Book of the Month: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

I may be accused of pretention but the sheer miracle of me being enthralled by a story about . . . well, you know, is enough to take first

This Fall, I’m trying to read more classics. If you continue reading, you will know that I do not count August as Fall. This was, however, a great kickoff.

It’s short, it’s stream-of-consciousness, it’s heartbreaking it’s . . . a fishing story. A fishing story that kind of ends the exact way it began (if a book has been out for more than 50 years, the statute of limitations for spoilers . . . statues). And yet . . .

I found a plot, tension, and a story between the Old Man and the Sea. I found it beautiful, heartbreaking, and funny. Go read it! It’s like, a two-hour endeavor.

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion Volume 4

I have never been more upset

It was only after I was hooked on this series that I was informed that journals are not, as I had thought, complete, but rather, will finish when the volumes number in the mid-twenties. Are you kidding me?

I supposed there are enough loose ends to keep this one going for a while . . . and I will keep crawling back to Beth Brower to beg for more at the end of every one. On to volumes 5-8, which I currently have a death grip on, refusing to give them back to the library until I have done them justice.

The Knockoff by Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza

If you miss Devil Wears Prada, this is as good a fix as any

The Monster in the Hollows AND The Warden and the Wolf King by Andrew Peterson

I cried, wept, even, as I always do while reading these.

Pairing his fiction with his nonfiction is an excellent way to enjoy Peterson. I’ll read North! Or be eaten in September while I finish Adorning the Dark.

Let me know what you’ve been reading this month! Meanwhile, here’s a promising September:

In progress:

1. Adorning the Dark by Andrew Peterson

2. A Garden Grows by my friend Karen Higgins

3. The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, volume 5 by Beth Brower

In the queue:

1. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Didn’t even need to use spell check on that one, this time)

2. Dear Mr. Knightley by Katherine Reay

3. The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, vols. 6-8 (Beth Brower has got me in a chokehold)

-Haley <3

I’ve read a lot of notes lately about funny interactions between members of young adult groups marking this same experience. Yes, being in your twenties is wild, and I’m also freaking out. I’m not going to tell you my key takeaway because I think it’s going to help you stop freaking out (if it did, I wouldn’t be freaking out right now), but because it’s something true to hold onto while everything else is up in the air.

Key Takeaway: The moments you’re most afraid of might be the most exciting.

Has your anxiety been solved yet? No? Well, good thing I didn’t promise any comfort.

Twenty-somethings have a lot of reasons to be afraid (though no more than anyone else in any other stage). We’re watching cost of living go up, job opportunities go down, use of AI going up, quality of education go down, and our white flags of surrender go up while our hopes for a happy future goes down. Yikes!

In my life right now, we’re renting, we’re childless, and we’re both working. Over and over, I’m told that this is my moment! This is my time to seize the day, to make the decisions that will set me on the course for the rest of my life. No pressure, right?

Right.

Every instance of opportunity provides a new reason to be afraid. Every choice opens up so many more unknowns, and every change is a risk, because what if that decision that I make at 22 is the one that puts me in the poorhouse at age 32?

Recently, my husband and I decided to replace my 2000 Volkswagen Beetle, the only car I’ve ever had, the one I bought with my own funds during COVID. This is the car I had in high school and in college, the one that ran throughout all of my undergrad without passing away dramatically. This car carried me to six different jobs, a few boyfriends, one fiancé and one husband (same guy), and off to college (full of plants and one mirror). It’s old enough that it breaks every week and a half, and we are getting a generous deal on a dependable, reliable, able Civic. But buying a car is always a risk—it was a gamble to drive eight hours, round trip, to buy the bug from some guy in Portland. And waving goodbye to it is scary. All the opportunity this Civic offers is also a risk, because that’s just how buying things that are mattress-sized-or-bigger is.

But the thing I’m picking up is that even though opportunity is scary (and that feeling should be given its moment) I can’t just sit in the fear and in the risk. Right now, we’re starting creative communities and interviewing for jobs and starting new creative projects and budgeting intensively and preparing for babies and degrees and homes and new cars. Those things scare the living daylights out of me, and the scariness brings a stupid amount of questions. How are we going to afford [insert answer here]? How are we going to find the time for this new project? What if this new endeavor goes wrong? The questions taking a risk bring are asked loudly in one’s mind, so I want this idea to be even louder; this is really freaking exciting.

If I didn’t ask the fear-questions, I might be stupid. But to only ask questions and be too afraid to act is worse. Things are up in the air, things are unknown, and things feel big because of really exciting things.

This weekend, while I was agonizing (that is not an overdramatic use of the word) over something to which I had to say “no,” my husband reminded me of something I had said only a week ago. I’d said that I couldn’t even believe that life was real, because so many cool things were happening to us.

Yea, life is hard and we’re dealing with hard things. Yea, life is full of unknowns right now and that’s making me feel like duct taping myself into my old bug and driving back in time to when life was as difficult as my next 4-hour closing shift at my high school job. But it’s partially hard and partially unknown because some really exciting opportunities are presenting themselves to us.

When you’re a little kid, you don’t necessarily want to sit and look at a snow globe. You want to shake it up and watch what happens when those little flakes of whatever it was are cast out of where they rested and are thrown somewhere else. My snow globe has been shaken, and those flakes are everywhere, and I can’t see where they’re going to go.

That’s the exciting part. Even though I’m afraid, this really an exciting time to be me.

More updates to follow, but until then;

Other Updates:

- Two huge events are being put together in Spokane this Fall that’s going to jumpstart some awesome creative community, and I’m delighted to say I’m going to be a part of it.

- I’m almost done with Adorning the Dark by Andrew Peterson, and I’m going to continue this cadence of at least one craft book a month. I refuse to be the same writer I was last week!

- I’m coming up on 20k words on my newest mystery novel, which is set in Spokane. You can read why I’m setting another book in my city here.

- I just bought a copy of Crime and Punishment and will be reading it in September. Secondhand bookstores are the best!

-Haley <3

Some paintings and retellings of the Fall of Man portray the scene as Adam and Eve being driven out from paradise into a desert, with no food or water. But Genesis 1 tells us that “the land,” not Eden alone, produced plants and vegetation, and God called it good.

Maybe a desolate plane surrounded Eden, maybe not. But that wasn’t the greatest devastation of being driven from Eden.

As the Eden faded into the horizon, and Eve stumbled away from it, scratching at the other being’s skin she wasn’t used to wearing, she was moving further away from her home. She was leaving the only place she had ever known. She was leaving the perfect union she had had with God himself.

Our broken relationship with God has been much discussed since that event. Our broken relationship with each other has been much discussed. We know about the pain of childbirth, the struggle we’re cursed to have with the earth. But another relationship was broken, ruptured, the day that Eve was pushed out of her home.

Eve would never really belong anywhere else. She would build a home with Adam, but it would be broken by murder and bloodshed. Her sons would build homes, but they would evict each other and quarrel and kill for better plots of land. Eve’s descendants, especially the ones chosen by God to be his people, would be characterized by being foreigners and sojourners.

After the Fall, our relationship with Place would never be the same. We will always want to belong, to have a home, but our homes will burn down and break and let evil in. But even if such things don’t happen, we will sit in the very homes we once dreamed of having and notice their imperfections and shortcomings, because home will never be enough.

I think this idea helps me to understand Eve’s feelings a little more in that moment when she finally lost sight of Eden, even in the light of the flaming sword. And I don’t think I’m the only one who can relate, either.

Poke around any social media site with search terms like “place,” or “my people,” or “home,” and you’ll be rewarded with yellow-filmy-tinted photographs of cozy living rooms and laughing friend groups and full-looking apartments. Here we find the newest iteration of humanity’s search for home and belonging.

But take a closer look at an average social media user’s saved post, and you’ll find collections of dissatisfaction (of which I am not innocent). As much as we chase after Place, what we find never seems to be enough.

I’d argue that our desire for Place is not an end, but a means of longing. We should grasp our Places with an open palm, holding on, but not too tight that we can’t let go when the world sweeps our Places away from us.

The first step to arrive at this conclusion is to understand what makes a space into a Place, or as some would say, a house into a home.

Place, as cultural geographer Tim Cresswell points out, is a slippery term. It’s a broad word, with a wide range of uses (“Pizza place” vs. “There’s no place like home,” for example). Cresswell, in a book called Place: an introduction helps his readers to understand what Place means in the context of not only geography, but also across many other disciplines. Cresswell’s definition will help us to understand what Place is in the context of space, and how it is related to belonging.

He helps us to understand what Place is by first defining, in geographical terms, what a space is. He does this through an example. When a college freshman moves into a college dorm, they “are confronted with a particular area of floor space and a certain volume of air.” Space can be thought of in latitudinal and longitudinal terms and is a tangible thing for geography majors and sailors to measure.

In new dorms, Cresswell argues, college freshmen “make the space say something about [themselves].” They fill the space with their stuff, their smells, and their memories. Bill Watterson painted a version of the Sistine chapel on his dorm room ceiling, and I arranged the 36 plants I owned around my first college bedroom (they quickly died over the course of the first semester).

I agree with Cresswell when he said that Place is a “common-sense” idea, especially when he goes on to connect Place to the idea of belonging. A Place is a space with context, and one’s own Place, the kind people claim as their own, is where their context their builds for them a sense of belonging. Belonging can be equated to feeling at home or at ease or at peace. For example, I feel a sense of belonging at my church because I have memories there, because I know where the bathroom is and have heated up lunches in the microwave. I feel comfortable spreading out there, while others, new visitors, don’t have the same feeling because they don’t have the same context as I.

Thus, Cresswell helps us to understand that Place, in short, is a space or locale with context, stories, and memories. Further, he explains how Place is interconnected with a sense of belonging. Such a foundation is crucial for our understanding of Place, but it falls short.

When I first encountered the idea of Place, it was in a Communication Theory class, when reading Cresswell’s work. Here was an exciting new way to see the world, and as someone planning on becoming a writer after graduation, seeing the world in fresh new ways is kind of an asset. I cheerfully plotted out a Substack series on this very subject but ran into a screeching halt.

That’s cool, and I’ll even buy that this is a universal thing, Haley. But why does it all matter?

Great feedback. But tricky. The feedback unearthed the truth that theory can be exciting and fun for a little while, but if it doesn’t apply to people, the excitement fades quickly. So, as your excitement over this fascinating theory (I’m sure) fades, I’d better get to the point, which starts at where Cresswell’s theory falls short.

Cresswell argues that this idea of Place is a relatively new concept. As a Bible reader, however, I had to disagree. Eden was the first Place, the first locale with a story and context and people to possess them. Eden was Adam and Eve’s Place, given to them by God, and perhaps the only perfect example we have of humanity’s union with Place. After the fall, our relationship with Place is cursed to be full of strife, but also to be full of temporariness.

The Old Trails fire that recently tore up my city downed over six hundred structures, flattening a landscape that once had such permanent houses. Such an event reminds us that even the most stable of civilizations and Places are doomed to rust or burn or collapse or mold. We don’t like to think about our structures in this way, but in this century more than ever before, structures are built less to last and more to break down and fade into oblivion.

Not only is Place not permanent anymore, but the tents we nomads set up will never satiate our desire to belong, not enough, and never well. Even at your dream school, loneliness with wash over you as you walk the halls during the last semester of your undergrad. Even at a great church, smiles will fade into fake when conversations turned strained or awkward. Even at a great job, you will fight with your coworkers or disappoint your boss and sit at your desk enflamed in upset.

We can’t fully and completely belong here, because (and I’ll give you this one for free) we don’t ultimately belong in a Place like this.

Writer of songs and myth Andrew Peterson draws out this idea in chapter six of his book Adorning the Dark (a chapter that covers what Place is and how to make it), when he writes that he “was born homesick. Maybe we all were.” Or, to quote expensively, C.S. Lewis wrote that “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” A Christian had the resources with which to understand Place more fully than someone who doesn’t believe in a future union with God. The Christian understands and can even rejoice that our Places here are temporary and therefore understands that Place and belonging here on this earth can’t be the end. So, when Place and belonging on earth disappoint us, as they must, Christ-followers can look up and look forward and soldier on through the disappointment, knowing the Places here are just foretastes of the world to come.

We can understand that our longing for belonging and for Place is our bones remembering Eden, a remembrance inherited from Eve’s first tears as she stumbled away from Eden, and a longing that will only be satiated by union with God on a redeemed earth, in a new Eden.

But to take this idea and conclude that the Places and belonging on earth don’t matter is dangerous and straight up wrong. A Gnostic would say something like that, and we really have got to stop making that mistake. A Christ-follower must understand that despite the temporariness of Place on this earth and despite our inability to truly and fully and satisfactorily belong here, that the pockets of belonging, the Places we have here are invaluable. As we gaze to heaven, we can also understand that Place is three things.

First, we understand that Place is something God has commanded us to make, something we ourselves were made to do. The Fall did not cancel out God’s pre-fall decree in Genesis 2, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” Not only were Adam and Even supposed to make more people, but it was for the purpose of filling the earth and subduing it. Based on the above understanding of place, to subdue the space is to make a Place of it, to turn house into home. This act of making Place is inherently redemptive; making something empty and meaningless and turning it into something full of meaning is the act of an image-bearer functioning well.

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From this, we can understand that, secondly, Place on earth is a grace of God. God has flooded the earth and scattered his church and banished his chosen people to the wilderness, destroying Place where we have tried to set it up, and yet we continue to set it up, over and over again. Israel got their promised land, Noah got his dry land, and now we have our stable incomes and homes and predictable church buildings we can return to every week. Further, though it can’t be done in a way that satisfies us, Place and belonging here do function as a foretaste of heaven, in the same way that marriage and feasting and gardening and washing dishes serves as a foretaste. Even the act of making Place, of carving out belonging in the harsh landscape of this world, allows us to mimic the redemptive act of God and of Jesus, who can redeem the spiritual and physical aspects of our image-bearing selves.

With this in mind, we can realize, third and last, that Place is a grace for other as much as it is for us. Place is a means by which we can help others to taste heaven, long for it, and turn their face towards heaven, and towards God. With their fuller understanding of Place as temporary and as a grace, a Christ-follower can wield their Placemaking ability with greater precision and greater kindness. Inviting people into our worship, into our homes, into our Places simulates Jesus himself inviting us to the Place he is preparing for us.

With heaven in mind, here’s what actions this new understanding of Place can encourage or drive us towards; first, we must hold our Places with an open palm. Our Places will never be ideal, or perfectly Pinterest-worthy, because it will be dusty and sin-covered and smelly. Our baseboards will be scratched because we run into them with hoverboards (anyone remember those?) and the concrete will be uneven because the contractor messed up and the apartment will be too small for five full-grown adults when your in-laws must move in when a fire threatens their house, and houses will burn. And it will be like they were never there.

We hold our Places loosely because we know that the Places will never give us what we need from heaven, even if it does get close.

But as our palms are open, we should still grip the Places we have. We shouldn’t reject everything physical because it is evil and temporary. We should repaint the baseboards and spread rugs over the uneven concrete porch and stay up late playing board games around a tiny table with the too many people living at your house and we should rebuild where things have been burned because it is good. Because God saw us, broken and chipped and burned and he rebuilt us, too, and asks us to do that for others and for His creation which was broken at the Fall, too.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but the longing you have for Place and belonging is good, and you shouldn’t feel guilty for wanting to belong because you were wired that way. The wrong comes from trying to satisfy yourself with things that won’t last, because you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment. Balance your longing for heaven with your knowledge of and faith in heaven.

Finally, as you grip and beautify and redeem your Places, invite people over. You aren’t the only one longing for belonging. You can’t be someone else’s Savior or be heaven for other people, but you can give someone a taste of the kingdom to come.

Invite them to the too-small apartment or the messy house, because giving people a taste of heaven isn’t about letting them see something perfect. It’s about letting them see God redeeming his beloved on the smallest scale, in the work-in-progress house, and in you.

Thanks for reading the first essay in my series on Place. I’ve been puzzling through these ideas for a few months, now, and would love your take, especially if it’s different from mine!

Leave a comment

• On a coffee date with my husband, a barrage of safety alerts on my phone. Then I read the text from G that she was being evacuated from the house she had moved into 24 hours before. I walked outside and was shocked to see the cookout tint on the air

• On my way home from an emergency grocery run, a young man walking into a Mexican restaurant, but he pauses to photograph the distant smoke. He continues inside for some tacos.

• Red smoke making the sunrise into sunset colors.

• G’s facial expressions changing rapidly as she tore through social media, desperate to find footage of her home, standing or otherwise.

• My in-laws on my porch, air mattress in tow.

• The mess in my house, stuff that wouldn't stand a chance against flames, stuff I have picked over only a few weeks ago while planning an evacuation of my own. Now, it’s time to clear it up to make room for other evacuees.

• The wind ripping through the trees in a way that reminds me of my other city, but instead of nostalgia I only feel anxiety. Though the fire is on the other side of the city, the wind blows briefly in our direction. Will our guests and us have to find shelter elsewhere?

• The fire watch map that hasn’t been updated for eight hours, showing that fire is less than a block away from G’s house and approaching my in-law’s.

• New white smoke obscuring the road on our way to church.

• Empty rows of black chairs in the back of the sanctuary, as our pastor asks us to move forward due to low attendance.

• Some families are wearing pajamas or sweatpants instead of their normal Sunday attire. They didn’t sleep in their houses last night.

• People gathered around the sanctuary in quiet clusters, like a funeral. Every group has an imaginary map of the city beside them and are gesturing to it to explain where they live in relation to the fire.

• At least a dozen people playing golf a mile away from the secondary fire.

It’s odd timing that a fire breaks through the flesh and bone of homes and businesses as I research and reflect on what makes a location a place. Our places here on earth really do feel permanent, but they aren’t. We are nomads, whether we live in tents or caves or high-rise condos.

The hope I have doesn’t prevent the loss in my city, or eradicate the anxiety of potential loss. The hope I have does, however, help me to look directly at the flames and fully face what it is and what it could mean, because my hope isn’t in the permanence of this world.

If you think of it, please pray for Spokane.

- Haley <3

The Unapologetic Book(s) of the month: The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, vols. 1-3 by Beth Brower

Worth the hype and not worth the snobbery

Oh? You say I’m not allowed to enjoy these books because they are popular? And focused towards the female audience? Ha, I say, laughing in your face.

Beth Brower knows her stuff. At one point listening to the audio of volume 2, I nearly pulled over to recover from a specific interaction between two characters. Stop reading this, immediately, and go get in line for these books at your local library. I assure you there will probably be a long wait.

If you enjoyed Anne, The Penderwicks, Austen, and Eyre, you will tear this series apart.

Runner Up: Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

The creative kick-in-the-pants you’re looking for.

This book floated to me, via a recommendation from my past and a serendipitous skip-the-line copy at my local library. Elizabeth Gilbert argues that ideas float around in a similar way, sentient, choosing artists through which they can be born. Her matter-of-fact, tell-it-like-it-is tone was helpful, convicting, and timely. While I cannot condone Gilbert’s exact worldview (her taking advice from a medicine man, insistence that life is mere chaos with little order, and loose attitude towards marital vows makes me squeamish), her book is a great push to artists and writers and was a great push for me. Why am I sitting here wasting time talking about what she said? It’s time I went away and wrote something of my own.

Adorned: Living out the Beauty of the Gospel Together by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth

The book of Titus applied for women, a book I honestly didn’t expect to help

I received this book as a graduation gift from people whom I adore. Because I adore them, I read this book.

I liked this book, because Wolgemuth was honest, faithful to the text she used, and only a little preachy (hey, she had to be faithful to her genre). Even better, the book talked about female mentorship, a topic that I was hungry to read about.

I’m glad I read this, and I’d feel safe handing this book to another woman. Especially if I wanted to hint that I wanted them to mentor me.

The whole Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan

I will never read it again, having read it thrice.

Murder in an English Village by Jessica Ellicott

An excellent whodunnit with a side of female camaraderie

I found this in the wild at the library, and adored every inch of it. Two childhood besties, Beryl and Edwina, meet again when Edwina is facing financial trouble and needs a renter. Beryl tells the entire village that Edwina’s appearances of poverty was a cover for Edwina being a secret agent. This is great, and even the straight-laced Edwina appreciates the lie, until someone tries to murder her.

Set in post-war England, Ellicott beautifully balances the rhythm of a murder mystery, the complexities of historical setting, and the development of a cast of characters, among whom I found new friends and a few enemies. I couldn’t recommend this enough, and bonus! It’s a series!

The Inviting Life: An Inspirational Guide to Homemaking, Hosting, and Opening the Door to Happiness by Laura Calder

A colorful, practical, writer’s guide to perpetrating place where it wasn’t allowed before

Laura Calder can’t escape the fact that she is a writer, something she admits while mourning her need for scratch paper and physical grocery lists. I came across this guide when researching my Place series, and Calder gives very practical tips not just on how to make your home your place, but also how to make it someone else’s place, too. While I would totally buy this book to keep on my coffee table, it wouldn’t just be for it’s aesthetic value. It would be a book I’d pick up over and over to peruse. Looking forward to burning the brown butter and sea salt shortbread recipe included!

My books-in-progress;

• I remain in the hold line for Theo of Golden. I may have final sunk to only 99th in line.

• Adorning the Dark by Andrew Peterson

• The rest of the Emma M. Lion, if the other readers will let go of their death grip on the audio (or physical) copy

• Some classics, if I can keep them.

- Haley <3

We stop when we hear her pull up, both feeling the quickened heartbeats and surprise that come with encountering the woman who handles our late fees and lease signings.

“Hey, there’s a summer social happening over there.” Darcie says, gesturing behind us. I turn, and yes, the apartment social I had avoided when we walked to get our mail was definitely still there. “You should stop by, there’s games and food, no charge, it’s free.”

Her tone was inviting, but we were left with little doubt that Darcie was giving an order.

I dragged my feet back to the apartment, trying to negotiate my way out of attending the event. It was a hot dog and chips social behind the leasing office, advertised via AI posters and passive-aggressive emails. “Maybe you could just go.” I said to my husband.

“I thought of that,” he replied, “but, isn’t this your thing?”

He didn’t mean being extroverted (which I am), or being the one in our marriage who had a good desire to meet our neighbors (which I am not). He was pointing out my passion for the stories of our city, of its neighborhoods, of its residents. Isn’t a neighborhood social the kind of thing in which I should participate?

Yes, it is. We went. One neighbor, whose name I promptly forgot and who called me “Ryan” gave us a fishy handshake. He was hovering by the giant Connect4 game, like he wanted to play, but Kaleb and I hung on to our lukewarm hot dogs, our props to prove our hands were too full to play.

We walked away, only one hot dog in (beginner numbers for us) and one introduction in. “Well, we went, and that’s a start,” says the husband, brushing the memory of Jeremy’s (I remember now, the fish-hand neighbor’s name may have been Jeremy) fish-hand away.

A start, but not enough.

The next day, I’m on Zoom, talking to someone from Europe and someone from my own city, struggling to verbalize something I desperately need to say. It’s my first Inkwell happy hour, and I am ridiculously out of practice when it comes to talking about my writer’s heart. But we agreed that community, for those of us in the breakout group at least, was the hinge point for our despair, our joy, and our hope. Community and support sustain artistic endeavor, when the artist would have given out on their own.

I am a big fat hypocrite, all right. Here I was on a Zoom call, so desperate for like-minded, or even supportive, individuals, when the day before I had only lasted one hot dog at a cookout. In our apartments, I wouldn’t be surprised if you could count on two hands the number of tenants who have the sort of hope I have, and yet when faced with those who did not hold such hope . . . I shook a single fish-hand and left as soon as I could.

Key Takeaway: It’s easy to want a village, it’s another thing to be the villager.

I am so hungry for community that benefits me that I am willing to neglect the ways in which I must be a benefit to others.

So how will I be the villager in the village I want?

I’m starting with the practice of focusing on how I can be an agent in the city, instead of the recipient of services. How can I serve others around me, instead of serving myself? This isn’t anything new, some guy walked around the Middle East telling people about this thousands of years ago. But here’s what this looks like for me, walking around the middle east of Washington state:

- Showing up to local writer’s and reader’s events, volunteering and encouraging as I go

- Talking when it feels awkward and shutting up when it feels easy at such events

- Starting the local creative community, by helping this friend with a Housemoot, that friend with a Locals group

- Pushing for community by being kind to people with fish-hands, and playing Connect4 (Jeremy, if you see this, I’m down)

I can’t call you out on the state of your village, because I don’t live in your village, yet. But what can you do, as a villager, to nurture growth and health in your own community?

Other Updates

I’ve agreed to take back my role at Clive’s coffee in Great Northern University. I’m hoping to turn this position into an opportunity to nurture the kind of community I’m talking about here, especially among undergraduate students.

I’ve been married for two years! I’ve been alive for (almost) twenty-two years! I share a birthday with Harry Potter! Life is good.

I yanked some articles back to release my Space + Place series in a sensical order. They will all be re-released!

I started a new novel! Very exciting stuff. Many say that it takes around three novels for a writer to really identify their voice, so I’m anxious to mine out what ever this strange voice is out of this second attempt.

Thanks for stopping by, and let me know how your July went.

- Haley <3

If Haley writes something and no one responds, does it even make a sound?

I thrive when observed. My resume says I “work well under pressure,” but what that really means is that I like to know that I will be seen, for better or for worse.

Social media platforms have a way of either breaking you down with negative feedback or crushing you by the utter lack of response you get. I’d take the negative feedback . . . at least, right now I would. I just think that being hated might be marginally better than being unknown.

Here’s my thought . . . if I’m only writing into an abyss, and all that I write now is only animal sacrifice to the algorithm gods in hopes that one day they grant me a following, why should it be necessary that I write well?

An even more pressing question is unsurfaced in the wake of the above complaint; why should it be necessary to attempt good writing in the first place? Couldn’t a machine make what I need now perfectly, first try, no edits needed?

By “what I need now,” I mean the articles, notes, and captions that I’m sending off like a baby in a boat, only to be drowned out by all the other media noise. The stuff no one’s going to stop to read or like or consume because there’s much better stuff out there to consume, but stuff I must produce to be chosen by the algorithm (may it live forever) for future success.

If I use AI to write content, and no one is around to see it, does it make a sound?

In short, why shouldn’t I use AI? I kind of want to, because all this lack of lauding is quite tiresome. The kind of stuff that stuck Van Gogh in an asylum (I’m being dramatic here).

Here’s why, nincompoop Haley.

When I flirt with these ideas, not only am I throwing a pity party about how I’m not noticed on a platform with millions of other brilliant people who are creating content much more brilliant than a self-pitying article about when I’m tempted to use AI, but I’m also working from two very false and very dangerous assumptions.

The first assumption is that writing noticed by a big audience is more valuable than writing read by a small audience. Quality over quantity, people. In a word, I should just get over myself. If I want to write and be a writer (I do) I cannot do it because I’m going to be noticed by a lot of people. That’s not realistic, and it’s a flimsy thing on which to build a career. Even if I am loved by the masses, it will take about one rotation of Metis around Jupiter (only a little over seven hours, who knew?) for the masses to turn on me (Watch me say I’d rather be hated than known then).

The second assumption I make is that I am unknown. Not only does my mom (hi, mom) and dad (hi, dad) read everything I write (and my husband, in-laws, friends, you, lovely Substack person whom I admire from afar), but I’m also known by the actual God.

Like, for real.

He sees me (Adonai El Roi) and knows what I’m writing and why I’m doing it, and even if I did it in a locked closet, he’d see what was going on. With what I do, I either reflect or distort the image of Him I bear. That’s dang important.

So again, I resist plugging Chat GPT into my Google search bar, and open Microsoft Word instead. I tap out this article, so I have something to return to next time I want to use the machine to churn out things I think don’t matter beyond their ability to exist.

Maybe this can be something you can return to, too.

- Haley <3

Not only was I putting wayy too much stock in my personal talent and ability, but I was also making a key mistake, one that I continue to make even while actively pursuing writing as a career. Even now, when reading the brilliant articles produced by brilliant writers on this platform, I feel a tad embarrassed to admit that my first love, my first pursuit, is fiction.

But fiction isn’t a side hobby that serious in which nonfiction writers guiltily indulge. Fiction isn’t (wholly) a mere leisure activity. Fiction isn’t a childish endeavor that only benefits children (Tolkien once said, “books written entirely for children are poor, even as children’s books.”).

Rather, fiction, that is to say, stories, are essential in a person’s perception of themselves, others, and even God. They are the backbone of culture, the embodiment of values, and the first teachers of morality and immortality.

Fiction is crucial.

Though I know this to be true, I often don’t believe it. I hope that I can send this piece out into the internet abyss that I may return to it, and thus remember why my job is important, though I profit not, nor do I achieve fame by any means.

But before I launch this into the void, I’d better take a moment to define an important term (“The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms,” is a phrase attributed to Socrates). For the sake of this piece, I’ll use fiction and stories interchangeably.

Rather than bore you with speculation about fiction’s relation to reality (I’ll bore you with it later in this article), I’ll stick with professor of literature and writing Daniel Taylor’s definition. In his essay “In Praise of Stories,” Taylor writes that “Bloodless definitions are the opposite of story, but I will offer one, nonetheless. A story is the telling of significant actions of characters over time.” With this in mind, we can conclude that a story can be as simple as a homespun bedtime story or as complex as anything written by Dostoyevsky (Brothers Karamatzov, I will conquer you) or Tolkien.

I would also argue here that our very lives recall the story structure, as we can retell our lives, however short, through our significant actions.

Because of this, I am convinced that stories define who we are. This point is intuitive. I know that many of us can recall the book we read, the show we watched, the narrative we remember, and even the family legend that shapes who you are.

When I was in AWANA, the end-of-the-year ceremony consisted of our team leader introducing each little kid and saying something nice about me. When my team leader had to introduce me, she hesitated for a long time before saying, “well, Haley is just . . . full of life.” I have no memory of her saying that, but I know if occurred because it was a moment retold over and over in our family history. Fortunately, the spin on this occurrence was not that I was (wholly) a nuisance and a pain to be around. Rather, it was retold as evidence to my formidability in battle, lightheartedness in play, and even implied that I was fun to have around. This story was even retold in my dad’s speech at my wedding, and I am constantly reminded by my husband and family that I am “full of life.” Instead of this being a painful and annoying phrase, the way this story was told shaped my perception of myself in such a way that I can take this phrase as a compliment.

Walter Fisher, who is definitely in my top five favorite communication scholars, takes the intuitive idea further. In his Narrative Paradigm Theory, Fisher contends that not only people are defined by story (though he would say they are) but also entire communities, cultures, and countries.

Reggie Young writes about his doctoral thesis in his essay “On Writing One’s Place: Writing Bluesville.” In my series about Space v. Place (which shall continue, despite this article breaking up the series) I cite this essay, especially the moment when Young was having a Mrs. Wilson type up his thesis for him. The two of them were some of the only black people on their college campus, and from the same neighborhood. Their neighborhood was present in media only through negative news headlines, Young says, before he wrote his thesis, a fiction piece set in the neighborhood he and Mrs. Wilson were from. Though Mrs. Wilson didn’t “get” the experimental, nonlinear fiction she was writing, she did understand it’s importance. “At least people will know we exist.” She told Young one day, after handing him her type for the day.

Mrs. Wilson understood, better than I do, that only telling negative stories about a people group or single person certainly has an impact of how that party is perceived by others. Even more importantly, I find, such stories impact how we view ourselves. Daniel Taylor, after defining story for us, writes that “the stories we choose for ourselves define who we are . . . the health of any community depends directly on the health of the stories the community embraces.” The stories we tell have as much of an impact on ourselves as they do our audience. Stories shape what we understand to be true about ourselves.

But the shaping nature of fiction does not end with the internal. It moves outward, and helps us to understand those around us, for better or for worse.

You’ll remember that before, I noted how our lives have the ability to reflect story structure (though it may be more accurate to say our stories reflect our life structure. Chicken or the egg?). If we accept that “A story is the telling of significant actions of characters over time,” then we can also understand that we humans have the potential to have our own stories . . . because we have the ability to take significant action over time.

Our stories, as much as our story is our actions over time, are shaped by story. Daniel Taylor uses The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as an example. “The power of an imagined end, and it literally can only be imagined, lies in its ability to influence present choices,” he says. In Huck’s case, he is only able to protect Jim only because he can imagine himself doing so, motivated by experience. Here is where Taylor makes his best point:

“We can do the same in our own stories, and one of the experiences that can motivate our actions is experience with the stories from literature. This seems far-fetched . . . especially to those who make dubious distinction between literature and the supposedly real world. Are we genuinely prepared to say that working in an office building . . . is real, while reading Tolstoy is not? Which . . . best draws out our humanity? Which is more likely to change us? Which, then, is more real? A story is something that happens to you, as much as a car wreck or job promotion or falling in love.”

In summary, Taylor argues that a story, a fictional tale, a book, has the potential to be the inciting incident in our lives. Inciting incident meaning that first thing that happens in a story, a choice a character makes or an event that comes to pass, that means the character cannot go about their business as usual. Frodo cannot go about business as usual, because his Uncle Bilbo disappears and leaves him a ring. Marilla cannot go about business as usual because a redheaded orphan girl shows up unexpectedly at Green Gables. Harry cannot go about business as usual because a letter shows up addressed to him that his Uncle Vernon is desperate to keep Harry from reading.

In the same way, a story can happen to us and can be the reason we can no longer go about, business as usual. We change and can imagine ourselves acting differently than we could before, treating people differently than we once would have.

When I re-read The Fellowship of the Ring last summer, Boromir’s character arc became one such event. He was the oldest child, deserving of the throne, the most beloved, the one of which most was expected. All his kingdom depended on him, and he arrived at Rivendell to be told that he was not to save the world (and his kingdom) but that that task was entrusted to an insignificant hobbit. Boromir desperately wanted control, to be the main character, for the sake of his country . . . and perhaps even his legacy. But when he makes a grab for this role, he realizes his own foolishness. He sacrifices his own self, and all his desires and hopes for his future, to atone for his sins.

I read this, and realized how desperately I craved the spotlight, how I coveted the spot of throne-heir, the Savior spot, when such a spot belonged to someone else.

When I saw him fall, and in the way he did, I was able to imagine myself not just making a grab at power that wasn’t meant for me but also being able to be redeemed. I saw the possibility of redemption not through me becoming my own savior, but rather redemption achieved through submission to the Savior I already have.

Here I stumble upon another truth about the essential nature of stories. Not only do stories change the way we view ourselves and other people, but they impact our very view of God himself.

God reveals his character, his nature, in a story. Even more bizarre, it is a book that is still in publication today, the world’s number one bestseller since the printing press. God’s narrative, whether that be history itself or the Bible, reveals his significant actions over time. It is a story.

Even better, we see our (mankind’s) actions over time, recognizing our place in the narrative as people in need of redemption and God as the one who will redeem.

Does that alone not show us the essential, vital nature of fiction?

Ah, you protest that the Bible isn’t fiction. I agree with your sentiment, but I return to Daniel Taylor’s question about which, between the everyday and the story, is more real.

The Bible, to steal from Addison’s walk (real ones get it) is fiction and myth made real. It’s everything we longed for, everything we hope to get out of a fictional tale, but real life. People (myself included) flock to Harry Potter world or Galaxy’s Edge by the millions every year to get a taste of what it would be like if their favorite stories were real. How much money could we save if we realized that the greatest myth, the greatest story of all was not just True, but one we reside in now?

In light of this, we fully recognize that we are right to refer to God as the Author of all creation. By his grace, we also author (or, as Tolkien would say, sub create) in the lower case. His story is the ultimate narrative, and our fiction can echo or attempt to shout over that narrative. These stories we make have the ability to change everything, just as God’s story changes everything. This is why I believe that stories are essential. They are more powerful than any argument of logic or evidence, kinder than any bribe or bargain, and as strong as the Truth or Falsehood (capital T, F) they may hold.

Amos N. Wilder said it best:

“The storyteller does more than organize his tale and plot. His fable responds to and organizes an inchoate fund of longings, anguishes, obscurities, dreams . . . the story holds us because it lights up our own adventure. Fiction does not take us out of time and the world . . . their sequences and vicissitudes are woven of the same . . . surprises and reversals which attend our own.”

Which brings me to my title, which I assure you was not clickbait by any means. I believe you, just like me, aren’t taking the stories, the fiction, in your life seriously enough. Fiction isn’t just important; it’s life-or-death, eternally.

What stories are you consuming that are false? What stories are you saying that are false? Do you make yourself the Savior of any narrative? Do you tell stories that help other see that they, like you, can be redeemed?

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Read True fiction. Tell True stories (and that’s not just limited to what you may find in a Sunday school curriculum). You, writer, reader, have the ability to impact how people view themselves, others, and God, through your stories.

I’ll start.

- Haley <3

I learned so many good things about writing, about the craft, in a short period of time this month. I attended a conference in June, I poured over brilliant Substack articles (if you think I’m thinking of you, you’re probably right), and I read The Christian Imagination.

Now, I’ve found myself staring at more blank Word documents than I care to admit, stuck the abyss between general idea and concrete thought.

I wish this reflection was going to bring forward the ultimate answer to this illness, but the lesson I learned was different and rather unhelpful.

Key Takeaway: Confidence comes from not caring about what other people think.

Uh, duh, right?

Not for me.

This month I went to my first public event as a writer, counseled camp (as a pastor’s wife, I imagined more eyes on me than there actually are), and really pushed into this whole writing-for-a-living idea.

As an extrovert, I love the idea of being on display. As an insecure 21-year-old, I actually despise the reality of it. I watch other women from afar, admiring the way they navigate social, professional and spiritual situations with ease and grace. Now that’s confidence, I think. How does one obtain that?

The problem is this; I want to appear as confident so that others are impressed by me. The only way to obtain such confidence is to root my identity in Christ, and stop caring about what other people think of me.

Want other people to think well of you? Stop caring about what they think!

Easier said than done.

Now we return to the dreaded craft paralysis. Not only did I learn a great deal about how to craft stories and essays well in a short period of time, but I also learned how not to craft stories, and how to poke fun at those who do not (if you think I’m calling you out, I’m probably not).

Now I find myself petrified between pen and paper, unwilling to begin lest I make an error unforgivable.

Fortunately, my hope in life does not expire were my ability, my merit, ends.

I can continue, even terribly. I can write, even messily. Because my value isn’t determined by my output, but by what was input, invested in me by the only true Creator (coming from a mere subcreator).

All in all, I’m learning by being beaten down, broken by the everyday plagues of insecurity and boredom; confidence in God holds, confidence in myself breaks.

Take this as your sign to trust in God in your creative endeavors, and post that monthly update, despite your dragging feet and broken words. That’s what worked for me, anyway.

Some other updates (that may or may not explain my artistic state):

- I’ve completed my June of writing and volunteer travel, which means I am now seeking employment. Writing is what I’m meant to do, but it doesn’t pay the bills . . . yet.

- I finished my first mystery novel, Love, Your Neighbor, and decided to give it a rest over the summer. I’m looking forward to editing it and receiving critiques in the fall.

- In the meantime, I’m tap-tapping little projects out on my computer, including short stories, poetry, essays and other little things. I am quite enjoying the rhythms of short form.

- Just finished the first volume of Emma M. Lion today. The new tenant is totally Maxwell, back from the dead . . . right? Based on all feedback I’m receiving, I’m quite wrong with this theory.

If you made it this far, write a little something about your craft paralysis in messages or comments, and send it along. I’d love to know I’m not alone.

- Haley <3

With precious little time to read books on earth (though I hope we have eternity in heaven to do so) it’s important to me that I read good books, and that I read them outside. Unfortunately, not all books are good and not all months provide environments in which I can read outside. Fortunately, June proved to be such a month, and nearly all of the books I read (save for another podcast book, my bad) were quite good. I count June’s month in books as an unqualified success.

Book of the Month: The Christian Imagination, edited by Leland Ryken

A challenge, an escape, an encouragement.

I purchased this book for a class, and was asked to read a few essays out of it to fulfill the requirements of the syllabus. As a Christian who writes stuff, however, I knew that the rest of the book’s content would be helpful.

Imagination is a compilation of poems, quotes, essays and articles about being a Christian artist, writer or reader. A great deal of the book focuses on how Christians are to create art and literature differently, and a great deal of the book focused on how Christians are to intake art and literature differently. Imagination contains a wide range of view on the subject, as well as perspectives from Anglicans, Catholics, and Evangelicals alike.

I have already quoted much of this work on this platform, and I am sure I will continue to do so. Some of my favorite entries include:

- “Perspectives on Art” by Francis A. Schaeffer (though I will debate him on many of his points, especially is definition of Validity)

- “Beauty and the Creative Impulse” by Luci Shaw (cried, indeed, wept)

- “On Writing One’s Place: Writing Bluesville” by Reggie Young (see the essay it inspired here)

- All of part eight, “Myth and Fantasy” (Represented by Buechner, Chesterton, Tolkien, and many other people smarter than I. See the essay inspired by this entire section (the first of many, I hope) here).

- The section called “Definitions of Poetry”

- Brian Godowa’s “Redemption in the Movies”

Please, please read this book. It’s quite good.

Honorable mention: Once a Castle by Sarah Arthur

The exciting sequel to January’s book of the month

Some of you may remember my review of Once a Queen. I expected to be disappointed by the sequel (the first was just that good) but I was bound to the story by page 100 (I read the digital version, so probably page 25 in the physical copy).

We meet Jack and Arash first, two boys hunting in the woods of England when they should be doing something else. Both live to regret it when they stumble upon a huge, flesh-and-blood giant. Soon after that, people, namely Jack’s older brother Frank and Frank’s girlfriend Eva Joyce (the heroine of book one).

Arthur explores themes of discrimination, sisterhood, and forgiveness. I’m looking forward to the next book!

The Preconception Revolution: A Science-Backed Path to Your Fertility and Generational Health by Ann Shippy, M.D.

A book you should not read if you’re fighting with perfectionism.

If you read my last month in books, you know that I bought a book from a podcast and came to regret it. Alas, I did it again, and alas, I regret it even more.

I don’t want to waste too much time talking about this book, so I’ll try and keep my critique short.

Dr. Shippy wants a good thing: more healthy babies being born. Unfortunately, she pushes for everyone reading her book to attempt a “perfect” pregnancy. The perfect conception, at least by her standards, is economically, socially, and medically impossible for most people. If she had written even a small disclaimer about how mothers need to have grace with themselves, or how meaningful small, reasonable lifestyle changes would be, I might have been able to recommend this book. Unfortunately, all this book does is make me afraid to conceive incorrectly, and plants seeds for me to later feel a great deal of guilt for not being able to do everything perfectly.

Would not recommend.

The Sword Bearer and Gaal the Conqueror by John White

Allegory and fantasy and a childhood favorite of my husband’s

When I mentioned reading outside, these two books were the culprits. I tore through both of these on Saturday afternoons, and they were nice reprieves after a long time away from fantasy. I’m still mulling over the implications of allegory in light of some of the essays in The Christian Imagination, but overall enjoyed the fantastical world of Anthropos and its creatures.

Nothing Good Happens after Midnight: a Suspense Magazine anthology compiled by Jeffery Deaver

A great book to read before bed . . . or IS it?!

I’m a big fan of short stories, especially if they’re on my nightstand. Most of the stories ended with a nice, clean ending (killer ends up in jail, it was all just a dream, etc.) making them lovely to curl up around before sleeping.

Other stories . . . not so much. I’m looking at YOU, A Creative Defense by Jeffery Deaver.

But that’s my fault for reading Suspense Magazine stories before bed.

Having People Over: A Modern Guide to Planning, Throwing, and Attending Every Type of Party by Chelsea Fagan

A fun book I would buy to keep on my coffee table

I enjoyed this book. It took about an hour to read it in its digital form, though I suspect that if I had had a physical copy I would have spent much longer mulling over its illustrations and recipes. Overall, I was encouraged by Fagan to lean into hospitality and contentment, rather than fear and consumerism. I’d read it again!

On my reading horizons:

- The Only Grant-Writing Book You’ll Ever Need by Ellen Karsh (63% finished, reading it for professional advancement)

- The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Volume 1 by Beth Brower (Finally got out of line at the library and will start it today!)

- Theo of Golden by Allen Levi (I’m literally 230^th in line for this one)

Did you love/hate any of these books? Let me know in the comments!

- Haley <3

Lately I have been reading a good deal of beautiful Substack articles, seeing well-edited vlogs, or noticing Pinterest trends related to a person’s “place.” Moms write about toys on the floor as evidence to little hands, writers describe (with their boatloads of talent) writing desks littered with empty coffee mugs and scraps of ideas. A few people I follow on Substack even describe the broken-down homes they are repairing in amazing places like France or Scotland.

I love this content. After a long day in my Place, it makes for a good scroll, a moment of admiration. But my appreciation for this content is tainted by something else.

Jealousy.

What if my space isn’t beautiful?

Space v. Place

Edit; I’ll leave this bit in because it means you won’t have to double back to aforementioned intro post. For a more in-depth explanation of these terms, however, proceed to doubling back.

Tim Cresswell is a cultural geographer, and I couldn’t tell you what his day-to-day looks like. I draw my understanding about the difference between space and Place this passage, in the very beginning of his work, Place: A Short Introduction:

“Space is a more abstract concept than place . . . Spaces have areas and volumes. Places have space between them . . . What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value . . . From the security and stability of place we are aware of the openness, freedom, and threat of space, and vice versa. Furthermore, if we think of space as that which allows movement, then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place.”1

Essentially, Cresswell (and Tan) would argue that a city isn’t a Place. Rather, the city is a mere geographical space, and the Places within it are someone’s bed, someone’s backseat, or a corner of a coffee shop, or any number of spaces that people adopt and pour themselves into.

In Spokane, people drive around in their dented trucks and scratchy sedans with bumper stickers that say, “I tolerate Spokane,” or “Keep Spokane kind of gross.” For a space to be a Place from someone (says Cresswell), it must possess “security and stability.” To these bumper sticker owners, it seems that the city of Spokane does not offer such benefits.

Alternative to Escape

In an essay I wrote during the summer about fantasy writers, I argued that escape into fantasy is inappropriate if I don’t return from the fantastical world into which I escaped changed for the better.

But appropriate escape into fantasy cannot be our only response to the broken world we inhabit. Another (and, arguably, more difficult) response is to remain where I am.

If we as readers and writers are too busy running away from our broken world, we are at risk of leaving it the way it is, a mere space. While fantasy provides a way to wrestle with the brokenness of our world separate from the sharpest of our world’s pain, writing stories from my space may become a beacon of hope, to me and to the others who inhabit my space. The stories of my space, beautiful and broken, ugly and redeemed, must be told.

When I escape from my space, I resist it becoming a pPlace. When I say my city is gross or merely tolerable, I am finding my Place elsewhere. When I resist a space becoming Place, I leave that space’s stories untold.

An untold story may have made this difference in making that space into a Place for someone else.

Transforming Spaces into Places

When Reggie Young was writing his dissertation in the 1980s, a woman who worked as a secretary for one of the administrators at his university offered to type it for him. In his essay On Writing One’s Place: Writing Bluesville, he calls her “Mrs. Wilson,” and recalls how she was not just the only other black person at their university; she also happened to be from the same neighborhood as him. Young’s dissertation was an experimental, nonlinear novel featuring “Bluesville,” a fictional depiction of Young’s and Wilson’s real-life neighborhood.2

Mrs. Wilson didn’t necessarily “get” the artistic liberties Young took with his novel (now titled Salvation Song), but Young remembers her handing his work to him one evening, smiling as she said, “after reading your book, at least people will know we exist.”

Young didn’t initially want to write about the West Side. He was one of the few African Americans in higher education in the 80s, and he wanted to represent his race well. He wanted to run away from an unaesthetic, even dangerous space, and build his Place somewhere else.

Instead, Young wrote Salvation Song, a fictional tale not only set in the space of the West Side, but a story that transforms it into a Place. “It takes a writer who is an experienced student of literature to discover . . . that the universal is best expressed when grounded in the particular,” Young explains. He leads his reader into a relationship with his setting, and in so doing communicated that sense of Place only he could communicate.

Every space contains stories not everyone can tell. Every space can have Place-ness, if I am willing to remain. I may hate where I am (for the record, I don’t hate it here), but it is the setting for a story, whether that’s your story or someone else’s. Few who do not reside where you reside can tell that story.

Writers: you have the talent and ability to dream up entirely new universes to write about, but have you considered the space where you already are?

As a writer, you have the power to turn a space into a Place through your work. This can be done for the sake of your readers, but you can also do this for yourself. By writing about a space, you infuse it with a sense of Place-ness, and claim it as your own. You could, anyway.

For what it’s worth, that’s what I’m intending to do.

Yet again, I find myself reading a normal-kid-finds-a-hidden-world-and-its-super-magical series. I can’t get enough of ‘em.

When I was a kid (and in middle school, and high school, and *sigh* in college) I filled notebooks with fictional language systems, maps, and histories. I loved to build worlds in my head and on paper.

More than anything else, I wanted to write fiction, but primarily fantasy. Especially if my books could contain the worlds of which I dreamt.

But as I dived deeper and deeper into the fantasy writer (and reader) community, I noticed a striking contrast.

Some fantasy writers were socially awkward, unstylish, and could talk for eons about the worlds they were creating. They would strap you to the chair across from them, and with wide-eyed enthusiasm, go into great detail about how the high king had been brought down years ago, and it was up to Hazel or Ruby or Amy or whoever to bring him back because of the great prophecy. And did they mention that Hazel (or Ivy, or Willow) happened to have insanely powerful abilities they hadn’t known about before?

It’s me, I’m fantasy writers.

By the way . . . if you’re reading this and you think I’m writing about you, I’m not. You are, without a doubt, either the other kind of writer I will refer to later, or possess the redeeming qualities I will also mention below. Really, truly.

But then there are others; fantasy writers and readers who were undeniably, unmistakably cool. At least, cool, in comparison to the type described above. These people are like bards in taverns, or the slick, laid-back guides on quests. They are the kind of people all fantasy writers wish they were. They don’t just write stories, they talk about them. They don’t just invent worlds, they invite you in, and only let you leave once you aren’t the same person you were before (Here’s to you, Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga. Tolkien might be an honorable mention, but I think he would be offended (as would the other Inklings) if I lumped him into the cool category).

I’m pretty sure I know what makes these two groups different. This difference was drawn out in a conversation I had with another (non-fantasy) writer recently, while we were talking about the trend of young, world-obsessed writers (again, me).

“I wonder,” I said, sipping an Americano on a castle balcony (long story, I wrote an article about it actually), “if it has something to do with our decreased ability to cope with out own reality, if we’re just escaping.”

My friend agreed, and soon we had moved on and were complaining about the escapism of “kids these days” (it’s me, I’m kids these days).

Feeling very smug upon condemning the very group I was a part of, I was shocked to find, as I was reading on my plane ride home, in an essay by Miriam Hendrix, that Tolkien himself, the king of cool and awkward fiction alike, was adamant that escape is a “perfectly admirable and mature thing to do in our circumstances.”1

Wait, what? What do you mean, escaping from the real world is acceptable, John Ronald Reuel?2

If Tolkien says it, and it pertains to fantasy, it must be taken seriously. Tolkien is the escaper into fiction, the awkward guy in writing groups who babbles about languages and maps, and the father of modern fantasy (according to the internet-ers of Reddit and Enclave, anyway). What’s more, Tolkien’s work has impacted the world not just as a story, but in the way that only a great story can.

The Boromirs of the world read his work, saw themselves, and changed for the better. The Frodos of the world ran to hide in Tolkien’s world, faced the Ring, and charged out ready to begin again. The Pippins of the world read, recognized the little hobbit who didn’t think himself very important, saw what he did in Return of the King, and realized they were capable of fighting beyond their fear.

Considering these things, I am led to this contention: Escaping into fantasy is only appropriate if you allow yourself to be changed. This applies to writers and readers alike.

Inappropriate escape is possible, with or without fantasy or fiction. One might think of someone who comes home to COD rather than their own spouses or children, or someone who has a screentime of 10+ hours because they spent their whole weekend scrolling TikTok (Instagram, Substack).

In the case of fiction and fantasy, I’ve found myself escaping into it inappropriately when I’m drawing maps for a new project while the WIP rots away in my computer files, or when I can’t carry a normal conversation because I’m too busy rambling about the complexities of a fictional world’s civil war. As a consumer of fiction, I have known myself to research and memorize every known fact about a particular fandom, not to feel a sense of belonging or out of genuine fascination, but out of a desire for superiority, to be the top fan of that particular fandom.

In summary, I escaped into fiction and fantasy to avoid . . . to avoid a project, to avoid forming my own identity, to avoid figuring out how to have a good conversation with the other image-bearer before me.

In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Edmund follows Lucy into the wardrobe, and finds himself in a fantastical world he had never expected to find. He leaves the world after a few hours, leaving behind a plot and a poison. When he returns, he is not changed. He is the same unkind, selfish individual he was before, and hurts his siblings (especially Lucy) in the process. When he returns to Narnia, Edmund is eager to use it for his own purposes; to get what he wants out of Narnia.

Lucy runs into the wardrobe at first in play. She enters into the new, fantastical world, and leaves behind her sense of play and wonder. I’d even argue that her purity was what brought her back safely after her first visit. She escaped, and came back excited and eager, enchanted by a new, wonderful place.

Later, all four of the siblings return from their joint adventure to Narnia . . . and Narnia won’t be quite the same without them. Even better, they won’t be the same as they had been before. Edmund especially returns as King Edmund the Just, and isn’t the selfish and immature boy who had left before.

Here lies the important thing we readers-of-fiction-and-fantasy (and writers, too) need to remember. We can (maybe even should) escape into fiction. Tolkien argues that our need for escape is tied to our inherent sense that not all is right with this world. Because of this, we dive into fiction and story because such stories can capture this sense and reconcile it in a matter of a thousand pages. But we don’t just escape the broken world and hide away. We return from our fiction, stronger than before, and face the broken world head-on, armed with new courage granted by our escape.

We escape to rest, not to hide. We retreat to join the battle again, not to run away.

It may even be the case that you turn to a story to avoid, and find yourself change instead. You jump out of the frying pan of reality into the fire of grappling with the same problems, embodied in fictional character.

While Tolkien’s stories served as an escape to him during the horrors of World War Two (whether or not its an allegory), I myself can testify that the stories do not serve as a titanium escape room, a hidden shelter for us to wait in until the conflict is over. Tolkien wrote stories that challenge us to become people who can better face such conflict.

So I’m going to stop worrying about being an annoying or cool fantasy writer. I’m going to stop worrying about people using what I write to escape their problems.

Instead we must ask, as readers and writers, “Am I avoiding, or am I being prepared?”

And if you need a recommendation, The Wingfeather Saga is a great place to start.

- Haley <3

2

I don’t make the rules.

I’m sweating in the outfit that looked really cute in the airport but now hangs over a damp frame as I drag my pink suitcase up the hill.

I could have waited for the retreat center transport, but I didn’t really feel like hanging around when my retreat-center-room was waiting, unexplored.

“You seem young and spry,” the front counter attendant (who, incidentally, looked even more young and spry than I) encouraged when I asked her if the walk was easy, “I really think you could make it.”

I did make it, sweaty and breathless, to the Cedar Lodge at the top of the hill.

Not the first impression I wanted to give at this thing.

I was at Glen Eyrie in Colorado, and I was there to meet some 50 aspiring writers and publisher authors at a Christian Fiction Writer’s Retreat. I was nervous, and expected to roam about by myself, untethered by friendship or connections. I was proven wrong.

What was truly amazing about the days I spent in Glen Eyrie was how much is promoted community, nurtured my craft, and relied on the faith the attending writers shared.

-

For those of you who have been following this writing journey for a bit, you know that attending this conference helped me to satisfy the requirements of my bachelor’s degree. I was entrusted to attend this conference and practice pitching my book to professionals in the publishing industry.

That goal brought me there, but I wasn’t there only to sell, sell, sell. I wanted to learn, to meet people, to find mentors who would pour into me and help me to become a better Christian creative, whatever the heck that means.

Boy oh boy, did they ever.

I was sitting at a table with K and a few other writers, bemoaning the demographic at the retreat. “I think I’m the only mystery writer, aside from Tim!” I said, referring to a faculty member I was a little afraid to approach.

K eyed me through her wiry glasses, and reached out, plucking C, a woman with hair to her waist, out of the courtyard surrounding. “What do you write?” She asked C.

C answered, and K turned back to me. “Isn’t that close enough?”

And just like that, I had a beta reader.

But creatives don’t just need community so that their community can turn around and serve them; it’s part of the very purpose of being a creative in the first place. One shouldn’t create for themselves alone (though that aspect is very important) but should also create for the benefit of others. Art (and writing) unobserved is worth very little. When it shapes, changes, and takes hold of others (including the artist) the work swells from a drop in a bucket to a wave in a hurricane.

The way community formed at this retreat was as natural and powerful as such a storm. I met other young women in the same phase as I am in, young writers struggling to begin in a writing career. I also met other women (and men) beyond my station, like published authors, editors, agents, and consultants. These people didn’t view me as a snotty kid with tunnel vision (as was my fear). They saw me for what I was, a young writer who was hungry to be taught, and they met that need.

-

Though quite frightened by the prospect of traveling hours away from home to meet a hopefully bond with a bunch of strangers, I was by no means the most introverted author to attend the event (a cruel bunch might even accuse me of that unfashionable category, “extrovert”). Thus, when the room full of introverts learned that one of the all-author sessions would consist of a crash course in reading body language, a lot of us were excited. Having a better grasp on body language, we knew, would help us with showing-not-telling, but would also help us read and interact with each other better.

While this was certainly the case, many of us laughed about our heightened sense of our own (and other’s) body language that distracted us from the conversation at hand. We were, as they say, overthinking it.

Understanding things like body language, mental illness, automobile makes and models, when kumquats are in season, the care and keeping of curly hair, the key of G, and the birds that inhabit West Maine in the dead of winter are important for writers of nonfiction and fiction. Education and continuous knowledge are so very important for creatives, and writers especially. As Flannery O’Connor puts it in Mystery and Manners, “Any discipline can help your writing: logic, mathematics, theology, and of course and particularly drawing. Anything that helps you to see, anything that makes you look. The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that doesn’t require his attention.”

This was the attitude of Tara, the certified body language expert, author, and renaissance woman who led the body language workshop. In her thick Arkansas accent, she explained the difference between sociopaths and psychopaths, showed us Dr. Who clips, and cried when she shared her testimony.

The education, the craft emphasis, the market education of this event was exceptional. Experts shared their real-life knowledge and tips, and many people asked to see my manuscript to provide feedback.

A writer, and any creative, can have as much raw talent as they would like, but without learning or practice, the germ can dry out and unnurtured soil. The retreat was a year of Jubilee for my own soil.

At the meal where the center served harissa chicken (perfect, delectable, amazing) I was told a story about a non-follower who had attended the event a year prior to me.

“I asked her what was different,” J said, laughing, “she answered that she was surprised by how supportive everyone was.”

I have found that writing is quite difficult when I’m not tapping into the love, the wholeness, and the tensions of the faith, of the Man to which I have given myself. After all, I am meant to live my whole life by his calling, including my creative life.

Faith in common can sometimes be viewed, by insiders and outsiders alike, as a similarity as common as matching tattoos, shared beverage preference, or preferring the same car manufacturer. For me, it’s like a binding cord, a chain linking my very soul to others, a lifeline for when I’m drowning, a telegraph for messages of mercy and hope.

The common faith between all of us at this retreat was invaluable. The encouragement, the council, the career advice was built upon the unshakable foundation of our love for the Son and our awe at his act on the cross.

I will go to other conferences brimming with creatives of immense ability, talent, and knowledge. I am not sure I will go to other conferences that allowed me to work with writers with such a strong faith and desire to pursue God in their work.

-

Ah, you say, such things are unimportant. Indeed, they are not only unimportant, but they are also easy to find without traveling halfway across the country.

I believe I have already demonstrated why I think community, learning, and common faith are important for a creative of any caliber.

Without community, you create only for yourself, like a plant growing in a box with air holes. Sure, you might grow, but nowhere near to the trajectory you could have had when out in the world.

Without learning, you disappoint C.S. Lewis (“If you are interested only in writing you will never be a writer, because you will have nothing to write about” Letter to an American Schoolgirl). Who could possibly do that?

Without common faith, you can be an amazing, inspired, impactful creator. But having a community with common faith has the potential to enhance your skill and your impact beyond what you would have ever imagined.

While you could find community, learning, and common faith where you are (and, indeed, you ought to find these things where you are), this retreat gave me these things with intensity, consistency, and continuation. It removed me from my ritual wanderings and blasted me with a firehose all at once, and I emerged from the other side changed from who I once was. I now hunger for community, learning, and common faith, because I received a taste of what my community here could be like. And the same could happen for you, if you would travel to a castle in Colorado next June.

The Glen Eyrie Christian Fiction Writer’s Retreat was an amazing opportunity, because of the community it nurtured, the education it provided, and the common faith it required. I look forward to my next opportunity to work with other Christian creatives, whether that be at Glen Eyrie or elsewhere.

I finally emerged from my retreat-center-room, changed into less-sweaty clothes and unburdened by the pink suitcase. I blushingly go to the front counter because my nametag was found (I had lost it after ten minutes) and was being held there.

When I emerged from the front desk into the courtyard, I saw a huge circle of people bearing matching nametags to mine.

A friendly face waved me over. “You’re one of us!” He called, pointing to my nametag.

Yes, I am one of you. A child, a Christian, and a writer.

Having been invited, I join the conversation.

I listened to the expert for hours (long-form podcasts are the best). I loved what they had to say. I bought their book.

Alas, everything helpful within the book was what I already learned in the free podcast.

Book of the Month: Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery

A return read but a good one nonetheless.

Ah, the tried and true. I definitely didn’t hear about this one in a podcast.

Anne becomes a teacher! Anne has witty banter with neighbors! Anne gets to raise twin orphans with Marilla (“Twins seem to be my lot in life”)!

While this Anne book was the one I skipped most in my Anne re-reads (I wanted to get straight from the early, funniest scrapes to the romance of Anne of the Island) I adore Paul, Miss Lavendar, Anne’s schoolmarm days and the A.V.I.S.!

A lovely read for a sleepy, rainy Saturday.

The only other book I read this month was the dreaded (okay, I’m being a bit dramatic with using dreaded) podcast book.

The Fertility Formula: take control of your reproductive future by Natalie Crawford, MD

A fertility books that covers IVF, vegetarian eating, and IVF.

I hear Dr. Crawford on Diary of a CEO and Huberman Lab. I liked what she had to say, especially her social and medical critique of birth control and her reassurance about the longevity of my fertility. I bought this book because I thought it would help me prepare myself for my approaching (God willing) chapter of motherhood. While there were helpful tips and studies, I think I could have saved a buck and listened to the podcasts again, especially because Dr. Crawford talked mostly over an area she has the most experience in: IVF.

As a family, my husband and I have decided that we are not going to pursue this route should we struggle with natural conception. Dr. Crawford’s book will probably be more helpful for someone interested in pursuing that path; however, I will warn those who aren’t interested in IVF that most of the data in Dr. Crawford’s book (about IVF) is about IVF pregnancies and attempts, making many of the book’s tips unhelpful to me.

Love, Your Neighbor by . . . me?!?

I only read two books this month, because I was writing one myself. I buckled down and completed the manuscript for this mystery novel in four weeks, so it would be ready in time for my writer’s conference.

I am excited to tell you all more about the other books I’m reading that are nearly finished, the conference, and of course, my friends from my own WIP. Stay tuned!

Post-college, I’m still in the same boat, and it’s hitting me that I won’t ever exit that boat, at least until I board the boat that crosses that particular river (Bunyan’s or Virgil’s, take your pick).

I keep being asked . . . what now?

I’m watching, too, as an older brother graduates from his undergrad, a younger sister from high school, and a younger brother plans his wedding this summer, and all three are being asked the same question as I.

Everyone is eager to know what our plans are, where we’re going, what we’re doing.

Heck if I know.

But seriously, what now?

Like my grandpa always says (or rather, is quoted to me as saying) “Wish in one hand, sh** in the other, and see which one fills up first.”

I can tell you a lot of things that I want to do but judging on how my last plan turned out (see my article about how I was directed away from that plan here) I’m skeptical of any plan outside of the next six months.

Fortunately, such skepticism doesn’t prevent me from having great, sky’s-the-limit plans for our future, and lining up exciting hopes and dreams for the near future.

The takeaway from this month: You can’t plan out your life, and there will always be another step in maturity and growing up.

The question I’m left with isn’t what now? For me, it reads more as aren’t you excited about the possibilities?

But more on those later.

Updates

- Next week I’ll be at the Glen Eyrie Christian fiction writer’s conference. I’m looking forward to publishing an article about what was helpful and what I learned!

- I finished Love, Your Neighbor!! I’m quite excited. Over the summer I’ll be working with an editor for general maintenance, and I will hopefully be looking for beta readers this fall!

- The storms around me in the PNW have been particularly inspiring . . . May showers are such a gift.

- The basil plant on my windowsill is still alive, which is the longest (two weeks) I’ve ever maintained basil. Please follow for more updates on my basil.

- May’s month in books ought to be released tomorrow!

Thanks for checking in!

Let’s face it. If you want to write fiction, and you want that to be your career, you do not need to go to college. It might even be a waste of time for you to go to college, and certainly a waste of money.

Wait a second. Wasn’t this article supposed to be about how my degree was worth it?

Yep, I know the arguments, I understand the appeal, and I support those who decide a degree program won’t be the best concentration of their resources. This article isn’t for people who are becoming amazing fiction writers without any help from a higher education institution. This article is for future fiction writers who are considering university as a legitimate option to further their skill.

My two cents is only worth two pennies, and I haven’t yet “made it” in any sense of the phrase. So, take these two pennies with at least two grains of salt.

Way the first: I studied fiction and all other kinds of writing

This one may be the most obvious. I attended Great Northern University, a liberal arts institution. I completed their communication program. Both my university and my program required me to study and practice all forms of writing: short form, novel, short story, poetry, magazine and feature writing, social media captions, ancient Greek, Biblical texts, and that’s not even a full list.

Such an intense study of so many different writing styles and the practice of all these made it impossible for me to avoid becoming a better writer. When I arrived at GNU, I thought I was in pretty good shape as a writer (thanks to a Christian homeschooled classical education with a side of policy debate and writing fiction for fun). Maybe I was compared to the average high school graduate, but four years at a liberal arts college took whatever talent I possessed and shaped it into an actual skill. Go GNU!

Way the second: I was forced to articulate my passion

Time to get personal. When I first began at GNU, the plan was to graduate in three years, attend law school, and become the world’s best public defense attorney before becoming president or something. I was a very serious (and, so I thought, very important) debate kid, and no self-respecting high school senior who was mildly good at policy debate could tell people that she wanted to write fiction for a living . . . right?

My mentors and professors at GNU told me otherwise.

A benefit of attending a small Christian university that it takes God’s calling very seriously is that you don’t get to slide under the radar because you have an impressive-sounding goal in mind.

Before my sophomore year, the law school plan went out the window. The cost, the time, and the career simply didn’t make sense for me anymore (in part thanks to a very funny and nice young man who I started dating as soon as my high school boyfriend dumped me).

Creative writing classes, a short story competition, and many meetings with my advisor reminded me of the dream I had had since I was six, a dream that I dismissed because it hadn’t been “serious” enough. I wanted to tell stories. Good stories. True stories.

The communication program specifically, especially Walter Fisher’s Narrative Paradigm (see my article using Bill Watterson to explain Narrative Paradigm here) confirmed something I had known at six but never had the words to express; stories shape how people view themselves, others, and even God.

Stories change the world and are a very serious matter.

I could write a whole article articulating that passion, but that’s not what this article is about. I contribute the direction and focus I have towards stories to my husband (who I met at GNU) and my university.

Way the third: I was given resources I wouldn’t otherwise have had

Wait, didn’t I say earlier that I don’t think you need university resources to be a fiction writer?

I certainly did, but I also know that university resources are fantastic . . . at least, mine were. Here’s the top five resources my institution provided for me:

1. All my professors, who write and publish books traditionally and independently (fiction, academic, and nonfiction!) and KNOW people who do the same thing, all of whom LOVE to meet with a hungry young writer and student looking for answers

2. Training from professionals in social media, marketing, networking, writing (professionally as well as creatively . . . even fiction writers need to know how to write a query letter!), speaking, and editing.

3. Time and space to write fiction. I took two creative writing classes and tied my senior project to the completion of a manuscript. I personalized my senior project to my own goals. Which leads perfectly to:

4. External motivation. You try being lazy or unproductive when the entire faculty, staff, and student body are rooting you on. Not to mention, I had a lot of grades depending on hitting specific writing goals!

5. A writing community. I wasn’t the only one who wrote fiction at my university, and I was never made to feel as if my fiction goal was silly or meaningless.

While these things could be found outside of a degree program, it would have taken more work on my part. Work that I wouldn’t have done, because remember, I graduated high school thinking that writing fiction wasn’t a serious enough goal for a real adult (an idea for which I have only myself to thank).

This isn’t your sign to go and apply for GNU’s communication program (I’ll put a link below and that can be your sign . . . and no, I’m not being paid for this). Rather, this is a testimonial to how some college experiences can help you out as a fiction writer. Maybe it can help you discover that’s what you want to do. Maybe it will make you realize it’s not what you want to do.

Either way, in my experience, a degree program will refine you, shaping you into the kind of person or professional you will be. There are many ways, however, that someone be refined like that.

I’m infinitely grateful that this degree program was what refined me.

Some of these reviews are merely a tagline, but I know you will forgive me for a little less detail!

Book of the Month: Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended Upon It by Chris Voss

The most riveting textbook I’ve ever been assigned

With a class called “Communication Strategies for Leaders” I didn’t expect to read a book about hostage negotiations and antiterrorism. Chris Voss writes about how to negotiate from the perspective of an kidnapper negotiator for the FBI. He challenges professional and relational negotiation assumptions, and arms his readers with the ability to negotiate a higher salary or the return of a kidnapped aunt.

This book is a must-read for people who hate and like reading. It’s a must-read for writers because it will equip them to fend for themselves in a competitive, hard-to-make-it sphere!

Transformative Friendships: 7 Questions To Deepen Any Relationship by Brad Hambrick

A book about friendship written by a counselor, not a writer

Uncovering the Secrets of Magazine Writing: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Creative Nonfiction for Print and Internet Publication by Nancy M. Hamilton

Don’t let the date fool you; This old book has relevant and helpful advice

While an older textbook, this work helped me improve my short-form writing, both for Substack and for magazine submissions.

Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery

A terrible book to read four weeks before graduation. I loved it.

The Penderwicks At Last by Jeanne Birdsall

The final installment of my comfort series, the one that captures the pain of growing up and away.

This didn’t hurt as much as Anne of the Island, but in the wake of new babies, engagements, and graduations in my immediate and extended family, it helped me to pinpoint the lump in my throat and verbalize what I’ve been experiencing. Growing up is its own kind of pain, but watching your family grow up is another kind altogether.

Birdsall does it again in the last book of her series, wrapping up certain story arcs but leaving others open. It’s the same way for me now; some things are wrapping up. This person is getting married or this degree program ends. But other stories are unfinished (where will I work? Where will this family member live?).

If you need a new comfort series, I’d introduce you to the Penderwick sisters.

Thanks for reading my late post! See you later this month, for May: Month in Books.

- Haley <3

I was reading in Dr. Natalie Crawford’s fertility book about how we’ve taught ourselves to constantly put up with stress. We’re so used to constantly being “on” that we don’t know how to be off.

I’ve been “on” for a lot of things lately; I’m in finals, I defended my senior project, and I’m taking every chance to network that I can get. I also have a lot of things I have been stressing about; I’m unemployed after I graduate, and we’re young, married and in ministry.

There was a moment last week when I actually felt the stress in my entire body. Normally, I can perceive the stress pressing on my heart and lungs or crowding around my forehead. Last week, I felt like the smoldering wick of a candle, stressed in every part of my physical body. Yikes!

But a little grace to me over this month was a reminder that, though I had plenty to be stressed about, I’m also supported in a lovely way. I have a lot of things and people to lean on, and I forget (in my stress) to be thankful for them.

How little I deserve the support infrastructure I have through being young, married, and in ministry, and how quick I am to focus on the things about that situation that are stressful! But having a loving husband and a supportive community are some of the very things carrying me through this month.

This month, I prayed repeatedly that God would take away my stress; he didn’t. I’m still stressed. But I’m finding that I have more agency in that stress than I would like to think. I’m also finding pockets of God’s grace in this final stretch of undergrad: my husband doing loads upon loads of laundry and dishes without me asking, a little extra cash flow for eating out instead of having to cook, a Bible study that provides a free meal for young adults.

I’m not saying that your stress is your fault, and you just need a little perspective. From what many of you share on here, I know this isn’t a lesson for you. But when I sat down to write a little reflection on April, this is the lesson I found for myself: to be thankful for the support I have, and to trust God with the things that are stressful.

This is a bit shorter than I like my updates to be, but, well, you know enough about what’s going on to guess why it is that way!

Other Updates

1. I shared my senior thesis project last week, and it was well-received! Also, I’m GRADUATING in TWELVE days!

2. I have the opportunity to write little opinion pieces for my local political party’s newsletter. I’m not getting paid, but this opportunity is amazing! The newsletter goes out to a few thousand people!

3. I’m looking forward to posting another Month in Books in a few days!

4. I am going to a CASTLE! In Colorado. I’m attending the Glen Eyrie Christian Writer’s Conference in June, and I’m excited to tell you all how it goes!

Thanks for checking in! How has God shown you his grace this month?

- Haley

PC: A Woman Reading, Camille Corot (French). 1869-1870, On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 809.

I have been spilled out for others,

for men, for women, for wine.

I have tipped and lost

Myself, my soul.

I have been utterly empty.

What can a woman like you

Offer up to the Son of God?

Out of my emptiness, I can only offer what I have.

It was for weddings and burials,

And this seemed a greater occasion,

Somehow like

A wedding

And a burial.

How could you waste something so precious

When you could have done so much more with it?

As I anoint Him with aroma,

The most precious thing I own,

And as onlookers whisper of my sin

And of the insanity of my gift,

He looks at me, a crying mess before him,

Unworthy, unclean.

He receives my gift.

He receives me.

“How can he take such a precious thing

From such a filthy soul?”

I’m used to spilling out for others,

But never have I poured out so much

And poured it out of an abundance.

I don’t need to explain to Him

That I know this liquid wage I’m giving

Is overwhelmed when compared

To what He has and will pour out for me.