The Lovely Bones

This book deeply impacted me. It was scary, inspiring, heart wrenching and just very sweet. Here's to hoping that Peter Jackson can do it justice...

Thanks for the reminder, Buns!

Book Review: three in common

This past month I read three books that profoundly impacted me. Taking a breather from the teenage angst of Twilight, I borrowed a book from my mom called, The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, by Daniel Mendelsohn. This began a frenzied study of stories about survivors of The Holocaust.
Mendelsohn's Lost starts in a manner that seemed quite tedious to me. He begins by sharing about his own family and how he went from vague stories he heard as a young child about relatives who were murdered during the German invasion of what is now the Ukraine. Mendelsohn spends great detail drawing you inside his family's history. He also interweaves several critiques on the Patriarchs of Genesis, building an understanding of how the Jews, as a nation, began. In the beginning of this book, I was overwhelmed by all the minutiae. However, once I got into the story, I began to feel for myself the urgent need to find out exactly how these precious relatives died. The search itself seems to unite Daniel not only with his past, his family history, but with his present and with his own siblings.

I came undone during several parts when he records actual testimony from witnesses of the crimes committed by the Nazi soldiers, Ukrainian villagers and even the Jewish Police against the families of Jews, especially children and babies. This book is terribly heart-wrenching...it is also poignant and important. I found myself longing to talk to my own relatives who have since passed away, longing to learn more about the generation that lived during WWII. Upon completing this book, I realized I was still hungry to hear more about this time...

I have an extremely old copy of Martin Gray's For Those I Loved that I stole from my parents' library. I believe I once began this book in college, only to find it too painful, my young mind not ready to take it all in.

Barely 14 years old when the Nazis invaded Warsaw, Martin Gray gives his gripping account of coming to age during the darkest time that Polish Jews would ever see. His survival not only of the Jewish Ghetto but of the extermination camp, Treblinka, are staggering. Gray becomes a man during the War and I found myself having to stop at many points in his story just to pull away from the palpable terror, the fear of what it would mean to attempt to stay alive while all around you death is reigning. I don't want to say too much about this book, except to tell you to read it for yourself. The atrocities committed by Nazi Germany during WWII are not so different from what certain governments in Africa are inflicting on their own people (DR of Congo, Uganda, Sudan). These things not only happened, but they continue to happen. I will say this, however: I felt such a fond love for Martin Gray while I was reading this - but I also felt that life had damaged him, almost beyond repair.

Admittedly, I was becoming obsessed with accounts of Holocaust survivors. I don't know if I was becoming fixated on the fear and the pain I was reading about, or if it was my anger against the Nazis (and all who behave like them)...but I sat down with my mom and we talked about everything I was reading. (I had previously worn Russ out, I think.) Having read both the books above, Mom reminded me about Corrie ten Boom's story in The Hiding Place.

Oh. If you've never read this book, then you are in luck - because to read it is to feel all that I've been describing but to sense the presence of the Lord in the midst of absolute horror and evil. Reading this book was like spending time with someone who has walked closely with God. Corrie ten Boom's family harbored and hid Jews during the German invasion of Holland. Her father, Casper ten Boom, shares his merciful heart perfectly when he says, "I pity the Germans, Corrie. They have touched the apple of God's eye."

Without spoiling the story for you, I will tell you that Corrie survives the awful conditions of the concentration camp, Ravensbruck. Throughout the book, the ten Booms are continually clinging to Truth, to passages of scripture that remind them of God's love and goodness. In unfathomable circumstances, they are able to love their tormentors. When I read the first 2 books, I was left feeling exhausted, deeply saddened. Upon finishing The Hiding Place, I thanked God for reminding me of His Truth, of His Hope for the future and for Heaven.

I confess that a part of me now wants to delve into studying The Third Reich and how Germany came under Nazi rule. What do you think? Maybe I need a break - anyone have some light-hearted suggestions? Mom, you still need to get started on Twilight!

No One's Starving Around Here

I put this video here for two reasons: one, because some of my relatives only come here to see updates of Davy, and two, because it is vastly reassuring to me that my child isn't starving.

To explain that last part, I read Cormac McCarthy's The Road this week upon the urging of Rachael. What I didn't realize before I got into it was how gut-wrenchingly sad and depressing it would be and how I would lay awake at night worrying about the End of the World. Thanks, Rach. Seriously though, this book is the story of the apocalyptic journey of a man and his child across a devastated America. It's no Twilight - vampires being oddly soothing versus world destruction.

Really, I've been wanting to put into words for a long time how having a child has changed my worldview. I used to see things like news updates about a school collapse in Haiti and think to myself, "oh, too bad," and just go along with my day. I used to hear about economic crisis or pirates finding radioactive contents being shipped to Israel and respond with little interest or mild curiosity. I used to watch movies about the Holocaust and feel sad but nothing more.

And then everything changes when you have a baby asleep in the other room.

I watched two movies right after Davy was born that had me weeping and fretful: The Pianist and Hotel Rwanda. What struck me most was man's cruelty to man and the fear that I am raising a child in this world where these things really take place. And every forgotten child in those movies could be Davy to me. The first few weeks of motherhood are terribly scary for one major reason: I am responsible for this child. This means I feed, clothe, care for and sustain another human being. That feeling then begins to grow into deeper ones like: How will I raise this person to care about others? In what kind of nation will my child grow up? Will this little one have burdens that I cannot prepare them for?

So, while reading The Road, I began to think about the End of the World and all that is foretold. And I'm just glad that the chubby baby in the other room is okay today. Please don't feel you have to reassure me about the future, etc. Just needed to jot these old thoughts down!

Stuck in my Tweens

I've fallen off the blogging wagon lately - sorry about that. It's due in part to a new obsession: The "Twilight" series books. Russ came home a month ago and said he had heard people buzzing about these vampire books, going so far as to say that they were the NEW Harry Potter. Well, that perked my ears up. Then I noticed that I didn't hear from Katy for an entire weekend. This is unusual because even though my phone skills have completely deteriorated, she usually calls once or twice a weekend to check in on me. The culprit? The Twilight books.

That sealed the deal. The monotony of being the mother to an infant can be maddening and I've used reading as a means to escape some of the boredom, especially when the weather is dreary. When I asked Katy if "Twilight" would be like Harry Potter she replied hesitantly, "Ummmm, not really."

"Will Russ like it?"
"Ummmm, maybe you should read it first and see."
"Is it magical? Will I feel similar to how I feel when I read the HP books?"
"Becky...I'll be honest...it's kind of a beach read. It's a romance book for teenagers."

Ohhhh, this explains why Katy was so out of pocket. (Nevertheless I was at the bookstore in about 30 minutes flat.) Twenty pages in I was chuckling out loud to Russ, "this is so me and Katy...teenage sexual tension."

My husband lovingly went to Target yesterday and surprised me with books 2 and 3 after I voraciously devoured book one on Sunday. I'm halfway through "New Moon" (see my new bookshelf to the right). I've had to make little deals with myself:
1. No Twilight reading until you've done your bible study.
2. No reading over the baby while nursing. You tend to not notice if she slides to the floor.
3. No reading those books till you're out of your pajamas. You are a cliche' waiting to happen.

Other than that, bring on the clouds and rain because I'll be curled up on the couch reading away! If your own life has been brought to a halt by these books, I'd love to hear from you! We can start a support group.

Thoughts on Devotion

Have you read this? I used to see it everywhere I went: bookstore, grocery stores, gas stations (I made that one up). I think I bought it at Sam's, which tells you how mainstream this book has gotten. I avoided it for a long time until my clients began to ask if I'd read it. I wanted to be able to connect with their experience so I finally picked it up and had it sitting on our dining table for a month.

But now, halfway through it, I've allowed this book to stick in my gullet. I'm frustrated...and in a good way.

Without ruining it for anyone, I was able to get completely on board with the author when it came to her personality, her neuroses, her "issues", if you will. This gal and I have a lot in common: codependency, relationship addiction, unrealistic expectations of ourselves, clinical depression, guilt mongering, crappy thinking...the list goes on. I appreciated the fact that she is very clear about her view of God, recognizing that her universalistic theology (many paths lead to God) skirts her clear of calling herself a Christian. So while I was reading I was able to put her in the "wants to know God but doesn't really know God" box.

And she won't stay there.

I am at the point in the book where she is studying at an Ashram in India and I had expected her to share all about the Hindu gods, and how she was worshiping them, how enlightened she had become...and there's a little of that. But then there's this: she's crying out to GOD, asking Him desperately to fill her. She's spending HOURS meditating, describing focusing her mind on God and all the discomfort, pain, and fulfillment that comes from doing just that. She's describing a devotion to God that I have felt glimpses of in glorious moments and it's actually making me jealous.

Most of us in the bible belt have this little phrase we use called, "having my quiet time." It basically means anything from spending time in prayer, reading the bible, reading a book meant to complement the bible, or perhaps writing in a journal about our thoughts on any of the above. Growing up as a PK, this was also often called, "doing my devotional." At Kanakuk, we called it "devos."

I was thinking about this last night - what is devotion? Today I don't think it's something I have or do...though certainly you can practice devotion to God or you can be devoted to God. But the way that Elizabeth Gilbert describes it, it is something that you yearn for, you long for and are willing to lay all else aside to strive for. And that makes my sorry little "quiet time" look so very lame. That's what's bugging me. I'm prideful to the core and this Universalist, Man-centered theologian is showing me that I'm not devoted to God real much.

I'm reminded of hearing Beth Moore speak on agapeo love at a Passion Conference in 1998. She was referencing John 21: 15-17 where Jesus publicly restores Peter after Peter's betrayal. Jesus is asking Peter, "do you love me?" But he's using the word for love as agapeo- Godly love, love flowing from the Spirit. And Peter can only reply (love his honesty) "I phileo you," or "Jesus, I have fond, friendly, brotherly love for you." Beth was pointing out that Peter knew he didn't have it in him to love Jesus with that great, heavy love of agape' love. She compared herself and the rest of us to Peter and explained that we don't just have that kind of love for God. I believe her exact words were, "Buddy, you couldn't muster it up if you tried."

So that's what I am reminding myself of when it comes to devotion: Beck, you don't have it. You can't do it. And you couldn't muster it up if you tried.

I'm in great need of God to do that...and actually I believe this is one of the vast differences between Jesus-centered theology and universalism: I am powerless to be godly. I need God to love Himself through me.

But wouldn't you know it's taking reading this non-Christian, very spiritual book to remind me of that?