Last week’s book response

Commenters on that post were entered into a drawing to win a copy of Cracking Up (except a few who said they already owned a copy). I wrote out each name and put them all in a straw hat. After shaking the names around, I held the hat above my second-eldest daughter’s head and asked her to pull one. She plucked a name from the hat, unfolded it and held it out for the witness, my husband, to read aloud. This is the name he read:

Ruth, of Island Potpourri.

Ruth, you won the book! Let’s chat about how I can get this to you. One idea: I fly to Jamaica to hand-deliver it? I’m only joking, but I would love to meet you in person, Ruth.

For those who don’t know, I got to know Ruth years ago through blogging, back when I hosted a project a few times a year called Mega Memory Month, encouraging people to work for a month to memorize longer chunks of Scripture, poetry, speeches. Ruth joined Mega Memory Month almost every time it rolled around, and we held each other accountable on our blogs by sharing progress reports.

Over the years, other bloggers with wider reach began to emphasize the importance of long-form memory work, so I retired Mega Memory Month and left the leadership of that discipline in the capable hands (and minds) of others. Even without Mega Memory Month to keep us on the same page, however, Ruth has continued to stay in touch, and I’m so glad.

Step into Ruth’s world through her stories and thoughtful reflections at Island Potpourri.

The post Winner of “Cracking Up” by Kimberlee Conway Ireton appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Each Wednesday I’ve been recording a Curiosity Journal to recap the previous week using these tag words: reading, playing, learning, reacting and writing.

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Reading

I read more of The Thinking Life: How to Thrive in the Age of Distraction, continuing to find lots of lines about slowing down.But it’s not only about making time to think. For example, I thought this portion was particularly applicable given my curiosity theme:

In this book on thinking, what I usually have in mind is critical thinking, the kind that is rational, informed, purposeful, and reflective, the kind that strives to remain bias-free and to arrive at logical conclusions. The critical thinker is an examiner of life, always alert, ready to pay attention, interested in everything, constantly asking, “Why?” and taking delight in the process of discovery. (Forni 7-8, emphasis mine)

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m interested in lots of things. I frequently ask “Why?” and take delight in the process of discovery. Several of my friends, however, are active doers who feel most satisfied having worked through a hefty to-do list. These doers are essential to keeping the world in motion. Their work is essential and valued, and I’m blessed that they support my intangible pursuits with love, humoring me and showing interest, even when I have accomplished little in a day outside of what transpired in my head and perhaps flowed through my fingers onto the page or screen.

Playing

I’m happy to inform you that I have a Words with Friends buddy. With practice, I’m playing a little smarter than I used to. And I’m learning obscure words. My favorite so far: “poods.”

Learning

This week, I’m beginning to read student research papers on the following topics:

• The Titanic (a focus on its rapid sinking)
• Alcatraz (focus is on The Great Escape)
• Sweat shops (focus on Bangladesh)
• PTSD (focus on PTSD developing in people directly affected by World Trade Center attacks)
• McDonald’s (how the company has had to adapt its American menu and restaurants to appeal to Indian culture)
• Concussions in football

I’m prepared to learn a lot.

Reacting

What about that Pinterest, eh? Just when I was getting in the swing of things, having a little fun pinning style, food and home ideas, I discover it’s at the center of copyright controversy.

Writing

I’m enjoying my work editing the “I Do” series at The High Calling. Today’s post by Ann Voskamp reflects on the doing of “I do.” She reminds us that daisies aren’t enough…and yet, the doing…those daily, thoughtful, sacrificial acts of love are essential to keeping love strong.

* * * * *

Credits: All images by Ann Kroeker. All rights reserved.Affiliate links included.Forni, P. M. The Thinking Life: How to Thrive in the Age of Distraction. St. Martin’s Press: New York, 2011. Print.

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The post Curiosity Journal: February 22, 2012 appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World

But first, the wrap-up.

Sanders makes a case for story trumping data when he quotes Flannery O’Connor, who admitted feeling, she said, “a certain embarrassment about being a storyteller in these times when stories are considered not quite as satisfying as statements and statements not quite as statistics…in the long run, a people is known, not by its statements or its statistics, but by the stories it tells” (157, 166).

“By what stories shall we be known?” Sanders muses (166).

What are we passing on? What content are we preserving on Facebook and blogs, in journals and memoirs? By what stories will this generation be known?

Sanders answers the question in part by telling his own stories. For example, he tells of returning to one of the places he lived when he was young. After revisiting old haunts, he ended up in a church, entering through an open back door. He observed the “squeaky pine boards of the floor,” child-sized tables used in Sunday school, and hooks where the choir would hang their robes. He continued:

Every few paces I halted, listening. The joints of the church cricked as the sun let it go. Birds fussed beyond the windows. But no one else was about; this relieved me, for here least of all was I prepared to explain myself. I had moved too long in circles where to confess an interest in religious things marked one as a charlatan, a sentimentalist, or a fool. No doubt I have all three qualities in my character. But I also have another quality, and that is an unshakable hunger to know who I am, where I am, and into what sort of cosmos I have been so briefly and astonishingly sprung. Whatever combination of shady motives might have led me here, the impulse that shook me right then was a craving to glimpse the very source of things. (190)

I always thought everyone shared that “unshakable hunger” to know who they are and where they are and from where they have been sprung.

But I have discovered that many people don’t relate to this. Perhaps they simply live in the moment without any desire to dig deeper into the soul or memory. Curious, they are not…at least, not about the past that makes the self. I, on the other hand, continually feel questions arise and want to find answers, seeking to know better who I am…and who I am becoming.

Aren’t we all becoming in the sense that we are always living yet another page in our story?

As we are busy living our stories, we aren’t necessarily telling our stories. When we venture to take on the role of a storyteller—an essential role, I believe—we add complicating layers. By revisiting our stories and reflecting on them, we can potentially affect the memories.

Sanders considers these layers and revisions and the tricks they can play on us. That visit of his to the tiny dot on the map known as Wayland represented the challenge of those layers:

There is more to be seen at any crossroads than one can see in a lifetime of looking. My return visit to Wayland was less than two hours long. Once again several hundred miles distant from that place, back here in my home ground making this model from slippery words, I cannot be sure where the pressure of mind has warped the surface of things. If you were to go there, you would not find every detail exactly as I have described it. How could you, bearing as you do a past quite different from mine? No doubt my memory, welling up through these lines, has played tricks with time and space…certain moments in one’s life cast their influence forward over all the moments that follow. My encounters in Wayland shaped me first as I lived through them, then again as I recalled them during my visit, and now as I write them down. That is of course why I write them down. The self is a fiction. I make up the story of myself with scraps of memory, sensation, reading, and hearsay. It is a tale I whisper against the dark. Only in rare moments of luck or courage do I hush, forget myself entirely, and listen to the silence that precedes and surrounds and follows all speech. (192-193)

It’s a bold statement to say that “the self is a fiction.” Is he right? Do we add to our story? Do we forget? Are we gently fabricating the self that we are, by telling ourselves a version of our past that makes the most sense, or sounds the best?

Do we fictionalize ourselves to the point of believing ourselves to have been far better, stronger, gentler, wiser, and funnier than witnesses would attest?

Or do we beat up on ourselves by fictionalizing and believing ourselves to have been far worse, weaker, harsher and more naive and blundering than witnesses would attest?

How can we revisit memories and tell our stories and understand ourselves in a way that is true, even if not 100 percent accurate?

Because who I am becoming flows out of who I have been. As a self, I would like to know the truth; as a storyteller, I would like to tell the truth.

All in order to continue becoming.

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Previous posts that discuss the book Staying Put:

Curiosity Journal: Geography of the Mind, Birdfeeders, Sarah Kay on Story and Mini Flash Mob

Curiosity Journal: Staying Put, Christmas Decor and Advent

Curiosity Journal: Extinct Green Parakeet, Puny Petunia, and First Snow

Curiosity Journal: November 16, 2011Curiosity Journal: November 9, 2011

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Note: This book is a title that I bought with my own money and selected from my personal library to read, enjoy and share briefly with you here. I was not compensated in any way by anyone nor did the publisher or author provide me with a complimentary review copy. My “reading” posts are not intended to be reviews; instead, I generally compose personal responses to passages from books I’m reading, focusing on the portions that I enjoy and pretty much ignoring sections with which I neither agree nor connect.Credits: all images by Ann Kroeker, all rights reserved.

Sanders, Scott Russell. Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993. Print. (Amazon Associates Link)

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The post Who We Are Becoming appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Each Wednesday (or Thursday, if I’m running late) I’m recording a Curiosity Journal to recap the past week. Tag words are: reading, playing, learning, reacting and writing.

:::

Some of you have mentioned that you’re keeping a Curiosity Journal, as well. Leave your link in the comments so that we can visit and enjoy your weekly review.

Reading

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I was using every spare moment to read student papers submitted for a writing class I’m facilitating: essays on Success and Failure based on a prompt created by SparkNotes. The class only meets once a week, so one of the ways I continue to teach is by embedding detailed evaluations directly into the text of their papers. It’s not the ideal way to offer input, but it’s better than nothing.On Monday, before diving into those papers, I managed to publish a response to a chapter in Mindfulness, the book I’ve been reading with The High Calling book club. I’ve mined no more than a few nuggets from this particular read, one of which I highlighted in that post.I also spent time last week reading through the word portraits composed in response to the Community Writing Project at The High Calling.

Playing

The current PhotoPlay prompt at The High Calling describes the use of contre-jour, or shooting against the light. Assistant Photo Editor Kelly Sauer‘s shots are always infused with light, creating a soft, soul-stirring glow. I longed to achieve that effect, but by the time I figured out how to change settings on my camera to let in more light, cloud cover and rain moved in. No sun. No light. No contre-jour.But during that first wave of playing around, I was able to capture this.It’s a start.Can’t wait for the sun to come out, so I can go out and play.

Learning

The other day my daughter came downstairs and mumbled that she felt funny all over. Achy. I swear I could see heat shimmering from her cheeks. While the rest of us went to co-op, she had to stay home, missing critical instruction.Before we left that morning, I asked, “Which class are you most concerned about?””Worldview,” she replied. “She’s going to explain everything we need to know about our papers, and I don’t want to mess mine up.””Anything else?””Well, maybe Algebra 2.”I should think so. It’s her most challenging subject.For Worldview, I plugged in my smartphone and set it next to one of the students, a fun and kind young man who is always eager to help. “Can this phone sit next to you and record the class?” I asked.”Sure!”I brought up the voice recorder and it rolled for the entire 1.5 hours. The student amused himself by leaning down and whispering things like, “Make sure you write this down. It’s important.” The young man happens to be quite attractive. When I brought home the recording for her that afternoon, I suspect she listened more attentively for the times he spoke directly to her.Then I had the brilliant idea of using Skype for Algebra 2. My daughter logged in at home and I logged in at co-op, setting my laptop on the table so that my daughter could listen to the lecture and take notes in real time.We dealt with minor glitches. For one, the class couldn’t hear my daughter; but she could hear the class, which is what mattered most. Also, she couldn’t see the board due to glare, but from what the teacher was saying and the students were asking, she understood the lesson.The next morning, her younger sister woke up with the same fever. Instead of having her skip or reschedule an Algebra 1 tutoring session scheduled that afternoon, I phoned the teacher and asked if she would consider trying Skype. She was willing. The teacher and my daughter met virtually, staying on track with her course work.

Reacting

On the ledge in our eating area sit bottles of sand and shells.On my dresser lies a smooth stick I lugged home from the Gulf of Mexico.In a glass bowl nearby, a collection of white rocks sifted from a dune.

As I look out the window next to my desk, sunlight struggles to penetrate cloud cover. We are given only a dull, lifeless, filtered gray-white.

I make tea as wind gusts fling branches.

I glance at my jars and try to imagine the feel of smooth white sand under bare feet, undulating surf curling in and skimming forward, leaving bubbly froth at my toes. I try from memory to hear the gulls and remember the silent, graceful pelicans gliding across the surface of the sea.

Then a rumble. The neighbor rolls his trash can up the driveway and into the garage. Someone flushes the upstairs toilet. I finish my tea and stare at the table for a moment before rinsing my cup.

Writing

I created the Community Writing Post summary for The High Calling on Wednesday, highlighting a couple of stories from the collection of word portraits that were composed. You can meet my grandmother.

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Credits: Question mark, jars of sand, and contre-jour photos copyright 2011 by Ann Kroeker.Langer, Ellen. Mindfulness. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1989. Print.

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The post Curiosity Journal: October 19, 2011 appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

“this is a pen,” “this is a rose,” “this is a card.” It is assumed that the pen must be recognized as a pen so that a person can get on with the business of writing…What if a number of ordinary household objects were introduced to a child in a conditional way: “This could be a screwdriver, a fork, a sheet, a magnifying class”? Would that child be more fit for survival on a desert island (when the fork and screwdriver could double as tent pegs for the sheet, near a fire made by the magnifying glass)? (Langer 124)

I didn’t have to teach my kids that a pen was only a pen or a magnifying glass was only used to look at items up close. They quickly realized they could use a capped pen as a DS stylus and a magnifying glass to catch the sun and burn a hole in a piece of paper. When my kids were little, I would find pieces from board games mingling with Playmobil and money from Monopoly in a cash register that they used to play “store.” It drove me crazy; the banker was always short of money when playing Life and we never did locate all the jewelry from Pretty Pretty Princess when they merged it with their dress-up collection.But they were learning to make-do and solve problems. I sometimes wish I’d insisted they leave the board games intact, but I would soften as I watched them think—literally—outside the box, making new associations and spotting creative uses for all those plastic bits and pieces.Years ago, our friends had a cool set of nylon tunnels that could flip open for little kids to crawl through.After visiting their house and rolling around in those tunnels, our kids remarked that they’d love to have some tunnels, too. We didn’t buy any. Instead, our kids used clothespins to attach sheets to the couch and chairs for a makeshift tunnel that later morphed into a fort filled with pillows.They did so because they knew that big piece of material could be a sheet.Or it could be a tunnel.Or it could be a fort.Or it could be a cape. Or a toga. Or a cover for the bird cage. Or a tablecloth for the picnic table. Or an ocean for stuffed animals to sail across.

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I’m linking to The High Calling Book Club this week, as they work their way through Mindfulness, by Ellen Langer.Credits: Forks and clothespins by Ann Kroeker. Milk Crates Stacked by limonada (Emilie Eagan), used with permission.

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The post Could Be appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Each Wednesday I’m recording a Curiosity Journal to recap the past week. Tag words are: reading, playing, learning, reacting and writing.

:::

Some of you have mentioned that you’re keeping a Curiosity Journal, as well. Leave your link in the comments so that we can visit and enjoy your weekly review.

Reading

I requested from the library The High Calling‘s book club selection, Mindfulness, by Ellen Langer. When I picked it up, I read a few pages, intrigued. Later, I retold from memory one of the stories to my family. It goes something like this:Imagine you hear the doorbell ring at two o’clock in the morning. Surprised, you stumble downstairs and open the door. Standing before you is a man wearing two diamond rings and a long fur coat. You glance behind him to see a Rolls Royce parked in the driveway.He apologizes for bothering you at this time of night, explaining that he is on a scavenger hunt. To win the game, he needs a piece of wood three feet by seven feet. Could you supply him with this last item on the list? To sweeten the deal, he offers you $10,000 in exchange for the wood.You wrack your brain thinking of a solution, because you know that nothing of that size is stored in the garage or shed. You think of the lumber yard, but it wouldn’t be open at this time of night. Finally you give up and apologize for not having what he needs, and the man drives off.The next day you’re driving through a construction site and see a three foot by seven foot piece of wood leaning against the brick exterior. You could kick yourself. That piece of wood…is a door. You could have plucked any door in your house from its hinges and given it to the man, take his $10,000, and drive to Lowes the next day to buy a replacement door for $50.Why on earth couldn’t you think of that piece of wood the night before? Well, other than the fact that you were probably groggy and not thinking clearly, it may have been that the night before, that piece of wood was stuck in a category known as “door.”Lumping things in categories helps us make sense of the world. Categories help us organize and compare; they help simplify decisions and thought processes, which is helpful for certain activities like grocery shopping, for example. But they also trap us into narrow thinking sometimes, limiting the way we view people or even possible solutions to various problems. Being willing and able to think outside categories can help us live more creative, respectful, innovative lives. Langer would say that relying on categories at times when we need to stretch our thinking is a kind of “mindlessness.”This story is making me, well, think.

Playing

After reading this post by Michael Hyatt on how to organize Evernote, I started to play around with the program to organize bits of information, cross country schedules, travel itineraries and packing lists.Now I’m hooked.

Learning

Thanks to the book by Langer, I’m learning how to engage my mind instead of shuffling through life without really thinking creatively or attentively.

Reacting

For one brief, shining moment, my e-mail inbox was completely empty. I was overcome by a sense of glorious freedom.Now, however, I have 24 unread e-mails waiting for me. No, wait…25.

Writing

As you can imagine, to empty my inbox, I was writing a lot of e-mails, many filled with lavish apologies for my belated response. I think one had been sitting there since March.

:::

Credits: question mark photo copyright 2011 by Ann Kroeker.

There’s always more to come: subscribe to Ann Kroeker by e-mail

Want to slow down in our fast-paced world? Check out Not So Fast.

“Like” me on Facebook.

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The post Curiosity Journal: Sept. 28, 2011 appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Each Wednesday I’m recording a Curiosity Journal to recap the past week. Tag words are: reading, playing, learning, reacting and writing.

:::

Some of you have mentioned that you’re keeping a Curiosity Journal, as well. Leave your link in the comments so that we can visit and enjoy your weekly review.

Reading

Currently in the One-Year Bible, I’m in Isaiah, and a lot of its message is difficult, even harsh.

But there is hope. The reading includes Isaiah 30:15, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”

I sip coffee. In returning and rest…in quietness and trust.

Filtered morning sunlight manages to push through the clouds and brighten my mug, my Bible. The quiet will end soon. Kids will slam drawers and doors, stick bread in the toaster, flip on the radio, pour cereal, and open and shut the fridge twenty-five to thirty times.

I want to linger here, before the noise builds; I want to live a life of quiet trust, even as problems present themselves. I think of this as I set my mug on the counter and carry the Bible to my desk. I’m relocating my stuff, because the kids have arrived. Plates of buttered raisin bread and bowls of frosted shredded mini-wheat thunk against the table. Milk sloshes over the rim of a bowl. Spoons ping and clink against ceramic. The kids and I discuss the day’s schedule. We pray.

This moment of quiet and attitude of trust is temporary, because soon a disagreement will break out about whose turn it is to unload the dishwasher. But it is good while it lasts. And I think about it later, when I begin to feel agitated by scheduling challenges and an awkward conversation with a family member.

Return and rest, I remind myself. Return and rest.

Playing

My son misplaced Bananagrams for a long time, but found it recently while searching for a green T-shirt that he’d also misplaced. The shirt was discovered inside-out and crumpled next to a chair in the corner of his bedroom. Apparently the bag of Bananagram tiles was nearby.

We’ve been playing. I actually stopped momentarily mid-game to snap this. Those of you familiar with Bananagrams knows how risky it is to interrupt one’s focus.

After a few more “peels,” a moment when players draw another tile, I successfully rearranged and repositioned letters to form new words, but a late acquisition tripped me up: “J.” Given a little more time, I could have juggled things and made it fit, but one of my daughters was too fast. She used up all of her tiles.

No more to draw from. Game over.

Learning

One of my daughters is in a government class. She’s about to study how a bill becomes a law, which will be fully explained in her textbook; but I’m thinking, What better explanation than this?

This more serious resource is helpful for quizzing how well a student (or adult) understands the Constitution.

Reacting

Two weekends ago, our cross country team ran in a well-organized invitational held at a community park. The course wove through some woods and down a little rolling hill and around a soccer field. One section was kind of confusing because the runners had to circle around a section twice, but the organizers sent parents from each team to direct athletes. In addition, a man on a bicycle rode in front of the lead runner to show the way.

No one got lost.

Last weekend, the team participated in another invitational. Start time was delayed so that by the time everyone gathered, the host wasn’t willing to take teams on a course tour. He started pointing. “Oh, it’s so simple,” he said. “You just go around that tree over there, loop around there two times, then the third time you go around there and run down that way around the playground and come back up this way and go down that way…” and so on. He concluded, “It’s easy. So easy. We don’t need to do a tour. It’s clearly marked—just follow the arrows.”

No cyclist led the way. No parents directed the runners to loop around the playground two times or pointed them through the woods. The starter shot the gun, and the runners were off, on their own, following the arrows best they could.

They got off course.

They lost their way.

It was heartbreaking to witness their long strides and the determination on their faces, only to realize that something was “off”; their times couldn’t possibly be as fast as those I was clocking.

It turned out that in spite of their hard work, their strong performance, their grit and excitement, most were disqualified. If you don’t run the course, your time doesn’t count.

How do I know, in life, if I’m on the right course? How do we avoid racing off in the wrong direction?

I think of Isaiah again, same passage as earlier:

And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. (30:21)

Better than a bicycle leading the way—a voice from behind saying, “This is the way, walk in it.”

Writing

Lesson plans.

E-mails.

Journal entries.

Blog posts.

:::

Credits:

All photos copyright 2011 by Ann Kroeker.

The post Curiosity Journal: Sept. 21, 2011 appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

By the time I was 13 or 14 years old, I realized the children’s department couldn’t provide the depth of information I craved. Shyly, I began browsing the adult nonfiction shelves for exercise books, vegetarian cookbooks, step-by-step drawing tutorials, and a series that taught survival skills, in case I ever acted on my dream of living by myself in the woods, like the kid in My Side of the Mountain.

One afternoon I glanced through books on writing. A title caught my eye: Write to Discover Yourself.

I looked both ways and plucked it from the shelf, running my fingers over the green cover with the fuchsia gerbera daisy poking out of a cup of pencils. It was a little cheesy, but…

Write. Discover.

I desperately wanted to understand myself and unearth who I was meant to become. And deep down, I wanted to write.

Cheeks flushed, heart thumping, I tucked the book under my arm to hide the title from anyone who might question my right to write or ridicule my search for self.I feared my family’s response most of all. In a household of word-people—both parents were journalists and my brother would eventually become an advertising executive—I was the vegetarian runner who asked for art supplies at Christmas. Compared with my family, I had never demonstrated noteworthy writing talent. I lost every game of Scrabble, and at that point, my latest story was about a ladybug in search of a home.

Me? Write?

Yes, I resolved. I would quietly write to “discover myself.”

This became my secret. I retreated to my room, scribbling responses to the author’s writing exercises in spiral-bound notebooks that I would stuff deep into my closet so that no one would peek.

I kept a journal and followed instructions to “portrait” the important people in my life, exploring memories, capturing life.

I sat on the wooden floor of my upstairs bedroom scratching out a word-portrait of my father, struggling to express the way his resonant voice, rising from deep within his barrel chest, could build and fill—even shake—the entire house. Or was it just me, shaking? On page after page of the book, the author encouraged me to continue being specific, to use concrete details and metaphor. On page after page of my notebooks, I poured out stories from my little world.

Digging into yourself requires a depth of honesty that is painful, she said, but imperative (Vaughn 25). She quoted a professor who said that a writer “is the person with his skin off” (24). This is how I began to decipher my life—on the pages of a journal, I wrote with my skin off: bare, raw, vulnerable.

My journalist-parents didn’t write like that, nor did my quick-witted brother. At least, I was pretty sure they didn’t.

Of my family, I alone seemed to practice this private outpouring of words and deeply personal stories that would form a base for future work. With the help of a stumbled-upon writing book, I privately peeled back layers to stare at my heart, my soul. And I began, through practice, through pain, through prayer, the lifelong process of finding myself.

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Work Cited

Vaughn, Ruth. Write to Discover Yourself. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1980. Print. (currently out of print)

Note: this post contains affiliate links.

______________________________________

Is your writing life all it can be?

Let this book act as your personal coach, to explore the writing life you already have and the writing life you wish for, and close the gap between the two.

“A genial marriage of practice and theory. For writers new and seasoned. This book is a winner.”

—Phil Gulley, author of Front Porch Tales

The post Write to Discover and Decipher Life appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Each Wednesday I’m recording a Curiosity Journal to recap the past week. Tag words are: reading, playing, learning, reacting and writing.

:::

Some of you have mentioned that you’re keeping a Curiosity Journal, as well. Leave your link in the comments so that we can visit and enjoy your weekly review.

Reading

A few months ago I saw a book titled The Sacredness of Questioning Everything. Intrigued, I thought I should order it—after all, a book about questioning seems appropriate for a person who keeps a Curiosity Journal. But the thought skipped past, and I failed to act on it.Some time later I learned that an author named David Dark was leading a session at the Laity Lodge Writers’ Retreat. I had never heard of David Dark, but, boy, did I love his name! Sounds like the alter ego of some comic book hero who transforms from local television news reporter to powerful, shadowy superhero that swooshes in unnoticed to confound a villain and foil his dastardly plans.Turns out David Dark is a writer of Christian nonfiction.Of course, that might just be his cover: nonfiction author by day, unstoppable superhero by night.Anyway, I finally put it together that David Dark authored The Sacredness of Questioning Everything, which I did, at last, order.Meanwhile, a couple of days ago, while leafing through my daughter’s college reading material, I spotted a quote from that very book, where Dark claims, “Show me a transcript of the words you’ve spoken, typed or texted in the course of a day, an account of your doing, and a record of your transactions, and I’ll show you your religion” (David Dark, as quoted by Jeff Cramer).David Dark, who was completely unknown to me a month or so ago, has practically become a household name.

Playing

I forgot to post pictures from the birthday boy’s gathering a couple of weekends ago. Our friends bought him Blokus.A game suitable for a wide range of ages.While four people played Blokus, our youngest guest unearthed some toy handcuffs and latched one cuff around his mom’s wrist. Click. He attached the other to the chair. Click.Ha-ha-ha. His mom was momentarily handcuffed to a spindle of the chair, until, at her request, he released the cuff attached to the chair with the click of a button. The other cuff, however, remained snug against her wrist.Ha-ha…uh-oh.The click-of-a-button didn’t release the second cuff. It was stuck. She said she wasn’t nervous, but after her husband, a scientist, and the Belgian Wonder, an all-around problem-solver, fiddled with it for twenty-five minutes without success, I felt nervous.The two men worked together, offering theories as to why it happened and suggestions for how to jigger it loose. Eventually, they figured out its mechanism, so the Belgian Wonder used pliers to turn a lever while the scientist poked a skinny, sharp tool into a tiny hole to trigger a broken release button.The cuff popped open.But not before leaving its mark.

Learning

I’m learning never to leave broken toy handcuffs out where a six-year-old boy can get his hands on them—his first thought, of course, is to snap them around someone’s hands, which will immediately alter the mood of any gathering.Also—and this is an aside, but—never ever brag about what a good dog you own. That day or the next will be the day he does something very naughty, or very gross.And that’s all I have to say about that.

Reacting

My first progressive lenses are leaving me feeling a little dizzy…and a little old.

Writing

Charity’s call to become masterful intrigues me. Unsure how to proceed, but considering ideas.Come to think of it, I’m invited to submit 1000-2000 words of a complete essay or a work in progress to my Writer’s Retreat workshop leader, so I suppose I should start there. The session is on memoir and the deadline looms.Yes, I should begin immediately.

:::

Credits:Cramer, Jeff. “Keeping Technology in Context.” Computing & Culture-Applications & Context. Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2011. Print.All photos copyright 2011 by Ann Kroeker.Note: This post contains Amazon affiliate links.

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The post Curiosity Journal: Sept. 7, 2011 (David Dark, Blokus, handcuffs, aging, masterful memoir) appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Each Wednesday I’m recording a Curiosity Journal, a recap of the past week. Tag words are: reading, playing, learning, reacting and writing.

:::

Some of you have mentioned that you’re keeping a Curiosity Journal, as well. Leave your link in the comments so that we can visit and enjoy your weekly review.

Reading

Now that home-school classes have begun, I find that I’ll be devoting several chunks of my week to reading and commenting on student papers. With only six kids in High School Composition, however, I can give their work close attention and provide what I hope to be valuable input.In our family, the kids and I are starting to read aloud Anna and the King, by Margaret Landon, and A Praying Life, by Paul E. Miller. We selected Anna and the King because the Belgian Wonder’s great-grandparents were missionaries in Siam and became acquainted with the author (I have yet to sort through those details, but that’s the bottom line). Reading the book seemed like a fun way for my kids to become familiar with a place that is woven into their heritage.

Playing

Soccer season has begun.Some of us play; some of us chat. Some of us snap pictures or cheer; and a lot of us relax and read.

Learning

My son signed up to run with the middle school home-school cross country team this year. Though he’s one of the youngest runners, he said he wanted to try. When those first practices started up in the sweltering weeks of late July, he slipped on his running shoes and shorts, stuck on a cap, and came out to log a few miles with the team.But he’s slow. So slow, in fact, that he’s often passed by people walking. And he complains a lot. And as the season has progressed, he sometimes just quits halfway through the practice and sits on a bench, chatting with the moms.One day, when I was frustrated at his complaining, I told him that there’s a place inside all of us, a spot, that we all have to draw from.”What’s that spot?” he asked.”It’s the ‘I-don’t-want-to-do-it-but-I’ll-do-it-anyway’ spot. You won’t learn about it in anatomy class, and it’s not a very good name—doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue—but it’s a very important spot.”He nodded.”You have to draw from that spot for homework, for chores, and you really have to draw from it for cross country practice.””My spot is reeeeeeeally tiny,” he said.”I know,” I said, nodding. “It’s very small, but it can get bigger. And the great thing is that every time you do something you don’t want to do, it gets a little bit bigger.””It’s just a teeeeny-tiny sesame seed,” he said, holding his finger and thumb together so that they almost touched.”But if you go out and do the whole workout,” I assured him, “the spot will get a little bit bigger, and then the next time you have to do something you don’t want to do, it’ll be a tiny bit easier.””No, it’s a poppyseed,” he interrupted, trying to land on the best metaphor.”So,” I continued, “are you going to finish the workout today without complaining? Because I guarantee you that not one of these runners wants to go out and run two miles in the hot sun, but they’re going to do it anyway, and they aren’t going to complain about it.””Their spots must be huge!” he said.”Not necessarily. But their spots will be a little bigger when they’re done, that’s for sure.”He agreed to finish the workout, and he did it with only minimal complaints. After, he announced, “I think it’s a sesame seed now. It went from a poppyseed to a sesame seed.””That’s progress,” I said. “Good job.”Weeks have passed, and some practices go better than others. The other night, we were running around a track, one hundred meters fast/one hundred meters slow, for a minimum of eight laps. It was tough, but the air temperature was cool and tall trees offered lots of late-afternoon shade. My son did six laps and was threatening to quit. The last few runners were coming in, and the assistant coach was passing out team shirts. I had told my son earlier that if he didn’t do the workouts, he wouldn’t get a shirt.”Am I going to get a shirt, Mama?” he asked as he rounded the curve and came up to where the team was grabbing water bottles and cooling down.I moved close to him, so the others wouldn’t hear. “You’ve done some of the workouts, but remember at the park last week? You just ran a little bit and gave up. So, no. You aren’t putting in enough miles to run a meet, so there’s no reason for you to have a shirt.””I’ll finish the workout tonight! I’ll do two more laps!””You have to do the fast 100s fast. And you’ll have to do every workout between now and the first meet or you won’t be ready.””I’ll do it!” he exclaimed, taking off like a flash. I watched him go around, and he was really working. I realized that up until that night, he’d never really pushed himself; but right then, he was moving along strong. When he completed the final lap, he came in breathing hard, sweating.”Now that was a workout!” I said. “That’s what it feels like to run. You actually look flushed and sweaty, like you pushed yourself.””Can I…get…a shirt?” he asked between intakes of breath.I hesitated, not knowing if he’d done enough to pull off a meet. But there he was in front of me, heart pounding after earnest aerobic effort, walking around a little to cool down. His fast-twitch muscles were probably twitching for the first time, in a good way.Even though the shirts are overpriced, and even though he has a long way to go, I said yes. “Yes, you can have a shirt.”He clapped his hands and the assistant coach handed him an adult small, which was a little bit big, but not too bad. He pulled it on over his T-shirt. When his head popped through, he was grinning big.I was talking with two parents when he strode over and stated, “Tonight, I think the spot inside of me has grown to the size of a volleyball!“Then he skipped back to his sisters.The two moms looked at me funny. I grinned. “I suppose I should explain about the volleyball-sized spot?”

Reacting

The writing class I’m facilitating is going to be challenging at times, but I guess I’m going to draw from that spot inside of me and just do it. My spot’s pretty big, I think. Maybe the size of a soccer ball.

Writing

Though much of my writing has been prep work for the class, my part is mostly done. Now it’s up to the students to do the writing and revision.And I can get back to a writing schedule and rhythm of my own.I’d like to be a more reliable blogger and contribute to The High Calling more often.I did write a little post for Writer…Interrupted about families and scheduling.I’ll leave you with a shot of the soccer fields I mentioned in that piece. This shows the line of trees where the children pick up nuts.

:::

Credits:Question mark image: “Question Proposed” photo by Ethan Lofton. Used under a Creative Commons license via Flickr.com.”Litchfield Track” by Jamison A. Kissh. Used with permission via Flickr.All other photos copyright 2011 by Ann Kroeker.Note: This post contains Amazon affiliate links.

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The post Curiosity Journal: August 31, 2011 appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Each Wednesday (except this week, when I missed my deadline) I’m recording a Curiosity Journal, a recap of the past week. Tag words are: reading, playing, learning, reacting and writing.

:::

Some of you have mentioned that you’re keeping a Curiosity Journal, as well. Leave your link in the comments so that we can visit and enjoy your weekly review.

Reading

The July 28 entry in My Utmost for His Highest:

What we call the process, God calls the end…His purpose is that I depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay in the middle of the turmoil calm and unperplexed, that is the end of the purpose of God. God is not working towards a particular finish; His end is the process–that I see Him walking on the waves, no shore in sight, no success, no goal, just the absolute certainty that it is all right because I see Him walking on the sea…God’s end is to enable me to see that He can walk on the chaos of my life just now. If we have a further end in view, we do not pay sufficient attention to the immediate present: if we realize that obedience is the end, then each moment as it comes is precious. (Chambers 152-153)

This has helped me gain perspective in the midst of a massive traffic jam, patiently await the conclusion of a complicated business issue that has stretched out unresolved all summer, and accept various symptoms and flare-ups of a prolonged respiratory ailment. If I can stay in the middle of the turmoil calm and unperplexed, with absolute certainty that it is all right because I see Him walking on the chaos of my life just now, that is the end of the purpose of God. When I realize that obedience is the end, then each moment as it comes is precious.I’ve also been reading Breath for the Bones (not “Bones for the Breath,” which I learned from an Amazon search equates to doggie dental treats). As I look ahead to the chapter “Beginning with Journal Writing,” I see how critical it is as a writer—as a human being in this moment, in this place, in this world at this time—to capture sounds, colors, images, conversations, and follow them where they may lead. This is how I can go back and recreate a scene or interaction to tell the story rich with detail. This is how I can preserve and process life.Luci Shaw quoted Henri Nouwen as saying, “Writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals what is alive…The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know” (Shaw 95).I must start writing and see where it leads, asking for the Holy Spirit to direct my steps and then pay attention, following His lead.Luci also quoted William Saroyan, “The task of the writer is to create a rich, immediate, usable past” (Shaw 96). Where and who I’ve been can be right here with me, in my journal, in my blog posts, in any personal narrative writing project.Luci describes a consistent, personal journal as a form of prayer, as the words poured out on the blank white pages “can free us, nudging us into the kind of confidence in the process that eases our way into writing as a way of discovering and articulating who we are before God” (Shaw 96). I have experienced this. Many of my journal entries slip from straight narrative or questions into prayer. This is why I am shy for people to peek, for how personal it can be.But it’s also a lively spot where the creative process unfolds; where I explore early project ideas. As Luci points out, in a journal we see how where we’ve come from and how we’ve grown.I’m glad to have bought the blank book with white pages, no lines. Just space. I can position the book vertically or horizontally, I can write diagonally or in swirls. I can doodle. I can make lists. I can jot phone numbers in a little unused corner of the page with sermon notes. It can be messy or organized; creative or ordinary. I can be any of those things at any given moment—why not have my journal serve as a true reflection of my curious, creative, messy, multifaceted self?

Playing

Haven’t played Bananagrams since we returned from vacation, but my family and I sure have enjoyed playing with photography. Will you humor me with a little slide show of sorts, a photo album, of our week of family camp? Despite all my talk of detailed journal-keeping and how that leads to powerful storytelling, I’ll spare you narrative and let the photos tell the story.

Learning

At family camp, I sat on one of the Adirondack chairs to talk photography with my friend, award-winning photographer Bill Vriesema, someone who knows the craft well. I learn so much from him, not only during these impromptu discussions, but also by enjoying and studying his images and reading how he approaches his work.

Reacting

My health status makes for riveting entries under “reacting.” Seems my respiratory system is always reacting for better or worse to something: allergies, exercise, medication, infection. For example, the doctor thinks that the sinus infection reacted well to the antibiotics but aggravated asthma. The result? Coughing spasms that sounded like a crackling bonfire was aflame in my lungs. Doctor has me taking more stuff. So far, so good. Coughing is calmed. For now.

Writing

Writing in my journal, per Luci’s inspiration.And here.Works Cited:

• Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest. Westwood, NJ: Barbour and Company, Inc., 1963. Print.
• Shaw, Luci. Breath for the Bones: Art, Imagination, and Spirit. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2007. Print.
• Question mark image: “Question Proposed” photo by Ethan Lofton. Used under a Creative Commons license via Flickr.com.
• Butterfly and sparkling water w/rock photos by N. Kroeker, used with permission. Cove, lamp and Ann-leaning-on-post photos by P. Kroeker, used with permission. All other photos by Ann Kroeker. All copyright 2011.

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The post Curiosity Journal: August 4, 2011 appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Each Wednesday I’m recording a Curiosity Journal, a recap of the past week. Tag words are: reading, playing, learning, reacting and writing.

:::

Some of you have mentioned that you’re keeping a Curiosity Journal, as well. Leave your link in the comments so that we can visit and enjoy your weekly review.

Reading

The next two chapters in Breath for the Bones by Luci Shaw talked about metaphor and story. About story, she wrote:

As a Christian, I believe that life has meaning, that we are heading somewhere. And as an artist, a poet, I believe in giving voice and picture—record—to that meaning (Shaw 56)Story has the power to grasp bits of the past and carry them into the imaginative present, rescuing us from the pitfalls of abstraction. (57)Every time we tell a story or write a poem or compose an essay, we give chaos a way of reintegrating into order; we reverse entropy; pattern and meaning begin to overcome randomness and decay. (58)So why tell stories? To create readiness, to nudge people toward receptive insight. (61)

After citing all of those quotes, I feel that I ought to tell a story. But Luci set a high standard—at the moment I can’t think of anything worthy or capable of creating “readiness” or nudging people “toward receptive insight.”As an editor at The High Calling, however, I am pleased to work with powerful storytellers like Jennifer Dukes Lee, who wrote a charming personal narrative that will go live today at 8:00 a.m. ET. Since she first told me about it, 1980s hits by The Police and Duran Duran have been spinning in my head. More personally, I’ve been thinking back to that era of my life when I was dreaming of the future, wondering: With whom will I spend it? And here I am, living out that future with someone who was a dreamy mystery circa 1983. While I tuned into “Every Breath You Take” on my boom box, the man I dreamed about heard it on a car radio and speakers he rigged up in his attic bedroom in Belgium.Decades later, we might listen to U2 together. Or, if I’m lucky, I’ll get him to sit through part of Prairie Home Companion.

Playing

After composing numerous Curiosity Journals, this may be the first time I can report that I played an actual game!And I’m hooked.I played Bananagrams, a word game something like a board-less Scrabble or a simultaneous and complex version of Boggle that frees younger spellers to make words that they know how to spell while allowing adults as much challenge as needed to remain competitive and engaged.Each player uses their own tiles to build a combination of words, adding on as more tiles are drawn.I only won once, but that was enough to convince me to play more often.

Learning

Things I have either learned or been reminded of this week:

• In extreme heat, window boxes must be soaked at least once a day. Better yet, twice.
• When I have a sinus infection, it’s best not to run three miles in extreme heat.
• French braids just don’t work well on a 40-something-year-old mom…at least, that’s what my teen daughters have told me while stifling giggles.
• The garden wouldn’t be a jungle if I weeded more often.
• Cucumbers hide well under their own shady foliage.
• Cucumbers can grow really big.
• The Belgian Wonder makes really good coffee.

Reacting

When I felt like my head was jam-packed with rotting compost and a boggy swamp was collecting behind my ear drums—in addition to the lingering cough—I decided it was time to visit the doctor again. She agreed I probably had a sinus infection, and when she listened to my lungs with the stethoscope, she murmured, “I don’t like the sound of that.” I’d already had an X-ray a month ago that came back negative for pneumonia, but she “didn’t like the sound of it” because I still wheezed and crackled when I breathed out during the examination, the clatter emanating more from one lung than the other. I didn’t like the sound of it, either, but I’ve been hearing it since April, so I’m getting used to it.Anyway, she put me on an antibiotic. The pills are almost gone and things seem to have improved. I can hear and breathe better, which is certainly handy. When I speak, I still sound like I’m pinching my nose, but that’s improving, as well. I hope that when I take the last dose and continue to rest, everything dries up and disappears.

Writing

Hey, look! Another blog post!(That’s about all I can point to in the writing category.)Works Cited:

• Shaw, Luci. Breath for the Bones: Art, Imagination, and Spirit. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2007. Print.
• Images: “Question Proposed” photo by Ethan Lofton. Used under a Creative Commons license via Flickr.com.

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Want to slow down in our fast-paced world? Check out Not So Fast.

“Like” me on Facebook.

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The post Curiosity Journal: July 27, 2011 appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Each Wednesday I’m recording a Curiosity Journal, a recap of the past week. Tag words are: reading, playing, learning, reacting and writing.

:::

Some of you have mentioned that you’re keeping a Curiosity Journal, as well. Leave your link in the comments so that we can visit and enjoy your weekly review.

Reading

I copied this down from Steven Pressfield’s quick read, The War of Art (he said he learned it from Robert McKee):

“A hack, he says, is a writer who second-guesses his audience. When the hack sits down to work, he doesn’t ask himself what’s in his own heart. He asks what the market is looking for…He writes what he imagines will play well in the eyes of others. He does not ask himself, What do I myself want to write? What do I think is important? Instead he asks, What’s hot, what can I make a deal for?” (Pressfield 152)

Even though it might pay off, Pressfield warns against creating content solely to please “the market.””Given the depraved state of American culture,” he says, “a slick dude can make millions being a hack. But even if you succeed, you lose, because you’ve sold out your Muse, and your Muse is you, the best part of yourself, where your finest and only true work comes from” (Pressfield 152-153).I don’t believe in the ancient muses, nor do I feel it’s an accurate description of the best part of me; however, when I sit down to write, I do pay attention to what’s in my heart and I want to offer my “finest and only true work.”If I may be so bold, though, I would go a step further than Pressfield and suggest that, as someone who belongs to Christ, I sense that my best work is a result of connecting with the Lord. I long to live my life interacting intimately with the Savior so that my heart naturally overflows with the good stuff of that relationship.On July 11, I read Oswald Chambers’ thoughts in My Utmost for His Highest:

“The Holy Spirit is determined that we shall realize Jesus Christ in every domain of life, and He will bring us back to the same point again and again until we do. Self-realization leads to the enthronement of work; whereas the saint enthrones Jesus Christ in his work.”

I want to “realize” Jesus Christ in my writing, enthroning Him in my work.That theology puts into perspective the self-realization and self-help ideas found in How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day, by Michael J. Gelb.I’m enjoying that book, but I mentally adjust the assignments and suggestions to line up with “realizing Jesus Christ in every domain of life.” I’m still in the section entitled, “Curiosità: An Insatiably Curious Approach to Life and an Unrelenting Quest for Continual Learning” (Gelb 48).I did purchase a blank book to serve as a Leonardo-style journal. I’m happy with its functionality as I record quotations and confessions, questions and ideas, prayers and petitions, passages of prose and stanzas of poetry. I was also struck that Leonardo, in his final days, was reportedly filled with repentance and apologized to “God and man for leaving so much undone.” (38)Lord, help us all to explore our potential every day…to stay open and pay attention to Your inspiration; take risks; and see things through to completion, faithfully doing a little (or a lot) every day.

Playing

Well, I took the kids to the pool a couple of times.And I’m enjoying snapping more pictures, playing around with my camera.

Learning

A post by Joshua Leatherman published at Michael Hyatt’s blog caught my eye: “How to Use Batching to Become More Productive.” Batching, Leatherman explains, is “dedicating blocks of time to similar tasks in order to decrease distraction and increase productivity.”He cites a Harvard Business Review blog post in which the author claims our productivity goes down by 40 percent when we try to multitask. Technically, we aren’t doing several things at once when we multitask; rather, we are rapidly switching from one task to another. This switching back and forth interrupts our productivity.Batching as a productive alternative to multitasking seems like an easy switch. Using a timer to dedicate a unit of time (25 minutes is recommended) to a particular task, Leatherman and the Pomodoro folks (coined the “Pomodoro” Technique for the tomato-shaped timer that the Italian creator utilized the first time he organized his work in blocks of time) claim we can get more done by staying focused and minimizing the distractions of e-mails and phone calls—that’s because those smaller tasks can be grouped into 25-minute units all their own.Leatherman recommends the Pomodoro Technique:

Here’s how it works:

1. Plan and prioritize the tasks that need to be completed, by writing them down.
2. Set a timer for for 25 minutes and devote that time to a task, or to a group of similar tasks. Larger tasks can be broken into multiple blocks or “pomodoro’s,” and smaller tasks (responding to email, returning phone calls, etc) can be grouped into a single block. After completing each Pomodoro, you put an “X” next to it and mark the number of times that you were distracted.
3. Take a 5 minute break.
4. Begin another block of time or “pomodoro.”
5. After completing 4 pomodoro’s, take an extended 20 minute break.

According to the Pomodoro website, you should see noticeable improvements in your productivity almost immediately and mastery of the technique in 7–20 days.

Working from home, I feel that I can only chip away at tasks and to-do lists due to interruptions and distractions. Batching—dedicating a small chunk of time to a particular task—seems like a simple, reasonable solution to try. I hope to report back next week with impressive results.(If you want to try the Pomodoro Technique but don’t have a cute tomato-shaped kitchen timer to keep you on track, turn up your computer speakers and try this online countdown timer.)

Reacting

Indiana has dropped cursive writing from its public school curriculum.Is cursive handwriting obsolete in a high-tech world? Individuals and experts have been reacting to this news story, offering their thoughts and opinions. I didn’t scour the Internet for too many, but did note one in the print version of the Wall Street Journal entitled “The Handwriting is on the Wall.” The author reflected on his inky childhood and several handwritten assignments and tests that Indiana schoolchildren will never have the pleasure of enduring. What struck me most was his conclusion:

When I scrawled and blotted and smudged my way across the page, I had the feeling that, for good or evil, what I had done was my own and unique. And since everyone’s writing was different, despite the uniformity of the exercises, our handwriting gave us a powerful, and very early, sense of our own individuality.

Cursive writing was a way to make your mark, literally, and reflect or suggest something about yourself. Thinking back, I can recall the variety of handwriting I’d see on notes and papers: over-sized, loopy handwriting with hearts dotting the “i’s” allowed girls to express their femininity; artistic types employed curious curls or angles, depending on their mood; intense or shy students could compress their handwriting into tight, tiny script.Students who don’t learn cursive and restrict their handwriting to print will have to find their personal expression of individuality elsewhere (they may also have to hire someone from out of state to sign their checks).Another article from 2010 provides a scientific argument for “How Handwriting Trains the Brain“:

Using advanced tools such as magnetic resonance imaging, researchers are finding that writing by hand is more than just a way to communicate. The practice helps with learning letters and shapes, can improve idea composition and expression, and may aid fine motor-skill development.It’s not just children who benefit. Adults studying new symbols, such as Chinese characters, might enhance recognition by writing the characters by hand, researchers say. Some physicians say handwriting could be a good cognitive exercise for baby boomers working to keep their minds sharp as they age.Studies suggest there’s real value in learning and maintaining this ancient skill, even as we increasingly communicate electronically via keyboards big and small.

I’m on my computer a lot, but look what I did when I wanted to explore my questions and curiosity?

(blurred for privacy)

Writing

My journal. E-mails. Tweets. Blog posts. That blasted writing plan for fall (it haunts me, because I’m so behind; it’ll be the first thing to tackle in 25-minute “pomodoros”). My uninspiring list of writing projects does send me to my heart, to prayer, asking if there is something else to say—is there something more? something different? something more substantial?Works Cited:

• Gelb, Michael J. How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day. New York: Dell, 1998. Print.
• Pressfield, Steven. The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle. New York: Rugged Land, LLC, 2002. Print.
• Images: “Question Proposed” photo by Ethan Lofton. Used under a Creative Commons license via Flickr.com. Journal and lifeguard stand photos by Ann Kroeker.

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The post Curiosity Journal: July 13, 2011 appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

One summer morning I was walking with Mom to a day camp she had signed me up for, where I played Red Rover for the first time ever and the leaders handed us magnifying lenses and told us to watch the insects and plants in a four-by-four-inch patch of grass that was ours alone to watch. I stared closely, choosing to be interested in a fat black carpenter ant that passed through my shady, mossy spot along the fence.

While I was walking to the camp along the uneven sidewalk, I noticed reddish-purple stains on the concrete slabs and asked Mom what caused them.

“Mulberries,” she said.

I thought of Dr. Seuss. “Mulberries?” I didn’t believe they were real.

“Yes.” She pointed to the tree where much of the fruit still drooped. “See?”

I saw. Amazed that mulberries actually existed and even more amazed to be told, furthermore, that they were edible, I tried one. I don’t remember what I thought of the taste; only that it stained my finger and thumb, and that I ate a mulberry the same day I realized they existed. For the entire week that I walked along that stretch of sidewalk to the day camp, I would remark, “And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street,” though I don’t know if I repeated it in my head or out loud.

I was drawn by the simplest things—sucked in by a magnifying glass, a mulberry, or even the mental feast I knew as the library. Our family frequented a normal-sized library in the town where we used to live, where my mom worked even after we moved to the farm. But the closest library to our farm was in the same tiny town where I walked along the sidewalk to that day camp.

That library was in a building that seemed no bigger than a suburban storage barn. Navigating the tall, tight stacks felt something like slipping through a mouse maze built for a science fair project, but I found a little room, another nook, lined with Nancy Drew mysteries.

I’d curl up in there, in that building smelling of musty books and dusty shelves, and read most of a Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys mystery before my mom came back from the laundromat or the hair dresser, ready to go. I’d check out an armful of books, churning through pages on the five-minute drive home, devouring stories, enchanted.

Before long, I realized I could do more than read for amusement; I could get answers to my questions at the library. The resources were right there at my fingertips—literally, via the stiff cards lining wooden drawers of the card catalog.

I checked out book after book from the Foxfire series after reading My Side of the Mountain and pored over instructions for creating indoor habitats to raise and study tadpoles or crickets. I checked out books on making soup and baking homemade bread when I went through a vegetarian phase after reading Diet for a Small Planet.

I read books on writing, too. These I shoved deep into my bag, not wanting to draw attention to my interest in self expression. My parents were journalists; my brother, though still a student, was clearly a gifted creative writer. My family never considered me a writer and instead dubbed me the athlete of the family. So I ran track and played softball, secretly lugging home books on writing and completing the exercises on lined paper up in my bedroom, scribbling descriptive paragraphs or snippets of poetry, only to blush at my clumsy efforts and quickly toss them into the trash.

I wanted to tell stories, write useful, engaging articles; to create works that encouraged, entertained, or inspired.

I wanted to enchant others the same way I’d been enchanted.

~~~

A library nook and a pile of Dr. Seuss; a magnifying glass and a patch of grass under the shade of a mulberry tree; nonfiction books cataloged using the Dewey Decimal system.

Who knows what can draw someone in?

Who can predict what will enchant?

The post What Will Enchant? appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Barbara: Modeling Grace Toward Others

Years ago I worked with Barbara.

Barbara was old enough to be my mother.

I was a young woman straight out of college on my first job in a position that included writing, administrating, and organizing teams of volunteers. Barbara answered phones.

From my office next door, I’d hear her at the front desk: “Good morning and thank you for calling. How may I help you?” Her soft, sweet voice, like water slipping along a creek bed, comforted people and put them at ease. More memorable than her voice, however, was her disposition–her voice was a reflection or perhaps even a manifestation of her sweet spirit.

We only worked together a year or so, and then both she and I left that place and moved on to other things. I saw her a couple of years ago and she looked–and sounded–great. I learned a lot from her during those few months of listening and working next to her.

“I may be foolish or naive,” she told me one time after dealing with a stressful phone call, “but I always give people the benefit of the doubt.”

When people were rude to her, she assumed they had a bad day. If they messed something up, they must be struggling with something. If they forgot a lunch date or deadline, they had a lot on their mind.

She gave people the benefit of the doubt.

It wasn’t simple, however, and required a lot of strength and depth of character. Barbara learned to let things slide off her back. She was rarely offended. If someone hurt her feelings, she quickly forgave him or her and always gave people another chance. She didn’t judge. She wasn’t bitter.

She embodied the proverb, “A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense” (Proverbs 19:11). I heard her overlook many offenses—even my own. Kind, loving, gentle and generous, she modeled a gracious heart every single day. And because of who Barbara was, I trusted her. Everyone did.

Baby in the Backseat: There’s Almost Always a Reason

I thought of Barbara when I read in O magazine several years ago a story written by a life coach who worked with executives who had little sympathy for their employees’ actions. They assumed the worst–that their workers were lazy or didn’t care.

She told them a story in her seminars and classes. Here’s my paraphrase:

You’re waiting for a red light. You’re late and feeling stressed. The light changes, but the lady driving the car in front of you doesn’t move.

You can tell she’s messing around in the car–she isn’t paying attention to the light. You tap your fingers on the steering wheel, waiting for her to start moving. You grumble. You honk. You finally shout, “Hey, lady, the light changed! Get a move on!” even though your windows are up and she can’t hear you.

You honk again, exasperated.

Then you can’t believe your eyes–the lady gets out of the car and flings open the back car door! What, can’t she find her cell phone? Unbelievable! Thanks to this driver, you’re about to sit through another cycle of this light! Honk honk!

She’s leaning across that back seat fumbling around, and you realize that she’s unlatched a baby from its car seat–the child was choking, and she’s frantically clearing his throat.

There was a reason.

There’s almost always a reason.

I thought of Barbara because Barbara would have given the driver the benefit of the doubt. “I’ll bet something’s wrong,” she would have thought. “Maybe she’s distracted with some bad news, or maybe her baby is in the back seat with a problem.” In fact, I’ll bet Barbara would have thought, “Maybe I should see if I can help.”

That’s how Barbara is.

That’s how I want to be.

Benefit of the Doubt: Dreaming Up Reasons

Several years ago, I was in traffic on my way to meet a friend for coffee. My son, about five years old at the time, was with me. The light changed at a major intersection and every car in the oncoming lane was at a standstill. Our turn.

We accelerated to cross the road when a woman in a van blew through the light! I slammed on the brakes and pushed on the horn so that it wailed its complaint. She glanced over and offered a vague gesture–could have meant anything.

“That lady ran a red light!” I exclaimed.

“That’s wrong!” my son remarked. “She should be arrested and put in jail.”

I thought of the Baby in the Back Seat. I thought of Barbara. Then I said, “Well, maybe she was rushing to the hospital with her sick child. Or maybe she was distracted and just didn’t realize what she was doing. We don’t know, do we?”

“No,” he said. “Maybe…maybe there’s a fire.”

“Right. Maybe she’s rushing to help someone. We just don’t know. She probably shouldn’t go to jail,” I said. “It’s very dangerous to run a red light–she needs to be careful. But we’re safe and no one got hurt. That’s important.”

We don’t want the world to take advantage of us or Barbara or anyone who has a big and forgiving heart. But couldn’t we all use a break from time to time? I’ve had a baby in the back seat before, crying nonstop, needing attention. I know what it’s like to be distracted.

Thank you to anyone who has forgiven me for forgetting something or making a mistake. If I didn’t say what I should have said or missed an opportunity to listen well, I’m very sorry.

Thank you for letting it go.

Thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt.

The post Barbara, Baby in the Backseat, and Benefit of the Doubt appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

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Curiosity Journal: a weekly recap of what I’ve been reading, playing and learning; what I’m reacting to and writing.

Inspired by Monica of Paper Bridges, I’m recording an occasional Curiosity Journal. Tag words are: reading, playing, learning, reacting…and writing.

Reading: I’m still reading the English translation of Sophie’s World, a Norwegian novel about a 15-year-old girl who is presented with the history of philosophy via letters. I’m up to the chapter on Hellenism.

Playing: Does organizing my new pantry count as playing? Does planting a tree? How about sorting through papers on my desk? No? Rats. Looks like I’ve got to figure out how to be a little more playful.If I may stretch this category a bit, I’d like to point out that the kids and I goof around and laugh quite a bit throughout the day, reflecting, in my opinion, a playful attitude. If we’re telling jokes, making silly faces and giggling while preparing lunch, can we consider it play, even though it isn’t categorized as such?

After all, the flip side is that a family could pull out Monopoly, set it up for an official family game night and proceed to do nothing but criticize the banker and argue whether or not someone collected $200 on her last turn. Is it still considered “play” if everyone’s yelling?

Learning: I’ve discovered some online resources that have helped my high school daughters with their math.

The most impressive is Khan Academy, which I read about in WSJ. I was fascinated with Khan Academy Founder Salman Khan’s proposal to flip the traditional approach to math classes. He suggests having students watch math lectures online at home and then do their homework at school:

[O]ur tools have given students and teachers the power to “flip” the traditional classroom: Students can hear lectures at home and spend their time at school doing “homework”—that is, working on problems. It allows them to advance at their own pace, gaining real mastery, and it lets teachers spend more time giving one-to-one instruction.

One of my daughters needed a little extra input on a geometry lesson that she didn’t quite “get” in class during her teacher’s lecture, so she watched some of Khan’s videos. They really helped her feel confident heading into a test. We also found algebra videos that helped her sister. It’s like having an online tutor, for free!

Visit Khan Academy online and scroll down to see all the different subjects—he tackles not only math but also science and economics.

If he hasn’t created a video for a given subject you’re looking for, or if your child needs to hear more than one explanation, go to YouTube and type in key words for any lesson. You’ll find a variety of video instruction walking step-by-step through various topics.

Reacting: How can we not react in some way to the news of bin Laden’s death?

Writing: It looks like I may have to write a student and teacher’s manual for next year’s high school writing class, so I’m collecting ideas and jotting notes for a draft of each. This will be a summer project.

There you have it. A Curiosity Journal that reveals what I’m reading, playing, learning, reacting to and writing.

The post Curiosity Journal: May 4, 2011 appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Reading:

Playing:

Image Credits: All photos by Ann Kroeker.

The post Curiosity Journal: April 27, 2011 appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

After a tragic banquet-hall collapse, of which he was the sole survivor, Simonides was asked to give an account of who was buried in the debris. When the poet closed his eyes and reconstructed the crumbled building in his imagination, he had an extraordinary realization: he remembered where each of the guests at the ill-fated dinner had been sitting. Even though he made no conscious effort to memorize the layout of the room, it nonetheless left a durable impression. From that simple observation, Simonides reportedly invented a technique that would form the basis of what came to be known as the art of memory. He realized that if there hadn’t been guests sitting at a banquet table but, say, every great Greek dramatist seated in order of birth — or each of the words of one of his poems or every item he needed to accomplish that day — he would have remembered that instead. He reasoned that just about anything could be imprinted upon our memories, and kept in good order, simply by constructing a building in the imagination and filling it with imagery of what needed to be recalled. This imagined edifice could then be walked through at any time in the future. Such a building would later come to be called a memory palace.

A memory palace! That’s what I need—an imaginary palace in which I can store the treasures of Scripture or the names of people I meet. But…a palace? I don’t know the layout of any palaces to use for my memory work.Not to worry! The author clarifies that these so-called “memory palaces” don’t need to be palatial; in fact, they don’t even need to be buildings. “They can be routes through a town or signs of the zodiac or even mythical creatures,” he says. “They can be big or small, indoors or outdoors, real or imaginary, so long as they are intimately familiar.”It could be, therefore, a building such as my childhood or current home, or a path such as my standard running route. I suppose it could even be the layout of my favorite grocery store.In that “palace,” I would paint scenes within its rooms and along its hallways, each scene “so unlike any other it cannot be forgotten.” I personally don’t have the goal to memorize material quickly, like the author did, but I would like to do it accurately. The author stated that many competitive “mnemonists” who enter speed memory contests claim that “their skills are less a feat of memory than of creativity.”He explains:

[O]ne of the most popular techniques used to memorize playing cards involves associating every card with an image of a celebrity performing some sort of a ludicrous — and therefore memorable — action on a mundane object. When it comes time to remember the order of a series of cards, those memorized images are shuffled and recombined to form new and unforgettable scenes in the mind’s eye. Using this technique, Ed Cooke showed me how an entire deck can be quickly transformed into a comically surreal, and unforgettable, memory palace.

The author is a bit crass in developing memorable images to help him make connections, but he practiced a lot and became a memory champion. I wonder if I could employ the basic ideas—without the crudeness—to improve my ability to memorize Scripture or names?Reacting: Gas prices may be soaring to $4/gallon in the months ahead. This has me thinking about our weekly schedule and driving habits, wondering if we should plan ahead and simplify in any way.Also, another study exploring the health effects of low-level radiation emitted from cell phones is “among the first and largest to document that the weak radio-frequency signals from cellphones have the potential to alter brain activity.” I recall the conversation I had  yesterday with a friend, chatting by cell phone. I had that gadget pressed against my head for half an hour or more. New resolve: locate my earpiece and use it!Writing: I’ve been working on four messages for a women’s retreat (March 4-6). It’s such a different process, writing something to be delivered by voice instead of the page or screen; but I’m looking forward to a weekend with a lovely group of ladies!There you have it. A Curiosity Journal that reveals what I’m reading, playing, learning, reacting to and writing.

Credit: Palace of Versailles image by Aaron White. Used under Creative Commons license via Flickr.

The post Curiosity Journal: Feb 23, 2011 appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Curiosity Journal: February 9, 2011

Reading: One Thousand Gifts by Ann VoskampI actually started counting with Ann way back in 2007, but didn’t get very far. After a few entries, I think I made it up to, say, #35. Part of my problem was that I saw it as list-making. A task. I didn’t see the life in it, or the rhythm that I could explore. I felt Ann V’s poetry while she counted, but didn’t think to produce my own. I didn’t realize I could have been recording “our life story in freeze frames of thanks” (Voskamp 82).I stopped counting, and now I’m realizing that I’ve lost a lot of moments. Maybe I’m not so curious after all?But I can begin again. Because, as Ann V. would say, “all’s grace.”Playing: I’ve enjoyed some word-play with THC colleagues at our virtual office. Let me tell you, I work with a bunch of witty people. I can barely keep up. And speaking of THC and playing, a couple of recent THC posts explored gaming, play, work and life: “Let’s Play Work, and Win,” and “Game Over: It’s Time to Live It.”Learning: While creating an organization’s website, I’m learning the widgets and menus of the WordPress Genesis themes. Also, with my kids I’m slowly working through How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth and Don’t Check Your Brains at the Door: A Book of Christian Evidences (Know What You Believe and Why), learning about exegesis, hermeneutics, theology and worldview.Reacting: Instead of reacting in some curious or intellectual manner to current world news stories or trends, I have to admit that this week, I’m simply reacting to several deadlines. I need to turn in work for THC, grade papers for the high school writing class I facilitate, and finalize some messages I am presenting in a few weeks.There you have it. A Curiosity Journal that reveals what I’m reading, playing, learning and reacting to.What’s more, this post is part of Charity Singleton’s TheHighCalling.org (THC) community project, “There & Back Again.”

Go THERE: Monica’s Curiosity Journal: Feb 2, then come back HERE again!Each Thursday, consider going “There and Back Again” yourself. It’s simple.Here are Charity’s steps:

The post There and Back Again: Curiosity Journal appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

I can get a big old can of ravioli for $2.89 and fill my family’s tummies in a matter of minutes. And for many, many families, this is the most the parent can manage at the end of the day. I know it’s not the healthful choice, but at the end of a day of shuttling kids and working for minimum wage and trying to figure out how to pay for the needed car repairs, this is about all we have left.Please, do not assume that the same quality and prices and time and energy required for food preparation are available to all people. Quite frankly, this group of articles has come off as self-righteous and lacking a genuine understanding of what life is like for those of us who search for affordable food 365 days per year because we have to, not just for forty days because we’re doing an experiment. Perhaps a little more compassion and spending some time with “the least of these” would be a good idea? (Fields 171)

LaVonne lived for five-and-a-half weeks on a food-stamp budget, but had emphasized all the wrong things. Instead, she realized she wanted to heed God’s warning through Isaiah to people who fast for all the wrong reasons:

Is not this the fast that I choose:to loose the bonds of injustice,to undo the thongs of the yoke,to let the oppressed go free,and to break every yoke?Is it not to share your bread with the hungry … ?Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. (Isaiah 58:4, 6-7, 9)

The fast that the Lord chooses is a fast that loosens the bonds of injustice.It’s a fast that breaks every yoke and lets the oppressed go free.It’s a fast that shares bread with the hungry.What kind of fast can do that?Back in 2008, I read about Willow Creek Community Church taking a “Five-day Solidarity Challenge“:

In a poverty-stricken world, meal options are few. Portion sizes are much smaller than a typical American meal. One cup of food is considered a generous portion. Meat is a luxury and the average African consumes less than one ounce per day—approximately the size of a chicken nugget. Fresh fruit is rare, and available only if grown locally and in season.As an act of solidarity with brothers and sisters around the globe, the Willow congregation was encouraged to eat as half the world’s population eats every day. For five days in April 2008, people at Willow were challenged to eat:

• Plain oatmeal or Cream of Wheat• A tortilla, rice, and beans in one-cup servings• Small bits of fish or chicken and a vegetable.

Money normally spent on food was set aside for Celebration of Hope.

This solidarity challenge struck me. If our family ate rice and beans for every meal for a week, we’d get a taste—literally—of what much of the world lives on.I was excited. I was ready to try it. I thought we could do it.So I enthusiastically proposed the idea to my husband and kids: a solidarity challenge. How ’bout it? Any money we save can be given to a food pantry!I wish I’d snapped a picture of their faces.I needed buy-in, but nobody bought in.So we didn’t do the Solidarity Challenge. We didn’t try the Food Stamp Fast, either, which I also proposed when I heard about it.We just kept on eating like normal, without thinking much about the people who eat rice and beans for every meal…that is, if they have any food at all.I certainly don’t want to fall into the trap that LaVonne stumbled into, committing to a fast only to discover I had adopted a self-righteous attitude in the process. Maybe a fast from food isn’t needed to open our hearts to feel the struggles of those who are poor, but I keep thinking it could be a good thing. I long for our family to discover what it means to “share our bread with the hungry.” Experiencing hunger, at least a little bit, seems like one way to drive it home.The other day I was talking with my father-in-law. He’s working with Congolese people in DRC, helping them rebuild an area near Kinshasa to bring new life to the heart of Africa. The Congolese director of the program wrote him an email that said, “The people are crying because there is no food.”People in DRC are crying because there is no food. Children in the city are going to school hungry.What does this mean for me, for my family, living in a suburban house with a fridge full of leftovers:Is not this the fast that I choose…Is it not to share your bread with the hungry … ?I’m chewing on this as a result of this past week’s book club at TheHighCalling.org, “The School of Fasting.” I’m left with questions…and experiencing cravings that have nothing—and everything—to do with food._______________

Source:

Fields, Leslie Leyland (ed.). The Spirit of Food: 34 Writers on Feasting and Fasting Toward God. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2010.

The post What Kind of Fast? appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

(smaller button below)

Here at the Food on Fridays carnival, any post remotely related to food is welcome—though we love to try new dishes, your post doesn’t have to be a recipe.If you want, you could just tell us what snacks you’re taking to the Superbowl party or what comfort foods keep you cozy in winter. Basically we’re pretty relaxed over here. Posts that tell stories involving food are as welcome as menus and recipes.When your Food on Fridays contribution is ready, just grab the broccoli button (the big one above or smaller option at the bottom) to paste at the top of your post. It ties us together visually.Then link to Simply Linked.

Food on Fridays with Ann

We first started attending our current church during the season of Lent. I’ll never forget the PowerPoint slide announcing the Wednesday Prayer and Fasting service. They displayed the text with a photograph of crusty artisan bread—looked like something from a rustic Belgian bakery—next to a big bowl of steaming soup.”They’re talking about fasting,” I teased, “but tempting us with that amazing bread and soup! Besides, I thought fasting was about not eating?”Apparently the leadership encourages the congregation to fast from a couple of meals on Wednesdays and then gather that evening at the church for a time of prayer, followed by a pitch-in dinner of soup and bread. It didn’t seem like much of a fast to me, but I appreciated that they were inviting the entire church to participate. I liked the communal aspect, because I’d never attended a church that encouraged its congregants to fast. For years I’d been experimenting on my own. Finally I was in a church that at least gave it a try.But then I learned that in some faith communities, fasting doesn’t always require total deprivation of food. Two of the essays in The Spirit of Food described fasting as a community event…and fasts that involved soup. And bread.In “Fasting Toward Home,” Amy Frykholm remembers her time as an exchange student in Russia helping a history professor named Olga prepare a simple meal—a “fasting meal.” Sounds like an oxymoron to me, like a PowerPoint slide about fasting that includes tempting food photography, but Amy explains that the Orthodox don”t abstain from food altogether; rather, they abstain from meat and dairy products for four weeks before the feast of Christmas (the season of Advent) and during several other days and seasons. Olga, who was Orthodox, “prepared all her usual foods in their simplest forms: borscht with vegetable broth instead of pork, salads with oil instead of mayonnaise and sausage. She practiced this as a quiet reminder that she was preparing body and soul for Christmas” (Fields 161).More than a decade later, Amy was visiting an Orthodox monastery in Denver. She helped prepare snacks after Mass, slicing apples, placing jam in a small bowl and setting out almonds, sesame crackers, honey. This small and simple snack was considered suitable for a fast.

[T]his kind of fast wasn’t about hunger. The meal Olga served me that long-ago night in Krasnodar—complete with fresh bread, homemade pickles, and strong tea—had not been an exercise in self-deprivation. On the contrary, I had left nourished, so nourished that the moment lived vividly in my memory. (163)

She left the monastery and decided to fast on her own from dairy and meat on Wednesdays and Fridays, as the Orthodox do, concluding, “Perhaps fasting is learning to listen to the quiet whisper of the eternal—slow down, abide with me. All you need is here” (165).This year, during Lent, our church will put up the PowerPoint slide again and hold Prayer and Fasting services on Wednesdays. I’ll bring my soup that evening, and try baking some artisan bread. And I’ll join with those brothers and sisters, to be nourished.I will share with them what Amy wrote, that maybe our fasting won’t be so much about deprivation as it will be about abiding in Christ. I will read to them her words and we can wonder together if fasting is about gathering at the table to listen to the quiet whisper of the eternal; maybe this Lent we can quietly discuss how fasting is about learning to slow down, together, to find all that we need.I can ask these things as I ladle soup into my bowl, and take a second slice of thick-cut bread.

:::

I merged two recipes this past week to come up with a variation of White Chicken Chili. I made it again this week, doubling it in order to have leftovers. To modify for Lent or other fasting days, simply leave out the chicken & half & half and rename it “White Chili.”

White Chicken Chili (crock pot recipe)

• 1 bag dry navy beans (soaked the night before)
• 1 med. onion or 3 shallots
• 1/4 C olive oil
• 1/4 C flour
• 3/4 C broth (vegetable or chicken)
• 2 C half & half
• 1 1/2 t chili powder (or more, to taste)
• 1 t ground cumin (or more)
• 1/2 t salt (or more)
• 1/2 t pepper (or more)
• 1 4oz can chili peppers (I left these out for an extremely mild effect)
• 2-5 chicken breasts (depends on how chicken-y you want it)
• 1 1/2 C Monterrey Jack cheese

I cooked the shallots in oil until soft, then added flour to make a roux. Added the broth and cooked, stirring constantly until thickened. I drained the beans that were soaking the night before, placed them in the crock pot, and covered with water until the water was about an inch above the beans. I added one cube of vegetable bouillon. I tossed in the spices, the broth and shallot mixture from the pot, the chili peppers, and the chicken breasts, which were frozen. Cook on crock pot on low 6-8 hours. shred chicken with two forks. I set aside the half & half and the cheese to add at the last minute. I think next time I’ll add the half & half during the cooking.The result: a satisfying white bean chili with chicken that I enjoy at lunch or dinner with my favorite cornbread recipe.

Consider joining the book club on Mondays at TheHighCalling.org where we are currently discussing The Spirit of Food: 34 Writers on Feasting and Fasting toward God._______________

Source:

Fields, Leslie Leyland (ed.). The Spirit of Food: 34 Writers on Feasting and Fasting Toward God. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2010.

The post Food on Fridays: Soup and Fasting appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Here at the Food on Fridays carnival, any post remotely related to food is welcome—though we love to try new dishes, your post doesn’t have to be a recipe.If you want, I encourage you to join the book club at TheHighCalling.org and post your responses to the essays in The Spirit of Food; because, you see, we’re pretty relaxed over here. Posts like that are as welcome as menus and recipes.When your Food on Fridays contribution is ready, just grab the broccoli button (the big one above or smaller option at the bottom) to paste at the top of your post. It ties us together visually.

Food on Fridays with Ann

On Mondays at TheHighCalling.org (THC), the Book Club continues to dip into The Spirit of Food: 34 Writers on Feasting and Fasting toward God.Last week’s reading included “Things that Fall and Things that Stand,” an essay by Nancy J. Nordenson. She contrasts the disturbing shock and fear of sudden loss (lingering with her after a bridge collapsed in Minneapolis—a bridge her kids could easily have been crossing at the moment it fell) with the strength and grounding we families find in sharing a meal that ties us to our heritage. The meal she describes throughout the piece is a breakfast of Swedish Pancakes with Lingonberries.She concludes with her family finally full, satisfied by stacks of pancakes and mugs of coffee. “We are happy about each other and we are full,” she writes. And she ends with this:

“We’ll soon get up from the table and do who knows what and drive who knows where for all the rest of our lives. But here, now, the wholeness of this moment, dense and round as a concrete piling driven deep into bedrock, anchors our paths. This is what it feels like when all is well. Might not a person just tip right over from the weight of fear or angst without this ballast at the other end?” (Fields 109).

I couldn’t get her essay out of my head. I didn’t officially write about it on Monday, when I posted about two other essays. But it lingered with me, the idea of moments with family as ballast in a tippy, uncertain world and the thought of those Swedish Pancakes as anchors.That particular breakfast food isn’t part of our family heritage. But we can find that same sense of comfort, that wholeness she describes, when we gather around the table and roll up crepes or pour maple syrup over homemade pancakes.Last Saturday, we made pancakes. With Nordenson’s lingonberries in mind, however, I tried something new.I pulled out blueberries frozen from last summer’s bounty and made a topping something like hers. This was new, this sauce. We usually depend upon the maple syrup to add flavor and sweeten. But this was a wonderful way supply flavor and sweetness while adding color and texture.Sometimes the things that ground us, the family history, the traditions, are brought to life by adding something new.We welcome blueberry sauce to our table.But first, the inspiration: Nancy’s lingonberries.

Nancy Nordenson’s Lingonberries:

Ingredients:

• 1 pint fresh or frozen lingonberries
• 1 1/2 C cold water
• 1 1/2 C sugar

Instructions:

1. Place lingonberries and water in an uncovered saucepan. Bring to a rolling boil.
2. Add sugar, stirring well to dissolve.
3. Bring the mixture back to a boil, then reduce heat slightly and maintain and steady, but gentler, boil for about 8 minutes.
4. Pour into a heat-resistant bowl and let cool. Refrigerate.

Ann’s Blueberry Sauce

source: Just a Pinch Recipe ClubIngredients:

• 1/2 c sugar (could use a bit more)
• 1 Tbsp cornstarch
• 1/2 c water
• 2 c fresh blueberries
• 1 Tbsp butter

Instructions:

1. Combine sugar and cornstarch in a saucepan; stir in water.
2. Bring to a boil over medium heat; boil for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.
3. Add berries.
4. Reduce heat and simmer for 8-10 minutes, until berries burst.
5. Stir in butter until melted. Serve warm.

Check out Mega Memory Month (MMM) details at MMM Headquarters!

_______________

Source:

Fields, Leslie Leyland (ed.). The Spirit of Food: 34 Writers on Feasting and Fasting Toward God. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2010.

Photos by Ann Kroeker.

The post Food on Fridays: Blueberry Sauce (and Nancy’s Lingonberries) appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

[T]ears streamed from his eyes as he read about ‘The Inconsolable Heartburn…by which the heart looks out astonished at the world and in its loving, wakes and breaks at once.’ This heartburn, Capon says, this sadness for what is not yet here is ultimately a longing for God’s final feast, the supper of the Lamb, when the Host of Creation will set all things right and will do so more beautifully than we can imagine. (Fields 76)

She reflects on this with astonishment:

The created order cries out—I knew that from Romans. Creation groans for further greatness still. Greatness in the kitchen? Greatness as a supper? …As if it were a near-death experience, my life flashed before me … I remembered my first taste of Communion wine at midnight Mass in the Colorado Rockies, my favorite sugar cream pie, and my grandmother’s homemade noodles with chicken. (Fields 76)

Like I said, her writing—her story—left me stunned. I’m not entirely sure why I connected so strongly with her piece, but I’ve continued living with my own food recollections. It seems that each day, scenes flash before me; blurry snapshots from my history with food slowly come into focus:

• Spooning my own grandmother’s noodles over mashed potatoes, starch on starch—forking down serving after serving until my stomach pooched out.
• Attempts at making whole wheat bread, mixed and kneaded by hand as a teenager—each loaf turning out more brick-like than bread-like.
• First taste of sautéed mushrooms prepared by my college roommate when we rented a house together.
• Learning to make my mother-in-law’s roux.
• My first successful crepes.

Harlan’s essay convinced me to order The Supper of the Lamb. She says:

Capon warns in his book that The Supper of the Lamb is a way of life, not merely a recipe that requires eight chapters of diversions to reach a conclusion. I read the book and reread it, as this way of life becomes mine. And I will tell you the truth: I’ve never grown tired of exploring the minute corners of life. I tossed a handful of lettuce seeds into the potted rosemary plan several days ago, and the sprouts stretch green leaves upward, and the anticipation grows. It might not work, but I had the seeds handy, and I was hungry for green things. I am hungry, still. (Fields 79)

I am hungry, too, for green things; for good words and good food; for bread and for truth.The Occasional VegetarianSo I read on. This week’s book club selection included “Tasting the Animal Kingdom,” in which I was taken back to my teens.Like Alissa Herbaly Coons, I committed to vegetarianism around age thirteen. Though my dad raised Black Angus cattle, my parents—Mom in particular—supported my decision. Dad worried that I wouldn’t get the protein I needed, but Mom fixed vegetarian casseroles as a main dish for me and a side dish for the rest of the meat-eating family.At Thanksgiving that year, my beloved grandmother prepared a turkey. I was torn. Should I take a serving to honor her labor of love? Or should I stick to my vegetarian lifestyle?As I smelled the turkey and remembered how it tasted—and as I looked at my grandmother’s beaming smile—I made my decision.I took a serving of Grandma’s turkey savoring forkfuls of dark meat—alongside her noodles, of course—and I gave thanks: for turkeys and family and Grandma. I think she was pleased that I ate it all.And it was very good.These days I’m eating meat, but I’ve been known to suddenly convert back to a plant-based diet again. Each time I transition to or from the vegetarian lifestyle, I find myself appreciating all food, all sustenance, more than I would if I ate without thought and concern.I was touched as I read about Coons’ careful preparation of a chicken all the way to boiling the carcass with vegetables to make stock. A sense of reverence and gratitude flow through her story to the end:

For hours, I boiled the last nutrients out of the chicken, claiming the goodness of its skeleton for myself and for the soups of my future, a small act of faith in my slow reconversion. As I strained the brother and finally discarded the bones, I found the wishbone, whole in the pot, which had slipped unnoticed through my earlier bone breaking. I held it for a moment, and then I left it intact. (Fields 95)

Sitting in my fridge is a container of stock that I made from the turkey carcass at Thanksgiving. I froze it in November, but recently pulled it out to thaw and use in a sauce.With what remains, I will make soup. Vegetable soup.

Join the conversation at TheHighCalling.org.

_______________

Source:The Spirit of Food: 34 Writers on Feasting and Fasting Toward God, edited by Leslie Leyland Fields. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books. 2010.

Photos by Ann Kroeker.

The post The Spirit of Food: Food Heritage and The Occasional Vegetarian appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Here at the Food on Fridays carnival, any post remotely related to food is welcome—though we love to try new dishes, your post doesn’t have to be a recipe.If you want, you could join the book club at TheHighCalling.org and post your responses to the essays in The Spirit of Food; because, you see, we’re pretty relaxed over here. Posts like that are as welcome as menus and recipes.When your Food on Fridays contribution is ready, just grab the broccoli button (the big one above or smaller option at the bottom) to paste at the top of your post. It ties us together visually.Then link your post using Linky Tools.

Food on Fridays with Ann

For the next few weeks, the Book Club at TheHighCalling.org (THC) is dipping into The Spirit of Food: 34 Writers on Feasting and Fasting toward God, edited by Leslie Leyland Fields.I’ll be joining that discussion, posting at least one response to the reading right here as part of Food on Fridays. It’s a way to write in community with you all regarding food in general and with my friends at THC, when I link up to book club on Mondays.If you’re curious to see how the THC book club works, you can visit our discussion of the first five essays at “What the Earth Gives,” which went live last Monday.This coming Monday, we’ll be discussing the next four essays:

1. “The Heavenly Onion,” by Fr. Robert Farrar Capon (recipe: Scrap Soups and White Stock)
2. “A Way of Loving,” by Stephen and Karen Baldwin (recipe: Basic Pasta)
3. “Go Feed People,” by R. Gary LeBlanc (recipe: Jacmel Jambalaya)
4. “And She Took Flour: Cooking Lessons from Supper of the Lamb,” by Denise Frame Harlan (recipes: I. City Slicker’s First Pot Pie; II. Advanced Real Pot Pie)

I decided to do more than read “The Heavenly Onion.” I decided to live it.

In this excerpt from The Supper of the Lamb, Robert Farrar Capon invites the reader to take an onion (he recommends a yellow onion, but I ended up with a white onion), a paring knife and a cutting board, and sit down at the kitchen table.

I was to acquaint myself with the onion.

Hello, onion.

Yes, it was just me and the onion; the onion and me. Together at the kitchen table.

An occasional child passed through.

“What are you doing with that onion?” one asked.

“I’m getting to know it,” I replied.

The child shrugged and moved on. My kids are used to seeing their mom undertake various experiments for the sake of books, blogs, or just basic curiosity.

So they left me alone to look at my onion as if I’d never seen an onion before. I was to meet it on its own terms—to abandon all of my preconceived notions of what an onion is.

First, I was to notice its two ends: the end where root filaments descended into the earth.

And the upper end, the part that pushes up, defying gravity, seeking light.

Contrary to my preconceived notions, Capon is quick to point out, an onion is not the simple sphere. It is linear, “a bloom of vectors thrusting upward from base to tip.”

With Capon’s encouragement, I’m trying to be generous toward the onion, devoting this kind of time to it; because you see, I’m not all that fond of onions. I can’t digest onions very well. I won’t elaborate, but let’s just say they disagree with me.

But Capon didn’t ask me to eat the onion.

He asked me to see it. Smell it. Examine it.

That, I’m willing to do.

Remove the skins carefully, he instructed. Just the skins. The main pieces come off easily.

The skin is thin, brittle and dry; yet, to borrow Capon’s description, elegant.

Well, except for the little bits that pull off stubbornly. Capon sees incredible beauty in them, but they look a little flimsy and scrappy to me.

I feel them: delicate, but smooth.

I’m still game. I want to see and learn, so I continue.

Next: the cut.

I got a chef’s knife for Christmas, so the cut is fun.

And look at what I’ve done.

He says, “You have opened the floodgates of being…Structurally, the onion is not a ball, but a nested set of fingers within fingers.”

What elegant, fluid lines curve and meet at the top.

Moisture glistens on the cut surface and drips at the base onto the cutting board. “You have cut open no inanimate thing,” Capon says, “but a living tumescent being…the pieces of its being in compression. To prove it, try to fit the two halves of the onion back together.”

“It cannot be done,” he continues. “The faces which began as two plane surfaces…are now mutually convex, and rock against each other.”

He’s right. I can’t push them flat together again. Released from its pressure chamber, the onion is swollen—expanded. There is no turning back.

Next I am to lift out, one by one, the layers.

I line them up, and just as Capon says they will, they look something like Russian church spires.

Or tongues of fire.

They seem firm and solid. If I tap the curve with the flat of my knife, it offers a hollow sound, “something between a tock and a tunk,” as Capon says. I am told to take one of these pieces and slice it into slivers.

Pressing and smooshing out the juice from one of the slivers, I see that the onion is, well, limp. Depleted.

Empty. Finished.

“The flesh, so crisp and solid, turns out to have been an aqueous house of cards…the whole infolded nest of flames was a blaze of water.”

That is the onion, its shapely figure admired, sliced, emptied and better understood; perhaps even appreciated.

I have smelled it (still smell it, in fact, on my fingertips where I pressed liquid from the sliver with my nails). And I have seen that it is different from what I thought. It is more than I thought. I have paid attention, for the most part, and Capon has shown me that I can take more time to “look at the things of the world and to love them for what they are.”

It’s easy to look at an onion and say, “Oh, sure. I know what that is. It’s a round thing.” It takes attention to look at an onion and see it for what it is and, in some way, love it for what it is.

God saw the onion, along with all that He made, and it was very good.

Why don’t I take a closer look and see all that He made?

I have seen one real thing, made by the Creator alone.

And it was very good.

_______________

Source:The Spirit of Food: 34 Writers on Feasting and Fasting Toward God, edited by Leslie Leyland Fields. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books. 2010. (pages 46–54)

Photos by Ann Kroeker

The post Food on Fridays: The Heavenly Onion appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

(smaller button below)

Here at the Food on Fridays carnival, any post remotely related to food is welcome—though we love to try new dishes, your post doesn’t have to be a recipe.If you want, you could simply describe Christmas leftovers and New Year’s Eve snack plans OR join the book club at TheHighCalling.org; because, you see, we’re pretty relaxed over here. Posts like that are as welcome as menus and recipes.When your Food on Fridays contribution is ready, just grab the broccoli button (the big one above or smaller option at the bottom) to paste at the top of your post. It ties us together visually.Then link your post using Linky Tools.

Food on Fridays with Ann

For the next few weeks, the Book Club at TheHighCalling.org (THC) will be dipping into The Spirit of Food: 34 Writers on Feasting and Fasting toward God, edited by Leslie Leyland Fields.

The THC Book Club operates something like a blog carnival, where we read, think, and write in response to what we’ve read, then publish our posts and link up on Mondays over at TheHighCalling.org. Join the conversation not only by visiting participants’ blog posts and publishing your own, but also by commenting at the main site.Because The Spirit of Food is all about food, I decided to publish my own book club posts on Fridays, to share with my Food on Fridays friends. If you find yourself inspired to pick up the book, feel free to jump in at any time and join the conversation.Our Book Club facilitator, Contributing Editor Laura Boggess, asked participants to read the first five essays in preparation for this Monday’s discussion (a recipe from the writer follows each essay):

1. “Wild Fruit,” by Patty Kirk (recipe: Apricot, Chokecherry, and Plum Jams)
2. “Late October Tomatoes,” by Brian Volck (recipe: Spicy Tomato Soup)
3. “The Communion of Saints,” by Jeanne Murray Walker (recipe: Scalloped Potatoes for the Church Potluck)
4. “The Land That Is Us,” by TheHighCalling.org editor Ann Voskamp (recipe: Tangy Glazed Pork Roast)
5. “For a Sweet New Year,” by Margaret Hathaway (recipe: Sweet Raisin Challah)

:::

Though I grew up on a modest farm of forty acres, my dad was not really a farmer. A full-time journalist, he leased out the tillable acres and kept a small herd of Black Angus cattle on the rest. Because Dad was not fully a farmer, I never thought of myself as a farmer’s daughter, even though Dad looked the part when he changed out of his suit and tie and donned his John Deere cap, Carhartt coat and manure-speckled boots.Because I wasn’t fully a farmer’s daughter, I got by being rather lazy when it came to chores. I enjoyed the property, though, playing around the persimmon tree in the back yard, tiptoeing around ripe fruit that thumped to the ground and burst open, oozing pulp onto the ground. We planted a garden most years, and I developed a taste for warm sliced tomatoes eaten plain alongside sweet corn-on-the-cob slathered with butter and coated with salt.I grew hungry for this and more while reading the essays in this section. I craved homemade jam after reading “Wild Fruit” and longed to slice a fresh tomato after reading “Late October Tomatoes.” Oh, how I miss fresh tomatoes this time of year. Reading this book in the dead of winter may prove to be a form of torture, awakening a craving for inaccessible food.When I read “For a Sweet New Year,” I found some relief in the thought that I can bake bread year round. In fact, I resolved to bake bread as soon as possible. I bought more wheat berries some time ago to grind into flour with the little hand grinder we borrowed from a friend. The wheat berries are sitting in a container just waiting to be transformed. I may not be able to pick blackberries in January, or make elderberry jam, but I can bake bread right here and now, even in January; even in my suburban home. Yes, tomorrow I’ll bake bread.Where I lingered longest, though, was with Ann Voskamp’s essay…and not just because she’s a friend. It’s because her prose, like poetry, whispers truth and unsettles the soul. I began to ache a little at the thought that by settling in suburbia, we may have settled for less.Though my dad sold off the cattle several years ago, he still leases the fields to a full-time farmer. Persimmons still fall from the tree in the back yard in summer. And my husband and I wonder sometimes if we should sell our suburban home and move out to the farm. The question Ann poses is one that has haunted us over the years: “How much do I love land?”I don’t know that I love that particular land; it’s just that I could probably have access to it. Dad’s not quite ready to turn the farm over to someone else; yet, if we wanted it, we could probably arrange to tend it. Should we?How much do I love land?The barn and out buildings could use some sprucing up. The fences need work. Are we up to the job?As we wonder, dragging our feet, I’ve been gardening in our back yard plot, where I grow tomatoes and peppers, cucumbers and zucchini.Is that enough?Reading the essays and revisiting the question of land inspired me to snatch up a seed catalog that arrived in the mail. Flipping through, I stopped at photos of apple trees and blackberry bushes. We don’t have the space in our back yard for an orchard. I sighed and looked out at the dormant yard. Unseasonably warm temperatures are melting away the snow to reveal leaves we’d heaped into the garden area. The leaves are contained by bent wire held by green metal fence posts leaning unsteady. I shake my head. We can’t even keep a small back yard garden trim and tidy. How could we repair and rebuild a barn and out buildings and mend fences surrounding 40 acres? How could we manage an entire farm? Perhaps this suburban back yard is all I can handle.Ann ends her piece with the question, “Who will stay and dwell in the land?”I look at the wobbly wire and slanted posts. Not everyone can handle the land.Not everyone will grow acres of grain. Some will buy just a few pounds of wheat berries at a time and bake bread. Not everyone will tend orchards. Some will pay to pick berries and freeze just enough for their families.Not all are called to stay and dwell in the land.But I marked the seed catalog and pulled out a gardening book. We will try to grow kale this year. And chard. Peas and spinach. Basil, tomatoes, peppers, squash. Tomatoes. Corn.For now, we will love this land, right here in this neighborhood cul-de-sac.Come spring, we will straighten fence posts and pull the wire taut.

Join us for Mega Memory Month!Details at MMM headquarters.

The post Food on Fridays: The Spirit of Food (THC Book Club Discussion-Week One) appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

I returned the book a couple of weeks later, but I kept thinking about his interaction with Mr. Graham. In fact, here it is months later, and I’m still thinking about it. So I checked out the book again a couple of days ago, to re-read that section.

After capturing amazing stories from Mr. Graham’s life, Jenkins said that he wanted to do more than simply chronicle his life story—he wanted to provide some nuggets of wisdom from this man who has modeled consistency and humility over the course of his lifetime.

Trouble was, Mr. Graham resisted offering any advice, feeling that he’d failed the Lord too much to be set up as a model. Mr. Graham simply did not want readers to look to him for how to maintain their walk with God.

Jenkins finally tried asking how Mr. Graham maintained his spiritual disciplines. For some reason, that phrasing clicked; Mr. Graham readily replied that there is no secret—that the Bible tells us to pray without ceasing and to search the Scriptures.

He said that he did that.

Mr. Graham said that he has prayed every waking moment since he received Christ as a teenage boy. In fact, Mr. Graham said to Jenkins that he was praying at that moment in the interview, praying that the Lord would use the book they were working on, that the two men would do their jobs well, that the book would be more about the Lord Himself than about Billy Graham.

Praying without ceasing: So simple…yet, so hard.

Jenkins also wanted to hear more about the other part that Mr. Graham mentioned, the part about searching the Scriptures.

Mr. Graham said that whether he is at home, in his office, in a hotel room or in another country, he leaves his Bible open and sets it someplace where he is sure to notice it during his day.

It’s open and available for him to pick up and read—not for study or sermon prep, but for his own “spiritual nourishment” (Jenkins 68). Sometimes he’ll read a verse; other times a chapter. Sometimes he’ll read for one hour; other times, two.

Like Jenkins, I thought this was a useful and creative idea for anyone wanting to develop a more consistent devotional life. I thought about how I’ve done similar things—I’ve left a Bible in the kitchen to refer to when I’m waiting for pasta water to boil, for example, or in my van so that it’s available to peruse when I wait for my kids during soccer practice.

But before I got to feeling a little too clever—a little too pleased with myself for having devotional habits similar to a spiritual giant—I read what came next.

Jenkins asked what Mr. Graham did when he missed a day or two. How did he get back to his routine?

Graham answered that he didn’t think he’d ever missed a day or two.

He said it was his spiritual food and he would no more miss it than he would a regular meal (68-69).

The thought of missing a day was unthinkable to Mr. Graham. The Scripture serves as his spiritual food. Why miss the chance to be nourished?

I wriggled uncomfortably each time I read or thought about it.

Why miss the chance to be nourished?

I do, though. I miss my “meals.”

Before long, my soul grumbles, hungry for truth.

I pick up my Bible.

This very morning I prayed, “Open my eyes, Lord, and change me.”

And I read this:

He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered; the LORD is gracious and merciful. He provides food for those who fear him. (Psalm 111:4-5)

He provides food for those who fear Him.

He is food for those who fear Him.

I eat, and am satisfied.

Like physical hunger, a day will pass and I’ll need to refuel.

Tomorrow morning, the Lord will again provide my daily bread.

Will I partake?

Photos by Ann Kroeker.

Writing for the Soul copyright information states all rights reserved, and no other part of the book can be reproduced; as a result, I did not directly quote any portion of the book. I have provided citation below for you to reference for actual quotations.

Jenkins, Jerry B. Writing for the Soul. Cincinnati: Writers Digest Books, 2006. Print.

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Ann’s Ambitious Summer Reading List

I’ve updated the list with the strike-through feature indicating books that I’ve finished reading.

• The Help, by Kathryn Stockett.
• Death by Suburb, by David L. Goetz. Both this book and The Help were recommended to me by multiple people. I decided to pay attention and picked up both, placing them top of the list.
• The Right to Write, by Julia Cameron. This is the High Calling Blogs current book club selection, so I’m working through it, though I’ve only posted about it once.
• Saint Francis, by Nikos Kazantzakis. The only reason this is on the list is because I borrowed it from a friend and need to return it.
• Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe. I need to read this quickly to be ready for a book club discussion I was invited to join.
• Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy, by Jostein Gaarder. One of my sisters-in-law has her doctorate in philosophy. I asked what I might read to get an overview of philosophy, since I know so little—I needed something accessible and interesting. This was her suggestion.
• Total Truth, by Nancy Pearcey. This book comes highly recommended by a worldview instructor I admire. She said this is the one to read if I only read one book about developing a Christian world view.
• The Universe Next Door, by James W. Sire. But I decided to read more than one book on developing a Christian world view, so I’m going to attempt to read this one, too.
• Green Mama, by Tracey Bianchi. Tracey’s stopping by NotSoFastBook.com next week on her blog tour with a guest post, so stay tuned!
• Barbies at Communion, by Marcus Goodyear. My High Calling Blogs colleague (actually, he’s my boss’s boss) has come out with a book of poetry. Be sure to click on the link just to see the cover art.
• God in the Yard, by L.L. Barkat, the same High Calling Blogs colleague (actually, she’s my boss) who recommended I generate this list. God in the Yard is a twelve-week course inviting readers into the days and nights of her daily outdoor solitude.
• Let the Crow’s Feet and Laugh Lines Come, by Dena Dyer, yet another High Calling Blogs colleague with a new book release!
• Miscellaneous. I’m facilitating a writing course in the fall, so I’ll be looking through stacks of material to evaluate what might work well for the students. I’ll be skimming many writing, grammar and reference books—too many to list. Also, I’m researching some topics for possible books I might write in the future. That process has me flipping through numerous related titles, none of which I will read cover to cover. So they don’t count.

My book stack is eagerly awaiting the arrival of the last three titles on my list, but I have plenty of words to consume in the meantime.What’s on your list? (pssst…there’s no better time than the lazy days of summer to read about slowing down in our fast-paced world.)Related:Ann’s A Summer Booklist: What’s Up On the StackThe Camel’s Summer Reading List Ann’s Ambitious Summer Reading List Glynn’s What I’m Reading this Summer L.L.’s A Sort of Summer Reading List Cheryl’s My Summer Reading List is Getting Out of ControlDan’s 7 Fascinating Books (for your summer reading list)Charity’s Summer is Time for…Reading?Heather’s Summer ReadingCheck in at High Calling Blogs on Friday for a round-up of summer reading lists, including a long list that Laura Boggess plans to tackle.

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Luci sitting between Robert Siegel (L) and Eugene Peterson (R)

Robert Siegel explained that when doing research on a topic you know little about, start by reading children’s books, because children’s books zero in on what’s most important (and they’re more interesting to read). Later, you can move up to the more dull books for adults to get more detail.Luci said that she takes pictures in order to have a digital memory … to remind her to do something with it later. She always carries a journal and writes everything in it—all her notes and thoughts. Tip: Be sure to write your name and address inside the cover of your journal. If you ever lose it (she lost hers once), it can find its way home (hers did).

Left to right (or maybe it’s more circular, starting bottom left curving up and around to the right): Part of Scott Cairns’ face, Robert Siegel, Luci Shaw, Eugene Peterson, and James Schaap. Scott Cairns and Eugene Peterson joined the others following the panel discussion.

James Schaap quoted Annie Dillard when she spoke at a previous Festival, saying, “You’ll never run out of ideas.” He wondered if that was true. “Really? ‘You’ll never run out of ideas’?” But as he has committed to the discipline of composing a daily blog post, he has come to see that Annie Dillard was right. He has not run out of ideas.He also paraphrased something Flannery O’Connor said: “I have to write to discover what I am doing … I don’t know so well what I think until I see what I say.” Robert Siegel said that he spends about nine hours of revision for every one hour draft of a poem or novel. “A writer has to love the process,” he said.Schaap, a photographer as well as an author and teacher, said, “One needs to look for beauty. I find that as I get older, that’s more true. Photography has been a means to purposefully look for beauty. I have to look.”Luci Shaw offered a different perspective; after practicing poetry all these years, “Paying attention and being aware are automatic for me.”Robert Siegel quoted Theodore Roethke, “A mind too active is no mind at all.” Siegel said that his mind sometimes goes off in all directions; he needs to slow it down and meditate in order to focus.Luci said, “I’m not a very disciplined writer … so having deadlines helps me get to work.”

Left to right: Luci Shaw, Eugene Peterson, James Schaap.

These photos were taken about twenty minutes later at another location, where the three panelists were joined by Eugene Peterson and Scott Cairns for a “Chrysostom Society” book signing.Not realizing a book signing was scheduled, I arrived unprepared. Book-less.So I thought through the contents of my backpack and came up with what seemed at the moment to be a clever solution.I pulled out my business cards, and when it was my turn, dealt them out like playing cards at a poker table—swish, swish, swish, swish, swish! As the cards zoomed across the table directly in front of each author, I explained that I came without books but wanted to meet them, say hello, and have them sign something. “For years and years, I’ve wanted to meet members of the Chrysostom Society,” I said, “so when they announced you were going to be here, I realized this was my chance. But I’m so sorry—I don’t have any books. So I wondered if you would sign the front of my business card, because, as you can see, my name is printed on the front with the word ‘writer,’ and then your name would be there, too, and it’s like in some small way we’re sharing the space. Your name. My name…”The more I talked, the more stupid the idea sounded. And the more I must have seemed like a crazed fan. But did I stop? “Years ago I heard Madeleine L’Engle speak,” I continued when none of them responded. “She mentioned the ‘Chrysostom Society,’ and I thought if someday I could just meet some of you … and now, here you are, and here I am … and…”Thankfully and mercifully, at this point I managed to stop, trailing off mid-sentence.They signed the cards and slid them back across the table to me without comment. Were they annoyed? Bemused? Tired?I’m not sure, but I got the impression they were done with me.Unfortunately, their pens didn’t soak into the glossy card stock. Scott Cairns took a few extra seconds to blow on the ink and speed the drying, but as I gathered up the cards, stacking one on top of the other, most of their names smeared a little:Luci Shaw,Robert Siegel,Scott Cairns,James Schaap,and Eugene Peterson.Will they remember the chatty fan with the paper wad business cards?Let’s hope not.(Anyone want to quickly design a new logo for me?)

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If I waited for the perfect conditions to develop my writing life, I’d still be waiting.

Back in the early 1990s, I did manage to explore writing as my work, as a way of life. I wrote and submitted a few magazine articles and met with businesses to launch a career in corporate freelance writing. Then we started our family. Our first three children were born within four years of each other (the fourth came along a few years later).

Consumed by the demands and intensity of young motherhood, I could have shoved my computer screen, pen and notebook into a closet for about twelve years and waited until the conditions were right. I could have waited until my oldest two girls were old enough to babysit the younger two. I could have waited until I had a little office or study or library or nook to call my own. I could have waited until I had long chunks of uninterrupted time.

Instead, I wrote.

I wrote when the kids were napping. I wrote late at night. I wrote in my head when I took them for a walk to the park and scribbled down my ideas when they were eating a snack.

I stole time.

Sometimes I wrote well, but most of what I wrote served as compost, breaking down in my mind, heart, and spirit to feed new and potentially better ideas. Regardless of the quality of what I produced, I wrote. I practiced. I learned.

And I read. With a book tucked in my diaper bag or purse, I could steal a moment now and then to consume some new thought written by authors I respected, whose information I craved, whose ideas would feed the glowing coals of creativity that glimmered softly inside of me as I changed diapers, swept Cheerios and scraped hunks of banana from the high chair tray.

I kept the energy of writing alive during those hectic years, and when the flame flashed, I’d try to grab something on which to write, even if it meant borrowing a crayon and scribble pad that the kids were using for stick-people adventure stories.

This made for a spontaneous, messy writing life. Scraps of paper strewn on the kitchen table or nightstand represented that flash of insight I managed to scratch onto the back of an envelope. Life with newborns and toddlers required tremendous focus and energy, leaving little chance for a regular schedule. I grabbed opportunities when I could, leaving a trail of pens and paper throughout the house and shoved into cup holders in the car.

I identified with other writer-moms, such as Barbara Kingsolver. She would read about rituals of other authors who had seemingly endless time to create the writing mood—hours of photography or flower arranging before sitting at the desk to compose one word. She quoted one author who described his muse at length. Kingsolver, a busy mom with no time for flower-arranging, had to write with the time she was given. She described her own muse:

My muse wears a baseball cap, backward. The minute my daughter is on the school bus, he saunters up behind me with a bat slung over his shoulder and says oh so directly, “Okay, author lady, you’ve got six hours till that bus rolls back up the drive. You can sit down and write, now, or you can think about looking for a day job.” (p. 96, High Tide in Tucson, Barbara Kingsolver)

Kingsolver understands the limitations of motherhood and the challenge of writing in the midst of it. She quotes Lucille Clifton responding to the question “Why are your poems always short?” Ms. Clifton replied, “I have six children, and a memory that can hold about twenty lines until the end of the day.”

Clifton encouraged me to plan out my work mentally while I’m on-the-go, storing up thoughts until the end of the day, when the kids were in bed and the words could spill out.

My kids are much older now; my conditions remain imperfect but are much more conducive to writing. My children are more independent—my oldest has her driver’s permit. But it seems I still have to steal time.

Apparently the conditions for writing will never be perfect.

I need to be reminded of this again and again. Julia Cameron, in The Right to Write says:

The ‘if-I-had-time’ lie is a convenient way to ignore the fact that novels require being written and that writing happens a sentence at a time. Sentences can happen in a moment. Enough stolen moments, enough stolen sentences, and a novel is born–without the luxury of time…

Yes, it is daunting to think of finding time to write an entire novel, but it is not so daunting to think of finding time to write a paragraph, even a sentence. And paragraphs, made of sentences, are what novels are really made of. (p. 14, 15, The Right to Write, Julia Cameron)

This reminds me of a quote I heard at the Festival of Faith & Writing in 2010. Author Parker Palmer said:

If you can’t write a book, write a bunch of essays. If you can’t write a bunch of essays, write a bunch of paragraphs. If you can’t write a bunch of paragraphs, write lines. If you can’t write lines, write some words. And if you can’t write some words, write your truth with your own life, which is far more important than any book. (Parker Palmer at the Festival of Faith & Writing 2010)

Poets, bloggers, novelists, creative nonfiction writers, essayists, letter writers, journalists, composers; we must all get to work. Write a book, essays, paragraphs, lines, or just write a few words, but for heaven’s sake—be sure to write with your life.

No matter what complicates schedules—whether you have a full-time job or you’re a full-time caregiver—write what you can, when you can. Because the conditions are never perfect. 

___________________________________

52 Creative Writing Prompts: A Year of Weekly Prompts and Exercises to Boost Your Creativity

Sure, you can poke around the Internet collecting writing prompts and creative writing exercises.

Or you could buy an ebook that collects them for you in one place.

Convenient.

Inspiring.

Affordable.

Learn more

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I’ve discovered a website called Shmoop.com, a place every lifelong learner, autodidact and home educator should explore. I’m particularly grateful for the literature guides they’ve created for lots of famous novels.

• chapter summaries
• themes
• quotes from the book
• character descriptions
• analysis (which includes setting, genre, point of view, tone and plot analysis)
• study questions
• a round-up of the “best of the web” when it comes to additional The Red Badge of Courage or Stephen Crane resources.

Sparknotes and Cliff’s Notes are also valuable teaching resources that I’ve used while preparing to discuss The Red Badge of Courage and other novels with the class. But Shmoop’s fun and lively personality makes me feel like I’m talking with a friend from a book club—a really smart friend who has done great research.If you are looking for a study guide to use with students—something they can fill out as they read—Glencoe published a helpful The Red Badge of Courage study guide. Also, Hewitt Homeschooling has a literature series called Lightning Lit. One of the samples they provide to give you a taste of their study guide format happens to be a section on The Red Badge of Courage. Click here to view. I liked that they used Crane’s writing to introduce a lesson on the power of descriptive writing.If you don’t have a copy of The Red Badge of Courage, you can read it online several places:

• About.com
• The Literature Page
• Page by Page Books
• The Literature Network
• Carnegie Mellon University
• University of Virginia

Finally, John Huston made a film of the book in 1951, starring Audie Murphy as Henry Fleming.This following trailer gives you a taste of the movie in a vintage style (though the clips include battle scenes).[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNLOXYY17PQ]As you continue exploring classics, consider swinging by Shmoop for a quick overview. With their input, I enjoyed and appreciated The Red Badge of Courage on a deeper level than I would have on my own.Visit my other Explore the Classics post: The Scarlet Letter (a pre-Shmoop overview)

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Here at the Food on Fridays carnival, any post remotely related to food is welcome—your link could be a recipe like your favorite Colts blue Superbowl party dip, but it does not have to be a recipe. If it’s about shopping at Trader Joe’s or your review of “Julie & Julia,” go ahead and link up! Think of it as a virtual pitch-in where you can sample what everyone brings and have a great time.When your Food on Fridays contribution is ready, just grab the broccoli button (the big one above or smaller option at the bottom) to paste at the top of your post and join us through Mr. Linky.Here’s a Mr. Linky tutorial:

Write up a post, publish, then return here and click on Mr. Linky below. A screen will pop up where you can type in your blog name and paste in the url to your own Food on Fridays post (give us the exact link to your Food on Fridays page, not just the link to your blog).You can also visit other people’s posts by clicking on Mr. Linky and then clicking participants’ names–you should be taken straight to their posts.Please note: I return when possible during the day and update this post by hand to include a list of the links provided via Mr. Linky. If I can’t get to the computer to do so, you may access them all by clicking on the Mister Linky logo.

Food on Fridays Participants

Food on Fridays with Ann

Today I want to introduce you to my friend L.L. Barkat. We met at the 2008 Festival of Faith & Writing, where we sat in the spring sunshine munching our pre-ordered box lunches and talked about writing, publishing, editors and agents. Little did I know that a year or so later, she would contact me in her role as Managing Editor at HighCallingBlogs (HCB) to ask me to serve as a volunteer contributor and later as a Content Editor. It’s been a privilege and pleasure following her work online, reading her published works, and now working with her through HCB.Ann: L.L., first off, what’s your all-time favorite recipe? Will you share it with Food on Fridays readers?LL Barkat: I have so many favorites! Here’s a Greek recipe I love. If you prefer to make it with beef, that can work too. But I’m a veggie girl, so…Greek Roasted Vegetables and ChickpeasAdd all to a large rectangular casserole dish and cover with aluminum foil. Roast at 400 degrees for about 2 hours or until very tender. Remove foil, lower heat to 350 and roast for another 15 minutes or until nicely browned…• assorted vegetables chopped chunky, such as turnip, carrot, potato, celery, red onion• 1 can or 1 1/2 cups dry and pre-cooked chickpeas (or 1 lb. beef if you prefer, sautéed first until brown)• 1 TB balsamic vinegar• 1 TB worcestershire sauce• 4 large garlic, minced• 1/2 jar Muir Glen Sauce• 1 TB Muir Glen tomato paste• 1 tsp. cinnamon• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg• 1/2 tsp. allspice• 1/2 tsp. ground clove• 1/4 cup red wine• a few pours olive oil• 2 cups water (add more as needed throughout, for desired sauce consistency)Finish…Add salt and pepper to taste and a few pours of olive oil. Mix in a handful or two of raisins.Serve over any kind of flat noodle, with salad or other green vegetable. The rich spices are an excellent complement to the mild flavor of chickpeas.Ann: Mmmm….I’ll bet the kitchen smells great while it’s roasting. Well, now that we’re off to a delicious start, let’s talk a little about HCB and your role as Managing Editor. Your Post “5 Things a Blog Network Can Do for You”  is a great overview of HCB. How would you describe your Managing Editor role?LL Barkat: It is my absolute dream job. I get to be social, strategize, write, host Twitter parties, go to conferences, work with Editors. Wow! I love it.The cool thing is that it happened because I started by volunteering, and then HCB entered a time of expansion and new funding (which, btw, should still be a trend going into next year, so HCB is a good place to watch for opportunities).Ann: How you do all that you do is beyond me—Managing Editor at HCB, keeping up three blogs, raising and educating two beautiful daughters, learning all about social networking trends, writing books and generating poetry—even hosting poetry parties! You lead Random Acts of Poetry at HCB and host poetry jam sessions through @tspoetry. How do you do it all?LL Barkat: Synergy. Everything I do works together. The Twitter parties, for instance, are also something I use to feed Random Acts of Poetry at HCB. And some of my best poems in InsideOut came from material I wrote during the parties. At my Green Inventions blog I process thoughts about education and technology. At Love Notes to Yahweh I think out loud about chapters I’m writing or material that I need to reflect on for talks.After blogging for more than 3 years, I found I had to approach on-line life this way or I’d burn out.Ann: Synergy. I like that. Now, I have to be honest with you, L.L. @tspoetry still  intimidates me a little. I don’t completely understand how it works. Can you explain it to us? And did your Lazy Blogger’s Tuna Casserole post flow from a @tspoetry party?LL Barkat: Oh, the Twitter parties are so much fun. @tspoetry announces the time (which is usually 9:30-10:30 pm EST every other Tuesday night), then we all get on Twitter and write poetry together. @tspoetry gives prompts, which we respond to. But we also lift and turn each other’s words. It’s challenging, hilarious, sometimes poignant. Check out http://tweetspeakpoetry.com/blog for more info on how to come to a party.Casseroles on Twitter! That post you’re referring to was just me keeping myself company on New Year’s Eve. I was cooking and tweeting and suddenly… The Lazy Blogger’s Tuna Casserole.Ann: I think the foodies here at Food on Fridays might be particularly interested in the food posts at Green Inventions, like your vegetarian dishes and The 30-Day Recipes. Any advice on what they should explore?LL Barkat: I’d probably start in the sidebar, at the recipe list. Or… I don’t know. Maybe begin with your favorite bean? Ann: You’re a woman of great spiritual depth and intellectual curiosity. You explore and express ideas, prayer, creativity and faith through words and art (and food!). One avenue is through blogging at Seedlings in Stone and, as you already mentioned, Love Notes to Yahweh and Green Inventions Central. How do each of these blogs capture/reflect some aspect of who you are?LL Barkat: Sometimes people ask me why I have three separate blogs (it’s not very effective for getting the most Google juice ). But the fun is I can be different things to different audiences; yet it’s the same old me. Writing about all the stuff I love: art, food, spiritual practice, writing, technology, education.Ann: Your book Stone Crossings was recently released when we met at that Festival. You’ve also recently released a book of poetry with International Arts Movement, Inside Out. In keeping with the food theme, would you share “Page 5,” the poem on p. 100-101? I’ll leave my readers with your words.LL Barkat: How delightful. Sure, here it is…Page 5The menusays strawberryshortcakewith whipped creambut here’s the deal:I remember what’s real,my mother’s child-smallhands turning floursugar, shorteningthe “size of a big egg”so the old recipeinstructed. I remembersun-kissed fields offurrows, hills mygrandmother’s roughpatched yet paintedhands turned and raisedto grow strawberries blushedand bleeding real juice,not perfumed waterthat pretends ripenesscut and strewn over too-sweet cake. I remembercream, real, whipped.

“Greek Roasted Vegetables” photo © 2007 by LL Barkat. Used with permission.

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LL: I remember meeting you at the Calvin festival. I was walking through the breezeway, and from a distance, I saw this cool looking person peering at me inquisitively. It was you! We officially met moments later, then spent a lunchtime together chatting forever. Remember?Ann: How could I forget how gracious you were after I practically stalked you! I knew you through blogging communities and writing networks online, but we’d never officially interacted. So when I saw your book, Stone Crossings, for sale at the InterVarsity Press table at the Calvin festival, I asked the staff if you were attending. They said you were, and I thought, “Hey, here’s a chance to meet that smart LL Barkat.” Yes, I really thought that, because I admired your clever, intelligent comments and your beautiful yet accessible poetry.I asked what you looked like, since I’d never seen a photo of you. They described you, so I spent the rest of the day looking for someone who fit that description. When I spotted you down that breezeway, you looked like a promising candidate. I was staring at you, waiting until you got close enough so that I could read your name tag. You must have been thinking, “Am I about to be accosted?”Instead of running or calling security, you were poised and gracious; and when I explained myself, you invited me to join you for lunch! We packed a lot into that lunch break. I think we talked about books we were reading, books we were writing, publishing, agents, bloggers and blogging. And shoes. We discussed our shoes…

Speaking of shoes, here they are:

I’d love to share this interview with you in its entirety. Would you mind popping over to L.L.’s Green Inventions blog to read it?

Click HERE.

Photo of L.L. Barkat’s and my shoes by L.L. Barkat. Used with permission.

Mega Memory Month January 2010 has returned!

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The Scarlet Letter was my first book to try to organize existing materials. While there are many outstanding resources, and a trained teacher with years of experience would have much more insight than I, here is what I pulled together:

• Study Guide: For accountability and to check comprehension, I try to find a study guide for each book that the students must fill out as they read. We only meet once a week, so if they can’t figure out what’s important to note in the assigned chapters, they could be lost for days before we clear it up in class discussion. I used this Glencoe study guide that I found online, picking and choosing the activities (they had to complete the questions, but I skipped or modified some of the activities).
• Skit: Based on some feedback I got via e-mail, I got the feeling the students didn’t understand what was happening in “The Custom House” and the first few chapters of the book, so I brought in a construction paper “A,” a fake flower, and a big piece of cardboard. I had the students act out the basics of “The Custom House,” having the Nathaniel Hawthorne/Narrator discover the “A” among the papers. Then we switched to the story itself and someone held the cardboard to be the prison door. Someone else held the flower to be the rose bush. And we talked about the symbolism after they acted it out. I ran around sort of giving instructions and offering a sketchy narration, walking them through the first few events. The book has quite a dramatic opening, but I think its impact and drama can get lost in the difficult vocabulary. For a few minutes, I wanted them to experience the story without sifting through the words.
• Pillory: I found a great photo of a pillory online so they could envision where Hester was standing for her public humiliation. A quick search should turn up examples.
• Journal: The students are required to keep a reading journal, one entry per school day (a minimum of five sentences per entry; yes, I’ve had to count). I check these to be sure they are tracking. They are asked to be responding to their reading in some way—I wanted them to have a safe place to talk freely about the books. I could probably do better at creating some vision for the journals. Some of them don’t seem to grasp the potential of recording their responses and struggle to fill an entry.
• Vocabulary: The study guide provided some vocabulary lists. I used those.
• Quizzes: Most of the quizzes were vocabulary quizzes, since there are so many challenging words in The Scarlet Letter. I had my dictionary next to me the entire time I was reading the book. I should probably try to design them SAT-style, but I haven’t yet; the quizzes have been straightforward, matching the definition to the word.
• Study Resources: I referenced SparkNotes to see what those guides had to say.
• Story Chart: I used a story chart for them to identify key events and people in the book.
• Test: I created the test by modifying the quizzes found at this page. I deleted some questions, changed some of the answers, and added more multiple choice along with some short answer. Some of the questions included the definition of “plot,” “theme,” and “conflict,” which we talked about in class. They also had to answer two short essay questions: (1) “How do guilt, sin and/or shame change Hester, Dimmesdale and Chillingworth?” and (2) “Which character in The Scarlet Letter felt the most alienation? Why do you feel this way?” They were expected to cite at least one passage from the book to support their point(s) as well as talk about plot points or turning points in their own words. They had access to their books for the short essay questions, but not for the multiple-choice/short answer portion.
• Essay Writing: To help the students learn the basics of character analysis, I referenced this and for comparison/contrast essays and sent them to this simple sample essay was annotated to show what worked well. And I really liked this mind map as a tool to help them organize their thoughts and ideas before writing their essay. I took some time one week to walk them through it, though I don’t know if they still reference it.
• Essay Format: To help them learn MLA format, I’ve sent them to the OWL at Purdue.
• Essay Grading: I’ve been using the 6+1 Traits rubric for grading the writing. I like this summary, because it gives me a quick reference while grading that I can also share with the kids, so they can see what I’m looking for.
• Final Project: For their final project, I pulled ideas from Cliff’s Notes. They could choose from the following:

Final Projects

1. Rewrite the forest scene using modern language. (No one chose this.)

2. Write a short story about how the story would be different if Chillingworth’s ship had actually wrecked and he’d never come ashore. (One student wrote a new ending, sort of combining choices 2 and 3, and the result was a charming and much, much happier conclusion for the main characters.)

3. Write a description of Pearl’s future after the novel ends. Does she marry? Have a family? What is her life like? Be sure your choices are consistent with what you know about Pearl and the events at the end of the novel. (One student chose to do this, creatively working in facts from the original story to present a fascinating and detailed summary of Pearl’s future.)

4. Draw a picture or create a collage that shows the relationships among the characters in the story and explain your thinking to the class verbally the week they are turned in and/or on paper. (Most chose this, and the results were outstanding; I couldn’t believe the quality of artwork and fascinating symbolism.)

Read the Book!

You should be able to pick up a copy of The Scarlet Letter at Goodwill and used bookstores, as it is so often assigned in both high school and college—and the students get rid of it when their course is completed. Multiple copies would also be available at the library, along with an abundance of study guides.But you can also read The Scarlet Letter online at many websites. Click around and pick your favorite background, font or navigation from the following sites:

• Page by Page Books
• The Literature Network (posts flashing, annoying ads at the top)
• The Literature Page
• Bartleby (searchable text)
• Project Gutenberg

Enjoy!

If you can use any of these ideas for personal study or with your own family to enrich your reading of this classic of American literature, let me know what you found useful.

Share!

If you find additional resources, I’d love to update and expand this post to include more ideas that deepened a reader’s comprehension and appreciation of The Scarlet Letter.

Stack of books photo by Ann Kroeker. Page from The Scarlet Letter by Ted Cabanes accessed from stock.xchng.

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The person who suggested the name that gains the most votes will win a copy of the book.NOTE: If the name that wins the vote was suggested by more than one person, I’ll do another random drawing between the two or three (or more) who suggested it.Ready?Name that boy![polldaddy poll=1835741]

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People frequently ask me if that boy is “The Boy”; that is, my son.I’d like to clear things up here and now:Nope. He’s not my son. He’s not “The Boy.”The Not So Fast boy is, however, going to be a big part of my life. He’ll travel with me to various speaking events. He’ll grace the blog and might be projected onto screens during PowerPoint presentations. His face will be associated with my name for some time.I feel that I should get to know the little guy. We need to bond.So I decided to name him.Here’s where you come in!Enter the “Name That Boy!” contest: Win a copy of Not So Fast!UPDATED: Time’s up for entering the contest. The winner of the random drawing will be announced soon!Yes, that’s right … Help name the Not So Fast boy and win a book (maybe two!).Two ways to win:

1. Suggest a name in the comments to be entered in a drawing—you can suggest more than one name in your comment, but one person is one entry whether you suggest one name for the boy or five (multiple comments by the same person will be considered one). Submit your suggested name until 9:00 Monday morning, August 3.Winner #1 will be selected randomly from those who submitted names.
2. Another way to win a copy of Not So Fast:  I’ll narrow down name suggestions and set up a vote. Vote for the name you think best fits the Not So Fast boy. The person who contributed the winning name will also receive a book!

That’s it.Now, take a long look at the boy.What do you think? What should we name him?

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July 2009 MMM is almost over:Watch for Final Mega Memory Month Projects on July 31.

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David C. Cook Publishing made sure I received a copy of Not So Fast to have, hold, hug, smell, flip through, gape at, and blog about.

The official release date is just a few days away: August 1st.

Ask your local bookstore to order it for you!

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Join Mega Memory Month for the month of July!

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• Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
• The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
• Up From Slavery – Booker T Washington
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
• Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
• To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
• The Crucible – Arthur Miller

Here are some that I’m reading through to swap out or add to the list (only one or two from below will replace one on the main list or be added):

• History of the Plymouth Plantation – William Bradford
• The Red Badge of Courage – Stephen Crane
• Billy Budd – Herman Melville
• Mama’s Bank Account – Kathryn Forbes
• The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
• A Raisin in the Sun – Lorraine Hansberry
• The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
• The Chosen – Chaim Potok
• Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
• The Call of the Wild (or White Fang) – Jack London
• POETRY: (maybe) The Mentor Book of Great American Poets
• ESSAYS & SHORT STORIES: I am looking into anthologies or a literature book that contains selections.

I’m also looking for a great college prep vocabulary book to use.Any suggestions from y’all?Any great American books appropriate for teens you would recommend? Can you think of some titles missing from this list?

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• Shopping. I rarely shop (except for Goodwill). One time I had to buy a specific piece of clothing for an event and couldn’t believe how much time it took to go from store to store in search of what I needed.
• Hobbies. Writing is my main hobby as well as my ministry. Many activities interest me, like scrapbooking and handwork, but I’ve decided to zero in on just a few things, with writing as my main focus.
• TV. We watch very little television, which frees up a lot of time.
• Exercise. I keep exercise as simple as possible and jog. I like jogging for lots of reasons, one of which is that I can just head out the door and do it. This wouldn’t work for a very social friend of mine who needs people and a class to motivate her, but it works for me. I’m out and back for the duration of the workout without transit time or chit-chat. After a few crunches on an exercise ball and some stretches, I shower and move on.

That list reflects some intentional choices. There is another category of not doing things; it’s called neglect.Yes, I also neglect things; in particular, the house.Now you know.Fortunately, the Belgian Wonder has a pretty high tolerance for clutter and mess. Six of us live under one roof. When I’m not paying attention because I’m editing up a storm, rooms can get out of control faster than you can say “comma splice.”When my deadline passes and I’m back to reclaiming our space, I find myself making resolutions.Scrubbing away at grimy, neglected areas of the bathroom, I resolve to declutter and simplify. It’s almost always top of the list of things that bug me about my life.Clear out the clutter!Toss the junk!Send off stuff!I crave organization and order, but neither of those traits comes naturally.I’ve read almost every book on organization and decluttering out there. You’d think the principles would sink in so deeply that I’d automatically practice them, but I don’t. The house is still cluttered. And I’m still longing for a simpler space to complement my slower pace.A couple of years ago, when I was starting to work on Not So Fast, my editor wrote me a note that she was decluttering all weekend. She said, “I think slowing down and living simply go together. Don’t you?”I do.I do think that living more slowly and living simply are very complementary. When we simplify, I think it’s easier to slow down our pace. And when we slow down our pace, I think we start to see the beauty of simplicity in our schedule, relationships, activities, and space.The most pressing area I need to work on is simplicity of space.So when school is out, my summer goal is to achieve some of my decluttering and organizational goals.Will you hold me to it?Remind me?Hold my hand?Set up and manage an eBay account for me?Pay shipping for boxes of books that I pluck from the shelves to release to the world?Actually, my life is slow enough at the moment, I think I’ll grab a few books right now. Does anyone want:

• Scarlet Feather
• The Mind of Christ
• Chosen by a Horse
• The Book of Guys (hardcover, and a different cover than the Amazon link)
• A Painted House (hardcover)?

If you cover shipping, they’re yours.First come (let me know in comments with an e-mail to contact for arrangements), first served.

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 I’ve been working on my forthcoming book, Not So Fast: Slow-Down Solutions for Frenzied Families, for years. Much of that time, I wasn’t sure what I could say about it here on the blog.In fact, for quite some time, I was evasive. I didn’t know how long it would be before the book’s release, so I didn’t want to post searchable text that described what it was about.As we drew nearer to the release date, I thought I could tell you all about it. Just when I was about to make an announcement, I got the impression from the marketing folks that I should hold off even longer. So I kept quiet. Finally, though, after all those false alarms, I can speak freely.If you’ve been frustrated with me, I want to apologize. I’m very sorry. The problem is due to my uncertainty about the process.However, now that everything’s out in the open, I’m preparing for the August 1st release of Not So Fast: Slow-Down Solutions for Frenzied Families (available for pre-order! Click on the book cover at the left for the Amazon.com link).You can visit the simple WordPress blog I’ve created to serve as a companion site.There, you’ll find Speed Bumps.These are pages with lists of basic ways you can start slowing down in real-life, everyday ways. I grouped them into Mini, Medium, and Mega categories. Some speed bumps are simple as eating with a smaller fork to slow down meals; others are as demanding as planning and planting a garden.You’ll also find links to all kinds of slow-down resources I’ve found online.It’s a place where I’m putting all kinds of links and information about slowing down, simplifying, the “Slow Movement,” downsizing, “Slow Food,” and related topics. If you know of an article, blog, or website that fits in some way, be sure to let me know.There’s also a section called “Supplemental,” where I’m including material and ideas that might have been nice to include in the book, but didn’t fit. Another fun feature is that you can get a sneak peek, a preview of the book, by reading an excerpt that my publisher uploaded to a website called “Scribd.” There, you can read a draft of the Table of Contents, Introduction, and Chapter One (the Foreword wasn’t finished at the time it was loaded).If you’re interested, you can visit NotSoFastBook.com and click on “Sample,” which provides you with the Scribd link. Eagle-eye editors may spot some errors (they’re being fixed before it goes to press), but it’s a way to get a little taste.(If you don’t want to poke around the website, you can save a step and go straight to the sample by clicking here.)Every chapter closes with a story from someone I’ve interviewed or a post from a blogger who composed something that I thought fit well with the subject matter. I call these sections “Live from the Slow Zone.” The story uploaded in the sample is from Ann Voskamp’s Holy Experience. It’s an honor to have her words grace the pages of my book; and pretty humbling, too, as hers flow like poetry, making mine seem clunky and awkward.Some of the other “Live from the Slow Zone” contributors are bloggers like Sara at Walk Slowly, Live Wildly, Rachel Anne at Home Sanctuary, Andrea at Flourishing Mother, and Aimee at Living, Learning and Loving Simply.In addition to the “Live from the Slow Zone” stories and interviews, I’ve also included some practical ideas geared toward families that are in a state of frenzy, rushing around, wondering if the high-speed lifestyle is wise, or worried that it’s impossible to sustain. That section is called “Slow Notes.”If your family is already living more slowly than the rest of the world around you, some of the Slow Notes suggestions may be old news. But for those just starting to experiment with some changes, the ideas are meant to be encouraging and do-able, hopefully with immediate slow-down results.So that’s an overview and sneak peek of Not So Fast!It’s fun to finally be able to share this leg of the journey with you.I’d like to savor it . . . and share it with friends.

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There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books … [I]f the average student wants to find out something about Platonism, the very last thing he thinks of doing is to take a translation of Plato off the library shelf and read the Symposium … The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him.

He wrote that one of the areas where this mentality was rampant was in theology. Instead of reading the Gospel of Luke or the letters of Paul, or flipping open St. Ignatius or St. Augustine, readers will turn to someone like, well, C.S. Lewis himself or a contemporary of his like Dorothy Sayers. He pointed out that as an author he of course hopes that readers will some modern books; but if they had to choose between one of the other, he would advise that person to choose the old.

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books … The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.

Do you agree?And do you read that way—new book followed by an old book?

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When you bring God’s Word to others, you must maintain the horizontal and the vertical connection with both them and the Holy Spirit. Pray in your heart for the guidance, insight, and wisdom you need.I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. (Luke 21:15 RSV)Lord, thank You for Your presence while we work. By ourselves we are too weak, but Your Spirit makes us able.

In His StepsI’d been looking for this book by Charles M. Sheldon (again, the edition I found is a hardbound edition), and the Belgian Wonder reached out for it because it matched the Corrie ten Boom book’s binding. He didn’t know I wanted In His Steps! Apparently this book, written 100 years ago, coined the phrase “What Would Jesus Do?”The Passion of Jesus ChristThis small book by John Piper looks to have a Good Friday/Easter theme, so I bought it to read over the next few days.So, what are you reading these days? Have you picked up any treasures?

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Frenzied families find themselves fragmented in this high-speed, fast-paced, goal-oriented society. Even while racing to second jobs, appointments, lessons, practices, games and clubs, we crave an antidote. How do we counteract the effects of our over-committed culture? Replenish our depleted selves? Restore our rushed relationships?Not So Fast: Slow-Down Solutions for Frenzied Families offers hope to families struggling with hurried hearts and frantic souls. Through stories, practical ideas, insight and research, readers will discover the rejuvenating power of an unrushed life.

I’m imagining the day the book is available to future readers—it still seems kind of far away, but it’ll be here soon enough:The release date is August 1st.We still have to wait a while, but as the author of a book on slowing down, I don’t feel free to complain when things take time.I’m telling you kind of early. In fact, now you’ll have to wait, too.But I wanted you to be among the first to know.

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(CC) Gaetan Lee, www.flickr.com/photos/gaetanlee/

In Write to Discover Yourself, Ruth Vaughn tells about a character named Julia Redfern in a children’s book called A Room Made of Windows. Julia keeps a “Book of Strangenesses” in which she makes lists. Her lists include Beautiful Words (Mediterranean, quiver, undulating, lapis lazuli, Empyrean) and Most Detestable Words (rutabaga, larva, mucus, okra).Ruth Vaughn recommends list-keeping as an excellent exercise (and resource) for writers. A list of Strong Verbs, for example, is handy. To illustrate, she picked up a short-story at random and recorded verbs (echoed, trembled, slammed, hesitated, smashed, roared, reverberated, boomed, and twisted).She suggested taking it another step and recording phrases that inspire. From that same short story, she found, “It brought the silent, motionless silhouettes to life” and “Here and there through the smoke, creeping warily under the shadows of tottering walls, emerged occasional men and women.”In the spirit of Ruth’s recommended list-making and writers loving words, I had a lot of fun assembling a master list of the words you proposed after I posted the Logophile List(s).Words were suggested in the comments, e-mailed to me and a few came through Facebook when I linked to the original logophiles post. Several more come from the text and comments of Musings of a Mommy Bee’s “Word Fun” post. Apparently great minds post alike.Here, my friends, are the results:Words that are fun to say(be sure to read out loud)

• discombobulate
• garbanzo beans
• guacamole
• gregarious
• genuflexing/genuflecting
• asinine
• sequoia
• Iroquois
• yurt
• pip
• hypothalamus
• snaffle
• awkward (because it actually is awkward to say and type)
• pollywog
• sunset
• buff
• squelch
• click
• clack
• zip
• hiss
• toot
• slither
• puff
• blip
• moosh
• splat
• buzz
• woosh
• plop
• fizzle
• zing
• sniff
• slurp
• patter
• splash
• thick
• moist
• cushion
• lackadaisical
• periwinkle
• bulbous
• grunt
• percolate
• dread
• infuriate
• ingratiate
• bouffant
• gallant
• bemoaned
• personage
• flip
• bubble
• mukluk
• blubber
• waffle
• akimbo
• macadamia
• giggle
• beluga
• aspic
• filch
• gazebo
• vivid
• meticulous
• colloquial
• insipid

Words fun when said with a British accent

• bugger
• gutted
• proper

Words that are beautiful to say

• diaphanous
• effervescent/effervescence
• gossamer
• mellifluous
• scintillate
• feathery
• exquisite
• miraculous
• magnificent
• reflective

Words that carry rich meaning

• hallelujah
• prudent

Words that some of us are never quite sure we use correctly

• effect and affect
• inclement and clement
• facetious
• enormity and magnitude

Favorite French Words for English-Speakers

• pamplemousse
• probablement
• pantoufles
• éblouissant
• nuages
• brouillard

Favorite English Words for French-Speakers

• cantaloupe
• jeopardy
• momentum

Words that are Gross to Say (even if they aren’t gross in meaning)

• amoebic ooze
• pus

Words with distinct regional pronunciations

• sore (so-uhr)
• park (pahk–in Boston)
• about (a-boot–in Canada)
• “I love it” (“Ah luuuuuv eee-ut”)

Be inspired—love your language!And if you add words in the comments, I’ll update the lists.My sister-in-law reminded me of the silly song from Flight of the Conchords, “Foux De Fa Fa,” that has a little fun with the vocabulary, phrases and interactions one finds on a typical French language learning CD. Listen for “pamplemousse.”[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUVagbFcSUU]This is a six-minute video of French singer Francis Cabrel performing “C’est écrit” live in concert back in the ’80s. My sister-in-law gave me a copy of his CD. This song may be the reason I love the words “brouillard” and “nuages.”[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otqFvrGXP7g]And finally, because I’ve gotten a little carried away on YouTube, here’s a logophile muppet video for your kids titled appropriately, “I Love Words.” Abby Cadabby never met a word she didn’t like and tries out a new word every day. A pretty good message for our young ‘uns, setting them up for a lifetime of loving words (brace yourself, moms–her voice is similar to Elmo’s):p.s. She, too, throws a couple of favorite French words into the mix.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxxJU1y3QGA]Speaking of words. . .visit again tomorrow for an update on the status of my book.

The post Long-Awaited Logophile Lists appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

For example, she wrote, “The difficult thing about days is that they must be repeated” (p. 12*).

Acedia, it seems, struggles with the sameness and repetitiveness–the apparent meaningless–of day after day after day.

It reminded me of a passage from Orthodoxy, by G.K. Chesterton. For all I know, she may quote from it later in Acedia & me; I don’t have her book here to confirm. But Chesterton, too, considers the repetitiveness of days, especially in nature. He’s addressing the premise of the modern mind–that if a thing goes on repeating itself, it is probably dead, like a piece of clockwork. He argues:

The sun rises every morning…to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life.

He expands on this with striking analogies and suggests how God may view the repetition of days that we human adults may consider boring or monotonous:

The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough… It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again,” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again,” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore. (p. 37, Orthodoxy, by G.K. Chesterton)

“Do it again!”

God never tires of repeating the daisy-making or sunrise. He exults in His creation.

And I’m a little part of that. I don’t know if I’m appropriately applying Chesterton’s thoughts or not, but I keep thinking about how God never tires of me, either. He never tires of listening to my prayers or praise. It’s as if He encourages me to say these things to Him, to keep it up. “Do it again, Ann!”

And I think of the repetition of our lifelong walk with the Lord. Day after day, my walk with Jesus can feel something like the half-marathon I completed one year. I really did feel that toward the end I needed to tell my feet, “Come on, another step–Do it again!” Likewise, I must remind myself to stay close to the Lord. Day after day. “Do it again!” Get up. Talk with Him. Read His Word. Pour out your heart to Him again. And again. Do it again!

And to my friends and family: Keep going, take another step, and another. Keep in step with the Spirit. Today. Tomorrow. The next day. The next. Do it again!

In winter, when the days are shorter and I (not a morning person) have a greater chance at catching a sunrise, I sometimes look out across the roof of our neighbor’s house and think of Chesterton’s example of the sunrise–God saying, “Do it again!”

I suppose we could speak it back to the Lord, just as He may speak it to the sun and the seasons. We, too, can shout it out, like children asking Him to repeat this astonishing thing, be it a moment when I grasp some truth that changes me, or when I sense His strength to obey or resist temptation, when I share a moment of joy with another believer or peace with a friend. “Again, Lord! Please! Do it again!”

I think of the sunset I saw the other night, luminous. I think of the geese shooting north, like three arrowheads. I am a child again.

“It’s so good, Lord! Encore! Do it again!”

* Acedia & me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life, by Kathleen Norris, Riverhead Books, a member of Penguin Group USA, Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, USA, copyright 2008

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Kathleen Norris

Fortunately for Ms. Norris’ Web presence, I’ve seen other articles and reviews pop up, such as this one from USA Today, another from the New York Times, a brief synopsis at Oprah’s magazine, and pretty much a thumbs-down (sorry, Kathleen) at the blog of a Norris-fan who “couldn’t get into it.” I couldn’t get into it, either, but only because the library wouldn’t let me renew it. I had too many books going and couldn’t finish Acedia & me during the loan period. I tried to renew it, but someone else had it on hold. So I’d only read a few chapters when I had to hand it back to the librarian.

But I latched onto something in those few chapters–so much so that I actually typed out a section to share:

The difficult thing about days is that they must be repeated. It may be, as we read in the Second Letter to Peter, that with the Lord, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. What we perceive as slowness is merely the Lord’s patience. But like many children of the middle class, I was schooled in a particular kind of impatience that devalues such chores as cooking, cleaning, and taking out the garbage. An unspoken premise of my education was that it would enable me to employ someone else to perform these tasks. If the heady world of ideas tempted me to despise repetition, it also taught me to value the future over the present moment…(p. 12, italics mine)

I wanted to offer you the context for what stood out to me the most–the repetitive nature of chores. I don’t know that I have ever been in the same “heady world of ideas” as Norris, but I think I did develop a kind of “impatience that devalues such chores as cooking, cleaning, and taking out the garbage.”

For many years, I really hated the unending nature of everyday chores–things that must be repeated day after day. I would think, Why bother to make one’s bed if it simply must be made again the next morning?

Back in the early 1990s, I was in a women’s discipleship group. For a discussion-starter, the leader asked, “What is one chore you don’t mind doing?”

I couldn’t think of one single chore I didn’t despise.

We went around the room, and I must have made a joke about that. I can’t remember.

I did remember the leader’s answer, however. She said, “I like making the bed. It’s not because I like making beds. It’s because it doesn’t take too long and isn’t tiring, yet makes such a huge difference in how the room looks. If you have a few things lying around, but your bed is made, the room still looks pretty good. But if you have the room picked up and fairly clean, but the bed is unmade, it still looks like a huge mess.”

That was the first time a chore kind of made sense to me. After that interaction, quite possibly for the first time in my life, I started making my bed (thank you, Kim; sorry, Mom…and Tonya and Susan and all my college roommates).

She was right. I liked how the room looked when I would come back and see the bed made. When the covers were smoothed out and pillows fluffed, the mess around it was downplayed–a worthwhile return on investment, I’d say.

But there was something else about it…there was something else satisfying about making my bed. Oh well, I couldn’t figure out what it was. I just kept making my bed so that the room looked decent and that was enough.

Then I read those pages in Acedia & me, where Kathleen Norris explained how her intellectual interests were at odds with domesticity. She actually wrote:

I was a bratty kid who didn’t want to make her bed.“Why bother?” I would ask my mother in a witheringly superior tone. “I”ll just have to unmake it again at night.” To me, the act was stupid repetition; to my mother, it was a meaningful expression of hospitality to oneself, and a humble acknowledgment of our creaturely need to make and remake our daily environments. “You will feel better,” she said, “if you come home to an orderly room.” She was far wiser than I, but I didn’t comprehend that for many years. Neither of us could see that I was on my way to becoming a cerebral disaster zone. (p. 13)

Bingo! That was it! I’d already gotten past the idea that making my bed was “stupid repetition.” But this was that “something else” I couldn’t put my finger on:  Making my bed was a “meaningful expression of hospitality to oneself.”

That’s what I felt when I walked into my bedroom and the bed was made. It was as if I were saying to myself, “You’re worth it, Ann. It’s my pleasure to give you a nice environment and a lovely setting for a peaceful rest. Be my guest.”

So much of housework is a need to make and remake our daily environments. I discovered that I do feel better if I come home to an orderly room. Now that I’m married, of course, I’m also serving my spouse. All the same, I never had anyone put into words a reason for housework that was so personal, gratifying, and humbling.

Perhaps it’s that word “hospitality” that sounds so warm and welcoming, like a Bed & Breakfast hostess bustling about to make everyone comfortable. As a wife and mother, I can see how small acts of service communicate love and warmth and comfort to my family. I guess I never really included myself in that.

I don’t want to be self-centered–I want to look out for the interests of others–not just my own. But that doesn’t mean to the exclusion of my own interests.

Thank you, Kathleen Norris, for this slight shift of perspective on chores–not just making the bed, but also emptying the trash, washing dishes, vacuuming, sweeping, wiping the table, and folding laundry.

Far from meaningless repetition…it’s a gracious, loving act of hospitality to oneself (and others).

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I think I left a load of laundry in the dryer…

The post Hospitality to Oneself appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

• One Year Bible online. You can choose the One Year Bible or the One Year Chronological Bible (left column). There’s a spot to select your preferred translation. Also on the left column, you can scroll down and click on the month. Then pick the date. It pulls up the readings for the day.
• Divine Hours online. At the link provided, you’re asked to select your time zone. Once you click on yours, the reading of that day and hour pops up. By the way, I can’t vouch for anything else on this site, and every once in a while there will be a poem or reading that makes me scratch my head. But the passages are powerful, simple words from Scripture. Those, along with hymns and biblically based prayers serve as “checkpoints” throughout the day–morning, noon, evening, and night.
• My Utmost for His Highest online. Each day’s reading pops up automatically, and archives are available on the left by clicking on whatever day you wish.
• Many more devotionals are available at One Place.com.
• Elisabeth Elliot’s are here.
• Other classics available at that same site include selections from Warren Wiersbe, Streams in the Desert, and Charles Spurgeon.
• UPDATED (from suggestions in comments): A.W. Tozer 1 and A.W. Tozer 2, and Daily Light on the Daily Path (providing a brief selection for both morning and evening)

I’m enjoying the practicality and convenience of both online and book versions of devotionals. Would that work for you? Are you an online devotional reader, or are you strictly a printed page person?For more WFMW ideas, hop over to Rocks In My Dryer.

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