The initials on the front cover could be my dad’s initials, but they’re not. You’ll have to read the first chapter to find out the story behind the book title and the initials.

Because I’ve been following Dorcas’ blog for years, I’ve already read all the pieces she has in the book. So I’d read the delightful story of the footprint and initials, but had forgotten about it.

That’s one of the reasons I like this book: I get to revisit the lovely stories I’ve already read, but their details are hazy in my brain.

Footprints on the Ceiling, as all her other four books, are compilations of Dorcas’ monthly newsletter pieces. As I read this book, I repeatedly was amazed at Dorcas’ skill in organizing the stories to make them fit perfectly into this  new setting.  And the sections correspond with the title: kinds of footwear that connect with parts of life: children, change, forebears, travel, reflecting.

What I love about these stories is that they are filled with quirkiness and color. The lines that emerge when you turn the page are  not what you expect, and even if you’ve read the blog posts before, you’re still surprised and amused. For example, the waddling Canada goose in the opening paragraph in “A Knack for the Absurd” had me in giggles until the end of the chapter.

 Though there’s a lovely light-heartedness all through-out, the book isn’t all jokes and silliness. Dorcas thinks deeply and processes well, but she keeps her own advice and (usually) doesn’t take herself too seriously. This is a trait that I find endearing and inspiring.

There are tears in the stories too. I cried at the beauty of a family wedding that celebrated deep joy and healing after shattering loss and grief. Dorcas’ world-view doesn’t get stuck in pain and she lives in the reality that stories do go on, and it won’t always be dark and gloomy, so her words birthed hope in me.

Dorcas loves her family well, with fierce loyalty and service to her husband and children and extended family. She always blogs with great respect and love for her father who lived with them last summer, and in the book writes warmly of her mom’s character and legacy since her death. The stories are honest, but not voyeuristic. They are candid, but not at the expense of someone’s dignity. So we know that these Smuckers are normal people who fight and make up, and make messes and lose things but at the end of the day they don’t stay mad and they keep talking things out. Which is what every healthy relationship is made of, especially the family, God’s ideal social structure.

This is probably the quality that brings readers back to Dorcas’ stories: it’s real life. No fluff, no fancy-schmancy lingo. Forget the idea of blankety-blank Amish novels. Last winter when I was teaching at CBS, the chapter about Bible schools came out, and it was so on-the-money that it made the rounds to all the teachers. We completely identified with the rules, unspoken rules, and laughed knowingly about the signs God sends. Her novel, when it comes, will be made of the same colorful, earthy, human stuff, and I can’t wait!

For now, Dorcas is giving away a signed copy of Footprints on the Ceiling. To enter the giveaway, leave a comment below. I’ll close it next Wednesday, Dec.3,  and you should get it in time for Christmas–a treat for yourself or a friend! This is going to be a double give-away, in that Dorcas will send a copy to the winner in the US. But if you live in Europe, you’ll be eligible for my copy. Isn’t that fun?!

Footprints on the Ceiling is available for $15 per book, postage included.  You can mail a check to Dorcas Smucker, 31148 Substation Drive, Harrisburg, OR 97446.  US addresses only.  To send a copy to Canada or overseas, email Dorcas at dorcassmucker@gmail.com.  Or find it on Amazon here

I came to the US with plenty of extra space in my suitcase. On my return flight, that space will be taken up completely with books. This is the promised land of books, and they’re arriving by post these days, which is so, so exciting. The stacks are growing! Between classes and chapel and walks and socializing I’m gorging on books.

I overheard a conversation lately where one person was saying they don’t read, and if they do, it’s a discipline as in, “This month I will read one book.”

That’s ok for them, and they are very useful in God’s Kingdom, but not reading is the discipline for me.

I’m reading Oceans Bright With Stars, the second in a series by Rachel Devenish Ford, which is a compilation of her blogging while her family moved from California to Goa in West India. My life is nothing like hers, because she writes of she and her husband travelling with three children while she’s pregnant with her fourth, and she talks about how exhausting and bewildering and exhilarating her family and surroundings are.

The book keeps me up reading way too late because she’s so honest and refreshing like cool breezes. In a most inexplicable  way, even if our lives have little in common, I feel like she understands me. Her writing isn’t comedy, but it makes me laugh aloud because I get her humor and crazy metaphors and because I see so much of myself in her, especially in the way she mixes up her words like I do.

Then I just finished The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo, a beautiful little gem that made me smile and cry. It’s reminiscent of Bridge to Terebithia.  I love the writing that sparkles off the page and the way the story blends Blake’s Tiger poem in with it.

If you never read it, just try to be the kind of person that when someone tells you they saw a tiger in the woods, you don’t say they’re crazy, but ask “Where?”

I seem to live in expansive statements and superlatives. They make me happy but the sane people around me know that my statements reveal how many details I forget.

“This is the best salad I’ve ever had.” Because right now I’m so hungry and the table is set so prettily I forget all the other salads that have been wonderful.

“Did you ever see a cuter child?” Because at the moment these twinkly eyes and squishy cheeks are the only ones that exist.

So I know this is a pattern of my words, and it’s not always wise and I probably shouldn’t always use so many superlatives.

Even so, I want to say that Island of the World by Michael O’Brien is the most moving book I’ve ever read. Really. Honestly. It doesn’t feel right to call it a novel because it’s so real. The character followed me around town and at work. I would talk with my English students and his words and ethos were in the room with us. Does that sound spooky? It’s a powerful book. The most powerful story I’ve read. Ever.

It is set in Croatia in wars and ethnic cleansing of the 80’s. Since I live in Poland, I enjoyed the Croatian words and names that are similar to Polish. Josip is the main character, and it follows his life from boyhood to death.

It could be comparable to Les Miserables with its epic scope and its grace-filled, super-strong main character. It’s never fluffy or trite or sentimental. It’s not an easy read and it takes a certain level of emotional stability to absorb it. Many times I had to put it down and close my eyes and breathe “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” There were several pages I couldn’t read because there was too much sadness and blood. There were pages where I cried and cried, and later still felt all choked up. (I cry fairly easily but not over books!)

And yet. There was incredible strength of character that invited me back to witness redemption. There was peace and joy on a deep, supernatural level that was more real than any thing peripheral. Now that I’m finished, I find myself wandering around, not being able to settle down with any book. Everything else is pale and insipid.

Isn’t it a basic truth that we are brought to prayer only by passing through suffering? In this respect, the war was a blessing because it taught this generation how to pray, and it taught us the power of prayer. We learned that it was prayer that preserved us through impossible odds and only prayer that brought us independence. Dare I write these words–O God, how dare I write them?–yet I cannot be silent. The war was a catastrophe, but in Christ the worst catastrophe can be transformed into a blessing. –Josip, in a letter to Slavica

 

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.