Exiles and sojourners

After I Peter 2:9-12

We are called out 

from the mire that

is the world, called

to know we are

sojourners in this land

of exile. This is our land,

the land we came from,

and this is not our land;

this land is not our home.

Yet we are called to love

here as priests and witnesses,

our conduct in exile above

reproach, sojourners whose

very existence encourages,

illustrates, threatens,

glorifies, challenges, angers,

beautifies, attracts, exemplifies.

Ours is a life of contradictions.

So be it.

 

Photograph by Joakim Nadell via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

Noah: Saint and Sinner – Mark Daniels.

 

The New Year’s Prayer Challenge – Robb Brunansky at The Cripplegate.

 

“The Bird in the Tree,” poem by Ruth Pitter – Malcolm Guite.

 

Before – poem by Aubrey Brady at Rabbit Room Poetry.

Three Reviews for "Brookhaven"

An author is always thrilled to receive a review – and doubly thrilled when it’s a positive one. My new historical novel / romance Brookhaven has (so far) three five-star reviews on Amazon; here they are. 

Immensely satisfying

 

A quick admission, I usually have to be drug kicking and screaming to read new novels. So, when this book was placed into my hands, I’m now glad my tantrum was brief and that I settled into both read and enjoy Brookhaven. The novel is lovely, sad, joyful, redemptive, and all around a thoroughly satisfying example of entertaining storytelling. Without giving away the plot, the author artfully weaves in the awful complexity of the Civil War, along with its immediate aftermath, into the lives of the generations that came after, and all with a most satisfying conclusion.

 

 "Brookhaven" kept me up late wondering what would happen next!

 

“Brookhaven” is a retrospective novel set amidst the grim realities of the American Civil (and often not-so-civil) War and its aftermath. While Young’s descriptions of the war feel so authentic and in the moment, it is his love story—one of romantic love and, even more, love of a place and its people—that drew me in. Young’s writing is clear and concise, and he weaves together a complicated tale that is engaging, endearing, and enlightening. I don't have a lot of time to read, but the book managed to keep me up late at night wondering what would happen next. I expect it will do the same for many other readers.

 

I couldn’t put it down.

 

I’m by no means an avid reader and I rarely read a book in a couple of days, but I couldn’t put this book down. It is very well written and the time period of the Civil War was obviously researched very well. The book will keep the reader engaged from beginning to end.

 

Some Thursday Readings

 

For the New Year – poem by Annie Lighthart at Every Day Poems.

 

“Ring Our Wild Bells,” poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

The White-Tailed Deer – poem by David Yezzi at Literary Matters.

Some New Year Readings

Angels of the Uprising: The Courageous Children of Warsaw – The Historian’s Magazine. 

On the Threshold of Bag End – E.R. Scrivener at Story Warren.

 

“A Conceited Mediocrity”: The Story of Tchaikovsky and Brahms – Richard Nilson at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

“The Darkling Thrust,” poem by Thomas Hardy – Malcolm Guite.

 

Up-Hill – poem by Christina Rossetti at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

“Auld Lang Syne,” poem by Robert Burns – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

My New New Year – poem by Susan Jarvis Bryant at Society of Classical Poets.

 

The dock – poem by Christopher Hewitt at The New Criterion.

 

Auld Lang Syne – The Choral Singers of University College Dublin

 Photograph: Thomas Hardy as a young man, about 1866.