Saturday Good Reads

From mermaids and “The Book of Eli” to the dangers of outlet shopping, climbing up a slide at a playground and a newborn photo shoot, this week the web had a lot of good things to read and see.

Today is also the ninth anniversary of 9-11, and there are two links below about what happened that day and how it changed us forever.

Poetry

“Broken” by Pete Marshall for One Stop Poetry.

“September Poem” by Bob Spencer at Wilderness Fandango.

“Forfeits” by Melissa at All theWords.

“Too Close” by Lesley Moon at Moondustwriter.

“Grace” by Susan Etole at Just…a Moment.

“Aquarium,” a villanelle by Hadassah Fey at Umbra Vita.

“Cold Mornings” and “The World Keeps Spinning” by Brian Miller at WayStationOne.

“In summer’s last light” by Louise Gallagher at Recover Your Joy.

“You Don’t Know” by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

“Moon and Mermaid” by Bradley Moore at An the Other Thing Is.

“Messed Up” by Michael Perkins at Untitled.

“Retirement Planning” by Lorenzo at Crowned with Laurels.

“Dry Bones and Blood” by Karen Eck at Karenee Art.

“Skiathos” by Steven Marty Grant at Urbanality.

Prose

“A Letter to the North American Church” by Chaplain Mike at Internet Monk.

“(How I Came to) Disregard the Man Behind the Curtain” by Greg Sullivan at Sippican Cottage.

“3 Keys to a Great Retreat Right Now” and "Under the Sun" by Cassandra Frear at Moonboat Café.

“Duty Calls” by Duane Scott at Scribing the Journey.

“The Hard Place” by Michelle DeRusha at Graceful.

“The Book of Eli” by Anne Lang Bundy at Building His Body.

“Climbing Up the Slide” by Michael Perkins at Untitled.

“Good writing is not subjective” by Mike Duran at deCompose.

“Calling Home” and “When the Monsters Reached Out” by Billy Coffey.

“Barriers to Suicide” by Mike Ellis at Kevin Martineau’s Shooting the Breeze.

“PSA: The Hidden Dangers of Outlet Shopping” and “Nine years and counting” by Kathy Richards.

“Thirst” By Douglas R. Young.

“Dreams Are a Gift from God” by Harriet Gillham at The Other Side of the Mountain.

Paintings and Photographs

“3 from Here and There” and “Timothy Bo B. – Newborn Session” by Kelly Sauer at A Restless Heart.

“Nuts” and "The Little Things"by Susan Etole at Just…A Moment.

“The Water Jug” by Kingfisher at Kingfisher Crossing.

“Healing Sky” by Michelle DeRusha at Graceful.

“Coindre Hall” by Steve Gravano at Take a Look Around.

Photograph: Lamp, by Nancy Rosback at Poems and Prayers.

Marilynne Robinson's "Gilead"

In the Bible, Gilead is the region between the Jordan River and the Arabian plateau, with Bashan on the north and Moab and Ammon on the south. Today it would be part of the country of Jordan. It is sometimes referred to as a mountain, a hilly area, or simply “the land of Gilead.” The literal translation is “rocky region.” It is the area where Laban found Jacob after Jacob had fled with Rachel, Leah and their children.

For Marilynne Robinson, Gilead is a kind of rocky region as well, but less a physical geography and more a rocky region of souls and relationships, and especially the relationships between fathers and sons.

The novel, first published in 2004 (and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction), is a story literally “told” in first person narrative by John Ames, 77, a Congregationalist minister, who in his old age married a much younger wife and fathered a son. Ames is now dying, and he is writing about his family so that his son will have a history and memories of his recent ancestors.

The story that Ames writes becomes a way for the minister himself to make sense of his family history, and to understand the tensions and stresses that dominated the relationships between his own grandfather, an abolitionist in Kansas who wore guns while preaching and likely used them when he wasn’t, and his father, who chose to sit out the Civil War as a Quaker. Their relationship in turn frames the relationship Ames had with his father. But the chain will be broken with Ames and his own son, because of the differences in their ages (70 years) and Ames’ impending death.

What serves as a surrogate father-son relationship, though, is what Ames has with his namesake, John Broughton Ames, the son of his closest friend and the family’s black sheep. When John Broughton Ames returns, Robinson uses the tension to at first suggest a possible relationship between him and Ames’ loved and loving wife. Instead, the story will move in a different, and surprising, direction altogether.

Many themes and historical events are played through the stunningly beautiful prose – violence and its rejection, the abolition movement and the Civil War, what it means to be a conscientious objector, the calls to the ministry, and the very beginning of the civil rights era. But it is the sense of love and uneasiness between fathers and sons that strikes the main chords in Gilead, and Robinson plays the chords with precision and artistry.

Related:

My post “Marilynne Robinson’s Rocky Places" for Christian Manifesto.

Marilynne Robinson’s interview with the Paris Review.

Pleasantly Disturbed: A fond look back at Labor Day weekend

Time for another weekly edition of Pleasantly Disturbed Thursdays, originated by our recently engaged friend Duane Scott. He’s wandered off somewhere, meeting his fiancée’s parents, so we’ll just have to soldier on without him.

Last Saturday, to kick off Labor Day weekend, my wife and I joined 800,000 other St. Louisans at Forest Park. There wasn’t anything going on in the park; it was just an incredibly beautiful day and St. Louis decided that was a perfect excuse to go to Forest Park. After fighting ridiculous amounts of traffic, we did manage to find a parking place and walked around a bit. We even sat on a bench by the Muny Opera (photo of entrance at left), our outdoor summer theater which is a tradition in a city that thrives on tradition. The tradition is to sit outside on hot summer nights and sweat while you watch musical plays. Yes, I’ve done that. What’s more, I even sat on stage during a live performance of Godspell – a small on-stage audience was one of the props. There were about 20 of us, and we were told to act like an audience. We did. It was fun. I had two hours of no-name fame. And yes, I sweated.

Anyway, after walking around the park, we drove over to the Central West End. My wife found chocolate on sale at Bissinger’s at Maryland Plaza, which not only is a chocolate shop but also a chocolate lounge. She likes their block dark chocolate, and it was on sale for half price. I found something less fattening but more expensive around the corner – Big Sleep Books, a bookstore devoted exclusively to mysteries. I decided an early birthday present was in order. Or actually my wife looked at what I was buying and decided it (a stack of books) was an early birthday present.

One of the books I bought was Pirates of the Levant, the newest translated mystery by Spain’s Arturo Perez-Reverte. These stories are set in 17th century Spain, and detail the exploits of Captain Diego Alcatriste and his young companion and chronicler Inigo Balboa. This is the sixth in the series and I love these books. They’re full of sword fights and shootings with harquebuses and history and intrigue and betrayal and plenty of buckles to swash.

On Sunday after church, we went apple-picking, also with the rest of St. Louis (notice a trend here – St. Louis does things in large groups, like we’re all one big flash mob). We drove to Eckert's Orchards in Belleville, Illinois, and rode the wagons to the orchards. We hauled in about 50 pounds of Jonathan and Golden Delicious apples.

Monday evening, in a fitting conclusion to the weekend, we went to my son’s house for dinner. And I got a Cameron fix. I’m so glad you asked about my grandson.

James Rubart's "Rooms"

You’re a successful software entrepreneur in Seattle. You live in the penthouse of a condominium. You have a romantic relationship with your firm’s co-founder. You drive a fast sports car. You’ve got everything. And then you learn that a long-dead great uncle has left you a house on the Oregon coast. In fact, it’s a brand-new house, and it’s huge, with every conceivable luxury and fabulous ocean views.

Imperceptibly at first, your life begins to change. And it’s not a change from one lifestyle to another, but from one reality to another. And it’s because of those rooms that keep appearing, and what you find in them, rooms that are doorways into your life.

That’s what happens to Micah Taylor in James Rubart’s novel Rooms. It’s a novel of suspense, a love story, and a morality tale, with slightly more than a dash of the supernatural with a little science fiction on the side (whatever else you want to call it, living in parallel universes is science fiction).

Most of all, Rooms is a portrayal of sanctification. As Taylor discovers what’s behind each new door as it appears, he learns more and more about himself and his life, and all the things in his life he has to come to terms with. And he learns more about God. Ultimately, he will have to choose which life he really wants.

Rubart keeps the reader guessing right to the riveting end. The story is fast-paced, well structured, with believable and even familiar characters. His descriptions and scenes in Taylor’s software company ring true for business.

Rooms has been compared to William Young’s The Shack, although its genealogy may owe far less to The Shack than it does to the novels of Frank Peretti. Regardless of its genes, it is an original. James Rubart has written a terrific story.

Related:

For Christian Manifesto, I’ve written a post about novels and the theology they represent, using Rooms and The Shack as examples. Take a look at “’Rooms’ in ‘The Shack’” and let me know what you think.

Anything Less

His problem, and occasional

downfall, is that he loves his

work too much; doesn’t make

it his god, exactly, though there

are times, but that he truly

loves the work, the challenge,

the problem, the puzzling

through, the making it happen

and the starting again. He knows

they take advantage of that

because they always do and

he knows neither he nor they 

know how to do anything less.


To read other poems submitted for One Shot Wednesday, please visit One Stop Poetry.

Photograph: Turning Dandy by Nancy Rosback. Used with permission.

Is What?

Sometimes full,
Sometimes less;
faint; faint
glimmer;
false; things
desired, things
feared; dashed,
fierce, fading;
springs eternal;
paired with dream;
shared; sustaining,
enduring, realized;
enemy of despair.

In the vernacular:
A diamond;
a ship;
a cape of good.

A child with no family;
a man with no job; a
woman, waiting for a
child to be born.

A quality.
A characteristic.
An action.
A countenance.
An affirmation.
An offering.
A gift.
A song. A belief.
A heart full of.

A brook.
A stream.
A waterfall.
A river.
A cascade.
A torrent.
An ocean.

A confidence.
A refuge.
A resting place.
An expectation.
A waiting.
A trust.
A leaning on.
Faith.

The One.

To see other posts on hope, please visit the One-Word Blog Carnival over at Bridget Chumbley’s place.

Photograph: Dazeye by Nancy Rosback. Used with permission.

The one time something I did went viral

Over at the High Calling Blogs, Laura Boggess is starting a new book discussion on Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. The book was first published in 2007, and if today you head the word “stickiness” about the power of ideas, you can attribute that comment to the Heath brothers.

The authors outline six characteristics for ideas that stick:
• Simple
• Unexpected
• Concrete
• Credible
• Emotional and
• Stories.

(Note what’s spelled when you combine the first letter of each word.)

The book is divided into six longish chapters on each characteristic, followed by an epilogue. The first chapter is about simple – the simplicity of powerful ideas – or the idea that ideas need to be simple to become powerful.

I once did a project that went viral inside the company I was working for at the time. And it has all six characteristics of “stickiness.”

In 1993, a colleague went to a communications conference and came backnotes from one of the sessions she’d attended – a person for ATT had talked about their company’s email employee newsletter.

Yes, I know what that sounds like in 2010; antique and quaint. But 17 years ago, it was so revolutionary that it was almost frightening. The only other company that had one was an insurance company in British Columbia. And I thought, what a great idea! My team was responsible for employee communications, among other things. So we set out to figure out how to do it.

IT said no; it would crash the system. And I said a simply text-only newsletter will crash the system? And they nodded their heads. Vigorously. I spent several weeks patiently arguing, and then had a blinding flash of the obvious: the only way to stop the newsletter would be to shut down the email system. So I said we would do a test – 100 people worldwide, crossing different computers, systems, firewalls, everything (In the days before Microsoft Office, things were borderline riots when it came to consistency and compatibility.

We launch the newsletter to the 100 people in August, and told them they were free to forward it to colleagues. Within a month, the newsletter had saturated the email system. Everyone wanted to be in the distribution. We never advertised its existence. In four weeks, our little text newsletter had moved from 100 people to tens of thousands.

The CEO would later tell a senior management meeting that our newsletter was one of the two most innovative things done by the company in 1993. And he specifically cited two things: its reach across the company in a way nothing else had ever done before, and its voice.

The voice was what was simple. We assumed that employees were adults and could handle bad news and disagreement. Our letters policy was simple: no personal attacks, no profanity. Other than that, everything was a go. We had employees debating each other on company products and policies – and it was extraordinary to see employees teaching each other. We had people talk about products in one part of the world that people in other parts of the world had no idea even existed within the company. PR helped create markets and sell products.

We also didn’t get clearances for anything we did from Law or HR. That’s what the CEO meant by “voice” – it was the voice of employees that wasn’t being stifled. And the impact showed up in surveys we did – the email newsletter had the highest credibility rating of any communication medium in the company – and that included immediate supervisors and top management.

It was a simple idea, with a simple philosophy. And it worked beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. Including mine.

Related:

Today's discussion at The High Calling Blogs.

Six Steps to Going Viral by L.L. Barkat at Green Inventions Central.

At the Core of Action by Monica Sharman at My Big Three.