What book do you always recommend?

What book do you always recommend?

Oh, this is such a fun question! I love to read! There are so many great answers to this question.  How do I pick just one?  Oh, right, it is my blog so I don't have to pick just one!

I will always recommend any book by Lee Smith.  As a female writer and graduate of Hollins University, I value her storytelling abilities in the southern fiction genre.  You may know her best for one of her early works, Fair and Tender Ladies. One of my favorites of hers was written in 2003, The Last Girls.  This book is based on a true story from Smith's time at Hollins University, in which a group of young women built a water craft and floated down the Mississippi River one summer, Huckleberry Finn style.  The novel reminds us of the importance of the stories we live and retell in our own lives.  If you'd like to learn more about Lee Smith, pick up a copy of her memoir, Dimestore. 

 Another book I often recommend is Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore.  If you enjoy satire, this is a great book for you.  If you do not like mixing humor and religion, you may want to steer clear.  But it is one book that I have read multiple times.  The basic premise is that Biff is brought back to modern times by an angel to write a new gospel, the story of what happened to Jesus in the years between being twelve years old and thirty when his ministry began.  It is Jesus' adolescent and young adult years.  In the story, Jesus and Biff travel the world visiting many scholars of world religions so that they can learn about different faiths that can inform Jesus' future.  In the book, Jesus, a Jew, loves coffee and bacon.  Again, you have to be willing to suspend the serious nature of faith and enjoy it for the fun of the story...but it actually does make you think, "what was Jesus doing in that time? Who were his friends? How did he come into his own understanding of being the Messiah?" 

What about you? I'd love to know what you are reading and what books you would recommend.  My husband threw out several Neil Gaiman titles, Neverwhere and Stardust, so check those out too. 

What is the last picture you took?

What is the last picture you took? 

My in-laws have this great home in the mountains of North Carolina. My son loves to go to the cabin.  This photograph is of our recent trip there and he is playing on the community playground which looks like a really awesome tree house.  I have pictures of him on this slide from virtually every trip we have made in the last two years.  Once he has outgrown this particular activity, maybe it will be fun to print all of the pictures together to document how he has grown and changed.  

He played hard all weekend on this trip.  Our first day was wintry mix and rain at its finest and he spent hours building creations out of magnet tiles, crafting art work, and building pillow forts.  The second day was much more mild and we ventured out for a hike after breakfast.  This little trooper went almost the entire two miles without tiring.  Later in the afternoon we walked around the lake and played on the playground you see here.  He definitely got "mud butt" as we called it, but well worth it to see him enjoying the outdoors.  

What this picture represents for me is that each time we come here, we are creating memories with family and friends.  Particularly for our son, he will grow up with a fondness for a place that seems magical to his eyes.  A place where you wind through the forest and see woodland creatures and "fairy houses" in moss covered tree roots.  A place where it can snow in April.  A place where you can pop movie style popcorn and eat ice cream out of fancy bowls. a place that seemingly never runs out of s'mores for the fire pit and a rocking chair that fits just right.  A place to string Christmas lights on the bunk bed and snuggle with a stuffed bear twice his size.  

We live in a time where so much of the "good things" in our lives are seen through the lens of social media.  We want to share what delights us with our friends.  Sometimes this causes our impressions of each other's lives to be skewed towards perfection.  We think to ourselves, "wow I wish I could travel that much" or "I wish I could cook a beautiful dish like that" or "I wish I could be that fit or that well-dressed."   This causes so much anxiety among people, and so much perfectionism that can never be achieved.  Maybe it's because we've stopped truly talking about what it is that we are sharing. Not to mention, we don't want to post about the negative things because we choose not to make ourselves vulnerable to the idea that we are imperfect.  

So, for all of these precious things I've shared with you about this photograph and what it sparks for me; the truth is that we had a meltdown the first night because he was so tired and he didn't want to go to bed.  And he sat on my lap in the bathroom floor for five minutes before brushing his teeth.  And in the process of all that creative fun, we lost a very important Lego piece and cannot finish our dinosaur.  

But in the end, we will not remember that stuff as much as we will the endless giggles from being chased around the great room or the declaration that he must be the leader as we walk the trails.  In life let us always strive to be mindful of the memories being made, and make them count.  

Who would you meet from the past?

If you could meet someone from the past, who would it be? 

The first person who comes to mind for me with this question is Thomas Jefferson.  Most people would probably expect me to say Jesus! And that would be amazing (obviously) but that did not come to immediately to mind, I suppose because Jesus is just greater than my imagination can muster.

As a Virginia girl who grew up loving history and visiting all of the historical places and museums around the commonwealth, Jefferson has always stood out to me.  Monticello is such a fascinating place to visit and my family lives in Bedford County, not too far from his second home, Poplar Forest.  As I write this my son is sitting beside me in a UVA hat, and I've always appreciated Jefferson's commitment to education. 

Some things I would love to discuss with TJ are as follows:

1) Tell me about drafting the Declaration of Independence and your impressions of the war that followed.   Just so we can clear the air about what you meant when you declared that all are created equal....how did this settle with your conscience as a slave owner? From what I understand, Jefferson struggled with the idea of slavery and yet as a businessman with a plantation continued to live into the societal norms of the day.   Furthermore, I wonder what TJ would have to say about the state of affairs today in our country.  I wonder what he would have to say about his great university being the stage for such ugliness and violence by white supremacists in recent years. 

2) In a similar vein, let's talk about Sally Hemmings and her children.  I would love to know the true nature of this relationship and all of the history behind it! I think the discoveries being made at Monticello are so interesting and revealing.  You know we tend to put our historical figures such as Jefferson and Washington on pedestals, but they were also human and flawed just like the rest of us.  I'd like to hear about his struggles alongside his successes. 

3) I would just love to discuss the architecture of Jefferson's homes.  There are so many cool inventions and gems in his dwellings.  As a kid I was fascinated by the pulley system in Monticello that was used in the dining room to deliver meals.  And I also love the gardens created on the property.  I am not a person with a green thumb, but I can appreciate the beauty.  As stunning as the property is now, imagine how much more impressive it would have been in his day. 

4) Finally, I am so intrigued by Jefferson's Bible.  The fact that he decided to take the scriptures and basically cut and paste what he felt was important or true blows my mind!  Such a typical human response, to cherry pick portions of the Word...but I would love to hear his thought process behind this.  For example, Jefferson left out the miracles of Jesus and anything he would have considered "supernatural" including the Resurrection!  Well, the Resurrection is kind of the crux of the whole thing, is it not?  So as we are now in the season of Lent, it is curious to me, I wonder what Jefferson thought about Easter....


Who would you want to meet from the past? A family member? A historical figure? A person from the scriptures? 

Monticello, C. Jeremy Cannada

Lighting the Spark of a Student

What is an unforgettable moment from your childhood?

John L. Hurt Jr. Elementary School
https://hes.pcs.k12.va.us/

This is such a fun and interesting question.  In the summer of 2017 I wrote a series of blogs here on Preaching Thumbelina called "Stories To Tell" and a lot of my childhood memories are outlined there, so it is hard for me to think of something without repeating.

In second grade my class worked together to put on a play that was based on the storybook The Mitten, by Jan Brett.  What I remember most clearly is the big, bright red mitten that I think was fashioned out of butcher paper or some such thing.  Everyone in my class had a part in the play and we all had costumes because we were different woodland animals.

I honestly do not remember which character I was in the performance, but I do remember the nervous energy in our classroom that day. I may have just been one of the students to hold the mitten!   Our parents came and sat in our small, already antiquated wooden desks, our textbooks and wrinkled papers spilling out from below their legs.  It was wintertime I think because I remember the radiators hissing underneath the bank of windows that looked out over our school playground.  The windows probably had snowflake stickers on them, and the sky was overcast.

We all gathered in front of the chalkboard and acted out our scenes. It probably lasted no more than ten minutes.   I am sure it was far from perfect, but I do not remember that either.  What I can recall is the profound sense of accomplishment I had when it was all over! The smiles and claps from our parents, the poses for group pictures in our costumes all echoed what we were feeling: that we had learned a new skill, that we had accomplished something special as a class.

As a parent now I realize what a sacrifice it had likely been for so many of our parents to take off from work or find babysitters for younger siblings and come to our classroom for a ten minute play.  For them to get bundled up, bring refreshments to share, and sacrifice time and possibly money to support us.  For them to live the daily stresses of adulthood that I now recognize, and to put all of that aside to be present for us was special.  I know that there is nowhere else they would rather have been but cheering on their children.  I guess what is important here is that it meant a lot to me that my family was there. Children do notice and appreciate what their parents do, even if it does not seem like it sometimes.

Looking back, I think this may have been the year that my love for the creative arts, writing, and storytelling started.  I was a pretty advanced reader and I gobbled up books whenever I could.  I wrote my first story for the Young Author's Contest that year and won a blue ribbon.  I enjoyed writing stories and poetry.  I liked that our teacher read us a book and then allowed us to retell the story, to put ourselves into the narrative as we learned about what it meant for a story to have a plot.

You know, teachers are so under. Underappreciated. Underpaid.  Underfunded. And yet these men and women are passionate and dedicated to protecting our children and educating them in ways that help them flourish.  They work long hours, the first to arrive and the last to leave.  They take their work home with them to grade papers late at night and they make lesson plans months in advance on summer days.  They face sickness and germs daily but they rarely get a chance to take a sick day.  They see children come in who are dragging their feet, tired and hungry because they do not have food at home or supplies to do their homework. They take from their own pockets to give children the tools they need in the classroom and buy them food to fill empty stomachs.  They stand in the cold at recess and stand guard during bus loading.  Teachers are amazing.

We did not necessarily like our teacher very much in those days, if I remember correctly.  But, I can look back now and be thankful because she truly taught us, and she planted in me a seed that would grow throughout my life; a love of reading, writing, acting, creating.

What do you remember about your childhood? Was there a teacher or a subject that sparked for you at an early age?

Lean Into Lent II

What good habit do you want to develop?

If you read yesterday's post you will know that I have been implementing a lot of healthy practices into my life in recent months.  I also believe that for some folks, lent can be a season of adding something--a spiritual practice or healthy habit--instead of taking something away.  Let us remember that sometimes to say "yes" to one thing, we will need to say "no" to another thing. 

So, here is something I struggle with, and have for a long time: drinking more water. Oh my goodness, I do not know why this is hard for me!  I really believe it is a lack of mindfulness on my part.  I just do not think about drinking fluids as often as a I should throughout the day. 

I have no problem downing my cup of coffee in the morning, but to begin with water....meh.  And here's the thing, I rarely drink sodas anymore and I am not passing over the water for juice or tea or anything else. I'm just not hydrating like I should be. 

I've tried all manner of motivational tools: I've set an app on my phone to remind me (so easy to dismiss).  I've bought tumblers and glasses that make me happy (read here Hollins cups and Hanson cups and awesome mint green Yeti's)! I buy flavored water and vitamin water.  I've considered infused water, but gosh that seems like a lot of work. Still I struggle.  But, I am going to keep trying!

If only I could get back to drinking water like I did when I was pregnant!  I did so well, because I was doing it for my precious baby!  But, here's the thing--all of my healthy practices are in fact for my precious baby (read almost five year old) because if I am healthy I can better care for him!

Maybe by launching this goal into the world I will be motivated.  Perhaps this will provide me some accountability. 

What about you, friends?  What good habits are you striving to create space for in your life? 

Lean Into Lent

Today is Ash Wednesday.  It is the day we remember our mortality.  The ashes upon one's brow are a reminder of our creation by God from the dust of the earth.  "From dust you come and to dust you shall return."  It is also a sign of our broken and sinful nature.  But the cross reminds us of Jesus' immortality, his nature as fully human and fully divine.  The cross is a vivid sign that Christ was willing to demonstrate God's perfect love for us by dying a painful, human death on the cross.  Even though he was without sin, he took on all of our sins in order that we might know grace.  It is a profound day when one stops to think on it.  And the rest of the days between now and Easter morning are opportunities to reflect on our own human nature, or own faithfulness, as we follow the journey of Christ to the cross.  Lent can be considered dark.  It is also considered a season of fasting, a season of giving up.  In recent years some have decided that it should be a season of additions rather than subtractions.  So instead of giving up chocolate we choose to take on a spiritual practice such as daily meditation.

The last four months have been a journey for me toward more healthy living; body, mind, and soul.  This has required all manner of changes which I will not bore you with, but suffice to say, I have come through the tunnel and I am basking in the glow of warm light on the other side.  I thought that it might be interesting for this season of Lent to follow some writing prompts I found online and share them daily with you.   This is a spiritual practice for me--the joy that comes from creating.   So these questions and responses may not pertain directly to Lent every day....but I hope it will provide cause for you to pause along with me and answer the questions for yourself.  That you might, as Ash Wednesday nudges us, consider your humanity and what it is that makes you a healthy human being that is living into God's call on your life in the best way possible.

Today's Question:  What is your word of the year?

I actually do have a word of the year, it is love.  Love of God. Love of neighbor. Love of spouse. Love of family. Love of friends. Most of all, love of self. 

1 John 4:7 says,  "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God."

We are loved by our creator!  Through our creation, through our redemption and salvation in Christ God's love is found.  It is breathed into us through the Holy Spirit.  We are told that our greatest commandment it to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves.

This.  This is what I am striving for.  How do I actually love myself?  How do I show myself love?  What I am discovering is that by showing myself love through dedicated time with God, caring for my body through healthy eating and exercise habits, and being mindful of my own emotions and situations....I am more free to love others!  Do you know why?  Because I am happy.  Truly, I turned to my spouse today and said, "I'm really happy."  All because I chose to love myself.  All because I chose to make a conscious effort to live to my own standards rather than allow myself the pressures of the world to take over, or to rely on someone else's affirmation to make me happy.   It is a challenge every day.

Just because you love your partner, or your child, or your job does not mean you have to pour every ounce of yourself into demonstrating your love at the expense of your own well-being.  It is an incomplete picture if you are not being attentive to your own needs, dreams, body, mind, and soul.

I can show my love better to those around me because I am traveling through a journey of healing.  The first way I showed my love to my family and to my dear friends, was in trusting them with the difficulties I was facing.  Guilt and shame are terrible afflictions...but they cannot survive if you share your story, because compassion washes them away.  (Thank you Brene Brown).  My husband, my son, my family, and my friends have been my cheerleaders every step of the way.  They are reminding me and showing me the love that I was scared to give myself and too overwhelmed to ask for.

So, as I lean into lent, I am also leaning into love.  I am trusting that God is love.  God is grace.  God is at work in and through our lives and God has a perfect purpose for me.  I am made of dust.  To dust I shall return.  I was fashioned out of dirt and holy breath; created, sustained, and redeemed. 

What is your word this year?

Winston

His care for people was as rich as his voice. His presence put people at ease.  The twinkle in his eye a sure sign of the Holy Spirit dwelling deep within his gentle soul. 

I cannot think of Winston without picturing him standing tall at the back of the choir beside my mama, praising his Creator in song.  He was a vital, vibrant member of this congregation and for so many of us, SO many of us from my generation growing up in this church, a trusted friend and mentor we could count on.  He didn’t even have to say anything, he was just a constant, steady force of love. 

When I graduated from college and prepared to go to seminary, Winston and Georgia gifted me with a two-volume set of Calvin’s Institutes.  Even though I have often joked that these huge volumes make perfect door stops—every time I placed one (or both) of them into my bag to take to theology class, I thought of Winston, Georgia, and Beejay and their support of me.  This gift was generous, practical, and heartfelt—just as the Chapman’s are. 

Whenever I would come home to preach in those years Winston would put a hand on my shoulder and say, “I’m proud of you, girl” in that sweet, deep voice of his.  And I felt that, deeply.  I knew Winston to be compassionate, faithful, and sincere.  I’m sure we all have stories like that, of times when Winston made us, as his friends and family feel treasured. He was a confidant in shared conversations and above all, I believe, a holy listener.

In honor of his influence on my seminary career, I chose a couple of John Calvin quotes today, that I think would speak to Winston’s heart and beliefs.  The first, “However many blessings we expect from God, His infinite liberality will always exceed all our wishes and thoughts.”  And this one, which really stood out to me: “There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.”

This is why Psalm 121 came to me immediately when I was asked to select scripture for today.  Winston connected with his Creator God most by being in God’s good creation. I believe he lived the words of John Muir faithfully, who said, “Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.”  He loved to be outdoors, hiking in the beautiful hills of Virginia, experiencing every color in this world that God gave us to witness to Him and rejoice! “I lift my eyes to the hills, for where will my help come? It comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” 

The truth is that it is hard for us to rejoice.  We grieve, Lord we grieve for the vacant hollow that is left in the absence of the Larger than Life presence that was Winston Chapman.  Husband. Father. Family. Friend.  And our Lord God’s heart weeps with us in our sadness.  But we are here today to witness to the resurrection—and the resurrection is the good and sure promise of eternal life that we can only imagine!  Psalm 121 tells us, The Lord will keep your life, the Lord will keep your going out and your coming in, from this time on and forevermore.”  I think Winston would say, “Don’t be sad for me, be thankful—be thankful for the life I have lived because I am—and now I go with God.”  I think Winston would tell us to embrace each day, to count each breath as a blessing and live our lives fully as children of God! He would encourage us to get out and walk these Blue Ridge Mountains, break bread with those whom we love, to be with friends in deep conversation, and use the gifts we’ve been given to witness to the gift of Grace in Christ. 

Georgia and Beejay—I love you so much, you have been my sisters in Christ for twenty years.  The gift that you all and Winston have bestowed upon my family with your friendship cannot be measured.  For us to have walked alongside you in these recent days and hours has been our honor and our privilege.  May the Spirit at work through those around you and the promise of life eternal sustain you in the days to come.  Amen.