Some Books to Spark Your Interest by Joylene M Bailey

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"There's nothing like a good murder mystery to settle my stress."

Those words came out of my mouth recently, in the midst of post-pandemic plans and preparation for Babe's wedding. (At this writing, it is two weeks away!)

It's true, I love a cozy murder mystery to calm my nerves. Maybe because, despite the tension in the moment, I know there will be a solid explainable resolution in the last pages. Rhys Bowen, Frances Brody, Louise Penny, Caroline Graham are some of my favourite authors in this genre.

I usually have several books on the go, in different genres, including children's books. Some make me think. Some make me laugh. My favourites are the ones that suspend me in time with their beautiful words. 

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In no particular order, here are a few books I'm reading/have read this year that might spark your interest:

If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it? 

The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel, third in her series following the life of Thomas Cromwell, was quite an undertaking at just under 900 pages. It begins in May 1536 at Anne Boleyn's demise and ends with Cromwell's own death. I am in awe of this author, who manages to take the reader back in time to the tastes, smells, sights, and sounds of 16th century England. 

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God may choose places for us, but he invites us to participate in the making of them, and this participation requires the kind of faith and courage that can look a great deal like foolishness. 

Placemaker by Christie Purifoy

Beautiful, encouraging words on every page. This book is in my top ten of all time favourites.

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In Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler, Ira and Maggie are on a road trip to the funeral of an old friend. The entire book takes place in one day, and their conversations are typical of people who have known each other for a long time. It made me laugh out loud so many times. In this excerpt, Maggie's trying to convince Ira to stop at the small town of Cartwheel on the way to the funeral so they can drop in on their ex-daughter-in-law and see their granddaughter. This particular chapter is from Ira's point of view, and he's in the middle of daydreaming about how he always wanted to be a doctor: 

At one point he had figured he might be an orthopedist, because bonesetting was so immediate. Like furniture repair, he had thought. He had imagined that the bone would make a clicking sound as it returned to its rightful place, and the patient's pain would vanish utterly in that very instant.

"Hoosegow," Maggie said.

"Pardon?"

She scooped up her belongings and poured them back in her purse. She set the purse on the floor at her feet.

"The cutoff to Cartwheel," she told him. "Wasn't it something like Hoosegow?"

"I wouldn't have the faintest idea."

"Moose Cow. Moose Lump."

"I'm not going there, whatever it's called," Ira told her.

"Goose Bump."

"I would just like to remind you," he said, "about those other visits. Remember how they turned out?" 

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"What is the bravest thing you've ever said?" asked the boy.

"Help," said the horse.  

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy

The timeless illustrations draw you in, and the beautiful words will bring you back again and again.

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To believe the truth that beauty tells: this is our great
struggle from the depths of our grief. 

To trust the hope it teaches us to hunger toward: this is our fierce battle. 

To craft the world it helps us to imagine: this is our creative, death-defying work. 

Beauty and brokenness told me two different stories about the world. 

I believe Beauty told true. 

This Beautiful Truth by Sarah Clarkson

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A Diary of Private Prayer by John Baillie is a classic I'd never heard of until this year. First published in 1936, the prayers are organized by morning and evening for thirty days, with special prayers for Sundays. This updated and revised edition by Susanna Wright is composed in a more contemporary style. I'm finding it a beautiful reflective way to begin and end my days.

First Day, Morning: 

Eternal Father of my soul, let my first thought today be of you, let my first impulse be to worship you, let my first word be your Name, let my first action be to kneel before you in prayer. 

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Every day you have less reason not to give yourself away.

This Day: Collected and New Sabbath Poems by Wendell Berry

These poems date from 1979 to 2012, and include the poems Wendell Berry wrote on Sundays. In the preface he writes, These poems were written in silence, in solitude, mainly out of doors. A reader will like them best, I think, who reads them in similar circumstances-at least in a quiet room.

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Well, there's a rather eclectic mix for you. I have enjoyed all of them and I hope one or two have made you curious to read. 

But right now I think I'll take a break from wedding day table-centres, seating plans, and time charts, and find out who locked Kate Shackleton in the basement. Was it because she's on to the murderer? Could this be the time when the butler actually did it?  

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Joy reads and writes and plans weddings from her home in Alberta, where she is living with her husband, aka The Cowboy, very-soon-to-be-married Babe, and 

a dining table full of wedding decor. 

Find more of her words at Scraps of Joy.

What if--Writing Through a Glass Dimly by Jocelyn Faire

All the what if's in the world, wishing on stars—it won't change a thing ... determination, perseverance and a twist of fate changed my life and writing.

Writing through a glass dimly ... like a fog ...

“If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.” That used to be the way I lived my life, my most prolific sewing happened with three small children attached to my body like extra limbs. Busyness, the accepted hallmark of Christian faith—the way many of us lived and still do, life filled with those appointed good works .... and then a twist of fate ... For me it was drastic and tragic ... the accident that took two children, the nest emptied, so torn apart by grief that barely a few twigs remained of that once-happy and full family nest.

And now, I am in that place where I have the time.

And the sense of urgency has decreased.

Now the need to write, is to make sense of this world, to give Hope a voice. I ache to express the beauty, the pain, and the God behind both. Being has become more important than doing.

Having the time or money to write, is not my issue—the issue is having the resilience to carry on, to respond to be creative and willing in all aspects of life, including writing.

When I read the question for this month, I didn't know quite how to approach it.

Perhaps that right time to do the things we keep on a bucket list, is once we get to heaven, when we are not seeing through the glass dimly. And then what? What will I have to write about? The tears will be gone, I will not be needing to overcome these great obstacles ... what will John Grisham write about? Ian Rankin ... who needs murder mysteries? Or those self-help books ... or, perhaps I should write now, because in Heaven I won't need to express the twisting doubts?

This summer I lost a very dear friend, a heart issue at age 57... and the bereft family said in the initial email ... she went to her eternal rest.

One thing I know about my friend, she wouldn't want to be in eternal rest. I don't think that's what Heaven's about. I used to wonder about eternity ... if it was going to be forever anyways, I saw no rush to get there, but once I had two term deposits up there, my outlook changed. Randy Alcorn's book, Heaven paints a phenomenal picture of experience and beauty, an exciting future he believes will greet us upon arrival. And he is convinced that we get to continue on in our creativity, and work in the eternal future. (This is not a theology piece on heaven.) So will I be writing up there? Or should I finish my stories here below? And 1 Corinthians comes to mind, If I speak (write) with the tongue of men and angels, but have not love, I'm a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal.

While kayaking last week, heavy with thoughts of my friend's life, praying about the upcoming funeral, I saw the most exquisite flowers, unlike any I had ever seen before, what made them so unique? They were underwater. I have seen enough seaweed and lily pads, where the blossoms rest on top of the water, to know this was exceptional, ... I kayaked over the clear blue green mountain lake waters again, to be sure my eyes had not deceived ... yes there, through the water glass dimly, were tiny yellow and white flowers a few feet below the surface ... the water dimmed their colours, but they truly were blooming where planted.

I think I can continue to write from under the water as long as I keep my kayak aimed at the Son!

Jocelyn writes about Hope in the Hard Places on her blog.


 

A blog retrospective - Nesdoly

A week from today is the sixth blogiversary of my personal blog promptings. That's right, on October 19th I will have logged six whole years of blogging! I never thought, when I started way back then, that I'd reach anything like 1795 posts or that after saying all that, I still have more say.

I well remember the trepidation with which I put up my first post. Back in those days, I didn't have a traffic counter, so have no clue whether anyone came to read, or not — probably not.

My first post was about writing and just for old time's sake I'm republishing it here today. If you write a blog, be encouraged and stay the course. Six years will pass before you know it. If you enjoy writing and are thinking of creating a blog — dive in. It's a lot of fun!

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Jim Coggins and murder mystery

I attended the monthly meeting of the Fraser Valley Christian Writer's Group last night. Jim Coggins, writer of Who's Grace and newly released Desolation Highway - both published by Moody Press - was the main feature.

Coggins was right at home. After all, he lives in Abbotsford and edited the M. B. Herald from there for years. His quips re: what's a good Mennonite boy doing writing about murder, went over well. Most of us there were either of Mennonite stock or knew well their anti-killing, peacenik proclivities - as Abbotsford is a Mennonite retirement Mecca.

Two angles of his talk fascinated me:

1. How he got into writing murder mysteries:

He's an academic, a historian and was (when he started his fiction writing jag) the editor of a very straight-laced periodical. But long before he tried his hand at writing murder mysteries, he and his wife Jackie read them regularly (out loud, to each other, till one or the other fell asleep) before bed. They went through a variety of writers - good, bad, and indifferent. After one particularly bad beginning, Jim tossed the book aside and declared, "I could do better than that?"

"Then why don't you," said Jackie.

Another catalyst was a garrulous bus driver (more interested in talking to people than driving the bus, Jim was sure) on whose bus Jim often rode to work. When she found out he was a writer, she said, "What do you write? I'd like to read one of your books sometime."

Yikes, Jim thought, there's my thesis - not exactly something she'd be interested in, and the magazine - too much christianese. He determined, then, he'd like to try his hand at writing something he could hand to a person like her - unchurched, non-religious, a good read but something that would get her thinking along Christian lines as well.

2. Why murder mystery is a good genre for a Christian writer:

Now I don't like reading mysteries all that much - although I'm addicted to my weekly Saturday afternoon helping of warmed over "Cold Case Files" and "City Confidential." But Coggins pointed out some inherently Christian worldview aspects of the traditional murder mystery that I'd never thought of before:

- The world is portrayed as black and white, good and evil, right and wrong. There are good people and the bad guy who dunnit.

- Murder mysteries model in microcosm what happened to humanity in Eden. Everything's going along fine. Then someone is found dead. Chaos! From then on the book is dedicated to restoring order to its world.

- The murder mystery projects values.

• MM's uphold the value of justice - we feel unsatisfied if the crime doesn't get solved and the bad guy doesn't get caught.

• MM's uphold the value of human life. As Coggins pointed out, you can have a mystery about anything - about, say, lost socks. But who cares? However, when someone is murdered, we care. Why? Because human life matters.

I bought Desolation Highway and Coggins signed it for me. So I'll read another murder mystery. Who knows, maybe hubby and I will start reading them as bedtime stories. And maybe one of us will start writing them. I'm pretty sure, though, it won't be me.


Copyright © 2004 by Violet Nesdoly

(First published on promptings - October 19, 2004)

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Website: www.violetnesdoly.com

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