The Fourth Day of Christmas: Maureen Doallas

I think of Maureen Doallas as the Renaissance lady.

I met Maureen like many are met on the web – via blogs, comments and web sites. She operates a business called Transformational Threads, which licenses images of original fine art for rendering into embroidery “paintings,” also known as thread or needle paintings. She officially retired in 2007 from a job as writer and editor, but you wouldn’t know it from the sheer energy she exhibits when it comes to the arts and poetry.

She’s into all things art. She loves art, and you can see and experience her passion by reading her posts at her blog, Writing Without Paper. She’s introduced me and a lot of others to artists all over the United States. She keeps tracks of what’s going on with exhibitions, gallery openings, theatre, dance performances, concerts and movies, mostly in but not limited to the Washington, D.C., area, and she shares them on her blog in what she calls “All-Art Fridays.”

How she finds all the art-related videos on YouTube is beyond me, but when she posts one, it’s always worth watching.

And then there’s her poetry. Maureen has been writing poetry for a long time, has published some, and regularly posts her poems on her blog. She’s also a faithful contributor to our poetry jams on Twitter, which we publish at TweetSpeak Poetry. She writes beautiful words and lines – raising the bar for the rest of us. Take a look at the one she wrote for the One-Word-At-A-Time Blog Carnival on grief, or her three-part Christmas poem. Moving, simple, elegant.

She also does occasional interviews of people. And speaking from experience, she’s the most intelligent interviewer I’ve ever run across (and I’ve been interviewed by 2,000+ people in the course of my career). Likely reflecting her background as a researcher and writer, she spends an enormous amount of time researching her interview subjects, and then developing insightful, meaningful questions. I was blown away.

Maureen’s happily married (except, apparently, when it comes to fighting for space on bookshelves) and the mother of a son. She has four sisters and two brothers, and family is important to her – that comes through in all of her writings.

So read Maureen’s blog. Follow her on Twitter. She may have officially retired, but as she says on her blog site, “I’m not done yet, as you can see.” And you’ll be glad for it, too.

(Over at the High Calling Blogs, we’re celebrating the 12 days of Christmas by highlighting a blog or web site of someone besides ourselves during this season of Advent and Christmas.) (Which is what we should also be doing the other 353 days of the year.)

The Third Day of Christmas: Two from Bellingham

The internet is all about connections. You read someone’s blog post, you decide to make a comment, you read someone else’s comment on that post, you click on their blog link – and voila, a connection is made.

That’s how I met Jim Schmotzer. I don’t remember exactly whose blog we were both commenting on, but that’s how we met.

He lives in Bellingham, Washington. He’s a husband, a father and a grandfather.

Jim’s blog is The Faithful Skeptic, and he posts poems and short, short, really short stories on it. That’s not entirely correct. He posts really good poems and short, short stories on it. One poem he posted in September is entitled “Thirty Five” – and it’s about a wedding anniversary. It especially caught my eye because a month earlier, I had celebrated my 36th. You can follow Jim on Twitter, too.

In November, Jim wrote what was only slight longer than a short, short story, called “The Tipping Point.” Two people commented – me and a guy named Fred Sprinkle (or that’s his online name). Fred’s also from Bellingham. I clicked on the link – and found a young poet and writer.

He says he grew up living on a sailboat, but that he can’t sail very well. Fred’s blog is I Force It to Rhyme, and he primarily posts poetry and short random memories. I really like his poetry; one example is “Produce of the Spirit” (“Give us cabbage/ in the kingdom/ of God”). And a random memory can be found in Random Memory 1. Fred can be found on Twitter as well.


(Over at the High Calling Blogs, we’re celebrating the 12 days of Christmas by highlighting a blog or web site of someone besides ourselves during this season of Advent and Christmas.) (Which is what we should also be doing the other 353 days of the year.)

The Second Day of Christmas: Laura Boggess

Over at the High Calling Blogs, Mondays have been devoted to a discussion of Gerald May’s book, The Wisdom of Wilderness. We’ve all learned that May is nothing if not provocative. But he’s telling his story, he writes well, and there’s a lot to learn from his book. So I’ve been content to read and offer an occasional comment if I think he goes off the deep end. Like in chapter 9, ‘Rainstorms,” when he does a wild dance in the wilderness around a campfire in the middle of a thunderstorm.

I laughed. I remembered something a friend in college once said – that we are ordained by our creator to have the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – and to make monumental fools out of ourselves.

Instead of a rant about Gerald May, I wanted to talk about our discussion leader, Laura Boggess, who has intrepidly guided us through the discussion with good humor and grace.

Laura lives in West Virginia, and was born and raised there. She has a master’s in Clinical Psychology from Marshall University, and that’s where she met her husband. They have two sons and a Boston terrier named Lucy and are active with the Boston Terrier Rescue League. (I identify here: my very first dog was a Boston terrier named Mr. Ike, which tells you who was President when I was three years old.)

She works in a physical rehabilitation unit at a hospital, where she counsels individuals and families going through traumatic medical experiences. Experiences like spinal cord injury, brain injury, stroke, amputation. (Consider the grace and the strength needed for that job.)

Laura teaches Sunday School and works with middle school kids at church midweek meetings. Her husband is the praise band leader, and she says music has always been a big part of their lives. And she’s a runner (as in exercise).

And she is a published author of a novel for young adults called Brody’s Story, the first in a series (and the second is set for 2010).

You can find Laura at her blog, The Wellspring. She writes about the stuff that matters, like family, and children, and God, and you'll find your heart warmed and your soul encouraged. This weekend, snow arrived, and she was inspired enough to write this simple, beautiful poem. And you can follow her on Twitter, too.


(Over at the High Calling Blogs, we’re celebrating the 12 days of Christmas by highlighting a blog or web site of someone besides ourselves during this season of Advent and Christmas.) (Which is what we should also be doing the other 353 days of the year.)

Shadows of Dawn, Like Smoke

Leaning against a wall
Washed of earth-like gold, a
Wall fading into the
Shadows of dawn, like smoke;
Shadows bending beneath
The first faint beams of the sun,
Beginning, then blinding.
Canvas rucksack beside him,
One strap frayed,
He leans against the wall,
Pulling his coat closer
Against the cold.

Half in hope, the other in fear,
His heart watches as
She fills her own bag,
Her life with him.
She opens a quiet door.
Peers down a hallway washed in darkness,
Glances at a closed door,
Descends silently each step,
Turns a knob,
Steps out into the night
Almost gone, the
Day preparing to begin the new.

He waits, listening for
Her step, the crunch of gravel under
Her foot; the flash of
Her eyes; the sweet song from
Her lips.
He waits,
Leaning against a wall
Washed of earth-like gold,
Rucksack beside him.
He waits as the new-day sun
Rises,
Imagining the wind.

The First Day of Christmas: Athol Dickson

Athol Dickson’s Lost Mission is one of the best books I’ve read this year. And there’s a story behind its publication, as in, the publisher screwed up and forgot to do the things publishers are supposed to do. Okay, it happens. But it’s worse than a shame it happened to as fine a novel as Lost Mission.

I reviewed the book in October; you can read the review here. I had no idea what had happened to the book until I read Dickson’s blog post on the Advent season, “Peace During Advent.” There’s more information about the book and the author at Dickson’s web site.

If you’re not familiar with Athol Dickson, you should be. He’s writing really fine fiction. My first experience with his writing was The Cure, about what happens to a town in Maine when people here there’s a cure for alcoholism there. Then I read Winter Haven, about a young woman who travels to an island off the coast of Maine to identify the body of her long-missing brother, a body, almost perfectly preserved for years, that washes up on the shore. And there’s River Rising, a novel about the 1927 Mississippi River flood that’s of special interest to me, who grew up about a mile from that river in New Orleans and who currently lives about 13 miles due west of it in St. Louis.

For me, discovering Athol Dickson was like opening up a whole new world of fiction – Christian fiction unlike any I had ever read. And Dickson led me to other writers (and you should let him lead you to them as well).

Read Athol Dickson. Read him. He’s better than good.

(Over at the High Calling Blogs, we’re celebrating the 12 days of Christmas by highlighting a blog or web site of someone besides ourselves during this season of Advent and Christmas.) (Which is what we should be doing the other 353 days of the year as well.)

The 27 Books I'm Not Recommending for Christmas

I love reading lists of books that people suggest for Christmas. I don’t know exactly why. Perhaps it’s what the lists tell me about the list makers, or to see if I’ve read any of them, or just to see what people have been reading and enjoying.

I also read the “list of fall books” published by the newspaper, usually at the end of August. Maybe I have a thing for book lists. But only book lists. List readers tend to gravitate toward “The 5 Ways Twitter Will Make You Rich” or “The 7 Things You Can Do to Make Your Boss Love You” or similar ones. Just watch this on Twitter for a while – you’ll be surprised.

But I look at book lists. I don’t usually compose them. Until now: my list of the “Best Books I’ve Read in 2009.”

I’m not recommending these books to give as Christmas presents. Reading is too personal a thing for me, and I start to get antsy when people give me books as presents. I’m polite, of course, but still antsy. This isn’t the same as telling my wife what books I would really like to read, leaving subtle hints like email messages and handwritten notes where she’s most likely to see them.

So here’s my list of the “Best Books I’ve Read in 2009.” Not all of them were published this year. If you wanted to give some of them as gifts, well, I’m not stopping you, of course. But all I’m saying is that these were the best books I read in 2009. For me. That’s all.

Business:
· The Credible Company by Roger D’Aprix.
· The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton.

Memoir:
· Stone Crossings by L.L. Barkat
· Churched by Matthew Paul Turner
· Quiet Strength by Tony Dungy
· Uncommon by Tony Dungy
· The Eyes of the Heart by Frederick Buechner

Suspense/Mystery:
· Scream by Mike Dellosso
· Faces in the Fire by T.L. Hines
· Through the Fire by Shawn Grady
· Fatal Illusions by Adam Blumer
· Ghostwriter by Travis Thrasher
· Offworld by Robin Parrish

Fiction:
· Providence by Chris Coppernoll
· Dogwood by Chris Fabry
· Chasing Francis by Ian Cron
· Talking to the Dead by Bonnie Grove
· Lost Mission by Athol Dickson
· Return Policy by Michael Snyder
· The Shape of Mercy by Susan Meissner
· Summer of Light by Dale Cramer
· Wayback by Sam Batterman

Poetry:
· A Village Life by Louise Gluck
· Breakfast with Blake at the Lacoon by John Estes
· The Feast by Walter Bargen
· Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins
· Beyond the Masks by Harvey Stanbrough

The Grief of Bethlehem

I can’t imagine the grief. I simply can’t.

I’ve been reading and studying about David, one of the most complex and human characters in the Bible. His story is told in 1 and 2 Samuel, as well as in the Psalms he wrote. David came from Bethlehem, and Bethlehem is (and was) known as the city of David.

David is one of three kings most directly associated with Bethlehem, the other two being Herod (“the great”) and the King whose kingdom was not of this world. David and Jesus were born there; Herod committed a crime there that was (and is) almost beyond comprehension.

The account of what is known as the slaughter of the innocents is found only in the Gospel of Matthew. In chapter two, Joseph is warned by an angel in a dream to escape to Egypt, because Herod was going to be searching for the child to kill him. Joseph listens, he takes Mary and Jesus to Egypt, and the family spends an extended period there, likely some years. (Novelist Anne Rice, who had best-sellers on vampires long before anyone had heard of "Twilight" and "New Moon," wrote a wonderful story imagining this time, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt.)

After the family leaves, according to Matthew, Herod – always insecurely paranoid when it came to his throne – orders the murder of every male child under the age of 2 in Bethlehem, to make sure the so-called king he had heard about was destroyed. There was room for only one king in Judea.

It was a brutal time, but this act stands out even for that era.

A number of scholars today discount the story. Only Matthew records it; Josephus doesn’t mention it in his histories; and so on and so on. (I have to remind myself that the Gospel of Matthew will still be read long after these scholars are forgotten.) But it is an act perfectly in keeping with what Herod was like and known for. If he didn’t hesitate to kill his own children, why should he worry about the children of people he didn’t know and for whom he cared nothing?

The movie The Nativity (2006) has a glimpse of the slaughter, but it’s only a glimpse. It’s hard to fathom the scene in Bethlehem. Very young children and babies struck down by soldiers, most likely with swords, along with anyone else who tried to protect them – fathers, mothers, siblings, relatives. The stories that died with those children; all the hopes and dreams replaced by unhealing wounds; the chaos as the attack occurred. How did the soldiers do it? Order all families out into the streets? Strip the children to identify gender? How many “mistakes” were made?

The mind reels and goes numb. And then the aftermath – the wails, the crying, the shock, the horror at what had happened. How do you survive seeing the murder of your child? And the question few if any in Bethlehem would have known how to answer – why was this happening? How did this happen in the city of David? How could it?

The contrast between what had just been and what came to be is enormous – the miraculous birth of the promised Messiah, and the slaughter of innocent children. Two poles of human experience. Two extremes of reality that happened in the same place, very close to the same time. The most extraordinary good, and the most extraordinary evil.

Because of the escape of his family, Jesus may well have been the only survivor of the attack – the one who was the intended victim.

And yet, in a way he wasn’t. Some three decades later, another innocent fell victim to a barbaric regime – the only survivor of that massacre at Bethlehem. And like those innocent children, the innocent man died in front of his mother.

I don’t know how to comprehend such grief. I’ve experienced the deaths of loved ones – a niece at age 2, my grandmothers in their 90s, my father at age 70, aunts and uncles, good friends. But I’ve never experienced what those families did in the city of David, and what the mother of Jesus watched happen in front of her – the grief of Bethlehem.

I can only be horrified by one, and grateful for the other.

(To read more about the topic of grief, visit the blog carnival at Peter Pollock's Rediscovering the Church.)