Reading Notes from the Chicken-Hat Philosopher

I rarely feel inclined to write a formal review of a book I have read.  I will very rarely finish a book that I just can't stand, and rather than critiquing the ones I do read I am more interested in thinking about the ways the story touches (or doesn't) my own.   With that in mind what I am going to start doing is attempting to do a short post each week right here on my booklikes blog about the reading I have been doing that week.  It will feature books, audio books and articles of interest. 

This week I began a new job that is going to include a pretty long commute (one that is, thankfully, NOT in the direction of the horrid Atlanta traffic).  I am excited about what this is going to mean for my audio book listening.  I have joined Downpour.com (an online audio book club) and still have a number of Audible titles to listen to from a previous membership with them.  Plus our local public libraries have wonderful selections of audios both in CD form and through the Overdrive online service.  I will not run out material both free and low-cost to feed my habit.

My goal is to have no more than two books going at a time; one audio and one print. I have been terrible in the past about having too many books going.  

My print reading of late has been hampered by struggles with my vision.  I went to the eye doctor last week and it turns out that the prescription has changed a good bit.  New glasses are on the way!  

Print book of the week: Early in the week I finished a book that I had left dangling for a while.  It is one I had eagerly awaited by Rachel Held Evans called Searching for Sunday.  I read her first book Evolving in Monkey Town (it has now been retitled Faith Unraveled) and have her second book A Year of Biblical Womanhood on my kindle.  Rachel has become a powerful voice for progressive Christians - especially those a generation younger than me, who are searching for a more meaningful spiritual experience within the church.  Her willingness to be very honest about being one of those very confident evangelicals who "knew it all" to becoming someone full of mostly doubt and questions is refreshing.  Those of us who were raised in a culture where doubt is shoved firmly into closets and other dark spaces need voices like Rachel's. 

One of the questions I had after reading Rachel's first book, which was mostly about her journey into questioning dogmatic beliefs, was how these questions affected her ability to find community in the church.  Searching for Sunday delves into that and more as it chronicles her journey in and out of church and her attempts to both find and create community.  Of course she has created community in a big way through her blog and online presence, but that doesn't change the day to day need for personal community and connection. I didn't sense that has found that perfect answer or community but that the pull to church for her is still strong.  I will be eager to hear more of her journey as she continues to travel her path.  

As I write this on a Sunday morning, I realize that right now I am not really Searching for Sunday, but have found a sense of peace about using my Sabbath as a time of reading, writing and relaxing with family.   

It was a decade ago that our family left the church where we had been members for a decade (and where I had worked most of that time) to find a new way.  I knew that no matter how much I deeply loved many people at that church, I did not fit or belong there. In the past decade I have visited and been a part of many churches where I have experienced joyous fellowship but have also felt the wounds caused by those who use the church to hurt and hate.  While I admire many of my friends who, like Rachel Held Evans, have chosen to be voices of change within the church, I simply cannot join them.   I am tired.  I have found fellowship and connection outside the church walls that doesn't seem to come with a heaping helping of guilt.   I do not hate the church and will even say that I still deeply love it with all of its flaws.  It just feels like my time to be on my own and find out who I am without it.  I will continue to care deeply about my spiritual journey, but I have a feeling my field of vision will be different from this new vantage point and I will learn things I could never have learned in Sunday School.

Audio book of the week: Leaving the Saints by Martha Beck

I had never heard of this book but when I was browsing at the library last Sunday looking for audio books for new commute I had to check the religion section (of course) and Martha's name popped out at me as someone that some of my friends are constantly quoting.  Turns out she is also a life coach who has been on Oprah which is probably why I have seen her name before.  But this book caught my eye because it was a spiritual memoir of her journey out of an abusive religion.  Having spent a small part of my life connected to Mormonism, it also intrigued me from that perspective.

I am just about finished listening and am enjoying it for the most part.  Her story is very believable, even though it is clear that she struggles to get it told in an authentic way while having to protect so many people and avoid telling the stories of other people closely connected to her own.  I struggle a little to connect with her personally because she is one of those types who seems to be able to have dreams and intuitive flashes that guide her journey, where I find that I mostly stumble around in the dark having the aha moments after I reflect on the journey.  I am still glad to have stumbled on this one as it is very good so far.

Looking ahead:

I just started Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin and hope to finish that this week.  After finishing my audio of Leaving the Saints I am going to listen to a children's audio and try an Evanovich book (never have read or listened to her before).

Have a great week of reading and please share any recommendations you have for me!

I rarely feel inclined to write a formal review of a book I have read.  I will very rarely finish a book that I just can't stand, and rather than critiquing the ones I do read I am more interested in thinking about the ways the story touches (or doesn't) my own.   With that in mind what I am going to start doing is attempting to do a short post each week right here on my booklikes blog about the reading I have been doing that week.  It will feature books, audio books and articles of interest. 

This week I began a new job that is going to include a pretty long commute (one that is, thankfully, NOT in the direction of the horrid Atlanta traffic).  I am excited about what this is going to mean for my audio book listening.  I have joined Downpour.com (an online audio book club) and still have a number of Audible titles to listen to from a previous membership with them.  Plus our local public libraries have wonderful selections of audios both in CD form and through the Overdrive online service.  I will not run out material both free and low-cost to feed my habit.

My goal is to have no more than two books going at a time; one audio and one print. I have been terrible in the past about having too many books going.  

My print reading of late has been hampered by struggles with my vision.  I went to the eye doctor last week and it turns out that the prescription has changed a good bit.  New glasses are on the way!  

Print book of the week: Early in the week I finished a book that I had left dangling for a while.  It is one I had eagerly awaited by Rachel Held Evans called Searching for Sunday.  I read her first book Evolving in Monkey Town (it has now been retitled Faith Unraveled) and have her second book A Year of Biblical Womanhood on my kindle.  Rachel has become a powerful voice for progressive Christians - especially those a generation younger than me, who are searching for a more meaningful spiritual experience within the church.  Her willingness to be very honest about being one of those very confident evangelicals who "knew it all" to becoming someone full of mostly doubt and questions is refreshing.  Those of us who were raised in a culture where doubt is shoved firmly into closets and other dark spaces need voices like Rachel's. 

One of the questions I had after reading Rachel's first book, which was mostly about her journey into questioning dogmatic beliefs, was how these questions affected her ability to find community in the church.  Searching for Sunday delves into that and more as it chronicles her journey in and out of church and her attempts to both find and create community.  Of course she has created community in a big way through her blog and online presence, but that doesn't change the day to day need for personal community and connection. I didn't sense that has found that perfect answer or community but that the pull to church for her is still strong.  I will be eager to hear more of her journey as she continues to travel her path.  

As I write this on a Sunday morning, I realize that right now I am not really Searching for Sunday, but have found a sense of peace about using my Sabbath as a time of reading, writing and relaxing with family.   

It was a decade ago that our family left the church where we had been members for a decade (and where I had worked most of that time) to find a new way.  I knew that no matter how much I deeply loved many people at that church, I did not fit or belong there. In the past decade I have visited and been a part of many churches where I have experienced joyous fellowship but have also felt the wounds caused by those who use the church to hurt and hate.  While I admire many of my friends who, like Rachel Held Evans, have chosen to be voices of change within the church, I simply cannot join them.   I am tired.  I have found fellowship and connection outside the church walls that doesn't seem to come with a heaping helping of guilt.   I do not hate the church and will even say that I still deeply love it with all of its flaws.  It just feels like my time to be on my own and find out who I am without it.  I will continue to care deeply about my spiritual journey, but I have a feeling my field of vision will be different from this new vantage point and I will learn things I could never have learned in Sunday School.

Audio book of the week: Leaving the Saints by Martha Beck

I had never heard of this book but when I was browsing at the library last Sunday looking for audio books for new commute I had to check the religion section (of course) and Martha's name popped out at me as someone that some of my friends are constantly quoting.  Turns out she is also a life coach who has been on Oprah which is probably why I have seen her name before.  But this book caught my eye because it was a spiritual memoir of her journey out of an abusive religion.  Having spent a small part of my life connected to Mormonism, it also intrigued me from that perspective.

I am just about finished listening and am enjoying it for the most part.  Her story is very believable, even though it is clear that she struggles to get it told in an authentic way while having to protect so many people and avoid telling the stories of other people closely connected to her own.  I struggle a little to connect with her personally because she is one of those types who seems to be able to have dreams and intuitive flashes that guide her journey, where I find that I mostly stumble around in the dark having the aha moments after I reflect on the journey.  I am still glad to have stumbled on this one as it is very good so far.

Looking ahead:

I just started Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin and hope to finish that this week.  After finishing my audio of Leaving the Saints I am going to listen to a children's audio and try an Evanovich book (never have read or listened to her before).

Have a great week of reading and please share any recommendations you have for me!

Maybe everyone doesn’t have this problem, but I seem to be able to find a way to turn every question asked into a deep question of philosophical struggle.  I try really hard not to do this so much, but it just seems to happen anyway.  My therapist used to tell me that being human makes us all existentialist to some degree, but that some of us tend to “live there”.  So now I guess you know my address.

The question of the hour that I am being asked is “Why are you coming back to Georgia?”  I don’t know if it is always intended, but the question tends to make me feel that I have to give some explanation complete with a neat little bow that helps the asker understand how everything that happened was “meant to be”.  I keep finding myself tempted to do that, but then I stop short.  Because frankly, I don’t believe in “meant to be”. 

Now maybe those asking the question just want some kind of concrete answer.  Maybe they wonder if maybe the job didn’t work out or if I hated Boise.  Maybe by the time their question gets to me on existential street I have made too much of it. The concrete answers are fairly easy.  The job was not my favorite, but was working out okay (thanks to a few really fun co-workers).  I certainly could have found my way into the Idaho Library world.   Boise was as beautiful and traffic free as I hoped and the foothills continue to be a thing of beauty.  I certainly have not minded playing with my nephew who I know is the most adorable and brilliant toddler on the planet.  There is no event or specific situation that I can point to and say, “That’s it!” 

Yet to say that I am coming back because I am “meant” to be in Georgia would also be a lie.  Just as it would have been a lie to say I was “meant” to come to Boise.    Both decisions were choices made by a human being trying to make her way in a complicated world.  And both decisions have their own sets of baggage.

The only things absolutely certain in this world are that we were born and one day we will die.  We don’t have many choices about either of those things and quite frankly we don’t have as much choice as we like to think about all the stuff in between.  As a good friend likes to remind me, we work in the dark.  Since we work in the dark, we need to move towards the things that bring the most light to our souls. And let me tell you Georgia brings a lot of light to my soul.  And quite frankly the darkness I have felt as a result of moving away from that light has been deeply lonely and at times unexpectedly terrifying.  

I have been in that place of darkness before nearly 20 years ago when I went through some of the worst depression of my life.   It was in that darkness that I learned that while I can’t “unchoose" some of the baggage of my life, I have choices on how to travel with it.  The way out of the darkness is to find the way that I can bring my light to the dark world.   It was a long, hard and painful road out of that darkness, but I learned in that arduous journey that I am strong.  I can do hard things.   So I could adjust to life in a new place across the country.  I have no doubts about that.     But frankly I don’t want to.  I don’t want to struggle in that much darkness when I know a place where there is light for my soul already blazing.  I mistakenly imagined that I was bringing all the light with me, or that there would be lots of light already waiting for me in my new home.   Turns out that much of that light was radiating from some pretty amazing people who, like me, are working in the dark and just doing their best to bring their own light in the dark world.  Because that is how it works - we shine our light but that isn’t how we find our way.  We find our way by the lights of others.   

So I am not going to say this was not meant to be, nor will I say that Boise wasn’t meant to be.  I have chosen the road that feels the most life giving to me right now.   And Georgia "in peaceful dreams I see, the road leads back to you."

A view of Kennesaw Mountain in Cobb County, Georgia.

Boise foothills in Idaho

Today was a beautiful day.  It was sunny and breezy with temps in the 60's.  I took an hour long walk on the Greenbelt, which is basically a nature trail that runs through Boise and around the foothills of the mountains.  During my walk it was impossible not to be smacked in the face (in the good kind of wake you up way) with the beauty of nature.  It was right there all around me and reminded me of why I fell in love with Boise when I first visited two years ago.  Nature was vibrant and alive and the mountains up close and personal.  

But I also got a smack in the face of another kind today.  When I left my basement apartment to go out on my adventure, the family I rent from were all home engrossed in one screen or another.  When I returned home they were out to dinner, but came back a little later to resume their indoor activities. In the almost 5 months I have lived here, I have never seen this family out enjoying nature - even in their front yard.  They are almost always home inside with the screens.  They have lived in Boise all their lives but they either never really looked at the beauty around them, or at some point stopped seeing it.

I don't say this to judge, but rather to say that it woke me up to my own experience.   When I fell in love with Boise two years ago it was because I came here as a visitor.  My senses were awakened and I was paying attention.   I went to places where the unique beauty of Boise could literally smack me in the face.   I was looking and seeing everything.

It was rather like this when we first moved to Atlanta, Georgia in the 1990's.  You would find us most weekends taking a hike on one of the trails near our Marietta home or up in the mountains enjoying a spring day or the fall leaves.  Saturday nights it was very common to find us perusing at Oxford books and scouting around town for a late night cup of coffee.  When I think of these memories I can still feel the rush of what it felt like to look and see Atlanta.

 Somehow over time I quit really seeing the city and state I called home.  I worked, took care of business, slept and started the whole process again each day.  And when I quit seeing, I started forgetting that there were places nearby I could go where nature's beauty could literally smack me in the face AND places I could hang out where the diversity of our humanity is always on display with all of its own beauty and splendor.

I think it is easy to do this kind of forgetting with nature and people.  They are just there day in and day out and we figure they always will be.  While people we know can remind us that we may be taking them for granted, places don't necessarily do that.  They just continue to exist whether we take the time to look and see or not.  They may or may not change, but we are definitely changed for the worse when we quit looking and seeing.

Maybe that is one of the important reasons to travel - to have your senses awakened to remember to look and to really see.    There are some places of stunning beauty all around this world, and many of them are right in our own backyards.  I will be going to Georgia, my home for 22 years, at the end of this month to see my son Jacob's post-graduation directorial debut.  Although I will be there to see the show, I plan to also be fully awake so that I can look and see the home that was mine for 22 years.  The home that I have been away from for 5 months that I have longed to see.  I didn't really realize today that my longing to see it did not just start these past few months.  It started years ago when I stopped really looking.  I plan during this trip to really let Atlanta smack me in the face (you know in that good way I mentioned) with its uniqueness and beauty.   

I am giddy with excitement for this adventure.  

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

I had been wanting to read this book for a while and last year when I went with a friend to see a creative dramatic production based on the book, it moved even higher on my list. Since I kicked off a monthly program on folktales and started out with a story from China, I used that as an excuse to read this book and booktalk it at the program.

Anyway, I can’t say enough about what a powerful experience it was to read this book. I talk to parents all of the time about the importance and power of storytelling in the family and the way stories can inspire strength and resilience in children. I also have worked hard to instill in myself a sense of gratitude and contentment for the simple joys in life, rather than the discontent that comes from always striving for more material things. This book highlights both of these things mixed in with a strong heroine (Minli) who, inspired by her father's magical stories, takes an exciting adventure and meets some extraordinary friends who guide and shape her journey. Throw in books with mysterious writing, magical red threads and dragon pearls and you have a story that completely captured my imagination. Grace Lin said part of her inspiration for this book came when a child told her in elementary school that she could not play Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz because Dorothy was not Chinese. Although Lin’s story is very unique and original, the Oz inspiration is not hard to find.

While writing this review, I also discovered that Lin has written a second book similar to this one. It is called Starry River of the Sky and I just added it to my want to read list.

(I wrote this review for Goodreads last year, but since I closed my account I am reposting it here.)