Night:

I read Elie Wiesel's Night late into yesterday's evening. Understandably, it left me feeling angry and sad. Most of us would probably agree with Dostoevsky's Ivan Karamazov that the suffering of children is the most impossible, unbearable, and unexplainable thing in the Universe. Wiesel writes of his seven year old sister with long blond hair and a bright red coat marching silently off to the crematoria, and one can't help but insert the children in one's own life into that situation. For me it's Camie, my precious little sister with bright blue eyes who loves to read and imagine and dance. It's Vinny, the enthusiastic little boy who tries to outrun the van when I arrive to pick him up for school. And it's Giuwels, who when I tell her it's time to stop playing with her dolls and clean up her room responds, "But Carolyn, I was just about to marry my boy and girl!"

Wiesel's account gripped me on two levels. One--the unspeakable, unnameable, incomprehensible things experienced by real children, just like the ones I love so completely. But I was also struck by the spiritual anguish and pain of the Jewish people in the face of their apparently utter abandonment by God. The sense of desertion and despair overwhelmed me. I found it best summed up in the statement a Hungarian Jew made to Wiesel one evening in the infirmary, "I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people."

I found myself startlingly angry at God after reading this book. There's the million-dollar-question of Why? And then How? And also, Who are you that you could let this happen? That you would sit by and do nothing? Our questions pinpoint the most painful part: our perceived silence on God's behalf. Perhaps more unforgivable than the fact that it happened is the fact that God has remained silent. He hasn't provided an explanation for any of it. That is what we find unacceptable. Yet there is a strange comfort and peace in lobbying all this anger and all these questions at God: He is there. Being angry at him, however miserable, confirms his presence as well as the intimacy of our relationship.

I almost always respond with a burning emotion first, and just as inevitably that emotion eventually cools to a point where I can logically assess the information and make rational judgments. I usually make decisions out of this calm point, base my life on what I know to be true in this purified stillness. What I know to be true manifests itself in the song of Zechariah, which I was memorizing before I ever picked up Wiesel's book: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he hath visited and redeemed his people and hath raised up a mighty salvation for us in the house of his servant David..." The key word there is visited. God was not absent for any of these horrors. And somehow the fact that the Kingdom of Heaven slipped into the world over 2,000 years ago with the birth of a baby means that the Nazi's Kingdom of Night is far from being the last word on God's love, his Justice, or his ability to care his People.

A Year In Books

My 2010 Reading List:

January 2010

The World Is Flat – Thomas Friedman

*Baby Catcher – Peggy Vincent

People of the Book – Geraldine Brooks

The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion

The Republic of East L.A. – Luis Rodriguez

**Walk Two Moons – Sharon Creech (Audio Book, with Sean)

February 2010

****My Story As Told By Water – David James Duncan

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – J. K. Rowling (Audio Book)

A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L’Engle

*The Noonday Demon – Andrew Solomon

Spiritual Midwifery – Ina May Gaskin (First half of book: Birth Stories, 218 pages)

A Circle of Quiet – Madeleine L’Engle; 246 pages

A Wind in the Door – Madeleine L’Engle; 240 pages

March 2010

The Summer of the Great Grandmother – Madeleine L’Engle; 246 pages

Giving Birth – Catherine Taylor; 300 pages

A Swiftly Tilting Planet – Madeleine L’Engle; 256 pages

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – J. K. Rowling (Audio Book)

The Midwife – Jennifer Worth; 319 pages

Lady’s Hands, Lion’s Heart – Carol Leonard; 354 pages

Many Waters – Madeleine L’Engle; 310 pages

A Perfect Mess – Eric Abrahamson & David Freedman (Audio Book)

The Irrational Season – Madeleine L’Engle; 215 pages

April 2010

Committed – Elizabeth Gilbert; 285 pages

Things I’ve Been Silent About – Azar Nafisi; 314 pages

Till We Have Faces – C.S. Lewis; 309 pages

Castle Corona – Sharon Creech; Audio Book

Two Part Invention – Madeleine L’Engle; 232 pages

Beautiful Stories of Life – Cynthia Rylant; Audio Book

The Metamorphoses: Books 1 & 2 – Ovid; 50 pages

Shards of Honor – Lois McMaster Bujold; 313 pages

***The Whale Rider – Witi Ihimaera; Audio Book

Barrayar – Lois McMaster Bujold; 386 pages

An Acceptable Time – Madeleine L’Engle; 367 pages

May 2010

The Fabric of This World – Lee Hardy; 185 pages

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – J.K. Rowling; Audio Book

The Warrior’s Apprentice – Lois McMaster Bujold; 315 pages

Acedia & me – Kathleen Norris; 329 pages

Anne of Green Gables – Lucy Maud Montgomery; Audio Book

June 2010

I GOT MARRIED!!!!!

July 2010

Fellowship of the Ring – J. R. R. Tolkien; Audio Book

Tinkers – Paul Harding

The Outsiders – S. E. Hinton

*The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexander Dumas; Audio Book

The Cloister Walk – Kathleen Norris

August 2010

Anne of Avonlea – Lucy Maud Montgomery; Audio Book

*****The Brothers K – David James Duncan; 645 pages

Anne of the Island – Lucy Maud Montgomery; Audio Book

The Two Towers – J. R. R. Tolkien; Audio Book

Dakota – Kathleen Norris; 220 pages

The Maytrees – Annie Dillard; 216 pages

Travels with Charley – John Steinbeck; Audio Book

*A Mother’s Rule – Holly Pierlot; 200 pages

September 2010

Housekeeping – Marilynne Robinson; Audio Book

The Quotidian Mysteries – Kathleen Norris; 88 pages

Life of Antony & Letter to Marcinellus – Athanasius; 129 pages

The Rule of St. Benedict – St. Benedict; 70 pages

A Thousand Acres – Jane Smiley; Audio Book; 13 discs

Around the World in 80 Days – Jules Verne; Audio Book; 7 discs

October 2010

Church History in Plain Language – Bruce L. Shelley; 495 pages

Funny in Farsi – Firoozeh Dumas; 198 pages

The Nanny Diaries – Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus; 306 pages

Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino; 165 pages

Unmasking L.A. – edited by Deepak Narang Sawhney; 260 pages

You’ll Never Nanny in this Town Again – Suzanne Hansen; 286 pages

And Nanny Makes Three – Jessika Auerbach; 272 pages

Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens; 25 discs

November 2010

The Perfect Stranger – Lucy Kaylin; 228 pages

Flipped – Wendelin Van Draanen; 6 discs

*Searching for Mary Poppins – edited by Susan Davis and Gina Hyams; 275 pages

Just Like Family – Tasha Blaine; 319 pages

Global Woman – Edited by: Babara Ehrenreich and Arlie Hochschild; 284 pages

December 2010

White House Nannies – Barbara Kline; 234 pages

The Year of Living Biblically – A. J. Jacobs; 332 pages

Where I Was From – Joan Didion; 226 pages

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince – J. K. Rowling; 17 discs

*******Crunchy Cons – Rod Dreher; 250 pages

Total: 74 Books

It's been a wonderful year for reading books! I started out the year devouring midwifery literature and ended the year pouring over nanny-literature. In between, and all throughout, I revisited books that are old friends ( the Anne of Green Gables series), read my favorites over and over again (Harry Potter), made wonderful memories (I'll never forget sitting in the sands of Waimea Bay at sunset and watching Sean body surf in the cresting waves while I read Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking or driving through the green mountains of Oregon on our honeymoon listening to Fellowship of the Ring), and discovered delightful new authors like Kathleen Norris (thought-provoking), A.J. Jacobs (hilarious), and Rod Dreher (life-changing). I finally read an extensive portion of Madeleine L'Engle's work (but by no means all of it) and explored topics such as depression and Church History more thoroughly than I ever have before. And there was no lacking in adventure: I journeyed through outer space with Miles Vorkosigan and swam with whales in the wild waters off the shores of New Zealand. I battled Voldemorte alongside Harry, Ron, and Hermione, exacted a breathtaking revenge with Edmond Dantes, and traveled around the world (in 80 days!) with Phileas Fogg. I delivered babies with Berkeley's best midwife, trekked to Mount Doom with Frodo and Sam, and roamed the streets of East L.A. with Luis Rodriguez. The worst book I read this year was A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley. Do yourself a favor and never read it. Do yourself a favor and read Crunchy Conservatives by Rod Dreher, which wins for being by far the most life-changing book I read this year. I familiarized myself with some classics--including The Count of Monte Cristo and Nicholas Nickleby (both of which are brilliant and amazing books!). The best book I read this year was--hands down--The Brothers K by David James Duncan. This was my second time reading it, and I loved it even more--if possible--than the first time I read it. This is probably the most rich and heart-warming/breaking, loving and funny story of a family that anyone will ever read. I also reread Annie Dillard's The Maytrees, which--after visiting Megan in Massachusetts this Spring, took on new meaning and beauty for me. To read books is to associate with the Great: St. Benedict, John Steinbeck, and C.S. Lewis--to name a few. The adventure of reading books is second only to the greater adventure of living life, and I hope--by God's grace--to do much more of both in 2011.

If the West falls, I'm your man!

There are some things that pretty much never fail me:

1. The Psalms (and Scripture in general)

2. A good meal

3. A conversation with my mom

4. A great book


These are (or should be) my go to's when I find myself in the Slough of Despond.


As I struggle in the midst of wedding planning, finishing a hellish online Spanish class in order to graduate, work, job hunting, coping with being off an anti-depressant, the pressures of moving, and a million other imaginable and unimaginable stresses (like the emotional strain of possibly moving away from a place and people that I've loved for up to five years), I find words like, "In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust...Be thou my strong rock...For thy name's sake lead me, and guide me..." to be the firm ground upon which I can place my feet, and stake my life.

Great books--especially old, often read and dearly loved books, are joys in the midst of changing times, that's for sure. I left La Mirada library on Tuesday morning, practically giddy with delight over my newly checked-out treasures: Anne of Green Gables, The Fellowship of the Ring, and The Count of Monte Cristo on audiobook. I felt sure that if they knew how happy I was, they would never let me take my bounty for free. I suppose the public library system proves that happiness can be without a cost (unless you're a tax payer).

Listening to Anne of Green Gables makes me completely not mind--dare I say--even enjoy being stuck in bad traffic on the 5 for way too long. I am too busy laughing over Anne's antics and predicaments, and quoting Marilla's best lines, and enjoying the comfortable familiarity of a childhood book to care that I'm crawling along the asphalt at five miles an hour along with every other Southern Californian.

Last night Sean took me to Ruby's for our TWO YEAR anniversary. On the way back, I was telling him about my latest audiobook adventures, and he asked me, "Do you ever worry that one day you might live in a totalitarian regime in which the freedom to read whatever you want is not allowed?" My answer: EVERY DAY. Which is why I've been working on my "Books to Save In Case A Totalitarian Regime Takes Over" List for a long time:

1. The Bible
2. The Complete Works of Shakespeare
3. The Brothers Karamazov
4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I'm convinced that these are the books which would bolster my courage in the face of pure evil, and keep me constantly reminded that Goodness, Truth, and Beauty still exist in this world. These are the literary masterpieces that would uphold my soul in the hour of darkness.

(On a side note: I believe that this is also why I attempt to--and sometimes succeed at--memorizing prodigious amounts of Scripture. Surely I am spurred on by a desire to know God and be transformed by His Word, but I also harbor a very melodramatic and inspiring vision of the West falling, and when we all meet together underground to piece our lives and literatures back together, I can supply Colossians and 1 John for the welfare and benefit of my fellow man! [Obviously on an even greater side note, I have read Fahrenheit 451 far too many times.])


All that to say, Sean and I have decided that when we have our own place, we will specifically arrange a collections of books that we will easily be able to grab in case the government suddenly falls and the Marxists--or, God forbid--the KJV-only fundamentalists take over and drive us God-fearing, literature-loving, Harry Potter and Walt Disney fans underground.