I mentioned earlier in the week that I returned from the Calvin College Festival of Faith and Writing with a suitcase full of books. On that subject, I thought it might be fun to share book lists.

I’ll start.

What I just finished reading

The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr – I heard Mary Karr interviewed at the Calvin Festival and she is a spunky spitfire. I loved her instantly. As I was reading this book, a memoir of the early years of her traumatic childhood, I could not believe the detail of her memory and I was hoping someone would ask her about at the Festival. Someone did. I think she might have a photographic memory, though she didn’t get that specific with terms. She said that one of the side effects of PTSD is a very vivid sense of your most traumatizing memories. Maybe that explains it. The book is painful, poignant, and her voice is unforgettable. I’m 50 pages into Lit now (her 3^rd memoir about coming to faith), and I’m sure I’ll go back and read Cherry (her 2^nd memoir in the “series”) when I’ve finished Lit.

Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert – Don’t you feel for a woman who wrote the most celebrated book in the history of mankind only to have to turn around and produce another one? OK, you’re right, she is a gazillionaire and Julia Roberts is playing her in the upcoming movie based on her book, so maybe we shouldn’t feel too sorry for her. Nonetheless, in this book, I can sense her angst. I feel you, Liz. The blank page is the great equalizer. The book annoyed and angered me at points (as did EPL), but I also found her vulnerability endearing in places. Her final conclusions about marriage (which I won’t ruin the thing by telling you) were challenging and gave me a lot to think about. All in all, worth reading.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin – A slim novella that I first read my sophomore year of college, I have always felt cosmically connected to this work and re-reading it was no different. Chopin’s Edna Pontellier seems to be living some of the very things I’m interested in and thinking about right now, maybe even some of the same things I’m living. I find the story enormously tragic and yet familiar. Haunting.

What I’m reading right now

Lit by Mary Karr – So far, soooooo good. Again, unmatched voice.

The May Queen: Women on Life, Love, Work, and Pulling It All Together in Your 30s – This collection of essays, including one from Jennifer Weiner, has been on my shelf for at least a couple years, but I just recently picked it up. I like how you can absorb it in bite-sized chunks as well as the collection of different voices and different stories.

What I’m reading after I’m done with what I’m reading right now

Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott – Though better known for her non-fiction (in most circles anyway), this is Lamott’s first novel in a long time telling the continued story of her characters from Rosie. I read Rosie, and loved it. Can’t wait for this one. But I hope, for all our sakes, she keeps writing non-fiction. We still need your essays, Anne!!!

The Help by Kathryn Stockett – My mom is engrossed in this novel right now, and I can’t wait to get my hands on it. The story is very reminiscent of the way my mom was raised in her own Southern home, and I know I will better understand her history by reading this book.

A Syllable of Water: Twenty Writers of Faith Reflect on Their Art – Another collection of essays. This is one I picked up at the Festival, and I can’t wait to read it. Contributors include Luci Shaw, Philip Yancey, Richard Foster, and Eugene Peterson. I love little more than reading about writers who talk about writing. Honestly, I could read about writing eternally.

Same Kind of Different as Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together by Ron Hall and Denver Moore with Lynn Vincent – Heard great things about this one. Can’t wait to get into it.

Great with Child: On Becoming a Mother by Debra Rienstra – Also picked this one up at the Festival. The author is a professor at Calvin College. Motherhood is a subject I’m interested in, and I’m equally interested in how others are writing about their experiences.

Your turn . . . what are you reading? Cough it up!

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I’ve just returned from five days in Grand Rapids, Michigan, at the Calvin College Festival of Faith and Writing, an incredible amalgamation of scholars, poets, artists, pastors, editors and writers.

I attended the bi-annual conference in 2008, just a few months after I signed a book contract with Zondervan and just a few days before I found out I was pregnant. A precarious place in my personal history. I attended the conference that year with my mom (as I did this year) and I listened to Phyllis Tickle and Kathleen Norris and others and I was challenged by their long careers of careful thinking and believing and writing. I returned home and poured myself into the early drafts of Found Art, and I called upon those voices when I had to persevere through the long days of rewriting and editing.

This year, Luci Shaw and Parker Palmer and Mary Karr and Eugene Peterson (did I mention I have a crush on him?) and Scott Russell Sanders all gave me a collective shot in the arm to keep writing, keep asking the most difficult questions, keep probing, and above all, keep a firm grip on the immensity of the sacred. In other words, never allow my writing to be a vehicle for my lofty and unbending knowledge or conclusions but instead a vehicle for my personal discovery and the discovery of human experience. As we write from the place of investigation, we begin “working with hands larger than our own,” to borrow a phrase from Luci Shaw. Beautiful, huh.

Also this year, I sat at a table and signed my book, a moment I would have thought impossible during certain days of this whole journey. I tried to reflect on where I’ve been even as the question of where I’m going looms.

I’ve returned with a suitcase full of books . . . more on that later this week. In the meantime, let me know if something has grounded, inspired, or challenged you recently. I’d love to hear about it.

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I’m inviting ways to more fully participate in my life. To that end, I got a good idea. (I tend to be very fond of my good ideas. To the point that I become obsessively committed to them and, possibly even, become a bit of an impulsive activator.) So, last week I ordered eight silver clutches/wristlets online in an attempt to find the perfect little purse that would hold all my essentials, fit nicely into my diaper bag, and work well for day or night. The purse would not only hold my keys, glasses, gum, credit card, ID, and lip gloss, it would hold my attempts at a lean-and-mean life, so organized and trimmed down that I would be envied for my ability to live chicly and simply.

Exit stage left my bulging bag of gum wrappers, receipts, pounds of change, thirteen (yes I counted) lip colorers of all descriptions, mail, and six (yes I counted) pens. Mindless hoarding. Not only is all that nonsense in my purse, but I’m willingly carrying it around all day with two almost-thirty pound children and a diaper bag.

Stop the insanity! Wake up! Exercise your options! Get creative! Think!

I received all eight clutches, lined them up on the floor in the living room, removed each one from the plastic. Steve and my mom looked on, advising and questioning, roles they are very fond of. All this while we watched WVU get stomped by Duke. So sad, Mountaineers.

I chose the one I had liked most online, and felt that $19.50 was a modest price for something that is sure to revolutionize my life.

One day into it, the purse is spot on. I can’t cram a whole lot of crap into it, so it requires me to decide what I really need, and part with the rest. Purging is not an intuitive skill for me, so I’m practicing. Trying to get better at the editing process. Trying to participate more fully—make conscious choices—in life instead of just hoarding and numbing. The silver purse is a start. A good start.

Other noticings on the same theme . . .

Last week I facilitated a writing workshop at the Soul Care House, and just loved every single second of it. I cried when I talked about the gifts that writing has offered me, and I urged us all to embrace the whimsy and the work of paying attention to life and of getting down our thoughts and perspectives. I left feeling as though the time had been so much more for me than for the attendees, like a real shot in the arm to keep going and to remember how much the craft of writing matters. How much participating matters. “Writing helps me feel alive,” I wrote in response to a prompt I offered, “confronting the best and worst parts of myself.” A long loving look at the real.

My friend Mel sent me a link to a darling carved wooden sign – READ – from etsy that she thought I’d like, which I very much did. She mentioned in the email that she would love to be able to make something like this but, she says, “I am no woodworker.” Loved that line. Something about her words reminds me to embrace the truth, which is often more obvious than we give it credit for being. Additionally, truth is always so freeing.

Purse is out of control. Soul is dead. Buy a clutch and start typing! Wake up! You are not a woodworker. You are a writer. Get to work!

At church yesterday, Easter Sunday, I stood in line in the women’s restroom and hugged so many of the women that came in and out while I was waiting. I loved that feeling, of knowing and being known, of being at a place that is home to me, of being awake enough to receive and give love.

After church, we put the babies down for a long midday nap (Yes!!! Both children are successfully taking one nap simultaneously. Victory!!!), and then we went to friends’ for an early dinner. We sat outside on their lawn, eating honey-baked ham off their solid wood dining table the boys had moved outside. Breeze. Sun. Rope swing. Trees. Music. Parmesan risotto. Egg hunt. Fresh berries. Absolute delight. Present and participating with slim silver purse by my side.

I am no woodworker.

Life, and life more abundant.

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