Book Reviews

Day 29: Soul Sustenance

KimLeave a comment

IMG_1477

I haven’t been “to church” in over a year. Long story, but after my whole life, I needed a break.* Sunday mornings are no longer a mad dash to arrive on time. I get up when I feel rested. Eat gluten free pancakes or French toast with Alan and the boys, go to the gym, plan my menu, make a new “weekly” page in my bullet journal, write, read, and work on projects. Occasionally, I feel heaps of guilt for not being involved and serving the way I was raised to. There was a security in doing the same thing each Sunday, to knowing I was serving God and the church community, and in receiving approval from the circle I was in.

After major life changes in the past two years, including leaving the church I was involved in and getting a divorce, I’ve been finding new ways to relate to God and think about spiritual matters. This can make me feel unsure of myself as a spiritual person, as a believer, as I explore outside of the familiar framework I’ve leaned on since childhood. Will I return to a local expression of faith some day? Perhaps I will. I like to think I will.

For now, I’m looking for God everywhere I am, as I always have. I am retaining my relationships with friends who believe. We share thoughts and ideas, holding real and honest conversations about church and faith. After leaving the community I came from and spending this past year asking myself what I believe and what do I identify with, I sense a close connection with Celtic Spirituality or Celtic Christianity. 

What mattered to the ancient Celtic believers resonates with me: having a hope-filled outlook, caring for our environment, appreciating art and music and using them as an expression of worship, being hospitable and open to change, etc. Like the Celtic Christians, I use imagination as a way to connect to and understand the divine. Although these characteristics can be found in other faiths and indeed, in other forms of Christianity, this is where I feel most at home. It’s interesting, because as a young adult of eighteen or nineteen, I felt drawn to this way, and here I am again. As T.S. Eliot said,

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

As I always have, I enjoy finding resources to enrich and develop my spiritual understanding.

Here is one tool I use to dig deep: it employs the practice of a weekly and one yearly examen, or reflection of my days in these seven areas: spirit, mind, body, work, home, relationships, and resource stewardship. There is also a moving forward or “reset” for the week ahead. Included is spaced to develop something called a “Rule of Life” that one can develop as a way to be intentional about personal priorities for daily living. Check it out:

Sacred Ordinary Days Liturgical Planner

The next three books enrich my spiritual journey. Maybe they would do the same for you.

To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings by John O’Donahue would make a lovely gift to another or oneself. I received my copy as a gift. The contents are grouped by “Beginnings”, “Desires”, “Thresholds”, “Homecomings”, “States of Heart”, “Callings”, and “Beyond Endings”. No one wrote quite like him. The grace and musicality of his words, poetry or prose, speak and reach into the dark and confused places, as well as the light and clear ones. Here is an excerpt from the poem “For The Interim Time”

You cannot lay claim to anything:                                                                                                    In this place of dusk,                                                                                                                         Your eyes are blurred;                                                                                                                     And there is no mirror.

Everyone else has lost sight of your heart                                                                                  And you can see nowhere to put your trust;                                                                              You know you have to make your own way through.

As far as you can, hold your confidence.                                                                                      Do not allow your confusion to squander                                                                                   This call which is loosening                                                                                                            Your roots in false ground,                                                                                                                That you might come free                                                                                                                From all you have outgrown.

What is being transfigured here is your mind,                                                                            And it is more difficult and slow to become new.                                                                     The more faithfully you can endure here,                                                                                  The more refined your heart can become                                                                                       For your arrival in the new dawn.

The Artist’s Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom by Christine Valters Paintner. I’ve only just begun reading and savoring the content in this book, exploring the practices and engaging in the artistic reflections. Week Three, for example, “Sacred Tools and Sacred Spaces“, discusses the sacraments of daily life, the sacred art of living and then engages the reader with contemplative practices–lectio divina, reflection questions, visual art exploration, and poetry exploration. It’s deep, but has fun hands-on ways to explore and express.

The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom by Henri Nouwen, I’ve already mentioned this week, but here it is again. This was his personal journal from a very dark, anxious and fearful season in his life–his journey through. A friend of mine gave it to me at the start of a dark, fearful season of my own.

So here is a glimpse into my own story of faith. I’d love to hear from you–what’s encouraging you today?

* (Disclaimer: I’m not encouraging anyone to leave their church or local expression of faith. There is plenty of life, growth, encouragement and goodness to be found in thriving faith communities the world over. If you have found such a place, I hope you can stay, call it home and become one of the family.)

DSCN5007

Day 26: The Hurrier I Go

Kim1 Comment

IMG_1474

I’m sure you’ve heard this Lewis Carroll quote,

“The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.”

There’s a certain point at which that becomes true. Not that I am encouraging dawdling or procrastination, but hurrying hurts and usually winds up hindering our progress. Oops! I spilled something in my haste. Or, now I need to apologize for snapping at my loved one because I’ve made myself miserable trying to live at this breakneck pace.

We weren’t meant to flit and speed from one place and activity to another with no rest, no time for reflection. Here is a definition of the phrase “hurry sickness” coined by doctors Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman:

“a continuous struggle and unremitting attempt to accomplish or achieve more and more things or participate in more and more events in less and less time.”

This article on how to overcome hurry sickness takes a good look at the problem. We need help! As a culture, many of us don’t know how to relax or slow down, even if we only have a few pockets of time every day.

We have forgotten how to love stillness and silence, how to sit with ourselves alone and just be, how to fully enjoy a walk, appreciate the preciousness of a loved one’s smile, drink in the exquisiteness of a sunset, how to be silly and laugh long and hard, and how to look for joy in the ordinary. But we can slow down and become full of wonder again.

IMG_1403

This time of year, you’re probably looking ahead at the next two months wondering how you’ll get through all the activities associated with the holidays. I used to just square my shoulders and tell myself to hustle more.

And I would go through it all feeling panicky, breaking down into crying jags, yelling and being sharp with my words. And then apologizing for my unacceptable behavior. I just couldn’t handle the constant go-go-go, combined with baking like mad, lots of entertaining, the purchasing and wrapping of gifts and trying to make it all magical and perfect for my kids and anyone who came to our home.

I wanted the peace I attempted to give everyone else. I craved space, simplicity, and the beauty of delighting in small things.

img_1620.jpg

After a bunch of years doing it the hard way, with the help of books or articles I read and voices on slowing down, like Ann Voskamp’s, I am learning to change my holiday style.

Here are a few questions you might ask yourself before plunging into the season:

If I could arrange my holiday season any way I chose, what would it look like?

If I wasn’t concerned about anyone’s judgement about how I did the holidays, what would I say yes to and what would I say no to?

Who is most important to me and how can I focus on showing them love this season?

img_0046

 

Here is an old book that I love called Unplug the Christmas machine: How to have the Christmas you’ve always wanted. It touches on typical roles that women and men take on during the holiday, four things children really want for Christmas, a simple Christmas, Christmas revival, the gift of joy, and it includes a handy resource section with recipes and alternative gift ideas. Of course, it feels dated, but it also feels wise and warm and cozy. Some of the resources may be outdated, but use the internet to find something comparable. This version is out-of-print, but amazon Marketplace has copies available.

And if you’d rather have the in-print version, that’s Unplug the Christmas Machine: A Complete Guide to Putting Love and Joy Back into the Season:

The other book I’ve read over and over is: To Dance With God: Family Ritual and Community Celebration. Although I’m not a Catholic, I incorporated several of the traditions listed in this book to enrich my own and my kids’ holiday season. This book actually takes the reader through the entire church calendar, but I’ve used it for Advent and Christmas, primarily.

And finally, a sweet out-of-print old-fashioned book called The Child’s Christmas. I’m not sure how I stumbled across this one, but it follows a fictional Victorian family from Advent through Epiphany. It tells of all their traditions, what they ate and played and did, what gifts they gave and received, how they celebrated. I read it to my kids when they were seven and three.

I hope we can all find comfort and joy this year!

IMG_1400

 

Day 23: Crafting a Journey

Kim1 Comment

Today I ran errands. OMG, it took five hours. I tried to get everything done, including all the craft supplies and the grocery shopping at three different places. Driving from Interlaken to Ithaca, I drove behind a pickup truck the entire way.

At the local fabric store, a very sweet woman cut my fabric for me, but took twenty-five minutes doing it. She talked about her own craft business and her divorce and how happy she is now. After the initial hello, I settled in for a good long listen. Maybe I have that kind of face? People want to tell me things. It was ok, but my progress was slow.

After all the stops, including Wegmans where I saw my parents, and two Trumansburg stores, I crawled home following a huge, red, belching dump truck going ten miles under the speed limit.

What I listened to the whole time in the car was this On Being podcast. Krista Tippett had a conversation with Mary Catherine Bateson, who wrote Composing a Life, which I’ve never read but want to. She is also Margaret Mead’s daughter. I first really looked into Margaret Mead’s life in the fictional book Euphoria that I read last year. She talked about how our life can be an art form.

These deep and rich conversations help me evaluate my own way of living and give me tools to explore the questions about whether or not my life is going in the direction I’d like it to. Am I composing or arranging my moments, these fleeting days and nights, in a manner that I can be proud of? Am I generous and kind? Do I take time for the important relationships? Am I developing my character and not giving into selfishness and being blindsided by my natural tendencies and biases? Am I growing and enriching my soul with nourishing practices? Music, instruments, books, art all come to mind for me.

It’s late and there are fifteen teenagers partying outside this room, so my thoughts are jumbled and I might not be making much sense. But, check out that podcast, if you haven’t, and OnBeing in general. And please share what you think about it.

Day 15: Hillbilly Elegy, a Book Review

Kim3 Comments

I heard about Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance over and over in the past year. Since I saw it listed on the recommended reading lists of people of faith, I decided it must be a religiously slanted book and put it further down my to-be-read list.

Oh my goodness, but I couldn’t have been more mistaken. I obviously wasn’t paying attention to the reviews. Then when I noticed one of the local libraries had it as a choice for their monthly book club, I decided to order a copy. Although, sadly, I did not make it to the book club meeting due to family obligations, I did read it.

It opened my eyes to the real lives of modern-day hillbillies as told through J. D. Vance’s personal narrative. Funny, heartbreaking, interesting and revealing, his life story weaves in with his grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. You won’t want to put it down: from his mother’s rocky relationships with men and her drug abuse, to his beautiful sister rising above her circumstances and growing up to live a healthy, happy life, to J.D.’s own story of his early years growing up in poverty, ignorance and disfunction to becoming a successful Yale Law School graduate.

Be prepared for plenty of swearing, because I wasn’t. Like I said, I was under the misapprehension that it was a religious book. Ha ha! But there is a reason it has nearly 10,000 positive reviews on amazon.com. And it’s up to you to read it for yourself and find out why.

Let me know what you think and what you’re reading lately!