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Shakespeare for the modern world: Review of Dunbar by Edward St. Aubyn

I don’t remember much about my reading of King Lear, whenever it was that I read it–college probably–but I do remember it being a convoluted family drama. And since I always appreciate the chance to read a re-telling of a Shakespearean play, I picked up this new one–Dunbar by Edward St. Aubyn.

I was not familiar with this author or the imprint that publishes these retellings but I was impressed by both. Dunbar is the story of a media mogul whose power-hungry daughters abduct him and enlist the help of a doctor to make their father appear crazy enough for institutionalization before an important meeting about the company’s future.

Honestly, I’d love to go back and re-read King Lear now–or watch a filmed stage production of it–to connect the original story with this new one. St. Aubyn’s writing is impressive. I could feel Dunbar’s madness, and there are lines in this book that made me pause and admire the word choices. The story does have elements of crudeness that might be a bit shocking to some readers, but I did not think they were included simply for shock value. A re-read of King Lear would help me confirm my suspicions that Shakespeare wrote these elements into his play and they may have been shocking in his day.

I’m interested in reading more from this author and in checking out other titles in this series.

Author bio: Born in 1960, Edward St Aubyn is the author of four highly praised novels, Never Mind (winner of the Betty Trask Award 1992), Bad News, Some Hopeand On the Edge. He lives in London and France.

Disclosure: I received a copy of the book through the Blogging for Books program. Review reflects my personal opinion.

What we found in Washington (part 2)

Read the first part of this story here.

The buses were ahead of the printed schedule I held in my hand, but thankfully, we had made it in time. But I still wasn’t sure we had found the right group. Maybe there was more than one Honor Flight per day in D.C.

We crossed the street so we could see the buses unload. I was looking for yellow jackets on the veterans and green shirts, I thought, on the guardians. These guardians were wearing blue, which cast some doubt on my plan. But then I saw it–Lee County Honor Flight–on the back of a jacket. Lee County is our home county, so then I knew. Some people sitting at nearby picnic tables began to clap as the veterans got off the bus and one asked if they were from Florida.

“Dixon, Illinois,” the guardian replied. There was no doubt now. I began searching the crowd for Grandma. She was the only woman veteran on the trip but there were three buses. I made eye contact with a man standing near us and blurted out, “My grandmother is on this flight. We’re from Dixon, too.” He asked if I knew which bus and I didn’t, so I just kept watching.

“There she is, in the middle,” Phil said to me. We didn’t want to push and she still didn’t know we were there. The line of veterans was moving toward us so we waited. I kept her in my sight.

And then she saw us. Did a double-take. I waved.

“You’re here,” I remember her saying.

“Hi, Grandma,” I said, tears welling in my eyes as we hugged. She hugged the kids and Phil and we stood there, awed and speechless that this wild plan had worked to perfection. Her guardian came over and broke the silence.

“Do you know how hard it was to keep this a secret?” She had known for three days and didn’t say a word. We walked away from the crowd a bit and Grandma’s guardian, Diane, took our picture with the Washington Monument in the background. The whole group gathered for a picture in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

“I want to see the Korean memorial,” Grandma said. We checked with her guardian and we were free to wander around these three memorials as we wished. We promised to have her back in time for the next bus trip. The kids told Grandma about their day, how school was going, and what they had seen so far. We circled the memorial to the war in Korea. My grandmother served as a nurse in the Navy. She never went overseas but her pride at serving is not diminished.

“It’s called the forgotten war,” she told the kids as we stood nearby.

“Do you want a picture with it?” I asked.

“I didn’t bring my camera,” she said with a hint of frustration.

“I have my phone.”

So, I snapped a photo of her with the children.

(This reminds me that I need to send her a copy so she can have it for herself.)

The fall colors caught my attention at every turn, and I made sure to take a picture of the Washington Monument with the reflecting pool. I was being a really poor tourist but for a really good reason.

We joined the bulk of the group at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and here we were confronted with a reality that is too easy to forget. Grown men pressed paper to the wall and rubbed a pencil over it, capturing the names of fallen friends to take home with them. Maybe to their families. Some of the guardians went to great lengths to get the requested name, and we overheard veterans say things like “I went to school with him since kindergarten.” There was not a lot of chatter.

It was a sobering moment both for me and my husband. Phil is a veteran and the impact of these images is his story to tell, not mine, but as with most things, when faced with the actual real-life people in a group or a cause, my soul bends toward compassion. I do not advocate for war. I’m uncomfortable with military worship. But I would defend with my dying breath these men and women who saw and experienced things most of the rest of us cannot understand.

It felt like holy ground there in our nation’s capital with men who had served in an unpopular war without a clear victory. The applause they received from strangers–it moved me to chills. I didn’t want to intrude on their feelings, so I tried not to look too closely.

We walked the length of the Vietnam memorial twice, especially after we learned that the names were listed in order of their deaths. So, when we got to the end and saw the name of the last casualty of the war, we were curious about the first casualty. I’m already wondering what their stories are.

We stopped at the information kiosk for passport stamps, then asked about the one for the Lincoln Memorial. Our son has a keen interest in presidents and Lincoln is one of his favorites. So, we climbed the steps to the top and squeezed into the bookstore at the top for more stamps. After our son was finished, he went back out with Phil, while we girls finished up. The boys had disappeared by the time we left the store, and we walked to the bottom to find the bathrooms.

Phil sent me a text that our son was reading, and I replied that we were trying to figure out what to do about the bathrooms. The ladies’ room was temporarily closed which caused a bit of panic but reopened a few minutes later. We waited at the bottom of the steps for the boys. I had been carrying a backpack all day and my back was starting to rebel. Phil and our son joined us and I handed off my backpack to my husband who wore both–one on the front, one on the back. They took off for the bathroom and when we all joined back together, we decided to walk back toward the buses. Since the group was ahead of schedule, it seemed like people were re-gathering a little bit early.

Phil said our son had read every word of The Gettysburg Address and Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. He’s soon 8 and like I said before, interested in presidents. Our kids are the best kinds of nerds and I’m not even sorry.

We said our goodbyes to Grandma. Our plan was to meet the buses on the other side of the reflecting pool for the World War II Memorial visit but we weren’t exactly sure about the plan, so we gave hugs just in case. We walked along the pool as the sun began to set. Our thought was to maybe try to find the Washington Monument kiosk for more stamps but just as we were about to cross the road, we heard the park police again signaling our group’s approach.

We watched as they stopped traffic and passed in the opposing lanes.

It’s quite the royal treatment. A spectacle of the best kind. They pulled up behind where we were standing so we changed course and met them at the second drop-off location. Phil stopped at the kiosk to search for Grandpa’s name and met us after Grandma exited the bus. We all went to the screen and found his name again. (He had the opportunity to take an Honor Flight years ago. It was bittersweet for all of us to be there after his death last year.)

When we caught up with the group, they were being applauded by some visiting school groups. Several of the veterans stopped to shake their hands and when we entered the memorial itself, another school group lined either side and shook every single hand of every single veteran and said, “Thank you for your service.”

I don’t know if this is something all teachers in Virginia and Maryland and the District encourage or if this is something that just happens in D.C. when veterans are present, but it was such a sweet gesture. Grandma said they had been serenaded by school children when they landed at the airport, too. I found video of that later and agreed that it was moving.

Several veterans paused in front of the Illinois pillar for a picture. We circled the whole memorial reading all the inscriptions and seeing the fountains.

We found the block for Okinawa, where Grandpa spent his World War II service.

There wasn’t much left for us to do and by this time, my back was starting to lock up a little. I fought through the pain until we got Grandma back to the bus. We hugged and said our goodbyes. We even got hugs from her guardian. We watched Grandma get on the bus, then picked a bench to sit and eat our sandwiches. I popped some ibuprofen and sat up straight, ate a little bit of dinner and steeled myself for the walk back to the train station. A mile or so.

It was dark but the city was still active with walkers and runners and cars. Never did I feel unsafe or like we shouldn’t be out walking around. We passed by some of the places we had visited and when we finally made it to the train station, I breathed a sigh of relief. Our daughter had carried the second backpack all the way from the World War II memorial to our station. Such a trooper.

We boarded the next train out to Maryland and fought yawns as we traveled. I was thankful for empty seats near the front of the train which was not nearly as noisy as the trip in to the city. Our son updated his license plate list while I allowed myself a few minutes on social media.

Soon enough we were back to the van with 30 cents each left on our trip cards, saved for another time. We reloaded the van, paid to exit and were on our way. We stopped not far onto I-95 so Phil could buy some sodas for the drive home and the rest of us could use a typically frightening gas station bathroom. Back in the car, the GPS routed us through some residential areas until we were back on the main road. The kids conked out quickly and we listened to Game 7 of the World Series.

A text from my mom came through:

Just talked to Grandma before she got on the plane. You guys really made her day.

It was a great time for us, too, and when we finally pulled into our driveway, we all climbed into our beds without much fuss.

I had trouble walking the next day but my mobility improved as the days passed. (Plus I had already scheduled a chiropractor appointment and a massage, so yay for preplanning!)

It was not how we had planned to introduce our kids to D.C. but it was the best first memory of the capital that we could have hoped for.

Now, our memories of D.C. will always include the hours we spent with Grandma on a Wednesday in November.

 

What we found in Washington (part 1)

We had a little more than a week to plan, which is far less time than I usually require for an adventure, but the moment we learned that my grandmother would be taking an Honor Flight to Washington, D.C., our minds began to ponder the possibilities.

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. Let me back up.

Some words about Honor Flights: My husband and I grew up in Illinois, 800 miles from our current Pennsylvania address. From there, Washington, D.C. is a place for multi-day visits or as part of a larger East Coast vacation swing. From here, it is a day trip. Veterans in Illinois are not always able to visit the memorials and monuments erected in their honor in the nation’s capital because of the distance, thus was born the Honor Flight. I don’t know the history or how many states have them, but the premise is this: the organization receives donations and several times a year fills a plane full of veterans for a whirlwind long day of visiting Washington, D.C. Volunteer guardians who pay their own way on the trip accompany each veteran.

It occurred to me as I talked about it with local friends that it might not be a familiar thing around here because of the close proximity to D.C. I’m not sure how veterans from these nearby states visit the memorials. Bus trips? Family vacations?

Anyway, this is what got us started down the path of adventure. My grandmother, who served in the Navy during the Korean War, was scheduled to be on an Honor Flight from Illinois on Nov. 1, a Wednesday. If there is any day of the week for us to do some spontaneous travel, it’s Wednesday. No work for my husband. We started putting a plan in motion. I called my mom to get details. I filled out a travel form for the kids to miss school. I e-mailed the organizing agency to find out how we could meet up with the group. Everything fell into place.

I asked some online friends for tips for D.C. and got caught up in the enthusiasm of being part of this grand surprise. Miraculously, we all kept it a secret. Even my grandmother’s guardian was in on the surprise. I vacillated between giddy excitement and anxious worry. What could wrong? What if everything went exactly right?

—

The day arrived. We woke up early to make sandwiches and pack backpacks and get on the road so we would be early enough to enjoy some of the sights but late enough to miss the rush hour traffic around Baltimore. We had trick-or-treated the night before so we were already working with less sleep than normal plus heightened emotions. Our son dragged his feet a little and we were half-an-hour later to get going than planned.

But we were on our way, and because we had not told many people, I teased our trip on Instagram.

We’re up to something today. Stay tuned … #adventure #family

A post shared by Lisa Bartelt (@lmbartelt) on

During the two-hour drive to the train station, I wrote. November 1 is also the start of National Novel Writing Month and I have every intention of fully participating again this year. I knew I wouldn’t meet my word count goal but I’m believing that writing some words is better than writing no words. So, while Phil listened to NPR and the kids ate all the candy and snacks they had brought for the day, I wrote 711 words on a new fiction project.

The drive was mostly uneventful and the train station was easy to navigate thanks to advance help from friends. Within minutes of parking the van, we had our trip cards purchased and were sitting on a train heading into the nation’s capital.

Our son spent the 30-minute ride recording all the license plates we had seen thus far while our daughter plugged her ears for most of the journey. We were near the back of the train and it was noisy as we traveled the underground portions.

Soon enough, we were in the heart of the city, walking toward our lunch destination. I played a fun game I like to call “let’s take a picture of the most iconic symbol of the city every chance we get.” I played this game in college during a visit to Paris. I took 107 pictures (give or take) of the Eiffel Tower and completely annoyed the friends I was traveling with by pointing it out every time I could see the Eiffel Tower.

I took fewer pictures of the Washington Monument than I did of the Eiffel Tower, but I had some flashbacks to those days. Our time in D.C. was limited and we could not see everything, so I felt a little like Clark Griswold, only instead of Big Ben and Parliament it was “Look kids, the Capitol and the Washington Monument!”

We were also trying to keep the costs down for this adventure. We had packed sandwiches but decided because of the way our schedule for the day was arranged, they might make a better dinner option. We had more time to explore for lunch. A friend had tipped us off to an inexpensive and interesting option: the cafeteria at the U.S. Department of Agriculture building. It is open to the public, and we soon learned, accessible after a bag search, presentation of ID, and walk through a metal detector.

This was a highlight of the day. Tons of options. Affordable pricing. And a pleasant atmosphere for eating. I would do this again and recommend it to anyone visiting D.C. After we had filled our bellies, we walked toward the National Mall. It was time for another teaser photo.

Fitting four people and a large monument into one frame is harder than it sounds. I’m thankful my husband has long arms and a better eye of positioning people than I do. We walked toward the Capitol building and found a sculpture garden along the way. Here, I was again taken back to Paris in my head while viewing several Rodin sculptures. I recalled my visit to the Rodin Museum where I viewed The Thinker in person but was more impressed by The Kiss. It’s been years since we’ve visited an art museum, so seeing these sculptures was a treat.

We took a turn toward Pennsylvania Avenue and walked past all the federal buildings, including the FBI. We saw the Canadian embassy and the First Amendment engraved on the side of the Newseum. On our way to The White House we popped in at the visitor center, mostly to use the bathrooms, and to get the kids’ National Park passports stamped. (I could talk at length about how much we’ve enjoyed this program, too.) Then it was a quick spin past The White House as our son loudly lamented, “I hope we don’t see Donald Trump.” I assured him it was unlikely.

In front of The White House we fought our way through the tourist crowds for a glimpse and continued on our way. The time was ticking away. We needed to be near the war memorials no later than 4 o’clock. I had it in mind to be there early so we could scope out a place to watch for the buses. Phil had discovered another interesting off-the-beaten path possibility so we headed to the Department of the Interior. He had read an article that said you could visit a room that had brochures from every national park in the system.

My anxiety was growing, so I made him go in the building first. Our son went with him and a few minutes later, the boy came out and told us to come in. Another security screening and we were pointed to the library. Turns out, the brochure room doesn’t exist (they’re all online) but inside the library was an enthusiastic librarian who was happy to see us. She gave us a tour of the Department of the Interior library, including the room where all the laws ever written in the United States are stored.

I need to let that sink in for a minute because I did not appreciate this at the time. I wanted to get on our way, but the woman was nice enough to show us around and give the kids Halloween candy that I couldn’t be rude. I’m still not exactly sure how this particular library is used, but it is definitely a one-of-a-kind experience.

We hightailed it out of the Department of the Interior without seeing the museum, which is apparently worth seeing (we’ll have to do it next time) and continued our walk back toward the Mall. We rounded the corner of the National Academy of Science building while my husband tried to give us clever clues about why we were there. (Clarification: his clues were clever and he was doing a great job of leading us, but I was super-anxious at this point.)

“They discuss theories here … like relativity …”

I had forgotten that we had been advised to see the Albert Einstein statue, which was impressive. We waited patiently (okay, I was not patient) while three adult tourists climbed all over Einstein to get pictures and to touch his nose for luck. Our son, meanwhile, was trying to figure out a way to sit on Einstein’s head, I kid you not. When it was finally their turn for a picture, he threw a fit  because we wouldn’t let him sit on Einstein’s shoulder unassisted.

(I could see it clearly: Woman misses reunion with grandmother to take son to emergency room.) Not today, child.

I took what felt like eleventy-billion pictures while the kids climbed on the statue just to ensure we got something usable. I was practically jumping out of my own skin because I had no idea where the war memorials were in relation to our current location and we were behind the schedule I had set for us.

My husband, God bless him, calmly said to me, “I know you can’t see them, but they are right over there. We are literally minutes from the memorials.”

My body relaxed a little when the Lincoln Memorial came into view, but by then, I was on high alert. We scanned the area to try to figure out where buses would unload, and in completely uncharacteristic fashion, I went straight to the information kiosk and asked.

“Hi. We’re meeting my grandmother who is on an Honor Flight. Where do buses drop off?”

I may have been slightly more polite than that, but I needed information quickly. The ranger pointed us across the way where we saw buses lined up. I set a course for there, practically ignoring the view of the Washington Monument and the reflecting pool. I must have looked like the worst tourist ever.

Near the Korea memorial, we sat on benches as I scanned the itinerary I’d been given for the Honor Flight. I worried that we’d miss them somehow, but when a Park Policeman on a motorcycle pulled into the loop followed by 3 charter buses and another police car, we had a feeling we’d come to the right place.

To be continued ….

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Seeing God anew: Review of Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God by Brian Zahnd

I don’t remember reading Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” although my high school English teacher assures me I did. I have, however, been living with that image of God in my mind for most of my Christian life. Only recently have I begun to consider and embrace the idea of God being more loving than I could imagine.

Reading Brian Zahnd’s book Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God: The Scandalous Truth of the Very Good News is the “yes and amen” to what I’ve been sensing about the heart of God. In it, Zahnd recounts his own obsession with the Edwards sermon and how he used it in his preaching and early ministry years, and the turn he made toward the God of love. He addresses such controversial and convoluted themes as vengeance, hell and the book of Revelation. Zahnd asks challenging questions and makes startling statements that are meant to draw people closer to the God of love.

I will admit that this is a hard read, especially if you have a fundamental/conservative church background or experience. Many of the things I read in this book I would have dismissed if I had read this book years ago. Now, though, they are encouraging in this place of my faith journey.

Some examples:

We must constantly resist the temptation to cast ourselves in the role of those who deserve mercy while casting those outside our circle in the role of those who deserve vengeance. Jesus will have no part of that kind of ugly tribalism and triumphalism. Clinging to our lust for vengeance, we lose Jesus. But if we can say amen to Jesus closing the book on vengeance, then Jesus will remain with us to teach us the more excellent way of love. (p. 45)

Jesus taught that the Golden Rule is the narrow gate that leads to life. The narrow gate is not a sinner’s prayer but a life of love and mercy. The way of self-interest that exploits the weak is the wide road to destruction; the way of co-suffering love that cares for the weak is the narrow road that leads to life. (p. 129)

I’m going to be thinking about this stuff for a while, and I’m grateful for a vision of God and his mercy that rings true to the life of Jesus.

(Disclosure: I received a copy of the book from the publisher through the Blogging For Books program. Review reflects my personal opinion.)

There is only us

I sat on the floor and the Cuban boy came right over to me, smiling wide. He picked up the Fisher-Price shepherd and we tossed it back and forth like a ball. I could not speak his language nor him mine, so I used my face to say the words I couldn’t speak. We cheered and laughed and giggled while his parents learned about money and budgets.

Photo by Istiaque Emon on Unsplash

He sat on a small chair and promptly fell off, landing chest first on the floor, his cries filling the room, tears as big as raindrops on his face. His parents raised no alarm as he toddled over to them. They held him and comforted him until his tears subsided.

It wasn’t long before a Haitian mom handed me her baby when filling out paperwork became too cumbersome with the wiggly girl on her lap. The little girl smiled as she sat on my lap, charming a stranger as only babies can. I set her on the floor and she crawled toward the baby doll and put everything she could find in her mouth. I remembered the days when my kids did the same. Another little girl approached, colorful barrettes swinging from her braids. She plopped on my lap, leaving a wet impression on my jeans from the milk she had spilled and sat in earlier. Her finger bled from a small cut. Her mother cleaned her up as I picked up the baby and tracked down a bandage.

We had just recovered from that small emergency when the Cuban boy walked toward me, almost shyly. He held wrapped candies in his hand–one for me, one for him. I took and ate, though I had no idea what I was eating. The spiciness tingled my mouth as I let the candy dissolve. I unwrapped the one for him and he popped it in his mouth, as if he’d done this a thousand times. I feared it would choke him but he rolled the sweet in his mouth without fear. Occasionally, he took it out, letting the sticky sweetness spread from his fingers to everything he touched.

Photo by jonathan buttle-smith on Unsplash

Later, the Cuban friend I met this summer walked in. She smiled wide, hugged my neck and kissed my cheeks. Her family in Cuba lost everything during the hurricane and she does not like to talk about it too much. She misses her grandson more than she can say.

Even the mention of Cuba causes her to place a hand on her heart.

It is home. And she is far from it.

—

The man who lives next door is a monster.

These are not my words but the words of those who would view his crimes and declare him such. I would never say this to his face or call him names but we have done our best to avoid contact with him. He swears at the dogs when they bark–and they always bark at everything–and sometimes treats them not so kind. He throws things in anger and walks through the world as if it is out to get him.

Maybe it is.

I didn’t know it had happened when they drove him away in an ambulance in the middle of the night. We found out almost by accident the next day. A week later I gave his wife a ride to an appointment and when he was released from the hospital two weeks after the heart attack, days after the bypass surgery, they requested my help once again.

He was not fit to drive and she doesn’t drive and would I please drive them both to his follow-up doctor’s appointment? They needed to go downtown to a place I could easily find, and if necessary, I could drive their car. I said a reluctant yes and then prayed for a way out of it. Did I really want this man in my vehicle? It would be the closest I had ever been to him without a fence separating us. I had done what I thought was right, offering them vegetables from our garden through the years, but never had I done anything like this.

When the day came, my anxiety was a slow drip, like coffee percolating into the pot. I hoped I wouldn’t have to go through with it. The woman rounded the fence and said they were ready and I offered my vehicle and drove around the corner to their driveway to pick them up.

“Hi,” I said to the man, whose efforts to get into the van reminded me of my grandfather’s even though the resemblance was nowhere near close. “Hi,” he replied. His movements were slow. Deliberate. I drove with care downtown and dropped them off curbside so they could check in while I parked. By this time most of my anxiety had lessened. I set myself up in a comfy waiting room chair and read until the appointment was over.

They met me in the lobby. I offered to pull the car up but they decided to walk. I made a poor attempt at small talk, mostly just filling the silence with words about the parking garage. Then the man spoke.

“I was standin’ in line and I heard this voice behind me say ‘hey’ and I turned around and it was my brother.” He chuckled and smiled a little and then described what his brother was at the clinic for, adding, “He’s only got one leg.”

Photo by Alex Boyd on Unsplash

We drove back to their house mostly in silence and when I pulled into the driveway to let them out, the woman said “thank you.”

“Yes, thank you,” the man echoed.

He is no longer a monster, just an old man whose days are probably numbered.

—

These are the people I’m “supposed” to hate. The ones I’m told to fear. The ones with varying shades of brown skin and languages that are different than mine. The ones whose past deeds are terrifying and shocking, whose demeanor leaves much to be desired. The ones most of us look past or around or over.

When I look closely, though, and when I listen, I find the common threads. The woman from next door, she tells me of the family hurts and how she has a brother dying at the same time her husband is hospitalized. She shows me around her house as I help haul the groceries from the food bank inside. She speaks with pride of her home, and even the dogs generate some sympathy from me. They still bark, but I am less cranky about it.

I am growing weary of division even though I know I am guilty of creating a divide. I am forever trying to place myself in a category so I can be an “us” and not a “them.” It is tiring. I cannot bear it in myself–not in my life. And I am increasingly less patient with it at the government level.

I am grateful to have been born in this country but I had nothing do with that, and I will not withhold its benefits from those who are deemed less deserving, less worthy, less lovable.

No law or principle or speech or order can convince me otherwise.

I am an American citizen, but I live on the earth and humanity is a common bond whether we admit it or not.

There is no “them” when it comes to humanity. There is only “us.”

Photo by GoaShape on Unsplash

—

That is not to say we are all the same, but it should not be our differences that divide us.

In the words of a man who was once a slave and then homeless, whose life changed a community and whose story is now widely known:

I found out everybody’s different – the same kind of different as me. We’re all just regular folks walkin down the road God done set in front of us. The truth about it is, whether we is rich or poor or somethin in between, this earth ain’t no final restin place. So in a way, we is all homeless – just workin our way toward home.”

― Denver Moore, Same Kind of Different as Me

 

 

 

A story of friendship: Review of Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall & Denver Moore

I first heard about this book when I saw a preview for the movie. Not sure how I missed it the first time around, but I’m so glad I got to read this story of how an unlikely friendship changed not only the people in it but the community around them.

Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore with Lynn Vincent is a book I won’t soon forget. It challenges me to reconsider what I think I know about homelessness and those who sleep on the streets. Denver’s life experiences working on sharecropping plantations in Louisiana is a heartbreaking reality I wish was fiction. And Ron’s rise to success as an international art dealer and his recovery from a personal fall in his marriage is inspiring.

I loved the back-and-forth perspectives of this story, how Denver’s and Ron’s voices were unique and first-person. I appreciated the honesty both of them revealed through their stories about failures and feelings. This was not a sugar-coated, all-is-happy tale. I had goosebumps and tears throughout, and reading the book makes me all the more eager to see the movie.

Maybe my favorite part of the whole book is how the relationship between Denver and Ron is mutual. This is not a story of how Ron’s friendship with Denver saved Denver. The two men saved each other and offered each other wisdom and comfort and challenge in times of need. And even though her name isn’t on the cover, the story is also about Ron’s wife Debbie and how her sparkling attitude opened the way for this relationship in the first place.

Reading this book makes me want to take more seriously the idea that friendship with people I might not think of as friends can change things. But it’s a consistent relationship that matters. Denver’s question about catch-and-release fishing in relation to friendship was a hard check in my life. In Denver’s words:

If you is fishin for a friend you just gon catch and release, then I ain’t got no desire to be your friend. But if you is lookin for a real friend, then I’ll be one. Forever.”

Don’t let this book or movie pass you by. (And in this movie edition of the book, there are some bonus pages about how the book came to be a movie. That itself is a story!)

I received a copy of the book from the publisher through the Booklook Bloggers Program. Review reflects my personal opinion.

It felt like grace

“Are you ready to be recognized by people you might not remember?”

My husband posed the question to our kids as we climbed the concrete stairs in front of the church just before he opened the heavy door. In all our years of attendance, we never entered the church this way. We would always walk in through the back door and wind our way through the first floor rooms to the stairs leading to the second-floor sanctuary.

We were–and still are–back door kind of people. I’ve always thought of the back door of a house as a place where family and close friends enter. The front door is for people who don’t know your ways, who have never been inside, or maybe for strangers trying to sell something.

Photo by Daniel von Appen on Unsplash

Also, visitors. That’s what we were that day at our former church. It had been more than four years since we last set foot in that building. When the door swung open in my husband’s hand, we were greeted with a big smile from the woman we considered our kids’ surrogate grandmother in our days at this church. Our daughter went right to her for a hug. Our son was more reluctant, but who could blame him? He was 3 when we moved. My husband and I also went in for hugs, then we all climbed the stairs as we had done once a week for five years.

“Do you remember this place?” I asked my son. His memory is good but has its limits. He pouted and shook his head “no” as he clutched my hand. The sanctuary looked and felt the same, and there were some familiar faces at the top greeting us. Although it was Sunday, this was not a typical gathering of the church that meets in this building but a special service for a friend of ours. Many of the faces were familiar from other seasons of our life. The pastor who married us was there with his wife. People my husband knew from his job at the retirement village. Pastors from neighboring counties whom we counted as friends. Our current pastor was there, but the setting was so unusual for our son that at first he didn’t recognize him.

Photo by Kathy Hillacre on Unsplash

We settled in for the service, which featured a good chunk of music and singing. I loved that. I stood, my hands resting lightly on the back of the wooden pew in front of us as I sang and watched my kids from the corner of my eye. I had done this so many times in this church. My spiritual life in the days of parenting young children was distracted devotion. Some days, it still is, but not always because of the children.

I closed my eyes and I could see her–the tired mom of two little ones, trying to hold everything together. The days I spent in these pews were days of demanding needs of babies and toddlers, family crises, adjusting to life 800 miles from where I was raised, giving up a career to stay home with kids, nurturing my husband’s dreams. They were days of picking up the pieces of a crumbled marriage and trying to put it back together. I cried a lot in these pews. I could feel it all again years later as I occupied the same space.

But I wasn’t sad, and that surprised me.

As the songs continued, I felt something different.

The woman who stood between those pews now was something else. She was less tired because the demands of the children have changed. She has survived crises and found her place in this home-away-from-home. She has pursued her career and creativity again. She nurtures her own dreams alongside her husband. She no longer tries to hold everything together because she has seen how God can pick up the pieces of a shattered life. She knows that sometimes a broken life is a gift.

I had spent a lot of Sundays full of bitterness in these pews, wondering why life wasn’t better, feeling sorry for our circumstances. I carried that bitterness for months after we left, and sometimes when I have gone back to a place of sorrow and hurt, those feelings have returned.

Photo by Harpal Singh on Unsplash

Not this time.

I was grateful. And even that is not a strong enough word to describe it. In my heart and soul I was deeply thankful for all of it because without it, I would not be the same person I am right now. It has been a journey full of speed bumps and pot holes and breakdowns and what feels like a whole lot of endings.

But it also has been a journey full of grace, and if grace had a feeling, I felt it on Sunday.

The tired and worn-out woman from before and the becoming-more-brave-and-whole woman from right now–it felt like grace to have both of them be me.

I didn’t have enough time to consider all of this in the moment, though I acknowledged that it was there, but when my friend stepped up to the front of the church to sing for her husband a song of his choosing on his special day–when I heard her voice fill the sanctuary, watched her use her gift of song knowing some of what it has taken for her to stand there and sing–I cried tears I couldn’t stop, and if we had not been in such a public place, I think I would have sobbed loudly at the beauty of it all.

I used to want to erase the ugly parts of my life, to forget they happened and concentrate only on the good stuff. I have wanted to dwell on the victories, the redemptions, the successes. I want to hold those things close, but I want to hold the hard things alongside them. Because without the losses, the deaths, the failures, the good things wouldn’t mean as much.

Days later I am still looking for the words to express my gratitude for the years that felt like a wasteland. They were dry and my heart was brittle and sometimes it felt like we had fallen into a valley so deep we couldn’t climb out, but the climate of our souls changed and my heart began healing and we could see the sun again.

I don’t want to forget the dark days because they are testimony of what God can do in a life. They are proof that He transforms hearts and circumstances, that what feels like the end is sometimes the beginning.

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A work of heart

“Excuse me, ma’am.”

I was biting into an Indian veggie patty in the few minutes I had before picking up the van from the parking garage and heading to the kids’ school. I looked up to see a woman in front of the bench where I sat.

“Do you have some change so I can get something to eat?”

I swallowed my bite and didn’t think twice about the words that came out of my mouth.

“I’m sorry. I don’t have any change.”

The truth was that I had cash on me, which almost never happens. But because she asked for change, I took her request literally and didn’t have to lie. In that exact moment, I could have given her more than change. As she walked away, I felt it–guilt pricked my heart. I was tired and anxious and overwhelmed from helping others. These are the excuses I told myself.

I could have helped. I chose not to.

—

Nina Strehl via Unsplash

Two weeks ago, our neighbor suffered a heart attack and spent almost that entire time in the hospital. He is an older man and his wife doesn’t drive at all and they are the ones whose dogs bark at everything. We have been politely neighborly from a distance, but suddenly we were smack dab in the middle of their lives. The woman asked me to take her to their once-a-month food bank appointment, and I said yes. That day, I carried bags and boxes of food into their house, a place in which I had never set foot though we’ve lived next door for more than four years.

A few days later, when the husband was unexpectedly released from the hospital, our neighbor walked over and asked if I could take her to the pharmacy. Purse in hand, she was ready to go. The kids were off school and we were close to leaving for a family adventure, but she needed her husband’s medicine. I said yes. An hour later—longer than either of us expected—I was back at home and our family adventure was delayed but not postponed.

A few hours before the woman downtown asked me for change, my neighbor was on my doorstep asking if I could take the two of them to her husband’s doctor appointment in a couple of days. I hemmed and hawed and eventually said yes even though the whole thing is getting uncomfortable. The day they need a ride my husband needs to go to work, and they offered their vehicle, but now I am wondering how much is too much here. When she left I researched transportation options for low-income seniors. One reply to an e-mail gave me some hope that I would not have to bear this entire burden alone.

—

So, this was my state of mind when the woman asked me for change to get some food. Half a minute after she walked away, I realized my veggie patty was frozen in the middle and I would enjoy it more if I took it home and warmed it up. I pulled a dollar out of my bag when I realized the woman and her male companion had headed in the direction I needed to go. I wanted to apologize and give her the dollar, but she walked away from where I stood at the crosswalk waiting for the light to change. Maybe the sight of me and my purchased lunch disgusted her. Maybe she couldn’t handle another rejection. Maybe she didn’t even see me.

The man who was with her stood his ground on the sidewalk and spoke up.

“I don’t mean no disrespect,” he said, “but I’m just trying to get some food. Do you have anything that could help? I missed all the mission lunches today.”

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

I looked him in the eye and said, “I have a dollar. Would that help?” I handed it over.

His eyes brightened and he said, “I could get a slice of pizza. Thank you.”

“Enjoy your pizza,” I said. Later, I thought I should have asked him what he liked on his pizza because you can tell a lot about a person by what they put on their pizza. Maybe next time. I also should have given him more than a dollar. I had two more in my purse.

I crossed the street, still stewing a little, still tired from all the helping. I ran through my usual list of reasons why no one should be asking me for help.

We barely get by month to month ourselves.

We have one beat-up van we’re nursing along to 200,000 miles.

We don’t have extravagant things.

We are probably only one or two disasters from being out on the street ourselves. (I say this a bit dramatically, although many of us are closer than we think to being in a devastating circumstance.)

A group of men in suits walked by as the man and I were talking. “Ask them!” I wanted to say, but I rarely see the suits hand out money. If I was downtown every day, dressed for work, would I get tired of being asked? I’m already tired of being asked.

Maybe they ask me because I look like someone who says “yes.” Maybe that makes me an easy mark. Or maybe it’s the divine spark in them being drawn to the divine spark in me.

—

Don’t tell me my heart is in the right place. I know better than anyone that it isn’t. At least, not always.

Last month a woman asked my friend and me for help as we cut through the park on our way back to the car. She had a black eye (real or fake, I still don’t know) and a story about a boyfriend beating her up and taking her tip money. She needed help. She had nothing. We had just eaten a free lunch and learned about having productive conversations about race and injustice. We gave her money and then talked about whether we should have or not afterward. We are both Christian women who care deeply about social issues and justice. Still, we wondered if we had done the right thing. And maybe being together meant that we did what we would not have done if we were by ourselves.

Photo by Jamez Picard on Unsplash

This is how I know my heart is not always in the right place. I still second guess myself in doing the right thing. I want to punch my “doing good” time clock and be done for the day, the week, the month. I don’t want to be responsible for months of appointments especially not for people I barely know who aren’t refugees and aren’t the nicest of people.

Maybe giving money to someone is the wrong thing. But when I think of Jesus and his words about serving Him through serving the least, I think I’d rather be wrong, just in case Jesus is there. (Spoiler alert: I’m pretty sure He’s always there whether I see Him or not.)

—

I’m in the third week of teaching a course on spiritual practices at church. One of the traditions we’ll be looking at this week is “holiness,” which if I’m honest, sometimes leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But as I’m learning about the true nature of this tradition, that it isn’t legalism or rules or perfectionism, the more I understand how necessary it is.

Holiness is a work of the heart, an inner transformation that makes these outward actions of love not only possible but repeatable. Most of us can do the right thing one time. But what about the next time? Or the time after that?

Only a heart that has been oriented and re-oriented will point us in the right direction consistently. This is what I’m learning about holiness and its effect not only on me but on the world in which I live.

To seek a holy life is not to seek an otherness that separates. It is to seek a way of life that works for the betterment of others. Quaker mystic and spiritual disciplines author Richard Foster says “a holy life is a life that works.” Could anyone say that they don’t want their life to “work”?

My heart may not always be in the right place. But it is getting there. And that is the best I can hope for. When I fail to act because of a misplaced heart, I can reset the course and try again.

As many times as necessary.

The question the kids were really asking

One by one, the kids trickled into the small room, shoes off, yellow sheets in hand. It was Health Screening Day at the school, and a crowd of volunteers gathered and recorded heights and weights, and administered vision tests.

I stood off to the side, writing the numbers on the yellow sheets, then entering them in the computer. It was my first time at this gig and I watched the kids from the corner of my eye. Some of them had zero inhibitions about having their height measured and stepping on the scale. Others approached with a let’s-get-this-over-with attitude. We were told from the beginning not to announce any weights, especially with the older kids, and I could 100 percent identify with the reason for that. I was mortified anytime anyone had an inkling of my weight as a tween/young adult.

We saw kids of all shapes and sizes, no two of them alike. But they did have one thing in common. I’ll get to that.

Heights were measured in inches only, so we had to calculate a bit, which meant the heights were often spoken out loud.

“Am I tall?” some of the kids asked. “How many feet is that?” “How tall am I?”

We answered as best we could with encouragement and truth. But it was the questions and comments after the scale that had my heart breaking.

“Is that good?” “Is it okay?” “This scale weighs me five pound heavier.” (That last comment has to be something they’ve heard at home, right?)

Photo by Evan Dennis on Unsplash

Weight. It’s such a tricky thing. And it wasn’t just the girls asking. Some of the boys hopped off the scale and announced their numbers, even though they had been told not to. One boy was relieved that he could still play football.

A lot of the girls were silent. If I could read the silence, though, I know what some of the thoughts were. Because I was a girl whose number was always too big compared to her friends, too embarrassing to repeat. Even now, at my heaviest apart from pregnancy, I can hardly stand to admit the number out loud.

With a prepubescent daughter, though, it’s long past time for me to tackle these issues head on. Because she is strong and beautiful and her body is so different than mine was at that age, but the words and attitudes and pressure are just as damaging. Maybe more so.

But that’s not what I came here to talk about. Not really. There is another question behind all those questions that had nothing to do with height and weight. It takes many forms, but at the heart of it all, this is the question I think they were really asking:

Am I enough?

Read the rest of this post at Putting on the New, where I blog on the 12th of each month.

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Feels like home: Review of Hometown Girl by Courtney Walsh

It’s an extra-good book year when one of your favorite authors releases more than one novel. A few months ago, I reviewed Courtney Walsh’s Just Look Up and I’m back today with another contemporary romance, Hometown Girl. (With such a cute cover!)

In it, Beth Whitaker is stuck at a job in her hometown when she was the one in high school who was desperate to leave. A failed relationship and a mistake for which she’s trying to atone keep her tethered to the small-town life. When her sister impulsively buys property consisting of a rundown orchard and farmhouse–a former tourist attraction–and asks for her help, Beth reluctantly agrees after she runs out of excuses.

Drew Barlow used to visit the farm with his family but hasn’t been back since tragedy struck when he was a boy. Word of the owner’s death and the curious urge to uncover the truth about the tragedy takes him from his Colorado ranch job to the Illinois tourist town he’s trying to forget.

It’s a romance, so of course, Drew and Beth’s paths will cross, and as they work to rebuild the farm, they’ll experience some healing work in their lives, too.

Courtney’s writing always takes me back to my hometown. I can picture the people and places she writes about, and the characters remind me of people I know.

Although this book isn’t set in the fall, it takes place at a rundown apple orchard, which I thought about when my family visited an apple orchard recently. I enjoyed the story of Beth and Drew and their respective issues holding them back from moving forward in life. (I received an electronic copy of the book from the author. Opinion reflected in review is my own.)

Reading Hometown Girl had me thinking about home, with all of its pleasant and painful memories. If you’re longing for home or wondering if past hurts can be healed, this is a book to pick up.