Green Dolphin Street

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After I finished reading the epic Lord of the Rings I didn’t know what to read because anything else felt like an anti-climax. An insightful friend recommended I re-read Green Dolphin Street. I had read it before and had been profoundly moved by it. Coming back to it now, it’s great fun to revisit the scenes and dialogues that held my attention back then.

Elizabeth Goudge does a superb job of portraying colorful, believable characters. These people live in a plot that shows their adventure and imagination, creativity and skill. Now and then she moralizes, but it’s more like she’s giving away her own worldview and insights for her readers to take or leave. There are sentences and paragraphs that take my breath away with their punch and color. She describes people’s personalities incredibly well. Oh yes–and there’s a hero not unlike Aragorn.

So there’s today’s book recommendation!

My Cyberspace Friends

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I’m one of those touchy-feely people. I often find myself touching the person I’m talking with, squinting my eyes in response to what they say, nodding or cocking my head to listen better. I value texture, sound and proportion in full, real-life dimensions. That’s why I can’t believe it when I hear myself say that I share deep, meaningful communication with several ladies I’ve never met. But it’s true.

I met Linda when we were both in shock over the death of Isaac. Linda knows my sister, but not me, and our point of contact was our mutual grief at the loss of a wonderful, gifted young man. As we kept writing, we discovered more mutual points of interest and experience. She was teaching English in Mexico, and I loved her stories of her passion about her young friends and their adventures. We still keep in touch even though our worlds are more dissimilar and I’m amazed at how we understand and identify with each other. What a gift it is!

It was through Boundless that I found Elizabeth. I happened across her article “One Single Day” and liked it alot, but didn’t make contact with her until much later after reading other pieces she’d written. Her articles are listed and linked on the ‘writing’ page on her blog. In the last year, we’ve emailed and chatted now and then. She absorbed some big questions I dumped on her, and was a calm, caring voice that restored my equilibrium. She’s given me alot with her gentle words.

Ann is a extraordinary artist with words and pictures. She has graced me with thoughtful, gentle emails in response to my messages to her. Farmer’s wife and homeschooling mother of six, she blogs with wisdom and honesty that gives me permission to believe again in the power of words. I can’t wait for her first book coming next year!

Dorcas has written several books, and blogs frequently about everyday, earthy, homespun things. We’ve emailed now and then, and she’s been a witty, warm voice that makes me wish we could drink tea together. It was her advice that gave me the final push to self-publish my book, and I’ve been so grateful. She also gave me good counsel and comfort when I was kerflumuxed about criticism about my book. I hope we meet sometime!

Ok, this post has to hold the record of having the most links. That’s the point of these friendships. I only met them through some link. I’ve never heard the timbre of their voices, or seen how tall they are or how firm their hugs. Still, I feel a kinship, an understanding of souls, having only met electronically. For this I am grateful, despite my huge reservations about cyber relationships.

Friendship and communication are complex things. It’s hard to rate or quantify the dynamics. Written words are the only way I’ve come to know these ladies who have given me so much. I’m thankful for their words, even though the words are one-dimensional, and they limit how well we know each other. Despite the limitations of our friendship, I’m very rich for having them flying in my galaxy!

Immanuel

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I used to think that when I grow up, I’ll have answers to big questions. I’ll know how to be, how to say the right things, have good answers. Now I’m coming to see that answers aren’t as important as faith. And faith, it seems, is ok with questions.

Faith means being relaxed about the reality that some questions don’t have answers. Faith means asking questions and not demanding answers. Faith means taking the next step that is only dim but has enough light so as to keep me from losing my footing.

These days, when I ask God hard, big questions, He doesn’t shed much light on them. He doesn’t explain everything. He only keeps telling me that He’s with me and everything is going to be ok. Faith is at ease with darkness and questions, not with answers, as I’d thought.

My friends buried their third baby yesterday, a boy this time. It doesn’t matter that they already have five beautiful girls. It helps that they are surrounded with loving friends, but it doesn’t take the pain away. The questions of loss and wasted pain and empty arms don’t have any answers. Not in this era of reality. There is a deeper reality, which is where faith rests. Meanwhile, we hold hands and cry and ask for miracles. Faith believes in miracles, and there are no small miracles. Each one is amazing. Maybe the biggest miracle of all is that He, Immanuel, is with us.

Can I see another’s woe, and not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another’s grief, and not seek for kind relief?
Can I see a falling tear, and not feel my sorrow’s share?
Can a father see his child weep, nor be with sorrow filled?
Can a mother sit and hear an infant groan, an infant fear?

No, no! never can it be! Never, never can it be!

And can He who smiles on all hear the wren with sorrows small,
Hear the small bird’s grief and care, hear the woes that infants bear –
And not sit beside the nest, pouring pity in their breast,
And not sit the cradle near, weeping tear on infant’s tear?
And not sit both night and day, wiping all our tears away?

O no! never can it be! Never, never can it be!

He doth give His joy to all: He becomes an infant small,
He becomes a man of woe, He doth feel the sorrow too.
Think not thou canst sigh a sigh, and thy Maker is not by:
Think not thou canst weep a tear, and thy Maker is not near.
O! He gives to us His joy, that our grief He may destroy:
Till our grief is fled and gone He doth sit by us and moan.

(“On Another’s Sorrow” by William Blake)

Book Promotion

Posted in My Book by

Because I self-published my book and live several thousand miles away from most of my readers, I’ve been limited in marketing it. I’m hugely indebted to many friends and relations who have gone to bat for me, and helped me with the logistics of shipping, handling, and promoting the book.

Now it’s your turn. If you do my legwork, you get free books!

Here’s the deal: If you refer Life is for Living to a bookstore and they order a minimum of twenty books, you earn a free copy of my book. There is no limit to the number of bookstores you can sign on (these will make great gifts so if you’ve already ordered one for yourself, you can save the next one for a friend). If the bookstores around you are small and don’t keep a big inventory but several sign up because of you and their orders combined total twenty, you will still get credited.

You can leave a comment here to tell me who you’ve talked to, but you need to make the initial contact to get credit. And be sure to remind the bookstore to tell CLR you referred them when they place an order! The helpful staff there will be glad to get your book to you!

Here is CLR’s contact info:

CLR Distribution

28500 Guys Mills Rd.

Guys Mills, PA 16327

Toll Free: 877-222-4769 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              877-222-4769      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Phone: 814-789-4769

Fax: 814-789-3396

Email: clr@fbep.org

Online: www.Christianlearning.org

My Book

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Having spent four years poring over my book, I had come to the place where I couldn’t bear to look at it anymore. Recently I picked it up to browse through it for the first time in probably two years and I cringed several times. I understand this is normal for authors.

A friend asked me recently if I’d change anything in my book if I had the chance. I wouldn’t change the premise of the book, but I’d add some things, take other lines out. I’d definitely delete qualifiers and italics. I had no idea there were so many in there. It’s a peculiar feeling, reading my own book.

I wrote the book with the conviction that God didn’t intend His daughters to live in grey hues. I saw young women approach their thirties, and when there was no romance on the horizon, they became desperate or depressed. I knew that when they chose these options they were grieving God because He designed them for more than depressing jobs or marriages of desperation. I didn’t want to write a I’m-a-single-woman-hear-me-roar kind of book, but one that looks honestly at the losses that come from singleness, and finds joy and grace. Because that’s how big God is, and I love Him very much and I love how He keeps breaking out of the boxes we put Him in.

It could be that the book sounds chirpy and glib. If I rework it, I might try to fix that, put more depth in it, though now I don’t know how. The great thing about publishing your own book is that you can change things in it at the next printing. I like brainstorming about a new cover and a ‘new and improved’ edition. I’m open to suggestions.

I love hearing from my readers, hearing their stories, peeking into their worlds. I felt especially triumphant when a friend said she was reading it and it made her mad enough that she threw the book across the room. (She’s still my friend!) What’s the point of writing something that doesn’t evoke some response? I was also happy when a reader said the book inspired her to read The Chronicles of Narnia even though she had always said she wasn’t interested in backless wardrobes.

I’ve been amazed at how many mothers and pastor’s wives have told me that they were encouraged with the book’s message. I hadn’t intended the book to be something for them, so their audience is a bonus to me. When single men ask about it, I always tell them I didn’t write it for them, but if they read it they may get a good picture of the kind of woman they should be looking for.

I’m a dreadful business person, having an aversion to numbers and percents and such. I don’t like marketing my own book. (I was comforted recently to find that a favourite author feels the same way here.)

If you’re brainstorming for a gift idea for a lady, you might consider giving her a copy of Life is For Living. In the next day or so I’m going to post a promotion for the book, so stay tuned.

Just to say…

Posted in books by

I added a few more titles to my Life Books page. I’m not organized enough to put them into any kind of order. They’re just listed, with no rhyme or reason, but of course in my way of speaking in superlatives, I would say that everyone should read each of these books at least once. I’ve read most of them more than once.

Enjoy!

Blog Pals

Posted in life, words by

I think it’s a little dangerous to be the friend or relative of a writer, because you never know when your story or quote will be grist for their story mill. And so I try hard to respect the privacy of the people in my world, and not exploit them or our friendship.

But I think that if someone has a blog, that’s not a private thing, and I can talk about that here. And so I want to say that my friend Gideon just started a blog here and even though he says that reading blogs is a waste of time, he is happy if people have time to read his musings.

It’s something to think about: blogs and how homogenized they can be. There’s a language people can adopt, a persona they can hide behind. While I love words and want to write and am a bit of a blog junkie, I think about blogging and how it could change the way I think/read/write, and maybe I shouldn’t read as many as I do. I don’t have answers, only lots of ideas and questions. And what’s true for me isn’t strictly true for everyone else.

My goals for my blog are to use words well, and to inspire. To lift readers’ eyes from the mundane to the transcendent. I don’t use photos, though some good blogs do, because I want to learn how to convey thoughts and feelings with words. I try not not expose my friends and family so I don’t use many names (except if they have blogs or books!) and I try not to talk too much about myself because I’m 1)a little self-conscious, and 2) want to retain some mystery.

So everyone has different goals for their blogs. Matt started his blog to update his family and friends about his life in Poland when he moved here a year ago. Gideon just started now because he likes to write. If I would read only their blogs, I wouldn’t get an accurate picture of who they are, their humor and heart. They are stellar, gifted men whom I’m proud to work beside. Both of them know how to use words well, and how to hear and understand people. And they play some mean Scrabble.

Words on a page or computer screen are one-dimensional; you don’t get to know the real person, the whole of their personality, wit, tendencies, and quirks. That’s why it’s scary to write; I’m often afraid that people will be disappointed when they meet the real me because they thought they already knew me through my book or blog. It terrifies me, actually.

Probably sometime I’ll blog about some lady bloggers with whom I’ve had amazing exchanges electronically. I’m convinced that technology changes the fiber and quality of a relationship, but I have been hugely enriched with some friendships with ladies whom I’ve never met.

Meanwhile, while I put a premium on real-life, real-time relationships, blogs are nice too. They give inspiration and peeks into a bigger world out there. So now: Gideon and Matt.

Insignificant and Unpraised Deeds

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Mark Galli wrote another excellent article here that resonates with truth and convicted me because it addressed things that me and my generation don’t usually like to think much about: servanthood, hidenness, faithfulness.

My Hero washed His servants’ feet and served them breakfast on the beach. It was the shape of His life, to serve. My housemate and I have a neighbor who washes our feet by keeping our coal furnace going. (We call him our ‘fire-making wizard.’) Only two young women find out about his service, but it is still significant. I have not lost the wonder of walking into a warm house late at night.

Eowyn was a woman who was tired of being hidden, tired of the mundane, hungry for significance and making a difference. Her exchange with Aragorn moved me profoundly last week when I read it again, and I found myself wanting to agree with her, taking her side, knowing how she felt. But I can’t disagree with Aragorn’s wise, strong, solid words:

Deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised.

It is an insidious part of our humanity that wants praise and affirmation, grasps it as if it could sustain our life. But what if it is service that sustains us? Nurturing that nurtures us? Insignificance that gives us life? Because it mirrors the shape and character of our Life-Giver.

I know it’s true, because I know my Jesus, and I know His followers, and they teach me what I need to know.

Rain and Light

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The group assignment was to take a 20 minute walk together. Enroute, we were to find something that depicts our life at the moment, and tell the group about it afterward.

I knew right away what my symbol would be. When we walked over the little bridge, I left the group and jumped/skidded down the creek bank. With a branch, I fished out a rock half the size of my fist. It glistened a deep reddish brown in my hand.

The analogy breaks down really fast, because I don’t want to be a hard, cold stone. The point of my analogy was that water smooths the roughness and brings out the deeper colors of the stone.

Whenever we walk on the beach in Ireland, we find lovely shells and put them in our pockets. But when we get home, the shells are never as pretty as they were when we found them. The water, in the place they belong, is what makes the shells beautiful.

In a blog post last week, Ann Voskamp said

A photographer had once told me, “You’ll find you will capture some of your best photographs on a grey, wet day. Want glowing, deep colors? Wait for rain.”

Do our tears saturate, intensify the colors of our lives?

Do we begin to see all as gift, when we stare face to face with losses?

Do we only begin to see when the eyes of our hearts are washed clean with tears?

I am beginning to see that in the design of the Master, running water smooths, beautifies, enhances the creation as well as the heart. And then I got a lovely message from someone very dear to me who recently walked through huge disappointment. She also found beauty from water:As we walked we came upon a stream under a stone bridge. The leaves under the water were bright like they were made of light, and just seeing that beauty gave some healing.

I know it’s true. Water soothes, smooths, brightens, gives life and beauty. I want to learn to joy in the rain outside and in my soul, instead of trying to avoid it.

Mark Galli on Asking God

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It was an exciting week to live through, watching the development of the trapped miners’ dramatic rescue in Chile.

On the heels of my post last night, I came across this article in Christianity Today. The trapped miners were the springboard for his article. I was heartened to read Galli’s frank questions about prayer, and his conclusions:

First, we are to ask God for things that are important to us, no matter how we feel about God or prayer or the thing prayed for. In Jesus’ theology of prayer, there is no hint that prayer is the way we transcend desire, as if having desire was a sign of spiritual immaturity. Desire is apparently what humans do, something woven into the fabric of our humanity from day one, a divine gift, the first hint that we are made for something outside ourselves, a something that can only be realized by taking the first small step of asking. Prayer is not a way to overcome desire, but the first thing we do with it.

Second, once we announce our desire to God, it’s his job to deal with it. Prayer is not manipulating heaven to fulfill our desires. It’s putting what we desire into the hands of a loving, if inscrutable, God and letting him fulfill it in his time, in his way.