Book Thoughts: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

You may be wondering, 'what on earth is a potato peel pie and what would induce a sane person to make such a thing?' Well, that much I'm not going to explain.  After reading this post you may be able to venture an educated guess as to why such a dish might come about - especially at a time when normal pie ingredients are not readily available. However, to get the whole story, you'll just have to read the book.

It would be well worth your time. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is just as quirky and charming as its name indicates. It is a fictional account of a very real series of events and it is written entirely in letters. The book tells the story of the German occupation of the the Channel Islands during World War II and  how these ordinary, yet heroic islanders leaned on one another to rebuild their lives after the war ended.

The story begins in the years immediately after the war when an author in London happens to receive a letter from a reader in Guernsey. Their exchange of letters leads to a remarkable journey into the lives and reminiscences of a wonderful cast of characters who turned to books to survive the war. This eclectic group of farmers, artisans, and homemakers were, by a remarkable set of coincidences, thrown together in a literary society. They began reading the classics, finding not only something to take their minds off the war, but friendships that would deepen and thrive long after the war ended. When Elizabeth, the real architect of the Literary Society was imprisoned, they became a true family to her daughter Kit. After the war they rebuild their homes and lives, passing their mutually-adopted and much-loved Kit, around from home to home.  Into this scene enters Juliet Ashton, the successful author looking for her next great story. Her chance correspondence with one of the Society's core members, Dawsey Adams, opens the door to a story that desperately needs to be told.

We all know (or should, if we were paying attention in history class) that London was bombed for 57 nights in the Battle of Britain, that Londoners held up under extreme duress, and the Royal Air Force drove the Germans back to the Continent. But history teachers (myself included) do not teach about the British Channel Island which were indeed occupied  by German forces. The islanders' experiences were uniquely harrowing as they lived in complete isolation and deprivation. The book itself is a perfect blend of history, humor, depth, and yes, even a little bit of romance.  The story at times takes a very sobering tone, because really, it is impossible to write a book about WWII without discussing its vast inhumanities. Yet the Germans are not characterized as fully evil, and there is a glimmer of goodness among their ranks.

The Guernsey Islanders remind me a tad of my friends in Avonlea. (Maybe something about living on an island just makes one more charming than most.)  Of course, you also can't help but love the main character, Juliet Ashton, who, though not a Guernsey Islander herself, finds that she belongs there. Juliet is pretty and intellectual (my kind of a heroine). Her blend of wit and sarcasm, along with her rather clumsy forays into romance, give the book a lighthearted feel that counterbalances the backdrop of tragedy. In fact, I think what makes all the characters so endearing is that they really don't take themselves too seriously. That is, I believe, a good quality to possess - and one that makes people far more likable.

Now, I believe I will go and make a potato peel pie.

Book Thoughts - My Beloved World: by Sonia Sotomayor

 

 I've always had a bit of a fascination with Sonia Sotomayor. I'm not really sure why. Perhaps because she's an intelligent woman above the political fray, perhaps because she embodies a sort of intellectual rags-to-riches ideal that I admire, or maybe it's just because she was my company one summer. I was hunkered down in my apartment writing grad school papers with CPSAN on for background noise and she was in the throes of Senate confirmation hearings. It was like a bonding experience - except she didn't know it - I guess it was a rather one-sided bonding. 

Anyway, I began her memoir on Sunday and finished it on Monday evening. I knew I would like her book immediately. I chuckled at the prologue. She warned her legal assistants that she would be taking some liberties with language. They were not to evaluate her book based on the standards for formal legal writing. I appreciate and resonate with that sentiment. My blog posts do not follow the structure or style of the AP essays I spend so much of my life grading. I get it. I get her. She's my kind of person.

 If you know anything about Sonia Sotomayor you know her story. She grew up in the Bronx projects, she went to Catholic school, got a scholarship to Princeton and later Yale Law (true, affirmative action probably didn't hurt) and yes, eventually was appointed to the Supreme Court. That is the metanarrative - the real story that resounded in my heart and mind lay in the smaller narratives, the little pieces of the puzzle that make her who she is today. There are things I admire about her and things I do not. But all in all, I learned a lot by reading her book. I was inspired. I walked away feeling as if there is one person in Washington that I can respect. 

I admired her battle with diabetes. When she first learned of the disease her parents began fighting over who would give her shots each day. Sonia had witnessed many an argument among her parents, but this was the first time they were arguing about HER. So she learned to give herself her own shots. She was young. Probably too young. But she was determined. 

The summer after her father died she found solace in the library. She haunted her local library, checking out books with no rhyme or reason. As a result, this girl who grew up in a Spanish speaking home began to really absorb and learn the English language. A language that she would later have to master in all its intricacy. That was the summer that she became a lifelong learner. 

She joined the forensics team in high school. It was through public speaking and debate that she found her passion. She learned lessons that would eventually get buried by all of her law school technicalities. Later, when she was able to unearth that passion, relight that fire and infuse her words with meaning and emotion, only then did she begin winning cases. The lessons she learned on her high school forensics team were some of the most valuable to her career. 

She figured out how to get her self to college - and not just any college - Princeton. The labyrinthine world of college admission was one that none in her family had traversed. She was the first. She did it by herself. If she got a leg up due to affirmative action, well I think it only makes up for the fact that she didn't have the advantage of expensive SAT prep course, or a mom or dad to proofread college essays and fill out loan applications for her. She was still determined. 

She is a judge by profession, but not by nature. She judges cases and laws, but she does not judge people. She believes that there is something to learn from every person you meet. I do a lot more judging than she does and I don't even wear a funny robe. 

Sonia Sotomayor is an intensely hard working woman. She is a strong, independent, determined, thinking female. I love that. I learned about the Puerto Rican culture and how strong the bonds of family remain. I learned more than I ever expected to know about criminal law and day-to-day life in the district court. Yet there is one area in which I do not admire Sotomayor. She could not master the art of building a strong marriage. And yet, I still learned from her. It is very hard to do both - and to do both well. It is difficult to put oneself on a path to such enormous success and maintain the closeness and intimacy needed to sustain a strong marriage. While I cannot admire her example in this area, I appreciate her wisdom about families and careers. She doesn't beat around the bush. She admits that no woman can have it all without sacrifice. Working moms do sacrifice - they do not "have it all" as most believe at the outset. They can never be ALL there in the way a non-mother can, they are always feeling the pull, always feeling the weight of a bigger responsibility awaiting them beyond the doors of the office. Yet they should not be belittled or judged for this choice. Sotomayor does not believe that they are bad mothers, but that they are indeed making a sacrifice. A stay-at-home mother can invest 100% in her children, but she sacrifices her career. A woman who chooses not to have a family can invest herself 100% in her career but sacrifice the joys of a family. We are humans. We cannot do it all, we cannot have it all. Even Sonia Sotomayor, who has a seat on the highest court in the land, who has oodles of friends, a huge supportive family, degrees from two Ivy league universities and a host of other accolades, does not have it all. 

At the end of the day I can admire her hard work, her intelligence, and her unique ability to analyze the law and think through situations rationally. In all of those things I aspire to be more like her. But I would not trade my life for hers. I realize that for me there are some things greater and more honorable than a seat on the Supreme Court. That is being a good wife, maintaining a strong marriage, and perhaps someday raising children to be intelligent, determined, and hard-working citizens.

Book Thoughts: Worst, Hard, Time by Timothy Egan

Last week a tornado swept across the Oklahoma prairie. It leveled a town, destroyed livelihoods and took children, parents, and pets. While this happened I was in the midst of reading another story about this same part of the country. It was the story of the Dust Bowl. It was a story that left me even more in awe of the hard-core men and women who settle in the Great Plains. It was a story that allowed me to look at the faces on CNN with a different kind of respect - the respect that one has for those who persevere during hardship, who pass the lessons of hard work and determination onto their children. It was a true story. What's scary about Egan's book is that it is a work of nonfiction.

The people that live in the Great Plains today are the children and grandchildren of the people who never gave up. Of course my respect and admiration for the "Greatest Generation" of the Great Plains is mitigated by the fact that they created, or at least aided and abetted, their own troubles. Timothy Egan's book starts in the latter half of the 19th century. He talks about the cowboys on the Plains and the gradual transition to farming which became more rapid as the First World War shot up crop prices. The Great Plains never has been (and never will be) good farming land. It was the land "where the buffalo roamed." The vast grasslands held the soil in place for millennia despite the wind and drought. But our government's policies pushed the buffalo and the Native Americans out in favor of homesteaders and railroad companies. It was the last area of the country where men and women could have a piece of ground to call their own, and after the Civil War many took advantage of this offering.

Timothy Egan artfully tells the story of the Dust Bowl through the eyes of several families. Their stories take us through the prosperity of the war years where every inch of the land was plowed up to feed the U.S. and all of Europe. It takes us through the 1920s where prices fell due to decreased demand, yet fields were still plowed up year after year to break even. Farmers did this with no thought of what they were doing to their tomorrow.

Tomorrow came with a crash and a storm - or rather, many storms. The Depression hit the country about the time the skies dried up and the soil began to blow. Interwoven between the pages of this book is the story of Hazel Lucas, a teacher who got married, had a baby, and despite all her efforts lost her child to dust pneumonia. There are the housewives who sweep their floors and chairs and tables only to have the wind instantly blow more earth through the covered windows. The inability to provide for their families breaks even the strongest of men. Most leave. Entire towns disappear and are left covered in dust, their former inhabitants eeking out a living elsewhere. Yet it is the ones who stay that I admire. The ones who weathered the storm they helped to create. These were the people that were tied to their land, their home. Their children and grandchildren live there today. They will survive. They are made of the right stuff.

Book Thoughts: Sold

This spring I took a nostalgic retreat back to my tattered Anne books. It was a happy place. Yet after finishing the sixth Anne book and finding myself wishing more and more each day that I lived in the quirky utopia of L.M. Montgomery's Prince Edward Island, I knew that it was time to move on. One cannot live in fictional utopia forever...

 I've always been a person of extremes, so it should be no surprise that I left P.E.I for Nepal. My next book took me to a poor mountain village at the foot of the Himalayas where a girl was about to be unwittingly sold into the sex trade. (I didn't really intend to make such a drastic leap out of innocence, it just happened to be the next book on my reading list that the library had readily available for download.)

 The book I downloaded was Patricia McCormick's Sold. It started rather slowly, depicting the imperfect, yet simple life of a young Nepali girl. The main character, Lakshmi, lives with her mother, her pet goat, and her stepfather who spends most of his time gambling away the family's money. She is about 12 years old when her stepfather tells her that she is going to become a maid in "the city." This is bittersweet news for Lakshmi. She knows that will indeed miss her home, but she's also excited to begin aiding her family and sending home money to help her mother live comfortably.

 As the book's title suggests Lakshmi never does become a maid in the city. She is one of the thousands of girls transported across the border into India where she is forced to work as a prostitute. Stripped of her innocence and everything she knows, Lakshmi must work night by night to pay off her "debt" to the brothel's owner. Her debt grows with each meal she eats, each dose of medicine she is given, each customer that turns her aside for another girl. Yet even here the the darkest of places she finds solace in camaraderie with her "sisters" in the brothel and their children who daytime hours. Even in this harrowing existence, the options of escaping seem more dangerous. The city outside the walls of the brothel seem dangerous and threatening. Rumors circulate about gangsters who are hired to hunt down escaped girls. The girls are also told to distrust white men who come with their business cards offering a safe-house, a way out. But is it one such business card that offers Lakshmi freedom. If she is courageous enough to accept the offer...

 There is light in this book. There is a glimmer of hope. Mind you, it's harder to see than in an Anne-book, but there is goodness in McCormick's world. The book alludes to salvation for the women caught in slavery. However, they cannot be forced to leave the brothel. Some even prefer it there. It is this fact, this light in a dark place that makes the book worthwhile. McCormick's story was fictional, but her research for the book was very real. She went to India and talked to girls who had lived Lakshmi's story. This book is important because two things are true: 1) women are sold into the sex trade every day, most often against their will and 2) there are non-profit agencies out there to help them escape. One such agency that is International Justice Mission (IJM). IJM works with women to not only free them from the sex trade, but to rehabilitate them and teach them practical skills to make a living. Yet IJM and others cannot do this work without funding. It is not often that a book influences me to evaluate my level of charitable giving, yet I realized upon closing this book that I was truly blessed to grow up in this country, go to college, marry a good man, and hold a job that provides a surplus. When so many women are using their bodies to pay off an ever-growing "debt" I must ask myself - how can I use my surplus to help settle their accounts?

Separate, but Holy - Leviticus

I am now almost done with the book of Leviticus. It’s really a fascinating book if one has the right perspective. The main themes are holiness and separation. The book contains a series of laws, sacrifices, and ceremonies that will set Israel apart from the pagan nations and establish her security in Yahweh. Back in Exodus 19 God and the Israelites enter into a conditional covenant. This Mosaic Covenant is two-sided, the people must keep their end of the deal. (This differs from the Abrahamic Covenant which is unconditional and solely based in God) If they honor God, He will bless them in return.

What follows is a series of ceremonial and civil laws. These laws ensure the orderly functioning of the community and the holiness of the people. Many are immensely practical. For instance, you are not allowed to marry anyone in your immediate family. (Obviously genetic mutations had progressed enough at this point to make inbreeding unwise.) Leviticus also lays down laws on how to deal with infections and other personal hygiene issues, initiating positive trends for the community’s health and sustainability. Similarly, the dietary restrictions offer numerous health benefits (like not eating raw meat). But the dietary restrictions reveal a second purpose that is perhaps implicit in all of the laws throughout the book of Leviticus – that is, separation. The Jews’ dietary restrictions hindered their ability to socialize with those on the outside. God did not want his people befriending and intermarrying with the pagan nations surrounding them. At this point in history the people of God were to be kept separate and holy.

This is not the way we operate today. Christ wiped a lot of these customs away when He established the New Covenant. However, these laws still present symbolic reminders of the way that sin creeps into our daily routine, invading our lives and homes like an infection that destroys the body. Just as those who were unclean were put outside the camp for a time, sin too can bind us in our own private exile. Leviticus reminds us that the principle of separation and holiness is just as important today as it was back then. God will bless us, in this life or in the next, if we honor Him. This does not necessarily mean we are out sacrificing goats or abstaining from sausage, but it does explain why our romantic relationships look different, why we spend less and give more, why we prioritize people and families over career advancement, and why we seek to build community with other very flawed Christians.

In truth, we modern-day Christians are not any better than the Israelites at this “separate but holy” concept. Nonetheless, we do have some advantages. In Leviticus, even when the proper offering is made and the Day of Atonement secures nationwide cleansing, the people were still missing out on that free open access to the throne of God that we enjoy so flippantly today. I’m so thankful that our Messiah has come. He has torn that curtain and eliminated all the requirements for sacrificing a goat every time I want to talk to God.

If we were still doing it that way I would need a lot of goats.

Creativity: Exodus 35-39

The closing chapters of Exodus provide and insanely detailed blueprint for the Hebrew Tabernacle. God is very exacting in His instructions to Moses and is clear in calling artisans to build the structure. The Exodus account gives precise measurements, details the exact shape of the ornamentation, and dictates the building materials to be used throughout the structure. Here is an example: “The sockets for the pillars were bronze, the hooks of the pillars and their bands were silver, and the overlay of their capitals was silver and all the pillars of the court had bands of silver.” (Exodus 39:17) Admittedly, this is not the most engrossing section of the Bible. Nonetheless, it reveals truths about our God that help us understand who He is and how we are indeed created in His image.

One does not have to wade through the chapters of Exodus to understand that our God values appearances and creativity. Romans 1:20 says, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.” God is ever-present in all of creation and is Himself the standard for creativity in this world. Sometimes it takes a trip outside our manmade suburban paradise to notice God’s handiwork. This summer I crawled through labyrinthine caves stretching miles under the earth. I traveled to Alaska, finding a land that hosts enormous glaciers, mountains and fjords replete with wildlife. Survey a remote Alaskan coastline and you will encounter all sorts of captivating life forms – some beautiful, some not, but always strangely intriguing. Something as simple as the annual journey of the salmon to their spawning grounds is actually a wonderful display of the intricacy of our ecosystems. I can’t help but marvel at both the fragility and the astonishing tenacity of life on this planet. We live in a world full of unique and spectacular wonders, a testament to our God’s care and design.

As humans fashioned in the image of God, aesthetics and originality comprise an important part of our everyday lives. We crave beauty, structure, and design. That is why places like IKEA exist. We admire creativity, and those video game designers that can craft engrossing virtual worlds for us to experience. We value imagination and people like J.K. Rowling that can tell a good story. Admittedly, I feel slightly guilty about spending money on aesthetic accoutrements or entertainment with so many poor living in squalor around the world. Yet while this must guide moderation in our spending, it is important to recognize that our quest for beauty also evidences the mark of God’s image in each one of us. God has given some individuals an immense capacity for brilliance and ingenuity. I spent last summer traipsing through Europe admiring the cathedrals, castles, museums, and gardens. These things remain a testament to that glimmer of the Creator in each human artist. I believe that at some level we all long to create.

Quite honestly, I do not know if this world came about in 7 days or several million years. I do not know what proportion of organisms came through microevolution versus macroevolution. I do not know exactly how and when the plates have shifted to create mountains and valleys. I’m not sure how many floods and ice ages have graced this planet. However, when I look at the beauty and complexity inherent in the untouched remnants of this earth it seems absurd that it could have all happened through chance. At the very least, it takes and immense amount of faith remove the Divine from the equation. When I admire the cathedrals in Europe, the innovation coming out of the Googleplex, or even the brilliance in some of my most promising students I am ever more convinced that there is a Creator and that each one of us bears His image.

Exodus 4: A Meeting on the Mountain

“Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you will say.” Exodus 4:12

I love this story because it is a genuine picture of our humanity and God’s sovereignty. God meets Moses in the desert of Horeb and explains that He intends to bring the Israelites out of slavery; and he has chosen Moses to lead this venture. As Moses vehemently protests, you can’t help but feel sorry for the poor guy. He would have been quite content feeding sheep for the rest of his life.

Yet God reigns over Moses’s protests. Moses argues that he’s ill-equipped and lacks eloquence. Though I am kind of on Moses’s side here, I have got to admit that I am a fan of God’s answer: “Who has made man’s mouth?” That basically silences Moses’s side of the debate. Then, in exasperation, God promises that He will give Moses the words to say.

Throughout this whole discussion Moses remains completely honest with God. Rather than saying “I cannot do this” perhaps Moses should have said “God, I know what you want of me, but I cannot do this alone.” To me, the beauty of the story is that he does not say this – and thus, we see it is true that Moses is not eloquent and super-spiritual. He is just a normal guy that does not want to trade a docile flock of sheep for a herd of unruly Jews.

The truth is, we are all useless without God. However, protesting against His plan for us is not the way to express humility. Moses’s protest is merely a lack of faith. True humility is recognizing that “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)

That said, there will always be days when I would rather be tending sheep.