You Should Read This, and This, and This

I'm now working from home two days a week--which is fabulous--but it is impeding the pace at which I get through my audiobooks. Cry me a river. The things I have to give up for work-life balance, I tell you what.

The balance of being in the office three days a week and out two is just about perfect for this introverted managing editor writer person. I swear traffic is getting worse headed into downtown Cleveland. People, stop living in the suburbs and taking jobs in the city! That's only for me to do. The rest of you should relocate to one of those swanky lakefront apartments and clear up I-77 between 7 and 8:30 every morning.

My hour and fifteen in the car every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday morning still gives me plenty of time to get through almost an audiobook a week, depending on the length and reading style of the author/narrator. I just finished Let's Discuss Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris, which was hilarious. You should read it. Before that, I listened to Eve by Wm. Paul Young, the guy who wrote The Shack. It was a fascinating, magical, fanciful interpretation of the Creation story and the Fall. I wasn't as impressed with the writing as I was the imagination in this book. It was delightful and heartbreaking. You should read it.

Another book you should read is Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, which opens up the doorway for people to be creative. Creativity isn't just for the pros or the degreed or the academics, it's for everyone! Boom! So go read this for a little inspiration to get out there and be creative with your bad self.

I mentioned Love Wins by Rob Bell last time, but I'm bringing it up again because, you should read it.

And before that, I read Origins: 14 Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution by Neil deGrasse Tyson, and you should only read it if you are okay not really understanding 2/3 of what is being said or you are an astrophysicist, in which case you won't have any trouble.

Before that, I read Food: A Love Story by Jim Gaffigan, because he's also super funny, and sometimes you need to laugh the entire way to work. You should read it.

You should also read Lila by Marilynne Robinson and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Also Knowing Your Value by Mika Brzezinski. And Falling Upward by Richard Rohr.

Oh, heck, just read the books. Expand your world and read the books. Look up and out and in and through and read the books. Read the books you would never read. Read the books that might challenge the way you think. Read the books that will help you see yourself new. Read the books that will make you more whole. Read the books that will make you laugh. Read the books that will kick you in the pants. You will be a better person. You will be a changed person. You will understand other people better. You will have more compassion. You will love more, feel more, think more, dream more. Read the books, people. Read all the books.

Off The Page Update

I just started a new series of four posts for Off the Page last week. They all have something to do with faith and doubt, two things that belong together but aren't usually talked about together. You can catch my first post, Becoming a 7-Day Creation Biblical Literalist, and follow along the next three Thursdays.

Previously on OTP, I thought a lot about prayer's role in the face of sickness and disease, specifically my dear friend, Marilyn's battle with breast cancer, in With Wordless Groans. I should read this one over and over again daily. Lately it feels like sorrow and grief are on every corner. The only way I can battle back the sadness is through prayer, and even then it's begging for comfort and joy, comfort and joy, comfort and joy. Sad is okay. It is necessary. But Lord, bring peace swiftly.

I also thought about how we measure our worth and the contradictions we face when wrestling with ambition, humility, confidence, jobs, and more, in How Much Am I Worth?

I hope you'll follow along with the series on doubt. I'm excited about what God and I discussed together as I worked through the writing process. I grew from it, and for that I am grateful.

Lake Michigan, Writers Retreat

Speaking and Teaching, WUT?
October proved to be a month for kickstarting the writing and teaching side of myself. I filled in for a friend at the Cleveland Museum of Art to teach a workshop on ekphrastic poetry at the beginning of the month. I traveled to beautiful coastal Michigan a couple weekends ago to spend some delicious time with writer friends and get some work done on a new poetry manuscript. I also started a writers' group at work, and we had our first meeting two weeks ago. I'm excited for the possibilities of camaraderie and encouragement there. And next weekend, I'm off to the Indiana Faith and Writing Conference to talk about Vulnerability in Writing. If you aren't going around scaring people for Halloween, perhaps you want to join me in Indiana Oct. 30 and 31? Li-Young Lee and my pal Scott Russell Sanders along with a whole host of poet friends are going to be hanging out together. It'll be totes amazing. Wut? (I don't know either.)

In Hindsight...
2014: Breaking the Workaholic
2013: Bad People Go to Hell and Other Parental Panic Moments
2012: The Elliptical and Tonight's Work of Writing
2011: Creativity in Worship
2010: Twelve Apples and a Blog
2009: That Crazy Thang Called "Plans"
2008: Baked Apples, Green Ogres, and Snuggles

Praying for Enemies

The psalms are filled with great messages of praise and worship, of love and adoration, fear and awe, woe and lament.  They are also filled with pleas to dump burning coals on enemies' heads, to throw enemies into miry pits.  In as many words, the psalmist wants his enemies to burn in hell.

I wouldn't bring it up if it happened, you know, once or twice.  Everyone gets angry at her enemies now and then.  But this is a reoccurring theme - over and over, the psalmist says silence my enemies, destroy all my foes.  Granted, the psalmist in many of these cases is David, who spent a good part of his life literally running from his enemies, trying to avoid being killed by the king.

As I read through the psalms, every time I come to a verse or psalm about pulverizing my foes, I think to myself, oh boy, here we go again, slay my enemies, destroy my pursuers, burn the evildoers, bury the slanderers, yadda yadda yadda. And then the psalmist says, "But, me, God, well, I am upright and holy and righteous and amazing, so protect me and be near me."

I can be critical of this, but let's be honest.  We do this all. the. time.  Maybe not in public, but between friends and in our heads, we grumble and mutter curses on the people that drive us crazy.

Rather than roll my eyes at the psalmist and his regular return to complaining about his enemies, I want to keep reading to see how the psalmist deals with his anger, frustration, and fear, and what God does for him through these laments.

It's refreshing to know that God permits us to gripe about our enemies to him, to plea for them to be removed from our lives, and to protect us from our enemies.  In the gospels, Jesus pushes the issue even further and calls us to do something entirely other-worldly - love our enemies, and pray for those who persecute us.  Prayer is absolutely necessary if we're going to try to love our enemies, and the psalmist models the mode by which we can communicate these things to God.

God might not send your enemies into a miry pit, and he might not change your circumstances, but there's a good chance that by unloading all of your anger, impatience, frustration, and concern at his feet, you'll make room for him to change your heart and give you peace, even in the battle, and maybe some discernment, wisdom, perspective, and eventually, love, to deal well with your enemies.

"Lord, hear my prayer,
listen to my cry for mercy;
in your faithfulness and righteousness
come to my relief.

Do not bring your servant into judgment,
for no one living is righteous before you.

The enemy pursues me,
he crushes me to the ground;
he makes me dwell in the darkness
like those long dead.

So my spirit grows faint within me;
my heart within me is dismayed.

I remember the days of long ago;
I meditate on all your works
and consider what your hands have done.

I spread out my hands to you;
I thirst for you like a parched land.

Answer me quickly, Lord; my spirit fails.
Do not hide your face from me
or I will be like those who go down to the pit.

Let the morning bring me
word of your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
for to you I entrust my life.

Rescue me from my enemies,
Lord, for I hide myself in you.

Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God;
may your good Spirit
lead me on level ground.

For your name's sake, Lord,
preserve my life;
in your righteousness,
bring me out of trouble.

In your unfailing love,
silence my enemies;
destroy all my foes,
for I am your servant.

- Psalm 143

What Chamomile and Honey Can't Do

I'm pretty sure I've had a cold/sinus infection since December 1.  It has backed off a little here and there as some kind of bacterial mercy move, but for the last two weeks (or something like that), it's been no nonsense, in your face (and nose, and eyes, and ears, and chest), Die Hard with a Vengeance.  It even persisted beyond the power of the almighty z-pak, which I finished off two days ago.

So tonight, after going back to work for the first time in two and a half weeks, I wasn't really up for much of anything with the kids.  Unfortunately, they can't bathe, feed, or put themselves to bed yet, so I couldn't just burrow into bed with an electric blanket and call it a night.  I at least had the foresight to pull a big pan of macaroni and cheese out of the freezer and ask my awesome Henry-sitter to pop it in the oven this afternoon so that we could eat before 6:30.  And there's the Blessed DVR to entertain two of the three little people. 

The usual bickering and silliness ensued throughout the night.  Nothing new, really.  And the dog, that ridiculous dog that I liked so much a month ago, kept getting into the trash and eating Elvis's Legos and whining to be let out and then barking incessantly at the front door to be let back in and THEN trying to eat diapers and tissues and all other sorts of disgusting.  And then bathtime with all three kids, water everywhere, Beans trying to drink the bathwater and lick Henry's face and drink out of the toilet and chew on the towels.

"I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33 -- Yeah, trouble. T-R-O-U-B-L-E. It ain't just a Travis Tritt song. Or a Ray LaMontagne song.   I've had more serious seasons of trouble and worry, for sure.  These little things, like sinus infections and being alone a few days and needing to take care of the business of life on my own, they are nothing really, but sometimes the little things catch me and I get downhearted. The world hands me a little trouble.  But, thank God, he's overcome the world.   And you want to know how he did that for me tonight?

I was ready for bedtime tonight.  Normally, each kid prays and then I pray, and then each kid picks a song.  I thought I'd speed things up a bit and skip the whole kid-praying thing and just wrap it up with a quick "God, thanks for everything.  Please help me feel better.  Give us sweet dreams.  Amen.", but after I finished, Lydia asked if she could pray for a couple of people really quick.

How do you say no to the request of a five year old to pray?  Okay, so I thought about it.  I mean, come on, the space between my ears is hollow and I can't close my mouth without whistling through my nose.  Let's get the show on the road, here!  I got trash to take out and a couch to get to.  I let her pray, of course - a kid who wants to talk to God should not be stopped from talking to God. 

"Dear God, please help **** walk.  She's already starting to walk some.  And thank you for..." (There's a girl in her class who has a disability.)  Lydia prayed for all her family and friends, and then Elvis asked to pray, too, singing a song they learned at preschool: "Thank you God, for our food, and our many blessings, thank you God, Amen."

The prayers of my children shore me up against weariness and bitterness. They help lubricate the gears that need to keep moving until the trash is taken out, the dishes are in the dishwasher, the laundry is folded, and the kitchen is tidied up, until I can sink into the couch cushions with a blanket and a few Bible verses and ruminate away about faith and the power of praise.

So the other verse that has me doing my own praising tonight, even with my runny nose, is this one: "Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger." Psalm 8:2  That's right.  Through the praise of my little ones, the enemy and all his trouble and worry is kept at bay.  There's power in those prayers.  I'm reinforced. Encouraged. Blessed.

Aaaand, ready for Nyquil.

Twelve Apples and a Blog

Twelve shiny, locally grown apples are sitting on my kitchen counter ten feet away next to the cutting board, apple corer, slow cooker and paring knife. Fortunately, they are all inanimate objects who can only beckon with their glaring presence. But I have a hot cup of apple cider, James Taylor Pandora Radio, and a blog I haven't updated in over a month because I have been TIRED, BUSY, and PREGNANT.

There, I said it. Come on people, if you know me AT ALL you know how hard it is for me to keep anything a secret. In spite of our miscarriage history, I've always announced pregnancies within a week of finding out myself. I just can't keep it in! How women can go without knowing they are pregnant for months is a mystery to me... I feel like every pore of me seeps out pregnancy hormones for any human being to sniff in the air the minute I find out. I have a radioactive glow that shifts to a pale-ish green around 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. and then again around 8 p.m. It's so friggin' obvious that I'm pregnant, I don't even need to say anything.

Of course, the people that I did tell early on knew it long before I said anything. And you want to know why? TWO people in different circles said they kind of figured, since I didn't want a glass of wine that one night a few weeks ago. This says something about me that I won't point out because we're not talking about wine tonight.

This is my seventh pregnancy and probably my last. BW and I figured this time, maybe we would spare ourselves and everyone else the uncomfortable, "We're pregnant!/We're not pregnant anymore" fun, so we tried to keep it to ourselves. It was really hard the first few days, for all of the reasons I mentioned above (the radioactive glowing, etc.), but then I got excited about having a secret that only my husband and God knew about. That rarely happens - I'm just not a very private person.

My landmark requirement was hearing a heartbeat on the Doppler stethoscope (no, I didn't remember the name of that device all on my own), because we've never gotten that far and lost a baby. Every night for a week leading up to the appointment, I had vivid dreams about losing the baby - miscarrying here, there, and everywhere. It needed to stop. I'm grateful for the prayers of a couple people that I'm convinced helped the dreams end-- the night before my appointment, I dreamt of an ultrasound showing that it was a girl, and that all was healthy and fine. I needed that.

This past Monday, I heard that fast-paced swishswish. My doctor, who has been through each of my pregnancies with me too, might have been as relieved as me. I'll be 11 weeks tomorrow :)

:)

Hearing that heartbeat seemed to give BW and me permission to breathe again. In the past seven weeks, we didn't talk a whole lot about being pregnant, I think in a self-preservation effort. While I began developing all of the first-trimester symptoms of pregnancy, we carried on with our lives as normal. Now we have enough to cling to in order to give in to hope. And we're ready to share that hope for new life with others, able to rejoice, if not cautiously and prayerfully, together.

So that's why I haven't gotten around to making my homemade applesauce.

Reading for a change

In case you haven't noticed, I've been doing a lot of writing as of late, and frankly, I'm all poemed out. For the time being. I am tired of reading and tired of writing poems. Give me something book-length!

So I read Patricia Hampl's The Florist's Daughter this weekend and started in on Letters to Malcolm by C.S. Lewis. I had forgotten how much I LOVE C.S. Lewis. But before that, let's talk about Hampl.

I've heard it said by someone (Joe Mackall, I think), that Patricia Hampl is the only writer who can write about nothing in particular for 250 pages and succeed. Which means he thinks midwestern life without crises equals nothing. I loved this book. Set during the days and hours prior to the death of her mother, Hampl describes and explores her lifelong relationship with her parents leading up to their deaths, effortlessly gliding back and forth across time and space to accomplish a beautiful narrative. The reader is allowed to experience the love for father and changing appreciation for mother that evolves into deep love throughout the book without feeling sentimental. Her style is simply delicious. I like the word delicious. I think I use it to describe literature more often than I ought.

So, Hampl was amazing. I'd like to read more of her in the future.

We're at my in-laws' house this weekend, and I finished The Florist's Daughter around 2 yesterday, which means I was in a reading mood only half-way through the kids' naps. I found a book by C.S. Lewis called Letters to Malcolm, which, as it turns out, is about prayer. I've been thinking a lot about prayer the last few months and this was exactly the sort of book I was looking for. It is really quite fabulous. I'm only 50 pages in, but it is a short book, something I should be taking slower. C.S. Lewis is one of those writers whose pages end up ear-marked every other page, there's just so much good going on. A few favorites:

"...no one in his senses, if he has any power of ordering his own day, would reserve his chief prayers for bed-time - obviously the worst possible hour for any action which needs concentration. The trouble is that thousands of unfortunate people can hardly find any other."

And this, talking about praying for things or desires:

"It is no use to ask God with factitious earnestness for A when our whole mind is in reality filled with the desire of B. We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us. Even an intimate human friend is ill-used if we talk to him about one thing while our mind is really on another, and even a human friend will soon become aware when we are doing so."

And further down the same page:

"If one forcibly excludes them, don't they wreck all the rest of our prayers? If we lay all the cards on the table, God will help us to moderate the excesses. But the pressure of things we are trying to keep out of our mind is a hopeless distraction. As someone said, 'No noise is so emphatic as one you are trying not to listen to.'"

And still more, of course. There's a reason for a volume entitled, The Quotable C.S. Lewis. He's just that good. I haven't read C.S. Lewis in a while so it is nice to get back in to that voice and reflection, especially on a topic I've been thinking about a good deal. I'm not really a very good pray-er -- I'm the sort who waits until the end of the day to pray or rattles off something here and there throughout the day, which is the rarer sort. At any rate, it is an area of my spiritual life in which I'd like to improve.

Happy reading!

Stealing Ideas and Old French Language "Roots"

Dent-de-Lion

In the words of a poet friend of mine, *poof!*

So, I have a secret I need to spill. I rob Wikipedia, Google, and the Bible of all their good ideas. I am a thief. I admit it. This poem is a good example and an easy entrance into confession.

First, I have been trying to write all. Day. Long. Well, here and there anyway - it has been really busy at work lately and SURPRISE SURPRISE there hasn't been time for me to fiddle with my own poetry. I know, sad story. But even though I can't actually sit at my desk and type the poems, I usually have something I'm writing simmering in my head, or trying to latch on to an idea that could become a poem. I'm not pleased with either of the two versions of "A Voice in the Crowd at Capernaum," but I think it's probably a little bit because it was forced inspiration. I don't do well when I try to tell the Holy Spirit to inspire me.

On that note, I decided to try a new activity and opened the Bible to any random section. The first verse I read began, "Can a mortal be of use to God?" (Job 22:2). I thought, "How fortunate! I didn't land in Leviticus!" But this got me thinking about whether we can affect God - with worship, with prayer, etc. In one of my small group Bible studies, we just read about David and his fervent prayers for his infant son who God struck ill because of what David did to Bathsheba's husband, Uriah. The discussion guide (Beth Moore! Woo!) led us to think about why we pray - if God can be swayed by prayer - and the short answer is, yes, but it is up to God if, when, and how he will answer.

So I started to think about what my prayers feel like sometimes, and for some reason, I decided that it's like blowing the seeds off of a dandelion head. I don't know why. It just is, okay? Which made me look up dandelions. I found this one website - on the Common Dandelion - that gave me some really good facts to build a poem on. A few of my favorites that I "stole" --

They're so deeply toothed, they gave the plant its name in Old French: Dent-de-lion means lion's tooth in Old French.

And, this:

Each flower head consists of hundreds of tiny ray flowers.

And...

The flower head can change into the familiar, white, globular seed head overnight. Each seed has a tiny parachute, to spread far and wide in the wind. The thick, brittle, beige, branching taproot grows up to 10" long. All parts of this plant exude a white milky sap when broken.

How great is, "the thick, brittle, beige, branching taproot?" Thank you, "Wildman" Steve Brill, for your uber-descriptive dandelion webpage. I could not resist, of course, the lion reference.

So that's how this poem came to be. If I ever win a Pushcart for it, I will stand behind the podium in my living room and thank God, Google, and Wildman Steve Brill publicly for their generosity.

Crater

Wrap your atmosphere around me –
I do not want to be the moon, unable to deflectt
he smallest cosmic speck. I flinch and dodge
a thousand bullets in a meteor shower,
yearn to watch the light show at night without fear.
Without you, my surface is sensitive – I bruise
at the slightest affront, scurry away to nurse each hurt.
If I must wear the craters of personal implosions
and exterior stonings, dress them in deep blue water
with stunning clarity so that none may question
why this happened but only know that nothing
so beautiful and pure could come without pain.
Plant in my volcanic cavity a hemlock tree
so all will witness how you’ve rooted yourself
in my explosive fragility and called me strong.

Cashing In

Okay, it must be divine appointment weekend here in Chicago. After ANOTHER great night out with some really interesting and intelligent writers, I got off of the el (how cool am I to use the lingo of Chicago?) at Harrison Ave. and begin walking back toward the hotel. It's a crisp 30ish degrees out, and I am feeling alive. Alive, feeling the ache and wear of three days walking around the city, breathing in clarity and exhaling exhilaration. Next to a fenced parking lot (and underneath a streetlight, for all of you paranoid and worried mothers out there), a woman asked as she began to walk past if I was familiar with the city, to which I promptly replied, No, sorry. The poor lady was almost in tears and shaking like it's nobody's business to shake. She started going on, sobbing and hiccuping, about how she drove into the city and parked her car somewhere, and the car had been towed to some lot on 18th street, and she needed to get to it, had a driver's license and wallet to prove she wasn't some nut, and just needed $20 dollars more or so to get her car out of the impound.

I prayed with the lady, whose name turns out to be Patricia, and she praises Jesus all over the place, shouts a hallelujah and says she will repay me, asks for a name of a church or something so she can send something to me care of so-and-so. I wasn't going there so I just said you go ahead and give to a charity to take care of whatever she needs. And then we hugged and she cried and I gave her some money (how I am going to appropriately reconcile all of the expenses for this trip is going to be an adventure, let me tell you - I will not be getting reimbursed much once I factor in cash) and off she went.

All this time the fear and panic meter is ticking steadily around low to medium gauge, somewhere about the caution rate. I keep thinking some guy is going to run across the street and snatch my purse as I'm closing my eyes and putting my arm around the woman in the long coat with a fur-lined hood to pray that the Lord would protect her and ease her fears. Ease my fears, ease my fears. All this time, I'm weighing the cost - does she really, truly need my help to get her car out of the impound, or is she one very gifted actress working the out-of-towners at the Hilton Chicago? Is this her way - walking the block with nervous hands - to con skeptical but trusting tourists into generosity without begging? And does it matter which scenario is true?

As I'm typing this, it occurs to me I heard a similar version of Patricia's story earlier this week, told by a friend at the conference, and I suddenly feel douped. Was this a divine appointment or merely a scam artist? As I read an article on Snopes.com that sick feeling of douped-ness settles in my stomach. SCAM! Did she not have one credit card? Claiming to have driven six hours into the city and then to have her car towed, she successfully eliminated a nearby friend or relative option, but no credit card?

I feel taken advantage of in some ways and then just plain silly, walking away from her feeling as if I've just connected with another human being at her point of need, smiling and light. How does one pull such a fantastic trick, such fraudulent faith and hope, such an orchestrated deceit?

Or is the skeptic in me rising up, vaguely aware of the depravity of mankind, ready to harden her heart to any pleas for help for fear of being taken advantage of.

I think what I need to settle in, because it's 11 p.m. CST which means it's midnight EST (and we all know what happens at midnight), is that my motives were sincere. My concern and prayer was sincere, though cautionary, senses on alert. Perhaps my business is not to know the outcomes of tonight but to know that I had an opportunity to be a light to a lady in some way, and if she got the better of me - it's on her soul. I hope she was true and authentic. But if not, I hope she finds a warm place to sleep, eats a filling meal, and works toward a day when she can use her theatrical talents to glorify God rather than trick a tourist.