The Best Thing My Parents Gave Me

Posted on May 10, 2012 | 8 Comments

In honor of Mothers Day this month and Fathers Day next…

It is said that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. In my family, I was raised on both.

Strawberry-picking, shucking fresh ears of corn on the side porch, and pumpkin bread so good it’s become a family legacy, were supplemented with the delicious cultivation of a child’s imagination through stories.

Bellies full from the table, my sisters and I next hungered for a bedtime story. We were tucked in by words–Jonah and the Whale, Noah and the Ark, the Feeding of the Five Thousand, as well as The Princess and the Goblin, A Wrinkle in Time, The Magician’s Nephew. We swallowed them whole, and they fed a budding spiritual imagination that was only beginning to grow.

Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies author Marilyn Chandler McEntyre was once asked, “Where did your love of writing begin?”

“At the table,” was her answer.

It is also mine. It is where my parents urged me, “Tell us a story,” to answer the standard, “How was your day?” dinner conversation question. It is where I learned to listen well, to ask good questions, to savor both a taste on my tongue and a fitting phrase in my ear. And to laugh.

It is where we read aloud after dinner, sighing and sitting back in our chairs, crumbs of cornbread and table salt flung wide across the tablecloth as evidence of a good meal.

Perhaps I am no longer a child, but my days are still anchored by these two very things. I work all day with words in the life of a freelancer, and come 5pm I roll up my sleeves to create in the kitchen. These are the rituals that lend structure to my days, and I rest in them, thrive in them.

I can’t imagine a higher task for parents than to teach their children to hunger for that which is good, noble, and true. Not just for bread, but for words.

In their gift, I am doubly fed, and doubly blessed.

 

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Impressions: Festival of Faith and Writing

Posted on May 3, 2012 | 5 Comments

Well, I had grand intentions of writing an essay about the Incarnational movement of words to flesh, how language pours into our living, the beauty of digital friendships culminating in face-to-face hugs and hellos.

But truth be told, I’m pooped. Still catching up on the work that was put on hold two weeks ago for the ever-inspiring Festival of Faith and Writing. And the best I can do right now is bullet points.

The Festival of Faith and Writing is a biannual event hosted at Calvin College, and all I can say is that if you love the Word and words, I can’t recommend a better event or conference for you to attend. This was my third time and it is always soul-stirring, luminous in its art and craft, and enriching in this community of reading and writing folk (some of the best kind, I think).

A few impressions I took home with me:

  • The insecurity we often feel as writers is universal. It seems a good 3/4 of the speakers at the Festival began their talks with disclaimers, self-deprecating jokes, apologies for not being capable or poetic or eloquent enough, and then they all continued in their talk and did just fine. Show me a confident writer, and I will show you a sham. We may love what we do, but we always wrestle through it. This is comforting to know that the best of them feel the same.
  • The Festival is a rare environment where an author can use “damn” as an adjective in a seminary chapel, and no one will flinch.
  • “Writing and spiritual practices are both about rising and failing, over and over.” ~Author and editor Jana Riess, who wrote Flunking Sainthood
  • The Festival is a funny place where birds of a feather flock together. Day 1, we creative types get drunk on idea, conversation, and art, complaining about the isolation of writing, and then by day 3, because the creative types are also the introvert types, we all get slightly grumpy and exhausted and caffeine-drained and want to back to our familiar writing nooks at home.
  • “Expect to bury something as you create a body of work. You will either have to bury your faith in fear, or you will bury your talents in fear.” ~ Ann Voskamp
  • There’s nothing quite like meeting digital friends out of their avatars and face to face.
  • I loved Zondervan Editor John Sloan’s description of foreshadowing as “the echo before the sound.”
  • Caring for Words author Marilyn Chandler McEntyre urged us to “PLAY with words,” to incorporate play into both the writing and the spiritual life. We don’t have enough of this.
  • I’m intensely grateful for great books on the fringes. A publisher, big name endorser, or title hook is not always an indication of a great book, and it’s healthy to widen our reading range.
  • Volumes could be written about the parallels between the writing and spiritual life. I am grateful to sit and learn from a community of people who draw connections between the two, who are committed to both.
  • It seems that balance is the constant envy of all writers, a quest which never ends. We all feel the tension of keeping the wheels spinning, between writing, living, relationships, and responsibilities. Whether or not this is encouraging to know we’re not alone in this, or downright depressing, the jury is still out.
  • Gary Schmidt, Claire Vanderpool, Marilyn Chandler McEntyre and others all talked about the irreplaceable value of teaching children to love books. It teaches children empathy, heightens self-esteem, enhances interpersonal communication, cultivates imagination. I will be afraid of any generation who is not raised to love story.

Fresh on my reading list, thanks to Festival recommendations:

What’s on your shelf or reading list these days?

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The Christian Tendency to Make It All Better

Posted on April 25, 2012 | 18 Comments
This will be a short post today, while I continue to process the past week at the soul-stirring Festival of Faith and Writing. More on that later. But for now…

We have this tendency as Christians to absorb the shock of tragedy and then, without missing a beat, rear our heads and say, “BUT”–God is good. There is hope. I’m better for it now.

But sometimes it doesn’t get better. And sometimes it’s not good.

And it’s as inappropriate as wearing white to a funeral.

Grieving is okay. Sackcloth is okay. Pain is allowed. It is even merited.

And yes, redemption can break through the tomb like it did two thousand years ago. But have you ever wondered why Jesus was in the grave for three days? Do you think His resurrection would have been as powerful if He’d popped back out, fully healed and alive, after 5 minutes?

Sometimes the resurrection isn’t in view yet. And we just have to sit in our sorrow and keep our eyes open.

There’s a difference between redemption and a teachable moment. We have this incredible hope in Christ, and sometimes it’s hard to resist the urge to shout it out. But I hope in my living and storytelling I will treat redemption reverently, without making it cheap, without making it premature.

Your thoughts? 

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How Easter Sets the Pattern for Great Storytelling

Posted on April 9, 2012 | 10 Comments

When I read, I can enjoy following one solid plot line until its resolving end, but in my opinion what makes for really excellent reading is when a story weaves not one thread but three:

  1. The immediate story of the narrator, well-told
  2. The story of the personal life of the reader as drawn out by parallels through personal identification
  3. And the story of Christ’s unfolding drama of cosmic redemption, as the author and the reader both are led to walk through, inhabit, and reenact His life, death, and resurrection

I was reflecting on this storytelling craft this weekend, as the church moved through Holy Week. As hundreds of thousands of people this weekend walked through the greatest story ever told, culminating in Good Friday, Silent Saturday, and Easter morning.

My parents often took my sisters and me growing up to a passion play, and every year I seemed to forget that the play ended just as the sun set, with the sealing of the tomb. It killed me that the story left off suspended in such high tension, everyone walking silently to the parking lot to go back home. But I have since learned of the soul’s need to dwell in the funeral hour before rushing ahead to the resurrection.

Like the hinge of success for the perfect joke, timing and pace matters in storytelling. If we get stuck in the grief of Good Friday, the liminal space of Holy Saturday, our hope will crumble like the dust. And if we skip ahead to the hallelujahs and the empty tomb, our victory becomes shallow.

The Good Story requires us to walk faithfully, thoughtfully, through each scene. It requires us to witness the violence of Good Friday, the disturbing details of which the gospels do not censor, and certainly aren’t family-friendly. It requires us to wade through the shadowlands of Holy Saturday, unsure and in between. And then it invites us to experience resurrection.

This is the kind of story I want to read, live, and worship.

What stories, books, testimonies do you enjoy that have exhibited this redemptive story pattern? Does this kind of story development resonate with you, or not?

P.S. If this kind of story appeals to you, I invite you to check out a new book project from Moody Publishers and STORY Chicago which I’m excited to be working on behind the scenes.

 

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When a Woman Finds Her Voice: My Guest Post for the #WIMSeries

Posted on April 6, 2012 | Leave a comment

I’m honored to be guest posting in one of my favorite blog series today, the Women in Ministry Series (#WIMSeries) as generously hosted by blogger, author, and friend Ed Cyzewski. 

I never wanted to host the women’s coffee and danish hour; I wanted to rescue child soldiers. And I didn’t want to do women’s ministry at a church; I wanted to go to the red light district of Amsterdam.
I never wanted to do women’s ministry. I got roped into it…
Click over to Ed’s blog to read the rest!

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Guest Post: When Personal Failure Turns to Sweet Grace

Posted on April 5, 2012 | 3 Comments
Today’s guest post is by Caitlin Muir, blogger, book reviewer, and adventurist extraordinaire, who shares her candid experience with fasting from sugar for Lent this year, in a way that I think strikes a universal human chord. Read, savor, and be blessed this Holy Week.

This was the year that I was going to be extra holy.

I was going to celebrate Lent.

The very idea made me feel holier. Like I was going to be earning brownie points in Heaven for taking part in an ancient ritual that would draw me closer to the Lord and His suffering.

If anything, it’s made me feel the opposite. I know that on my own, I am wretched. Miserable. Unlovable.

I started out with a bang, giving up fast food and sugar for the season. I should probably take this time to let you know that I’m not a cook and I have a sweet tooth the size of Alaska. This would be a huge sacrifice.

Day one - No sugar. No fast food. I’m practically dripping with holiness. Easy peasy. 

Day two - No sugar. No fast food. AWESOME! I CAN DO THIS FOREVER!!!! Maybe I should ask my Catholic friends if I can be canonized. St. Caitlin sounds nice. 

Day three - Does the sugar in wine count? Because Jesus drank wine and I really wouldn’t want to be legalistic. Or try to out-holy Jesus. It’s official. Sugar in wine doesn’t count. On the bright side, I passed up the bowl of M&M’s calling out my name. It’s like I didn’t even notice them. I wonder if my roommates would kill me if I threw them all away. Hmmm…

Day four - No fast food. I’m halfway there today. But while I was running between activities, I had the worst headache from not eating. I needed instant energy. Lucky for me, that 5 lb. tub of Nestle cookie dough was still in the fridge. Make that 4.75 lb tub…

Day five - There’s no reason for me to be feeling guilt. Lent is an option. A freewill offering. God doesn’t want me to feel guilt over eating sugar. I’m busy. It’s not like I’m going to get the same instant energy from eating a prune. 

After a few more days of this, I decide to relax the rules. Sugar when absolutely necessary, fast food under duress only. I’m not one to add extra rules to my life.

Around this time, my roommates invited me to participate in the Stations of the Cross with them. As a Protestant, I had never participated in the Stations. They were hazier than Lent, thrown to the side of Christianity that was locked up in a room I had never explored before.

As a child, the time leading up to Easter wasn’t sacred. Oh, I participated in waving palm branches like the traitorous people of Jerusalem, but it wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized how one could be so fervent one moment and then barbaric the next. Good Friday services were decidedly out of fashion. The Cross was just a moment that we tried to fast forward to. Many Protestants do. The days up to Easter were filled with hand bell choir practice and cleaning the house for relatives. The day itself was long – dressing up, performing in front of the church, and then having a dinner with the family. But it wasn’t special necessarily.

So as I sat in the wooden pew, sandwiched between roommates, boyfriends, and other members of the young Catholic community, everything was made new again through an ancient rite.

I watched as a priest and three young boys made their way through the cathedral. I kneeled, prayed, and worshipped as each station was visited, skipping the “Mary’s” and other parts I didn’t understand or agree with. I wondered if anyone cared that I wasn’t Catholic. If I would be kicked out should I be found out.

But then my thoughts were refocused back on the cross. The dear symbol of suffering and shame.

With every step that he took, Jesus had a choice. Jesus, the holy one, bore the worst punishment known to man. Willingly. When his flesh was ripped open through beatings, he still stood up to carry his cross. His blood was splattered on the ground, dripping down his sides, and still he walked on. Determined to die. Damning himself to save us. You. Me.

In The Passion of The Christ, Simon the Cyrene says something interesting. Indignant that he would be forced to help a criminal, he shouts, “Let it be known today, that I am an innocent man condemned to help a criminal.”

If only he knew the truth of the matter. Yet, I find myself playing the victim card when the truth is that I’m the aggressor.

Nothing I do on my own will change the fact that I’m a sinner. The Lent season has only served to remind me that I can’t do it on my own. If I can’t give up sugar for forty days, there’s no way I can save my soul from hell and eternal brokenness.

It’s all grace.

With Jesus, it’s all beautiful, brutally costly, scandalous grace.

And that is sweeter than a thousand grams of sugar.

Thanks Caitlin for guest posting today! Are you doing anything to commemorate Holy Week or Easter weekend this year? How do you reconnect with the significance of the cross?

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Bringing Good Things to Life

Posted on March 26, 2012 | 18 Comments

This weekend my husband and I went to Agway to pick out our seeds for our vegetable garden. And I have to say, I have never been a tomboy kind of girl, I like my Anthropologie perfume and my dangling earrings, and someone might ask me if I’m lost if I wandered around too long in a place that specializes in mulch and mowers. But I LOVE Agway. Because I love the idea of cultivating something small and good and bringing it to life.

I am a gardening novice. Last year was our first try. We planted the heirloom tomato seeds my sister gave me too late, and the frost came too soon for them to flourish. But our Italian green beans were the best I’ve ever had–with a little lemon juice, butter, and fresh-cracked pepper. And I can remember the grand entrance of green spouts in my kitchen window herbs last spring, and how it was like an adrenaline kick to the wintered-over heart.

So when you place a sunlight-starved girl in front of rows and rows of colorful seed packets all for $2 and under, how can she resist?

But I think, at its root, this is more than spring fever. And I don’t think its a stretch to say that its in human nature to want to cultivate, a legacy that traces back to Eden, the garden God lovingly created for His people in which to dwell, and which He charged them to care for. I love Wendell Berry’s connection between our food and theology that he writes in The Gift of Good Land,

“To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of Creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament. When we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration. In such desecration we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want.”

 

I believe there is a sacramental grace in the simple, sustainable, and made-from-scratch. There is frustration too. I don’t always look at my sink full of crusty dishes as a sacrament. I am disheartened to invest such care in seeds only to find them stillborn under the soil. And I am pretty sure I am cursed for life when it comes to homemade pizza dough. But in between, there are pockets of incredible grace. When I plant a seed, host a meal, share some bread, I feel that I am engaging in the work of creating and cultivating, and to me, this feels like a blessing. There’s still something in me that is thrilled to bring good things to life.

Where do you encounter sacramental grace in the everyday? How do you bring good things to life in small and daily ways?

P.S. I’m tinkering with my blog look…what do you think? I’m open to suggestions! 

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A Writer’s Most Dreaded Deadline: Sleep

Posted on March 20, 2012 | 3 Comments

Many people use Lent as a sort of detox for the soul, bringing them back to simple and essential grace, and I’ve been curious to hear the experiences of others during this season. Today’s post is by blogger and author Ed Cyzewski, whose Lenten discipline is one we all need to cultivate: rest. 

I feel like Lent is that time of year when you try to change something that would otherwise remain untouched. It’s like only the thought of a sad, disappointed Jesus can keep me in line sometimes.

This year I targeted one of my greatest struggles: sleep.

It doesn’t take a lot to keep me up at night. A little anxiety, a captivating book, or a west coast game for the Philadelphia Flyers have all stolen my sleep, leaving me groggy the next day and 2-3 hours behind schedule.

Once my sleep schedule is wrecked, I have a hard time recovering. Prayer time is squeezed off the schedule. Valuable morning work hours vanish. I work after dinner trying to catch up, only to fall behind on my house work. So I stay up late to do the dishes or laundry.

I wake up the next day with the same issues: I’m whining for coffee, frustrated, and behind schedule.

I used to wake up at 5 am and write for a few hours. It was amazing and fun. Really. I got so much done, and then I’d have a lot of confidence for the rest of the day.

My mission this year was simple enough: go up to bed at 9 pm. I’d like to wake up at 5 am, but I also realized that I needed to take things one step at a time. So I have one goal: just get upstairs and start brushing my teeth at 9 pm.

We’ve just passed the mid-way point of Lent, and sleep has been a struggle. What I didn’t expect is that once I got into bed at 9 pm, I rarely fell asleep right away. Sometimes it took hours to fall asleep.

Some nights I’d struggle with anxiety attacks. Other nights I’d try to read in order to calm myself, but then I’d just get sucked into a book. Still other nights I just laid there for hours, unable to shut down my mind.

I’ve had to really rethink my day if I want to go to bed at 9 pm.

In some respects, I’m a lot more focused during the day because of my Lenten practice.

I only have so many hours. I can’t extend the day infinitely. It ends at 9 pm no matter what. That helps me tackle the dishes in the afternoon before they pile up, keep the laundry going, and bump the most important projects to the top of my list.

I’ve also learned that I need to exercise a lot more—like, a lot more. So now I’m setting aside chunks of my day for vigorous walks or gardening projects that involve lots of energy. Consequently, these walks and outdoor activities have been good for my mind and spirit.

While I still struggle to fall asleep at my 9 pm bed time during Lent, I think I’ve trimmed off some of those black holes in my day where I genuinely waste time.

When I need leisure time, I make it count.

When I need to work, I focus.

When it’s time to clean up the kitchen, I attack.

When I sit down to pray, I remove any possible distractions.

Life is one big work in progress that we’re always editing and rewriting. Sometimes deadlines help us get the most important things done. In the case of my 9 pm bedtime, I have an immensely helpful deadline that has challenged me to rethink how I spend my entire day.

I also dread every west coast trip that the Flyers take.

Are you observing Lent this year in any particular way? In the midst of endless things to do, how do you discipline yourself to take the time and rest? 

Ed Cyzewski is the author of Coffeehouse Theology and Divided We Unite. He blogs at www.inamirrordimly.com and hopes the Flyers can win the Cup this year—preferably against an opponent who is not on the west coast.

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You Are Celebrated! {Happy International Women’s Day}

Posted on March 8, 2012 | 8 Comments

There is just too much to say about the feminine tribe. Regardless of whether you’re a stay-at-home mom, working woman, pastor’s wife, single grad student, floral-and-filigree women’s ministry leader or a hear-me-roar feminist rights activist…

You are celebrated. Whoever you are, you are beautiful, significant, and empowered because you are made in the image of Your Maker.

Here are some of my favorite quotes to commemorate the day:

 ”Women are the real architects of society.”~ Harriet Beecher Stowe 

“Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’ … And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.” ~ Genesis 2:18, 22

“Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels.” ~ Faith Whittlesey 

“The fastest way to change society is to mobilize the women of the world.” ~ Charles Malik

“I do not wish [women] to have power over men; but over themselves.” ~ Mary Wollstonecraft

“‘I am the Lord’s servant,’ Mary answered. ‘May it be to me as you have said.’” ~ Luke 1:38 

Who’s your inspiration? What female role models, yesterday and today, have influenced you the most? 

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How Fasting Teaches Us to Refine Our Tastes

Posted on March 7, 2012 | 4 Comments

You can learn a lot about a person by what happens when he or she chooses to “go without.” This is what I’m learning these first few weeks of my Lenten fast from all things snacky and salty.

Where most people confess to having a sweet tooth, I crave salt. If I am hungry, it is the first thing I want. Sometimes, it is the only thing I’m convinced will satisfy me in the illusion painted by hunger pangs.


And it has always been a sensitive spot for me in the eyes of others. It seems so much more refined to crave chocolate, decadent whipped cream, confectioner’s sugar, all those things one might eat in the final course of a good and proper meal. People with a sweet tooth seem sweet themselves, like Audrey Hepburn, it’s in their nature.

But what does it say about a girl who can’t resist fries and ketchup? Uncontrollable cravings for sodium-powered chips and crunchy fried food seems incredibly base in comparison. To me, it feels embarrassing, especially when I love good, fresh, and whole food so much. I don’t wish to rely on or tie myself to such things.

Fasting Frustration 

But last night I wanted it all.

Zach was lounging in the other room, crunching. And I could smell the sweet chili spices of the chips he was eating, left over from a pizza and friends night over the weekend, and I could hear every soulful crunch.

So I ate a granola bar.  Lit a scented candle, put on some music, and washed the dishes, soothing my hands in the hot running water. I tried to engage my other senses. And the granola bar really did nothing but irritate me, and I had to turn up the volume to keep from hearing my husband’s snacking a yard away, but in time it was okay. Not a profound experience, or a moment of illumination, but I slept through the night and started over the next day, happy with my bowl of oatmeal.

Refining Our Taste 

I’ve been learning about this crazy thing called supernormal stimuli. First observed in the animal kingdom, this phenomenon is what causes male butterflies to choose wingless cardboard dummies as mating partners instead of the real, live females right in front of them. The scientists discovered that if the desirable characteristics are amplified on the fake mate, the male would choose the cardboard lover over a real one every time.

It’s absurd, but only as absurd as we are ourselves when we stuff ourselves with snacks or sweets, look at porn, live vicariously through movies and TV shows, the list goes on. Cardboard cut-out stand-ins for cravings which go far, far deeper.

We need to refine our taste for that which is truly good and full. There’s a feast to be had, every day, in His presence. And that’s what I’m trying to teach my stubborn body and soul during this Lenten season.

Have you ever come to a realization that you’re cravings or addictions are second-rate to what God provides? 

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