Word Sabbath - Happy Halloween!
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
The Snowflake
The Snowflake
by Jamie Carie is a short novella perfect for the Christmas season. Ellen Pierce has spent most of her life caring for her brother Jonah, trying to protect him from the world while keeping herself safe from him. His obsession with her has kept them moving often to keep her away from any man who may be attracted to her, but there's nowhere to run from Buck Lewis when they are all on a ship trapped in the ice on the way to Alaska. Buck leads a group through the icy winter snows to Dawson City where he can continue tracking his wife's killers. The journey through the snow will take the lives of more than one of the travelers, but it will bring Buck and Ellen together as the two lonely souls find solace in each other. But Buck's desire for revenge pulls him away from her, leaving Ellen to make her own way in a strange town. Will he return in time to fulfill his promise to come back to her for Christmas? Carie is a talented writer of historical romances and while this plot may seem at first glance a bit of fluff, there is great depth in Ellen's guilt over Jonah, the demons that haunt him, and Kate's history. I hope that Carie gives Kate and Lucky a book of their own. This quick read is perfect for the busy holiday season and with a message of God's love for everyone, even lonely exiles.Thank you to B&H Fiction for providing me with a copy of this book for review!
Friday, October 29, 2010
Masquerade
Masquerade
Thank you to Bethany House for providing me with a copy of this book for review.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Arsenic and Clam Chowder
Thank you to PR by the Book for providing me with a copy of this book for review!
Saturday, October 23, 2010
The Lucifer Code
The Lucifer Code
Thank you to PR by the Book for providing me with a copy of this book for review.
Friday, October 22, 2010
City on Our Knees
My husband and I have been together for almost eleven years, married for eight, and like most couples, the romance had worn off. Yes, we loved each other, but most of our conversations revolved around the kids, the house, and money. We rarely ever went out, and when we did it was to Wal-mart to do the grocery shopping and grab some food from McDonald's. Life had become boring and uninspiring. Every night I would get upset with him for his snoring (despite the fact that he can't help it). We both were easily angered by little things.
But then Johnny died, and we spent a lot of time talking about our pain and what his wife and family was going through. Jess took a couple of days off of work for the showing and funeral, and we spent all of that time together, and somewhere in the times we spent holding each other through the tears, we both realized what a gift our marriage is and that we've been wasting it.
We greet each other with a hug and a kiss when we walk in the door now. At night when he snores, or in the morning when he wakes me up getting his clothing out of the closet for work, instead of getting angry, I thank God that I have a husband at all. I am blessed to have this man in my life. Despite that we are still mourning and tears spring to our eyes over small things because our loss is still raw, we're smiling more. There's a sparkle in his eyes that I haven't seen in a long time.
Money has always been a source of irritation between us, and I know that we aren't alone in that trouble. A few days ago, we had a discussion about money in which we were both a little short with each other. As soon as we were done talking, I immediately regretted my attitude, and I wanted to make it right, but before I could even begin, Jesse was reaching out to me, and we were both intent on making it right again.
We've discussed the changes over the past week, and because it's only been seven days, we both have the fear in the back of our minds that we could forget and go back to the way it used to be. But I'm not going to worry about it. Now, we are both committed to the renewed love and affection between us, and at the first hint of trouble, we're both ready to fix it. If we do start to slip, I know that because we've made it right this time, we can do it again.
Johnny is gone, but he's left Jesse and I with a terrific gift that we could never repay. I'm not saying that his death is a good thing. I miss him too much for that. What I am saying is this, that God is making my life verse true yet again. Romans 8:28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. God has taken the terrible thing of Johnny's death and worked it for good within my marriage. And I am truly grateful.
City on Our Knees
by TobyMac is a inspiring read for anyone wondering how they can make a difference in the world. TobyMac is well known within the Christian community for his years in the back dc Talk and more recently his time as a solo performer. His recent CD and song, with the same name as the book, inspired him to put together this book filled with anecdotes and quotes about stepping up and making your life matter. The stories range from centuries old tales of revival and the power of prayer to recent stories of children starting charities or miracle rescues. The chapters are titled by lines from the song with stories relating to that theme in each. TobyMac also heads each chapter with a "blog" giving the reader an taste of the ideas within. I loved the many quotes from Scripture and famous theologians that give depth to the chapters and spent much of my time reading with my journal nearby so I could jot many of them down. The book is truly inspiring and gave me an answer to a question I had asked the Lord. Who knows how it will touch you?Thank you to Bethany House for providing me with a copy of this book for review!
Today's pic is Mia's entry into the elementary school's annual pumpkin decorating contest. She made it with her dad and grandparents. It's a dragon guarding her egg. You can see the head next to Mia's cheek.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Little Shepherd
Thank you to the author for providing me with a copy of this book for review!
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
While We're Far Apart
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Along with reading, two of Lynn's lifelong passions are history and archaeology. While researching her Biblical fiction series, Chronicles of the Kings, these two interests led her to pursue graduate studies in Biblical Backgrounds and Archaeology through Southwestern Theological Seminary. She and her son traveled to Israel during the summer of 1989 to take part in an archaeological dig at the ancient city of Timnah. This experience contributed to the inspiration for her novel Wings of Refuge.
Lynn resigned from teaching to write full-time in 1992. Since then she has published twelve novels. Five of her historical novels, Hidden Places, Candle in the Darkness, Fire by Night, A Proper Pursuit, and Until We Reach Home have won Christy Awards in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2008, and 2009 for excellence in Christian Fiction. Fire by Night was also one of only five inspirational fiction books chosen by Library Journal for their top picks of 2003, and All She Ever Wanted was chosen as one of the five inspirational top picks of 2005. Lynn's novel Hidden Places has been made into a movie for the Hallmark Channel, starring actress Shirley Jones. Ms Jones received a 2006 Emmy Award nomination for her portrayal of Aunt Batty in the film.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Penny Goodrich has been in love with Eddie Shaffer for as long as she can remember; now that Eddie's wife is dead, Penny feels she has been given a second chance and offers to care for his children in the hope that he will finally notice her and marry her after the war.
And elderly Mr. Mendel, the landlord, waits for the war to end to hear what has happened to his son trapped in war-torn Hungary. But during the long, endless wait for victory overseas, life on the home front will go from bad to worse.
Yet these characters will find themselves growing and changing in ways they never expected--and ultimately discovering truths about God's love...even when He is silent.
If you would like to read the first chapter of While We're Far Apart, go HERE.
While We're Far Apart
by Lynn Austin is another stunning historical novel in the author's oeuvre. Eddie Shaffer has enlisted in the military to escape the constant reminders of his late wife Rachel in their apartment, much to his two children's: Esther, 12 and Peter 9, dismay. Penny Goodrich has been in love with Eddie since they were children so she jumps at the opportunity to care for his children while he is gone in hopes that he will finally fall for her. Esther is angry at Penny's interference, and Peter stops talking with Eddie's departure. But Penny begins to flourish outside of her parents' suffocating guilt and attacks on her self-esteem, but her new job leads her to information that shatters her sense of identity. Austin is the premier historical fiction writer in Christian fiction today. Her novels are filled with three dimensional characters in poignant plots that bring history to life. Her writing is always insightful and the stories compelling as well as faith-filled.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
It's Your Call
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Today's Wild Card author is:
and the book:
David C. Cook; New edition (October 1, 2010)
***Special thanks to Audra Jennings, Senior Media Specialist, The B&B Media Group for sending me a review copy.***ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Gary Barkalow has served the last seven years as part of the leadership team with Ransomed Heart Ministries and recently began a new ministry, The Noble Heart, helping men and women understand their calling. He has previously served as the director of Legislative and Cultural Affairs and director of Staff Development with Focus on the Family and as vice president of Athletes in Action, the athletic branch of Campus Crusade for Christ. Gary and his wife, Leigh, reside in Colorado Springs with their four children.Visit the author's website.
Product Details:
List Price: $14.99
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: David C. Cook; New edition (October 1, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1434764397
ISBN-13: 978-1434764393
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
The Weightiness of Your Life
Calling is the most comprehensive reorientation and the most profound motivation in human experience.
—Os Guinness
The truth is, I was jealous.
I was watching a nature show about lions in Africa. It was an amazing production following a lion’s life from birth through adulthood. I watched the lion as a cub rolling in the grass, wrestling with his siblings, pouncing on his father, being groomed by his mother. As the cub got older, I watched him on his initial hunts—finding some success but mostly failure. In later life, he found a mate and had his own cubs. His days consisted of guiltlessly resting in the shade in the heat of the day, confidently hunting for food, and valiantly defending his family from predators. Something about the simple clarity of his life and his sense of “being”—untouched by the nagging questions of “who am I?” and “what should I be doing with my life?”—stirred something along the lines of jealousy in me. It wasn’t necessarily a simple life I wanted, but rather his simple clarity. He was just being what he was … a lion.
Can you relate to my jealousy? You know you’re created to be something, to do something, to contribute something, but it’s so hard to figure out what that something is.
In C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia we read of a great prince imprisoned by a witch’s sorcery. Under her spell, Prince Rilian would lose all recollection of who he was and where he came from—“While I was enchanted I could not remember my true self.”1 During his brief moments of clarity (though the witch told him that those moments were actually times of insanity), the prince would be involuntarily bound to a chair until he would come back into his “right mind,” which he later described as a “heavy, tangled, cold, clammy web of evil magic.”2
I believe this is how life feels for most of us; we’re lost in a fog of confusion and dullness with only brief moments of clarity and desire that seem so hard to hold on to. And when we are able to capture those moments that have a ring of authenticity about them, we quickly start to doubt their legitimacy. Could we be under some web of evil magic? Some spell?
We live in a time that is brutal on a person’s search for purpose or place in the world. The world of science tells us (with a voice of reason and certainty) that, whatever we feel—be it pleasure, despair, anger, lightness, heaviness, or even a sense of meaning—these emotions are just a series of chemical reactions in our brain to some outside stimuli. Beauty, purpose, meaning, romance, pleasure, and even God are nothing more than by-products of chemical reactions. Science tells us there is no meaning or transcendent purpose in life, only the random reaction of one thing to another. As philosopher and Nobel Prize winner Henri Bergson believed,
Since the Renaissance, modern science has gradually extended its causal explanations to one phenomenon after another, psychological and biological as well as the purely physical, accounting even for life and consciousness in purely physical or chemical terms. Creative novelty, human purpose, and
freedom have often been disregarded.3
Then we have society, largely encountered through laws and media, which tells us that any sense of purpose or meaning outside the realm of economic or scientific advancement is unhelpful and dangerous. Laws portray society’s desire to separate faith from any type of cultural influence. And most movies, TV shows, and news reports show religious conviction as ignorant and the source of hatred, suffering, and war—or, at best, ineffective for positively changing the world.
And what about the church? In the past, the church held an elitist view of people and their callings, where only a few were chosen to do something sacred. These select few could be easily recognized by their religious title, position, or clothing. If you did not have the desire or opportunity to do something within the church, your life’s work was not of eternal consequence. Your expected position in life was simply to subject yourself to the church’s teaching and direction, with your highest goal being to live a moral life and to support the church’s vision and institutions. But I want to state clearly: There is no “elite” group in the body of Christ.
More recently the church has adopted a utilitarian view of man, focusing on usefulness. There is much to be done for the kingdom of God, so we need to be a servant, to be dutiful, to do whatever needs to be done. And thus the commonly heard expression: “I just want to be used by God.” When you attach this phrase to another relationship such as a friend or pastor, or a situation such as a work environment or marriage, something surfaces in our hearts revealing how unhealthy or undignified this way of thinking really is. This life on earth and your relationship to God are about so much more than your usefulness.
And lately the church has added on a stewardship view of life, the thought being that God has given us something to contribute to His kingdom work, something by which we will be scrutinized and judged. The unstated goal here is not to get in trouble on our job evaluation. I believe God has instead given us something glorious to bring to this world that has to do with joy and intimacy with Him, not a forthcoming job evaluation.
Everybody’s Question
Several years ago I ran across an article in USA Today in which adults were surveyed as to what they “would ask a god or supreme being if they could get a direct and immediate answer.” The largest percentage (34 percent) of adults said they would ask, “What is my purpose in life?” Second (19 percent) and third (16 percent) to that question were, “Will I have life after death?” and “Why do bad things happen?”4
That most commonly asked question is very telling. It demonstrates that we were created for a specific purpose. As C. S. Lewis said, “If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe, and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know that it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning.”5 So the question we are all asking—“Is there a specific purpose or calling for my life?”—is self-answering: YES!
The Barna Research Group concluded a nationwide survey with these words: “One of the most stunning outcomes was that born again Christians and non-Christians were equally likely to be seeking meaning and purpose in life.”6 Barna was also amazed that so many born-again Christians were puzzled as to their purpose in life: “One of the primary values of the Christian faith is to settle the issue of meaning and purpose in life. The Bible endorses people’s individual uniqueness but also provides a clear understanding of the meaning of life—that being to know, love and serve God with all of your heart, mind and strength.”7
The question of purpose, meaning, and place is universal to every human heart. The answer that your life does have purpose or meaning is not enough. Instead the answer begs another question, “What specific, irreplaceable purpose does my life play?” Coming to faith does not settle the issue of meaning and purpose in life. As Pulitzer Prize winner Russell Baker said,
There is a hunger in us…for assurance that our lives have not been merely successful, but valuable—that
we have accomplished something grander than just another well-heeled [well-off], loudly publicized
journey from the diaper to the shroud. In short, that our lives have been consequential.8
The truth is that we are here to do something, a contribution that only each one of us can make. There is an outcome that hinges on us and therefore a fear that we might miss it—our moment, our part, our potential, our purpose, and our life. This is not some peculiar fear experienced only by a certain generation or culture or religion. I believe it is a fear born out of a desire written on every human heart, a desire for meaning, to know that my existence matters to someone and something. In short, that I’m good for something.
The hunger or desire to find and live the life that we have been given, to live a life that is consequential, is good and noble. Scripture says, “[God] will give eternal life to those who keep on doing good, seeking after the glory and honor and immortality that God offers. But he will pour out his anger and wrath on those who live for themselves, who refuse to obey the truth and instead live lives of wickedness” (Rom. 2:7–8 NLT). There is a life of glory, honor, and immortality that God offers and that we are meant to seek. But it will take God’s help for us to find and live the life we were created to live.
Now with God’s help I shall become myself.
—Søren Kierkegaard
Too Easy, Too Hard
We have been raised in the modern scientific era, where our culture has tried to reduce life down to its essence, to a fundamental formula to explain and replicate everything. This is as true for calling as it is for health, finances, relationships, and parenting. As a result, most of us settle for describing our personality or “strengths” in terms of letters like “High D” or “ISTJ” or as an animal like “Golden Retriever.”
As is often the case, this has spilled over into the church. We can now state our spiritual gift(s) because we’ve used an assessment tool or been given a prophetic word by someone “in the know.” It all seems so authoritative and affirming. But as many of us have discovered our “passions,” we’ve realized an absence of joy. We experience a sense of guilt for feeling so little about the list of what the “truly spiritual” should care most deeply about. It all just feels so foggy. If it’s really so easy to find our calling or purpose, why does it feel so hard? Why don’t these methods work, really work?
The Myth of Understanding
Unfortunately, we have equated understanding with attainment. In the academic world, you learn the required material and attain your degree. But life is not always academic; it’s often much deeper. Understanding the components of a good marriage does not make one. Understanding the principles of money management does not keep you out of debt. Understanding the techniques of a good golf swing does not get you closer to the green. Understanding the practices of healthy living does not keep you healthy. In the same way, understanding your complexities or propensities will not necessarily usher you into a meaningful, purposeful life.
There is a depth—what I call a weightiness—to your life that cannot be released or entered into by way of testing, analysis, goal setting, or determination. Understanding alone, or as the primary approach, cannot do the job. Have you found this to be true? Have you tried some of the tests, indicators, surveys, formulas, and processes that have been offered in the last several decades, but here you are, reading yet another book, hoping for some meaningful clarity and purposeful movement toward your calling in life?
Most of the various twentysomethings I have met with over the years have been disheartened, if not immobilized, by the expectation that after graduation they should know exactly who they are and what place they have in this world. Some have been assaulted with Luke 12:48: “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” Fearfully, shamefully not knowing who they are or what is being required of them, these beautiful young people take on the life scripts that others have handed them, defining what they should do and how they should live their lives. A friend moved to Washington DC to take a public policy job on the recommendation of an older man because the man spoke with a confidence and excitement about what my friend could accomplish for the kingdom of God. The job and the environment literally almost took my friend’s life—emotionally, relationally, and spiritually.
Or, like a hiker lost in the wilderness with a GPS unit, there are those of us a little older who’ve attempted to find our place in life using the coordinates of salary, position, and advancement. After several years in the military in a rather prestigious job, Ted felt that something needed to change vocationally. Having retired, he then felt pressure to quickly find the “right place” for the next season of his life. However, having little knowledge of who he truly was, even though he had been given a great deal of personal assessment (outplacement) data, he had no idea in what direction he should go. Ted accepted a position with a large international company that offered him a fast-track program to a top position with a high salary. After years of relocating from one city to another, doing work he did not enjoy or value, Ted resigned and once again sought to find the “right place” that would lead to the fulfillment of his calling in life. He realized that he was searching for guidance using the wrong coordinates.
When Jesus referred to something being “given” (Luke 12:48) to us, was He referring simply to assets? Assets like education, training, money, possessions, skills, and influence—things that for the most part can be acquired? Or could He have been referring to something much deeper, something more weighty, that God offers us?
Misleading Coordinates
Years ago I took my kids out camping in a part of the Colorado wilderness. One morning we set out to reach a high point that we could see from our campsite. After an hour or so of hiking and climbing we reached the summit and took in the spectacular vistas. Then, before starting back, we visually located our campsite and identified several landmarks to guide us back on our descent. What I did not realize at the time was that the rock outcroppings I was using as markers were inadequate for guiding us to our destination. Though they were part of the landscape, they were not specific enough to our campsite. Walking toward these markers actually distanced us from our destination.
In the same way, there have been two misleading ideas by which people have tried to navigate, ideas that have taken them off course in the pursuit of their calling. The first is that your calling or purpose is to find the right job (paid) or position (unpaid). This idea is treacherous for a couple of reasons. For one, this puts your calling in the hands of another (i.e., some level of corporate, church, or nonprofit leadership). Over my years of working in the nonprofit ministry realm, I have had many individuals tell me they were called to a position in my area. In other words, I was the gatekeeper to the fulfillment of their purpose in life. Now if I had the power to give them their calling by offering them a job, then it was just as true that I had the power to take it away. How can something be required or asked of you that you do not have influence over? Your calling or purpose is not determined by the mood or opinions of those in authority, or by the job market, or by the current economic situation. I have heard too many people use these circumstances as excuses for living small, unfulfilled lives.
Your calling cannot be fully contained and fulfilled by a job or position. How could the weight of your life be defined by a list of functions or tasks? In almost all jobs, after a while you kind of “get the job down” to the point that you can do it without thinking, most often halfheartedly. The purpose or calling of your life will require all of you—a wholeheartedness.
While I was managing a gymnastic center in Southern California, I had a locksmith come in to fix one of the doors. Halfway through his repair work I asked him if he enjoyed his work. He said, “No, I could train a monkey to do what I do.” He hated the fact that his job really didn’t require much of him, at least not anymore. It wasn’t lost on me that a locksmith, someone usually with “the keys,” had come to a place of complaining, discontentment, a loss of creativity, and distraction (always looking elsewhere). He was locked out of the life he wanted to live—which is where many of us end up living.
Second, if finding your calling is tied to finding the right job or position, your calling would be limited to the extent of that work. In a typical job, your life’s purpose would be limited to forty hours a week.
Or if you believed your calling was to a position such as a Sunday school teacher, your calling would be limited to perhaps one hour a week. What do you do then with your life’s purpose the remaining hours of the week? Does your life not count during those “off” hours? Is your life split somewhere between the mundane and the sacred?
While some have been misdirected by the idea that finding their calling is finding the right job, others have been sidelined by the belief that their calling is to be like Jesus. After all, the Bible says, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son” (Rom. 8:29). Just what exactly does it mean to be like Jesus? For many people, being like Jesus is simply being moral. Is that all Jesus was—moral? Was that the purpose of His life on earth? There was far more to Jesus’ life than being sinless. Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). Jesus came with a mission, a purpose—to bring life to others. In His first public statement about the mission of His life, He read from Isaiah 61: “He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for
the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.… [And they will become] oaks of righteousness … for the display of his splendor” (vv. 1, 3). Jesus’ life, as well as yours, is not about the absence of something (sin), but rather the presence of something (a splendor or weightiness).
So are we to be like Jesus? Absolutely! But His morality is not to be our goal. As the apostle Paul said, “I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me” (Phil. 3:12 NLT). Jesus was a man of purpose and passion, and we are to be transformed into His image: “God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored” (Rom 8:29 MSG). Your calling is much more than moral behavior.
Sagely Perspective
Counselor and author Richard Leider asked senior citizens over a twenty-five-year span how they would live their lives differently. Across the board, the older adults say the same things:
First, they say that if they could live their lives over again, they would be more reflective. They got so caught up in the doing … that they lost sight of the meaning.… Second, they would take more risks.… Almost all of them said that they felt most alive when they took risks.… Third … they would understand what really gave them fulfillment … doing something that contributes to life, adding value to life beyond yourself.9
These responses remind me of Moses’ prayer: “Teach us how short our lives really are so that we may be wise” (Ps. 90:12 NCV).
Reflection
There is a direction, theme, purpose, and orchestration to our lives that we must recognize and understand if we are to discern the lives we were created to live. It is important that we periodically disengage from our daily busyness and examine our lives. If we are to truly “see” and “hear” our lives, we must get away from all the ambient light and noise, as we would if we were seriously studying the stars.
Oswald Chambers wrote, “Looking back we see the presence of an amazing design, which, if we are born of God, we will credit to God. We can all see God in exceptional things, but it requires the culture of spiritual discipline to see God in every detail. Never allow that the haphazard is anything less than God’s appointed order, and be ready to discover the Divine designs anywhere.”10
We must cultivate the spiritual discipline of reflection, seeing God’s choreography in our lives.
Risk
We all desire a life that requires something from us, not just our “showing up.” It’s exhilarating to attempt something that is risky, uncertain, and important. I have heard it said that the most spectacular
vistas require traveling the roughest, most dangerous trails. And so it is with our lives—to reach the most beautiful, authentic, fulfilling places in life will require some risk. A life lived in fear is a life half-lived.
Theodore Roosevelt said,
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is no effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive
to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.11
Fulfillment
All of us instinctually want to know that there is meaning to our lives and that we add meaning for those around us—that we are living a life of consequence and transcendence. Elton Trueblood wrote, “A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.” We want to live for something more than ourselves. Meaning and fulfillment are only experienced as our lives, in some way, touch another person. Those who live solely for themselves—their needs, their happiness, their comfort and protection—will suffer a claustrophobia of the heart, the acute discomfort of living in a story far too small. A person’s heart is as large as the things he loves.
So, possessing a calling (a weighty purpose in life) is not just for a few—the “elite.” It is the design and destiny of every person. If there was not great meaning to our lives, we would not be asking questions
about our calling. A life of calling is by no means limited to the categories that we have been given: church, missionary, public office, the “professions.” Nor could our calling be fully contained, utilized,
or fulfilled in a job or position. The calling on our lives is as broad, as large, as grand as the story we are living in. The creative scope of our calling is, as Dallas Willard put it, to live as a “co-worker with God in the creative enterprise of life on earth.” Our calling is about something deeper, something more profound and pervasive than any assessment, test, or indicator could ever fully touch or grasp.
I believe most of you reading this are with me so far. But here is where the questions arise: How do I navigate these unfriendly, confusing waters of calling and purpose? What coordinates should I use? How do I become my true self? How do I find my passion and purpose? I want to invite you to come along with me as we walk forward with the intent to live out the answer to the question we’re all asking—what am I doing here?
Calling is the most comprehensive reorientation and the most profound motivation in human experience.
—Os Guinness
The truth is, I was jealous.
I was watching a nature show about lions in Africa. It was an amazing production following a lion’s life from birth through adulthood. I watched the lion as a cub rolling in the grass, wrestling with his siblings, pouncing on his father, being groomed by his mother. As the cub got older, I watched him on his initial hunts—finding some success but mostly failure. In later life, he found a mate and had his own cubs. His days consisted of guiltlessly resting in the shade in the heat of the day, confidently hunting for food, and valiantly defending his family from predators. Something about the simple clarity of his life and his sense of “being”—untouched by the nagging questions of “who am I?” and “what should I be doing with my life?”—stirred something along the lines of jealousy in me. It wasn’t necessarily a simple life I wanted, but rather his simple clarity. He was just being what he was … a lion.
Can you relate to my jealousy? You know you’re created to be something, to do something, to contribute something, but it’s so hard to figure out what that something is.
In C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia we read of a great prince imprisoned by a witch’s sorcery. Under her spell, Prince Rilian would lose all recollection of who he was and where he came from—“While I was enchanted I could not remember my true self.”1 During his brief moments of clarity (though the witch told him that those moments were actually times of insanity), the prince would be involuntarily bound to a chair until he would come back into his “right mind,” which he later described as a “heavy, tangled, cold, clammy web of evil magic.”2
I believe this is how life feels for most of us; we’re lost in a fog of confusion and dullness with only brief moments of clarity and desire that seem so hard to hold on to. And when we are able to capture those moments that have a ring of authenticity about them, we quickly start to doubt their legitimacy. Could we be under some web of evil magic? Some spell?
We live in a time that is brutal on a person’s search for purpose or place in the world. The world of science tells us (with a voice of reason and certainty) that, whatever we feel—be it pleasure, despair, anger, lightness, heaviness, or even a sense of meaning—these emotions are just a series of chemical reactions in our brain to some outside stimuli. Beauty, purpose, meaning, romance, pleasure, and even God are nothing more than by-products of chemical reactions. Science tells us there is no meaning or transcendent purpose in life, only the random reaction of one thing to another. As philosopher and Nobel Prize winner Henri Bergson believed,
Since the Renaissance, modern science has gradually extended its causal explanations to one phenomenon after another, psychological and biological as well as the purely physical, accounting even for life and consciousness in purely physical or chemical terms. Creative novelty, human purpose, and
freedom have often been disregarded.3
Then we have society, largely encountered through laws and media, which tells us that any sense of purpose or meaning outside the realm of economic or scientific advancement is unhelpful and dangerous. Laws portray society’s desire to separate faith from any type of cultural influence. And most movies, TV shows, and news reports show religious conviction as ignorant and the source of hatred, suffering, and war—or, at best, ineffective for positively changing the world.
And what about the church? In the past, the church held an elitist view of people and their callings, where only a few were chosen to do something sacred. These select few could be easily recognized by their religious title, position, or clothing. If you did not have the desire or opportunity to do something within the church, your life’s work was not of eternal consequence. Your expected position in life was simply to subject yourself to the church’s teaching and direction, with your highest goal being to live a moral life and to support the church’s vision and institutions. But I want to state clearly: There is no “elite” group in the body of Christ.
More recently the church has adopted a utilitarian view of man, focusing on usefulness. There is much to be done for the kingdom of God, so we need to be a servant, to be dutiful, to do whatever needs to be done. And thus the commonly heard expression: “I just want to be used by God.” When you attach this phrase to another relationship such as a friend or pastor, or a situation such as a work environment or marriage, something surfaces in our hearts revealing how unhealthy or undignified this way of thinking really is. This life on earth and your relationship to God are about so much more than your usefulness.
And lately the church has added on a stewardship view of life, the thought being that God has given us something to contribute to His kingdom work, something by which we will be scrutinized and judged. The unstated goal here is not to get in trouble on our job evaluation. I believe God has instead given us something glorious to bring to this world that has to do with joy and intimacy with Him, not a forthcoming job evaluation.
Everybody’s Question
Several years ago I ran across an article in USA Today in which adults were surveyed as to what they “would ask a god or supreme being if they could get a direct and immediate answer.” The largest percentage (34 percent) of adults said they would ask, “What is my purpose in life?” Second (19 percent) and third (16 percent) to that question were, “Will I have life after death?” and “Why do bad things happen?”4
That most commonly asked question is very telling. It demonstrates that we were created for a specific purpose. As C. S. Lewis said, “If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe, and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know that it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning.”5 So the question we are all asking—“Is there a specific purpose or calling for my life?”—is self-answering: YES!
The Barna Research Group concluded a nationwide survey with these words: “One of the most stunning outcomes was that born again Christians and non-Christians were equally likely to be seeking meaning and purpose in life.”6 Barna was also amazed that so many born-again Christians were puzzled as to their purpose in life: “One of the primary values of the Christian faith is to settle the issue of meaning and purpose in life. The Bible endorses people’s individual uniqueness but also provides a clear understanding of the meaning of life—that being to know, love and serve God with all of your heart, mind and strength.”7
The question of purpose, meaning, and place is universal to every human heart. The answer that your life does have purpose or meaning is not enough. Instead the answer begs another question, “What specific, irreplaceable purpose does my life play?” Coming to faith does not settle the issue of meaning and purpose in life. As Pulitzer Prize winner Russell Baker said,
There is a hunger in us…for assurance that our lives have not been merely successful, but valuable—that
we have accomplished something grander than just another well-heeled [well-off], loudly publicized
journey from the diaper to the shroud. In short, that our lives have been consequential.8
The truth is that we are here to do something, a contribution that only each one of us can make. There is an outcome that hinges on us and therefore a fear that we might miss it—our moment, our part, our potential, our purpose, and our life. This is not some peculiar fear experienced only by a certain generation or culture or religion. I believe it is a fear born out of a desire written on every human heart, a desire for meaning, to know that my existence matters to someone and something. In short, that I’m good for something.
The hunger or desire to find and live the life that we have been given, to live a life that is consequential, is good and noble. Scripture says, “[God] will give eternal life to those who keep on doing good, seeking after the glory and honor and immortality that God offers. But he will pour out his anger and wrath on those who live for themselves, who refuse to obey the truth and instead live lives of wickedness” (Rom. 2:7–8 NLT). There is a life of glory, honor, and immortality that God offers and that we are meant to seek. But it will take God’s help for us to find and live the life we were created to live.
Now with God’s help I shall become myself.
—Søren Kierkegaard
Too Easy, Too Hard
We have been raised in the modern scientific era, where our culture has tried to reduce life down to its essence, to a fundamental formula to explain and replicate everything. This is as true for calling as it is for health, finances, relationships, and parenting. As a result, most of us settle for describing our personality or “strengths” in terms of letters like “High D” or “ISTJ” or as an animal like “Golden Retriever.”
As is often the case, this has spilled over into the church. We can now state our spiritual gift(s) because we’ve used an assessment tool or been given a prophetic word by someone “in the know.” It all seems so authoritative and affirming. But as many of us have discovered our “passions,” we’ve realized an absence of joy. We experience a sense of guilt for feeling so little about the list of what the “truly spiritual” should care most deeply about. It all just feels so foggy. If it’s really so easy to find our calling or purpose, why does it feel so hard? Why don’t these methods work, really work?
The Myth of Understanding
Unfortunately, we have equated understanding with attainment. In the academic world, you learn the required material and attain your degree. But life is not always academic; it’s often much deeper. Understanding the components of a good marriage does not make one. Understanding the principles of money management does not keep you out of debt. Understanding the techniques of a good golf swing does not get you closer to the green. Understanding the practices of healthy living does not keep you healthy. In the same way, understanding your complexities or propensities will not necessarily usher you into a meaningful, purposeful life.
There is a depth—what I call a weightiness—to your life that cannot be released or entered into by way of testing, analysis, goal setting, or determination. Understanding alone, or as the primary approach, cannot do the job. Have you found this to be true? Have you tried some of the tests, indicators, surveys, formulas, and processes that have been offered in the last several decades, but here you are, reading yet another book, hoping for some meaningful clarity and purposeful movement toward your calling in life?
Most of the various twentysomethings I have met with over the years have been disheartened, if not immobilized, by the expectation that after graduation they should know exactly who they are and what place they have in this world. Some have been assaulted with Luke 12:48: “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” Fearfully, shamefully not knowing who they are or what is being required of them, these beautiful young people take on the life scripts that others have handed them, defining what they should do and how they should live their lives. A friend moved to Washington DC to take a public policy job on the recommendation of an older man because the man spoke with a confidence and excitement about what my friend could accomplish for the kingdom of God. The job and the environment literally almost took my friend’s life—emotionally, relationally, and spiritually.
Or, like a hiker lost in the wilderness with a GPS unit, there are those of us a little older who’ve attempted to find our place in life using the coordinates of salary, position, and advancement. After several years in the military in a rather prestigious job, Ted felt that something needed to change vocationally. Having retired, he then felt pressure to quickly find the “right place” for the next season of his life. However, having little knowledge of who he truly was, even though he had been given a great deal of personal assessment (outplacement) data, he had no idea in what direction he should go. Ted accepted a position with a large international company that offered him a fast-track program to a top position with a high salary. After years of relocating from one city to another, doing work he did not enjoy or value, Ted resigned and once again sought to find the “right place” that would lead to the fulfillment of his calling in life. He realized that he was searching for guidance using the wrong coordinates.
When Jesus referred to something being “given” (Luke 12:48) to us, was He referring simply to assets? Assets like education, training, money, possessions, skills, and influence—things that for the most part can be acquired? Or could He have been referring to something much deeper, something more weighty, that God offers us?
Misleading Coordinates
Years ago I took my kids out camping in a part of the Colorado wilderness. One morning we set out to reach a high point that we could see from our campsite. After an hour or so of hiking and climbing we reached the summit and took in the spectacular vistas. Then, before starting back, we visually located our campsite and identified several landmarks to guide us back on our descent. What I did not realize at the time was that the rock outcroppings I was using as markers were inadequate for guiding us to our destination. Though they were part of the landscape, they were not specific enough to our campsite. Walking toward these markers actually distanced us from our destination.
In the same way, there have been two misleading ideas by which people have tried to navigate, ideas that have taken them off course in the pursuit of their calling. The first is that your calling or purpose is to find the right job (paid) or position (unpaid). This idea is treacherous for a couple of reasons. For one, this puts your calling in the hands of another (i.e., some level of corporate, church, or nonprofit leadership). Over my years of working in the nonprofit ministry realm, I have had many individuals tell me they were called to a position in my area. In other words, I was the gatekeeper to the fulfillment of their purpose in life. Now if I had the power to give them their calling by offering them a job, then it was just as true that I had the power to take it away. How can something be required or asked of you that you do not have influence over? Your calling or purpose is not determined by the mood or opinions of those in authority, or by the job market, or by the current economic situation. I have heard too many people use these circumstances as excuses for living small, unfulfilled lives.
Your calling cannot be fully contained and fulfilled by a job or position. How could the weight of your life be defined by a list of functions or tasks? In almost all jobs, after a while you kind of “get the job down” to the point that you can do it without thinking, most often halfheartedly. The purpose or calling of your life will require all of you—a wholeheartedness.
While I was managing a gymnastic center in Southern California, I had a locksmith come in to fix one of the doors. Halfway through his repair work I asked him if he enjoyed his work. He said, “No, I could train a monkey to do what I do.” He hated the fact that his job really didn’t require much of him, at least not anymore. It wasn’t lost on me that a locksmith, someone usually with “the keys,” had come to a place of complaining, discontentment, a loss of creativity, and distraction (always looking elsewhere). He was locked out of the life he wanted to live—which is where many of us end up living.
Second, if finding your calling is tied to finding the right job or position, your calling would be limited to the extent of that work. In a typical job, your life’s purpose would be limited to forty hours a week.
Or if you believed your calling was to a position such as a Sunday school teacher, your calling would be limited to perhaps one hour a week. What do you do then with your life’s purpose the remaining hours of the week? Does your life not count during those “off” hours? Is your life split somewhere between the mundane and the sacred?
While some have been misdirected by the idea that finding their calling is finding the right job, others have been sidelined by the belief that their calling is to be like Jesus. After all, the Bible says, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son” (Rom. 8:29). Just what exactly does it mean to be like Jesus? For many people, being like Jesus is simply being moral. Is that all Jesus was—moral? Was that the purpose of His life on earth? There was far more to Jesus’ life than being sinless. Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). Jesus came with a mission, a purpose—to bring life to others. In His first public statement about the mission of His life, He read from Isaiah 61: “He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for
the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.… [And they will become] oaks of righteousness … for the display of his splendor” (vv. 1, 3). Jesus’ life, as well as yours, is not about the absence of something (sin), but rather the presence of something (a splendor or weightiness).
So are we to be like Jesus? Absolutely! But His morality is not to be our goal. As the apostle Paul said, “I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me” (Phil. 3:12 NLT). Jesus was a man of purpose and passion, and we are to be transformed into His image: “God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored” (Rom 8:29 MSG). Your calling is much more than moral behavior.
Sagely Perspective
Counselor and author Richard Leider asked senior citizens over a twenty-five-year span how they would live their lives differently. Across the board, the older adults say the same things:
First, they say that if they could live their lives over again, they would be more reflective. They got so caught up in the doing … that they lost sight of the meaning.… Second, they would take more risks.… Almost all of them said that they felt most alive when they took risks.… Third … they would understand what really gave them fulfillment … doing something that contributes to life, adding value to life beyond yourself.9
These responses remind me of Moses’ prayer: “Teach us how short our lives really are so that we may be wise” (Ps. 90:12 NCV).
Reflection
There is a direction, theme, purpose, and orchestration to our lives that we must recognize and understand if we are to discern the lives we were created to live. It is important that we periodically disengage from our daily busyness and examine our lives. If we are to truly “see” and “hear” our lives, we must get away from all the ambient light and noise, as we would if we were seriously studying the stars.
Oswald Chambers wrote, “Looking back we see the presence of an amazing design, which, if we are born of God, we will credit to God. We can all see God in exceptional things, but it requires the culture of spiritual discipline to see God in every detail. Never allow that the haphazard is anything less than God’s appointed order, and be ready to discover the Divine designs anywhere.”10
We must cultivate the spiritual discipline of reflection, seeing God’s choreography in our lives.
Risk
We all desire a life that requires something from us, not just our “showing up.” It’s exhilarating to attempt something that is risky, uncertain, and important. I have heard it said that the most spectacular
vistas require traveling the roughest, most dangerous trails. And so it is with our lives—to reach the most beautiful, authentic, fulfilling places in life will require some risk. A life lived in fear is a life half-lived.
Theodore Roosevelt said,
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is no effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive
to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.11
Fulfillment
All of us instinctually want to know that there is meaning to our lives and that we add meaning for those around us—that we are living a life of consequence and transcendence. Elton Trueblood wrote, “A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.” We want to live for something more than ourselves. Meaning and fulfillment are only experienced as our lives, in some way, touch another person. Those who live solely for themselves—their needs, their happiness, their comfort and protection—will suffer a claustrophobia of the heart, the acute discomfort of living in a story far too small. A person’s heart is as large as the things he loves.
So, possessing a calling (a weighty purpose in life) is not just for a few—the “elite.” It is the design and destiny of every person. If there was not great meaning to our lives, we would not be asking questions
about our calling. A life of calling is by no means limited to the categories that we have been given: church, missionary, public office, the “professions.” Nor could our calling be fully contained, utilized,
or fulfilled in a job or position. The calling on our lives is as broad, as large, as grand as the story we are living in. The creative scope of our calling is, as Dallas Willard put it, to live as a “co-worker with God in the creative enterprise of life on earth.” Our calling is about something deeper, something more profound and pervasive than any assessment, test, or indicator could ever fully touch or grasp.
I believe most of you reading this are with me so far. But here is where the questions arise: How do I navigate these unfriendly, confusing waters of calling and purpose? What coordinates should I use? How do I become my true self? How do I find my passion and purpose? I want to invite you to come along with me as we walk forward with the intent to live out the answer to the question we’re all asking—what am I doing here?
©2010 Cook Communications Ministries. It’s Your Call by Gary Barkalow. Used with permission. May not be further reproduced. All rights reserved.
It's Your Call
by Gary Barkalow is the perfect antidote to every personality test and guide you've ever read. Barkalow writes about his personal quest to determine his calling from God and in the course of this book helps reader to shed the traditional views of a calling. I was thoroughly stunned by this incredibly thoughtful and thought-provoking guide to help readers figure out their purpose in life. I kept a pen and notebook by my side while reading this book. It's filled with so many motivational and inspiring quotes by famous theologians like C.S. Lewis and Victor Frankl, as well as ideas from the author as well. Barkalow disavows the idea that our calling can be our career, role as spouse or parent, or job within the church. He wants readers to dig much deeper and figure out what it is that brings them the most joy and brings glory to God. It's not an easy subject, but Barkalow takes a completely new look at this oft-discussed topic. I enjoyed his intelligent writing and as inspired by his leading. It's a great book!
Monday, October 18, 2010
Catching Moondrops
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Today's Wild Card author is:
and the book:
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. (September 20, 2010)
***Special thanks to Maggie Rowe of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. for sending me a review copy.***ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jennifer Erin Valent is the 2007 winner of the Christian Writers Guild's Operation First Novel contest. A lifelong resident of the South, her surroundings help to color the scenes and characters she writes. In fact, the childhood memory of a dilapidated Ku Klux Klan billboard inspired her portrayal of Depression-era racial prejudice in Fireflies in December. She has spent the past 15 years working as a nanny and has dabbled in freelance, writing articles for various Christian women's magazines. She still resides in her hometown of Richmond, Virginia. Visit the author's website.
Product Details:
List Price: $12.99
Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. (September 20, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1414333277
ISBN-13: 978-1414333274
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
There’s nothing in this whole world like the sight of a man swinging by his neck.
Folks in my parts liked to call it “lynching,” as if by calling it another word they could keep from feeling like murderers. Sometimes when they string a man up, they gather around like vultures looking for the next meal, staring at the cockeyed neck, the sagging limbs, their lips turning up at the corners when they should be turning down. For some people, time has a way of blurring the good and the bad, spitting out that thing called conscience and replacing it with a twisted sort of logic that makes right out of wrong.
Our small town of Calloway, Virginia, had that sort of logic in spades, and after the trouble it had caused my family over the years, I knew that better than most. But the violence had long since faded away, and my best friend Gemma would often tell me that made it okay—her being kept separate from white folks. “Long as my bein’ with your family don’t bring danger down on your heads, I’ll keep my peace and be thankful,” she’d say.
But I didn’t feel so calm about it all as Gemma did. Part of that was my stubborn temperament, but most of it was my intuition. I’d been eyeball to eyeball with pure hate more than once in my eighteen years, and I could smell it, like rotting flesh. Hate is a type of blindness that divides a man from his good sense. I’d seen it in the eyes of a Klansman the day he tried to choke the life out of me and in the eyes of the men who hunted down a dear friend who’d been wrongly accused of murder.
And, at times, I’d caught glimpses of it in my own heart.
The passage of time had done nothing to lessen its stench. And despite the relative peace, I knew full well that hearts poisoned by hateful thinking can only simmer for so long before boiling over.
In May of that year, 1938, that pot started bubbling.
I was on the front porch shucking corn when I saw three colored men turn up our walk, all linked up in a row like the Three Musketeers. I stood up, let the corn silk slip from my apron, and called over my shoulder. “Gemma! Come on out here.”
She must have been nearby because the screen door squealed open almost two seconds after my last words drifted in through the screen. “What is it?”
“Company. Only don’t look too good.” I walked to the top of the steps and shielded my eyes from the sun. “Malachi Jarvis! You got yourself into trouble again?”
The man in the middle, propped up like a scarecrow, lifted his chin wearily but managed to flash a smile that revealed bloodied teeth. “Depends on how you define trouble.”
Gemma gasped at the sight of him and flew down the steps, letting the door slam so loud the porch boards shook. “What in the name of all goodness have you been up to? You got some sort of death wish?”
A man I’d never seen before had his arm wound tightly beneath Malachi’s arms, blood smeared across his shirt front. Malachi’s younger brother, Noah, was on his other side, struggling against the weight, and Gemma came in between them to help.
“He ain’t got the good sense to keep his mouth shut, is all,” Noah said breathlessly.
I went inside to grab Momma’s first aid box, and by the time I got back out, Gemma had Malachi seated in the rocker.
Gemma gave him the once-over and shook her head so hard I thought it might fly off. “I swear, if you ain’t a one to push a body into an early grave. Your poor momma’s gonna lose her ever-lovin’ mind.”
Along with his younger brother and sister, Malachi lived down by the tracks with his widowed momma—as the man of the house, so to speak. He’d taken up being friends with Luke Talley some two years back when they’d both worked for the tobacco plant, and they’d remained close even though Luke had struck out on his own building furniture. Malachi was never one to keep his peace, a fact Gemma had no patience for, and she made it good and clear many a time. Today would be no exception.
“Goin’ around stirrin’ up trouble every which way,” she murmured as she pulled fixings out of the first aid box. “It’s one thing to pick fights with your own kind. Can’t say as though you wouldn’t benefit by a poundin’ or two every now and again. But this foolin’ around with white folks’ll get you into more’n you’re bargainin’ for.”
The man who’d helped Noah shoulder the burden of Malachi reached out to take the gauze from Gemma. “Why don’t you let me get that?”
Gemma didn’t much like being told what to do, and she glared at him. “I can clean up cuts and scrapes. I worked for a doctor past two years.”
Malachi nodded towards the man. “This here man is a doctor.”
I was putting iodine on a piece of cotton, and I near about dropped it on the floor when I heard that. Never in all my born days had I seen a colored man claiming to be a doctor. Neither had Gemma by the looks of her.
“A doctor?” she murmured. “You sure?”
He laughed and extended his hand to her. “Last I checked. Tal Pritchett. Just got into town yesterday. Gonna set up shop down by the tracks.”
Gemma handed the gauze over to him, still dumbfounded.
“What d’you think about that?” Malachi grinned and then grimaced the minute his split lip made its presence known. “A colored doc in Calloway. Shoo-whee. There’s gonna be talkin’ about this!”
The doctor went to work cleaning up Malachi’s wounds. “I ain’t here to start no revolution. I’m just aimin’ to help the colored folks get the help they deserve.”
“Well, you’re goin’ to start a revolution whether you want to or not.” Malachi shut his eyes and gritted his teeth the minute the iodine set to burning. “Folks in these parts don’t much like colored folk settin’ themselves up as smart or nothin’.”
Gemma watched Tal Pritchett like she was analyzing his every move, finding out for herself if he was a doctor or not. I stood by and let her assist him as she’d been accustomed to doing for Doc Mabley until he passed on two months ago. After he’d bandaged up Malachi’s right hand, she seemed satisfied that he was who he said.
Noah slumped down into the other rocker and watched. “It’s one thing to get yourself an education and stand for your right to make somethin’ of yourself. It’s another to go stirrin’ up trouble for the sake of stirrin’ up trouble.”
“I ain’t doin’ it for the sake of stirrin’ up trouble. I done told you that!” Malachi flexed his left hand to test how well his swollen fingers moved. Ain’t no colored man ever goin’ to be free in this here county . . . in this here state . . . in this here world unless somebody starts fightin’ for freedom.”
“Slaves was freed decades ago,” Noah said sharply. “We ain’t in shackles no more.”
“But we ain’t free to live our lives as we choose, neither. You think colored people are ever gonna be more’n house help and field help so long as we let ourselves be treated like less than white people? No sir. We’re less than human to them white folks. They don’t think nothin’ about killin’ so long as who they’re killin’ is colored.”
“Don’t you go bunchin’ all white people together, Malachi Jarvis,” I argued. “Ain’t all white folk got bad feelin’s about coloreds.”
Malachi waved me off in exasperation. “You know I ain’t talkin’ about you, Jessilyn.”
Noah had his hands tightly knotted in his lap and was staring at them like they held all the answers to the world’s problems. “All’s you’re doin’ is gettin’ yourself kicked around.” He looked up at me pleadingly. “This here’s the second time in a week he’s come home banged up.”
I put a hand on Noah’s shoulder and set my eyes on Malachi. “Who did it?”
He put his bandaged right hand into the air, palm up. “Who knows? Some white boys. You get surrounded by enough of ‘em, they all just blend in together like a vanilla milkshake.”
“How’s it you didn’t see them? They jump you or somethin’?”
“Don’t ask me, Jessie. I was just mindin’ my own business in town and then on my way home, they start hasslin’ me.”
“What he was doin’,” Noah corrected, “was tryin’ to get into the whites-only bar.”
Gemma sniffed in disgust. “Shouldn’t have been in no bar in the first place. There’s your first mistake.”
“Whites-only, too.” Noah kicked his foot against the porch rail and then looked up at me quickly. “Sorry.”
I smiled at him and turned my attention back to Malachi. “It’s a good thing Luke ain’t here to see this. He don’t like you drinkin’ and you know it.”
His eyeballs rolled between swollen lids. “I don’t know why he gets his trousers in a knot over it anyhow. Ain’t like there’s prohibition no more. And he’s been known to take a swig or two himself.”
“Luke says you’re a nasty drunk.”
“He is.” Noah knotted his hands back in his lap. “And he’s been at the bottle more often than not of late.”
“Quit tellin’ tales!” his brother barked.
“I ain’t tellin’ tales; I’m tellin’ truth. They can ask anybody at home how late you come in, and how you come in all topsy turvy. He comes home in the middle of the mornin’ and sleeps in till all hours the next day.”
“What about your job at the plant?” Gemma asked.
Malachi closed his eyes and waved her off, but his brother provided the answer for him. “Lost it!” He loosened his grip on his hands and snapped his fingers. “Like that. There’s goes his income.”
“I said I’ll get another job.”
“Oh, like there’s jobs aplenty around these parts for colored folk. And anyways, if you find one, how you gonna’ keep that one?”
Gemma had her hands on her hips, and I knew what that meant. I leaned back against the house and waited for the lecture to commence.
“You talk a fine talk about colored folks needin’ to stand up for equality, but you ain’t doin’ it in any way that’s right and good. You’re goin’ about town gettin’ people’s goat, and tryin’ to get in where you ain’t wanted, and gettin’ yourself all liquored up and useless. Now your family ain’t got the money they depend on you for, and why? Because you walk around livin’ like you ain’t got to do nothin’ for nobody but yourself.”
“I’m standin’ up for the rights of colored folks everywhere.” Malachi was angry now, pink patches spreading on his busted-up cheeks. “You see anyone else in this town willin’ to go toe to toe with the white boys in this county?”
“Don’t put a noble face on bein’ an upstart.”
Malachi pushed Tal’s hand away and sat up tall. “You call standin’ up to white folks bein’ an upstart?”
Doc Pritchett tried to dress the wound on Malachi’s temple, but Malachi pushed his hand away again. That was when the doctor had enough, and he smacked his hands on his thighs and stood up tall and determined in front of Malachi. “I ain’t Abraham Lincoln. I’m just Doc Pritchett tryin’ to fix up an ornery patient, and I ain’t got all day to do it. So I’m goin’ to settle this argument once and for all.” He pointed at Gemma. “She’s right. There ain’t no fightin’ nonsense with more nonsense, and all’s you’re doin’ by gettin’ in the faces of white folks with your smart attitude is bein’ as bad as they’re bein’.” Then he pointed at Malachi. “And he’s right, too. There ain’t never a change brought about that should be brought about without people standin’ up for such change. And sometimes that means bein’ willin’ to fight for what’s right.”
Gemma swallowed hard and didn’t even try to argue. My eyes must have bugged out of my head at the sight of her being tamed so easily.
“Now, I’m all for civil uprisin’,” Tal continued. “I don’t see nothin’ wrong with colored folk sayin’ they won’t be walked on no more. I don’t see nothin’ wrong with wantin’ to use the same bathroom as white folks or sit in the same chairs as white folks. Way I see it, none of that’s goin’ to change unless someone says it has to.” He squatted down in front of Malachi again and stared him down nose to nose. “But all this hot-shottin’ and show-boatin’ ain’t goin’ to do nothin’ but get your rear end kicked. Or worse. You aim to stand tall for somethin’? Fine. Stand tall for it. But don’t you go around thinkin’ these battle scars say somethin’ for you. You ain’t got them by bein’ noble; you got them by bein’ stupid. All’s these scars say is you’re an idiot.”
It was one of the best speeches I’d heard from anyone outside my daddy, and if I’d ever thought for two seconds put together to see a colored man run for governor, I figured Tal Pritchett would be the man for the job. As it was, I knew he was the best man for the job he had now. Sure enough, being a colored doc in Calloway would be a challenge. But I figured he was up for it.
Regardless, he shut Malachi up, and for the next five minutes we all watched him finish his job with skill and finesse. When he’d fixed the last of Malachi’s face, he stood up and clapped his hands. “Suppose that should do it. Don’t see need for any stitchin’ up today. Let’s hope there’s no cause for it in future.” Then he looked at me. “You got someplace out here where I can wash up?”
I held my hand out toward the front door. “Bathroom’s upstairs.”
He hesitated. “I’d just as soon wash up out here.”
I caught the reason for his hesitation but didn’t know what to say. As usual, Gemma did.
“I done lived in this here house for six years now, and I’m just as brown as you. You can feel free to go on up to the bathroom, you hear?”
He looked from Gemma to me, then back to Gemma before nodding. “Yes’m.” And then he disappeared inside.
“Ma’am,” Gemma muttered under her breath. “Ain’t old enough to be called ma’am, least of all by a man no more’n a few years older’n me.”
“You know what happens once you start gettin’ them crows feet . . .”
Gemma whirled about and gave Malachi the evil eye. “Don’t go thinkin’ I won’t hurt you just because you’re all bandaged up.”
Noah got up and paced the porch until Tal came back outside. “Doc, you have any problem gettin’ your schoolin’?”
Tal shrugged and leaned against the porch rail. “No more’n most, I guess. There’s a lot to learn. Why? You thinkin’ about goin’ to college?”
You could have heard a pin drop on that front porch. Never, and I mean never, in all the days Calloway had been on the map, had there ever been a single person, white or black, to step foot at a college. The very idea of that mark being made by a colored boy was a surefire way to start war.
And Noah knew it.
He looked at his feet and kicked the heel of one shoe against the toe of another. “Ain’t possible. I was just wonderin’ aloud, is all.”
“What do you mean it ain’t possible? All’s you’ve got to do is work hard. You can get scholarships and things.”
But Noah took a look at his brother, whose face was hard and tight-lipped, and nodded off toward the road. “Nah, there ain’t no use talkin’ over it. We’d best get home anyhow.”
Tal didn’t push the subject. He just picked his hat up off the porch swing and plopped it on his head. “Miss Jessie. Miss Gemma. It was a fine pleasure to meet you, and a kindness for you to give us a hand.”
“You should stop by sometime and meet my parents,” I said. “They’re off visitin’, but I’m sure they’d be right happy to know you.”
“I’m sure I’d be right happy to know them, too.” He turned his attention to Gemma. “You said you worked for a doctor?”
“I worked for Doc Mabley. He was a white doctor. Died some two months ago.”
“He let you assist?”
“Only with the colored patients. Doc Mabley was kind enough to help some of them out when they needed it. Otherwise I kept his records, kept up his stock.”
“Well, I’ll tell you, Miss Gemma, I could sure use some help if you’d be obliged. An assistant would be a good set of extra hands, and I could use someone known around here to make my introductions.”
Gemma eyed him up before slowly nodding her head. “Reckon I could.”
“Wouldn’t be much pay, now, you know. Ain’t likely to get much in the way of fees from the patients I’ll be treatin’.”
“Don’t matter so long as I have good work to put my hands to.”
“That it would be. My office is right across the street from the Jarvis house.”
Malachi snorted. “Shack’s more like it.”
“Room enough for me,” Tal said. Then to Gemma, “You think you could stop in sometime this week to talk it over?”
“I can come day after tomorrow if that suits.”
“Nine o’clock too early?”
“No, sir! I’ve kept farm hours all my life.”
He grinned at her. “Nine o’clock then?”
“Nine o’clock.”
Malachi watched the two of them with his swollen eyes, a look of disgust growing more evident on his face. He’d made no secret over the past year about his admiration for Gemma, and the unmistakable attraction that was growing between her and Tal was clearly turning his stomach.
“Mind if we go home?” he muttered. “Before I fall down dead or somethin’?”
Gemma tore her eyes away from Tal to roll them at Malachi. “Would serve you right if you did.”
“And on that cheery note . . .” Malachi groaned on his way down the steps. “I’ll bid you ladies a fine evenin’.”
I gave Noah a playful whack to the head, but he ducked so it only clipped the top. “Luke will be back home tomorrow evenin’. He’ll be itchin’ to see you, I’m sure.”
“I’m itchin’ to see him.” He took the steps in one leap, tossing dust up when he landed. “You tell him to come on by and see us real soon.”
“And tell him to bring his cards,” Malachi added. “He owes me a poker rematch.”
I squinted at him suspiciously. “Only if you play for beans.”
“I hate beans.”
Malachi leaned on Tal for support and Noah scurried to catch up and help. I watched them go, but I wasn’t thinking much about them. I was thinking about Luke. It had been two months since he’d left to collect customers for his furniture-making business, and every day had seemed like an eternity.
The very thought of him got my stomach butterflies to fluttering, but one look at Gemma told me it was another man who had stolen her attention. “That
Doc Pritchett’s a fine man.” I looked at her sideways with a smirk. “Looks about twenty-five or so.”
“So?”
“Good marryin’ age.”
She crossed her arms defiantly. “Jessilyn Lassiter, what’s that got to do with anythin’?”
“Only what I said. I’m only statin’ fact.”
“Mm-hm. I hear ya. You’d be better off keepin’ your facts to yourself.”
She grabbed the first aid box and headed inside, but the sound of that door slamming told me I’d got to her.
It told me Tal Pritchett had got to her, too.
Folks in my parts liked to call it “lynching,” as if by calling it another word they could keep from feeling like murderers. Sometimes when they string a man up, they gather around like vultures looking for the next meal, staring at the cockeyed neck, the sagging limbs, their lips turning up at the corners when they should be turning down. For some people, time has a way of blurring the good and the bad, spitting out that thing called conscience and replacing it with a twisted sort of logic that makes right out of wrong.
Our small town of Calloway, Virginia, had that sort of logic in spades, and after the trouble it had caused my family over the years, I knew that better than most. But the violence had long since faded away, and my best friend Gemma would often tell me that made it okay—her being kept separate from white folks. “Long as my bein’ with your family don’t bring danger down on your heads, I’ll keep my peace and be thankful,” she’d say.
But I didn’t feel so calm about it all as Gemma did. Part of that was my stubborn temperament, but most of it was my intuition. I’d been eyeball to eyeball with pure hate more than once in my eighteen years, and I could smell it, like rotting flesh. Hate is a type of blindness that divides a man from his good sense. I’d seen it in the eyes of a Klansman the day he tried to choke the life out of me and in the eyes of the men who hunted down a dear friend who’d been wrongly accused of murder.
And, at times, I’d caught glimpses of it in my own heart.
The passage of time had done nothing to lessen its stench. And despite the relative peace, I knew full well that hearts poisoned by hateful thinking can only simmer for so long before boiling over.
In May of that year, 1938, that pot started bubbling.
I was on the front porch shucking corn when I saw three colored men turn up our walk, all linked up in a row like the Three Musketeers. I stood up, let the corn silk slip from my apron, and called over my shoulder. “Gemma! Come on out here.”
She must have been nearby because the screen door squealed open almost two seconds after my last words drifted in through the screen. “What is it?”
“Company. Only don’t look too good.” I walked to the top of the steps and shielded my eyes from the sun. “Malachi Jarvis! You got yourself into trouble again?”
The man in the middle, propped up like a scarecrow, lifted his chin wearily but managed to flash a smile that revealed bloodied teeth. “Depends on how you define trouble.”
Gemma gasped at the sight of him and flew down the steps, letting the door slam so loud the porch boards shook. “What in the name of all goodness have you been up to? You got some sort of death wish?”
A man I’d never seen before had his arm wound tightly beneath Malachi’s arms, blood smeared across his shirt front. Malachi’s younger brother, Noah, was on his other side, struggling against the weight, and Gemma came in between them to help.
“He ain’t got the good sense to keep his mouth shut, is all,” Noah said breathlessly.
I went inside to grab Momma’s first aid box, and by the time I got back out, Gemma had Malachi seated in the rocker.
Gemma gave him the once-over and shook her head so hard I thought it might fly off. “I swear, if you ain’t a one to push a body into an early grave. Your poor momma’s gonna lose her ever-lovin’ mind.”
Along with his younger brother and sister, Malachi lived down by the tracks with his widowed momma—as the man of the house, so to speak. He’d taken up being friends with Luke Talley some two years back when they’d both worked for the tobacco plant, and they’d remained close even though Luke had struck out on his own building furniture. Malachi was never one to keep his peace, a fact Gemma had no patience for, and she made it good and clear many a time. Today would be no exception.
“Goin’ around stirrin’ up trouble every which way,” she murmured as she pulled fixings out of the first aid box. “It’s one thing to pick fights with your own kind. Can’t say as though you wouldn’t benefit by a poundin’ or two every now and again. But this foolin’ around with white folks’ll get you into more’n you’re bargainin’ for.”
The man who’d helped Noah shoulder the burden of Malachi reached out to take the gauze from Gemma. “Why don’t you let me get that?”
Gemma didn’t much like being told what to do, and she glared at him. “I can clean up cuts and scrapes. I worked for a doctor past two years.”
Malachi nodded towards the man. “This here man is a doctor.”
I was putting iodine on a piece of cotton, and I near about dropped it on the floor when I heard that. Never in all my born days had I seen a colored man claiming to be a doctor. Neither had Gemma by the looks of her.
“A doctor?” she murmured. “You sure?”
He laughed and extended his hand to her. “Last I checked. Tal Pritchett. Just got into town yesterday. Gonna set up shop down by the tracks.”
Gemma handed the gauze over to him, still dumbfounded.
“What d’you think about that?” Malachi grinned and then grimaced the minute his split lip made its presence known. “A colored doc in Calloway. Shoo-whee. There’s gonna be talkin’ about this!”
The doctor went to work cleaning up Malachi’s wounds. “I ain’t here to start no revolution. I’m just aimin’ to help the colored folks get the help they deserve.”
“Well, you’re goin’ to start a revolution whether you want to or not.” Malachi shut his eyes and gritted his teeth the minute the iodine set to burning. “Folks in these parts don’t much like colored folk settin’ themselves up as smart or nothin’.”
Gemma watched Tal Pritchett like she was analyzing his every move, finding out for herself if he was a doctor or not. I stood by and let her assist him as she’d been accustomed to doing for Doc Mabley until he passed on two months ago. After he’d bandaged up Malachi’s right hand, she seemed satisfied that he was who he said.
Noah slumped down into the other rocker and watched. “It’s one thing to get yourself an education and stand for your right to make somethin’ of yourself. It’s another to go stirrin’ up trouble for the sake of stirrin’ up trouble.”
“I ain’t doin’ it for the sake of stirrin’ up trouble. I done told you that!” Malachi flexed his left hand to test how well his swollen fingers moved. Ain’t no colored man ever goin’ to be free in this here county . . . in this here state . . . in this here world unless somebody starts fightin’ for freedom.”
“Slaves was freed decades ago,” Noah said sharply. “We ain’t in shackles no more.”
“But we ain’t free to live our lives as we choose, neither. You think colored people are ever gonna be more’n house help and field help so long as we let ourselves be treated like less than white people? No sir. We’re less than human to them white folks. They don’t think nothin’ about killin’ so long as who they’re killin’ is colored.”
“Don’t you go bunchin’ all white people together, Malachi Jarvis,” I argued. “Ain’t all white folk got bad feelin’s about coloreds.”
Malachi waved me off in exasperation. “You know I ain’t talkin’ about you, Jessilyn.”
Noah had his hands tightly knotted in his lap and was staring at them like they held all the answers to the world’s problems. “All’s you’re doin’ is gettin’ yourself kicked around.” He looked up at me pleadingly. “This here’s the second time in a week he’s come home banged up.”
I put a hand on Noah’s shoulder and set my eyes on Malachi. “Who did it?”
He put his bandaged right hand into the air, palm up. “Who knows? Some white boys. You get surrounded by enough of ‘em, they all just blend in together like a vanilla milkshake.”
“How’s it you didn’t see them? They jump you or somethin’?”
“Don’t ask me, Jessie. I was just mindin’ my own business in town and then on my way home, they start hasslin’ me.”
“What he was doin’,” Noah corrected, “was tryin’ to get into the whites-only bar.”
Gemma sniffed in disgust. “Shouldn’t have been in no bar in the first place. There’s your first mistake.”
“Whites-only, too.” Noah kicked his foot against the porch rail and then looked up at me quickly. “Sorry.”
I smiled at him and turned my attention back to Malachi. “It’s a good thing Luke ain’t here to see this. He don’t like you drinkin’ and you know it.”
His eyeballs rolled between swollen lids. “I don’t know why he gets his trousers in a knot over it anyhow. Ain’t like there’s prohibition no more. And he’s been known to take a swig or two himself.”
“Luke says you’re a nasty drunk.”
“He is.” Noah knotted his hands back in his lap. “And he’s been at the bottle more often than not of late.”
“Quit tellin’ tales!” his brother barked.
“I ain’t tellin’ tales; I’m tellin’ truth. They can ask anybody at home how late you come in, and how you come in all topsy turvy. He comes home in the middle of the mornin’ and sleeps in till all hours the next day.”
“What about your job at the plant?” Gemma asked.
Malachi closed his eyes and waved her off, but his brother provided the answer for him. “Lost it!” He loosened his grip on his hands and snapped his fingers. “Like that. There’s goes his income.”
“I said I’ll get another job.”
“Oh, like there’s jobs aplenty around these parts for colored folk. And anyways, if you find one, how you gonna’ keep that one?”
Gemma had her hands on her hips, and I knew what that meant. I leaned back against the house and waited for the lecture to commence.
“You talk a fine talk about colored folks needin’ to stand up for equality, but you ain’t doin’ it in any way that’s right and good. You’re goin’ about town gettin’ people’s goat, and tryin’ to get in where you ain’t wanted, and gettin’ yourself all liquored up and useless. Now your family ain’t got the money they depend on you for, and why? Because you walk around livin’ like you ain’t got to do nothin’ for nobody but yourself.”
“I’m standin’ up for the rights of colored folks everywhere.” Malachi was angry now, pink patches spreading on his busted-up cheeks. “You see anyone else in this town willin’ to go toe to toe with the white boys in this county?”
“Don’t put a noble face on bein’ an upstart.”
Malachi pushed Tal’s hand away and sat up tall. “You call standin’ up to white folks bein’ an upstart?”
Doc Pritchett tried to dress the wound on Malachi’s temple, but Malachi pushed his hand away again. That was when the doctor had enough, and he smacked his hands on his thighs and stood up tall and determined in front of Malachi. “I ain’t Abraham Lincoln. I’m just Doc Pritchett tryin’ to fix up an ornery patient, and I ain’t got all day to do it. So I’m goin’ to settle this argument once and for all.” He pointed at Gemma. “She’s right. There ain’t no fightin’ nonsense with more nonsense, and all’s you’re doin’ by gettin’ in the faces of white folks with your smart attitude is bein’ as bad as they’re bein’.” Then he pointed at Malachi. “And he’s right, too. There ain’t never a change brought about that should be brought about without people standin’ up for such change. And sometimes that means bein’ willin’ to fight for what’s right.”
Gemma swallowed hard and didn’t even try to argue. My eyes must have bugged out of my head at the sight of her being tamed so easily.
“Now, I’m all for civil uprisin’,” Tal continued. “I don’t see nothin’ wrong with colored folk sayin’ they won’t be walked on no more. I don’t see nothin’ wrong with wantin’ to use the same bathroom as white folks or sit in the same chairs as white folks. Way I see it, none of that’s goin’ to change unless someone says it has to.” He squatted down in front of Malachi again and stared him down nose to nose. “But all this hot-shottin’ and show-boatin’ ain’t goin’ to do nothin’ but get your rear end kicked. Or worse. You aim to stand tall for somethin’? Fine. Stand tall for it. But don’t you go around thinkin’ these battle scars say somethin’ for you. You ain’t got them by bein’ noble; you got them by bein’ stupid. All’s these scars say is you’re an idiot.”
It was one of the best speeches I’d heard from anyone outside my daddy, and if I’d ever thought for two seconds put together to see a colored man run for governor, I figured Tal Pritchett would be the man for the job. As it was, I knew he was the best man for the job he had now. Sure enough, being a colored doc in Calloway would be a challenge. But I figured he was up for it.
Regardless, he shut Malachi up, and for the next five minutes we all watched him finish his job with skill and finesse. When he’d fixed the last of Malachi’s face, he stood up and clapped his hands. “Suppose that should do it. Don’t see need for any stitchin’ up today. Let’s hope there’s no cause for it in future.” Then he looked at me. “You got someplace out here where I can wash up?”
I held my hand out toward the front door. “Bathroom’s upstairs.”
He hesitated. “I’d just as soon wash up out here.”
I caught the reason for his hesitation but didn’t know what to say. As usual, Gemma did.
“I done lived in this here house for six years now, and I’m just as brown as you. You can feel free to go on up to the bathroom, you hear?”
He looked from Gemma to me, then back to Gemma before nodding. “Yes’m.” And then he disappeared inside.
“Ma’am,” Gemma muttered under her breath. “Ain’t old enough to be called ma’am, least of all by a man no more’n a few years older’n me.”
“You know what happens once you start gettin’ them crows feet . . .”
Gemma whirled about and gave Malachi the evil eye. “Don’t go thinkin’ I won’t hurt you just because you’re all bandaged up.”
Noah got up and paced the porch until Tal came back outside. “Doc, you have any problem gettin’ your schoolin’?”
Tal shrugged and leaned against the porch rail. “No more’n most, I guess. There’s a lot to learn. Why? You thinkin’ about goin’ to college?”
You could have heard a pin drop on that front porch. Never, and I mean never, in all the days Calloway had been on the map, had there ever been a single person, white or black, to step foot at a college. The very idea of that mark being made by a colored boy was a surefire way to start war.
And Noah knew it.
He looked at his feet and kicked the heel of one shoe against the toe of another. “Ain’t possible. I was just wonderin’ aloud, is all.”
“What do you mean it ain’t possible? All’s you’ve got to do is work hard. You can get scholarships and things.”
But Noah took a look at his brother, whose face was hard and tight-lipped, and nodded off toward the road. “Nah, there ain’t no use talkin’ over it. We’d best get home anyhow.”
Tal didn’t push the subject. He just picked his hat up off the porch swing and plopped it on his head. “Miss Jessie. Miss Gemma. It was a fine pleasure to meet you, and a kindness for you to give us a hand.”
“You should stop by sometime and meet my parents,” I said. “They’re off visitin’, but I’m sure they’d be right happy to know you.”
“I’m sure I’d be right happy to know them, too.” He turned his attention to Gemma. “You said you worked for a doctor?”
“I worked for Doc Mabley. He was a white doctor. Died some two months ago.”
“He let you assist?”
“Only with the colored patients. Doc Mabley was kind enough to help some of them out when they needed it. Otherwise I kept his records, kept up his stock.”
“Well, I’ll tell you, Miss Gemma, I could sure use some help if you’d be obliged. An assistant would be a good set of extra hands, and I could use someone known around here to make my introductions.”
Gemma eyed him up before slowly nodding her head. “Reckon I could.”
“Wouldn’t be much pay, now, you know. Ain’t likely to get much in the way of fees from the patients I’ll be treatin’.”
“Don’t matter so long as I have good work to put my hands to.”
“That it would be. My office is right across the street from the Jarvis house.”
Malachi snorted. “Shack’s more like it.”
“Room enough for me,” Tal said. Then to Gemma, “You think you could stop in sometime this week to talk it over?”
“I can come day after tomorrow if that suits.”
“Nine o’clock too early?”
“No, sir! I’ve kept farm hours all my life.”
He grinned at her. “Nine o’clock then?”
“Nine o’clock.”
Malachi watched the two of them with his swollen eyes, a look of disgust growing more evident on his face. He’d made no secret over the past year about his admiration for Gemma, and the unmistakable attraction that was growing between her and Tal was clearly turning his stomach.
“Mind if we go home?” he muttered. “Before I fall down dead or somethin’?”
Gemma tore her eyes away from Tal to roll them at Malachi. “Would serve you right if you did.”
“And on that cheery note . . .” Malachi groaned on his way down the steps. “I’ll bid you ladies a fine evenin’.”
I gave Noah a playful whack to the head, but he ducked so it only clipped the top. “Luke will be back home tomorrow evenin’. He’ll be itchin’ to see you, I’m sure.”
“I’m itchin’ to see him.” He took the steps in one leap, tossing dust up when he landed. “You tell him to come on by and see us real soon.”
“And tell him to bring his cards,” Malachi added. “He owes me a poker rematch.”
I squinted at him suspiciously. “Only if you play for beans.”
“I hate beans.”
Malachi leaned on Tal for support and Noah scurried to catch up and help. I watched them go, but I wasn’t thinking much about them. I was thinking about Luke. It had been two months since he’d left to collect customers for his furniture-making business, and every day had seemed like an eternity.
The very thought of him got my stomach butterflies to fluttering, but one look at Gemma told me it was another man who had stolen her attention. “That
Doc Pritchett’s a fine man.” I looked at her sideways with a smirk. “Looks about twenty-five or so.”
“So?”
“Good marryin’ age.”
She crossed her arms defiantly. “Jessilyn Lassiter, what’s that got to do with anythin’?”
“Only what I said. I’m only statin’ fact.”
“Mm-hm. I hear ya. You’d be better off keepin’ your facts to yourself.”
She grabbed the first aid box and headed inside, but the sound of that door slamming told me I’d got to her.
It told me Tal Pritchett had got to her, too.
Catching Moondrops
by Jennifer Erin Valent is the third book in the Calloway Summers series about the Lassiter family in 1930s Virginia. Jessilyn Lassiter has finally reached womanhood and her hope to make Luke Talley fall in love with her has finally come true after being in love with his for six years. Her stepsister, Gemma, who is black and was adopted after her parents were killed in a fire, has lost her heart to the new doctor, who stirs up anger in the town when he dares to treat a white woman. Racial prejudice is always simmering beneath the surface in Calloway, but this summer they will explode with the resurgence of the Klan and cause unspeakable tragedy. Jessilyn is filled with anger and bitterness toward the bigots and may lose what she loves most if she refuses to forgive. Valent is a fresh and fantastic talent in Christian fiction. Her writing is both faith-filled and literary. Jessilyn is a delightful character. The stubbornness and smart mouth that were amusing as a child have matured into a woman who occasionally allows her anger to get the best of her, but whose dialogue is a joy to read. Valent's writing rings incredibly true; the series feels more like a memoir than fiction.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
The Crocodile's Last Embrace
The Crocodile's Last Embrace
I did not receive a copy of this book from any company but checked it out of my local library!
Friday, October 15, 2010
Lady in Waiting
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Today's Wild Card author is:
and the book:
WaterBrook Press; Original edition (September 7, 2010)
***Special thanks to Cindy Brovsky of WaterBrook Press, a division of Random House, Inc., for sending me a review copy.***ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Susan Meissner has spent her lifetime as a writer, starting with her first poem at the age of four. She is the award-winning author of The Shape of Mercy, White Picket Fences, and many other novels. When she’s not writing, she directs the small groups and connection ministries at her San Diego church. She and her pastor husband are the parents of four young adults.
Visit the author's website.
Product Details:
List Price: $13.99
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: WaterBrook Press; Original edition (September 7, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0307458830
ISBN-13: 978-0307458834
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Jane
Upper West Side, Manhattan
ONE
The mantle clock was exquisite even though its hands rested in silence at twenty minutes past two.
Carved—near as I could tell—from a single piece of mahogany, its glimmering patina looked warm to the touch. Rosebuds etched into the swirls of wood grain flanked the sides like two bronzed bridal bouquets. The clock’s top was rounded and smooth like the draped head of a Madonna. I ran my palm across the polished surface and it was like touching warm water.
Legend was this clock originally belonged to the young wife of a Southampton doctor and that it stopped keeping time in 1912, the very moment the Titanic sank and its owner became a widow. The grieving woman’s only consolation was the clock’s apparent prescience of her husband’s horrible fate and its kinship with the pain that left her inert in sorrow. She never remarried and she never had the clock fixed.
I bought it sight unseen for my great aunt’s antique store, like so many of the items I’d found for the display cases. In the year and half I’d been in charge of the inventory, the best pieces had come from the obscure estate sales that my British friend Emma Downing came upon while tooling around the southeast of England looking for oddities for her costume shop. She found the clock at an estate sale in Felixstowe and the auctioneer, so she told me, had been unimpressed with the clock’s sad history. Emma said he’d read the accompanying note about the clock as if reading the rules for rugby.
My mother watched now as I positioned the clock on the lacquered black mantle that rose above a marble fireplace. She held a lead crystal vase of silk daffodils in her hands.
“It should be ticking.” She frowned. “People will wonder why it’s not ticking.” She set the vase down on the hearth and stepped back. Her heels made a clicking sound on the parquet floor beneath our feet. “You know, you probably would’ve sold it by now if it was working. Did Wilson even look at it? You told me he could fix anything.”
I flicked a wisp of fuzz off the clock’s face. I hadn’t asked the shop’s resident and unofficial repairman to fix it. “It wouldn’t be the same clock if it was fixed.”
“It would be a clock that did what it was supposed to do.” My mother leaned in and straightened one of the daffodil blooms.
“This isn’t just any clock, Mom.” I took a step back too.
My mother folded her arms across the front of her Ann Taylor suit. Pale blue, the color of baby blankets and robins’ eggs. Her signature color. “Look, I get all that about the Titanic and the young widow, but you can’t prove any of it, Jane,” she said. “You could never sell it on that story.”
A flicker of sadness wobbled inside me at the thought of parting with the clock. This happens when you work in retail. Sometimes you have a hard time selling what you bought to sell.
“I’m thinking maybe I’ll keep it.”
“You don’t make a profit by hanging onto the inventory.” My mother whispered this, but I heard her. She intended for me to hear her. This was her way of saying what she wanted to about her aunt’s shop—which she’d inherit when Great Aunt Thea passed—without coming across as interfering.
My mother thinks she tries very hard not to interfere. But it is one of her talents. Interfering when she thinks she’s not. It drives my younger sister Leslie nuts.
“Do you want me to take it back to the store?” I asked.
“No! It’s perfect for this place. I just wish it were ticking.” She nearly pouted.
I reached for the box at my feet that I brought the clock in along with a set of Shakespeare’s works, a pair of pewter candlesticks, and a Wedgwood vase. “You could always get a CD of sound effects and run a loop of a ticking clock,” I joked.
She turned to me, childlike determination in her eyes. “I wonder how hard it would be to find a CD like that!”
“I was kidding, Mom! Look what you have to work with.” I pointed to the simulated stereo system she’d placed into a polished entertainment center behind us. My mother never used real electronics in the houses she staged, although with the clientele she usually worked with—affluent real estate brokers and equally well-off buyers and sellers—she certainly could.
“So I’ll bring in a portable player and hide it in the hearth pillows.” She shrugged and then turned to the adjoining dining room. A gleaming black dining table had been set with white bone china, pale yellow linen napkins, and mounds of fake chicken salad, mauvey rubber grapes, and plastic croissants and petit fours. An arrangement of pussy willows graced the center of the table. “Do you think the pussy willows are too rustic?” she asked.
She wanted me to say yes so I did.
“I think so, too,” she said. “I think we should swap these out for that vase of Gerbera daisies you have on that escritoire in the shop’s front window. I don’t know what I was thinking when I brought these.” She reached for the unlucky pussy willows. “We can put these on the entry table with our business cards.”
She turned to me. “You did bring yours this time, didn’t you? It’s silly for you to go to all this work and then not get any customers out of it.” My mother made her way to the entryway with the pussy willows in her hands and intention in her step. I followed her.
This was only the second house I’d helped her stage, and I didn’t bring business cards the first time because she hadn’t invited me to until we were about to leave. She’d promptly told me then to never go anywhere without business cards. Not even to the ladies room. She’d said it and then waited, like she expected me to take out my BlackBerry and make a note of it.
“I have them right here.” I reached into the front pocket of my capris and pulled out a handful of glossy business cards emblazoned with Amsterdam Avenue Antiques and its logo—three As entwined like a Celtic eternity knot. I handed them to her and she placed them in a silver dish next to her own. Sophia Keller Interior Design and Home Staging. The pussy willows actually looked wonderful against the tall jute-colored wall.
“There. That looks better!” she exclaimed as if reading my thoughts. She turned to survey the main floor of the townhouse. The owners had relocated to the Hamptons and were selling off their Manhattan properties to fund a cushy retirement. Half the décor—the books, the vases, the prints—were on loan from Aunt Thea’s shop. My mother, who’d been staging real estate for two years, brought me in a few months earlier when she discovered a stately home filled with charming and authentic antiques sold faster than the same home filled with reproductions.
“You and Brad should get out of that teensy apartment on the West Side and buy this place. The owners are practically giving it away.”
Her tone suggested she didn’t expect me to respond. I easily let the comment evaporate into the sunbeams caressing us. It was a comment for which I had had no response.
My mother’s gaze swept across the two large rooms she’d furnished and she frowned when her eyes reached the mantle and the silent clock.
“Well, I’ll just have to come back later today,” she spoke into the silence. “It’s being shown first thing in the morning.” She swung back around. “Come on. I’ll take you back.”
We stepped out into the April sunshine and to her Lexus parked across the street along a line of townhouses just like the one we’d left. As we began to drive away, the stillness in the car thickened, and I fished my cell phone out of my purse to see if I’d missed any calls while we were finishing the house. On the drive over I had a purposeful conversation with Emma about a box of old books she found at a jumble sale in Oxfordshire. That lengthy conversation filled the entire commute from the store on the seven-hundred block of Amsterdam to the townhouse on East Ninth, and I found myself wishing I could somehow repeat that providential circumstance. My mother would ask about Brad if the silence continued. There was no missed call, and I started to probe my brain for something to talk about. I suddenly remembered I hadn’t told my mother I’d found a new assistant. I opened my mouth to tell her about Stacy but I was too late.
“So what do you hear from Brad?” she asked cheerfully.
“He’s doing fine.” The answer flew out of my mouth as if I’d rehearsed it. She looked away from the traffic ahead, blinked at me, and then turned her attention back to the road. A taxi pulled in front of her, and she laid on the horn, pronouncing a curse on all taxi drivers.
“Idiot.” She turned to me. “How much longer do you think he will stay in New Hampshire?” Her brow was creased. “You aren’t going to try to keep two households going forever, are you?”
I exhaled heavily. “It’s a really good job, Mom. And he likes the change of pace and the new responsibilities. It’s only been two months.”
“Yes, but the inconvenience has to be wearing on you both. It must be quite a hassle maintaining two residences, not to mention the expense, and then all that time away from each other.” She paused but only for a moment. “I just don’t see why he couldn’t have found something similar right here in New York. I mean, don’t all big hospitals have the same jobs in radiology? That’s what your father told me. And he should know.”
“Just because there are similar jobs doesn’t mean there are similar vacancies, Mom.”
She tapped the steering wheel. “Yes, but your father said . . .”
“I know Dad thinks he might’ve been able to help Brad find something on Long Island but Brad wanted this job. And no offense, Mom, but the head of environmental services doesn’t hire radiologists.”
She bristled. I shouldn’t have said it. She would repeat that comment to my dad, not to hurt him but to vent her frustration at not having been able to convince me she was right and I was wrong. But it would hurt him anyway.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I added. “Don’t tell him I said that, okay? I just really don’t want to rehash this again.”
But she wasn’t done. “Your father has been at that hospital for twenty-seven years. He knows a lot of people.” She emphasized the last four words with a pointed stare in my direction.
“I know he does. That’s really not what I meant. It’s just Brad has always wanted this kind of job. He’s working with cancer patients. This really matters to him.”
“But the job’s in New Hampshire!”
“Well, Connor is in New Hampshire!” It sounded irrelevant even to me to mention the current location of Brad’s and my college-age son. Connor had nothing to do with any of this. And he was an hour away from where Brad was anyway.
“And you are here,” my mother said evenly. “If Brad wanted out of the city, there are plenty of quieter hospitals right around here. And plenty of sick people for that matter.”
There was an undercurrent in her tone, subtle and yet obvious, that assured me we really weren’t talking about sick people and hospitals and the miles between Manhattan and Manchester. It was as if she’d guessed what I’d tried to keep from my parents the last eight weeks.
My husband didn’t want out of the city.
He just wanted out.
Upper West Side, Manhattan
ONE
The mantle clock was exquisite even though its hands rested in silence at twenty minutes past two.
Carved—near as I could tell—from a single piece of mahogany, its glimmering patina looked warm to the touch. Rosebuds etched into the swirls of wood grain flanked the sides like two bronzed bridal bouquets. The clock’s top was rounded and smooth like the draped head of a Madonna. I ran my palm across the polished surface and it was like touching warm water.
Legend was this clock originally belonged to the young wife of a Southampton doctor and that it stopped keeping time in 1912, the very moment the Titanic sank and its owner became a widow. The grieving woman’s only consolation was the clock’s apparent prescience of her husband’s horrible fate and its kinship with the pain that left her inert in sorrow. She never remarried and she never had the clock fixed.
I bought it sight unseen for my great aunt’s antique store, like so many of the items I’d found for the display cases. In the year and half I’d been in charge of the inventory, the best pieces had come from the obscure estate sales that my British friend Emma Downing came upon while tooling around the southeast of England looking for oddities for her costume shop. She found the clock at an estate sale in Felixstowe and the auctioneer, so she told me, had been unimpressed with the clock’s sad history. Emma said he’d read the accompanying note about the clock as if reading the rules for rugby.
My mother watched now as I positioned the clock on the lacquered black mantle that rose above a marble fireplace. She held a lead crystal vase of silk daffodils in her hands.
“It should be ticking.” She frowned. “People will wonder why it’s not ticking.” She set the vase down on the hearth and stepped back. Her heels made a clicking sound on the parquet floor beneath our feet. “You know, you probably would’ve sold it by now if it was working. Did Wilson even look at it? You told me he could fix anything.”
I flicked a wisp of fuzz off the clock’s face. I hadn’t asked the shop’s resident and unofficial repairman to fix it. “It wouldn’t be the same clock if it was fixed.”
“It would be a clock that did what it was supposed to do.” My mother leaned in and straightened one of the daffodil blooms.
“This isn’t just any clock, Mom.” I took a step back too.
My mother folded her arms across the front of her Ann Taylor suit. Pale blue, the color of baby blankets and robins’ eggs. Her signature color. “Look, I get all that about the Titanic and the young widow, but you can’t prove any of it, Jane,” she said. “You could never sell it on that story.”
A flicker of sadness wobbled inside me at the thought of parting with the clock. This happens when you work in retail. Sometimes you have a hard time selling what you bought to sell.
“I’m thinking maybe I’ll keep it.”
“You don’t make a profit by hanging onto the inventory.” My mother whispered this, but I heard her. She intended for me to hear her. This was her way of saying what she wanted to about her aunt’s shop—which she’d inherit when Great Aunt Thea passed—without coming across as interfering.
My mother thinks she tries very hard not to interfere. But it is one of her talents. Interfering when she thinks she’s not. It drives my younger sister Leslie nuts.
“Do you want me to take it back to the store?” I asked.
“No! It’s perfect for this place. I just wish it were ticking.” She nearly pouted.
I reached for the box at my feet that I brought the clock in along with a set of Shakespeare’s works, a pair of pewter candlesticks, and a Wedgwood vase. “You could always get a CD of sound effects and run a loop of a ticking clock,” I joked.
She turned to me, childlike determination in her eyes. “I wonder how hard it would be to find a CD like that!”
“I was kidding, Mom! Look what you have to work with.” I pointed to the simulated stereo system she’d placed into a polished entertainment center behind us. My mother never used real electronics in the houses she staged, although with the clientele she usually worked with—affluent real estate brokers and equally well-off buyers and sellers—she certainly could.
“So I’ll bring in a portable player and hide it in the hearth pillows.” She shrugged and then turned to the adjoining dining room. A gleaming black dining table had been set with white bone china, pale yellow linen napkins, and mounds of fake chicken salad, mauvey rubber grapes, and plastic croissants and petit fours. An arrangement of pussy willows graced the center of the table. “Do you think the pussy willows are too rustic?” she asked.
She wanted me to say yes so I did.
“I think so, too,” she said. “I think we should swap these out for that vase of Gerbera daisies you have on that escritoire in the shop’s front window. I don’t know what I was thinking when I brought these.” She reached for the unlucky pussy willows. “We can put these on the entry table with our business cards.”
She turned to me. “You did bring yours this time, didn’t you? It’s silly for you to go to all this work and then not get any customers out of it.” My mother made her way to the entryway with the pussy willows in her hands and intention in her step. I followed her.
This was only the second house I’d helped her stage, and I didn’t bring business cards the first time because she hadn’t invited me to until we were about to leave. She’d promptly told me then to never go anywhere without business cards. Not even to the ladies room. She’d said it and then waited, like she expected me to take out my BlackBerry and make a note of it.
“I have them right here.” I reached into the front pocket of my capris and pulled out a handful of glossy business cards emblazoned with Amsterdam Avenue Antiques and its logo—three As entwined like a Celtic eternity knot. I handed them to her and she placed them in a silver dish next to her own. Sophia Keller Interior Design and Home Staging. The pussy willows actually looked wonderful against the tall jute-colored wall.
“There. That looks better!” she exclaimed as if reading my thoughts. She turned to survey the main floor of the townhouse. The owners had relocated to the Hamptons and were selling off their Manhattan properties to fund a cushy retirement. Half the décor—the books, the vases, the prints—were on loan from Aunt Thea’s shop. My mother, who’d been staging real estate for two years, brought me in a few months earlier when she discovered a stately home filled with charming and authentic antiques sold faster than the same home filled with reproductions.
“You and Brad should get out of that teensy apartment on the West Side and buy this place. The owners are practically giving it away.”
Her tone suggested she didn’t expect me to respond. I easily let the comment evaporate into the sunbeams caressing us. It was a comment for which I had had no response.
My mother’s gaze swept across the two large rooms she’d furnished and she frowned when her eyes reached the mantle and the silent clock.
“Well, I’ll just have to come back later today,” she spoke into the silence. “It’s being shown first thing in the morning.” She swung back around. “Come on. I’ll take you back.”
We stepped out into the April sunshine and to her Lexus parked across the street along a line of townhouses just like the one we’d left. As we began to drive away, the stillness in the car thickened, and I fished my cell phone out of my purse to see if I’d missed any calls while we were finishing the house. On the drive over I had a purposeful conversation with Emma about a box of old books she found at a jumble sale in Oxfordshire. That lengthy conversation filled the entire commute from the store on the seven-hundred block of Amsterdam to the townhouse on East Ninth, and I found myself wishing I could somehow repeat that providential circumstance. My mother would ask about Brad if the silence continued. There was no missed call, and I started to probe my brain for something to talk about. I suddenly remembered I hadn’t told my mother I’d found a new assistant. I opened my mouth to tell her about Stacy but I was too late.
“So what do you hear from Brad?” she asked cheerfully.
“He’s doing fine.” The answer flew out of my mouth as if I’d rehearsed it. She looked away from the traffic ahead, blinked at me, and then turned her attention back to the road. A taxi pulled in front of her, and she laid on the horn, pronouncing a curse on all taxi drivers.
“Idiot.” She turned to me. “How much longer do you think he will stay in New Hampshire?” Her brow was creased. “You aren’t going to try to keep two households going forever, are you?”
I exhaled heavily. “It’s a really good job, Mom. And he likes the change of pace and the new responsibilities. It’s only been two months.”
“Yes, but the inconvenience has to be wearing on you both. It must be quite a hassle maintaining two residences, not to mention the expense, and then all that time away from each other.” She paused but only for a moment. “I just don’t see why he couldn’t have found something similar right here in New York. I mean, don’t all big hospitals have the same jobs in radiology? That’s what your father told me. And he should know.”
“Just because there are similar jobs doesn’t mean there are similar vacancies, Mom.”
She tapped the steering wheel. “Yes, but your father said . . .”
“I know Dad thinks he might’ve been able to help Brad find something on Long Island but Brad wanted this job. And no offense, Mom, but the head of environmental services doesn’t hire radiologists.”
She bristled. I shouldn’t have said it. She would repeat that comment to my dad, not to hurt him but to vent her frustration at not having been able to convince me she was right and I was wrong. But it would hurt him anyway.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I added. “Don’t tell him I said that, okay? I just really don’t want to rehash this again.”
But she wasn’t done. “Your father has been at that hospital for twenty-seven years. He knows a lot of people.” She emphasized the last four words with a pointed stare in my direction.
“I know he does. That’s really not what I meant. It’s just Brad has always wanted this kind of job. He’s working with cancer patients. This really matters to him.”
“But the job’s in New Hampshire!”
“Well, Connor is in New Hampshire!” It sounded irrelevant even to me to mention the current location of Brad’s and my college-age son. Connor had nothing to do with any of this. And he was an hour away from where Brad was anyway.
“And you are here,” my mother said evenly. “If Brad wanted out of the city, there are plenty of quieter hospitals right around here. And plenty of sick people for that matter.”
There was an undercurrent in her tone, subtle and yet obvious, that assured me we really weren’t talking about sick people and hospitals and the miles between Manhattan and Manchester. It was as if she’d guessed what I’d tried to keep from my parents the last eight weeks.
My husband didn’t want out of the city.
He just wanted out.
Lady in Waiting
in Susan Meissner is an astounding novel that jumps between 16 century England and modern day Manhattan to tell the stories of two Janes. Jane Lindsay was blindsided by her husband's abandonment and has thrown herself into her job as a antique dealer where she discovers a centuries old ring hidden in the binding of an old prayer book. The ring has a fascinating history as belonging to a famous woman from history; Lady Jane Grey. The story then jumps back to a few years after the death of Henry VIII in the anxious days of his son's rule. Lucy Day, a seamstress, moves into Lady Jane's home and narrates the troubling story of the many forces trying to control the throne and willing to use eleven year-old Jane for their purposes. Meissner has a terrific talent for weaving together the past and the present and finding connections and parallels between them. In the Shape of Mercy she portrayed the horrors of the Salem Witch trials, and here she again perfectly captures a long ago time in history that still holds lessons for us today. She is a fresh voice in Christian fiction who regularly surprises readers with her moving portrayals of fully-fleshed characters.
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