Author Carey Wallace writes:

Discipline is not a mystery. Its elements are so simple they can seem mocking. Put down the extra slice of bread. Run one more mile. Pick up the pen, or brush, or violin. It’s no more complicated in the creative spheres. But it’s every bit as elusive there as it is in the world at large. “I want to make work,” people often confess to me when they discover I’m a working writer. “I just never seem to get to it.”

If you roll in a creative sphere, this is a must read.  I’m surely glad I stumbled upon it. Read the whole thing, “On Discipline” here.

My nephew and godson turned 3 this past week.  I decided, and was prompted, to make him a book. It’s a colourful one that summarizes some of Andrew Murray’s life-changing principles from With Christ in the School of Prayer into (hopefully) simple-to-understand truths.

Here’s screen shots of a few of the 20 pages from the book (in no particular order):

I had to rearrange my living room to read and appreciate Anne Carson’s book Nox (see proof below).  The book is an epitaph for her brother Michael.

It is an ahistorical history of the man, explained through translated description of ancient words in Greek, pieced together like the tattered letters and collage included in the book, a poetic memoir of personal memory, and deconstruction of the history of Herodotos:

“I wanted to fill my elegy with light of all kinds,” Carson writes.  But much of the book is fixated on night, darkness, what she cannot know.

… death makes us stingy.  There is nothing more to be depended on that, we think, he’s dead.  Love cannot alter it.  Words cannot add to it.  No matter how I try to evoke the starry lad he was, it remains a plain, odd history.  So I began to think about history.

And who was the man who fled the country and did not speak with, write, or contact the mother who so missed him, praying day and night, for years:  a draft-dodger? a man who  faced certain arrest for dealing drugs?) who traveled overseas, loved and lost, and upon reconnecting with his younger sister, had little to say.

Carson’s writes with her usual, perplexing honesty, asking questions that unsettle and evoke more questions:

His voice was like his voice with something else crusted on it, black, dense – it lighted up for a moment…then went dark again.  All the years and time that had passed over him came streaming into me, all that history.  What is a voice?

The book is haunted and illuminated by a poem by Catullus, an elegy Carson explains he wrote and read for his brother who died in the Troad, a poem whose precise translation perpetually evades her.  Like the illusive ancient poem, Carson gropes in the dark, prowling for her brother’s history to understand it, translate it, to turn on the light.

The book is best described as perpetuum, both in its construct, design, and figurative essence.  Carson defines perpetuum, among the many other descriptions she includes, as “having an unbroken extent or expanse, continuous in space… the whole of anything measured from end to end….”  Whatever else it is, Nox certainly is a measured and moving epitaph.

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Anne Carson, Nox.  New Directions: New York.  2010.

Benjamin Perrin‘s comprehensive look at human trafficking, Invisible Chains, the first book of its kind published in Canada, is important, timely, and helpful.  It is a clear call for Canada to return to its triumphant stand as a beacon of light as it was as the Underground Railroad during the slave trade in the United States.

Perrin writes an alarming story:

…human trafficking has taken hold across the country and is thriving due to a lack of a coordinated response from federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments.  Canada must take greater steps to ensure that traffickers are prosecuted, victims are protected, and this assault on fundamental liberties is stopped.  But government alone cannot solve the problem.  The solution lies in a community response–and the realization we all share in the responsibility to end trafficking and restore Canada as a safe and prosperous society for all of its citizens and newcomers (218).

Informative for legal experts, law enforcement, NGOs, anti-trafficking agencies, and laymen, the book is thorough in its assessment of the reality of trafficking in Canada, the extent to which it is being effectively addressed, and suggests plans of action all of the above can sink their teeth into.

Perrin gives Canada a failing grade for its efforts to combat trafficking and looks to countries like the USA, Sweden, and Italy as nations to learn from and implement similar strategies to in the fight against modern day slavery.

The book is not only critical.  It is a call to action with practical suggestions of ways address trafficking.  For instance, noting that police across Canada confirm that escort agencies and massage parlours typically front as legitimate businesses when in fact they are selling victims of human trafficking, Perrin suggests mayors, city councilors, and by-law officers should “remove licensing from these illegal enterprises and find less dreadful means of filling the community coffers” (157).

The book also examines the grooming techniques gangs, pimps, and exploiters use to prepare victims for lives of indentured sexual slavery within Canada.  “By showering a targeted girl [victims typically seeking love] with affection and fulfilling her material desires, the trafficker builds allegiance, eventually allowing him to manipulate her” (64).  The fact that pimps and traffickers publish and refer to literal hand guides on how to work their dark arts, Perrin emphasizes the national embarrassment of not having yet adopted a national plan of action: “traffickers in human lives have a plan, Canada does not” (218).

Not only does Invisible Chains include a very detailed approach to amending the national response to trafficking with suggestions for the federal government, provincial and territorial governments, local police, businesses, communities, and parents, it also includes a 10-point action plan for individuals.  Two of the helpful suggestions include 1) a blacklist of forced labour trafficking products released by the U.S. Department of Labor that ranks 122 common goods from 58 countries considered the worst for child and forced labour and 2) directions to Crime Stoppers and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection to report warning signs of trafficking or online sexual abuse, imagery, child luring or trafficking to authorities (1.800.222.TIPS and www.cybertip.ca, respectfully).

Whether the reader knows much about trafficking or little, Invisible Chains will prove an informative and important read.  Its reliance on methodical research, insightful critique, thoughtful explication, and heroic reference to proven abolitionists – Martin Luther King Jr. and William Wilberforce of the past, present day abolitionists working in Canada, and survivors of horrific crimes – it will certainly usher many Canadians further in the urgent and noble pursuit of a Canada freed from slavery.

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Benjamin Perrin, Invisible Chains.  Toronto: Viking Canada.  2010.

I had a lot to choose from.  And certainly the titles I read weren’t all published in 2010; most of the books that made it on the list weren’t either. Perhaps it means I’m behind the times, or that books just have a long shelf life.

I wanted to select a work by RS Thomas whose poetry I discovered for the first time this year and enjoy (though after reading a biography of the man I was brought back down to earth).  I was torn by the decision not to include the account of a favourite playwright, William Gibson, bringing his his first play to the stage.  And I couldn’t include Benjamin Perrin’s Invisible Chains, a look at human trafficking in Canada, which I only just acquired and have yet to read, but expect will be fantastic.

I’ve chosen, instead, two few theological expositions, a biography, a lyrical volume of real human horror, and one of the most intriguing stories with a narrative voice like none other I’ve ever read.

The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
A page-turning, midnight-oil kind of read. The story of a young girl orphaned in Nazi Germany and taken in by a foster family. Her soft-hearted foster father teaches her to read with the first book she stole, the grave-digger’s hand guide she nabbed from the snowy ground where her brother was buried.  Narrated by Death, the story of the Book Thief as she lives through four years of the war, is filled with impossibly delightful metaphors, tenderness and irreverence. The book left me with a revelation of humanity that, as Death experiences himself, is haunting.

Surprised by Hope, NT Wright.
Wright examines what the Christian hope is (the Redemption of all things, including matter and the human body, foreshadowed in the real space-time resurrection of Christ), what the Resurrection promises (God is surely making all things new), how the Kingdom comes (perpetually, violently, until, well, Kingdom come…) and what all of the above implies for the current life of the believer (a life of meaning, pursuing beauty, justice, and announcing the good news). It leaves you, nearly, with head spinning and hope awakening in the hardened areas of the heart.  Engaging, accessible, and perpetually quotable.  My first ever full-Kindle (for iPod) read.

Sold, Patricia McCormick
The story of a young Nepali girl named Lakshmi, sold by her step-father to a brothel in India. Told in short vignettes, the book is poetic, descriptive, sparse, beautiful, tragic, and breaks the heart. It’s almost impossible to put down. We need more stories like it, read by more and more people, so that there will be less and less stories like it. A gift of a book.

Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation, Miroslav Volf
With so much attention in my life, as of late, on ideas of justice and identity, this is a near perfect read in the given context.  No other book have I dog-eared the corners of pages than Chesterton’s Orthodoxy.  Volf has a rare ability to make plain very complex and high-end concepts.  He pulls from, engages, challenges, and often undresses major schools of thought and the brightest thinkers among them.  His passage examining the parable of the prodigal so engaged and impacted me, I had to pick myself up off the floor.  An important read for anyone who wonders if reconciliation and justice are possible on this planet.

Abandoned to God, David MacCasland.
Biography.  A dangerous word.  How are we to read and write them?  I think it best for the writer to have if not admiration, a complete and invested fascination and commitment to deal fairly with the man.  MacCasland puts together an incredible picture of the man, with thoroughly researched work that pieces together Chambers’ history as the beloved preacher and teacher, mostly through his own writing.  He clearly paints a picture of a man who lives up to the books’ title.  It’s a glowing view of Chambers, that leaves a little room to wonder about his deep struggles (which are alluded to, but ultimately little accessible due to Chambers’ near silence on the subject).  What a vision of a life surrendered to God it leaves, something surely that can stir the heart of any woman or man.

I’ve been trying my hand at a new technique to make journals from scratch.
It requires no sewing, which makes me happy.  The binding is a bit of a trick.
I have lots to learn, but it’s a fun curve.

I found a really fantastic illustrated children’s book at a local book sale with striking drawings.
I gave the homemade gift to Christy, my sis-in-law, for her 25th.

What’s your non-exhaustive list? Here’s mine.  Permit me to add to it later:

G.K. Chesterton |Inspired by his unapologetic apologetics; touched by his romantic and sweeping faith, thrilled by his unadulterated humor and the skill with which he turns an argument on a dime.

Marilynne Robinson | If I could reach into someone’s guts with a story like she did me through Gilead, to churn and hurtle the inner man with such emotional resonance, I could die a happy writer.

William Gibson (the playwright, although what I’ve read of the cyberpunk novelist of the same name I admire) | The moments of revelation he earns, through surprise, in a single line in those plays of his I’ve seen or read depress and school me as a writer.

Annie Dillard | I wish she wrote more, which is both a stupid thing to say and a compliment.  Perhaps she takes to heart the advice of another writer I admire and wish wrote more,

Harper Lee | who said, “I’d rather be silent than be a fool.”  Perhaps the literary world is just better for what they have and have not written.

Anne Carson | Have you read what she does with words?  Over my head with delight.

Charles Dickens | Have you noticed that thus far all the writing men I’ve mentioned are no longer living?  Foreboding.  I’m amazed that he wrote such staggering plots, masterpieces like A Tale of Two Cities, episodically.  That means he wrote the story as it was being serialized!  Don’t act like you’re not impressed.

G. Campbell Morgan | If you read one of his sermons, especially during his time at the Westminster Pulpit, you will know why.  He knew how to till the earth and plant a pregnant seed.

Hey.  Here are two writing men that are alive:

Bill Watterson | Yes. The man of Calvin and Hobbes fame.  Because he is intelligent and hilarious and because he said this: “It’s always better to leave the party early.”

Paul Haggis | Bringing story, actual story, to cinematic audiences.

Oh, here’s a third:

Michael Ondaatje | Gee, Andrew, who doesn’t want to write like a Booker Prize-winning author’s whose work is translated into Academy Award winning films?  Look past the accolades, and read his poetic, visceral work so grounded in the senses.

Okay, I actually have to curb this list and go and write for awhile myself.  But a quick more few:

Paul L. Maier | What I’ve read of his historical fiction captivated and intrigued.

John Donne | (I told you this was in no particular order). Oh to write such surprising and perplexing metaphysical conceits!

Peggy Noonan and Ann Coulter | Because paradox means, certainly, that things –lists included– don’t go feeble at the end.  I admire the thoughtfulness and brazen conviction; the awe and the shock; the tenderness and the sharp edge. Punches that aren’t pulled though they both do not pull punches differently.  Herbal tea and the gin.

There are more, and there are lesser writers too.  But away I go to write, inspired.

I think I discovered another vocation…or another piece to the creative puzzle.

Playing with Books:

The Art of Upcycling, Deconstructing, and Reimagining the Book

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I picked up Frederick Buechner’s The Sacred Journey for some outdoor, summertime reading. It was fitting to read the book lying on the grass with the sun blazing a halo of glory as poplar tufts drifted uninhibited like enchanted spirits. The book examines sounds and snapshots from his life that impressed themselves, for whatever reason, vividly upon his memory.

In the book, Buechner shares his journey from childhood to the point of his second novel and how he discovered in his late twenties that writing, for him, was a vocation, “for better or for worse to involve that searching for, and treasuring, and telling of secrets which is what the real business of words is all about.”  And through that journey, the pull and push of words, how he came to faith.

Buechner listens to the sounds of his life.  Men at work constructing something in another room.  The rooster down the street, crowing.  A grumbling stomach. A priest walking passing him on the way.  All sounds of his life, with its harmonies and disharmonies, speaking to him, telling him something – that life, each life, is not only a journey, but a sacred one.