BOOK DAY: Living Liminal (Linda Hoye); Review by Lorrie Orr

 

Book Day

It's where we highlight books that InScribe members have read and recommend—based on our blog themes of Faith and Writing. This month's selection is written by one of our own InScribe members, Linda Hoye. 

TITLE: Living Liminal: A Slice of Pandemic Life

AUTHOR: Linda Hoye

PUBLISHER: Benson Books, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, 2023

"Pandemic day n. Who knows anymore? Day by day. Hour by hour. Focus on the better things. The timeless and unchangeable things. Let the rest fall away. Now is the time to grasp the truth that we as human beings are not as in control of things as we would like to believe. It is the time to lament and to trust and to turn our attention toward home and toward God. Maybe the one true thing we can do today is to turn things over."

Each of us experienced the Coronavirus pandemic that began in March 2020 differently. In Living Liminal, Linda Hoye shares her thoughts written during the days of 2020 and 2021, bits of blog and social media posts, poetry, and journal entries, along with provincial health orders and statements. The book is a chronicle of one woman's story during the uncertainty and turbulence of pandemic times, compounded by the devastating forest fires and floods in British Columbia in 2020 and 2021. 

Hoye's experience was home-centered, as it was for many in the world. She describes her habit of rising early to read, write, and drink tea while cuddled with a blanket and her dog. As a person who enjoyed solitude, the experience of enforced time at home with her husband and occasionally a granddaughter, had a different, unsettling feeling about it. Hoye shares her struggles with sliding into depression, with being overwhelmed by circumstances, and most of all, about her trust in God to bring her through this time. She writes of changing seasons, of details of time-stopping encounters with nature, and of the comfort of a lighted candle in the darkness of winter. Comfort is found in short conversations with friends, in books, and hot cups of coffee. 

I very much enjoyed reading Hoye's perspective on the pandemic. My own experience was much different. As a teacher, life became busier. My husband, a health-care executive, worked constantly. I found myself envying those who had time to bake sourdough, dabble in watercolour painting, and who wrestled to fill their days. Living Liminal gives me another look at how others navigated these days, weeks, and months, and has given me empathy for the different struggles everyone endured. 

Hoye ponders "I wonder if, as life hints at returning to something more "normal", we will forget lessons learned in the quiet? Will we take deep pockets of inactivity with us into whatever comes next? Have we come to appreciate the wisdom of not always doing? Are we comfortable with less? Or frantic for more?" We could ask ourselves these questions today as new challenges face the world. What kind of life do we want to live? 

Find more of Linda's writing at her Substack account. 

Lorrie Orr writes from her home on Vancouver Island, posting on her blog, and Facebook.

Rumination by Linda Hoye

We’re driving from Kamloops to Prince George to deliver our ten-year-old granddaughter back to her mama, having been blessed to have had her with us for the two weeks of spring break. The melancholy I felt as I tucked her into bed, and settled in for one last bedtime chat last night is a shadow. In its place: just gratitude for our time spent together. Melancholy and gratitude—it seems these two often come together.

This morning, the sun is shining and it’s a perfect day for a road trip. It’s silent in the car. My husband concentrates on the road, and our granddaughter is in the back seat lost in a library book. I’m contemplating my manuscript and other writing projects and looking forward to having time to get back to them now that spring break is almost over.

I granted myself a reprieve the past couple of weeks—my attention, instead, on the better work of grandparenting. Now, I’m hungry to wrangle words in daily blog posts and to pull my manuscript out of the top drawer of my writing desk where I tucked it away before she arrived. Sometimes, I wrestle with the demands and obligations of life. They pull and tug as I try to carve out time in which to write. I wonder if the silence and solitude I crave is a selfish indulgence.

When I roused my sleepy granddaughter this morning, I found sheets of yellow legal pad paper on the floor beside her bed. It’s often that way when she’s with us. She’s a writer too: she’s always scribbling stories, or plays, or something. Last night she was plotting a children’s book. I read her work this morning, and the four W questions she answered in order to create a framework around her story. I was struck with how words and writing have always come naturally to her. It seems to be in our DNA. It’s who we are.

I sit in prayer on quiet mornings and commit the day’s word wrangling to prayer: that I put hope out into my sphere; that my words help someone to see something in a different way; that through my vulnerability someone comes to understand that they are not the only one. Most of all: that my scribbling glorifies my Creator.

Writing comes naturally, but it doesn’t always come easy. Sometimes I struggle to chisel something from nothing like I’m trying to carve marble with a toothbrush. Other times—and it is times like these that keep me returning to the page—words flow like pearls falling from broken strings. I see things in new ways as I tap out words and rearrange paragraphs.

In order to be a faithful steward of the desire and ability to write—limited as it is—I must make time to practice. It takes time and intention, and these come in solitude. There’s just no getting around it. It’s why my granddaughter leans into her natural tendency and sits up in bed at night with a legal pad and paper or a journal. She has years of practice and discipline ahead of her in order to take her natural tendency and form it into a craft. It is that way with me, even after all these years.

It is in this rumination about desire and ability and craft that I find the answer. I honour my Creator when I remain faithful in honing my craft. Closing my door and hunkering down with words is treating what I've been given as treasure I can share. And the miles pass by, and the driving and reading continue in the car, and my mind rests lightly on returning to my writing sanctuary next week.

Linda Hoye is a writer, photographer, gardener, and somewhat-fanatical grandma. She lives in British Columbia with her husband and their doted-upon Yorkshire Terrier, but she’ll always be a Saskatchewan prairie girl. She is the author of Two Hearts: An Adoptee’s Journey Through Grief to Gratitude. Her work has been included in two anthologies, as well as assorted online and in-print publications. She has an affinity for Moleskin notebooks, Uni-Ball 207 gel pens, and soy milky frothy coffee. Find her online at www.lindahoye.com where she ruminates about life and faith and paying attention.

Ashes, by Linda Hoye

As I write this, it’s two days before I’m scheduled to post here. I’ve had my monthly piece written for a couple of months (because I’m organized like that), and I logged on at the beginning of this week to schedule it. I copy and pasted it into the Blogger template, tweaked formatting and the necessary behind-the-scenes things, and did a final read through and edit. And something about it bugged me.

I wondered if the message I wrote was the message I wanted to deliver, or if I should redo it. What might I say instead? Was there time to write something else?

This morning, on what’s known as Ash Wednesday, I’m thinking about contrition and humility, and those things I try to do but struggle against, and I see what it was that bothered me about that post. It was about me, and us, and the things we’re prone to spend time chewing on if we’re called to write because, after all, we write and share our words with the intention and hope that they can be used to glorify God, and benefit another. We have to get them out there.

Ash Wednesday hasn’t been part of my faith tradition but I’m paying more attention to the Christian calendar, and the wisdom of the ages as it pertains to my faith because I think there’s something good there. I won’t go to church to have ashes smudged on my forehead this morning, but I sit still in my devotional time and think about the reason behind this tradition that leads into the period of Lent.

I don’t know much, but I know I need to lean hard into grace. I know I’m too quick to make life about me, and that the me I make so much of is as dust. I make a wallpaper for my phone with a prayer to remind me: create and make in me a contrite heart. I return to it throughout the day until it becomes mine so it will remind me throughout the forty-day season of reflection that I need a good measure more of contrition and humility, and a good measure less of the other.

I return to Blogger, and that other post that was about doing the good work of using what God has given us to glorify Him and point heads and hearts toward the Creator. There’s nothing wrong with it on the surface, but I think maybe we’ve all become a little too focused on making a difference, rather than being still and letting contrition and humility do its work in us.

I take it down, and I sit in the silence and solitude of my office and tap out some different words. I write about going low and letting the work be done in me. It chafes, because it’s meant to, and because it’s a work that I know needs to be done.

Linda Hoye is a writer, photographer, gardener, and somewhat-fanatical grandma. She lives in British Columbia with her husband and their doted-upon Yorkshire Terrier, but she’ll always be a Saskatchewan prairie girl. She is the author of Two Hearts: An Adoptee’s Journey Through Grief to Gratitude. Her work has been included in two anthologies, as well as assorted online and in-print publications. She loves Moleskin notebooks, multi-coloured index cards and sticky notes, Uni-Ball 207 gel pens, and soy milky frothy coffee. Find her online at www.lindahoye.com where she ruminates about life and faith every day.

Lying Fallow by Linda Hoye

I can’t get the words out of my mind. A reader leaves a comment on my blog in which she uses the phrase “lying fallow and being present” and for days, I wake and the words rise with me. They are my gentle companions throughout the day and, as I settle in to read at night, they join me in nighttime rumination.

Fallow: —adj, 1. (of land) left unseeded after being ploughed and harrowed to regain fertility for a crop. 2. (of an idea, state of mind, etc) undeveloped or inactive, but potentially useful.

Can the Creator speak truth to me through the words of another? I believe so, and as these words play again and again in my mind, I sense a whisper.

As a gardener, I know the importance of crop rotation, feeding the soil, and that farmers will intentionally leave a piece of land fallow for a season. I know that neglecting these practices will result in undernourished soil, and an unproductive garden or crop. I know, too, that neglecting a personal season of fallow will eventually hinder my own ability to be productive.

I know this, but when words like these stop me in my tracks, it’s a sign that I need to take stock. Am I neglecting the discipline of being present? Am I shifting my focus from being to doing? Have I become so busy that I have forgotten to delight in God’s simple, but priceless, gifts?

My purpose is not to do, but to delight in the ordinary moments of every single day--more than that, to delight in the One who gifts me with them. When I take pleasure in simple moments, my joy glorifies God. When I am mindful of and appreciate the beauty of creation, it honours the Creator.

“Gratitude exclaims... 'How good of God to give me this.' Adoration says, 'What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!' One's mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun.”

C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer

I write about these things to remind myself, and others who read my words, that busyness robs us of grace and keeps us from gratitude, and yet, I am tempted again and again to return to a state of running. Maybe you too? I become anxious, I fear I’m not doing enough, and–and this is the crux of it all–I begin to fear insignificance. I so easily forget that I am treasured and significant simply by virtue of the fact that I was created.

January, and maybe part of February, are natural seasons for lying fallow and allowing ourselves the gift of refreshing. With hubbub of the holidays behind us we feel a call to rest. Our storehouses are full from the summer’s work, we’ve got quilts and books at hand, days are dark and short and, as the snow falls soft, we rest.

Lying fallow invites us to be present. We practice, and our intention turns to habit. We sit at a window and watch snow fall like feathers without grieving the absence of sunshine. We stir a pot of chili as a meditation, without looking at the clock. We watch children play, and listen to their laughter, without hurrying to get something done. We pay attention, we listen, and we find wisdom.

We do this again and again, and gradually we let go of the need to do and begin to delight and in doing so, we honour our God. We are inspired and equipped; we continue on our creative path and we write another paragraph.

Linda Hoye is a writer, photographer, gardener, and somewhat-fanatical grandma. She lives in British Columbia with her husband and their doted-upon Yorkshire Terrier, but she’ll always be a Saskatchewan prairie girl. She is the author of Two Hearts: An Adoptee’s Journey Through Grief to Gratitude. Her work has been included in two anthologies, as well as assorted online and in-print publications. She loves Moleskin notebooks, multi-coloured index cards and sticky notes, Uni-Ball 207 gel pens, and soy milky frothy coffee. Find her online at www.lindahoye.com where she ruminates about life and faith every day.

Motivation and Intention by Linda Hoye

The year begins with intention, most of them do. We set goals—we dare not call them resolutions—to write a number of words, pages, or other bodies of work, in a set period of time and we sit down at our desk and write.

Then life, and sometimes our own insecurities, get in the way and we start to think that our words don’t matter. Perhaps we even come to believe that it’s selfish to sequester ourselves away to scribble words in a notebook or tap them out on a keyboard. We start to think that we have nothing to say. We ask ourselves why we bother to try at all.

Madeleine L’Engle said, “if I thought I had to say it better than anyone else, I’d never start.” Like Madeleine, we’re wise to remember that we’re not called to do anything better than anyone else, we’re called simply to use the measure of ability given us by God, to honour Him while serving others. Intention, by itself, won’t help us make it past February with our goals. There has to be something bigger behind it.

Intention by itself will not sustain us in our writing life.

When we spend time in God’s presence, we become saturated with grace and changed by boundless love. We come to understand that we who have been gifted with a desire, and a measure of ability to dabble with words are charged to use what we’ve been given to honour our Creator. We don’t have to do it in the same way any other pilgrim does. We’re unique. We seek, in our own way, to find fresh ways to write about timeless truth.

So, we take our writing desire to prayer, and we remember what Jesus told Paul on the road to Damascus: tell people that you have seen me, and tell them what I will show you in the future.[1] Simple. Then we walk out the ordinary days of our life, guided by grace and wrapped in love. We look for God in ordinary moments, and when we see Him, we tell (write) about it.

Love is our motivation; intention, simply a tool to keep us moving forward.

When we begin to comprehend the magnitude of the love that the Creator has for us, and grasp our God-given mission (or calling, if you will), we set out on our writing journey with a simple, childlike desire to please our Abba. We write, first and most of all, for an audience of One. We come to the page filled with love, fuelled by prayer, and guided by the Spirit. Whether we pen fiction or non-fiction, poetry or prose, our writing becomes an outflowing of the love that has been poured into us.

The path won’t be a straight one, and it won’t look like anyone else’s. There will be detours, and potholes, and things that come up that distract us from our goal. Intention helps us stay on track, a tool we wield to help us do the work given us to do. We establish boundaries around our time with God and, flowing from that, establish regular writing times and places.

And so, as we begin this new year, I invite you to take time to abide, lean in and listen, and become saturated with God’s love. Then, only when you are filled, establish your goals and set your intentions.

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[1] Acts 26:16

Linda Hoye is a writer, photographer, gardener, and somewhat-fanatical grandma. She lives in British Columbia with her husband and their doted-upon Yorkshire Terrier, but she’ll always be a Saskatchewan prairie girl. She is the author of Two Hearts: An Adoptee’s Journey Through Grief to Gratitude. Her work has been included in two anthologies, as well as assorted online and in-print publications. She loves Moleskin notebooks, multi-coloured index cards and sticky notes, Uni-Ball 207 gel pens, and soy milky frothy coffee. Find her online at www.lindahoye.com where she ruminates about life and faith every day.

The Middle Place - Guest Post by Linda Hoye

I feel myself to be in a middle place, a place of waiting. It’s uncomfortable, like there’s the tiniest pebble in the bottom of my shoe and I can’t quite manage to shake it out. There is both a restlessness and a stirring.

We are, of course, in the season of advent in which we wait, and prepare our hearts in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Some have rituals: lighting a candle each week, or reading a passage of scripture or devotion each day. In the tradition I followed for most of my adult life, advent was not observed formally at all, aside from chocolates hidden behind cardboard windows.

But advent works its way into our heart.

The dark invites times of quiet reflection, and a return to stillness. Lights on trees invite us to remember the Light who came into the world one dark and starry night, the one we are waiting upon, the one who will come again.

Advent is about seeking, and switching our mindset from gratitude for a multitude of gifts, to adoration of the Giver of the sweetest ones. It’s leaning in and listening, sitting still and being present. It’s deep calling unto deep. It’s the sweetest of mysteries.

Sometimes, we feel as if there isn’t enough time to get it all done, then we realize that the most important work has already been accomplished, and so we rest. Sometimes we struggle, time drags, and this month is just one long and hard one to get through. We remember that love came down, and that God isn’t constrained by time. We don’t have to understand it in order to celebrate it.

We embrace the season of waiting, and we keep waiting, long after this dark month in which we celebrate the coming of the Light is over. The pilgrim walk in which, as Frederick Buechner says, we get “messed up in a million ways”, is meant to chafe a bit. The irritation in our shoes reminds us that we are simply passing through. We are not home yet.

And so, we draw away from the endless din and lean softly in to the Divine. We learn to rest in this middle place. We choose not to let the cacophony distract us from the important work of waiting. We sit still, we grow silent, and, in awe, we wait.

Linda Hoye is on the other side of a twenty-five-year corporate career. Now a writer, photographer, gardener, and somewhat-fanatical grandma, she lives in Kamloops, British Columbia with her husband and their doted-upon Yorkshire Terrier. Find her online at www.lindahoye.com.

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Frederick Buechner, The Remarkable Ordinary: How to Stop, Look, and Listen to Life