Strengthening (13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do by Amy Morin)

Move over, Brené Brown, Amy Morin's in town! Before you turn away because you think "mentally strong" has something to do with intelligence or IQ, let me assure you that it does not.

"Developing mental strength is about improving your ability to regulate your emotions, manage your thoughts, and behave in a positive manner, despite your circumstances" (Morin 9).

Don't get me wrong. I appreciate Brown's work, but Morin offers even more...this is how I started off writing this blog review back in October.

Then, I read some Goodreads reviews which made me question my high rating. So I shelved my review to think about it some more. In the meantime, I lost the book among my piles of books. At least that fits my method of organization. I don't think I gave it away because I liked it and wanted to refer back to it. Mostly I recall thinking as I read the reviews that it seemed unfair of people to dislike the book just because Morin read her book and she has a high pitched voice. Unfair, but I suppose authors need to take note to get someone else to read their books if their voices are going to stand in the way of the message. Sigh. Others felt Morin was not understanding of deep hurts. I did not get that feeling from the book. I felt strengthened by her research that stated strong people don't let hurtful people turn them into victims.

Since I can't find the book, I can't include other favorite quotes, but I liked the book well enough that I bought her 13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don't Do. I have not finished it, but, so far, I like it just as much as I liked the first one which was a lot. 

Moving On (Miller's Valley by Anne Quindlen)

Nothing like walking through reviews of a book and realizing that I am going to be one of the few who rate it with 3 stars. Three stars: I liked it. It was fine. There's the issue, isn't it? We don't like to receive a 'C' grade, an average grade. We don't like to be "fine" or "nice." I can't really label the book as "nice" as once again this summer I've just finished a sad book (with somewhat of a "happy" ending, I guess). I am desperate to move on to something witty and humorous and happy. However, I didn't choose this book (it was a book discussion group choice for the month of July-August), and moving on from sad books is not why I chose the title "Moving On" for this post.

The people of Miller's Valley must move out and move on because their town is going to be covered in water; it will be a "drowned town". This is not a plot spoiler as we learn this immediately in the novel.

Still, I could have chosen a variety of themes to focus on from Quindlen's novel: eminent domain, 1960s and Vietnam (or any war era sending back soldiers into civilian life), family relationships, friendship, pro-life/pro-choice/sex, growing up / growing old, loneliness, identity and home.

All those themes touch my life in one way or the other, but I keep coming back to what it means to "move on." When does moving on help us grow and thrive, and when is moving on equivalent to cutting ourselves off from what matters and/or simply running away? When does someone else's moving on become something we have to deal with, get through, and get over?

If a reader is willing to look into that theme running throughout Miller's Valley and throughout the lives of its characters, then she or he will have lots to think about in this "quiet" book (a number of reviewers who rated this book three stars were wishing they had paid attention to the "quiet" label -- this means the story may move a bit slower than one would like).

The book is an excellent choice for discussion, but I'm not purchasing the book for my own shelves.

💕💕💕💕 One of the most important actions we can take with our children (and with ourselves) is to help them build up friendships that will last a lifetime. Some childhood friendships will fall by the wayside -- oh! what a great analogy I've fallen into! Some friendships will fall on footpaths where the busy birds of this life will eat them up. If the friendships seem like good ones, pick up the seeds and move them to a place where they can be nurtured. Some friendships fall  among the rocks. Make sure that not all of your children's friendships and your own friendships stay in the rock or acquaintance region. Some friendships will fall among the weeds. Those are the tough calls to make when it comes to friendships. To have friendships among the good soil, those are friendships that last a lifetime and in rain and shine, help us to thrive and grow. Too often I've either moved on from friendship to friendship or planted friendships everywhere without making sure that I have deep friendships.

--------------Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts in the New Testament all write of "shaking the dust off of   [one's] feet." Words for moving on. My comments here address whether we read those stories in light of the reality that God is Love (see my ongoing blog post about this in this link here.  ) or if we read it as if God were made in our own image and if we shake off dust, then we either hate you or can't stand you or feel something other than God love for you. What if we look at "shaking of the dust" as moving on and moving past so that we can thrive and grow, so that we are not continually dragged down into the taking any number of unhelpful actions: being someone's rescuer and getting in the way of the Holy Spirit; becoming morose and stuck in the past; getting angry and becoming depressed about the past, unable to hear the goodness to which God is inviting us...

What if "shaking off the dust", "moving on", means we are invited to move away from bitterness, wrath, malice, evil words -- to put them off, to shake them off -- and to put on, move toward kindness compassion, and forgiveness? It may mean that moving on and away from someone or something is healing for our souls...and may lead to healing for theirs as well.

What if "shaking off the dust" means a moving on which is also helpful to the person or people from whom we are moving on or moving past? If the person can not hear and feel our love, can not hear and feel that the kingdom of God has come near to them, do we trust God in perfect love to send someone else? Just because we need to shake the dust off of our feet does not mean that God has abandoned the people. Truly, if these actions of shaking off the dust in protest as a testimony does not change any minds, if after time and time again, a person chooses to walk away from the freedom offered in Jesus, in God, in Love with a capital 'L', then the person gets to have what he or she wants and that is a life outside of the kingdom of God. That is sad, but the judgment does not come from us. Shaking dust off of our feet does not make us superior. It is merely an action done in love directed by God who is Love because we who are moving on are not the ones to carry the message of love there. We need to discontinue reading the words of Jesus as though he is saying them with hate and instead read them as a parent who deeply loves his children. "And you, Capernum, [think, dear children, about this] will this get you to heaven? No, you will go down to Hades [Sheol, a place of darkness, a place of death, a place where nothing grows or thrives; this is not what I want for you; change your mind, dear children, for I love you with an unfailing love].

**********I continue to think on this topic of moving on, shaking the dust off my feet. This question comes to mind. When do I move on and when do I stay put? It might have to do with what leads me toward  God and which leads me away from God. It probably has a lot to do with what is most helpful for both the one who is not listening and to me as well. Which "moving on" "shaking the dust off" move me toward God and away from anything that puts me in the place only God can hold or takes me away from anything I idolize? Which "moving on" or "shaking the dust off" takes me farther away from God's invitation to me (think of Jonah and Ninevah)? 

Sleuthing (The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley)

In my pursuit of some light reading, I discovered I do not possess my own copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. I intend (barely and briefly) to compare Scout, the protagonist of TKAM (as it was known by my students) with Flavia, the protagonist of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (TSATBOTP -- goodness, even with initials, the title is still long). I went to take a picture of the two books together and that's when I realized that I did not own TKAM (my children, take note, my birthday is coming).

From the title of this blog post -- "Sleuthing" -- and the picture of the dead bird, you can deduce ("arrive at by reasoning, reach a logical conclusion") that this is a mystery, not my normal genre to read. However, several friends rated this book highly (4 stars) on Goodreads, and I longed for something light-hearted to read.

Eh, dead bodies but no blood and guts, just lots of talk of poisons...lots. No deep philosophical discussions but lots of multi-syllable words...lots. I like multi-syllable words even when they are written as coming out of the mouth of a precocious eleven year old. The thoughts and conversations of Flavia can be funny. It is meant to be "over the top" (hyperbole, exaggeration). It has to be when the author names the characters Ophelia (Feely), Daphne (Daffy), Flavia, Antigone, Dogger, etc.

Therefore, if the book is meant to be jolly good fun (even with dead people, poisons, kidnapping, etc.), readers shouldn't expect reality in the story. Yet, at the bottom of this custard pie (part of the story), there is some sweet (or not-so-sweet) reality in the form of how the murders happen and in the kidnapping. All's well that ends well so have no fear there. I like the relationship between Inspector Hewitt and Flavia, but I confess to being annoyed by the family relationships.

One, why are mothers generally dead and fathers cold and distant (or vice versa)? Can one not have an adventuresome life with a live mother and father who care for and love you? Maybe not. I finished two memoirs this summer Calypso and Hillbilly Elegy (reviews in the links) and one author has a dead mother and father who was cold and distant in younger years and warm and loving in later years, and one author has a drug addict mother, and a father who left the family.

Two, Flavia's siblings. Flavia's talk of poisoning her sisters and how they treat each other is flat-out painful for me to read. Not because it sparks painful thoughts of my own relationships with siblings but because I have such good relationships with my siblings and whenever I have seen painful relationships, the situation has not been funny. I know, I must remember this is exaggeration for the sake of fun. Keep that in mind and you'll be fine...if you like long words and long explanations of how poisons and crime work. Nothing gory, and the explanations are well done. Also, Flavia is not perfect in her sleuthing, just as Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird is not perfect. Scout is a believable character. Author Harper Lee catches the right temperament, the right expression for a smart, intelligent young girl written in a style where the character is looking back. Then again, To Kill a Mockingbird is meant to be realistic...a lot.

I'm conflicted. I can't give the book 4 stars like my friends and many reviewers, but I can't give it 2 stars like some other reviewers who hesitated going against popular opinion that Flavia and her sleuthing are as good as...the sweetness at the bottom of the pie. I liked the book. I started the book one day and finished it the next. Not a perfect solution for my desire for light-hearted reading, but a fair choice. 3 stars. Go into it as something over-the-top and laugh at the names of the characters.

💕💕💕💕 Sibling love. That has to be my topic for this section of my blog post. How to get it. Some of it may take time, but surely parents helping children to love one another has to be one facet of sibling love. I confess I did my whole ambitious, not present, time of parenting which I regret. Now, I pray, God of the past, present, and future, will redeem the years the locust have eaten (all biblical references)...that God who is outside of time will redeem ("compensate for the bad aspects") of those years.

-------------It took me a moment to think what could go into this spiritual transformation section, and then it came to me: Being Present. Scout's dad Atticus (one of the most beloved characters in literature) is a lawyer and busy. When he reads his newspaper, he concentrates on reading his newspaper, still there is a sense that he is attentive to his children. Flavia's dad Colonel de Luce (in Italian, luce has to do with light, but in late Middle English, it's a pike fish!)...laughing out loud here...her dad is a cold fish and not attentive to his children even with their mother dead. To practice being present to people, I stop what I'm doing; I look with my eyes; I keep my mouth closed and listen with my ears; I'm thankful for the person. Being present while alone, for example, eating: I enjoy looking at the food; I taste and savor each bite; I'm thankful for food. 

Siblings (Calypso by David Sedaris)

I know, I know; the word "siblings" may have an 'ing' in it, but it is not a gerund. Nonetheless, it fits too well for me to get hemmed in by details like grammatical rules. In my family, we could make a gerund of it: "I think she just siblinged you!" And, my siblings would instantly understand.

Did you know that calypso can mean "a type of West Indian song whose words are often invented as the song is sung" which actually fits Sedaris's books -- they come about as his song of life is sung. However, Calypso comes from the name of his cat, not the name he gave his cat, but the name his neighbors gave the cat who had a secret life apart from its life with Sedaris (for fans of etymology, Sedaris has some fairly intelligent neighbors as the original Greek means "she that conceals; to cover, conceal").

I did not actually intend the picture to go with concealment. I was going for a West Indian feel, all part of image management; I can't just post a picture of the cover, can I?

Let me return to siblings. This is my family. No, not literally my family, but it could be my family except, thankfully, my mother is still with us. Therefore, it is difficult to criticize anything that comes so close to home. Also, it's a memoir and even my students knew (or if they didn't, they really would have benefited from figuring this out), I do not like to downgrade anyone's writings when the stories come from the heart. Don't immediately assume I hated the book (family, you know).

But, it is a type of memoir, even in essay form, and I'm not a fan of memoirs. (Thus, my three star rating.) I usually don't finish reading them. I finished reading this because I couldn't stop reading it. Reviewers who read Sedaris say that this is his most introspective, darkest humor...and not to start with this book as an introduction to Sedaris. Too late for that advice. He is funny...and, yes, back to family. His family reminds me of my family.

Yet, the turtle. I can't get over the turtle incident. That is not like my family. And, the incident with his sister. I want to be mad at him about that. I want to think that none of my siblings would ever do that to another one. I discussed it with one of my sisters. When is "tough love" truly love and when is it a euphemism for "downright mean"?

I've bookmarked page 91 a conversation between Sedaris and his partner Hugh:

Sedaris writes, "It's not that our father waited till this late in the game to win our hearts. It's that he's succeeding." Sedaris then starts complaining to Hugh: "'But he didn't used to be this nice and agreeable.'

'Well, he is now,' he [Hugh] said. 'What can't you let people change?'"

Sedaris comments: "This is akin to another of his often asked questions: 'Why do you choose to remember the negative rather than the positive?'

'I don't,' I [Sedaris] insist, thinking, I will never forget your giving me such a hard time over this.

Honestly, though, does choice even come into it? Is it my fault that the good times fade to nothing while the bad ones burn forever bright? Memory aside, the negative just makes for a better story..." Sedaris concludes.

So, either confession is good for Sedaris's soul or all the negative stuff makes for a better story or both. I could have done without any essays on bodily functions, but, again, sigh, family. I could do without the bodily discussions in my own family, except when my sisters get going during a sibling reunion and they crack me up. Sometimes it's funny until it's not, and there are parts of this book (for some, the whole book) that are not going to be funny. There are plenty of 4-5 star reviews for this book (and that's how I ended up choosing it from Book of the Month Club). This is for those who want to read a review with a lower amount of stars.

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This is my "raising children" section, and whether one would normally pick up this book to read or not, it really has some family stories to get a parent thinking. If you only read books on your "acceptable" list, books that probably say what you think anyway, then you're not going to be challenged to think through your parental practices. This book can give you a chance to think through how you feel about tough love, how you feel about people changing, how you feel about life now and life in the future. It's somewhat like being immersed in one's own culture, one can't see where your culture misses the mark, but go to another culture, and you see with different eyes. Still, there are parts that will gross out some readers (me included). I would like to say that we raised our children not to be gross, but...family.
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On a more serious note, spiritual transformation. I have to wonder, without casting stones because I have to practice how to avoid this as well, whether or not the incident with Sedaris's sister had anything at all to do with image management. Was it tough love or was Sedaris concerned about what his sister would do in front of all those people if he let her in? I'm not sure I know of any adults who are totally oblivious when it comes to their images. How people see us matters a lot to us. Before I went through a spiritual formation institute (this one at Renovaré), I had never heard of a practice to learn indirectly how to push back against image management when it truly mattered. One practice is not to go back and fix an email or a media post when the reason to fix it would be to fix one's image. If autocorrect really messed up something, then, yes, by all means, editing is called for; however, there are times when what we need to practice is to practice truly being kind not just our image of being kind.

Lamenting (Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance)

The diversity of my spring/summer reading selections boggles my mind.

The book Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance was thrown into the mix by my library book discussion group. Most of the time when the group chooses a memoir, I don't make it to the end. Vance's book broke that pattern. That doesn't mean I'm giving it five stars (I've vacillated between 3 and 4 stars), but I did finish it within three days of reading and parts of his story resonated with me.

An elegy is a lament, and I'm not so sure this book is a lament as much as it is a cry for help. Reviewers disagree about the value of the book and, as usual, the ratings depend on how they take the book personally.

Connections for me revolved around whether conclusions Vance made could happen in my community and, if I had a similar background with a different result, what made my life different from Vance's?

On page 56, Vance comments on students and college that applied to my life, and I wasn't born or raised anywhere near Appalachia. "To move up was to move on. That required going to college. And yet there was no sense that failing to achieve higher education would bring shame or any other consequences. The message wasn't explicit; teachers didn't tell us that we were too stupid or poor to make it. Nevertheless, it was all around us, like the air we breathed: No one in our families had gone to college..."(56). Not a single counselor or teacher talked to me about getting into college. I did all the work myself (and very poorly). I was an intelligent person who read a lot, but never knew how to study to get good grades. Thankfully, I had access to a community college and it was there that grades began to matter to me. I didn't think about "moving up"; I thought about having that college degree and proving that I had worth.

This memoir (one reviewer questioned calling it a memoir when the author is thirty-one!) is a must read for Christ-followers who care about making a difference. On page 96, Vance discusses: "Many of the sermons I heard spent as much time criticizing other Christians as anything else...My new faith had put me on the lookout for heretics. Good friends who interpreted parts of the Bible differently were bad influencers...All of this talk about Christians who weren't Christian enough, secularists indoctrinating our youth, art exhibits insulting our faith, and persecution by the elites made the world a scary and foreign place" (97).

Vance's thoughts on Marine Corps boot camp, I believe, hold a key to some solutions: "Marine Corps boot camp, with its barrage of challenges big and small, began to teach me I had underestimated myself", and this -- "...I had never felt empowered--never believed that I had the ability and the responsibility to care for those I loved" (163, 167). The Corps taught him how to compare banks and shop for loans (175). Just as with college preparation, no one at school taught lower middle class students like myself how to do finances. Vance states: "I'm not saying ability doesn't matter. It certainly helps. But there's something powerful about realizing that you've undersold yourself--that somehow your mind confused lack of effort for inability. This is why, whenever, people ask me what I'd most like to change about the white working class, I say, 'The feeling that our choices don't matter" (177). There's no reason to put forth effort if one thinks effort does not change the circumstances.

This may be the difference between the community and family of Vance and my family. My family background may be one of times of poverty, but they were (and some still are) farmers. Farmers know that they may not be able to control the weather, but they can control tilling the soil, putting seed in the ground, and tending to crops and farm animals. One's effort makes a difference.

I'm a bit surprised that I don't want to buy the book as it does have statements I'd like to remember: "I don't believe in epiphanies. I don't believe in transformative moments, as transformation is harder than a moment. I've seen far too many people awash in a genuine desire to change only to lose their mettle when they realized just how difficult change actually is" (173). Vance writes: "We're more socially isolated than ever, and we pass that isolation down to our children. Our religion has changed--built around churches heavy on emotional rhetoric but light on the kind of social support necessary to enable poor kids to do well" (4). Thought-provoking.

I almost titled my blog post: "Politicking" as the book was later used to explain election results. The emails Vance cites on pages 192-193, I have seen and had discussions with relatively upscale family members and their friends who believed fake news and conspiracy theories. One's culture lives on no matter how little or how much money one earns. Also, reviewers have castigated Vance's book saying they believe it is his way to begin a run for public office. Is a person more noble who doesn't plan to go into public office but just seemingly "falls" into it? I ended up liking Vance and his wife and the decisions they make. This book is definitely a great discussion group book choice.

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Too often when parents and others start discussing "consequences", the topic is tied to consequences for one's naughty actions. What about consequences of perseverance and practicing and taking risks and failing yet trying again? Researcher Carol Dweck's work in growth mindset is excellent for learning how to teach children the "power of believing that you can improve".

Dweck's work wasn't around when I was raising my children; however, we did believe that our efforts could change circumstances. We may not have farmed, but we did garden.

What can you and I continue to do to help others know that they can persevere, practice, take risks and fail yet try again?

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See above. I don't know that I believe all transformation is harder than a moment, but I do believe transformation comes with daily moments. As Dallas Willard often said or wrote, and I paraphrase him, "indirectly doing practices which enable us to do that which we have not been able to do by our own direct effort." Vance could not in one direct moment overcome his cultural belief that his efforts did not have an impact on consequences yet the Corps taught him moment by moment he could keep his room clean, keep his hair cut, iron his uniforms, run not only a mile continuously but, in the end, three miles continuously, fail and be able to try again.

As Dallas wrote in The Great Omission: "Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Grace, you know, does not just have to do with forgiveness of sins alone" (61).  

This Isn't the God I Grew Up With Pt.1 (Joyful Journey Listening to Immanuel)

"This Isn't the God I Grew Up With" has been a title in my draft posts for awhile. When I read Joyful Journey Listening to Immanuel (by E. James Wilder, Anna Lang, John Loppnow, and Sungshim Loppnow), I knew I wanted to pair the title with the book review. However, as I wrote, I discovered the thoughts behind the title were too many for one post coupled with a book review. Therefore, I'll start with a short review (so I can copy onto Goodreads easily), and then follow up with how the God (god?) I grew up with would have compromised the practice of Immanuel journaling.

Joyful Journey is a fantastic personal growth / transformational book. My only complaint was the cost for such a slim book but then I found out I could have bought it for a better price directly from Life Model Works (see also the JoyStartsHere website). Life Model Works joins brain science with spiritual life and scripture. This particular book walks the reader through improving awareness that God is with us, God is good, and God is willing to help us. The fourth chapter guides the readers through what to do with the disconnect that comes through trauma and intense emotions. The steps in journaling start in chapter five although I was introduced first to the journaling aspect of Joyful Journey. One more general comment: the authors address both fears within the Christian community ("Are you sure this is scriptural?") and the connections to what we are learning about the brain. Essentially we have a Creator who designed our brains for connection -- "neurologists are even identifying that there is a region in our prefrontal cortex in charge of how we conduct ourselves that is nourished and developed best in this environment of loving relationships. Through these connections we actually become our true selves as God originally intended. We are able to have meaningful relationships and develop our brains and minds for success and abundance through loving connections" (11).

Chapter Six develops Immanuel journaling within community and with community, the practice of "shalom check". Shalom check can help guide the journaler in knowing if this is "the right relationship, at the right time, in the right place, at the right strength and in the right amount" to share with people (52). Also, I find it a good check for knowing those same qualities of God's peace, shalom, for myself and my actions, my journaling. The authors' checklist for shalom include:

Do I feel peacefully calm? (This topic "fits" together correctly now.) 
Am I sensing God's loving presence? (Underlining mine.)
Am I confident that nothing can take me away from God's love? 
Am I portraying my weakness accurately? 
Am I still sensing God's interactive presence in my painful memory? 
Have my joy, peace, and hope increased? 
Has my desire to love and serve others increased? (54).

This checklist would have invalidated the view of God which I grew up with. As I walk through Immanuel journaling, thankfulness fits in with most views of God. Sometimes that thankfulness is more along the lines of "Thank you for not squashing me like a bug today" than along the lines of "Thank you for the the beauty surrounding me" but gratitude is usually a given. The authors do make the connection between gratitude and the control center of the brain on the right hand side (34-45); however, if gratitude is impossible at the moment because our relational circuits (RCs) are off (covered in chapter four), then starting with what God sees in our body and what God hears from us, and stating to ourselves that God is with us (Immanuel), God wants to be with us, is a first step to restoring relational circuits.

Here is where I would have hit a roadblock with the god I grew up with. God did NOT want to be with me when I was a bad girl, an angry child (or adult). The god I grew up with stopped listening to me if I started to whine or complain. Basically, the god I grew up with resembled either Zeus (capricious and wrathful) or Santa Claus ("He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!" -- Or you're going to get coal in your Christmas stocking) or  George Burns (Oh, God! 1977 movie with Burns portraying God as an old man who expects actor John Denver to deliver God's message to the human race that they have everything they need and so the human race needs to get on with life).

Those gods are not going to be interested in me hearing the words: My dear child...my beloved...I delight in you...

If those gods saw me, they're going to throttle me; if they hear what I'm thinking, I'm going to get punished and sent to my room for sure. God gives his beloved sleep; therefore, if I don't sleep, I must have done something wrong. Even worse, as this happened to be the conversation among childhood friends this past week (No, I did not bring it up!), one dear friend had been told that God sent her illnesses because she must have done something bad. I wish this were an uncommon thought; however, another writer/teacher was told the same thing when his daughter was born with a defect that took her life at a young age.

Now I know and trust that God who sees me and hears me, loves me and understands me, wants to be with me, wants to do something about what I am going through. It may not be what I think I want in the moment, and I've lived long enough now to know that when I think I am right, I'm not always right (see below in the heart section).

Interestingly, I did an exercise this past week of drawing with my non-dominant hand my earliest thoughts of God. Surprisingly, the pictures were not the same as my pictures of God that I learned as I grew up! My earliest pictures were of a smiling Jesus with arms stretched out or of a picture on my best friend's wall. Two children crossing a bridge with God protecting them which as I write this, I realize that it actually must have been a guardian angel; however, that was my picture of God: protecting me and opening up arms to me.

Now I know and trust that when Jesus says to his disciples: "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father (God)" that is to be my picture of God. The 1 Corinthians 13 passage so often recited at weddings is a picture of God. Those attributes are the attributes of God. Anything less is not God.

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I so regret as I raised my children that I raised them in the way I was taught, not by my mother necessarily, but by some well-meaning women, who might have said, "God is love" but their version of love was fairly strict. An example that stands out in my mind is children do not get out of bed or out of the playpen just because they are crying. I'm fine with an overtired child crying for a brief time because when he or she is overtired, then no amount of attention is going to stop the crying. In fact, the attention may just keep the child from getting the sleep needed. But, if mom is trying to be perfect to please God, you can imagine what that mother's children will go through. I thought I was so right just as the women who taught me thought they were so right. I wonder now how many children have a picture of a Santa Claus god who "sees them when they're sleeping; he knows when you're awake; he knows if you've been good or bad, so be good for goodness sake!"

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As a spiritual formational practice, place your bible in front of you opened to 1 Corinthians 13. As you journal, picture God loving you, being patient with and kind to you, not dishonoring you, not easily angered with you. Yes, God does not delight in evil, but you can admit your weaknesses, and God, whether you are at the place of admitting all or not in that place yet, God protects you, teaches you how to trust, how to hope, how to persevere. Where it looks like God has not protected you or your loved ones, God will be with you in that trauma and suffering. I know that this can cause people to either not believe in God or to hate God, but I've never gone that direction because 1) I've had too many times of experiencing the unseeable God who calls me "beloved child" "delightful one" even when, especially when, I fail,  and 2) I can not figure out how we could have a perfectly good world without God making everyone a robot type of person with no choices.

Why Sunday Sermons Might Not Work (aka "Bring Forth Fruit")...or Parent / Teacher Lectures or Employer Evaluations (Leadership and Self-Deception)

An extremely long title for a very thin book with a title guaranteed to repel some readers! Who willingly goes into exploring self-deception?

I read it because my daughter read it for work. If you want your company to be top notch, this book (or something similar) is a must read. I write "something similar" because some reviewers hate the narrative form of the book. If you hate reading example stories, and you can read to-the-point, tell me like it is informational statements  which you then apply to yourself, then go for it. My understanding is that some of the other books are tied to religious organizations and this book is appropriate for non-religious settings.

I read it before heading out to a conference with 200 people and found the concept of "being in the box" toward people useful. If I found myself starting to think ill of another person, I would ask myself if I was in the box toward him or her and why. Some reviewers did not like the "in the box" "out of the box" descriptions. They are difficult to explain. I think in other fields they might be described as treating people as "other" -- other than yourself, someone not of your kind. We don't realize that we are forgetting that we do have our humanity in common, that the other person feels just like you and I would feel if we were receiving that sermon, that lecture, that evaluation, but we don't stop to think about that. We deceive ourselves unconsciously into thinking we have good reasons for acting the way we do, but the other person is being ____________ (fill in the blank, but make it worse than you are or would be).

At our place of employment, we make mistakes and think we need to blame others so we won't feel so badly about our actions. Same for families and communities.  Yet it is better for a business, better for families, better for communities when people treat each other well. Lectures or Sermons are not the way to solve the problem. When lectures and sermons by employers, parents, teachers, pastors don't lead to change, we blame the listener, the student, the worker, the child, the congregant.

What the stories in the book can do that concrete factual statements can not is to give examples that lead the reader to realize "I do that. I pretend to be asleep and let my spouse get up with the child. I yell at my son for squealing the tires when he gets in on time as I asked. I make it look like someone is already sitting in the empty seat next to me so that no one will sit there even though people are looking for seats (because my needs are greater than that stranger's, even though I have no idea what that stranger is going through)."

The section on collusion is also powerful. We hate conflict, but we don't want to think we might be the one in the wrong. We don't want to give our son permission to be out for the evening because he has been irresponsible in his actions lately. We grudgingly give permission with a set time to be in, and if our child is late, it proves our point that he is irresponsible. We want him to be responsible, but at the same time, we want him to get the point that he has been irresponsible. Yet, our actions make him more irresponsible than ever. Oh, the games we play in our brains!

This is why I hesitantly suggest that there is a bit of this going on with Sunday sermons. If a congregation were perfect, there might be no need for a pastor to tell them to be better! I read this John Ortberg quote today: "We spend too much time arguing about Christianity and not enough time marveling at Jesus." This probably deserves a post of its own, but I combined the review of the book  (thoroughly secular) with an issue I see in Sunday sermons: with a bit of rephrasing (of perhaps a Dallas Willard quote), Sundays tend to be filled with too much "God is good. You're really not doing well at all. Try harder, and go tell someone about Jesus" rather than marveling at Jesus and learning to do what he did: love God and love others. Go to weddings and drink the wine. Eat with people who are different from you. See them as people with feelings like your feelings. Listen to them like you like to be listened to. Know that you're not going to be humiliated by God who loves you. As we learn to trust that Someone holds us, we also learn to love and not humiliate others.

Lest you think the book is all warm fuzzies, no one who does something wrong ever gets those issues addressed. That is not the case at all. It's about learning how to address those wrongs and still treating another person as a human being who is like yourself. There's a lot more in this short book such as being in a box a long time with another person, so much so that you can't even remember when you first started blaming them for everything that goes wrong. People on both sides of a conflict may be "in the box" with one another (how fun is that).

I bought the book; I give it a five.

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We now know that children think differently from adults but feel the same emotions.  I wish I had had access to a book like this when I was raising my children. When talking with children (or anyone for that matter), I know have to ask myself two questions: Would I like to be talked to the way I just talked to that person (or was going to talk to them)? When I have the feeling part of it sorted out, then I also need to think about the personality of the person to whom I'm talking. With adults who we have not known for a long time, this may take some time; however, with children, if we start from birth, we have some time to learn a child's personality and what he or she responds to.

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I found the "in the box" illustrations very helpful in this book. When bad characteristics came into my head about a person, it was a great trigger for me to think, "Am I in the box toward this person?" "Why?" "Is he or she really like that?" "Did I think those thoughts about this person before this incident?" "What prompted these thoughts in my head?" "Oh, maybe it's because I'm hoping this friend will fill a need that can not be filled at this particular time. That doesn't make them a bad person." Etc. The "in the box" concept has continued to be a transforming one.

Eating and Living (The Blue Zones Solution by Dan Buettner)

Do I post this with my 52 Books in 52 Weeks Challenge type of posts or with my siblings blog on health? The competitive side of me (not that 52 in 52 is a competition...haha) won out, but I will copy this into our family health blog as well (found here).

Photography is not my strength so apologies ahead of time. This mushroom soup is actually excellent. It did not come from the recipes in The Blue Zones Solution but I have been inspired by Dan Buettner's research into the Blue Zones ever since I first read his articles for National Geographic.

This book goes beyond those National Geographic articles which covered how people in Blue Zones ate and lived. Blue Zones are those areas of the world where the most centenarians live. In The Blue Zones Solution, Buettner revisits those zones in Greece, Japan, Italy, Costa Rica, and, yes, even the United States. In Part Two of the book, his team learned from Finland how to teach three areas of the United States how to create their own Blue Zones. In Part Three, Buettner discusses making a Blue Zone a personal choice, followed by Part Four, the recipes.

Since I've been reading a number of other health books with food protocols in them (Genius Foods, The End of Alzheimer's, and The Plant Paradox), I had comparisons to make. There are some situations that most writing healing food books seem to agree upon: the Standard American Diet is SAD, not just an acronym, but truly 😢, and sugar is not good for us. (See my post on that here.)

However, there are some differences. Legumes. Centenarians eat them, no question about that. And, they do eat bread, just not ones with the kind of grains in the typical SAD meal plan. Legumes and grains are not high on the list of some of these other protocols. That being said, the books previously mentioned are fighting back against some specific diseases (Alzheimer's, inflammations of many types).

I find reading a combination of these healing food protocols and paying attention to one's own body and medical tests are a good start to finding a healing protocol designed for oneself.

The Blue Zones Solution also addresses lifestyles of centenarians, not just healing foods, but a thriving lifestyle, this and the recipes make the book worth buying.

Buettner's Mushroom Stew includes white wine, soy sauce, and rice -- all of which are not healing for my Celiac's, thyroid, sky high iron, or potential for Alzheimer's so I offer my version which I made the day before yesterday and thought tasted quite good! It made just two servings (1 for the day before and 1 for yesterday).

Deborah's AIP  (Autoimmune Protocol) Mushroom Soup
(I use food that has not been sprayed with chemicals, etc.: truly organic in practice, not just on the label)

In a saucepan, cover the following with water:
2 small stalks of celery, sliced thin (I included the leafy parts which I took out before eating)
2 carrots, sliced thin
3 cloves of garlic, chopped or diced
5-6 dried shiitake mushrooms
1/2 onion, diced

I simmered this until the vegetables were soft. The dried mushrooms remained a bit chewy when I was ready to eat so when I...

Blend about 3 ladles and include all of the mushrooms until smooth. NOTE: I learned to hold a towel over the top of the blender when I blend something hot. This is supposed to prevent the top from flying off from the heat. I have not had any flying top disasters.

Put the blended soup into the rest of the soup and simmer to thicken it up. I started grabbing spices, salt, and pepper which I thought were AIP (I didn't double check.) I just dashed them in. Mediterranean salt, pepper, curry, turmeric, and dill weed.

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Blue Zone ideas for raising children: Besides being mindful about what one eats, having an optimal circadian rhythm for sleep and bedrooms that are cool, quiet, and dark, are beneficial for health. Working in the yard, planting a garden all practices for thriving. Creating a group of mutually committed friends, not just at a stage of life, but people with whom you will be young with and grow old with, is something that people do who live in Blue Zones.

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Interesting that a spiritual practice is fasting. It turns out that almost every healing protocol involves a form of fasting. NOT starving as in harmful practices. But, practices such as making one's last meal of the day be at least 3 hours before bedtime. In today's fast paced busy world, we're often grabbing food at 9 pm and then sending the children to bed. The Creator who made our bodies apparently knows our bodies need to relax at a meal and then give our bodies time to digest it before heading off into some good sleep. 

Preventing and Reversing (The End of Alzheimer's by Dale E. Bredesen)

I highly recommend this book not only for those whose family medical history includes Alzheimer's but also for those interested in possible ideas for other chronic illnesses. This is an incredibly hope-filled book. It is also a book which cites research and uses medical terms. I want that in any book about health that I read. If you do not, I noticed a concise version of this book offered on Amazon. It's possible that it leaves out the the medical vocabulary and the narrative remains. (I can not confirm that this is true; I'm just guessing that a shorter book might skim down the research.)

What Bedesen has to say made sense to me from the beginning, and after reading pages of logical reasoning based on research and results, I was still in agreement when he writes on page 272: "For centuries, we humans typically died from acute infections such as bacterial pneumonia, and the great biomedical success of the twentieth century was to develop antibiotics that treat them and public health policies that prevent them. As a result, most of us now die from chronic, complex illnesses such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and neurodegenerative disorders. Unfortunately, we tried to solve the problem of chronic illness in the same way we solved the problem of acute illness: with a single pill, monotherapy. This is like using your checkers strategy in a chess match."

I also think it is human nature to want the quick one-size-fits-all solution, whether we're discussing health, education, child-rearing, or spiritual formation. An integrated, personalized approach takes time and work. Wouldn't it be nice if all of life could be solved with one pill? But, we are complex beings, uniquely made. My siblings and I are engaging on a journey, each journey unique to each, of seeking healing, mending, and thriving. We've just begun so we don't have a lot to say as yet (and I'm the most verbal -- imagine that); however, you can check on our journeys at Heal, Mend, Thrive .

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As I indicated above, I now truly believe in an integrated, personalized approach to child rearing. I did not learn that early enough in my child rearing days even though I had indications that this was the case. A story I tell that some friends have heard often involves my art drawer for my children. From the moment I gave birth to my first son and continuing with each child thereafter, I had a large art drawer in one of the bottom row of kitchen drawers. Inside this drawer was everything a child could need to be creative: paper, crayons, scissors, etc. The first two children were creative to their hearts' content and never used any of the tools poorly. I thought it was the way I was raising my children. Ha! The third child came along and wrote her name, engraved her name, on many places other than a piece of paper (bunk bed, coffee table, walls). This child graduated with a degree in art history. The fourth child came along and cut her hair! She also graduated with a degree, but, no, she is not a beautician. Same child rearing, different children.

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I'm always amazed when Christ-following spiritual leaders have a one-size-fits-all take on spiritual formation. Usually this is read your bible, get into a small community group, and go out and witness. I have no argument with "read your bible" but research shows that a vast number of Christians do not, and I believe that it has to do with trying to read the bible like a textbook. I have no argument with small community groups, but how they are put together and what happens inside may be problematic. With the statement, "Go out and witness" -- I have arguments against that I'd rather not go into here except to simply say the way that most Christians witness causes more harm than good. And, probably the most important connection to the a theme in the non-fiction book above? Integrated personalized practices that draw people to God: sleeping, slowing down, silence, fasting from criticism (oops!), among many others -- practices that integrate with personalized practices of reading the bible, being in community, and being the kind of person that people want to know why you are so wonderfully loving, kind, gentle, self-controlled, helpful, and good.