2013 Summer Reading List

Well, clearly I did not follow through on my intentions to write up a post on Tuesday about how my job has changed since I started. My excuse is that I spent Tuesday evening working on creating a new website for my grandfather's business. (Once that is completed, I'll share a link so you can see my handiwork.) For now, I'll say that I'll try again this coming Tuesday to write about my job, but today I wanted to share with you about some books that I've been reading - or have on my 'to read' list.

I am not only a writer (and evidenced by how long this post turned out), I am most certainly also a reader. This was made clear in several posts I shared last summer - one about the reading suggestions I requested from friends and the other about the books I actually read on my daily Metro commute.

When I left North Carolina in April, my church choir friends generously gave me a Barnes and Noble gift card. Once I arrived in Florida - and actually had a mailing address that would last longer than a week - I ordered four books:

• Soul Survivor: How Thirteen Unlikely Mentors Helped My Faith Survive the Church by Philip Yancey - 
• I actually read this one this spring while living in North Carolina (my grandfather has a copy signed and addressed to him by the author...) and found its perspective on life and faith so incredible that I decided I needed my own copy to highlight and take notes in to try to absorb and adopt some of the important thoughts and perspectives it contained. I would highly recommend this book to two groups of people: 
• Anyone who is a writer/author would definitely benefit from this book. Of its 13 chapters (all of which are excellent), 7 of them are on people who specifically wrestled with their faith and influenced the world through their writing (G.K. Chesterton, Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, John Donne, Annie Dillard, Frederick Buechner, Shusako Endo, and Henri Nouwen). 
• This book is for anyone who has been hurt by or frustrated with the messiness of the Church and people who are or call themselves Christians. Yancey doesn't claim to have all the answers - he is very honest about the questions he has - but he seeks to share the stories and thoughts that have helped him to daily gain a better perspective on who he is, who the people around him are, and who God is.
• Permission Granted: And Other Thoughts on Living Graciously Among Sinners and Saints by Margot Starbuck
• I'm still working my way through this book but I would recommend it wholeheartedly. It's serving as a convicting reminder that I certainly have a LONG way to go in actually loving people - whether I categorize them as Sinners or as Saints - the way that God loves them.
• Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brene Brown, Ph.D., LMSW
• I heard about Brene Brown through a TED talk of hers on vulnerability that I watched this spring with the youth group of my North Carolina church (she also did another great one on shame). Turns out my parents were actually reading this book at that same time, so I got to read part of it out-loud with them while driving home from western New York after my college graduation in May, but I haven't had a chance yet to open my own copy and keep going.
• The Importance of Being Foolish: How to Think Like Jesus by Brennan Manning
• I've heard about Brennan Manning for years (he also wrote The Ragamuffin Gospel), but I haven't ever read anything by him. When he died this spring, I read a Christianity Today article about him that made me decide it was about time I read one of his books.

I also visited my library at the beginning of the month (now that I have a permanent address!) to get that wonderful piece of plastic: a library card. So far I have read the following:

• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4, for those of you who don't know) by J.K. Rowling
• I hadn't ever read any of the Harry Potter books until last year when I discovered that my little sister at Houghton absolutely loved them. I figured that was as good a reason as any to finally catch up on the Harry Potter-ness that so many of my peers grew up with. To be honest, my parents never said I couldn't read them, I just hadn't made the time until now.
• My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business: A Memoir by Dick Van Dyke (actually I listened to this while driving to and from work as a book on CD read by the author)
• I grew up on Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, as well as some of The Dick Van Dyke Show. Enough said. 
• Wish You Well by David Baldacci (an author suggested by a friend last summer)
• The part of me that wishes I lived and worked on a farm in the mountains surrounded by woods loved this story.
• Priceless by Tom Davis (a novel/author suggested by a friend last summer)
• I stayed up past midnight to finish reading this one. People who know me know that this is dedication because I usually turn into a pumpkin at some point around 11 pm.

Now I still have on my 'checked out library books to read' list:

• Absolute Power by David Baldacci
• This one sounds very different from my usual book choices, so I'm getting ready for a new literary adventure when I finally have the time to crack this one open.
• Childhood, Boyhood, Youth by Leo Tolstoy
• Yes, this choice as well as the following book by Dostoevsky were influenced by Philip Yancey's chapter about them in Soul Survivor. 
• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
• I started reading The Brothers Karamazov once and got about halfway through that tome before I lost the (library) book for several years. It did show up again at some point, but I haven't had the heart to start in again. I'm just moving on to the next one for now.

And last, but not least, I am quite excited about two books I just ordered from Amazon:

• The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly? by Seth Godin
• Seth's blog is pretty awesome. I was introduced to it by my fellow marketing people at Wycliffe, but the ideas he writes about cover so much more than 'just marketing.' Oh, that reminds me, I did read another book this summer, Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, also by Seth Godin, that my boss's boss lent me. I'm still working on figuring out what I want to do with my life after reading the challenges in that book.
• David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell
• I just heard about this one through Seth Godin's review. That's pretty much all I know so far, but I'll give an updated report once it arrives and I've read it.

After all that reading, I have lots of new or rearranged thoughts floating in my head. Now I have to sort out how I want my life or thinking to change based on everything I've learned. That's where the rubber meets the road.

What have you been reading lately? Any good suggestions to add to this list? If you got to the end of this, you must be a reader, too.

Way Down Upon the Suwannee River

I'm going to start this post with a promise: Next week I will write about what I've been learning at work and how my job is changing. It's all good news, so be excited.

Tonight, though, I want to write about my weekend. On Thursday after work I ran away up north...to Dowling Park. Never in my life did I think that I would live somewhere where I would travel north and be in Florida. And yet here I am.

Anyway, I left behind my big city life and traveled to the land of Florida's first retirement community on the banks of the Suwannee River. My grandparents are up - truly north - in Maine for the summer, so I actually went to spend the weekend with my grandmother's cousin.

This picture doesn't do the Suwannee River justice. It gives you an idea, though.

We had a lovely weekend. After I finished working remotely on Friday, we talked, went on adventures, and told stories. Having grown up with my grandmother (their fathers were twins), she has lots of good stories about my grandmother as well as many other relatives and long-time family friends. :-)

One of my favorites is about her great-granddaughter: While on a visit to Dowling Park a while back, this little girl was quite excited to see the Suwannee River. When everyone walked out on the dock, though, she turned around and said, "Excuse me, I have a question: Where are the swans?"

I also have a friend up there that I was able to spend some time with over the weekend. We made delicious pumpkin pie ice cream, and I helped him and his dad haul chicken manure as one step at the very beginning of his plan to start an all natural farm.

One of the evenings, he and I also had a long conversation about God, Jesus, the Bible, Christians, the Church...and all the frustrating messiness that goes along with all of that. I don't have nearly enough space or time to cover our discussion here right now, but I do pose to you this question: If I truly claim to love God and say that because of his love I am able to love the people around me - no matter who they are - why am I not living a life consistent with this truth?

This summer, my new church has been going through the Not a Fan video series (and book of the same name) by Kyle Idleman. The foundational message of this series is that God has called us to be his Followers, not just Fans who cheer from the stands but aren't willing to participate out on the field. As Followers of Jesus Christ we have been saved by God's grace, but have we really allowed God to change how we live our lives?

Ultimately, "We know that we have come to know [God] if we keep his commands. Whoever says, 'I know him,' but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did" (1 John 2:3-6).

This is no easy task, but I've found no other calling in life worth living for. So, step by faltering step, I choose to continue living life, learning how to love the messed up people all around me (including myself), and ask the hard questions that often don't have easy answers.

I am a Writer

A friend asked me recently to explain what I mean when I say that I am a writer. I wrote this for him, and then when I was done, I figured what I had written would actually make a pretty good blog post.

I am a non-fiction writer. I wrote fiction in middle/high school when it was assigned, but it is not something that I feel compelled to do or talented in. The stories I do love to share are true stories of people around the world who are making a positive difference in the lives of people around them. That is why I wanted to work in the communications department of a Christian non-profit.  There are so many amazing stories of what God’s people are doing around the world, and I want to be part of the crew of people who get to hear those stories and write them in accessible and compelling ways for readers.

Foundationally, I like writing because I love reading. I grew up reading as many books as I could – mostly fiction but I also would read biographies and books containing the stories of important social movements. I found this second group of books inspiring and challenging. They called me to be a part of a world bigger than myself and far more exciting than I could imagine as a girl in grade school.

It is quite ironic, actually, because when I was in elementary school my mom basically gave up on making me write. I was homeschooled starting in first grade. Sometime that year, we went to the zoo. When we arrived home, my mother asked me to write one sentence about what I had seen at the zoo. I started crying hysterically and hid under the dining room table. At a loss, my mother decided to just encourage my reading and hoped that I would absorb spelling, grammar, sentence construction, etc. (all the basic building blocks of writing) for the time when I would need to write in middle school and beyond. Her plan worked.

For me, saying “I am a writer” means more than “I write.” I love words. I love well-constructed sentences and paragraphs. A well-used vocabulary word, a properly placed comma, and a complicated thought made clear in an understandable sentence all give me joy.

I am an internal-processer – there are so many times when all the thoughts inside my head get jumbled up and won’t sort themselves out. When I take time to write it all down, my thoughts start to make sense. Rather than being overwhelmed by what’s going on inside my brain, I can start to own my thoughts and harness the power in them to positively change my life and encourage change in the people around me. As a writer, writing and thinking are inseparable. But I am certainly not a philosopher. Philosophy, thinking about thinking, theoretical propositions – all these either confused me terribly or bore me to death. I am interested in practical life application.

Right now, most of the writing I do is journaling. I also have this blog, on which I mostly share anecdotes from my life. I love making people smile – I think my sense of humor comes out differently in my writing. I’m not a comedian by any stretch of the imagination, but I think I have the ability to use words to show the humor in situations.

Overall, though, I feel that in journaling and blogging, most of the writing I’m doing is actually for myself. At some point I may feel called to write more for other people, but right now still have so many questions about life and so few answers that it would feel presumptuous for me to write authoritatively on any subject, other than my own life and experiences. I don’t think I will ever write a book – certainly not fiction and non-fiction is still unlikely. I am definitely the kind of person who wants to live life myself, not just write about it for other people.

So there you have it.

Just because, here's a photo of my Maine island. True confessions: I miss it.

Random night

Tonight is random night. I’ll post a whole bunch of random paragraphs, and if you have extra time with your life, you can creatively come up with some theme that brings them all together (other than the fact that they all have to do with my life).

After being in our house for almost 3 weeks, we finally got the key to our mailbox. Yay mail! I got a letter from my mommy; therefore, she is the best. Thank you, USPS, for doing your thing, however long it takes you.

I sponsor a child in Ethiopia through Compassion International. Her name is Mihret, and she’s 10 years old. I need to write her a letter because then she can say ‘Yay mail!’ too. Hold me accountable.

Tijuana Flats is a Tex-Mex fast food chain I’ve been introduced to since moving down here. It’s several steps up from Taco Bell, which I think I’ve eaten at only once in my life. A group from my department goes to Tijuana Flats for lunch on Taco Tuesdaze.

My middle sister is back from her summer in Costa Rica. My whole family called me on Sunday evening to tell me all about the wonderful barbeque they were having at the cottage on the lake. And to say that they missed me. I’ll admit it: I miss them too. And the lake. In contrast, I was at the Orlando Premium Outlets on tax-free weekend cause you know that shopping is my addiction. J

They announced the new Doctor on Sunday! In December we have to say farewell to Matt Smith and hello to Peter Capaldi as the Doctor. If you haven’t ever watched Doctor Who, you’re missing out on some lovely British sci-fi telly.

I’m in the middle of applying to be a Big Sister through the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Florida. I am so glad for the time I was able to spend with my Little Sister at Houghton, and I am looking forward to getting to know another one here in Orlando.

After all that, I did sort of come up with a theme. Did you find it? Happy Tuesday evening!