Along the Centennial Trail, Snohomish County

In defense of talking to other people

For all that we hear that diversity is a good thing, that it's better for the world that we're all a little different and each bring another flavor to the human potluck, it can be hard to accept that other people don't like or care about the things that - to you or to me - seem, well, ultimate. Why don't they "get" it?

I think this is one of the great causes of conflict in our world: We all share huge patches of common ground and may hold the same opinions about many things but we don't agree about what things actually matter.

How do you respond when you realize anew that most other people don't think and care like you do about money, politics, the environment, faith, or family?

With that as a disclaimer, I just wanted to say: I don't "get" people who don't seem to want or need relationships with other people, who don't find human beings precious and fascinating and ultimately the most interesting and valuable thing under the sun.

So, when it comes to relating to other people, I'd like to speak up on behalf of taking risks to seek out relationships. Make it your habit to try to get to know people. Go to that social event, talk to strangers, and treat the person behind the counter like a human being and not an object; see what happens. You might really blow it, I know. Or they might. They might hurt you. But you'll never find out if you limit yourself to the people you already know, and/or the fake (but safe) one-way relationships you can have with celebrities and people on TV and in other media.

Most of us fear the awkwardness of risking relationship with people who might be really different from us. But they may not be as different as you think.

I saw a kid at church wearing a T-shirt that said "awkward is awesome." Could be. Only a willingness to step out into awkwardness can make way for awesomeness. Here's my hunch: You will never experience the best that life has to offer if you don't engage with other people on this planet.

If I ever end up writing my book about listening, this will be why. I hate to see so many people missing out. Missing out on what they could get out of life; missing out on what they could give others. A few adjustments of perspective and practice could make all the difference.

2010 Book List

I read a =lot= of books during my six-month sabbatical – the rest of the year not so much. Looks like the total is 122 volumes. Here’s what I think is a complete list. Lots of good stuff, but I’ll star the ones that for whatever reason I loved the most. Want to talk books? Leave a comment or drop me a line.

See also Read in 2009 - Part 1, Nonfiction, Read in 2009 - Part 2, Fiction and 2008 Book Blogging Roundup.

NONFICTION

Biography / Memoir

• Following Jesus through the Eye of the Needle | Kent Annan
• Just Like Us: The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America | Helen Thorpe *
• How Reading Changed My Life | Anna Quindlen
• Speak What We Feel, Not What We Ought to Say | Fredrick Buechner *
• The Dream: A Memoir | Harry Bernstein
• D. E. Hoste, A Prince with God: Hudson Taylor's Successor as General Director of the China Inland Mission 1900-1935 | Phyllis Thompson
• Percy Mather of Central Asia: The Making of a Pioneer | Mildred Cable and Francesca French
• The Caliph's House, A Year in Casablanca | Tahir Shah *
• Making Toast | Roger Rosenblatt
• Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Life of a Desert Nomad | Waris Dirie
• The Second Trail: Behind the Scenes of the Enemy God | Amber Castagna
• The Reluctant Exodus | Phyllis Thompson *
• Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith | Ann Lamott
• Lady on the Beach | Norah Berg and Charles Samuels
• Wisdom Chaser: Finding My Father at 14,000 Feet | Nathan Foster *
• One Man’s Meat | E.B. White **

Personal Development

• The Bible **
• God Guides | Mary Geegh
• The Overload Syndrome: Learning to Live within Your Limits | Richard Swenson
• A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 | Phillip Keller
• The Way of the Heart: Connecting with God through Prayer, Wisdom, and Silence | Henri Nouwen
• The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath | Mark Buchanan **
• The Bible Jesus Read | Philip Yancey **
• The Vertical Self: How Biblical Faith Can Help Us Discover Who We Are in an Age of Self Obsession | Mark Sayers *
• Knitting without Tears | Elizabeth Zimmerman
• In Search of Balance: Keys to a Stable Life | Richard Swenson
• Overcoming Missionary Stress | Marjory Foyle *
• Things Unseen: Living in Light of Forever | Mark Buchanan *
• Expectations and Burnout: Women Surviving the Great Commission | Sue Eenigenburg and Robynn Bliss *
• Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am? Insights into Personal Growth | John Powell
• The Search for Significance | Robert McGee
• To Be Told: God Invites You to Coauthor your Future | Dan Allender
• A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss | Jerry Sittser **
• Now, Discover Your Strengths | Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton *
• 48 Days to the Work You Love | Dan Miller
• StrengthFinder 2.0 | Tom Rath
• Outlive your Life | Max Lucado
• Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream | David Platt*

Other Nonfiction

• Outliers, the Story of Success | Malcolm Gladwell **
• Commissioned: What Jesus Wants You to Know as You Go | Marv Newell *
• Woman to Woman: Sharing Jesus with a Muslim Friend | Joy Loewen
• Delhi: Adventures in a Megacity | Sam Miller
• Cows, Kin, and Globalization: An Ethnography of Sustainability | Susan A. Crate
• Somebody Else's Century: East and West in a Post-Western World | Patrick Smith
• Skills, Knowledge, Character: A Church-Based Approach to Missionary Candidate Preparation | Greg Carter

FICTION

Fiction / Literature

• Gilead: A Novel | Marilynne Robinson **
• A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
• In the Beauty of the Lilies | John Updike
• Tales from Shakespeare | Charles and Mary Lamb
• The Magician's Nephew | C.S. Lewis
• The Three Musketeers | Alexander Dumas
• Hannah Coulter | Wendell Berry **
• Summer Morning, Summer Night | Ray Bradbury
• Home | Marilynne Robinson
• Jayber Crow | Wendell Berry
• Three Short Novels | Wendell Berry
• Run: A Novel | Ann Patchett *
• Girl in Translation | Jean Kwok
• The Bonesetter’s Daughter | Amy Tan
• The Help | Kathryn Stockett
• Silver Birches | Adrian Plass
• The Devil amongst the Lawyers: A Ballad Novel | Sharyn McCrumb
• In the Company of Others | Jan Karon
• Homeland and Other Stories | Barbara Kingsolver *

Mysteries and Light Fiction

• The Tale of Applebeck Orchard | Susan Wittig Albert
• Curtain: Poirot's Last Case | Agatha Christie
• A Caribbean Mystery | Agatha Christie
• Skull Duggery | Aaron Elkins
• The Lost Art of Gratitude | Alexander McCall Smith
• The Five Red Herrings | Dorothy Sayers
• Light from Heaven | Jan Karon
• The Good Husband of Zebra Drive | Alexander McCall Smith
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society | Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows **
• The Game | Laurie King
• Debts of Dishonor | Jill Paton Walsh
• Among the Mad | Jacqueline Winspear
• The Double Comfort Safari Club | Alexander McCall Smith
• Kaleidoscope | Dorothy Gilman
• Miracle on the 17th Green | James Patterson and Peter deJong
• The Girl Who Chased the Moon | Sarah Addison Allen
• Egret Cove | Margaret Nava
• Key Lime Pie Murder | Joanne Fluke
• The Lacemakers of Glenmara | Heather Barbieri
• Locked Rooms | Laurie King *
• The Mapping of Love and Death | Jacqueline Winspear
• 44 Scotland Street | Alexander McCall Smith
• Just Between You and Me | Jenny B. Jones
• The Language of Bees | Laurie King
• Chasing Shakespeares | Sarah Smith
• The Yada Yada Prayer Group | Neta Jackson
• Mostly Harmless | Douglas Adams
• Holiday Grind | Cleo Coyle

Kid Lit / Young Adult
Five of these I read aloud to my young friend Rachel. But I still enjoy this kind of stuff for myself, too.

• C D C? by William Steig
• Betsy-Tacy / Deep Valley stories (12 volumes) | Maud Hart Lovelace
• The Hardy Boys: Hunting for Hidden Gold | Frank Dixon
• Stuart Little | E.B. White
• The Battle of the Labyrinth | Rick Riordan
• The Last Olympian | Rick Riordan
• The Secret Garden | Frances Hodgson Burnett
• The Horse and His Boy | C.S. Lewis *
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian | Sherman Alexie
• Anne’s House of Dreams | L.M. Montgomery
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone | J.K. Rowling
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire | J.K. Rowling
• Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates | Mary Mapes Doge
• The Princess Academy | Shannon Hale
• So You Want to Be a Wizard | Diane Duane
• Bloomability | Sharon Creech *
• The King in the Window | Adam Gopnik *
• Beside the Dark Sea of Darkness | Andrew Peterson
• A Week in the Woods | Andrew Clement *

The Sound of Owls

Sometimes it takes me by surprise, how different we all are.

Recently a friend told me that late the night before she was reading a book that spoke of God's work in the "small" things. Just then she heard something land on the roof of her house with a loud thump, and, listening, realized it must be an owl. Another owl was perched on a neighbor's roof; she could just make out the shape.

She and her family have always loved owls. She called her grown daughter into the room: come quick! For half an hour they listened to the owls calling back and forth. My friend was so excited about what had happened she could not sleep.

While I like this story, I'm pretty sure I would not have reacted the same way. Would not, I suppose, have known it was an owl or been so excited that it was. Nature lover, yes; animal person, not really.

But it got me thinking about what things do thrill me in that same way. People, chiefly, and people's stories, and what makes people tick. The fact that I could tell you a story about my friend being excited about the owls means more to me than, say, hearing a couple of owls.

What kinds of things thrill or delight you? Can you sum them up into easy categories?

Not Yet Perfect

"Still looking for that perfect gift?" asked the radio spot. It was a Christian station; I think they were pitching something like child-sponsorship. But I chewed on those words for a while. I wondered why they felt like an accusation.

Should I be looking for that perfect gift? Is there something wrong with me if I don't want to give the perfect gift or have stopped looking? What if I don't like choosing presents for people, or shopping in general? If I'd rather opt out of wrapping, decorating, and filling and/or facing down a table full of sweets?

I envy the husbands of some of my friends, the kind of guys who have someone else to plan events and buy presents and write cards and sign their name. Must be nice to be a man! Now and again and in small doses I enjoy these celebratory arts, but this time of year it's all at once, and the more there is the less it seems to mean.

But it is what it is, and I go along with all of it, awkwardly, longing for the clean, crisp days of January.

It helps to acknowledge to myself that it's not that I'm right, and the others are wrong. Shopping and wrapping and parties and decorating and eating together are ways as good as any to show love, good will, and generosity. I can give those things, and I can receive them, even as I object to the huge helpings all at once.

Maybe next year I'll get more Silent Night, Holy Night, and Peace on Earth.

What does bring a sweetness to my soul, tears to my eyes, and cause my Grinchy heart to grow three sizes larger? There are some elements of Christmas - even Christmas in secular 21st-century America - that do. Every time I click on a link to watch one of those Hallelujah Chorus videos that are going viral on the internet (here's today's), I start to cry. What is it that makes that piece so glorious? Whatever it is about those melodies, harmonies, and rhythms, the lyrics cap it for me:

King of kings, and Lord of lords / And He shall reign / And He shall reign forever and ever

How wonderful it will be to take our place in a kingdom that will last forever, not to be in charge but to be under the care of a completely trustworthy and loving authority, in a place where both rest and work are redeemed and there will be no more struggling.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

Revelation 21:3-5 

Comment Policy

Got something to say? This blog is a nice outlet for me and at least occasionally of interest or help to some of you. But it does tend to feel rather one-sided, huh?

Recently I turned off the settings that made potential leavers-of-comments "register." Now you can comment at will and see your words appear immediately. Voila! Unless you are a spammer. In which case you may not get through; Blogger has finally got a system set up to flag spam comments. Slowly, slowly, they are catching up.

I still plan to move to Wordpress. I just haven't gotten around to it.

Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader

"Voyage of the Dawn Treader could be a great movie," I thought. The movie that got made, however, is not that movie. Not only is much of the original content left out, a number of things that get played up are either small incidents or not present in the book at all. So, as a big fan of the book, I was not sure what to think.

I liked the reinterpretation of the story of Lucy and the Magic Book; they used it to launch a whole theme about jealousy, temptation, and identity. Similarly at the end, when Caspian has to make a decision about what he's going to do next, he says,

“I’ve spent too much time wanting what had been taken from me and not enough being grateful for what has been given to me.”

Awesome. And - though not from the book - very much in the spirit of the story.  

They did add a lot of conflict and violence that might be hard for the youngest viewers to watch. Three new fight scenes in the first 15 minutes? And the rather funny scene with the sea-serpent transformed into a terrifying 20-minute night battle?

There are are a couple of scenes that celebrate faith and believing, when believing is just believing that what you want to happen is going to happen. What kind of faith is that? Pretty watered down, but much what you'd expect from Hollywood. Then, in the scene where the crew is about to go to the dark island, Caspian gives a speech to stir up their courage. Do it "for Narnia!" he says. "For Aslan!" he says. "For Narnia!" they echo, cheering. Some of the characters are starting to weep. Narnia! Wait, what happened to Aslan? Are they just like people in my country who adore their own, destined-to-decay nation and only give lip-service to God?

When Aslan does appear, though, he is well played. When Lucy asks whether she can see Aslan again, even if she can't return to Narnia, Aslan says yes. The line is straight from the book:

"But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there."

What else? The cinematography and effects are brilliant; the boat is gorgeous. The writing's not brilliant, but the acting is quite good. Overall, I would recommend this movie.