Reflectionary

Friday Five: Summer Reading

As posted by yours truly at RevGalBlogPals:

Back in the day, before I went to seminary, I worked in the Children's Room at the Public Library, and every year we geared up for Summer Reading. Children would come in and record the books read over the summer, and the season included numerous special and celebratory events. As a lifelong book lover and enthusiastic summer reader, I find I still accumulate a pile of books for the summer.

This week, then, a Summer Reading Friday Five.

1) Do you think of summer as a particularly good season for reading? Why or why not?

Well, clearly, since I said it up above, I do. I usually pile up the books in a particular place, though this year I have books on my Kindle as well.

This year will be different, since I won't be taking a big block of vacation in the summer as I did in my last interim and as a settled pastor. But things definitely slow down at church, and my limitations on knitting at the moment mean I'm spending more time reading. (Though I am doing a little knitting, which is a happy thing.)

2) Have you ever fallen asleep reading on the beach?

Yes and had the sunburn to show for it. I can read sitting up, but lie down on my stomach for five minutes, and I am right out like a light and fried up the back of my legs. It's inevitable. This may be one of the reasons I stopped lying on the beach with a book.

 3) Can you recall a favorite childhood book read in the summertime?

I was 11, and it was "Gone With the Wind." I stayed up most of one night reading it by the nightlight in my room, book jammed between the bed and the wall.

4) Do you have a favorite genre for light or relaxing reading?

I've always enjoyed mysteries as popcorn reading.

5) What is the next book on your reading list?

I have the first two Julia Spencer-Fleming titles on my Kindle. They were a free download to promote her new book! That is exciting. As soon as I finish the books in progress now, I'll be entering the world of her priest-detective. I also expect to read the sequels to Stephanie Meyer's "Twilight" this summer.

Over at the RevGals' blog, in the sidebar, I've updated our RevGalBookPals schedule through October, so if you are looking for summer reading, look there!

Book #27: Beginning Ministry Together

Just quickly: Beginning Ministry Together is a book I needed to read before going to Interim Ministry Network's training next month. Lots of good, practical short chapters cover useful ministry territory in a thoughtful manner, providing context not only for the interim time but for the beginning and ending of ministries. This is an Alban Institute publication and up to their usual standards, I think.

Book #26: Home

She starred in the first movie I ever saw in a theatre, "Mary Poppins."

When I was five, I had my hair cut just like hers in "The Sound of Music."

I spent many of my elementary school years in a fantasy world based on the Von Trapp family.

I learned to sing listening over and over again to the original Broadway cast recording of "My Fair Lady," and it is so thoroughly burned into my brain that the London cast recording I purchased on CD ten years ago still sounds "wrong" to me (though she prefers it).

So you won't be surprised to hear that I love Julie Andrews. I sat through the Princess Diary movies mostly to see her. She is one of my favorite things about Shrek the Third. And because I knew nothing about her childhood, I was excited to read her memoir, "Home: A Memoir of My Early Years." It was one of the first books I downloaded to my new Kindly, and I read it over the past week.

It's ironic that a woman who came to represent the essence of home, getting the Banks and Von Trapp families to retract themselves from the brink of destruction, actually had a screwy homelife herself. I won't go into detail. But that tendency to be the organizing force came naturally to her.

I found the childhood parts painful to read, the Broadway and London stage parts irresistible, so for me the pace of the book picked up later. This book ends just before she began filming Mary Poppins. I think the voice sounds very much hers, influenced by years of being theatrical. This is not a world-changing book, but it was worth reading if you are a fan.

KINDLE UPDATE: Reading on the Kindle was great. I'm still figuring out the ratio of font to eyeballs and font to page turn (more text takes longer to rearrange, so it may be faster to read in larger font, even though that means more page "turns"--still experimenting). I am really grateful to have it as holding a book continues to be an issue with my stiff fingers; although they are better than a month ago, the persistent exertion needed to hold a book is just not a good thing at the moment.

Random Bullets of Saturday, Including Books #24 and 25

• Snowman got as far as Beantown Airport, where his flight is mightily delayed due to weather at an airport that is now officially my worst enemy.
• UPDATE: THE PLANE HAS LEFT THE GATE AS OF 5:52 P.M.
• That's only 3 hours and twenty minutes late.
• The 4:50 flight left early.
• Sigh.
• I believe I said not only "goodbye" (to end the call) but also "thank you" (because I am reflexively socialized) to an automated operator at United.
• Because he is on his way to camp, rather than school, he is traveling without his computer or -- gasp! -- his iPod!
• Since we consider the iPod to be his musical prosthetic device, we wonder how he will survive the many hours of waiting.
• Yes, he has a book.
• A book is not the same.
• At.
• All.
• Not to Snowman, anyway.
• The one time we planned another route, he ended up on a bus from Detroit to Traverse City when the wind in TVC was too bad for a plane to land.
• And going back from spring break, he spent the night at O'Hare.
• Can we get a break here?
• Fortunately, Land O'Lakes Arts Camp is, just like the Arts Academy, equipped to deal with travel and weather emergencies.
• Meanwhile, to take my mind off his departure, I went with Pure Luck to see "Get Smart."
• Enjoyable. 
• Almost no one goes to the movies at 11:20 a.m., in case you were wondering.
• I could almost have a crush on Dwayne Johnson (aka "The Rock"), if I were not afraid Pure Luck will stop taking me to the movies.
• (Remind me not to tell you how much I enjoyed the star of "Iron Man," okay?)
• (I really don't know how that picture made it into this post.)
• In the mail I got a letter from my denomination's health plan, a heads up that they will be calling me to help me learn to manage my newly diagnosed illness.
• I am glad to know they have this program of support.
• I am not so glad to be eligible for it.
• On the Book Challenge Front, #24 was Elizabeth George's Careless in Red.
• Mysteries are great on the Kindle!! So light to hold and carry around!!
• I also read Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off, #25, which I enjoyed, and it is a good example of a book that would be no good on the Kindle, since a great deal of its appeal is in the special fonts and formatting.
• Both books are linked in the sidebar.
• I  am working on a book I need to finish before Interim Training in early July, and it is hard to hold, which is a bummer.
• Fortunately the chapters are short.
• I am keeping it in the bathroom and try to pick up a chapter every time, well, you see what I mean.
• Earlier in the week, uncertain about how I would tolerate my new medication, I made plans to re-purpose my last sermon on this week's Genesis text.
• Now it doesn't seem like such a great idea, though the general theme is okay.
• So I think I need to stop writing this list and work on that instead.
• But first, a little coffee seems to be in order.
• Also, Molly asks me to tell you there is funder, which, as she has told you all before, "is NO Fun!!

Book #23: Twilight

For the second book to read on my new Kindle, I chose Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, the first in her series of Young Adult vampire novels. The Princess is also reading it, and since the books seem to be something of a phenomenon, it seemed it might be a good idea to delve into them myself. Since it's a huge paperback that would be heavy to hold, and since YA books are less expensive to download from Amazon, it met my Kindle criteria, and after a minute or two to download it, we were off.

First let me say that I am not a vampire genre fan. The only vampire movie I ever liked was "Love at First Bite." (If you're like me you're now singing in your head, "Please don't talk about love tonight..." and disco-dancing with George Hamilton...) The only other vampire book I managed to read from beginning to end was a YA title I picked up while working in the Children's Room at the Public Library, The Silver Kiss. I tried Anne Rice, but her stuff is just too much for me. I've seen "Bram Stoker's Dracula," and it just upset me.

So, to be clear, I am not a fan of teh vampires. (Though I did go out once with a guy whose extra pair of black pants hung upside down in his office at a theatre, just like a bat. And he looked much better after dark than by daylight. Really.)

But I read an interview with Stephenie Meyer and found the premise intriguing. Meyer is a Mormon housewife and seems to feel writing about vampires on the fringe of a human community speaks to the condition of Mormons. (I am not making that up.) She also made a case in the interview that the books support abstinence.

I found that fascinating.

The book is pretty engaging and becomes very suspenseful in its final third. I don't want to spoil the plot in any way, so I will just say some general things about the book here. However, if you have read it and want to discuss plot, feel free to do so in the comments, and let other readers consider this to be a spoiler warning!

I found the book to be surprisingly erotic, which just goes to show that not doing things can be as sexy as doing them.

The last section is upsettingly violent, or it was to me, although I suppose that was inevitable. The Princess hasn't gotten that far yet, so I can't tell you what she thinks, but I guess it's no worse than the battle scenes in the last few Harry Potter books.

I had planned to read this one and not go on in the series, but that is clearly going to be impossible. I'm just waiting for The Princess to catch up before I move on to the next one.

Books #20, 21 and 22

I've just read two church-related books, one as a preparation for Interim Ministry training (Temporary Shepherds), which was quite useful.

The other is the work of one of my favorite RevGalBlogPals, Carol Howard Merritt, a book called Tribal Church: Ministering to the Missing Generation.

Carol has written a very good book about working within our typical mainline churches to reach younger people without screens or bands or gimmicks, by providing authentic community and caring and a place to worship and celebrate and grieve intergenerationally. These were the things I tried to do at Small Church, where things were beginning to grow, but there was not enough money to continue on full time. It encourages me to think that I was having many of the same thoughts Carol writes about in my own context; it tells me there is motion in the life of the Church, a movement of the Spirit that feels like it includes churches I have served and people with gifts for ministry something like mine. It's an Alban Institute book, and Carol is working on another right now.

You may remember I wrote recently about considering the purchase of a Kindle, in part because they are pretty cool-looking (Questing Parson said so!) and in part because the difficulty of holding a book has cut back on my time spent reading. Pure Luck liked the idea of getting one for me and so as a belated birthday present/very early Christmas present, I received one last week. I read my first book using the Kindle over the weekend, Garth Stein's The Art of Racing in the Rain. It's a beautifully written novel, using the voice of a dog as narrator. Books related to animals always make me cry, so it was pretty daring of me to get it in the first place. It is in part about car racing, but don't let that stop you. I enjoyed reading it on the Kindle and highly recommend the book, but don't want to give anything else about it away.

The Kindle was a bit expensive, but it was apparently worth it for the sake of a pun about wrapping it up again at Christmas and re-Kindling it.

Books I'm reading on the Kindle are in the sidebar as, naturally, "Kindling."

Because puns are catching.

Book #19: Take This Bread

I have been slowly (for me) reading a book I dearly wanted to speed through, because it is so good: Take this Bread, by Sara Miles. It was the discussion book this month for RevGalBlogPals, and if you click here you can read those thoughts, including participation from the author herself.

I've been churched my whole life long. I've gone to the Baptist church with my mom and the Methodist with my daddy, and when we lived in Alexandria I attended an Episcopal day school and a Presbyterian church for six years, and since I wound up in the UCC, you can imagine that I have had many influences inform my impression of Communion.

It was fascinating to read the memoir of this previously unchurched granddaughter of missionaries who had a Jesus experience when given the bread for the first time and went on to feel a calling to feed people. What she has done with that calling and what it has done to her is told engagingly, really irresistibly, in this memoir.

As a former board member of the food rescue and soup kitchen here in City By the Sea, I knew a lot of the data about surplus foods and government commodities already, but that section is an education if you do not.

I highly recommend "Take This Bread" and think it would make a great discussion book for churches considering hospitality in all its forms.

Book#18: The Faith Club

I guess the Great Knitting Ban of 2008 has been good for my reading, because I am now up to 18 books. I didn't set an overall goal for the year, but as I look back, I'm mostly delighted with the books on my list. The Faith Club:A Muslim, A Christian, A Jew-- Three Women Search for Understanding is no exception. One of the authors sent me a review copy, thinking RevGalBlogPals might like to use it for a book discussion (as I believe we will later this year). Three laywomen whose faith practices varied from not much to only at home to pretty devout gathered to discuss their personal religious histories, the impact of culture and their understanding of the theology of their faiths. They met regularly for several years, beginning with the idea of writing a book for children, but in the end opening and changing all their lives.

I appreciated their honesty about uncomfortable conversations and even confrontations.

I highly recommend this book for groups, both interfaith and not. There is a huge discussion guide and suggestions for starting a Faith Club of your own. I wish I could meet all three of the authors: Ranya Idilby, Suzanne Oliver and Priscilla Warner. They already feel like friends.

Book #17: The Fat Jesus

This book by a British academic, Lisa Isherwood, whose perspective is both feminist and ecologically conscious suggests an alternative view of Jesus, suggesting that if we have considered a black Jesus or a female Jesus, we might also need to consider a Fat Jesus as the ultimate in liberation theology Jesus imagery.

I like her concern for the hungry in the world. I share her dismay at the way "Christian" weight loss programs tie fatness or overeating to sin and, in her estimation, promise salvation in being thin.

But some of the ideas she puts forth leave me wondering where she got her version of Christianity. I just don't find the lusciousness in it. I'm not saying I don't want to find it, just that I don't.

I may be the wrong person to review this book accurately, since I'm a card-carrying member of Weight Watchers. I don't think being thin solves all the world's problems, but I'm pretty sure that carrying as much weight as I was a year ago wasn't doing anybody any good. If I was taking up space to prevent being invisible--and that's certainly part of it--I need to develop some other way of being prophetic.

Interestingly, I saw someone I would categorize as a longtime acquaintance in the grocery store today who did not recognize me, which lets me know the change in my appearance is pretty major. I am also noticing how strange it feels to be really small, not just short, in a crowd of people. You have to learn to inhabit space very differently. I can't become taller.

I first learned about the book from Sally at Eternal Echoes, and I do commend to you the poem she wrote after reading the book.

Book#16: Life of the Beloved

What a wonderful mystery this is! Our greatest fulfillment lies in giving ourselves to others. Although it often seems that people give only to receive, I believe that, beyond all our desires to be appreciated, rewarded, and acknowledged, there lies a simple and pure desire to give…Our humanity comes to its fullest bloom in giving. We become beautiful people when we give whatever we can give: a smile, a handshake, a kiss, an embrace, a word of love, a present, a part of our life…all of our life.~~Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved

I've been dawdling my way through Nouwen's book in part because I wanted each chapter to be fresh as I worked my way through a sermon series using his ideas that, like the bread, we are each taken/chosen, blessed, broken and given.

This is a re-read for me. It seemed just right as a starting point in my new setting for ministry, both as an introduction to some of my thoughts on a life of faith and a platform for some personal storytelling, to help people get to know me. After a long pastorate, no matter how people at church felt about the former pastor, they knew him and his family well. I want them to feel they know me, too.

I didn't remember the epilogue of the book, in which Nouwen admits that even though he was trying to reach a secular friend, the friend still felt the book was too, as my kids would say, religious-y. It's definitely language that works for me, and that probably proves the point. It challenges me to think more about how we talk to faith with people who do not share our vocabulary.

This is a great little book.