The Englewood Review of Books

A friend recently suggested I visit "The Englewood Book Review" to find a unique collection of thoughtful books offered by progressive Christian reviewers*. I'm intrigued by some of the titles I found and some of these will definitely make their way onto my reading list. See for yourself: http://erb.kingdomnow.org/

*I am not familiar enough with this review to understand their values completely, however I'm always open to book reviews from any source.

On Brilliant Marketing

I do love a good bit of marketing. In my tumultuous youth I started a greeting card business, which, no doubt, would have been profoundly successful if I had ever expanded my market beyond supportive friends and relatives. I had yet to realize the power of advertising.

I love companies who not only offer a brilliant product but create a timeless and irresistible look and feel to their entire operation. Labeling, logos, packaging, website, and store displays all work together to create a symphony of sights, sounds, and smells to absorb the willing client. Consider the perennially successful Starbucks brand. One doesn't simply buy coffee there, one enters a social experience.

One of my favorite websites, Couture Book has managed to take a simple product like a wedding album, and surrounded it with an aura of high class and cutting edge artistry. You don't merely buy a wedding album, you once again enter an experience. Be sure to visit their link below.

http://www.couturebook.com/

The Sartorialist

I enjoy following The Sartorialist, a photography and style blog/website by Scott Schuman. Be sure to check out the Vintage Photos page. Brilliant stuff.

When our children look back at us, will we epitomize our era? Will we learn the art of living well and dressing well, so we can properly take our place in history and the family photo albums? Whether we like it or not, our descendants take some of their identity from us and how we've lived. Let's dress the part.

http://www.thesartorialist.com/biography/

On Being Brave

"We have to be braver than we think we can be, because God is constantly calling us to be more than we are, to see through plastic sham to living, breathing reality, and to break down our defenses of self-protection in order to be free to receive and give love."

Madeleine L'Engle

Heh he

 

 

It takes more courage to reveal insecurities than to hide them, more strength to relate to people than to dominate them, more manhood (or womanhood) to abide by thought-out principles rather than blind reflex. Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles and an immature mind.
-Alex Karras-

I really resonated with this quote, I think relationships are proving to show me the most this year about growing up and becoming the woman I most want to be. People really do make the difference and shape you and work on you as iron against iron, it's hard but I really need it.
Cara

"Sometimes, Lord, one is tempted to say that if you wanted us to behave like the lilies of the field you might have given us an organization more like theirs. But that, I suppose, is just your grand experiment. Or no; not an experiment, for you have no need to find things out. Rather your grand enterprise. To make an organism which is also a spirit; to make that terrible oxymoron, a 'spiritual animal.' To take a poor primate, a beast with nerve-endings all over it, a creature with a stomach that wants to be filled, a breeding animal that wants it mate, and say, 'Now get on with it. Become a god.' "

C.S. Lewis, quoted from A Grief Observed

I have arrived....

Of books, apologies, arrivals, and photographs...

With many thanks to Colt for putting this estimable blog together, and apologies for taking so long to show up, I wish us many days of sharing. I hope my first offering doesn't seem narcissistic, as it's a photo from a vintage photo shoot in January that featured a few volumes from my very own company. (Take a keen look and you'll see some favored books from our very own Cara Corman) It was a collaboration of sorts with local photographer Janelle Evangelides, of JE Photography. We hoped to raise awareness for both of our companies and have a little fun in the process. To see more photos from this shoot, visit the link to Rahm Bookbinding's website: http://rahmbookbinding.com/ArtistsWeLoveSpring2011.aspx

In waiting

There's something in the stillness of this picture that, to me, speaks of bated breath. Of waiting.

"'Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear Him, upon them that hope in His mercy; To deliver their soul from death, And to keep them alive in famine. Our soul hath waited for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. For our heart shall rejoice in Him, Because we have trusted in His holy name. Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, According as we wait for thee.' Ps. 33:18-22

God’s eye is upon His people: their eye is upon Him. In waiting upon God, our eye, looking up to Him, meets His looking down upon us. This is the blessedness of waiting upon God, that it takes our eyes and thoughts away from ourselves, even our needs and desires, and occupies us with our God. We worship Him in His glory and love, with His all-seeing eye watching over us, that He may supply our every need. Let us consider this wonderful meeting between God and His people, and mark well what we are taught here of them on whom God’s eye rests, and of Him on whom our eye rests.

'The eye of the Lord is on them that fear Him, on them that hope in His mercy.' Fear and hope are generally thought to be in conflict with each other, in the presence and worship of God they are found side by side in perfect and beautiful harmony. And this because in God Himself all apparent contradictions are reconciled. Righteousness and peace, judgment and mercy, holiness and love, infinite power and infinite gentleness, a majesty that is exalted above all heaven, and a condescension that bows very low, meet and kiss each other.

There is indeed a fear that hath torment, that is cast out entirely by perfect love. But there is a fear that is found in the very heavens. In the song of Moses and the Lamb they sing, 'Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name?' And out of the very throne the voice came, 'Praise our God, all ye His servants, and ye that fear Him.' Let us in our waiting ever seek 'to fear the glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD.' The deeper we bow before His holiness in holy fear and adoring awe, in deep reverence and humble self-abasement, even as the angels veil their faces before the throne, the more His holiness will rest upon us. Then, we will be filled to have God reveal Himself. The deeper we enter into the truth 'that no flesh glory in His presence,' will it be given us to see His glory. 'The eye of the Lord is on them that fear Him.'

'On them that hope in His mercy.' So far will the true fear of God be from keeping us back from hope, it will stimulate and strengthen it. The lower we bow, the deeper we feel we have nothing to hope in but His mercy. The lower we bow, the nearer God will come, and make our hearts bold to trust Him. Let every exercise of waiting, let our whole habit of waiting on God, be pervaded by abounding hope –– a hope as bright and boundless as God’s mercy. The fatherly kindness of God is such that, in whatever state we come to Him, we may confidently hope in His mercy.

Such are God’s waiting ones. And now, think of the God on whom we wait. 'The eye of the Lord is on them that fear Him, on them that hope in His mercy; to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine.' Not to prevent the danger of death and famine –– this is often needed to stir the waiting on Him –– but to deliver and to keep alive. For the dangers are often very real and dark; the situation, whether in the temporal or spiritual life, may appear to be utterly hopeless. There is always one hope: God’s eye is on them.

That eye sees the danger, and sees in tender love His trembling waiting child, and sees the moment when the heart is ripe for the blessing, and sees the way in which it is to come. This living, mighty God, oh, let us fear Him and hope in His mercy. And let us humbly but boldly say, "Our soul waiteth for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. Let Thy mercy be upon us, O Lord, according as we wait for Thee."

Oh, the blessedness of waiting on such a God! A very present help in every time of trouble; a shield and defense against every danger. Children of God, will you not learn to sink down in entire helplessness and impotence and in stillness to wait and see the salvation of God! In the utmost spiritual famine, and when death appears to prevail, oh, wait on God! He does deliver, He does keep alive. Say it not only in solitude, but say it to each other –– the psalm speaks not of one but of God’s people –– 'Our soul waiteth on the Lord: He is our help and our shield.' Strengthen and encourage each other in the holy exercise of waiting, that each may not only say of it himself, but of his brethren, 'We have waited for Him; we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.'

'My soul, wait thou only upon God!'"

- "Waiting On God", Andrew Murray, pp. 47-50

On healing

"Brokenness is not the opposite of wholeness,
but the means toward it."
- Unknown*

* From an affirming passage by Jack and Judy Balswick in their book, "A Model For Marriage: Covenant, Grace, Empowerment and Intimacy."

"I am cracking open. And, yes, it hurts like hell."*

Photography really is a way of seeing, of possibilities.

"Spiritual growth may be seen as slowly deepening belief, or the steady erosion of our hypocrisy. Layers of pretense and self deceit peel away to expose our fear. What is revealed is the limit of our belief, its edges. A good deal of our suffering is that raw exposure of our doubt, our unbelief, to the light of the Risen Christ. It stings, smarts. We think we are dying, losing everything.

…And here we might look to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter, ‘who for the joy that awaited him, endured the cross, despising the shame…’ (Hebrews 12: 1-2) We do not have to love our suffering; we just have to bear it. We take up our crosses. We consciously receive the pain that comes our way, not for the pain we must endure, but for the joy that awaits. In this way we become martyrs, not in self abasing, whining, self-righteous martyrdom, but in the original sense of the word. Martyr in Greek means witness, one who has seen God and is willing to testify by one’s life that God lives – even in the midst of death and evil and defeat.”

- Excerpted from Loretta Ross’ thought-provoking blog




*I stumbled upon (what became) the title of this post on one of my trawls through the blogosphere. The blog didn't make the cut, but the phrase was a keeper!

The Lenten Prayer

A juxtaposition of texture and light - two of my favorite things.

O Lord and Master of my life!

Take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power and idle talk.

But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love to Thy servant.

Yea, O Lord and King!

Grant me to see my own transgressions and not to judge my brother;

for Blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen.

- St. Ephrem the Syrian

Father Alexander Schmemann expounds on the prayer here, in a powerfully dense exhortation. Its power lies not in the beauty of the prose but in its challenge to change.

Lent (Winter, Part II)

The view from our dining room at dusk.

Today marks the first day of Lent.

"The Lenten worship is...a school of repentance. It teaches us what is repentance and how to acquire the spirit of repentance. It prepares us for and leads us to the spiritual regeneration without which ‘absolution’ remains meaningless. It is, in short, both teaching about repentance and the way of repentance. And since there can be no real Christian life without repentance, without this constant ‘re-evaluation’ of life, the Lenten worship is an essential part of the liturgical tradition of the Church.”

— Alexander Schmemann

Father Anthony spoke yesterday of his perspective of Lent as a "reversal of the Fall" - in a manner of speaking - through our choice to turn from sin through repentance. In addition, he made another new-to-me point when he spoke of how fasting is integral to the process because it is another counterpoint. Where Adam and Eve's decision not to physically deny themselves had spiritual ramifications, fasting is the exterior part of the interior "renunciation of our self-will and desires"*.

My previous post (quite unintentionally) segues into this one as, once again, I see nature paralleled - this time through the Lenten period of internal renewal. We begin Lent at the end of winter, when all around us is evidence of death: the trees shed of their leaves, the grass brown and lifeless, the landscape devoid of color. But we are on the cusp of spring - and of Easter Sunday. The regeneration has already begun where we cannot yet see it. Soon we will.

*From "These Truths We Hold - The Holy Orthodox Church: Her Life and Teachings". Compiled and Edited by A Monk of St. Tikhon's Monastery. Copyright 1986 by the St. Tikhon's Seminary Press, South Canaan, Pennsylvania 18459.

Reflecting on the beauty of the fallow season...

Taken on a stroll down our street one winter afternoon. It was uncharacteristically gray that day.

When the ice of winter holds the house in its rigid grip,

when curtains are drawn early

against that vast frozen waste of landscape,

almost like a hibernating hedgehog

I relish the security of being withdrawn from that

summer ferment that is long since past

Then is the time for reappraisal: to spread out,

limp and receptive, and let garden thoughts rise to the surface.

They emerge from some deep source of stillness

which the very fact of winter has released.

- Mirabel Osler, "A Gentle Plea for Chaos"

Cloud-clogged sky. Dirty, icy slush. Soggy shoes. Damp chill. Cold drafts. Early darkness. Gloomy weather, gloomy mood. For more than a decade, that was how I described a dreaded season.

This is the first time in memory that I have truly savored winter. The quiet monochromatic stillness of the barren landscape, the temperature drops that hurry us indoors to woolly cocoons and steaming mugs, the snow and ice that make us rethink our usual speed on the highway - these natural elements of the season are reflected in our lives too. Or, rather, they could be.

This has been a time of deceleration for me. On the surface, I appear to have achieved little. And yet there is a churning beneath the fallow ground. What will spring forth from the death of long-held dreams and the painful tilling of rocky soil? In the uncertainty of waiting, I cling to the hope that nature's paradox bears truth for my journey too. Death before life. New things from the discarded. Birth out of barrenness.