Correction

Forget what I said in my last post about not being able to do a cartwheel. A few days ago I received an email from my friend, Sheri. Attached was this photo of me with her message:

"I hope you’ll forgive me for digging up this picture proving that you DID indeed used to cartwheel."

In this photo I think I was about 13.

Her message arrived on the morning of my 43rd birthday (May 16) and made me laugh...and made my day. It was the beginning of a wonderful birthday. My husband went out in the morning and got me my favorite apple fritter for breakfast, then, when I got home from work the house was spotless, a huge bouquet was on the kitchen table (with a card wishing me a happy "34th" birthday....so thoughtful), and a smaller bouquet in the bathroom. Later that night we tried out a new Indian restaurant which turned out to be the best Indian food we've had in a long time.

It was a perfect day.

Year three

On May 8 David and I officially started our third year of marriage. It's gone by fast, these past two years. Which I take to be a good sign. I still don't feel married sometimes, which I also take to be a good sign. The transition has been too easy, and I married someone who gets me so well that it seems like we've been together all along.

I asked David, on our drive through the prairie, what he likes most about being married. He said: 1) the end to loneliness, and 2) having someone who makes you feel you can do anything because you're part of a team.

I agreed. But then I added: 1) companionship and, 2) having someone who "gets me."

I never thought anyone would get me. Or, if they did, would want to hang out with me for more than 2 hours. I have my quirks, and my doubts and obsessions, and my bad habits. I don't hang up my wet towels in the bathroom. I just stuff them onto the towel bar so they never get dry, and then they start to smell dank. David hates that. But he loves me anyway. But other than the towels, I'm anal about cleaning. I throw everything away, even if it was still usefull (according to David). I retreat and stop talking when I'm depressed or hurt. He puts up with that, too, and a myriad of other annoying traits. I love him because he puts up with me, and loves me even when I don't love myself.

And I like being his cheerleader. I never got to be a cheerleader in high school. I couldn't do a cartwheel, plus, I wasn't perky enough. But now I can be David's cheerleader, without having to wear a short pleated skirt. I want him to grow and thrive and be the person God created him to be. I love that he's going back to school and being affirmed in those gifts. He's smart, a great writer, and compassionate. I like having someone to cheer and encourage. And I like having someone do the same for me.

I also like that we expand each other's worlds. I'm ice skating, going to a catholic church, attending plays and art openings that I never would have without David. I'm meeting people and reading books that I would have missed if I were still single. I'm being challenged in ways that seem good and fulfilling, even though hard at times.

It seems like we've been through a lot in our short marriage. Two miscarriages, job changes, financial challenges. And through it all I feel we've grown closer, forming a bond that will only grow stronger with time. And we acknowledge our dependence on God. We can't do this without him. We've grown spiritually...together....as we sit in mass and pray together about each of these challenges.

To be honest, marriage is different than I expected. I thought my life would just fall into place when I got married. I'd finally be a traditional member of society -- married, house, 2.5 kids. It's not turning out that way. But you know, I've never really liked following the traditional path, anyway. I like that we're different and maybe a little odd. Our path may be different, but it's more interesting, I think. And God keeps surprising us. I like surprises.

More on home...

I just re-read parts of "Gilead" by Marliynne Robinson and found this:

"I love the prairie! So often I have seen the dawn come and the light flood over the land and everything turn radiant at once, that word "good" so profoundly affirmed in my soul that I am amazed I should be allowed to witness such a thing. There may have been a more wonderful first moment "when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy," but for all I know to the contrary, they still do sing and shout, and they certainly might as well. Here on the prairie there is nothing to distract attention from the evening and the morning, nothing on the horizon to abbreviate or to delay. Mountains would seem an impertinence from that point of view.

"To me it seems rather Christlike to be as unadorned as this place is, as little regarded. ... This whole town does look like whatever hope becomes after it begins to weary a little, then weary a little more. But hope deferred is still hope. I love this town. I think sometimes of going into the ground here is a last wild gesture of love -- I too will smolder away the time until the great and general incandescence."

Longing for home in Fly-over country

I grew up in "fly over country," the flat land in the middle of the country that helps people in New York and LA feel superior and gives them something to fly over.

Iowa is one of the "vowel states." you know, Ohio, Iowa, Idaho...one of the states everyone mixes up like they're interchangeable. "Oh, you grew up in Iowa? Isn't that where they grow potatoes?" "No, that's Idaho."

Iowa has corn. And hills. If you don't believe me, just go there. You won't find a potato field anywhere.

I left Iowa to go to college in another vowel state (Ohio), and then moved back to Iowa for grad school. At 25 I moved to Chicago, the biggest city in the Midwest, but in another vowel state. I guess I just can't get enough of fly over country. I even moved to a consonant state once. Colorado was beautiful, with mountains and lots of sun. I lasted 8 months before moving back to Illinois. I think consonant states are way too obvious.

David and I drove to Iowa Friday afternoon to visit my family, and then took a few days to celebrate our 2nd anniversary in a little town a few hours from Des Moines -- Elkader, Iowa. Yes. Elkader. It was one of the best tiny vacations I've had in a long time.


When I was a young adult, I just wanted to get out of Iowa. And it seems like everyone my age was feeling the same way. "Brain Drain", the Des Moines Register called it. I moved to the big city and stopped in the middle of the street and threw my hat up like Mary Tyler More and sang "I'm gonna make it after all!" Okay, not really. But I did get a buzz out of living in the big city. The El, the faster pace, the sophistication, the diversity, the Mies van der Rhoe buildings. I shopped in thrift stores and went to plays in 30-seat theaters and dated a guy who worked in a cigar shop and gave me a book of Noel Coward plays. I started sipping wine occassionally and went to poetry readings and dark smokey bars that had transvestite patrons. My friends were film makers and poets and actors and writers.

Chicago turned out to be a good combination of Midwest and Big City. I could drive to see my family in the other vowel states of Iowa and Ohio, but then return to Illinois and the city. Driving back from Iowa on Interstate 88, I still catch my breath when I see the Chicago skyline. But it doesn't hold the same excitement as it used to. I love Chicago, but it's never quite felt like home even though I've lived here for 18 years.

Iowa still feels like home. I can't shake the feeling. It comes over me as soon as I cross the Mississippi River. My tense shoulders relax, I let out a sigh. I see the green rolling hills and the tractors plowing the fields and the hawks perched on the fence posts. I see the deer grazing in the fields and the red barns and white farm houses with the perfectly manicured lawns. In Chicago, I miss just "running into" people. In Iowa last weekend I bumped into the following: 1) Donna, the mother of my youth group friend, Shirley. Shirley and I attended etiquette school together when we were about 12. We learned which one is the salad fork. 2) My cousin Julie and her husband Kurt at the City Market (a store like Whole Foods only a whole lot better).They were eating omelettes. 3) I ran into Twila at Target and we stood in the shoe aisle and talked about her brother, who's getting a PhD. in Philosophy, 4) At the same Target I saw my 2nd cousins Geri and Julie. Geri is a year older than me and never let me forget it. She used to hold me under the water when we went swimming at the Altoona public swimming pool. Who knew she'd grow up to be a member of the Iowa legislature?

In Chicago I don't bump into people I know very often. It's too big and everyone's too busy and we just don't have time because we're commuting and working hard to pay for our expensive housing.


After spending a few days with my family, David and I took off to wander around Northeastern Iowa. Apparently, the glacier that flattened the Midwest thousands of years ago missed an egg-shaped part of Wisconsin and northeastern Iowa. So there are hills....lots of rolling hills with farms and emerald green fields with black and white dairy cows lazily munching on grass. We drove through Grinnell Iowa and toured a bank designed by Louis Sullivan (see photos), and then drove up through Cedar Rapids and bought a vintage poster of an Art in America magazine cover designed by Alexander Calder at an antique store. Then we drove further north to Elkader Iowa and stayed at a B&B for the night. We sat on a porch swing and then walked down by the river. Kids played in the streets -- jumping rope, riding bikes and scooters.

"Let's just stay here and buy a house" I suggested. We saw beautiful Victorian houses for sale posted on the Realtor's office window for under $100,000. Surprisingly, David seemed open to the idea.

"But would we get bored?" I asked.

"Maybe," he said. "But people here are nice. And there's no traffic or smog."

"Yea, I think we'd make lots of friends and we could invite them over for dinner. Or we could just sit on our front porch swing and say 'hi' to everyone as they walk by."
I'm longing for less smog, traffic, and a lower mortgage. But I also think I'm longing for community and peace, simplicity and home. Which probably means I'm longing for God. Isn't that where all of our yearnings lead us?

If we move to Elkader, we'd probably find that the mailman was having an affair with the English teacher, and that the old Victorian house had a leaky roof, and we'd have nothing to do after we got tired of sitting on the porch swing.

On the way back to Chicago David and I listened to a Tim Keller sermon ironically titled "The Longing for Home". This world is not our home, he reminds us. Parents die. People I bump into at Target will die. The house I grew up in is smaller and less grand than I remember. Our longing for home and community is really a longing for God. We were made for something far better, and we're crazy to try to fill that longing with things that won't last.

It's probably not a coincidence that on the drive we saw gorgeous church steeples rising into the blue sky. God's reminder to us, I think, that our home is in him.

More on Christian Fiction

Well, I promised to write more about Christian Fiction. I like the healthy discussion generated from my last post on the topic.

To comment on some of the comments.

To Jason and Mirtika...I'm glad to hear from people who are reading Christian Fiction! I knew you folks had to be out there somewhere. And I'm glad to hear, as well, that you're both trying to advance the cause of bringing more quality into the Christian Publishing world. Keep writing!

One of the comments (from Jason) mentioned a website Faith in Fiction. I went to the site and was glad to see a plug for Relief Journal. Relief is a new journal that has the goal of publishing fiction written by Christians that breaks the boundaries set by most Christian Publishers. I recently went to a gathering hosted by the Relief editors (some of them are based here in Chicago), and met some really, really cool people who are kindred spirits. We talked about literature, faith, the state of Christian Publishing, and what they're trying to accomplish with Relief. They're looking for stories that deal with the nitty-gritty of life and faith, aren't afraid of four-letter words, and maybe don't always have a nice, tidy ending. In other words, stories about real life.

I do think Christian Publishers are stretching their boundaries more. I'm encouraged by that. One of my favorite books from the stack I just read was a story about a young girl recovering from rape. The character was so well drawn and real. I loved the book. So I'm encouraged that CF is going beyond sentimental tripe. And I'm not saying it all has to include a dark, traumatic event. But I just think it needs to embrace all of life....the good the bad and the ugly. And acknowledge that sometimes things dont' turn out so well, and faith is hard and includes doubt. But God is still God.

Real life sometimes includes people who say four letter words. There wasn't a four-letter word to be found in all of the thousands of pages of Christian Fiction I read. I'm in a writing group with a writer who had a story published in Best American Southern Short Stories. She recently had her well-written novel rejected by a Christian publisher because of the "language." I just find that sad that the focus is on a few four letter words and not the quality of writing, the authenticity of the characters, and the message of faith.

My husband is reading The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene. One of my favorite books -- it's about a "whiskey priest" stumbling through life as an extremely flawed character but meeting God despite himself. I need to reread it. I taught the book in a freshman literature class a long, long time ago. David brings up the point "What is Christian fiction?" Good question. Would love to hear what others think.

Mothers Day

I haven't cried about my mother for a long, long time. Until tonight. It snuck up on me as I was lying in bed, waiting to go to sleep. As my thoughts were winding down from a stressfull and anxiety-filled day, I started thinking about her, and all of the sudden I wished she was sitting on the edge of my bed, rubbing the hair off my face, and telling me it was going to be okay. That familiar feeling of grief started in my gut and made its way up through my throat and finally to my eyes and I started sobbing. I couldn't stop.

Maybe it's because Mother's day is a week away. Or because my friend's dad died just a few months ago and her grief is bringing back all of those feelings I felt the days after my mom died. The finality of it all. The realization I wouldn't hear her voice, feel her hand on my face, or even have her around to pick a fight with. It was all gone. Done. Forever.

I feel vulnerable and afraid right now. Battered by life. I want the safety of my mom's arms. You know that scene in "Saving Private Ryan" where they're sneaking up on some Germans in a snipers nest and gun fire breaks out and after all is said and done one of the soldiers is down and bleeding profusely? The others surround him and are trying to staunch the blood coming out of him but it's obvious the blood is coming too fast and it's useless. The soldier cries out for his mother. That's how I feel.

My mom and I never talked that much. I didn't share too much of my life with her. And she didn't know how to share her life with me, although at times I sensed she wanted to. So we fought. For me that was a way of engaging her, to have a relationship that went beyond the surface. I regret things I said, ways I treated her. But in the past few years of her life we had finally become friends. I thought I'd have another 20 years to be her friend. But then she died at 63.

She made me mad at times. Frustrated the heck out of me. I felt like I could never live up to her expectations. But through it all I knew she loved me and she showed me in those tiny, incremental ways mothers do. Like when I was in high school and ran cross country, I'd get cramps in my legs in the middle of the night. She'd come into my room and rub Ben Gay into my sore, cramping muscles until I went back to sleep.

Or the time in Junior High School when I discovered straight legged corderoy LEVI's were in and bell-bottoms were out. I couldn't walk into the Junior High School with bell bottoms, I'd be the laughing stock! Money was tight at the time, so my mom stayed up all night sewing my bell-bottom corderoys into straight legged corderoys. The next morning they were laid across my bed.

All of those little sacrifices she made throughout my life far outweigh the ways she made me feel guilty, or inadequate, or not good enough. I know now that those were the things she felt about herself, so she couldn't help but pass them on to me. I forgive her.

And I hope she forgave me. Part of my grief has been that I wished I had loved her better. Things become so clear from a distance. I took her for granted. She wasn't a perfect mother. And I wasn't a perfect daughter. But still, I miss her like crazy. And I long for her to rub my aching legs that are sore from running this exhausting marathon called life.

On Christian fiction

Whew. I just finished judging 22 Christian novels for an Evangelical publishers association. Lots of reading. Lots of reading baaad writing, but with a few pleasant surprises. Here's my take. Keep in mind I respect anyone who actually completes a novel. So whether it's actually pulitzer prize material or not, they're way ahead of me in the writing department.

First, I never read Christian fiction. And to be honest, I don't know anyone who does. But someone must be reading it -- because Christian publishers keep cranking them out and so there's a market out there somewhere. I just don't know where. If anyone knows someone who reads this stuff, let me know. I'm just curious.

Second, when I was at Moody magazine, I served as the book review editor. This was way back in the early 90s, when "Christian fiction" was new. It was bad. Really, really bad. And I'm encouraged that there has been some progress made on the quality of Christian novels. Characters that are more than 2-dimensional. Nice descriptive details, etc.

Third, most of it is "genre" fiction -- mystery, romance, science fiction, historical, etc. which I typically don't read. So it was difficult for me to get excited about any of it. But after I got over my initial prejudices, there were a few novels which stood out and I could appreciate them for what they were. My question is, though, will any Christian publisher produce literary fiction (with the exception of Paraclete Press, I don't know of any that come close).

Fourth, most of the books had either 1) a conversion story. 2) a nice, tidy ending, 3) stereotypes of genders (i.e. there were some strong career women, but in the end they saw the error of their ways and returned to hearth and home). 4) if it didn't have a conversion story, there was some other "evanglistic" message....solving the mystery of an empty toomb, or an apologetics conversation on an airplane. I was pleasantly surprised at a few that touched on themes like doubt, forgiveness, etc. But I wish I had seen more of real life, the nitty gritty wrestling with one's faith, and less propaganda.

Okay, about the evangelistic messages / conversion stories. Once again, who are the readers? My guess is that the majority of readers are evangelical Christians, who are already converted. So why do they need to read a conversion story? To affirm their decision? I can't quit figure it out. Or maybe Christians are buying them and handing them out to their non-Christian neighbors? Is this effective evangelism? Again, I'm not trying to criticize, I'm just confused.

Well, at any rate I just spent two months reading these books and it has inspired me to get back into the game. Not to write "Christian" novels, necessarily, but to write about things that aren't neat and tidy, that deal with doubt and real life. More on my journey into the Christian publishing world in my next post.....