Christmas at Sugar Plum Manor by Roseanna M. White is a sweet (pun intended) Edwardian-era novella with shades of Jane Austen and The Nutcracker.
Lady Mariah Lyons’ step-father, the Earl of Castleton, has to leave his estate to a distant cousin due to an entail on the property. His heir, Cyril Lightbourne, had visited the manor as a child, where he and Mariah became fast friends. They were both imaginative and fun-loving, renaming Plumford Manor as Sugar Plum Manor and writing tales set in the woods.
But due to a misunderstanding, Cyril thought the Earl didn’t really want him as an heir, so he’s been absent for twelve years. Now he’s been invited to Plumford Manor for Christmas and is not quite sure what to expect.
Mariah isn’t sure, either, whether Cyril will be the same friend he was, or whether he will be distant and aloof. She’s heard he is courting Lady Pearl, and she doesn’t know why the men who flock to Pearl can’t see the cruelty behind the beauty.
Another guest arriving at the manor for Christmas is a Danish Greve (Count) who specifically wants to seek Mariah’s hand in marriage because his prince wants to strengthen ties with England by having a member of the royal court marry into a leading English family. He doesn’t love her: he thinks she is pleasant enough, though a bit silly, but he attributes that to her youth. Though handsome, he comes across as almost emotionless, cold, and calculating.
The two men had an altercation in the past, which sets the tone for their meeting at Plumford. Their pursuit of Mariah adds to their animosity and desire for revenge.
Mariah is a sweet girl, though not as beautiful as her widowed older sister. Her siblings and mother think she’s a bit immature, even ridiculous. Now the Greve feels the same way. Is what she always thought of as joyfulness truly childishness? Does she need to tone herself down to marry the Greve, or will Cyril ever see her as more than a childhood friend?
Embedded in the story are themes of faith, forgiveness, redemption, and being who God created you to be. I listened to the audiobook nicely read by Liz Pearce. This was a nice Christmas read.
Boomerangs, according to G. K. Chesterton, are “things that return.” He names sleep and a new day as boomerang blessings–something we experience which comes back to us to experience again. No matter how many times we go to sleep and wake up again, we continue to enjoy those recurring cycles.
In Winter Fire: Christmas with G. K. Chesterton, Ryan Whitaker Smith comments that feasts in the Jewish calendar were like boomerangs, recurring reminders of God’s grace in delivering and providing for His people. He quotes Chesterton again:
It is the very essence of a festival that it breaks upon one brilliantly and abruptly, that at one moment the great day is not and the next moment the great day is . . . The thing is done at a particular time so that people may be conscious of a particular truth; as is the case with all ceremonial observances, such as the Silence of Armistice Day or the signal of a salute with the guns or the sudden noise of bells for the New Year. They are all meant to fix the mind upon the fact of the feast or memorial, and suggest that a passing moment has a meaning when it would otherwise be meaningless (pp. 68-69).
Whitaker goes on to say, “As the Israelites’ festivals were a perpetual retelling of the same story, so are our Christian traditions a form of continually re-grounding ourselves in the narrative of redemption. The consistent ‘return of old things in new times,’ Chesterton tells us, . . . . the regularity of our holiday rituals is a way of maintaining godly sanity in an unstable and unpredictable world” (p. 56).
Our modern church and personal calendars may not follow the feasts given Israel in the Old Testament. But regular observances with their symbols and rituals remind us of great truths.
Christmas reminds us:
We need a Savior. “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” Matthew 1:21).
God loves us enough to rescue us at great cost to Himself. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16).
God’s timing is perfect. “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5).
And so much more.
May the “boomerang blessing” of Christmas never be stale or empty, but rather a regular reminder that God loved us enough to send His Son to be our Savior, to die for our sins so we could become His.
Thank you for your prayers for all the ailments last week. This week has been better in that regard!
Please join me in prayer for Susanne, the originator and hostess for FFF, as her mom passed away this week. It’s never easy to lose a loved one, but it’s even harder this time of year. Susanne graciously left the link open for the rest of us to share our blessings this week.
1. Feeling better!
2. A busy and productive but not stressed week–at least not too stressed. 🙂 Whenever I start to feel anxious about getting things done, I try to remember to pray, leave everything with the Lord, and remember the important things will get done.
3. Family Fun Night at church. This is a night in December for families or groups or individuals to perform in various ways–singing, acting out skits, reciting something, reading a poem or short story, usually about Christmas in some way. Some are funny; some are meaningful. Then we have finger foods afterward. It was fun!
4. Our 45th anniversary is not til this weekend, but we have family plans that night. So we went out to eat to celebrate earlier this week. We decided to go to a downtown restaurant we’d never tried before. Even though we didn’t really like the restaurant (fun nautical decor but too noisy), the food wasn’t great, and the waiter was a little weird–I was still glad we tried it.
5. Timing. The same day as our reservations to go out to eat, I had a cardiologist’s visit that afternoon. Everything went well, even having had an episode of afib the week before, except that I waited 45 minutes before the doctor came in. His office is half an hour away, and I left right at five, in heavy traffic, with our reservations at 6. The GPS wanted to take me a back way, which I felt would be slower—but our exit ramp off the highway is always backed up that time of day, so I decided to go the back way. I got home with just enough time to change before we headed out again, and Jim dropped me off at the restaurant while he found a place to park. We made it in time!
Bonus: My dear husband cleaned bathrooms, swept, and vacuumed yesterday–all without being asked! Very helpful and much appreciated.
I wish you all a very meaningful Christmas next week, remembering the baby in the manger born our Savior.
I’ll say up front that I have mixed emotions about this novel.
Christmas with the Queen by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb opens in 1952 with Elizabeth II in the first year of her reign, planning to continue the Christmas radio broadcast her father and grandfather had begun. She’s finding her footing as a young monarch, as well as juggling royal and family duties. Plus the nation is undergoing changes following WWII.
Olive Carter is a reporter trainee with the BBC. She lives with her parents and young daughter, Lucy. She wears a wedding ring and tells people her husband died in the war, but she was never married. Lucy’s father is revealed about a third of the way through the book, but it’s no surprise.
Olive can’t seem to get any serious stories to cover. She’d love the royal news, but an older man, Charlie, has been covering the royal family for decades. However, when he gets sick over Christmas, Olive asks to take his place at Sandringham for the Queen’s first radio address. Her boss agrees.
Jack Devereux is an American from New Orleans who stayed in England after his time in the Navy was over in WWII. A group of friends found each other on VE Day and kept in touch afterward. Jack is attracted to Olive Carter, but once he gets to know Andrea, he develops a serious relationship with her. Jack and Andrea marry, and he works in a restaurant with the hopes of starting his own someday.
But then Andrea is killed in an accident. At loose ends, Jack doesn’t know what to do with himself in his grief. Finally a friend urges him to spend Christmas with him and his family, where Jack meets his brother, Mason, who works as an assistant chef with the royal family. There’s an opening, so Mason invites Jack to apply, which Jack does. In Sandringham, Jack is surprised to run into Olive Carter again.
Jack and Olive run into each other at intervals through the years, usually at Christmastime in Sandringham. At first Jack is too lost in grief to consider Olive any more than an old friend. But over time, he wonders if he can love again.
Olive, meanwhile, has an important secret to share with Jack, but never seems to find the right opportunity to do so.
They both have interactions with Elizabeth and Philip.
I enjoyed the story about the queen quite a lot. From the title, you’d think her story would have been the main one. But it’s not. I got frustrated with Jack and Olive going around the same circles so many times.
I also liked Jack’s journey from his grandfather’s restaurant in New Orleans to a chef in the royal kitchen, trying to balance his love for experimentation and spices with the more traditional fare he’s expected to serve.
It was fun to see Elizabeth’s and Philip’s interactions with each other and with Jack and Olive. I was surprised, but shouldn’t have been, that girls kept scrapbooks with news and pictures of Elizabeth just like they did for Diana years later.
However, I am sorry to say I didn’t like Olive much. She’s kind of a party girl at first and has no problem with lying to get ahead at work.
But what bothered me most was the attitude about Olive’s one-night stand when she got pregnant. Nothing explicit is shown, but neither she nor her best friend feel she’s done anything wrong, and that night is referred too often through the book as “delicious.” Then later, tired of being alone, Olive decides to go out with an old flame just for fun. Her friend says, “Sex, you mean,” and encourages her to go.
Yes, this is a secular book, so I don’t expect it to have Christian values. And, yes, non-Christian characters are going to act like non-believers. Secular authors have the right to write what they want, but I have the right to express when I don’t like something. Plus, there was none of this kind of thing in the previous book I had read from these authors, so I wasn’t expecting it here–nor the amount of bad words and taking the Lord’s name in vain.
I finished a few very short Christmas stories or novellas, so I thought I’d mention them in one post.
Bespoke: A Tiny Christmas Tale is a novella by Amanda Dykes which takes place on the Isle of Espoir, halfway between France and England. A famed composer lived there, Giovanni St. John. Superstition in his day said “a composer must never write beyond his ninth symphony. To do so was to face certain death.”
He disappeared after conducting his eight symphony, then suddenly reappeared nine years later with his tenth. He said the ninth was there, but they would never see or hear it.
Many years later, an aged St. John returns to the Isle of Espoir, to the old house villagers had taken to calling the Silent House because of his long absence. His grown daughter, Aria, is with him, gloved hands concealing injuries which had silenced her promising music career.
Aria has one last thing to do before her father dies. But she’ll need the help of her long-ago childhood friend, James. Yet Her father has forbidden James to see her, blaming James for the accident that injured Aria–as James does, himself.
This was a sweet and poignant story, packing a lot in for a novella.
Amanda shares at the end that this book was part of a campaign to get a bicycle to Gospel for Asia missionaries. When all was said and done, enough was raised for fifteen bicycles!
Tin Can Serenade is a short story by Amanda Dykes, made up entirely of notes sent back and forth in a tin can on a pulley rope between two houses separated by a river. Two children are the writers and exchange notes first about a lost toy boat, then include biscuits, peppermint sticks, and such. She writes with flowery words, having read a lot. He’s very plainspoken. She lives with her widowed mother; he lives with his widower father.
As their correspondence reveals details about their families, they have no idea what they are about to stir up.
This was one of the sweetest things I have read in a long while, and wonderfully, beautifully written. It was originally written as a free story for Amanda’s readers and is free for now as a Kindle book.
Christmas at the Circus by Joanne Bischof is listed as a “short story from the Greatest Season on Earth.” The characters are the same as those in The Lady and the Lionheart by the author (linked to my review) about a want-to-be nurse who helps a circus performer in need and (spoiler alert) ends up marrying him. I think Christmas at the Circus may have been a bonus or Christmas story around the time Lionheart was published.
At any rate, Charlie and Ella are married, raising his niece. The circus is at their off-season location, with all the performers preparing for at big Christmas celebration under the big top. But Ella has no idea a special surprise awaits her.
There wasn’t much else to this story, but it would have been a fun addendum for fans of the original book.
In modern-day Dublin, Keira Foley is the sister of the two main characters in the previous books. She is an art historian but lost her job, and her fiance broke up with her. She’s working in her brother’s pub for now, until she’s asked to authenticate a portrait of Queen Victoria painted by Franz Xaver Winterhalter. It was discovered in an old manor home whose owner just wants to sort through and sell everything. But Keira doesn’t know if she can trust the man asking: a rumored American art thief. She decides to go with him, and uncovers more questions than answers.
In 1833 England, Elizabeth Meade is shattered when her beloved father is killed. He left her and her mother in dire financial straits, which her mother tries to hide from society. Elizabeth’s only goal in life to to find the man who killed her father and take revenge. Her favorite pastime, painting, is not approved by her mother, but brings Elizabeth joy. When Elizabeth is grown, her mother arranges her marriage to a Viscount Huxley, and Elizabeth is startled to learn he is the very man she thinks murdered her father.
During WWII, Amelia Woods turned the estate into a haven for refugee children after her beloved Arthur died. But now she’s ordered by the English military to house a group of American pilots. Amelia does her best in a difficult situation, trying to shelter the children from the war as much as she can and manage amidst rationing. She and the American captain bond over the books in her husband’s library.
A main character in each timeline is recovering from some kind of loss. Many of the characters learn that though our path isn’t always what we’d planned, we can trust God through it.
Partway through the book, I began to wonder if Winterhalter was a real artist. He was! And the portrait of Victoria was real as well, commissioned by her for her husband’s birthday. It was unconventional for the time, showing Victoria with her hair down and a bit more shoulder uncovered than usual. Albert loved it, but felt it was too intimate for public display, and hung it in his study.
Much historical fiction these days is written with two timelines. Kristy is the only writer I’ve known to weave together three, and though she does it well, I hope this does not become a trend. 🙂 She does a good job keeping us from getting confused by naming the date and location at the beginning of each chapter and orienting us quickly with pertinent details.
I enjoyed the settings and stories as well as the way details were unfolded throughout the book. Each of the characters seemed relatable.
A couple of favorite quotes:
Books are a completely personal kind of journey. On the first page, they ask us not only to be willing but to be moved, changed, persuaded, even made new by the time we reach the end. Everyone’s walk-through is different (p. 104).
Parham Hill seemed to own the strange combination of both peace and pain. Beauty and bitterness. A lavishness surrounded by a coldness . . . They were strange bedfellows to find hidden in the shadow of Framlingham Castle and its quaint little country hamlet (p. 131).
In her author’s notes, Kristy shares that her father was an American pilot in WWII who flew in the very area she wrote about here. And she shares other bits and pieces that inspired her plots.
There are also some interesting bits in the book about H. A. Rey and his wife, Margret. He was born in Germany, and he and his wife were Jews living in France. They escaped on bicycles not long before Paris fell, taking their manuscript of Curious George with them, which became an instant success when they got it published.
Though it’s been a while since I read the previous two books, I felt the last chapter pulled everything together very well and was a fitting conclusion.
Jim and I are celebrating our 45th wedding anniversary in a few days. I’m not an expert at marriage, even at this stage. I don’t say a lot about marriage here for that reason. But I thought I’d share a hodgepodge of lessons learned, advice gleaned, and favorite poems and quotes concerning marriage.
1. I *hate* don’t like the saying “Marriage is designed to make you holy, not happy.” Almost every reference to marriage in the bible presents it as a happy union. Yes, we have to battle our selfishness, and God uses marriage to sanctify us. But happiness and holiness are not mutually exclusive.
2. One of my favorite books about marriage is The Ministry of Marriage by Jim Binney. To be honest, I read it so many years ago, I can’t remember much of the content now. But I like the emphasis in the title.
3. Humor helps. “A man without mirth is like a wagon without springs, in which everyone is caused disagreeably to jolt by every pebble over which it runs” (Henry Ward Beecher). Humor can diffuse tense situations and make life easier.
4. But be careful with humor. Poking fun at each other can hurt, even if the other person laughs. They will likely wonder, “Is that what he really thinks?” Also, if someone is pouring her heart out over something, and the other person makes a joke of it, she’ll feel unheard and not taken seriously. When something crosses from gentle teasing into something hurtful is probably different for each couple.
5. Appreciate the 80%. Elisabeth Elliot once said that a wife may appreciate and agree with 80% of what her husband says and does, yet harp at the 20% she doesn’t like, making them both miserable. I assume the same could be said of the husband regarding his wife. No spouse will be perfect: We need to spend more time appreciating what we have.
6. Marriage is not 50/50. It’s 100/100.
7. Love songs speak of climbing mountains or swimming oceans. Who really does those things for love? It’s easy to say, or sing, because no one expects anyone to actually do them. Real love is shown in the everyday giving oneself for the other.
8. Not the grand gestures. Lisa-Jo Baker shared in The Middle Matters that a teenager quoted in the Huffington Post felt her love life would never be adequate “until someone runs through an airport to stop me from getting on a flight.” The girl probably saw that in a movie somewhere. Her romantic life is going to be difficult if she sets up a test scenario in an airport every time she thinks she’s in love. Everyday thoughtfulness and kindness goes much further than the occasional sweeping romantic (and unlikely) moment.
9. Love languages. There’s something to be said for love languages coined by Gary Chapman. We perceive love differently. If a husband compliments his wife all day long or buys her piles of gifts, and her love language is acts of service, she’s not going to feel loved unless he helps wash the dishes. But I agree with Tim Challies here that love languages are just a way to understand and communicate with each other, not something to demand as a right or use to manipulate.
10. Don’t take each other for granted. This can be easy to do after a number of years together, in the busyness of everyday life. It helps to take time to consciously think of what we appreciate about each other.
11. Maintain good manners. Please, thank you, etc., still go a long way and help #10.
12. Assume the best. A former pastor said 1 Corinthians 137 (“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things”) means we cherish the best expectations of each other. If the other is late, leaves something undone, does something in a way we don’t like, talk about it kindly and graciously. Don’t jump to conclusions.
13. Date nights are nice, but not, as some would say, essential. The important thing is to spend time together one on one, whether that involves going out or being at home.
14. Be aware of introversion and extroversion. My husband and I are pretty similar in this respect, though I am more of a homebody than he is. But when there are differences, we need to understand that introverts are energized by time alone and drained by time with people, and extroverts are just the opposite. We need to be balanced and considerate with each other.
15. Rituals. Every couple develops their own little rituals in everyday life. But, like I said recently regarding traditions, we need to be flexible with them and not binding. One couple we knew decided that all through their married life, they would get up at the same time and go to bed at the same time. I wonder if they both got up for babies’ nighttime feedings. That meant a lot to them, but my husband and I could not have sustained that with his work schedule and leaving way early for travel. If we start something like that and find it doesn’t work after a while, it’s okay to adjust.
16. Don’t expect the other to read your mind. We might wonder how the other could not know our preferences or desires, but they can’t unless we express them.
17. Speak plainly. This could work both ways, but I think women are more prone to hint rather than plainly say what they want, and then get frustrated when he doesn’t get it.
18. Don’t make special days a test. I heard this from Gregg Harris some thirty years ago, and he’s the only person I have known to say it. He cautioned against using anniversaries, birthdays, Valentine’s Day, etc., as tests of a spouse’s love, and then feeling angry or hurt if he/she doesn’t remember them. Instead, remind the other, or ask, “What would you like to do for” the day beforehand, etc.
19. We all need appreciation. A friend shared that her husband had done a lot of yard work, then came to the door to ask her to come out and see what he had done, saying he needed an “Atta boy.” We smiled, but it’s true–we need to know someone appreciates our work and it pleases them.
20. Respect. I cringe when I hear husbands talking down to wives or wives talking to husbands the same way they talk to their children. We shouldn’t demean or ridicule each other.
What about when a husband doesn’t act in a way that invites respect? I like to turn this around: the same passage that mentions respect in marriage mentions love (Ephesians 5:22-33). Do we want our husband only to show love to us when we act deserving of it? No! We want him to understand when we’re not very lovable and love us anyway. So we can do the same for him. We may not respect every action or sentence, but we can respect him as a person and give him grace when he’s not perfect.
21. Remember you marry a sinner. As Elizabeth Elliot said, there is no one else to marry. While on one hand we hold each other to the highest, on the other, we acknowledge that the other is only human.
22. Be careful how you talk to others about your spouse. This is not only a matter of respecting our spouse, but of being a good testimony about marriage to others. We don’t have to pretend the other is perfect and never does wrong. But what is it saying to younger people about marriage and relationships if a husband getting together with the guys or a wife with the girls if it’s a time to complain about the other?
23. It’s okay to have separate interests. I think we actually benefit when we are enriched creatively in other ways and then come together. Plus, we shouldn’t expect the other to be interested in every little thing we are.
24. But it’s good to share some interests as well, or to listen to a conversation on a topic we’re not interested in or go to an event the other likes but we don’t care for sometimes. There are some family outings where I might not really be interested in the activity, but I go for the family togetherness.
25. Adapt to your own spouse. I read of a woman who heard that a good wife is a good housekeeper. When she got around to discussing housecleaning with her husband, she was surprised to find that he didn’t really care about a pristine house. He didn’t want a sloppy home, but he didn’t feel it needed all the extra touches she was giving it. In fact, he’d much rather she spent more time with him than more time cleaning. I’ve benefited much from good books about home, marriage, and family, but we need to check them with the real live person in our home and his preferences.
26. Don’t lie. I don’t know if there is an easier way to destroy trust than to lie to someone. Sometimes we don’t outright lie, but we manipulate details to get ourselves off the hook.
27. Remember a spouse is a brother or sister in Christ. How many times have you heard of a couple fighting in the car on the way to church, and then pasting on smiles when they get there? All those one-another passages in the Bible apply to our family members as well as other people at church.
28. Don’t put a spouse in God’s place. I had a hard time when my husband worked an overnight shift a few years into our marriage and even more when he started traveling for his job. Evidently I am not alone in that, because Coping when a husband is away is one of my most often-viewed posts. God uses husbands in our lives as our protectors, providers, and companions–but for Him to work through, not for us to look to instead of Him.
29. Find your security in Christ, in the fact that He created you and gifted you for His calling. We all need encouragement and reassurance at times, but we shouldn’t be needy in the sense of needing constant affirmation.
30. Manage your expectations.
31. Avoid “always” and “never,” especially in an accusatory way.
32. Attack the problem, not the person during disagreements.
Favorite Quotes about Marriage.
33. C. S. Lewis has a long quote from Mere Christianity, included here, the gist of which is that the intense “feeling” of love in the beginning can’t be expected to last. “Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years? What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships?” But “love as distinct from ‘being in love’ is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other.” “It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.”
34: Jane Eyre. “To be together is for us to be at once as free as solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking.”
35. Booth Tarkington. “It is love in old age, no longer blind, that is true love. For love’s highest intensity doesn’t necessarily mean its highest quality. Glamour and jealousy are gone; and the ardent caress…is valueless compared to the reassuring touch of a trembling hand. . . the understanding smile of an old wife to her husband is one of the loveliest things in the world.”
36. Mignon McLaughlin. “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.“
Favorite Songs about Love and Marriage. I’m not a big fan of sappy love songs, except around Valentine’s Day. 🙂 That’s probably because many of them are unreal–the whole climbing mountains and swimming oceans thing mentioned earlier. But here are a couple I especially love:
37: The Voyage. Jim made this video for me in 2008. Jason and Mittu were recently engaged but not married yet, and of course Timothy wasn’t here then. The song is “The Voyage,” sung here by John McDermott, then in the Irish Tenors:
38: My Cup Runneth Over with Love. This was popular when I was a kid, and I still love it.
44. Pray for each other. Though we meet each other’s needs as much as we can, with God’s help, only He can strengthen and enable us day by day.
45. 1 Corinthians 13 is, of course, the best description of love.
When I started, I wasn’t sure if I could come up with a list of 45. Now that I’ve got the ball rolling, even more things are coming to mind. I’d sum up most of what I’ve learned about marriage with this: be kind, gracious, forgiving. Build each other up; don’t tear each other down. Appreciate the little things. Put God first, then each other.
Do you have any favorite marriage advice, quotes, or poems?
This is a busy time of year, but here are a few good reads you might find thought-provoking when you have a moment:
Uncomfortable Christmases, HT to Challies. I saw this last year after Christmas and saved it for this year. “But for some of us, going to a holiday gathering (or hosting one) can be fraught with spiritual tension when few (or none) share our Christian faith. And given numerous trends in our society, the tension may only get worse in the days ahead.”
Thinking About Bruce Willis and Jesus, HT to Challies. “We often talk as Christians about the suddenness of death. We talk to unbelievers about how important it is to not put off a decision for Jesus until later, because what if death comes calling when you don’t expect it. I wonder though have often we talk about or think about for ourselves, the suddenness of debilitation or disablement; how fast we can go from a fully functioning person, to our arms not working, our legs not working, our kidneys not working or even our mind not working.”
How to Read and Remember, HT to Challies. “Someone recently asked me how to stay focused and retain what they read. It’s an important question, especially for anyone devoted to a life of profitable reading and learning.”
Wrap Up Some Stuff this Christmas, HT to Challies. “Our consumer-driven mentality is out of control, and we feel it everyday as more and more waste piles up around us. Sometimes a good answer is to slow down, cut back, and remove the unused things in our lives. But sometimes it’s not. Because you and I were created for a world full of things.”
More Than a Feeling: Be Ruled by Peace. “I’ve often fallen into the trap of thinking that peace is primarily a feeling. So when circumstances outside my control arise—my kids’ health situations, strained relationships, or some other crisis—peace feels elusive . . . drowned out by anxiety, sadness, anger, or overwhelm. This is why it’s important to understand peace as a reality that does not change when we encounter trials and suffering. Peace originates in the unchanging person of Jesus, and it never runs dry, regardless of what we’re facing or what our emotions might tell us.“
I sometimes think of changing the name of my “Laudable Linkage” posts, and one reason is that it seems weird to include links back to my own posts under such a title. But there are two that I think might be helpful this time of year:
Christmas Grief, Christmas Hope, Christmas Joy. Both of my parents and my grandmother all died in December, in different years. It seems every year I know of someone with a fresh loss during the holiday season. Even “old” grief can flare this time of year.
You Don’t Have to Choose a Word for the Year. Some do this rather than New Year’s resolutions and find great benefit in it. If it’s helpful, great. But it’s not a must. “What’s more vital than a word for the year is daily seeking God in His Word.”
Christmas is gloriously out of step with the times, for it outlasts the times. It champions obscurity over visibility. Humility over hubris. Divine mercy over human effort. –G. K. Chesterton
It’s been an up and down week. I began the week with lower back pain, then on Wednesday I was in atrial fibrillation for about 13 hours. Now I have developed a cold and feel bleah. But it’s even more important to cultivate gratefulness when the blessings aren’t so obvious, as we do with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story each Friday.
1. Turkey bone soup with the family last weekend, an annual after-Thanksgiving favorite.
2. Christmas tasks getting checked off. I felt a strong urge to push through and get a lot done earlier in the month so I could relax and enjoy the rest of the month. I’m so glad I did–I hadn’t factored sickness into the equation.
3. Medicines. Icy Hot and acetaminophen for the back. Cough drops and acetaminophen for the cold (I can’t take decongestants due to the heart rhythm issues). Various meds for atrial fibrillation. Rest.
4. Snow that didn’t stick. 🙂 We’re not equipped to deal with snow down here like some of you up North are. We got some Wednesday morning, but it melted off by that afternoon. I’m glad we didn’t get any precipitation when temperatures were in the teens.
5. A thoughtful husband who took care of dishes and such and brought take-out dinner a couple of nights this week when I wasn’t feeling well.
Mittu and Timothy were sick last week, so we’re hoping everything runs its course before Jeremy comes next week.
Natalie Ogbourne has been to Yellowstone National Park over 30 times. And not because she lives close to it: she lives 1,000 miles away in Iowa.
Natalie’s parents first took her and her brother to Yellowstone when she was twelve and he was eight, to show them “there was more to life that malls and movies” (p. 30, Kindle version). Natalie wasn’t impressed at first. But eventually she grew to love the place, working there when she was a little older and taking her own family back several times in all seasons.
Natalie shares her experiences and observations in a memoir titled Waking Up in the Wilderness: A Yellowstone Journey. She writes in her prologue, “Waking Up in the Wilderness is more than a story of me and my family doing what we love, in a place we love, with people we love. It’s a sign saying ‘Look at this!’ so readers can experience the park and see what there is to see for themselves” (p. 10).
When I think of wilderness, I think of a barren place. But Natalie helped me realize wilderness is wildness: it can be teeming with life. Though there are touristy areas of Yellowstone, paved roads, shops, and cabins, there is also an abundance of wild flora, fauna, and geological wonders.
Natalie often says, “What’s true on the trail is true in life.” “Creation speaks–more often in a whisper than a shout” (p. 69). Yellowstone taught her many lessons applicable to all of life, but she shares them naturally, not in a “moral of the story” way. Lessons like trusting that your guide knows more than you do when he’s taking you somewhere you don’t want to go, or the conflict between wanting to “take the road less traveled” while also wanting to “feel comfortable and safe.” She notes,”Rarely is this the same road” (p. 96).
I thought one of the most profound experiences came near the end of the book, when Natalie and her father found new signs in Yellowstone, after a couple of people had died there the previous year. In all caps, the sign read: “THERE IS NO GUARANTEE OF YOUR SAFETY WHILE CAMPING OR HIKING IN BEAR COUNTRY.” Natalie didn’t want a tame Yellowstone, with everything behind barriers. But how can one navigate in areas where a bear might be around the next bend? “If safety isn’t the point, and fear isn’t the answer, I don’t know what is” (p. 192). I don’t want to spoil the book, but the conclusion she came to had me thinking all afternoon after I read it.
There are funny moments in the book, like when a visitor asks where the animals are kept at night. There are tense moments, when surrounded by a herd of bison or coming uncomfortably close to a bear. And there are poignant moments of insight.
Natalie and I are in the same critique group, so I got a sneak peek at a couple of her chapters. It’s been such a joy to see the book come into being and go out into the world.
The only thing that would have made the book even better is photos. But I imagine that adds another whole layer to the publishing process. She has plenty of pictures at her blog, along with other resources. I also looked up YouTube videos for some of the specific places she mentions.
Though Natalie’s book isn’t overtly Christian, her faith in God’s hand and care is evident throughout, especially the last half of the memoir.
I’m not a hiker, a traveler, or an adventurer, and I prefer indoors to out, but I still enjoyed Natalie’s treks into Yellowstone. I am happy to recommend her book to you.*
*There’s one little word I wish wasn’t there, but I suppose it was understandable in the context.
Stray Thoughts 