Over My Head: My Mother, Knitting

My mother has been sitting in chairs on the porch, in the kitchen, knitting. It is August and we are in a beach house and she is knitting--thick, cable-knit, gradually narrowing and cinching. It is bright red, almost unnaturally red, something out of a children's book, the one that is all sepia tones and this single red thing. It is history and symbol and other things bigger than itself, the pattering scrape of wooden needles singing a song over and through it.

She has not said the words, but I knew before I saw its shape that it was a hat. I knew before she tossed it across the table, halfway-done, to check the sizing, that it was for me. It is soft and the yarn is thick and she says it's acrylic so it won't bleed or shrink.

What hangs like humidity over our heads is what this hat is for. Winter holds no real mysteries for us, and Alaskan-born and Maine-living, the snows and winds don't frighten me anymore. But I am not acrylic. A different season, less defined and not to be easily outsmarted, hangs before us. Now, it is still summer, and this perfect place meant for vacating our troubles has tried to protect us as it has before, but real life is not escaped so easily as it was when I was a child. I still let out the usual sigh as we crossed the Cape Cod Canal, but some burdens refuse to be left at the bridge. Summer soon fades, and there will be pills and infusions, poisons meant to save me, plots of myths and fairy tales twisted in on themselves. And in an effort not to lose my life, I will bleed and shrink, and I will lose my hair.

And here in this vacation place of history and rest, in this small way my mother does what she can to save me in all this unknown. This is no knit hat but a helmet straight from those myths and stories I love, surged and bound in the burning forge-heart of a woman whose child is out past her in the storm. It is prayer and love, each ring of knits and purls its own hedge of protection rounded in soft bright red.

I am sweating from the heat of the kitchen when she puts it in my hand, complete, a blessing in cabled cord. But it is too hot, and I hold it and press it to the table, at first unable to contemplate more layers but also in acknowledgment that this season isn't here yet. In months, maybe weeks, my head will be shiny and smooth and vulnerable, and I will slide this unnaturally vibrant guard over my ears and let it hold me together. It will cover scars and evidences, and will force the cold and pain and weakness that waits for me to stand off just a little more because This Is a Woman Whose Mother Loves Her, and she will not be easily taken. 

"God is our refuge and strength, a helper who is always found in times of trouble.
Therefore we will not be afraid, though the earth trembles
and the mountains topple into the depths of the seas,
though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with its turmoil. Selah...
'Stop your fighting—and know that I am God,
exalted among the nations, exalted on the earth.'
Yahweh of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold. Selah."
Psalm 46:1-3, 10-11

Book Review: Pray Like a Gourmet

In a hard contrast to my previous review, I really wasn't expecting to like this one, I don't even remember why I requested it, other than maybe a vague "Jesus is your jam, food is your jam, you can't not request this book" knee-jerk.

For one thing, the title. It rhymes! What's that about?? Also, book-long metaphors hardly ever hold up: they look good for two chapters, and by the halfway point you're ready to throw the book through the nearest window. The book arrived, and there were all these colors and different fonts... Oh, it was going to be a mess. I sat down and prepared myself to be annoyed and underwhelmed by Pray Like a Gourmet: Creative Ways to Feed Your Soul by David Brazzeal.

My first heart in the margin (shorthand for "love this") is on the second page. My first exclamation point (good point/review note) is on the fifth, and it just never stopped: I loved this book. Brazzeal expertly uses his meal metaphor, drawing lines between lingering over or rushing through food or prayer, repetition versus exploration, alone or with friends, simple or elaborate. (It bears mentioning, he also knows when the metaphor doesn't stretch, and doesn't force it.) "Does your prayer life feel like you're eating the same food over and over every day--mixing the same ingredients but hoping for a new, more enticing dish? ... We, too, can push back and engage in seeking authentic, calm, and refreshing nourishment for our soul--each one of us, of course, with our own flair" (7, 8).

My initial reaction to the look of the book has fully turned on itself, too. Like a simple but carefully assembled meal, it is organized and beautiful but not distracting from the content. Swaths of watercolor highlight specific prayer ideas, while brief shifts in typeface and color draw attention to particular moments without overdoing it. (My only real issue is that a font color frequently used is a soft golden yellow on white paper, difficult to see even with my reasonably unaged eyes. Possibly purposeful, meaning to slow you down to notice, but potentially problematic for some readers.)

With a brief intro on how he came to ponder and experiment in prayer so much, and a closing couple chapters on using these practices even when rushed, and bringing them into a group ("Eating on the Run" and "Dining with Friends," of course), the majority of the book is organized by "courses" or types of prayer. Some are old standards, others equally established but less commonly practiced, but for all Brazzeal makes a solid case for the purpose and use of each. The weakest chapters--Confessing and Asking--are understandably so. Confession is a complicated thing to get into, especially trying to be as open to a potential reader as possible; Asking is, as he points out, what most people think of first when it comes to prayer, but his downplayi of it comes off a little too strong--just because it's an automatic response doesn't make it a bad one. But while the finer points of our theologies differ occasionally, it's never off-putting--his ideas, like good recipes, are made to be adapted.

As I was thinking on this review, I could see two potential non-ideal reactions from a reader, both of which I started to have as I read:
   1) This Is Too Much. In the same way that few of us have time to prepare a seven-course meal every day for our loved ones, who has the time and energy for all of this? While Brazzeal hints at this, I wish he was a little more blunt with it in both introduction and epilogue: to continue the metaphor, no, you rarely make a seven-course meal. But, in an effort to keep things interesting, to learn and stretch and experience, you might have soup and a sandwich one night, a salad the next, steak and potatoes and pie after that. You do a little of this and a little of that. You have your favorites, and you have those that you don't always like, but you explore every once in a while just to play. You try something new with an open mind. You vary.
   2) This Is a Bunch of Eastern Religion Hippie Dippie Hoohah. With chapters like Observing (primarily but not exclusively nature) and Meditating, I found myself starting to have a predictably American Christian reaction of "ehhhhhhh this doesn't feel like me." Here, Brazzeal does confront the issue head-on, and well. He gives brief examples of meditation from Scripture, and points out that "meditation is a spiritual human activity like mourning, fasting, or praying, and is not limited to one religious group while remaining unavailable to others" (103). Well done, well said.

I'm looking forward to keeping Pray Like a Gourmet on my night stand with my prayer journal. And turning to it frequently to stretch myself, to find new ways of communing with my God, since, as Brazzeal speaks for Him in his intro, "Wasn't this supposed to be a relationship, just you and me--not a group project?" (13). I look forward to using it to break me out of the routine, to step up and sit down at the table with my God and snack, share, feast.

I'll wrap up with a blessing of sorts, from me and from David:

"I highly encourage you to experiment and find out what works for you, but also to leave your comfort zone, to be open to trying things you never thought you were good at or even associated with prayer before" (40).


Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through  the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Fedral Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255.

Book Review: Abandon

I have very mixed feelings writing this review. Its official rating from me on GoodReads and Amazon will be 2 out of 5, though it's really more like a 2.8 (but no, that doesn't round up). I have no doubts that Tim's heart is in the right place, and that he means very well, and that this is only a beginning step in all he has been gifted to share, but Abandon falls just enough short that I can't roll that into a it's-the-thought-that-counts kind of review.

Abandon: Laying Aside Your Plan for God's Purpose is meant to be a primer for stepping out into full faith, leaving behind worldly and selfish plans and walking into the mystery God has in store for your life, whatever that may turn out to mean. While it's not a new concept for a book, there's nothing wrong with new voices for new generations--there wasn't actually much revolutionary in Blue Like Jazz when we read it ten years ago, but it was someone speaking these things for us, for my generation, and there is real value to that. But what opens with solid points and minimal distractions begins to slump, and by the last few chapters my margin notes included "What is the purpose of this?" and "No idea why this chapter is in here."

The most frustrating angle of this is Tim has the bones of a really solid book here. He makes some nice points in his first chapters about stepping away from formulaic religion and lip service, but [similar to my last reviewed book, The Esther Blessing] the problems come with tying in the story of Jacob. While there are a handful of solid connections between Jacob's story and where Tim's going, it's not enough to keep us bouncing back and forth, and ends up being a stumbling block. 

Amid, and gradually outpacing, Tim's strong points are distractions and issues:

- Brevity can be a strength, but here it comes off as rushed, as nearly an outline with a plan to return and fill in the gaps later. My paperback clocks at 172 pages, but the word count would reveal it to be much shorter, between large type, heavy spacing, frequent bullets, and nearly-every-page callouts (a tweetable quote from the page, complete with #Abandon).

- There's a consistent feel of being hurried, like Tim only had so much paper on which to write: "I've taken the time to list a few [ideas on prayer] that stick out to me" introduces a page and a half...on the Lord's prayer (114-116); after giving two examples for a point, "I could continue with this list for a long time but I won't. I think the point has been made" (121). This isn't helped by the frequency of typos, including in one of the tweetable callouts, p. 82.

- Audience questions: most of the time, Tim sticks to the pretty standard examples of sacrifice and fear: money (job/house/possessions) and marriage. This is fine, but personalizing and getting specific can do a lot. There are also some weird moments that beg the question, Who is your audience? "You're scared you won't be able to live on a five-figure instead of a six-figure salary" (54). ...I've never met these people you're talking to, Tim.

Overall, the book is more disorganized than problematic. While there are many books I'd point to before this one, I wouldn't pull it from someone's hands. That said, when dealing with an entry-level book like this, odd phrasing and throwaway sentences can find places to burn and breed in a new or reignited believer's head. One example: "The time is right to stop listening to the if onlys and start understanding that God has made many difficult sacrifices to give you your unique identity" (45). A hang-up many of us work through in our early years as a Christian is clarifying the God-as-parent metaphor, separating the inevitable human brokenness of our parents from His perfection. But here, Tim doesn't seems to be detailing God as sacrificing himself for love, but as a guilt trip. [Frustration point: On the very next page, a very well-done clarification on giving up your life.]

The marketing copy and front blurbs clearly set this as a book that will provide easy steps to follow to find "your secret to living the life beyond your wildest dreams!" (back cover). In Tim's efforts to tie in his life experience, the story of Jacob, and some generic "this is what you need to do" language, he gets lost somewhere in the middle. Unfortunately, Abandon suffers too much from these hang-ups and stumbles shy of being what it could.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR,Part 255.

but we are climbers & lovers of heights

I wrote this several months ago, and it's lived quietly on my iPad ever since. I keep thinking that I've posted it already, and then I keep not. But I decided today's the day. It's written with a friend in mind, though it's as much about me, about my LPSP05 team, about anyone. 

She says she feels guilty

standing still as the solid Texas ground shifts, 

as devastating to her as tectonics, 

as gravity, blood.

In school, she mastered her language

while theirs was elective, worth losing.

But worlds change inside lifetimes

and now she feels the guilt 

of ignorance at the grocery store, the gas pump, church.

Words are mountains. We exalted them

when we met, sharing books like cake,

swiping poetry with gooey fingers and sighing through closed eyes.

But words are mountains, impassable and hard and 

conquerable--

one step at a time, because they are there.

I should have stopped her, should have asked 

What word of theirs 

do you love, when it stops being noise 

and turns into music?

Because there's a song I hum to myself, full of words 

I infer but don't know and refuse to look up:

descanso, confio, m'esperanza, fidelidad.

Standing in that room with dozens of voices, 

I first heard the musical mystery in illiteracy.

It's where I learned the lesson:

words are mountains,

but we are climbers and lovers of heights. 

Over My Head: Introducing Junior

I don't know how often I'll write an Over My Head piece. It's taken me three weeks to work out this one. But as I process and struggle and find Jesus's perfect peace through this, I want a place for me to write out the thing, to nail it to a tree for anyone else to find hope in. I don't ask you to pass this along as a blanket prayer request for healing; I hope it will serve as an instigator for you, and for those around you. What is God calling you to? What waves are you afraid even to watch? What might we see if we did?

I thought the big news story of my year would be the church change I've mentioned before. I thought, looking back on 2015, that March would be where everything shifted over, and the rest of the year would prove to be buildup and denouement. As has always been the case, Chandra should not pursue a career in palm reading or tarot cards, because she is totally terrible at this predicting the future thing.

On July 7, I'd been reading and journaling before bed. Caught up with a new song I'd stumbled on, I wrote out lyrics in green marker in my prayer journal:

Come and do whatever You want to.

Further and further, my heart moves away from the shore.

Whatever it looks like, whatever may come

I am Yours.

Whether I sink, whether I swim,

It makes no difference when

I'm beautifully in over my head.

Some local friends and I joke that you should be careful what you pray for, because God listens and loves to show off.

I finished writing, and I turned off the light, and as I rolled over the world slowed down. Even in the dark, things were too loud, too bright, too much. The closest to this experience I've had in the past was over a thoroughly spiritual thing, and so I lay quietly and breathed the name of Jesus until I felt it pass, and fell asleep.

The next day, this episode forgotten in a rush out the door after oversleeping my alarm, I used my lunch break to head to my friend Wanda's for a hair appointment. I sat down in the chair, pulled the photo up on my phone of what I wanted for a cut, and felt it again: the slowing down, the overmuchness of everything. As Wanda came over, she could see something was wrong, and my efforts to speak gradually became a knowing that the words were sitting in the back of my brain but were unable to find my tongue.

This is the last thing I knew until I gradually came to my senses in the ER, repeating to my dear local family, "It's been a really weird day." (I remember saying this about three times. Tim assures me it was five times that.)

I don't remember starting to seize in Wanda's chair. I don't remember her holding me down and calling for an ambulance. I don't remember chewing on my tongue, though it was hard to swallow for a couple days for its swelling. I only vaguely remember the adhesive pads for the EKG, but I remember the nurse smiling and saying, "Your heart works great, so there's some good news." I remember texting various friends and family, but a day or two later I would read those texts and not remember choosing those words (and, in some cases, I'd be mildly appalled by them).

I remember being taken in for the CT and then the MRI, but most clearly I remember the young, friendly doctor walking in with papers in his hands. "You see this little circle?" he asked in a harmless voice. "That's your brain tumor."

I think he left after that. In any case, I don't remember anything until my surgeon--this man I would come to know as my surgeon, my neurosurgeon, because I need one of those now--came in the room, his scrubs wrinkled and his hair wild from the recent removal of a cap. He spoke with authority and kindness, and humor, of all things. Wonderful soothing humor. And he said some words, and then frowned a little, and drew his finger across the paper, two inches out from what the first doctor had pointed to. "No, this. This is your tumor."

Since then, there have been days of processing, of cycling through, at a guess, 20% of the emotions that will hit me sometime in the next few months. There have been daily meds, and a consult, and scheduling a second MRI and a biopsy. There has also been a cross-country trip to our largest show, and getting angrier at St. Louis humidity than unscheduled cranial growths, and MamaLowe hugs and college roommate visits, and a Facebook purge, and a thousand conversations with dear friends and awkward acquaintances and everyone in between involving words I've never used seriously:

Seizure. Tumor. Cancer. Chemo. Radiation.

That's about the end of the clinical stuff. I know you have a friend who went through this, but I don't actually need to know their experience. I know you want to know all the details, but I don't have that many yet and I don't need to share all that I do have. I know we've all seen too many Grey's Anatomy episodes, but I don't actually want Patrick Dempsey for a second opinion. It's weird, it's crazy, this is not how I planned my summer, but this was never outside the reach of God.

I wasn't in Maine last weekend, but at the urging of a friend I listened to my pastor's sermon via podcast when I got home, and Jesus and I had a good cry during and after. (You can listen to Eric preach here.) The sermon was on one of my favorite moments in the gospels: the boys are stuck in a boat in a crazy storm, and from out of the dark, the Savior of the World comes climbing up the waves. Eric spoke not of some over-shiny, unrealistic leaping for joy in a storm, but of keeping your eyes open for what you've never known. A day later, Kelly Minter (thoroughly unrelatedly) commented on Facebook, "When in the boat, Peter hears from John, 'It is the Lord,' and hurls himself into the water to swim to Jesus. That sums up the gospel for me." (Peter's plan was to swim--something he likely couldn't do, or couldn't do well. Instead, he walked.) This is my prayer for this process, this storm: Not blanket healing--I wouldn't pass it up, but I just don't feel like that's what's coming--but God being glorified in me, and by me, so others would know Him more. So I would know Him deeper. So I would be in over my head.

One last piece: Hospitality is my jam, and the other night I was reading a quick devotional because I was too tired for anything more. "Let brotherly love continue," says the writer of Hebrews, "Don't neglect to show hospitality, for by doing this some have welcomed angels as guests without knowing it. Remember the prisoners, as though you were in prison with them..." (13:1-3). I share my fridge, my table, my couch. I spread board games across my living room floor and bring families spreads of food and send cards. But the root of hospitality is sharing life. Even when it's a mess, even when my emotions are going sixteen directions and chemo has worn me ragged and my hair is suffering from more than a cut. Even then, I share and give myself till I'm empty. Not out of obligation or guilt. Not because I'll feel better. But because there are angels to entertain, and there are prisoners out there, trapped in a life that doesn't let hope in through the bars.



To listen (and see all the lyrics) to Jenn Johnson's (Bethel's) "In Over My Head (Crash Over Me)," click here.
And as long as we're on the subject, this too. "So let go, my soul, and trust in Him: the waves and wind still know His Name."

My tumor's name is Junior because the first thing I heard in my scatterbrained head in the aftermath of scans and announcements was my brother's Schwarzenegger impression: "Id's nod a TOOMAH!" Except it is. And I thought it was from the movie Junior, and while it is in fact from Kindergarten Cop, it's far too late to rename him, so Junior stays. 

Six Years Gone

I don't have another blog post about grief--I wrote one last year that I liked fine, and I find that I don't have much more to say. Six years gone, I still don't know if it's truthful to say I miss him--there are moments when I do, but they are very far apart. But six years ago tomorrow, I got a phone call telling me my father had died the day before.

A month later, at his memorial service, I fled from the surfeit of well-wishers--people who knew this man who seemed to share a great deal with the man I knew, but couldn't possibly be the same?--and scrawled out words to try and make sense of the emotional mess I was.

The following spring, on an impossibly bright sunshiny Vermont day, my brother stood by my side and we spoke words over stone. They weren't necessarily welcomed by all who stood there--stood apart, stood on the other side--but grief is a process and rarely a pretty one. The poem had taken a few small revisions, but largely remained the thing I had carved out the previous summer.

And each year, this day or the next (the anniversary is a strange one--do you honor the day it happened or the day you found out?), I reread it, and maybe I'll stop when I stop loving it.

So here it is.


Grieving the Whole

Though in a crowd, I sit with silence
listening to strangers unwind memories, stories
of You I Don’t Know.
Later, one asks if I learned anything new about you
and I stumble not to say, “Everything,
but I think I already knew that.” I only smile. You see, still

my civility holds me back and stills
my tongue, giving me only clichés and thank yous.
After years of bitten-back words, now I have only silence
to speak to. This You I Don’t Know
doesn’t deserve the fury that lingers in histories,
but if you don’t hear it, I have nothing

to say, nothing
to say it to. I have no
confidante for this aside, no eager stillness
expecting my words, no hushed-silent
audience waiting for this soliloquy. You
are gone, and that is a truth stronger than stories.

There was a time in our history
when I knew you as Daddy, when even in silence
I knew you as mine, as everything
you were meant to be. Would the friends of This You say you were still
that way? Would they describe to me a man who didn’t know
how to leave? Because you did--you

left. And the friends here know you only as The You
After Me. I am anecdotal, still
a footnote in your story.
You wanted better, I know--wanted this thing
that stood between, this unsteady silence
to come undone and disintegrate. I know

you wished it gone--the same way I know
it was immovable, a thing
impermeable to time or change. But I also know it is not a thing you
made. It is a thing as fragile, as fundamental as history,
a thing drawn out of missed phone calls and father’s days, fermented in stillness
and outlasting every You there is but this, the one who sits here with me and silence.

Book Review: The Esther Blessing

I want to open with saying that I am sure that Deborah Brunt's heart is in the right place, that she feels strongly about communicating truth, and using Scripture to do it. I think having a conversation with her would be enormously encouraging and challenging. There are a handful of quotes and ideas from the book that I've really pondered on, and shared with others. But to say that her right heart and her ideas cohere into a solid book would be misleading at best.

The main crux of her book is that grace shares a similar cycle to that of water: flowing down (God empowering us), flowing out (us serving God & the world), and flowing up (our praising God). This is some solid stuff that bears digging into, and it's a good idea to pair it with a story like Esther. Unfortunately, the bricks of her argument are repeated, circled back to, and rephrased to the point of exhaustion. What starts off as a "what a great concept" feel in Chapter 3 becomes a "...didn't you tell me this already" by Chapter 9.

My chief issue with the book is, indeed, organizational, which is what makes this a hard review: much of the content is good, if sometimes a little oversimplified. But chapter to chapter, and sometimes even paragraph to paragraph, there are jarring shifts in tone, style, and content. On a similar note, there are some distracting consistency issues: for the whole of Chapter 2, we painstakingly walk through the first chapter and a half of Esther, focusing on parts of the story that don't seem to tie in to Brunt's larger points; later, in the whole of Chapter 7, there are two singular mentions of people in the Esther story. At times Esther is almost too central, at the sacrifice of Brunt's argument; at others, the only connection to Esther is the header of the page.

But again, apart from those larger issues, there was some good content here. Some of my particular high points:
   - in Chapter 1, a good unpacking of the Greek in Romans 5:20--this, in fact, was one of the best bits of the book, and by far the most worthwhile translation note. She delves into the Greek terms for what is typically translated as "abounded" or "increased" in regards to both sin and grace, which really opens that verse wide open. From there, she does some nice work confirming that grace is not an enabler of sin. "Grace never contributes to a holding pattern" (p 31-32*)
   - a few bits in Chapter 7: a nice aside about the frequent misunderstanding of Christian service: "you don't live by inhaling until you're 25 or so, and then exhaling until retirement... You live abundantly, you reign in life, as you inhale and exhale continuously" (p 281); a good mention of how mourning opens us up to God's communication; solid explanation of the difference between keeping/spending in the world vs. God's economy
   - in Chapter 9, some in-depth discussion of the importance of celebration in glorifying God

In addition to the organizational issues, there were a some occasional moments of concern for me, falling under two umbrellas:
    Misuse: Metaphor and comparison can be incredibly helpful when illuminating a principle or a Scripture, and occasionally Brunt does this quite well. There are, however, a few times when she misuses a comparison to the point of offense: the worst of it is in her introducing Haman into the Esther story, where she delves into the Newtown, CT, school shooting, speculating on what-ifs involving the shooter and how much worse it could have been. You're making reference to the violent deaths of twenty children and eight adults. You don't play the what-if game.
   Church Issues: Brunt makes a few mentions of leaving her denomination, and taking a seven-year fast (that apparently involved the breaking of most of her relationships?). This would be fine on its own, but there are clearly some issues she's still hanging on to, and have no place in a book. This includes some casual slams on her denomination's practices, and an awkwardly blaming story of a mission trip.

As she wraps up the book in her acknowledgments, Brunt says that while she pondered these things for two decades, "it took me a very short time to write this book" (p 520). That's exactly how this feels: in some ways, like this is her first draft, roughing out the things she wants to say with a stream-of-consciousness tone and a low filter. It feels like when something has snagged you, and you want to tell everyone you know, but you need to clean things up and get organized before the power with which it hit you can be transmitted to anyone else. It's left me disappointed: as I say, she has some good stuff in here, but it's too muddled up to do the work it should.


* A brief note about page numbers: using iBooks, the page number varies based on screen size, typeface, etc. This was based on my iPhone readout, which charts the book at 538 pages (official page count, according to GoodReads: 193). I've give chapter references to aid in citation.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR,Part 255.