I finished this the other evening. I enjoyed it, although it was fairly predictable from start to finish. Most of the stories about St. Francis were woven into the story well, with only a couple of obvious “this is a teaching moment” moments. 
Probably the thing that most stuck with me is the idea of having a return to beauty and art in our worship services, worship spaces, and every day life, the idea of having an artist-in-residence on staff at churches. Thinking more on this…
Chasing Francis – finished August 28, 2009
James and the Giant Peach: first few chapters August 23, 2009
My kid just turned 6 and is getting just mature enough for me to read him a chapter book without pictures on every page. I was worried that he wouldn’t settle for having no external visual stimuli. So I chose a few favorite books my husband and I kept from our childhoods, and he choose James and the Giant Peach. Having never read it myself, I found myself interested as well. We have only read the first few (short) chapters, but I find I really love reading out loud to him and look forward to it on most nights.
I was struck that the book opens with James’s parents dying. But even more interesting is the manner in which they apparently died: being eaten by a rhinocerous.
I wonder if the death of the parents is a literary/plot device, for that is how James come to live with his awful aunts, and what immediately endears him to the reader. But by having them die in such an unbelievable way, does it make it more “pretend,” like the rest of the story, and therefore less frightening to young readers/listeners?
It seems like children’s books written today are more reluctant to involve such elements in the plot. Maybe that’s OK in some ways. But maybe in other ways, it helps children deal with difficult subjects.
Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim’s Tale August 22, 2009
Yesterday the bookstore and Starbucks called my name, so I headed up to spend my credit and gift certificate. I picked up a recycled notebook from ecojot to do my BFW jounrnalling in, the premiere issue of Urban Farm (I’m very interested in “urban homesteading” and the like), and Chasing Francis. At first glance it reminds me of A New Kind of Christian, as far as using fiction to teach, having a disenchanted pastor telling the story and meeting a mentor (in this case…St. Francis).
By the way, Starbucks’ new pecan bars are delicious – like a tasty bit of pecan pie, yum!
Birthing From Within: Ch. 2 & 3 August 22, 2009
Chapter 2’s assignment was to journal the things I’ve internalized about birth, family stories, things people have told me, etc. and sort through what I’ve internalized, how the ideas are reflected by culture, etc. I wasn’t really surprised by what I wrote down; I’m thinking of continuing to pursue this to see if anything new comes out. I’ve already worked through a lot of this stuff during my last birth. I think probably the biggest thing was learning to trust my feelings and intuitions about things, rather than following in blind obedience to what others told me I should do/not do.
One of the hard things, for me personally, was the title of this chapter, “Emptying Your Mind.” I understand the purpose – to examine where these thoughts comes from – but for me it’s hard, as a Christian, to not immediately think “New Age – oh no!” when those type things come up. There’s a long history of meditation and contemplative prayer in the Christian tradition, but it’s admittedly something I’m not strong at. I did try to practice relaxing and examining the thoughts that came and I found that helpful. In fact, I know I did that during my last birth, concentrated on the “immediate now” and that helped me get through things, so I will continue to practice breathing and relaxation, accompanied by prayer and reflection on thoughts.
Chapter 3: Worry Is the Work of Pregnancy – now *that* I can relate to, lol. The author talks about worry being an important part of birth preparation, versus ignoring worries or trying to say, “It’s ok,” or “Everything will be ok,” when that’s simply not true. I’m to come up with a worry list, which I will journal about later. I really liked thinking about this, that it’s *ok* to worry and think about all those questions, b/c I’ve had to start doing that in preparation for the home birth. Part of our initial interview with our midwife was asking some of those “worry” questions – what will happen about being GBS+? What are some of the reasons I’d need to transport to the hospital? What would happen in this situation? My midwife has been excellent about helping my husband and I work through those questions.
Birthing From Within: An Extra-Ordinary Guide to Childbirth Preparation August 20, 2009
For the birth of our second child my MW required we go to birthing “brush-up” classes. B/c we were an hour away from the classes, and I’d already been to weeks of them before the birth of our first, I was very reluctant to go and expecting them to be a waste of time. But as there were only two and I was preparing for a natural waterbirth at a birth center (vs. my first birth, which was a pitocin-induced typical hospital birth) I thought I should, so we did.
The two classes, which were loosely based on the “Birthing From Within” style, were nothing what I expected. We practiced – actually *practiced* (versus simply talking about) – pain-management skills. We did birth art – even my colour-blind, artistically disinclined husband. And most of all, I found that I needed to heal – a LOT – from things that had happened during my first birth.
Recently I was thinking about my next birth, a planned homebirth, and how this is even going to be different from the birth center birth. The classes we were supposed to take haven’t really materialized, so I decided to take matters into my own hands and start doing some preparation, so just the other day I remembered our previous classes had been somewhat based on this book, so I went ahead and ordered it, used, from amazon. (Unfortunately, the previous owner, like me dear friend with whom I share this blog 
, likes to UNDERLINE EVERYTHING, in INK, so I’m finding it quite distracting to read – one of the few times I wish I’d bought new, or not the cheapest used one, lol!)
The chapters, looking ahead, seem short and introspective. I hope to use this blog to wrestle with the questions each chapter brings up. Chapter One is titled “Finding Your Question.” Your “question” is individual, and the author says to leave no stone unturned searching for, “What is it I need to know to give birth?”
For me, with my second daughter, I had realized that was, “Can my body give birth to a baby without being forced into an induction?” And I learned that it could, and it could do it well, with all the readiness signs of impending labour, etc. With this one, I’m still not sure…it has to do with things like, “Am I making the right decision with planning a homebirth?” “Am I capable of birthing as “well” as I did last time?” “Am I unprepared or more prepared this time?” “Will I feel comfortable being as loud during labour in my own home, where I can sometimes hear the neighbours, as I was in the birthing center, where people expect odd sounds to come from?” “Is the baby going to be breech and then this whole thing is down the drain?”
Continuing to ponder “my question”…
Sacred Marriage: Done. August 3, 2009
This book was a roller coaster ride for me. Many times, Gary Thomas would say something that was convicting or “spot on,” and other times, I felt like he was just missing the mark. I warrant that this could be simply a personal matter: just because something doesn’t resonate with me doesn’t mean it won’t with someone else. For myself, however, I realized that many of the things I felt he assessed accurately were ideas also reflected and described more accurately in Families Where Grace is in Place.
One of my problems with this book were the metaphors that didn’t quite seem to illustrate the author’s point. I also felt that the book was written with women in mind even though language directed toward one gender was usually directed toward men. Overall, I felt that the author was dancing around some great ideas but often not quite nailing them. I think that my main issue, then, is with his writing style, and not his ideas.
That said, there were some poignant and convicting moments for me in the book. One of my favorite passages toward the end of the book (which is actually a quote from someone else) discusses creativity in marriage:
Jack’s refusal to see his own sould as the prime ground for creation left him dreamless as he thought about his wife and children. He had no more vision of who they were and who they were meant to be than he had for himself… He was a creator in his job but not in his family.
Another great passage for me comes from chapter 9 (one of my favorite chapters), “Falling Forward:”
When disagreements arise, the natural tendency is to flee. Rather than work through the misunderstanding (or sin), we typically take a much more economical path–we search for another church, another job, another neighborhood, another friend, another spouse.
Thomas moves on to discuss the dangers of romanticism:
Marriage based on romanticism embraces an idealized lie (infatuation) and then divorces the reality once it presents itself. Marriage based on life in Jesus Christ invites us to divorce the lie (an idealized view of our spouse) and embrace reality (two sinful people struggling to maintain a lifelong commitment).
So in conclusion, I don’t think this is a terrible book. I felt like I got more out of it once I started trying to read it for “nuggets” of perspective instead for some overarching philosophy of marriage.
Sacred Marriage: I’m mildly annoyed. June 10, 2009
I feel I shouldn’t be annoyed because this book has been well-received. But I am, and I can’t figure out exactly why.
I think maybe it could be that I find it hard to relate to the author’s premise, which is that the primary purpose of marriage is not to make us happy, but to make us more Christlike.
Is my marriage idyllic? Erm — no. But something doesn’t have to be perfect to be good. I don’t dispute the book’s premise — it certainly might be true. But I would argue two things:
- God’s original design for marriage probably was happiness. There would be no need for marriage to be a crucible for progressive character development if we weren’t sinners in the first place, by our own choice.
- So many of the things that he says marriage teaches us I have found I have learned through parenting, not marriage.
Honestly, I think a marriage is much easier to maintain when children are not in the picture. In my experience, and what I’ve heard from so many of my friends, the pressures applied by the presence of children in the family have been much more effective at revealing our sinful natures.
