My Half-Way Through Summer Reading List: Books I Have Read, Am Reading, or Intend to Read in These Warm Months

Compass of Affection by Scott Cairns (poetry): This slim volume of new and collected poems has been on my shelf for years. I’ve dabbled in it, but have never read it cover to cover. I’ve picked it up again because a.) Annie Dillard calls Cairns “one of the best poets alive,” and b.) because Cairns penned of one of my all-time favourite terms of endearments (from God to humanity): “beloved numbskulls.”

What a Plant Knows, A Field Guide to the Senses by Daniel Chamovitz (non-fiction, science): This book was one of Amazon’s Ten Best Science and Math Books of 2012. So of course I’m reading it. Actually, I’ve never read a Math book for pleasure and Science books only make my reading list if they are fascinating and accessible to art majors – this one seems both. Here’s a bit of a summary from the back cover: “an intriguing look at how plants themselves experience the world—from the colors they see to the schedules they keep…Chamovitz encourages us all to consider whether plants might even be aware.” Hmmmm!

My Bright Abyss by Christian Wiman (memoir): Oh my goodness! I recently finished this amazing book and I am still reeling (in a good way). Christian Wiman served as editor of Poetry magazine (the most prestigious poetry gig going). Not so much a narrative sort of memoir, but paragraph-long musings on faith, doubt, love and hope, all set against the backdrop of Wiman’s devastating cancer diagnosis and prognosis, this book required a thinking cap, but the mental effort is so worth it. As I read I felt my heart/soul/insides expand to near bursting. And throughout the last chapter I wept.

Medicine River by Thomas King (novel): Another book that has been on my shelf for years. I grabbed this one on my way out the door for our annual holiday on Galiano Island because it looked like good beach reading. And it was. It’s the story of a good-hearted, generous half-Blackfoot man who bumbles along with little self-awareness but bucket loads of kindness. It’s also the story of family, community, identity, love and healing.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery (Children’s lit): Can you believe my kids (aged 12 and 14) had never read or been read this book? When I discovered this horrifying fact a few weeks ago I set out to remedy the situation pronto. We finished reading it aloud last night. It was as good as I remembered.

Inner Compass, an Invitation to Ignatian Spirituality by Margaret Silf (non-fiction, spiritual formation): This book is a layman’s Jesuit/Ignatian Theology and Practice 101. While the writing style is a bit clunky, the practical exercises have been helpful especially the insights on consolation and desolation.

Hold Me Tight, Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by Dr. Sue Johnson (non-fiction, marriage): Attachment theory meets marriage advice. Johnson is a psychologist and the creator of the groundbreaking Emotionally Focused Therapy. Throw out all that advice you've read about unpacking your childhoods, learning how to argue better, making grand romantic gestures. ”Instead," says Johnson, "get to the emotional underpinnings of your relationship…” Just finished this one last night too. Really good.

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Word? The Epic Saga of the Bird That Powers Civilization by Andrew Lawler (non-fiction, journalism/natural history): Here’s the blurb from the jacket: "Why did the Chicken Cross the World presents the sweeping history that this humble fowl deserves. Queen Victoria was obsessed with it. Socrate’s last words were about it. Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur made their scientific breakthroughs using it. Catholic popes, African shamans, Chinese philosophers, and Muslim mystics praised it. Neuroscientists studying the long-abused chicken brain are uncovering signs of a deep intelligence as well as insights into our own behavior.” This is why I’m reading it. And because one reviewer said that it reads like a mystery novel. And because we keep chickens.

What are you reading, Blog Chums?

The Slow Sacred Texts of the Dying

photo credti: Macia Pevey

My sister sits daily at the bedsides of the dying.

She is a hospice chaplain. This is her job.

On a recent visit to a private residence, my sister was greeted by the 80-year-old daughter of a 104-year-old dying woman. The daughter, white-haired and stooped, opened the door and in a sing-song drawl called over her shoulder, “Mama, the preacher’s here,” a pronouncement that had my sister rubber-necking over her own shoulder looking for “the preacher” who had snuck in behind her.This geriatric announcement, “Mama, the preacher’s here,” while so funny on so many levels, is also so true. My sister is a preacher. She preaches from the slow, sacred texts of the dying’s last days.

This is what she preaches:

We need to fearlessly affirm. The dying shed all inhibitions. My sister, middle-aged and of normal attractiveness, has been told she’s beautiful by more patients than she can count. The approach of death has not affected these people’s eyesight; it’s affected their inhibition, shattering the veneer of decorum that has kept them from voicing their true feelings and thoughts. The words come forth in childlike innocence and honesty and are therefore the furthest thing from flattery because they are offered by those with nothing to lose or gain. My sister receives these words like the benedictions they are.

We need to connect at all costs. On one particular visit, my sister entered a hospital room to find the patient’s children hunched, each in his or her own chair, paralyzed in isolation and anxiety at the decline of their mother. My sister sat with them, holding their mother’s hand. Gently, she suggested that the patient’s 60-year-old daughter place her hand on her mother’s leg.It was a simple act, but in touching her mother, this grieving woman broke the spell that held her apart from the one she wanted to love. Soon she was massaging her mother’s feet as her siblings swapped stories from their childhood. One truly hilarious story involved a rabid squirrel, a garbage can, and a baseball bat. Soon they were weeping with laughter, the beauty of their connectedness restored by physical contact and their shared stories............

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