Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

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A teen mom, the homeless vet and me

“My assumption is that the story of any one of us is in some measure the story of us all.”  — Frederick Buechner

Timon Studier via Unsplash

I sat on the black vinyl bench in the waiting area of the bar and grill where I was meeting a friend. I was a tad early; she was a tad late. I noticed the stroller, folded and parked near the end of the bench opposite me. Technically, the restaurant is in the mall, so the stroller wasn’t completely out of place. I thought little of it until its owners emerged from the dining area to claim it.

A young girl held a baby, maybe six or eight months old, and she handed him off to her friend, while she and her mom unfolded the stroller.

It was a weekday. And she looked so young. I thought maybe she was a teenager, though the closer I get to 40 the younger everyone under 25 looks. Maybe she wasn’t. But she was young.

I don’t like to stare but sometimes when I observe it looks like staring and I’m not trying to be rude, only to take in information and process all the thoughts I’m thinking. I saw her, this young girl, and I wanted to say something, although speaking to strangers is not something I’m quick to do.

Teenagers who are also mothers are nothing new to this era but there are still people who might feel the need to comment or shake their heads in disbelief. Once upon a time, I might have been one of those people.

But when I saw this young mother, I saw something new.

I saw my own mother.

She was a teenager when I was born, and I can only imagine the looks and comments she might have endured. (I realize I don’t know this about her, whether she faced judgment and shame. Maybe this is my way of asking.) Nearly 40 years later, I am the woman, a mother myself, who was the baby of that teenage mom.

I wanted to hug her, this stranger with a baby, but if I can’t bring myself to talk to strangers, I certainly can’t work up the nerve for hugs.

I wanted to tell her these things, how my mother was young raising me and how I’m so glad. That she had me. That she persevered when times were tough. That she gave up the life she thought she might have to have me and three years later, my brother. That she now has the opportunity to be a grandmother to my children.

“Good work,” I wanted to say. “Your child is so lucky.”

In the end, I said nothing.

—

My friend arrived and we sat across from each other in a booth, menus untouched.

“How are you? How have things been?”

Tears were my answer. The reason for our lunch, other than that it had been too long since we’d talked, was our family’s present circumstances: unexpected unemployment. Insecurity about the future. She is the friend who saved me when my husband was in seminary, who has walked so much of this jagged path with me. I lamented. She heard. And she took me to lunch.

I left feeling lighter. Nothing solved except burdens shared, dreams spoken, encouragement received.

The weather was gray and mild like spring although it was January, a brief respite from the winter chill. Not unlike the hours spent with my friend.

—

I exited the parking lot, the worries returning after a brief suspension. The car was behaving badly, and in just a few minutes, I’d be home again and we’d be thinking, always thinking, about what to do next. Added to these were global concerns, ones I can’t shake. I turned up the music, my favorite album for this kind of day, and I pulled onto the street that would take me to the highway that would take me back to the house.

As I pulled up to the stoplight, I saw him standing in the median. I looked away because it is my first instinct with anyone new and also because if I don’t see, then I don’t have to do anything. But I was second in line for the red light, which was long, and I couldn’t ignore him. He wasn’t pushy. He didn’t approach. Just stood in the median holding a sign. “Homeless amputee veteran.” I saw what was left of his right arm clutching the cardboard. I couldn’t read the rest of the sign, but it didn’t matter.

I thought about our circumstances, how little we have, how much less we expect in the near future, and I tried to excuse myself from this moment. Next time, I thought. Some other time. Plus, there were all those other times I gave someone money.

But the light stayed red and I had $2 in my purse, so I reached down and extracted the bills, which felt like no kind of help at all, but no one else was moving. I rolled down the window and I spoke.

“I only have a couple of dollars, but you’re welcome to them.”

He noticed me after I’d said a few words. He approached the car and I handed him the money and I looked in his eyes, young and sad.

“What is your name?”

“Justin,” he said.

I told him my name. “Nice to meet you,” I said. “Have a good day.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

He retreated to the middle of the median again, and I drove away, taking my exit to the highway to home.

—

“… the story of any one of us is in some measure the story of us all.”

Phil and I read this sentence written by theologian Frederick Buechner earlier this week and it stood out to both of us. It is the reason I think these two people got my attention. The young girl with the baby, there’s a thread of that story in my past. The homeless veteran asking for help, there’s a thread of that story in our present. We know what it is to be close to desperate, to need to ask for help.

If only a few things were different in our life, we could be just like him. I don’t say that to be dramatic. Nor do I think it is “But for the grace of God go I.” I am not more worthy of God’s grace than someone else. It is because of His grace that I offer it to others. And looking in that kid’s eyes (for he was a kid, really) I felt closer to the kingdom than I do in church. It was holy ground.

—

Stories.

This is what I think is going to save the world. And by save the world, I mean save us from each other and for each other. (I know that Jesus saved us and continues to save us, but I think he wants our participation in this reclaiming of a world gone mad.)

If we are all part of the same story, if what is happening to you has happened to me or could someday in the future, then I need to participate in your chapter. Or at the very least recognize that we have something in common.

Jonathan Simcoe via Unsplash

What if we looked for ourselves in other people’s lives? What if we asked questions before we assumed things? What if we listened before we spoke?

And what if we told our stories? And not just the happy ending ones but the messy middle ones. The ones where we aren’t quite sure how it’s going to turn out yet. The ones that brought us to the end of ourselves.

Once I know a person’s story, it’s harder for me to create distance. Stories help me understand and we all need to understand each other better.

I am constantly on the lookout for stories, though I admit I could do better at finding myself in other people’s stories.

Whose story do you need to hear? What story do you need to tell? How have you found a piece of your own story in someone else’s life?

The lean days

January. A new year. As much as I appreciate the chance to begin again, I have not always looked forward to these first months of the year.

In recent history, they have been lean days for our family, a time when the work hours reduce and the money stretches but not quite far enough and by early spring we feel like we’re behind and playing catch up for the rest of the year.

This year, the leanness is compounded by unemployment that began on day one of the new year and we find ourselves in an extra state of leanness, one we didn’t predict.

Umit Bulut via Unsplash

It is easy to want to complain and bemoan these circumstances, to long for excess and security and margin, especially where finances are concerned. To be honest, we’ve never really had those things, and to be more honest, I’m not sure I really want them all that much.

When I think back on our leanest days, including the present, they are some of my favorite times.

Why? I have three reasons.

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

 

More than a clever title: Review of The Bad Habits of Jesus by Leonard Sweet

Sometimes I’m drawn to a book just because it has a provocative or catchy title, and that was certainly the case with this new book by Leonard Sweet, The Bad Habits of Jesus: Showing Us the Way to Live Right in a World Gone Wrong. Although I’ve not read any of Sweet’s other books, we have a few in the house and I know that his titles often draw readers in to something deeper. I found this to be true for this book. (Disclaimer: I received a copy of the book from the publisher and my review reflects my honest opinion.)

More than just a clever title, The Bad Habits of Jesus reminds followers of Christ that he wasn’t always a “good” person as we might define good. He broke the rules, spent time with people he “shouldn’t” have, wasn’t polite and often appeared wasteful, extravagant or like he was procrastinating. I found Sweet’s listing of these habits interesting and a reminder that my life is only “good” when it lines up with Jesus.

In the opening chapter, I was challenged to think anew about the time when Jesus spit on the ground and used the mud to heal a man. Spitting in our culture is frowned upon, at least in public, and I’ve never thought of it as an insulting gesture. Sweet says this, “From a gesture of insult, Jesus created a magnificent and powerful blessing. And isn’t that how God works anyway?” (p. 4)

Sweet’s writing style is quick-paced and he plays with words in a way that I almost envy. Sometimes his turns of phrase are a little too cute for my tastes, but he makes memorable points. In a chapter about Jesus spending too much time with children, he challenges the church to inclusion of children because Jesus cared not only about their presence but about their wisdom. Sweet writes, “Truth is truth whether spoken by a child or a king. There is no halfway Holy Spirit. The question for Jesus was not ‘How old are you?’ but ‘Do you have ears that hear?'” (p. 115) I wonder how many times I’ve dismissed my own children for thinking they can’t possibly know spiritual truth.

I was overall encouraged and challenged by this book and would recommend it as a refreshing look at what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Towards the end of the book, Sweet lists all the ways Jesus wasn’t a “very good Christian” by our definitions of that phrase. It’s convicting.

When you take the good and the bad together

It’s a new year, so I should feel something new, right?

I did a lot of complaining at the end of 2016 about how horribly awful the year was, and there were some terrible moments, right up until the very end of the year when my husband lost his job on December 31. (If 2016 had been a person, I would have slammed the door behind them on the way out of my house. Good riddance, I said.)

So, we’ve spent the first week of 2017 a little bit lost. What do we do now? Where do we go from here? Our kids went back to school and our weekly routine shifted. My husband and I had to find a way to work with and around each other in the house while trying also to make plans for the future. Plans that once included saving money to buy a house now have become find a job any job so we can pay the bills.

It is tempting to think that this is just the same old muck from last year, spilling into the new year. That a new year will be no better than the old year because clearly this is no way to start a new year: unemployed with no backup plan. Also, it’s winter. I don’t mind winter, but it’s easier for me to lose hope in winter when the air is cold and the sun takes its time showing itself.

While my husband made breakfast on Saturday morning–cinnamon raisin french toast–he turned on a Jars of Clay album I love, and I remembered that among the major things that happened in 2016 was my attendance at a writers conference in Nashville. And part of that trip was the chance to see Jars of Clay play a short set as part of a larger show. I shook the lead singer’s hand and we talked about writing. He wished me well at my conference. It was a magical and almost unbelievable moment. I’ve been a fan of theirs for nearly 20 years. A dream come true.

That was part of 2016. So was the Cubs’ World Series win, an event I wasn’t sure I’d ever see in my lifetime. Baseball playoffs made our fall memorable.

Sure, 2016 was a lot of bad. But it wasn’t all bad. And this is what I have to remember: some days are good; some are bad. And some days have a little of both. How I label each day–bad or good–depends on what I look for, what I focus on.

On New Year’s Day, the first day of 2017, with a new week on the horizon and no clues about our future, God answered a prayer I had breathed in frustration the day before. He provided money from an unknown, and therefore unexpected, source. It was a message: I hear you. I see you.

On Monday and Tuesday, I was battling a head cold and napped on both of those mornings. It was a gift of rest I don’t always accept. On Tuesday night, my daughter and I got to see a performance of Beauty and the Beast on stage, a Christmas present we had purchased weeks before we got the job news. It was a bright spot in a potentially dark time.

I worked on my client’s writing project and made progress while chicken pieces simmered on the stove to make broth. I am continually awed by the process of scraps transforming into something delicious.

On Friday, my husband’s final paycheck arrived. It is the last predictable income we have for the month and it is enough to pay our bills. Still, it felt like approaching a cliff, knowing that eventually we’d have to jump off of it. It was overwhelming but not despairing. A reality we couldn’t ignore. Later that day, in the mail, my husband received word that he’d been approved for unemployment. And a friend sent us an encouraging note, along with some money.

There was bad and there was good and it was all together.

For most of our married lives, my husband has worked Saturdays because of the business he was in. Saturdays, of course, are the days when our kids are home from school, so our family time has been limited to Sundays, especially during the school year. This past Saturday was our first of the new year, a reminder that my husband was out of work but that we had a chance to spend time together as a family.

It snowed in the morning and our kitchen was desperate for attention, so we spent the day washing all of the dishes in the house and tidying the kitchen. Our kids even helped for a few hours. It was an exhausting-yet-satisfying kind of day. Mostly good with a hint of bad.

The start of every new year brings with it potential, and I always want to think of that as potential for good and great. But there’s also the potential for bad and awful. If you had told me what 2016 would bring, both good and bad, I don’t know if I would have believed it.

I’m trying to hold 2017 with open hands, knowing that things are going to go how they go and not all of them are going to go the way I want.

I found these words encouraging as I look at 2017 with the effects of 2016 lingering:

And,


I don’t always understand it. And I certainly don’t always like it. But somehow the good and the bad, as I categorize them, work together to make something I didn’t intend.

That’s what I’m seeing as the first days of 2017 pass. Some good. Some bad. All of it a part of life.

First Friday Five {January edition}

It’s a new year, so I have some new favorites, and most of them are Christmas-related because for all of December, I was immersed in Christmas!

  1. Christmas movies. In addition to the once-a-year tradition of watching White Christmas, this year I also watched a ton of sappy Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies on Netflix and Amazon. Some were good, others were okay, and others were a waste of time. But I needed a little (or a lot) of Christmas in December and movies were one way to do that.
  2. Christmas music. Especially new and different Christmas music. We finally bought the Christmas album of our favorite artist, Jason Gray, and we listened to that in the car on repeat. I also heard for the first time a carol called Bring A Torch, Jeanette, Isabella and I loved it instantly. Other non-traditional favorites included Sufjan Stevens, JJ Heller, Josh Garrels and the tiny bit of the Behold the Lamb of God tour by Andrew Peterson that we got to watch online.
  3. Smoothies. We had some fresh spinach left over from a recipe, so I began experimenting with smoothie recipes. Then I bought some almond milk. I’ve tried half a dozen different combinations, probably, and there are a few I’ve really liked. Others I’ve tolerated. (If you’ve got a surefire smoothie recipe, send it along! Also, how do you get kale and spinach to blend smoothly?)
  4. Go Noodle. I don’t know how I ever lived without this app/video series before. Think inside exercise/recess activities. The songs aren’t overly annoying and the kids love them. When I need to get them moving this winter, this is my first stop.
  5. Family time. With Christmas and New Year’s Day falling on Sundays this year, our foursome got a lot of special together time in recent weeks. We played board games, cooked together, did craft projects. On Fridays between Thanksgiving and Christmas, my husband worked late so the kids and I watched movies and ate popcorn (on the weeks when we didn’t have family in town, which was two in a row). I’m not always eager for the togetherness because it can quickly turn to fighting and impatience and exasperation, but sometimes that’s just my attitude. I love the time our family has gotten to spend together.

What have you loved about life in the past month?

 

 

A ‘forgotten’ genocide and faith that withstands: Review of Intended for Evil by Less Sillars

What I know about Cambodia probably wouldn’t even fill a single page of a notebook. But some of my favorite things are made there by women earning a fair wage and people I care about care about Cambodia and its people and travel there to make the world a little better.

So, this book caught my attention because of its focus on the tragic period of Cambodia’s history when millions of people were killed in a genocide that doesn’t seem to get a lot of attention. Intended For Evil is the story of one man’s survival of these events and how his faith in God sustained him through it. (Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the book from the publisher, which in no way affects my opinion.)

That’s oversimplifying it, though. Radha Manickam has as much doubt as faith as he watches family members die and the life he knew is destroyed. He wonders how God can permit such evil, why he’s allowed to survive in the midst of so much death, and what hope he could possibly have for the future. This is no sappy God-is-in-control cliche but a realistic account of what it means to follow God wherever you find yourself.

Besides Radha’s personal experiences, the book is full of historical and political background, which at times felt a bit difficult to wade through. But for someone with zero knowledge of this time period, it’s helpful background and context.

The events in this book may have happened decades ago, but it’s relevant to world events today. What happened in Cambodia in the 1970s is happening in other parts of the world today, and someday we’ll read survivors’ stories of those atrocities.

If we’re not going to forget history, we need books like this one.

 

 

2016: By the numbers

I can no longer think back on 2016 with any kind of rational emotion. When I think about all that happened this year, I slant toward the negative, as I’m seeing so many people do on social media. I do believe this was a year I’d like to leave behind, in some ways, but not everything that happened was bad.

So, I started thinking about it in numbers, not because I love numbers but because numbers are rational. Logical. Non-emotional.

Here are some personal stats from 2016, in no particular order.

74: Books I marked as “read” on Goodreads, which was short of my goal of 100. (Too ambitious.)

6: Grown-up puzzles our family put together this year, highlighting our vacation to Williamsburg Va., and a day trip to Philadelphia, among other scenes. 

2: Job changes for my husband. Both unexpected. Both pushing us in a new direction.

90: The age of my grandfather when he died this summer.

108: Years it had been since the Cubs won the World Series before this year.

20: Years since I graduated high school. Celebrated with classmates at our reunion this summer.

1st and 3rd: Grades our kids entered this year, making me feel old and useless.

50,000: Words I wrote on a new novel in November.

93: Blog posts I’ve published on this site this year (including this one, if my math is right)

8: Months since I started volunteering with refugees

38: The age I turned on my birthday this year

186,000: Miles we surpassed on our mini-van

4: Round-trip flights this year

3.5: Years we’ve lived in Lancaster, in the first floor of this farmhouse

98.61: Miles I walked this fall and winter, which started as a fundraiser for refugees. (My goal was 100. I’ll get there.)

It may not be super-exciting, but it’s fun to see some numbers in retrospect.

Happy New Year!

One word leads to another {A OneWord365 wrap-up and announcement}

I’ve been choosing one word to guide my year since 2013.

That first year was “release,” a time of letting go, and it was followed a year later by “enjoy.” The year I was meant to enjoy the life in front of me didn’t turn out that way exactly because I realized something along the way. And that led to my 2015 word, which was “whole.” That was a winding road full of unexpected twists, and at the end of the year I felt undone more than done, which I think was the whole point, pun intended.

Which brings us to 2016 and the year that is almost ended. My word this year was “present” and I always begin the year with high hopes.

My goal this year was to be more awake to the life right in front of me, to not distract myself all the time with escapist fiction or dulled senses. And this year, like it was for so many, was full of opportunity to feel deeply. And that is as painful as it sounds.

This year, I faced a multi-week back injury at the beginning of the year that reduced my world to one room of the house and counting the number of steps to the bathroom. I zoned out with Netflix because I literally couldn’t go anywhere, but I became more aware of my immediate surroundings. It was an unintentional introduction to being present.

For Lent, I took a break from reading fiction, which is too often an escape for me, and I had hard time going back to books that are purely entertaining and not challenging in some way. I still read fiction, but it’s different for me now.

In the middle of the year, my grandfather died, and I felt ALL THE GRIEF of loss. I cried like I’ve never cried before. Publicly. Unashamedly. There was a time when I might have tried to fight it. To hide the pain. But I let it go. I still am.

Then there was the election. And the war in Syria. And other people’s grief and loss. I felt it right along with them, sometimes crying for seemingly no reason but later pinpointing it to taking on others’ emotions.

One night, I clearly remember feeling so much sadness and loss, and I really wanted to drink a glass or two of wine to dull what I was feeling. But I chose not to. Instead, I let myself feel. And I was better for it.

Which leads me to the word I want to live for 2017.

See, this last feature of being present, this caring about other people’s pain and losses is something I still need to work on. Most of the time, I am so focused on my own troubles and problems that I turn off my caring for other people because I don’t think my heart can handle it.

What I learned from being present this year (and from seeing the movie Inside Out) is that feeling something–even sadness, even pain–is an important part of life.

I have long admired this quote by C.S. Lewis because I struggle with the eventual pain of loving and losing. It goes like this:

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

I don’t want my heart to harden because when it does, I become someone I hate. I have no pity or compassion for people. I reek of bitterness about my own circumstances in life. I shut down, like a turtle receding into its shell so nothing can hurt it.

That is not how I want to live life.

Knowing now what I do about what a year can bring, especially when I choose to focus on a word and how it will eventually change me, I am nervous and scared.

But the word I need this year, the only word that makes sense to me is this:

I have high expectations for myself and others, so I want to be tender, gracious with myself. I am learning to set high and challenging goals, yes, but to be kind to myself when I don’t meet those goals or take the steps easy as they come and to not beat myself up or call myself names. I can’t do it all. I can’t control it all. So, I need to be tender towards myself.

And I need to keep my heart on the soft side. It most certainly will get bruised. Maybe even punctured. But I’ve lived enough days with the impenetrable heart to know that loving and caring, even if it means losing and hurting, is worth more than a heart that feels nothing.

Hate is in excess these days. There are people and groups I want to hate because they are hateful. But more hate won’t solve anything. I wrestle with this, too. To be tender is not the same as “going soft,” though. I think certain behaviors, actions, beliefs, circumstances require a toughness. And I still want that to be there. But I don’t think I can be only tough. In fact, I think I need the toughness and the tenderness to work together. I’m sure I’ll have more to think about with that as the year progresses.

I just know that when my heart starts to solidify, which it started to do after the election, the tenderness is what saves me. When I’m anxious, being kind to others is an antidote. I can’t explain it, really, but I find it easier to be the opposite of whatever the prevailing emotion is. When shoppers are frantic and I’m anxious about joining them out in public, I remind myself to be patient and kind, and it helps me. When hate and fear spew from the TV, I throw myself into volunteer work with refugees and school children. It is tenderness in thinking of others and giving my time to them that keeps my rising anger and frustration from bubbling into a steaming outburst.

I don’t know what else I will learn about tenderness and being tender this year. But I know that I will learn about myself and God in the process. Because He, too, is tender, despite what we sometimes want to think.

Despite all the unexpected turns, I have not regretted this choice of focusing on one word for an entire year. It has changed me more than any New Year’s resolution ever has.

Won’t you give it a try this year? The word is totally personal to you and your circumstances, and sometimes it seems the word chooses me before I can choose it. Give it some thought. And let me know what you pick. It’s going to be a transformative year.

The ones I can’t forget: Best books of 2016

Once upon a time, I gave you regular updates about the best books I’ve been reading. This year, I have failed at that task, but since it’s the end of the year, I’ll try to make up for it and tell you about the books I can’t forget. They follow, in no particular order except to be separated by non-fiction and fiction.

Non-fiction

The Road Back to You by Ian Cron and Suzanne Stabille. If you haven’t caught on to my obsession with the Enneagram yet, well, you’re probably not missing anything. Except a changed life. Okay, I know that’s probably overselling it, but this book is one of the few books I’ve read in my life that helps me understand me. If you’re into personality studies or self-reflection, put this one at the top of your list.

City of Thorns by Ben Rawlence. If you’ve also missed my passion for refugee advocacy and awareness, then I have to wonder if you’re reading my blog at all! This book takes a look at nine people who live in the world’s largest refugee camp in Kenya. How they got there, what life is like there, what their future could be. Because few of us have the chance to go to a refugee camp and see for ourselves, I recommend this book to further your knowledge of one aspect of the refugee crisis

Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr. Doerr is known more for his haunting, beautiful fiction, but this book is about a year his family spent living in Rome, and I loved it. He talks about trying to write the work of fiction that so many people have praised and how difficult it was, which is a peek behind the curtain that always inspires me as a writer. 

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond. Like City of Thorns, this book is a journalistic endeavor featuring eight families in Milwaukee’s poorest neighborhoods. In storytelling fashion, Desmond chronicles the challenges of finding secure housing in urban settings and how the lack of secure housing impacts other areas of a person’s life. One of the families featured is also a landlord, which I felt lent a balance to the book as well. I am only somewhat aware of the housing challenges in my city, so I was grateful for the recommendation from a friend about this book. Eye opening and unforgettable. Read my full review here.

Fiction

The Confessions of X by Suzanne M. Wolfe. I did not love this book immediately, but by the end, I was enthralled by it. It is the fictional account of St. Augustine’s mysterious lover (before he was a saint).  It is so different from most novels I’ve read that I had to include it on this list. If you’re a fan of historical fiction that isn’t typical, give this one a try.

The Feathered Bone by Julie Cantrell. I’m not overly emotional when I read books or watch movies, so when a book evokes tears or gasps from me, it is memorable, and this one did both. This is fiction that will leave you not necessarily with a feel good attitude or a happily ever after sigh but it will inspire you to believe that hope can co-exist with tragedy. This one is set in Louisiana both before and after Hurricane Katrina, which is the backdrop for some more personal storms for the characters. I repeat: if you like endings that are only 100 percent feel-good happy, move on. You can read my full review here.

—

I know that’s a lopsided list, but I read a lot of great non-fiction this year. My fiction habits changed a bit early in the year. Either way, it’s always difficult for me to choose favorites at the end of the year. If you’re also an avid reader and you want to see everything I read this year, check out my Goodreads profile. You can see what I’ve been up to reading-wise.

And as a disclaimer, this post contains affiliate links for Amazon, so if you’re shopping for one of these books, clicking the title will take you straight to Amazon, and I’ll get a tiny portion of your purchase for referring you there.

What are the most memorable books you’ve read this year?

For those who make art: Review of Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle

When it comes to books about writing, I gravitate toward ones that are more like memoir than a strict how-to, and who better to learn art from than Madeleine L’Engle?

Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith & Art is a must-read for anyone who considers themselves a Christian and an artist. L’Engle’s thoughts on art and truth are inspiring. She reflects on life as a creative act: “Creativity is a way of living life, no matter what our vocation or how we earn our living (p 80). And her thoughts on labeling art as Christian are refreshing: “all true art is incarnational” (p 16).

Reading this book has given life to my writing and the way I approach the creative process. It’s a resource I will return to when I’m feeling dry creatively or when I’m stuck for words. It has the potential to renew me again and again.

L’Engle doesn’t shy away from the need for the artist to experience pain and suffering, either, and this, too, is real and life-giving.

I have underlined words on almost every page of this book, and even paging through I’m encouraged anew.

(Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the book from the publisher through the Blogging for Books program, but my review is an honest reflection of my opinion.)

I’d put Walking on Water on a list of Best Books for Writers. If you haven’t read it yet, I think you’ll find it inspiring.