Lately, I have been in a state of purging. I keep giving away things – clothes, CDs, even books – to clean out my space and open my view, at least figuratively, to the spacious sky. But I have a system for what books I keep and what I don’t. It’s not a system I have ever articulated until now, but it works something like this.

I keep books by my favorite writers – Chaim Potok, Marilynne Robinson, Anne Lamott, Angela Carter, A.S. Byatt, etc.

I keep books that meant something to me, like works by John Eldredge or C.S. Lewis, books that changed the way I live my life.

I keep books that I haven’t read, unless I know I won’t read them.

I keep a full shelf of children’s books that I have had since I was a kid. Sets of Nancy Drew that were my moms, this beautiful set of classics, etc.

I keep writing books and teaching books and books by my friends.

I don’t keep books I’ll never read or books I read but didn’t get blown away by. I don’t keep books I get to review, unless they fit in one of the categories above. I don’t keep “how to” books or even gardening books. I just don’t have the space.

The truth is that I’m always gathering more books than I am giving away. I just can’t help myself. Even with all the books I own and haven’t read, I still go to the library. I just love books. I love having them around me, filling my mind with their words, using them for comfort and escape, learning from them. They are – in terms of non-living things – my favorite things in the world.

What do you keep? What do you give away? How do you decide?

In honor of this post and my desire to pare down, again, I am hosting a big book giveaway on Friday. I’ll be divvying out – FOR FREE – more than 50 titles. If you spread the word about the giveaway, you get first dibs. If you comment on the post and name a title you want, I’ll use a random number generator to decide who gets the book (if there’s more than one taker). So please, stay tuned. There’s some good ones in the stack. And please, pass the giveaway along. I’d love to get all these guys into good homes. (By the way, the leftovers will be given to Goodwill. No book left behind. )

Filed by Andi at 10:19 am under Book Recommendations
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About three weeks ago, I decided to give up on writing. Yep, that’s right. I made up my mind that this was too hard, that I wanted to do something more structured, something less dependent entirely on me. I quit; that’s it. I’m done. I’ll go work at a nonprofit and do real good. Ah, there, that’s it. No more writing for me.

I was heartbroken and disappointed in myself. For all of my life I had wanted to be one of two things (that is after the desire to be a bellydancer passed at age 5) – a writer and a writing teacher. Even when I briefly considered becoming a lawyer, it had everything to do with words and nothing to do with justice. I had always found myself in words, and now, I was going to have to find myself in something else.

But I was sticking to this decision. I was holding fast. I was tired, and I was going to move onto something new. Until I got completely bowled over by illness, heartbreak, and life in general. Then, I couldn’t really move at all. I retired to the couch and Doctor Who and, finally, to prayer.

The truth is that my problem was not writing but my own efforts at it. I was trying too hard. I know that sounds impossible for an American – a Protestant American at that. Our work ethic says we can never work too hard. But the truth is, I was. The problem wasn’t really the work, exactly, but that I was trying to do it all on my own. God literally knocked me off my feet to show me this wasn’t possible.

For the last three weeks, I have been learning to be more childlike in my dependency on God. For a long time, maybe my whole life, I have thought that striving was the way to get where I wanted to be. If I did more, wrote more, read more, I would end up in my dream life, whatever that was. The last few weeks have driven home what I have been shown for the last few years – striving will get me only part of the way, and when I arrive at this place that isn’t even where I want to be, I will be exhausted and joyless. Doesn’t sound like much fun. Doesn’t sound very Godly either.

You see, the problem with writing, for me, is that I feel like it’s all about me. I have to come up with the idea (I rarely get assignments), and that’s the hardest part. The research and writing – those I enjoy – but that coming up with something to write about, that’s the work of Sisyphus. I used to comment to a friend who is a guitarist that at least all he had to do was practice what someone else wrote. I had to write the thing to be able to write about it. . . .

But God has been teaching me to let go. I have been learning to let the ideas come to me instead of seeking them out. I am learning to wait and to rest while I do so. And while I rest and wait, my soul is restored. And I am ready to write again.

This morning, I read Shawn Smucker’s post about the heartbreak that he and his wife suffered when their business did not take them on the path of life that they had expected. As the empty moving truck stood in their driveway, bringing he and his wife grief, their two children jumped into the empty cargo bay and started making their own echoes. As Shawn said, “They had absolute trust that I would provide shelter for them, and food, and anything else that they needed.” I am learning that God, my heavenly father and mother, does the same for me.

Right now, I am in the middle of that big empty cargo bay of life. I have the things I have accumulated in boxes ready to go – teaching, my publications, my books – and I am ready for the next adventure. But for now, I’m leaving those things where they are and waiting for God to start up the truck. When that happens, I”ll load up and move out.

Meanwhile, I want to write again, and that is probably the greatest blessing of these days. Desire to be, again, who I am created to be. Now, I simply wait for the idea to be given to me, a gift from the God who loves me enough to not let me give up on myself.

– “Dependence” by Jason Limon

Filed by Andi at 8:19 am under Andi's Book, Written and Wrought
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Okay, so I hesitated in buying this book. It reminded me, based on title alone, of that popular piece of chic-lit that came out a few years ago – The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing. I never read that book – just never interested me – so I hesitated on this one. But I’m glad I read it.

The full title is Wilderness Skills for Women: How to Survive Heartbreak and other Full-Blow Meltdowns by Marian Jordan, and well, I’ve been in one of those heart-break-ish, wilderness-y places for a few weeks now. It seemed this was the time to pick up this title.

The basic premise is that Jones gives women advice on how to survive those times when it seems the around us has come apart in every way. Using Christian Scripture as her guide, she commiserates, gives me permission to grieve my pain, and encourages me to trust in the One who promises nothing but good.

To be truthful, I think Jones would probably drive me crazy in real life – she’s over-witty, if you know what I mean, and likes to use cliches a little too much for my taste. But the truth is I really appreciated her insights. More than that, though, I appreciated knowing I was not alone in this pain. She was really good at conveying that.

So if you’re in a time of trial or know a woman who is, this is a good read. And because of that, I’m giving away my copy. Make a comment here, and I’ll pick someone randomly to receive the book. Drawing to be held next Thursday. (If you spread the word – via Twitter, Facebook, or your blog – I’ll give you an extra “entry” for each “pass it on.”

– Wilderness Skills for Women by Marian Jones

P.S. I wrote this post sitting on my patio. It’s a little oasis in my really shifty neighborhood. Glory in the small stuff . . . glory in the small stuff.

Filed by Andi at 4:36 pm under Book Recommendations, Uncategorized
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I am a woman in search of a path. I suspect I’m on one; in fact, I know I am, but it’s the kind of path that you feel out slowly with your feet in fog-encased dark. The next step is never that sure.

I have figured out a few things about this stage in life, though.

First, it’s best to go in bare feet, no protective covering, no cute little slipper socks to keep me from slipping. Just bare and out there. This way, I can feel the tiniest turns in the path more easily. Put it all out there, I say.

Second, there are a lot of people feeling their way along, too. Most of us think that when we’re ______ (fill in magical age here) years of age we will have figured this stuff out. Stuff=career, relationships, worship. At this point on my invisible path, I have found a lot of you walking with me. There is comfort in stumbling forward with company.

Third, there is guidance, even in the foggy dark. On the foggiest nights in San Francisco, I used to listen to the singing of the fog horns. On a good night, I could hear three – two from the Golden Gate Bridge and one from Seal Rock. They often sang me to sleep as they kept ships from dashing against the pieces of their paths that would not move.

Finally, there is nothing I can do to make the fog clear or the sun come up. This sounds like it might be really terrible, but it’s not. In fact, it’s freeing. The best thing I can do is take one step at a time, my bare feet guided by the Light I know has my way all planned out. Total dependence can be quite awesome.

Filed by Andi at 6:31 pm under Uncategorized
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I think if the Bible had been written just for me, Psalm 37:7 would read something like this:

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. In the meantime, read some good stuff.

Honestly, that’s where I am. Waiting, resting and reading. Nothing drives the need for this home more than a ten-day illness that keeps you up coughing most of the night and generally lethargic most of the day. I have never been grateful for illness, but today I am.

I have been reading a lot of good things lately, including this amazing blog post by Laraine Herring that really sums up how I’m feeling of late. This balance thing is really tough.

I also just finished Zadie Smith’s novel On Beauty. While many people think is a lesser work of hers (and maybe it is since it’s the first of hers that I’ve read), I thought her characterizations and sense of emotional complexity was amazing. She has the ability to capture a character’s personality in physical description so vivid that I really could picture what was happening. Additionally, her explorations of physical beautiful through these characters is quite fascinating, especially since my favorite character in the book – the most beautiful one to me – was Kiki, the wife whose husband had cheated on her and who weights quite more than we think a “healthy” woman should. While the end of the book left me feeling a little flat – perhaps because it ended with Howard, my least favorite character – I really enjoyed the story and the way that Smith embodied her characters.

I’ve also been devotedly reading Jenna’s Cold Antler Farm blog. This woman’s words make me want my farm more and more. . . . she has such a capacity for description that I find myself sighing with delight at least once a post.

So that’s where I am, pretty much couch-bound, pretty much between everything, and pretty much loving what I’m reading in this period of waiting. It’s a place of peace in the wilderness of the wait. I’m just enjoying studying the shrubs as I wander by them.

What shrubs of reading are you enjoying these days?

– On Beauty by Zadie Smith

Filed by Andi at 12:28 pm under Book Recommendations, Teaching Triumphs and Travails, Written and Wrought
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