Neither Wolf Nor Dog

I  heard this book mentioned several times on the Thomas Jefferson hour and since I'm an indianphile like I'm a celticphile, and cowboyphile - apparently like everybody else - a despised wanna be - reiterated by Dan the ancient Indian interviewed by Kent Nerburn in this 1994 book - I requested it from the library.

This was a provocative book. I tried to write it off at first - because the author's first encounter with the old Indian was met with such rudeness and seemingly entitled race obsession. The protagonist couldn't get over the travesties of atrocities that had occurred to his people. I use those words on purpose to be dramatic. I was raised in a culture where individual responsibility for one's actions reigned supreme - not collective. Some of my ancestors were Scottish - who earned hundreds of years of disenfranchisement and persecution because of their tribal ways. I'm sure if you go back far enough there is  "Dan" amongst my pict ancestors.

It seems that the author "Nerburn" had been selected to be verbally crucified on behalf of all white people everywhere regardless of his own tribe or creed.

That did happen. The author endured a kind of death as he sacrificed his agenda and swallowed his retorts to absorb the guilt of over a hundred years of history. He is demoted to a childlike state in the backseat of a car that sweeps through the badland country disregardless (I told you I make up words) of roads, time, and Nerburn's wife and son who now dwell in another dimension.

Part of me, was like get a life, lots of people and people groups have endured persecution (like the jews) and cultural disenfranchisement. They picked themselves up by their bootstraps, hid their menorah, and forged ahead.

The other part of me, was captivated by the idea of Nerburn absorbing this cultural guilt, and giving Dan (who had been kidnapped from his parents to live in a boarding school where he had been forbidden to speak his own language) a chance to vent his frustration about what had been stripped away. I stuck with the story and after the characters undergo a storm of spiritual proportions, Nerburn has an almost out of body experience at Wounded Knee. Dan seems to have purged away some of his anger through his talks with Nerburn and with the engagement of hope that he has had a chance to tell a true story - one in which he is not a victim, a massacerer, or a "wise indian."

Ultimately they forge a strange frienship. There is a kind of meeting of minds that was painfully real and I recognized it. I appreciated that the story was provocative. I liked Dan's exploration of spirituality and his take on Jesus. "I like Jesus, He didn't own anything. He slept outside on the earth. He moved around all the time. He shared everything he got. He even talked to the Great Spirit as his father. He was just like an Indian."

I see that they made a movie in 2016 - looks like they're wrapping up their screenings. Hope I can get a copy of it eventually.

Despite my ramblings, I really wanted to be there in that car roaming over the badlands country. (prefer a horse though) There is something in me that just wants to explore all those remote places in the world and talk to the people who live where those scattered lights pop up when you fly over. I want to eat with that old woman who lives in a bowl shaped crevice in the middle of the prairie with no road leading to her home. Maybe I even want to be her one day.

Cherish - Gary Thomas

I should be positive about any book that encourages people in their marriage. Marriage is a wonderful God designed institution. 

This just felt so similar to other books I've read by pastors whose wives like flowers, lots of phone calls, chit chatting, discount shopping, food reviewers, and probably scrapbooking. 

No crime here people.

Lots of good sermonic anecdotes and stories about people who made it in marriage and some who didn't. 

It's very nice.

I like the word cherish. It's a good word.

I could certainly improve in this area.

There are some basic orientations that men and women have. We have to be careful about gender generalizations. Some characteristics are more based on temperament than gender I think. I do believe that John Eldredge nailed it better than many myriad other marriage handbooks. He says men are asking the question "Do I have what it takes?" and women are asking the question "am I captivating?" But that's pretty much one of the only things that I think may be true intrinsically across the board. Many other differences between people are based on temperament or background.

I think people who are visionary types are often drawn to nuts and bolts people then they write books about how they learn to navigate this divide in a nice way. That's good, but overdone.

The Land of Little Rain

The Land of Little Rain - Mary Austin

I stumbled upon this book on a website where I was searching for another book that was referenced on the Thomas Jefferson Hour.

This is another turn of the century woman writer and it's interesting that there was something about this era where certain ahead of their time women like Helen Hunt Jackson, Pearl Buck, Mary Austin, etc. were able to showcase their work. 

Lyrical, poetic, whimsical, and yet somehow scientific. I was intrigued by her observations but I soon tired of them towards the end, finding myself more curious about the writer herself than about her nature observations. I think I will request her biography next.

She lived in the Owens Valley which is east of Kern County on the eastern side of the Sierras. She makes some pithy little profiles about characters (both animal, plant, and people) that she encounters in this arid land: prospectors, buzzards, Paiutes, Shoshone, coyotes, etc. They are short essays about different topics. She has a dry humor and it was an enjoyable book. 

Of course I want to explore the Owens Valley. Some of my family members have camped at Alabama hills which is in the area. Perhaps I will make a literary tourism pilgrimage to Mary Austin's home and imagine her roaming around and contemplating. 

https://www.noehill.com/inyo/cal0229.asp

Kindred Spirits

What do LM Montgomery and Sheldon VanAuken have in common? 

LM Montgomery - Anne of Avonlea  - an old friend - audio read

Sheldon VanAuken - A Severe Mercy

I don't know that LM Montgomery coined the term "kindred spirits," but in using it she managed to capture something ethereal and intangible, but "you know Teacher" as her student Paul said to her whenever he described something that lay in the realm of the imagination. And that's just it. The quality of kindred spiritness lies in the invisible connection that binds two people who know how to dwell in the realm of the imagination. How can you perceive it? You know it when you find it. It might lie in the etherworldly gaze of someone who is thinking of something far away. Those who speak in metaphor and linger too long in the dusk watching the remnants of the sunset. An unmistakable exchange of a glance of understanding and sympathy that no one else perceives. A conversation that drifts into hours that feel like minutes exploring an idea to its full ripeness. An exchange of pure silence when words are not needed. Thoreau -  "I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life." Those who seek out the less taken path  - veering from the confines of convention.

I have found these folk in real life - a rare exchange, not something one stumbles upon every day or week or year. Most often I have found them in the pages of a book.

Sheldon VanAuken's exploration of love told in the context of the devotion he experienced with his late wife "Davy" is such an encounter. Their devotion was overshadowed by their submission to a greater devotion - that of God that encompassed their marriage and accompanied them through her death and the rest of his life.
The author weaves in poetry (usually his own) and an exchange of letters with CS Lewis about faith, life, love, and loss. The kindred spiritness comes in as he describes his and Davy's avid love of nature and a general worship of beauty and the intellectual life that reached a climax during their stay in Oxford where they discovered a community of like minded people who eventually helped channel them to God in Christianity.
It's an honest and moving expression of their story. There are some good theological points, and an inspiring account of sacrificing something good and beautiful for something better - a familiar death. (Familiar to me) I know the devotion of God and his passionate jealousy for anything that might be a high place idol - sin or otherwise.
However it is also a celebration of kindred spiritness.
Vanauken speaks of their pledge to the Shining Barrier - a pledge that nothing would supercede their love for one another - a romantic notion that as a girl (I actually did read this when I was in my early 20s I think) - I might have thought incredibly romantic, but as an adult feel slightly cramped and suffocated by - mainly the notion that they would have no pursuits that they did not share.

Anyway - they did knock around in a boat for some time - foraging off the coast of the chesepeake  - that sounds lovely.

Anne of Avonlea  - a dear old friend of my girleen hood. Remember Miss Lavender? What a dear sweet kindred spirit, who lives at Echo Lodge in her wee stone house with Charlotta the 4th trying not to be sad about true love who was lost to her. Cheering herself up with echoes, and pretty dresses, and teas for imaginary friends coming to call.
What about Mr Harrison and his parrot Ginger - and his tidy wife who shows up unannounced to the surprise of all.
Paul Irving with his kindred spirit rock people.
And most of all Anne. organizing the AVIS (Avonlea Improvement Society) - teaching her school children, bringing up Daisy and Dora with his funny questions and philosophies, Marilla - softened with tenderness, Hester Gay's little spot discovered by the picnic, all the seasons of lovely PEI fully celebrated by author and heroine, ignoring stirrings for Gilbert, Diana's engagement to Fred ( I remember when my friend got engaged to someone who I thought was hopelessly bland) - he's grown on me now. And... Miss Lavendar's marriage to her lifelong love who she thought she had lost forever.
It's funny. There really isn't much of a plot. Just a collection of anecdotes woven with humor and insight. Characters change and progress, but that's about it.