"Sitting in the coffee shop not even a full day before I would become permanently and irrevocably a father, it was easy not to believe it was really happening. Nothing had changed at all in my life in preparation. My schedule was the same, my wife looked no different. Maybe that’s why I felt so sickeningly scared the first morning after we got Yosi. The enormity of what we had been striving for and had been granted was more than I had prepared myself for. It is its own type of birth pain."
~from Adoption Week Narrative #1: Preparing to Travel, or “Get Your American Butts to Guatemala, Pronto!”, September, 2010
"If it’s hard to think of what to do with your final two childless hours, your last thirty minutes are like choosing your last meal, or standing in the back of the church before the wedding march begins."
~ from "Adoption Week Narrative #2: The Longest 2 Hours Ever", September, 2010
"It is a blur now as I think back on it. It was neither more nor less than we were expecting. It was imprinting itself on our minds as a fresh reality, a singular and true event."
~ from "Adoption Week Narrative #5: A Peaceful Shore", September, 2010
"October brings with it every year a cold that forces us inside, closer to those we can drift from in the expansive warmth of the earlier months. If summer is the tide that pushes us high onto sand we’ve never known, fall is the ebb that pulls us back where we belong. We sat in the car and I was sure of God, as a few miles away my daughter learned things about Him it seems I can believe on any day but Sunday anymore."
~ from "Interstitial", October, 2010
"I walk to the post office from my job every morning. It is only three blocks, but I cherish this ten minutes of my day. It is holy sanctuary, this cracked sidewalk. During the years I couldn’t come to peace with God I prayed, daily as I walked, the only prayer that was true from my heart, a weak and bitter liturgy. 'God, I believe you are God. I believe you are good, though I don’t know how. Help me to see how.' "
~ from "Ocean", November, 2010
"Lyndie and I have long held that children and teens best learn how to be mature adults by watching mature adults doing adult things. Learning happens at the hazy perimeter of understanding, and if we aren’t stretched, we don’t grow."
~ from "Snow Angel", December, 2010
"I refuse to present my daughter with an algebraic equation of how God works, because I haven’t been able to solve for x in that equation myself for years. I want her to know that God loves her, that He loves everyone who ever has been or will be born. I want her to know that God wants a relationship with her, that He wants her to love Him and to love others because she loves Him and He loves her. I want her to live life with gusto because the Spirit that is that Love fills her lungs and makes her laugh till she cries. I want her to know God, regardless of what else she doesn’t, what else we can’t. Isn’t that Christianity?"
~ from "I Don't Know and Other Heresies", March, 2011
“Doing that means I have to be honest when certain questions the Bible raises don’t have answers, and certain stories it tells don’t have positive messages, and certain pictures it paints of God are less than glorious. I don’t know what to do with those parts, but I’m not allowed to make up answers to soften the blow. When there is no good answer I will have to tell her so, and hold her hand through it, and all the while pray that the God who eschewed the violence of fire and cyclone for a whisper will tell her He is love, and that He too longs for the day when the foggy glass is removed and we see Him as He is.” ~ from "What we owe our kids when we talk about the Bible part 5, May, 2011
Just one reccomendation: 84 Charing Cross Road, because it’s dang good. The movie with Anne Bancroft ain’t half bad, either. Not that you can watch a movie while driving, unless you have one of those fancy cars.
I read Burry Me Standing as well. Interesting, but not gripping.
*Bury – read this, ’cause supposedly my paternal grandmother had Gypsy blood.
Fascinating! I will definitely be reading it soon, even if not on this trip.
Slaughterhouse five…. because i really, really, really wanted to like it. But couldn’t. Don’t know if i even finished it. I would like for you to redeem it for me and tell me why it’s such a good book. Because i got a little lost, and have since felt like i’ve lost my Lit Nerd card. *sigh.
Films of my life… because there’s film over the coffee cup i had yesterday (added milk)… and i think my life has those kinds of films. and that’s what i’m gonna pretend the book is about.
Rollins! McCracken! Borg! The first because HELLO i wouldn’t have given it to you if i didn’t want you to read it. The second because i have recommended it to people but am not reading it (the title says hipster, after all), and want to know if i should borrow from the library or actually purchase. And Borg because… it’s Borg. and if you like it, maybe it will spur me on to read his books sitting in my piles.
aaaaannnnddd…. yes, your book choices are all about me. damn.
I was reluctant on the Hipster book, but I really like McCracken and he has a really good perspective on this issue. And it would be an easy read. I will be reading the Borg book soon regardless of whether it goes on the trip. Rollins…I have to admit, I’m wary of parables and object lessons.
Rollins– he has explanations at the end of each for people who need things handed to him (which is frustrating for some of us, but makes the stories accessible for the people who probably need them more, and saves us having to explain some of the possible principles)… you don’t have to read them. I believe I skipped them my first time through.
Have I sent you to his blog yet? He really is brilliant… like, I’d enjoy going to hear him speak even if he wasn’t speaking in a bar.
Oh, honey. I was getting all excited about helping you…until I saw my choices. I haven’t read any of those!
Does my inclusion in Awesometown allow me to go off the reservation?
False! Sorry, I already determined the nominees. You’re just voting for the winners.
Bury Me Standing piqued my interest because of the title. But definitely Borg. I have read several of his books and they are really good. Other authors that have changed my life are Richard Rohr (Falling Upward, The Naked Now, and Everything Belongs) and Cynthia Bourgeault (The Wisdom Jesus,The Wisdom Way of Knowing, and The Meaning of Mary Magdalene. I do think, however, one must be seeking more, and therefore, open-minded to benefit from these books. Thanks for asking!!
i know i’m not really playing by the rules, but i think you should read my book on the history of the yugo….
after all, did i steer you wrong with the simmons book on basketball?
Things Fall Apart is AMAZING! It does such a great job of bringing you into the culture and lets you identify with characters that you normally wouldn’t identify with. I don’t want to say too much and give the plot away. Just read it. Please.
I haven’t read any of the nonfiction books. I’ll be adding them to my list.
I read One Thousand GIfts. I had a hard time getting into it but she brought up some points that really stuck with me and changed how I’ve been thinking about things lately.
loved the Peter Rollins one, and I’ve heard great things about that one thousand gifts book – but its true the cover scares away half of the population.
Read One Thousand Gifts. Just take the slipcover off first.