Random Bits and Pieces

Lindsey Mead of A Design So Vast does a piece each month she titles, Things I Love Lately. I look forward to these posts because I get book ideas and articles to read, she promotes people’s blogs from time to time, shares what her kids are reading. It’s so helpful and fun to be part of the community.

I started to do something similar a long time ago. I’ve been meaning to do another and then I don’t. But because I’ve just had spring break and had so much time to read some great things, I decided to share some of my own Random Bits and Pieces … Things I love … and think you might too.

Several months ago, my friend Myles suggested I read a book by Alexandra Fuller. She is a white Southern African who grew up in Zimbabwe and Zambia. I finally got around to it this last week and was mesmerized, and stunned by his recommendation. The entire book overwhelmed me. I loved it. I am just plain in love with her writing. Leaving Before the Rain Comes is daring and full of insight. It’s the story one woman’s decision to walk out of her marriage and how she makes peace with her life.

“The truth is, I wasn’t only not a good daughter of Africa, I was not a good daughter of anywhere, nor was I a good wife, nor a good mother. I was a woman on the brink of free fall, and it was hard to be a good, acceptable woman in any language or in any place when simultaneously contemplating coming undone. For the first time, I was beginning to see that for a woman to speak her mind in any clear, unassailable way, unapologetic way, she must first possess it.” (211) 

She also wrote Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, which I’m reading right now. There’s this hopeful willingness to embrace the radical, intermingled sorrow and joy of our lives in her writing. I can’t recommend her enough.

I came across Grounded by Diana Butler Bass several months ago and started to read it slowly, savoring its depth and insight. Diana Butler Bass loves God and works hard to make God accessible. She suggests that although Christianity is on the decline in America, the world is shifting and hungry for the sacred in every day life all around us. Diana Butler Bass contends, along with Paul Tillich, that God is the Ground of all Being … he can be found in the world around us, and we can gain spiritual ground through the God who resides in the world with us – not far away and far of.

I am also reading The Givenness of Things by Marilynne Robinson. It’s difficult to get through all the essays, as they’re dense and really smart, but they’re thought-provoking and insightful!.

A few months ago, I came across an essay that Joan Didion wrote in the Vogue magazine in 1961. It’s titled Self-Respect: Its Source its Power. This short essay is packed with insight. I remember years ago I asked my friend Lupe about the nature of women and abuse and why a certain couple of women didn’t want to leave their husbands, despite horrible domestic violence.

I railed against the situation and said, “They have the power to leave!”

She shrugged. “The don’t have internal power.”

I have never forgotten those words, ever. It took me a long time to realize that internal power is a high commodity and comes at a high price. I think Joan Didion’s essay touches on the source of internal power. “To have that sense of one’s intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of other love or indifference.”  

I adore this You-Tube video, called You Make Me Brave. I watched it over and over a few weeks ago. I’m excited there’s this trend right now that seems to be calling us to be a people who are brave and bold, instead of obligated and duty bound. It’s not so much about finding ourselves, but about finding God. On the road to discovering God, you will inevitably come to know your truth self. But God does not call us to tiny, atrophied, fearful lives of rules and lists. The life of faith, in particular the Christian faith, is one of courage and adventure. It’s important to hold onto that.  

Finally, on Sunday my friend Andrea did a photo-shoot for me and the kids. It was wonderful. Andrea Laurita photography is outstanding. The grace and ease in which she worked with me and my kids was exceptional. My kids settled into her gentle way of leading them like little sheep. It was so fun.