Facial recognition

As I pulled out of the garage, it was as desolate, bone chilling, and dark as a mid-January morning before dawn.  Because it was indeed a desolate, bone chilling, mid-January morning.  Not even the sun had risen yet.  I was on my way to Bible study on the other side of town, trying to beat the traffic.

But as I descended the long hill, around the curve on the deserted road, and across the bridge over the swollen creek, I gazed over the fallow fields, abandoned and frosted.  I gasped at what I saw.  "Keep your eyes on the road," I said out loud.

Because there was no mere biblical burning bush trying to get my attention.  The entire horizon of the new day was blazing with His glory.

My friend Marcia took this shot while she was driving to Bible study. Indeed, every one in our group from every part of town witnessed that same majesty.   I still have that image of Shekinah Glory engraved in my brain, this visible manifestation of God on earth, not just a natural occurrence, but a supernatural one -- which is the way God always works.
 
It was not like God was trying to prove His existence ("I AM"), but revealing His Presence ("I am right here with you.")  And He practices the same resurrection twice a day, every day, so precisely we know the very minute today, tomorrow, a hundred years from now, a thousand years before in history.  God's quotidian evidence is steadfast, immovable, and not subject to change, whether we are looking for it or not.

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above
      proclaims His handiwork.

                           Psalm 19. 1

The very moment I saw the beauty, literally before me,  all words were erased from my vocabulary.  But the silence was more than I needed to account for what I was feeling.  Not just what describes the awe, but what explains the awe?  Even among those who do not believe in God, even among those who follow Him, the wonder is but recognition of the Almighty.

There is a story here of His faithfulness, His grander narrative we cannot but catch a glimpse.  What does it take for us to see that?

"Now watch what I do with the rest of the day,"  God chuckled.

A Year in Books 2019

I chuckle as I post this list of books that I devoured in 2019.  When I was a little girl, my extroverted musician mom would literally hide my library books, in an effort to get me to do something useful, purposeful and life-affirming like learning to play the violin like her and moving freely among large gatherings of people.

I am still at it, Mom, sometimes (gasp!) reading more than one book at a time.  My life now, as then, was not consumed by books, but energized and in many ways enlarged by them, similar to how Mom herself was impacted by her music.  Just as she always had a piece she was working on, well, I almost always have a book cracked open, keeping my place with a pen or scrap of paper -- to underline, to take notes, to savor a truth, to grab a paragraph or two even in a brief opportune moment. 

One principle that continues to guide my reading, as C. S. Lewis recommended, "It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between."  I tried to include new and old, fiction and nonfiction, children's literature, spiritual formation, historical, scientific, and favorites read again.

And when I reluctantly come to the end of a really delightful book, I know now that this first reading is only preparation for a second reading sometime down the road.  As the French say "au revoir," see you again.

Enjoy!

Books 2019

1. The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery (1941)
2. Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance by Alex Hutchinson (2018)
3. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (2016) 
4. The War Before the War:  Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War by Andrew Delbanco (2018)
5.  Giving:  Purpose is the New Currency by Alexandre Mars (2019)
6. The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century  by Kirk Wallace Johnson 2018)
7. The Incomplete Book of Running by Peter Sagal (2018)
8.  Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland (1993)
9. Madison Park:  A Place of Hope by Eric L. Motley (2017)
10. An American Childhood by Annie Dillard (1987)
11. The Secret at Pheasant Cottage by Patricia St John (1978)
12. The Tanglewoods’ Secret by Patricia St. John (1948)
13. Rainbow Garden by Patricia St. John (1960)
14. The Writing Life by Annie Dillard (1989)
15. The Gospel Comes with a House Key:  Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in Our Post-Christian World by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield (2018)
16.  Betrayed! by Stan Telchin (1981)
17. Nathan Coulter  by Wendell Berry (1960)
18. A World Lost by Wendell Berry (1996)
19. Remember by Wendell Berry (2008)
20. Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry (2004)
21.  Half the Church by Carolyn Custis James (2011)
22. Things As They Are:  Mission Work in Southern India by Amy Carmichael (1903)
23. Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry (2000)
24. John Steinbeck Working Days:  The Journals of the Grapes of Wrath by Robert DeMott, editor (1989)
25. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (2018)
26. The Root of the Righteous by A. W. Tozer (1955) 
27. The Storm On Our Shores by Mark Obmascik (2019)
28. Mama Maggie by Marty Makary and Ellen Vaughn (2015)
29.  Fidelity:  Five Stories by Wendell Berry (1992)
30. How (Not) To Be Secular:  Reading Charles Taylor by James K. A. Smith (2014)
31. Watch With Me by Wendell Berry (1994)
32. Going After Cacciato by Tim O’Brien (1978)
33. Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life by C. S. Lewis (1955)
34. Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy by Gary D. Schmidt (2004)
35. Tender At The Bone:  Growing Up At The Table by Ruth Reichl (1998)
36. The Second Mountain:  The Quest for a Moral Life by David Brooks (2019)
37. Running:  A Love Story: 10 years, 5 marathons, and 1 life-changing sport by Jen A. Miller (2016)
38. Prayer:  Forty Days of Practice by Justin McRoberts and Scott Erickson (2019)
39. The Road to Paris by Nikki Grimes (2006)
40. The Volunteer:  One Man, An Underground Army, and the Secret Mission to Destroy Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather (2019)
41. Life Without Lack:  Living in the Fullness of Psalm 23 by Dallas Willard (2018)
42. The Testament by John Grisham (1999)
43. Save Me the Plums:  My Gourmet Memoir by Ruth Reichl (2019)
44. Ripple Effects by Pam Tebow (2019)
45. Racing the Rain by John L. Parker Jr. (2015)
46. What is a Family? By Edith Schaeffer (1975)
47. Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation by Frederick Buechner (1983)
48. The Eyes of the Heart: A Memoir of the Lost and Found by Frederick Buechner (1999)
49. Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by Gail Honeyman (2017)
50. 26 Marathons:  What I learned about Faith, Identity, Running, and Life from My Marathon Career by Meb Keflezighi (2019)
51. My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers (1935)
52. The Bible