fathermothergod: My Journey out of Christian Science by Lucia Greenhouse

image from LibraryThing

I really didn't know much about Christian Science when I started reading this book.   What I did know was a vague understanding of no birthdays, no doctors and a some sort of cult that Tom Cruise was a part of.  I was partially right - but not about the Tom Cruise part.

This is a deeply personal story of a daughter coming to grips with choices her parents made and the consequences that the children must pay.  This is a story of a family - a close knit family that is pulled apart by religious differences.  This is a story of pain and more pain and in the end mostly pain.

Lucia is the middle child of three.  When she was little her parents joined the Mother Church - the Church of Christian Science.  Their belief is that physical pain is not real, so illness is not real.  It can be prayed away - they called it working on a problem.  I find it very interesting that science is in the name - yet the deepest tenet of the faith is a complete denunciation of medical science. That was not really explained.

Lucia's father, Heff, believed that Christian Science cured his stuttering.  And that was only the beginning.  As children, Lucia and her siblings they went to church and went to their large family gatherings. All in this uppercrust extended family were allowed to follow their own path - but no one really addressed it.  The problems in Lucia's family came as the children were growing up. When Lucia realized that her headaches were caused by poor eyesight she had a horrible fight with her father just to go to the eye doctor.  And when she and her brother had chicken pox she remembered her mom taking her to grandma's for funny tasting applesauce while dad was at work.  Those memories piled up and Lucia became very confused!

Even these spats were nothing compared to the all-out, family destroying brawl that was to come.

There are parts of this story that are difficult to read with out hitting someone over the head.  I just couldn't understand the blind focus on anything but medicine.  It just seems so obvious!!

But, I could understand the dedication they felt to their faith. Heff and Joanne, Lucia's parents, completely and totally believed and couldn't understand their children's lack of faith.  It was crystal clear to each side how ridiculous the other was.  That understanding was difficult for me  - especially when it was the children trying to convince the parents.

Lucia is a great storyteller - her tale winds sometimes - but stays true to the focal point - Christian Science killed her parents.  That isn't quite the same as the subtitle on the cover - but I think it's more the true title.

Interesting read.
I would recommend this if you are interested in faith traditions and family dynamics.

Singing Hands by Delia Ray

image from LibraryThing

My good friend, Phyllis, recommended this book to me. She knows my connections to sign language. It's one of the new books in our school library this year.

Here is a great moment in time captured by the granddaughter of two deaf grandparents. So, it's based on many real family stories of Delia. The story centers around Gussie who hates that her deaf parents aren't like everyone else in Birmingham. It all comes to a head one hot summer. It begins with her humming loudly during the worship service at the deaf church where her father is the minister - she and her two hearing sisters are the only ones that can hear her.

Her nasty and obstinate side continues through clandestine searches through the boarders rooms upstairs and continues to her skipping Sunday school at the hearing church downtown. All this naughtiness comes to a screeching halt when she is discovered. Her punishment is a very eye-opening experience which changes the way she sees her family and her life.

I worked with hearing impaired students for 2 years in Ohio and lived with a hearing impaired adult. Nancy taught me sign language and a whole lot more. I think she would really like this book.

Nancy grew up in the mid 70s when signing was still not really very accepted. She went through hearing schools and was proud of her lip reading abilities. That is until she went to Galludet College in Washington DC. It was there that she understood and embraced what it meant to be deaf. She completely changed her life. She became a teacher of deaf children - starting a preschool for deaf kids in Wooster, OH. That's where I came to know her. Today, Nancy is teaching deaf children in Belize.

This book made me think about what life was like for Nancy - growing up different. When I lived in Ohio, Nancy and I went out to eat one time and sat at the table signing back and forth to each other. I didn't really think about it until the waitress came to our table and didn't know what to do. She stood and stared and then bent over and very carefully and clearly asked us for our order. There was a moment when I had to decide what to do... I answered her, she blushed and moved away. In that moment - I understood what it really felt like to be different - to be deaf.

Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

image from LibraryThing

This is the kind of book that you need to pause and reread. It's a very short book and an easy read.
 But, there is so much to it.

On the surface it's a simple travel story about a simple young Spanish man who wants to travel instead of becoming a priest. He becomes a shepherd so that he may travel around the Spanish countryside and see what the world is. He is happy.

Then he has a dream of treasure, meets a gypsy fortune teller who asks him for 1/10th of the treasure he will find by the pyramids in Egypt, and an old man in a village who tells him of the Soul of the world and the quest for his Personal Journey.

Suddenly it is not enough to simply be a shepherd, instead he feels the challenge and the call of the unknown.

So, why does this mean anything to me? It's the idea of a personal journey. Something that we feel and understand when we are children and slowly give up as we grow older. That nudge that we feel toward a certain something...and then it gets buried deeply under the pieces of our life.

What have I buried? What would it take to seek it out again. That is what this book asks me. And as the young man travels and meets others and learns to listen to the sounds of the desert and the camels and the world and as he notices the omens in his path I wonder.

What have I failed to hear and notice?
What have I been afraid to notice?
Is it too late??

There was one story in particular that brought me up short. It is a story told about an old man who is assured one of his sons' words will be known for generations. One of his sons was a warrior and the other a poet. The father is thrilled to think his poet son will be remembered. Then at his death he is taken into the future and he sees his son's words. But, they are not the words of a poet, rather they are the words of a Centurion who believed that Jesus Christ could heal his servant with out even being there. The faith and the belief of this warrior son have lived on for thousands of years.

So I want to read again. I want to read it with a pencil in my hand, because I'm pretty sure it's right in front of me.

World Without End by Ken Follett

image from LibraryThing

I must admit I was a little disappointed. I feel like sort of a traitor admitting that.

I so loved Pillars of the Earth!
 I've had World for quite a while and have saved it until I had the time to really sink into it....

I did like it, but World was almost the same as Pillars - just 200 years later.

The deep love relationships are thwarted again and again.
The pompous, hypocritical church tries to control events again and again.
The main characters are the only town members with vision and common sense - again.
The nobility are cold, heartless, twisted and only cared about appearance and money - again.

There were chapters I felt like I was watching a traffic accident. I was too curious to stop, but it was so painful to read the details.

Had I read this first - I think I might have called it my favorite.
I cared about the characters more than Pillars. The plague and the 'witch' accusations are a part of history that I've actually heard of - so it made it all more plausible.

But - I also need to admit that I read into the single digits of the night more than once with this story.

Bottom line - I really liked the story, the characters, the whole plot. But, standing on this side and looking back - it felt too much like a rerun for a wholehearted recommendation.

Shucks!

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

This was one of those books I just couldn't put down. It's a historical epic about the building of a massive cathedral in 1100 England.

The book follows four different characters and their families as they cross paths over many years. It opens with a disturbing hanging and a curse called down by a distraught woman....

From there it follows the path of Tom Builder and his family as they travel on foot from town to town looking for work as a stone cutter and builder. Times are difficult and the family experiences terrible tragedy when Tom's wife Agnes dies. But, their luck seems to change as they happen into Kingsbridge the same day the wooden roof of the old tumble down church burns down. The church is completely destoryed and Tom helps Father Phillip, the head monk of the small village, decide what to do to begin to solve the church's problem. So begins the building of the most amazing chuch rural England has ever seen.

Follett makes the reader appreciate the intricate detail and incredible work that the ancient builders experienced when creating their masterpieces. I'm not a builder, but I enjoyed the description of the hand labor that was required.

This incredible creation of beauty is surrounded by the squalor of the living conditions of many peasants of the day. The dicotome ( great word, right) of these two lives comes into play as Aliana enters the tale. She is the spoiled daughter of an Earl who loses his position when his castle is overtaken by William, a bully and a thug. This is allowed because of the political times. As William comes to claim the castle he also claims Aliana for his own by brutally raping her. Aliana and her brother Richard are penniless and lost. Yet, Aliana is resourceful and devises a way to regain some of their wealth by gathering the wool of the local farmers and taking it to market. Only to find that the sellers will not deal fairly with a young girl. Enter Father Phillip, he becomes the go between for the wool. And both Aliana and the Prior at Kingsbridge become very wealthy.

All of that takes about the first 100 pages of a 900+ page book.

It is so worth it!! I was enthralled from beginning to end! This is one I would gladly recommend for those who want to be lost in another time and life. It made me appreciate my hot shower, warm food and privacy!!

The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad

This was an interesting and disturbing book.

It follows a 'typical' Afghanistan family for several months in the Spring after the Taliban fled from the country. The author is a female Swedish journalist who moved in with the family. She observed, traveled with the men, worked with the women, wore a burka, and according to her, "I have rarely been as angry as I was with the Khan family, and I have rarely quarreled as much as I did there. Nor have I had the urge to hit anyone as much as I did there."

One of my favorite aspects of the book is the way you see into the family life. Women are trully possessions and slaves. Their value is measured by the way they make their men happy - not only husbands, but fathers and sons as well. A man ALWAYS had more power than the women regardless of the age of the man or the woman. My guess is that was one of the reasons that Asne (the author) was so angry so often.

Although this was a fairly wealthy family - 11 lived in a 2 room apartment with inconsistent water or electricity. Sultan ( the bookseller, father and strongest family member) decided everything including who or if his youngest sister would marry or continue to be a virtual house slave is Sultan's home.

This was a great book to read after A Thousand Splendid Suns. This was the nonfiction version of life at the end of the book.

It is hard for my American sensibilities to understand how the power structure has evolved. It is almost impossible to imagine how it would feel to always accept that my sex makes me second rate. It was not only the Taliban who promoted this - Burkas and female subordination existed before their rule.

This book brought up more questions for me -as we try to understand a different culture there is so much to know.

I would recommend this one too!

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

This is a heart breaking story of loss and stamina. A great second novel about the beauty and despair and hope of Afghanistan and the people who live there.

I read this book in a long day - I spent much of the afternoon in the hospital waiting room as my mother-in-law recovered from foot surgery. Then I finished it this evening. I think it gives a different perspective in a reading so close together.

The story follows the lives of two very different women - Mariam and Laila. Both are raised near Kabul. But their lives are very different. Mariam is the illigetimate daughter of a prominant Heran resident. She is raised by a bitter and saddened mother. She believes explicitly what her father tells her on the weekly visits to her hovel. Yet, when she comes to him to claim her as his rightful daughter, he sends her away to Kabul to be married to Rasheed, a man 20 years her senior. Years of miscarriages have changed the way this couple functions - Mariam is little more than Rasheed's slave and punching bag.

Laila is the youngest daughter of the local teacher. She is his pet and her learning never stops. That is until the Soviets take over and the bombs begin. After her family is killed she is taken in by Rasheed and becomes the second wife in this disfunctional home.

The years pass with each one bringing additional hardships and increasingly impossible living standards. Then the Taliban takes over.

I kept thinking about how this could all happen. Afghan was a wealthy and culturally vibrant country before.... then the wars started and slowly the people unraveled placing their hopes on different saviours. Each a bit more awful than the one they had lived under. It's easy to imagine that this could only happen over there... but the over there seems to be creeping ever closer.

It drew me up short and forced me to think a bit - or a lot. Would I have the resilence to continue?

I would highly recommend this one - but I would recommend the Kite Runner first - it's his first novel and an amazing story. These two work well together - the first from the man's perspective and this from the woman's. They are equally sad and yet full of hope!

Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult

Another AMAZING Picoult book.

Mariah is totally smitten by her husband. Unfortunately he doesn't feel quite the same way about her. When she and her daughter Faith catch him in their bedroom with another woman the marriage is officially over. Seven years earlier Mariah completely fell apart to the point of suicide after the same kind of an incident. THis time she has Faith and things are different and completely the same.

As Mariah fights to keep her sanity Faith begins to talk to an imaginary friend, her Gaurd. When Faith begins spouting scripture from the Old Testament Mariah realizes there is something not quite right. See, they are complete unbelievers - not just lapsed Jews or Christians, but unbelievers. So, Faith has never heard any verses from the Bible.

As Mariah tries to find an answer to Faith's 'problem' word that she is seeing God and a female God at that begins to leak out. People gather at Faith's home - a cult, a group of Catholics for a female God, and Ian Thompson the unevangelist for Aethists.


That is the scene. Catholics begin researching to see if she is really speaking to God - Jewish leaders question her connection as does her father - especially after she begins to bleed from her hands. And she begins healing people - including bringing her Jewish grandma back from the dead!!

Through the entire story I kept wondering....who would God appear to? Is a 7 year old all that unusual? Would I hear the voice if God appeared to me? And what about this bleeding - could that really happen?

This is one of those very thought provoking books that keeps you wondering. I loved it!!!

07/07