As part of my morning writing practice, I usually read. Lately, I’ve been reading The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis. Lewis’ style is one I really like, despite how different it is from mine. He’s much more academic and thorough in his writing than I am. I like to leave some things unspoken; he likes to clarify everything. So it’s a nice infusion of difference as I get ready to write each morning.

Today, I was finishing up his chapter on “Friendship,” one of the four loves (including Affection, Eros and Charity) that are the focus of the book. Much of this chapter is dedicated to Lewis’ exploration of what it means to have a true friendship. To him, friendship forms between people when they have mutual interests and mutual respect for each other. In many ways, it seems he thinks this is one of the most complicated and special kinds of love. (A refreshing thought in our Eros-obsessed culture.)

The chapter ends with a discussion of the ways that friendship can go wrong, particularly in it’s way of excluding people. So often when we talk about friendship and exclusion, we think of high school cliques, but to limit this kind of behavior to just teenagers is naive and probably detrimental to our adult friendships. I certainly have seen this exclusion in action and have been a part of it, I’m ashamed to say. One of us goes into a room where a friend is talking to other people, and we subtly block out the other person with our bodies and strike up a conversation with OUR friend. Or we talk about things that the other person in the room doesn’t know anything about. Or we simply don’t acknowledge the other person at all. I see this happen all the time.

I know – as Lewis notes – that this comes from our own insecurity, from our own desire to insure our own position with the people we care about. But it’s really a shame. If anything, our friendships should make us more secure in ourselves, and true friendships are secure as friendships, no need for exclusion or games required.

I have been thinking about friendship a lot this week as I’ve struggled with a particular relationship and tried to figure out how to heal a hurt that has been brought to it. This struggle has caused me to be grateful for some long-term friendships that I have had for now – gasp – twenty years. When I started college at Messiah, I knew no one. I walked into a place that was new with people who were all new to me. Yet, I had no doubt that I was in the right place, the place God had brought me. And it was here, twenty years ago, that I made friendships that are still my strongest to this day.

When I struggle, I call these women, some who live in Scotland and some who live nearby. When I doubt myself or need direction, I call these women. When I want to truly have a relaxing time with good friends, I call these women. I call these women because they know me and love me for who I am. They truly want only the best for me, and I for them. They are the women whose children call me “Auntie,” and they are the women who, if at the end of our lives, we are without partners, I will live with in my old age. I have no doubt of this. These women are my friends.

I was graced to find them when I went to college. I did not choose them – we all lived nearby one another or were in classes together. These were the people God knew I needed in my life, for my life, my whole life, and I am ever grateful for them.

As Lewis says,

But in Friendship, . . . we think we have chosen our peers. In reality, a few years’ difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another, posting to different regiments, the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting – any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” can truly say to every group of Christian friends “You have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another.” The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others.

So today, I am grateful for my friendships, those that are long and deep and those that are just forming. I pray you have the same kind of friendships.

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Now for the winner of The Mysterious Life of the Heart – it’s Jennifer. Congratulations. I’ll be in touch for your address.

I still have one giveaway going in honor of my 500th post. Check it out, comment, and see if you win.

Filed by Andi at 5:56 am under Book Recommendations, Written and Wrought
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Before I tell you what I think about this book, I should probably clarify a couple of things. First, I drive a 2001 Ford Escort with a tape deck. It may be the only car tape deck left in operation, but I am the proud owner of it. Thus, when I go to the library to get books for the car, I am left with fewer choices than those of us who have CD players in the car. I often have one James Patterson, a Maeve Binchy, and Catch-22 as options. So when I find a book I have actually wanted to read (no offense to Joseph Heller – I tried it, and it wasn’t exactly a “car book.”), I get kind of giddy.

Secondly, I have wanted to read Cormac McCarthy for years. All the Pretty Horses is sitting on my book shelf gallantly waiting until I make time for it. Something about the power of his language – at least in the snippets I had read – made me yearn for his words, kind of like I get a hankering for Hemingway sometimes – not enough testosterone perhaps, not enough grand tragedy for certain.

Therefore, when my local branch had The Road on tape, I turned giddy and checked it out immediately. I must admit that despite the hype – Oprah-inspired and other – about this book I knew nothing about it – not the plot, not the setting, not the characters. Then, the intro on the recorded book started and I heard the words “post-Apocalyptic,” and I wondered what I’d gotten myself into.

It turns out I have become engrossed in the story, mildly traumatized by the story, and absolutely invested in it. The basic gist of the plot is, well, basic. A man and his son are traveling south on a road, trying to get to warmer territory in a U.S. that has been almost obliterated by something that causes great amounts of ash (I suspect nuclear fall-out, but so far, the form of the apocalypse has not been stated). Their greatest challenges are finding food and staying away from those the boy calls “the bad people,” cannibals who have turned to their fellow survivors as a ready supply of food.

The story is so simple, just so devastating. It calls into question, in a way I haven’t read in a while, the meaning of life. Why do people want to survive when the only reason to survive is to do it? What ways do people make for themselves when all purpose seems lost? What does it mean to really be human?

As I “read” (i.e. listen), I keep getting devastated by the pain in the book – the mother’s role, the cannibals’ behavior, the boy’s grief, the father’s perseverance and strength. But beneath this pain there is a great beauty – the thing that the father begins to dream as life gets even tougher. The love between the two protagonists is profound, and McCarthy has a way of writing the genuine human empathy of the boy is such poignant language that I literally tear up as I hear the boy cry out in longing or fear.

I haven’t finished the book – probably will on my drive up from D.C. to home today – but this has kick-started a deep love affair with McCarthy (much like On Chesil Beach did for my love of McEwan). I am eager to see what happens in the book, although I suspect it will not be happy, and I long to hear more about this journey down the road, this life.

– The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Filed by Andi at 5:20 am under Book Recommendations
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When I first starting blogging (500 posts ago today), I started to see these books giveaways on other people’s blogs. So I started entering them, not knowing just how addictive the process of commenting could be. The first book I “won” came from Booking Mama, and it was Lauren Allison and Lisa Perry’s The Woman Who Is Always Tan and Has a Flat Stomach. It came in the mail, and I was giddy.

Then, all the other books from giveaways or Bookmooch came in the mail, and this one got buried until it got put in the closet when my realtor told me I had to hide some of my books or I would never sell the house. And there this delightful little tome has sat for more than a year, tucked away behind the blue satin dress I’ve only worn once in my life (but I did look good that time:)).

Last week, as I was cleaning out more stuff in anticipation of selling my house (one must keep up hope somehow), I went through that stack of books hidden behind my shoes, and I came across this book. Somehow, I knew I needed to read it soon, so I pulled it out and put it beside my bed. I am glad I did.

As my students finished up their final exam last night, I finished up this book. Perhaps this was not my greatest moment of wisdom since I had to actually cover my mouth with my hand to keep from laughing out loud. The book contains 50 portraits of people who are immensely annoying such as “The Wife Who Finds Something Wrong with the Way her Husband Saved the Life of the Man Choking at the Table Next to Them” or “The Mom Who Made a Scrapbook So Large She Could Only Get It Downstairs by Hiring Professional Piano Movers.” We all know these people – I might add “The Woman Who Thinks that Disciplining her Child in the Backseat of a Moving Car is Justified Reason for Causing a 20 Car Pile-Up” or “The Man Who Hand Tends His Lawn (And Mine) Just so No ‘Infiltrators’ Invade our Occupied Zone” – although if you’re like me, it’s not usually funny when these people crop up in our lives.

But Perry and Allison make me laugh about these people who push the buttons of my own insecurity. They turn annoyances into humor (and in this, they remind me of Anne Lamott). And even though at first I worried that they weren’t going to implicate themselves, they do, showing how they “respond” to these people and what mistakes they make themselves, like trying to chainsaw a pre-lighted Christmas tree.

In their hyperbole and exaggeration, they brought me delight and even some wisdom about how to move through life with a little less frustration and a little more humor. I highly recommend this book.

And because it is my 500th post today, I am returning the giveaway favor and offering this book as a giveaway to a randomly selected person who can tell create a Allison-Perry-esque title for people that annoy them. Leave a comment below, and I”ll choose a winner on Monday, August 3rd. (Don’t forget about my other giveaway that ends on Friday.)

- The Woman Who Is Always Tan and Has a Flat Stomach by Lauren Allison and Lisa Perry

Filed by Andi at 5:34 am under Book Recommendations, Teaching Triumphs and Travails
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This summer in my freshmen composition class, I have used the theme of “food.” We have explored our food cultures, written about food choices, watched movies about food (Super Size Me and The Miracle of Food), and read about food in Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. The experience has been wonderful, mostly because these students have been diligent and invested in the topic.

So far, I’ve heard the following in class:
“I am eating a lot less (or no) fast food now.”
“I am thinking about growing my own tomatoes next year.”
“I had never thought about how important it is to eat dinner with my family.”
“I had no idea how bad corn syrup was for you.”

And the list goes on and on. Somehow, maybe because it’s summer, maybe because of the student make-up, maybe because of something that I didn’t consciously know I was doing, this class has been the most rewarding in terms of seeing students really beginning to engage with what their learning. It’s that critical thinking piece that we teachers are always craving to see, and this summer, I am seeing it.

Tonight is our last class, and I have told the class that they can bring food to share. I made baguettes last night and hope to pick carrots from my garden to share, and I can’t wait to see what they bring.

And tomorrow, I start reading their research papers and portfolios where I’m sure I will see more and more of their growth. I am so proud of them.

Filed by Andi at 8:03 am under Book Recommendations, Teaching Triumphs and Travails
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Last night, I sat down to write in my prayer journal before bed. I was almost driven to this practice because the power had gone out, and I was home alone without a car (it’s in the shop). Sometimes God works to make us take what we need I suppose.

As I opened my journal, I saw it had been exactly two months since I had written there. Two months ago . . . I have never been a daily journal-writer, so this wasn’t unusual – but still, I hadn’t written there for two months.

Then, today, when I woke naturally at 6am and knew Dave was starting his new job today, I took this as a note that I needed to get back to my job – my writing, the job for which I quit the paying, high-stress job I had. So I got back to my practice – feed the cats, make coffee, meditate, read, and then write. When I opened my morning journal (does anyone else keep multiple journals?) I saw that here, too, it had been two month since I had written. Eight weeks away from words.

I feel like I have to find the path of language again. That may seem unusual since I have been teaching writing all summer, but it’s very different to explain how to do something and to do it yourself. I feel like I am walking through a lush green forest with ferns all around me. The walk is gorgeous but unfocused, as it sometimes needs to be, as it has needed to be for me these last two months.

Yet, I know I need a path, and I know that I need to lay this path for myself. Images come to mind – a giant steamroller pressing down pavement, a slate walkway evened out with sand – but today, I choose to think of laying my path with pebbles. Some of the pebbles will come from streams – all neutral toned and smooth with the memory of water. Some of them will come from glass – blown slick with heat. Some will be shells discovered in the grains of sand on the beach. Some will be sea glass strewn among those shells – cloudy with the wash of salt water. But they all will be mine, laid out carefully in this winding forest of life.

The process of building a path of pebbles is slow, especially when each pebble must find its way to me and then out of my mouth full of stones. But this path, this slow and glorious path of tiny things – as tiny as words – is mine, given to me by a Creator and a life that is no one else’s. This path deserves my time, and I am so glad to be back to it.

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In honor of this return of mine, I want to give a book away. This book has been a great guide for me these past few months. I hope you will enjoy it, too. See my review here for a more full description of the book.

The Mysterious Life of the Heart: Writing from The Sun about Passion, Longing, and Love.

If you’d like to be entered into this giveaway, just leave a comment here. If you blog and link to this post, I”ll give you another entry, and the same goes if you Twitter or Facebook about it. Just let me know what you do, and I”ll get you entered. I’ll announce the winner on Friday.

Filed by Andi at 5:34 am under Book Recommendations, Teaching Triumphs and Travails, Written and Wrought
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