Monday musings

So there I am in line at Target, it’s two days after Thanksgiving and the world has become a planet of shoppers. A young mother, who looks exhausted by the way, is standing behind me and her cart is overflowing. The little girl who is hanging onto the mom’s cart, clearly has more energy than her mother. She is doing a little dance as she hangs onto the cart. One leg goes up and come down, followed by the other leg.

“I can’t wait to get home to watch it!” the little girl says. “I can’t wait! I can’t wait!”

I wait to hear what mom will say. I am expecting anything from “First, you have to clean your room like you promised,” to “Stop hanging on the cart like that. You’re going to pull it over on yourself.”

But she says nothing.

“I love that movie!” the girl squeals. “I can’t wait to watch it!” Legs up. Legs down.

Mom says nothing.

“You’re the best mommy I’ve ever had!”

I tip my head to hear the mother’s response.

But Mom says nothing.

She’s either heard it before, or she didn’t hear it all.

And both of these thoughts make me kind of sad. I want to turn to that mother and tell her something that is very much none of my business. I want to tell her, “You will blink, and she’ll be gone. Grown up. And you will long for the days when, in her eyes, no one could hold a candle to you. Believe me, you don’t want to miss it.”

But I don’t tell The Best Mommy any of this. I make my way through the line, aware of the happy dancer behind me, and I leave. I do hope this mom will figure it out on a day when she’s not so tired. And bored with motherhood.

Now onto a brighter thought. My good friend Robin Lee Hatcher has a lovely new story out, just in time for the holidays. In A Cloud Mountain Christmas (Robin’s story is in “Hearts Evergreen,” a collection of two novellas from Steeple Hill), introduces you to Maddie Scott, who is reeling from the news that her ex-husband has remarried and is expecting a child. She heads to Idaho’s Cloud Mountain Lodge to negotiate the sale of a valuable manuscript discovered there. But could the lodge’s proprietor, Tony Anderson, a man she knew years before in college, be just what Maddie needs to have a merry Christmas after all? Want a good love story? Well, here ya go. To read an excerpt from A Cloud Mountain Christmas, visit Robin’s web site:
http://www.robinleehatcher.com/hearts_evergreen.htm. Robin is a lovely person, inside and out, and she knows how to weave a tale that makes you glad God thought up romance to make our time here on Earth magical.

Have a great week – and lavish your love on your children.

In the mood for a little sleuthing?

We’re having a bit of fun on the Edge today. If you like scavenger hunts and winning free books, hang out for a minute and I’ll tell you how you can do both.

My friend Miralee Ferrell has just debuted her first novel, The Other Daughter. You can win a copy by hopping around the ‘Net for a few minutes gathering clues. First, I’ll tell you what the book is about, whet your appetite a little, and then you can get busy. Here’s the teaser from the catalogs: Susanne Carson’s well-ordered family life is thrown into devastating chaos when Brianna, a young teen, appears on her doorstep, claiming to be the daughter of Susanne’s husband, David. The revelation of David’s apparent betrayal adds strain to an already fragile marriage. Will this shocking discovery drive the family apart, or will it draw them closer to God?

And now for the game: Playing is easy. Go to www.ChristianReviewofBooks.com and get the list of clues and the questions you need to answer. Visit the authors’ blogs below, and read the Q&A with Miralee Ferrell. You’ll find the answers you need! Once you have them all, just email the answer to the Christian Review of Books. Everyone with the right answers will be entered to win a signed copy of Miralee Ferrell’s The Other Daughter.

Okey-doke. Here’s the Q & A with Miralee for my part of the hunt:

Edgewise: When is your next book coming out and what is the story?

Miralee: “That’s up to Kregel and my readers, quite literally. They choose not to give multiple book contracts to a new author, with good reason….they’d like to see some sales figures from book 1 before signing for book 2. So far I’ve had pretty good results, with my ranking steadily rising on CBD, but the jury’s still out. The second book is nearly finished and ready to present to Kregel, and my editor there is excited about the story line. It follows a secondary character in The Other Daughter named Jeena. She’s a bit of a pill; not a Christian, a bit worldly and very career minded, but has had some very hard knocks growing up and a couple of devastating ones as an adult. So far my advance readers have wanted to spank her, hug her, cry with her and shake her, but the few that I’ve allowed to see it so far have been rooting for her to make it through the dark shadows that are rolling in around her. Sorry, wish I could tell you more, but don’t want to spoil it! Not sure of the title yet…but considering Past Shadows or Sheltered. Again, that will ultimately be Kregel’s decision.”

Visit these other authors’ sites for the rest of the clues . . .

www.roseannamwhite.com
www.triciagoyer.blogspot.com
www.roseannamwhite.com/christybarritt.htm
www.roseannamwhite.com/deborahpiccurelli.htm
www.roseannamwhite.com/mollynoblebull.htm
www.miraleesdesk.blogspot.com

Once you have all the answers email the list to review@christianreviewofbooks.com with a subject line of “Hunt Answers.”

Have a blast, Edglings. . .

History revealed

A few years back, when the Titanic road show was making the rounds of big city museums, my husband and I took our four kids to St. Paul (we lived in Minnesota at the time) to view what had been brought up from Titanic’s tomb on the ocean floor. It was awesome and appalling, being that close to such a tragic shard of history.

There was one piece of hulking metal we ticket-holders were allowed to touch. I think it might have been a davit; one of the metal contraptions that lowered those infamously few lifeboats to the icy water as Titanic sank. The metal was cool to the touch of course, but there was an umistakable surge of sensation on my fingertips as I stroked the mottled metal. I knew I was touching something that had been part of Titanic’s anatomy. It had been above water once, but it had submerged with the rest of the luxury liner in April 1912.

It’s a strange feeling looking at and touching something of historical significance, that had been hidden, but was now revealed and which begged to be noticed.

I felt the same way this weekend when we took our kids to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at San Diego’s Natural History Museum, though of course, there was no touching the scrolls. A quick FYI: Discovered in the 1940s and ’50s in caves near Qumran, the scrolls contain – among other writings – more than 200 biblical manuscripts representing nearly every book in the Hebrew Bible; and the amazing thing is, most are a thousand years older than any previously known copies. They had been hidden: first from marauding Roman troops, and then from everyone, for two millenia.

They are hidden no longer.

As we walked the darkened and cool hallways of the museum’s basement, this is what I kept whispering to the fragments under glass:

I see you.

That which is written should be seen, should be read. Words on paper (or ancient goatskin) are meant to be seen.

I wonder if those who hid them knew how long their precious writings would be hidden from view. And I wonder what they would say if they knew that after all these centuries, their words are once again laid out before the human eye.

It’s ironic, really. As long as the scrolls were entombed in the caves in Qumran, they were safe. But nobody was reading them. Now they face the same dangers as all other antiquities on display. But they are being read.

Reminds me of that maxim that goes something like this: A ship is safe in its harbor, but that’s not what ships are for. . .

Interesting, that.

A Tantalizing Title for Thee

How’s this for a plot hors d’ouvres? “When reporter Hudson Ambrose hears an early morning call on his police scanner about an injured person at a bus stop on Las Vegas Boulevard, he rushes to the scene to get the scoop. His world is blown off its axis when he discovers a murdered homeless man with a bankbook in his pocket showing a balance of almost one million dollars. Should he wait for the police, knowing the case will get lost in reams of red tape, or swipe the bankbook and take the investigation–and perhaps a chunk of the money–into his own hands?”

That’s the set-up for Nobody, the newest release from my good friend, Creston Mapes, who says this about his newest novel: “The story behind Nobody is pretty cool. I was with my late father, Bernie, at a park in St. Augustine, FL, when we saw a homeless man sitting on a park bench, clutching a loaf of bread, tearing off pieces, eating some and throwing chunks to the dozens of black birds all around him. My dad noted that [this guy] would be a good subject for a book. Then, when my publisher suggested Las Vegas as a backdrop and a research visit to that city, I set up a day with Brian Brooks of the Nevada Health Centers, who took me all over the Vegas homeless community. We visited free clinics, talked to doctors and nurses, went to the soup kitchens and encampments where they ‘live.’

“I also met with Jud Wilhite, pastor of Vegas’s booming Central Christian Church. Jud shared a moving poem with me called “I Stand By The Door,” which amazingly aligned with my spiritual walk of getting too steeped in the church, and not [being] concerned enough about the people outside the doors. Since I was a reporter at one time, my main character, Hudson Ambrose, is a reporter for the Las Vegas Review Journal, the city’s real paper, which I visited when in Las Vegas. The book begins when Hud hears a pre-dawn call on the police scanner at the newspaper about an injured person at a bus stop along The Strip. When he arrives, he finds a murdered homeless man. Waiting around for the police, Hud knows the case will get tied up in red tape when they do arrive. He wants to get an ID on the guy before the police come. He can hear the sirens bearing down. Quickly, he searches the man’s pockets and is shocked to find a bank book with close to a million dollars in it. A safe deposit box key drops into the puddle of blood at the man’s feet. Hud’s got a decision to make. And off we go into Nobody, and Hudson Ambrose’s breakneck investigation into the life of the homeless man, Chester Holte. Why was a former rich Atlanta business mogul living homeless on the streets of Las Vegas? What happened after his wife died in their private plane crash? Who was the beautiful Holly Queens and what was her relationship with Chester? And why does virtually everyone in the Las Vegas homeless community believe Chester was an angel in disguise?”

I can’t wait to read this new offering from Creston. He’s collected some fabulous reviews, including this endorsement from fellow author Robert Liparulo: “With Nobody, Creston Mapes once again demonstrates what happens when writing talent, an intriguing plot, and won’t-let-you-go characters converge: You get a thoroughly entertaining read that’s tough to set down. Nobody is for everybody who enjoys gritty noir with heart.”

Gritty noir with heart?

Sign me up. . .

It’s all about perspective

After a long week of tedium, the daily grind, toil and trouble and all that, I occasionally, nay often, inwardly whine about the pace and perplexities of my life. When a really hectic week ends, I look forward to an alarmless Saturday morning, limitless cups of really good coffee and the leisure of reading every page of the newspaper if I want to. I reward myself these things because, hey, I’ve had a crazy week, things didn’t always go my way and I wasn’t treated fairly by everyone I came into contact with.

But then I’ll read a book like Left To Tell and I’ll wince at every remembrance of every gripe I’ve uttered about nitnoid things that really don’t matter.

I’ve had some bad days here and there, but I’ve never really suffered. I’ve never been inches from a killer’s machete or hunted like an animal or separated from my family or been stripped of every freedom, privilege and right accorded to humans created in the image of God. Left To Tell is not an easy book to read, but it’s a story worth hearing. Not only because you will better understand the horrific genocide one Rwandan ethnic group wished to exact upon another – and which the rest of the world seemed to ignore – but also because you will better understand forgiveness isn’t cheap, and it isn’t easy, but it’s also not impossible even when everything would suggest it is.

Here’s what Publisher’s Weekly had to say about Left To Tell: “(Starred Review) In 1994, Rwandan native Ilibagiza was 22 years old and home from college to spend Easter with her devout Catholic family, when the death of Rwanda’s Hutu president sparked a three-month slaughter of nearly one million ethnic Tutsis in the country. She survived by hiding in a Hutu pastor’s tiny bathroom with seven other starving women for 91 cramped, terrifying days. This searing firsthand account of Ilibagiza’s experience cuts two ways: her description of the evil that was perpetrated, including the brutal murders of her family members, is soul-numbingly devastating, yet the story of her unquenchable faith and connection to God throughout the ordeal uplifts and inspires. Her account of the miracles that protected her is simple and vivid. Her Catholic faith shines through, but the book will speak on a deep level to any person of faith. Ilibagiza’s remarkable path to forgiving the perpetrators and releasing her anger is a beacon to others who have suffered injustice. She brings the battlefield between good and evil out of the genocide around her and into her own heart, mind and soul. This book is a precious addition to the literature that tries to make sense of humankind’s seemingly bottomless depravity and counterbalancing hope in an all-powerful, loving God.”

That’s what floored me about this book. Immaculee’s Corrie-Ten-Boomlike deep desire to forgive what seems unforgiveable. Kind of puts everything into perspective. And reminds me that hope is stronger than despair. It was a tough read, an amazing read, one I won’t soon forget. Check it out.

Archive: November 26, 2007

Monday musings

In the mood for a little sleuthing?

History revealed

A Tantalizing Title for Thee

It’s all about perspective