Athol Dickson's "River Rising"

I grew up in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, in a suburb of New Orleans. Jefferson extends from Lake Pontchartrain on the north to the Gulf of Mexico on the south. Below New Orleans and to the east, separated from Jefferson by the Mississippi River, is Plaquemines Parish. For a very long time, Plaquemines was governed by one man, Leander Perez, who was known for his less-than-liberal views on all things, including race.

It is the fictional town of Pilotville, set in 1927 Plaquemines Parish, that is the setting of Athol Dickson’s 2005 novel River Rising. As in all of Dickson’s, “place” plays a very important role, often becoming another major character in the story. And that is what happens in “River Rising.”

The Rev. Hale Poser guides his leaking pirogue (that’s Cajun for canoe) into Pilotville from New Orleans. He gets a job as a janitor at the infirmary for the town’s black people, and shortly thereafter performs a healing miracle for a woman in childbirth – or what is believed to be a healing miracle. Then her baby daughter is stolen, and the whole town, white and black, turns out to search. This stolen baby turns out to be only one of many others stolen over the years. Poser, compelled by something he doesn’t understand, keeps looking for her when everyone else stops. He canoes deep into the swamp, almost dying from lack of food and water in the process, and eventually finds the missing baby. And he finds a lot more: an almost unspeakable horror.

This is 1927, and something else is at play – the Mississippi River. The historical flood of that year serves an apocalyptic purpose in the story, and the river will both destroy and expose, and possibly help redeem.

This novel received a host of accolades and recognitions, including the Christy Award for best Christian novel of the year. But its appeal is much broader, for it is not so much a Christian novel as it is a very fine novel written by an author who happens to be a Christian. It is a grand story, and an honest one. And it ends up being a story of great beauty.

Related:

Athol Dickson writes on “Forgotten Beauty” at Novel Journey.

The Beauty of Athol Dickson, my post published Thursday at The Christian Manifesto.

The 24th Day of Community: Anne Lang Bundy

So who is Anne Lang Bundy? Here’s how she describes herself.

As her King’s ambassador.

As wife to John.

As mother to five children.

As teacher to five homeschooled children.

As lay minister to all.

As a writer of all things Bible.

She wouldn’t say this, but she’s also a gifted Bible teacher and thinker. A great encourager. And she’s working on a novel about King David.

You tweet or retweet one of her blog posts, and you get more than a thank you; you get a blessing.

What a great heart this woman, this lover of God, has. She makes no apology for her belief in God. She first met him, she says in 1985, and she’s never looked back. She was called to ministry to 2002, and her ministry is to build up the body of believers.

On her blog, Building His Body, she tackles topics from rejection and faithfulness to sex and gluttony. If you’re looking for straight up, solid Bible teaching on line, you’ve now found it. And you’ll find tenderness, too, like the letter she wrote to her husband John.

Anne is also a regular guest blogger at Russell Holloway’s place, Bullets and Butterflies, where she answers the “question of the week,” like how much of a good thing is too much? Or why do Christians fight each other? Or is it okay for a male and female to room together if they have no romantic intentions?

Visit Building His Body. Follow her on Twitter. And see firsthand what it means to love God – love that’s poured outwards on the people she ministers to.


(In December, a number of us participating in the “Twelve Days of Community” - see the button at the top right - sponsored by The High Calling Blogs. The purpose was to highlight the blog or web site of someone other than ourselves during the season of Advent and Christmas. I liked the idea so much that I’m going to continue to do that -- highlight a blog or web site of a person whose thoughts and writing have had an impact on me and others.)

You Were There

You were there, at the beginning, when
I was falling apart, when we met over the
remains, charred, of my life then lived.
You were there, to drag me to a
law school auditorium, yes a law school
auditorium, one Sunday for church.
You were there when I asked, and
you said yes.

You were there when we were
broke, in a new city, pregnant.
You were there to say yes to
our firstborn, a son, and our
second born, a son.
You were there to hold me when
I cried, two years after my father’s
death, because it took two years.

You were there to raise two
boys, to turn them into men, because
that’s all we had, two boys.
You were there to hold and stroke
and encourage a son’s wife through
the birth of our grandson, and you
stayed through all of it because
that’s how you’re made.

You were there to live the vow,
sickness and health, richer and
poorer, and you’ll be there until
there’s no vow left to
live, except it always will be,
at least for us, because the
vow was meant, intended, designed,
believed and lived to be eternal.

"Window," photograph by nAncy of Poems and Prayers. Used with permission.

If you’d like to read related posts on faithfulness, check out the One Word Blog Carnival over at Bridget Chumbley’s place.

Loving Monday: Relationships

I once knew a very talented professional who took on extra work at any opportunity. He was ambitious, yes, but he was also good. No task was too menial or mundane; he volunteered for everything and he generally did everything well. He was friendly and engaging, what everyone would call “a really great guy.” He was also helpful and supportive to his colleagues.

He was gradually promoted, assuming greater and greater responsibilities. At some point, he caught the attention of the top executives, and the promotions started happening faster. Then he made it into the executive ranks, one of the youngest ever to do that.

And something happened.

The change was almost immediate. He became suspicious of everyone and everything. His staff couldn’t do anything without advance approval, which slowed everything down and stifled creativity. His people actually began to fear him. People on other teams began to avoid him (and his team) whenever possible. As the criticism increased, his behavior only became more extreme.

Finally, it became so bad that even top management noticed (yes, I phrased that correctly). Interventions were attempted. They’d work for a time, and then the problem would return. While all this was going on, people were damaged. Relationships were destroyed. Work and performance suffered.

Eventually, he was asked, or told, to leave the organization. He was readily hired by other employers, and then let go after less than a year. He couldn’t stop the destructive, and self-destructive, behavior.

Years later, when I asked one of his former supervisors why the behavior was tolerated for so long, he said, “He got the work done.”

“But eventually he didn’t get the work done,” I replied. “Eventually, what he was doing meant the work didn’t get done.”

The former supervisor shrugged. “It’s the way things are here.”

And the way things were was toxic. It still boggles the mind what organizations will tolerate, especially in bad leaders. They seem to forget, or avoid recognizing, that the way work gets done is through the relationships people have with people – colleagues, suppliers, customers. Forget what the purpose of all this is, sacrifice those relationships, and you ultimately sacrifice the work – and the organization.

As John D. Beckett says in Loving Mondays: Succeeding in Business Without Selling Your Soul, “Our lives and what we do with them are important to God. A close relationship with the Lord will bring about a compelling and necessary result. We will find it possible to bring every aspect of our lives, including our work, into alignment with God’s truth and design. This in turn will transform us into people who are not only more effective as human beings and as workers but more pleasing to God.”


(Over at the High Callings Blogs, we’ve been discussing Beckett’s Loving Monday, led by Laura Boggess. This week, we’re focused on the final section of the book, chapters 22 through 24, which bring together the themes and ideas of the book. Check here for last week’s discussion.)

Join this week's discussion at the High Calling Blogs: The Ultimate Goal.

Monica Sharman's Annual Spring Almost-Burnout.

Lyla Lindquist's Loving Monday: Unqualified.

Ten Books (15, Actually)

Several of the more serious/theological bloggers at Evangel picked up a meme in the past few days. It started with economist Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution, and then spread to Evangel. The meme was “the list of the 10 books that have influenced me in my worldview and outlook on life.” (You can’t list the Bible, either.)

I thought it was kind of a cool idea, until I read their lists.

I was totally intimidated. I mean, these guys – Adam Omelianchuk, Joe Carter and others – read some weighty stuff, mostly theological and mostly of the seminary-type of theological.

I felt like a pagan.

Then I wandered through my bookshelves, and put together my list. It was a good thing. When I looked at my list, I didn’t feel like a pagan any more. Just eight tenths of a pagan.

Anyway, here’s my list. No surprise, it’s heavy on fiction.

The 10 Books That Have Most Influenced Me, and Because I Get Carried Away, It's More Like 15

The First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. I read this early in high school, then I read everything he had written that was available. And then came volume 1 of the Gulag Archipelago in 1973, and you can trace a direct line from its publication to the collapse of the Soviet Union less than 20 years later.

The Habit of Being: The Letters of Flannery O’Connor, edited by Sally Fitzgerald. When she was asked why Southern authors always seemed to write about freaks, she said it was because Southern authors were still able to recognize one. That comment alone endeared her writing to me. These letters are gems.

The War of the End of the World, by Mario Vargas Llosa. If there is any writer who deserves the Nobel Prize for literature, it’s Peruvian-born Mario Varga Llosa. But he’ll never get it, because he long ago turned his back on radical leftist politics, very uncool by Nobel Prize committee standards. (I’d also place The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes of Mexico in the same category of “unbelievably talented Spanish-speaking writers who probably won’t get the Nobel Prize because their politics is wrong.”)

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. You can’t grow up in the South without being influenced by Faulkner. You just can’t. You can’t grow up anywhere in the United States and not be influenced by him, even if you don’t know it. And he’s been dead for almost 50 years.

Dickens by Peter Ackroyd. It’s the biography to end all biographies, and it’s 1,083 pages, not including notes and index. It’s heavy enough to be a weapon. (Amazon says it is currently unavailable, even through Amazon's used bookstore network.)

Augustine of Hippo by Peter Brown. My first entry in the “I’m not a total pagan contest.” Brown recreates the life and world of St. Augustine, and I felt like I was there in the room in Hippo when he was dying, the town under seige by barbarians invading from Europe. An extraordinary work.

They Stand Together: The Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves (1914-1963), edited by Walter Hooper. Greeves was C.S. Lewis’s friend from childhood, and Lewis could say things to Greeves that he couldn’t say to anyone else.

The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. III: Tertullian. My second entry in the “I’m not a total pagan contest.” Tertullian was a lawyer (I forgive him for that) who is generally considered the father of Latin Christianity. He wrote a lot of apologetics at a time when it wasn’t exactly cool to be a Christian (roughly 200 A.D.). He also ended up with some air of disrepute for deviating from standard orthodoxy, although it’s not clear exactly what that deviation was. But his passion comes pouring though, even in translation.

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. I read this not long after I became a believer. Lewis is a great favorite of Christians, partially (at least) because he adds intellectual weight (see, we’re not all blathering yahoos). I first read it because people told me I should. But then I learned that Screwtape started out as radio addresses during World War II, and so this little volume actually straddles two media forms – broadcast and print. It was right up my communications alley.

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. Someone once said you should read Don Quixote three times in your life – when you’re young, middle-aged and old. I first read it my senior year in high school, and I read the unabridged version. I loved it. I next read it in my early 40s, during a vacation week we spent at Orange Beach in Alabama. I haven’t read it a third time, because I’m waiting to get old.

The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien. I read the pirated versions in college, and then my first year after graduation bought the authorized versions and read them as well. I reread all four right before the first movie came out in 2001. Quite simply, they are likely the greatest works of imagination of the 20th century.

So those are my 10, er, 15. What are yours?

Saturday Good Reads

Some of the good posts I found on web sites and blogs in the past week:

Poetry

“She, Stirring” by Melissa at All the Words.

"Poetry Works," four poems by Louise Gallagher at Recover Your Joy.

"Santorini, a meditation on life," by Justinian at Discount Verbiage. Also “The Night.”

Freya Manfred’s “Green Pear Tree in September,” published by U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser at his American Life in Poetry.

“What Light Reveals,” by Diane Walker at Contemplative Poetry.

"Reunions: Father, July 18, 1990," by Maureen Doallas. She was worried that this one might be too personal. It was personal, but she did what poets do – she turned the personal into the universal.

"Chronos of Love," new poem by @PhoenixKarenee.

"West Washington," by Missy K. Along with Melissa’s and Maureen’s poems noted above, this one by Missy K is one of the “Life on the Street” poems featured at The High Calling blogs on Friday. They’re all worth reading.

Prose

Jeff Jordan’s “Of Boats and Bags and the Search for Faithfulness.”

David Mikics’ guide for reading “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley. An outstanding piece of criticism (even I could understand it).

A completely new use for mouthwash. “You might not want to kiss me hello,” by Helen at Random Musings.

"Welcome, Memory," by Brian Volck at The Image Blog. A comment at a dinner unlocks a “memory garden.”

"Uncommon Courtesy," by Dan Wooldridge at Inside Work. Grace happens on an airplane.

"Navigating," by Corinne at Trains, Tutus and Tea. A mother defends her son.

Kathleen Overby’s "Spring Scrabble." She wants to play.

It All Started with "Sky Blue"

It’s been a year since I started blogging. On March 19, 2009, I opened a Blogger account and set up a blog, with my first post called A Life-Changing Novel. The novel in question was Sky Blue by Travis Thrasher. That was where it started – with a novel I really enjoyed. The post explains why.

That was one year and 297 blog posts ago. I still think Sky Blue was one of the best books I read last year.

The blog didn’t just happen. It started with me posting book reviews on Amazon, and doing research on the authors and the books for the reviews. And then came the blog, followed closely by me signing up with Facebook and Twitter. The first person who signed up to follow my blog was suspense writer Mike Dellosso. I think he was being kind, but it was a huge boost at the time.

And what happened was this:

I started writing poetry.

I started doing guest blogging.

I’m co-editing an online poetry journal and participating in poetry jams.

I found incredible writers, and new authors to read and new poets to recite.

I wandered into The High Calling Blogs, and now publish articles there, mostly about work.

I started writing articles twice a month for The Christian Manifesto, mostly about culture.

But the most important thing that happened was that I met all kinds of new friends online, and became part of both large communities and smaller ones within the larger.

And it all started with Sky Blue.