unfinished thoughts from current reads

According to my own goals, today is the day I’m supposed to publish a new blog post. For the last couple months, I have had something to work on. In January, it was time to look at the 2018-2019 transition. Last month, I finished up what I wanted to write about politics at the moment. And this morning, my writing time feels like the rest of my month has felt – aimless and apathetic. It’s not that I don’t have anything to write about. I’m reading about five books at the moment…slow going on all of them, of course, because my focus is so scattered. Oh, six – just remembered another one. So, maybe not apathetic. Just pathetic? Just too hyper and interested in too much at once. 

I’m working on a story that I’m not sure I have any way to finish. I’m working on getting back to basics and figuring out what I can write about. I’m working on a poem about an Austen character. I’m working on a family project, collecting stories from my grandma. I’m supposed to be writing a paper for school. But I’m not working on all of those things actively because I don’t have time…my personal writing time is from approximately 8-10 on Sunday mornings. Sometimes it starts at 7 or 7:30 if I went to bed decently early on Saturday. Last night, I did not, and it was “spring forward”, so you know I’m waiting for my coffee to walk through the door as we speak. My lovely husband makes breakfast for me on Sundays so I can just sit at my desk (breakfast angel that he is). And I want this time to be fruitful. 

Yesterday, I finished reading a book for the class I’m currently taking. The book is Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, by Timothy Keller. I took a lot of notes, and I enjoyed it as much as one can when reading about suffering and evil. Keller attempts a lot with the book, and I think he succeeds. He addresses the Christian and the skeptic and the Christian-made-a-skeptic by awful circumstances. He reminds us that Christians *will* suffer and that it shouldn’t be a shock, and he explains why it is shocking for much of his probable audience. 

Historically, cultures have provided answers to the deepest questions of life and have helped people to deal with adversity in meaningful ways. Keller tells us how Western cultures have failed at this. The result is that today, the mainstream secular culture in the U.S. has no satisfactory way to explain or deal with suffering. Suffering is seen as a meaningless waste. People respond to it with anger, hatred, and shock. People of the past were more resilient. Suffering was more commonplace, so people expected it, and their belief systems had a place for it, so it actually could be meaningful. 

But if the material world is all we have (which is the at-least-subconsciously prevailing view), then we are supposed to be as happy as possible and seek pleasure and fulfillment in this life. If that pursuit is met with suffering, how can one explain it or find meaning in it? Suffering is accidental if this world and its people are generally good. Keller describes suffering in this view as an “evil hiccup”- no origin to it, no response to it, no justice for it, no meaning to it, just pain. If every individual is supposed to create the meaning of his/her own life through doing good and feeling good, then suffering can’t be anything but traumatic.

It is also interesting to look at what our (mainstream secular, U.S.) culture offers people to help them deal with suffering. Instead of digging into the deep questions, wading through the suffering and looking for meaning, people are given coping methods. The goal is to get out of the suffering, rise above it, and get through it without feeling pain or asking difficult questions. People are told how to control their immediate responses and their environment. (Stop thinking negative thoughts. Get good at self care and making yourself feel better without feeling any of the bad stuff.) But they miss out on lamenting, growing through the experience, seeing the meaning of suffering in general, joining in Christ’s suffering, and experiencing the hope of the resurrected life. 

Keller shows us the stories of those who lived through extreme suffering in the Bible, including Job, Paul, and ultimately Jesus, to emphasize that suffering has a definite place in Christian history and the Christian life.

Such a short blog post as this certainly wouldn’t do justice to the question of evil in the world or of suffering in human life. I can’t fully relate what God has to say about it and how the Bible beautifully makes sense of it. Keller’s book does a good job. 

The thing I thought about most while reading it was honestly, “Ok, I hear it. I’m going to suffer, and it’s going to be meaningful and make me a better person or at least have a greater purpose even if I can’t see it. So…what is my Big Suffering going to be?” I have always felt a sense of dread…a sense that since we have to suffer, I can’t relax. I can’t rest because I should be on alert for the thing that’s going to try to kill me. So I think the last few chapters of Keller’s book were actually the most applicable to me (not that I needed it to be immediately applicable – it was for class, after all). 

He goes through the things that characterize walking with God through suffering: weeping, trusting, praying, thinking, thanking, loving, and hoping. In the chapter on thinking-thanking-loving, he references Philippians 4:8-9. In it, Paul says, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me – put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.” 

Paul has elsewhere written that he has practiced and learned to be content in any situation. Christian peace doesn’t come just to those who have the natural propensity for being content. It requires us to discipline our thoughts and feelings. We can learn to sense God’s presence and protection and thus know his peace. It was surprising at first to read that thinking, thanking, and loving are disciplines. But as I read, I found it seemed obvious and encouraging.

Seeing these verses in Keller’s book made me smile. I’m reading another book – for my own heart – called All That’s Good, by Hannah Anderson. (I wrote a post last year about another of her books, Humble Roots.) Philippians 4:8 is the foundation for her book, which is about discernment. Six of her chapters focus on things recommended by this verse: whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and commendable. She used a different translation, but the ideas are the same. This approach to the topic of discernment was initially surprising to me, but now I see that she’s right. When we choose to focus on the things we know to be good and true and we live in pursuit of these things God calls us to prioritize, we will grow in wisdom. God will teach us. He will walk with us, guiding us by his spirit and wisdom in his will for our lives.

Keller calls his readers to think more intensely about the big issues of life so that we will be prepared to face hard times. We need to think out the implications of what we believe. We need to love God above all other things in our lives. We need to see that his glory is greater than the glory we can attain or the glory of any of the best things we have in this life. When we think about truth and righteousness, or about lovely and pure and commendable things, we are going to be thinking about what Jesus has done. We will be drawn to the cross, and we will see God’s work in history and his work in our lives. We will have reasons to glorify him, and we will be humbled. 

We will be restless unless and until we put God at the center of our lives. Audrey Assad has a song called “Restless” in which she says, “I am restless, restless, ‘till I rest in you, ‘till I rest in you, oh God.” I know that this is my pattern. I am restless internally. I look tranquil, and I’m good at putting out those vibes. But I’m restless. I don’t actively rest in God. Jesus should be the center (as that song we sing at my church reminds us) of all, of my life, of the church. When he is, we will be concerned with knowing him and glorifying him. Our need to have a comfortable life, and our need to know we’re making all the right choices will fall to their proper place on our list of priorities. 

2019 is just another day.

For the last few years (I think?), I’ve been writing a January blog-post reflection about the previous year. Each year, it feels a little more forced to sit and write reflectively about a whole year’s worth. Lately, I’ve felt less like the end of the year is a transitional period. It’s an artificial divide between December 31st and January 1st, and we’re supposed to mark the time with revelations about who we are and who we want to be. It did feel that way to me before — I used to really experience the transition as a before-and-after. This year in particular has been different. I’ve been sort of in the middle of some relational and inner tension and uncertainty for a few months, and the start of the new year was somewhere in the middle of that story. Nothing felt concluded, and nothing new was coming. So, I didn’t have any wise words of reflection to share with the world…I mean, all 4 strangers who read this blog. 

I did watch John Green’s video about his method for starting the new year with reflections and goals. He writes himself a letter about the previous year and what he would like to see going forward. He makes SMART goals (things that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable… well, he needed an acronym because no one would make SMA goals). So, I wrote myself a letter, and that opened the floodgates. I ended up with several categories of goals: spiritual, mental/emotional, physical, relational, environmental, and lifestyle/misc. Nine pages later, I felt like I had processed something and given myself something. I had to name the SMART goals and the more general goals and narrow them down into something more like two pages long. I’ve never been a goal-oriented person in this way. I’ve generally made one or two new year’s resolutions, and I’ve stuck to them. I can make a decision to start doing something or give up something (for New Year’s, Lent, etc.) and stick to it. But when teachers would ask us to make goals in school…or I’ve been asked about career goals…I have had no idea what to do or say. I’m also just noticing that there’s no category for school/career amongst the goals I listed here. Because I clearly have no freaking idea what I’m doing. Let’s move on.

I’m not going to post these extensive “goals” because I think that might be kind of boring for you, and it would be boring for me to write them all out again in this format. They’re personal and specifically geared toward my own growth and movement. I am just thinking now about what my goals and purpose for this blog will be this year. My only SMART goal is to post once a month. (Is that enough, or do I want to have a theme?) I like to dive deep into a topic and get my head around it enough to write a contribution to the conversation. That’s my jam. And that’s what I feel like my politics posts have been an initial attempt to do…though still more shallow and general than I’d like. And I’ve obviously got more work to do on the next one(s).

I find that I can write better and more clearly when I don’t think anyone is going to read what I’m writing. Maybe that’s why I haven’t posted the link to each post on Facebook, while I do share them on Instagram. I usually get about four clicks from Instagram — people like my insta-post, but they don’t go read the blog. That’s predictable and understandable and disappointing at the same time. Because lots of people convey interest or say they’d like to read it or tell me I should keep writing. But I feel like a schmuck writing and writing and writing for nobody and pretending like I have an audience. If no one is interested, is this a completely selfish endeavor? If so, then what’s the point? 

I’ll be sitting on that one for a little while. For now, I’m going to read. A published book. By an author who’s doing it. And think about what it means to write “privately” or like normal writers have for the past hundreds of years.  

the sparrow

Recently, I have had a wealth of thoughts in the midst of conversations, car rides, showers, and the ten minutes before I get in bed at night. I have almost too much to think about – things I want to file away for further processing. They’re big thoughts but wouldn’t be appropriate (or even beneficial sometimes) to share with the world. That’s the thing about putting writing out there, if it’s personal. If it’s on a blog, you have to think about every single person who might read that blog: friends or family you might be struggling to understand and love; people with whom you work or go to church; people you might meet someday. 

So, I will stick to a safer zone today. What’s going on in my life at the moment? What have I been reading? Hope you’re cool with that.

First, I have to tell you that the book I last finished reading was devastatingly good. I finished it with tears, Nick glancing over at me from the driver’s seat while I tried to hide behind the cover. I just stared at the blank last page pretending I was still reading so I could have a moment. I closed it and declared that it was probably one of my top five favorite books. 

The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell, is a beautiful novel. It’s sort of science fiction and fantasy and adult fiction all in one. Although, I would argue that science fiction/fantasy is just as normal as any realistic fiction in the end. The plot and characters are just unique, and the authors are especially creative. (So, in other words, keep your shade to yourself if you can’t appreciate this genre.)

The Sparrow sort of followed me around – from bookstores to recommendations and finally to my grandma, who happened to own three of the author’s books and gave them all to me since she had already read them. I cracked open her large-print ex-library copy and started to read what I didn’t assume would be a beautiful, tragic exploration of humanity, divinity, and morality. 

I want to read it again with my notebook close by so I can jot down the quotes that made me shiver. Here’s something core:

“‘There’s an old Jewish story that says in the beginning God was everywhere and everything, a totality. But to make creation, God had to remove Himself from some part of the universe, so something besides Himself could exist. So He breathed in, and in the places where God withdrew, there creation exists.’ 

‘So God just leaves?’ John asked, angry where Emilio had been desolate. ‘Abandons creation? You’re on your own, apes. Good luck!’

‘No. He watches. He rejoices. He weeps. He observes the moral drama of human life and gives meaning to it by caring passionately about us, and remembering.’ 

‘Matthew ten, verse twenty-nine,’ Vincenzo Giuliani said quietly. ‘Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.’ 

‘But the sparrow still falls,’ Felipe said.” 

The old gospel song, “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” ran through my head so many times while I was reading.

The interesting thing about this book is that it begins with the tragic. You know the basic ending right from the start. Yet it was impossible for me not to fall in love with the story along the way – to hope for the best while knowing the worst. I was invested all the same. 

Russell’s treatment of religion was really redemptive and charitable – pretty unique today, though it was written in the mid-90s. There’s obviously good reason to be suspicious and to recognize the failings of religious institutions. However…there are also hard stories that receive proper treatment. People go through hard things and are met by waves of attempted understanding and care. They’re forced to process the unimaginable for their own soul’s benefit, and allowed to do it in their own time. The beauty and complexity and nuance was all there, and I appreciated it so much. There are big truths and ideas to wrestle with, try to understand, and try to explain as best we can without going into realms of speculation or false certainty. There is something true, but it seems my generation has gone slap-happy with dreams of multiple and personal truths that come from nowhere but our own imaginations and subjective experiences. I’m seeking something specific from the universe, and I think there’s something to be found. Something historic that we can actually understand if we try – that has something to say about how we live. Now, I have to work harder every day to really live that way because it requires a lot. It asks more than most Christians I know are willing to give. This has become kind of rambling and possibly ranting, but I’m sick with its importance at the moment and sick with the ways I fail. But here’s the thing about a redemptive story – it’s always hopeful.

The story of Emilio Sandoz is hopeful, and it continues with a SEQUEL!! My favorite thing for my favorite books to have!! I already own it, thanks to my grandma, and I’m going to read it as soon as I get home. (probably. maybe. I dunno. the semester starts when I get home.) 

I know I said that I was going to write a little about life-right-now. But I’m not. That doesn’t sound so fun, and I’m running out of time. So, we’ll call this a success. I wrote! Something! Yay. Leave the summer processing for another day.

seattle two: not about seattle

I don’t grow as fast as I want to. Ten weeks is shorter than it sounds. I have low output and a low capacity, and I hate myself for it sometimes. But I’m learning to understand and set realistic expectations. All that said because I had hoped to be on approximately “seattle ten” by now. Hah. Here goes.

One morning last week, I woke up and talked on the phone with my friend. We talked about the day and the week and the difficulty of processing what’s in our hearts. I told her about this book I’d just finished reading: The Pursuit of God, by A.W. Tozer. I said it was the most convicting book I have read for awhile. She asked what was convicting about it.

I appreciate being able to talk with friends who respond to my somewhat faltering, intermittent way of speaking with patience. I appreciate reciprocity. I have such a hard time sharing what’s really going on in my head because it’s kind of crazy sometimes, and because you never know who’s going to stay. It takes awhile. Friendship is a long road, but it’s so rewarding when you walk far enough together that you can be unfazed by what you hear. I’m hard to faze anyway…but I assume that others are easily driven away. The best way to put it is a lyric from one of Nick’s songs about me… “If you know her half as well as she knows you, then you know you’re gettin’ there.” It’s usually true. It feels nice to be known by him in that way, but it’s also a line that I suppose makes me disappointed with myself. I’ve read about the enneagram 4 (me, as far as I know: 4 with a 5 wing…if that means anything to ya) that we’ll tend that way. I desperately want to be close to people – closer than most people want to go – but I can’t go there without knowing that those people are going to be forever-friends. So I have to be okay with only having such closeness with a few people. I might not have a group of friends that all know and love each other this way because my closest friends tend to be those who also don’t fit with a group – who just have a few besties, too. Friend is such a unique and serious role to play in someone else’s life…it should be.

So I tell my friend that I’m so convicted because I’m so lacking. I don’t pursue God like I should; I don’t pray like I should; I don’t expect God to be present with me; I choose to do other things when I could spend time seeking him. We talked about uncertainty and that process of doubting God’s existence and then responding to ourselves with the Bible, which we believe to be true. What a funny thing to do, and proof of some faith that still lives. It can be scary and disorienting…can seem unspeakable to have any such thoughts/feelings because you’re supposed to be a church member, a seminary student, a ministry leader. But if no one ever talks about it, no one ever will, right? I talked with my friend about human insanity. It turned out to be something she understood, something she felt in her own way.

When I pray, something happens. When I pray for things people talk to me about, those prayers often are directly answered. When I pray for Nick – in a circumstance or emotion – I see the changes happen, without telling him about the prayer or the change. When I pray for clarity or peace or my own circumstances, my prayers are answered in some way that is clear to me. It’s pretty crazy, and I know that God is not a wish-granter or a vending machine. I think that was hammered into me so hard that I stopped expecting him to answer prayers at all. I stopped thinking he could really hear me. So when he began to respond to me that way…it was like he was saying, “I hear you.” I may never have heard God’s audible speaking voice…but he has been listening to me. This is how he’s teaching me that he’s here, that he’s real – that he’s in the details and the big picture.

So why don’t I pray all the time? What am I doing when I sit down to read the Bible and have some spiritual time, but I close it and move on without a word in God’s direction? What am I afraid of? That he won’t answer, or that he will? That if he’s in my life and in this world, I might have to change something? That I might be committed to following him forever and doing things that are scary and uncomfortable? I’m sure I would rather dictate my own life and make choices based on my own will. This tension is nothing new in the Christian life. And yet, there is something so much more comforting about knowing he is taking care and making ways for me to live despite my fear/baggage/inattentiveness. He’s loving me, the unloving, undeserving recipient.

I worry and wonder what God’s doing and what I’m supposed to be doing. But I don’t talk to him about it? What even is that? I laughed over the absurdity with my friend. We noted the ways that we ebb and flow in spirituality. The times Nick has had to sustain our evening prayer life without my input. When all I could muster was “amen” at the end. This not because of anything terrible going on in my life, just for the periodic darkness or the weakness of my heart. It was the first time I had talked to a friend about the fear that we might fall out of this faith and the strange way that God uses what we’re not sure we believe to assure us that we do.

There was about one year when I felt joy and gratitude acutely…and for the rest of my life, I struggle. It’s nice to talk to others who aren’t naturally happy people. Other people who can do melancholy and not be sad or uncomfortable, but find it natural. Yet because I believe that God loves me…isn’t joy/hope/gratitude/happiness the most appropriate, necessary response? And why can’t I muster it the way some can? And does that mean there’s something wrong with me, or something missing in my faith? OR does it mean that I’m well-suited to see the needs, the things to pray for, the people who need love and don’t have it? To be with people who are struggling without blinding them with: BE GRATEFUL LOOK AT ALL THIS JOY! I think this is true. But I know where I need to grow. What to pray for and seek: restore to me the joy of your salvation. Psalm 51 is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible.

I wanted to write about this Tozer book, though. Man, it brought me around. I have been feeling out of touch – exiled from my internal world. I guess theologians forever have been right about that connection between knowing God and knowing self. Imagine that. As I seek God, it gets easier to see myself. Mystery. Please continue to bear with this scatterbrained post: your patience is appreciated.

At the end of each short chapter, Tozer writes a prayer that deals with the themes he’s just talked about. I need to ask God to, “Begin in mercy a new work of love within me.”

Tozer believed in the need to wake up and remember what we’re here for, and who brought us here. Everything I’m writing about now…just assume that Tozer said it, and I’m processing.

Do I ever experience God’s REAL presence? Why don’t I feel him with me? Have I ever asked for him to show himself, to be here in a special way, to reveal his presence to me? I really haven’t asked, and I haven’t had a great big experience. But why not? People are afraid of giving up whatever fulfills us instead of God. Our “toys” are God’s rivals. I’ve dealt with this before, so I’m good, right? Then what is keeping me from coming close to God and expecting him to be close to me?

Is God more of an inference from accepted evidence, or a person who is real to me?
I need the ability to perceive spiritually. “He is manifest only when and as we are aware of His presence.” (64) “Our pursuit of God is successful just because He is forever seeking to manifest Himself to us.” (65) We might use “near” and “far” to describe our proximity to God, and these are relational terms. I can actually cultivate a spiritual awareness and receptivity – in order to gain the perception I need.

Do we confine God’s word to what we can read in the Bible, or do we recognize that he can still speak to our hearts?
I don’t leave space for God to speak. I move from one word to the next, down the page, close the book, stand up, and move on. We need to be still. Find a way to be still and wait on God: be alone, and bring the Bible. “Then if we will we may draw near to God and begin to hear Him speak to us in our hearts.” The Bible speaks continually for God. Can I breathe in between passages, or sentences, and pause long enough to learn something?

We don’t get much toward a definition of faith in the Bible as a whole – just what Hebrews 11:1 has to say: “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Tozer describes faith as “the gaze of a soul upon a saving God.” The faithful heart is bent by its intention to look on Jesus forever, and it forms the habit. Faith is focused on the object, not on itself. It’s not self-consciously examining and questioning. It’s seeking something beyond itself. My faith can be pretty self-conscious at times…no surprise.

On believing: “It would be like God to make the most vital thing easy and place it within the range of possibility for the weakest and poorest of us.” (94) Real faith looks pretty simple. It requires nothing fancy. What do we need to do? Pray, meditate on God’s word, serve others, participate in the life of the church…behold God. Anyone can do this, but I like to make things complicated by over-thinking and wondering – could this really be possible for me?

On church: “Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other?” (96)

It’s important for us to see that salvation is “…not a judicial change merely, but a conscious and experienced change affecting the sinner’s whole nature.” (100) It can be so easy in my denomination to stop with the language of legal change. In talking about justification, we use legal language because it is appropriate to do so. Yet it can sound somewhat cold or sanitized.

Bible teacher: “God took your record of wrongs and applied it to Jesus. He took Jesus’ record of rights and applied it to you.”

Me: *shakes Jesus’ hand* “Thanks, that was unbelievably kind of you.”

Also me: “Jesus died for my sins, and he gave me his righteousness. I’m going to heaven, yay!”

It can’t stop there, given that there’s probably a lot of time between now and that future, so what happens in the meantime?

One of the main questions I had to answer satisfactorily when I interviewed for a ministry position was: “What are justification and sanctification – and how are they different?” One of the main objectives in a class called “Sin, Christ, and Salvation” was to answer this question. These are wonderful things – it’s so important to understand God’s work and how it applies to us. Yet I can define these words so perfectly without feeling myself changed and without living in the presence of God. It’s not enough to watch the courtroom scene and read the sentence we’ve been given (not guilty) if we don’t walk out understanding everything that means for our future.

One of my favorite seminars/sermons I’ve ever heard was about glorification. I’ve listened to this two-part talk about four times. No one in my church background had ever pointed so clearly, so earnestly, and so matter-of-factly to what the future holds if we believe. Contrary to what some might think, this didn’t make me sit back dissatisfied with life, set to wait for that time after death. It didn’t make me wish for everything to look like heaven immediately. It made me want to live in such a way that other people could hear about this…to live in a way that might point toward glory in a world where things really don’t. That doesn’t mean making our houses look like castles. It means exhibiting a knowing joy. Reminds me of yet another favorite passage, 1 Corinthians 15:51-55:

^“Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’
‘O death, where is your victory?
    O death, where is your sting?'”

 

If we’re going to believe…we have to realize that we owe God everything. We’ll use everything we have to glorify him. We don’t lose our dignity by offering everything up this way – he has dignified us innately. Any desire for human honor gets squarely in the way of our desire for God. He wants all of us: our heads, hearts, and hands (to borrow a seminary phrase). We can pray that he would have us, that he would be exalted over our possessions, friendships, comforts, reputation, ambitions, preferences, family, health, and life…that we wouldn’t value these things more highly than we value him. If we walk out into the world and feel free from the burden of sin but don’t feel any gratitude or obligation to Jesus for what he did…we don’t really get it, do we?

Rest in Christ is the release from burdens. We’re burdened by pride, pretense, artificiality, competition, posing. We need to stop being fooled about ourselves, as Tozer puts it. We are really weak and helpless, but God gives us tremendous significance. Let God defend you – don’t be defensive. I am so sensitive…SO sensitive. Some people are so defensive – like, defensive before anyone has been on the offensive. We can’t rest until we “…accept ourselves for what we are and cease to pretend.” (116)

“The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather…he has stopped being fooled about himself…He knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring.” (113) Meekness brings peace. This is what I mean by “I don’t really care what people think,” on my very best days. Or at least I mean I’m trying for this. I don’t mean that I disregard people’s feelings or thoughts. I don’t mean that I’m above caring about opinions. I just mean that we have to put those things in their proper place, knowing and being concerned primarily with what God has told us to be true. In a sense, we are looking above the general human murmur because we answer to someone greater.

Everything we do can be done to God’s glory. This is the goal – not to gain approval, success, personal fulfillment, status, wealth, or any kind of personal glory you can think of. The goal is to work at something that will bring God glory, or to do the work set before you in a way that he would approve. Jesus’ life wasn’t divided into sacred/secular categories. There was no spiritual/natural dichotomy for him to navigate. The only dilemma here is one that humans have created. Tozer uses the example of the body to explain this: “God created our bodies, and we do not offend Him by placing the responsibility where it belongs.” (120) So modesty is biblical, but prudery and shame are not. (All these nuggets are from Tozer, not me. I’m just your friendly blogging paraphraser.) I’m grateful to go to a seminary that understands the body this way and encourages us to stop seeing our bodies (and the physical and the world as a whole) negatively. Instead, we interrogate their nature, the way they reflect God, their purpose in his kingdom.

Everything we do can be given up to the kingdom of God, turning life into a sacramental act of worship. This should be “the complexion of our thoughts” and what we practice, meditate, pray…leading to a “restful unity of life.” But it requires “aggressive faith.” (122-123) “Let us believe that God is in all our simple deeds and learn to find Him there.” Then nothing we do can be called common. This is something I need to hear… I can affirm this so easily when someone else posts about it on Instagram. I can look at people doing work that the world (or my heart) might not count as Meaningful, and I can see that God makes it meaningful…I can see their commitment to it as sacred. But when it comes to doing the menial tasks of my day…to serving others in small ways…to sacrificing the time I want to spend on Purposeful, Inspiring tasks…I will grumble inside. I have a long way to go.

“I long to live in restful sincerity of heart.” (127) This is from another of Tozer’s prayers. And it’s like…exactly right. I cannot think of a better summary of what I long for and what I find so elusive. I long to live in restful sincerity of heart. Those are words my soul can adopt. It’s a mantra I can get behind. It’s what I will be praying for, as I clear away the distractions and enter a space that will hopefully grow larger forever as God fills it with himself.

There is so much more I could say…so much about the Holy Spirit. So much from a paper I wrote last semester about the kingdom of God. But this is a blog, and it has already taken me three days to write this post. I’m going to let it be.

Music while writing this: The Avett Brothers (Emotionalism) and Horse Feathers (So It Is With Us) – Gonna see Horse Feathers open for Blind Pilot this weekend with another dear friend. EXCITEMENT

Recommendations: The Lowland (book) by Jhumpa Lahiri – my first book-cry of the summer.
And of course, The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer

humble roots

At the beginning of the year, I started reading Humble Roots, by Hannah Anderson. A good friend recommended it at the very end of last year. A lady at my church in St. Louis started a group to read it together at the beginning of this year. I went for a few weeks until school got overwhelming. I kept reading it in tiny chunks, journaling along, and finally finished it in July. I recently went through my journal entries and typed up the highlights. Going through those now to process a bit more and see what comes. Also, keep in mind that almost everything I’m writing comes directly from Hannah Anderson’s mind…not mine. And it’s not a short post, but it’s easy.

This book ended up having a larger impact than I expected. (As if I can really predict the way I’ll learn and grow.) I’m prone to reading books that are supposed to speak to the soul as if they can be processed at the rate of consumption. I’ve been learning a lot lately…processing…but not necessarily reflecting and incorporating. I live a tense-hearted life. God meets me in his own time, at my right time, usually slowly because I am stubborn and he is kind. My walk with Jesus involves a lot of breaks…or times where I stop and sit down on a bench for a little bit. But that doesn’t mean that God is taking a break.

This book spoke to (so much, but starting with) the interpersonal comparison that everyone does and the insecurity it brings.
(1) I don’t really care whether people like my personality or lifestyle choices or way I operate or that I like what I like.
(2) I want to be loved in friendship so badly. I haven’t grown up with one best friend. I’ve been so fortunate to have different friends in different places, and I love all of them. But it’s hard not to have that one person that will always know you and has always known you – the good and bad. I have a friend who knows me well and who asks after my heart…and she has lost that one person who was that person in her life. I wonder if she feels this a little, though we are close.

I am married, and in one sense it’s true that he is my best friend. But there is something so sweet and so missed about deep and sweet female friendship. I went to see a movie (the documentary “Whose Streets” – definitely recommend getting this perspective on the events in Ferguson) with a friend from St. Louis, and went back to her house briefly afterward, where her roommates were talking about life and we joined in for a moment. I miss those moments passing in the dining room where you can hear all those voices speaking into your life and love on each other.

I compare myself to other women constantly, which is why I feel insecure in every friendship I’ve ever had. I need the humility to recognize that it doesn’t matter – that the criteria I’m using to define myself and them means nothing. It has become the basis of how I relate, and it usually comes out with them on top, me admiring and mostly feeling inferior. [I feel like the queen of third-wheeling friendships. I’m the third friend tagging along with the two best friends. I expect that it’s going to be a tricycle, but when I get there it’s actually just a bicycle and an extra wheel. Nice to have that extra wheel, but ultimatly unnecessary. This has been a theme pretty much all my life, and I see hints of it as I’m starting to make friends here. It’s hard not to go ahead and fortify the walls. For me, it’s not about trying not to put up walls – it’s about trying to tear down the ones that go up automatically in new places…when I want to strengthen them. I think I try to hang on hard to friends that maybe want to let me go? How does one become content with being the odd friend out? Then I realize this is all completely selfish and I don’t deserve to have friends in the first place, so gratitude should be the only thing I’m feeling.]

When it comes to improvement and growth, I tend to impose regulations or sweeping statements intended to make myself better. But am I actually changing on the inside? I need the humility to seek holiness, not just better qualities or habits. I need Jesus, not self-help. How would humility change me?

“Humility is not feeling a certain way about yourself, not feeling small or low or embarrassed or even humiliated. Theologically speaking, humility is a proper understanding of who God is and who we are as a result.” (103)

The morality of our culture is that if something feels good, it must be good: “But today, being true to yourself doesn’t mean making an honest evaluation of yourself; it means embracing your emotional experience of the world as truth.” (103) I can get obsessed with how other people feel about me and how I feel about myself. How I feel about myself/the world/others isn’t reality…it’s corrupted. This statement really spoke to my heart: “Instead of responding to the pain of being misunderstood, I can rest in the fact that God understands me even better than I understand myself.” (106) I need to hear that every day for life.

Humility should free us from self-condemnation. I’m not God – I can’t condemn, not even myself. My assuming unnecessary guilt (or shame) keeps me at the center of my mind and life. Honest anxiety leads to usurping God’s position of authority. We should adore God -> be humble -> have confidence. Anderson includes this Hildebrand (philosopher) quote: “The question whether I feel worthy to be called is beside the point; that God has called is the one thing that matters.”

I feel like it has become increasingly popular or socially acceptable to be openly judgmental. I’m sitting in a coffee shop where the wi-fi is being slightly fickle but mostly working fine (for me at least), and the girl at the table next to me has been trying to figure out the network/password. Loudly, she said, “I’m never coming here again.” I’m listening to music through my headphones, and I heard her. I’m sure the baristas just across the way could hear her. Her friend said, “I’m fine with that. The coffee is…*makes a face*” I mean, wow. I guess taking a couple minutes to figure out the Internet is a deal breaker, and it’s all right to complain about the coffee in front of the people who made it. That’s a minor example…

People talking about others who are difficult to love or be around – who have awkward or problematic tendencies — really just want to get away from them. They talk in a belittling and irritated manner. When Christians operate this way, I want to shove a copy of Life Together into their hands. I know not every difficult person is also a part of God’s family, but I think that acknowledging the image of God in everyone means that we can’t openly shame others. (But the Internet, for instance, says we MUST shame anyone who says anything remotely wrong.) I think doing so reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the sin and inconsistencies inherent in our own hearts. When we are gratified by pointing out others’ deficiencies, we probably don’t see our own clearly enough. I usually don’t want to hear you gossip about someone else if you don’t have a hopeful bent – if you’re not interested in engaging with the person and doing life with them.

Nick is so good at engaging with people that others would disregard. I’m constantly challenged by this. He gives rides to strangers – has done this multiple times since we’ve been married. He talks to the Jehovah’s Witnesses sitting on the park bench (which generally means he listens to their speeches for ten minutes without interrupting or looking for his out). He listens to the man playing music on the street and tries to learn what he’s about. And he does not complain about this. He loves it. He loves people. His heart is open. What if we all operated this way?

Humility can redeem the inner life. We can bring our emotions to God and feel them deeply. God is not emotionally manipulative. “So…when humility frees us from the oppression of our emotions, when we finally learn that ‘God is greater than our heart,’ it also frees us to enjoy the depth and variety of our inner life. We are free to enter into our emotions, letting them do what God intends for them to do: draw us back to Himself.” (114)

Remember, we always have something to learn. I can very easily assume the posture of knowing what everyone is talking about all the time. Usually I am just trying to assume a listening posture, but sometimes it can also lead people to think that I’m already in the know. I don’t speak up when I don’t get a reference, but it happens all the time. The book I’m reading now describes this well in reference to a particular character. Indulge me and read this paragraph…

“It was therefore with a very well-concealed ignorance that Moody played interlocutor to Gascoigne, and Clinch, and Mannering, and Pritchard, and all the others, when they spoke of Anna Wetherell, and the esteem in which they held her, as a whore. Moody’s well-timed murmurs of ‘naturally’ and ‘of course’ and ‘exactly so,’ combined with a general rigidity of posture whenever Anna’s name was mentioned, implied to these men merely that Moody was made uncomfortable by the more candid truths of human nature, and that he preferred, like most men of exalted social rank, to keep his earthly business to himself. We observe that one of the great attributes of discretion is that it can mask ignorance of all the most common and lowly varieties, and Walter Moody was nothing if not excessively discreet. The truth was that he had never spoken two words together to a woman of Anna Wetherell’s profession or experience, and would hardly know how to address her – or upon what subject – should the chance arise.” (The Luminaries, page 397)

Ignorance can be masked by reserve, and I don’t have the humility to admit the ignorance most of the time. That’s my point.

Humility also applies to the limits of human reason. God’s ways are so far beyond our own. We should not be concerned with being right for the sake of being right. We shouldn’t be self-righteous about our knowledge or wisdom. Anderson describes this using someone else’s term: epistemological humility. I think people in my theological/faith/denominational circles need to hear this. We must have faith in the truth of revelation, not faith in our own knowledge or understanding. We need to be able to acknowledge when we are wrong (and see that we will always be fallible…and sinful). We will never ever know everything, so get used to it, and start acknowledging limits more. It will put others at ease. When I’m around people who seem to have tons to say or seem super secure in their own understanding, I’m either intimidated, or I don’t have much desire to talk to them, because it’s already clear what they think and that they might not be great at listening to the opinions or perspectives of others. Yet, I do this. Nick will feel shut down in conversations when I feel strongly or have a lot of thoughts about a subject. I have to shut myself up. (I interrupt with occasional smothered noises now, rather than with fully-formed sentences. 🙂

“Not only does humility teach us that knowledge comes from outside us, it also reminds us that we cannot perfectly categorize and process the knowledge that we do have.” (123)

We all have resources at our disposal. I learned this well when I first went to Sunshine Gospel Ministries in Chicago. They teach college groups (which tend to be made up of kids from at least semi-privileged backgrounds, and in our case very clearly privileged) about communities of poverty – how they are constructed, what their struggles are, and how injustice contributes to the cycle of poverty. I learned that it’s very unlikely that I’ll end up homeless. I have a savings account. I have a family that could support me financially or house me for a time. They would have compassion. I actually have multiple arms of family that could do this. I am white and have a college degree, so I can easily get different kinds of jobs. I have the technology to engage with current trends and to fit into society. There are people against whom systems are biased. There are people who get subpar education based on where they live and how much money their community has. People who live in unsafe environments because they have no choice and are more prone to danger, drugs, or sickness and who grow up with incredible trauma. People who have to struggle to gain stable employment, let alone higher education, and whose families are in the same situation. People who are targeted and charged with minor crimes and fines, who can’t afford to get out from under that burden. The cycle can start in so many places, and I am not vulnerable to its sinkhole. I didn’t do anything to DESERVE this invulnerability. Anderson gets to this briefly in a footnote: “In failing to recognize how much previous generations have shaped our own success, we can also fail to see how much generations of poverty and oppression will shape other people as well. While we may inherit blessing, other people inherit hardship.” (142)

So, Anderson writes about having resources of all kinds. We can honor them, and we can engage them with humility. Everything we have, we’ve been given (material and relational and everything). We don’t deserve to have things a certain way, and we haven’t earned a particular lifestyle. I complain from a position in which God has given me more than I need. Humble thankfulness is not based on comparison (I have more than others, so I should be grateful). It is “a gratitude rooted in having anything at all.” (143)

I need to make sure I’m not putting myself at the center of dealing with privilege. This is very difficult, because the first and easiest way we try to understand the world is through our own eyes. I’m thinking about the parable of the talents. Do I steward (plant) my resources, or do I bury them? (Bury them. or get paralyzed. or don’t realize I have them.) Am I using my freedom well? (Hm) Do I accept gifts without guilt, without trying to earn them? (Either so guilty or so entitled. depends.) Do I let God lead me in using them? (Mostly I do not.) We have responsibilities because of the gifts we have been given. Asking whether we deserve them is not productive. Asking what we are responsible to do can lead to action and growth. God is at the center. Everything has a purpose.

“We know that we don’t deserve more than another person, but we also know that we have more than another person. And so in an attempt to deal with this guilt, we can pursue a form of asceticism, all while keeping ourselves at the center of the conversation.” (HR, 146)

I am one of those people who often feel that planning and wishing seem presumptuous because we don’t know God’s step-by-step plan. I needed to hear that it is right to have desires and hopes (and even…plans !) and that we should speak them, so that God can redeem and shape and reform them. This was a huge learning moment for me.

It’s actually not virtuous to refuse to make a plan before we know what’s to come. It’s arrogant. It’s reaching for knowledge that is beyond us, that only God knows. We will never have a perfect map, but we do have the most gracious guide. A verse that kept coming to mind was Proverbs 16:3, which says, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” I think I’ve always been incredulous at the thought that the Bible says the Lord will establish *your* plans. My plans, really? I thought it was all about God’s plan though… Something I realized as I meditated on this idea and continued to read Humble Roots is that because of this incredulity and focus on God’s unknowable plan, I don’t actually commit my hopes, my work, or my plans to the Lord. So the focus shouldn’t be on God establishing my plans, but on committing everything I do to Him.

Three distilled conclusions from Hannah:
“I will not overlook my privilege.”
“I will not feel guilty about what God has put in my hands or attempt to earn it.”
“I will allow God to lead me in cultivating these gifts for His glory and the good of those around me.”

“Just as God is the source of your life and gifting, God is also the source of your desires… In this sense, the greater presumption is not found in speaking your desires but failing to acknowledge their existence in the first place.” (159)

“Surprisingly enough, humility teaches us to embrace desire as a means of learning to submit to God. It is precisely through the process of wanting certain things that we also learn to trust God to fulfill those desires or to trust Him when he changes them. It is precisely through the process of learning to plan that we learn to depend on a God who makes our plans happen.” (159)

We are kept dependent on God when we don’t know everything. This has altered the way I think: “As much as you cannot make yourself or orchestrate the events of your life or shape your unique personality, you can no more create the desires of your heart.” (161) Desires feel completely selfish. I want this or that – I want to do this or that – it’s all about me. But, DUH, we have nothing we haven’t been given, including our lives and bodies and minds and desires. To acknowledge them is to own them, and that is a risk. To tell God about them is a risk. But it also means, “agreeing with God about who He has made you to be.” (162) We have to learn to ultimately desire the one thing we will never be denied, which is God himself. But we also need to trust Him with our plans, and submit to the idea that they will be fulfilled in ways that we can’t imagine. The possibility of failure is no excuse. We still work.

“When we limit ourselves to working when the time is right, we reveal that we are still clinging to the notion that success is dependent on our choices and our ability to control outcomes.” (168) I have a real strong control issue. That probably gives you the picture of what this feels like for me. 🙂

The world is broken. We can respond to this brokenness with humility. In Luke 8/Matthew 13, Jesus talked about the different kinds of ground upon which the seed of the truth is sown. The seeds that fall on thorny ground are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of this life. We try to replace the giver with the gifts. Sloth…that’s not often how I think about this defeated way of living. God can make our efforts fruitful in the midst of the broken world. “Rooted in pride, sloth factors God out of the equation entirely. If God is not present or powerful here, there is no guarantee that your work or time will be rewarded. So why even try?” (181) We get defeated and more defeated as we stop trying.

Jesus trusts God and accepts the crown of thorns and defeats evil. “What better way to diminish the King of the universe than to crown Him with the very curse that hangs over His creation? What better way to triumph over Him than for evil to adorn his head? What could be more humiliating than to have our brokenness rest on Him?” (184) He trusted God – “Humility trusts God.” (185)

Do I believe the truth about God even when the situation suggests he’s someone doing something I can’t trust? I can’t be ruled by anything other than His word. I can confess my brokenness and rest by telling God and others that I need help. Surrender and stop thinking I can be enough – there is hope.

The most humbling experience of all is death. “All our life, humility is working to this end: Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit.” (195) We experience the deaths of others until one day we are dying. We have no control. Jesus commits his spirit to the father – the destroyer of death, which destroys us now. Those who humble themselves will be the ones exalted. “…when the creature is finally and fully humbled, the world rights itself. When Jesus humbled Himself and submitted to death, He unleashed a power greater than death.” (196) It’s an upside down kingdom.

The struggle to sleep is another picture of the struggle to give up control and trust God. Put down the day. It’s a small way to practice letting go every day because we literally can’t live without it. “In many ways, the act of sleep itself is a spiritual act, an act of humility.” (204) I have to trick myself into sleeping most nights (if I’m not just exhausted) by leaving a light on or reading a book. God offers rest at the end of every day and at the end of every week. He welcomes us to rest, and he will restore us and sustain us.

—

The whole exercise of writing has had no place to fit in my life lately. I’m interested in politics/keeping up with current events. I’m interested in being a part of my community (though school and work mean that so much of my time is occupied). I’m interested in writing and reading fiction – I love it so much. I’m interested in too many things? I’m not sure what realm I’ll end up working toward when it comes to career time. I’m in seminary slash grad school. My program is focused on the connection of social justice to theology. I’ve been able to learn the outworking of that in terms of bringing justice+gospel to bear in different aspects of work in the city, whether that means working with refugees, working in community development, working in medicine, housing, etc. I’m interested in building relationships, but also in connecting people to the resources they need. How does someone get from the exit door of the prison to the front door of an employment agency (willing to talk to them) that has connections to employers (willing to give them a chance)? I’m interested in the broad and the sweeping…one of my strengths (according to Gallup) is “Connectedness”. Another is “Restorative”. I’m interested in restorative justice and the connection of the gospel to all of life – and its call on our lives to be righteous, which has huge implications for how we engage the poor and marginalized. I’ve written a little about that here before.

This was also very long, and if you made it this far then consider yourself part of my blog’s VIP club.

Recommendations:
“Autumn” – a BRAND NEW album by Nick Dahlquist!!! I know him!
“Whose Country ‘Tis of Thee?” – Latino USA podcast episode
“All Things Work Together” – new Lecrae Album! SO GOOD.

Strange & Norrell

So, I did finish my first year of seminary this Spring, but probably my most exciting accomplishment of 2017 so far has been finishing this book! Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (by Susanna Clarke), oh the journey we have had. Last summer, I checked you out from the library too optimistically close to the start of the semester. I had to renew you twice and give you back without having gotten a hundred pages in. One day, my friend sent you to me as an encouragement, and I tried starting once more during the school year, but no dice.

So, it did take me a couple of weeks, but come on the thing was 1006 pages long. It was a lot, and I wont say that I loved every minute of it because there were a lot of minutes, and I got tired of how long it was. This was mostly because I was anxious to start reading another book, which I broke down and did, vowing that it would not deter me from my purpose with the magicians.

This is a book worth reading. (I mean it! In person, I have trouble conveying enthusiasm in recommendations because either I don’t want you to see how much I love it or I don’t want you to think that it’s too hyped and feel cynical or I just am not that comfortable with you yet. But I mean it!) I’m going to say some negative things about it and some positive things about it, but don’t let the negative things fog you up.

From the outset, after every description told me it was a book about magicians and magic, I had high fantasy expectations. While there is a LOT of magic, it also hints at SO MUCH magic that we never really see up close. Sometimes I felt like Clarke was off having fun in some magical land that she would never describe for me, while I sat in England hearing talk of cool magical things but not experiencing them. Like I said, we get a lot of magic and this is a bit of a ridiculous negative, but I did repeatedly wonder when we were going to dive in beyond the tension of real-England vs. magic-stuff. I don’t know if this will make any sense or how it will sound if you haven’t read the book, but there it is.

Characters can make or break my reading. I didn’t find myself capital-I Invested in any particular character(s). This was a little disappointing. I did like most of them in general…I appreciated them all as characters, but I wanted to really love somebody, and I just didn’t. Fortunately, I did not notice this detracting from my reading in the moment; I noticed it toward the end of the book when I wasn’t sure exactly what to hope for.

I should say that I’m currently watching the mini-series the BBC made, which is on Netflix. Y’all, it is GOOD. If you already know that never in your life will you read this book, you should watch it. If you do want to or think you might want to read the book, I beg you to read it before you watch. I shouldn’t even have told you, because maybe you didn’t know it was an option and I take it back what are we talking about?

Ugh, I can’t help it. In the miniseries, I am finding that I do enjoy some of the characters (I already liked) a lot more. Maybe my imagination wasn’t going far enough with them when I was reading. Along these lines, it also makes my complaint about the role of magic seem even more ridiculous.

What I enjoyed about the characters was their authenticity. Clarke wrote some accurate human beings. Overall, I think we see more of their darkness – what the human mind/heart/will is capable of motivating in the sense of deception or selfishness or curiosity. There is goodness to be found, but it does seem a book that intends, for a while, to bring the reader to despair of the characters and the world. And that really does happen in regards to people and the world – at least it happens in my brain.

There were many clues and hints at later events that appeared in footnotes or in smooth switches to first-person narration. The narrator was a good companion. I aspire to write something so seemingly effortless. But some of the clues made me so eager or had me ready or appeared several times, and the object became less something-suspenseful and more something-long-awaited (perhaps only because I’m impatient).

Clarke’s writing mirrors its setting: the story begins in 1806 in England.

“Clearly such an opportunity as this was scarcely likely to come again; Mr Norrell determined to establish himself in London with all possible haste. ‘You must get me a house, Childermass,’ he said. ‘Get me a house that says to those that visit that magic is a respectable profession – no less than Law and a great deal more so than Medicine.’
Childermass inquired drily if Mr Norrell wished him to seek out architecture expressive of the proposition that magic was as respectable as the Church?
Mr Norrell (who knew there were such things as jokes in the world or people would not write about them in books, but who had never actually been introduced to a joke or shaken its hand) considered a while before replying at last that no, he did not think they could quite claim that.”

I don’t know what I can reasonably quote without spoiling one part or another. It’s frustrating – I know you would like it. This line stood out as a favorite:
“He had never much cared for the world and he bore its loss philosophically.”

So…think what you will about that. It made me stop and look up at the room and laugh.

I mentioned there were footnotes. Yes. The footnotes throughout were brilliant. Some went on for three or four pages, telling stories about past magicians or describing books the characters referenced – which books of course only exist in the world of Strange & Norrell.

There were real events woven into the storyline (or vice versa), and real people with real roles (one being Lord Byron). This was delightful and super clever. I believe Clarke’s non-writing work has to do with history? This was her first novel, if you can believe that. I do not envy the people who had to write 1-2 paragraph descriptions for the book cover, the back of the paperback, Amazon, etc. Where do you even focus? There’s so much. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m struggling to write about it.

As I said, I am thoroughly enjoying digesting the story in film format now. I have to keep a notebook and pen at the ready for moments when I want to exclaim at something that seems to be happening early or something that DID NOT go down that way in the book or something I like that the series does differently. Nick is watching it with me and wouldn’t be able to handle such outbursts (nor do I want to ruin everything for him). It’s a joy to talk about the intricacies and the meaning with someone else now.

It was somewhat taxing, yet I almost feel the need to turn around and read it again. I do want to read it again eventually, having full knowledge of the story at the outset. I’d like to remember side characters and other things I’m sure I’ve already forgotten.

Sorry if this post seems scattered – I think I have over-caffeinated-brain going on right now. It’s also our last week in Indianapolis, and I am thinking about the things I did and didn’t do and the fact that going back to St. Louis brings some realities to the forefront that I have been glad not to think about for a bit. I am ready, and I’m not ready.

Ok, bye.

 

writing about reading about writing, again

Annie Dillard’s book, The Writing Life, was an interesting one to read directly after Stephen King’s book (On Writing). The two are so different. I’ve loved Dillard for a long time, although I have read strikingly little of all that she’s written. I wrote a long essay inspired by one of her essays for one of my favorite writing classes in college.

In this book, she winds metaphor after metaphor, linking them with a few real-life stories, to describe what it’s like to build a life as a writer.

You lay out a line of words.
And then another.
The page is what teaches you to write.
That’s her thing.

At times, she seemed to be trying to hard, but I also wanted to be swept up in her descriptions of nature and loosely connected threads of thoughts. She acknowledged this perceived high-brow-ness with a story; she was humbled when a child referenced one of her essays that she thought only “the critics” had appreciated. So that helped.

It’s a short book – barely a hundred pages. Fun fact: I own a first edition, which I must have gotten from a used bookstore. Reading her perspective reinforced the ideas that I started marinating after King’s book. There were a few more relatable moments with Dillard, though. She has a love-hate relationship with the practice of writing, and I FEEL that.

She talks about chopping wood. By the way, context: she would spend whole seasons in a cabin on an island somewhere off the coast of Washington. So, that’s where she’s coming from…we have the same life…

She talks about trying to chop wood and aiming for the log itself and getting nowhere. She only started chopping through wood when she aimed for the chopping block. That hit me like a ton of logs in the moment when I understood exactly what she meant about writing.

Another very relatable thing that I appreciated was her hypothetical timeline for writing a book. Stephen King’s is three months. Annie says, “It takes years to write a book – between two and ten years. Less is so rare as to be statistically insignificant…Out of a human population on earth of [billions], perhaps twenty people can write a book in a year. Some people lift cars, too.” I was definitely laughing out loud. Every writer/person is different, y’all.

Read these little quotes that express my feelings, and then I’ll talk more.

“…your work is so meaningless, so fully for yourself alone, and so worthless to the world, that no one except you cares whether you do it well, or ever. You are free to make several close judgment calls a day. Your freedom is a by-product of your days’ triviality.”

“What then shall I do this morning? How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days….Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading – that is a good life.”

“Politely, he asked me about my writing. Foolishly, not dreaming I was about to set my own world tumbling down about my ears, I said I hated to write. I said I would rather do anything else. He was amazed…Why did I do it? I had never inquired. How had I let it creep up on me? Why wasn’t I running a ferryboat, like sane people?”

And this, quoted at the beginning of Chapter Seven: “It’s easy, after all, not to be a writer. Most people aren’t writers, and very little harm comes to them.” – Julian Barnes, Flaubert’s Parrot

(Although I would say that a lot of my anxiety comes from the fact that…most people are calling themselves writers, man. There just isn’t a market for that…even an intellectual/individual market. I can’t possibly read all of the personal blogs by people I know who are good writers, and keep up with whatever kind of journalism I’m into, and read books, and read emails, etc. And neither can you. How are you even reading this? And if I’m really just one of the voices screaming into the void, and not good enough to pursue publishing – or not productive enough [duh] – then what am I doing? Just more triviality? This is my spiral.)

Writing all day everyday is not a real thing. It’s not a full-time job unless you’re living on an inheritance or have a spouse that’s supporting you and your children and your nanny…which I suppose is more realistic than being an heir to fortune.

But even if it seemed like a real possibility, I’m not sure I would choose it. It’s not that I mind being alone. (Frankly, I often choose it, mostly because I tend to feel like an idiot whenever other people are around. I lose my speech because my head empties of anything interesting and fills up with vapidity, and I know that everyone in the room is more immediately interesting to everyone else and I would prefer to go home where there’s nobody making their first impression of me or affirming their first impression of me or giving me a chance which I will somehow butterfinger away.) I am obviously more comfortable by myself. But hours upon hours? With just my thoughts? The above parenthetical rants are pretty good examples of what that’s like. It also means there’s a deficit…the inspiration well is never being filled up. In one way, that’s part of writing. To quote Dillard one more time, “Many writers do little else but sit in small rooms recalling the real world. This explains why so many books describe the writer’s childhood. A writer’s childhood may well have been the occasion of his only firsthand experience.” She’s not exactly endorsing that approach, but I think every writer is probably in danger.

I want to do more tangibly meaningful work. I also want to write tangibly meaningful work. But like I was saying, most writers have to make it work. Stephen King and his wife worked long hours in low-wage jobs, scraped by with little ones, and he wrote in the back room or the hallway or wherever he had to, continually trying to get paid for it. I’m not used to having to work that hard. Privilege has been my reality, and it has given me so much to be grateful for. It has also robbed me of some valuable life lessons, so that I’m a little behind and a little bit eating-humble-pie about it. Oh, you have to work and try and fail and keep going if you really want to do something? What if it’s too hard? Then maybe you’ll just never do it.

Oh, also! This is the book that the quote at the top of my blog’s home page came from. SHOUTOUT! Here’s the longer chunk that bit came from:
“Every morning you climb several flights of stairs, enter your study, open the French doors, and slide your desk and chair out into the middle of the air. The desk and chair float thirty feet from the ground, between the crowns of maple trees. The furniture is in place; you go back for your thermos of coffee. Then, wincing, you step out again through the French doors and sit down on the chair and look over the desktop. You can see clear to the river from here in winter. You pour yourself a cup of coffee.

Birds fly under your chair. In spring, when the leaves open in the maples’ crowns, your view stops in the treetops just beyond the desk; yellow warblers hiss and whisper on the high twigs, and catch flies. Get to work. Your work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk in midair.”

Recommendations!
Podcast: Pass the Mic
Show: Brooklyn 99
Music: supafun new singles from Arcade Fire. Also, Blind Pilot always. Listening to them riiight nowwww and feelin’ warm like whiskey. The Staves. Music is my writing backdrop sorry.

on on writing, etc.

I’ve finished my second nonfiction read of the summer (well, of the Indianapolis segment of summer): On Writing by Stephen King. Not that I’ve read anything else he’s ever written. But the movies Stand By Me and The Green Mile were based on his stories, and I loved them. That counts? Anyway, he’s a great nonfiction writer as well, and it was super cool to read a little about his life and his process. I could see ways that my process might be different, and I was definitely intimidated by some of his remarks and his natural giftedness/ability to write book after book after book – just cranking out the ideas that he gets from everywhere. I’ve struggled a lot with ideas this summer.

His anchor rule for writers is to read a lot and write a lot. It’s so simple, yet so hard for me. I love it when I’m doing it but have yet to achieve consistency. Self-destructive and self-sabotaging – that sounds about right.

I didn’t mark up this book because I borrowed it from a friend – someone I admire who is reading a LOT and discovering her gift for writing and supporting my desire to do both of those things with encouragement and books. The best. I had to make sure there were no visible pens nearby as I was reading, or else I would have underlined and starred all over. Definitely need to find my own copy. Oh yeah I was saying that because the way I’ve done these posts so far has been to go back through all my marks and reflect on the book and write as I go along.

I purchased a copy of Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style as a result of both King and Truss (the author of that punctuation book I read – lol look at this blog post and all its grammatical glory?) harping on about it. I got the illustrated version, but I would’ve been excited about the plain one.

Can we talk about how there are always too many books to read? I feel like the whole world of worlds between book covers is constantly taunting me – reminding me that I will never encounter all of them. I used to feel the delight at all of that possibility whenever I walked into the library at school. I told myself that one day, I would read them all. Oh, little Emily. Oh, dear.

Now there’s just anxiety wrapped around the reading list. But I constantly buy more books that I know are important. Why do I even try to set a course for myself? The very first book I read this summer was The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley. It was a WONDERFUL mystery, and I knew that it would probably be followed-up, but I hadn’t yet investigated even though I definitely wanted to read more (q.e.d. too many books already). Yesterday, Nick and I went to Indy Reads Books, this great independent used and new bookstore (why oh why do I do this to myself?) where I FOUND the second in the series (WHICH I JUST TOOK A GOOGLE BREAK TO INVESTIGATE AND ATTENTION EVERYONE THERE ARE STILL 4 MORE I HAVEN’T READ AND STILL 4 MORE TO COME IN THE PROMISED 10 BOOKS IN THE SERIES OH. MY. STARS.) I bought the second book, and I intend to read it directly after I finish my current fiction selection. Then I intend to buy all of the rest and do nothing except read them – goodbye sleep and friends and food.

This post is supposed to be about Stephen King’s book about writing, but I’m sure he would approve of my taking the story wherever it goes. Hey-o! Applying what I’m learning already. Things are lookin’ up.

One thing I loved about the book is its three forewords, three afterwords, and structure of the 3 main parts: “C.V.”, “On Writing”, and “On Living”. This gave it a playful feeling, and indeed he is a humorous person. It was fun reading and helpful, and I was glad that so much of it was his personal story and experience with writing. There were some blanket statements and suggestions, but I didn’t feel like he was trying to teach me or prescribe some formula for me to follow. Now, I just have to take on the task and START. Always always always the hardest part.

(Thanks, Christina!)

Marilynne Robinson has my heart

When did I stop thinking about all aspects of my life as undeserved gifts? That’s the question I’ve had to ask myself this week. Prompted by a wonderful book which I’m sure will prompt the longest post around the end of the summer when I finish it because I’ve been reading it slow on purpose. The fact that I have time to read and time to write is unbelievable. I’m trying not to fritter this time away. I’ve also had time to make some coasters with coffee beans, to finish knitting a scarf, and to bake bread & brownies. I’ve had time to consider reading and writing fiction a “productive” use of my days – to really focus on what it might take to do this consistently – to maybe gain some momentum to carry me through the days when I’m full-time-student and part-time-worker. Can I carve out the time and space and give up my procrastinating, micro and macro?

The book I’ve finished most recently is Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson. She is one of my favorite authors, and I feel I can actually say that because I’ve read a few of her books, and for the most part I haven’t read enough, and I usually feel like a huge fraud when people ask who my favorite authors are and I’m like…(idk I’ve had syllabi my whole life and seemingly only time to read what other people told me to read for the last 7 years)?

Anyway, Housekeeping was Robinson’s first novel and so quietly spectacular. It’s like prose-poetry narrative. The descriptive details focus on the feelings rather than the physical elements – I didn’t know that one of the characters was a redhead until halfway through, but who cares? I don’t want to tell you why it’s called Housekeeping because I really enjoy sussing out the reasons for titles of things and want you to enjoy it too.

I think it’s worth talking about all the new words I learned while reading this book (sort of an embarrassing amount…including words that I thought I knew but didn’t really know even though I’ve read them and used context to get around that ignorance in the past):

• insouciant – a relaxed and calm state; not worrying about anything
• prescience – the ability to know what will or might happen in the future (so, not pre-science?)
• moil – to make wet or dirty (in this context)
• quotidian – ordinary or very common; done each day
• tumulus – an artificial hillock or mound (as over a grave)
• invidious – unpleasant and likely to cause bad feelings in other people
• exculpatory – to exculpate (to prove that someone is not guilty of doing wrong)
• parturition – the action or process of giving birth to offspring (as opposed to?)
• nimbus – a circle of light
• fatuous – foolish or stupid (I was close on this one…)
• carapace – a hard shell on the back of some animals
• miscible – capable of being mixed (without separation) (just say mixable?)
• incipient – beginning to develop or exist (so…nothing like insipid)
• noisome – very unpleasant or disgusting
• parsimonious – very unwilling to spend money (unrelated to persimmons)

 

Definition creds: Mirriam-Webster. Yes, I did pass the SAT and ACT and my English BA. Sad, no?

The book is about two sisters growing up with their mother then grandmother then great-aunts then one aunt, the dysfunction of their upbringing and the sadness of being in a family. It’s all women, which didn’t strike me until right now. Husbands and fathers are dead or abandoned, and the children were all girls. The plot isn’t really the point. So if you’re looking for tons of action, I’d maybe not go with this one. But if you’re looking to read a moving composition of words, this is that. I find myself sitting in a feeling similar to the post-Tinkers almost-sadness. I found myself more invested in Housekeeping, advocating more for the characters and affected by the force of the writing.

So much of the plot movement happens in the first third of the book…and the writing builds in potency toward the end, to the point where I had to put it down with about 25 pages left because it felt like I had been eating something savory for so long that I was too full and needed to let my stomach rest before eating again. Or…it’s more like when something has so much flavor that while you’re chewing it you start drooling too much – dried tart cherries are like this for me. When some feeling begins to get overwhelming and you have to stop because experiencing it all at once would be too much.

My connection to the story firmed up when I read, “’I suppose I don’t know what I think.’ This confession embarrassed me. It was a source of both comfort and terror to me then that I often seemed invisible – incompletely and minimally existent, in fact. It seemed to me that I made no impact on the world, and that in exchange I was privileged to watch it unawares. But my allusion to this feeling of ghostliness sounded peculiar, and sweat started all over my body, convicting me on the spot of gross corporeality.” (105-106)

“It was difficult work, but I have often noticed that it is almost intolerable to be looked at, to be watched, when one is idle. When one is idle and alone, the embarrassments of loneliness are almost endlessly compounded.” (158)
(This is what I imagine it feels like to some people to beg.)

“I hated waiting. If I had one particular complaint, it was that my life seemed composed entirely of expectation. I expected – an arrival, an explanation, an apology. There had never been one, a fact I could have accepted, were it not true that, just when I had got used to the limits and dimensions of one moment, I was expelled into the next and made to wonder again if any shapes hid in its shadows. That most moments were substantially the same did not detract at all from the possibility that the next moment might be utterly different. And so the ordinary demanded unblinking attention. Any tedious hour might be the last of its kind.” (166)

That’s a lot of quoting, and there was so much more I wanted to repeat here, but that would have been a lot. Those are some of the moments that punched me in the gut and made me sigh out of truth. I couldn’t have described the feelings as well, but that’s part of what I love about reading. Ugh. And hate.

eats, shoots & leaves // eats shoots & leaves

My third summer book is called Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. It’s written by Lynne Truss. I purchased the book at a farmers’ market near my house. Side note: how awesome is it that there’s a book tent at the farmers’ market? (It’s given me new joy in going to the farmers’ market.)

This book was SO entertaining. I laughed out loud many times, prompting Nick to take a picture of me during one of the more uncontrollable and teary sessions (which occurred in a very quiet library).

Oh, right, the reason I was telling you that I found it at a farmers’ market is this: it came with a sticky note on the front that said, “A great book for grammar Nazis lovers.” So that’s mainly why I bought it. As we were walking home I read the back and laughed out loud, as I hope you will when you read it in the picture I’ll include at the end.

The main result of reading this book is that I am now terribly self-conscious about all of the mistakes (or minor amateur-style giveaways) I’m making as I write this. The author goes through the main marks of punctuation that we use every day and gripes about their misuse (very cathartic – where most of the laughter was induced); gives brief instructions on the correct usage of each mark; and talks about the historical background and evolution of each one. It’s wonderful. I did consider myself a “grammar…lover” or at least a stickler, but I am ashamed (and delighted?) to say that I also learned some things about my grammar methods that will hopefully help me to improve.

The biggest thing she affirmed is that you must know how to use punctuation correctly in order to deviate from it strategically. I like to think that this is what I’m doing most of the time when I throw parentheses or dashes in the mix haphazardly for effect. But you have no way of knowing that, and I probably seem amateur (and definitely am) most of the time.

I’m currently kicking myself for not marking up the book’s pages with my pen, but I just didn’t want to bother stopping at the time for the sake of my future self. I also anticipate referring to it again from time to time for the laughs as much as for the advice and rules. There was one thing I put a star next to toward the end:
“Even in the knowledge that our punctuation has arrived at its present state by a series of accidents; even in the knowledge that there are at least seventeen rules for the comma, some of which are beyond explanation by top grammarians – it is a matter for despair to see punctuation chucked out as worthless by people who don’t know the difference between who’s and whose, and whose bloody automatic ‘grammar checker’ can’t tell the difference either. And despair was the initial impetus for this book. I saw a sign for “Book’s” with an apostrophe in it, and something deep inside me snapped; snapped with that melancholy sound you hear in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, like a far-off cable breaking in a mine-shaft.”

And I shake my fist in the air and say, “HUZZAH!” And I sigh in relief that there are people out there doing the good work of spreading the word and reminding losers like me to stop every now and again and go back and remember what I was taught. I need to teach myself these lessons again, especially if I’m going to purport to be some kind of a writer or nerd or grammar person. First good sign: I loved this book.