The Covenant of Water, written by Abraham Verghese and illustrated by Thomas Verghese
Spanning nearly 80 years, this novel is about multiple generations of a family in India, a family with several members who have an aversion to or have died in water. From a 12 year old girl forced to marry a 40 wear old man to that same girl's granddaughter as an adult, the reader's drawn into the messy, beautiful, challenging, and inspiring lives of the characters, discovering along the way how their stories are intertwined. This book was a gift from a friend and it convinced me that I don't inherently dislike really long books. In fact, I can love them.
p. 27, "Molay, the sweetness of life is sure in only two things: love and sugar. If you don't get enough of the first, have more of the second!"
p. 122, Secrecy lives in the same room as loneliness.
p. 235, "It's fiction! Fiction is the great lie that tells the truth about how the world lives!
p. 487, "What you see as being generous or as being exploitation has everything to do with who you're giving it to."
p. 507, "Mariamma, sometimes when you are most afraid, when you feel most helpless, that is when God is pointing out a path for you."
p. 618, "Looks change, but character doesn't. So, focus on character, not looks."
He Still Moves Stones, written by Max Lucado
Lucado's such a great storyteller and I love his writing style. This book highlights several people in the Bible, showing how Jesus met them right in the midst of their struggle and brought them peace. It's a reminder that he offers us the same thing he offered them - himself.
p. 23, Bitterness is its own prison.
Black and cold, bitterness denies easy escape. The sides are slippery with resentment. A floor of muddy anger stills the feet. The stench of betrayal fills the air and stings the eyes. A cloud of self-pity blocks the view of the tiny exit above.
p. 24, You can choose, like many, to chain yourself to your hurt.
Or you can choose, like some, to put away your hurts before they become hates.
p. 30, You've probably got a tar baby in your life, someone you can't talk to and can't walk away from. < snip > Tar-baby relationships - stuck together but falling apart.
p. 58, Which, by the way, isn't a bad definition of faith: A conviction that he can and a hope that he will. < snip > Faith is the belief that Got is real and that God is good. < snip > Faith is not the belief that God will do what you want. Faith is the belief that God will do what is right.
p. 77, Disappointment will do that to you. It will blind you to the very presence of God. Discouragement turns our eyes inward. God could be walking next to us, but despair clouds our vision.
p. 88, The power is not in the prayer; it's in the one who hears it.
p. 120, Legalism doesn't need God. Legalism is the search for innocence - not forgiveness. It's a systematic process of defending self, explaining self, exalting self, and justifying self. Legalists are obsessed with self - not God.
Legalism:
Turns my opinion into your burden. There is only room for one opinion in this boat. And guess who is wrong!
Turns my opinion into your burden. There is only room for one opinion in this boat. And guess who is wrong!
Turns my opinion into your boundary. Your opposing opinion makes me question not only your right to have fellowship with me, but also your salvation.
Turns my opinion into your obligation. Christians must toe the company line. Your job isn't to think, it's to march.
If you want to be in the group, stay in step and don't ask questions.
p. 191, There is someone who is like you were. And she or she needs to know what God can do. Your honest portrayal of your past may be the courage for another's future.
The Humanity of Homelessness, photography by Blakely Dadson and published by Street Psalms
This small book is a collection of photos taken of people from Church @ the Park and includes their personal descriptions of what it's like to be homeless. Highlighting a community in nearby Salem, it's a call to remember that those living on the streets and in their cars are real people and to care for them as such.
This Is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live, written by Melody Warnick
Warnick, who moved frequently and quickly became discontent in each new town, decided to be very intentional about learning to love her newest location. A combination of others' research and her own experiment in loving where she lives, this book will encourage the reader to find meaningful ways to plug into their community. For those who are hesitant to make the effort, the book has lots of new ideas and the encouragement of an author who often had to stretch her own comfort zone. For those, like myself, who are naturally wired to do many of the things in this book, there are new perspectives to consider and ideas to implement. This was the choice for a local book club with a January theme of non-religious self-help or inspiration.
p. 15, I began to wonder if in all these years of waiting for a town to wallop me over the head with its made-for-me glory, I'd had it all wrong. What if a place becomes the right place only by our choosing to love it?
p. 21, If you want to love your town, I decided, you should act like someone who loves your town.
p. 55, It sounds crazy, but most of the time I never thought about the cause-and-effect line between the money I spent and other people's lives. Shopping online divorced my buying habits from human interaction, which made them seem like they carried no consequences.
p. 61, I could, though, nudge out "cheap" for "local," at least some of the time.
< snip >
To make local shopping seem more doable, Baxter came up with an easy formula: Spend a total of $50 at three businesses in your town each month.
p. 62, If we want businesses that contribute character and vibrancy to our towns to stick around long term, we have to spend some cash there.
p. 79, Block parties and potlucks speak everyone's language.
p. 81 (quoting the Saguaro Seminar), "If you had to choose between 10 percent more cops on the beat or 10 percent more citizens knowing their neighbors' first names, the latter is a better crime prevention strategy."
p. 88, More than anything else, relationships with people are what make you feel at home in your town.
p. 101, A town is what you think it is, and thinking that your town has plenty to do, even when that might not be objectively true, has a tangible effect on its economic success. It's like our cities can tell that we love them.
p. 132, To fall in love with your town, do what your town is good at - preferably with other people.
p. 139, Physically, community service is as satisfying as gorging on burgers and as calming as a session of yoga, but without the nasty side effects of Zoloft.
p. 139, Volunteering in your hometown, you reap a double-whammy benefit: Helping out makes you feel better while simultaneously making your city a better place to live.
p. 147 (quoting Don Samuels), "Lots of people would like to see neighborhoods change," he says, "but they don't want to have to change their own life to modify them."
p. 152, Money changes your town. Giving money changes you. When you invest, you feel invested.
p. 185, When you love where you live, you care what happens there. You want to get involved, and cities thrive on that involvement.
