All of you (including those who have responded privately) have given me much to think about, and some great book recommendations.
Even though some of us have never met in person, I talk with you more often than most other adults I know. (Hey, that's life as a homeschooling mom and writer!)
Thanks for being real.
As I was taking my daughter to her tap lesson today, I thought of this elderly lady at our church who is nothing but a bundle of pure love.
I told that lady when I saw her tonight that the mere thought of her had lifted my spirits that afternoon.
That made her happy.
Finally, dear brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
The Perfect Storm
I've been going through a real crisis of late.
Two of them, actually. One is personal enough that I can't discuss it, the other is related to my deep disappointment with my experience of "church." (That's not disappointment with God, but with we human beings who create inefficient, worldly and unChristlike institutions.)
In addition to these two spiritual trials, I've been feeling the constant subliminal strain of waiting to hear news on my novel. It has not been a highly pleasurable and relaxing time in my life.
I decided to mention this because I received a gift late this afternoon that has completely changed my attitude toward this time of disorientation and crisis.
Exhausted from my emotional rollercoaster, I took my daughter to the library to while away half an hour before a doctor's appointment. She went to watch a Froggy storytime. I had a few minutes to myself in the library.
I needed help. I was wiped out, and at the end of my rope with all the stresses I was carrying.
I walked over to the computer search terminal and typed in "Bible" to see what would come up.
I saw a couple of interesting titles under the call number 220.1, so I decided to go browse around that call number in search of "help."
While looking through various works related to the Bible, I let my eyes drift to the right, where I saw more general works of Christian nonfiction.
This title caught my eye:
When the Heart Waits.
Oh, how my heart is sick of waiting and confusion. Of course, I had to take it down and look at it.
It's a spiritual memoir by Sue Monk Kidd, the author of The Secret Life of Bees.
I checked it out. I've been reading it now for a couple of hours, setting aside everything else to absorb the truths that Sue Monk Kidd discovered through painful times of waiting and darkness.
I don't say this lightly: this is one of the best books I have ever read.
Get it. Read it.
It has done me more good than a year of church. Well, let me amend that. The book has brought me more comfort than this past year in church. My time at church may have done me good, but in hard ways.
It took an internal storm to drive me to search for anything in the library under the term "Bible."
It took a perfect storm to blow this book into my life.
When the Heart Waits is leading me gently to the perfection in the heart of the storm.
Two of them, actually. One is personal enough that I can't discuss it, the other is related to my deep disappointment with my experience of "church." (That's not disappointment with God, but with we human beings who create inefficient, worldly and unChristlike institutions.)
In addition to these two spiritual trials, I've been feeling the constant subliminal strain of waiting to hear news on my novel. It has not been a highly pleasurable and relaxing time in my life.
I decided to mention this because I received a gift late this afternoon that has completely changed my attitude toward this time of disorientation and crisis.
Exhausted from my emotional rollercoaster, I took my daughter to the library to while away half an hour before a doctor's appointment. She went to watch a Froggy storytime. I had a few minutes to myself in the library.
I needed help. I was wiped out, and at the end of my rope with all the stresses I was carrying.
I walked over to the computer search terminal and typed in "Bible" to see what would come up.
I saw a couple of interesting titles under the call number 220.1, so I decided to go browse around that call number in search of "help."
While looking through various works related to the Bible, I let my eyes drift to the right, where I saw more general works of Christian nonfiction.
This title caught my eye:
When the Heart Waits.
Oh, how my heart is sick of waiting and confusion. Of course, I had to take it down and look at it.
It's a spiritual memoir by Sue Monk Kidd, the author of The Secret Life of Bees.
I checked it out. I've been reading it now for a couple of hours, setting aside everything else to absorb the truths that Sue Monk Kidd discovered through painful times of waiting and darkness.
I don't say this lightly: this is one of the best books I have ever read.
Get it. Read it.
It has done me more good than a year of church. Well, let me amend that. The book has brought me more comfort than this past year in church. My time at church may have done me good, but in hard ways.
It took an internal storm to drive me to search for anything in the library under the term "Bible."
It took a perfect storm to blow this book into my life.
When the Heart Waits is leading me gently to the perfection in the heart of the storm.
You Do What You Have to Do
I'm considering a return to the 4:30 am writing schedule.
Ugh.
If I do, I'll have to go to bed no later than 9:00pm. But that's how I wrote my dissertation while simultaneously raising a baby to toddlerhood. I had a traveling husband, very little child care, and no extended family around to help. You do what you have to do!
Since I finished my last manuscript, I've struggled to find my writing time. My daughter enrolled in a dance class on Saturday mornings, and Saturdays used to be my writing time. My husband would take her out for the day and I would write like crazy. Her ballet class stopped that for a while. I'm not willing to take her out of her ballet class, however, as it is excellent and there is no alternative class time.
Fortunately, my husband has offered to start taking her to ballet, so that will restore some of my lost time. Still, I need more time. I finished my last novel during the summer, when I didn't have to homeschool. Now that homeschooling is back, I have to switch to a schedule that allows me regular writing time without neglecting my teaching job!
This is, of course, in addition to all the usual tasks stay-at-home moms do: administering the family finances and appointments, attempting to keep our home in some semblance of order and cleanliness, cooking, grocery shopping, offering hospitality to others, etc.
Then there's the volunteering. Between the work I do at church and co-leading the Daisy Scout troop, my volunteering calendar is full.
Finally, and most unpredictably, there are situations that come up with friends or acquaintances when I spend time helping out with a pressing need. Often, that need is simply for my company and a listening and supportive ear. We live in a world in which many people don't get a lot of emotional support, for one reason or another. I do consider it a spiritual responsibility to be a friend and an encourager. We can't spread love without making time for it, and that means treating my time as a sacrificial gift. Of course, I often enjoy these occasions, but if I didn't view my time sacrificially, I could come up with a million other things I needed to be doing. That's why so many people have no encouragers in their lives--everybody's just too busy.
I think Jody Hedlund is going to post this week about how she manages her schedule. I am looking forward to this post! Jody homeschools FIVE kids, not one. My friend Anne also homeschools a passel of 'em. My friend Gwen holds a full-time job outside the home. So does my friend Kat. All of these fellow writers have time challenges at least as serious as mine. Probably more serious, because their commitments are less flexible than mine.
I need to get it through my thick skull that some of my commitments ARE flexible. My writing time is also service. Many Christian writers view their writing as a ministry to other people, and I share that view. It just takes a lot of faith to be able to say that to a scornful world that wonders how your writing can be a ministry if your book isn't contracted yet. :-)
How do you handle your time challenges?
Ugh.
If I do, I'll have to go to bed no later than 9:00pm. But that's how I wrote my dissertation while simultaneously raising a baby to toddlerhood. I had a traveling husband, very little child care, and no extended family around to help. You do what you have to do!
Since I finished my last manuscript, I've struggled to find my writing time. My daughter enrolled in a dance class on Saturday mornings, and Saturdays used to be my writing time. My husband would take her out for the day and I would write like crazy. Her ballet class stopped that for a while. I'm not willing to take her out of her ballet class, however, as it is excellent and there is no alternative class time.
Fortunately, my husband has offered to start taking her to ballet, so that will restore some of my lost time. Still, I need more time. I finished my last novel during the summer, when I didn't have to homeschool. Now that homeschooling is back, I have to switch to a schedule that allows me regular writing time without neglecting my teaching job!
This is, of course, in addition to all the usual tasks stay-at-home moms do: administering the family finances and appointments, attempting to keep our home in some semblance of order and cleanliness, cooking, grocery shopping, offering hospitality to others, etc.
Then there's the volunteering. Between the work I do at church and co-leading the Daisy Scout troop, my volunteering calendar is full.
Finally, and most unpredictably, there are situations that come up with friends or acquaintances when I spend time helping out with a pressing need. Often, that need is simply for my company and a listening and supportive ear. We live in a world in which many people don't get a lot of emotional support, for one reason or another. I do consider it a spiritual responsibility to be a friend and an encourager. We can't spread love without making time for it, and that means treating my time as a sacrificial gift. Of course, I often enjoy these occasions, but if I didn't view my time sacrificially, I could come up with a million other things I needed to be doing. That's why so many people have no encouragers in their lives--everybody's just too busy.
I think Jody Hedlund is going to post this week about how she manages her schedule. I am looking forward to this post! Jody homeschools FIVE kids, not one. My friend Anne also homeschools a passel of 'em. My friend Gwen holds a full-time job outside the home. So does my friend Kat. All of these fellow writers have time challenges at least as serious as mine. Probably more serious, because their commitments are less flexible than mine.
I need to get it through my thick skull that some of my commitments ARE flexible. My writing time is also service. Many Christian writers view their writing as a ministry to other people, and I share that view. It just takes a lot of faith to be able to say that to a scornful world that wonders how your writing can be a ministry if your book isn't contracted yet. :-)
How do you handle your time challenges?
Monday, November 9, 2009
My Favorite Restaurant...Ever
Tosca Lee is an excellent writer whom I cyber-interviewed some time ago. I also met her at the ACFW conference, and found her very interesting and multilayered, though I didn't manage to make much conversation as I was stricken by a bout of unusual shyness. (How do I find a person multilayered if we don't talk much? Well, that's a subject for a post later this week!)
The other day, Tosca started a Facebook conversation about whether we liked oysters and mussels. I like oysters raw, and I like them in po-boys (blame my Louisiana connections). I only like mussels in Spanish food.
Our discussion reminded me of what I still call my favorite restaurant, though over a decade has passed since the last time I ate there.
It's Malaga, a Spanish restaurant in New York City.
Malaga
I've eaten in swankier places than Malaga. I've had more exotic and more expensive meals.
But if I could choose to go right now to any restaurant for dinner, and take ten of my best friends, I would choose Malaga.
Malaga is family-owned, and you feel it. The service is down to earth and friendly, but expert. The sangria is amazing. The food is out of this world (try the Mariscada Diablo, if you like seafood with a kick.)
I've eaten in many fine restaurants over the years. Malaga stands at the top. I discovered one day that my former employer and friend from NYC also calls Malaga his favorite restaurant, though we have never eaten there together. And he can afford to eat anywhere he wants, anytime!
Do you have a restaurant that stands out in your memory as "the best?" Why?
The other day, Tosca started a Facebook conversation about whether we liked oysters and mussels. I like oysters raw, and I like them in po-boys (blame my Louisiana connections). I only like mussels in Spanish food.
Our discussion reminded me of what I still call my favorite restaurant, though over a decade has passed since the last time I ate there.
It's Malaga, a Spanish restaurant in New York City.
Malaga
I've eaten in swankier places than Malaga. I've had more exotic and more expensive meals.
But if I could choose to go right now to any restaurant for dinner, and take ten of my best friends, I would choose Malaga.
Malaga is family-owned, and you feel it. The service is down to earth and friendly, but expert. The sangria is amazing. The food is out of this world (try the Mariscada Diablo, if you like seafood with a kick.)
I've eaten in many fine restaurants over the years. Malaga stands at the top. I discovered one day that my former employer and friend from NYC also calls Malaga his favorite restaurant, though we have never eaten there together. And he can afford to eat anywhere he wants, anytime!
Do you have a restaurant that stands out in your memory as "the best?" Why?
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Classic Stories and Children
My daughter was ill this morning, but she recovered over the course of the day. Though I still wanted to quarantine her, we went on a brief trip to the library in the afternoon.
In the library, she wanted to check out a chapter book with pictures. It was a ghost story. This didn't surprise me, as she has been asking for scary stories recently. I opened it up to review it and saw a picture of a dead person reaching up out of a coffin.
"No." I said.
"Why not?"
"It's too scary. It will give you nightmares."
"But the nightmares go away after a day."
"No." I was immune to her logic. "Besides, I already found a pretty scary story for you."
"Oh." She was interested. "What's it about?"
"A man named Beowulf."
It was true. I had just discovered a gorgeously-illustrated children's version of Beowulf and tucked it away in the backpack.
She must have liked the "wolf" part, because she followed me to the checkout stand with curiosity. She took the book as soon as it was scanned so she could carry it to the car.
As we walked out, she looked down at the book cover. I followed her gaze.
"Some people think Beowulf is the greatest story from all of England's tradition," I said. "But I think King Arthur is the best."
I noticed an old man listening to us from a few feet away. He may have thought I was a brick shy of a full load. I've mentioned that my daughter looks young for her age; this conversation would look very strange to an outside observer who thought I was blathering to a chubby-cheeked, Dora-loving four-year-old. LOL!
In the van on the way home, she read the story.
When we were almost home, she said loudly, with a kind of delighted shock:
"Mom! The ogre lost an arm!"
At her words, warm pleasure washed over me.
I love classic stories. Really love them, with deep personal affection. They're classic because they affect a little girl in the twenty-first century just as they affected people who spoke an English so different from ours that scholars learn it as a foreign language. Some Old English six-year-old left the storyteller at the bonfire to run to his mother's side, telling her in that strange tongue: "Mom! The ogre lost an arm!"
"Grendel." I said as much to myself as to her, relishing the monstrous sound of his name. "His name is Grendel."
But she was lost in the story, and not listening to me anymore. And that made me even happier.
See the Beowulf book
In the library, she wanted to check out a chapter book with pictures. It was a ghost story. This didn't surprise me, as she has been asking for scary stories recently. I opened it up to review it and saw a picture of a dead person reaching up out of a coffin.
"No." I said.
"Why not?"
"It's too scary. It will give you nightmares."
"But the nightmares go away after a day."
"No." I was immune to her logic. "Besides, I already found a pretty scary story for you."
"Oh." She was interested. "What's it about?"
"A man named Beowulf."
It was true. I had just discovered a gorgeously-illustrated children's version of Beowulf and tucked it away in the backpack.
She must have liked the "wolf" part, because she followed me to the checkout stand with curiosity. She took the book as soon as it was scanned so she could carry it to the car.
As we walked out, she looked down at the book cover. I followed her gaze.
"Some people think Beowulf is the greatest story from all of England's tradition," I said. "But I think King Arthur is the best."
I noticed an old man listening to us from a few feet away. He may have thought I was a brick shy of a full load. I've mentioned that my daughter looks young for her age; this conversation would look very strange to an outside observer who thought I was blathering to a chubby-cheeked, Dora-loving four-year-old. LOL!
In the van on the way home, she read the story.
When we were almost home, she said loudly, with a kind of delighted shock:
"Mom! The ogre lost an arm!"
At her words, warm pleasure washed over me.
I love classic stories. Really love them, with deep personal affection. They're classic because they affect a little girl in the twenty-first century just as they affected people who spoke an English so different from ours that scholars learn it as a foreign language. Some Old English six-year-old left the storyteller at the bonfire to run to his mother's side, telling her in that strange tongue: "Mom! The ogre lost an arm!"
"Grendel." I said as much to myself as to her, relishing the monstrous sound of his name. "His name is Grendel."
But she was lost in the story, and not listening to me anymore. And that made me even happier.
See the Beowulf book
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Mirror, Mirror
On Monday nights, my brain comes home from tap class singing a happy little tapping song full of shuffles and 1-2-3-4s.
The happy song sometimes makes it hard to focus and write a blog post about anything except tap.
So here's what I noticed tonight. If I don't strengthen my ankles, I won't advance very far in tap. I need more ankle stability to be able to balance. My balance isn't bad when I'm moving quickly, but when I'm standing on one foot and shuffling over and over, as we do in our warm ups, my ankles just can't do what my mind tells them to do.
In dance or in other physical training, it's so easy to tell why we can't do certain things. Our weaknesses pop out under pressure, and we know for certain: Work on this or you will stagnate.
In our emotional and spiritual lives, it's so much harder to get perspective. Do you think if we had a mirror in front of us at all times, the way we do in dance class, we might become more conscious of the weaknesses that are holding us back?
When my daughter was about a month old, we took a video of her first bath. I was still mostly a basket case from sleep deprivation, new mom nerves, and PTSD from a very difficult labor and delivery.
I saw myself on on that first bath video and was not pleased with what I saw. I was kind and patient with my daughter, but impatient and crabby with my husband. If you've never seen yourself immortalized on film in a crabby mood, I don't recommend it. It's mortifying.
Or maybe I do recommend it. Like that mirror, the video showed me how my inner feelings were manifesting themselves on the outside. Caught up in my own pain and worry, I couldn't see how I was affected by these changes until the video held me up to my own eyes.
Some of the most profound moments in my spiritual life have occurred when I opened the Bible, saw myself reflected in its pages, and realized I needed to change.
Without the desire to use the Bible as a mirror, no Christ-like transformation can occur.
Some would like to use holy scripture as a set of rose-colored glasses; others want to use it as a magnifying glass for the faults of anyone but themselves.
But it's a mirror. When I have the guts to see myself in verses about anger, gossip, lust, backstabbing, ambition, the love of money, or hypocrisy, then I am using the mirror in the way it is intended. Without that mirror, I won't travel any farther. And I don't want to stay in this same spiritual place for the rest of my life.
There's too much work to be done, and I hear they need more workers with strong ankles.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Q4U: Do Your Friends and Family Read Your Blog?
When I started keeping a personal, family-oriented blog over two years ago, I noticed something interesting.
Some family members and some friends regularly checked in on my blog posts and looked at my family pictures. Others didn't.
How could I tell? Well,I'm sure that many of you know about the site called Sitemeter. It counts your site visitors, and it also registers their geographical location much of the time.
As a result, I could usually tell the identity of the readers of my family blog, because I have friends and family all over the country. If there were no hits from a certain city or state, I knew that friends and family in that area were not reading my blog or keeping up with our family activities through our photos.
With this professional blog, it's a little different. I try to keep it personal as well, but it's not centered on my family. Consequently, I would not expect family members to be interested, necessarily. No one should be forced to read a blog out of duty!
That being said, I do want to ask you what you think when friends or family do not read your blog, if your blog has any personal content. Do you find that significant?
Here's why I found it strange, back when I was keeping only the private family and friends blog.
I am truly interested in other people, what they think, and what they say. If I know someone in my real life and I discover that person keeps a blog, you can BET I am going to look it up. The only blogs I avoid are ones that I think might cause hard feelings between me and my friends. For example, if someone keeps a political blog or states opinions that are frequently noxious to me, I might avoid the blog out of a desire to preserve harmony and love in our relationship. Likewise, I would expect friends who were bothered by anything on my blog--for example, nonbelievers who don't want to hear me talk about my faith--to also have the freedom to say "no thanks." (I also have friends with whom I can disagree about important issues, and sometimes we have conversations behind the scenes about posts on my blog.)
I'm not perfect about keeping up with everyone's blog. Every now and then I forget to add one to my blog roll, and then it's easy to forget it's there. (I just remembered one with guilt!) But I always enjoy reading them.
So it does mystify me that some people do not seem interested in finding out what their friends and family members are thinking. Finding out what people are thinking is one of the great pleasures of my life!
So, what do you think?
Some family members and some friends regularly checked in on my blog posts and looked at my family pictures. Others didn't.
How could I tell? Well,I'm sure that many of you know about the site called Sitemeter. It counts your site visitors, and it also registers their geographical location much of the time.
As a result, I could usually tell the identity of the readers of my family blog, because I have friends and family all over the country. If there were no hits from a certain city or state, I knew that friends and family in that area were not reading my blog or keeping up with our family activities through our photos.
With this professional blog, it's a little different. I try to keep it personal as well, but it's not centered on my family. Consequently, I would not expect family members to be interested, necessarily. No one should be forced to read a blog out of duty!
That being said, I do want to ask you what you think when friends or family do not read your blog, if your blog has any personal content. Do you find that significant?
Here's why I found it strange, back when I was keeping only the private family and friends blog.
I am truly interested in other people, what they think, and what they say. If I know someone in my real life and I discover that person keeps a blog, you can BET I am going to look it up. The only blogs I avoid are ones that I think might cause hard feelings between me and my friends. For example, if someone keeps a political blog or states opinions that are frequently noxious to me, I might avoid the blog out of a desire to preserve harmony and love in our relationship. Likewise, I would expect friends who were bothered by anything on my blog--for example, nonbelievers who don't want to hear me talk about my faith--to also have the freedom to say "no thanks." (I also have friends with whom I can disagree about important issues, and sometimes we have conversations behind the scenes about posts on my blog.)
I'm not perfect about keeping up with everyone's blog. Every now and then I forget to add one to my blog roll, and then it's easy to forget it's there. (I just remembered one with guilt!) But I always enjoy reading them.
So it does mystify me that some people do not seem interested in finding out what their friends and family members are thinking. Finding out what people are thinking is one of the great pleasures of my life!
So, what do you think?
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