Monthly Archives: November 2013

Joys and a Bargain

Posted in books, My Book, singleness by

Because it’s always fun to get a bargain, and because it’s becoming that time of year when you need gifts for girl friends who already have everything, here’s a deal:

You can order my book, Life is for Living from Christian Learning Resources and when you buy one, you get one free. If you buy 10, you get 10 free. You get the idea.  (Wholesalers, you get 70% off orders over 20, that way you can pass on the deal to your customers.  Wholesalers should call 877-222-4769 or email clr@fbep.org to place an order and receive this discount.)

The promotion is alive now on the CLR website, and closes on January 1.

I wrote the book for single girls aged 20 -30 who felt left behind and forgotten and depressed while all their friends were getting married. But mothers and pastors wives have written me to say that they benefited from the book because the gist of it is to embrace life and look for the joy wherever it is because it really is everywhere.

My joys the last few days:

1. brilliant sunsets

2. a surprise box filled with goodies all the way from the US

3. morning coffee with a drop of cream

4. hope of snow

Comforts While Drinking Hot Chocolate

Posted in life, recommendations by

1. I’m in the middle of Island of the World by the talented Michael O’Brien. It’s a deep, riveting story. I’m always amazed when a novelist makes his character write. I noticed and was fascinated by that skill first a long time ago when I read Emily of New Moon. And now in this book, when it has a fragment of the main character’s notebook, it takes me aback because O’Brien has to write doubly, and write in another kind of personae. I think a novelist like him must have an enormous soul. Other snippets of another of his books are here and here.

It is called the “chambered nautilus.” Nature’s powers are so endlessly ingenious that one must take care not to assume one knows where its outermost (and innermost) frontiers are located. –from Josip’s notebook

2. Pinterest is to me like a cozy blanket at the end of the day. A bit of humor, comfort, inspiration. Not every night, but almost, I treat myself to checking what came into my feed that day. There are women who  sneer at it, and others who deal with depression and envy because of it. That’s not Pinterest’s fault. For me, it’s a tool and a breath of new air that gives me ideas. I control the boards I follow and  when one has too much sarcasm or home dec or fussy hand-made cards, I unfollow it. (Yes, how did that word become a verb?)

I cannot put into words how it soothes  my soul to do something with my hands. During and after a season of dark depression, when most everything else in my life was unpredictable and uncontrollable, (or isn’t that all of life?) my fingers did something with paint or pen or paper or an onion, and the medium did what I asked it to, and the result lightened me as nothing else can. It wasn’t about controlling the medium; it was about finding and creating something that hadn’t existed before and having a little more beauty in the world as a result.

Beauty has many layers. Life is, it seems, about unwrapping those layers.

Words, People, and Chocolate

1. I was showing two women photos of Ireland and my family. Our little crowd of six offspring, several spouses, and 11 children usually blows students out of the water. “When there are so many of you, do you sometimes get angry and not talk to each other?”

“Never,” I said. “Sometimes there are problems and misunderstandings. But I’ve never experienced anyone saying they’ll never talk to me again.”

“My brother said he’ll never talk to me again. What I said to him wasn’t so bad, but it was 17 yrs ago, and we haven’t talked since then.”

“By our nature, we are selfish and unpleasant, but Jesus changes our hearts so we can love each other. Does that make sense?”

“It sounds nice.”

This. This is why I love teaching English.

2. I was playing Taboo with my teens and describing “dentist.” I couldn’t say teeth or mouth so I said, “This is the person you go to when you have a problem with your face.”

“MOTHER!”

3. This is a stressful time, with major surgery on my near horizon. Lolita knew what would make me cheer, and gave me a Lindt bar that says “Hello. My name is Crunchy Nougat Chocolate Bar. Nice to sweet you!” I’m nibbling the chocolate slowly, but I’m not throwing that wrapper away.

Thomas Merton Quotes

Posted in books, recommendations by

These are quotes from Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain. I enjoyed the book immensely. Merton writes with a candor and self-deprecation that is winsome and inviting. I disagree with a great deal of what he says, particularly about the saints and Mary and the cloistered life. But his life story is worth reading and it took me in as soon as I read about his artist parents. I wish I could have been one of his literature students.

The quotes here are just a smattering of his wise words, but which spoke to me especially now. You know how that is? When a book just meets you and speaks your language? This is one of those.

When the Spirit of God finds a soul in which He can work, He uses that soul for any number of purposes: opens out before its eyes a hundred new directions, multiplying its works and its opportunities for the apostolate almost beyond belief and certainly far beyond the ordinary strength of a human being.

Sometimes I would be preoccupied with problems that seemed to be difficult and seemed to be great, and yet when it was all over the answers that I worked out did not seem to matter much anyway, because all the while, beyond my range of vision and comprehension, God had silently and imperceptibly worked the whole thing out for me and had presented me with the solution. To say it better, He had worked the solution into the very tissue of my own life and substance and existence by the wise incomprehensible weaving of His providence.

Being Aware

Posted in life, Poland by

1. First-world problems I’ve had lately:

–I hate when my ear buds get dreadfully tangled even though I try to store them in an orderly way.

–I can’t decide what colors to wear together because I have so many clothes to choose from. (I still intend to prove to my friends and sisters that pink and turquoise go together, but that’s another subject.)

2. First-world gifts this week:

–I Skyped my mom several times. Computer.

–A friend called to ask if I’m ok. Cell phone.

–I had free care and tests and scans that don’t exist in some countries and would be crazy expensive in others. Hospital and doctors.

–We had a free day from work and we could stay at home and drink coffee and read The Alchemist aloud. Leisure time.

Every day I see people in our town riffling through dumpsters and trash cans. I can watch them from my 5th-story living room window and it makes my heart sick. I don’t know what desperation has pushed them to this, but I’m doubly grateful for food in the fridge and cupboards. And for energy to cook it. And for money to buy it.

And for a toasty-warm flat. And that I love teaching English. And that there are days off.

The list goes on and on.

This sounds like I lead a charmed life. I don’t. There are many things I’m angry about and weep over and put up with and try terribly hard not to worry about. My life is not pinnable, as another blogger put it. But I’m rich to the point of excess. Rich in way, way more than things.

I don’t deserve the luxuries that majority of the world lacks and I’m not big enough to come to any resolutions of the vast inequalities. But today I am aware and thankful.