Legitimate reasons to stay or go

 

Do I stay Christian? -Brian McLaren

Mclaren is a fluid writer - the English lit professor style. 

The first part of the book lays out a series of reasons why a person would legitimately have cause to leave the Christian religion.

The second half lays out some reasons and recourse to stay. 

I resonated with many of his points. Religious history is rife with travesty - Christianity is no exception. That it has oft veered from the life of the founder - is uncontested. I have been long astray from the more fundamentalist leaning transactional Christianity I was raised with, even though in the midst of that influence, I was instilled by my parents and mentors with a very personal relationship with God and Jesus that has been the defining aspect of my faith through all the different life paths...

McLaren seems to be much more philosophically and politically collective than I am. He spends a lot more time thinking about whether there is hope for institutional religion and probably puts a lot more stock in large scale political movements than I would tend to. For example this quote: "That means we will strengthen our shared desire for healthy and just communities and societies from global civilizations to nations to states to cities to neighborhoods to families and circles of friends." 

I don't tend to put much stock in "global civilizations" - I tend to have a more libertarian and tribal perspective. I think, at best we can attempt to transform ourselves (difficult) and then perhaps exert influence on family and friends... and so forth. I participate in a church community because I do believe that community service and progress in faith are aided by such institutions - or at this moment in time, more apt - the particular community I participate in - has presented itself to me through a mystical invitation that feels part of the stream of my life. Formal institutions have not always been a part of my faith journey but more often than not they have - both church and parachurch organizations. 

That being said, I definitely agree with the fact that a move towards and acceptance of a much more complex, mysterious, and nuanced version of faith is a welcome conversation to have. 

Dear Liz

 

Dear Liz,

 

In 2009, my dear friend Karin loaned me Eat, Pray, Love and like so many other people, I fell in love with your unique blend of candor, intellect, and humor. I found myself relating, giggling, and relishing the tale. I’ve read it several times since then.

I happened upon Big Magic some years back. As a dabbling wanna-be writer -a rather unproductive artist (with the temperament minus the output) I was impressed and inspired by the thoughts and stories you shared. Despite my lack of official artistic output, I am committed to the path of self-exploration and I think that’s what I value most about your writing. In fact, in Big Magic one of my takeaways was something you expressed about art first and foremost being about our own personal exploration – writing for yourself – producing your art purely for your own enjoyment, need to understand, pleasure etc. I also appreciate that you touched on the idea of not expecting your art to provide for you financially. I have mentioned this concept to several people over the years – including my own daughter for whom I just purchased Big Magic.  I feel like I’m having a conversation with a fellow pilgrim and even though we’ve never met, I feel like a fellow traveler.

Over the past month, I picked up The Last American and Committed. I had stumbled upon some quotes of yours online and it re-ignited my interest in reading more of your works. I was not disappointed. There are so many odd ways in which I connect to your narratives: perhaps the tendency to sarcasm, self-deprecation, sort of tomboyish air, personalized way of communicating and connecting, curiosity, and analytical way of thinking about things.

I appreciate your insights that span from your own thoughts and experiences shared so personally to the overarching themes that you share gleaned from observations, interviews, and research. I relate to both of these approaches because it combines an eagle-eye-view of culture with your own deeply personal connections with self, God, and others. It also so courageous to be willing to share these thoughts and experiences with others in such an open way and I want to thank you for that very daring gesture.

This all sounds like a painful book report that someone told a high schooler to write. It’s also dreadfully old fashioned. I could’ve thrown a comment on your Instagram feed for example.

I keep a book log online and my intent was to write a response to Committed – but it morphed into the idea of this letter. I’m sure you receive a lot of fan mail, and I don’t blame you if this never gets read.

 

I wish you all the best in your life journey.

Fellow Traveler,

Arizona

 

Clad in a homemade loin cloth of bandannas

 

    

Just finished this read. Got back from a day at a theme park - and couldn't wait to resume the real fun - reading, sipping, and just basically living the 94 year old dream. While I was fussing about crowds, cold, traffic, lines - I couldn't help but bemoan my lack of resiliency. 

Eustace Conway has resiliency. I think of him bounding down the Appalachian trail clad in a homemade loin cloth of bandannas, bearing little but a knife.

Elizabeth Gilbert (I've been a fan since I read her more famous book Eat, Pray, Love - round about 2009 I think.) She's a masterful writer and I love her candid, warm, humorous nonfiction writing style. Plus she's brilliant. She lays out the facts with just enough detail but cuts through to a psychological depth that your average biographer might miss alltogether.

I am riveted by Eustace Conway's force of personality and his visionary quest to save humanity from an apathetic suburban comatose existence. I'm fascinated by his adventures, romances, and Type A mountain man life on his farm and preserve "Turtle Island." I'm enthralled with the way a man can tirelessly pursue the approval of a distant father who bestows his first kind word on his son when son reaches age 39. There's a clash of being one with nature, the force of a driven visionary who longs for his own wood chinked walk in closet, and awaits the perfect woman who will embody pluck, nurture, and backbreaking labor. I feel for someone who puts so much pressure on himself and others as if driven by some sort of primeval force that cannot be resisted nor restrained. 

There's something about the collision of the seventies with a profoundly American heritage that promoted the concept of a puritanical holy grail pursuit of becoming a "man of destiny" that forged this unique personality. A guy clad in homemade buckskin attends college - exiting his homemade tepee each day to attend class. The dude rides cross country on horseback - coast to coast. I love the description of his mystical relationship with horses. 

I love Liz's interview with horseman CuChullaine O'Reilly - extolling the uniqueness of Eustace who has the three key characteristics of a brilliance endurance rider: "courage, resolve, and romance." He goes on to say that Eustace lacks (at that point - 20+ years ago y'all) his own spiritual journeying which would pull him away from the posturing and showmanship to something really heroic.

Eustace is featured in the 2012 Mountain Men show - I've added it to my list...

Embracing Complexity - a catch up post about various books and a few shows

 2023 has been an eventful year. A chunk of my time has been absorbed by a full time job that has taken me to the world of John Deere and engines. I'm chalking up my neglect of book log to adjusting to this new 40 hr a week work life. However, in the midst of this - I have read a few things and watched a few things all of which may not make it to this "catch up post" but it will at least put my mind at ease that I've deposited a thought or two about these works. 

Now that I've logged into the wi fi here at Starbucks - even just puttering away at these keys with my half fingered gloves and pretending like I'm doing something important makes me feel happy. A note on the gloves - I bought these gloves because I loved how they looked on Emily Blunt in the show The English - her reason for wearing them notwithstanding...

 -whimsical tale with a twist set in the south. Kindred spirits, themes of abandonment and class struggles, joys of nature and art, 

Winston Graham books - The Poldark series - still in the midst of it. Had enjoyed both series - the one from the 80s and the more recent one. The books are not a disappointment. If you love the characters from the show, Graham unpacks them even more keenly and artfully in the books. The mining and business details I usually kind of skim over so I can get to the juicy stuff. 

High Performance Habits - Brendan Burchard - Definitely one of the best self help books I've read in years. It veers away from the focus on temperament and takes a pragmatic behavioral approach to achievement. This sounds like it smacks of an outdated americanism fake it til you make it kind of thing by that description but it's actually not. Anyone who knows me, knows that I adore personality studies and all the good work that has been done to help us understand our hardwiring. This book manages to be emotionally integrated whilst offering great ideas that are applicable for maintaining energy levels, keeping a positive view, and well, I need to read it again because every chapter had me writing down quotes in my journal, and I actually own this book - or our charter school does or something. Anyway I have access to it. 

Rob Bell: the Bible book - This is part of an ongoing quest to decipher what I think about the Bible and how to reconcile my upbringing with my current beliefs. I have an allegiance to Jesus and God, but definitely some doubts about how to interpret the Bible and a deep skepticism towards anyone who claims to be able to interpret it too confidently. This book pretty much echoed many of my sentiments. Some of his guidance towards how to read the Bible were deeply resonating. I can ask questions about the author, author's perspective, cultural context, and and be able to absorb the mystical complexity of humanity's quest to understand God and God's revelation to humans. I can remain open to things that I don't understand like blood sacrifice and was Jesus really divine?

DE Stevenson - My friend introduced me to this 20th century British author and I love her works! I have read maybe 4 of her novels I think this year. Her most famous novel Mrs. Buncle was actually my least favorite. I will keep requesting her books from the library. Charming and easy to read but also full of beauty and truly complex characters that one can relate to. Complex must be the word of my day because I notice I keep using it. Embrace the Complexity

Through the Narrow Gate - Karen Armstrong - Interesting memoir about a woman who entered a convent in England during the 1960s. She didn't stay, but her tale is personal and honest  - respectful and fascinating. 

Tribe - Sebastian Junger - Nonfiction - what we're missing in modern life - the continuity of tribe - one of the factors that makes reintegration so difficult for military personnel - not only the recovery from trauma and violence but how do you do life without your band of "bros" - and sistahs too 'course. I'd never really heard anybody talk about how apparently people who have experienced deep periods of crisis and the most abject forms of war - often report feeling happier during those times. There's something incredibly bonding about hardship and struggle. The ways that we've insulated ourselves from it (some of us) have not necessarily led to more personal fulfillment and contentment. This gave me pause. I looked back on some of my favorite moments in my life and they all involved some sort of a challenging circumstance which felt that there were elements of risk and discomfort and where I was doing it with a group of people. Camaraderie was at its height: cattle work - esp on horseback, mission trips, and the trenches of young motherhood.

He also touched on the defection of European settlers to indigenous groups and how many of them had no wish to return to "civilized" society presumably because of the way of life and freedoms they enjoyed. 

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak - Daughter read this to me. Poignant and very unique. Whole story written in perspective of the grim reaper. That's definitely a creative idea. I found it to be a bit laborious, the artsy language a bit tiresome, and in general I try to avoid any stories about WWII because they're so sad and because the whole topic is so exhausted - a tear jerker for sure. She sobbed but I, the misty eyed pincushion - did not - I hadn't really allowed myself to get too attached to the characters because she had forewarned me about all the deaths - and the because of the aforementioned reasons. 

The Crown - series - Amazing - just started it - beyond my expectations for sure. 

Madam Secretary - I slogged out of this in the middle but then it picked up steam again towards the end of the series. Excellent - incredible acting, directing, and dialogue. Gave me a perspective on the reality of politics vs my naïve idealism. I totally idolize M Sec in this - she's winsome and assertive - boss babe without being annoying and domineering. I adore her. I love her relationship with her husband and how they process their lives together. I actually changed my political party from libertarian to Republican because of this show - not because they're Republican leaning - I would say quite the opposite -but because this show made me realize that I'm probably not even in the game unless you're on one of the actual teams that's playing. The other teams are outside the stadium just trying to get in. 

Ishi - in Two Worlds - biography by Theodora Kreober. Documents her husband's work with Ishi who had apparently wandered in from the wild and spent the last few years of his life as a subject of study for some anthropologists in San Francisco. He was more than that to them it seems. They tried to be genuine friends and felt they were. 

 

He was reputably the last know member of the Yahi Native American tribe. He had been discovered in 1911 and eventually died of Tuberculosis. This biography tapts into journals, records, and the author's own remembrances about Ishi. It was published in 1961.

Enriching Ideas that I want to Re-visit

My sister's dear friend gave her this book as part of a collection of different books that had been impactful to herself. It's one of those books that I can't wait to re-read and it's all kind of molded together in my mind in a very vague way. I think I read it earlier this year when my mind was in a very busy place and so I didn't absorb it that well but it was so full of richness that I need to go back to these pages to really have encountered it the way I want to. The style reminds me of John Eldredge there are a lot of literature and movie references that are really beautiful and lots of personal stories from her own life and from people she has worked with over the years. Suffice it to say in my limited way that it was a call to true strength that only comes through the passageway of brave vulnerability. In that way, it aligns with Brene Brown and others who are trailblazers of this path. It's not an invitation to self centeredness but to awareness and compassion towards self and others. 

Teenage Demigods, action, peril, hints of romance, sometimes death, and moms who are a little sleepy

Percy Jackson & the Olympians Series 

First post of 2022! I haven't been reading a ton as I've been transitioning to a new career and I've been hustling - but I think I may have landed and well, it's time to catch up here a bit.

I started reading this series with my daughter Natalie sometime in 2021. We just finished book 4/5. It's her third time reading it so she gets frustrated when I forget how certain characters and events connect, and I sometimes get sleepy and drift off while she's reading to me, which admittedly is very annoying. She insists on reading to me, because she says her familiarity with the characters lends to better "voices" but I'm not a great audio reader and it takes a great deal of concentration for me to follow along. Also in my defense, every chapter introduces new characters and settings as the characters are often traveling to different places and encountering different humans, gods (those are easier to keep track of), demigods, mortals, and other supernatural creatures. 

I like Rick Riordan's straightforward writing style. He writes first person in this series - from Percy's. Percy has kind of a bland personality to me. A little predictable. Natalie disagrees - she thinks he has plenty of spunk. AnnaBeth is like a Wonder Woman - tough, loyal, and little hints of vulnerability that never really fully emerge.  The supporting "cast" have more personality (why is that so often the case?" His chapters are loooong, We try to read a chapter a day, but sometimes we have to settle for half a chapter due to time constraints and that's annoying because ocd people! Riordan has great little bits of humor and sarcasm dispersed throughout his writings, so that saves it from being too melodramatic. 

Rick Riordan transplants Greek and sometimes Roman mythology into modern times and has created multiple series about demigods spawned by various gods and humans and their adventures. Demigods are usually killed by monsters but the ones that survive find their way to Camp Half Blood where they undergo rigorous training and embark on quests to re-balance power and combat evil. 

I've always liked mythology, so it's been fun to find a meeting place in literature that we can both enjoy. Having common experiences in movies and literature as a family is a real connecting point for us. 

Backwoods Coming of Age story which was unexpectedly charming and enjoyable

This book kind of floored me. I thought I only liked fiction books with romance in them. (or that's what I told my students about why I didn't care for Harry Potter apart from the laborious plodding nature of the series. Don't start in on Hermione and Ron and Harry and Jenny - zero romance in those liaisons - ok mini rant done.) I know I have high standards for what I consider to be romantic. It all stems from having been influenced by the Brontes...

This book must have graced the shelves of my childhood home. Why I never read it is beyond me. I do have a fear of books about animals. They always seem to die. I'm still traumatized from Bambi (first movie I ever watched that I recall), Old Yeller, and Where the Red Fern Grows. 

Anyway, my mom passed it on to me saying that she thought I might like it. I do. I love it. I know - did I include that disclaimer about overusing the word love and exclamation points! 

I'm not going to go in depth. I cut my finger open a week or so ago and it hurts to type. Let's just outrage the laws of grammar and list some things: artful nature imagery with just the right amount of detail, characters that continue to surprise and charm - [Grandma Hutto (she's my new mentor), Penny (small but clever and innovative - he's the dad), girthy ma who's sensible and kind of obnoxious, the neighbor family Forresters - raw and rowdy but endearing, Flag the deer - best and worst pet ever] story takes place somewhere in the backwoods of Florida (where the author had moved to and must've done some amazing research because the stuff in here from the dialect to the customs seems legit.)

You get the idea. Well worth the read. No comment about the possibility of animals dying in the end. But the actual theme is more about the dad and his son and his coming of age with the help of his pet and the amazing mentorship of his dad. Talk about knowing how to do stuff...