My husband and I spend most of the time a long way from family, but this summer we got to see many of the people on my side. During our visit there was a family wedding, a family funeral, and a celebration of a 60th wedding anniversary, in addition to all the usual everyday moments -- conversations, meals, trips to the store or a museum, a boat ride down the Ohio River. It is so good to be close for a while, even in sadness, close to the people who have known you forever. Family is one of God's greatest gifts.
Sara Groves' song "Precious Again" talks about those things that we take for granted or don't even notice, like family love. When we're blessed enough to grow up in a family where it's just there, it's just there. And then, there are those moments when it's all precious, so precious again.
Leigh Ann is hosting this month, and chose the beautiful prompt "Family." Head over and see what everyone else has to say.
So technically, summer's end is still a long way away. But we'll soon be headed back to school, so in my mind, this sonnet about Labor Day is appropriate.
Jan is hosting Poetry Friday today, and she's encouraging us to take a moment off in the middle of this stressful moment in the news. So here's a poem I read on social media this week.
Book #51 of the year was When the World Fell Silent, by Donna Jones Alward. It's a historical novel about the Halifax Explosion of 1917 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. This was a book club read, and while it wasn't one of our very favorites, we did enjoy it.
Book #52 was The Birds that Audubon Missed: Discovery and Desire in the American Wilderness, by Kenn Kaufman. I knew Kaufman was a great writer, after reading his classic Kingbird Highway. (I wrote some "found haiku" from that book here.) When I heard about this one on a podcast, I had to read it too. It's about Audubon, the discovery of new-to-us species, and illustration. I read it on my Kindle, which doesn't have color, so I wasn't fully able to appreciate Kaufman's art, but another aspect of the book is his project to do bird paintings in the style of Audubon. At some point I hope to see a hard copy and get a closer look at his art. I recommend this, and it's on deep discount for Kindle right now.
Book #53 was Safe All Along: Trading Our Fears and Anxieties for God's Unshakable Peace, by Katie Davis Majors. I wanted to read this because I had just read and enjoyed the author's first book, Kisses from Katie. This one is about dealing with stress and anxiety, particularly when it involves worrying about people we love. I thought it was well done.
Book #54 was Ordinary Grace, by William Kent Krueger. This is a murder mystery set in Minnesota in 1961. It was very well-written. One of the reviews on Amazon compared it with To Kill a Mockingbird, and I think that is a good comparison.
Book #55 was Expiration Dates, by Rebecca Serle. This has a very rom-com premise, but it soon reveals itself to be a little deeper than that.
Book #56 was Babel: An Arcane History, by R. F. Kuang. This book is fantasy/alternative history. It's set in a somewhat mystical version of Oxford in the 19th century, and focuses on foreigners who have been brought in for their language abilities to do work that keeps the empire afloat. I found it very readable and entertaining. I had read some reviews that called it preachy and didactic, and that wasn't my experience of it at all.
Book #57 was Ina Garten's memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens. I've never watched her show, and I didn't really love this book, but it was interesting to follow her journey.
Book #58 was Warlight, by Michael Ondaadjte. I learned about this book from a comment left by a reader of my blog. I had posted an A.E. Housman poem (here) and the commenter pointed out that Ondaadjte quotes the poem in this book. I found the book a little hard to follow, but it could have been because I was reading it during travel and not giving it the attention it deserved. I almost didn't finish it, but really wanted to know how it would end; ultimately I wasn't all that satisfied.
Book #59 was All that Life Can Afford, by Emily Everett. I found it stressful reading because the main character is keeping secrets and it's so obvious this will be her downfall. It is, but there's a happy ending and all is well.
Book #60 was The Wedding People, by Alison Espach. I didn't like the premise (content warning: suicide), and I didn't find the story believable, but it was well-written and there was a lot going on, so I kept reading.
Book #61 was the third book by Raynor Winn, Landlines: The Remarkable Story of a Thousand-Mile Journey Across Britain. While I was reading it, the controversy about Winn broke (you can Google it), leading me to wonder how much it mattered. I think it was worth reading this series even if some of the facts were presented a bit differently from the way they actually happened. My main takeaway from the three books is that life is hard, particularly for homeless people, and that walking and being outdoors are always good things. I'm glad I read them, and I hope Winn's fourth book ends up getting published after all.
I took the picture above a few days ago as we walked with some friends. It's good to have a break from school this summer and to spend some time doing different things besides work. But sometimes it's possible to walk beside quiet waters and still have your mind full of worries. I have to confess that I am often that fretful sheep. I need to turn away from the news and from all my concerns and allow my soul to be refreshed. Here's a poem I wrote in April during our school's poetry challenge. The prompt for this one was "Still."
Still
To many thousand thoughts that fill My anxious mind, I say, Be still
To worries swirling through what will And will not happen now, Be still
I cannot rest my heart until Breath slows, relaxes: Peace, Be still.
Hello friends! I am happy to be hosting Poetry Friday this week. I am in the United States at the moment, on summer break from my usual home in Kampala, Uganda, so our usual time zone issues do not apply. I'm on Eastern Standard Time, and in the land of fast internet, and I'm not teaching, so your head may spin with the speed at which I will round up your contributions (the old-fashioned way)! Leave your link in the comments. Comment moderation is enabled so you won't see your comment immediately.
It looks as though I have participated in Poetry Friday only twelve times this school year. I haven't written many poems this year, either, or even read all that many. My focus these days is slightly different because I'm not teaching English any more, but I still love the opportunity to be immersed in poetry. The news may be all bad, all the time, but there are still beautiful words, like fireflies in a jar, giving out some light. For today's roundup, I decided to focus on fireflies, a perfect metaphor for ephemeral beauty. Here are some poems about them.
Jane was inspired by a ferry boat to write some haiku. (She also has a book coming out!)
Robyn is celebrating Pride Month with rainbows and a literary auction.
Rose is honoring the memory of Katey Howes with a review of her new book and a short poem inspired by it.
Michelle is focusing on defending democracy and on nature. She shares a poem and a photo with us.
Jama is sharing a Richard Jones poem just right for Father's Day, plus some recipes for madeleines.
Mary Lee has written a "Chant of a June Garden," full of plant goodness.
Laura has a poem this week about a snail, from Rings of Heartwood, a new book for kids by Molly Beth Griffith.
Marcie has a post full of treasures, including her list of the "Art of Summering."
Linda's hosting a Clunker Exchange today. Here are the instructions: 1) Choose a line from the list, which you can change however you want, and "leave a clunker line of your own as exchange in the comments."
Matt has an important poem that he wrote about his college best friend.
Carol has good words about the reality that springtime can be a time of sadness.
Tabatha, like so many of us, is thinking of immigration and democracy.
Irene has the next installment of ArtSpeak: PICASSO, a poem called "Self-Portrait as Don Quixote."
Patricia shares an interview with her sister, poet Kathy Pon, about Pon's new chapbook.
Sarah Grace is thinking about fires both literal and figurative, and she also has a way to download a pdf copy of her chapbook of protest poetry, or even get hard copies.
Jone has a link to a poem written by a friend who recently passed away, and she's also discovered a new Irish poet.
Carol just got back from Yosemite, and found some poems about it from 1917!
Margaret has a book coming out too, and hers is a biography of Emma Wakefield Paillet. She shares a praise poem about Paillet.
Diane is in with some quiet time and a letter to a dream.
Ramona is our host this month for Spiritual Journey Thursday. Her prompt for us is as follows:
"Since retirement, summer no longer has the delicious
allure of a respite from the hectic days of teaching. My move to NC
has put me in the thick of summer humidity and mosquitoes after 26
Seattle summers. (Can you tell that I'm finding it hard to embrace summer in my new state?)
This theme is an invitation to each of you to help me find "summer
love". Do you have particular spiritual rhythms for summering? Is there a
book out there like Katherine May's Wintering for summer?"
I didn't post yesterday, on the actual Spiritual Journey Thursday, because it was our last day of school. It was a half day with kids, followed by a teacher lunch that went on well into the afternoon. Graduation is tomorrow, so our school year isn't fully over, but we're definitely almost there.
Ramona asked us about spiritual rhythms for summering. Unlike her, I am still teaching, so summer is a blessed break. The rhythms slow down, and there's some much-needed rest. This summer will contain some travel, some professional development (I'm doing an online AP teaching course), some time with family and friends, and more reading than usual. (I just heard that Walter Brueggemann died yesterday. I've read his Collected Sermons, but I also have his book The Prophetic Imagination on my Kindle, and I haven't read it yet, so that's going on my list for the summer.) Notice I didn't even mention writing; I do so little of that these days. But I'm hosting Poetry Friday next week, so we'll see how that goes.
My focus lately has been trying to take things as they come, not worrying about the future but living in today. World events make that challenging, as they always do. But here's something from Walter Brueggemann:
"There is something hidden, inscrutable, playful, and unresolved about our human lives that warns us not to be too sure. Such a claim is odd and uncomfortable for us, because it robs us of deep certainty and ultimate control. We may say even more. That hidden inscrutable, playful dimension of our life is an arena in which the purposes of God may be at work among us in ways we do not even recognize. This hiddenness must be honored and taken seriously, because it is a way in which God does for us more than we can do for ourselves. The big word for this hidden power of God is providence. It means that God sees before (pro-video), that God knows well ahead of us and takes the lead in our lives. This is not the same as being 'fated,' or having our lives settled in the stars. It is rather a claim that God is a real power in our lives, and is not simply a shadow or mirror of our own good intentions. God takes initiatives for our lives which may run counter to our own best intentions. Faithful people pay attention to this hiddenness, and are willingly led by it." Walter Brueggemann, from The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann.
Check out what everyone else wrote on this topic here.
I've been privileged to live in three of the world's great cities (Nairobi, Port-au-Prince and Asunción, Paraguay) as well as spending time in many others (including nine weeks in Paris as a college student). I just moved to a new city: Kampala, Uganda. I've also lived in smaller towns in three countries. In all of those places there have been difficult days, but I've never found a city or town yet where God is not, and I don't anticipate finding one in the future, either. The name of my blog comes from the song "Love is Always There," by Carolyn Arends.
