A Review: Twilight

Summary

Twilight tells the first person story of Bella Swan, a 17 year old from sunny Phoenix who has to move to the damp, dark town of Forks, Washington to be with her Dad. (Oddly, Forks is embracing its newfound fame, though the picture painted of the town in the book is far from ideal.) Her mom is following her stepfather to Florida and Bella doesn’t want to go. So Bella moves to a town where she knows her father and no one else. The story follows Bella as she moves into the new community and struggles to fit in to its closed society.

At the local high school she wrestles with the typical challenges of the new kid as she tries to carve out her own self identity while trying as best she can to “fit in”. In her first few days of school, she notes one group of teens who stay off by themselves, away from the regular students. They are members of the Cullen family, whose pater familias is a prominent local doctor. One of them in particular catches the eye of young Bella, another 17 year old named Edward.

Initially, Edward seems to go out of his way to either avoid, or torment young Bella. Despite his frigid attitude toward her, she is hopelessly drawn in by his good looks. After he saves her life in a near car accident, she discovers that he has reciprocal feelings for her and their relationship begins in earnest.

As most everyone knows by this point, Edward is a vampire, part of a unique family of vampires who have foresworn human blood so that they might continue to live among humans. They hunt and consume animals, and are thus able to satiate their bloodthirst and coexist with humans.

The story unfolds as Bella learns more and more about Edward’s clan, as well as the other vampires who roam the earth and still pursue humans. She is threatened by these other vampires, but ultimately is saved by Edward and his family.

Most of the problems I had with this work were sytlistic and are explained by the simple fact that I’m not its intended audience. Twilight is clearly aimed at the Young Adult (and specifically female) market. For example, it describes Edward as he and Bella were resting in a country field:

“He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare. His glistening, pale lavender lids were shut, though of course he didn’t sleep. A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal.”

I had to take an insulin shot before typing that quote.

But more interesting that the literary dimension of the text is the theological.

A Theological Reading

The text is laden with theological meaning. There are some clues that Meyer has in mind a theological reading of this text. (And regardless of her intent, as a Believer, I can’t really read it any other way.) The cover of the text depicts two female hands offering a delicious red apple. There’s quite a track record with women bearing apples of course (never mind the more recent incarnations of Disney movies and one particular ABC television show, complete with apparel).

This cover calls to the mind of the reader another fruit borne of a woman, the famous fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Yes, Genesis 2 and 3 makes no mention of the word apple. Which makes it a gap of course. The reason that so many have thought it was an apple has to do with the Latin, which...sorry, off topic. Go here if interested.)

So the very cover leads the reader to conclude that there might be some element of forbidden knowledge, or forbidden fruit involved in the narrative. And when you open the cover and read the frontspiece, that suspicion is confirmed as the first text of the book that appears is the scriptural citation Genesis 2:17 “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” So Meyer clearly reads this forbidden fruit into the background of the story.

The story rightly emphasizes the importance of blood. Blood is what the vampires must have if they are to live. As Leviticus 17:14reminds us “ because the life of every creature is its blood. That is why I have said to the Israelites, ‘You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off.’” The vampire story gets this element right. There is no life without the blood.

Meyer also portrays immortality as coming with a significant cost. The vampires are immortal, but without a soul. They can only find a meaningful existence by interacting with humans and ummm, playing baseball. The vampires strive for divinity but fall far short in their attempt to reach it on their own. They gain the entire world, but in the process lose their souls.

And lastly, I think that Meyer skillfully constructs a narrative in which blood is a metaphor for sex. In the story’s account of vampires, each vampire is particularly sensistive to a specific human’s scent. Naturally, Edward is highly attuned to Bella’s scent. It makes her particulary enticing for him and he is tempted throughout the book to feast upon her blood and turn her into a vampire. Consequently, there is a tension throughout the book as Edward and Bella fall in love. Does he really love her, or is he after her only for her body blood?

Edward’s bloodlust becomes a stand in for actual lust. Edward is animalistic and primal in his lust for blood. He desires Bella and the reader anxiously awaits alongside her to find out if Edward will simply use her for his own desires and get what he wants. And will Bella lose a vital part of herself in the process?

After Scooter and I read Twilight, we went out for lunch and talked about each of these theological themes in the book. Approaching these issues using a story from her world was unusual for us and I think we both enjoyed the talk. I hope that in the end, it will help her develop as a critical reader of popular texts.

After we talked, a friend of mine from church asked me if I was glad that I let her read it. I replied “She just read a story which compares hormone ridden teen-age boys to blood-sucking vampires. Of course I’m glad she read it!”

A Review: Christian Writers’ Market Guide 2009

The Christian Writers’ Market Guide 2009 by Sally Stuart is a powerful resource for all authors interested in the Christian market. It contains a burgeoning amount of information identifying literary outlets for Christian writers. It is a reference work, not a “how to” book. It can help the writer to identify which books or periodicals might be the best outlets for its works.

After an initial chapter explaining how the book is best used, chapter 2 covers Book publishers. This chapter divides into three parts. Part one is a topical list of book publishers (e.g. Bereavement, homiletics, Marriage, Women’s books, etc). Thus the prospective published writer can use the list to guide her or him to the publisher most likely interested in that particular topic. The second list is a simple alphabetical listing of all Christian publishers. The third list is a list of “subsidy publishers.” A subsidy is when the publisher requires you to pay all or part of the costs associated with publishing a book. (The term I am more familiar with is “subvention”). The fourth section is a list of book distributors (e.g. Campus Crusade, Christian Book Distributors). The final section is what Stuart calls a “marketing analysis” where she lists publishers by the numbers of books published, most popular book topics, etc.

Section (chapter?) Three covers much of the same ground, except with periodicals. The first section is a topical listing of Christian magazines. It includes topics like book reviews, African-American Markets, Grandparenting, Poetry, etc. A second (sub)section then lists the Christian periodicals alphabetically. This is followed by a final “market analysis” of periodicals. The fourth section of this tome explores the world of Christian greeting cards, gifts, and specialty markets. It also includes Christian software, DVDs and music CDs.

The fifth section is entitled “Helps for Writers” and focuses upon subjects like writer’s conferences, editorial services, literary agents, and writing contests. The sixth (and final) section of the book includes an index and glossary as well as a break down of publishers by both corporate ownership and denominational affiliation. Included with the book is a CD which contains an additional three sections covering additional resources for writers, additional writing and marketing resources, and a final section of a glossary of terms.

This lengthy work (547 pages + a CD) provides a blizzering array of information categorized in a very logical way about all elements of the Christian writing market. In its collection of data, it is more of a resource4 than a how-to of getting into the Christian writing market. The Christian Writers’ Market Guide is an invaluable resource for any writer who is interested in writing their way into this market.

It’s also sad and depressing.


My mind reels at the micro-niches found throughout the Christian subculture. Do we need two magazines separated only by punctuation? Good News or Good News! (As opposed to the regional website Good News of South Florida or the Good News Connection). Maybe they’ll even come up with a Good News, etc. (Oh…. they did). How would the motorcycling needs of a Christian motorcyclist differ from a pagan motorcyclist. Plus, doesn’t another religion already have the motorcycling market down?

I understand the need for marketing analyses and micro-niches. I think that there is an important role for Christian publishing houses with their attendant books and magazines. I simply think that we get into trouble when we speak only to ourselves. What we need (as others have said) is fewer good “Christian writers” and more good writers who happen to be Christians.

But that is more a critique of the culture that provides the need for this book rather than a critique of this books itself. Which is exceptionally good and thorough.

Reading Gaps

Gaps.

Every text contains them. No matter how carefully written, no matter how much attention the author gives to fill in all the details, narratives always contain gaps. Whenever we read a text, we fill them in with our own thoughts.

And this includes biblical texts. The church is notorious for filling gaps in the biblical narrative. One cluster of examples surrounds the birth narratives of Jesus as told in Luke and Matthew’s gospels. Famously, we aren’t told how many wise men were there, though the church filled in this gap by assuming that there were three (and even naming them?!). Another example is the idea that the wise men and the shepherds visited the First Family at the same time. One gap from the Old Testament includes the misconception that the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil was an apple (I suspect that it was actually a kiwi fruit). None of this is in the text.

One big gap that has been consistently filled (and the precise example that triggered this post) concerns the story of Noah and the ark. We find this story in Genesis 6 and it relates the familiar story of the wicked world, the noble Noah and his kin. God tells Noah to build an ark, which he commences to do. Noah builds the ark while his neighbors mock him and deride him. But then when the rains come, his neighbors see the error of their ways and beg and plead with him to let them in. But he can’t (or won't) and they die along with the rest of humanity.

The gap in this story that has been filled in of course, is Noah’s neighbors. The Bible says nothing about Noah’s neighbors. Some are adamant that Noah preached to his neighbors who laughed at him for building an ark. But that view doesn’t come from the text. (I suspect that the view comes from children's Bibles.) So when a commenter on another thread says that “Noah was ridiculed to scorn” in order to explain why many people find Southern Baptists distasteful, he’s citing a story of his own devising.

Oftentimes, we fill in the gaps with our own ideas, which we call theology. Theology, at its most basic level, as our attempt to fill in the gaps in the biblical narrative. How does baptism work? What's the best metaphor for atonement? What does the sovereignty of God look like? 99% of theological disputation is probably reducible to arguing over what interpretation best fills the gaps. (And denominations form over how we fill these gaps). Perhaps this post will remind ME that these gaps exist and I would be better served exercising some hermeneutical humility as I recognize the gaps in my own reading of these texts.

On Vampires and Make Up

Correctly drawing the line is our greatest challenge as a parent. Trying to carefully balance the two extremes of protection and independence is the most difficult task I’ve found. How do I decide what is too dangerous and what is acceptable? Working out the whole business of being as crafty as serpents and as innocent as doves is a pain in the neck. Certainly I pray for wisdom and seek counsel from others. Certainly I look back on my own parents’ child-raising techniques.

But then I wing it. Two examples.


Situation One:

The primary problem of course, is that my daughter Scooter is a lot like me. I grew up loving to read and throughout my childhood read fairly obsessively. Both of my parents (avowed readers themselves) adopted a pretty laissez faire approach and allowed me to read whatever I wanted to read. Kadie and I have been a little more tight reined in our approach, marking certain stories (mostly movies) off limits. But a situation arose a month ago that raised an issue for me.
Scooter told me she wanted to get a new book, the book Twilight. Many of her friends were reading it, a new movie was coming out about it, and it apparently was making quite a splash among the early teen world. I’m not sure why there was some familiarity with it, but I vaguely recalled hearing about it. After some checking around on the internet, I read up on the book.

It’s a fairly typical teen romance book, telling the story of a young girl who moves into a town and desperately wants to fit in to her new high school community. In the course of her arrival she identifies various social cliques and tries to decide the folks with whom she wants to build relationships. Then she meets a guy and they fall in love. The End. Pretty innocuous stuff, except for one problem.

He’s a vampire. Undead. Immortal and unliving.

So at what age should a kid start to read such fare? I had no idea. So, I read the book (a review will follow, at some point) and decided to let her read it. She’s in the middle of it now and we’ll have a conversation about it when she finishes.

Situation Two:

Unconnected (but not really) was the dreaded conversation about make-up. She’s entering the second semester of the eighth grade and high school is now for her more a reality than a distant dream. (It remains a nightmare for me, of course). So she’s gotten serious about wanting to try out make-up. This subject has come up a few times over the last few years and I’ve developed a pretty good line in response. I would always say “You look so beautiful without make-up, why would you want to cover your pretty face up?” But she’s no longer placated by that line and has now pushed me for a timeline. After some negotiation (she wanted to start wearing make-up today, I wanted her to start in her thirties) we decided that she would start this summer, to give her some time to experiment before high school begins.

I’m not too sure my exact motivations in each of these situations, but in each instance, to some degree, I recognized that I was the one with the greater problem. I don't want her to grow up. So each of these situations has challenged me in the area of letting go. I’ve seen the end result of holding on too long and it's not pretty. I have students in my classes at school whose parents never let them go and they end up at one of two unhealthy extremes. Either they go wild with their newfound freedom, or they bring their parents into my office when I advise them and try to speak with them about some of their life goals. It’s quickly apparent that they don’t distinguish themselves from their parents in any meaningful way.

Operating on the principle that we start with the end result in mind, then we have to cut the (insert metaphor of your choice: aprons strings or umbilical cord) at some point if we want to produce healthy, Godly adults.

On these two particular issues, the time is now.

Running the Race

In 490 BC, Pheidippides ran the 26.2 miles from Marathon to Athens to report the victory of the Greek army over King Darius' forces. After running the first Marathon and reporting the news, Pheidippides died.

Which explains why I feel half dead.

Kadie and I ran our first 1/2 marathon this morning, and lived to tell the tale. We ran the Chevron Aramco race in Houston, Texas. We've been doing some training for the 13.1 mile race, but Kadie's max run prior to this was 9 miles and mine was 5.

There's an entire running subculture that I really don't have a handle on. There are running clubs that ran together the whole way. Some people ran dressed as Winnie the Pooh (who could use a work out), Elvis, and even the Statue of Liberty. It was interesting. I saw several short shorts (on men, alas) that were in the design of the Texas flag. I couldn't decide if it was desecration or an homage.

The crowd of spectators was strange too. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of folks who come to the race and cheer the runners on. Surprisingly, one cannot underestimate the encouragement of perfect strangers. Our identification tags (referred to as "bibs") included our names. On numerous occasions strangers yelled "Great job, Taran!" as I went by. It felt a little like Norm walking into Cheers.

I've never been the biggest fan of Houston, but the 1/2 marathon was a great way to see a lot of neighborhoods. Many people came out on their porches and waved at us with their free hand while clutching mimosas (or beers?!) in their other. It was 7:30 in the morning. My brother Bartolo talked us into running this a few months ago and I'm glad he did. (Although he did leave us far behind him early on in the race.)

Looking Ahead

My childhood was blessed in many directions. One memorable area of blessing was in family vacations. A few stand out.

Around the age of six my parents took us to California to visit some cousins and to see Disneyland. A few years later we visited Colorado and traveled the mountains to Ouray and Durango. Lastly, my junior year in college we took a trip to Washington DC. In between these larger trips we traveled on more regional excursions to various places in Texas and Arkansas.
And so we try to pass that blessing on to our own kids, hoping that they will enjoy well the full range of God’s Creation…or at least the part we can affordably reach. We’ve taken them on large trips to Colorado, Virginia, and Turkey and look forward to future trips.

This year we decided on a ski trip to New Mexico and made a couple of decisions that affected the trip. First, we decided to extend the kids’ Christmas vacation and to cut into their return to school. So we planned to ski the Saturday, Sunday, Monday of the weekend preceding the beginning of school. Although this cut into their return a bit, it guarantees fewer skiers. Despite my affinity for education, school attendance isn’t sacrosanct. This also allowed us to take our time getting out there. Since none of our kids have ever seen snow in any accumulation, we wanted to give them a chance to enjoy it before they skied it.

Our second decision was to go with another couple from church. Like me, Rob works for the state (although not at my institution) and Laura is a nurse like Kadie. They also have a little boy who is a couple of months older than Squealer as well as a two year old daughter. Frankly, they are among the few couples who could identify with the typical normal state of chaos surrounding our family. Our decision to travel with them cut our costs substantially.

Rob is an organizer and handled the lodging logistics throughout our trip. I, to put it mildly, am not. I did cook all the meals ahead of time so we wouldn’t get gouged by the locals. We rented a 15 passenger van and stuffed the nine members of our families into it.

We threw Squealer into ski school for 2 days and the girls for one. And they all took to it well. Kadie and I skipped ski school, but spent a day anyway remembering how to ski. It took two of full days for us to regain our skiing “skills,” which had lain dormant for twenty winters.

The second day we took the girls out and were amazed at how quickly they picked it up. Scooter took a few more chances and thus bit the dust snow more often. Skeeter, normally the risk taker of the two, was slow and steady and rarely fell down.

The third day we took Squealer out and worked with him. They teach the kids to either keep their skis in a “pizza” (a wedge) to slow down or to keep them “French fries” (parallel) to speed up. (I’m unsure what this says about the contemporary dietary status of most Americans that five year olds understand this language universally). But the effect is humorous.

As Squealer scooted down the slope, I followed behind him and constantly yelled “Pizza!” or “French Fries!” depending on his rate of speed. To an outsider it must’ve seemed like I was threatening him with a high-carb diet. Squealer invariably accelerated beyond his capacity to control his direction and I would have to shout at him to “Sit Down!!”which resulted in several spectacular crashes.

Squealer rarely does things halfway. He took to skiing quickly, but when he crashed, he did so with gusto. In one particularly tremendous show, he disappeared into a cloud of snow and pinwheeling skis as he lay motionless for a moment. Then he looked up at me and shouted “That was AWESOME!!” to the delight of the assembled skiers.

On the third day all five of us skied some blue slopes, definitely Squealer’s favorite. But still, it’s a sobering vision to see your five year old scooting past you at breakneck speed.

But the most beautiful memory of the trip was on a long green slope where the five of us were skiing by ourselves. Soon after we started, there began a gentle, but substantial snowfall. Flakes as large as nickels danced around us as we skied along our solitary path, looking at gorgeous evergreens graced with snow.

After a few minutes taking in this breathless beauty, Scooter stopped us and said “Daddy, it’s just like we’re inside a snowglobe!”

Looking ahead, I hope we’ve burned some family memories into their childhood.

I have a few pictures to inflict on you.







There’s nothing quite so strong as the bond between a boy and his tumbleweed. (Squealer at a rest area in the Texas panhandle).















Dalhart, Texas takes great pride in a large tile encrusted bovine that stands guard over highway 87 in front of a Valero gas station. When our kids saw it, Scooter immediately christened it Starbutt.
(I wonder if it's visible on Google Maps? Yep!)





Scooter (left) took some incredible pictures .

Looking Back

January is named of course, for the Roman god Janus, who had two faces , always gazing in two directions. So maybe January is a good time to look back and look ahead.


Looking Back


My grandmother died the Sunday after Christmas. She was 93 and led a full and generous life. I was asked to share a eulogy, which follows:

Today is a hard day, but today is a good day.


Today is a hard day, but today is a good day.

I thank you for coming today as we share some memories of Sylvia McGeorge, or as I knew her, Grandmother.

Some of the happiest summers of my childhood were spent in her house. I think what made those summers so happy is that they were so distinct and separate from the rest of my life. Her house was a place where the normal childhood rules didn’t apply.

Visiting grandmother was like visiting a different place, a better place.

For example, bedtimes evaporated as soon as my parents left the driveway. My brother and I could stay up as late as we wished, with no consequences to our actions.

Medicine was very different. Whenever I acquired a sore throat, grandmother’s remedy of choice was brought a combination of brandy and honey, a far cry from my teetotaling home. “Well, what do you think is in cough syrup?” she would say when pressed. (Of course, the result was an increase in sore throats whenever I spent some time with her.)

Next to her home, a magnolia tree grew that was as high as any sequoia. Kid limbs scrambled over tree limbs as we raced each other to the sky.


One of her “jobs” was to prepare for Wednesday night meals at First Baptist Church. In a move that OSHA would no doubt denounce, she let me open the huge cans of tomatoes with a table mounted can opener. I still remember as a six year old, lifting it as high as I could and then slamming it down on top of the cans and then turning it slowly around.


Visiting grandmother was like visiting a different place, a better place.


She had a couple of rocking chairs with a swing on the front porch of the house. For the only times in my life, I would spend summer evenings just rocking and swinging.

She was the first person I knew who owned a large freezer, which she kept well stocked with Popsicles. We could go get one whenever we wanted, and didn’t even have to ask. She also had an old fashioned coke machine with coke bottles. It was too big for me to slide the bottles down and then pull them through the top, to get them out. But she never tired of helping me to retrieve an icy cold beverage, not matter how close it was to bed time.

Grandmother also loved music. 45 Records were in abundance. Lawrence Welk and big band music of days gone by always accompanied me as I walked from room to room at grandmother’s house. There was no Time-Life record offer she could resist.



Mornings followed a predictable pattern. Captain Kangaroo was on in the morning, followed by the PBS duo of Sesame Street and the Electric Company. Then we transitioned to adult fare as Bob Barker always showed us that the Price is Right. But then there was a large gap in the day. Grandmother would always say, "Now its time for my stories”by which she meant The Guiding Light and As the World Turns (Or, as one of my cousins called it, "As the stomach turns"). During the soaps, we would go out and play, knowing that grandmother wouldn’t come looking for us until late afternoon. By then, more interesting things would be on as we resumed control of the TV at 3:00 when Gilligan’s Island came on.

Grandmother loved dominoes. I was too young to follow the complicated math involved in adding up to five, but from my earliest age, I was mesmerized by her ability to shuffle them on the special domino table she owned. No dealer in Vegas could match her manual dexterity. Their rhythmic clicking together is a sound I still recall to this day. She could turn and talk to me while she shuffled them without even looking at the table. When she felt like showing off, she would point and send me on an errand while she continued to shuffle the dominoes with her other hand.
Visiting grandmother was like going to a different place, a better place.

It was a place without room for corporal punishment. Although she did threaten to “blister our bottoms” (whatever that meant) I don’t ever recall being spanked by her. Her punishment of choice was to make us hug and kiss when we couldn’t get along with one another.

Perhaps best of all, grandmother’s home was a place where you got to see your own father get scolded from time to time by his mother. What kid wouldn’t want to see that?!

Visiting grandmother was like going to a different place, a better place.

Although she lived on East Avenue, some wag added an “F” to the the street sign so it read "Feast Avenue." But that was still appropriate, as Grandmother's house was a place where food was abundant. By the time I came along, she had been a caterer for decades.

She was an artist, and cake was her most savory medium. As she prepared her wedding cakes, she would have to level them (for proper stacking I suppose). After they came out of the oven, she would take a bread knife, turn it sideways, and shave off the top, ever so gently. Cake slices, a big around and as thin as plates. I would gather in the kitchen as she would stack these perfectly formed, slivers of heaven. With eyes the size of saucers I awaited them and then I did eat them. And lo, they were good. Very good.

She had a long table with multiple folding chairs. I recall receptions that seemed to seat hundreds (but probably more like 40 or 50). The aroma of food, the clinking of glass, and the hurried elegance of the wait staff as they did her bidding are etched into my earliest consciousness.

She fashioned tiny roses made out of white icing that she pressed into molds and stuck on wedding cakes. She would make sheets of these on wax paper, hundreds of them, and put them in the freezer until she needed them. I could fit about five of these into each of my hot little hands and pop them into my mouth to consume them in a few bites. The ensuing sugar rush would be sufficient to get me through even the slowest of summer days.

Visiting grandmother was like visiting another place, a better place.

Today is a hard day, but today is a good day.

The Bible shares about a very special grandmother. Timothy had a grandmother who was so remarkable that Paul mentioned her in one of his letters.

"When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also."

Paul succinctly identified the defining characteristic of good grandmothers: their influence on the generations to come. And like Lois, my grandmother passed on a legacy of faith to her children and her grandchildren.

Visiting grandmother was like visiting another place, a better place.

She didn’t have an easy life. She raised my father and aunt as a single mom during decades when that still carried with it the odor of scandal. But she picked through the difficult times and discussed them only when pressed.

My fondest memory of her is also one of the oldest. Grandmother purchased for me a sticker book, full of outdoor scenes. All the stickers were in the back and I had to search them out, lick the gluey side, and then stick them to their appropriate place in the book. I worked on it with all the focus a six year old could muster. On this particular day, grandmother was vacuuming the room while I busied myself.

One of the stickers was a bee. After carefully tearing it out from the back of the book, I accidentally dropped it on the shag carpet below. Having the attention span of a tsetse fly myself, I quickly went on to the next sticker. Several minutes later, my grandmother’s vacuum noisily inhaled my bee sticker while I continued to work. It was only a few minutes later that I realized what happened and I began to cry.

Really cry. In fact, I was in six year old, full liquid meltdown as I wept over my lost bee. Seeing my sorrow, she turned off the vacuum and then quickly learned the cause of my sadness. She assured me that it would be ok. Grandmother left the room and returned with the morning newspaper. She carefully spread out the pages, opened up the vacuum canister, and then dumped the contents of the vacuum onto the paper.

I can still see, with my six year old eyes, grandmother carefully working through the dust, dirt, and the hair as she sought the paper bee. After several minutes, she triumphantly held aloft the paper bee and returned it to me. Like the woman who searched for the lost coin, my grandmother's eyes twinkled as I stopped crying and joyously held my bee that had been lost.

And in this way, memory becomes metaphor.

Grandmother was always wading through the difficulties and the filth of this life to help and care for those she loved. I will miss her.

And now it’s her turn.

Now she is the one who has gone on to a different place, a better place.

Those of us who love her are impoverished by her absence, but were made far richer by her presence.

Today is a hard day, but today is a good day.

Several years ago she shared a poem that she wanted read at her funeral. It follows.

After Glow

I’d like the memory of me to be a happy one.
I’d like to leave an afterglow of smiles when life is done.
I’d like to leave an echo whispering softly down the ways,
of happy times and bright and sunny days.
I’d like the tears of those who grieve, to dry before the sun
of happy memories that I leave when my life is done.


I will miss you, Grandmother.






(Grandmother and Squealer, August 2003)

Family Road Trip!

We’re on the road with the family, doing some skiing in Angel Fire, New Mexico--our first extended vacation in about four years. After several days on the road, we arrived this afternoon and checked into our condo. We’re sharing space with a couple from our church who has a son Squealer’s age and they’ve booth kept the trip hopping.

The kids have never been skiing before, indeed they’ve seen snow only a few times. So we arrived in northern New Mexico yesterday so that they could play in the snow. After a day of that, we were all ready to arrive this afternoon.

We’re throwing all three of our kids into ski school tomorrow while Kadie and I try to relearn skiing ourselves. The only skiing we’ve ever done was almost twenty years ago on a BSU trip while we were still courting.

It should be interesting.

Only Nuns Change Habits Overnight: A Review

Karen Scalf Linamen has written a fun and helpful book on how women should initiate positive changes in their lives.

She argues that every woman longs for change in some area of her life. Unfortunately, fear, fatigue, adversity, heartbreak, past failures, and even the choices of other people get in the way and make lasting change seem out of reach. Having been there herself, Karen Linamen knows exactly how to take readers from where they are to where they want to be.

In Only Nuns Change Habits Overnight, she examines 52 powerful readers can apply to any change they long to embrace. Her insights apply to career, finances, personal health and fitness, relationships, faith—in fact, every facet of a woman’s life.

Blending humor with sage advice, Linamen shows readers the link between dissatisfaction and transformation, how to remodel habits, the little-known truth about procrastination, how to generate the energy they need to pursue the life they desire, how to benefit from options and resources they never dreamed they had, and more!

Linamen combines humor and wisdom in an entertaining read that doesn’t take itself too seriously. I only have a couple of drawbacks about this book. First, it is completely aimed at the female population. Almost all of the examples pertain to women and, let’s be frank, it’s the only pink covered book on my bookshelf. Second, some of the information is rather trite. “Watch an uplifting movie” is among the more pedestrian pieces of advice. But despite those minor points, I recommend it.