Saturday Freewrite - Home and Cross-Cultural Spiritual Direction

Home

It was a cool ocean breeze

Wafting through a sunny day. 

Mayberry by the Sea. 

That was what El Segundo was to me. 

Bikinis in the sand

Coppertone and cocoa butter

Melting on my skin

And the sound of the waves 

Crashing over and over 

Onto slightly slanted 

Hard sand.

The sound of the

Top 100 

Playing on a transistor

Strategically placed on a 

Big beach towel

Body surfing

Bottoms coming off with the crash

Boys circling

Girls grouped together

Giggling on a lazy summer day

The sun begins to go down

And we gather all our things

And make the hike up

To the bus stop on PCH

Looking at our brown skin

Baked to 70s standard perfection

Well, that was fun. Home. 

I am giving a talk on "Cross-Cultural Spiritual Direction" on Tuesday, and this is my opening picture. To talk about our first culture. I had such a great childhood culture. Mom had her difficulties, but, for the most part, I had a good life. Living there was so lovely. This was magnified by El Segundo winning the Little League World Series and communicating with so many of my childhood friends and alumni from my high school. We had a rich heritage that continues to today. Blessed.  

So, back to the Cross-Cultural Spiritual Direction talk. On the same day, I had two separate Examens with two directees starting the Exercises this week. When it came to my desolations, on both occasions, it was preparing for this talk, and I had to confess my bad attitude toward it. 

Well, Mike H. used to always tell me that with every desolation, consolation is right around the corner, and confessing that really broke things for me, and Thursday and Friday were both a joy. I woke up Thursday with the visual of the picture above and talking about my first cross-cultural experience was becoming a believer and stepping into a church! It was a foreign place to me. 

Somehow, that propelled me forward in so many ways. It also helped to be intentional about Centering Prayer on Thursday. Once was easy because I was leading a group, the other time was when I started my day out on the deck. I do believe the "Twice for Transformation" quote about Centering Prayer is so true. Actually, now that I think of it, I was able to do it three times, because we got together as a group, and I asked if we could start out with Centering Prayer. So we had a little seven-minute sit. Two people fell asleep during it, but that is OK! :) It helps that one of the participants in that group is part of my talk. :) It was so encouraging to see her growth and freedom. 

So, I finished at 3:15 yesterday. I felt so free. This talk has been percolating in my head ever since we set the date at least four months ago. I just had so much in between then and now. I really couldn't get to it until after I returned from Chicago, and with that, I had quite a few directees to meet with.

So, now I have a free Saturday. I might run through the talk a couple of times, but I also might do other things. I think I am pretty ready for it. 

God, you are good and you are home. 

All that to say, I finished and am free. I just have to give it on Tuesday morning. 

Friday Freewrite - The Road Less Traveled

So Glad the Road Led Me to St. Mary's of the Lake and 2HC Retreat

I am in a good place. The summer was so wonderful. Other than a little hiccup with a friend (that friend had no idea what their actions were doing to me internally, and I didn't see the need to bring it up because it was something I needed to work through, and I managed to work it through in an Immanuel Journaling Session with the Lord - so that desolation turned into a consolation of big proportion), I have such lovely memories of my summer: the LifeWorks Class and small group, time with our community group, my friend coming to "surrender to the lover of her soul," fulfilling time with Deepen III spiritual directors, lovely times with directees, deep deck talks with others, family time, especially in the North Cascades, fun finish of the Corvallis to Sea trail and all my photos. And the Chicago Cherry on top with the 2nd Half Collaborative and the lovely face-to-face cohort and team I worked with. I came back to rich times with all my directees. I have such a good group of soul friends to explore deeper rhythms of grace with. Oh and the OMS times of prayer this week. The new group of leaders that I adore. Fishing with John and Josh (my God-Children) and Katherine and also kayaking on the Willamette with George and his coworker. 

I love everything that I am doing. I love the gift of grace I have been extended every day. Life is a gift. I am so grateful. 

So, I had this interaction with someone yesterday that was counter to the flow of relationships that I have had. There was a weirdness that was unsettling. SO counter to the conversation I had with someone just an hour before - encouraging and edifying.

It leads me to pray for that person and not to be so sad about feeling a cold shoulder. In my Immanuel Journaling, I sensed that it was not about me, and I was able to let it go, but I am glad I chose another road.

There are always pockets of even Christian culture that are still difficult for me to enter into. This is one I could have walked into three years ago, but a retreat I went on with them was so weird. So unsettling. I had that same feeling again yesterday.

I decided to take another road, the "road less traveled" - it was entry into the OMS a month later and the lovely people I have been involved with because of that. (And Deepen and Renovare Book Club and 2HC and Authentic Spiritual "Seed Community" and the whole LifeModel Works way).  This person still is in that other culture, and I think my sense was right. I trust my discernment on that one. I pray for an activation of JOY in that person's heart. 

I am 34 seconds to go, and it was good to get that out. 

The Road Not Taken 

BY ROBERT FROST

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Cold Comfort Farm

I loved this book. It is really funny! I tried reading this before and watching the movie, and I couldn't get into it. For some reason, I loved it this year. Clever and crazy. 

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

Imagine a Jane Austen heroine stumbling into an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies, with the hillbillies portrayed by method actors. That will give you something of the flavor of this giddy tale, which presents a picture of country life that is roaringly bizarre—and hilarious. Flora Poste is a sophisticated Londoner whose education has been “expensive, athletic and prolonged.” When she is orphaned at nineteen, she heads off to stay with the Starkadders, her distant cousins on her late mother’s side. They have a dilapidated farm in the village of Howling—a place that turns out to be perfectly named, for what Flora discovers at Cold Comfort Farm is enough to make anyone scream. 

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

Not all science fiction books are created equal. This is my third book by Philip K. Dick, and they are all engaging. It is still not my favorite genre, but I think it addresses some current issues, especially addiction to escape!

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

James Mustich

If one were assigned the unenviable task of selecting a single book as a showcase for all of Philip K. Dick’s tropes, tactics, tricks, themes, and tics, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch might well be the best choice. In its pages, we see in incredibly effective form the majority of the imagery, incidents, characters, and themes the author became known for: consumerist brainwashing; peculiar drugs; simulacra; Manic Pixie Girlfriends Who Are Truly Other Than What They Seem; psychic powers, especially precognition; the universe as a hostile minefield; egomaniacal sociopaths who become both more and less than human; sassy cybernetic constructs; shifting internal monologues; the inanity of mass media and pop culture; shifting levels of reality. They’re all here, wrapped around, underlying, and enclosing a captivating story line.

Friday Freewrite Fifteen

This is going to be a fast fifteen freewrite. I used to do these so much more than I do now, but that is OK. I do love to get all the thoughts swirling around in my head.

Yesterday, I sat down with C for a stimulating conversation. Her husband is new on staff with our church, and I just love her. We have a lot in common, and it was just a fun and easy talk. Turns out she went to high school with one of my sorority sisters. Such a small world. 

C said, "I know you are just so busy."

I said, "Actually, no. I just have lots of different pieces but they all interact together."

For instance, this morning, I had someone post that they are looking for someone who does cross-cultural spiritual direction. I do it, but someone else suggested a certain person in the region where the person asking the question is. Well, that person suggested is in another one of my pots. So I am making the connection for the person asking. Those two pots are too separate "jobs" I have, but they interconnect. 

So my pots are right now:

1) 2nd Half Collaborative - that is most on my mind right now because I am going to the Midwest in a week to help facilitate a retreat. All the people I facilitate with are with one of the agencies in #4. 

2) Deepen III (and maybe Deepen II) - I supervise a group of new directors who are doing Cross-Cultural Direction. I am also going to give a talk on that to the Deepen III supervisors and new directors when I get back from #1.

3) Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius (scroll down) - I am going to lead two women through these starting in mid-September. I spent the last two days working out the liturgical year schedule. One woman is related to #4 and the other is related to #1. 

This video explains the Exercises:

4) International Agencies - I do spiritual direction with people from five different agencies that work internationally. I do extra work for one that I have been involved in for the last 29 years by creating help (videos and handouts mostly) in their intimacy with God and care of their soul. I do a lot of "spontaneous soul care" with the workers from this particular agency. 

I am big on the Cycle of Grace as a spine. 

And the Cycle of Grace relates to #1 above. I help the other ones in the same way as my materials are passed on to people in their agencies. :) 

5) Sustainable Faith School of Spiritual Direction - I am one of the Affiliates; and in October, I will start helping my spiritual direction trainers in their training of new directors. This relates to all but #2 because many of the people I am involved with in these different groups have also been trained by Sustainable Faith. But could there be a "wing" of Sustainable Faith that specializes in #2? Could they join forces? Could I be a bridge to seeing that happen? Stay tuned!!

6) Body and Soul Companion - I have a private ministry with individual directees. Some are related to the other four, and some are local leaders. I lead some of them through the Exercises. Most are associated with #4. Many are from other cultures and religious backgrounds. (Thus why I am being asked to speak on "Cross-Cultural Spiritual Direction" (and I am NO EXPERT). 

7) Local "Seed Community" - This started from something we did related to one of the agencies in  #4. We are considered the "pastors." (I don't think of myself this way though, but we have become that for signing off to send them out into the world.)

8) Order of the Mustard Seed - I co-lead a Centering Prayer time two times a week. I also occasionally lead Prayer Watches for the OMS. Many people in the OMS are being trained through Sustainable Faith, and I am thrilled. 

Later on Friday:

9) Renovare Book Club - I realized this in a discussion with my friend (2 1/2 hours and so fun). I forgot this pot. Such a good entry into all things Spiritual Formation. I am so grateful for Renovare, Richard Foster, and Dallas Willard!

Ulysses by James Joyce

I had attempted to read this on two separate occasions, but I decided to take the deep plunge this summer. It helped that I had been to Dublin since those first attempts, and it gave me some context to the "Odyssey" through the streets of this fabulous city. Now, I wish I had read the book before I went because I would have taken the map provided by the James Joyce Center (which was only a four-minute walk from my hotel)! Solution: Go back to Dublin. (Yes please!) 

This is one of the hardest books I had ever read, but I decided to just suspend figuring it out and just go with the flow. It is brilliant. Joyce loved to play with words and phrases. I loved the melody, and the narrator was THE BEST for making that come alive off the page. 

It also helped me to look up how it connects to the Odyssey of Homer (which I have read and taught). I feel like I accomplished a great feat. Just sayin'! 

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

Ulysses is perhaps the most famously difficult of all modern novels. Its difficulty, however, doesn’t lie in the story it tells, which, in its essentials, is quite simple: The book recounts certain events, most of them not in the least extraordinary, that occur in Dublin on June 16, 1904. What does make Ulysses more difficult than most novels is the manner of its telling. The stylistic richness and bravura of Ulysses are both daunting and exhilarating, often in the same line. The concentration of Joyce’s powers makes each passage a treasure to be excavated, each page its own Troy. Beneath all the complexity, Dublin remains the Muse, if not the real hero, of Joyce’s epic. No other work of literature had ever set out to replicate—and celebrate—the noise of urban life with such alertness, art, spite, and glee. Capturing the city he loved and despaired of in all its hunks and colors, grime and glory, grievances and yearnings, Joyce created a literary metropolis that hums, moans, shouts, and sings with the collective music of the human comedy. There is no other book like it. 

The Common Reader by Virginia Woolf

This is my summer to read Virginia. This book just proves what a genius she was. There is something about her writing that is so thoughtful and clear. I am not sure that this would be very interesting for most people, but I have read most of the authors she talks about in this collection of essays. So, I loved hearing her "TAKE" on them. 

It also makes me sad. How often brilliance and mental illness are closely linked. Sadness. Yet, C.S. Lewis was brilliant, but he found God. 

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

James Mustich

One of the most articulate and enjoyable essayists of the modern era, Virginia Woolf makes literary criticism personal, private musing universal, and social commentary both particular and purposeful. Woolf’s essays are legion, and they have been collected and regrouped in any number of individual volumes. Start with the pieces the author gathered in two volumes and called The Common Reader, in which Woolf assembles a refined personal library. Scholarship takes a back seat to serendipity, education seems—as it should—a circuit of enthusiasms, and a serious mind finds its shape among the sentences and sentiments that speak most directly to it. In these engaging volumes, Woolf develops her understanding while the reader learns valuable lessons about Chaucer and the Elizabethans, Montaigne and Defoe, Joseph Addison and Jane Austen, the Brontës and George Eliot. Of special note are the essays “On Not Knowing Greek” and “How It Strikes a Contemporary” (in the first volume), and “How Should One Read a Book?” (in the second). Making their acquaintance, one gains insight not only into reading, but into thinking and being as well. 

Started Wednesday but Finish Saturday Fifteen Freewrite

by my friend, Claire, at https://www.instagram.com/verse_images_by_hand/ 

Wednesday:

Oh, how beloved I am. How beloved anyone who reads this is. Claire just made this for me, or maybe she was on this verse already when I asked her for any pictures she had about our belovedness.

I will be introducing this to a group in Chicago at the end of the month. It will be nice to have an image to go along with it.

This is a freewrite. Something that I have not done in a very long time! 

Saturday:

I am trying to remember what it was that interrupted my freewrite on Wednesday, but here I am many days later typing away. I was in the middle of making a decision. I had spent much of Tuesday afternoon through Friday morning a bit stressed about a decision I needed to make about whether to 1) Do another leg of the Camino and 2) Tack on being at the Deepen II residency for people entering their training for spiritual direction. 

Out of the blue, the director called me to ask if I would help with the training. What? I have been supervising four women who have graduated from their program and are going through another year of supervision. I think that is good because they only get one year of experience during their regular training because the first year is devoted to spiritual formation. The program I was eventually trained in (having already been mentored one on one) starts you off doing spiritual direction right away, which I really liked! (Throw you in the water and sink or swim - all swim though.) 

So, I was willing to entertain it, but then I asked for prayer, and I think that is when John called to tell us that they were 80% sure that they were not going to be able to do the Camino after all because they might be moving in November so that John can learn Russian! That is so exciting and something we have been waiting for so long for him. I am excited that they will be out of limbo.  

So then we thought if John and Katherine don't go with us, we can do the Burgos to Leon portion by bike because that is the Meseta of Spain and flat and closer to Malaga where the residency would be. So, I looked into bike shops, trains/buses from Madrid or Malaga to the Meseta, and it looked pretty positive. Maybe? 

Well, Thursday night, I had a dream, and I was on the Camino and my bike fell off the trail and into the water along with my helmet, and I was trying to go out to the water to get them, but someone said I would get carried away with the current. 

I just woke up Friday morning saying, "No to both the Camino and the residency." (Sometimes people asking me to help them carries me away in the current of their agendas for me.) 

I asked for confirmation, and Nancy said unbeknownst to her, she was in her garden on Tuesday and right after I got the invitation to the residency and at the exact time she said:

You could not have known this but I literally sat down yesterday and was praying for you.  I asked if I should call you and God said, "Just pray!” 

After my Thursday night dream, I thought, "No, I don't want to do this." 

Then an hour after that, Dr. Myers's office called about my adjustments before my injections, and these injections require me to stop and rest for a few days, not go and bike the Meseta. 

Then I found out a few hours later that they wanted me on the 12th of October and not the 15th (like it was originally communicated). Well, my last injection is on the 13th. So that settled and confirmed it. (If that had been communicated originally, then I would have said no right away. But no matter, I loved the talk with the director. She is a lovely lady.) 

When I wrote Nancy to tell her my decision, she said:

Honestly, I quickly saw you under His care and saw a question:

'What would you like to do?'

It came very quickly. It was as if the yes would add stress for a season. An added adventure for sure but with added stress.

As an observer that knows you, I was hoping you would say no.

:) I RARELY have stress dreams anymore. Ever since I learned about dreams in my spiritual direction training, and I could name the theme that would often come up in most of my dreams (feeling overly responsible and people-pleasing), God healed me of a lot of anxiety. Paying attention to this dream made me hop out of bed and say, "NO!"

I also think God was giving me an inkling during one of the spiritual direction times when I led my directee through a memory of an experience of joy. I usually do it with them (and keep it to myself), and God gave me the memory of Delta giving us business class when they made a mistake with our seat assignment from London to Portland. It was such a joyful surprise, and it was also a trip where it was just the two of us, and God was saying that we needed that since our last couple trip was in 2019. We always love those times together, and since 2014, we said, "Let's do this kind of thing every other year from now on." 

So, we did England in 2016, France in 2018, and the Rhine in 2019. (This was all after no vacation for "fun" since 1991 - no joke - mostly going to California to help my mom and ministry trips.) But then COVID came, and we have also had more ministry adventures and the Camino with friends. I would not trade those, but it is time to plan something as a couple. 

So peaceful and able to devote myself fully to going to Chicago and praying through my new small group for the 2HC. That is really good. God is so good to direct and guide. Bye.

The Pandora Problem

The Pandora Problem: Facing Narcissism in Leaders & Ourselves by E. James Wilder
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book took me almost two months to read!

It is such an enlightening book but was hard to get through because it is discouraging to read about the prevalence of narcissism in Christian culture, and it is a big commitment to establish a group identity and love the narcissist. It is also about narcissism in ourselves, and I found the whole concept of "enemy mode" so helpful! I think I will read that book next.

In facing narcissism in our leaders and ourselves we have come to learn six things. Perhaps we knew them all before. There is very little new about these six truths that reflect our identity as the family of God.

1. We are a people.
2. We share the pain of others.
3. We exchange healthy shame messages
4. We combat self-justification.
5. We love our enemies spontaneously.
6. We build loyalty around weakness.

What we have concluded from these six truths can be summarized in two processes:

1. We raise hesed levels (a Hebrew word meaning "love and faithfulness,” “unfailing love,” “faithful love,” “steadfast love,” and “loyal love.”)
2. We lower qasheh levels (a Hebrew word "stiff-necked, hard, cruel, severe, obstinate, difficult, fierce, intense, vehement, stubborn, and rigorous of battle." This is a word for taking glory and avoiding shame.)

Our progress can be measured by one thing.

1. How we love our enemies.

All human brains come wired with the desire to be members of a joyful, peaceful, and protective people. How we love our enemies, therefore, becomes the effective focus for communities who are creating disciples of Jesus.

Born as lions we become as lambs. (p. 255)

This is a valuable book that I am reading with two wives who are married to probable narcissists. (To clarify, I am not married to one [the antitheses of one, in fact], but for years, God has been putting wives in my path who are married to them, and I think this book is helpful.) It astounds me to read the condemning emails from the pastors to one of the wives who has enabled this behavior in her husband for decades. The message: keep enabling the behavior because that is your duty as a wife.

RUBBISH.

I think anything James Wilder writes is so good for the body of Christ. I started with Renovated and then The Other-Half of Church.

P.S. In the midst of reading this, I had a difficult exchange with a friend of 40+ years, and I applied the principles of this book, despite the potential for "enemy mode," it was so beautiful how the situation turned out.

View all my reviews

The Age of Innocence

I read House of Mirth years ago and loved it. This book is exquisitely written. Many of the books I have read on Mustich's list this year have been "bombs" in my estimation, but this one has returned me to hope that there are many more great books to be had on his list. 

It is one of the best books I have ever read. I agree with everything that Mustich says in his evaluation of the book below.

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

Edith Wharton’s best fiction is a form of intelligence, a gathering of detailed information that turns revelatory under her persistent and insightful gaze. She wrote about the world she knew—New York high society at the turn of the twentieth century, where rules were unbreakable, money was silent, and retribution for social transgression was severe. Her novels are both art and espionage. Compared with her earlier novel, The House of Mirth, The Age of Innocence paints a more nuanced and sympathetic portrait of the upper crust, both acknowledging and exposing the machinations that take place behind its genteel façade. It’s a brilliant social critique as well as a sweeping love story. Alongside The House of Mirth, it stands among the best novels ever written about the unraveling of individual destinies in the seductive—and enduring—bear pit of New York society. 

Tender is the Night

I loved this book. The ultimate enabling/codependent relationship! Wow! So insightful, but Fitzgerald knew from personal experience what it was like to enable a mentally ill spouse. 

I liked it even more than The Great Gatsby. It was also appealing because many of the places they traveled were places that I have been. 

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

Tender Is the Night—the last of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s four completed novels, and the author’s favorite—sprawls among dozens of characters and settings across Western Europe before and after World War I. Although its messy, heartbreaking story of mental illness, alcoholism, and the disintegration of a marriage is somehow unsatisfying compared with The Great Gatsby’s perfectly balanced narrative, Tender Is the Night is for many readers more powerful in its enduring pull: As Fitzgerald unfolds the tale of Dick and Nicole Diver, we pass through infatuation, seduction, and ardor only to end in a kind of strange regret. Few other fictions evoke as well as this one the emotional weather of real life, the currents and temptations that envelop us without ever quite finding rest in an embrace. 

Ringworld

This is my third science fiction novel this month. I am weary of this genre! So that is why I couldn't wait to finish this book. It never really grabbed me. Sigh. I am going back to my type of fiction. I am hoping to read The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. More my speed and one I have wanted to read for quite some time. 

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

“Hard” science fiction—heavy on technical detail and informed with scientific precision—reached a pinnacle in the best work of Larry Niven, who, in his heyday, seemed to occupy a galaxy all his own. His headlong and engrossing novel Ringworld, which spawned several sequels, illustrates his most captivating qualities as a novelist.

NOVA

Meh. Not really gripping to me. 

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

A perfectly realized rehabilitation of the hoary space opera, Samuel R. Delany’s Nova is still as forward-looking and peerless today as at its birth, when it catapulted its twenty-five-year-old author to the top of the science fiction scene. The contending Shakespearean dynasties; the quirky, deeply inhabited characters; the poetic language (rococo, yet somehow still limpid); the portrait of a future radically estranged from ours, where our era is mythic to theirs, while they are myths-to-come for us; the layered symbolism—all these aspects are drawn from past masters, yet are fused into an organic whole whose likes had never before been seen. Most novas burn out to cinders, but this one—vital, prescient, affecting, a genuine work of art—blazes as brightly as ever. 

The Hours

Since I just read Orlando, I thought I would read this book about Virginia Woolf and the stories of two other women: Carissa (who is like a modern-day Mrs. Dalloway - a book I read years ago), and Laura (a LA suburban housewife of the 60s - the place and era in which I grew up). 

It is written so well. It is sad, but it is so beautiful at the same time. 

I even found the movie on Freevee TV. The acting is perfect. Beautifully done and the role that won Nicole Kidman her Oscar. 

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

Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway, set on a single June day in London, is punctuated by the tolling of Big Ben, the bell inside the clock tower at the Houses of Parliament. Its regular marking of the time—“First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable”—reminds Clarissa Dalloway of both the day’s passage and the evanescence of all things. This indelible symbol provided Woolf’s novel with its working title: The Hours. Seven decades on, Michael Cunningham, a writer of uncommon sensitivity and an unabashed Woolf lover, retrieved it for his best novel, a stunning invocation of Mrs. Dalloway and a masterful fiction in its own right. The Hours (1998) is a book that leaves the reader feeling hopeful and blessed, suffused with the ever-present, ineffable wonder of life. Really. 

Orlando

What an incredibly creative story. This is my third book by Virginia Woolf, and she really is a great writer. (But a tortured soul.) 

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

James Mustich

Woolf’s words invariably dance across her pages with an enthusiasm that engenders delight. None of her books is more joyful than Orlando, a mock-biography that follows the fortunes of its protagonist across four centuries, from the era of Elizabeth I to the stroke of midnight on the eleventh of October, 1928. Orlando grows up as a young nobleman in thrall to love and literature, travels as an ambassador to the Ottoman court in Constantinople, returns to the England of Pope and Dryden, and enters and exits the Victorian era, having achieved in the end the ripe old age of thirty. Traversing more than the borders of nations and centuries, Orlando is transformed along the way from hero to heroine, a willing victim of the author’s exuberant invention as Woolf engages, with playful abandon, themes of gender, biography, writing, and desire. Written in tribute to her friend and lover Vita Sackville-West, Woolf’s biographical fantasy is a delicious celebration of the exhilarating powers of infatuation and imagination.

The Long Loneliness

I am part of the Order of the Mustard Seed, and this was a book club read, but I wasn't able to attend.

Here is the intro from the Order of the Mustard Seed that I thought was a good summary:

The Long Loneliness – Dorothy Day

Following our last book group read, “Making Room’, our next book opens up very practically, some of the themes it introduced. Christine Pohl mentions Dorothy Day frequently in ‘Making Room’ and so we are going to look at her life a little more and the ways in which hospitality and justice where completely interlinked for her. They were ways in which she determined to live.

Dorothy Day (1897 – 1980), was a brilliant, radical American social activist, writer and journalist. Along with Peter Maurin, she founded the Catholic Worker Movement.

 The Long Loneliness is her autobiography. It describes her faith journey and also the ways in which she determined to live her life in ways that worked for peace, justice for the poor, nonviolence and racial justice. Her story is an important one for anyone who longs to live, loving their neighbours as themselves. She demonstrates a faith in action and gives an insight into the sacrifices often needed to place oneself on the frontlines of the struggles for peace and social justice.

Dorothy Day and those with whom she worked, intentionally lived alongside the poor, becoming poor themselves, giving up possessions and sharing all that they had. Through Houses of Hospitality, they gave refuge and home to those experiencing homelessness and also began farms where people could have work.

A dynamic, lifelong pacifist and passionate social activist, Dorothy Day was frequently on the frontlines of protests against racism, war and injustice. These protests often landed her in jail. Her story is one of a woman who engaged her entire life in the injustices that she saw here around her.  It’s a story that echoes with the words of Old Testament prophets and that is focused on the life of Jesus and the ways in which he loved and lived alongside those pushed to the margins.

Through the book, the theme of love is prevalent. To Dorothy Day, love was central to everything. “We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other. We know Him in the breaking of bread, and we know each other in the breaking of bread, and we are not alone anymore. Heaven is a banquet and life is a banquet, too, even with a crust, where there is companionship.”

And so, in the spirit of that companionship and with the words of Dorothy Day as our guide, the next Book Group is on Thursday 28th April, 7:30pm (BST).

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

The Long Loneliness, published in 1952, is the autobiography of Dorothy Day, the American political activist, pacifist, and cofounder of The Catholic Worker newspaper and movement. While Day has lately been put forth for canonization by the church, she might bridle at that idea: “Don’t call me a saint,” she once wrote, “I don’t want to be dismissed that easily.” In any case, like Saint Augustine, she spent her early years in the embrace of worldly pursuits—“the wisdom of the flesh is treacherous indeed” she would later reflect—before a conversion led her to focus her considerable energy on “[making] it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe and shelter themselves as God intended them to do.” Her personal testament is as revelatory as Augustine’s Confessions, although the difference in the two books’ perspectives is striking: Where Augustine’s autobiography is a conversation with God, Day’s narrative is a conversation with the world.

The Day of the Triffids

This was a really engaging story! I loved it (surprising for me since science fiction is not my thing). 

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

James Mustich

Yes, in The Day of the Triffids the human race does go blind and people die in immense numbers from sheer sensory incapacity—to say nothing of the genetically engineered predatory plants given star billing in the book’s title. Yet, the novel exudes a holiday air, a sense of liberation from artificial constraints and social falsities, and seemingly welcomes the prospect of a fresh relaunch of civilization and its contents. The fate of the masses might be horrific, but the plucky survivors on whom the narrative instinctively focuses will inherit a planet full of treasures, both natural and man-made, and—just maybe—find beyond the dark days of collapse a new Golden Age. And, of course, over all looms the menace of the rampant triffids, carnivorous plants with an urgent hunger that gives their energy what appears to be a malevolent intelligence. These inspired inventions give Wyndham’s book a creepily delightful, uncannily titillating appeal.

The Big Sleep

It is no Maltese Falcon, but I liked it, especially since it is set in LA where I grew up. The writing is also engaging. 

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

James Mustich

Dashiell Hammett may have invented the hardboiled detective story, but nobody wrote it better than Raymond Chandler. With his stylized prose and flair for similes, he gave his detective Philip Marlowe a voice that would become the hallmark of the genre. Marlowe is the protagonist in all of Chandler’s novels, and the movies drawn from these fictions proved to be a heavy influence on American film noir, just as the books influenced generations of detective novelists.

Saturday Sixteen Freewrite

I am listening to the woman with the hemorrhage on Pray as You Go. 

"Take heart, daughter, your faith has made you well." How do I encounter the Lord in the busyness of my day? 

I try to look up continually throughout the day, and I do that more naturally now than ever. It has been a good few years, Lord. 

My biggest desolation over the last couple of days was getting the response of a pastor to my friend who is in an abusive marriage. I was angry. He was condescending and "I am the authority here, and you are not in an abusive relationship. You are in sin. Your friends and advisors don't know how to handle accurately the Word because I am a pastor and a man, and those people don't know anything because I am a big cheese in the evangelical world." (Not those words, but that is how it comes across IMHO.) It was arrogant and judgemental and I need to pray about it because I am angry. 

No address of the many years this woman has had to endure a narcissistic husband. It is always the woman who has to adapt to narcissism. The narcissism doesn't get addressed, and everyone is reacting to the action of the wife who is tired and just wants help. 

So, I need to pause and listen to You, Lord about this. 

"I am always on the side of the innocent." 

Thanks God. 

I am out in my deck sanctuary (my sanctuary sign is coming very soon). I have been here since about 4 am. I am so glad we didn't do a closed room. I have listened to the gentle sounds of the morning so many times this summer. It is lovely. I now know the deer love to eat the leaves on our apple tree, and they start even before sunrise. 

Today is going to be hot. So after this freewrite, I am going for a walk (or maybe a bike ride). At 9:30 am, we are going to go to Beaver Creek for kayaking/Stand Up and Paddle with Maddy, Katherine, and John.

Then, I will come back and put the final photos in the book that is supposed to come sometime today and write dates in the other book that I just finished and in my Christmas album.

I also need to find the November/December 2022 pictures. (I probably should order the Amsterdam/Dublin/Belfast/Castlewellan from October-November since I decided not to include them and just have the book be of the Camino since that is the most meaningful thing.) 

I will do freewrites all this next week. I am in-between devotionals right now. I will continue with Celtic Daily Prayer.

This went over 16 minutes. Time to go walk. 

The Life of Jesus: Harmonized Gospels Passion Translation

I purchased this on Kindle several months ago, and I gave the gorgeous leather-bound copy to a friend we visited in Turkey. 

As soon as I was done with the Bible Book Club reread/update (cleaned up broken links, added YouTube videos and exercises to facilitate encounters with God) that took me from April 23-June 23, I went into the Gospel Harmony Book Club, reading through this translation as I did the same kinds of updates. What a joy to read where I was all those years ago and where I am now. 

It was lovely. Some of the chronological order in this rendition of the Harmonized Gospels differs from the chronologies I used to craft the book club. But it was close enough, and I enjoyed a fresh translation (it is more of a paraphrase). 

Flaubert's Parrot

This was not my cup of tea. It took me FOREVER to read, but it must not be very popular because I checked it out multiple times. Usually, there are people waiting in line and I cannot renew it!

Flaubert was a dreamer and a lost soul, but I have read Madame Bovary, and the guy could write!

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

Sophisticated literary inventions are seldom as charming as this one, an intricately composed but inviting exploration of the nature of desire. The intricacy of the composition comes from Julian Barnes’s playful orchestration of a variety of styles, combining fiction with literary criticism, biography, diversions scholarly and reflective, a chronology, even a mock exam; the charm comes from the unfailing tunefulness of his sentences—they are shaped with a confidence, clarity, and concentrated energy that give great pleasure. With digressive progress, Barnes leads us on a delightfully comic pursuit of large questions: Is love, like art, finally unknowable, except in the imaginative experience of it? Is memory itself an art, in which we shape, in story, our subjectivity? Filled with literary fun of a very high order, Flaubert’s Parrot is a seriously delicious confection.

Diary of a Provincial Lady

This was a delightful break from the more sober books I have been reading from the 1000 Books list! LOL!

The narrator on this is excellent, and I am glad I don't live in that time anymore! 

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

E. M. Delafield’s Provincial Lady first appeared in 1930. Her first Diary would be followed by three more in the course of the next decade. These charming volumes proved immediately and enduringly popular, and Delafield’s creation is today seen, in her deceptively casual chronicling of her domestic activities, as a style-setter for later writers who deployed aspects of her mode of self-address in both journalism and fiction. Readers seeking astute yet gentle social satire at its British best will be richly rewarded by acquaintance with Delafield’s wonderful Provincial Lady.