Saturday Good Reads

It was an easy week to find good things to read online. Bridget Chumbley hosted the One Word Blog Carnival on compassion, and all of the linked posts are worth reading (a few are cited below). A lot of poetry seemed to break out this week, and I only included some of what I found.

Poetry

“Deprivation” by Brenda Porter at Poetry, Fiction and Stuff.

“Holy Lost” by John Blasé at Dirty Shame.

“Desire Unfulfilled” (flash fiction) by Leslie Moon at Moondustwriter.

“Hither,” “Unanswerable” and “Before Time” by Melissa at All the Words.

“The Gift” by Rob Kistner at Image & Verse.

“Reapers” by Jean Toomer at Eye of H.

“Date Nights Without Movies” by Fred Sprinkle at I Force It to Rhyme.

“Sandal-Walls” by Monica Sharman at Know-Love-Obey God.

“The Complexity of Compassion” by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

“To our new democratic overlord” and “Taliessen on Salisbury Plain” by Justinian at Delight and Glory and Oddity and Light.

“Emptying of Emptiness” by Karen Eck at Phoenix-Karenee.

“Compassion” by Nancy Rosback at Poems and Prayers

“Age of Serenity” by Jonahh Oestreich at Jonahh’s Blackbox.

“Pretence” by Claire Burge.

“Heart Racing” by Kathleen Overby at Almost Paradisical.

Prose

“Going Batty” by Sandra Heska King at Beholding God.

“Sometimes It’s Just Plain Hard” by Denise Spencer at Internet Monk.

“God Goes Viral” by Mike Duran at deCompose.

“Change is Possible” and “Awkward Compassion” by Duane Scott.

“Courage Is Part of the Adventure” and “Adjusting to What Is” by Louise Gallagher at Recover Your Joy.

“The Way We Were” by Madison Richards at The Master’s Artist.

“Compassion in the Cold” by Billy Coffey – and read it together with “Compassion for a Passion” by Kathy Richards. Also Billy’s “Stronger Than Chocolate.”

“45 Minutes – Going Off Script” and “Why Daddies Are Worth Remembering – Even I f You don’t Have One” by Bonnie Gray at Faith Barista.

“Wash” by Kelly Sauer at A Restless Heart.

“An Open Letter” by Kathy Richards.

“Hearing the Melody” by Andy Whitman at The Image Journal.

“Tommy Walnuts” by Greg Sullivan at Sippican Cottage.

Paintings and Photos

“Storm Break on the River” by Randall David Tipton.

“Hill and Bees” by Nancy Rosback.

“Mailbox Angst” by Susan Etole at Just…A Moment.

Photograph: Lamp by Nancy Rosback. Used with permission. (Nancy says the lamp in the photo belonged to her grandmother, and then her father. Nancy's child used it to go to sleep by as a baby.)

Marybeth Whalen's "The Mailbox"

It’s a mailbox, and it sits on a beach on an island off the coast of North Carolina. Its owner is the Kindred Spirit, whoever that might be. The locals know it to be a place where messages can be written, feelings poured out, stories told on paper and left for the Kindred Spirit to read.

Lindsey Adams placed her first message there when she was 15 and visiting relatives for the summer, having fallen in love with a local boy, Campbell Forrester. She will place a letter in the mailbox each year for the next 20 years, through love, Campbell’s betrayal, college, finding new love, marriage, children and then divorce. Campbell has lived his own life apart from Lindsey, a life that includes a forced marriage, a daughter, abandonment by his wife and then divorce. He hears she’s back on the island; she knows he’s there, too.

In The Mailbox, first novelist Marybeth Whalen weaves a story of second chances and re-found love. It’s a road that’s anything but smooth. She tells their history and their present in alternating chapters, until the overall story merges into one.

The reader knows how the story has to end (this is a romance, after all; you know how it better end or you’re going to have to have a serious talk with the author), but Whalen keeps you guessing with enough twists and turns that what could have been predictable instead becomes intriguing. It’s a sweet story, a moving story, and a good first novel for Whalen.


Note: I received this book from the publisher and/or publisher's agent for review purposes.

Related:

Marybeth Whalen is interviewed on the novel over at Novel Journey.

Singing in the Wilderness

I’ve been reading God in the Yard: Spiritual Practice for the Rest of Us by L.L. Barkat, and one of the suggested exercises is to spend up to an hour in the yard every day for a week, simply sensing the world, perhaps lying on a blanket.

I didn’t do that. I have neighbors.

“Hey, Young! Whatcha up to?”

“I’m lying on a blanket for an hour.”

“I can see that, but why? Getting a suntan?”

“No, I’m sensing the world. Contemplating. Thinking.”

“Oh, doing nothing, huh? Well, you might want to know that the rabbits are chewing right through your zinnias.”

There was one element of this, though, that attracted my eye when I read it. “So let yourself go,” writes Barkat, “the way the Psalmist David probably did all those days and nights in the fields…and in so doing, heard the murmurs of God.”

There it was – a picture, a picture of being like David, out in the valleys, fields and caves, climbing in the mountains and crossing deserts – all to hide from Saul and his men. Hiding for his life. Long periods of isolation and separation, punctuated by short bursts of activity and (occasionally) confrontation.

What struck me as I saw this reference to David was that we know what he did while he wandered those places.

He sang songs.

And he wrote poetry.

We know this because we have the song poems in the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament, 70 of which are identified as “of David” and seven specifically identified as from the time of this “wilderness” period.

His life threatened, living in harsh conditions, exposed to all kinds of weather, chased by Saul and his soldiers, David wrote poetry. Beautiful poetry. Even in English translation from the Hebrew, the beauty of David’s psalms shines through, and has done so for 3,000 years. It’s also entered our collective consciousness with such phrases as “the valley of the shadow of death” (a write would have written “the valley of death;” a poet would write “the valley of the shadow of death”).

That such beauty came from David’s “dark night of the soul” is indeed something to contemplate and wonder.


Related: Celebration by Laura Boggess at The Wellspring.

If My Father Had Written This

Daughter, three sons, three
families jumbled, never
quite sewn or woven as if the
tailor needed to
practice first. Yet stitches held,
my fingerprints an impression,
my hands a touch, a shape.

With limited and partially
incoherent knowledge, I laid out
the paths for each. Four
predictions, failed. Four charted
courses, not taken. I was as wrong
as my father before me. They were
mists, slipping through my arms.

baby’s cry her mother’s leaving us first Sunday dress first day of school then Helen and her girl watching over mine because we were married and I had the war Navy Pacific kamikazes coming at us all the time every day Hawaii Phillipines Shanghai Okinawa Discharge Helen gone with someone else so to New Orleans and magazines on shrimp and boats and fish I hated fishing but it was a living she was sitting outside my office typing telling me about her son and her first marriage so we did my third her second a new baby boy

who didn’t talk like any of us no Southern no Nawlins accent and restless moved to Florida my dad died so back to New Orleans and the shrimp and fish and boats so I started my own business printing and mailing and I didn’t see the kids for weeks on end they became strangers I’d try but it didn’t work well she made me take him who shared my name to the French Quarter for his birthday I couldn’t help it it was five months late but we did it after she and I fought because I needed to go to work that Saturday

new son came late I was 45 when I finally had time they didn’t and were gone to school to college to Texas to Michigan to Missouri it all slips by and grandchildren strangers I didn’t know but I loved them and always work and work and back to work good provider always but the business never really turned a profit negative cash flow I’m just having my coffee and cigarette it’s Saturday morning and I have to go into work the pain shoots up my leg and arm and the very last thing I will ever say is call 9-1…

I had my three score and ten,
just a bit more, in fact, and it
was too soon and too late, too
soon to finish what needed
ending, too late to mend what
was torn. But it was sufficient.
It was enough.


Related:

Wishing All the Pins Had Held by Ann Kroeker for the High Callings Blogs.

When Your Work Isn't Working

Twice in my life, I’ve found myself in work situations that were what I call my “wilderness years.” Those are those perplexing, maddening, frustrating, depressing times when there’s either no work at all, or when your skills and talents are being seriously underutilized...

To read the rest of this post, please visit the High Calling Blogs, "When Your Work Isn't Working."

Tears

A few months ago, my friend David Murray posted on his blog about tears – and how he was noticing that the older he became, the more easily the tears seemed to flow.

David’s in his early 40s. I told him to wait until his 50s – when the real waterworks begin. Although, to be honest, I’ve always been prone to that most embarrassing of male actions – unexpectedly crying.

I cry at movies, both sad ones and the sappy parts of happy ones. I cry at moving passages of novels. I get teary-eyed with certain YouTube videos (like the ones that show the fathers/soldiers returning home from Iraq or Afghanistan and surprising their kids at school) (I get teary-eyed just writing about how teary-eyed I get with these). I read newspaper stories – like how the small church in Arkansas opened its doors to the families who lost relatives in the recent flash flooding at the park campsite – and my eyes fill.

Fortunately, my wife is used to it. But it’s embarrassing at work when I read something online that moves me to tears and then someone walks in my office.

There’s a good precedent.

Almost all of the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of John is devoted to the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Very few miracles recorded in the New Testament get that kind of emphasis. And the pivotal verse of that chapter is v. 35, which also happens to be the shortest verse in the entire Bible.

Jesus wept.

That two-word verse is stunning. The creator of the universe did that most human of things, a thing often perceived (in males) as weakness – he wept.

The context is important, if a bit ambiguous. He sees Mary, sister of Martha, weeping at the death of her brother. He sees the Jews who are with Mary also weeping. And he is “deeply moved in spirit and troubled” (NIV). Still, he doesn’t cry at that point. He asks where the body of Lazarus is, and when the crowd says “come and see,” that’s when he cries. Then once more he’s “deeply moved” as he comes to the tomb. He prays, and tells Lazarus to come out. Some immediately believe; others rush off to report to the Pharisees and the chief priests, who decide that the time for Jesus to die has finally come.

As for his tears, was it the weeping of Mary and the crowd that prompted Jesus to share their grief? Was it the lack of belief in what Jesus was truly about that the crowd didn’t understand? Was it facing the death and the tomb of someone he dearly loved? Or was it seeing a picture of his own future before him, knowing what lay ahead – betrayal, beatings, the most horrible of deaths called crucifixion and then death? Yes, he knew the ultimate ending, but that didn’t prevent feeling the deepest emotions at what he was facing.

What is clear is that, in this case, he did the one thing he always resisted doing – he deliberately gave the crowd a sign. He raised Lazarus from the dead “that they may believe you sent me.”

It’s all there in two words, the whole story of his life, death and resurrection, the most astonishing story of compassion ever, told in tears, the tears that are a sign for us, a sign to me of what my own tears should remind me of.

Jesus wept.


To read more posts on compassion, visit Bridget Chumbley’s blog One Word at a Time.

Photo of man crying courtesy Photobucket.

Telling It True

Once, many years ago, I was asked by a reporter if I had ever lied for the company I then worked for. Most of my career has been spent in public affairs or public relations, and given what many think of as public relations, the question was understandable.

I could truthfully answer no. I had not then, nor have I ever, lied for a company I worked for or a client I’ve represented. First, my faith says it’s not an option. Second are the general ethical considerations. And third, the fact is that your credibility and reputation are all you have when you’re in PR. Blow that once, and you’ve blown it forever. And the field is littered with examples.

What the reporter didn’t ask, however, was if I had ever been asked to lie. Now that would have been an interesting, and complicated, answer. No one has ever asked me to "Please lie about this." But I have heard "Don't bring that up," "There's a problem there," "Tell them not to ask that question," or some other variation. I've never been directly asked to lie, but I have been asked not to tell the story -- the whole story.

This week, I was reminded of that reporter’s question so many years ago when I was reading Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life. She has a chapter on honesty in writing, and while she never mentions public relations, the same principles apply.

“The emotional courage of an artist counts for a lot with me,” she writes. “I can live with the rough edges, with an occasional wince as something cuts too close to the bone. What I do not want to live with is writing that is false, slick, or processed like the faux marble that is used to tone up nouveau riche hotels.

“There is something about the truth – like something about a great plain pine table – that has a beauty and clarity that shine for me beyond the frequent artifice of High Art.”

When I write – no matter if it’s for work or for myself – I’m mostly concerned with telling the story. Readers (or listeners, if it’s a speech) can usually tell whether a story is true or not – and I mean “true” in the sense of resonating with human experience. People may or may not know if a story is factually correct, but they usually know if it’s true to what they know and understand.

A good example of this is the stories told by Billy Coffey. I read his stories, and I can’t tell you they are factually correct, because I don’t personally know the people he writes about. But I can tell you that his stories are profoundly true, because I recognize them from what I know and understand about people. Billy doesn’t write like “faux marble;” he writes like that great plain pine table, straight from the heart.

That, to me, is what honesty is writing is about. It’s not only the story you’re trying to tell. It’s also telling it true, from the heart, allowing it to tell itself.


Over at the High Calling Blogs, Laura Boggess is leading a discussion of Cameron’s The Right to Write. Take a look and see what others are saying, commenting and posting. Last week’s discussion was about credibility, place and happiness. This week’s discussion is about making it, honesty and vulnerability.

Related:

No Matter What by Nancy Kourmoulis.

Cassandra Frear's The Edge of Glory.

Sandal-Walls by Monica Sharman.

Jessica McGuire's Pink Elephant.