The Woman in Me

I read this while on vacation in Joseph and during the river raft down the Snake River in Hells Canyon in August, but I am just getting around to the review now. 

Wow! What a life. It is gritty and honest, and she was SO taken advantage of by the adults around her and the men she loved. 

Team BRITNEY all the way! I am not even a follower of her music, but this story was so compelling. 

The Talented Mr. Ripley

It was SO creepy but SO good! 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

Patricia Highsmith's most brilliant creation, the suave, repellent, fascinating, and psychopathic Tom Ripley, made his first appearance in this perversely appealing tale. He would go on to grace, in his dark way, four subsequent novels in the series known to Highsmith aficionados as the “Ripliad.” In The Talented Mr. Ripley, the twenty-five-year-old Ripley is an antihero awaiting his cue when fate arrives in the form of the wealthy father of Ripley’s college acquaintance, Dickie Greenleaf. Dickie has gone to Italy and—seduced by beauty of several kinds—won’t come home; the elder Greenleaf hires Ripley to persuade him. Introduced into a world of style, wealth, and sophistication, Ripley finds himself right at home in Dickie Greenleaf’s European life, and will stop at nothing to stay there. Ripley’s debut is quite simply one of the most engrossing novels you’ll ever find in any genre.

The Reservoir

I started this before I did the Spiritual Exercises with two groups in the 2024-2025 year. So I picked it back up when I was done, and I was not disappointed. This is my second time through it. This time I went through the Kindle version and wrote my responses on my Scribe. That was fun!

Here is my original review from 2023.

In Search of God's Will: Discerning a Life of Faithfulness and Purpose

I am putting this right after God's Voice Within because this book is also about Ignatian discernment but in a very user-friendly way. Trevor always does a great job boiling down Ignatian concepts. I would say it is "Ignatian Discernment Light" much like John Ortberg's books are "Dallas Willard Light." I appreciate Hudson's language, and he does add things about Identity and God's calling in your life. 

This was the Renovare Book Club read, and the people in the book club (I am not longer leading it - YAY!!!) really enjoyed it immensely. I hope it encourages people to someday do the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius. (Message me at Body and Soul Companion if you are interested in one of my groups - I will do two next year instead of three, but I have others I will be training who can lead you if I cannot.)

Trevor's book has flavors of the Cycle of Grace he and Jerry P. Haas popularized from the original cycle created by Dr. Frank Lake in his seminal work, Clinical Theology: A Theological and Psychological Basis to Clinical Pastoral Care. (He called it the "Dynamic Cycle.") 

Here is the first video I made about it. 

God's Voice Within

This still remains one of my favorite books on discernment, and it is part of both my Body and Soul Companion Spiritual Direction Training (message me if you are interested in this Fall 2026 training) and Spiritual Exercises Ignatian Training. 

His writing is simple and easy to understand. I also like Elizabeth Liebert's book, The Way of Discernment: Spiritual Practices for Decision Making. That book has so many practical activities. Both are part of my spiritual direction training.  And both of these books are the foundation for my YouTube series: Decision Making & Discernment 

Here is the first one in a series of 18:

Living in Christ's Presence

Here is a review from 10 years ago. I still feel the same way!

This time, I noticed it was on Audible. It is the audio of the conference 77 days before Dallas Willard died. I had considered putting this in my Spiritual Direction Training Curriculum, and I still might. I love it so much. I might go so far as to say that every follower of Jesus should read it!

Read my old review for wonderful quotes. 

Friday Freewrite Fifteen

Well, here I go. It is Friday Freewrite time. I already did my Morning Pages on Penzu, but I am doing it here. 

Today, I meditated on Mark 8. The prayer was to draw me beyond my cramped circles of care. 

I ran into someone recently who readily admitted they lacked compassion. How to you encourage compassion in someone else?

And is there a difference between empathy and compassion?

Just my thoughts on a Friday morning. It is a FREE FRIDAY morning, in fact. I am not going to be teaching on Fridays in the Winter, but Monday and Wednesdays. So, I am trying to keep this day totally free. I do have a basketball game tonight. I haven't gotten the tickets for it though. I should text about that. 

So, what else? Oh, I went for a walk with George. It was a good Hospital Hill walk for about 40 minutes. After this Freewrite, I will do some Pilates. I am trying to do it at least 15 minutes a day so that I can get back in shape for teaching twice a week in the Winter. 

I like walking with George. Why is it so easy with him? We just have such a good time together. He is so OPEN. That's what his mother has always said. So open. Kind to all. Kindest to me and the boys. 

So, what else? I am less nauseated today. I was nauseated for five days straight. I decided to fast for 12 hours, and I felt so much better! So, maybe it is something I am eating. 

So, I am fasting for 12 hours again today. I don't know what I will eat because I will be on my way to the basketball game when the 12 hours are up. We will see. 

Who are they playing, anyway? I will have to look it up.

Oh, I am also reading Let God: Spiritual Conversations with Francis Fenelon. So far, I like it a lot. It is the next book in the Renovare Book Club. 

So, what else? I also picked up a biography by Tyrus. I don't know much about his background. So I thought it would be fun to read. I found it in a "Little Library" on my massive walk yesterday. I walked two hours. I have not walked that long since I got back from Spain. I want to get back in the habit, but it gets harder during the rainy days.

I am averaging about 3-4 hours, four days a week of spiritual direction, both one on one and in groups. I am really enjoying the groups. Each has its own flavor. I want to doodle prayer for them. I did that last Thursday night during group, but we didn't have group last week because of J & K going to Hawaii on Saturday with K's family. That will be fun. George and I talked about taking the kids to Hawaii in February. That is sort of an "off" season. We did that 14 years ago and had such a good time. It is only about 5 hours on the plane too. So that is good. 

So, I am going to check how long I have been typing. I have 3:30 left. Pretty good predictor.

I am going to have a 20 minute Centering Prayer Sit and then go to starting my pea soup. Then, Pilates. Then reading. I might call Kim to see if she wants to squeeze in a short walk with me just to catch up. It seems like we have not seen each other face-to-face in a while. I could even ride my bike over to her house because it is not going to rain today. YIPPEE. 

Well, I need to find my Friday Freewrite picture to go with this post and go on with my day. :) Oh, if I make pea soup, we will be at the game. Maybe I will postpone it until tomorrow. We still have leftovers to eat before the game. That might be better. I will run it by George. He will be shocked that I want to cook at all. Trying to do that more, but who am I to deny him his gift of cooking? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. 

Now, I have 50 seconds. This was fun. I will try to do Friday Freewrites from now on (famous last word). 

Timer should be going off any second now. Wait for it. What will the sound be making? Let my fingers do all the walking.

Freewrite Wednesday

I have not done a freewrite on here since September. Again, I do my daily "Morning Pages" (a la Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, but it is easier for me to type them than write them out and then have to store the paper), but I have been doing it on Penzu.com. I like the confidentiality of a true freewrite that no one reads. I can be totally transparent. Most of the time, I was transparent here, but I would have to not mention some names and places. But I am in the mood to be here for today.

Discernment

Yesterday, I went to my first Renovare Book Club in 9 cycles where I was not the leader! I started leading in 2016 with the one woman from Portland. It was so nice to go and not have to prepare anything. 

The leader did such a good job! I loved just being a participant. 

We read In Search of God's Will, by Trevor Hudson. It is Ignatian discernment light. I think it is a user-friendly way to expose people to Ignatian Spirituality. The discussion was lovely, and there are two new people, one of whom I have known for 35 years. So that was fun.

Walking

I had not felt well from Saturday morning until Money morning, but I was dying to go on a walk. I wanted to walk to campus, but I pooped out at about an hour, but I was a block away from Teala's house. So, I dropped in and had a lovely time catching up. I think we had not seen each other since Debbie came at the end of July! So, we were due. 

I think, looking at my personal customary (Personal Rule of Life - General Rule of Life is the Order of the Mustard Seed vow to be True to Christ, Kind to People, and Take the Gospel to the Nations) that I need to be in touch with a least one soul friend monthly. 

She fed me lunch, and I was felt better. Could part of my sickness be how heavy I felt about my time recently with a group where something was off? I was able to express my sadness to Teala, and that really helped. (There is growth in community.)

I walked back and met George halfway. 

George

That day I took a walk; he had two meetings at church. He has been so diligent about meeting with people both in groups and one-on-one. He is such a peaceful person. He is a good person for people to go to and talk about things. 

Games

I realized that a lot of my energy will be going to OSU Women's Basketball games in the fall and winter. We are taking Aki even after Big Carol returns because we can park closer to Gill, and Aki has a hard time walking from the parking lot to Gill. So, Carol will come to Aki's. Then we will drive them both to Gill. That will be nice. I will need to allow for it in my people energy schedule. It takes a lot out of me to go to a big game with the noise and all the people. I want to be balanced in my energy output, and my biggest priority will be energy for my family and my spiritual directees. 

Spiritual Direction

Part of the book we read, In Search of God's Will, was about finding your own . . . Well, I will quote Trevor (who is partly quoting someone else):

"God sends each person into this world with a special message to deliver, with a special song to sing for others, with a special act of love to bestow."* No one else can speak my message, or sing my song, or offer my act of love. These are entrusted only to me.

* Francis Dewar, Invitations: God's Calling on Everyone -- Stories and Quotations to Illuminate the Journey (London: SPCK, 1996), 9.

My special ministry and song are 1) the ministry of spiritual direction (specifically direction to directors) and facilitating the Spiritual Exercises for groups and individuals, and 2) the song of joy in delight-driven service.

I will have my cardboard sign up that says. Oh, I have the picture here somewhere. Let me find it....

It started during my second time through the Exercises with this word during the Call of the King Exercise. 

Then, I made a cardboard sign in the 2HC:

And that is where I have landed. I want to bring these things to training directors who have a vision for Communities of Contemplatives in Action!

We will see. :) 

 

Freewrites - Where Have You Been?

I thought I would have a little freewrite time. I am doing all my freewrites at penzu.com. They have a FREE component. I like 750Words.com, but you have to pay to use it, and it has those stats and confetti that are fun; but it isn't worth paying for when Penzu has formatting that I prefer over having confetti and stats. Plus, the stats on 750Words were usually woefully OFF. 

I realize that I have freewritten on this blogspot for years. It might be as much as 20, but I also know I am a lot more transparent when I am on a private freewriting site. Here, someone can read it, and I know that. There I can mention names and work through issues while writing. Here not as much. 

All that to say, I do like exposing people to freewriting because it can be so beneficial. For that I am so thankful to Julie Bogart from Bravewriter. We are messaging back and forth about things right now. I so appreciate her influence on my life. 

I have been busy. I went River Rafting (see my Facebook if you want to see the fun). Then I went immediately into leading three Spiritual Exercises in Everyday Life Groups and an individual. In that, I lost my Life timeline that I have been adding to for years and have recreated one that is so much more detailed and so FUN.

This morning I meditated on my time at the GTZ House at the Forestry Research Institute of Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur (really Kepong - but it is a close suburb). I have a PrintPod and have been putting pictures in my journal as I meditate. I took a picture of the pictures in my Malaysia Scrapbook today (above), and meditated on Psalm 23, remembering a time of looking out over the "green pasture" of my back lawn at the house (with monkeys in our yard) and singing "Shout to the Lord" at the top of my lungs. It was a HARD but SO GOOD. It has shaped me. So, yes, it was so good to be in GTZ house on the map and wrote FRIM, and they wrote back with a screenshot of where it is on Google Maps. That has made my day so far.

I think I will stop, but just wanted to write a freewrite here. 

Now, I am off to walk and then study for my CPR/First Aid Certification so I can continue to teach Pilates classes at OSU! 

Tough Crowd: How I Made and Lost a Career in Comedy

This is the guy who was arrest at the Heathrow Airport for free speech! This is how he got there. It is a page turner. He is very clever. I will have to watch some Father Ted! I am amazed at how many of his friends abandoned him over his views. So sad. 

Holy Hygge

I like the other Hygge book that I read a couple of years ago much better. Read my review HERE.

 The narrator mispronounced the main word, hygge!  Ugh. A simple Google search would have helped her. Her voice was not my cuppa' tea. I am going to switch to the Kindle version and see if that will help me like it more. Stay tuned. 

I finished it and still didn't really like this book. 

It does go back to God's creation of the world, and there are many Scriptures, but I still think it was very little about the concept of hygge. I loved the other book that had the research behind the advantage of hygge. You can apply this secular book to your life in Christ without this author stating the obvious. 

I highly recommend this game:

We played it at an elder and spouse retreat, and we played for THREE hours. I got to know these people in such a deeper way. My husband brought all our battery-operated candles, and lowered the lights at our hotel meeting room. 

Last night, one of the spouses said how she liked it so much she purchased it to play with the International Mom and Baby Group she leads. 

So, while hygge is a great wonderful tradition, I don't recommend Holy Hygge to learn about it. 

American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Kill of the 21st Century

This is my second Maureen Callahan book, and she can write! I was riveted from the first page! What a story.

I just don't get it. People are really sick. I do see the influence of porn on people's sickness. Murder and deviant sexuality can be tied together. 

I was at a dinner with the elders and staff of our church. We were all asking Hygge type questions, and mine was, "What book are you currently reading?" I wish I had a picture on everyone's face when I was reading this book about a serial killer! 

I surprise myself, but the other book I read by her Ask Me Not about the Kennedy's was such a page turner, and this one was as well. 

I am profoundly saddened by this book. Quote: "Some people just rape and kill because they enjoy it." :(

Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed

I saw an interview with this woman, and it made me want to read more. Wow! The Kennedy men have left a long trail of women devastated in their wake. 

I had a sense of it when I watched The Kennedys of Massachusetts mini-series back in 1990, but this went into much greater detail, and it’s honestly heartbreaking. How did the American public keep allowing them so much influence in politics? They make Bill Clinton seem like a saint in comparison.