Raining (Rain of Gold by Victor Villaseñor)

This book was recommended to me by a family member, and she is right: the story is very good. I borrowed it from the library, and while I won't be buying it new, if I ever saw it on sale or at a used book shop, I would immediately buy it.

The story itself and the real people are fascinating. An added benefit was the amount of history (history in Mexico as well as prohibition history in the US) I learned. Most of the reviewers give this book a high rating. Of the two I saw who disliked the book, one person couldn't stand the mothers and thought they were evil. What?! The mothers are the life of the story not to mention the life of their families! Another reviewer mentioned the dialogue and writing style, specifically mentioning about "true love". 99.9 percent of us do not talk like characters in a television show. We're not witty or eloquent. The way the book is written made me believe the story as the non-fiction it is. This isn't to say that the dialogue is boring. While Villaseñor's family members sometimes repeat themselves, they have plenty of interesting, raucous, thought-provoking conversations.

The story also opens up the reader's eyes to what it can take to survive (and it isn't pretty). The reader also has to be willing to read dialogue that includes not only cuss words but also words of faith which these families have in plenty.

Most book discussion groups don't take on such large size books (562 pages), but lots of good topics of discussion in this book: what happens when a precious metal like gold is discovered, immigration (used to cost an adult Mexican 10 cents to get across the border and 5 cents for a child), how people treat each other, racial inequality, family dynamics, education. I enjoyed reading the author's notes at the end: which family members helped with the story, who remembered what differently.

Quotes that could also be used in a discussion group: "Blood is blood, but justice is justice. And Don Pio never let blood blind his eyes to justice" (127).
"Remember to respect a fallen star takes much more dignity than to admire the rising sun" (175).
"Oh, mi hijita, you woman of such little faith! God respects my honesty that I admit that I lie. He's a hundred thousand years tired of people preaching the truth in His home, but then lying to all the world once they get away from the shadow of His domain!" (377).

Since a number of my family members and friends are Hispanic (and I knew some of the areas mentioned in the book), I wondered if their extended family members knew or where a part of any of the families mentioned in this book. I can think of at least one family member who would be intrigued with reading this book.

💕💕💕 When I was in college the second time around, I took a foundational education course, and we did an activity where we all had color dots on our foreheads. We did not know which dot was on our own forehead but we could see everyone else's dot. We had instructions on how to treat classmates according to their dots. Ignore the blues. Be friends with the yellows. In an Exceptional Child class, we had to have some change which would make it more difficult for us to go out shopping and interact with people (broken leg, deafness, blindness). We all understand to some extent what it is like to be the not-popular student (unless you've always been the popular one). If we already have something genetic that hinders our interaction, we know how that feels, but many of the adults in my class did not. These are activities that can only be approached cautiously in a classroom; however, in a homeschooling community, we could even practice within limits what it would be like to be poor, even be a slave. Of course, it's not real, right? We know we will go back to being a free person, but anything that doesn't cause harm but will help open one's eyes to at least start understanding what it is like to be an outsider is a benefit to a child's empathy for others. Reading stories, traveling to other countries, helpful, as long as one does not take on an attitude of "I'm so important; I'm helping the downtrodden and unfortunate" as though others have less intelligence or knowledge or wisdom than we do. The families in this book, Rain of Gold, are smart, resourceful, wise, and hardworking. They just did not have money.

---Diving into the stream of social justice is a transformative practice. How to do it with humility takes thought and a tender heart. Still worth pursuing even if we're not at the point of humility yet. Being a genuine person to the people one meets as one shops at a store in a section of town where one does not normally shop might be a good start. I'm not to the point where I could go to the scariest parts of metropolitan cities, but any of the areas in my own county would be safe so I have no excuse. Also, if I was living back in my former home area, I would think going one section of town over from my own would be a good start. 

Surviving (Small Country by Gaël Faye)

Small Country by Gaël Faye is a difficult novel to read, not because of the prose, which is outstandingly beautiful, but because of the horrors within it, which are tragically ugly. Why in the world would I recommend the book to anyone? Let me answer that with a conversation in the book itself as the main character Gabriel asks Madame Economopoulos if she has read all the books lining the shelves on her walls.

"Have you read all those books?" I asked her.

"Yes, I've even read some of them many times over. They're the great loves of my life. They make me laugh and weep and question and reflect on things. They allow me to escape from myself. They've changed me, they've made me a different person."

"A book can change us?"

"Of course a book can change you. It can even change your life. It's like falling in love. And you never know when such an encounter might happen. You should beware of books, they're sleeping genies." (140)

There wasn't much laughing or escaping from myself in this book. Weeping, questioning, reflecting -- there were plenty of those times. I'm trying to think of how to explain those times without giving away moments in the book, moments so real and detailed that the story feels more autobiographical than fiction. A character named Donatien brings up God, but rather than asking where God is, he puts the blame on humankind. The question to reflect upon becomes how can one help? Do we allow two small countries to annihilate each other along with all the powerless ones trying to survive? Rwanda and Burundi are extremely small. It took me three times and a final Internet search to find them on my world map.

Follow the boy's first finger out horizontally and just a tad bit up, and you can see two tiny pieces as if they are small puzzle pieces of Tanzania. They also both touch the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Uganda sits above Rwanda. If you want to feel where prejudice can ultimately take you when it tears apart an entire country or two, this is it.

If you're willing to face the challenge of reading the book, you will have excellent writing to read. Kudos to both the author Faye and the translator (in my case, Sarah Ardizzove translated it into English). On Goodreads, reviewer Liberty Hardy had the best recommendation I've read for diving into this book: "Don't forget, books that break your heart also strengthen your soul."  It is one of those books that can be read quickly but sit long on your mind and heart.

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I don't have the answers for how we keep our children from being overwhelmed by tragedy, keep them from being inured to violence because they may see so much of it in media, and keep them from being without compassion. I'm not sure if I lived in that tension between all those poorly or well. I was surprised as 2011 came to a close by how many of my students (living in the West) grew bored with 9/11 stories. Yet some of the most vocal became caring medical professionals. Perhaps the expression of boredom was a way for a teenager to keep fear away. Feel free to comment on how to address this with children, students, teenagers, adults. Again, my apologies for making you wait before seeing your comment appear, but if it is on topic (and not trying to sell anyone something), I will add it to the blog.

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In the formation of spirit, a human navigates a variety of streams. Six that I am familiar with as a Christ-follower are as follows: 1) Incarnational -- practicing life every day living as Jesus would live my life if Jesus were me 2) Holiness or wholeness or virtuous -- practicing life aiming for good and thriving 3) Spirit-filled -- practicing life living and loving with passion and joy 4) Word-centered -- practicing life with a life-giving message (and when necessary using words, as St. Francis supposedly said) 5) Contemplative -- practicing a life of prayer 6) Compassionate -- practicing a life of compassion. All of these prepare my mind, body, heart, soul for both tragedy and joy. For more on the Six Streams, use this link here.

Transitioning (We Never Asked for Wings by Vanessa Diffenbaugh)

Here's the argument I have been having with myself concerning this book: Is this simply a "beach read" or is it something more?

A "beach read" book can be read without thinking while basking in the sun, and the reader can count on a happy ending. Right now I have a particular friend in mind as I picture her squirming and my imagination hears her saying, "Don't do it. Don't you dig deep and make the ending anything but happy!"

Can I at least dig deep and tell you that you can still have your happy ending?

Here's something else about beach read books: they're predictable in that bad situations do not remain bad situations. The heroine Letty, who many Goodreads reviewers can't stand, has good people help her...and good people who have to admit that they are at least partly responsible for her dysfunctional life. In this novel, enormously stupid mistakes do not end in disaster, but then again, they don't end as though they never happened.

I was ready to label the book as a feel good book just because Letty and her son Alex are helped out of their messes. Then, I wondered at why I thought tragedy is more real than goodness. I know people like Letty. I want to help them out the way Letty's coworker, Rick, does and to be cautious about helping out the way that Letty's mom does (a mom with good intentions). I also know someone like Rick. She is a bartender; she knows how to cook; she has resources the way that Rick does. It would be easy to comment that wealthy people help Letty out, but then that means the reader has forgotten that poor people helped Letty out in the beginning of the novel. What if the goodness shown in this book is what reality truly can look like?

My friend, mentioned in paragraph two, can stop reading here so that we can stay friends. While I'm glad that the social issue of immigration is brought to our attention in this book, I have issues with a person with physical challenges being used to bring about growth in a main character. While Yesenia is more developed than characters like her used to be in novels; still...well, I can't say more without including some spoilers.

For those interested in the Enneagram, I find thinking about the Enneagram numbers of these characters intriguing. Letty's mom provides a good view of what helping (Enneagram #2) gone wrong looks like while Rick is a solid view of what good helping looks like. Alex tries to be a reformer, and just like an Enneagram #1 gone overboard, he makes a mess of things.

I chose "Transitioning" for the title of this review rather than "Grounding and Flying" or "Planting and Flying." Planting and Flying tying into the idea of the two characteristics our children need: roots and wings. Frankly, I'm not sure anyone has been given roots at the beginning of this novel. However,  transitions are plentiful in this novel. How we react to transitions directs our stories.
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So many lessons can be gleaned from this novel. The challenge is not to swing far over to one side or the other -- being neither a "helicopter" parent constantly hovering nor being a military general to avoid having a child like Luna! Finding out what drives our children and encouraging them while helping them avoid the pitfalls. Is he a reformer? Is she a helper? Is he a performer? Is she an artist? Is he a researcher? Etc. (And, of course, switch the pronouns as needed.)

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So many opportunities for social justice exist, I won't single out one. A good practice is to find what one is passionate about and get involved. It's also good to realize a person can not help out with everything. Be patient and loving with people who do not get on the same social justice train that you do. Let's support each other in the best way that we can, and know that it takes all of us to work on the parts that we can to fight against all the social injustice that occurs in the world today.

This Isn't the "Newness" I Signed Up For

I would have been with my siblings the week I first started writing this post, but life got in the way. Instead I spent it cleaning...and writing...and caring. Cleaning and writing because I can control those activities. Caring because I love. However, I am getting ahead of my story. Let's begin with "newness." 

My small 8 am church family begins each new year with the tradition of picking a star. The stars are taped all over church with the words hidden. I chose this star because I liked the glittery silver color. When I turned the star around, I liked the word even more. I like "new" -- not more than "old"; rather, I like "new" as much as I like "old." 

In that time of winter becoming spring, I ran into the word "new" in so many places, and my heart embraced each one. Isaiah 43:18 -- "Behold I am doing a new thing." Lamentations 3:23 -- "God's mercies are new every morning."

Then, spring became summer. Nothing new happened this summer. Nothing. Except. Days of depression! Depression hung around me like the cloud over Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh books. Fear, I know; depression, I do not, at least not like this. I have had a day of being "down", "blue", depressed, but I could usually attribute it to something: a situation, a cloudy day, a drop or elevation of hormones. I tried to blame the depression on cloudy days. We had a few, yet on some sunny days I might as well have had Eeyore's personal cloud over me! I pushed back. Believe me, I tried every trick on my Pinterest boards! Then it occurred to me that it was the first summer I could think of when I did not have something going on, something to look forward to. My work slows down in the summer. My children are grown, and I did not even have my grandchildren with me as often as in the past. I wasn't going to school, and I wasn't traveling. 

I wasn't being used by God. It turns out that I'm okay with not being used by God. In April of 2016, one of my teachers taught on the fallacy of believing God USES us. We use forks and spoons, and power tools, and pencils. I find it difficult to be around people who "use" people, but somehow a theory of a God who "uses" people persists. Still those of us in attendance were a bit startled at the beginning of this teaching, but I won't go into that here. I will recommend the teacher's book:

I don't recall Chris Webb including the discussion about "using utensils" within the book; nonetheless, why God does not "use" us will become clear. Meanwhile, I'm going to write what I did not know to say during that gathering and teaching. I did not know to say, "We all need something to look forward to." Many people look forward to being "of use", and when they find themselves no longer useful, they feel they have lost their worth. Our worth, yours and mine, comes from God who loves us and delights in us. We can look forward to a God-soaked life which might include activity but definitely can include creativity, no matter our physical state of being: young and healthy or in the deepest of physical woes. I think of Corrie Ten Boom, stricken speechless after a stroke, unable to physically do anything. However, she continued to live a life of prayer and community. She woke up in the mornings looking forward to her days with God and others. 

This thought took on added importance as another "newness" that we did not sign up for came about in the fall. My husband came down with life-threatening cellulitis that landed him in the hospital. That apparently triggered an arthritic flare up in his natural knee (last year at this time he had knee replacement surgery in the other knee), and the medical trials and tribulations have continued. 

While these events are not the "newness" I signed up for (and would not recommend signing up for); nonetheless, we have been loved throughout by God and by others. We have seen the fingerprints of God, the God-soaked life in too many ways to write of here (making a long post even longer). I hearken back to those verses I first rejoiced in at the beginning of the year. Lamentations 3:23 "God's mercies are new every morning." How did I miss the Lamentations part? Insert wry chuckle here. The writer spends 21 verses lamenting! Then comes verse 22: "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They (the compassions) are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness." Truly we have seen this. 

And, Isaiah? Um, yeah...that chapter has flood waters, fire, wilderness and desert...BUT, it also has "Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine" (there are certain verses that I just love the King James, forgive me 💕) "When you pass through the water, I will be with you...you are precious in my sight...fear not: for I am with you..." and 43:18 in full reads: "Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert."  

I did not sign up for this kind of "newness"; however, I find a song continually in my thoughts and in my heart: "Give thanks with a grateful heart; Give thanks to the Holy One. Give thanks because He has given Jesus Christ, his son. And, now let the weak say, "I am strong"; let the poor say, "I am rich," because of what the Lord has done for us. Give thanks." 

I give thanks for ways in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, fingerprints of God in a God-soaked life.