. The 4th in the series takes place mainly in London, however, when her romantic interest, Canadian Inspector Darling, is accused of a war crime. I will definitely continue reading this series.
The Door-to-Door Bookshop by Carsten Henn. See my review in my November 23 post.
Day by Michael Cunningham. I loved Cunningham’s earlier book, The Hours–loved the movie, too–but I must say I liked this book, but didn’t love it. I did like the structure of the book. One family, the same day of the year in three different years –2019, 2020, 2021–and how their lives change during the pandemic. There is no question that Cunningham writes beautifully, and I often stopped to re-read a sentence or paragraph, simply to enjoy the flow of the words, but I tired of the characters: Isabel, married to Dan, who is an old wannabe rock star hoping for a comeback, and Isabel’s gay brother Robbie, who lives with them, until they need the room for the two growing children in the family.
A Likely Story by Leigh McMillan Abramson. A good read. Ward Manning is a famous novelist, but seems to be losing his touch. Claire his wife dies suddenly and their daughter Isabelle discovers a novel written by her mother. Isabelle edits and finishes the novel, presenting it as her own, and the novel Underpainting, becomes a bestseller. Dysfunctional family!
Ward Manning has given his daughter the legacy of being his. Having him as a father was a biographical sparkler bright enough to light up the rest of her life. Even if she did nothing.
p. 76.
The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende. In many ways this reads like a nonfiction book–about immigration into this country, but Allende’s narration kept me going. There were two main threads in this book that eventually were woven together. Samuel, an Austrian Jew, is separated from his family in 1938 and sent to England where he lived in a series of homes. He becomes a famous violinist who settles in California. The other strain involves a child, Anita, who is separated from her El Salvadoran mother. Serena, a social worker, and Frank, a lawyer take on her case –and you will have to read it to discover how it all comes together.
I just noticed the theme of Isabel (Isabelle) in this month’s reading!
Nonfiction
Except for The Diary of a Tuscan Bookseller, the other three nonfiction books I read this month are all books I have read before.
The Summer of the Great-Grandmother by Madeleine L’Engle. This book is #2 in L’Engle’s Crosswicks Journal series, which includes #1, A Circle of Quiet and #3, The Irrational Season. I read #2 again because it deals with dementia, which at the point of history in which this book was written is referred to as senility, a term we no longer use. A number of people in our lives are suffering from forms of dementia, and I knew L’Engle would write honestly and compassionately about this disease. She refers to the Greek word, ousia, which means the “essence of being” — a helpful reminder as dementia is a disease of so much loss. After the death of the great-grandmother dies, L’Engle writes,
My memory of my mother, which is the fullest memory of anybody living, is only fragmentary. I would like to believe that the creator I call God still remembers all of my mother, knows and cares for the ousia of her, and is still teaching her and helping her to grow into the self he created her to be, her integrated, whole, redeemed self.
Wintering, The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Kathering May. I underlined more than the first time i read it, but that is often the case when re-reading a book. A couple quotes reveal what is true for me and my wintering times.
Everybody winters at one time or another; some winter over and over again.
p. 10
We may never choose to winter, but we can choose how. Some winters are big, some small.”
p. 13
Wayfaring, A Gospel Journey into Life by Margaret Silf. I read this book slowly throughout the whole month, usually only half a chapter during each of my morning meditation times. Silf invites the reader to use the imagination to meet the truths in the Gospel, but from the world of one’s daily life; to join Jesus in the Gospel stories and become part of those stories. She calls this “imaginative prayer.” One of the Gospel stories I continue to explore is the story of Martha and Mary when they invite Jesus to their home for a meal. I have seen myself as both Martha and Mary at different times, but this time as I read this story I was led to explore Jesus’s need for a “bolt hole,” from the world’s demands on him. Enlightening –and opened me to yet more dimensions. I expect I will use much of this material in the coming months in the contemplative writing group I facilitate.
December’s Plan
My intention in the coming month is to re-read old favorites, but that can change depending on which of the library books I have requested become available. Another issue is deciding which of my favorites I choose to read. Stay tuned.
An Invitation
What books did you give thanks for in the last month? I would love to know.
I’m ready! That doesn’t mean I’m ready for Christmas to arrive. The wreath may be on the door, but that is a false illusion of readiness.
Nope, I’m ready for the time of preparation. I’m ready for the arrival of Advent.
I’m ready to get ready.
Advent Meditations
Over the years I’ve acquired many Advent devotional books and sometimes I have subscribed to online Advent retreats and daily devotions. Deciding which books and offerings will be my focus is a kind of meditation in itself. This year the winners are:
Haphazard by Starlight, A Poem a Day from Advent to Epiphany by Janet Morley. A friend gave me this book last year writing “Words to accompany you through the dark days into the light.” Many days during last year’s Advent were too dark for me to focus on this book. After a dear friend died on December 1, I spent much of my morning meditation time sitting quietly in the darkness, allowing myself to feel the fullness of that loss. At the same time I had a crummy cold most of Advent, which limited what I did. This year this book welcomes me. In her introduction Morley writes:
Poetry yields its multi-layered meanings only when the reader pays attention, and spends time reflecting on what may be a very few words. Intuition and a certain humility are needed along with a willingness to notice properly the detailed world the poem illuminates, and perhaps to be personally transformed by the resulting insights. As readers we have to bring some deep parts of ourselves into the process of interpretation; we have to surrender to the poem. At the same time, a poem doesn’t browbeat the reader: it intrigues, challenges and delights.
p. xii
Lighted Windows, An Advent Calendar for a World In Waiting by Margaret Silf. This month I’ve been slowly re-reading one of Silf’s other books, Wayfaring, A Gospel Journey into Life, and once again I have loved how Silf encourages an imaginative reading of Gospel stories. Who am I in the text? What does the text offer me in my life? Today. Now. Through her guidance, I always discover something new. I know this book will bring me new light:
The seasons of Advent and Christmas remind us that now is the time and ours is the place in which God is labouring to come to birth.
May your own Advent journey, and your life’s journey, be guided by unexpected lights along the roads that refuse to be extinguished. May it be accompanied by melodies celebrating that which has not yet arrived. And may we ourselves become bearer of a Spirit-kindled light in a world that longs, like never before, for hope and trust and a reason to believe in the best that humanity can become.
p. 7
Once again, as I have done for several years, I will shuffle the deck of cards created by Tracy Mooty, Janet Hagberg and Ali Boone, “Advent Perspectives, Companions for the Journey.” I will close my eyes as one hand hovers over the cards finally landing on the character from the Nativity story who is to be my companion for the season. Mary was my companion last year and also in 2018. Who will it be this year? Stay tuned. I will let you know.
I am ready for my morning Advent meditation time.
Advent Remembrance
The day after Carolyn died I wrote in my journal:
Her friendship at this stage of my life was one of those unexpected surprises–like sometimes you open the front door to get the mail or sweep the steps, and there is an Amazon box there. You hadn’t ordered anything, but there it is. A friend had sent you a book, perhaps. One she knew you would love. Well, in her infinite generosity, God sent me Carolyn.
Bruce said yesterday that he feels empty. I don’t feel that. Actually, I feel quite full–not in the sense of being overwhelmed, but more in the sense of feeling gratitude for her presence in my life. One more example of enduring love and friendship and what it means to live fully, passionately, openly. But oh, I will miss her.
December 2, 2022
I am ready to sit quietly and ponder in my heart the ongoing gifts of Carolyn’s friendship in my life.
Advent Transformations
Our home is my easel, and each season is a source and setting for creativity.
At the end of the week I will remove all evidence of fall.
This Advent and Christmas some things will stay the same as they have in past years.
(2022)
But who knows where others will land.
(2022)
I am ready for the Christmas bins to come out of the storage room and to create this year’s setting for these precious days of Advent and Christmas. I’ll let you know what happens.
While everyone else is watching football or snoozing after eating too much turkey and all the sides, treat yourself to this gentle and charming book, The Door-to-Door Bookshop by Carsten Henn, translated from the German by Melody Shaw. However, since independent bookstores are not open today, stop at your favorite bookstore during the wild Friday shopping to buy this book as a Christmas treat for yourself.
Carl’s favorite task at the bookshop where he works is to pick out just the right books and deliver them to housebound readers. A young girl, Schaschas, begins to join him on his rounds, calling him a BookWalker. She is wise beyond her years and has opinions about the kinds of books his customers need, in order to make their lives better. Of course, there are villains along the way, especially the bookshop’s daughter who inherits the store and does not think delivering books is necessary. Clearly, she is not a book person.
Instead of describing some of the customers, here are few representative quotes about books.
Books with green covers were not to be trusted.
p. 16
Even when an extraordinary book ends at precisely the right point, with precisely the right words, and anything further would only destroy that perfection, it still leaves us wanting more pages. That is the paradox of reading.
p. 135
Then he read his favorite novel, The Uncommon Reader, a slim volume by a renowned author; he allowed himself to read it only once a year, looking forward to it each time like a connoisseur anticipating the first asparagus of the season.
p. 71
At various points in the book Henn compares readers to certain animals: hares who race through a book, fish who allow a book to carry them along their current, lapwings who jumped ahead to the ending, and tortoises who fall asleep often after a single page and take months to finish a book.
I think I’m a combination hare and fish.
Gentle and charming.
An Invitation
What books would you describe as gentle and charming? I would love to know.
Note: A Thanksgiving Prayer and Note
Before sending today’s post I moved into the snug for my morning meditation time. This morning I re-read a section about the Thanksgiving holiday from Diana Butler Bass’s book, Grateful, The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks. She quotes from this prayer by Adam Lee:
May this sharing of food foster peace and understanding among us, may it bring us to the recognition that we depend on each other for all the good we can ever hope to receive, and that all the good we can hope to accomplish rests in helping others in turn.
May it remind us that as we reach out to others to brighten their lives, so are our lives brightened in turn.
p. 131
May today, however you choose to be in it, be a day of awareness of the blessings that abound in your life, but also a day of intention to increase the blessings for those who experience scarcity or fear or pain.
Thanksgiving weekend, 2013, we moved back to St Paul, the same neighborhood where we bought our first house in 1974, when Bruce graduated from medical school and started his family practice residency, and I was pregnant with our daughter Kate. Now we have two grandchildren, Peter, almost 16 and Maren, 21.
The decision to return to where our family life had begun was not difficult. We yearned to be with our grandchildren more, as well as my aging father. Our life in Madison, WI, was good, very good, but it was time to return home.
Meeting This House
“I can’t do this,” I thought as I stood in the dull and dingy-looking and oh, so small kitchen. “Where’s the refrigerator?” I asked our realtor. Between the two of us we took up all the floor space in this teeny, tiny mini-kitchen. With a big smile she pointed out two refrigerator drawers underneath a counter.
“Isn’t this a clever idea?” She beamed, obviously hoping for a positive reaction from me. “Not having a full-sized refrigerator gives you more counter space,” she added.
I was not enamored.
The cabinets were painted a sickroom white, not the shiny white of nurses’s uniforms of the past, and the countertops were mottled grey and tan, like age spots on ancient hands.
Bruce pointed out the pluses. Excellent condition, good storage, and the price was right, to say nothing of the perfect location–five blocks from where our daughter and her family live, and three blocks from the kids’ elementary school. Yes, location, location, location.
I pointed out what it didn’t have: a fireplace or front porch or central air. All things on our wish list. And that garage, a cramped one-car garage, so small I wondered if I could master the necessary parking maneuvers for my Jeep.
Lectio Divina for a House
Our offer on the house was accepted, and my head agreed with the decision, but my heart was not in agreement. I knew I needed some time with the house. Without my husband. That opportunity came during the house inspection.
Sitting in my car before entering the house, I scanned the block of well-tended homes sheltered by mature trees. My eyes rested on our future home. Not too small, not too big. A pleasant-looking house. I liked the window boxes on the four front windows of the sunroom and the mums on the steps with one small pumpkin obviously placed there by little kid hands. I did not care for the yellow-gold exterior and wondered what color would bring it more to life.
Once inside, I wandered room by room, “reading” the house, gazing with soft eyes, as if encountering a piece of scripture for the first time. Lectio or “reading” is the first step in lectio divina, a spiritual practice that opens the reader to a more intimate relationship with the Word and often leads to clarification, even transformation.
I stood in the narrow, window-lined front room only big enough for a couple comfortable chairs and thought how lovely it would be to sit there and read. I noted the two windows in the kitchen, a gift in such a small space. I paused on the landing going up to the second floor, a refinished attic space and looked out the windows to the backyard. “I could have my office up here and call it ‘the garret.'”
I returned to the front door and took a deep breath, moving into deeper meditation, meditatio, the second step of lectio divina. Could I begin to let go of my space requirements, my vision of what I thought I needed? Could I imagine myself in this space?
There was no room for our large formal couch in the loving room, but how about forming a circle with four comfortable chairs? I began to picture certain loved pieces of furniture in this space. What about placing my lady’s writing desk next to the front door? What a pleasant place to sit and write a letter. My heart softened.
A fountain of ideas began to flow, overflow about ways to modify the house to our taste and lifestyle. A new palette. White wood work and white living room walls. Light beach aqua in the front room, which eventually I called “the snug,” and turquoise in the dining room. Clearly I had engaged with lectio divina’s third step, oratio, or “being active, but it was in the kitchen where I fully embraced that step.
Kitchen Transformation
During our first years of marriage, I cooked and baked and prepared dinner parties in a tiny windowless kitchen where initially I had waged combat with cockroaches. That’s where my Christmas tradition of baking loaf after loaf of cherry walnut bread began. Our kitchen at Sweetwater Farm was small, too, with almost no counter space, but oh, the Thanksgiving feasts created there.
Instead of seeing the space as limited, I reframed it in my mind as efficient. What it needs, I told myself, was crisp marshmallow white cupboards, a white subway tile backsplash and white solid surface countertop. And how about red walls? Santa Claus suit red.
The Fourth Stage: Contemplatio (Resting)
No, I wouldn’t have everything I wanted. A friend suggested we build a front porch. Of course, with enough money and patience and vision, one can do almost anything, but just because we once had something doesn’t means we must have it again. Instead, I rested in contemplation, assured I would discover a new gift.
One day on my morning walk soon after moving in, I noticed a neighbor’s inviting side courtyard, and then I saw other gardens and patios located in narrow side yards, creating private space. Could we do that? We had skinny space on one side of the house leading to the gate into the back yard. Tall arborvitaes lined the boundary between our house and the neighbor’s, leaving space just big enough for a couple chairs and a small table. My husband the gardener enthusiastically approved the plan.
As I settled into our new home, I continued practicing, although unconsciously, lectio divina, opening to its invitation for transformation. Our new secret garden space, which I call “Paris,” symbolized my willingness to let go and discover something new, vibrant, and pleasing; to be transformed.
The Next Decade
We were 65 when we moved into this house, and now we are 75. Our hope and intention is to spend the next decade here as well, but, who knows. Bruce has said he would like to stay in the house on his own, if I died first, but If I were a widow, I would move into an apartment, not wanting to take care of the gardens. In the meantime we live fully, happily, gratefully in this space.
An Invitation
Is there some aspect of your life in which the spiritual practice of lectio divina could be helpful? Something calling for transformation or reframing? I would love to know.
Of course, what is inside the book is most important, but unless I am looking for a specific title or author, the book cover is what first engages me. These two are winners.
Andy Catlett, Early Travels by Wendell Berry. I bought this book at Ann Patchett’s book store, Parnassus Books. It wasn’t on my TBR list, but I have read and loved other books by Kentucky author Berry, including Hannah Coulter and Jayber Crow. This cover reminded me, as does some of the descriptions in the book, of our Sweetwater Farm in Ohio.
The book, which is part of Berry’s Port William series, is set in 1943 and young Andy Catlett takes the bus by himself to visit both sets of grandparents. Although much of the book has a nostalgic feel Berry also reflects on the role of racism in the community and among the people he loves. “Dick,” a Black man was a “hired hand,” and Andy reflects,” Whereas my grandfather’s life had been shaped by the effort to keep what he had, Dick’s had been shaped by the effort implied in not having.” pp. 24-25.
Also.
It was a circumstance that was mostly taken for granted. It was inexcusable, and yet we had the formidable excuse of being used to it. It was an injustice both accommodated and varyingly obscured not only by daily custom, but also the exigencies and preoccupations of daily life. We left the issue alone, not exactly by ignoring it, but by observing an elaborate etiquette that permitted us to ignore it…What is hardest to get used to maybe, once you are aware, is the range of things humans are able to get used to. I was more used to this once than I am now.
pp. 75-76
Much of what Berry describes reminds me of my Grandma and Grandpa Hansen’s farm in southern Minnesota and life in the early 50’s when I was growing up. Like a button box.
No worn out garment then was simply thrown away. When it was worn past wearing and patching, all its buttons were snipped off and put into the button box. And then when something old needed a new button, the button box provided. Grandma’s was an old shoe box better than half full of buttons of all sorts. it was a pleasure just to run your fingers through like running your fingers through a bucket of shelled corn.
p. 62
The book is short–only 140 pages–but so rich with descriptions of time and place and people. As I read it, I paused often to re-read passages–wanting to fully absorb the beauty of the writing. This is a book where plot is not the focus, but I didn’t miss it. Not at all.
Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop by Alba Donati. A friend gave me this nonfiction book, which she bought on a trip to the UK. What could be lovelier than to be remembered by a friend when she is traveling. If I had seen this book in a bookstore, no doubt, I would have bought it, for the cover is so pleasing. I want to spend time in that setting. Donati is a poet, and she opens a small bookstore in a small Italian town, Lucignana, which would have been enough of a challenge, but she opens it during the pandemic. The book is written in a series of diary entries, and I think it would have been better, if written in more of a narrative style. In a diary one tends to reference lots of information relevant only to the writer. I did love, however, the list of the day’s book orders at the end of each entry. Both Italian and English. An example:
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, L’istante largo by Sara Bruner, White Fang by Jack London, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, Learning to Talk to Plants by Marta Orriols.
p. 69
I would love to know about the readers of those books. Why then? And how did they learn about them?
Right now I am reading #4 in the Lane Winslow mystery series by Iona Whishaw, and the covers in these editions remind me so much of the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear.
An Invitation
Have you been influenced to read or buy a book based on its cover? I would love to know.
This past weekend my sister and I went to a vintage Christmas market, and I bought this little treasure from years gone by. It’s a nut chopper.
Of course, I don’t need a nut chopper, for I have a food processor and also a smaller electric one that works beautifully for herbs and nuts, and most often I buy walnuts and pecans already chopped anyway. However, when I picked it up I remembered baking cookies when I was a child. I had instant replay images of kitchens in homes where we lived when I was growing up. Now I hasten to add that my mother was not the kind of Mom who enjoyed cooking with her children. I learned to cook and bake by trial and error. Still, this little glass container with its cheery red top, which just happens to match my current kitchen’s decor, inspired homey, happy thoughts.
Memories were clearly on my mind, especially since last week’s theme for the writing group I facilitate was memory. Before reading the writing prompts to the group, I shared some guiding words, quotations about the topic. For example,
There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it. The painful things you were certain you’d never be able to let go? Now you’re not entirely sure when they happened, while the thrilling parts, the heart-stopping joys splintered and scattered and became something else. Memories are then replaced by different joys and sorrows, and unbelivably, those things get knocked aside as well, until one morning you’re picking cherries with your three grown daughters and your husband goes by on the Gator and you are positive that this is all you’ve ever wanted in the world.
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, p. 116
Remembering events and people from our past lets us claim and share ourselves…We do not merely have these memories; we are these memories…memory is a way of describing the cumulative nature of time, the presence of the past with us. Time not only unravels; it also knits up…memories reveal God’s presence in our life. Memories retrace a sacred journey.
Winter Grace, Spirituality and Aging by Kathleen Fischer, p. 45
The prompts included choosing a decade of your life and writing down as many memories of that decade as you can, or writing about an experience when your memory is contradicted by someone’s version of the same experience or event, or encouraged by Kathleen Fischer’s words, “open the album of your life,” and simply begin writing.
My own response during the 20 minutes of writing time was inspired by what John O’ Donohue says in Eternal Echoes, Exploring Our Yearning to Belong, “Memory is the place where our vanished days secretly gather. Memory rescues experience from total disappearance.”
Lost Memories
A few months before he died, I asked my father what memories he had about Christmas when I was a little girl. My father had an excellent memory, which he nurtured and worked to maintain. For example, when he was in his 90’s he wrote down the names of everyone in his first grade class. Eventually, he remembered each name. He also made a list of everyone who reported to him during his long and successful career.
Here’s the rub: He had no memories of Christmas when I was a little girl. Over the years he had shared his own early Christmas memories, like getting an orange in his stocking and going ice skating on Fountain Lake on Christmas Day, but he was not able to unveil memories about me at Christmastime.
It was clear he was disturbed by this lack of memories, and he quickly said something like “Your mother handled Christmas,” and I’m sure that was true, but really? Nothing about my first Christmas morning or presents I loved or how I reacted to the Christmas tree? Frankly, I was hurt. I changed the subject, wishing I had never brought it up. Later I wondered if bringing some family pictures or sharing my own early memories would have induced a different outcome.
I hasten to add, and I want you to hear this clearly, I have no doubts about how much my father loved me. I have never questioned that, and I treasure my relationship with him, but I am aware that some of the details of my life, stories I would like to know, have disappeared.
When I asked my father to share memories about me as a little girl, I unintentionally opened a place of sadness in him, an emptiness he didn’t know he had. I’m not sure that was a good thing, unless I can use it to learn something about myself and my own memories. What do I most need to remember and even more, what memories about my loved ones do they need and want to know?
Joan Chittister in The Gift of Years, Growing Older Gracefully refers to memories as both burdens and blessings. What I choose to remember and share can be either a burden or a blessing for my loved ones. My hope is that this incident with my beloved father can be remembered as a sacred moment, for as Chittister says, memories, can “tell us what is left to be done. They become a blueprint for tomorrow that show us out of our own experience how to live, how to forget, how to go on again.” And I add, how and what to remember.
Now about that nut chopper. I won’t use it for its intended purpose, but instead I will fill it with red and green Christmas M and M’s, as a glimpse into sweet memories.
An Invitation
When have memories been a burden and when have they been a blessing in your life? I would love to know.
I don’t have much in common with Katherine May, the author of Wintering, The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. She is much younger than I am and has a young son. She lives in the UK. She was diagnosed with Aspergers as an adult. But I identify with much of what she writes in this book.
The title alone spoke to me, for the idea of “wintering” totally seduces me. I am a winter person.
I bought and read this book when it was first published in 2020, but recently I felt tugged to re-read it. Actually, re-reading favorite books right now interests me more than reading books new to me, but that will be the topic of another post. Stay tuned.
Yes, she writes about the season of winter. The structure of the book follows the movement of the season beginning with September’s coming of winter to the almost spring of March.
For example she writes, “Winter opens up time,” and then shares her reading habit during the winter months.
In the high summer, we want to be outside and active; in winter, we are called inside, and here we attend to all the detritus of the summer months, when we are too busy to take the necessary care. Winter is when I reorganize my bookshelves and read all the books I acquired in the previous year and failed to actually read. It is also the time when I reread beloved novels, for the pleasure of reacquainting myself with old friends. In summer, I want big splashy ideas and trashy page-turners, devoured while lounging in a garden chair or perching on one of the breakwaters on the beach. In winter I want concepts to chew over in a pool of lamplight–slow, spiritual reading, a reinforcement of the soul. Winter is a time for libraries, the muffled quiet of book stacks and the scent of old pages and dust. In winter, I can spend hours in silent pursuit of a half-understood concept or a detail of history. There is nowhere else to be, after all.
p. 210
Excuse me while I take a time-out to rearrange my bookshelves.
I’m back.
“Wintering also refers to the emotions of being in a winter season of our lives. May writes, “Everybody winters at one time or another; some winter over and over again.” (p. 10) and “We may never choose to winter, but we can choose how.” (p. 13) She adds that some winters are big and some small.
This passage seems especially fitting when I think about the winter stage of my life, these elder years:
…you’ll find wisdom in your winter, and once it’s over, it’s your responsibility to pass it on. And, in return, it’s our responsibility to listen to those who have wintered before us. It’s an exchange of gifts in which nobody loses out. …Watching winter and really listening to its messages, we learn that effect is often disproportionate to cause; that tiny mistakes can lead to huge disasters; that life is often bloody unfair, but it carries on happening with or without our consent. We learn to look more kindly on other people’s crises, because they are so often portents of our own future.
pp. 122-123
I enjoyed the sections about wolves, wild swimming, saunas, the Sami people and reindeer, Santa Lucia, and the winter solstice. Winter is a rich season, indeed.
May is also author of Enchantment, Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age (2023) and The Electricity of Every Living Thing: A Woman’s Walk in the Wild to Find Her Way Home (2018). Her podcast is How We Live Now and her newsletter is The Clearing. https://katherinemay.substack.com
An Invitation
How do you respond to the concept of “wintering”? I would love to know.
“Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” Mark Twain
After Twain’s obituary was mistakenly published, he dispatched these words in a cable from London to the press.
Here’s my story:
When I purchased tickets to the recent National Lutheran Choir’s All Saints concert, I submitted names, as requested, of loved ones who have died in the past year. Those names would be recognized during the concert.
Imagine my surprise, when along with the names of my dear ones, my name—Nancy Agneberg—appeared on the screens in the front of the sanctuary as the choir sang.
Obviously, I was surprised, as was my husband sitting next to me, and friends also in attendance. I was also embarrassed, assuming I had filled in an incorrect space, pressed a wrong key. Whatever! Such an idiot, I told myself.
I am very much alive, but seeing my name listed among those who have died recently gave me pause.
My dear friend Carolyn knowing she would die soon was in the process of planning a party in which all who loved her would gather before she died. Unfortunately, she died before that could happen. However, she also planned her memorial service. When she died on December 1, there was no doubt about her wishes.
Have I planned my memorial service yet? Nope. Oh, I’ve tossed some thoughts–the names of a couple hymns (Beautiful Savior and Morning Has Broken) and a note about scripture I have wrestled with much my adult life (The Martha/Mary story in Luke 10: 38-42), but I have not filled out and submitted the church’s form. What exactly am I waiting for?
This is the week. You are all my witnesses!
One more thought: How easily I chastised myself. How quickly I called myself names. “Idiot.” “Stupid.”
I am not an idiot. I am not stupid. But I made a mistake, an error; one that in the big scheme of things doesn’t matter very much. No one died–not even me–because I goofed. Do I need another layer of self-recrimination added to my all-too human frailties?
Instead, how about this? “Oh, Nancy, remember you are a beloved child of God, and you are loved no matter what.”
An Invitation
Two questions today. 1. Have you prepared your funeral/memorial service? If not, why not? 2. What names do you call yourself? I would love to know. (Whoops–that’s three questions.)
Fox and I, An Uncommon Friendship by Catherine Raven. A fox started showing up at Raven’s remote cottage in Montana. Raven, who is a biologist, begins reading aloud The Little Prince to him, and they develop a friendship. Friendship has been rare in Raven’s solitary life, and she contemplates what it means to have an “unboxed animal” as a friend. The writing is lyrical, but also true to her scientific background. (Sometimes more detailed than I needed.)
Fox was easier to understand than people because he couldn’t use words to deceive me. p. 257
When you spend time with your pet, they become more like you. When I spent time with Fox, I became more like him. p. 283
Winter Grace, Spirituality and Aging by Kathleen Fischer. I think I first read this book around the time I turned 50. No surprise–this book now holds much more meaning for my 75 year-old self. The chapter on older women as well as the chapter on loss were especially good. I am planning a session on spirituality and aging for an upcoming conversation group I facilitate for the Third Chapter, Spirituality as We Age group at our church, and I will use some of Fischer’s material.
You Could Make This Place Beautiful , A Memoir by Maggie Smith. First, it is important to know that this is the OTHER Maggie Smith–not the dowager from Downton Abbey! Smith is a well-known and highly praised poet, especially known for her poem “Good Bones.” The memoir is about the demise of her marriage, as well as her life as a mother and a writer. The format of the book is short entries, each with a headline, such as “A Friend Says Every Book Begins With an Unanswerable Question,” which she poses and repeats for herself, “Then what is mine?” One of her responses is “Where did it go?” Of course, she examines her marriage, but more than that or perhaps because of that she reflects on the nature of forgiveness, of moving forward, and about being whole, instead of a half. I loved this book.
Ten Fiction
I wrote about The Love Song of Queen Hennessy and also Maureen, both by Rachel Joyce in my October 12 post. Also, see the October 19 post for a review of Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro and the October 26 post to read about The Golden Hour by Beatriz Williams. I enjoyed all of these books.
My favorite novel read in October was William Kent Krueger’sThe River We Remember. Perhaps you have read Krueger’s mystery series set in Minnesota featuring Cork O’Connor, but he has also written three stand-alone novels, Ordinary Grace,This Tender Land, and now The River We Remember. Krueger writes with such clarity and also with deep compassion for his main characters, creating the same compassion in me when a character is about to do something that clearly is not a good choice. I want to warn them, and I ache for the choices they make. That happens when a book is as well-written, as this one is. The story is set in southern Minnesota in a small town named Jewel. A man unliked in the community is found dead in the river. Accident? Suicide? Murder? Sheriff Brody does not want it to be murder knowing Noah Bluestone, a Native American will be accused.
Our lives and the lives of those we love merge to create a river whose current carries us forward from our beginning to our end Because we are only one part of the whole, the river each of us remembers is different, and there are many versions of the stories we tell about the past. In all of them there is truth, and in all of them a good deal of innocent remembering. p. 417
My least favorite book this month was Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satashi Yagisawa. Just ok, and if it had been longer, I probably would not have finished it.
Two Authors’ Backlists
I already mentioned the Rachel Joyce books. So satisfying!
Books by Linda Olsson. In April I read Astrid and Veronica and so loved it that I wanted to read Olsson’s other books: Sonata for Miriam, The Memory of Love, and A Sister in My House. Of those three my favorite was The Memory of Love, even though there were holes in the story–missing pieces and unanswered questions. Still I was enthralled with Marion, a physician in New Zealand who had a tragic childhood, and also a young boy, Ika, who becomes central to her solitary life. I had a right to my happiness, as well as my life. p. 170
Four Books Under Two Hundred Pages
For some reason several slim books were in the queue this month.
Maureen by Rachel Joyce
The Memory of Love by Linda Olsson
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagasawa
Winter Grace, Spirituality and Aging by Kathleen Fischer
One Book Re-Read
Winter Grace by Kathleen Fischer. I think I was far too young when I read this the first time!
One Book Set in Maine
Margreete’s Harbor by Eleanor Morse. I think I fell in love a bit with these characters. Margreete has dementia, and her daughter Liddie and her family decide to move from Michigan to live with Margreete in the family home in Maine. They all live together for years and manage amazingly well. I was surprised there was not more initially about that transition and sometimes I thought there were too many gaps in the plot, but I truly liked these characters–foibles and all. Also, I appreciated the time period, 1955-1968, my growing up years, and the references to the big events of those years, including the assassinations of Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr, and the Vietnam War.
She recalled her mother as a young woman, hanging laundry on the line, burning dinner, running the vacuum to bagpipe music. She was Rubenesque, with arms big enough for everyone, her laugh like an explosion. She blew into a room like wind, hooked rugs with large splashy flowers, turning the wool in her plump hands. That brave, outspoken, mischief-loving, no-nonsense mother had become an ant in high wind, her mind clinging to a straw. p. 18
It’s like watching a picture in a darkroom going backward in a developing tray–every picture is blurry, less contrast, heading towards blank. p 94.
Uncounted Hours of Contented Reading
And I am so grateful.
An Invitation
Did you experience hours of contented reading this month? I would love to know.
I feel a bit like the last rose of summer. My petals are dropping, the color is beginning to fade, and one hopes the rose bushes in the garden will survive another winter.
How’s that for being dramatic? I remind myself I am an enneagram 4, The Individualist, and we 4s tend to be expressive, self-absorbed, temperamental and yes, dramatic. Sigh!
I am in a sort of sulking mood —also typical of 4s.
I slept well, but don’t feel rested.
I don’t feel like reading. That is never the case for me, so what is going on? Sunday night instead of reading in the evening I watched an old episode of British Baking Show, one I had seen before, of course, and I even remembered who would be named Star Baker that week.
I don’t feel like writing. Not even this blog post. I recently submitted an essay to an online newsletter that has published my essays two previous times, but this time the response was “thanks, but no thanks.” Actually, the editor kindly made suggestions and offered some questions to consider. When I have licked my wounds, I will sit with what she said, but not today.
The week ahead is dotted with some lovely events, including attendance at a concert and a play. Plus, we are taking our grandson to a football game at St Olaf College, our alma mater. (No ulterior motives, of course.) As always, I treasure the weekly time with the church writing group I facilitate and also the scheduled appointments with spiritual direction clients.
The TO DO list for the week is manageable, but I don’t feel like doing any of the tasks. I did throw a load of laundry in the washer, however, so that’s something.
I am not depressed, but I am also not motivated.
I am not focused, but I don’t feel scattered.
I am not bored, but I am not engaged.
I am not discontented, but also not content.
I have always loved this time of the year not just for the beauty of the falling leaves and the crispness of the days, but also as a reminder that cave time is coming. A time that has always felt more spacious and more reflective than the expected busy activity of spring and summer. This year, however, I seem to be approaching the coming months with some anxious wonder. What losses will there be in the coming months? What unknown changes, uncontrollable changes? How will I be confronted with my own aging process?
I am not scared, but I am not in denial.
I am not hungry, but I am yearning.
I am not lost, but I am wandering.
I am not complacent, but I am accepting, and I am willing to accept what I am experiencing and feeling today.
Today more leaves will fall. In fact, as we drove home from church on Sunday we noticed that the ginkgo trees have shed their leaves. They let go all at once.
In Praying Our Goodbyes, Joyce Rupp reminds me:
It is a season to hold the trees close,
to stand with them in our grieving.
It is time to open my inner being
to the misty truths of my own goodbyes.
Autumn comes. It always does.
Goodbye comes. It always does.
The trees struggle with this truth today
and in my deepest being, so do I.
So what am I going to do about this mood I am in? Not much. I am not going to judge myself, berate myself or try to fake a different mood. Instead, I intend to honor this present mood with respect, knowing eventually it will lift. It will lead me out of this corner into a new place.
After all, a new day and a new mood comes. It always does.
An Invitation
What is your Autumn mood? I would love to know.
PS: We woke up to snow, measurable icy, crunchy snow on the ground this Halloween morning. What’s that going to do to everyone’s mood?
Thanks to an unexpected allergic reaction to the flu shot I received Friday morning, I didn’t do much of anything for most of the weekend. Instead, I read and dozed, dozed and read. Repeat.
The Golden Hour by Beatriz Willams was my companion on those days of not feeling at the top of my game. Williams is a prolific writer of historical fiction, which is not my favorite genre, but earlier in the year I bought as a Wild Card selection one of her other books, Our Woman in Moscow, and I enjoyed it. A good hot weather read, I noted in my book journal when I read it in July. The Golden Hour, which I bought at Ann Patchett’s bookstore, Parnassus Books, one of my Wild Card selections, was a good “not feeling well” read, although I must admit I became weary of the far too frequent and drawn out sex scenes. The main characters, apparently, didn’t talk to each other very much!
The book is set in two time periods–around the 1900s and then in the early 1940s, and the narrative shifts back and forth between those time periods. Is it my imagination or are more and more books using this technique? I wonder what it would have been like if the book had been written with a more chronological structure. It takes great skill to manage an alternating time line, and Williams does it well.
The more interesting story for me–and the one with more of a historical connection–was set primarily in the Bahamas when the Duke and Duchess of Windsor are in residence. He has been given the post of governor. Leonora Randolph, known as Lulu, is a journalist, and she locates to the Bahamas to write a gossip column about the Windsors. She becomes connected to them, and therein is part of the intrigue. Lulu falls in love with Benedict Thorpe, a botanist, but in that time of war, is, of course, more than that.
Thorpe is the son of Elfriede and Wilfred Thorpe, and their story is set in the 1900s. First married to a German baron, Elfriede suffers from post part depression, after the birth of her son, and is sent to an asylum. It is there she meets and falls in love with Wilfred who is there recovering from pneumonia. You can imagine the complications that follow.
As I write this, it sounds quite melodramatic, but the realities of war and conflict and the changing roles of women are well presented. I anticipated more of a historical connection than there was. It felt more like historical inspiration. As I said, however, this was a good “not feeling well” book, and now I will put it in our Free Library basket–for someone else to enjoy.
An Invitation
Can you recall a book you read when you weren’t feeling well? I would love to know.
A visit to the library earlier this month yielded two surprise books on the Lucky Day shelf–both on my hold list and both with a large number ahead of me on that list. Needless to say, I grabbed both books, hoping there was nobody standing behind me ready to intimidate me into sharing at least one of them.
The two books were A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power and Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange. Both books are by contemporary indigenous authors. After reading (and loving) A Council of Dolls, I started reading Wandering Stars and realized I needed to read another book between those two books. In part, so I wouldn’t mix up the content–one in the other–but more to let each of those books breathe fully and for me to receive their breath. I promise you I will write more about each of these books in my April 18th post.
Sometimes after finishing a book that has fed me so completely, I need a palate cleanser kind of book–a cozy mystery, often. A book with a lighter touch. I wasn’t sure if Float Up, Sing Down, a book of linked short stories by Laird Hunt would fulfill that need, but I loved the cover, and it was in my pile of library books.
I don’t often read collections of short stories, but linked short stories are more appealing to me. Besides I so enjoyed Zorrie, Hunt’s 2021 novel, set in the same farming community in Indiana. Well….such good choice.
As I’ve written before, “quiet” novels, character-driven novels are my favorite kind of books, and that is true of Float Up, Sing Down. Each of the 14 chapters focuses on a single day in the life of each of the town’s residents. I can’t do better than the inside cover’s summary:
Candy Wilson has forgotten to buy the paprika. Turner Davis needs to get his zinnias in. Della told her mother she was going to the Galaxy Swirl, but that’s not where she’s really headed on her new Schwinn five-speed.
The residents of this rural town have their routines, their preferences, their joys, grudges, and regrets. Gossip is paramount. Lives are entwined. Retired sheriffs climb corn bins and muse on lost love. French teachers throw firecrackers out of barn windows, and teenagers borrow motorcycles to ride black roads..
Zorrie makes an occasional appearance, too.
Meet Horace, who “liked to know what the day had in store.” (p. 49) Horace had fought on D-Day, not that he liked to think about that time in his life, except for his encounter in Crete with Rose-Alice, whose Scottish archaeologist father had overseen excavations in Crete before the war. Now even in land-locked Indiana he can smell the sea. On this day, however, he needed to mow the lawn.
There had been quite a few in the community over the years who had been soft on him. Horace had always gone easy on the eyes, and old as he was getting, this was still true. Time wasn’t in any great hurry with him was the way Myrtle had put it. He wasn’t especially tall, but he was naturally lean, didn’t sweat too much, and looked good in a pressed cotton shirt. Like Gary Cooper but shorter, Alma Dunn had once said. He had taken her on three dates. She had gotten pretty worked up about things. He hadn’t married her or anyone else though. For a while there had been whispers of the nasty variety, but they hadn’t stuck. There hadn’t been anything for them to stick to.
p. 50
My favorite line is in the Myrtle chapter: “She was a good egg. It wasn’t just any old chicken that had laid her.” p. 158
Think Willa Cather, Wendell Berry, Elizabeth Strout. Think Our Town.
An Invitation
Do you need to read a “palate cleanser” after reading a particularly engrossing or “important” book? I would love to know.
Living on Life's Labyrinth 