Effortless Effervescence

Read my pre-review warm-up here.

I didn’t believe in Jesus as my literal savior; I believed in him as an expression of god, one of many - none of which could be fully trusted or leaned upon. What I leaned upon was the truth of my experience, the exhilaration and devastation that go hand-in-hand when you live a life of faith. I refused to let anyone to tell me what to believe; I’d been led astray once, with disastrous consequences, and I’d rather be wrong of my own accord than follow someone else’s dogma.

Until this past summer, when I became online friends with someone who asked me some frank questions about my faith, and who responded with indignation when I made an offhand comment mocking the Christian scriptures. Not only was I embarrassed and horrified that I’d offended someone by speaking without thinking (something I do All Too Often, though I think I’m getting better with age), but for the first time in a long time, I realized that I needed to think critically about who Jesus was to me. As I did, I realized that my so-called beliefs were thin and weak, based more on suspicion and long-held grudges than on objective reasoning about right and wrong. I decided that I needed to figure out Where I Stood, if for no other reason than to be able to answer intelligently when someone asked me, “What do you believe?”

Reading The Case for Christ was part of that quest, one of many books that I’ve picked up and read in whole or in part to get an idea of where I fall in the broad spectrum of spirituality. I had something of a panic attack early in my research, while reading Strobel’s equally compelling book, The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity, which addressed the cognitive dissonance that keeps so many people from putting their faith in Jesus - or having any faith at all. “If God is love, why is there so much suffering in the world?” is the first question Strobel tackles in Faith, and as I read his arguments - which were not perfect, but more than satisfactory - I began to freak out. “I know this is right. I believe God is real. But I can’t become a Christian again. I can’t be that unkind again. I can’t be that vulnerable again. I just CAN’T.”

You see, my experience over many years has taught me that God is real and good, but that human beings are capable of doing just as much evil in his name as good. My studies over the past six months have taught me that the evil people do doesn’t change the reality of God - and it doesn’t relieve me of the very difficult choice I have to make in response to Jesus’s question, “Who do you say that I am?”

This is why I bought a used copy of The Case for Christ, and reviewed the “Reasons to Believe” that I’d learned more than a decade ago. Strobel’s book is effective and interesting, and usually has the effect of blowing a first-time seeker’s mind wide open. But it’s not the last word on the subject; a Google search of “review case for christ” yielded this site as the top result, which answers Strobel’s arguments more than adequately. This confirmed what I’ve known for a very long time: many brilliant minds have believed in Christ, and have offered good reasons for their beliefs. And many brilliant minds have NOT believed in Christ, and offered equally good reasons for their unbelief.

So here is the source of my conflict: my visceral fear of becoming once again enslaved to a man’s idea of God was - and is - at war with my heart’s longing for Jesus. And intellectual arguments only buffer me back and forth over the line: Yes, I believe. Wait! No, I don’t. As a good friend of mine said recently, “proving Jesus’s existence may be a matter of science and history, but proving his divinity is a matter of faith.” And faith is not something we can manufacture all on our own. So I don’t recommend The Case for Christ as a definitive answer to all of your questions about this person named Jesus. I don’t have all of my questions answered - I’m not even sure what all of my questions are! - but I’ll keep you posted.

I finished The Case for Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus a few nights ago, and although it’s been entirely too long since I last posted a book review, I hesitated to write one for this particular book. Don’t get me wrong - it’s a quick, engaging read, and I’d recommend it to any skeptic who insists that there’s absolutely NO historical evidence to support the worship of Jesus - or to any Christian who has ever felt their faith was weak and thin. Strobel provides a good starting point for further thought and reflection on the subject, but he certainly has not written the final word on the subject, and that’s what’s got me in knots. If you’re going to understand why I’m so conflicted about this book, I need to share some background from my spiritual journey. So let me pour you a cup of coffee, and we’ll chat a bit.

I grew up going to church and was “born again” at the age of three, but in eighth and ninth grade I had a serious crisis of faith and ended up rejecting the teachings of Christianity. When challenged by schoolmates about my religious beliefs, I realized that I had no solid arguments to distinguish the Bible from any other holy book - or, for that matter, from Grimm’s fairy tales! Though I wholeheartedly believed in a god - I could not fathom that our planet and the many thousands of species living on it were a cosmic accident - I wasn’t sure who this god was. For a few years, I was a devout deist. Surely god was “out there,” but his existence caused no ripples in my life.

Until…

My senior year of high school, when I found myself suffocating in a deep depression. I had no idea where to turn, but I knew that I needed help, and bad. I happened to mention my mental state to a friend, and she invited me to her church’s youth group. Now, maybe I AM a raging narcissist, because I dared to believe that this coincidence was nothing but. Maybe god wasn’t just “out there,” maybe he was present in our world and interested in my life, in ME. Perhaps this god was actually the God I’d heard about as a child, and in his love had arranged a way out of the darkness for me. Although my rational mind still suspected that this Jesus stuff was a load of hooey, my emotions compelled me to take a leap of faith, and I re-converted that winter.

The first few months after being born again again, I swung back and forth between a religious elation better than any chemical high and overwhelming doubt more painful than any midday sugar and caffeine crash. Then Lent came, and in preparation for Easter, my pastor preached his annual “reasons to believe” sermon series. To say that I was “blown away” would be completely insufficient in communicating my amazement and gratitude. Though I grew up going to church, I’d never heard any apologetics teaching, and my first exposure was exhilarating. Though I still had doubts about whether Christianity could work for me, I had no doubt that Jesus was the real deal.

Fast forward six years, as my faith grew strong and my relationship with Jesus became as real as - ever more so than - any other friendship I had. I began serving at my church and was to many an example of God’s love and power. As the years went by, though, my pastor’s deteriorating mental health and his crushing demands on me and my peers slowly ate away at my confidence in myself and God.

In 2003, our pastor was fired following allegations of spiritual abuse, sexual misconduct and thievery, and many people assumed that with his exit, all that was wrong in our church and our lives would immediately be righted. But healing often takes a great deal longer than we suspect. Having seen - lived! - a perfect example of how Christianity can be twisted to control the faithful, I again reached a crisis point. Objective historical arguments meant nothing to me; my subjective experience had taught me that theology in practice could be a very dangerous thing.

Fast forward another six years. I’ve been traveling a long, winding road, trying to figure out where I belong spiritually. I think I considered atheism for about 2.5 seconds; still, I cannot give up the idea of god. And if god is real, he must be good - I was certain of this. But I didn’t know what to call god. So I tried on different belief systems, looking for one that fit. Nothing fit. I finally decided that all religions were a myth, and that the myth of Jesus was the one that resonated most deeply in my soul, so that was the one I would lean into. I didn’t believe in Jesus as my literal savior; I believed in him as an expression of god, one of many - none of which could be fully trusted or leaned upon.

Until…

I am SO SO SO SORRY for neglecting my blog the past few weeks. I’m sure that my dedicated readers (all three of you) missed me terribly. I wanted to blog - in fact, I started several rambling posts - because I had so many thoughts whirling around my head, revelations and convictions and “a-ha!” moments. Yet every time I tried to give those thoughts form, they turned ponderous and sticky and not nearly as profound as they were inside my brain. I took this as a sign that 1) those revelations may be just for me, and I don’t need to school anyone else and/or 2) my brain still had some working to do before I truly “got” what I needed to get, and eventually I’d be able to share my newfound wisdom clearly and concisely.

So here are seven little bits of my life for your amusement, and perhaps next time I post, I’ll have something “heavy, deep and real” for you to read.

Take 1: In case you’ve been wondering about the kittens, let me put your mind at ease: they’re doing GREAT! They get bigger every day (although they’re still awfully teeny-tiny) and have taken over the entire house. See, after doing some net research and talking to other owners of FIV+ kitties, I realized that there was no need to quarantine the kittens since FIV cannot be “caught” through casual contact. Our adult cats are suspicious of the little hellions, but Milo thinks they are the best thing since Milkbone. And I have to say it is SO. MUCH. FUN. to have two little baby cats running around. They are a whirlwind of fun, constantly running and pouncing and wrestling, until they collapse into a pile of sleepy cuteness. They are guaranteed to make me smile every single day, and I am so glad they came to live with us - even if it’s just for a short time until we find them another home.

And because it would be cruel to tell you about their cuteness without SHOWING you, I offer PICTURES!!!

Here are a couple photos of them snuggled together in the crook of my brother Glenn’s arm. I can’t believe how much they’ve grown in the week or so since these pictures were taken. Look how peaceful Randall is when he sleeps - it’s the ONLY time he’s peaceful. And I love how A.C.’s markings are coming out - she was completely black with just a few tiny splotches of orange, but every day more color emerges. She’s going to be an absolutely lovely tortoiseshell. Although I have to say that I wonder if she’ll ever lose the bug-eyed, freaked-out look she’s had since she was a starving little kitten. She seems to be constantly on alert!

And here are both of them, snoozing on the floor… with a pair of flip flops. I have no idea why, but they are OBSESSED with shoes. They play with them, chew on them, sleep on them. Weird little beasties.

Take 2: An old friend of ours lost his mother last week, so he and his family came into town for the funeral and stayed with us. We had three children and three adults in our home in addition to the four adults who already live in our home. It was, as you can imagine, crowded and chaotic. It was also wonderful - I love having tons of friends in my home, and if I could, I’ve have a full house every weekend. My friend’s children (ages 7, 5, and 3) are absolute darlings, so different from one another and delightful in their own ways.

The oldest, a girl named Lucy, told me soooooo many stories about her family and friends at home. And she often wandered around the house with a sleeping kitten cradled in her arms. (So cute! OMG!) The middle child, a boy named Gabe, diligently colored for days on end, and before he left, organized my 64-crayon box by color. How cute is that? It’s exactly the sort of thing I used to do as a kid. (And now that I’ve been diagnosed with OCD, we all know WHY I did it.) Roman, the youngest, is the smiliest little boy I have ever met. He’s a lot like my middle niece, Katie, who is the most laid-back, happy-go-lucky little girl in the world. I didn’t believe Roman’s mother when she told me he still smiles when he’s being scolded - until I saw that it was true! The only time he pitched a fit was when we has utterly exhausted, and it lasted about five minutes.

If my biological clock hadn’t already been ticking loudly, it definitely would be now. I want to have a baby LIKE WHOA.

Take 3: The funeral was held at the same funeral home that prepared my ex’s father for burial; the familiarity was weird and wonderful at the same time. I anticipated a super-duper religious service, as the owners are more Baptist than you can possibly imagine, and super-duper religious was exactly what we got. Interestingly, I found myself greatly comforted by the sermon, and I often nodded along with the pastor read certain Bible verses. I’ve been so hostile & critical in church services for years (especially very Biblethumpery ones) that it felt really weird to be edified by a preacher’s words! I took it as a good sign, though a perplexing one. I know that God is still at work in my heart, and I figure that stuff will make sense when it’s supposed to.

Take 4: In my time as a blog addict, I have “met” quite a few people with whom I felt a deep connection, and with whom I’d love to hang out all the time - if there weren’t hundreds of miles between our homes! One of these folks emailed me earlier this week to say that she and her family are going to be spending a weekend in Virginia Beach later this month, and I am SOOOOO excited about finally getting some face-to-face time with them. I’ve known this woman for (IIRC) more than three years now, and we’ve witnessed all kinds of huge and wonderful milestones in each other’s lives, as well as daily annoyances and encouragements. And now we get to enjoy food and drink together and laugh like idiots. I can’t wait.

Take 5: Tonight I have a date with my brother’s GF to see The Time Traveler’s Wife after she finishes closing her store. I AM SO EXCITED I CAN’T EVEN TELL YOU. I think I might just treat myself to dinner out before the movie. I like having someone else cook for me and serve me, and being all alone (well, as alone as you can be in a restaurant with a hundred other patrons!) with a book and good food.

Take 6: Speaking of books, I just finished Caitlin Flanagan’s To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife. I first heard of Caitlin a few years ago when I read an article about her in I-can’t-remember-the-name-of-it-magazine, which painted her as a she-devil anti-feminist who wanted all women to be beaten back into submission and relegated to their proper roles as slaves and baby machines. As a result, I’ve been suspicious of her ever since, and was shocked when I saw her byline a few times in O, the Oprah Magazine. (Though, I really shouldn’t have been shocked, considering that O features monthly columns by Dr. Phil and Suze Orman, who are wonderful and well-meaning people, but whose advice sometimes strikes me as a little NUTS.)

Well, when I finally picked up Caitlin’s book to see for myself what a mouth-breathing female chauvinist she was, I was quite surprised to find that… she… wasn’t. In fact, I was impressed by how much sympathy and understanding she had for the difficult choices women have to make regarding work and family and - most of all - their own sanity. Her commentary on modern marriage and motherhood was refreshingly candid, and I found myself nodding along several times. Most of all, I was impressed with how honest she was about her own confusion and shortcomings. Now, not everyone will agree with her - OBVIOUSLY - but that’s okay. Caitlin’s strongly stated opinions don’t have to be right or wrong to be helpful - her essays were, for me, merely a challenge to think and discuss what it means to be a woman, a wife, and a mother, right now.

Next on my list? Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi and A Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas. I can’t wait!

Take 7: Audience Participation. What’s your favorite place to get coffee? My absolute favorite is my own kitchen, because I’m kind of picky about my coffee. I like full-bodied flavored coffee, not too strong and not too weak. But if we’re out of coffee or cream at home and I have to go out, McDonald’s and Wawa are my faithful standbys for regular brewed coffee. When I want the treat of a sweet espresso drink - latte, capuccino, what have you - I always go to Starbucks. I do that very rarely, though, because my morning coffee serves the sole purpose of delivery vital energy and awareness to my central nervous system.

Take 7.5: By the way, I’m still smoke free! It’s been more than two weeks, and I’ve saved over $50 by not-smoking nearly 200 cigarettes. Woo hoo!

Okay, so the Seven Quick Takes is supposed to be posted on Friday, but because I was so busy yesterday getting ready for our trip, I barely touched my computer and therefore didn’t get a chance to post any amount of takes, quick or otherwise. So I’m breaking all the rules and posting them on Saturday. Mwahaha!

Take 1: I did a damn good job of getting ready yesterday. I did four loads of laundry, packed about a million books to read in the car (I know I won’t read them ALL, but I like to have plenty of variety to choose from), wrapped my stepson’s birthday presents (he is so spoiled - I hope he’s as delighted with the gifts as I am!) and packed my and my husband’s bags. The one thing I forgot? My copy of Julia, of which I have only FIFTEEN MORE PAGES to read before I’m done! Blast! Now I have to wait until we get back to Virginia Beach to find out the ending. I’m reading the book b/c a good friend told me it’s the scariest book he’s ever read. I think it’s definitely disturbing, but not TERRIFYING. Actually, the story is a LOT like The Ring, which is probably why I don’t find it all that scary. I guess the idea of an evil girl-child killed by her mother and coming back from the dead to inflict more and worse evil is becoming canon. *sigh* Not that the devil child thing isn’t an INTERESTING archetype, it’s just… old.

Take 2: Speaking of horror movies & books, I’ve lately been thinking about how many scary movies feature insane asylums. I guess it has something to do with how “othered” the mentally ill are. Many of them cannot advocate for themselves, they are misunderstood and their loss of control is fearful to so many people who don’t even want to think of being OUT of control, and so they are portrayed as a dangerous and morally bankrupt caricature. I’m not necessarily offended by these media representations, but I am fascinated by them. It just goes to show that what frightens us is often the most mundane things, like insanity.

Take 3: I’m sure you’ve all heard about the Macbook giveway from Moonfruit? No? Well, where have you been? Hiding under a rock? Interesting aside: twice today people have offered me a free, new laptop case. Is this a sign that I need to buy a new Macbook? Or even better yet, that I may win the Twitter contest? Because I would be more than okay with that.

Take 4: Since I didn’t have Julia to read in the car, I finished Reasons to Believe by John Marks. I have to say that the ending was VERY powerful, and I respect Marks for his integrity - he does not believe in Jesus, he doesn’t believe it’s possible that a good God exists at all, allowing us to experience so much suffering, and so whenever he encounters an evangelical Christian who wants him to make a decision and get saved RIGHT NOW, he refuses to pretend, refuses to go through the motions just so someone else’s conscience will be assuaged. Yet, like many of the people he interviewed, I am perplexed by the fact that he just CANNOT believe in God. I mean, I know that the world is full of suffering, and it pisses me off and confuses me too, but I’ve never taken that as proof positive that God isn’t real. Maybe that makes me small-minded? I don’t much care. Though my conclusions about God and the universe and the meaning of life are different from Marks’, I still really enjoyed his book and have to give him two thumbs up for it.

Take 5: Last night, after packing until midnight, I watched He’s Just Not That Into You with my brother’s girlfriend Chrissy. I’ve been wanting to see this move since I first heard it was in the works, because I LOVED the sobering, tough-love brutality of the book. The movie was good, but the ending was a cliched happily-ever-after, and the WHOLE POINT of the book was to scare women straight off that unrealistic bull. Don’t get me wrong, I DO believe in happy endings, but I also believe that mixed signals are usually very clear signals that HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU, and the screenwriters seemed to think that compromising that message was necessary just so they could fit into the romantic comedy mold.

Take 6: Because of the many hours of packing and the late movie, I did not get to bed until just before 3 a.m. I woke up at ten past 6 this morning. So far I’ve only had a thirty-minute nap in the car. I’m probably just running on adrenaline fumes at this point, and that’s okay. I’ll sleep good tonight.

Take 7: And now for the audience participation part of the show - what’s the longest you’ve gone without sleep? (Yeah, I kinda stole this from a recent LiveJournal Question of the Day. Whatever. As if there’s anything new or original on the internet any more.) I’ve only ever stayed up all night long once, to complete a work assignment. I have skated through MANY days on just two or three hours of sleep, though. It is not something I care to do on a regular basis any more.

K, y’all, have a lovely weekend and be good!

Oh, dedicated Smooch-fans, how could I have abandoned you for so long? Mostly because I was so wrapped up in other stuff that I haven’t been in a blogging place. After my last post about Rev. Cutie, I had some very interesting conversations with a couple of friends, so I’ve been in a very thinking-and-reading-about-God-and-searching-my-soul place. Basically, I’ve been thinking for so long about the kind of Christian I don’t want to be that I’ve forgotten to think about (and work towards) the kind of Christian I DO want to be. And that’s just silly - no one ever reached a goal by avoiding all the goals they didn’t want to hit. Right?

There are some aspects of my faith that I just “know in my knower” - I KNOW that God is love, I’ve experienced it, I can’t deny it. (Which is not to deny that many people have experienced God & the church as the opposite of love - I’m trying to own my experience while keeping a respectfully open mind to others’.) There are also aspects of my faith that need help, that need to grow. To that end, I went to the library on Saturday and checked out nearly a dozen books on Christian apologetics. Today I returned to the library to pick up two books on “Atheist apologetics,” and I have one more book on that subject on reserve. (I know that the volume to Christiany books vs. the volume of Atheisty books represents a firm bias towards religious belief, but in my defense, I know what names & concepts to look for in the Christian apologetics field, and I only have a couple of recommendations of Atheist works to go on. I think I should at least get credit for trying to get the full story from both sides. Right? Give me a cookie for that, okay?)

Speaking of Atheisty books, I’m about two chapters into Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, and I think it says a lot about who I am that I’m tempted to throw the book across the room not because of Dawkins’ attacks on God but because of one rude little comment about feminism. Hey, I’m used to hearing that it’s dumb to believe in a big man in the sky who sees me when I’m sleeping and knows when I’m awake and knows if I’ve been bad or good. (So be good, for goodness’ sake!) I am NOT used to (and NOT tolerant of!) someone telling me it’s dumb to think that women should be treated with the same respect as men because we’re all human beings, after all. Oh, Mr. Dawkins. If you only knew how many people you’d alienate from your otherwise rational discourse on theology with one flippant phrase.

But because I pride myself on having an open mind (and because I am genuinely curious about this man’s arguments against Christianity, considering that I worked in a bookstore when The God Delusion was at the top of the bestseller list and the snazzily-designed, foil-covered volumes were selling like $7 beers at an outdoor concert in, say, Virginia Beach on a 100-degree day) (no, really, people were paying that much! I was one of them) I will overlook that one offense against my feminist ideals. But really, gentle Smooch-fans, if YOU were writing a book about views that are already controversial, would you want to further piss off the literate world by attacking a whole other non-religious belief system? I think a secular humanist would tread a little more lightly around feminism, for God’s sake. (Or rather, for not-God’s sake.)

But enough of my righteous (or non-righteous?) indignation. It’s late, and instead of typing, I should be reading. Have a lovely evening, my friends.

Just to warn y’all, I really enjoyed this book, so my review of it could spill onto the annoying side of enthusiastic. Okay? Think you can handle it? If you say so…

OH MY GOD LAMB BY CHRISTOPHER MOORE IS THE BEST BOOK I’VE READ IN A LONG DAMN TIME

I warned y’all.

Seriously, though, this book rocked my socks. My friend Kerry recommended it to me almost a year ago. It was on my list of Books to Buy and Read, which, unfortunately, is not a real list, just a vague idea in the back of my overstuffed mind, so I often don’t get around to actually buying and reading these books for a loooong time. Finally Kerry just bought me a copy because she was desperate for me to experience its awesomeness, and I am SO glad she did. I took it with me on our road trip this past weekend, and plowed through all 400 pages in a day and a half.

Lamb is a Gospel told from the point of view of Biff, Jesus’s childhood friend. Biff wants to set the record straight about Jesus’s life - particularly the first thirty years of Jesus’s life, which are woefully unrepresented in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John - the Gospels most folks are familiar with. According to Biff, he and Jesus (whom he refers to as Joshua) traveled the world in search of wisdom and knowledge. Jesus knew that he was the Messiah, but he didn’t know what the meant. Exactly what was the Messiah supposed to do? In the course of their search, Jesus and Biff learn quite a bit about philosophy, love, friendship, self-discipline, but they never get an exact answer to the “What the hell does a Messiah do, anyway?” question. Jesus continually asks his Heavenly Father for guidance, and the old bearded dude in the sky is rather tight-lipped on the subject. (Something I’m sure many readers can relate to - something, perhaps, that gives us some insight on Moore’s relationship with God.) In the end, Jesus gets the job done, but not the way that Biff had expected. Biff’s a little pissed about it, too.

Moore says that he didn’t write this book with the intention of offending anyone, but I promise you, many Christians would be offended if they picked up Biff’s story. I would not call Moore’s tale blasphemous, but it is irreverent, which is probably why I liked it so much. Mostly, it made me think. When you grow up in the church and know all your Bible stories inside and out, you get a certain version of events lodged in your imagination. There were several points in Lamb where I said to myself, “Wow, I’d never thought of it that way,” or, “Huh! That could have happened, sure.” Rather than offending me, this book strengthened my faith, because it helped me to see Jesus in a new light, to understand better what it means to call him fully God yet fully man.

Here’s who I DON’T recommend this book to: people who cannot laugh at their own dogma, and people who really, really don’t like Christianity. But for those of you in the middle, who have faith or wish you had faith, or who have no desire for faith but no animosity towards this Jesus fellow: you’ll get a kick out of Lamb. You may, like me, end up adding it to your canon of spiritual texts, just because it’s just THAT fun and insightful.

I feel like a million bucks today (well, compared to how I’ve been feeling, at least!) so it seems my cold is on its way out the door. Whew! I was worried for a second that it would turn into the flu. I HATE being incapacitated by illness, and that’s exactly what flu fatigue does to me - turns me into a worthless blob that lies on the sofa crying for soup and juice.

But enough about my immune system working overtime, let’s talk about BOOKS! I was thrilled when I came home yesterday to find this book in my mailbox. (Actually, the book I bought is a used hardcover, and it has a silver-foil embossed dust jacket that is WAY cooler than the paperback’s cover art. Pretty things make me happy, you see.)

A few years ago, when my family took a road trip to Disney World (I think I was about 23) my father played Gavin de Becker’s The Gift of Fear book-on-CD during the entire two-days-one-way trip. At first my younger brother and I groaned and whined and complained about how STUPID the book was and couldn’t Dad PLEASE turn it down so we could hear the SRSLY AWESOME music on our portable CD players. (Kids, this was in the years before iPods. We actually had to pick out which CDs we wanted to bring along on a road trip and pack ALL of them up. And if we decided in the middle of a Britney Spears song that we wanted to hear some Nickelback, we had to take out the Britney Spears CD and put in the Nickelback CD. Crazy talk, right? I know. Even crazier? The thought of me actually choosing to listen to Nickelback. *shudder*) Well, at some point, I think we actually listened to some of “The Smell of Fear” (as we jokingly called it) and both of us were HOOKED. It’s a fascinating and useful book, and one that I strongly recommend to each and every person I know. (So freaking buy it already!)

Fast forward to last week: since my husband and I are talking about having kids in the not-so-distant future, I wanted to see what de Becker had to say about parents trusting intuition to help them protect their children, and I picked up a copy of Protecting the Gift on eBay. So far (I’m 70 pages in already!) it’s basically a review of what de Becker covered in The Gift of Fear, but with a focus on predicting and preventing violence against one’s children rather than oneself. I’m okay with the review, though, since it’s been so long since I first “smelled fear.”

I was NOT thrilled to see that this book still hadn’t arrived, even though I paid for it on April 5. I’ve already sent a strongly worded email to the seller, who insists that media mail can take up to 30 days to arrive. Okay, whatever, not in my experience, but you’re the big auction-site-super-seller, I’m just the idiot who buys too many books online. (Am I bitter? Hell yes. You don’t mess with a nerd’s book stash, because she’s likely to CUT YOU.)

Anyway, I read a Reader’s Digest condensed copy of The Gentle Jungle as a teenager, while staying at my grandmother’s house in Indiana. (When we went to grandma’s house for the summer, there wasn’t much to do BUT read. And people want to know why I’m a nerd? It’s a combination of genetics and conditioning.) I was fascinated by the idea of training animals with affection instead of a cruel misuse power, and by the stories that Tori Helfer told about her family living peacefully with all kinds of wild creatures. If you can find a copy of this one in a used bookstore, grab it, because it’s a great way for any animal-and-book-lover to spend an afternoon.

Last but not least, let’s talk about MY book. After a whole lot of talk and not much action, I’ve finally started working on my memoir about my years in “the cult” (which I mentioned briefly in this post). I really believe that my story is valuable, but I’ve been put off writing it for a thousand different reasons, all of which come back to fear. What if I try to be a “real writer” and it’s not good enough? Or worse yet, what if no one but me finds this story interesting? I finally decided that I will never know if either of those fears is founded until I actually write the book!

So I’m writing. I’m gonna get it all out and not worry about how great or awful it is until I reach the end. Then, and only then, will I start editing and revising and second-guessing myself. I’m aiming for 85,000 words and right now I’m at 1,879. You think that sounds pathetic? I did, too, until I looked at it this way: I’ve averaged 600 words per day for the past three days. If I keep that up it’ll only take 141 days to finish this book. That’s not even half a year! The NASCAR season is longer than that! (And good Lord, don’t I know it.)

I read an interview with Isabel Allende in Writer’s Digest years ago, in which she said (paraphrased), “Each day, just try to write one good page. That’s all you have to do. At the end of the year, you have a book.” How freaking brilliant is that? It’s not about not having enough time (an excuse I’ve used over & over), for goodness’ sake, because everyone can find time to write one page. It’s about not having enough faith in myself to take the time to write. By disciplining myself to sit down and tap out those 600 words (for perspective - this post is almost 900 words long already) I’m saying that I believe in my project. I believe in me.

Last night I finished Chris Bohjalian’s Midwives. This is the third or fourth novel that I’ve read from Oprah’s book club, and I’m beginning to think I just can’t go wrong with her picks. The first one was Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwarz, which I HIGHLY recommend. Midwives is much like Ruth: a gently suspenseful story of women, of the secrets they hold close, and the choices they make in the light. I give it my stamp of approval as well.

Remember how I mentioned Jodi Picoult’s “formula” in my last book review post? Bohjalian’s book follows it to a fault: dramatic legal case, a marriage on the rocks, a young woman’s coming-of-age, a surprise twist at the end. Except Bohjalian does it better than Picoult ever has. (Sorry, Jodi.) His characters’ flaws are more subtle, and he holds his cards close, tucking significant clues to the novel’s outcome on every page. Midwives was a slower read that Picoult’s novels, but Bohjalian built suspense steadily, so that by the time I was halfway through the novel, I’d become desperate to know what “really” happened. Hell, on the second-to-last page, I was still desperate - he’s THAT GOOD.

What I liked best about the book was the main character, Constance Danforth, whose voice tells the story of her mother’s trial. Connie’s mother, Sibyl, is a midwife who performs an emergency C-section on a woman she believes has died in childbirth. When an autopsy reveals that the patient may not have been dead when the child was pulled from her womb, Sibyl is charged with involuntary manslaughter. Her mother’s calling and the trial that interupts it grow Connie up quickly; as she tells her “side” of the story with the temperance - and distance - of age, Connie makes evident to the reader that these events changed her and directed her paths for years to come.

I’m usually suspicious of male authors who write female protagonists, especially young women; I’ve often wondered how a man can possibly understand and capture the mind of an adolescent girl. (This is why I rarely write stories from a man’s point of view - my understanding of the male brain is often limited and more often downright confused.) However, the Danforth family, and especially Connie, is so believable and relatable that I have to tip my hat to Bohjalian. My only issue is the frequency with which Connie refers to her attitudes as “typical teenager;” at those points, I feel the author’s voice is annoyingly close to the surface, and I wonder if he spent too much time looking at fourteen-year-old girls as a demographic rather than as people.

Midwives addresses a larger issue that’s debated as hotly today as it was in the era the story takes place: home birth. I’m not yet a mother myself, but I have quite a few friends who are, and I’ve read quite a bit on the pros and cons of giving birth at home. There are those who steadfastly swear by it, and others whose fears of “something going wrong” lead them to believe that a hospital birth is the safest way to go. Midwives follows those “something might go wrong” fears to the worst possible conclusion, and makes no judgements on either side of the debate. More than a cautionary tale, it’s an exploration and a challenge. It challenged me to consider options and outcomes I hadn’t thought of before, and see the layers of family and the different perspectives of an event, with new eyes.

I think it’s particularly fitting that as soon as I finished Expecting Adam by Martha Beck, I dove into Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult. Both deal with the sticky moral challenge that parents face when they learn they’re expecting a special needs child. The former book is a memoir, bittersweet and challenging but ultimately satisfying; the latter is fiction, and left me with a bad taste in my mouth.






From the Publisher’s Weekly review of Handle With Care:

Charlotte and Sean O’Keefe’s daughter, Willow, was born with brittle bone disease, a condition that requires Charlotte to act as full-time caregiver and has strained their emotional and financial limits. Willow’s teenaged half-sister, Amelia, suffers as well, overshadowed by Willow’s needs and lost in her own adolescent turmoil. When Charlotte decides to sue for wrongful birth in order to obtain a settlement to ensure Willow’s future, the already strained family begins to implode. Not only is the defendant Charlotte’s longtime friend, but the case requires Charlotte and Sean to claim that had they known of Willow’s condition, they would have terminated the pregnancy, a statement that strikes at the core of their faith and family.

I have read maybe a half dozen books by Jodi Picoult, enough to fully appreciate all of her strengths and shortcomings as a writer. She always tackles Big Deal issues, and manages to illuminate corners of these issues that the reader likely had not considered. I wouldn’t be surprised if many people were blindsided by an epiphany while reading Picoult’s prose. I enjoy immersing myself in the lives of her characters, and I often have to remind myself to breathe as I rocket toward each books’ conclusion. However, her books are formulaic and melodramatic, so I find it entirely appropriate that two of her novels became Lifetime movies.*

Handle With Care was the first of Picoult’s books that made me angry with when I reached the end. Although I have to give Picoult props for not succumbing to the temptation to Disney her books up with Happy Endings for Everyone, I still felt that she was a little too cruel to her characters this time around. If you’re new to Picoult’s work, I’d suggest you start with one of her better works, such as Plain Truth, Picture Perfect or (my favorite) Mercy.






From the Amazon.com review of Expecting Adam:

Expecting Adam is an autobiographical tale of an academically oriented Harvard couple who conceive a baby with Down’s syndrome and decide to carry him to term. Despite everything Martha Beck and her husband John know about themselves and their belief system, when Martha gets accidentally pregnant and the fetus is discovered to have Down’s syndrome, the Becks find they cannot even consider abortion. The presence of the fetus that they each, privately, believe is a familiar being named Adam is too strong. As Martha’s terribly difficult pregnancy progresses, odd coincidences and paranormal experiences begin to occur for both Martha and John, though for months they don’t share them with each other. Martha’s pregnancy and Adam (once born) become the catalyst for tremendous life changes for the Becks.

Martha Beck’s story of her pregnancy was difficult to read at times (though, I’m sure, nowhere near as difficult as it was for her to live!) but I felt like a brand-new person, a happier, kinder, more optimistic person, when I was done. Beck doesn’t reduce her book to a preachy treatise on why she made the best damn choice when faced with a Big Deal issue. Quite the opposite - she’s honest about how much she struggled, honest about the mean, petty things she thought, honest about how mean and petty others were when they learned of her “dilemma,” and in the end, with humor and grace, she arrives exactly where she needs to be, and we’re glad to be there with her. I highly recommend this book for anyone who needs some hope and joy in their life.






Continuing on the baby theme, I’m finally reading Midwives by Chris Bohjalian, which has been waiting patiently on my bookshelf for a couple of years now. Maybe my biological clock is talking to me (I am a newlywed, after all), but I am enjoying reading about birthin’ babies - the good, the bad, the messy, the beautiful.






* I have two friends that considered suicide after watching a Lifetime movie marathon. If TNT knows drama, Lifetime knows melodrama, and bad acting, and really depressing story lines. My opinion of them isn’t high, and though I feel bad for being so catty, I think Lifetime’s producers should feel bad for making such sucktastic movies. They should NOT feel bad for airing reruns of The Golden Girls, Designing Women or Will & Grace, though. Those programming choices were clearly inspired by the divine.