July 2019

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Dear Martin by Nic Stone (re-read) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Miracle Creek by Angie Kim ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras (re-read) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

July 2019

Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren

As someone who tends to either mourn the dailyness of life or just completey disengage, this book was so beneficial. The truth is, the human condition means that, "So much of life, unavoidably, is maintenance." Warren illuminated how this is actually compatible with faith in Jesus. Warren's insights on the body, daily struggles, and nourishment were especially helpful. But I think the most challenging thing I read was, "The call to contentment is a call amidst the concrete circumstances I find myself in today." I will have to re-read this soon.

I wouldn't have been ready for this book if I hadn't read James K.A. Smith's You Are What You Love first. He introduced me to so many ideas and vocabulary of which I had previously been too ignorant even to be interested in this book. For example, in my experience the word liturgy reeked of empty tradition and half-hearted worship gatherings, until I read Smith define liturgy as "rituals that are loaded with ultimate story about who we are and what we're for." I'm so glad this book came to me at this time. I found many chapters quite helpful, but my favorites discussed the body, daily struggles, and nourishment.

Warren's reflections on living in a body were so illuminating to me. Thanks to Smith for first opening the door to a whole new way of existing, by challenging me to consider what it means that Christianity is an embodied faith. Warren discusses what some of the necessary repercussions of this fact, namely, that "So much of life, unavoidably, is maintenance" (37). She also draws attention to Romans 12:1-2 teaching that our bodies are instruments of worship (not just a "dirty source of evil" (38)). I can't wait for Lore Wilbert's book to come out so I can read her reflections on this! I've learned a lot from her via Instagram & her blog on this.

Particularly challenging were Warren's insights that began with a detailed description of what happened in her heart and mind when she lost her keys. Who hasn't been through such a daily occurrence that seems so monumentally derailing? She says, "Small things go wrong...[causing overwhelm, frustration, anxiety, anger, and fear]...and here is where the Savior designs to meet me" (53). "The call to contentment is a call amidst the concrete circumstances I find myself in today" (55). That quote right there might be the number one take-away. So challenging.

The chapter on nourishment offered some wise words about our bodily and spiritual nourishment. So helpful.

I highly recommend this book. Hope to read it again soon.

Books this book added to my TBR:

James KA Smith Desiring the Kingdom and Imagining the Kingdom

Harrison Dear Martin by Nic Stone

A dearly loved fave from July 2018 is now a dearly loved fave of July 2019. Challenging questions, emotionally charged issues. Realistic, yet hopeful. Nuanced with a beam of idealism. I (still) highly recommend it.

"'That idiot "pundit" would rather believe you and Manny were thugs than believe a twenty-year veteran cop made a snap judgment based on skin color. He identifies with the cop. If the cop is capable of murder, it means he's capable of the same. He can't accept that.'

'Well that's his hangup. Shouldn't be my problem.'

'You're right. But it is your problem because you're affected by it. I know it's shitty, excuse my language, and it's definitely not fair. But these people have to justify Garrett's actions. They need to believe you're a bad guy who got what he deserved in order for their world to keep spinning the way it always has.'

....

'You can't change how other people think and act, but you're in full control of you. When it comes down to it, the only question that matters is this: If nothing in the world ever changes, what type of ma are you gonna be?'" (151-152)

Tish Miracle Creek by Angie Kim

This book is engrossing and suspenseful in the best way. (It
is unusual for me to enjoy a courtroom drama mystery-ha!) It gives a
provocative, emotional, and unusually nuanced look at parenting. It
focuses on the lives of immigrants and of families with children with
disabilities. This book reminds me a lot of Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You—partly because Miracle's Young family immigrate from Korea, and Everything's
James Lee is the son of Chinese immigrants, and both stories raise
questions about being Asian and Asian-American in the US, but even more
than that, both have narration alternating among many different
characters, each chapter revealing a new tidbit that changes your
perspective of the Big Event that happens at the beginning but you don't
really understand until the end. Unlike character-driven Everything, Miracle Creek was
plot-driven. There definitely was no likeable protagonist to be found
here, but my opinions of the characters changed multiple times, and the
one that was my least favorite at the beginning was my favorite at the
end, and it was a thrilling ride.

I didn't look up Content
Warnings, and wish I'd known there would be descriptions of marital sex
and sexual assault of a minor. Let those who are sensitive to such
content be warned. (And feel free to ask me if you have questions.)

Tish Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Jane Austen is always there for me when I want a story where the biggest problem is how tough it is to be a gentlewoman in 1800. Her smarts and sass always make the carefree story so delicious.  This is what drew me to my first reading of Northanger Abbey. Catherine is a likeable character that reminds me of myself in some ways: rather naive (often humorously so); always taking the bits of known information and contriving whole extrapolated imagined narratives, often much to her demise. Austen’s satire of some of society’sfouble standards, her jibes at gothic novels and comments about novels in general were fun...and of course a decent love story! I give the book 3 stars--I liked it.

Tish Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras

“We were rich in our stories.” — Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Fruit of the Drunken Tree

I'm re-reading a few or 2018's faves, and yeah, this one is still 5 bright stars.

Our
two narrators are Chula, who is 8, and her family's new 13-year-old
maid, Petrona. Seeing the danger, violence, and corruption that marked
the height of Escobar’s power through their eyes, described along with
other everyday happenings of girlhood, was so powerful. Their
experiences are so contrasted, not just because of the age difference,
but because of their differences in class and situation. Chula has a
stay-at-home mother and lives in a gated community. Petrona is trying to
provide for her mother and siblings after her family’s farm is burned
down and her father and two brothers taken by a paramilitary group. Both
face more than their fair share of despair and trauma. I found the
fates of these two characters, and the striking differences between
them, both heart-wrenching and compelling.

Re-reading this book
during this political moment made me realize that it’s probably
impossible to distinguish between my appreciation for the story and the
way it beautifully demonstrates what I hold to be fact: some people are
in need of asylum, and it is the right thing to make that process more
feasible and not impossible. I think this story is just as powerful and
important for people who disagree. We all need to hear stories from all
kinds of people and perspectives. I'm working on that.

Tish Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal

Pride & Prejudice retellings are popular, but this is my first,
(except part one of Pamela Aldan's account of Darcy's perspective.)
Kamal retells P&P, (originally set in England around 1800,) as set
in Pakistan in 1990. The plot, themes, and social criticism show
remarkable parallels between the two cultures. Even the names are just
slightly-adjusted from Austen's best-loved work. Kamal's humor and
social-criticisms felt a bit more forced than Austen's. She also
attempted to do an awful lot: along with showing hypocrisy, shameful
double standards, and harms of  patriarchy, she also touched on
colonization, homosexuality, body image and fat-shaming, and abortion.
At times Alys came across as an embodiment of the wisdom of progressive
thinking, and less like an individual human, but on the whole I found
this read enjoying. My favorite part of the heart of Pride and Prejudice
is the value of holding to one's principles despite opposition
(financial ill-effects, cultural pressure, etc), and the treasure of
finding a partner that shares your values, and with whom you can
cultivate a relationship generating mutual growth. Kamal presents that
beautifully. She also manages to create a novel that, like Austen's, can
read as a rom-com, or as a social commentary on upper middle class
women's issues.

It was distracting to me that Alys
loved and taught P&P but never acknowledged that she was living it. I
mean, how does Alysba Binat, with sisters named Jena, Mari, Quitty, and
Lady, who marries a Mr. Darsee, not acknowledge that?  Maybe, (I'm
reaching for a reason here) that points out the questions Kamal is
raising about colonization and literature. Alys loves English
literature. She has lived in many cultures, and is advantaged because
she knows English and has a good accent. She says, "Reading widely can
lead to an appreciation of the universalities across cultures." Darsee
says, "Sure. But it shouldn't just be a one-sided appreciation. We've
been forced to seek ourselves in the literature of others for far too
long." Perhaps Kamal's creation of this work, an original take and also
an imitation of the English literature she loves, and of Alys, who loves
and lives it, but still doesn't see her story as being identical, is a
way to declare the uniqueness of cultures and each person's experience.

Four stars--I really liked it. Here are some of my fave quotes:

Alys:
"If we women decide to marry according to standards, they we are
gold-diggers, but when you weigh us in matters of looks and chasteness,
then you're just being smart. I can't stand these double standards."

Alys: "Easier to commemorate history when you've been the coloniser and not the colonised."

May & June 2019

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Henry and Fanny by Sherwood Smith (e-book) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Emma by Jane Austen ⭐️⭐️⭐️
12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You by Tony Reinke ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Guernsey and Literary Potato Peel Pie Society ⭐️⭐️
The Gifts of Imperfection ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Soul of Shame ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen and Henry and Fanny by Sherwood Smith

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen and Henry and Fanny by Sherwood Smith

Fanny is taken from her home of meager means at age 10 to live with her wealthy aunt and uncle at Mansfield Park. There she is mistreated by all but her elder cousin Edmund. Fast forward to when the cousins are of marrying age and Sir Thomas is away, and a sophisticated, charismatic brother and sister duo comes to the nearby parsonage: Henry and Mary Crawford. The young people decide to put on a play together, which could be seen as either a delightful occupation or a shameful excuse to be inappropriately flirtatious. Henry shows himself to Fanny to be untrustworthy as he trifles with the affections of two of her cousins, and Mary tries to win the affections of Edmund, whom she is falling for. Shortly after, Henry decides to pursue Fanny, first carelessly, but then finds himself quite in love with her. Fanny not only can't trust him, but is in love with Edmund, her only friend and protector from childhood. In the end, Henry shows himself to be truly unsteady as he has an affair, and Mary proves to be morally reprehensible as she only faults Henry for being caught, so these two are clearly no longer marriage candidates for Edmund or Fanny. Fanny, who has never hesitated in her devotion for Edmund, eventually does get to marry him.

Many say that Mansfield Park is more social commentary and criticism than romance, and seeing it in this light has helped me warm up to it. The first few sentences of MP reveal Austen's main focus in this work, namely the wiles of the class at the time, selfishly seeking wealth and status, often discarding the very morals they claim to
support. The same people that pressure Fanny into being morally upright and meek also fault her for being so. Today's readers see Fanny as proud, prude, and priggish, but I think Austen found her to be an admirable woman steadfastly committed to her principles.

Fanny may be a dull hero compared with, say, Elizabeth Bennett, but when you consider that she is a product of her circumstances, repeatedly told how low she is, living in very real fear of punishment for doing something considered morally questionable by anyone, it becomes rather impressive that she is able to cultivate any of her own opinions, and I'm rather proud of her not meekly accepting Henry's hand under the pressure. She stayed true what she believed was right all throughout the book, and I love the idea of her being proved right at the end, and getting what she always wanted, namely Edmund for a husband.

But I have to admit, Austen's ending did not satisfy. The fact that Edmund calls Fanny "my sister" right up until the very end while still carping about Mary Crawford, does not make me think he could ever be good for her. The abrupt change in the narrative at the end of MP, where Austen goes from showing to telling in summation, did not do enough to convince me that Edmund could ever deserve Fanny, or that Fanny would truly be happy with him.

Enter: Smith's alternate ending. I enjoyed Smith's defense in her prologue of Fanny and the need for a different ending. And while, despite efforts, her voice was very different from Austen's (of course!) she did a good job continuing the personalities of the characters, while showing that people can change. Part of me is still a little anxious that Crawford will be bored with Fanny and be unfaithful, but I still far prefer her being with Henry to being with Edmund.

Still, my strongest, and apparently most culturally unacceptable belief regarding this work is that Fanny is a worthwhile heroine. Also, I think she's an enneagram 9. So maybe I can see her perspective so well because I am too.

12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You by Tony Reinke

12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You by Tony Reinke

"...life in the digital age is an open invitation for clear, biblical thinking about the impact of our phones on ourselves, on our creation, on our neighbors, and on our relationships to God. Thoughtlessly adopting new technologies is worldliness" (37).

"I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber...Hence it comes than men so much love noise and stir; hence it comes that the prison is so horrible a punishment; hence it comes that the pleasure of solitude is a thing incomprehensible."--quoting Pascal. "Pascal's point is a perennial fact: the human appetite for distraction is high in every age, because distractions give us easy escape from the silence and solitude whereby we become acquainted with our finitude, our inescapable mortality, and the distance of God from all our desires, hopes, and pleasures" (45).

"It is difficult to serve God with our heart, soul, strength and mind when we are diverted and distracted and multi-tasking everything"--quoting Doublas Groothuis, philosophy prof at Denver Seminary (47).

"From the onset of this study, we must die to the idea that a distraction-free life is possible--it is not, and it never has been. the holy life is piously complex, meaning we must learn how to apply distraction management in every situation" (50).

"If anger is the viral emotion of online disembodiment, then joy is the Christian emotion of embodied fellowship" (59).

"All writing that is remote--like the ancient letter, the modern text message, or this book--is more like ghost-to-ghost communication than person-to-person interaction. Yes, there is something of us in written words, but not everything in true fellowship can be typed out on phone screens...This is the reality of communication. Joy is a precious emotion of our integrated existence" (60).

"We easily settle into digital villages of friends who think just like us and escape from people who are unlike us. Our phones buffer us from diversity"..quoting Alistair Roberts--although"generational differences are fundamentally constitutive differences for the human race...new media is one of the may ways are elders are rendered invisible." "And it's not only our elders, but also the impoverished, the cognitively disabled, children, the less educated, the less literate, the less cosmopolitan, and non-Westerners. In effect, our online communities 'render invisible the majority of the human race'" (71).

Again quotes are from Roberts: "In fact, our online communities of like-minded friends are often marked by a 'positive feedback loop,' where 'affirmation and assent merely reinforce existing prejudices. In such contexts, communicties become insular, echo chambers of accepted opinion, closed to opposing voices,' which means they breed a 'homeostatic stifling of difference'" (72).

"The literacy problem we face today is not illiteracy but aliteracy, a digital skimming that is simply an attempt to keep up with a deluge of information coming through our phones rather than slowing down and soaking up what is most important" (85).

"God's word demands our highest levels of literacy concentration because it requires relational reading: not the superficial chitchat of a cocktail party, but the covenantal concentration of marriage vows. God's word is an invitation to orient our affections and desires. Our challenge is to use social media in the service of serious reading" (89).

In a footnote quoting Douglas Wilson: "Creation is a gift meant to bring glory to the Creator. All Christians agree here. But Christians throughout the ages have put their suspicions in different places. Take C.S. Lewis and Augustine. I love them both, but I would rather have a beer with Lewis. Lewis would order us a really good beer, just because it was a really good beer, with his understanding of God suffusing the whole. For him, while the thickness of creation can become an idol, a rival to God, it is intended for us as a sermon by God about God. And you cant't honor the preacher by ignoring the sermon. But Augustine would perhaps think that a thin beer would help us think of Jesus more, not distracting us quite so much, and that when we had really advanced in grace, we might be able to get the same effect with water. I say this in the full recognition that I am not worthy to have been Augustine's boot boy. So then a right approach to a thick creation honors the Creator more fully; we honor his work as he gave it, instead of trying to dilute it in misguided zeal for his glory." Reinke says: "Intended or not, Wilson's illustration of alcohol density coincides with the display of diving glory echoed in the first miracle of Jesus (John 2:1-11). He did not flex his sovereign power by turning party wine into water, but by turning ceremonial washing water into dark, undiluted party wine--the 'good wine' that caught attention. Not only did the water-to-wine thickening of creation not cloud Christ's glory, it manifested it" (95).

"...We must humbly admit that we are targets of digital mega-corporations that can make us into reckless consumers with strategic intermediated content. We cannot be naive here. Our attention spans have been monetized, and getting us hooked on our phones is a commercial commodity measured in billions of dollars, not kiosk change" (99).

"...We must celebrate. We cannot suppress our souls' appetite for what is awe-inspiring. The goal is not to mute all smartphone media but to feed ourselves the right media. We are created to behold, see, taste, and delight in the richness of God's glory--and that glory often comes refracted to us through skilled artists. Our insatiable appetite for viral videos, memes, and tweets is the product of an appetite for glory that God gave us" (100).

"Social media has become the new PR firm of the brand Self" (109).

"In the digital age, we idolize our phones when we lost the ability to ask if they help us (or hurt us) in reaching our spiritual goals. We grow so fascinated with technological glitz that we become captive to the wonderful means of our phones--their speed, organization, and efficiency--and these means themselves become sufficient ends. Our destination remains foggy because we are fixated on the speed of travel. We mistakenly submit human and spiritual goals to our technological possibilities" (115).

"Friction is the path to genuine authenticity, and no amount of online communication can overcome a lack of real integrity. We must be real with the people God puts in our lives....We are authentic believers who are committed to replacing easy relationships with authentic ones" (126).

Sherry Turkle: "The capacity for empathic conversation goes hand in hand with the capacity for solitude. In solitude we find ourselves; we prepare ourselves to come into conversation with something to say that is authentic" (126).

"Every morning we must take time to stop, to be still, to know that God is God and that we are his children. Digital technology must not fill up all the silent gaps of life" (129).

"The great term 'by faith' is a synonym for confidence in the unseen spiritual realities. Yet on what your heart loves, your eyes will linger." In a footnote on page 138, the great insight that "This is a recurring theme in the book of Isaiah, where the verb 'look to' is simultaneously applied to physical sight and spiritual sight (loyalty) in contrasting the categories of idols/God, visual/faith, and the immediate/anticipated" (138).

"...it is of the nature of technology to dislocate us historically. In principle, writes Craig Gay, 'the technological habit of mind is anti-teleological. It is largely uninterested, and indeed incapable, of appreciating the notions of final causality or ultimate purpose'" (180).


Future Reading:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/opinion/david-brooks-building-attention-span.html
Interesting because it's an opposing view to what most seem to have to say about technology turning our brains to mush: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17707600-smarter-than-you-think
https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/being-a-better-online-reader
http://www.reformation21.org/articles/the-seven-deadly-sins-in-a-digital-age-4-sloth.php
https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/s22-money-love-desire/creation-is-thick-i-tell-you.html
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22240772-the-things-of-earth?ac=1&from_search=true
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14568717-big-disconnect
I'll just read this instead of reading Turkle's new book: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/books/review/jonathan-franzen-reviews-sherry-turkle-reclaiming-conversation.html and https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/opinion/sunday/stop-googling-lets-talk.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/take-the-pledge-no-more-indulging-porn-1472684658

The Soul of Shame

"Shame is primarily an emotion that undermines us, not so much via our left-mode rational processing, but by eroding our felt sense of connection and safety, something that supersedes the linguistic, logical, linear, factual mode of mental activity. As such, in brain time, to be less than, to be inadequate, is felt, sensed, and imaged long before we think it."

"Isolation is one of shame's primary methods."

"When I am in the presence of another who elicits discomfort within me, though I easily point to the person outside my skin as the responsible party for my distress, the real problem is far more proximate. For it is ultimately within me.

"My 'problem,' as it turns out, is ultimately what I am sensing, imaging, feeling, thinking and doing. It is not my only problem, just my ultimate one...

"But beyond this, and even more important, my problem is not just what I am sensing but that I do not feel adequate to respond to it. I perceive, beginning at nonconscious levels of awareness, that I do not have what it takes to tolerate what I feel. I am not just angry, sad, or lonely. But ultimately these feelings rest on the bedrock that I am alone with what I feel, and no one is coming to my aid. Shame undergirds other affective states because of its relationship to being left. And to be abandoned ultimately is to be in hell" (109). 

"...we must remember, we are dust and breath, and healing shame will necessarily mean we act differently with our bodies. We will move when before we were literally unable to with our bodies. We will speak when before we were silent. We will demonstrate physical agency in the real world, as God did in Jesus..." (148). 

"This is the story shame wants to tell. It is the story of fragility. It is the story of showering those who are smart, gifted and charismatic with approbations, and those are less so with, well, less. The story in which we have conflicts but are too afraid to face the emotions we anticipate will be waiting for us. These emotions have their source in the shame whose attendant tellls us that we are not enough and that Jesus is not enough for us to have this conversation. We won't be able to take it. Furthermore, if we ever imagined that Jesus would be present in that conversation, we might think he could take it, but we don't imagine that he's even there" (158).

"...unless leadership of an organization is open to curiosity, open to the idea that unless we are known, what we know doesn't matter, and open to seeking where shame hides, exposing the reality of our naked, vulnerable selves, and disregarding the shame that wants us to hide, we will continue to repeat the interaction that took place in Eden" (159).

"Paul then lists a number of noble things that we might do, but if they are not done lovingly, they mean nothing.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poot and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)

"In this sense, love is less a noun than an adverb (i.e., lovingly), a word that describes the action of a verb, action taken at wisdom's pace. And shame is all about stopping movement, shuttering conversation, crushing creative discovery, acting to quickly or too slowly for fear of making mistakes, and avoiding the repair of ruptures that re inevitable with the mobility of intersecting lives" (177).

"I mentioned earlier that love and shame are the two fundamental affective states warring for our souls. Of course, this oversimplifies the case. It is not as if shame is the only emotion that gives us trouble, and love houses virtually ever emotion that leads to constructive, integrating behavior. The point here, however, is that in many respects life is not that complicated. In any instant it boils down to microdecisions we make that generally move us in one of two directions: a more integrated, resilient life of connection with God and others, or a more disintegrated, separated, chaotic and rigid life. Every minute of every day we choose between shame and love" (179).

Atomic Habits by James Clear

"Stress compounds...negative thoughts compound. The more you think of yourself as worthless or stupid or ugly, the more you condition yourself to interpret life that way." --James Clear, Atomic Habits

"Making a choice that is 1% better or 1% worse seems insignificant in the moment, but over the span of moments that make up a lifetime, these choices determine the difference between who you are who you could be. Success is the product of daily habits, not once-in-a-lifetime transformations. That said, it doesn't matter how successful or unsuccessful you are right now. What matters is whether your habits are putting you on the path toward success. You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results." --James Clear, Atomic Habits

Mic drop here, pretty much. I mean wow and yasssss and praise hands.  

But I will add my thoughts...Thanks to @tshoxenreider and @thelazygenius and whoever else recommended this book. It met me in my time of need, (which apparently has been all my life because I never learned to develop habits.) I read and loved Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit and loved it, but just as he claimed, Mr. Clear brilliantly took things to the next level of understanding and application. What I loved most: the foundation he laid for the importance of habits (in a sense, who you are is comprised of the things you regularly do, and the things you regularly do make you who you are); the insight that lack of autonomy diminishes willpower (so you can stay motivated by giving yourself choices, even small ones); and the practical advice for how to build habits--slowly and with such small steps that it's actually easy (I mean, that just might work!)

Will return to this one again and again. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫—I really, really liked it