Years ago I came upon a notepad decorated with a Sandra Boynton drawing of bears holding balloons. The line-up of brown bears included one panda bear, whose wide-eyed expression asked, "What am I doing here?"
At the time, I was up to my ears in parish ministry and the drawing represented multiple conversations I'd encountered. Not, I hasten to explain, conversations with brown bears complaining about the lone panda. No, my conversations were consistently with panda bears, who were sure that they didn't fit in with all those brown bears. I finally taped a sheet of the notepad onto the parish refrigerator.
This panda bear perspective can be found wherever three or more are gathered. The error of it is not that you are different from the others. You are. The error is in assuming that all the brown bears are the same. Should you take the time to interview the brown bears, you will discover that one feels different because he's more beige than brown, another because she's the only female, another because everyone else graduated from college, or didn't graduate from college, or had two parents, or was born out of the country, or doesn't have a golden streak under his left arm.
Really, it's a miracle that any group manages to hold together long enough to accomplish anything.
"Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success." ~Henry Ford
The book, Good to Great by Jim Collins is the result of a study of eleven companies that sustained a big jump in stock value over a five year period. Needless to say, The Word Shop is a bear among those bulls--or would be if we had stock, which we don't. However, I like to read this kind of book as a way of...um...taking stock. Good to Great claims to have figured out "Why some companies make the leap and others don't." The book asks some good to great questions, like "What can you be best in the world at?" (Nothing. At The Word Shop we're very good at doing nothing--sitting around, drinking tea, sharing stories.) What is your passion? (Our passion is not a what, it's a Who!) What drives your economic engine? (Our what??? I don't think we have one of those. We must be a sail boat.)
"If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else." ~Yogi Berra
While I'm on the subject of panda bears, I should mention Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynn Truss. Numerous people have told me this book is funny, informative, great. Unfortunately since we recently sold the copy that came in, mentioning this book is in direct violation of Justin's advice following a Friday afternoon schmooze about economic engines. Justin suggested it would help if I wrote about books which were actually on our shelves.
Did I mention that we have Good to Great available for $6?
"There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves." ~President Lyndon B. Johnson
Right now none of the books I'm writing about are on the shelves. They are stacked on the lower tier of my new round coffee table. Two are books on writing: The Writer on Her Work edited by Janet Sternberg, and By Cunning and Craft by Peter Salgin. Published in 1980, The Writer on Her Work is a series of essays by women writers. It leans heavily toward the trials of panda bears in a brown bear world, but delivers good information nonetheless. By Cunning and Craft is a small hardback with distinctive end-papers and classy line drawings--a book that feels lovely to hold in your hand. It favors "serious literary writers," but has, as the subtitle claims, "Sound advice and practical wisdom for fiction writers."
"I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor." ~Marjorie Holmes
Another batch of books that soon won't be on our shelves is an armload of romance books. The romance shelf is glutted and we just received a half-dozen fat Scottish historical romances by Diana Gabaldon. In order to make room for them, I intend to thin the romance section. A diet of books. If it stops raining we will soon have a very Romantic Free Shelf outside the window.
"in a time lacking in truth and certainty and filled with anguish and despair, no woman should be shamefaced in attempting to give back to the world, through her work, a portion of its lost heart." ~Louis Bogan
Because I appreciated Francine River's Redeeming Love, I tried another novel of hers, which showed up in a lovely box of Christian fiction. Turns out I couldn't endure the protagonist whining about her husband moving the family without consulting her--or the husband who'd do such a thing. The book might redeem itself, but I didn't make it past the first 30 pages. Next I read a Dean Koontz thriller, since several of his novels appeared a box of mystery-adventure books (Koontz, Coonts, Cussler, Brown, Patterson....). There's a certain charm in Koontz's familial relationships, but the plot is so unbelievable as to be....well...unbelievable.
The best fiction I read this month was Willa Cather's Shadows on the Rock, which takes place in a French Canadian settlement of the late 17th century. I'd talk about it more, but I've already promised it to Carolyn. I also read Peter Watson's Landscape of Lies. It's promised to Phil and Kateri, but since it might find its way back to the store I'll say that this mystery is particularly interesting because the art dealer detective is following a trail marked by an old painting. The treasure hunt bumps through monastic ruins fueled by symbolism in Christian art.
"Some people think they are worth a lot of money just because they have it." ~Fannie Hurst
I just found out that Lent comes from the Old English word lencten which means Spring. How could I be a Christian all these many years and not know this? How could I complain yearly about California Lent not being very Lenten, what with flowers bursting out all over; and nobody has corrected me? In my Colorado upbringing the flowers don't really spring until Easter; the liturgical church majors on somber buds and branches all through the Lenten period. OK, the etymology goes back to Germanic origin for the word long. Longing for spring, longing for the Lord. Bearing up.
"Some days I'm solar powered. Some days I'm wind powered And some people in this room might think I'm hybrid gas-powered." ~Bill Richardson
Love bears all...
Blessings,
Alliee +