Reading Update

Book #39 of 2026 was The War I Finally Won, by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. This is the sequel to The War that Saved My Life, which I read earlier this year. (The link is to what I wrote about it at the time.) I was happy to get to read more about Ada and her experiences in World War II London.

 

Book #40 was Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand, by Jeff Chu. Chu participated in the "Farminary" while attending Princeton Theological Seminary, and this is a memoir centered around what he and his spiritual life experienced there as a Chinese-American, gay "writer, speaker, reporter, editor, preacher and teacher," as he describes himself on his website. 

 

Book #41 was Arundhati Roy's memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me. I learned a lot about this author, including about her political activities in India. You can really tell where her strange, atmospheric novels came from when you read about her life.

 

Book #42 was a book club pick, West With Giraffes, by Lynda Rutledge. We all loved this historical novel set in dust bowl America and including giraffes! 

 

Book #43 was We'll Always Have Summer, the third in the Summer I Turned Pretty trilogy, which I first read back in 2016 when my middle schoolers were so into them. 

 

Book #44 was The Poppy Fields, by Nikki Erlick. I enjoyed this novel about grief and healing.

 

Book #45 was Lake Effect, by Cynthia d'Aprix Sweeney, the story of pair of neighbor families that are changed forever by the decisions of two of the parents. We learn about what happened in 1977 and then we get to see the next generation many years later as they deal with the long-term effects. 

 

Book #46 was This is Not About Us, by Allegra Goodman. Not a novel but connected short stories, this book introduces us to the members of a Jewish-American family who lose one of their own in the first story. I enjoyed meeting all these finely-drawn, convincing characters. 

 

Book #47 was Kate Bowler's new book, Joyful, Anyway, which explores how to have joy in a world that is so full of not-joy. 

 

Book #48 was More Than Enough, by Anna Quindlen. I really enjoyed this novel about a DNA test and a book club.  

SJT May: Beginnings and Endings

 

This month's Spiritual Journey Thursday host, Chris Margocs, has asked us to reflect on beginnings and endings. She commented that there are a lot of ending-type transitions in May, like graduations and final exams. We have several weeks left of school, but we're already involved in external exams and getting ready for the internal ones. Plus there are performances coming up, report card comments to be written, Sports Day, and so on. It makes me tired just thinking about all of it. 

 

Chris quoted Isaiah 43:18-19 in her prompt: "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?" It's easy for me to dwell on the past. Sometimes the memories are happy ones, and sometimes I'm ruminating on difficult times that I haven't fully been able to let go. It's good for me to be reminded that the story isn't over yet; there are still chapters ahead that I haven't even imagined. (I certainly never thought I'd be living in Uganda at this time in my life, and I'm loving that unexpected chapter!) 

 

Drawn by Chris' quote, I too went to Isaiah, and I found some verses a couple of chapters later where God is speaking to Israel. He says that He was there in the beginning of Israel's journey and is still there in old age: "Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you." (Isaiah 46:3-4.) Later in verses 9 and 10 He says, "I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done." When I read these words, I realize how often my focus is on the concerns of this moment, and how hard it is to keep an eternal perspective. But when I think about the beginning and the end, both of my life (from before my birth to my current gray hair era) and of time (from ancient times into a distant future still unknown), it's easier to remember how small I am in the scheme of things, and how very little is mine to control. 

 

Thinking of beginnings, middles, and ends made me remember Billy Collins' wonderful poem "Aristotle." It's very difficult to excerpt, so maybe you should just go read the whole thing here. I decided to write my own version.

 

School Year
after Billy Collins


This is the beginning. 
Almost anything can happen.
You’ve got your blank planner, 
your blank classroom walls,
your blankety blank lesson plans to create.
Your class lists have names
familiar and unfamiliar,
but everyone will be new after the summer,
full of energy and the joy of learning.

This is the middle.
Now the grade book has blanks,
but they are messy, like missing teeth.
Now the parent conferences have
both good and bad to report,
the pencils are stubby and blunt,
and it’s time to buy the next size of school uniforms.

And this is the end,
the chapters in the textbook we won’t get to,
the lost and found overflowing with hoodies,
the shushing sound of exams
as scratching pens fill blank pages.
Graduation is almost here
with joy and tears,
and then the weeks of vacation
leading us back to 
the beginning
again. 

 

©Ruth Bowen Hersey 

 

Check out Chris' blog to see what others have written about for this month's SJT!