Haystacks

A rare gift

I finished THE ALCHEMIST yesterday. (Review here.) One of the story's many locales is the pyramids of Egypt. Today I received this in the mail. When I saw it, my mind immediately went to the book I had just finished. As I said in my review the book is filled with moral themes and life lessons. Now, when I look at this painting I will be reminded. The two are now tied together in my mind. Both, amazing works of creativity and beauty.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Paulo Coelho's novel The Alchemist is many things. It is a fairy tale, an adventure story, a spiritual prose.

Santiago is a shepherd who sets out to follow a dream. Literally. He follows the advice of a gypsy who interprets a reoccurring dream about treasure at the pyramids of Egypt. He leaves the lush fields of Spain to cross the dessert. Along the way he meets spiritual guides, falls in love, learns to listen to his heart.

 "My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy confides to the alchemist one night as they look up at a moonless night.

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself," the alchemist replies. "And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."

This tale is filled with beautiful spiritual truths, themes we teach our children and strive to live every day. Woven in a tapestry of adventure, we find dedication to a commitment, diverse cultures, a healthy respect for nature and the universal language.

(Proud SRC participant)

Ristening to the rescue!

I've had a hectic couple of weeks and I was not thrilled that I had fallen behind in my Summer Reading Club duties and would have to sit this week out. I only have 2 days to read a novel and write up a review. I'm an avid reader, but not a fast one. No chance. But wait! What if I don't read? What if I risten, instead? This month iTunes is offering a free download of Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist.This book has been on my list for a couple of years, but I had never obtained a copy. Thank you iTunes for the lovely gift. My review will be ready by Friday. :)

The Pawn by Steven James

Storyteller Steven James weaves a twisting and turning tale of murder and political intrigue.  FBI Agent Patrick Bowers is called in on the case of a serial killer abducting and and murdering women in the Asheville, NC area.  The killer is playing a deadly game of chess. He taunts the investigation team by making contact with future victims and leaving clues at crime scenes. (In chess, if you touch the opponents piece you must then take that piece in your next move.) He is always one step ahead.

To complicate matters, Patrick is trying to come to terms with the death of his wife. He struggles in the role of single parent to his teenage stepdaughter.

The setting of this story was of particular interest to me. The characters fly in and out of my local airport. The monuments and location markers referenced in the story are familiar to me. Because I could picture so many of the scenes, I felt even more involved in James' narrative.

The Pawn is a fast paced, intense thriller. You'll be turning pages trying to keep up with Patrick or maybe, if you're really sharp, get one step ahead of our killer.

(Proud SRC participant)

What book changed your life?

Books are not just companions to pass the time. They contain life altering philosophies. They serve as a mirror and cause us to evaluate our motives. How many readers became lawyers because Atticus Finch inspired them? How many took to the road on a trip to end all road trips after reading Kerouac?

•  I'll first state the obvious, the Bible. I believe the Bible is the word of the living God. It is the text of my faith.

•  Max Lucado's Traveling Light changed my perspective on my faith. I finished that book with a new  appreciation of what it meant to be a child of God.

•  Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller broadened my horizons. I saw other people differently after reading his journey to faith.

• Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak taught me to daydream.

• The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams uses humor and political satire to put things in the universe in perspective.

• I fell in love with words as I read Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.

What book changed your life?

Four Souls by Louise Erdridge

Fleur Pillager sets out to avenge the theft of her land. She takes her mother’s name, Four Souls. She becomes the laundress in the family home of the land baron who robbed her family. She cures the ailing mogul, because she wants him healthy and strong minded when she kills him. In her close contact with Mauer, she seduces and is seduced by him.

The most fascinating aspect of this narrative is the fact that Four Souls does not tell her own story. Nanapush, an elder tribesman and Polly, the genteel sister-in-law of the land baron narrate Four Souls’ turn from assassin to lady of the house. Readers are kept at a safe distance by seeing the story unfold through another character’s eyes, yet we know the very depths of Four Souls’ heart. It is as if we cannot come any closer, first person, without being scarred as Four Souls’ is.

This story is a raw representation of one of the greatest misdeeds done to Native Americans. In forcing Indians to defend their land, white men taught the natives to see the land as a possession to be bought and sold.

(Proud SRC participant)

 

 

Where The Wild Things Are

 

and he sailed off through night and day

and in and out of weeks

and almost over a year

to where the wild things are

~Maurice Sendak

 

In only 338 words Sendak takes on a journey from our hero's room across the ocean to the Island of the Wild Things and back home again.

Max makes mischief.  He says to his mother, "I'll eat you up!" She sends him to his room without supper. And Max's (and our) adventure begins. Max's room becomes a forest. The walls disappear and his bed becomes a boat. He sails to The Island of The Wild Things, where he tames the beasts by looking into their yellow eyes without blinking once and becomes their king. Max leads them in their wild rumpus, then sends them to bed without their supper.

Max becomes lonely and wants to be where someone loves him best of all. He sails off through night and day and in out of weeks and alomost over a year back home, where he finds his supper waiting for him. And it was still hot.

Max taught a generation of kids how to deal with the conflict and rage. The Wild Things really are the anxiety and pleasure and immense problems of being a small child. The Wild Things grow larger and larger as the story progresses, but Max learns how to be open about his anger and find a resolution.

These are lessons we could all learn, at any age.

(A proud SRC participant)

Sailing Between the Stars

"...I went on a thirteen-day solo hike through the Wind River Range, an isolated wilderness in Wyoming. On day seven I rested by a glacial lake 10,421 feet above sea level. I spent my day of rest soaking my feet and reading poetry and then, at twilight, watching fish jump out of the clear water and rise, if only for a moment 10,422 feet above the level of the sea.

I started wondering what it would be like to be one of those fish, swimming through this mountain lake minding my own business and then one day rising to the ceiling of all that there is and finding that I could poke my nose through the surface of the sky. And not only my nose but to learn, in a moment of glorious discovery, that with the right flip of my tail I could break through the rippling curtain of my world and take flight, experiencing the strange and wonderful and dangerous freedom of the air.

I imagined I might swim back to the others and tell them about the new world I'd discovered - a place too magnificent for the language of fish to describe. I wondered if they would believe me. After all, sometimes news is too terrible to believe. But sometimes we don't believe because the news is just too incredible.

At first I thought it was somehow unnatural for fish to jump like that: They're fish, right? They're just supposed to swim in the water. After all, that's what they're made for. But as night fell and the stars began to bespeckle the sky, I realized that for a fish to leave the water isn't breaking the rules at all - it's just exploring the true extent of what it really means to be a fish.

Of course fish are made for the water. Of course they're made to swim.

But they're also made to jump." - Steven James "Sailing Between the Stars"

If you haven't picked up your copy of Steven James' Sailing Between the Stars, stop reading. Go here and place your order. I'll wait for you. 

Steven's writing often brings me to tears, not because it is sappy or sentimental (That rarely makes me cry.), but because it is pure and real and clear. I read passages like the one  excerpted above and I feel the rush of excitement at the thought of breaking through the ceiling of my existence and flying!

Steven encourages the reader to believe the unbelievable. And because he sees it in everyday life all around him and conveys that magic in his storytelling, you are drawn in. I have begun to look for the mysteries of   God in nature and everything around me.  I seek out opportunities to embrace the illogical, radical, paradoxically  absurd Jesus.

(A proud SRC participant)

 

Two birds with one stone

Or four birds with two books...or something like that...

Mark says he's getting a summer reading club going. I have several items on my Mission 101 list that pertain to reading:

35. Clean off my 'to be read' shelf by reading
66. Read 5 books for historical/ political/social relevance
85. Write a review of every book I read

My plan is to participate in the reading club and knock a few things off my list in the process. Watch the sidebar for a reading list and reviews.

Don't Panic!

According to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very, very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

I can't believe I missed it! I am such a Douglas Adams fan. I promise. I am.  Oh, well, there's always next year. Somebody remind me...