book-ish

My husband is a TV type of guy. When we met, I did not own a television. I was a bookish girl. Seventeen years later, relaxing with my family in the evenings usually involves a couch and one of three remotes, none of which falls under my jurisdiction, and none of which I know how to use. I'm not the kind of gal who can read while the telly is on (quiet please) so for me, now, reading involves sacrifice. If I want to read, I must retreat.

My bible(s) is (are) worn out from daily use, and I've read a floor-to-ceiling stack of "kid lit"with my son. It's not that I don't read. I do. But. It takes me a while to get through a book for me.

Biographies of missionaries are a favorite, as is anything written by Anne Lamott. Ten years ago I read her Christian testimony, Traveling Mercies, on the recommendation of a writer friend. I've read it several times since. Brilliant. (Note to the pure of heart: Anne uses naughty words. And I forgive her.) If you know me well, you've probably got a used copy stashed in your closet, sent to you by me, via amazon.com. If you are a friend who writes, you've probably got also got her "Instructions on Writing and Life," Bird by Bird. Same amazon.com scenario. It's what I do.

I have read books besides the bible that were not biographies of missionaries, or written by Anne Lamott, because I had to. I had to read A Woman's Guide to Fasting by Lisa Nelson because it was sent to me by an editor friend who asked me to write a review. As the title suggests, it is a how-to book. What you can't tell from the title or the cover, however, is that Lisa's Guide to Fasting also tells the amazing story of her on-going, ever-deepening relationship with Jesus. It is beautiful, and unexpected, and helpful.

The same editor friend recommended Praying for Strangers, by River Jordan. I read it a year ago. River's stories, and the way she compiled them, still come to mind. Every. Single. Day.

Currently I am half-way through Ann Voskamp's best-seller, One Thousand Gifts. Oh, Ann. Ann, Ann, Ann. You ask all the right questions—the tough ones, the questions that nag and are rarely answered to our satisfaction. (Not to mine, anyway.) And then, get this... you answer them. Without being preachy, or didactic. You "make poetry out of  what in many of us is a tangle of confused whimpers."* This one I'm reading because a crazy Filipino epidemiologist had someone in the States buy and ship a copy to her, so she could write a note inside and then ship it half-way around the world, to me. Her version of amazon.com. Not exactly point-and-click.

Each of these books is different in tone and voice, but they share the common threads of seeking and wooing: women, seeking God in a variety of ways; God, wooing them into his wide-open self. Every single story made me laugh and cry. They spurred my faith. Each was worth the time away from my family, because the lessons they taught made me a better mom, a better wife, a more committed believer. These books made me want more of God. And I wouldn't have read a single one of them, if not for the people who sent and recommended them. Thank you, bookish friends. Amen.

Therefore encourage each other and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:11, NIV 

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* From Eugene Peterson's introduction to Job, The Message.

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touch of heaven

You light up the sky to show that you are with me. ~ The Afters, from "Light up the Sky"

When I was basking in the pleasant glow of God early in my walk with Jesus, I was so excited about the new life he had given me on earth that I wasn't very curious about heaven. Since then I've studied up on that topic and others, and I've lived a decade of life. I've prayed with and for many people, and have experienced first hand God's YES, and his NO. Things don't always work out as we wish they would down here, but ahhhh... heaven. Wait for heaven.

Thursday at dusk when it stopped raining I went for a run. It was the Golden Hour, a photographer's dream. Rounding the bend at the top of our first big hill, I looked up and saw a hint of a rainbow in the sky off to the left, whispering at me from behind the clapboard houses. As I followed the curve of the road, my vantage point changed as quickly as the color of the sky. I was astounded to see the entire arc of the rainbow, as clear day, with a hint of a second arc glimmering at either end. The few remaining clouds were luminous, rimmed in vermillion, creamy yellow against the glistening amber sky. Like sea glass.

I thought to myself, Where is everyone? And I ran alone, face tipped up, resisting the urge to knock on doors and announce the beauty that was unfolding above my neighbors' oblivious heads. The light, the glow, the aura was other-worldly. For a few moments I was not a professor, or an artist. I was not Fred's wife, or Gray's mom, or... anyone. I was simply in awe, my spirit united with creation in pure worship, without a care in the world.  And the sky cooled, and the rainbow faded, because this is earth. And the rhythm of my feet on suburban pavement carried me home, and I understood heaven a little bit more.

The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what's ahead. He puts a little heaven in our hearts so that we'll never settle for less ~ 2 Corinthians 5:5, The Message

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bleats, perfectly timed

For many years I taught self-promotion in a college classroom; by night, in my personal life, I was learning to write. The combo got me thinking, and a vision began to materialize: why not create a website that would combine writing with my promo savvy, for God? After all, he gave me my education, my professorship, and my laptop. He gave me stories to tell. After a week on Twitter I realized I was not the only one. There are tons of Christian writers out there!

Last summer I bounced my idea off a new Twitter-bud, Kimberly Shorter, whose feedback was very helpful. A WordPress site—baaaaa.com—was born. Kim graciously agreed to write our "inaugural post" which took time and moxie. Kimberly is all right. You should probably follow her blog and, if you want to smile and chuckle throughout your day, follow her on Twitter, too.

Managing baaaaa.com has become part of my weekly routine. Running the site takes time and discipline. (Ask Brett Wilkes, the site's main volunteer editor.) Every Wednesday a new post is published; sometimes on Sunday, too. I write on the site periodically, but 99% of the essays are contributed by guest authors, amazing people from all over the world. Some are well published; others, like me, are just getting started.

Authors of baaaaa.com: I love you and can't thank you enough for your contributions. Thanks especially to those of you who set 800-word-limit alarms on your laptops, who don't mix metaphors, and who try really hard to share stories rather than preach sermons. (Hey, we all struggle.) And thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, to everyone who stops by to read and comment. Readers, I can never thank you enough.

Many of the site's contributors have become close friends of mine, which would be enough to keep me going—but there is more! Every time a contribution comes in, I shake my head in amazement. God uses these generous people to write exactly what I need to read at that moment. When I was all twisted up in an imagined work-related conspiracy theory (ha!), John Hileman submitted an essay about following corn trails, What's Up With Corn? When I was struggling with fear, in came Petrina Kent's awesome story about how she dealt with fear: The Big Friendly Biker. As my family was moving a thousand miles away from our home of seventeen years, Taryn Hutchison submitted There's No Place Like It, reminding me that home is wherever our family is.

Every week, it's the same. The writers don't know what's going on in my life, but God does. He regularly uses the authors of baaaaa.com to let me know that he is right here with me, and that ultimately the site belongs to him.

The purpose of baaaaa.com—to promote Jesus Christ and authors who write for him—is being accomplished, because his word never returns to him void. How lovely of him to bless my socks off in the process.

Happy Birthday, baaaaa.com. And Happy Birthday to one of my favorite contributors, Daniella Bolung.

No eye has seen, 

no ear has heard, 

no mind has conceived 

what God has prepared 

for those who love him.  
~ ::: ~

 1 Corinthians 2:9

What creative vision has God given you lately, and where are you in the process of realizing it? I'd love to know!

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wild violet

To my finite human mind, it seems that God, when planning the days of my life, must have written the whole thing out in reverse. How else could the story unfold so beautifully? Take, for example, my family's recent move.

My husband and I tied the knot in 1995 in Savannah, GA. Simultaneously, completely unbeknownst to us, an adorable house was being built a thousand miles away in Gansevoort, NY. That was seventeen years ago. Since then, my husband and I have been through a lot. We stumbled around, found Jesus half way through, started praying and trusting God—all of that, in Savannah.

Meanwhile, up in Gansevoort, various families lived in the little brick house. They remodeled, knocked down walls, planted tons of flowers. Most recently, they painted the back bedroom violet.

Now. This little house has many charms: artfully designed hardwood floors and trim; a huge rolling yard surrounded by a white picket fence; a beautifully finished basement. But it was the violet room that made me swoon. Because for the last fourteen years, my illustrator name has been Violet.

As we were getting settled a few weeks ago, unpacking and all of that, my son Gray was performing his first chore in our new home: weeding the glorious flower beds surrounding the house. For a while he was directly outside my (violet) studio window. As I was arranging books on the shelf, I saw him take off running across the yard, heard him come in through the garage and kick off his shoes, heard his bare feet pad over white kitchen tile and down the hand-crafted oak hallway. Breathless and excited, smudged with dirt from head to toe, he smiled at me through the studio doorway. "Follow me," he said. He was wearing his best grin.

My sweet son led me to the front flower bed. We stopped outside the studio window. "Look," he said, pointing down low. I stooped to see. In the shade at the front of the bed, in the space between the bushy black-eyed Susans and the landscaping bricks, as bright and glorious as a glimpse of heaven, grew a single wild violet. And—as if there had been any doubt—I knew that we were home.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

 Psalm 139:16, NIV 1984

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