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The Book I’ve Waited My Whole Life to Read {#IDHTBPTBB}

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When I was in my fourth year of medical school, I hosted my first big shindig at my house.  I hired a bluegrass band, put up a bunch of makeshift decorations (which I mostly clipped out of my yard), and strung a bunch of Christmas lights on the back deck.  It was all very proper.  At the very last hour, when my poor mother was actually making food for people to eat, I ran through the kitchen barefoot with yet another slew of fresh magnolia flowers from my tree to float in my garden tub alongside the floating candles.  I heard momma yell upstairs, “Unless you want your friends to eat magnolia flowers,  you better come help with the food, little missy.”

I’ve been a hopeless house decorating fool ever since, letting only one rule guide me—if I love it, then it’s right.  [Read more…] about The Book I’ve Waited My Whole Life to Read {#IDHTBPTBB}

Something Other Than God {And also Texas}

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There are a lot of great folks from Texas. I like to pride myself in all things Lone Star State, so humor me in a smidgen of Texas pride.  There’s George W., Tommy Lee Jones, and Waylon Jennings.  Don’t forget Gene Autry, Sam Houston and Don Henley.   You probably would have guessed that Buck Owens, Roy Orbison, and George Strait all hail from Texas.  A few of my personal favorites?  Melanie Shankle, Shaun Groves, and Willie Nelson. Not to even mention Friday Night Lights, Tim Riggins, and Coach Taylor.  (#texasforever #cleareyesfullheart)

I sometimes wonder if  King David may have been from Texas,  though you’re free to disagree.  He definitely had some Texas tendencies.

What I’m trying to say is that it doesn’t surprise me when Texas shows off.  And the great state has gone and done it again.  They’ve given us another crown jewel and her name is Jennifer Fulwiler—a sixth generation Texan!   [Read more…] about Something Other Than God {And also Texas}

2014 Reading List

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“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.”  ~Oscar Wilde

There’s probably nothing more dangerous in your house than a stack full of good books.  More than any other one thing in my life, books have been the most transformative.  And I’m not talking about 50 Shades of Grey, I’m talking about the best books, often classics, that have stood the test of time and place.  Cultivating a serious reading schedule is the best gift you can give yourself.  When I make my reading list, I feel like I’m giving myself the best kind of gift.  Coming up with a reading schedule for the year is one of my favorite things to do in January.  And since y’all made lots of comments about books in your surveys, I thought I’d share what’s on my overflowing nightstand!  I try to do one classic every month and then 3-4 other books (sometimes more) that are easier to get through.  I’m working on a master book list, of all the books I’ve read and love with little snippets of reviews.  Hopefully soon!

I’ve had the bad habit in the past of having 4-5 books going at once and then not finishing them.  I’m trying to do better, and have only 1-2 going at a time until I finish them.  Multitasking books is probably not the best practice.  So, for instance, the last 3 weekends, I’ve read one novel each weekend and tried to finish them either by the end of the weekend or the end of the week, submersing myself fully in the fiction dream land.   I can read nonfiction in parts, a little here and there, but literary fiction is more demanding and needs some dedicated time.  There’s nothing that does my heart better than a weekend with a great book and a clean calendar.

Here’s my working list and I’d love to hear what you’re reading too!   (I reserve the right to add and subtract as I see fit!)

The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis (one of my favorite books of all time!)

Telling the Truth, Frederick Buechner (excellent, maybe the highlight of my summer reading)

The Writing Life, Annie Dillard

Wordsmithy, Douglas Wilson

Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (OH MY WORD.  So good!)

Home, Marilynne Robinson

Bossypants, Tina Fey

Stein on Writing, Sol Stein

The Memoir Project, Marion Roach Smith

Long Man by Amy Greene  (finished, beautiful, rich prose)

The Business of Heaven by C.S. Lewis (short daily readings, great of course!)

God at Work by Gene Veith (finished, must read!)

Flannery O’Connor’s Prayer Journal

Luther on Vocation by Wingren

The Antelope in the Living Room by Melanie Shankle (finished, HI-Larry-Us)

Broken: 7 Rules that Every Christian Ought to Break by Jonathan Fisk

The Tempest by Shakespeare

Suttree by Cormac McCarthy

What Alice Forgot

The Ongoing Feast: Table Fellowship at Emmaus

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

Notes from a Blue Bike by Tsh Oxenreider (reading now, great so far!)

Middlemarch by George Eliot

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy  (amazing times 10)

The Nesting Place by Myquillin Smith

Working Days: The Journals of Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

The Call by Os Guiness (finished, very enlightening book about vocation)

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes by Kenneth Bailey

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a’Kempis (finished, deep but rich!)

Light Years by James Salter

Beloved by Toni Morrison (reading now)

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (book on writing, reading now)

The Warrior Ethos by Steven Pressfield (finished, love his other books, this one not quite as relevant but still good)

Word and Sacrament, Luther’s Works

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Heaven on Earth by Arthur Just

Discipline by Elisabeth Elliott (finished)

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Something Other Than God by Jennifer Fulwiler

Let Me Be Woman by Elisabeth Eliot (finished, good but not as deep as I’d hoped)

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

All New Square Foot Gardening

Stein on Writing by Sol Stein

Escaping Into the Open  by Elizabeth Berg

This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash

Lilith by George MacDonald

Reading has been a large priority in my life for the past ten years.  If you’re just starting out on a quest to read more, be easy on yourself.  Reading is demanding and you get better at it with practice.  Our culture is so accustomed to things that are instant and easy, so cultivating a life-long habit of reading good books will take time.  But, the gift you give yourself and your family by filling your home and minds with good books is immeasurable.  I love this quote from Flannery O’Connor when a reader claimed that her books were dark,  hard to read, and not uplifting enough.  She said,

“There is something in us, as story-tellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least must be offered the chance to be restored.  The reader of today looks for this motion, and rightly so, but what he has forgotten is the cost of it.   His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether and so he has forgotten the price of restoration.”

In a larger sense, the stories and essays that we’ve gotten from the greatest authors have come to them at great price.  I live and die by their books—by the hard fought words of someone else.  All day, I hear the drone of culture and the drivel  of my own self-centered voice in my head and I know that I am impoverished.  I don’t have the right words and so I need to borrow them from someone else—–from someone who has read better books, lived in a saner time,  and  paid a steep price for the kernels of truth they so generously share.  The words of my favorite authors color my world and wipe away the fog that our modern, consumerist society has accepted as the new status quo.   I think Flannery O’Connor was right.  We have forgotten the cost of redemption.  Perhaps the masters will help us remember.

Now, tell me the top few books on your list this year.

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If you’re new around here?  Thank you for visiting my blog!  I’m honored you’re here and I hope you’ll find some encouragement (and some laughter!) for your days.  Visit my about page, which highlights some of my popular posts or will at least show you a peak into my crazy people.  You can subscribe to this blog by email here.  I am currently addicted to Pinterest, so follow at your own risk I also post updates to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.


Video Interview with Melanie Shankle (Big Mama)

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Y’all. I don’t even know where to start with this one.  Melanie is the Seinfeld of blog world and she’s been making me laugh about nothing since 2008.  She’s one of my favorite people and her blog, Big Mama is a daily treat.   I know you’d love her too, if you could meet her in person, which is why I decided to interview her on video. I could not be happier to have her here on the blog today as she launches her brand book about marriage, The Antelope in the Living Room.  I knew even before I met her last year at Allume that we’d be fast friends.  She’s from Texas, so let’s all shout a hearty amen to that.  She may be the only person I’ve ever met as obsessed with Coal Miner’s Daughter and Friday Night Lights as I am.  (#TexasForever)

She’s beautiful, warm,  friendly, and one of the funniest people I know.   She recently wrote about her daughter’s ant farm and I thought I would die.  Or wet my pants. Besides her daily life,  she writes about fashion every Friday and I’ve bought several cute things on her recommendation. Girl has got STYLE.  She’s living a pretty simple life of mom, wife, and writer at home with her family, which makes me love her even more.  I so admire her willingness to be herself and to open her heart and share her gifts with us.

Her husband hunts big game and a couple years ago,  hung a giant antelope on her living wall to surprise her—hence a book about the beauty and struggle of two people living one crazy life in which one of the people thinks it’d be a good idea to hang a giant antelope on the wall.

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(photo stolen from Paige, our mutual dear friend because why reinvent the wheel?  thank you paige-y!)

Melanie and I sat down last week and talked laughed hysterically while I squinted my eyes and nodded a lot about life, writing, blogging, beauty products, fashion, and our mutual love for all things Coal Miner’s Daughter.   We also talked about her book, which I adore.  Here’s a little snippet from the book trailer:

We’ve grown up together.  There are parts of us etched in each other like the rings found in the trunk of a tree.  We’ve grown. We’ve changed.  And ultimately, we are so much better together than either of us would be on our own.  When I look in his eyes, I don’t see perfection.  I don’t see a love story that someone would watch on a big screen and dream about.  I see someone who will fight for me and protect me and love me in spite of all the ways I’m still a wreck.  I see home.  This book is about the experiences that brought us together and the days we were falling apart.  Welcome to the story of two people sharing one life. ~Melanie Shankle

We live in a culture where marriage is attacked on every side.  This book is a breath of fresh air and it made me thankful to be privileged enough to make a life with someone else, even though at times, we’re both such a mess.  I hope you’ll read it and share it with your all your friends that could use a shot of encouragement and a good, belly laugh.

(Which seems to be all I do when I’m with Melanie!)

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Yep.  Those were good times.

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The interview is broken into four parts to make it easier to view in snippets.  Hope you enjoy!  (I’m still working on parts 3 and 4 so check back later, because a tech genius, I am not!)

Part 1 of our interview

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Things we talked about that you might be interested in:

The book trailer!

You can purchase The Antelope in the Living Room: The Real Story of Two People Sharing One Life and laugh until you cry.   Then cry.  Then laugh some more!  Thank you so much, Melanie, for letting me part of your special day!

I thought it’d be fun, in honor of Melanie’s book on marriage and in honor of the LOVE month to write a funny story from your own marriage and then up with me next Monday.

In the mean time, I’m giving away 5 copies of Melanie’s book today, so leave a comment and tell me the one thing you love most about your spouse.

p.s. In full disclosure::I’m not receiving any compensation to say any of these things and I’m buying the books, as my gift to you!

Interview with Melanie Shankle

10 Books Every Christian Should Read

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During my (very scant) downtime this summer, I did quite a bit of reading.  It seems like I’m either reading 4 books a week or none at all.  My summer favorite was Stephen King’s memoir, called On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition: A Memoir of the Craft.  I haven’t read even one of his fiction books (I’m a huge scared-y cat!) but his memoir is most excellent.  It got me thinking that despite the fact that I start things I can’t finish (like a classical book club), I am a book worm in the highest order.  I thought I’d make my top 10 list of books every christian should read and then in the comments, you can share ones you think should have made the list!

Surely you knew this would be number 1! This is perhaps my favorite book of all time, although that’s a little hard to narrow down.  The book is partially responsible for bringing Stevie and I back to the faith after some long, hard years in medical training.  Lewis gently leads the reader from his posture of unbelief to his unapologetic embrace of Christianity.  In Lewis’ own words, “A young athiest can never be too careful what he reads.”

 

This book is for Chesterton what Mere Christianity is for Lewis. I’ve read it five times and (finally understand a lot of it!) enjoy so much every time I read it. Philip Weingart said about Orthodoxy,

“Since Chesterton was both a genius and the son of a saner era than our own, the ideas which coursed through his head may astonish modern readers. He seems to turn the world on its head; the book is a continuous feast of the delightfully unexpected. To Chesterton, faith is reason, orthodoxy is liberty, the order of our universe is as unexpected as the wildest fairy tale, and heeding tradition is as natural as allowing all citizens to vote. Modern readers at first will think him just a little bit crazy, but as they warm up to his approach, they will begin to feel that perhaps his point of view is healthier than theirs, and in the best of cases, they will begin to right themselves.”

This is Augustine’s autobiography of his journey to God.   He was converted as an adult and went on to heavily influence medieval Christianity.

“You called and shouted and burst my deafness. You flashed, shone, and scattered my blindness. You breathed odors, and I drew in breath and panted for You. I tasted, and I hunger and thirst. You touched me, and I burned for Your peace.”

I’m reading this book now, but it makes every MUST READ list and I can see why, so I added it to mine.

A retelling of the fall in poetic form.

“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”

This little book is so chocked full of good stuff, you’ll have to read and reread.

“Christian community is like the Christian’s sanctification. It is a gift of God which we cannot claim. Only God knows the real state of our fellowship, of our sanctification. What may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to God. Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so, too, the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature. The more thankfully we daily receive what is given to us, the more surely and steadily will fellowship increase and grow from day to day as God pleases.”

If you start with one book on this list, this should be it. It explores the basic tenets of Christianity from the perspective of the historic faith.  Veith is Lutheran (like me) but this book is invaluable for any believer.  It’s refreshingly Christ-centered in every aspect.

Most lists include this book and I have to agree.  I read it aloud with my girls when they were in 3rd grade (I think?) and it took almost a year.  Go slow.  It’s one to steep in and cherish.

God’s Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
    And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Here are my first five alternates:

So, now, you tell me what you would add to the list.  It’s hard to make a list of just ten!

And have a glorious week!

(All links are affiliate links.)

Mom in the Mirror (and a giveaway)

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First, I’d like to say thank you, for the kindest, most heartfelt encouragement.  You are truly a gift and I am amazed at how blessed a woman can be by her faraway friends.   Today, I am so honored to have Emily Wierenga here guest posting.  If you haven’t read Emily, you’re in for a treat.  She’s launching her new book, which she co-wrote with Dena Cabrera, called Mom in the Mirror: Body Image, Beauty, and Life After Pregnancy. I’ve so enjoyed reading it and know you will, too!  Emily is a gifted writer and I’m so blessed to know her.  Welcome, Emily!

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I was eating key-lime pie and commenting on how good she looked, on her new shade of hair, and I mentioned that she’d lost weight, that she looked slimmer, and she glowed. The way mothers do when they’re told they’re beautiful, even as her teenage daughter walked by, her other three children milling around the buffet at our family reunion.

And she told me she was losing weight the healthy way, and I said that was good. She said she was still eating carbs and proteins and everything in moderation, and it all sounded positive. But she looked longingly at my pie.

And then I said, “But you’re not losing any more, are you? I mean, you look perfect.”

And she glanced down at her blue striped shirt and her blue jeans with disgust. “Oh yes,” she said. “I’m losing more. I want to go back to the old me.”

The old me. The girl that had no stretch marks, that had thinner hips and bigger boobs. The girl that didn’t have crow’s feet and could pull off skinny jeans.

The girl who longed for stretch marks because they would mean she was fertile. The girl who longed for a man who loved her enough to make babies with her. The girl who dreamt of being pregnant, of feeling the life inside her, of nourishing that life at her chest even as it sucked away hers.

We forget about the beauty of the sacrifice. Sometimes I think it’s like the stomach we have left over, after giving birth. The stomach that sticks around, and it’s empty and loose and floppy, and we feel that way too. We forget about the beautiful, miraculous role which this stomach played. About the way it stretched taut around human life for nine months. About the home it made for heaven to come down and touch earth in the form of lips and eyes and limbs and heart.

We forget about the miracle, in the face of the mess.

And sure, we’re messy. We’re mothers. But there is a beauty in that mess.

And I set down my pie (just for a second) and I took this woman by her shoulders, and I looked into her eyes, and I said, Honey, you don’t need to lose anymore. This is the NEW YOU. Claim your NEW BODY. We have been REBORN through the fetus that slid red and screaming from our womb, and we need to take pride in the us of TODAY.

Mothers, unite. Let’s stop lamenting who we are, and mourning the loss of what we used to be. We used to be lonely. Now we have a family. We used to be ignorant of love. Now it tugs on us all hours of the day and night. We used to be untouched. Now we crave some form of privacy. We used to dream of pregnancy. Now our bodies are emblems of that sacred experience.

We are LIFE GIVERS. Say goodbye to the old, and hello to the new. Throw away those skinny jeans, and purchase a new wardrobe, because life is too short not to eat key-lime pie.
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I’m giving away a hard-cover copy of my new book today, Mom in the Mirror: Body Image, Beauty and Life After Pregnancy, co-authored by Dr. Dena Cabrera, and foreword by supermodel Emme.
Here’s an excerpt from the book:
Giving birth produces life in more than one sense. It’s the baby powder, milky-breathed spirit found in the softest limbs you’ve ever felt, and it’s the respect a man feels for his wife as he watches her give up her body for another.
And it’s the deep-rooted soul satisfying feeling of knowing you were born for more than the mirror. That you were born to see the face of God in your child, and to know, you yourself are a miracle.

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I want you to have this book.

Tell me ONE thing that you love about yourself, and you’ll be entered into the drawing!

Otherwise, you can order it through the book’s website, here: www.mominthemirrorbook.com.

 

 

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Emily Wierenga is a mom to two beautiful boys, wife to a handsome math teacher, and author of Chasing Silhouettes: How to Help a Loved One Battling an Eating Disorder (www.chasingsilhouettes.com) and Mom in the Mirror: Body Image, Beauty and Life After Pregnancy (www.mominthemirrorbook.com). To learn more, please visitwww.emilywierenga.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, I just added my pizza crust recipe to Ruth’s Thrifty Thursday!