Author: Lily

The Things I Carry from 2015 and my One Word for 2016

I lived a hundred different lives in 2015. The adventurous expat, the patient teacher, the homesick little girl, the intrepid world traveler, the anxiety-ridden dependent, the supportive wife, the optimistic partner, the heartbroken friend. I have felt a hundred incongruous emotions — hopeful and discouraged, excited and apathetic, inspired and utterly disengaged, generous and self-protective, joyful and bitterly sad. I’ve traveled through 7 countries and made a 6,000 mile move. Each separate life and identity is self-contained like a square on a quilt, inextricably connected to the whole and meaningless without it.

I move forward into 2016 marked by the experiences of this past year and of all the years that came before it. I carry them with me like the very cells of my body. Who I am today is shaped by what I did yesterday and last year and in the years before that. But who I will be tomorrow depends on what I choose to do with today.

There are dozens of ways I’d like to change, but when I think of all the things I need to do better I don’t feel inspired to step into a new year – I feel too overwhelmed to even know where to start. I need to eat better, to exercise more, to drink more water, to be less selfish, to love better, to make more time for writing, to travel, to explore, to learn a new language or skill, to be a better friend, to volunteer, to blog more consistently, to stop whining so much, to pray more, to be more organized.

Last year I abandoned my list of resolutions in favor of just One Word. The idea of One Word is to get rid of your list and to choose a single word to focus on for a whole year. “One word that sums up who you want to be and how you want to live.”

In 2015, I chose the word “Wholehearted.” It was a big word that encompassed an entire way of looking at the world. I’m not finished with wholeheartedness – becoming wholehearted is a lifelong journey – but I have chosen a new word to represent 2016. My word is Mindfulness.

Mindfulness is “a state of active, open attention on the present. Instead of letting your life pass you by, mindfulness means living in the moment and awakening to experience.” Mindfulness is something I profess to believe in deeply, but fail to put into practice.

From the time I was a young child I learned to disassociate. This began as a coping mechanism for me, a way of dealing with my anxiety, but it grew into a habit. There is a restlessness in me that causes me to grow bored and discontented easily, and when I’m no longer entertained, challenged, or excited, I tend to disengage.

There is nothing more terrifying to me than the thought of living an ordinary life, but most of life is made of ordinary moments. How much of mine do I miss by checking out and simply going through the motions while I dream of being somewhere else? This year, I want to learn to be present for my own life.

The poet Mary Oliver writes often about what it means to pay attention to the world. In her famous poem “The Summer Day” she writes:

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

I believe that nothing is without meaning if we only pay attention to it. And I believe that I can waste my one wild and precious life not through big mistakes, but through day after day of failing to pay attention and just going through the motions.

I am setting my intention this year on just one thing – growing in Mindfulness. I will choose to be present for my every day life. I want to learn to see the extraordinary wrapped up in my ordinary days and to collect evidences of grace that shine true even when the days are dark.

If you’ve chosen One Word for 2016, leave a comment below and share what you chose and what it means to you. 

Header image via: The Huffington Post

What I’m Into: December 2015 Edition

I’m linking up with Leigh Kramer for my final What I’m Into post of 2015! I thought I’d do a traditional monthly round-up for December and maybe do a highs & lows year-in-review type post sometime next week.

What I’m Reading:

Since today is the last day of 2015 I can officially say that my final count for the year was 66 books. Not too shabby. This month I read:

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling). Loved this third mystery in the Cormoran Strike series in which Strike’s assistant Robin receives the severed leg of a murdered woman in the mail and the pair must figure out both who the victim and who the murderer are. I thought it was entertaining and engaging and kept my guessing til the end. Be warned though, this one’s a bit grisly with some graphic descriptions of violence towards women so it might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

Accidental Saints. I love Nadia Bolz-Weber and am often inspired by her straightforward, candid take on matters of faith. Having said that, this book did feel a little less substantial than her previous book, Pastrix. I loved her take on how God uses all kinds of people, even those who are furthest from him. The book is more or less a series of anecdotes that illustrate this premise.

Shopaholic to the Stars by Sophie Kinsella. I have a soft spot for Kinsella’s Shopaholic books as far as fluff fiction goes, but this one was a disappointment, even for what it was. Maybe I’m just outgrowing Becky and find her airheaded-ness more annoying than funny, but I didn’t finish this book with the typical feel-good feeling of her other books.

For the Love by Jen Hatmaker. This was a fun, funny read that left almost no lasting impression on me. My main beef with this book is that, while Hatmaker is a funny writer, each individual chapter seemed to have nothing to do with any other chapter, and while the subtitle was “Fighting for grace in a world of impossible standards” I found the book barely touched on this theme. To be frank, while this book was fun to read, it felt self-indulgent and it would be difficult for me to tell you what the point was.

Killing Monica by Candace Bushnell. I listened to this as an audiobook because I wanted something light and easy to listen to. I didn’t have high expectations, but this book was still a waste of time. It was going along well enough – nothing memorable, but mildly entertaining – until the ending which was so stupid it sort of ruined the whole thing. Don’t recommend.

After You by JoJo Moyes. This book was a sequel to Moyes’ famous Me Before You, picking up a year after the end of the previous book. It was satisfying in a way to see where Louisa ends up and it’s not a bad book (though I found myself a bit disappointed in Louisa’s life choices) but it’s nowhere near as impactful as Me Before You.

Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close. I’m not sure how to describe this book. In some ways it’s a coming-of-age type story about a group of friends moving into adulthood. While the writing was technically sound, I just couldn’t connect with any of the characters. This book is described in reviews as “wickedly funny,” but I mostly thought it was sad and painted a rather bleak depiction of adulthood, marriage, and family life. Having said that, it was a quick read and I flew right through it.

Paul Among the People: The Apostle Paul Reinterpreted and Reimagined in his Own Time by Sarah Ruden. Jonathan got this book for Christmas and we read it together on the drive back from Louisiana. I thought this book was incredibly interesting, especially since I am one of those blasphemous Christians who tends to think of Paul as an arrogant jerk. Ruden, a Harvard-educated classics expert, examines the writings of Paul against contemporary Greek and Roman writings, using these to build a cultural context and audience for Paul’s letters. Ruden’s careful research reveals a different Paul than the one we think we know – especially when it comes to his teachings on women, marriage, slavery, and homosexuality.

Currently reading: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line (Veronica Mars #1) by Rob Thomas, A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg, Delicious! By Ruth Reichl, and Washing the Dead by Michelle Brafman. For an up-to-date list of what I’m reading and what I think of it, follow me on Goodreads.

What I’m Watching:

On TV I’m nearly current with How to Get Away with Murder, Fresh Off the Boat, The Mindy Project, and Brooklyn Nine Nine. On Netflix I picked up Revenge again, a show I started a long time ago and took a long break from for unknown reasons.

In theaters this month we and everyone else  went to see the new Star Wars movie (I have no strong opinions on this since I didn’t really grow up watching Star Wars. I enjoy Star Wars now, but I don’t have the kind of childhood nostalgia that makes people feel super opinionated about it). We also saw Joy the day after Christmas which I enjoyed a lot, though it could have stood to have some more Bradley Cooper in it. (But you could say that about everything).

What I’m Listening To:

The new season of Serial has started up. I’m not quite caught up on the episodes that have come out since I listened to the first one while driving back from a friend’s house late at night and was dozing off for most of it. (Jonathan was driving, not me!) I’m not as immediately captivated as I was by the previous season, but I’m willing to give it a shot!

What I’m Writing:

 

Yesterday I put up the final post for my 52 Weeks of Adventure. I can’t believe I made it through the whole year without missing any posts. It’s been a fun way to mark my days and to keep challenging myself to see life as a grand adventure, even though I no longer live abroad and my day-to-day life feels so much more ordinary. I wrote my adventures for weeks 48, 49, 50, 51, and 52.

I wrote a heartfelt post about things I’m appreciating about being Anglican(ish). I wrote a piece about Mary and women and the incarnation for Christians for Biblical Equality that was picked up by Scot McKnight(!) and republished on his Jesus Creed blog. I hit 10,000 subscribers and did a big giveaway (which is closed now, sorry). I gave out some superlatives on all those books I read in 2016. And I reflected on my year of wholeheartedness and shared my new(est) ink.

Apart from blogging I was keeping busy doing some freelance web content for a marketing company, but they’ve now hired a full-time copywriter so that well seems to have dried up. One of the downsides to freelancing is that there’s very little job security, so I’ll be back to looking for new freelance opportunities over the next few weeks.

I’m planning a guest post for my friend Kelsey’s blog this month and maybe, possibly, potentially an exciting piece for an international magazine, but I don’t want to say too much cause it’s not set in stone.

What I’ve Been Up To:

December is always jam-packed for the holidays, but also because my birthday falls at the beginning of December, it really feels like non-stop celebration from Thanksgiving onward. I celebrated my 28th birthday with a visit from my best friend and her husband who live in Raleigh a few hours away.

We visited friends in Charlotte for a Christmas feast and cookie decorating party. I had work doing tutoring, writing, and proctoring exams (though not full-time) right up until December 23rd during which Jonathan’s family came to town to visit and we ate too much yummy food and took family pictures together. Right after his family left, we drove down to Louisiana to spend a week with my family and we’ve only just gotten back from that trip. Its been full, but it’s been beautiful.

I hope you all have a lovely New Year’s Eve. Stay tuned for tomorrow when I reveal my One Word for 2016!

Fifty Two Weeks of Adventure #52: And So We Come to the End

This is it. This is the final post in my 52 Weeks of Adventure challenge.

I started this year out with adventures in Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia. I spent the middle of the year exploring Korea, Japan, and Taiwan and getting my first tattoo(s). I ended the year exactly where I needed to be – in Louisiana having Christmas with my family for the first time in four years.

Not only did I get to spend Christmas with my parents, my grandparents, my two sisters, my brother, and my husband, but I also got to build this super cool gingerbread house with my super cool nephew.

We got back to Columbia yesterday after spending a full week in Louisiana with my family. It was a luxury to have so much time to spend with them after being there for only two days this summer.  The longer stay also made the 12 hour drive each way feel more worthwhile.

This year has been so full of change. Our adventures have taken us through seven different countries where we’ve made new friends, said good-bye to some, and been reunited with others. Some weeks, my adventure was easy to spot, but other weeks I had to change my perspective and either intentionally seek a new experience, or choose to see the extraordinary in my ordinary days.

I want to give a special mention to my friend Pradnya, who completed 52 adventures of her own and blogged about them here. Knowing that Pradnya was keeping up with her own adventures encouraged me to stick with it.

This challenge pushed me to look at all of life as an adventure and to keep exploring the world around me, whether I’m on an international excursion or in my own hometown. The perspective I gained from living intentional adventures is one I hope to carry with me into 2016 and beyond.

So here’s to my year of adventures,  and to all of you who came along with me, both living your own adventures and sharing in mine. This is only the beginning. 52 adventures and counting!

And the Winners Are…

Hope you are all having a lovely Christmas with family and friends! Ours has been lovely despite being 80 degrees with 100% humidity and bouts of heavy rain in Louisiana. Feels like we are in a rainforest.:)

This is just a quick post to announce the winners of the giveaway (!) My sister Anni drew the names out of a bowl, so the results are completely unbiased. 😉

Drumroll please….

The fiction prize pack winner is Paige Nguyen. You will be receiving copies of The Way of Kings, Peace Like a River, and Station Eleven.

The nonfiction prize back winner is Ben de Wachter (בנימין). You will be receiving copies of An Altar in the World, Searching for Sunday, and Pastrix. (And don’t worry, these are all female authors but they aren’t geared towards women specifically).

To claim your prize please send me an email (lily.e.dunn at gmail.com) or Facebook message with an address I can send them to!

Congratulations to the two winners and thank you to everyone who participated and to everyone who is part of this community.

Merry Christmas!

 

Fifty-two weeks of Adventure #51: Family Pictures and Purple Hair

Last week my in-laws came to visit us in South Carolina. Jonathan’s sister was home from college for Christmas break and his brother had come back from South Africa where he lives. Since Jonathan and I had been in Korea for the past two years, this was the first time the whole family had been together since August 2013.

I really love Jonathan’s family – they are lots of fun and we all get along really well together. Of course, having people stay at your house is always a little stressful, especially when your house is pretty small like ours is, but the Dunn clan is pretty easy-going and that made their visit lots of fun, even though it was a little crowded.

Since this was the last time we would all see each other before Christmas, we exchanged Christmas presents early. Naturally, we prepared for the festivities by putting on this “Yule Log” video of Nick Offerman sipping whiskey at a glacial pace in front of a fireplace. (Literally all he does is sit there and sip whiskey without speaking for an hour).

 

Jonathan decided to give me one of my Christmas presents early.

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Yes, that is a 2-step step ladder. Because I am vertically challenged and can’t reach things on the top shelves of the kitchen cabinets. (Jonathan says I am his “shorty”). This rivals the Tide Pen of ’08 for most romantic gift he’s ever given me.

The one big event we did with Jonathan’s family was taking family pictures. After much deliberation about the coordination of outfits, we ended up in the most perfectly color-coordinated group ensemble I’ve ever seen. My super talented, amazing, hilarious, soul sister Lorien took these pictures for us. I LOVE them.

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The one negative part of having Jonathan’s family around for several days was that my darling idiot cat, Bart, was incredibly stressed out by it. He does not like strangers and has an impressive commitment to hiding from them. One night, after staying under the bed for probably a good 10 hours, he wandered out and stood at my ankles crying and crying so I picked him up. He doesn’t normally like to be picked up, but apparently he was so stressed out and in need of comfort that he immediately buried his head in my arm and stayed that way. Like, “Oh, Mommy, please save me from this horror!”

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After my in-laws left and the family pictures were safely out of the way, I decided to take my next two weeks of vacation as an opportunity to try something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. Lavender hair.

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It’s just a wash out so it’s already mostly faded, but I might do a bit more over the holidays, just for fun. It makes me feel like an exotic mermaid. Or at least a My Little Pony.

Don’t forget that my 10,000 Subscriber Book Giveaway is STILL OPEN, but it does close tonight at midnight. Rules for entering are HERE.

And as always…

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can also click this button to read other bloggers’ adventures. If you missed last week’s adventure about our grand Christmas Feast, you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

2015 Book Superlatives

For those of you who have been missing my Book Chat posts (which are coming back in the new year in some form!) here is a post for you. I decided to look over all of the books I read for the first time in 2015 and hand out some superlatives. Don’t forget to follow me on Goodreads for up-to-date info on what I’m reading and for my reviews. Drumroll please….

Best Literary Read

Station ElevenStation Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. One of the books I’m including in my 10,000 subscriber giveaway, this book is hauntingly beautiful. It tells the story of a Hollywood star and the people connected to him (though sometimes only by a slender thread) before, during, and after the collapse of civilization. It’s eerie and post-apocalyptic, riveting and elegiac, moving and insightful. I’m not normally drawn to post-apocalyptic stories, but I’m so glad I read this one as its become one of my favorites. This one also wins the award for Most Beautiful Prose.

Fastest Read

eleanor and parkEleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell. This book is just pretty adorable. A love story for the ages, but with real characters in real and difficult situations. Eleanor is the wrong size with the wrong hair and the wrong clothes and most definitely the wrong family. But to Park, she is the magic that holds the sky up. They know it’s destined for disaster. But they also know the real thing when they see it. I was utterly enchanted and read the whole thing in two days. 

Most Fun

51hy+GbenKL._SX328_BO1,204,203,200_Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling). I generally think good mysteries make for fun reads. This one was particularly fun to me because Jonathan and I read it aloud to each other during our long drive to and from Ohio for Thanksgiving. This is the third in Galbraith’s Cormoran Strike mystery series and is my personal favorite. The story begins when Strike’s assistant Robin receives a mysterious package containing a woman’s severed leg. Strike can immediately think of four men from his past who might have had something to do with it. Unraveling the mystery is great fun, though I will warn you that there are some particularly gruesome descriptions of violence towards women that you may want to be aware of if you are sensitive to that type of content. 

Most Surprising

CinderCinder (The Lunar Chronicles) by Marissa Meyer. This unique twist on the Cinderella story t’s set in a futuristic world where androids are essential to daily life and the moon has been colonized and become the home of a new species known as Lunars. It involves a cyborg/mechanic Cinderella, a handsome prince, and the search for a cure for the plague pandemic that is wiping out Earth’s population. This is not the sort of book I would normally gravitate towards, but it was so fresh and clever and well-done that I was completely enchanted.

Best Fantasy Trilogy

MistbornThe Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. After finishing my beloved Way of Kings and Words of Radiance I needed more Sanderson in my life so I dove into his well-known Mistborn trilogy. He’s actually written a set of trilogies that all involve the Mistborn world, but I only read the first one which includes Mistborn, The Well of Ascension, and The Hero of Ages. I think Sanderson might be my favorite fantasy writer. His characters are complex and compelling and his world-building is top-notch.

Most Likely to Make You Ugly Cry

The Middle PlaceTo be honest, most of the books on this entire list made me ugly cry at some point, but that’s just me. As the category winner I will chose. The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan. This is a memoir about being in the middle place between being a child and being a parent. Corrigan, a mother of 2, is diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 36. As she goes through treatment, she relies heavily on her father who has always made her feel like the most important person in the world. When her father is diagnosed with cancer himself a few months after she is, Corrigan must deal with what it means to move from being the cared-for child to being the caretaker, for her children, for herself, and for her father. It’s very moving.

Book I Wish I’d Written

searching for sundaySearching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church by Rachel Held Evans. My experience with my faith and with the church over the past decade resonates deeply with Evans’ own experiences, and Evans writes poignantly about some of the conclusions I’m also coming to about what it looks like for me to still be a Christian and still participate in the Church in spite of those things. This book is one you can win in my 10,000 subscribers giveaway!

Most Atmospheric

51irgNzUDAL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_The Lake House by Kate Morton. If there is one thing Kate Morton does well, it is setting. Whenever I take a break from one of her novels I always feel slightly disoriented because I could swear I’ve just been somewhere in the English countryside. This was a more recent read for me, but long-anticipated. Morton fans will not be disappointed in The Lake House which hits all the notes we expect in a Morton novel – an unsolved mystery involving an old house in the English countryside, movement between the past and the present, and shocking family secrets. The ending is satisfying, if maybe a bit too neat, and the writing is irreproachable.

Most Over-Hyped

the life changing magic of tidying upThe Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. So many people were losing their minds over this book and I just was not impressed. I did pick up a few helpful tips, but overall I found the book to be incredibly repetitive and also pretty weird. While I like to personify my possessions and talk to inanimate objects as much as the next girl, Kondo takes it to another level. She suggests thanking your belongings before getting rid of them and goes so far as to give this advice about storing your out-of-season clothes, “Let them know you care and look forward to wearing them when they are next in season. This kind of ‘communication’ helps your clothes stay vibrant and keeps your relationship with them alive longer.” Too much, Marie. A little too much. Also, I can’t “only keep things which give me joy.” My vacuum cleaner gives me no joy, but still I must keep it. It’s really not as simple as she wants it to be.

Best YA Book{s}

Daughter of smoke and boneDaughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy by Laini Taylor. So I confess that I’ve only read two of the three books in this trilogy, but that’s only because right as I finished the second one I got an influx of books I’d put on hold at the library and they all had to read within a few weeks. I will absolutely read the third one ASAP. Because they are intense and incredible. I read the first half of the first one and was like, “Eh…I guess it’s all right. I’ll finish it.” And by the time I got to the end I was like. “Holy hell. I get it.” And the whole second book got better and better. This is a fantasy trilogy, though it is somewhat set in our world. “Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.”

GrishaThe Grisha trilogy by Leigh Bardugo. Alina Starkov is nobody – an orphaned refugee whose never been noticed. Until her best friend’s life is threatened and a dormant power is awakened in her unlike an the world has ever seen. Alina is immediately taken into the Grisha court to study and train under the most powerful Grisha of all, The Darkling. Together he says they can destroy the Shadow Fold that threatens their country. Together they can remake the world. But nothing is as it seems and Alina must learn to see things that have long been hidden, even the things inside her own heart. This trilogy is so brilliant it kills me a little.

Best Books About Faith

Altar in the WorldAn Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor. This book is part of my 10,000 subscriber giveaway. This book rejects the divisions so many Christians are intent on making between the secular and the sacred. It made me feel so grounded in my body and to this earth. I especially loved the practical disciplines she suggested for making the world a place of worship. Things as simple as taking a walk or working with your hands, or being still and resting. The thing I loved most about this book was walking away feeling that a simple life could be good and honest and holy and true when so often I feel the drive to be more and do more, even from the church.

 

Accidental SaintsAccidental Saints: Finding God in all the Wrong People by Nadia Bolz-Weber. I just love Nadia Bolz-Weber and I loved the overall message of this book – that God can and does show up in the most unexpected places and works through people. I don’t think this was a good as her first book as it’s mostly stories illustrating the same basic point, but I still really liked it.

Most Inspiring

Big magicBig Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert. If you are a creator of some sort, I think this book has value for you. This book explores the paradoxes of the creative life – that creating art is vital to our humanity, and also completely inessential to human existence. That we should commit ourselves seriously to our creative work, and we should always remember that life and death do not hinge on what we do creatively. Most of all, it reminds the reader of why a creative life is a worthwhile life even if you never receive any kind of recognition for your work. Every time I read a section of this book I felt inspired to complete a project or to put myself out there creatively.

Funniest Book

why not meWhy Not Me? by Mindy Kaling.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I believe Mindy Kaling is my spirit animal. I think she is smart, fun, and funny and I would love to be her friend. Therefore, I loved this book which I read with her voice in my head.

Most Unique

41HRculXpcL._SX332_BO1,204,203,200_.jpgSmoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lesson from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty.  This book of essays about Doughty’s experience as a young woman working in a crematorium was fascinating. In spite of some frank descriptions, she manages to avoid sensationalism and instead brings up questions about the way we as a society treat death and whether there might be a better way. 

Most Disappointing

31e+Y+unwyL._BO1,204,203,200_.jpgNever Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. This is a sort of dystopian novel along the lines of The Giver but set at an exclusive boarding school in England. Even though there is a first person narrator, I felt disconnected from her and from the other characters to the extent that I didn’t really care that much what happened to them. There was also a moment towards the end that is set up as though it’s a big reveal, but I personally didn’t find the information surprising as I’d assumed it all along. I also found it irritating how extremely non-curious the characters were about the world and their role in it. I know this book is pretty highly acclaimed, but for me it was just OK.

Worst Book

51qX2vnFnNL._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_-1A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. I don’t really want to waste space on this ridiculous book, but I will summarize by saying this book was like Twilight for adults, was excessively long, and infuriating. And it’s not well-written. People think that using excessive detailed descriptions makes something well-written. It doesn’t. Don’t waste your time.

Honorable Mentions (books I really enjoyed but don’t have a superlative for)

51Hpr8+w9KL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_After You by JoJo Moyes. The sequel to Moyes’ highly acclaimed Me Before You (right up there with The Fault in Our Stars for most ugly-crying episodes while reading) picks up with Louisa Clarke about a year after we left her. I liked this book because it felt like an honest portrayal of what someone in her situation would be going through, and while I got frustrated with Louisa sometimes, I still wanted to know how it all turned out.

 

last anniversaryThe Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty. I’m just a huge fan of Moriarty’s. I think all of her books are clever and fun. Sophie Honeywell is 39, unmarried, and starting to wonder if she’s missed her opportunity to have a family when she unexpectedly inherits a house from her ex-boyfriend’s Great Aunt Connie – the woman who discovered the Munro baby. This book revolves around the secret of the Munro baby – a (fictional) famous unsolved mystery where the Munro couple mysteriously disappeared from their home with the tea kettle whistling and a warm cake fresh from the oven leaving their 2 week old baby behind. The story takes place far in the future and is centered on the family who raised the baby (now a grandmother herself) and her children and grandchildren who run a family business that capitalizes on the unsolved mystery of the Munro baby.

Leaving ChurchLeaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor. Taylor’s story of her call to the Episcopalian priesthood and later her decision to leave the priesthood and become a professor was full of beautiful thoughts about how the world and the church need not be enemies – separate entities that are necessarily opposed to one another. She writes beautifully about the ways she encountered God and grace outside of the church as well as inside it.

I’ve read 63 books so far this year and anticipate finishing 2 -3 more before the end of the year. Click here for a full list of everything I read this year.

Also, don’t forget that my 10,000 subscriber book giveaway is still open until Wednesday. Check out the submission rules here and may the odds be ever in your favor!

There’s Something About Mary: On Women and the Incarnation

Today I have the great honor of sharing a post over at CBE International’s (Christians for Biblical Equality) Arise newsletter which has now been reblogged by Scot McKnight on Jesus Creed (!). This past summer I wrote a satirical piece for Arise about what it means to act like a lady. This time I took a more serious route and wrote about something I think about a lot during the Christmas season – the role of women like Mary in the story of salvation.

“One thing I love about Advent is that you can’t get through it without talking about Mary. Whether you believe that Mary was a saint, an innocent virgin girl, or even if you’re skeptical about the whole virgin birth thing, you can’t deny that without Mary, there would be no Christmas story. Because the story of the incarnation, of God becoming flesh, doesn’t begin in a manger full of sweet, clean hay with a lullaby of softly lowing cattle—it begins in the belly of an unwed teenage girl.

Maybe you believe that Mary was chosen to be the mother of Christ because she was particularly pious and holy. Perhaps you’ve heard sermons like the ones I heard growing up where Mary is held up as an example of virtue, that we might all strive to be holy enough to be called blessed and highly favored as she was.

In reality, we have no evidence that Mary was especially devout. All we know about her is that she was a virgin from the line of David, betrothed to Joseph the carpenter, and that when the angel came to her with astonishing, even absurd news, she simply said, “Let it be to me according to your word.” Mary was an ordinary girl who simply chose to say yes.”

Click here to read the rest of this piece!

New(ish) Ink for My Year of Wholehearted Living

Last January I decided that instead of making resolutions I would just choose one word to focus on for the year. A single word that summed up how I wanted to grow during 2015. I chose the word “wholehearted.” I wrote that:

Wholeheartedness 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.

My journey with wholeheartedness isn’t over, but I can honestly say that I think I can see where I’ve grown in these areas. I have taken more risks in trying to connect with people and I have learned to be kinder to myself. I have also failed in some of these areas, and that’s OK too. Choosing one word for the year was never about mastering a particular virtue. It was simply about setting my intentions.

Just before we left Korea in August, I got a new tattoo. It wasn’t something I posted to Instagram or Facebook and I didn’t tell many people about it at the time. It wasn’t meant to be a secret, but it also wasn’t something I wanted to hear a lot of conflicting opinions on or make a big deal about. I wasn’t getting it because tattoos are trendy or because I wanted other people to think I was cooler than I really am. I wanted a symbol of my time in Korea and my journey towards wholeheartedness that would stay with me forever.

I know that tattoos are not everyone’s cup of tea and if you don’t like them, that’s totally fine. There are certainly plenty of people who get tattoos that they later regret. But for me, my tattoos are physical marks of my own story. They remind me of where I’ve been and of the places in my life where God has broken through. I like the permanence of them – the sense that in a world where everything is always changing, these things will always be true and constant.

This tattoo is a compass inside of a mandala. The mandala is a traditional Hindu or Buddhist pattern symbolizing wholeness and unity in the universe. The intricate dot-work shading and the symmetry in the pattern are meant to point to the order in the universe and to our smallness in relation to the greater pattern. I had the compass placed into the middle as a reminder of this time spent living abroad and also that my life has direction. And while these really are meanings I thought about before having this piece done, I also chose it because I think it’s beautiful and I believe that’s a worthwhile reason in itself.

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This was when it was freshly done.

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And this is what it looks like now that it’s healed.

I chose the placement on my leg partly because it was a big enough area to handle a larger piece like this and partly because it’s relatively easy to cover. It shows when I wear shorts or a swimsuit, but it naturally covered by pants or dress clothes so its no hassle for a more formal setting. I was hesitant about putting it on my thigh which has long been my least favorite part of my body. I wasn’t sure I wanted to call attention to the part of me that I am most self-conscious about. But then I thought, “Why not put something beautiful on this part of you that you don’t think is beautiful?” And the cool thing is, since getting my tattoo it’s become one of my favorite parts of myself. I feel so much more confident and beautiful even if the rest of my legs still jiggle like Jell-O.

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This was also the day I got it. I had my shorts rolled up so they wouldn’t irritate it, but normally my shorts fall right to the middle of the tattoo.

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This is the only picture I can find where you can sort of see where it falls with my regular shorts on. It’s just barely showing here.

2015 is drawing to a close, but my journey towards wholeheartedness will continue into next year and on through the rest of my life.

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My tattoo is a beautiful, one of a kind piece that was designed for me by an artist in Busan, South Korea. In other words, don’t go get my exact tattoo somewhere on you! Most artists are happy to design something unique for you – they don’t want to just copy other people’s work either.

Feature Image Credit: The Blue Mug

10,000 Followers Giveaway!

Yesterday something kind of amazing happened. This blog hit 10,000 followers. To some of you that may seem like a lot and to others it may seem like a little, but to me it is almost incomprehensible and completely humbling, especially since the majority of these followers have come within the last year. I know that not everyone who follows my blog reads every post, but I am still overwhelmed by how many people at some point clicked that “Follow” button to show a measure of support.

When I first started this blog almost five years ago, I was right out of college working as a full-time nanny and needed a creative outlet to keep me writing. I wrote sporadically and without much focus and only about five people even knew about my blog because I didn’t share my posts on social media or even tell my friends about them. As I moved into a season of wrestling with my faith, I started to explore some of my questions, my doubts, and my revelations through blogging. I occasionally shared these posts on Facebook, but my audience was still very small.

After moving to Korea, I had a wealth of strange and interesting life experiences to write about and process through. At the same time, I discovered the spiritual memoir genre and found that blogging about my faith helped me sort through my jumbled thoughts and feelings. I started to connect with other bloggers who wrote about similar topics – what it looks like when the faith you grew up with doesn’t quite fit anymore and how faith can change and grow over time. I had opportunities to guest post and invited others to share on my blog. As I grew into this community, I became more serious about blogging as a means of working out my own story and my own faith while connecting with other people. I sought to present my authentic self with my questions and doubts and problems, and hoped that through my vulnerability others could identify with me and feel less alone.  I started to hear from readers who told me that these little essays meant something to them and I started making real life friends with people who read my words.

I know that some of my you came here to read about my travel experiences, some came to read book reviews and recommendations, and some came to read about my faith-wrestling, but all of you have made my life richer and made my moments of vulnerability worth it.

To help express my gratitude to those of you who have joined me on this journey, I’m hosting a little giveaway. There will be two winners and those winners will each receive a book pack with 3 of my favorite books. One set is nonfiction books and the other is fiction. (It was SO HARD to choose just 3 books for each!)

The nonfiction book pack includes: Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans, Pastrix by Nadia Bolz Weber, and An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor.

The fiction book pack includes: Peace Like a River by Lief Enger, Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, and The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson.

The rules are simple.

  1. You must be a follower or subscriber to this blog. (If you are not a follower all you have to do is scroll to the top of the page and look underneath the picture of a younger and svelter me with the little bio. There is a button right under that that says, “Click here if you’re awesome!” Click that button. All this means is that you will be notified when I post something new. )
  2. You must EITHER “like” my Facebook page, which I will link here. (Literally just click the “like” button) OR follow me on Twitter @lilyellyn. If you don’t have Facebook or Twitter just tell me that in the comment you leave.
  3. Finally, leave a comment below telling me either how you found this blog and why you started following OR what your favorite post has been. Be sure to include whether you are more interested in the fiction or nonfiction book pack if you have a preference.

This giveaway is open internationally so anyone can enter.Submissions are open for 1 week and will close on Wednesday, December 23rd at 11:59 PM EST. There is only one entry per person. At the end of the submission period I will collect the names of everyone who submitted and draw two names randomly. I will announce the winners here in a blog post on Christmas Day so be sure the check back.

You guys are seriously the best. Thank you for being a part of my life.

Giveaway banner image credit via StephanieHowell.com

Fifty-two Weeks of Adventure #50: Christmas Feast

In spite of the 70 degree weather we’ve experienced here in Columbia this week, Christmas is only two weeks away. Since this is the first Christmas we’ve spent in the US in 3 years, we’ve been trying to make the most of Christmas festivities.

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The Dunn House is ready for Christmas.

We've got our stockings up and everything!

We’ve got our stockings up and everything!

On Saturday night we drove to our friends Asharae and Tim’s home outside of Charlotte. Asharae was one of my college roommates and she and her husband are fantastically talented wedding photographers and videographers and all around terrifically creative and incredibly sweet people. We take it as a clear act of grace that we now live a mere 2 hr drive from them.

Asharae and Tim hosted a Christmas party for their friends which included Brandon and Christy, who live in Charlotte and have visited a few times this fall , and also a whole slew of new acquaintances.

This party was so festive. There were Christmas decorations and holiday beverages and party foods and Christmas movies and cookies to decorate. Brandon wore a pair of excellent green velour shorts with jingle bells on them that I think we sadly failed to get proper photo documentation of.

Check out that gorgeous centerpiece!

Check out that gorgeous centerpiece!

Concentrating on the decorations.

Concentrating on the decorations.

Queen Frostine. Get it?

Queen Frostine. Get it?

Moments like these are the ones that make me so glad to be back in the US sharing these moments with people who are dear to us. I miss the excitement and glamor of life abroad, but there is something sacred and special about sharing these moments with the people we love. 12360250_10100345764262652_9103981593181293596_n

Tomorrow Jonathan’s family is coming to stay with us for a few days and next week we will head down to Louisiana to spend Christmas with my family. It’s hard to believe that there are only two adventures left in this year that has been so very full.

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can also click this button to read other bloggers’ adventures. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few. If you missed last week’s adventure about my grown up birthday celebration at the zoo, you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.