Mid-month Mention: Rabbit Room and Poets

 

Perhaps a year ago, I stumbled upon the Rabbit Room Chinwag Facebook group. What a treat! Like-minded creatives and individuals who seek to honor God.

It was here I discovered a poem by Christopher Owen that I appreciate on many levels. I love the rhythm and sound. I appreciate the description of God's intention for His creation and for the glory He will assume when He returns to reclaim us for His kingdom. The poem is called, "This is Beginning to End." Follow the link to watch him recite it because it has a wonderful "spoken word" feel. I sometimes listen to the Button Poetry offerings when they come up on my Facebook feed. How I wish for a Christian equivalent! If there was one, Christopher Owen's poem would fit perfectly. I am with him in his desire for Christ to come quickly! We are waiting!

Randy Edwards is another poet from the Rabbit Room group. He often shares his poetry on his Backward Mutters blog (see the blog for the title's reference). Or find him on Instagram: @backward.mutters - Randy is the pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Kernersville, North Carolina. I immediately fell in love with the first poem I heard him recite, a poem about luck and grace, full of beautiful images with deep meanings:

When Craig Stapleton jumped

Into 8000 feet of space

He thought himself lucky

To do this thing he loved.

But when his parachute

Tangled and twirled?

He fell like some

Lafayette Escadrille

Shot down by the Red Baron.

If he was able to feel

(Let alone think)

More than terror, he knew

His luck had turned.

But when his backup did the same?

He knew it was for the worst,

That he must be the unluckiest

Skydiver on earth.

He hit the flat ground

Of California’s Central Valley

With a splat, doing around

30 miles an hour—

A field where the farmer

Had just tilled the earth

And thought himself the

Luckiest one around

To be catching the rain

At just the right time.

Where water soaked furrows

Swole the clods up like pillows.

When Craig came to his senses,

When he realized

The sound of that splat

Was just the mud? That

This man who’d fallen

In a death-spiral like a winged duck?

When he realized that

He had not died?

But in fact alive and had survived?

It was not Luck he thanked.

It was personal.

Now this don’t mean

Luck ain’t no thing,

Nor that he didn’t feel lucky.

True luck is like grace,

Is an unlooked for blessing

That breaks as a smile on a face

Breaks a fall of certain death

And gives you back

What you’d thought you’d lost

Or worse, had left.

For further exploration, here's an article about the harrowing 8000 foot skydiving fall that prompted this poem's contemplation.

Here's a link to a recitation of another Randy Edwards poem called "The Dragon's Mouth," based on Revelation 12:15. The focus of this year's Bible Study Fellowship is the book of Revelation. I will have to remember to share this poem during the week we discuss chapter 12.

I'm looking forward to hearing more from Christopher Owen and Randy Edwards!

Book Review: The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman

We've been dealing with some serious issues at home since early July. Unable to focus on much of anything, I needed a distraction. Thank goodness for an exceptional children's writer like Gennifer Choldenko. This read was not only timely but also touching and entertaining. I had read Choldenko before, her book Al Capone Does My Shirts. This one, The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman, was charming and stirring.

Hank Hooperman has a problem. His mother has not come home for a week and the landlord is banging on the door, threatening to evict them. But Hank Hooperman is resourceful. He finds a contact name on his field trip permission slip and travels with his 3-year-old sister Boo to find the woman listed there. While everyone loves a bright and sunny 3-year-old, not everyone is interested in taking on a pre-teen.

Both Hank and Boo are loveable and endearing, but Hank is carrying the world on his 11-year-old shoulders (not a fair position for a child). I could relate to much of his rumination. It is hard to love someone whose addiction makes them untrustworthy. The love doesn't go away, but the danger remains real and intense. Hank wants to be with his mother, but cannot trust her when the substances take over. While the subject is tough and may require some conversation, if read with the intended audience (ages 10-12), it is certainly one that is important in this day. I struggle as a parent with an addicted child; I cannot imagine carrying this weight as a child with an addicted parent.

Book Review: The Telephone Box Library

I apologize for my weak book reviews. My heart is not in it, as we are in the middle of a great trial at home. The Telephone Box Library, by Rachael Lucas, is a small town, feel-good novel about community, love, and books. It seemed similar to my past read about a British telephone box turned library, The Littlest Library. Both were light-hearted reads meant for those who enjoy a bit of romance and a lot of bookish references (more references in the previous read than this one).

The stress of Lucy's teaching job is getting to her. She takes a sabbatical and moves into a tiny Cotswold village. Margaret has offered Lucy a reduced rate if she will pop in on her ninety-something-year-old mother-in-law from time to time. Bunty, the mother-in-law, is a feisty woman with a head full of stories from the war. Lucy is a history teacher and naturally bent on drawing out Bunty's tales. Add in Sam, a handsome single dad next door, and you've got a sweet little romance novel.

Sam's daughter Freya is determined to save the old red telephone box from destruction. The entire community works together to turn it into a little free library. I read this in snippets during my trips to my mother's memorial service and to my nephew's wedding. My emotions simply weren't in it (no fault of the book, just my current trials and tribulations). If you love small town British tales, this is a great option.

Book Review: Hope is the First Dose

When my library listed this on their recent acquisitions, I knew I had to read it. Hope is the First Dose: A Treatment Plan for Recovering from Trauma, Tragedy, and Other Massive Things should be mandatory reading for anyone reeling from great losses or traumatic life events. As I read, I kept wishing I owned the book so I could highlight and underline key passages. Instead, I settled for sticky notes on pages I wanted to revisit.

Dr. W. Lee Warren is a neurosurgeon. He explains things with precision and ease. Plus, he knows trauma and what happens when you endure TMT, The Massive Thing, that disrupts your life. Someone stabbed Warren's 19-year-old son to death. This trauma left him struggling to maintain a peaceful equilibrium. He spends much of the book analyzing how trauma disrupts life and why we react the way we do. He talks about how he had always believed "that if I tried to live a good life, God would come through for me. Losing a son was the first time God had seemed to say, 'Here's a situation you can't control or prevent with good behavior, and you can't undo it or fix it.'" This propelled him into dark spaces where he would revisit the pain and trauma (how I can relate!).

Dr. Warren outlines the four paths people take after experiencing trauma in whatever form (an unexpected diagnosis, a marital loss, whatever sends you reeling): Untouchables (endure readily), Climbers (begin discouraged, but climb to resilience), Dippers (start high, but hit valleys, and resume), and Crashers (those who burnout because of their loss or trauma). Whatever your path, TMTs will change you. As he expresses it, you might climb out of the furnace of suffering to escape the fire, but you will still smell like smoke. You want to make the TMT a thing in your life, not the thing in your life.

As Warren discusses insights from Lamentations, he gives a nod to another favorite book of mine, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, by Mark Vroegop. Next, he examines the psalms of Asaph and David. He recognizes that they "acknowledged the darkness while [they] waited for the dawn." Or in another Mark Vroegop quote, "Hope springs from truth rehearsed." Throughout this exposition, Warren is reminding you that you must retrain (or as he puts it, do self-surgery) your brain. You can choose to focus on the trauma and the hopelessness, but it will cause you to spiral. You must rehearse the truth of God's promises and destroy the lies your own brain wants to tell you about your situation. For his treatment plan, he suggests prehab, self-brain surgery, then rehab. But hope is the first and most potent dose!

Book Review: The Joy of Falling

I'm glad I discovered the novels of Lindsay Harrel. Each one I've read has been charming. This one, The Joy of Falling, is again a bit different from the others. Harrel is not a formulaic author. Each book seems to come from a fresh perspective and presentation.

In The Joy of Falling, we meet two widows, whose husbands were brothers who lost their lives while on a grand diving adventure. Eva quietly adored her husband, Brent. Angela harbored deep resentment for her husband, Wes. She felt he disregarded the family in pursuit of extreme sports. Now, these widows are alone. Prior to their death, the husbands had signed up for a race. The women decide to run it together in memory of their husbands. During the process of training and running the race, both face inner demons and find a way to a new life.

I enjoyed the book. The characters were real and stirring. Their dilemma was raw. Their progression in faith rang true. Sadly, it was a disjointed listening experience. I listened between jaunts off to my mother's celebration of life and then my nephew's wedding in Texas. Still, I will seek more from this author.