My lovely friend Becca is giving away one of her original paintings. The first time I saw the music staff with birds, I fell in love with this one, so if you don’t go to her art site, I stand a better chance of winning. Thanks for your consideration.
Category Archives: recommendations
This Week’s Reads
Because of always having several books on the go simultaneously, I finished 3 this week and they’re phenomenal enough to recommend them here.
The Dean’s Watch by Elisabeth Goudge is stuffy and passionate and achingly beautiful. I’d read it a long time ago, and it felt especially fitting to be re-reading it this week, since its setting is Advent. The characters are vivid and alive, even if sad and scruffy. They’re real. I’ve heard that it’s to be an allegory, but I haven’t seen through it all yet. There’s something in this quote though, that means more than the words say:
“It does not matter, Job,” said the Dean at last. “I mean it does not matter that the clock was broken. What matters is that the clock was made.”
For years, I shied away from Henri Nouwen’s The Wounded Healer because I thought it was too deep and wordy. But when I actually opened it I found it very readable and accessible. The depth and wisdom was amazing. The thoughtfulness and careful words are to be read slowly and digested. He talks alot about loneliness and how it’s not something to run away from, but can become a source of life for others.
This is the announcement of the wounded healer: ‘The master is coming–not tomorrow, but today, not next year, but this year, not after all our misery is passed, but in the middle of it, not in another place but right here where we are standing.’
This morning over coffee, I finished The Shack, the book that took the evangelical world by storm some years back. I’d read it before, after an operation when I was in a daze of painkillers, so not everything registered very well, but my impression then was the same as this time: that its message is valuable and powerful, but the writing style was very distracting. I wanted to mark out all the fluffy adverbs. Even so, I really like the picture of the fellowship and love among the Trinity, and the way they shower love and are ‘especially fond’ of people. The story was both convicting and comforting.
Mack, if anything matters then everything matters. Because you are important, everything changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will ever be the same again.
I never wanted an e-reader before, but today I do. Next week I plan to go to the US for 2 months. I’m teaching a Bible school class for girls for 3 wks, and have no room to take any books for resources. Living with one checked-in bag for 2 months means only essentials go. In theory and in practice, I like travelling light. But I hate to be book-less. I don’t know yet how my ideal will match my practice.
Related post: Heavy Books
A Happy List
What made me smile this week:
1. buying hostess gifts for my trip to the US later this month
2. a child’s sled piled with snowballs
3. the mingled smells of coffee and tangerines
4.discovering delightful blogs to subscribe to: a foodie one, and a bookish one
5. red berries on a tree, powdered with snow
6. magnanimous love sent in a huge box all the way from America
7. picking greenery and putting it around the kitchen (greenery is magic because it arranges itself!)
8. a peppermint chocolate latte with all the trimmings made by Carolyn just for me
9. a successful decorating project (travel, paper, and fonts)
10. beautiful students beaming because they could make this construction: These boots are black.
11. knowing intimacy with the Almighty never changes because of circumstances
12. a long video Skype call with a friend who says it how it is with finesse and incredible largeness of soul
13. having time to teach two girls about pentangles, and seeing their fun with it
We Have a Winner and Advent
The random number generator chose #16 which means that Twila Burkholder won the giveaway for Tea and Trouble Brewing. Thanks to everyone who entered the drawing. It was way more fun than I was expecting, and it’s making me think about doing a giveaway for my own book, so stay tuned!
Until then, if/when it happens, you can order my book, Life is for Living (Not for Waiting Around) from the helpful people at CLR:
Christian Learning Resource
28500 Guys Mills Rd.
Guys Mills, PA 16327
Phone: 
FREE 814-789-4769
Order line: 877-222-GROW (4769)
And for a sneak preview of the book, you can go to my blog and read the first page of each chapter. They’re listed on the sidebar, so have a look.
In other news, this morning I heard myself say “It’s snowing, I’m listening to Christmas music, eating a donut and drinking tea. Life is good!”
It’s true.
Advent is a beautiful season, waiting and focusing, expecting the light that will erase darkness. This is my favorite Advent hymn, though I wish I’d know and understand its original German lines.
Comfort, comfort ye my people, speak ye peace, thus saith our God;
Comfort those who sit in darkness, mourning ‘neath their sorrows’ load.
Speak ye to Jerusalem of the peace that waits for them;
Tell her that her sins I cover, and her warfare now is over.
Make ye straight what long was crooked, make the rougher places plain;
Let your hearts be true and humble as befits His humble reign.
For the glory of the Lord now on earth is shed abroad,
And all flesh shall see the token that His word is never broken. –Johann Olearius
Book Giveaway: Tea and Trouble Brewing
Writers live these strange double lives. They want to write honestly, but they can’t always say things exactly as they are about themselves and the people they love, because it might be uncouth, or an invasion of privacy, or Too Much Information. Then people think the writer is a paragon of perfection, and stand around waiting to tell her that they feel like they know her when they actually don’t know her, and she can’t tell them that they have really inaccurate ideas about her.
But Dorcas is an author whose writing is as authentic as it is possible to be without being inappropriate. She is as witty as but not as sarcastic as Erma Bombeck, and she is gentle, without being spineless. Dorcas is one of those special people with whom I corresponded long before I actually met her. She advised me to self-publish my book instead of waiting longer for a publisher. It was the push I needed, and I’ve never regretted it. Then when she visited here in Poland and we drank tea together with her girls at her sister-in-law’s table, I saw how gentle and wise she is in real life. Happily, we still correspond now and then, (nearly always about writing) and I always feel safe and understood with her.
Now I get to promote her newest book, Tea and Trouble Brewing.
The whimsical cover illustration looks like the proverbial tempest in a teapot. I was charmed when I opened the cover and saw the table of contents, and that the five sections each had their own tea name. Oolong. Mint. Roiboos. This is going to be tasty! And it was, of course.
The way I can tell if it’s a good book or story is if it makes me laugh or cry. This book did both to me. To you I admit that I cried when Dorcas cried when their dog died. But I laughed aloud when she apologized tearfully to the fish dangling on the end of her fishing pole.
Dorcas graciously agreed to an interview with me. So here we go:
1. How did you decide on those 5 kinds of tea for the book sections?
Actually, I don’t recall. I went for variety, and some of my favorite flavors. And I love the sound of “oolong.” I considered including Kericho Gold Black Kenyan Tea but that’s not really a “kind” of tea in the same sense as green or rooibos.
Weren’t you tempted to include Lady Grey, Spiced Chai, and English Breakfast?
Well, yes. But you know, one has to stop somewhere.
2. Do you drink coffee at all, or is it always tea?
I do drink coffee on occasion. If I go out for breakfast, at church potlucks, now and then with my coffee-living children. I love iced coffee on a hot day.
3. Do you write in quietness in the middle of the night, or in the hubub of your family life?
I wish very very much that I could write in the midst of noise and action. It would make my life much easier. So my best times are early morning, late at night, and when everyone is out of the house. With my youngest being 13 years old, you’d think I’d be home alone all day. Somehow that doesn’t happen very often. And when it does, the phone rings all day. So this is an ongoing struggle for me, to find time to think and write.
4 Your stories aren’t stuffy, but full of depth. Your life experiences and your wise responses to them have given you have a lot to offer your world, but you don’t pour it out indiscriminately. What do you know now that you wish you’d have known when you were 21? (This is your chance to give free advice!)
If I could, I would go back and tell my 21-year-old self: Quit obsessing about everything, especially yourself. Most people mean well. God actually loves you. We are all sinners, so don’t let people intimidate you. You’re going to be fine. You’re as cute as you’re going to get, so enjoy it.
5. What’s the best piece of writing advice that you’ve ever received?
A tossup: Elisabeth Elliot’s “Make every word do its work,” (paraphrased) which means, cut out every unnecessary word. And “You have to write bad before you can write good,” which frees me from the paralysis of fear of beginning. I don’t know who said it. Oh, and Elizabeth Engstrom said that you don’t need to write with an agenda. Who you are and what you believe will come out inadvertently, whether you write novels or essays or advertising copy. That was freeing.
6. You have a gifted way of describing places like the Willemette Valley or Lake Victoria with crisp, simple words that help your readers see the scene. Have you ever considered travel writing?
Ooooohhh, have I considered travel writing. If I could come back and live another life, I’d be a travel writer. I love seeing a new place from the inside out, and telling about it. Going to a women’s party in Yemen and watching all those black robes get shed and those gaudily clad women come alive and party, and then writing about it, was a highlight of my writing career.
7. If time and money were no issue, where would you travel?
Australia. An island off Puget Sound. South Africa and Botswana. Eastern Europe. Ireland. Prince Edward Island. The Civil War battlefields. Jamaica. Somewhere in South America–maybe Paraguay.
8. Your dedication to Amy is beautifully worded. How many more dedications/books to your children are you aiming for? Does this look like hard work or pleasure to you?
You may note the progression of dedications: Paul. My parents. Matt. Amy. I told the children I plan to keep going and dedicate one to each of them. That looks like both pleasure and work. Getting Tea and Trouble Brewing published after numerous delays seemed to uncork something in my head, and now I have freely-flowing ideas for three or four more books.
Thanks, Dorcas, for sharing your world and words with us!
Now it’s your chance to win a free copy of Tea and Trouble Brewing! Leave a comment below to enter the drawing. Or if you can’t log in for a comment, email me at anitayoder-at-gmail-dot-com. The give-away is open for 7 days, and on Dec. 1 I’ll draw a number and send the book to the winner. All the way from Poland!
To buy your own copy , go to Amazon to pay by credit card. To pay by check, send $15 to Dorcas Smucker, 31148 Substation Drive, Harrisburg, OR 97446. . Dorcas is doing a promotion and is selling her 4 books for $40, shipping included.
Quotes from “Reluctant Pilgrim”
Recently I found Reluctant Pilgrim, a book that I really enjoyed. I chose it because I liked its graphics and subtitle: “A Moody, Somewhat Self-Indulgent Introvert’s Search for Spiritual Community.”
Enuma Okoro took me in on one of the first pages when I read, “It’s hard to want to engage someone when it’s clear right off the bat that they are going to see what they want to see about you and rarely anything more–usually because it would be too much work, as mutual life-giving relationships have a habit of being.”
The last part of that sentence told me that she knows something about relationships and words, and the rest of the book confirmed that hunch.
She talks about how people can call each other to be useful in the Kingdom of God, and also about how we communicate with God, and what prayer is, and who He is.
“Learning to pray and communicate from the present seat of your emotions is part of learning to be awake and aware of life around you and within you. You are a very intelligent woman, Enuma, but sometimes we can get addicted to our minds just like an alcoholic becomes addicted to the bottle to cope. Sometimes we can over-analyze God’s presence in our lives, always looking for signs to interpret. Sometimes the most faithful prayers are the questions we bring to God.”
Come to think of it, it’s kind of awesome that we serve a God who wants us to articulate our thoughts, to argue, to be persistent, to not give up easily, to go ahead and make our mistakes and learn from them. That’s good parenting, isn’t it?
The book is full of a woman’s pathos, her fears, wilderness, and joy in her search for meaning and love which, she discovered, is not found in seeing yourself as the center of the world, but in the Gospel’s unattractive ideas of sacrifice, humility, generosity, cross. But she makes those words seem more inviting and beautiful than before–as something that is beautiful and something to aspire to.
Usually God’s story will come into conflict with who I already think I am and what I already assume I should be doing with my life. Because other endless loud and extremely convincing narratives about consumption, feeling good, personal identity, and nurturing self easily draw me in but have little to do with community, radical hospitality, obedience, discipline, worship, and the kingdom of God. Perhaps the bonus gift is that I am also learning that Christ-like community takes shape within regular old relationships.
She is refreshing and honest, which means she’s vulnerable, serious, and funny enough to make me laugh aloud sometimes. Which is my definition of a good book.
An Obligation to Re-creation
Another tidbit from Jean Vanier’s Community and Growth, from the ‘Nourishment’ chapter:
The more intense and difficult community life becomes, and the more tension and struggles it produces, then the more we need times of relaxation. When we feel strung up, tense and incapable of praying or listening, then we should take some rest–or even get away for a few days.
Some people don’t know what to do with free time. They spend hours just sitting around and talking. It’s sad if people have no interest outside the community, if they’ve given up reading, if they don’t enjoy simple pleasures like walking and listening to music. We have to help each other keep alive the personal interests which helps us relax and re-create us.
It was good to think about the things that re-create me. Here are some: walking on a quiet road. A letter. Writing my journal. Singing. Silence. A well-crafted paragraph. Laughing til I cry. Crying til I smile. Travelling by train.
What re-creates you? You should do it today.
So Complete
Thanks to a sister who recommends good books to me, I read Stargirl last week, by Jerry Spinelli. In my typical broad generalizations, I’m thinking that every girl and woman should read this book. At least, anyone who is thinking about living outside the box, and who is weary of homogenized life.
The following paragraph, in the context of the school dance, was probably one of the most exciting to me, and one that I’d like to live like. Especially here in a country where I get stared at disconcerting ways.
She is no one’s child. She is the girl they have heard about. As she passes by she makes no attempt to avoid their eyes. On the contrary, she looks directly at them, turning to one side, then the other, looking into their eyes and smiling as if she knows them, as if they have shared grand and special things. Some turn aside, uneasy in a way they cannot account for; others feel suddenly empty when her eyes leave theirs. So distracting, so complete is she that she is gone before many realize that she had no escort, she was alone, a parade of one.
Explaining
I identify with Elisabeth when she wrote: “As a writer, I have to fight the feeling that each article I write must be pretty much the very last word I’ll ever have to say on that topic.”
Writers are strange, often- misunderstood people. They write authoritatively even though they don’t know everything about the subject. They doubt themselves, but at some point they put their soul on the line and let others see their words. They give the faceless public the chance to riffle through the paragraphs, pounce on a point or two, take issue with nonessentials, and remember what suits them.
Then the writer thinks about how she could have said it differently, how she could have fleshed out that idea, taken the other one out, and she hopes that the discerning reader will see what she didn’t explain, and understand that no one will write flawlessly.
Elisabeth wrote the excellent article “What’s a Guy to Do?” and followed it up more recently on her own blog by explaining what she could’ve written, explained, and discussed, but didn’t. Good stuff, especially for women. Breeze on over there and see.
Article Recommendation: What’s a Man to Do?
This week my wise, gentle friend Elisabeth whom I’m never met but correspond with regularly, wrote a brave article here on Boundless. I say it’s brave, because it takes a lot of courage for a single woman with a quiet spirit to write about the unspoken dynamics between single men and women.
Chatting with Elisabeth this morning, she told me she’s gotten good feedback on the article, mostly from girls, which means it’s more than just me who says it’s accurate and well-done.
In her blog, Elisabeth writes an introduction for the article and says it took her way out of her comfort zone and that a lot of the points can apply to both men and women.
It’s a delicate balance, I know. Over-kindness and over-coldness are equally off track. Selfish rashness and selfish caution: both are outside the kingdom realm.
Believers in Jesus, whether we marry each other or not, are on parallel tracks toward a common goal. This is a lifelong closeness and commitment: not to one another, but to Him. As C. S. Lewis describes in The Four Loves, we stand — not eye to eye, like lovers — but shoulder to shoulder with eyes on the same goal. And with eyes (and heart) on that goal, we’ll be steering very well.
Sometimes we don’t realize we have the power to hurt others, but as mature men and women, we need to recognize this and plan accordingly.
And honestly? It’s not impossible to get it right.
Tis a Gift to Receive 