A Review of L'Engle's "Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith & Art"

I think 2016 went out with a fizzle for me. I've been down about current national and world events and moods. And, ever the introvert, discontentment with external events is eventually subsumed by disillusionment about my own lack of apparent contributions to the betterment of society over the last 38 — better make that 39 — years. I've been down on my writing, parenting...wife-ing... friend-ing...Christian-ing. And, as it turns out, being down on myself does not translate into becoming a better version of myself. 

I begin 2017 thinking about many of the thoughts contained in Madeleine L'Engle's classic book on being a Christian creative.There's this little flicker of hope when I read Walking on Water, first published when I was 2 years old, and now reprinted in portable paperback form with a lovely sunny rainy cover and a nifty reader's guide at the end. I've been reading and re-reading this book for a few months now, hesitating to write my review because then I'll have officially "finished" the book, so packed with treasures, tips, observations, philosophy and theology.  In L'Engle's theology, creative work is a spiritual discipline— a prayer— and listening to the work is the same as listening to God. 

To work on a book is for me very much the same things as to pray. Both involve discipline. If the artist works only when he feels like it, he's not apt to build up much of a body of work. Inspiration far more often comes during the work than before it, because the largest part of the job of the artist is to listen to the work and to go where it tells him to go. Ultimately, when you are writing, you stop thinking and write what you hear. To pray is to listen also, to move through my own chatter to God, to that place where I can be silent and listen to what God may have to say. But if I pray only when I feel like it, God may choose not to speak. (140)

Lisa Cron's "Story Genius" urges aspiring authors to get to know their protagonists

These days a lot of books like to tout brain science in order to seem wiser and more cutting-edge. I found the subheading of Lisa Cron's Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel, to have that same draw. The literary agent and now story workshop teacher proposes that humans are sucked into story because we feel that learning how other people like us face their challenges might help us navigate our own. She also throws in a few random statistics about the percentage of would-be authors who receive rejection letters and book sales averages in an attempt to show that the failures are due to stories that lack the blueprints she outlines in the book. I found this introductory part of the book that debunks the supposed myths of prevailing writing camps (the plotters and the pantsers) to be what many introductions are: a sales pitch for her methods and perhaps for her workshops. 

While the book doesn't quite live up to its "sciency" promise, I have been finding it very helpful in its clear course of action and encouragement as I attempt to flesh out a story idea that's been running around my brain for a while.

The fun part about this book is that Cron's friend and fellow writer, Jennie, plays the role of the guinea pig, offering up her own flicker of a story idea and developing it according to Cron's steps so that it gradually unfolds over the course of Story Genius. Following Cron's steps, Jennie fashions a storyline that follows a topic I find utterly insipid (a woman adopts a dog so her dog-loving friends will think she's normal as she deals with the fall-out of a romantic relationship gone awry) into something that tugged my heart strings and even caused me to shed tears. 

In short, Cron asks the right questions, such as who is the protagonist at her core, what event made her that way, what myth is at the core of her worldview, and what event will totally upend her current way of thinking? By skillfully answering these questions, Jennie made me actually care about her budding dog-lover. 

I can see how some writers might find Cron's methods limiting... there are indeed great stories out there that don't quite fit her protagonist-centric mold or perhaps leave the ultimate meaning of the book ambiguous so that diverse readers can find their own message. 

But as a complete novice to novel writing, I'm pretty excited to follow Cron's detailed advice, if nothing else, as a way to keep myself motivated in the face of so many distractions and procrastinations!

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

A review of the NIrV "Minecrafters Bible"

My second-grader pretty much as Minecraft on the brain or at least as his background soundtrack all the hours he's awake, and some of those during which he's asleep. I thought this might make a nice birthday present for him. Educationally, it's also a step-up from all the paraphrased storybook bibles we already have in our collection. At 1144 onion skin pages, the NIrV Minecrafters Bible includes the full text of the Old and New Testaments, along with 24 thicker full-color pages with illustrations of stories that lend themselves to be recreated in the "boxy and pixelated" style that my son loves so much. If you're not aware of Minecraft or other video games that use this low-res style, you might find the illustrations a little odd, especially when they include a block-headed Jesus. However, the familiar look of the pictures were a big draw even to my 5-year-old who is just beginning to learn to read.

The New International Readers Version strikes me as a good choice for young readers. It dispenses with a lot of the poetic (and for children, indecipherable) language of other versions. For example, Psalm 23 begins "The Lord is my shepherd. He gives me everything I need." The beatitudes in Matthew 5 begin "Blessed are those who are spiritually needy. They kingdom of heaven belongs to them." Paul encourages the Philippians in v. 4:12-13: "I have learned the secret of being content no matter what happens. I am content whether I am well fed or hungry. I am content whether I have more than enough of not enough. I can do all this by the power of Christ. He gives me strength." 

Of course, these details matter more to me than to my son, who mainly has skipped over the black and white text in favor of the color plates, which feature paraphrased stories that lend themselves to building-focused illustrations. Many of these stories do not coincide with the adjacent text. For instance, Solomon's temple is inserted into the psalms, and Jesus' miracle of feeding sits next to Jeremiah. Often, the colored pages will set up the beginning of a story and end on a cliff-hanger, with encouragement to flip to the verse reference of the actual story.

Overall, I think this version can be useful to cause Minecraft-loving kids to crack open the pages of scripture. The easy to read translation is also a plus for younger readers who might find the Bible's more esoteric passages hard to digest.

 *I received this Bible from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.*

The simplistic title of Martin's "Shipwreck" belies its mysterious depths

I gotta start off by admitting I'm not in the kind of sudden shipwreck situation this book addresses. I was drawn to Jonathan Martin's How to Survive a Shipwreck for a couple of reasons. First off, the stack of impressive and diverse endorsements, including Rachel Held Evans, Steven Furtick, Sarah Bessey, Lynne Hybels, Michael Gungor, Rob Bell and Greg Boyd, was enough to pique my curiosity about Martin, founder and ex-pastor of Renovatus church in North Carolina.

But I think on a deeper level, I wanted to read the book because I've been pondering how or whether a church community can safely hold the vulnerabilities of those in leadership positions. Many churches have unspoken rules that cause pastors and lay leaders to bury their weaknesses and put on an appearance of imperviousness to their personal demons. When they fall, they fall hard, and the church often cuts them loose.

Zierman's "Night Driving" laughs, groans and grows through an evolving, once-fiery faith

Night Driving: A Story of Faith in the Dark, by former evangelical good girl and blogger Addie Zierman, was a fast, familiar read for me in many ways. She grew up in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago, as did I. She experienced a warm and rosy falling in love with Jesus in her early teens, as did I. She is navigating a shift in her faith as she matures, as am I. She admits to escapism as her way of dealing with life's darker moments, as do I.

This memoir begins with what seems a bad case of seasonal affective disorder, which drives her to pack her two little boys and numerous totes of clothing, snacks and kid gear in the family minivan for a 3,000-mile February road trip from her current home in icy Minnesota to the beaches of Florida. (This might be where the similarities break down a little, as I would never be insane enough to drive myself more insane by taking a solo trip with children!) But, having lived in or taken trips to Asia, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Wisconsin, Tennessee, North and South Carolina and Florida, I was familiar with the settings of nearly all her flashbacks and pit stops along the harrowing, hazy and heartfelt journey.

I can't tell the road trip vignettes as well as the author, so I'm going to stick to the major themes. Two impulses drive the entire story: to escape not only the icy bowels of a Minnesota winter, but also the dark despair lodged in her 30-year-old heart, long vacated by the bright and fiery faith of her youth. As Zierman describes it:

It's like this: Once upon a time, I learned that God came like light. I spent a long time head against the window, peering into the darkness, praying for God to come like a spotlight, like a fire, like some wild laser show in the pitch-black sky. I learned to fear the darkness, and when it came, I struck myself against everything around me, trying to make sparks (208).

She doesn't just write beautiful prose in order to shroud her failings in poetic mystery. Zierman's strength is in not shying away from the details of her personal darkness. In admitting to her "problem with flirting," her near-miss affair, her alternately loving and laissez faire parenting style, her unabashed infatuation with vampy TV shows, and her propensity to drink too much diet coke and too much wine, she avoids painting herself nice in this early mid-life word portrait. 

Perhaps it's her troubles with fidelity that pop up most often in the story. Of her addiction to "a certain kind of feeling" she gets from catching a stranger's eye, hearing a catcall, or turning the head in a car next to her at a stoplight, the author writes

If there was a support group for this kind of thing, I'd stand up and say 'I'm afraid that I don't exist if men don't notice me' (93).

While I bristled a bit to her addiction to male attention in all its crude and unsavory forms-- as an introvert I skew in the opposite direction--- I can relate to the desperate feeling of irrelevance and the longing for validation, and I think most people can. Framing this fear as an addiction that needs to come to light was immensely helpful to me. 

And that brings me to my final thought: Readers expecting explicit, biblical prescriptions for depression, waning faith or addicitons might find the book wanting. Though the author spent her formative years poring over scripture, and does eventually muse on some familiar verses near the end of the book, readers looking for lessons will see them quietly emerge from the author's personal experience. This is fitting, as Zierman's introduction to God and faith, like many Christians, was all about what we could feel. To counteract this ingrained habit, the book's concluding scenes delight in a God who dwells in the darkness as well as the light. 

In short, I recommend Night Driving to Christians grappling with hard-to-name addictions, an evolving faith, or the onset of a "new normal" in their spiritual landscape.

I received a copy of this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for my honest review.

Coming out Christian: Review of Kaltenbach's "Messy Grace"

The subtitle of Caleb Kaltenbach's Messy Grace is what hooked me: How a Pastor with Gay Parents Learned to Love Others Without Sacrificing Conviction. I'm a sucker for interesting stories, and this promised to be a tale wound around one of today's most polarizing, nuanced issues for Christians. As I've mentioned in other posts, my own beliefs about how God views homosexuality have been evolving and are still in process. I can say I believe Jesus would be as likely to hang out with, minister to, befriend and love homosexuals as he would tax collectors, prostitutes, Pharisees and you and me. So I was eager to hear from a mature Jesus-follower, in this case a mega-church pastor, who was intimately connected with the LGBT community. However, after finishing the book, I didn't feel completely satisfied with either the depth of the narrative or the apologetic tone of some of the book's conclusions.

Kaltenbach's story is the reverse of what gay Christians who've grown up in church must experience as they try to reconcile their identities with their church doctrine.  An only child raised by three parents, whom he describes as vehemently anti-Christian, Kaltenbach sets out to infiltrate a Christian youth group, with the intention of arguing with them and showing them the error of their ways. (I know, you couldn't write a better script for the God's Not Dead movie franchise.) To his dismay, 16-year-old Kaltenbach finds that the well-versed, friendly, upbeat members of the group are actually winning him over for Christ. He's attracted by their certainty and steadiness, something he felt he never had. He's flattered by the attention, having spent much of his unusual adolescence tagging along with his two moms to gay pride events and parties.

Children's devotional "I AM" develops trust in God, delves into His many names

The Parrino house has quite a collection of children's Bibles. The title of Diane Stortz's sparkling (literally) new children's devotional, "I AM: 40 Reasons to Trust God," told me I had to get my hands on this one. The name is drawn from Psalm 9:10- "Those who know your name put their trust in you." I really like that thought-- the more of God's names we know, the more we meet Him in the fullness of His personality, the more reason we have to trust Him. Moreover, I love that this story bible takes as its central theme the many names of God because I feel it's important for kids get a taste of the complexity and wonder bound up in God's many attributes. 

The book covers 40 stories, evenly selected from both Old and New Testaments, with about four to six pages per story. The Old Testament stories include both the Hebrew name and an interpretation-- and I found myself learning some new names: El Emeth (God of Truth). El Kanna (Jealous God), and El Nehkumah (God of All Comfort) among them. The New Testament stories focus on both the names people called Jesus, such as Rabbi and Son of God, as well as names Jesus gave Himself, such as The Bread of Life and the Good Shepherd. 

I liked that the collection included some less common in the children's bible genre, such as the story of Ruth in the Old Testament and Jesus with Mary and Martha in the New. 

Each chapter contains a verse containing one of God's names, a retelling of  a Bible story that illustrates the featured facet, and a page of devotional content, including a couple of paragraphs subheaded "What Does It Mean?", a two-sentence prayer and a "Learn More" box with additional verses and a few sentences answer to the question "What Happened Next?"

With my own littles, (aged 7, 5 and 2) I stuck mainly to reading the name, verse reference and story. They tended to stop paying attention to the devotional portions. If you're someone who feels most secure when the devotional package is completely spelled out, I AM's format will appeal to you. Personally, I don't like everything to be scripted out for me. I like there to be some wiggle room to pause and let the boys raise their own questions, so after the first couple of chapters I stopped reading  the boys the devotional content. 

One other (minor) qualm I had was with the illustrations, which are vibrant and eye-catching and full of action-- but also, I found them a little bit too big-eyed, red-lipped, gown and hair-flowing, Disney-perfect. Kids really are drawn to this style, so my mention of it is more a matter of personal taste than criticism. 

Overall, I found this a worthy addition to our growing collection of illustrated Bible resources. 

I received my copy of I AM from BookLook Bloggers in exchange for my honest review.

Marie Kondo's "Spark Joy" treats all items as worthy of gratitude and respect

Marie Kondo's new book, Spark Joy, is meant as a companion guide to her best-selling The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up with practical advice on folding clothing, filing papers, organizing hobby goods and storing kitchen gear. To this end, the book is full of hand drawn how-to illustrations. Kondo also infuses the book with philosophy and approaches these mess magnets while valuing aesthetics and emotion as well as utility.

Let me get all my reservations out of the way and end the post on the plentiful positive notes contained in Spark Joy.

I think the most striking thing to me throughout this book, besides the lovely title, is Kondo's religious or spiritual approach to non-living things. While the book is not overtly religious, an animist worldview saturates the popular Japanese tidying guru's KonMari way. Christians should be aware of this before investing themselves in the nitty gritty of Kondo's method.

For example, when discarding an item that is no longer needed or no longer "sparks joy" as it's held close to the heart, Kondo offers a moment of gratitude to the object itself and thanks it for its service. One anecdote recalls Kondo and her father bowing to a plush dog during their impromptu memorial service for the once adored but eventually allergenic stuffed animal. It sounds like the stuff of sitcoms, but Kondo relates this story sincerely.

As I get older, the lines between physical and spiritual have blurred and bled. But I draw a bright line at attributing a spirit to non-living things.