I have had emails from good friends expressing their concern about the election.  One shudders at the thought of Obama’s election and what will happen to the country-alas, the entire world-in the aftermath.  Another asks me about Sarah Palin and any qualms I might have should she accede to the presidency. 

I’m not worried about either one. 

Call me an ostrich, but I’ve done my reading, made my decision, and have firmly set this topic to the side.  How, exactly, will worrying about it change the results?  I firmly believe that God is sovereign over all, including American, British, Peruvian and Zimbabwean elections. (Yikes! Does Peru even hold elections?) So my hope is in the Lord, not in McCain, Obama, or any third party candidate. 

A verse that has impacted my life was part of our family Bible reading the day of my mom’s sudden death.

Trust in Him at all time:
ye people, pour out your heart before Him;
God is a refuge for us.
~ Psalm 62:8

I don’t believe that the solution to our problems will come from a politician, a political party or a government.  I know that the policies of either candidate will have their effect on my personal life, but I’m still choosing to trust God and thank Him for whomever He gives us.

One of the reasons I’m not worked up about this election is that I don’t watch, listen to or read the daily news. (Well, I do read our daily local paper, but, folks, it varies from 8-12 pages in length.) I believe a steady diet of CNN or Fox News or any other network will produce tension, anxiety, restlessness and discontent. 

But to keep it honest, I occasionally read articles and essays online.  It’s not that I’m not interested in current events, cultural trends, editorials or news events.  I just want to think and read about them from a longer perspective than the bites of daily news.

An obscure sentence in a book I read long ago impacted me.

My own dad spent hours reading the newspaper. 
I have often thought how much broader his world would have been if he had read more books.     
   ~ Gladys Hunt in Read for Your Life 

Also key in influencing my thinking: Neil Postman’s fabulous book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, in which he discusses information over-load and how we receive dump-loads of facts which have no relevance to our daily lives.   

I came to realize that the energy and passion I was putting into politics seemed to dissipate into thin air with nothing left to show for it.  I chose to spend time with books–good books–which would nourish my soul and stimulate my mind.

I want to emulate the Proverbs 31 woman:  “She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.” 

Please don’t take this as a slam of news wonks or political junkies.  It is just my apology for not getting worked up over the election.  I welcome dissenting opinions. 

 

Do you ever think about how your own, personal context affects your response to a book you have read? 

A book which didn’t interest you ten years ago, before you experienced that particular loss, may completely engage you today.  Conversely, a book which kidnapped you twenty years ago, rendering you incapacitated for all but the most necessary life functions until you finished the book, may produce yawns of indifference if you were to pick it up today.

My context in reading Wendell Berry includes many conversations with friends and family about an agrarian lifestyle and end-of-life medical issues. It most definitely includes The Omnivore’s Dilemma, a book which has had an impact on our family’s thinking.  My point is that I’m in step with some of the messages Berry is delivering, which makes him that more dear to me.

Also, I am so grateful for the order in which I’ve read Wendell Berry’s fiction.  I believe it has made a difference.  I started with That Distant Land: The Collected Stories, which introduced me to the primary residents in Berry’s fictional town of Port William, Kentucky.  I learned the back story of so many families. Reading this first provided the context into which all the other books fit.    

Remembering follows the course of one day in Andy Catlett’s life.  There’s not much action: he takes a walk, he gives a speech, he gets on a plane and comes home.  Interspersed in the narrative are remembrances of the people who formed and molded Andy, contemplations on the twists and turns his life has taken.  As in most everything Berry writes, there is a focus not on what we have gained with technology, but what we have lost.  Farming methods are especially important.

What I love about Wendell Berry’s fiction:

1.  Sense of community.  Berry loves the word “membership” as a sense of people belonging to one another.  No one is done harvesting until everyone’s harvest is in.  Working, joking, relaxing, eating are all communal activities.  There is a connectedness that is often missing in other fiction.  “How long have you been here?” “Seventy-four years.” “But you’re not seventy-four?” “No,” Isaac said, and laughed, “my father is seventy-four.  We came here the year he was born.”  [I think that We is profound.]

2.  Realistic characters.  Berry’s protagonists–strong, masculine men and stalwart women–are never perfect.  Nathan Coulter is a tireless worker, but he is impatient.  Loveable Burley Coulter will charm you, but avoids making commitments.

3.  Descriptions of sex.  Got your attention, eh?  When Wendell Berry writes about sex, it is appropriate, achingly beautiful and sparse.  My single friend pointed this out to me.  “But to know you love somebody, and to feel his desire falling over you like a warm rain, touching you everywhere, is to have a kind of light.”  “He would come to me as my guest, and I would be his welcomer.” “His hand knew her as a man knows his homeland.”  

4. Biblical concepts naturally integrated into prose.  As a pastor’s daughter, I grew up reading and listening to stories which had an obligatory gospel message tacked on to the last chapter.  That is where I stopped reading.  Not because I hated the gospel, but because it was artless.  Berry’s biblical allusions abound, but they are often so subtle I don’t catch them until the second or third reading. “I thought of all the times I’d worked in that field, hurrying to get through, to get to a better place, and it had been there all the time.  I can’t say I’ve always lived by what I learned that day-I wish I had-but I’ve never forgot.” “What?” Andy says.  “That it was there all the time.” “What?” “Redemption,” Mat says, and laughs. “A little flowing stream.”  

5. A sense of place.   This is what most reviewers mention first.  Respect for the land, ties to the land, geography all matter very much to Mr. Berry.  ” In the sweet by and by, We shall meet on that beautiful shore.  We all know what that beautiful shore is.  It is Port William with all its loved ones come home alive.”

6. Turns of phrase.  Wendell Berry is a master wordsmith.  When Andy met his wife to be: “He can see nothing wrong with her.  She has closed entirely the little assayer’s office that he runs in his mind.” “…observing scrupulously the etiquette of strangers”  An airplane engine: “a ludicrous hooferaw of noise and fire”

More of my thoughts on Wendell Berry.

Whenever I take a trip, I deliberate about which books I should bring.  Which is truly not necessary whenever I’m visiting my family.  Because there are always wonderful books waiting for me there.  This is the book that was waiting for me in Maine.  Like The Thirteenth Tale,  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a book whose author understands the allure of a reading life. 

The Channel Island of Guernsey was occupied by the Germans in WWII.  With no communication with the outside world allowed, a group of neighbors and friends in the closed community found great comfort in reading books together.  The book is epistolary – written as a series of letters between Juliet, a London journalist, and members of the Society, who tell their story after the war.   I found myself going back and checking, reading carefully to catch subtle details and hints.   

The most persuasive words are quotes from the book itself – no spoilers, I promise. 

This 2008 book is the perfect-for-fall, warm, easy read.  A few evenings of light-but-not-fluffy reading.  If this book were a food it would be a bowl of soup, perhaps butternut squash soup with a sprinkle of nutmeg. Thanks to you, my beloved sister-in-law Kathleen.  What percentage of my reading, I wonder, has been influenced by you? 

Addendum:  I’ve also described this as Huckleberry Pie reading: healthy sweet. 

Wonderfully strange things happen. 

I received a phone call from Lois in August. 

Although she had never called me, my phone number has been in her address book for over ten years.  That’s because sometime in the late ’90s I put an ad in our regional electric cooperative magazine requesting buttons. 

You wonder why I was looking for buttons. 

One of the clearest pictures in my mind of my mom is her sitting at the table, needle and thread perched between her lips, rifling through the button jar for a close match.  I decided to begin my own button jar, even though my mending abilities are severely limited.  A tiny memorial. 

Here’s the thing.  Lois has lived in Idaho for over fifty years; in August she moved to my small town in Oregon. She is 87.  (One year younger than my mom would be if she were still with us.)  Lois remembered that I lived here and called me up to see if I wanted to start a Two Person Button Club. 

Well…….yeah!

I was intrigued with Lois.  For one, she sounded great.  Having just been through a major life transition, she was moving forward and making new friends.  Not one hint of self-pity existed in her tone. 

Then we had an oops.  I had promised her I would call her back.  But I lost her name and phone number. Oops. I searched and searched to no avail.  What was left to do?  I really and truly prayed that she would call back.  And yesterday she did!

So this morning we had our first meeting of the Two Person Button Club.  Lois is lovely.  And I’m learning about a hitherto unknown sub-culture of buttons out there. Button clubs. Button books.  Button magazines. Even-brace yourself-Button Conventions.  I do not intend to attend the button conventions.   

But I had fun at the first meeting of the Two Person Button Club.  All the buttons shown are from Lois’s collection.
  

   

      

      

Another getting to know you post.

While I was in Maine our small town/small university hosted Joel Salatin as keynote speaker of the Oregon Rural Action Annual Convention.  Several friends went and I’m soaking up their reactions.  Katie, an honorary member of our family, typed up her notes and sent them to me. 

This bit grabbed me:

It took me back to an afternoon (I was probably 11 or 12) when my father patiently taught me how to cut up a chicken. Sharp knife and all.  I remember having to feel for the joints between the leg and body and the joints between the thigh and drumstick.  The hardest part to master, as I remember, was cutting down the middle to divide the back from the breast.  You had to honk down kind of hard to cut through the bone.

Sooooooo………..

Who knows how to cut up a chicken? (I have to admit, none of my children learned from me since we started eating boneless breasts.)  Note to myself: teach youngest son how to cut up a chicken.

How did you learn? 

Any stories out there?

Do tell!

File this under: “You Learn Something New Every Day.” 

I’m catching up on People and Places itching to get out of the “A” countries and into the “Bs”.  But the section on Australia is HUGE.

And next thing you know, I’m disabused of the notion that Waltzing Matilda is a nice woman on the outback.  Oh no! A waltzing matilda is an Australian hobo. 

Ay! 

A matilda is a blanket roll; to waltz matilda is to tramp the roads. 

The who knew? questions burns in my brain.  Tell me truly, did y’all know this already?

With Marilynne Robinson here. 

It is my lot in life to be the dissenter in tastes in books.  Earlier, when so many friends pressed Frank Peretti’s books in my palm with promises of enchantment, I had to tell them that, “no, I didn’t find them wonderful.”  Ditto all the apocalyptic pulp fiction of the last decade.  Shudder.  

In fact, I must confess, in a new circle of reader-friends that went bonkers praising Marilynne Robinson’s  Housekeeping, I felt like the one dissenting voice.  Granted the writing was good, but the storyline sure depressed me.  I found Gilead much easier to digest, but I didn’t go into paroxisms of joy over it.  These are two books, however, that I wonder if I should re-read someday and compare notes with my original reactions.

The Paris Review’s interview of Robinson has so many points worth printing out, pondering, discussing with my high school senior.  Much food for thought.    

P.S. – I came across this interview through a free weekly newsletter called Books & Culture.  You can subscribe here.   

You know how a conversation, like a good  book or a thoughtful movie, can remain at the top of your sub-conscious mind and pop up into your thoughts long after it has ended?

I can’t stop thinking about a remarkable young woman-my kids’ best friend- and her job as a deaf interpreter.  As we sipped chai and nibbled on naan, she explained how she sits in a cubicle with a web cam and screen and makes phone calls for deaf clients.  The client and interpreter can see each other through the web cams; she makes the phone call to the hearing person and speaks the words that are communicated through sign language.  Then she takes the spoken side of the conversation and translates it in sign language through the web cam back to the deaf person.

The calls can be casual requests, birthday greetings, or bad news. 

My friend, the mediator, is required to reflect the mood as well as the words of her client.  She has to make decisions on the spot for the right word, and interpret groanings that have no words.  She can let the silence speak for itself or explain, “Sir, your sister is sobbing right now…” 

Also the moods and words of the two parties may be very different.  The interpreter has to switch back and forth to accurately translate the conversation.  It is a job which requires intelligence, empathy, integrity, quick responses, decisiveness, flexibility. 

“It’s so incarnational,” I exclaimed.  “You become the caller, and faithfully represent that caller to the receiver.  You don’t take on flesh and blood, but you become his or her voice.  It’s really quite a Christ-like job.”

But after a couple of days, it dawned on me how very Holy-Spirit-ish it is.  Because so many times there are No Words.  Only groanings.  Only cries of the heart.   We fumble, mumble and stumble;  we trip over syllables trying to capture the words to speak our hearts. 

Oh my.  A job that reflects two persons of the Trinity.  That’s what I call a job from heaven.

Blessings,