Beneath a Navajo Moon

• Beneath a Navajo Moon by Lisa Carter on Amazon

What a gorgeous cover, and it even wraps around to the back of the book! Beneath A Navajo Moon is a novel in the Abingdon Press Abington Fiction – "a novel approach to faith" – series, so I expected the story to include a spiritual slant and some explicitly Christian details. Abingdon is an imprint of the United Methodist Publishing House, and the UMC is a mainline church body, yet I wasn't surprised to find Lisa Carter's book more in the conservative evangelical category than in the liberal mainline.

From the start, Carter nicely delineates flashbacks about Olivia, a white missionary and the original subject of central figure southerner North Carolinian Erin's visit to the Navajo rez for her cultural anthropology grad school research. in fact, we get several pieces of Olivia back story starting with the turn of the 20th century and into the middle of that century.

With my love of and familiarity with the southwestern desert, I enjoyed the author's fictitious northern Arizona Cedar Canyon locale where most of the action happens. I know very few details about Navajo culture, though I'm aware Arizona has more Native Indian-owned land than any other state. I also have enough knowledge of a raped and plundered land, a subjugated people and the subsequent hatred and contempt many native Peoples have for their oppressors to understand the White-Native People irresolution and conflict in this novel.

My feelings about Beneath A Navajo Moon are very mixed. Erin is an adopted daughter of sometimes foreign missionaries who has lived in several different cultures. We get typical evangelical missionary stereotypes of White Protestants thinking they need to help save Unreached People Groups. Indigenous People Cedar Canyon Community Church Pastor Johnny is no big cultural surprise, either. We find the necessity of Erin marrying a true believer who has given his life to Jesus. We get redemption by blood in the context of native practices and Christian convictions. Interesting vignette of Adam drawing his own blood in the unfinished initiation ceremony toward the book's end and then finally his giving his life to Jesus in order to claim his true redemption via Jesus' shed blood – "not with blood of goats or heifers" – as we read in the letter to the Hebrews the book sometimes cites. Erin and her romantic native American interest Adam are the most clearly drawn characters.

Apparently Carter has not been writing all that seriously for all that long, and though she writes fairly well, she seems like an author to keep following, since I expect her writing to keep getting better and better. I like the two dozen "Discussion Questions" at the end. I wouldn't necessarily consider Beneath a Navajo Moon for a reading club, but anyone who has read the book might want to consider some of their own experiences and convictions in light of the book's narrative.

• My Amazon Review: anthropology, religion, romance…

Reformation 2014

Thomas Menino :: Mayor for A New America

• Thomas Menino :: Mayor for a New America by Thomas M Menino with Jack Beatty on Amazon

Disclaimer: I'm reviewing the incomplete Advance Reader Copy from Amazon Vine, so some of my remarks may not apply to the finished edition.

Multi-term Boston Mayor Thomas M Menino brings us a memorable account of his five terms in an introduction and only five chapters―but admittedly they're five long ones. The intro quickly moves us through the Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath that created many days of national news during April 2013. As I read the intro about the Boston bombing, I felt I was there at the scene while I also clearly remembered sitting in front of my television in southern California for the next piece of news; it helped that I'd lived in Watertown and had a clue as to the lay of the land where police found the bombing suspect holed up in a boat moored in a backyard.

Chapters include: (1) Menino's early days in Boston's Hide Pahk naybahhood and how human connections, interactive politics, excellent people skills, and hard work took him to City Hall, first as acting mayor, and then as elected mayor; (2) Schools; (3) Police and Fire; (4) Getting Stuff Done; a concluding (5) "To Think I Did All That," expressing his amazement that he accomplished so much.

In contrast to most other major US cities, Boston proper covers only about 48 square miles. Nonetheless, as Menino describes and as I experienced, in historical and present-day influence, and in scope of problems such as crime, corruption, poverty, racism, educational underachievement, and wealth, Boston is very major big city. I lived in Boston more than once, so Menino's description of mostly Irish educational, police, and fire with their cronyism, deal-makings, and corruption took me back in time. Tom Menino was the first Italian-American mayor of Boston―he was the first mayor whose heritage was not Irish-American.

Some reviewers have mentioned the book emphasizes Menino's successes, and it does. Hey, he's a politician and this is in print, so of course he wants to memorialize himself well, yet he doesn't entirely omit a few endeavors that didn't bear healthy fruit. I know Grove Hall, Jeremiah E Burke High School, Roslindale Square, Roxbury… I also experienced changing Boston demographics. At one time my landlord was a second generation Italian-American; some years later, I rented from a fairly recent immigrant from the Dominican Republic.

The chapters are long yet engaging, and I was disappointed when I reached the end―is that all there is? I wanted more! My copy lacked the index I know I'd have enjoyed reading through because I'd have known most of the names and places.

Mayor for a New America leads us to ask questions about the role of government in different settings; in any case and place, how much government is too much? How much is not enough? Does a poorer or a literally poverty-stricken constituency legitimately need more services and more direct governing? How much can we expect under-educated and historically underserved populations to do for themselves? The work, the mystery, and sometimes the magic of politics helps create better lives. Thomas Menino accomplished that, and he laid a solid foundation for his successors to continue his legacy.

• My Amazon Review: vivid memories, future hopes

jury duty 5

Jury Duty Friday 5 on the Rev Gals Blog

1-2. I've been called to jury duty by getting a letter in the snail mail quite a few times. The very first time I was excited and wanted to serve, but since I was in school plus working as an unlicensed home health care aide a couple days a week in a setting where I couldn't be replaced, I couldn't. A couple times after that some thing or another thing disqualified me. Later on, at least twice I've spent most of the day sitting in the courthouse lounge; one of those times I got called and screened in the courtroom, and then dismissed. The last two times I got a letter I had to excuse myself since I was freelancing as a designer and couldn't afford days or weeks off.

3. I understand that California gets their names from voter registration and driver's license lists.

4. Referring to #1-2, I've never actually gotten picked to serve on a jury.

5. No one ever has summoned me to a US/Federal Court. I'd be happy to serve locally, but The Feds sound a bit intimidating.

blog action day 2014: inequality

Inequality is the Blog Action Day topic for this year 2014.

For this year's blog action day subject of Inequality, I'm writing about aspects of life in the larger, more extended church and in the local churches. By now everyone knows separate (accommodations, considerations, requirements, opportunities) inherently is unequal. Justice and equality are at least first cousins, probably siblings, and anyone who's reached a certain age – ten years old?! – can cite countless instances of retributive and distributive injustice and inequality.

On to inequality...

For quite a few decades, many mostly mainline denominations / church bodies have been ordaining women as deacons / elders (presbyters, priests) / ministers of word and sacrament. Historically and practically, there are different configurations and permutations in terms of ordination. In some churches the diaconate is a rank of ordination; others consecrate rather than ordain deacons /diaconal ministers. Besides churches where woman deacons and pastors have become routine and expected, several other large denominations, most publicly LDS (Latter-day Saints), LCMS (Lutheran Church Missouri Synod), and RC (Roman Catholic) recently again have reaffirmed their positions.

In those church bodies, maybe mostly in response to grass roots ferment and restlessness, study of scripture on every participatory level has reopened the question of women's role and rank in church leadership. Reopened the question followed by closing the discussion. Current official position in those three church bodies – and probably in some I haven't been following – remains according in their interpretation of scripture, women cannot be ordained. On a side note, women freely preach and teach in both LDS and RC churches, though the LCMS is guarded and circumspect regarding those activities.

We absolutely need to contextualize the gospel into our current cultural and geographical setting, so what worked for someone as recently as a decade ago when they were a student at an urban New Zealand university won't be a good fit for their current living situation in rural Canadian Prairie Land. In their studies of scripture and their affirmations of Jesus Christ as the ultimate authority, some church bodies have agreed to ordain women, others haven't.

No one truly can separate culture and style from history, tradition, and (even!) scripture, and a few recently publicized events regarding women's ordination vis-à-vis church have looked suspiciously (to me and others, as well) like a focus on style rather than on substance―but whatever. Although my own reading comes out on the side of allowing and encouraging women's ordination and full participation in all levels of church leadership, it truly is "complicated," and culture, psychology, and even prejudice aside, I appreciate that some people may disagree with me.

I'm far more concerned by unequal treatment accorded to richer, more prominent, more famous church leaders regarding morality and ethics. "Unequal" in the sense of well-connected, more affluent, household names not being held fully accountable for bad behavior. There's a recently revealed case of a newly installed president of a mainline seminary where the guy had admitted to at least two extra-marital affairs whilst serving Big Steeple Churches. So he apologized and somehow gets to stay in his presidency position. In a smaller church with a lesser-known pastor, the pastor would have been expected to resign, would have quit, and would have agreed to counseling before returning to professional service in the church―or the pastor possibly would have left church altogether.

Regarding another too common example of ecclesiastical inequality, an article I read last winter spoke of the high personal, professional, financial cost of pastoral firings for any reason (not only moral misconduct) in the typical local church. The article admitted in that particular Episcopal Church tradition, bishops generally got a golden parachute no matter how severe their failings and shenanigans. Financial and sexual improprieties may be most common, but other ethical violations too frequently happen, with resulting fallout that extends far beyond the person's family, the local church "family," that town, or the denomination/tradition in question.

Not a single person can achieve the absolute obedience that is God's standard for every Christian, and most of us need to rely upon repentance, forgiveness, and grace more often than we wish were necessary. But why the double standard? Why such inequality?

Adam Hamilton – Revival: Faith as Wesley Lived It

• Revival: Faith as Wesley Live it on Amazon.

Gotta love the Brothers Wesley and Mom Susanna! I'd hazard to guess anyone who has read any of United Methodist Pastor Adam Hamilton's writing enjoys it, too.

Although "Revival: Faith as [John] Wesley Lived It" covers some basic doctrinal points, more than anything it provides a biographical and geographical overview of the spirits of the more famous Bros Wesley, John and Charles, and of the places they lived in and served in. I love the clear prose with its easygoing conversational style; largish print and relevant section headings help, as well.

I frequently remember John Wesley never renounced his Anglican orders, and it's interesting that Anglicanism has a popular image of being a bit uppity and formal, while Wesleyan churches (Nazarene, Salvation Army, Pentecostal, Holiness) that actually are Anglican offshoots are known for serving among society's neediest. With that history along with the Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua movement, and assorted revival movements with their reputation for taking the gospel to ordinary everyday people, it surprised me to learn that at first John Wesley thought it was almost wrong for an individual to come to saving faith in a place other than the interior of a church building.

You also get maps, black and white photographs, and resourceful end notes. This book about John Wesley is another essential for any church library, and since it's quick and enjoyable reading, it would be a good choice to lend to one of those people you know who has too many misconceptions about church and Christianity. Final note: I love the bright, sculpted cover design, too!

• my amazon review: Spirit of the Wesleys, Spirit of their Times

week of grace 09

Another fairly short list, due to my not yet being in the habit of making notes; this one includes lots of food again...

1. A fabulous response to October's Synchroblog event last Tuesday! In addition to more than two dozen official synchroblog participants, I don't know how many people tweeted, posted, blogged, or otherwise help publicize Mental Illness/Health Awareness Week.

2. Carl's Jr. Santa Fe Chicken Sandwich: Burger Bun; Chicken; Green Chili Peppers; Lettuce; Tomato, Santa Fe Sauce, Cheese lots of extra Mayonnaise added from my end.

3. After the Santa Fe sandwich, I found and bought a big fat, beautiful book about the city of Santa Fe, Santa Fe Style from the library book sale.

4. Small, sweet, seedless black grapes at Thursday Community Dinner. TJs donates a lot of the food for Thursday evening and for sandwich ministry.

5. UCSD student EJ sang a solo this morning.

6. First reading this morning for Pentecost 18A was from Isaiah 25—that's where my current blog header scripture, Isaiah 25:6-7 is from!

7. I've been noticing more bicycles around town and took more pics for the future Bicycles Gallery I'm planning to add to my fb page, to my professional site, and maybe formatted for my print portfolio.

8. Several more free books from Amazon Vine—so grateful I get to read some books I wouldn't otherwise even have heard of.

second friday random 5

Second Friday Random 5

1. How do I sign off in my emails? If it's a a quick note, no salutation and no sig, since my stored signature includes this blog, my fb design page, and linkedin (who takes linkedin srsly? That one's just in case.) For an actual letter, I often sign off with "Peace and hope," because every one of us needs both.

2. If I were an animal TODAY, I'll go with my default domestic cat or wild cat, because I can choose to do what I please all the time, I can be cuddly snuggly or not, have my choice of gourmet vittles, play, stalk, socialize, ignore, etc.

3. When I get snarky, typically someone making a not-thought through (after all, most people are more mimetic than thoughtful) idiotic statement about almost anything. I cannot abide over-spiritualized Christianity, nor can I abide theology that's does account for earthbound paradox. Assumptions about me or about other people—how about the first time someone told me I was "uneducated?" and too many more to type the endlessly growing list.

4. When I looked up from my computer I had to look around for something interesting, since the first thing I noticed when I looked up was an emply white Ikea shelf. Right beside me to the left is my housemate/landlady/colleague/friend's iMac computer that she's had I don't know how long and hasn't ever turned on. She does some internet on my puter, but even totally quit fb! Outrageous!

5. My fave socks are those relatively thin ones with horses or kitties, along with thicker "boot socks" that typically aren't too durable yet usually are very comfy and soft.

synchroblog: mental illness/health awareness

October synchroblog on synchroblog central

This month:

To commemorate the launch of Sarah Griffith Lund‘s new book ― Blessed Are The Crazy: Breaking the Silence About Mental Illness, Family, and Church ― and to participate in National Mental Illness Awareness Week (Oct. 5-11), we invite you to join in a Synchroblog on mental illness, family, and church.

Break the silence by sharing your personal story of how you’ve been impacted by mental illness in your family and/or in your faith community.

October 5-11 is National Mental Illness Awareness Week; you can learn more on the NAMI MIAW page.

October 7 is the National Day of Prayer for Mental Illness Recovery and Understanding.

"Break the silence by sharing your story..." My final post for a while in my tellingthestory label last spring. Socially, professionally, and financially that story I'm trying to tell has been costly beyond anything I could have imagined.

Intro

For starters, the side of my family of origin I know something about has a multi-generational history of severe clinical depression, suicide, bipolar I, panic disorder, agoraphobia... Since my early teen years I've battled "something OCD-ish", panic disorder, and claustrophobia; I also have migraine disorder―as opposed to an occasional discrete migraine episode. Evidence shows those illnesses are closely related. Psychiatry deals with brain function, neurology with brain structure, though you can't separate them! Most medical centers of any size will have a neuropsychiatrist or psychoneurologist (someone boarded in both specialties) on staff. Doctors sometimes prescribe anticonvulsants – technically neurological drugs – to treat depression and mania that formally are psychiatric diagnoses. Sometimes physicians prescribe antidepressants (psych meds) to alleviate neurologically-based migraines and other headaches. Clinicians insist it can be difficult to discern the flat mood of depression from that of psychosis; sometimes you need to wait and see. I'll add there's also the flat affect of some brain injuries.

I try to understand the countless times I've heard or read passionate pleas please to interact with and act toward people with mental/psychiatric illnesses just as you do people with any other physical malady, because, after all, disorders of mood and thought are whole-body diseases. However, for some reason most people seem to miss or evade the fact those illnesses strike at the very heart of a person's humanity, since they profoundly affect thinking and feeling. In other words, in presentation and in social cost, they're anything but simply "another illness." In addition, most people will have an episode that makes them look clinically depressed at some point in their lives.

My Friend C

After pancakes and festivities, last Shrove Tuesday I signed a covenant with a friend: we both promised to keep stayin' alive in the blues. Six weeks plus later, we sat together at the Easter Vigil; at the end of that three-day long Triduum liturgy, after (finally!) the first Eucharist of Easter, I excitedly went to the back of the church sanctuary and rang the bell seven times to proclaim death and resurrection to the surrounding neighborhood! Together at Easter Vigil. C died less than two weeks later. Her blues almost definitely had been the clinical depression she'd told people she was being treated for; you could call my case of the blues "existential depression" due to one thing after another, including fallout from the physical fall and subsequent losses I referenced in my "tellingthestory" posts.

desert spirit's fire! truly is mostly a theology blog rather than reflections on my daily or weekly activities. (Why not a hat tip to my seminary professors who assumed I'd get a ThD or PhD and teach in seminary? They've got one!) You know none of us is faithful—no, not one! At C's funeral, the pastor assured us C was with Jesus and with her parents who had predeceased her. I just noticed the last sentence I typed! Had Jesus the Christ predeceased her? Yes. The preacher assured us C was with her family and with Jesus because of Jesus' infinite faithfulness. Afterwards at lunch in the social hall, C's baptismal certificate was at the top of the display of items associated with her. God irrevocably claimed C in baptism. God keeps covenant. God kept covenant.

Other October Synchroblog Participants:

• Sarah Griffith Lund – Stronger Together
• Liz Dyer – Finding the Courage to Break the Silence
• Stacy Sergent – ‪No Longer Protecting Secrets
• Patricia Watson – Grace Amid Crazy
• Glenn Hager – When Mental Illness Strikes Home
• Crystal Rice – Looking Well on the Outside
• Jeremy Myers – A True Foot Washing Service
• David Hosey – The church, the psych ward, and me
• Ona Marie – Mental Illness, Family, and Church
• Carol Kuniholm – A Prayer for the Broken
• Susan Herman – 3 Self Care Rituals for Managing Tough Transitions
• Eric Atcheson – Blessed Are The Crazy
• Joan Peacock – “Alice in Wonderland”, a Bipolar BookGroup Discussion Guide
• Justin Steckbauer – Mental Illness, Awareness, and Jesus
• Kathy Escobar – Mental Illness: 3 Sets of 3 Things
• Leah Sophia – Mental Illness/Health Awareness
• Josh Morgan – Peace Between Spirituality and Mental Health
• Tara Ulrich – Breaking the Silence
• Sarah Renfro – Blessed Are The Crazy
• Steve Hayes – Mental illness and the Christian faith
• Mindi Welton-Mitchell – Breaking the Silence: Disability, Mental Illness and the Church
• Michelle Torigian – A Life of Baby Steps
• Bec Cranford-Smith – Mental Health and the Pastor
• Loveday Anyim – My Mental Health is your Business

Train :: The Definitive Visual History

• Train: The Definitive Visual History on Amazon. Amazon cites Giles Chapman as the main author.

What a fabulous surprise! Even better, brighter, bolder, bigger (yes, I noticed the dimensions in the product listing) than I'd anticipated, Smithsonian Train: The Definitive Visual History is visually delightful, informative, and inspiring.

From the embossed cover portrait of Southern Railway Locomotive 1401, to the detailed table of contents that lets you choose what to read about and learn about next, to the sumptuous feast of full colour photographs throughout, this has got to be one of the best books ever about any topic!

Although there's an extremely high ratio of images to text, histories and descriptions don't ramble, but tell you what you want to know. I especially love the final feature, How Railroads Work, Engines and Tracks (Signals, Wheels, Locomotives, etc.).

Like many people, I have some history with riding the rails: a couple of fairly long trips in the continental USA as a young kid, later as a teenager, then as a young adult; a few dozen or more Budd SPV-2000 – "Buddlliner" – jaunts to and from Boston and the North Shore of Boston; the almost impossibly efficient, on time EuroRail; and more recently the AmTrak. I remember returning to Salt Lake City from Southern Idaho Sunday evenings with a long freight train riding alongside the highway on our right and to the west; I can't count the times I waited at a RR crossing when I lived in Utah; who hasn't experienced with their entire being a train whistle piercing the night sky in small town rural, big city urban USA? My grandfather had planned to finish high school and then college, but got a job with the railway, at that time considered the future of the country, and never gave school another thought.

Another reviewed has outlined book content, so no need for a duplicate listing. Train is heavy to hold (both a lap book and a coffee table one), and very well bound. If you can describe a book as "Heirloom Quality," this one is for sure.

• My Amazon Review: bright! bold! a treasure!

week of grace 08

After a few week's sabbatical for this topic, here's Week of Grace 08, I backtracked a bit to account for missing last week

1. A wonderful time along with many welcome compliments for leading hymns on the piano for the monthly meeting of Presbyterian Women at the church I used to attend.

2. Lunch and conversation afterwards in the social hall gets a line of its own: Chicken Divan; tossed green salad with southern California special ranch dressing, rolls and butter, yellow cake with white frosting.

3. Finally got highlights, haircut, etc. done.

4. Yummy super-fresh Bánh Mi at the salon—aka "Linda's Garage".

5. Box of frozen waffles turned out to be blueberry instead of buttermilk per outside package label! how fun!

6. Speakeasy blogger/reader bureau (underground discussion community of off-the-beaten path faith, spirituality, & culture books) sent me an actual physical copy of Resurrection City, one of my fave books I reviewed for them that at the time they only had digital copies to distribute!

7. Wednesday evening Brief Eucharist for St Michael & All Angels (Gabriel, Raphael) followed by monthly first Wednesday Healing Rite

8. Several comment exchanges with another amazon vine reviewer who likes my reviews!

9. Excellent post-liturgy Sunday brunch to welcome new and old students at Town-and-Gown. Like most (all?) UC schools, they're on a quarter system so didn't start the current school year until now.