Resolutions, Kept

We put an extremely low value on making and keeping new year's resolutions.  I was considering this today as it is the start of a new year, and I am looking back on 2012 with great satisfaction, as I made only one resolution, and kept it throughout the entire year.  I am not only in the minority, I sometimes wonder if anyone else even bothers at all.  And today I've woken up to the fact that we all encourage each other not to bother.

As someone who has, over the past year and a half, lost over three stone (that's 42 pounds), one of the things I discovered was that we constantly encourage each other to failure, mostly so that we don't feel badly ourselves.  "Oh, go on, have another cake," we encourage someone who is hesitating.  "You know you want to."  Or "it's a shame to leave that to waste, you may as well eat it."  "Maybe we should make dinner at home" - "Nahhh, let's eat out again."  If everyone around us is doing badly then we don't look so bad.

The same applies to making and keeping resolutions.  Losing weight was not a resolution - it was just something I did.  My resolution was extremely simple, one to help me with self discipline and actually achieve something in terms of reading this year.  As a voracious reader, I had quite literally stacks and stacks of books I'd started but never finished.  I'd begin with great intentions, and then get tired of the topic, or I'd find something new and exciting, or I'd simply forget about my half-read book altogether.  So, my 2012 resolution was:

• Not to begin any new book until I'd completely finished every book I had partly begun,
• Once I'd done that, if I started a new book, to finish it all the way through before starting another, 
• and, not to re-read any books. 

It was probably the latter that was one of the hardest things to do - I'm a constant re-reader.  I've read Gone With the Wind at least six or seven times, and it's a thousand or more pages.  I've read all the Anne series probably twenty or thirty times.  The Bourne Identity.  Jane Eyre.  The Harry Potter series.  Probably because I'm such a fast reader, I often discover new things the second time round (or third or fourth).  But also because it's easy.  I know how the book is going to go.  It's an easy read.  It's comfort reading.  And on a cold night when I'm tired and curled up in bed, the last thing I want to do is finish some book on internet marketing that I started a few days ago.

But that's exactly what I did - all year long.  And this morning a friend posted that they were thinking of resolving to do exactly that this year, and the resolution hadn't been kept as of the 2nd of January.  And every single comment was along the lines of "Yes, that resolution is impossible, best not even to try."

I say it is possible.  I say it's hard and discouraging and weary some days, but isn't that the point of a resolution? To stretch you, to push you, to make things difficult on purpose so that you reach a more glorious goal?  My realisation for 2013 is that the secret for happiness is to do the things you don't feel like doing.  It's true spiritually - if you can't be bothered to read your Bible, you do it anyway, and you discover an amazing truth in its pages, perhaps an encouragement (or a kick up the backside).  It's true physically - going for a walk or to the gym when you're weary and tired and frustrated, and you feel rejuvenated and clearer.  It's true emotionally - refusing to listen to your moods and trusting what you know to be true (about God, about the world, about yourself) actually can turn a mood around.  It's true relationally - pushing yourself to show love to someone even when you're a bit frustrated with them, simply because you have chosen and committed to love them, actually stirs up further feelings of love for them.  It's true for your work - the days I've achieved the most are when I work on something I've been avoiding for days (or longer), and actually complete it.

And it's true for making resolutions.  I've been making very simple resolutions for three years now, and haven't broken one.

Keep them very simple, specific, and achievable, is the key.  Bear in mind that this is a full year - it's a really long time.  Don't resolve to "eat less sugar" - resolve to eat no sugar for a week every month.  Don't resolve to "read your Bible more" - resolve to read through the whole Bible in a year.  Make your resolution something that won't be broken if you have a bad day.  (Because you will have some bad days.)  Make it something that you can look back on in a year's time and say, "Yes. I did that. I never broke it, and I'm proud of that." 

The odd thing is, I haven't decided on my 2013 resolution yet.  But that's another thing I've learned - resolutions don't have to start on the 1st January.  When you realise it might be a good thing to do, whatever it is, start it then.  Even if it's on the 2nd January, or the 23rd February, or the 17th July.  Just start - and finish.  Most people won't understand, because it's hard.  But there are a few who will. 

The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

Recently I was at my local library and they had a copy of this book. I had an instant reaction that this book was a load of tosh, but then I thought, 'Well, that's kind of negative, right?' And the book is about being positive.  I am a fan of joy, and hope, and laughter, and hope, and all of those things are very positive.  And I'm in a place where I'm reading books that I don't always agree with (even with the title, or with my initial reaction to it), so I took it home.

Yep, it's a load of tosh. :) 

The thing is, it's very difficult to criticise a book that's all about positivity.

You feel the book and its author are smiling, smiling, smiling at you, and no matter what you say they are going to smile some more, and laugh, and tell you that you are just being negative. 

The deal is, there's a lot that is good in here. Much of that good comes from the source of all good, the Bible. He quotes verses continuously, and seems sincere when he avers the truth of them, or encourages others (or you the reader) to be encouraged by them as well.  He encourages reading the Bible, spending time with God, being disciplined, memorising Scripture, and many other good things.  It's not (most of) the content itself that strikes a false chord, and it wasn't until I finished the book, thought about it, and then went to church the next day hearing the Word preached that it really hit me.  Peale's book is entirely, completely, one hundred percent about what YOU can get in your life.  It is not about putting God first simply because He is first. Or trusting Him even when your life falls apart (as it can and does, and in my experience can happen more than once in a lifetime).  None of the reading, or praying, or meditating, or memorising is 'simply' because of who God is: it's because of what you can get from it. 

He talks a lot about how he has proved his theories. He tells story upon story of this person who attended a seminar and his life was changed, that person who read his book and was happy from then on.  He casually mentions once or twice that you don't necessarily always get what you ask for, but then he reverts right back to implying that you probably will if you just follow his formula.  "Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade."  It's all about technique. He explains how important faith is, and even quotes a verse from Ephesians about how we need to have faith as a shield to protect us from the devil, and then goes on to say, "Faith, belief, positive thinking, faith in God, faith in other people, faith in yourself, faith in life. This is the essence of the technique that it teaches."  Unfortunately that's not what the verse teaches, at all.  There's nothing in it, or in the entire rest of the Bible, that tells me to have faith in myself or faith in life.  It's not a generic faith: it's centred on the person and work of Jesus Christ.  But Peale's goal is happiness, and the kind that you get down here on earth when things go your way.  "Since a fundamental desire of every human being is for that state of existence called happiness, something should be done about it."

One of the problems I have with the whole concept of positive thinking and positive speak is that I am an ultra-honest person.  I hate lying in anyone, most of all myself, and so sometimes, as I've told my friends, I will tell 'the truth, the whole truth, and a little extra of the truth that you didn't really need to know'.  And so when I'm weary, or tired, or struggling, or unwell, or hurting, or discouraged, I tell people.  If they ask how I'm doing, I answer with how I am really doing. (For the most part, that is. I don't always burden the shopkeeper or the man at the petrol station with my issues, but I've been known to be honest even then.)  But Peale tells me, "Say to yourself, 'Things are going nicely. Life is good. I choose happiness,' and you can be quite certain of having your choice."  I have not had life 'easy', or 'happy' in his sense of the word.  But given the choice, I'll take the suffering, and the challenge, and the hurt, and the confusion, with a God who meets me there.  Because Jesus suffered, cruelly.  The Book of Hebrews says that we do not have a 'High Priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." The glaring problem that came home to me when I was at church on Sunday was not that having happiness is a bad thing, or that we should go around being negative because things are so hard. But it was that Jesus Himself did not come with the purpose of 'making us happy', with the definition Peale uses, in which we have health and strength and enough money and a good family and a good feeling and a smile every day.  Yes, Jesus healed diseases and illnesses everywhere He went: but when they pressed Him to stay, to heal more, to do more good, to make more families happy, Jesus refused. He actually said no.  He tells them, "I must go to preach the good news of the Kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose."  Jesus' purpose was not primarily to heal, to make better, to make happy.  He does it: oh, yes, He does it.  But it's the eternal happiness, the everlasting peace and healing and wealth that He promises.  And this is what His own people didn't understand when He came. They were expecting a Messiah who would make everything better on this earth - who would destroy their Roman enemies and make life better and bring back the wealth and pomp of the old days, and raise up a physical, golden temple in which they could worship.  And they were so confused and frustrated and angry that Jesus said in one breath "I am the Messiah" and in the next "that is not why I came", that they conspired against Him and killed Him.

The problem Peale has is that of using the excellencies of the Bible to get what you want.  Often, God does give us what we ask for, and what we want. He goes far beyond what we need and blesses us more than we can possibly imagine. But it's not in the blessing that I truly see Him for who He is, that I become who He means me to be.  None of us would ever ask for suffering - and God never tells us to.  But His Word is filled with encouragements to us that when we are suffering, we can look to God for help, and we are being made into the best version of ourselves, the version that we would never become if we were the ones calling the shots.  St. Paul says, "For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead."  And Jesus explains to His disciples that they will be mocked, and beaten, and tortured; that they will have sorrow and will not understand.  He finishes by saying, "I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."  His goal is not that they have no trouble, but that they remember something bigger, something so much greater that the existing trouble appears as nothing - and, even, that we can rejoice.  "We also rejoice in suffering, knowing that suffering produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope."  If you get everything you want, if you never think a negative thought and always insist on happiness down here, then no perseverance is needed. And no character is built, and therefore you have no hope.  Eternal hope.

In the end, I'd rather have my illnesses and weaknesses and struggles and really bad days, and the God who ministers to me through them, and to be able to comfort others who are suffering, than go round in the kind of happiness that doesn't last.  Several of my very good friends have been through pain and illness and fear and hurt so deep that nothing and no one could reach them but the words of the God who suffered more.  Because there is never, ever anyone who suffered more than He did - and through His suffering has purchased for us such wonder, such beauty, such priceless gifts as we will have on the other side of eternity.   I wonder for some of the people whose stories Peale tells, if they will at the end of their lives be told, like the rich man in one of Jesus' parables: "Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish." If you are looking for transitory happiness, the kind that may last an entire seventy or eight years, perhaps, you might get it from this book. Apparently many people have.  But if you know there is something deeper, that as Jesus said, "Life does not consist in the abundance of what one possesses", then you need much more than just happiness.  You need a release from suffering that will last seven hundred years, seven thousand years, no, time without end. 

It's true that you can't buy happiness.  It's also true that buying this book won't give you real happiness, either.

A Circle of Quiet by Madeline L'Engle

I confess to being extremely disappointed with this book. Not in the book itself - once I got into it I fair enjoyed what she had to say.  It was the deceiving title that threw me. I read the first page or two and along with the title thought that she was writing about a 'Circle of Quiet', the place that she goes when everything in the world is spinning around and she needs a centre, a place to call her own, somewhere that confusion becomes clarity (or, ceases to matter anymore).  "I go to the brook because I get out of being," she writes. "I go to the brook and my tensions and frustrations are lost as I spend a happy hour sitting right in the water and trying to clear it of the clogging debris left by a falling tree."  I love that concept of a place where you truly rest, truly be, and was looking forward to understanding more about having a place like that, letting the mind empty, and unclogging it from the world's debris.

Unfortunately for my expectations, that is not what the book is about at all.

After the first few paragraphs (which is the only bit I read when I decided to buy the book), it turns out that this is simply bits from her journal, thoughts she has had, vague ramblings of the mind. Whilst this may be a nice thing to read, it's not what I set out to read, not what I intended to read, and not what my mind was ready for.  I felt a little like the famous story (famous in our family, and now it will be famous to you as well) of my dad in the Navy, going to the dinner meal and discovering that hash browns were on the menu. There they were, heaped in pieces and waiting to be enjoyed, so he filled his plate as high as he could with them.  With great anticipation he took his first bite, only to discover he was eating sauerkraut. He didn't have a very strong feeling towards sauerkraut before that, but unfortunately in the Navy the food you take is the food you eat, and he had to finish the entire plateful.  His eagerness dimmed to disappointment and then weariness and then loathing, so that he has almost never touched sauerkraut since.  I doubt I'll steer clear of Madeline L'Engle in future - I still like her writing, especially her children's books, and I agreed heartily with much of what she had to say in this book - but I have no desire to read volumes 2 or 3 of this series, and still feel a bitter taste in my mouth having finished it.

Of course, that all being said, if you'd like to read something that's a rambling journal of thoughts, like the 'morning pages' suggested by the Artist's Way, then this is the book for you.  It's philosophical for the most part - her thoughts on life, love, God, purpose, writing, and society - which for me was a bit hard work. Anything that presents an alternate view of how to look at the world (L'Engle is an agnostic) takes thought and effort, and I was prepared to read something easy, something that flowed. It does flow, but flows like a river.  A real river, with rocks and sticks and fish and waterbugs and a few rapids and whirlpools and tree branches and noise.

So, I thought I'd just include a few quotes from the book that struck me, so you can enjoy them. I would recommend the book - just with that careful caveat of what it's really about!

"To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy."

"I think that all artists, regardless of degree of talent, are a painful, paradoxical combination of certainty and uncertainty, of arrogance and humility, constantly in need of reassurance, and yet with a stubborn streak of faith in their validity, no matter what." [This is remarkably true of me in every particular.]

"Love is not an emotion. It is a policy." -Hugh Bishop

"If we ever, God forbid, manage to make each child succeed within his peer group, we will produce a race of bland and faceless nonentities, and all poetry and mystery will vanish from the face of the earth."

"Sometimes, doing violence to language means not using it at all, not being afraid of being silent together, of being silent alone. Then, through the thunderous silence, we may be able to hear a still, small voice, and words will be born anew."

"We tend, today, to want to have a road map of exactly where we are going. We want to know whether or not we have succeeded in everything we do.  It's all right to want to know - we wouldn't be human if we didn't - but we also have to understand that a lot of the time we aren't going to know."

"Can we produce a single human being like Leonardo, who could reach out into every area of the world of his day? Our children have never known a world without machines: dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, electric heaters...there are more machines than we can possibly count; beware, beware, lest they take us over."  [Note: this was written in 1972.]

"Sometimes I answer that if I have something I want to say that is too difficult for adults to swallow, then I write it in a book for children.  Children still haven't closed themselves off with fear of the unknown, fear of revolution, or the scramble for security. It was adults who thought that children would be afraid of the Dark Thing in [A Wrinkle In Time], not children, who understand the need to see thingness, non-ness, and to fight it."

"It's far more exciting to be enthusiastic about the real book that deals with life in all its peculiarity than to allow ourselves to be dazzled with the cheap substitute that tickles the palate for the moment but leaves us with a hangover."

"In the final exam in the Chaucer course we were asked why he used certain verbal devices, certain adjectives, why he had certain characters behave in certain ways. And I wrote, 'I don't think Chaucer had any idea why he did any of these things. That isn't the way people write.'"

"Beethoven had the right idea: he played one of his sonatas for someone, and when he had finished, the person said, 'That's very nice, but what does it mean?' And Beethoven sat down and played the whole thing over."

"It takes a certain amount of living to strike the strange balance between the two errors either of regarding ourselves as unforgivable, or as not needing forgiveness."

A strange, eclectic compilation, no doubt...and therefore probably a perfect representation from the book. Or, perfect as it reflects what stood out to me.  You might be struck and moved by sentences that entirely passed me by.  That's the beauty of it.  And there is, indeed, beauty there.

The Choice by Nicholas Sparks

Okay, I admit it.  I read a Nicholas Sparks novel. (Heavy sigh.) I think I knew exactly what I was getting myself into, but I was tired and wanted something easy to breeze through.  Well, it was easy all right.  I feel like some of my friends who commented that after reading Mockingjay they "wanted those lost hours back".  I didn't feel that way about Mockingjay, but excepting the fact that there's always something to be learned from every reading experience, reading 'The Choice' was definitely a few hours in which you're transported to a time that - let's be frank - doesn't exist.

The kind of time that is constantly smoothed over with a dreamy, sunset kind of feel.  Where people fall in love over a weekend, instantly know they are meant to be together, have a few arguments that you know don't matter (and you feel were thrown in as an afterthought with a nod to reality), and generally have (and constantly recognise they have) the best [fill in the blank] in the world.  Life, husband, wife, children, house, small town, job, talent, boat, family.  Phrases are thrown about that you feel grown men never say, much less think.  Guys ruminate reflectively on their lives.  Women are somehow both fiercely independent and desperately needy, whilst remaining incredibly beautiful at all times.  Beautiful, mind you, with the girl-next-door meets supermodel kind of beauty, and of course they have no idea how beautiful they are (but they manage to be casually confident in it).  You see where this is going?  No one in the entire novel is really ugly. Or annoying. Or bad. And that's where the distance from real life comes.  Granted, we don't read novels to live in the real world.  Even Jane Austen admitted that in order to find a man like Mr Darcy, she had to make him up.  But something's not quite right.

Naturally, there's a Crisis that occurs about halfway through the book.  This is common to all of Nicholas Sparks' novels (I say this not because I've ready any others, but because I've seen a few of the films - again not the best hours I've spent in my life).  There's the fairy-tale stage, followed by a short 'real life' stage (but not really real), and then the Crisis occurs. Someone gets cancer. Or leukemia. Or goes to war.  Or is in a coma.  Something drastic, and it's hard and challenging and burdening....but you (well, definitely I) never connect with the hero. Or the heroine, or anybody.  The only person in the entire book I almost liked was the hero's sister, who had a caustic wit and slung around sarcasm with her constant energy.  Naturally, she was gorgeous and talented and had a PhD and a guy who loved her although she wasn't sure if she loved him back, and she never once lacked even an ounce of confidence. I don't know why I liked her, she was like a Greek goddess in the modern woman's body.  Must have been the sarcasm.  But the hero, her brother, just sort of mooned around the whole time replaying moments in his mind, and (I doubt I'm ruining anything for anyone here, since I'd highly recommend you not bother reading this or any other Sparks novel) naturally gets exactly what he wants in the end, and they all live happily ever after.

The funny thing is, I'm not opposed in the slightest to people getting a happily ever after. (Okay, maybe on some of my bad days I am, a little, but that's just jealousy.)  And I love reading good fiction that brings it about.  But I think what frustrates me so much about this kind of novel is that you never connect to the suffering.  It's as though they suffer at a distance, in a disembodied way, and you're not allowed - even through the pages of the book - to come in and feel it with them.  Perhaps the author has never suffered to the depths of his soul as his imaginary characters have. I don't know - I could be completely wrong. Perhaps he has, and he's describing it the best way he knows how.  But if he hasn't, and his life has been pretty good, and he had a happy childhood and went to university and met his wife there and married her and had some children and worked a few jobs and wrote some novels...well...that explains a few things.  Because I admire so many authors for their incredible flights of imagination, but I'll tell you this from real experience: suffering can't be imagined.  Not the down-deep, life's-dreams-gone-wrong, bitter heartache of despair suffering.  You have to go through it.  I've had a little, and I have friends who've had a lot.  And I just get the odd feeling, reading this novel at least, that as hard as he tries, there's still a little sunset glow left.  And unfortunately that's the first thing to go in deep-down-suffering.  Oh, it comes back - praise God, it comes back.  But the moments when it's gone with no hope on the horizon, well, that's the bit I felt was missing for a novel like this to really connect. 

So, read it if you like....nah. Don't. Do something real with your time.  Phone your mother, or your sister, or a good friend.  Write a long email.  Bake a cheesecake.  Go to church.  Clean the house.  Just sit in a comfortable chair and watch the world go by.  You'll be better off.  And if a genuine Crisis comes into your life (or already has), face it with all the love and joy and defiance and spirit that's in you. 

From Fatigued to Fantastic by Jacob Teitelbaum, M.D.

Almost ten years ago, I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also known in the UK as ME.  I've journeyed a long road to get to a place where I can manage my energy levels well, but I've been meaning to read this book for probably five or six years at least.  If you have CFS (or Fibromyalgia, or Lyme disease), or you think you may have it, this is an absolutely excellent resource to skip a lot of the pain, difficulty, expense, and heartache I went through discovering how to live well with something that is debilitating to so many.  I thank God regularly that I can live not just a 'normal life', but better than normal: I can genuinely say that if not for this illness, I would never have been able to do what I have in life.  That's because, until you're faced with the fact that your energy supplies are limited (on a daily basis), you tend to fling them around indiscriminately, knowing that after a rest, or a nap, or a good night's sleep, or a holiday, your energy stores will be replenished, and you can deplete them to your pleasure again.

CFS doesn't work like that.  The best way I can think to describe it is that before you get this illness, you view your energy stores as I've just described - like a great storehouse that depletes on a daily basis, but is always renewed.  After getting CFS, I came to realise that my storehouse was cut in half at one fell stroke, and would very likely in this life never rise to its full height again.  My experience is not everyone's - some are brought down much further than I ever was, and others have risen to higher energy levels than they ever had before.  But one thing among many that I have gained is the knowledge that energy is an extremely valuable, and not very renewable, resource in my life.  It is precious, and should be held and used and poured out with great care.

[Before I go on, I'd like to add that I am very, very cautious about 'encouraging' people that they have, or could have, CFS.  It is a diagnosis of exclusion, because there is no test that can be done to determine it, and I would strongly recommend some very simple steps to be taken for at least six months or a year before seeking to diagnose fatigue or weariness as CFS.  This is not to diminish the illness in any way - it's because I have experienced many, many well-meaning people who are tired or exhausted in their lives and they immediately jump to wondering if they have this illness, instead of doing some incredibly simple things like managing their nutrition well, sleeping 8-9 hours a night, drinking water like a camel, working less, exercising more, and taking basic vitamins.]  

For a 'medical tome', which this book primarily is, it reads very well.  The author has great turns of phrases that help you truly see how the body works - things like "M antibodies are like your body's storm troopers" and "caffeine is a loan shark for energy".  And even some hilarious statements that make you realise that he really does know how you feel (the author, a medical doctor, contracted CFS himself): "Some physicians still like to say that vitamins are excreted in your urine, so all you're doing by taking vitamin supplements is making expensive urine. Using this line of reasoning, these cynics can stop drinking water (it just goes out in their urine). That way, they'll soon stop annoying people who are in the process of getting themselves well."  I actually laughed aloud reading this - I could tell how frustrated he gets with physicians who don't understand - or don't try to understand - this illness, and the many things that can be done to improve it.  He even says, "I apologise for the medical profession's calling you crazy just because we cannot determine the cause of your problem. It is inappropriate and cruel."

The bulk of the book is spent discussing the four key areas that should be addressed for anyone with this kind of illness - sleep, hormones, infection, and nutrition.  I particularly found the sections on sleep and nutrition the most beneficial (and the most encouraging, since I was doing most of what he suggested, and because there are so many herbal/natural remedies as opposed to medical/prescriptive ones).  It reminded me of some basics I've fallen away from - like removing white bread, white rice, and sugar from my diet.  (Or, if you do have these, preparing yourself for the consequences.)  It also helped me understand in a new way why I was doing what I've been doing for so long - why D-Ribose is so effective for rebuilding energy, why margarine is so much worse than butter and what it does to your cell membranes, how extra Vitamin C protects the body from infection, and how much of an impact the lack of sleep can have in gaining extra weight.

It was nice, too, to have a short chapter on why you're not crazy, why most people who get CFS are "mega-type-A overachievers" (yes, me), and how that affects not only your contracting this illness, but prolonging it.  I remember when I first was diagnosed, and I made every effort to change things in my life, and after about 6 months I genuinely felt all my energy come back. I was thrilled - but instead of being wise and continuing on the path, I left it completely and began flinging it around immoderately again. I was the Prodigal Energy User, and it took me a long time to come broken and depleted back to the beginning, with a lot of sorrow for what was lost. 

I don't have any sorrow relating to this illness anymore.  Oh, maybe once in a while, on a bad day, or when I have to say no to something that it seems like 'everyone else' gets to do - but overall, if you asked me what I thought, I'd be thankful for it more than almost anything else in my life the Lord has chosen to give me.  It set me right when it comes to my energy - and that is a very valuable and precious resource. 

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Today I finished the last book in the Hunger Games trilogy.  The best word I can use to describe it is 'horrifying'.  This one, for me, was real in a way the other two never were.  Constant battle. Dead bodies. Nightmares. Pain. Torture. The beautiful turned enemy, the good hijacked to the purposes of the Enemy until no one knows what is real and what is not real.  For me it was like reading a nightmare - everything seemed to make sense, and then suddenly it didn't, nothing made sense, and you hoped with the rest of the players in the book that you and they would wake up to everything restored and a happy ending at last.  Except...no ending could be 'happy' when there is so much that has been lost.

This book more than any of the others says, the Hunger Games are not games. They are evil, ruthless, devised by those who have lost their humanity and wish only for a revenge that never satisfies, and then turn that into entertainment for all to celebrate, in a macabre way.  It was twice as horrifying when you look back into history and realise that much of her 'fiction' was drawn from the brutal games of the capitol that was Rome.  'Panem et Circenses' - "Bread and Circuses".  "In return for full bellies and entertainment, his people had given up their political responsibilities and therefore their power", says a Head Gamemaker in the book. And Katniss herself identifies the greatest danger when she comes to after a fierce battle and asks, "Was there fighting after I was shot?"  Her friend answers, "Not much. The workers...turned on the Capitol soldiers. The rebels just sat by and watched. Actually, the whole country just sat by and watched."  "Well," says Katniss, "that's what they do best." 

I think this is where the nightmare began to feel very, very real.  For the most part, we as a society find it far easier just to sit by and watch.  Complain about the current politics or politicians or potential leaders, and rally support on Facebook or Twitter...but don't bother to vote, because it won't make a difference anyway.  Gather round a screen for Britain's Got Talent or American Idol or Big Brother and get caught up in the lives of people you don't even know or understand.  Seek our own, and be content on full bellies and entertainment. 

Yes, I'd recommend the book, and the series - but it's not just a good read that you put down and then sigh and smile and go on with your life, glad that you have food and a warm home and your family nearby.  At least, I hope that's not what it is.  I hope it's hard, and a bit shocking, and brutally horrible. Spellbinding, yes, but not an easy read.  Nothing this heartbreaking and nightmarish should be.

Amish Peace by Suzanne Wood Fisher

Reading this book is like stopping to take a deep breath during the middle of a race.  I've always loved the stillness, beauty, and age-old traditions of the Amish - people who live with wisdom and grace in an unhurried way while the rest of the world spins like crazy tops all around them.  When I finished the book I felt like I would do well to go and live with the Amish for a year - work hard outside, make and eat good food, talk less, pray more, listen deeply, notice beauty, and have a stillness of soul that the rest of the world has given up on.  (My friend Megan says that with all my Apple technology, they wouldn't let me in, but I accept that I would have to leave all that behind.)

There was a lot in the book I really liked, although something that significantly detracted from its wisdom and my enjoyment of it was the questions at the end of every chapter. I've come to really hate this tendency in modern-day Christian books - as though I don't have a brain enough to simply learn from reading the book itself, but I have to be dragged and guided to a place of new understanding and growth, like a child who has to do homework instead of learning for the sheer joy of it, or (gasp) learning something you didn't think they would learn.  I felt that I was perfectly capable of being struck by a particular thought in the book, and I didn't have to be pushed and prodded to ask myself, "How dependent are you on modern conveniences?" or "Do you see dependence on others as a weakness or a strength?"  What frustrated me most is that it was in direct contrast to what the purported purpose of the book itself was. I doubt that the Amish would like it.  I imagine when reading they would stop and think about something that struck them, without having someone or something pointing, reaching, grabbing their arm to make them think along certain lines.  And then there were these random Amish facts at the end of each chapter - small items about how the Amish live that generally had nothing to do with the chapter I'd just read.  Made me feel as though there wasn't enough material for a 'good book', and so they packed in a little extra to please a modern world.  Misses the point entirely.

In spite of that, there were some very moving quotes and comments I thought I'd share:

"A man is rich in proportion to the things he can afford to leave alone." -Amish Proverb

"Time might pass slowly on Amish farms, but it is filled with a promise about what is to come: small miracles in the course of a day, long miracles of passing generations."

"A task takes as long as it takes."  -Amish proverb

"Drawing is in the eye, not in the hand." -Susie Lapp

"If you sense your faith is unraveling, go back to where you dropped the thread of obedience." -Amish proverb

"They had forgiven me, and they never, ever went back on that decision. And they backed it up with a real relationship. It was powerful." -Joel Kime (responsible for a car accident that caused the death of a young Amish woman)

"Blessed are they who have nothing to say, and who cannot be persuaded to say it." -Amish proverb

"When we fail to practice silence, God must go to great lengths to get our attention through all the noisiness of our own thoughts, the noisiness of our feelings, the noisiness of the world....There is no substitute for silence. No trick. No shortcut."  -Ruby Zook

"Swallowing words before you say them is so much better than having to eat them afterward." -Amish proverb

"You can tell how big a person is by what it takes to discourage him."  -Amish proverb

I did enjoy reading this book. It was an easy read, but a little tough to read all at one go - like trying to have dessert and dinner and coffee all at the same time.  It's best enjoyed one little piece at a time, mulling it over, considering it, and going back to it once you've given it some thought. Otherwise it just becomes the next book to read, and tick off the list.