Emily Dickinson calls Hope, “the thing with feathers.”* She says that Hope is like a bird that sings in your heart without stopping and without expecting anything in return.
If Hope is the thing with feathers then Faith is the thing with scales. Faith is the eel that wriggles out of your grasp. It’s that shard of eggshell trapped in slimy eggwhites that slips from your fingertip or right over of the lip of your spoon every time you try to isolate it.
Faith is rubbing alcohol with its sharp ammonia scent, disinfecting you of cynicism and doubt but then evaporating off of the warm surface of your skin and fading into thin air faster than you can catch it.
Faith is Jacob wrestling with the Angel of the Lord through the long, dark night. It’s trying to hold onto something enormous when you have such small hands.
But, like Jacob, there are brief moments when I do capture Faith and grasp it tight in my two hands. Like Jacob I say, “Don’t leave me! Or if you have to go, then mark me. Leave something of yourself with me so I can look at it and know that you are real. So I can remember this time that I caught you and looked into your eyes. So I can believe that I will find you again and again, even as you slip through my fingers.”
I am leaving for vacation tonight and will be traveling for the next two weeks with sporadic internet access so I will probably be slow with responding to messages and putting up new posts for the next few weeks. The first 52 Weeks of Adventure link-up is still open. Click on the button at the bottom of the post to add your link or to view links that others have added.
Over the weekend I discovered Brenda’s blog Embark: Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure. Brenda invites readers to join her on fifty-two weeks of adventures for 2015.
“Embark with me as I take fifty-two adventures and re-discover the joy of ordinary life being lived to its fullest.
I challenge you to find a way to learn, to grow, to care and to breathe, each day, for fifty-two weeks. Nourish your mind, soul, heart and body. And each week, go on an adventure. “
Seriously?! An adventure EVERY WEEK FOR A YEAR?! How will I contain the awesome?!?! I don’t think I have the words for how excited this made me. Maybe this picture will help explain it:
Needless to say, challenge accepted, Brenda. Challenge Accepted!
I will be posting here once a week (probably on Mondays or Tuesdays) about that week’s adventure. The cool thing about this challenge is that nobody decides what counts as an adventure but you. Some adventures may be big and exciting and some may be as simple as trying a new food or intentionally learning about something I didn’t know before.
This practice is not about doing extravagant things or trying to impress anyone with how adventurous I am. It’s about living with intention and making the most of my one wild and precious life by seeing and seizing the opportunities of each ordinary week. It’s about pushing myself to live a little bigger, to breathe a little deeper, to open my eyes a little wider.
Interested in joining? There are a few ways you can be involved. First, you can head over to Brenda’s blog and download her adorable Embark Journal and follow her adventures there. And if you write about your adventures in a blog, you can also link your posts here on Such Small Hands. I will host a link-up each week when I post my own adventure of the week. The link-up will be open for one week and will close when the next week’s post goes up. You can participate in all of them or pop in and out throughout the year. If you post once there is no pressure to post every week – I just thought this would be a fun journey to take as a community.
So that’s the deal. And now, without further ado…
Adventure Numero Uno
I started writing my book.
I actually sat down in front of my computer and I wrote “Introduction” and then I wrote an introduction!
This may not seem like a big deal to some of you fancy, big-time writers, but it was a huge step for me. Because while I have been thinking about the book I want to write for some time, I’ve been a real pansy about getting started. I’ve talked about what I want to write and I’ve even whined about how hard it is, but have I actually sat down and tried to do it? No. No, I haven’t. Until this past Saturday.
As part of my pursuit of wholeheartedness this year I am trying to be courageous. I need the courage to be vulnerable and to do hard work, even if it’s never rewarded. I need to stop talking about what I wish I could do in life and start living it. So for me, starting my book was the beginning of a very big adventure.
I’m headed to Thailand for our winter vacation on Friday so my next few adventures will probably be travel-related. They also might be late depending on how reliable my internet access is. I know that’s not a great way to start a new series, but it’s also giving me a chance to practice another of my wholehearted commitments, self-compassion. 🙂
In the words of the great Disney/Pixar movie, Up! :
“Adventure is out there!”
Please click the button below to add your link or to read other people’s links! When you link up, be sure to link to THIS POST from your blog so your readers know where to find the rest of the link-up!
In Korea people don’t stay up until midnight to ring in the New Year. Instead, they get up in the middle of the night and they hike a mountain. They climb through the dark, snowy pre-dawn hours and when they reach the top they stand with their faces to the sky to greet the first sunrise of the New Year.
What a contrast to how we in the West often enter the New Year – stumbling out of bed at noon, tired and quite possibly hungover. For many, January 1st is a day of recovery. We spend New Year’s Eve celebrating the ending of something and the beginning of a new thing. We bombard the internet with reflections on the previous year. Even the less introspective among us take a moment to declare the past year, “the best” or “the hardest” or “the craziest” year of their lives.
I can never bring myself to make those kinds of statements. Because I don’t believe a year can ever be just one thing. Life is never just one thing, and what is a year besides a microcosm of an entire life?
Elaine’s comment on my Year in Review post explained this perfectly. She said she was struck by “how every year is a little life – with birth, death, family, love, travel, new things, familiar things, difficulties and good friends all swirling through it.” I thought this was profound because of what it says about the year we’ve just lived and what it means for the year ahead.
2014 had a life that is both self-contained and part of a larger whole. Entering the New Year doesn’t mean we’ve finished with the old one. We can’t discard it like a worn-out pair of shoes. We carry our past years deep inside our bones. They make up the very DNA of our lives.
The person I was as a child is markedly different from the person I am today, but I could never say I’ve left her behind entirely. You never completely stop being the person you were at 8 or 18 or 28. You carry all of these selves inside of you and they shape who you become. In the same way, we each carry dozens of lives with us –the lives we lived in our previous years – and these lives become part of our future.
But carrying the past year with you doesn’t mean you have to be weighed down or shackled by it.
In the past, I’ve looked back on my previous year and made some promises. I’ve set goals for the year ahead that were largely lists of how I would do better, be better than I was the previous year. I used to think that doing this was a way of leaving the previous year behind, but maybe all that is is a way of letting the previous year enslave me.
I don’t think we have the choice to throw out the previous year or any year of our lives. But we do have a choice about how we let it shape our lives. I can either look at the previous year and allow my mistakes and disappointments and perfectionism drive me to guilt-ridden resolutions, or I can look at the previous year and simply embrace it all, both the proud moments and the parts I wish I could undo, thank God for them, and let them be part of my story.
This year, instead of making a list of resolutions, instead of thinking of all the ways I failed in the last year or all the things I want to do better, instead of making 2015 a giant to-do list, I’ve decided to join the many people I know who choose One Word. The idea of One Word is to get rid of your list and to choose just one word to focus on for a whole year. “One word that sums up who you want to be and how you want to live.”
I’ve been thinking about my word for several weeks. At first I thought about “Belief,” because it’s something I desperately want more of – in God, in myself, in the world. And then I thought about “Present,” the practice of being fully engaged where I am instead of constantly thinking of the next thing or the last thing. Both of these are important to me, but when I really considered what summed up who I want to be and how I want to live one word rose to the top. My word for this year is Wholehearted.
Wholehearted is about sincerity and commitment. For me this means authenticity in my life and my writing. It means commitment to continue my faith-wrestling and to asking sincere questions. Being Wholehearted is also a commitment to courage, compassion, and connection. It is the courage to be vulnerable despite the risk, the compassion to love other people well and to extend grace quickly, both to myself and to others, and the choice to develop genuine connections with others. Wholeheartedness means committing to being fully present, to showing up for every day of my life instead of checking out when things are hard or boring. It means engaging with Today and believing that every day is a gift. And Wholehearted means believing that I am worthy of love and belonging – not because there is anything especially great and deserving about me, but because we are all worthy of love and belonging and because we can’t fully accept love and belonging unless we believe we are worthy of it.
This year I want to step into the New Year with intention. I want to turn my face towards the sun and say, “I’m here. Whatever you have to offer, I am fully present and ready to receive it. The births and the deaths. The joys and the fears and the disappointments. The beauty and the brokenness. The faith and the doubt. The longing and the contentment. The adventure and the mundane.” May 2015 be a step on the journey towards Wholeheartedness.
Today I am continuing my Year in Review by revisiting my favorite books of the year. (I am doing this series instead of my regular What I’m Into post that I normally do with Leigh Kramer) I read a total of 61 books this year (I am currently reading Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, but I don’t think I’ll be able to finish it in the next two days so 61 it is). Most of them were good books because, let’s face it, if it’s really awful I probably won’t bother finishing it. Ain’t nobody got time for that ;). Several of the books I read this year have made it onto my Best Books of All Time list.
One of the things I most enjoyed about my reading this year was the opportunity to read lots of different genres. I learned so much about the world and about myself from the books I read this year. The downside to the wide spread of genres is that it made it difficult to compare books when trying to choose favorites, so instead I made it easier on myself by breaking it down.
Best Fantasy:
The Way of Kings ($7.68 for Kindle) and Words of Radiance (still on sale for Kindle for $3.75) by Brandon Sanderson. I wrote about these on my recent Kindle deals post, so I’ll just reiterate – these are the first two books in a series that is still being written and they are two of the best books I have ever read in this or any other genre. I cannot say enough good things about them. They are masterpieces. This is a fantasy epic that will appeal even to those who aren’t huge fantasy readers. This is a story about honor and justice and revenge. The characters are fantastic and the world with it’s various people groups and magic system, etc is captivating. If I could recommend just one book from this year’s reading to everyone I know it would be this book. (PS- If you get it, stick with it through the prologue. It’s a weird start to the book but I promise after you get past those first two chapters you’ll be hooked).
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (Only $1.99 right now!): This is also one of the best books I’ve ever read. If you are into fantasy at all, you mustread this book and the sequel The Wise Man’s Fear ($5.99!) The prose is gorgeous. The world-building is phenomenal, the characters will become dear friends. I really can’t say enough positive things about this book. This is the first-person narrative of a terrifically gifted young man who grows to be the greatest wizard the world has ever seen.
Best Mystery:
The Secret Place by Tana French ($11.99 on Kindle, $16.06 hardback) I love, love, love Tana French. She and Kate Atkinson are my favorite mystery writers, hands-down. This book did not disappoint me. I will say – this was the first of her books that I guessed who the murderer was pretty early on, but I don’t really think it was because it was too obvious. I just had a good gut instinct on this one. The Likeness is still my favorite French book, but I really enjoyed this one. As a warning – this is an Irish Detective novel so the language is pretty salty.
The Silkworm by J.K. Rowling under the name Robert Galbraith. ($10.99 for Kindle and $16.09 in hardback) This is the second of Rowling’s Cormoran Strike mystery novels. It did not disappoint. Rowling is, of course, a master storyteller and the mystery was intriguing, the characters were well-developed, and the plot was engaging and unpredictable. I thought this book was great fun, though I probably liked the first Cormoran Strike book (The Cuckoo’s Calling) slightly better.
Best Spiritual Memoirs:
Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions by Rachel Held Evans (still on sale for Kindle for $2.99): Evans’ story about coming from a fundamentalist evangelical “it’s us against the world” background and learning to be ok asking questions, even if you don’t find answers right away resonated deeply with me. I love that she actually articulates some of the really hard questions of life and faith in this book and doesn’t try to smooth them over with Bible verses or trite Christian phrases. My biggest takeaway was something Evans said at the very end of the book – that there is a difference between questioning God and questioning what you believe about God.
Found: A Story of Questions, Grace, and Everyday Prayer by Micha Boyett (still on sale for Kindle $3.03). This is a story for tired Christians who need to experience God in the ordinariness of life. It particularly resonates for those of us who grew up evangelical and have always felt burdened by the need to pray more, read more, do more. This book will probably be especially meaningful for those who feel they’ve lost themselves in parenthood, but even as someone who is not a mother I could relate so well.
Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint by Nadia Bolz-Weber ($8.89 for Kindle and $12.97 in paperback) I just finished this book at the beginning of December which is why you haven’t heard me talk about it before, but it was profound to me in many ways. I read this after listening to a podcast interview she gave a few months ago. I admit that it’s not for everyone, but I am not the kind of person who has to agree with everything someone else says in order to appreciate the truths they share. Bolz-Weber is the pastor of an unconventional Lutheran church in Denver, Colorado called the House for All Sinners and Saints known for such things as the blessing of the motorcycles and the chocolate fountain in the baptismal on Easter Sunday. She writes beautifully about how she came back to faith by believing that there was a place in the Church for someone like her—covered in tattoos and recovering from addictions. One of the most beautiful bits of her book to me was when she talked about falling in love with the liturgy. She says she loved it, “because the liturgy has it’s own integrity. It doesn’t depend on mine.”
Best Non-fiction
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talkingby Susan Cain (still on sale for Kindle for $2.99) I found this book completely fascinating. If you are an introvert or you love an introvert, you must read this. It taught me so much about how I work as a highly sensitive introvert in contrast with my husband who is more strongly introverted, but is not highly sensitive. I also found her exploration of Western culture’s “extrovert ideal” so helpful in understanding the ways in which I’ve trained myself to act more extroverted. This helped me make sense of why I am 100% sure I’m an introvert, but other people sometimes seem surprised by that.
Daring Greatly: How to Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, by Brene Brown ($10.99 for Kindle and $14.66 for hardback). I believe everyone struggles with shame and vulnerability and I also believe the ideas and strategies in this book about embracing vulnerability and developing shame resilience has the power to change people’s lives. I encourage you to read it and be open to finding yourself in it. You can read my full review of this book here or watch Brene Brown’s TED talks on this topic here and here.
Best Food Writing
Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table by Shauna Niequist (Still $1.99 for Kindle right now): This book is about food and hospitality and about the table as a place for building community. I wrote more about what this book meant to me here. This book fit into two genres since it’s part spiritual memoir part culinary book (with recipes!) and makes the list in both.
Delancey: A Man, A Woman, A Restaurant, A Marriage by Molly Wizenberg ($12.99 for Kindle or $15.18 in paperback). I love books about food and the food industry and this one – about a young couple opening a specialty pizza restaurant in Seattle, both satisfied my voyeurism about that world and broke down some of my romanticized notions about what owning a restaurant is like.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Michael Pollan ($7.99 for Kindle and $9.60 in paperback). This book follows the food chain from one end to the other for four different meals. The industrial food chain which produces the McDonald’s chicken nugget (which, you will learn, is largely composed of corn, rather than chicken). The industrial organic food chain where grass-fed beef and non-chemical fertilizers and pesticides are used to mass-produce organic food for places like Whole Foods. The local organic food chain where all of the food is raised locally using sustainable practices and intentionally not traveling far from where it was produced. And finally a meal from a forager’s food chain where all of the food was personally grown or collected by the consumer. This book was fascinating and enlightening and convicting and will certainly challenge you to think about where you food is coming from and what you are putting into your body from an ethical standpoint more than a health one. I genuinely think this book will impact my food choices in the future.
Best Contemporary Fiction
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty (still on sale for Kindle for $3.99). I read four books by Liane Moriarty this year. Also, she’s Australian, so I feel cultured reading about people in Sydney. 😉 This is her newest release and probably my favorite. I think she’s a great contemporary writer, writing about complex family relationships and suburban drama in a fresh way. Her characters are always interesting and fully-formed. This particular novel revolves around the death of an elementary school parent at a school function, but who died and how it happened remains a mystery until the very end. It’s a fun, engaging read.
What Alice Forgot also by Liane Moriarty ($7.99 for Kindle and $8.70 in paperback). This is probably Moriarty’s most popular book – it’s about a woman who wakes up after a fall with no memory of the past ten years of her life. While the whole “I have amnesia” trope can feel overdone or predictable, the complexity of the characters made this a much more nuanced story instead of just a cheap plot device. This was a fun, quick read, but it also left me thinking a lot about how the little choices we make in life that can add up to change the direction of your life. Little moments can pull you somewhere you never imagined going. This book also deals with infertility in a very genuine way that I’ve never quite seen done in fiction.
Best Historical Fiction
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak ($7.99 for Kindle and $8.52 for the paperback). I’m sure you’ve heard of this book or maybe seen the movie, but this book is a gem. The characters are unique and interesting (especially the choice to have it narrated by the character of Death) and the story is moving. I sobbed through the ending. It’s one of the best WWII fiction book I’ve ever read. I suppose some people would complain that they felt “emotionally manipulated,” but, I mean, it’s a WWII book – if you don’t have an emotional response to it there’s probably something wrong with you. (Just kidding, sort of).
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr ($10.99 for Kindle and $17.16 in hardback). This book is gorgeous and haunting and will stay with you long after you finish it. In alternating chapters the book tells the story of a blind French girl whose father is the Keeper of the Locks for the Museum of Natural History in Paris and a German orphan boy whose talent with engineering gets him recruited into an elite military academy and then sent into the field tracking the Resistance during WWII. As WWII progresses their paths collide as each deal with the aftermath of one of the most terribly times in human history.
I recently bought a ton of books with the Amazon gift card my parents sent for my birthday and I am looking forward to doing lots of reading over my winter vacation which starts next Friday! (I know, I know, I have a problem!)
Disclaimer: Amazon Affiliate links included in this post. If you click through to Amazon, any purchase you make supports this site.
For the past few weeks every time I’ve logged onto Facebook I’ve gotten a message urging me to share my Year in Review with my friends. When I scrolled through the timeline the Facebook elves had strung together I found that while I did some photo-worthy things in January, I apparently did nothing at all between then and April. Actually, according to Facebook, there is only evidence of my living at all during 5 of the 12 months of this past year.
At first I was kind of indignant, “Hey, Facebook. I DO things. I’m pretty sure I did things in March and in July and October. I’m almost positive.” But then I realized that real life could never be summed up in a Facebook album. Real life is both grittier and more beautiful.
Normally at the end of each month I do a What I’m Into post to summarize what I’ve been reading, watching, eating, and doing over the previous month. For these last few days of December I’ve decided to do a few year-in-review posts about 2014 before writing about goals and dreams for the coming year.
This post is about the adventures we lived this year. Not every adventure was fun and exciting. Some were difficult and scary. And of course, some were just plain boring. Everyday life is full of mundane moments, but my hope in reflecting on this year is that I will see these moments as part of the story too instead of only remembering the highlights.
***
2014 was an epic travel year for the Dunns. Including Korea, we went to 7 countries this year – blowing our previous record (1 country) out of the water. 😉 Since our winter vacation from school comes in January we started the year with the trip of a lifetime – 18 days spent in China, New Zealand, and Australia. Jonathan and I agree that that trip (particularly New Zealand) was probably the greatest traveling experience we’ve had or will ever have. We were (and are) profoundly grateful for this opportunity and remind ourselves of it often when we have moments of frustration and homesickness because we never could have taken that trip if we hadn’t chosen to come to Korea. You can read about our trip and see more photos here and here and here.
Wanaka, New Zealand
Sydney, Australia
Great Wall of China
February and March were hard. They were long and cold and dark and especially after leaving the summer weather in Australia and New Zealand I struggled. I struggled with depression and with feeling like I didn’t belong. I struggled with my body and with my relationship with food. And I clung to my family and celebrated the beautiful friends whom I love so dearly.
In the spring, we did a bit of traveling around Korea to see the green tea fields and attend a cherry blossom festival. In May my parents came to visit us in Korea and we were able to do a little bit of in-country travel with them. Since the entire country of South Korea is about the size of the state of Indiana, it’s pretty easy to cover a lot of ground in a short time. We explored Seoul, Busan, and Gyeongju as well as our city, Daegu.
Green tea fields in Boseong
Hiking at Palgongsan with my parents
In the spring, I also joined a Bible study with one of the most delightfully diverse group of women I could imagine. There was both more eating and more cursing than any Bible study I’ve ever been a part of, but there was also more courage, more honesty, and more desire as well. The girls in this group have changed a bit from when we first started, but we are still meeting and it’s still one of the best things that happened to me this year.
In June I had an article published that went viral (in fact, I recently learned that it was Relevant’s most-read story of the year). To say I was unprepared for this is the understatement of the year. But I’ve learned so much through this experience and I’m deeply grateful for the opportunities I received as a result and am still amazed and humbled that something I wrote could have been seen by so many people.
In June we celebrated our 4th anniversary with a trip to the Busan Aquarium where I reminded Jonathan of how lucky he is to married to a girl who can do this with her face.
I can’t believe I ever got someone to marry me.
But in June my best friend’s dad was diagnosed with advanced terminal cancer and all I could do was sit on skype with her and cry.
July was the worst. It was hot and so, so wet and humid and gray all the time. The semester crawled by and after nearly a year in Korea we were feeling desperate for a change. We were tired and sad and not altogether excited about the fact that we had just signed a contract to stay in Korea for another year. And all summer long I prayed bold prayers that seemed to go unheard.
In August our best friends here in Korea had a perfect baby girl. It was a privilege to walk beside them through the entire pregnancy, to meet Genevieve hours after she was born, and to watch her grow over the past 4 months. As a bonus, both of the grandmas were able to come to Korea to meet their granddaughter and they were able to stay with us (because we have a bigger apartment) so we had moms with us for most of September and October which was nearly as good as having our own moms here.
Josh, Laura, and Genevieve Louise Rhoads
In August we also went home to America for 10 days to see our families and to stuff ourselves with enough of our favorite American foods to make it another year away from them. We spent 5 days in Louisiana with my family and 5 days in Ohio with my in-laws, but we didn’t make it to North Carolina where a lot of our friends and our cats are. Since we were already flying back to Asia, we stopped for a few days in Bali before getting back to Korea. The monkey forest was easily the highlight of that trip.
Family Photo, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia
In September we took a long weekend trip to Osaka and Kyoto in Japan where I had an unfortunate stomach incident and where we got to see some real live geisha headed to work. (Geisha is the plural of geisha – fun fact for you).
The Golden Pavilion in Kyoto
In October I read like it was my job. I read to avoid writing and maybe other parts of my life and instead I sat back and let some friends do the writing for me. I ran a guest series on various aspects of sex and the church and was inspired and encouraged by the brave words of my friends.
In November I ran the Dalgubeol Marathon (it’s only a half marathon so the name is misleading) here in Daegu and set a new PR at 1:57:06 beating my previous time by 7 1/2 minutes! I was so excited to break the 2-hour barrier, but I confess that I haven’t run a single time since then, haha. Maybe it’s time to set a new goal…
I also had a blog post that was Freshly Pressed in November leading to some lovely new blogging friends.
I celebrated my birthday at the beginning of the month with a visit to the coolest wine bar where we sat on cushions on the floor of this little alcove covered in thick carpets and sipped sparkly drinks and almost fell asleep because it was so warm and cozy and the only lights were from dozens of candles and it smelled like sweet spices from all the hookah (which, for the record, I did not smoke). I also dyed my hair brown and got these bangs that all the Korean girls have but that frankly feel way too cool for me.
To bang or not to bang…?
Most recently, Julie, a friend of mine from high school, came all the way out to Korea for a visit. We braved the cold in Seoul and made it to some of the big touristy spots and made an entertaining stop at the Trick Eye Museum.
Possibly my all-time favorite picture of Jonathan
I even got to bring her to school with me for our winter festival and my coteacher made us pose with this tiny tree.
All the little Christmas icons are also courtesy of my coteacher. Also, I messed up the timeline a little since clearly the bangs came after this.
We had a quiet Christmas alone together in our little apartment. Jonathan woke up with a fever on Christmas morning so we skyped with our families and exchanged presents and then we canceled our dinner plans and he got back in bed. It wasn’t romantic and it wasn’t a good story, but it was real and we were together.
Novelty socks are all the rage here so we did manage to find each other some pretty excellent footwear as Christmas gifts.
Reflecting like this fills me with gratitude for opportunities that are frankly undeserved and that sing of grace in my life. Thanks to the many of you who have been a part of that.
It’s Christmas Eve and I’m sitting at my desk at work trying to say something meaningful about incarnation and hope and glory, but all I can think of is how much I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be at work and I don’t want to be in Korea.
For twenty Christmases I’ve spent Christmas Eve in the holy hush of a candlelight communion service. I’ve worn snowman socks to bed and slept with my sisters on piles of blankets on the floor upstairs so we would wake up together on Christmas morning. For twenty Christmases I’ve been the one who woke up first in the pale gray hours, too full of excitement to fall back asleep. I’ve watched my parents and siblings opening twenty years of Christmas presents, each carefully chosen and wrapped by hand. The memories of these Christmases are joyful and sweet.
This year I will spend Christmas Eve huddled over a space heater in an apartment that’s always cold, 6,000 miles from my family. I will climb into bed and tuck my shoulders beneath my husband’s arms, draping his body across my back like a cape to protect me from the cold and from my sadness. I will close my eyes and try to pray for joy and wonder to return, but mostly I will pray for sleep. I will pray to wake in the morning and find that Christmas has come anyway. I will pray for gratitude for the Christmases I’ve shared with my family and for gratitude for the Christmas I am sharing with my husband today. I will pray that Christmas morning can still be beautiful and miraculous. And I will pray that I will have the eyes to see it.
As most of you know I am a really big reader. When I got in trouble as a child my parents would punish me by not letting me read. It was my nightmare. This year I’ve had more time for leisure reading than in previous years, partly because I live in a city and spend a fair amount of time using public transportation. So far this year I’ve read 57 books. (Remember, I don’t have kids or a TV).
I am a huge believer in physical books and I will never give them up in favor of ebooks, but since I live in Korea right now, it’s just more practical to use a Kindle than to buy a bunch of physical books that are expensive here and that I won’t be able to bring back home with me.
The great thing about Kindle books is that there are lots of flash sales where books can drop to $2 or $3 for a few days. I keep a giant Amazon wish list that I check almost every day to see if anything on my list has gone on sale.
There is a big publisher’s sale going on right now and I noticed that many of my favorite books from this year are on sale so I wanted to share them with you. I don’t usually do posts like this (although I occasionally tweet about a good deal) but I know a lot of you are also big readers who might benefit from these sales. Hope you find something you like!
Note: I’ve just learned that prices may be different if you are visiting Amazon from Ireland or the UK (or perhaps any other non-US country). Although I live in Korea, my Amazon account is registered in the US and the prices I’ve listed are the ones on Amazon’s USA site. Sorry if the prices are different for your country. 😦
Nonfiction
These are mostly creative non-fiction – essays and spiritual memoirs—that I’ve read this year and enjoyed.
Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table by Shauna Niequist $1.99: One of my favorite books I’ve read this year (I wrote more about what this book meant to me here) this book is about food and hospitality and about the table as a place for building community. Buy it!
Found: A Story of Questions, Grace, and Everyday Prayer by Micha Boyett ($3.03). This is a story for tired Christians who need to experience God in the ordinariness of life. It particularly resonates for those of us who grew up evangelical and have always felt burdened by the need to pray more, read more, do more.
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talkingby Susan Cain ($2.99) I found this book completely fascinating. If you are an introvert or you love an introvert, you must read this. It taught me so much about how I work as a highly sensitive introvert in contrast with my husband who is more strongly introverted, but is not highly sensitive. I also found her exploration of Western culture’s “extrovert ideal” so helpful in understanding the ways in which I’ve trained myself to act more extroverted. This helped me make sense of why I am 100% sure I’m an introvert, but other people sometimes seem surprised by that.
Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions by Rachel Held Evans ($2.99): This is one of my all-time favorite spiritual memoirs and one of the best books I read this year. Evans’ story about coming from a fundamentalist evangelical “it’s us against the world” background and learning to be ok asking questions, even if you don’t find answers right away resonated deeply with me. I love that she actually articulates some of the really hard questions of life and faith in this book and doesn’t try to smooth them over with Bible verses or trite Christian phrases. My biggest takeaway was something Evans said at the very end of the book – that there is a difference between questioning God and questioning what you believe about God.
A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband “Master” by Rachel Held Evans ($2.99): Interesting, funny, thought-provoking, and informative, each month for one year Held undertook one virtue for women mentioned in the Bible and tried to observe it as strictly as possible. She also interviewed women of different faith backgrounds for perspective each month (an orthodox Jew, an Amish woman, a family who practices what they believe to be “biblical marriage” through polygamy). While Held is well-known for being an outspoken feminist, this book is a very honest and gracious exploration of the nebulous concept of biblical womanhood and a very fair consideration of various points of view on the subject.
Notes from a Blue Bike:The Art of Living Intentionally in a Chaotic Worldby Tsh Oxenreider ($2.99): This book is about living simply and creating the life you want to live. In many ways I was inspired by this book to evaluate and define what it is I want out of life. What are my priorities? What are the things that matter most deeply to me? What are the values I want to build my life around? And how do I make those things reality? This book is particularly applicable to people with kids since there are sections that specifically deal with education and parenting, but even being childless, I enjoyed it.
One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp ($2.99). This book has been a NY Times Bestseller since it came out a few years ago and you’ve probably heard of it. I actually read this a few years ago but plan to re-read soon. It is a beautiful, challenging book about living life fully wherever you are by practicing radical gratitude.
Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor ($1.99): Actually I haven’t read this one yet, but I did just buy it because it’s been on my wish list since it came out. Taylor is known for wrestling with difficult topics and writing about the spiritual life in profound ways. This is a book about how God works in the dark seasons of life.
Leaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor ($3.99): This book is Taylor’s memoir about her decision to leave her role as an Episcopal priest to become a professor. It talks about how easy it is to lose your soul in the midst of “doing ministry” and how sometimes the best place for our souls is not the place that seems most logical.
An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor ($1.99): I also just bought this one because it’s been on my wish list for months since I read so many rave reviews. This book is a follow-up to Leaving Church which was about her decision to leave full-time ministry. This book talks about learning to encounter God outside of the church.
Fiction
Here are a few fiction books I’ve read this year that are on sale now. Just a note – I read fiction like a writer. In other words, a book is good to me if the prose is beautiful, the characters are well-developed and the plot isn’t predictable. I appreciate novels that engage me intellectually and emotionally. When I recommend fiction books it is because I think they are well-written, entertaining, and compelling. I’m not often bothered by language, sexual content, or whether or not I totally agree with the author’s perspective. If you are easily offended by these things bear that in mind when reading my fiction recommendations.
Me Before You by JoJo Moyes ($2.99) Ambitionless twenty-six year old Louise loses her job and takes a temporary position as a caretaker for a 35 year old quadripalegic who challenges her to live life on a grander scale. This is a quick read, but not a particularly light one. Be warned that you’ll need Kleenex.
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty ($3.99): This is the fourth book of Moriarty’s I’ve read this year and probably my favorite. I think she’s a great contemporary writer, writing about complex family relationships and suburban drama in a fresh way. Her characters are always interesting and fully-formed. This particularly novel revolves around the death of an elementary school parent at a school function, but who died and how it happened remains a mystery until the very end. It’s a fun, engaging read.
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss ($4.99): This is one of the best books I’ve ever read. If you are into fantasy at all, you must read this book. The prose is gorgeous. The world-building is phenomenal, the characters will become dear friends. I really can’t say enough positive things about this book. This is the first-person narrative of a terrifically gifted young man who grows to be the greatest wizard the world has ever seen. This is the first book in an ongoing trilogy called The Kingkiller Chronicle.
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson ($2.25): This book (and the one below) are the best books I’ve read this year and also possibly the best books I’ve ever read. Definitely high up there. This is a fantasy epic that will appeal even to those who aren’t huge fantasy readers. This is a story about honor and justice and revenge. The characters are fantastic and the world with it’s various people groups and magic system, etc is captivating. If I could recommend just one book from this year’s reading to everyone I know it would be this book. (PS- If you get it, stick with it through the prologue. It’s a weird start to the book but I promise after you get past those first two chapters you’ll be hooked).
Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson($3.75): This is the second book in the Stormlight Archive. It is even better than the first one. The only bad thing is that it was just released in March 2014 which means a long wait before book 3. It will rock your world.
Disclaimer: Amazon Affiliate links included in this post. If you click through to Amazon, any purchase you make supports this site.
Growing up my family didn’t celebrate Advent in any traditional sense. We always attended non-denominational churches that lacked any sort of liturgical traditions. We never used an Advent calendar or lit the appropriate candles on Sundays, though we did set up a nativity scene where the baby Jesus remained conspicuously absent until Christmas morning when me or one of my siblings got to unwrap the Christ-in-manger figurine and place him between his expectant parents who had been kneeling in awe of an empty space for weeks.
Even without Advent traditions the Christmas season was always full of excitement and anticipation for me. There was something mystical and magical about the lights and decorations, familiar tastes and smells and the chance to sing Christmas carols during regular church services. But, like many people, after adolescence hit, some of the glitter started to rub off. I remember feeling a sort of let-down that for some reason even though I enjoyed Christmas, it just didn’t feel as magical as it used to. This continued year after year and despite my attempts to follow the advice of all Christmas movies everywhere to “Just believe,” I could never recapture the way I’d felt about Christmas as a six-year-old. Eventually I gave up hoping that Christmas could ever be as magical as it was back then.
I’ve noticed a lot of people this year posting blogs or statuses about feeling disappointed and discontented with the way Advent is turning out. People are angry about the injustice in the world, disappointed with circumstances in their own lives, or frustrated with their own busyness. All of this disillusionment seems to center on the idea that this is not how the Christmas season should be. I’ve seen a lot of comments along the lines of, “This is supposed to be a season of joy, a season of peace, a season of contentment and closeness to our families, a season of celebration.” Even those who don’t claim Christianity often consider this time of year a good time to remember the poor, to celebrate family, and to intentionally show more love and patience to others.
I think we may have gotten it wrong.
I don’t think Advent is primarily about peace and joy and all the other warm and fuzzies we think we’re meant to feel. I think Advent is about longing.
It is about longing for a world that is not broken. Longing for justice for Michael Brown. Longing for restored relationships with our families. Longing for a world where people cannot be bought and sold as commodities. Longing for comfort for the friend who has lost her child. Longing for rest from a world that is moving so fast we feel like if we pause for a moment we’ll get left behind. It is about longing for hope that we are not abandoned.
Most of us are very uncomfortable with longing. We live in an instant-gratification world, one where it is unacceptable for a need to go unmet or a wish to go unfulfilled, so when we feel emptiness in ourselves, we rush to fill it. Sometimes the desire to satiate longing manifests itself in materialism – the need for the next new thing. Sometimes it shows up in our relationships and we use and abuse other people in our desire to satisfy our longings.
My own attitude towards longing is usually, “How can I make this go away?” But I think we have two choices when it comes to longing – we can lament the discomfort we feel and try to make the feelings go away, or we can embrace those longings and let them change the way we live and love.
Maybe Christmas is the perfect time to bring awareness to the disparity between the world we live in and the world we long for.
O come, O come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel, That mourns in lonely exile here Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
This is a song about mourning and emptiness and the longing of a people for rescue and restoration. But it is also a song about hope. Yes, we are mourning in exile now, but Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come.
Calling attention to the brokenness in the world doesn’t mean that all hope is lost. As long as we continue to deeply feel this disparity, there is hope. As long as we still have the image of what peace and joy could look like in the world – as long as we live every day to bring these things to our corner of the world, there is hope.
For Christians, it is the hope of the incarnation. It is the tangible promise of God with us. It is the belief that we are not abandoned. As long as we both pray and live “Thy Kingdom come,” there is hope.
If we’re looking for a perfect time of holiday cheer this season, we can be sure we won’t find it, but that doesn’t mean we have to resign ourselves to disappointment and disillusionment the way I did when I outgrew my childhood belief in Christmas magic. We can embrace the longing and feel it deeply instead of trying to chase it away with other things or feeling guilty that we aren’t filled with peace and joy . And we can rejoice that Hope is still alive and let that longing and that hope change the way we live.
Today I am excited to post the last piece in my guest series on Sex and the Church. I am even more excited to have my friend, Karissa Knox Sorrell, sharing her thoughts and experiences on a topic that we are both so passionate about. Karissa is an internet-friend-turning-real-life-friend which is one of the best things about being part of the blogging world. She is a beautiful and thoughtful writer whose self-described “faith wrestling” challenges and encourages me.
If you missed the other parts of this series you can read them here, here, here, here, and here.
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The teenager stared at her reflection in the girls’ bathroom mirror, tears spilling down her cheeks. Suddenly, someone else entered the bathroom and rushed to her side. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m – I’m – pregnant!” she choked out between sobs.
“Don’t you know you’re supposed to use a condom?” the friend asked.
The girl’s brow furrowed. “We did use a condom!” she exclaimed.
The video went on for about twenty more minutes, and then my youth pastor turned it off and talked to us about waiting until marriage to have sex. “You don’t want to find yourself in that girl’s situation,” he said. “Remember I Corinthians 6:19 and 20? Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” I underlined that verse in my Bible when I went home that night. I agreed with every word my youth pastor had said, internalizing the idea that sex had consequences and promising myself that I would wait.
I grew up in the True Love Waits era. I wore the T-shirt, signed the card, and once even wrote a newspaper article for my high school newspaper about waiting until marriage. Like a good Christian girl, I waited until my wedding night to have sex. But there was one problem: I still had an enormous amount of guilt and shame. I was afraid of my own body and its impulses. I had no idea how to embrace sex without feeling dirty. The scare tactics that had been used to get me to avoid sex had a side effect: They taught me that sex was bad, not beautiful.
I have come to believe that one of the problems with sex and the church is that we base our beliefs about romantic relationships and marriage on Bible verses that are about sex, not about romantic relationships and marriage. We need to be teaching our young people how to have healthy relationships, not simply to avoid sex.
I decided to do a little experiment and using Bible Gateway.com. I did a search of the NIV version of the Bible for the word sex. There were 77 verses about sex. The Old Testament had 42 verses and the New Testament had 35 verses.
23 of the 77 verses about sex had the words “do not” or “abstain.”
24 of the 77 verses about sex had the word “immoral” or “immorality.”
There was not one verse that had a positive connotation.
Let me say it again: Every single Bible verse about sex is negative.
Is it any wonder that early in my marriage I was plagued with shame even though I was finally “allowed” to have sex? No. Because no one had ever told me how to have a marriage. They’d only told me how not to ruin a marriage. But unfortunately in process of trying not to ruin my future marriage, I damaged my understanding of sex, the body, and loving relationships.
Why wasn’t anyone teaching us about respect and listening and compromise? What wasn’t anyone teaching us how to express anger or disappointment or confusion in a healthy way? Why wasn’t anyone teaching us how to have a great sexual relationship? Why were we taught to hate our bodies, to cover up, to be afraid of our impulses, and to shame ourselves for any sexual feeling? I mean, six one-hour sessions of premarital counseling can not make up for years of being told that marriage is about one and only one thing: being sexually pure.
Now obviously my little internet search doesn’t make me a theologian who’s spent time on exegesis and hermeneutics. Song of Solomon is obviously a very sensuous book, and there are plenty of verses in the Bible that speak about love and speak to husbands and wives. And most of the verses about sex were encouraging believers to avoid sexual promiscuity, not sex itself.
But the fact remains that generally, sex is spoken of negatively in the Bible. When I couple that with the teachings I grew up on that always framed discussions about marriage and relationships around sex, I feel like I can confidently say that we have based our theology of romantic relationships and marriage on a handful of verses that are addressing sexual acts and that have a negative connotation.
So where does the church go from here? We can start by treating young people and singles as whole persons instead of walking hormonal messes. We can embrace a more holistic view of relationships and marriage, acknowledging the many facets of making a life with someone rather than simply focusing on sex. We can stop avoiding conversations about sex once the wedding rings go on. The church talks a lot about sex before people are married, but once they are, the topic becomes taboo. But that should be time to talk even more about sex and how to enjoy it!
It’s time for the church to do better. It’s time to rework and reframe our theology of relationships, sex, and marriage.
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Karissa Knox Sorrell is a writer and poet from Nashville, Tennessee. She also works with ESOL students and teachers. Karissa writes about faith wrestling, cultural intersections, reading, writing, and family life. Read more of her work at her blog or follow her on Twitter.
Featured Image Credit: Jesus1st-Anime2nd at Deviant Art
As usual, this is my monthly wrap-up post for Leigh Kramer’s “What I’m Into” link-up.
What I’m Reading:
If last month was a bit excessive on the reading front I think I’ve evened it out by only reading four books this months and most of them were lighter reading as well.
Delancey by Molly Wizenberg. I really enjoyed this book. I love books about food and the food industry and this one – about a young couple opening a specialty pizza restaurant in Seattle, both satisfied my voyeurism about that world and broke down some of my romanticized notions about what owning a restaurant is like. I’ve heard others say this book was not as good as Wizenberg’s first book A Homemade Life, but as I haven’t read that one yet I don’t have anything to compare it to.
Me Before You by JoJo Moyes. Moyes’ books are all over bestseller and other kinds of book lists, but I’d never read anything of hers before so when this one went on sale for $2.99 in the Kindle Store I thought I’d try it. (It is actually still on sale for that price if you want to check it out). I wanted a bit of lighter read in a modern setting. Well, I got the modern setting part right. Ambitionless twenty-six year old Louise loses her job and takes a temporary position as a caretaker for a 35 year old quadripalegic who challenges her to live life on a grander scale. This was a quick read, but light it was not. I’m glad I read it, but be warned that you’ll need Kleenex.
Someone Else’s Love Story by Joshilyn Jackson. Jackson is another writer of what might be called “women’s fiction,” but is not really chick lit. More domestic drama? I never really know how to describe it. I admit that I didn’t love the main character of this book – I found her a little annoying – but the other characters and the situation were interesting enough that they outweighed those feelings.
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. This book has made all of the Best of 2014 book lists this year and I can understand why. I admit that I am not quite done yet, so I can’t comment on the ending, but everything I’ve read so far is very compelling. In alternating chapters the book tells the story of a blind French girl whose father is the Keeper of the Locks for the Museum of Natural History in Paris and a German orphan boy whose talent with engineering gets him recruited into an elite military academy and then sent into the field tracking the Resistance during WWII. It is a gorgeous and haunting book.
This month so many books I’ve been wanting to read went on sale for Kindle and I couldn’t resist buying them since many of them had been on my wish list for eight months or more. (I do still prefer physical books but living abroad makes the Kindle so much more practical). You have permission to scold me if next month’s books do not include some of the following: Pastrix by Nadia Bolz-Weber, Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, Found by Micha Boyett, and The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd.
You can also follow me on Goodreads if you want to keep up with my reading.
What I’m Watching:
My internet seems to be struggling more and more these days so I never really know when I’ll be able to stream shows or which shows I’ll be able to see. I am a little behind but trying hard to stay current with Nashville, Parenthood, New Girl, Mindy Project, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Modern Family.
This month’s new discovery/obsession: Jane the Virgin. The premise sounds kind of dumb, but I’m finding it irresistibly charming a la Ugly Betty. We also finished the entire season of the BBC’s Broadchurch which was so fantastic. Highly recommend it.
On Netflix I am nearly finished with the last season of Veronica Mars and have made it halfway through season five of my Gilmore Girls re-watch. Hubby and I have also been watching more episodes of Frasier, a show he grew up on, but that I’ve never seen before.
I saw both Interstellar and Catching Fire, this month’s two big movie releases. I love everything Chris Nolan’s ever done and Interstellar was no exception although I admit that it took me a little while to decide how I felt about it – I didn’t really know much about the plot going into the movie, which was fun but also meant it took me a while to digest it.
What I’m Listening To:
SERIAL!!!! Need I say more? For anyone who doesn’t know (though I can’t imagine who doesn’t know) Serial is a podcast that is an off-shoot from This American Life (my other favorite podcast). Serial is a one big investigative journalism story that is being told one episode at a time. This is the first season they’ve made and it is completely addicting. This season’s story is about a murder that happened in the 90’s where an 18 –year-old boy went to prison for supposedly murdering his girlfriend. But did he really do it?!!!!! We just don’t know. We are down to the final few episodes and I am so torn. If you haven’t listened to this, you need to catch up. It’s absolutely fascinating.
I also loved hearing this original song from Lauren Daigle, a friend of my little sisters’. I think she’s got a really cool voice and she is such a sweet girl.
Fawn Larson is a friend from high school who is a pretty awesome blue grass kind of artist releasing her first album. If you’re into that kind of music and supporting indie artists, you should check her out and buy her album!
What I’m Eating:
All the Thanksgivings! Thanks to a great expat community here in Korea we got to participate in three separate Thanksgiving dinners with all the good stuff. My contributions included apple crisp and this pumpkin cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting. Pretty serious stuff.
If you are one of the people who is also obsessed with Serial, these charts are fun.
If you need a laugh, here’s a great video of how German sounds compared to other languages. Cause it’s always fun to laugh at people speaking other languages. 😉
I also enjoyed this humorous post in the New Yorker about the benefits of coconut oil. “A few dabs of coconut oil in my ears and I could hear the ghosts of all my ancestors. “You’re fabulous,” they whispered. “The triumph of our bloodline.”
On the Blog:
As most of you know I was honored to be Freshly Pressed by WordPress this month, ironically for my post about how going viral doesn’t necessarily open all the doors you think it will. Thanks so much to all of you who sent encouraging comments and messages. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to respond to each one, but I have read all of your comments and appreciate them so much! I’m really humbled by all the love and encouragement I’ve received.
I also had my friend Meredith share her story of uneventful virginity for my Sex and the Church series. (There is one more piece in this series coming this week! Stay tuned!) I wrote about why I don’t jive with phrases like, “This World is Not My Home,” about learning to speak thankfulness as a way of showing love, and about my favorite passage on gratitude.
What I’ve Been Up To:
My students all participated in an arts festival at the beginning of the month where they performed songs and dances and other routines for all of their parents. They were adorable, though I did find the song and dance to “Summer Lovin’” from Grease to be mildly inappropriate for elementary school students. I figured they didn’t understand what the lyrics were really about…
The semester is winding down so I’m about to enter the frenzy of planning for English festival and the three separate English camps I have to run over the holidays as well as (the much more exciting) planning for our two weeks of vacation in January (hurray!)
I spent a lot of time this month running in preparation for the half marathon I ran last weekend with my friend Courtney. We finished in 1:57:07 which was my first time running a half in under 2 hours.
This week we had all the Thanksgivings including one with our friends Michael and Sophia who are a Korean couple in their 60’s who just retired to Korea after living in New York for most of their lives. They were a little homesick for American Thanksgiving so we all went to a big international hotel downtown that had a big Thanksgiving buffet in their main restaurant. They didn’t really know how to cook a turkey but they had an amazing selection of food so I can’t complain. Especially since we had two perfectly cooked turkeys over the weekend.
The Secret Place
The Silkworm 
Found: A Story of Questions, Grace, and Everyday Prayer
Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint 
Daring Greatly: How to Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
Big Little Lies
What Alice Forgot
The Book Thief
Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions
d 
An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith
The Name of the Wind 
Lily Ellyn 