Almost two months ago, Will Samson leaked the information that his wife, Lisa was giving away free (did you see that? FREE) copies of her latest book, Quaker Summer, in exchange for the small price of writing a review of the book once we’d read it. A free book? My eyes perked right up. I’ve come to respect Lisa through her blog and interactions with her on her husband’s blog as well. So I thought that her book would be a breath of fresh air.

My only real complaint about this book is that I finished it the other night and that the people aren’t real. I can’t drive up to Baltimore and find the characters hanging out at the homeless shelter there. I was so sad when I closed the book at 12:15 the other night and had to say good-bye to friends. I fell in love with the main character, Heather Curridge (or is that Courage?). I had been reading it slowly on purpose. To stretch it out and make it last. But there weren’t enough pages. I came to the end and had to say good-bye.

Lisa Samson wrote this book in the first person, as a journal almost. I could even see it as a blog in spots and found myself searching for the “Comment” button. The characters are fairly three dimensional, believable and I wanted to meet them, have coffee, catch up with where they are now.

We walk with Heather through the deepest parts of the valley of her mid-life crisis. In the beginning of the book her life is slowly unraveling but she is the only one who notices. She takes a courageous step and allows the unraveling to continue to see where it leads, and once that is done allows the Holy Spirit to engage her in the re-winding of her threads back together. In that process she becomes whole once again and it feels like an honor to be invited to witness this.

At first I thought the conversations sounded canned and a bit flat, but when I started reading it as a journal they became more authentic, the way one of us might re-hash a conversation on paper. There are nuances and bits that we forget, that we leave out; tone of voice that never makes it onto the page of a diary and thus a conversation that meanders and burbles in real life becomes much more directed and forceful in our memory.

Through the course of this book it becomes very clear that Ms. Samson pretty thoroughly understands theology and many different denominational perspectives within Christendom. She’s a very savvy writer who wraps up some excellent debate about the Kingdom of God and how we can operate within it and for it in engaging fiction that keeps you wanting to know more about the characters without beating you about the head with her theology.

In all, a thoroughly enjoyable book that I’d highly recommend. It will have me thinking through some things for quite some time to come. I may even begin putting dots on my possessions. 😉

One of my very favorite authors is Wayne Jacobsen.  He isn’t well known.  He’s not hip in emerging circles.  He’s not really all that hip at all.  But he is wise and he writes well.  He offers a view of God’s Kingdom that bridges some of the tension between the now and the not yet.  My favorite book that he has written is Authentic Relationships:  Discover the Lost Art of One Anothering.  I find myself in a place where I think I’ll read it for the third time.

I visit Mr. Jacobsen’s website from time to time.  It’s one of the places that’s helped me regain my footing after our experience with our CLB.  I’ve found myself reading this article on more than one occasion:  We Already Have a Shepherd.  I’ve been pondering this description of restoration:

If you really want to experience the fullness of life in Jesus, wouldn’t you want someone who would treat you as gently as Jesus treated the woman at the well while offering you the truth in a way that you could understand and follow into God’s freedom?

I wonder how we poor, failed humans would go about offering that gentleness and restoration to one another?  What would that look like?  Are we even capable of approaching that standard?  Or is it just Shangri-La?

More from the LightHusband file.  Today it’s an article in BBC about fire ants dropping upon the worshippers at a Buddhist Temple in Malaysia.

According to the tenets of Buddhism, living creatures are not to be harmed.  So the monks face quite a dilemma in dealing with the fire ants, who are biting them and fellow worshippers at the temple.  Previously there was a snake in residence, but s/he seemed oblivious so life went on.  The ants are not quite so accommodating.  The chief monk seems to have hit upon a solution though:

They cannot encourage anyone to harm the ants, but the chief monk says that if someone turns up unbidden and deals with them without the monks’ involvement then that is the will of the universe.

“… the will of the universe.”  I like that.  This sounds like a prayer on the internet.  I like that too.

… in a forest and no can hear it, does it make a sound?

That’s the classical question in philosophy. Here’s an analogous question for politics. If various groups make a political statement and no one pays attention, does it matter?

The first Tuesday in March is Town Meeting Day in Vermont. All the schools close and every locality, large and small engages in local politics the old-fashioned way. Up close and personal. Budgets are ratified. Bonds are approved. Or not. Roads are paved. Or graded. Here’s a photo of the building where Town Meeting is held in my hometown.

Lunch is often a potluck affair … in most communities. Everybody knows what everyone else will bring. The language of the meeting is ancient and timeless … a mash of Roberts Rules of Order and Old English. Votes are paper ballot, Australian ballot, and a variety of others. It’s quite complex. I spoke to my mother about an issue before this year’s meeting and discovered that in my parent’s house is a box with almost 40 years of Town Meeting Reports. This made me tired.

This year across the state many communities debated a resolution calling for the impeachment of the president and vice president of the United States. This was reported in the local papers (Barre-Montpelier Times-Argus):

Nearly 30 Vermont towns have called for President Bush’s impeachment on charges that he and Vice President Dick Cheney misled the country into war with Iraq and violated the Constitution.

But I have yet to see it come across the national wires.

You may think 30 towns sounds small. But there aren’t that many towns in Vermont. If you read that article, you’ll find my hometown described as a “tiny rural town.” Well. I’ve always known that, but it feels funny to see it in writing.

There was another article in the same paper which more fully described the debate in my hometown over the impeachment resolution. A schoolmate’s father is quoted. Old names I haven’t seen in years. This link may or may not work. All of the other links about town meetings in Washington County were working. I don’t know why this was having problems. But it’s interesting to me that people expressed strong opinions, emotional feelings. One of whom lost a son to the war, my former schoolmate is still serving. Then, everyone went to lunch.

I bet my mom took B&M brown bread. Or perhaps her maple cream pie. She’s been taking brown bread for 35 years.

Well … this feels like gossip. But maybe not, because I’m documenting my chain. You can read the links, so I guess that’s not really gossip because you can go and read it for yourself … it just has that feel because I haven’t read the original for myself. Not the book. Not even the original review. Bad me.

Emerging Grace quoted Ben Witherington who quoted from Rob Bell in his book. So … yeah. That feels like gossip, but I’ve put in the links and you can go read for yourself to get the proper context.

Here is Ben’s quote (he is reviewing Rob’s new book Sex God) from the book, chapter 5:

Here is an excellent para.— “Love is giving up control. It’s surrendering the desire to control the other person. The two—love and controlling power over the other person—are mutually exclusive. If we are serious about loving someone, we have to surrender all the desires within us to manipulate the relationship.”

I first read this in Grace’s excellent post drawing attention to Ben’s very detailed review of the book … which I’d recommend. Once I make my way through the heavy lifting due for the EV Theological Conversation in April, this book will be pretty high on my list. But this quote really struck me. As in right between the eyes.

Perhaps it’s the time of year. Perhaps it’s my mood. But this really reminded me of my/our CLB and the struggle we went through as we left our former church home and family.

Our CLB was all about control and manipulation. Our masks and costumes had to be in place as soon as the car doors opened in the parking lot. We were expected to think in conjunction with the Uni-mind. No questions were allowed … of God, of the pastor or of the elder board. Questions were indications that our loyalty and even perhaps our salvation was suspect. Certainly, we would not be allowed in any position where others might be influenced to ask questions as well. Questions were like cancer and must be contained, stifled and excised from the body, lest any harm come to the pastor … err … umm … body.

I’m painting with a somewhat broadbrush here. It was quite painful after fourteen years with this pastor and his family. And we faced a lot of pressure to conform to certain lines of thinking that are very clearly areas where good Christians might disagree and still be in communion with one another. I was asked to disavow a calling on my life given me by God and confirmed by anyone who has known me for any length of time.

There are powerful forces within the Christian community. The call of Christ to live in community must not be taken lightly and indeed I believe that most of us do not. However, it is then in our nature to become manipulative within our communities in order to maintain our own sense of safety and well-being.

How do we love people without controlling them? The very desire for another to have “something more” implies that one knows that the other currently has something less, and that we know what “more” is. That we somehow have the ability to bestow this upon the other. Or perhaps even this is arrogant.

Perhaps the question is more basic than this. How does one exist in a community without manipulating others? How do I exert my rights as a human being without impinging upon yours? In other words, if I want to drive my car 90 miles an hour down my street … well then, it’s really not loving of you to tell me that I mustn’t. I have control of my car and you asking me to slow down is manipulative. Or perhaps I’m being provocative.

Here’s a better situation. LightGirl, her friend and LightHusband went to a Washington Capitals game the other night. Very near them sat an overly exuberant fan. A very. large. overly exuberant fan. He was fond of shouting and stomping. His stomping in particular was very annoying to LightGirl. She finally stood up and asked him, politely, but very firmly to stop stomping his feet. He did not respond very politely, but LightHusband did observe that he ceased the behavior in question, despite his verbal refusal to do so.

I think that was loving. It was clearly not manipulative. LightGirl had a request. She made that request. OverlyExuberantFan responded. They worked it out. Now, it was just one hockey game. I’m not sure how it would work out in the face of daily interactions. But perhaps OverlyExuberantFan and LightGirl would get to know one another and work out something more amenable to both. They would come to an understanding of each other and where the boundaries are. They might grow to love and respect each other; want good things for each other. LightGirl might come to understand OEF’s desire to stomp and he might come to understand why it annoys her.

All of which begins to remind me of that cloying poster from my college days. It was based on the book, Jonathan Livingston Seagull. It usually pictured a seagull flying high in the sky and had swirly, girly writing. The text always said: If you love someone, set them free. If they come back to you they’re yours. If they don’t they never were. GACK!!

As with all cloying cliches, there is a kernel of truth in there. It’s at the beginning. If you love someone, set them free. When I began to think about it, I started thinking about Jesus and God. Because a lot of what happens in churches is ascribed to God/Jesus, but maybe it ought not to be. Often times, they are thought of as manipulative and coercive because their followers tend to be, in love, of course. But was Jesus? What would Jesus do?

As it turns out Jesus loved people (sinners) without manipulating them at all. When faced with capital charges, he didn’t answer them; did not defend himself. At all points in his ministry when his integrity was questioned, or his reputation was on the line, or his safety was threatened, he never got defensive or manipulative, or coercive.

He told the truth. And the truth shall set you free. Hmmmmm …..

Now the commander of Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) has been relieved of his duties in the wake of articles such as the one I referred to yesterday.

The Secretary of the Army was quoted as saying:

In an interview with CNN last week, Harvey said, “if we would have known about this, we would have fixed it. Unfortunately, we didn’t know about it.”

Please pardon me whilst I slip into a bit of scatological colloquialism … that’s just bullshit! Absolute, unadulterated, hip-deep manure. Wear your rubber waders when you read the story. WRAMC is the flagship of the USArmy’s medical system. I spent two years of my life driving LightHusband to once or twice weekly doctor’s appointments at that place. Presidents, congressmen, diplomats, secretaries of cabinet level departments … all receive medical treatment at WRAMC.

There are loads and loads of problems with the manner in which treatment is dispensed and handled at WRAMC and within the military medical system in general. However, for the Secretary of the Army to disclaim any knowledge of those problems and fire the commander is ludicrous and slapstick. The idea that the root or solution to any one of these problems might even be identified, let alone executed within 30 days are mere words … more unadulterated, hip-deep manure dispensed in the hope that it will calm tensions and remove the spotlight so that the Army may return to business as usual.

Major General Weightman is playing a very old and venerable role. One that is first documented in the Hebrew Old Testament. That of scapegoat. He is being made to assume the sins of many who went before him and many who will come after him in the hopes that he will divert attention from the true and ugly issues that are at hand. One hopes that he was given some small choice in the matter. That he is being compensated for losing what was once a brilliant military career in mid-stride and quite ignominiously.

The real issues are that we do not and never have cared properly for our wounded veterans. We pay lip service to the sacrifices that they make, but the reality is that Congressmen and women vote themselves ever larger salaries, but ever smaller pay increases for servicepeople. Congress controls the level of healthcare for the military and for itself. Congressmen and women have pos gold standard health care. Military service people have … well … go read the articles. It’s free. But you get what you pay for. Some day I’ll write the stories about the “health” care I and my family received while LightHusband was in the service.

The truly egregious issue? When LightHusband joined the service and up until the mid-90’s those who retired from the service were to receive FREE healthcare for life upon retirement. Their spouses would too. This was a large consideration for us as we made decisions about his career in the service. In the 1990’s his contract was changed and now that “free” health care comes at a price. Right now it’s a pittance, to be sure. But Congress can increase the cost at any time. I worry too, about those veterans who are on a fixed income and who relied upon this being free. Oh, and Congress? Their goldstandard healthcare is free for life upon leaving those hallowed halls.

Removing Maj. Gen. Weightman from his position will not change anything substantive at WRAMC. It will not give aid and assistance to our wounded veterans. This is the flap-of-the-month. Pretty soon the Eye of Mordor … err … the press will turn elsewhere and our fickle attentions will be drawn to whatever other sparkly bauble of the moment is presented. I’m not sure what can be done on a large scale or even small. Write your congressman? Keep writing them. E-mail them. Tell your friends to do it too. Let your representatives know that there are people who care about our servicemen and women. That we want them to be cared for properly. That we’d like to have a greater portion of the Defense Budget going for healthcare each year than for say, expensive toilet seats.

We’re in the midst of turning over a new leaf here in the LightHouse. The other day, LightGirl announced that she rather preferred her friend’s home which was neat, tidy **and** artsy to ours, which is just sort of cluttery, but we do have a fabulous mural on one wall.

This is the long way of saying that I’m trying to go grocery shopping with some regularity these days. I’m trying to prepare dinner each evening and have the menus planned ahead of time with the food on hand. This seems simple and ordinary. I used to do this as a matter of course, but we’ve fallen out of the habit. So we’re relearning old ways.

All of this lead me to the grocery store this morning and a short wait in line. I’m not the best waiter-in-line there ever was and there was a very sweet elderly couple in front of me who required extra patience. So I began to peruse the magazine covers. This one caught my eye:

This is a tiny image and I apologize, but the headline reads: Failing Our Wounded. I itched to purchase the magazine, but reasoned that I can read the article on-line. Then continued in my head with, I don’t want to … it will only make me bitter. Rather it will continue the bitterness that I have carried for years. The Army and armed forces in general is a war machine that disposes of it’s parts that are no longer useful. It spits them out like a shark does it’s worn out teeth. New sharp teeth spring up to replace them and the shark swims on without realizing or caring about the teeth that have since fallen to the ocean’s bottom. This is appropriate in the life of a shark. Afterall, teeth are not life forms. In the words of the immortal Big Bird, they do not eat or breath or grow.

It is not so appropriate when we are speaking of humans. One of those humans happens to be my husband. Several thousand of them happen to be the young men and women who are serving or did serve in Iraq. Machines which are powered by humans cannot be treated like machines. We must find a different way to accomodate their wounds, fear and grief.

As I stood there looking at the magazine rack attempting to overcome my bitterness and rage, I noticed something else. This magazine looked like a black eye in the midst of partying Rome. The rest of the magazine cover stories had to do with pain too. But it was pain of a different sort. It was the pain of drug and alcohol abuse of celebrities. The pain of post-partum depression in celebrities. Washingtonian magazine was hawking Home Design. Several magazines were offering tips to reduce weight and sizes (get better abs, etc.).

When I’m out driving around I see plenty of cars with the yellow ribbon magnets on them proclaiming devotion to the needs of our troops.

But just exactly how are we supporting our troops? I thought about that as I looked at the magazines there on the rack. I thought about radically the lives of our troops have changed and how little mine has. My life has changed not at all since we went to war. The price of gas has gone up. Once in a while I make a quilt for the wounded soldiers to show my support. But I think about the stories the LightMother tells me of the sacrifices that were made on the homefront to support the war effort during WWI and WWII and I wonder just what we could actually do to dig down deep and really support our troops? What could we give to make sure that they are supported in the field? What could we do to make sure they have the appropriate medical care when they are wounded? What are we doing, as a country at war, to support our troops?

Child soldiers have been getting quite a bit of press lately.  They are in vogue in Sudan.  This is an especially distasteful practice wherein orphans are used as cannon fodder and bait to be soldiers in wars which they cannot understand.  When it hit the press recently I remember thinking that it sounded familiar to me but I couldn’t put my finger on it.  An e-mail from an old friend was a poignant reminder.  The friend was our best man and has remained in our circle.  He sent us an article which was a memoir of the death of his cousin at the hands of child soldiers in Sierra Leone in 1999.  Ahhhh … before it became vogue to report on them.  That’s how I know.

It’s strange to look at this photo.  To see the line of our friend’s jaw and a shared arched brow and glint in his eye, but yet … overall … a stranger’s face.  A stranger who is dead now.  His mother and father in perpetual mourning.  Murdered at the hands of children the age of LightBoy.

What have we come to?

When I was growing up we lived on what might be called a gentleman’s farm. I always say that with a bit of a laugh. In my mind this conjures up a vision of the English countryside and a man wearing a riding outfit or something equally elegant. My father, while well educated and well read, could not be further from that vision. We had a lot of rocks (it was, afterall, Vermont), a lot of trees, an old, empty barn foundation, a chicken coop, a lean-to for the pony and donkey and some rickety parts of the house that had clearly been added on after the original had been built in 1840. These parts had been added much, much later … say 1940. They were not up to code, so to speak. In one of those old, rickety outer rooms we kept a flock of geese. We also had chickens, a pony, a donkey, turkeys on occasion, sheep, and much later a small herd of cows (Scottish Long Horns). My brother also kept bees for a couple of years. We cut most of the wood we needed to heat our home in the winter and were fairly self-sufficient for a number of years. It’s hard work.

I learned quite a bit about geese when we kept them. Enough that I now have a healthy respect for them. I’m not fond of domesticated geese at all; they poop everywhere and they’re mean as snakes. But I love to watch wild geese come and go in their annual migrations. They are quite beautiful. But shy and reticent. The Canadian geese often winter here and then fly north for the summer.

If you’ve ever watched a goose on the ground, it’s a marvel that they can become airborne at all. When you consider that they fly hundreds of miles each year to nest and reproduce the marvel becomes that much greater. On the ground, geese are bumbly and awkward, with round waddly bodies that must move slowly and pedantically across the ground. But if you put them in the water, they become graceful, clean and smooth. Or with great flapping strides they become airborne and once again graceful, clean and smooth.

They are a flocking creature. They don’t do well on their own. Goslings bond with the first creature they see upon hatching from the egg. Even if it’s not the actual mother goose! So they live in fairly closely knit groups. Those groups expand and contract depending on the needs of the season and what the geese are doing at the time. The adult geese watch over the goslings pretty zealously. Even those who are not parents. There is a pond near our house which geese frequent and sometimes there are goslings growing up on this pond. It’s fun to watch the mom take the babies out for a spin. Other adults will form a line of defense between any humans and the goslings and watch … first the humans, then the goslings, then the humans, then the goslings. Until the goslings are finally finished, then the adults break ranks, fall out and go elsewhere.

It’s also quite interesting to watch these birds fly in their migratory pattern. The well-known “V” of geese flying north or south to nesting and/or feeding grounds is legendary in our culture. But it’s not a true “V.” One leg is always shorter than the other by a good bit. There’s a reason for that, but I don’t know what it is. I always marvel at it though. The other thing that I marvel at is that geese do not have one leader. They have several, or perhaps each goose or gander leads at one or more times during the trip. The lead goose has the most difficult task of breaking the wind for all the others. When one gets winded, s/he falls back and another takes his/her place. Some geese are more gifted for certain types of weather or wind patterns than others. The point is this, all the geese know where they are going (which is fairly miraculous in and of itself) and they follow each other by turns. There is no jostling for position. Leading is hard work and dangerous. It is the most difficult part of the journey for each goose. They each take their turn of service and then fall back when their season/turn is finished. They are not in it for power or glory or money; they are just trying to get themselves and their brethren to the next resting place on their journey.

I think we can learn a lot from geese.

I’ve joined up with a group headed by Phil Wyman out of Plymouth, Salem, Massachusetts. It’s a real gang, I tell you. The Syncrobloggers. We’re called Synchies by our leader. We blog about the same subject (gasp) on the same day (oohhhh). It is a unique organization whereby we get a variety of perspectives on a subject out all at one time. This being February we’re concentrating on “Love” and it’s my first ever Synchro-blog so I’m chiming in on the LoveFest. So be looking for that post in a few days. And check out Phil’s blog (Square No More) to see the list of the my fellow Synchies.

Update:  As Phil kindly pointed out, he is not from Plymouth … but Salem!!  They are close to one another, but different and I should know better.