I mentioned before how much I've been enjoying Amish fiction lately. I think it has to do with having recently read Amish Peace. In any case, I did enjoy The Sound of Sleigh Bells by Cindy Woodsmall. It was a poignant holiday story, and I particularly enjoyed getting an inside glimpse of an Amish store. Here's a little more about the story from the publisher (who sent me a free copy of the book to review).
Beth Hertzler works alongside her beloved Aunt Lizzy in their dry goods store, and serving as contact of sorts between Amish craftsmen and Englischers who want to sell the Plain people’s wares. But remorse and loneliness still echo in her heart everyday as she still wears the dark garb, indicating mourning of her fiancé. When she discovers a large, intricately carved scene of Amish children playing in the snow, something deep inside Beth’s soul responds and she wants to help the unknown artist find homes for his work–including Lizzy’s dry goods store. But she doesn’t know if her bishop will approve of the gorgeous carving or deem it idolatry.
Lizzy sees the changes in her niece when Beth shows her the woodworking, and after Lizzy hunts down Jonah, the artist, she is all the more determined that Beth meets this man with the hands that create healing art. But it’s not that simple–will Lizzy’s elaborate plan to reintroduce her niece to love work? Will Jonah be able to offer Beth the sleigh ride she’s always dreamed of and a second chance at real love–or just more heartbreak?
I also have an extra copy of this book to give away. It would make a great Christmas present! Leave a comment on this post before November 1, 2009 for your chance to win. (US addresses only, please.)
I have been intrigued, and a little put-off, by the phenomenon that is Facebook... so when The Church of Facebook by Jesse Rice came up for review I was interested to read it. I'm not sure why, but I was expecting the premise to be that people are "worshiping" on Facebook as if it were a church. Sometime about the title confused me, I think. In any case, it wasn't what I was expecting, but it was definitely a fascinating read! The book helped explain to me why Facebook is so popular, and how we can reach out to and minister to those on our "friend" list. I highly recommend it as a "must-read" for anyone active on Facebook!
Akumal, Mexico, is just over an hour south of Cancun on the Mexican Riviera, a quaint resort community surrounded by white sandy beaches and lush jungle palms. Its miniscule “downtown” is composed of two small grocery stores, half a dozen restaurants, and a scuba-diving shop. It is positioned on a long stretch of beach regarded for its snorkeling and giant sea turtles. It is a tourist trap but few tourists know of it, keeping life in Akumal consistently vibrating at little more than a soothing hum. In other words, it is paradise.
On New Years Day 1998, three particularly pasty psychologists found themselves luxuriating in Akumal while discussing the topic, “What makes people happy?” As soft, eighty-degree breezes swept over the tops of their little tropical drinks sporting little tropical umbrellas, it was difficult to imagine discussing anything else.
Renown psychologist Martin Seligman was one of the three. His round, clean-shaven face and mostly bald head framed an easy smile, making him look like a beardless Santa Claus with a badly sunburned nose. Together with Ray Fowler and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (yes, that’s a lot of consonants but it’s easily pronounced: “cheeks-sent-me-high”), he was celebrating his very first day as president of the American Psychological Association. Seligman was known around the world for his work studying learned helplessness, depression, and, conversely, for his founding contributions to the emerging field of positive psychology. Each incoming APA president is asked to choose a theme for their yearlong term of office. Seligman, frustrated that so much of his field seemed entirely focused on the broken parts of humanity, wanted to steer things in a more optimistic direction. Thus the quiet beach resort, thus the tropical drinks, and thus the question, “What makes people happy?”
One year after that very conversation, Seligman and company—plus a group of young talent being groomed to lead the charge for a more optimistic approach in their field—returned to Akumal as part of a first annual conference on “positive psychology.” The tiny beach community had never seen so much pale skin. Not that psychology had always turned a blind eye to optimism. Throughout the decades there had always been a few rogues willing to brave their fellow researchers’ suspicious looks and folded arms in order to promote a more positive approach to well-being. But here was the beginning of a movement to reorient the entire field, to mainstream what had until then seemed little more than a fringe curiosity.
In the years following the conference, the evidence for what makes people happy began to roll in like a gentle wave in Akumal. What did researchers find? You may be surprised.
More money doesn’t make you happy. Yes, we’ve all been told that “money can’t buy happiness,” but here for the first time was actual scientific research that showed, once our basic material needs are met, additional income does almost nothing to raise our sense of satisfaction with life. (Wouldn’t we all love the chance to prove the exception to the rule?) How about education? Would another degree at a better institution make me happy? Again, research showed that more or better education or even a higher IQ did not equate to happiness. How about the quest to remain eternally young? In a culture that has elevated adolescence into an art form, surely perpetual youth would make us happy? Not so fast. Older people, studies revealed, were consistently happier than younger people. They were also less prone to bouts of depression. What about sunny weather? Be honest: Aren’t Californians happier than Michiganders? Research suggested that while those surveyed in the Midwest assumed Californians were a happier bunch thanks to their extra dose of vitamin D, it turns out there is no correlation between balmy weather and consistent feelings of well-being (though after a long Portland, Oregon, winter, my in-laws usually beg to differ).
So what does cause happiness? Dr. Edward Diener—known to his associates as “Dr. Happiness”—conducted a 2002 study along with Martin Seligman at the University of Illinois. That particular study summed up much of positive psychology’s overall findings. Students who tested with the highest levels of happiness and the fewest signs of depression all had one foundational thing in common: significant social ties to friends and family.
In other words, connection is the key to happiness.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Authentic connection,” writes psychologist Janet L. Surrey, “is described as the core of psychological wellbeing and is the essential quality of growth-fostering and healing relationships. In moments of deep connection in relationship, we break out of isolation and contraction into a more whole and spacious state
of mind and heart.”
At the root of human existence is our great need for connection: connection with one another, with our own hearts and minds, and with a loving God who intended intimate connection with us from the beginning. Connection is the very core of what makes us human and the very means by which we express our humanity. As Surrey notes, there are no “growth-fostering” or “healing” relationships without connection. Apart from its presence the human heart becomes isolated and fragmented. Let’s look more closely at the power of connection through the lens of two compelling stories.
~~~~~~~~~~
Harry Frederick Harlow was born October 31,1905. His parents were Mabel Rock and Alonzo Harlow Israel. Harry Harlow was not Jewish, but as an adult he changed his original surname from “Israel” to “Harlow” because he feared the prejudice he likely would have encountered in academic circles of the 1940s and ’50s. In grade school and throughout high school, Harlow demonstrated great proficiency in English, so when he headed off to university, he naturally chose English as his major. Harlow spent his first year studying at Reed College in Oregon and then transferred to Stanford University. At Stanford, Harlow continued his studies, but to his surprise, began doing very poorly in his English courses. Partly to avoid flunking out of Stanford and partly due to a growing interest in human behavior, Harlow switched his studies to psychology. Small decisions can make a big difference. Harlow’s decision to switch majors would eventually revolutionize the entire field of psychology.
Harlow completed both his undergraduate and doctoral degrees at Stanford, taking a professorship at the University of Wisconsin almost as soon as he removed his graduation gown. It was at Wisconsin that Harlow would make a name for himself in a series of cleverly designed experiments that involved a seemingly endless supply of rhesus monkeys.
Harlow, who looked exactly like what you’d expect from a research scientist in the 1950s—white lab coat, horn-rimmed glasses, grease-slicked black hair—was interested in love. In fact his name eventually became synonymous with the “science of affection,” and his best-known paper was titled, “The Nature of Love.” Harlow’s fellow researchers often heckled him and dismissed his fascination with affection for not being “scientific enough.” But he wasn’t deterred. Love was on Harlow’s mind and he knew it was on most other minds as well.
Interestingly, Harlow’s own romantic life would itself become a laboratory of love. He met his first wife, Clara, while she was a subject in a famous IQ study that Harlow just happened to be helping to administer. Clara posted a whopping 150 on the IQ test—well into the “genius” category. They were married in 1932 and had two children, Robert and Richard. Harlow and Clara later divorced in 1946. One
year later Harlow remarried. His new wife, Margaret, was herself a bright psychologist. Together, they had two more children, Pamela and Jonathan. Sadly, Margaret died in 1970 after a long battle with cancer. Again just a single year passed before Harlow was married once more. What kind of brilliant mind did he choose to wed this time? To everyone’s surprise Harlow remarried his first wife, Clara. They lived out the rest of their days together until 1981 when Harlow passed away. Hollywood screenwriters have written less interesting love stories.
But all of that lay in the future. For now, as a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Harlow’s primary “romantic interest” was in primates. One experiment in particular put Harlow on the map. Curious how infant rhesus monkeys would behave in an artificial environment, Harlow and his team built two artificial monkey “mothers.” The first was constructed of simple wire mesh and had a blank-faced head screwed on the top with a tube running out from its neck that could deliver milk to the infant monkey. It resembled he kind of demonic stick figure that people typically ignite at the end of the annual Burning Man festival. The second “mother” was identical except that its “face” was more monkeylike, and its wire mesh frame was covered with soft, warm terrycloth. It looked like an elongated furry snowman that would like to be everyone’s friend. There was one more key distinction between the two mothers: The cloth-covered contraption did not have a feeding tube. It was incapable of providing the infant monkey with food.
The black-and-white film from Harlow’s experiment is both hilarious and heartbreaking to watch. As the tiny elflike monkeys stumble around their cages just a few days after birth, they quickly climb up and take a sip from the wire mother but then scramble immediately back to the cloth mother, where they spend the vast majority of their day. If any element of fear was introduced into the environment, as was the case when researchers placed a drum-playing toy bear into their cage (and who wouldn’t find such a thing troubling?), the little monkeys always ran to the cloth mother for comfort instead of the fooddispensing
wire mother, clinging to her with all their strength until the fear passed.
Harlow and his team had expected the infant monkeys to create some kind of “bond” between mother and child immediately following birth. What they did not anticipate was, if forced to choose, the monkeys would select the nonfeeding cloth mother over the food-delivering wire mother every time. Their need for comforting connection, it seemed, was even greater than their need for food!
But there was more. Following his initial discoveries, Harlow introduced a series of modifications to his experiment. In one case he took away the choice between monkey mothers by separating the infants into two different environments: one with only a wire mother and one with only a cloth mother (a tube was added to the cloth mother to support feeding). Harlow found that monkeys from either environment developed physically at the same rate. It appeared there was little or no difference in the “connective effects” of cloth or wire. This seemed to imply that what the monkeys were connected to did not really matter. The only important thing was that they had some kind of connection.
But the scary drum-playing toy bear changed all of that. When the mechanical bear was placed in the “cloth” cages, the frightened monkeys would scramble on to the cloth mother, cuddling and rubbing against her until they were at last able to calm themselves. At that point, the monkeys would relax and
even become curious and playful about sharing a cage with a toy bear, venturing away from the cloth mother in brief excursions to sniff and paw at it.
The monkeys in the “wire” cages, however, could not have responded more differently. When the menacing toy bear was introduced into the wire cages, the little monkeys fell to pieces. They threw themselves on the floor, and rocked back and forth. They screamed in terror. The effect is so dramatic
that footage from the experiment can be quite disturbing to watch.
What Harlow concluded was that the monkeys in the “cloth” cages must have had access to some kind of psychological resource—what he later called emotional attachment—to help them deal with challenges in their environment, especially the introduction of fear. The monkeys in the “wire” cages had no such resources and fell apart at the first sign of danger. This, Harlow began to see, was evidence that there was in fact a certain kind of connection important not only to healthy development but also to serve in adequately facing challenges that might appear.
Harlow found that there are indeed different types of connection that make for different types of responses. There are some types of connection that enable adaptation and resiliency. There are other connections that create psychological breakdown. The monkeys from either cage developed physically at
normally expected rates. They appeared to be identically healthy and normal from the outside. And they behaved as you would expect healthy monkeys to behave. But those similarities vanished the moment some change—especially some threat—was introduced into their environment. When that happened, the difference in their “inner” realities became obvious. One kind of connection had led to the inner strength necessary to cope with and even overcome environmental changes. The other had led to inner chaos and a radically diminished capacity to cope with anything at all.
Harlow’s findings reflect what we now know to be true for human babies, as well. Bonding, the psychological process by which a mother creates a safe and nurturing environment for the child to develop, lays the groundwork for the baby’s ability to grow into a healthy and well-adapted adult. That is why, as soon as is possible, the new mother is handed her fresh-out-of-the womb baby to physically bond with. If a physical connection is not possible—for example, a health issue that requires the baby to initially be kept in an incubator—mothers are encouraged to speak tenderly to their child, connecting and intimately bonding through the soothing tones of their own voice. Studies have shown that, just like the little rhesus monkeys, a human baby’s need to bond with its parent may be even more important than
its need for food.
Harlow’s findings revolutionized the way psychologists thought about human relationships. Until then it was unlikely any scientist in his right mind would have claimed that some kind of emotional connection was more important to a growing infant than the most basic of all needs, food. But what Harlow demonstrated so vividly with infant monkeys, and what study after study has shown to be all the more true in human beings, is that connection is not just “what causes happiness.” It is also our most basic need.
~~~~~~~~~~
The reality of our innate need for connection is often most clearly revealed in the experience of dis-connection. Dropped cell phone calls, the loss of a job or career opportunity, a romantic breakup, the death of a loved one—each kind of disconnection alerts us to the fact that we were meant to connect. The feelings that result from a broken connection can run the gamut from simple frustration to complete personal devastation. But we need not explore something as painful as death in order to further illustrate the effects of disconnection. We can do something as simple as turning on the “telly.”
The BBC, the United Kingdom’s mammoth media empire, produces some of the most clever and thought provoking programming that often tickles the funny bone while stretching the intellect. And no, I’m not talking about The Office. In 2006 a BBC television series called Horizon invited six people to take part in a compelling experiment. Adam, Claire, Rickey, Judy, Barney, and Bill agreed to subject themselves to forty-eight hours of sensory deprivation. They signed up to be “disconnected” in every way in order to see what would happen.
Adam is a stand-up comedian in his late twenties. He has a significantly receding hairline, a slight paunch in his belly, and eyes that appear slightly crossed. He’s the most extroverted of the six, a person who—like most extroverts—requires a great deal of sensory stimulation to make sense of the world. He jokes self-effacingly as he imagines the toll the next two days will take on him. “I’m afraid I’ll go mad. What if I start smashing things up?”
Claire is also in her late twenties with short dark hair and a pretty smile. She says she likes a challenge. “I do try to push myself.” As a doctoral student in psychology, she seems ideally suited to thrive in an experiment where her mind will be put to the test.
Bill looks lean and strong and is a former ad executive. He is the oldest in the bunch. He plans to cope with the forty-eight hour experiment by using his skills in meditation. “Every day I like to spend time on my own. I sometimes fantasize about being a hermit, about living up in the mountains and coming down to buy a few supplies in town, then going back to my cabin.” If anyone is going to be fine after two days without human connection, it seems to be Bill.
Rickey is a thirtysomething postal worker whose primary hobby is running one-hundred-mile ultramarathons. Yes, you read that correctly—one hundred miles. He plans to think of the experiment as just another test of his endurance.Barney is a film archivist who imagines quietly that he will probably have a hard time over the next two days. Judy is a copywriter for a toy manufacturer. “I’m very excited to get started,” Judy says, not sounding too excited at all. “I don’t know how I’m going to last, but I guess I’ll just keep going.”
As you can see, the “Horizon Six” were not extraordinary people, at least not any more extraordinary than the rest of us.3 They all had their own ideas of how to best handle a situation like this and their own concerns about whether those techniques would actually work. They were average folks who simply wanted to put themselves to the test, to see what would happen when they were disconnected from life as they normally experienced it.
The experiment took place in an abandoned nuclear bunker, the kind of dark and creepy place straight out of a Hollywood horror film. Walking down the stairs and into the long, dimly lit halls of the concrete structure, one might expect to stumble upon a cast of overly attractive twentysomethings being systematically stalked and hacked to death by some very disturbed but strangely likeable assailant.
The six subjects were given a battery of tests to use for before-and-after comparisons. In the first test, they were given a letter—F, for example—then asked to think of as many words as possible in one minute that began with that letter. Classic Adam: “Fake, farting, football …” For the most part, each of the six breezes through, listing dozens of words that begin with F, though no one else seems to come up with anything as creative as a “fake, farting, football.” The next test is presented to them. In this one the subjects are handed a sheet of paper. On the paper are the names of colors printed in columns: black, red, green, etc. But here’s the catch: The names of the colors do not match the actual color of the ink with which they were printed. For example, the word “black” was actually printed in green ink, the word “red” was printed in black ink, and so on.
The subjects are then asked to name the color of ink with which each color’s name was printed. It’s trickier than you think. Our brains typically register a printed word before we register the color of the printed word. But with a little bit of thought, each subject does quite well. They moved on to the final test. While the researchers were curious how the subjects would perform on the first two tests—any drops in performance would be easy to measure when everything was over—they were secretly interested in something quite different.
The last test, the one the researchers were most interested in, measured “levels of suggestibility.” What they wanted to find out was just how vulnerable someone might become to the power of suggestion when they are cut off from connection, disconnected from their social and sensory worlds. Would they fall for a lie? Would they give in to someone else’s point of view even if it were clearly “wrong”? To test for suggestibility, the researchers read their subjects a story with lots of intricate details, then quizzed them. “Was the assailant hit with a fist or a handbag?” Claire is asked. She looks at the researcher with a furrowed brow. “Well, neither.” Claire gets it right. They were trying to pull one over on her, but she was alert for the details. In fact all of the men and women in the group tested fairly well in the first round. In other words, they had very low levels of suggestibility and could not be talked into believing something
that wasn’t true.
With the testing behind them, the Horizon Six were placed into tiny individual concrete rooms with nothing but a lonely bed for furniture. The rooms looked very much like prison cells without toilets. Three of the subjects were placed in rooms completely sealed off from any light source; they could not see their hands in front of their faces. The other three were placed in well-lit rooms, but it came with a catch. They were stuffed into large, padded gloves and socks to disrupt their sense of touch, frosted goggles to completely hinder their vision, and headphones that played nothing but white noise to thwart their hearing. (The gloves were later removed when the subjects complained of painful rashes.)
As the experiment finally got under way, Claire was immediately overwhelmed by the inky blackness of her cell. She anxiously relayed to her observers that her bed sheets were cold and wet and that something should be done immediately to remedy the situation. Intending to remain silent so as not to influence any outcomes, her observers acquiesced to her concern and assured her via intercom that she was mistaken. The sheets were not wet, they said. She was just imagining things. “I don’t think you’re taking my concerns about the blankets very seriously,” Claire lamented. “No one should have to sleep in wet sheets.” After a short time Claire gave up trying to convince them and climbed into a fetal position on her bed.
After just nine hours the subjects were showing signs of wear. “I’m finding this grossly boring,” said Barney. Adam echoed Barney’s thoughts: “It’s unbearable. I can feel my brain not wanting to do anything.” Adam’s statement may not be far from what actually happens during solitary confinement and sensory deprivation. Just as new neural pathways form in our brain as a result of stimulation, there is now research to show that the opposite may also true. If the brain does not get the stimulation it needs, it begins to turn to mush. Bill, who seemed so keen to spend time by himself in the beginning, now complained, “I don’t really want to be here. It’s starting to get on my nerves. I feel like a … helpless lab rat.” Claire was found in her “cell” counting to herself. Barney had taken up singing. Judy, in the meantime, had simply fallen asleep.
After twenty-four hours (or the time it takes Jack Bauer to save Los Angeles from imminent destruction), the subjects began to exhibit truly bizarre behavior. They raised their voices in angry complaint to the walls. They wept uncontrollably. Many experienced vivid hallucinations. Adam reported, “I thought I could see a pile of oyster shells, empty, to represent all the nice food I could have eaten inside here.” Poor Claire was suffering similar effects. “There’s a snake there,” she said, pointing to the floor. In another strange visual display of the effects of disconnection, almost all the subjects began to pace their tiny rooms back and forth, their brains working to selfgenerate some kind of stimulation in order to keep them going. Not Judy, of course. Judy was still asleep. Judy’s eternal sleep, it turned out, was simply her body and mind’s way of dealing with the overwhelming lack of connection, just another form of a coping mechanism.
After forty hours Adam was in tears. “This is close to insanity.” The subjects seemed to have plummeted in both cognitive and behavioral functioning. Barney was singing again—poorly. Most had begun “hearing things,” and claimed that “someone seemed to be in the room” with them. Judy was—you guessed it—still sleeping.
Finally, the experiment came to a close. A researcher’s voice broke through the inky silence in each of their cells, causing them all a fright. “The forty-eight hours are over.” Adam cried out for relief: “I just want to kiss the person who’s letting me out!” Bill was similarly thrilled and laughed to himself. Claire
was visibly relieved. Judy mumbled sleepily, “Oh. Excellent.”
But before they could be reconnected to the outside world, the subjects were readministered the same battery of tests they were given at the beginning in order to reveal any cognitive changes resulting from their two days as lab rats. Of course, almost without exception, everyone performed poorly, further
proving the disabling effects of isolation (as if anyone needed more evidence than the video footage captured in each subject’s room5). Finally, the camera followed each of the six as they walked back through long, dark halls, up the tall steel stairs, and finally out into the sunshine. Adam, Claire, Rickey, Judy, Barney, and Bill were elated to be set free into a world brimming with connection. “My senses are overwhelmed by the sights, sounds, and smells,” said Adam. “You have no idea how good this feels.”
BBC’s Horizon experiment revealed two natural results of disconnection that illustrate our human need to connect. The first result: Cut off from connection, our ability to make sense of the world begins to break down. We begin to see things that aren’t there, to buy into a reality that is wholly skewed. There were no snakes slithering on Claire’s floor. Neither were her sheets wet and cold. They were dry and room temperature, the same as everyone else’s. And Adam did not really have a large pile of seashells growing at the foot of his bed. His room was as empty as the rest. In the real world—the world of connection—Claire and Adam were normally adjusted human beings. In the experimental world—the world of disconnection—they became hallucinating paranoids.
The second result demonstrated by the Horizon experiment was that, cut off from connection, our ability to cope with reality quickly dissolves. In just one day of sensory deprivation and social isolation, each subject was reduced to infantile and even animalistic behavior. They cried uncontrollably and talked to
themselves out loud. They rolled up into fetal positions and huddled on their beds. They yelled at the unsympathetic walls of their room. They even paced their constricting cages like jungle animals, waiting for the moment to attack and escape. Apparently baby rhesus monkeys aren’t the only mammals that
fall apart without the proper connection.
Obviously, the six subjects in the Horizon experiment were placed in extraordinary circumstances. Not many of us (hopefully) live in tiny concrete rooms dominated by an absence of sight, sound, and touch. But the experiment proved what Martin Seligman and his associates began to uncover on the beaches of Akumal, demonstrating its truth by revealing its opposite: If connection can make us happy, then disconnection can make us unhappy. No matter how it was tested, though, connectedness mattered.
~~~~~~~~~~
Two stories, one common thread woven throughout: the inestimable power of connection. As we saw with Harlow and his monkeys, connection lays the groundwork for growth. In connection we find comfort and safety. We find a nurturing space that allows us to develop as a whole person, maturing inwardly even as we develop outwardly. Without it we might fall apart in the face of terrifying teddy bears. But in the presence of connection, the same toy bear—or whatever real-world challenge we might face—can become a mere curiosity, something we simply adapt to and overcome, growing stronger as we do.
The Horizon Six echoed Harlow’s research: Apart from connection we fall to pieces. Our physical, emotional, and cognitive powers weaken significantly. We become vulnerable to suggestion, and can be easily led to believe things that aren’t true. Our decision-making ability gets cloudy. Our way of viewing the world becomes skewed. We question our ability to cope: Are we going crazy? Will we be able to make it? Am I truly alone? Disconnection seems to leave us locked in little rooms with no light source and no sense of when the madness will end. But it also reminds us of how precious connection truly is. Remember how the subjects responded when finally released from captivity, when they were finally reconnected to their natural environment? Adam, the highly extroverted stand-up comedian, said it best: “You have no idea how good this feels.” Connection, it seems, makes all the difference.
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Of course, we are talking about a certain quality of connection, aren’t we? Not just any connection can keep someone from falling to pieces. The average television satellite dish connects us to two hundred-plus channels, each with its own endless number of programs. But not many of us can claim that such a wide variety of connections has revolutionized our lives. Clearly not just any connection will do.
We can look to our own life experience as evidence in the case for quality versus quantity. There are certain people whose emails and phone calls we answer right away, and certain other people whose emails and phone calls we don’t answer at all. If we are having a particularly difficult day, questioning our own worth, wondering what is the point in going on with life, we tend to share this with a certain kind of person and not necessarily the young man behind the counter of our nearest gas station.6 Similarly, if we have good news to share—if a wedding is proposed or a baby is on its way—celebration is usually all the more rich when communicated to certain favorite people.
If we are to make sense of why certain kinds of connection are beneficial and certain others aren’t, we must be more precise in our definition of “connection.” We have to get clear on what kind of connection has the power to secure, grow, free, and transform us. Toward the beginning of this chapter, I quoted psychologist Janet L. Surrey. Here she is again.
Authentic connection is described as the core of psychological wellbeing and is the essential quality
of growth-fostering and healing relationships. In moments of deep connection in relationship, we
break out of isolation and contraction into a more whole and spacious state of mind and heart.
Surrey uses words like “authentic” and “deep” to convey the type of connection that is powerful enough to break us out of “isolation and contraction into a more whole and spacious state of mind and heart.” Even though “authentic” and “deep” are still fairly ambiguous terms, they’re a good place to start. Let’s
build on Surrey’s ideas.
Henri Nouwen, the great spiritual writer of the last century, was a man constantly in search of connection, and his many books represented that search. He wrestled with feeling loved even as he wrote about being the beloved (Life of the Beloved ). He wrestled with hope as he spiraled down into the inky depths of depression (The Inner Voice of Love). He reflected on life in the face of his own mother’s death (A Letter of Consolation). And even though he was a Dutch Catholic priest, his largest audience, by far, was American Protestant evangelicals. The paradox of Nouwen’s life and his message brought hope and healing to millions of readers around the world. His popularity revealed just how well he understood the human condition. He described it this way in his book Lifesigns:
Probably no better word summarizes the suffering of our time than the word, “homeless.” It reveals
one of our deepest and most painful conditions, the condition of not having a sense of belonging, of not having a place where we can feel safe, cared for, protected, and loved.
Nouwen claimed that human suffering was the experience of “not having a place where we can feel loved, safe, cared for, and protected.” He explained that this is what it means to be “homeless.” We can use the inverse of Nouwen’s definition of suffering to help us find a more clear definition of connection: The kind of connection we’re longing for—whether consciously or unconsciously—is the kind that creates a sense of belonging within us, a sense that we are “safe, cared for, protected, and loved.” In other words, we feel most at home—most ourselves—around people with whom we experience that deep and authentic connection that Janet Surrey talked about. As such, we know that, whatever else connection means, it has to include the qualities that most make us feel “at home” in the world.
Finally, listen to this simple dictionary definition, one of several found for the word connection:
A friend, relative, or associate who either has or has access to influence or power.
This is the definition we use when describing someone who got where they are in life because they had “great connections.” But it’s also a description of the kind of connection that matters. We might say, then, that the recipe for the kind of connection we’re trying to define is one that includes authenticity and depth. It is sprinkled with protective safety and dignifying freedom. It contains heaping portions of loving concern for our becoming a better, more whole person. It is seasoned with access to transformative power.
When used in its very best sense, the word home summarizes this definition perfectly. Most of us come from homes that have been fractured in some ways. Many have not been safe, nurturing places. We haven’t always gotten the support and protection we needed. But ideally home was meant to be all of those things—a safe, nurturing, transformative environment where who we are—just as we are—was always celebrated. A place where our highest potential was encouraged and sought after. When we go looking for a best friend, we go looking for home. When we go looking for a spouse, we go looking for home. When we turn our attention to the divine, to spirituality of all kinds, to God Himself, we are looking for home.
There is a truth about our longing for home—our search for community—that emerges from the beginning of the Bible in the second chapter of Genesis: “It is not good for the man to be alone.” God makes this profound observation immediately after breathing His Spirit into Adam. God has just created something that appears to be incomplete; it’s missing something. Has He made a mistake? What does God do in light of his conclusion that “it is not good for the man to be alone”? The answer seems to emphasize the need for a certain quality of connection. God’s response to incomplete Adam: “I will make a helper suitable for him” (Gen. 2:18). To be clear, God was not making a statement about gender roles, assigning women the collective position of “administrative assistant.” Nor was He making an isolated statement about the preeminence of marriage (though marriage, with its qualities of mutual submission, self-sacrifice, and unconditional love, has always been a biblical archetype for every kind of community). Rather, God was clarifying that the fullness of our humanity could only be truly expressed through relationship with a suitable other.
The key word here is suitable. What kind of connection would best “suit” Adam? What quality of relationship would not only meet his basic needs for “home,” but also help him grow and flourish? Badgers, despite their sassy attitude and rugged good looks, did not “suit” Adam. Could he find this quality of connection with a giraffe? Could he teach a parrot enough words to connect in conversation? Adam found himself in what was likely the most beautiful garden ever imagined—couldn’t it have been enough for him simply to connect with nature? While Adam’s ability to care for and relate in healthy ways to his environment was vitally important (as it is for us today), his greatest need for connection was with one of his own. The quality of connection capable of meeting Adam’s need for home was to be found in intimate relationship with another human being. He needed one of his own and that’s what he got—perfectly matched Eve (for whom Adam was also a suitable helper). Remember, Adam was surrounded by creatures. He lived in a world saturated with life; there seemed no end to his connections.
But by intentionally creating both Adam and Eve (and every man and woman since) “in His image” and placing them in unique relationship with one another and with Himself, God demonstrated that the quality of a connection clearly matters.
~~~~~~~~~~
Think back now to the book’s introduction. When the ribbon was cut and hundreds of people began to make their way across the Millennium Bridge, their individual footsteps generated energy. At first this energy was random, firing all over the place. But very quickly the energy became “synchronized.” It began taking on a life of its own as it passed through various points in the bridge’s structure. That new synchrony, or new “order,” forced the pedestrians to begin walking in step with one another, waddling en masse in a “skating gait.” The event pointed toward the first “reality” we discovered in the case of London’s Millennium Bridge. Here it is again:
1. There is a force that is capable of synchronizing a large population in very little time, thereby creating spontaneous order.
Now consider this: In the first quarter of 2009, five million people joined Facebook every week. In addition, Facebook’s membership doubled from one hundred million to two hundred million people from August 2008 to March 2009. Perhaps most incredible, the vast majority of its members—140 million, in
fact—have only been on the rolls since February 2007. That’s 140 million new users in just over two years. Facebook isn’t just a white-hot social-networking platform. It is a radical example of Steven Strogatz’s spontaneous order.
In a very short period of time (five years), a very large population (several hundred million and counting) has been synchronized (pulled into the orbit of a single Web platform called Facebook). And what kind of gravity is capable of accomplishing such a feat?
The human need for home.
It might sound a bit ridiculous. After all, who would claim to be looking for home in a social-networking site like Facebook? We’re there to keep in touch with friends and family, to make some new friendly connections or reconnections, to share small slices of our personal worlds through pictures and status updates and playful games of Mob Wars. We just want a little mindless entertainment, for heaven’s sake. But as we’ll begin to see in the next few chapters, home is exactly the kind of connection that Facebook is offering. For now it is enough to say that the human need for home is plenty powerful enough to create a spontaneous order all its own. Not even Steve Strogatz saw this one coming.
But what is the nature of this new “order” and how does it help us make sense of this tendency to seek out home wherever we can find it? That’s what we’re going to explore next. And while we began this chapter on the warm, white sand beaches of Akumal, Mexico, I’m afraid we’ll need to venture to a slightly less exotic locale to facilitate our exploration in the next one. I’m referring, of course, to the tiny community of Angola, New York.
I like to read a well-written children's book every now and then. The Blue Umbrella by Mike Mason falls in that category. The Blue Umbrella is a somewhat "dark" fantasy story kind of like the Lemony Snicket books or Harry Potter, which are very popular with today's kids. There are some creepy characters who do very weird things... yet a flicker of hope is woven throughout the book, and the disturbing elements are satisfactorily resolved for a happy ending. I enjoyed it!
Special thanks to Audra Jennings of The B&B Media Group for sending me a review copy.
Zachary Sparks, though small for ten years old, had a look perpetual astonishment that made him seem larger than life. His eyes were nearly the biggest part of him, round and wide, and his eyebrows had a natural arch as if held up with invisible strings. His voice was high and excitable and his whole body
seemed full of little springs. Even his hair, fiery red and frizzy, looked as if he was the one hit by lightning. Everything about Zac Sparks was up, up, up.
Until his mother died and everything changed.
Zac lived with his mother beside a golf course. Every day after school he picked up balls from his backyard to sell for fifty cents apiece. He was happy and carefree and his mother was good to him. He had no father. At least, he’d never known his father.
At night, when there were no golfers, Zac’s mother liked to go walking across the wide, rolling lawns of the course. To her it was like a big park. She never met anyone else out there. This was a small town and it was quite safe (except for lightning). She liked being in nature and she loved all kinds of weather, especially weather that had what she called character, the kind you could feel on your skin: wind, cold, hail, pelting rain, thunder, and lightning.
Whenever a good electrical storm happened in the middle of the night, Zac’s mother would wake him up and they’d sit on the veranda listening to the long, almost articulate rumbles and watching the lightning illuminate the great treed corridors of grass. The two wouldn’t say much. They didn’t have to. The sky did the talking for them. Some of Zac’s happiest memories were of sitting up with his mother at night to revel silently in storms.
The irony was that Zac’s mother was killed by something she loved. It happened one night when she went walking in the pouring rain, carrying, as usual, her umbrella. Of course, she knew better than to go walking on a golf course with an umbrella in a thunderstorm. But this was not a thunderstorm. On this night there just happened to be one stray bolt of lightning.
One was all it took. Her crumpled body was found the next morning in the center of a fairway. The canopy of her umbrella had been completely consumed, leaving nothing but the skeletal metal frame.
It was the first day of December, just weeks before Christmas, and Zac Sparks was an orphan.
That day and the next were a blur. Even the funeral, on the third day, Zac scarcely remembered—except for the moment when the coffin was being carried outside through the church doors. The weather was unseasonably mild; instead of snow a light drizzle fell. As the coffin moved down the steps and was
loaded into the hearse, the rain turned to sleet, then to hail. Small white pellets of ice filled the air and bounced all around like popcorn—one bounce, then still—as though the ground were alive. The clatter, especially loud on open umbrellas and on the wood of the coffin, was like applause.
Then Zac saw something he’d never seen before: a hailbow. Though he didn’t know to call it that, he knew it was special. It was one of those days when about five kinds of weather were in the sky at once. There were towering clouds, black ones very black and white ones very white and fierce-looking. Between the two the sun came out and brilliantly illuminated the hail. It was like being inside a living diamond. Then the ice wall began to move away and against its glitter he saw the hailbow. It was like a rainbow but pale, almost white, with just the loveliest hint of ghostly hue. The whole scene was so dramatic—huge clouds, falling ice, sunshine, the bow—and in a few minutes it was all over. But it stayed in Zac’s memory, just as if his mind’s eye had snapped a photograph.
After that, everything was swallowed up by the Aunties. Zac didn’t know them; they lived far away in a place called Five Corners. When he first met them at the funeral reception in his home, he began to understand why his mother had never mentioned them. They were horrible.
They were very, very old. Auntie Esmeralda, especially, was so ancient she looked ready to crumble away like a frail piece of lace. Her skin, where not obscured by a thick paste of makeup, was an unnatural, papery white, and she was draped in a long white fur coat. Very tall, she carried a cane, held herself rigid as a ruler, and wore her gray hair long and straight like a girl’s.
As Zac stood bewildered in the midst of the reception crowd, that gray curtain brushed his face and a thin, metallic voice rasped in his ear, “You poor, dear boy. How tragic to lose your mother. And in such a horrid way.” Auntie Esmeralda sounded as if she had a file stuck in her throat, scraping the human warmth off every word. “But don’t you worry. You’re coming home with us, isn’t he, Pris?”
Home with them? Zac’s home was here. With his mother gone, Mrs. Pottinger from next door had been staying with him, just as she had every evening when his mother went walking.
“Dear boy, you have nothing to fear. Your Aunties will take good care of you.” This came from Auntie Pris in a voice two octaves lower than Esmeralda’s. Much shorter than her sister, Pris seemed almost as wide as the other was tall. More than fat, she was big: squarish, broad-shouldered, solid as a stump. In contrast to Esmeralda’s fur, Pris was dressed in a short pink skirt with matching polka-dotted blouse. Perched on top of her blockish head was a pink pillbox hat. Zac was torn between amusement and horror.
Of course, the Aunties were terribly nice to him, hugging him to pieces, patting his extraordinary hair, crooning condolences, and plying him with cookies. Zac hated it all. These strange women were more suffocating than the stiff collar and suit he had to wear.
Sure enough, their tune soon changed. When the reception was over and everyone but the Aunties had left (including even Mrs. Pottinger), they began barking orders: Do this, do that, shut up, stop moping or we’ll give you something to mope about. Finally Zac was sent to his room, where he listened restlessly to a fitful wind that developed into driving rain, horrific lightning, and great claps of thunder exploding like bombs. Amidst this clamor, for some reason the most terrible sound was the occasional tap-tap-tapping of Esmeralda’s cane.
Early the next morning he was roughly awakened as the Aunties, each yanking one of his arms, dragged him from the house and shoved him into the backseat of their big black Cadillac. Throughout that long, stormy day they drove, stopping just once for gas and food. Where did these old women get such energy? It was bizarre—their mysterious vitality combined with an appearance of decrepitude. Throughout the trip
Zac sat silent, dozing or staring out the window, his left leg jiggling in a nervous tic.
Only once did the Aunties speak to him. Esmeralda, who was at the wheel, turned to him and glared. “Zachary”—she spoke his name as if it were a dead rat she held at arm’s length by its tail—“is a ridiculous name. From now on we’ll call you Boy.”
And so they did. But his name wasn’t all Zac lost that day. He’d had no chance to pack any of his belongings or toys—not his giant monkey, nor his collection of soldiers, nor his box of interesting bits of metal. Not even a toothbrush or his army camouflage pajamas. All he had was the suit on his back and a
photograph of his mother that he’d slipped into his pocket.
In this rude fashion was Zachary Sparks uprooted from his childhood home and whisked away to the town of Five Corners to live in a mansion with a plaque by the door that read THE MISSES ESMERALDA AND PRISCILLA HENBOTHER. The Aunties were, it seemed, his only living relatives; there was no one else to take him in. Their house, built of stone—even the floors were marble—had the bleak, dank feel of a castle. No
wonder Auntie Esmeralda always wore furs, though Auntie Pris huffed and puffed about in short sleeves, her bright pink skin glistening with sweat.
The place was loaded with china. Hundreds of figurines occupied coffee tables, glass cabinets, windowsills, every available surface. Zac noted a preponderance of elephants, but there were also large vases, luridly painted plates, baskets of swollen fruit. All were made of the most delicate-looking porcelain, as fragile as they were ugly. How did two such large and ancient ladies manage to navigate this glass jungle without breaking anything? All Zac knew was that it was no place for him.
From the moment they arrived, the Aunties bombarded him with warnings: “Don’t sit there, Boy … Be careful around that lamp … Do try to keep your leg still …” What was Zac to do? At least the Aunties’ silence in the car had left him to sort through his own thoughts. Now every word they spoke froze him tighter until he felt like one of those awful china figurines, condemned to hold one position forever. He was so nervous that, while trying to avoid a row of plates, he backed into a whatnot (a piece of furniture whose only purpose, he decided, was to hold knickknacks in ambush for boys) and broke a small pink elephant.
“Idiot! What have you done!” screamed Auntie Esmeralda in a voice itself like breaking glass. Auntie Pris, down on all fours to scoop together the fragments, sobbed as though tears might glue the elephant back together. How strange to see this huge woman crying over a trinket! Meanwhile Auntie Esmeralda, tall as a thunderhead, planted herself directly in front of Zac and croaked, “You … you wicked, clumsy imbecile! Go straight to your room.”
Zac didn’t move. He didn’t breathe.
“You heard me, young man. March!”
Still he didn’t move. He’d turned to stone.
“What’s wrong with you?” she demanded.
“Auntie,” he finally managed, “I don’t know where my room is.”
Esmeralda’s pale head on its long, wrinkled neck turned once to the left and then around to the right, like a bird’s, as though examining him with each eye separately. “Well, we’ll soon fix that. Pris, escort this boy to his room. Something tells me he’ll be spending a lot of time there.”
Leaving her precious pile of shattered china, Auntie Pris, with considerable effort, heaved herself to her feet. Drying her eyes with an enormous pink hankie, she growled, “That boy needs a cage, not a room.” Spinning him around with surprising force, and poking him in the back with a finger stiff as a billy club, she marched him out of the parlor, up a broad staircase, and along the hall to a door on the right. There, completely filling the door frame, she panted, “You’d better change your ways, Boy, or you won’t survive long around here.” Thrusting him inside, she shut the door and rattled a key in the lock.
So there he was. The room had a bed, an end table, a wooden chair. Its one window was already claimed by darkness. Though the storm had abated, a wind still blew and tree branches scraped against the pane. Rain drummed steadily.
For a long time Zac sat on the edge of the bed, his mind numb. Eventually he recalled the picture of his mother, still in his suit pocket. He pulled it out, but it was too dark to see and he couldn’t find a light. Cold, he climbed under the thin quilt and lay there, stiff as a corpse. He returned the photograph tohis pocket but kept his hand on it.
And so concluded Zachary Sparks’s first day in Five Corners, the first day of the end of his life. The Aunties might as well have put him in the coffin along with his mother and let the dull rain pound them both into the ground.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the Lexi Stuart novels by Sandra Byrd: Let them Eat Cake, Bon Appetit, and now Pièce de Résistance. I always love to learn something new when I read novels, and with this series I have been fascinated with the skills and educational process of "culinary artists." My favorite book in the trilogy would have to be this last one, Pièce de Résistance, because all the "loose ends" were finally wrapped up. Just a really fun read!
Here's the first chapter of Pièce de Résistance:
Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask.
Everything you want also wants you.
But you have to take action to get it.
Jules Renard
If I had known exactly where and in what kind of trouble I was about to land, I’d have stayed in Paris.
“Come on, dear.” A wizened woman dragged a shuffling friend past me and down the long carpeted hallway. “We don’t want to get in the way of Rosa’s granddaughter, even if she’s sitting on our couch.” She threw a dirty look over her shoulder.
I started to stand up and get out of her way, but she disdainfully waved me back into my seat.
“WHO?” her friend shouted as I sank back down.
“ROSA’S GRANDDAUGHTER. She’s sprawling on our couch.” I flinched at the vocal hurricane, but no one else seemed to notice. Or maybe they just couldn’t hear it.
For the time being, I was crashing at the guest apartment at my nonna’s retirement community. Where else could I get in on such short notice? It was twenty dollars a night, and only for a week or so…I hoped. “Well, they do have a lot of singles,” I’d told my best friend, Tanya, as she laughed at the news. “And they do love what’s left of life.”
“I think it’s cute,” she’d said. “You can get a personalized pill container and swap horrible doctor stories.”
“Ha ha,” I’d answered. “Be careful, or I’ll hold your bridal shower there on bingo night.”
I’d stayed with my parents on Whidbey Island for the two weeks since I’d been home from France. Yesterday they’d dropped me and my gear off at the retirement community, though most of my stuff was still in storage awaiting my “real” apartment. And now I sat in the common room, not realizing I’d poached what someone considered her personal couch, waiting for the afternoon bus to take me to my new job.
I checked my watch again. To pass the time, I thumbed through the Gideon’s Bible sitting on the side table, flipping by chance to the first chapter of Philippians and scanning the extra large print until my eye caught something that hooked into my heart.
And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and
more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be
able to discern what is best.
Oh yeah, I thought. Bring on the discernment. I was starting a new job—the job I’d been hoping for all my life and at which I desperately wanted to succeed. And I found myself embroiled in a romantic crisis where I not only didn’t hold all the cards, but the men involved had turned surprisingly poker-faced about their intentions.
Lost in thought, it took me a minute to realize that a kindly looking man had sat down next to me. He tried valiantly, but unsuccessfully, to clear the phlegm from his throat. I scooted over to both accommodate him and to offer us some personal space. He kept looking at me, but as soon as I looked back at him, he glanced away.
Finally he spoke. “Who are you?” he asked quietly. “And what are you doing here?”
That was indeed the question, and not only for my current living situation. I wished I had an answer.
Nonna breezed in through the lobby, snapping her mauve umbrella shut with a force that belied her age. She kissed the cheek of her companion, Stanley Jones, who tottered off to his own apartment, then came to get me.
“Lexi, love,” she said. “I’m glad I got here in time to see you off. Let’s wait by the door. The bus will be here soon.” On the way through the foyer, she whispered, “I thought I’d mentioned, dear—don’t sit on any upholstered furniture in the common areas. When you get to be my age, many of us have incontinence problems.”
Shocked, I reached around and felt my backside, not caring who saw me. Whew. Dry.
Nonna giggled at my distress, taking everything about aging in stride, as she always did, and looped her arm through mine. “I’m glad you’re home.”
I grinned back at her. “Me too, Nonna.”
“Why can’t one of those nice young men drive you to work today?” she asked.
“I don’t want to ask them. It’s…awkward. I’m not sure where I’m going with either of them right now, and they both have their own jobs.”
“Seems to me a man who likes a woman would offer her a ride,” Nonna sniffed.
“I’m sure plenty of men hitched up their buggies and took you to work back in the day,” I teased.
She grinned wickedly and leaned over to kiss my cheek. “So tell me about the Frenchman.”
“His name is Philippe. He’s really nice, a great baker, and has the most adorable daughter named Céline. He’s taking Luc’s place, the one who moved back to France.”
“He’s one of the owners of the bakery?” she asked, checking creds, as always.
“Yes, Nonna,” I said. “He’s an owner. He’s Luc’s cousin, and the whole family owns all the bakeries.”
“What about that lawyer you were seeing before you went to Paris?”
“Dan?” I kept my voice even.
“Mm-hmm.”
“He’s…here still. Of course. I just talked with him a few days ago. It was his suggestion, actually, for the Delacroix Company to lease the space I’ll be working in. The new bakery.”
“That was nice of him. Who’s the better looking of the two?”
“I’m glad to see your values haven’t changed!” I said, but com- pared them in my mind anyway. Philippe was definitely good looking in a continental way, dark blond hair that just touched his shoulders, a bit taller than me. Dan was built bigger, taller, with broad shoulders I loved to see set off by suspenders. His strawberry blond hair perfectly matched his lightly tanned complexion.
“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” Nonna poked me out of my daydream. “Gotcha!”
She laughed, and I laughed with her as the rain slid down the outside of the window, my hometown Seattle lights blinking away in the drops. “Thanks for seeing me off today. I won’t be long. Just meeting Margot and getting a quick run-through.”
“Of course I’m seeing you off ! Everyone is jealous that my granddaughter is here. I need to brag.”
I saw the bus rounding the corner about a half mile down the road. Nonna saw it too.
“Go get ’em,” she said. “And bring something home from the bakery. Anything with fruits and nuts will be right at home in this place.” She grinned, but I knew she loved her home and her friends.
I walked out the door and started toward the covered bus stop. Not a moment later, though, a motorcycle pulled up and parked in front of the retirement center door a few feet away. Even with the helmet on, I recognized him immediately.
“Philippe!”
What is he doing here? Quickly followed by, He looks good!
“Good afternoon, mademoiselle.” He hopped off the bike and walked toward me, holding out a helmet. “As your employer, it’s my responsibility to get you to work on your first day at the new job, n’est-ce pas? And I was eager to see you again. Sophie told me where to find you and what bus you were likely to take.”
“Oh, thank you,” I said. I introduced him to Nonna, who’d come running out as soon as she’d seen me talking with a guy. “This is my grandmother, Rosa. Nonna, this is my…friend, Philippe.”
“Enchanté.” Philippe kissed her hand.
“Enchantée,” Nonna responded, pulling back her shoulders and making sure the gathering crowd, their noses pressed against the retirement center’s front windows, witnessed the exchange.
As I got on the back of the bike, I said, “I had no idea you had a motorcycle here. Do you also have a car?”
“Oui,” he said, “I do. Luc left his car for me, and I gave him mine in France. But I thought a motorcycle would be fun too.”
He sped up a little, and as he turned the corner out of the retirement center’s curved driveway, I recognized the truck pulling in.
Dan!
I’d told him I’d be staying with Nonna and had planned to take the bus.
I caught his eye, and he caught mine, and I saw the bouquet of flowers carefully propped in the passenger seat. I had no time to wave before Philippe accelerated and we sped off.
I turned my head and squeezed my eyes shut to avoid seeing Dan’s reaction. Nonna would explain it to him.
Nonna was liable to say anything.
A few minutes later, Philippe pulled the bike up in front of a long, black marble-fronted building in the Fremont district.
“Eh voilà!” he said, parking and then holding a hand out to me. “This is it. Do you like it?”
I took his hand, got off the back of the bike, and looked at the building. There were already two gold fleurs-de-lis over the front door, with the gold-lettered word Bijoux—meaning “jewels,” the name of the bakery—centered over the door. Otherwise, it was a blank slate.
“It’s beautiful!” I walked to the huge picture windows and looked in. The room was mostly empty, holding only a jumble of boxes and supplies, and some tarps left over from a recent paint job. But what lines, what bones. What this place could be!
“I can’t believe I never noticed this building before,” I said. “It’s perfectly perfect.”
Philippe laughed. “It’s been recently restored. That’s one of the reasons Luc was drawn to it…until he found out it couldn’t be used for a restaurant. But, ooh la la, what a bakery, n’est-ce pas? Après toi, mademoiselle,” he said, holding the front door open for me.
I expected to be greeted by the chic calm the exterior promised. Instead, I was blasted by a streak of blue French from the kitchen.
“Margot?” I asked in a small voice.
Philippe grimaced. “Oui. La Margot.”
Philippe’s sister Margot was the one downside to this dream job. Since she was a great baker and a member of the family, she didn’t worry that her attitude might lose her a job. She didn’t bother to sweeten it either.
“Bonjour,” Philippe called in what I recognized as his fake singsong voice. I felt torn between my desire to see my new kitchen and my desire to flee at once. Philippe decided for me, pushing me forward.
“C’est Lexi,” he introduced me to Margot.
“Nice to see you again,” I said in English. It was the polite thing to say, even if I didn’t mean it. She ignored me.
“I’m glad we’ll be working together,” I tried in French, an even graver lie. She didn’t return the favor or grasp my hand, but she grunted. French it was, then.
“Alors.” Philippe led the way toward the back of the kitchen. “This part,” he indicated with his hand, “will be mostly for pastries, which Margot will do. She’ll be here part time and at the other bakeries part time too.” He smiled widely and indicated the largest part of the kitchen. “And this will be for the cakes and catering. That’s you!”
I looked at my part of the kitchen. Marble and stainless counters, and lots of tall glass-fronted cabinets for ingredients. A pair of gleaming industrial mixers. Drawers full of equipment, but not in the easiest-to-reach places. I didn’t know who placed some of the utensils and tools. Maybe the guys who’d brought equipment over from the other bakeries.
“It’s everything I could want,” I said. And it was. My own kitchen. Tiny though it was, it was mine.
Philippe opened an armoire. “Here’s where you’ll store the paperwork and computer, and the phone even fits in there. Will this be enough space for the accounting books?”
I blinked and answered, “I guess so.” He’d be a better judge of that than I would.
Margot slammed a drawer, and when I turned around, I saw her grab her cigarettes and a lighter from the countertop. I wrinkled my nose. They should at least be hidden. As she headed out back, Philippe followed her. “Un moment,” he said, winking.
While they were gone, I turned the radio to a warm, low-key favorites station and began rearranging my work drawers. After ten minutes, I had them just so. I also rearranged my countertops and cake decorating materials so it made sense to me.
When Margot and Philippe came back in, I asked him, “How will the front be decorated? Will there be furniture arriving?”
He took my arm, and we headed to the big front room. I could already envision engaged couples choosing their cakes in a chic, refined, leather-furnished room.
“Hmm,” Philippe said. “I hadn’t thought too much on that topic. I am so busy at L’Esperance…” He shrugged, and I knew the burden of taking over their biggest US bakery. “Would you like to do it?”
“Would I?” I grinned. “I would!” I pictured deep blue drapes framing the windows and subtle gold cording. I’d make an appointment for a window etcher to etch the company name in gold on the glass, just like the Delacroix bakery in Versailles.
It was going to look fantastique.
When we got back to the kitchen, my countertops had been completely rearranged back to the previous nonsensical order. Margot’s back was turned toward me, and she quietly hummed along with the radio—not the station I’d turned on. I looked through my utensil drawers. All returned to the way they’d been before I’d fixed them moments ago. I looked at Philippe. He shrugged. I determined not to escalate things and left everything where it stood—for the moment.
“Lexi?” His voice softened. “I have a few questions about some things for Céline…”
“Oh, yes, when is she coming?” I asked, delighted at the prospect of hugging that sweet little bonbon again.
“She’s at her grandparents’ in London but will be here in a few days,” he said. “I’ve signed her up for the French-American school, but there are some other things…” He opened his briefcase and held out a folder. “Do you know a good doctor? a good dentist? And many other questions I need your help with.”
I found it endearing to see him a little vulnerable for once; he was always so in charge. It made him even more appealing.
“Of course I can help you.”
He smiled. “Perhaps we can talk about it at dinner tonight? Incredibly, I have found a quiet little bistro…”
He must have caught the look on my face, because he stopped mid sentence.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve got dinner plans tonight.”
“Ah well.” He shrugged, but looked a little forlorn. “Perhaps another time.”
“Certainly,” I said. “Anytime this week. Stop by for lunch or let me know when it’s convenient.”
With that, he handed me a key and took his leave, and Margot left too. I locked the doors behind them and then sat on one of the bar stools next to the counter. I looked around.
It was all mine, my kitchen. Well, and Margot’s too. But I was no one’s assistant anymore. I was a chef.
I checked my watch, saw I had fifteen minutes to get to the restaurant where I’d agreed to meet Dan for dinner, and went to brush my hair. On the way out of Bijoux, before turning the lights out in the kitchen, I did two things.
I put Margot’s cigarettes and lighters into a drawer near her work station, and I turned the radio station back to the one I liked.
As soon as I walked into the restaurant, I saw him at a corner table. My eye caught his, and then my breath caught too. Dan was a good looking man in any pose, but when he smiled, he was downright divine. Though he’d picked me up at the airport and taken me to my parents’ house when I first got home from France, I hadn’t seen him since.
“The world traveler has returned,” he said, standing to pull my chair out and then scoot me back to the table.
“Do you mean from my travels in Paris or the urban oasis of Whidbey Island?” I grinned.
“Both.” He held out a bottle and a glass. “Wine?”
I nodded, and as the waiter came to take our order, we shared the last few weeks’ happenings, culminating in my announcement that I had been to Bijoux that day.
He nodded. “I left work early to come pick you up, but I arrived just a little too late.”
I knew he would bring that up. I knew it. And yet, we weren’t at the exclusive dating level yet, as far as I understood, so I didn’t have to explain myself to him, right? “Philippe thought it would be good to take me to work on my first day,” I said as casually as I could. “And he had the keys.”
Dan nodded and showed absolutely no emotion. Lawyer’s training, I supposed. A minute later, he loosened up again and asked about the kitchen and the countertops and what kind of oven it had—things nearly no non-baker would think to ask.
“Why are you interested in the ovens?” I teased.
“Because you are,” he said simply and without guile. And that was even more appealing than the dreamy smile.
I asked about his job too, and he regaled me with his latest case, somehow making the law funny, something my brother was never able to do. Then his phone rang.
He looked mortified. “I’m so sorry. I thought I turned it off. It’s new.” He took it from his pocket and fumbled for a minute to locate the Ignore button. Before the backlight went off, I saw the caller ID.
Nancy.
I met his eye and he looked away, and then the waiter brought our salads. While he ground some pepper for Dan, I reminded myself, You’re not at the exclusive dating level yet, as far as he understands, so he doesn’t have to explain himself to you, right?
I have been intrigued by the Seven Wonders series byT.L. Higley. Guardian of the Flame is the third book in the series. It is about the Lighthouse of Alexandria. I found it interesting that the "light" was actually a fire that was lit each night. I hadn't really thought of that before.
Here's the first chapter:
Alexandria, Egypt
48 B.C.
Sophia pressed her forehead against the chilled window glass of her private chamber and tried to capture a glimpse of life, far below and out of reach.
The harbor, more than one hundred cubits down, churned with boats whose sails flapped in the dying sun like the scales of white fish, and with ant-sized servants who scurried to deliver supplies to her lighthouse before its Keeper punished them for their delay.
On a white-cushioned couch behind her, one of Euripides’s plays called for her return to its lines of tragedy. She resisted. The words had already bled into her heart with remembrances she wished to avoid.
Enough foolishness. Shoulders back and eyes unblinking, she crossed the room to a cedarwood desk. Her astronomy charts covered the wall above, but it was a more practical papyrus that she spread on its surface. She weighted the top corners with two small statuettes of Isis and Osiris with a muttered apology to the gods, and let the bottom corners curl upon themselves. The late afternoon sun burned through the window, setting dust particles afire in the air and touching the lighthouse’s fuel consumption chart and the scrawled labor requirements. Sophia retrieved her sharpened reed and ink and added notations to the latest entry.
Work first. Then she could spend the evening brooding over Euripides’s plays, and even the past.
Behind her, sharp knuckles attacked the outside of her door. Only one person knocked like that, and only one person would bother to make the climb halfway up the lighthouse’s three hundred cubits.
The door flew open before she invited entrance. Her personal servant stumbled in, eyes wide.
Sophia jumped to her feet. “Romans?”
Ares leaned against a marble stand that held the sculpted bust of Plato, winded. The heavy-footed Roman legion marched into Alexandria several weeks earlier. Sophia had been waiting for war, as one waits for a ship returning from far-off trade. Knowing it will come, never certain when.
But Ares was shaking his head. “She’s here! She climbed over the – ”
Ares was shoved aside and another figure slid into the room. Sophia’s heart danced over a few beats, then settled into a staccato. The young woman before her smiled, the languid look of a woman who knows her own power. “Sophia--” she extended both her jeweled hands. “How I have missed you!”
Sophia let out her breath with one quiet word. “Cleopatra!” She waved to her servant. “Leave us, Ares.”
The boy backed out of the room.
“And not a word of this!” Sophia called after him.
When he had closed the door she took a hesitant step toward the younger woman. “How? Have you made peace at last with your brother?”
Cleopatra flung the question aside with a wave of her hand. “The little brat knows nothing of monarchy. It is those three leeches that hiss in his ears that are the problem.” She spotted the black and gold kylix of wine and brightened. “I am parched.” She crossed to the table and ladled wine into an alabaster cup. “The sea, you know.” She filled another cup and handed it to Sophia.
Sophia studied her, speechless. Her magnetic power seemed undimmed by her recent exile. Her white robe, trimmed in gold and purple, hung a bit more loosely on her frame.
“You are thinner.” Cleopatra sipped the wine and grimaced. No doubt it had been left too long in the bowl. “Will you never cease to fret over me, Sophia?”
Sophia’s breathing had returned to normal, and she found a place on the couch. “Sit. Tell me.”
Cleopatra came to her, dropped a knee to the couch, then curled herself next to Sophia like a leopard settling to rest. She lifted the skull of a panther from the low table before them and turned it around with her long fingers.
“Did you get in unseen?” Sophia asked.
“Apollodorus rowed me into the harbor in a small boat. We docked in the Eunostos Harbor, away from the crowds. I climbed ashore at the base of the lighthouse and circled to the door. I am safe here, Sophia.”
Sophia swallowed. “Why take such a risk?”
“It has been an eventful few days.” Cleo set the skull back on the table with a thunk.
“I thought you were in Syria.”
“I was. My little brother Ptolemy and his three sycophants are camped at Pelusium, with their armies ready to attack my troops. But I believe the gods have other plans.” She smiled again, the scheming grin Sophia had known and loved since Cleopatra’s childhood.
“What have you done?” Sophia closed tight fingers around the girl’s wrist, as fear clamped itself around her heart.
Cleopatra inclined her head and laughed, then stroked Sophia’s arm with her fingertips. “An opportunity has come to me on the heels of Ptolemy’s foolishness.”
“So what has your brother done?”
“The Roman Pompey fled to my brother, hoping for Ptolemy’s support against Julius Caesar. But Ptolemy’s three advisors decided they would rather gain the favor of Caesar. They greeted Pompey with a knife point.”
“He is dead?”
Cleopatra nodded. “And now Caesar has arrived here in the city.” She crossed one leg over the other and bounced her foot. “My brother’s men sent him Pompey’s head as a gift. Caesar was furious at his adversary’s ignoble death.”
Sophia slapped her thigh. “These barbaric Romans. Impossible to comprehend. They stomp all over the world with their insatiable lust to conquer, but when someone kills their enemy, they are angered.”
Cleopatra’s eyes glittered. “Yes, he sounds fascinating, doesn’t he?”
Sophia’s apprehension returned. . “What are you going to do?”
“Take advantage of the opportunity.”
“It is not safe for you in the city, Cleopatra. You must return to Syria, under the protection of your troops.”
Cleopatra removed her hand from Sophia’s arm and unfolded herself from the couch. “You would have me remain a child forever! I am no longer your student.”
Sophia stood as well, matching the fire in Cleopatra’s eyes with her own. “You are twenty-one!”
Cleopatra flung her hair over her shoulder. Her face was a mere handspan from Sophia’s. Her voice was low. “And I am Queen of Egypt.”
Sophia shifted away, but Cleopatra clutched at her, spun her back to herself. “Do not be angry with me, my Sophia. Tell me you love me still.”
Sophia sighed. I could never control her. “Would I have spent all those painful hours teaching you the languages of Egypt if I did not love you?”
Cleopatra lips formed a pout, reinforcing her youth. “You were well-paid by my father.”
Sophia touched Cleopatra’s cheek. “And I would have done it for nothing.”
The younger woman’s expression cleared. “There, now you have made me happy. Next you must tell me how beautiful I look in spite of my thinness, and then I will be satisfied.”
Sophia looked over the queen’s long reddish-brown curls, her regal features, the fine fabric of her robe and the twinkling jewels stitched to her headpiece and wrapped around her arms and fingers. “Cleopatra, as always, you are stunning.”
The girl fluttered her eyelashes playfully. “You have them all fooled, Sophia. But not me.” She pointed to Sophia’s masculine tunic, carelessly belted. “I know the real woman beneath all your manly clothes and your harsh manner. I know there is something good buried.”
Sophia’s inner restlessness stilled, as though she had grown cold. She nodded once, unable to answer, and then retreated to the couch. Let us speak of something else.
Cleopatra dropped beside her, and leaned her head against Sophia’s shoulder with a sigh. The sun’s last rays splashed through the west window and lit up the gold trim that edged her robe.
“What will you do?” Sophia whispered, knowing she would not like the answer.
Cleopatra did not lift her head. “Caesar is ill-disposed toward my brother and his advisors tonight. I will cause his favor to fall on me.”
“And how will you accomplish this?”
Cleo laughed. “I know it has been a long time, Sophia. But do not tell me you have forgotten how a woman can gain the favor of a man.”
Sophia pulled away from her. “No, Cleo. No.”
Cleopatra tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I have only this brief moment to gain his favor. My brother will surely arrive by tomorrow. It must be tonight.”
Sophia’s stomach clenched. “You are young, inexperienced. And he is a Roman!”
“The world is changing.”
Sophia exhaled heavily. “For over two hundred years your family has ruled Egypt. The Egyptians have come to accept that. And you understand their ways. You respect their love of knowledge, you share their desire to decipher the world. You have even embraced their gods. But these Romans, Cleo, they are crude savages, interested only in blood and victory and power!”
Cleopatra looked away, to the darkening window. “I think you forget how interested in power I am myself, Sophia.”
She traced Cleo’s strong jawline. “Born to rule. Raised to rule. Queen at eighteen.” And exile in the face of your brother’s treachery has done nothing to dull the hunger. “Can I not talk you out of this foolishness?”
Cleopatra’s lips twitched in amusement. “There we are. I knew you would come around.” She pulled Sophia toward her and once more leaned against her shoulder. “Just let me stay until the darkness has fully fallen.” She sighed deeply. “I am so tired.”
Sophia relaxed into the cushions and took the weight of Cleopatra’s exhaustion. The girl was asleep in moments, leaving Sophia to her own thoughts. She let Cleo sleep as the evening wasted.
Her hair hung over Sophia’s shoulder, where her own hair would have lain if she had not cropped it close to her head. She stroked Cleopatra’s robe with one finger, then draped the fabric over her own thigh.
She is everything I am not.
And yet despite their differences, Sophia always found herself more whole in Cleo’s presence. The girl was like pressed oil, filling in the cracks and brittle places of Sophia’s soul with something warm and smooth. When they were together, all the tension and anger that seemed to define Sophia ran out of her, leaving her feeling almost human.
Sophia had begun to doze as well when Ares’s knuckle-bruising knock again sounded at the door. She glanced down to Cleopatra, but the girl’s gentle breathing continued. She shifted her to the cushions, then slipped away to open the door.
“For the love of Isis, Ares, what is it now?”
He stepped in, one hand still on the door. “A message for you, Abbas.” He held a scrap of papyrus. She pushed him into the hall and half-closed the door behind them.
Ares had called her abbas since he was a young boy.. Whether the Egyptian word for “lion” was a compliment or a slight depended on each of their moods.
Ares peered over her shoulder, into her chamber.
“Well, give the thing to me, Ares! Don’t simply stand there!”
Ares sighed and held it up to her. “Brought by one of the Library’s slaves.” He stepped close and held the message to her eyes.
Sophia moved back a pace. “You don’t need to breathe all over me!” She snatched the scrap and read it, her pulse quickening at the request inked there.
“Will you go?”
She scowled at Ares. “Reading my messages now?”
The young man, though half her age, stood much taller than Sophia. He gave her one of his crooked half-grins. “It is a long climb.”
She shoved the papyrus back into his hand and turned away. “There is nothing in the Library that cannot be brought here to me. Send a message to Sosigenes that he may visit me here in the lighthouse if he wishes.”
“The message sounded urgent.”
She whirled on him. “Then I suppose he should run!” Ares pursed his lips, and Sophia exhaled. This boy knew her well by now. He had long ceased to be offended or intimidated by her moods. “Why can Sosigenes not send a report as usual?” she asked herself aloud.
“Perhaps he thinks it is time for you to emerge from hiding.”
“I am not hiding!” Sophia put a hand out to the door. “I rarely need to leave the lighthouse. Why should today be different?”
“Because today someone has asked.”
The door blurred before her. It was true, no one had requested her presence in the city for a great while. “They fear me.”
Ares’s laugh was soft. “Yes, the mighty Artemis, commanding the world from her high tower.”
Sophia’s lips curled into a sneer and she faced the boy again. “Which am I, Ares, a lion or a goddess?”
He lowered his eyes. “Both need sometimes to emerge from solitude.”
“Well, not today. Send the message to Sosigenes. And send ten drachma with it, to remind him under whose patronage he spends his hours.”
Ares bowed his head and turned to the ramp, his silence seeming to condemn her.
Sophia closed her eyes and pressed her fingers into the bridge of her nose. She disliked leaving the lighthouse, and it annoyed her that the old scholar would summon her. She pushed back the thought that Ares’s comments were the true source of her irritation, then reentered her private rooms and lit several lamps. The flames played on the deep reds and blacks of the room’s furnishings, on which she had spared no expense. The luxury of her chamber rivaled any in the palace. The money that flowed continually to the lighthouse enabled her to live as she wished.
She retrieved the wine Cleo had poured. At the window, she lifted the cup to the harbor in a silent salute, then sipped the wine, ignoring its bitter finish. Yes, I live as I wish.
And every day the ever-present sea breezes whispered in her ear like a spiteful friend who would never let her forget.
She spent an hour over the charts, fine-tuning the plans for the coming month, searching for the slightest opportunity to increase efficiency. When the first noises shot up the cylindrical core of the lighthouse, Sophia barely noticed.
Moments later she dropped her reed on the desk, startling Cleopatra. The girl gasped, then heard the shouts. She turned wide eyes to Sophia. “Who is it?”
Sophia tilted her head to the noise again. Her fingers tightened on her chair.
“Soldiers.”
To celebrate the release of Guardian of the Flame, you could win this gorgeous framed lighthouse picture! Just visit Tracy's website, and a contest entry will pop up. All you have to do is sign up for Tracy's newsletter to be entered in the contest!
Amish Peace by Suzanne Woods Fisher is one of the most thought-provoking books I read this summer. I have always found the Amish to be fascinating, and have read several novels about them, but this non-fiction book provides a closer look at their lifestyle and some of the reasons behind why they choose to live the way they do.
The sub-title is "Simple Wisdom for a Complicated World". I really appreciated the insight the author offered on ways we (as non-Amish people... or "English" as they might call us) can slow down and simplify our lifestyles to achieve more peace and less stress in our daily lives.
I highly recommend this book. Here's a little more about it:
Take a look around you. Everyone is rushing around with endless to-do lists and back-to-back deadlines, barely able to catch a breath. Everyone, that is, except the Amish. Living on the outskirts of modernity, the Amish are icons for a simpler life and a slower pace. It’s this allure—something of a sanctuary, suspended in time—that draws millions of tourists to travel to Amish country every year.
“The Amish are the only people I have ever known who seem to have a handle on inner peace,” says Suzanne Woods Fisher. Fisher recently published Amish Peace: Simple Wisdom for a Complicated World, in which she explores the tranquility that marks their lives. “It’s easy to get distracted by the buggies and beards and bonnets,” she says. “From the outside, the Amish can seem quaint and old-fashioned. But there’s much we can learn from them.” She would know because she’s spent most of her life alongside these people: Her relatives are members of the Old Order German Baptist Brethren Church, which shares similar values to the Amish.
Interviewing dozens of Amish for her book to gain a deeper understanding of their steadfast peace, Fisher got a closer look into the daily struggles and triumphs of the Amish. She shares these touching, real-life stories in the pages of Amish Peace.
For example, she got to know some of the Amish families who lost children in the West Nickel Mines School shooting. Even in the face of that kind of tragedy, she saw how the Amish community found calm by trusting in God’s sovereignty. “We just have to keep going on,” remarked one Amish woman whose family members were among the victims. “People think we’re perfect, but we’re not. Yet we can’t dwell on what happened. We have to leave it in God’s hands.” That fundamental belief also enabled them to extend incredible, almost immediate forgiveness to the gunman and his family.
Through her conversations and interactions with the Amish, she looks at how their enduring peace is rooted in their appreciation for five key elements: simplicity, time, community, forgiveness and their faith. Whether it’s living with only necessities, spending time with family or learning that the world is larger than our feeble understanding, those attitudes provide the framework that allows them to find solace in spite of life’s unpredictable circumstances.
“We don’t have to ‘go Amish’ to find true peace,” Fisher says. “Instead, we can learn from the example they’ve set and incorporate some of their lessons into our own lives. That’s what Amish Peace is all about—being inspired by the best of the Amish way of life.”
Available October 2009 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group. If you buy a copy of Amish Peace, either online or at your local bookstore, on Monday October 5th you will be entered to win a basket of books published by Revell.
Once you buy the book send Suzanne an email (suzanne@suzannewoodsfisher.com) or leave a comment on her blog or Facebok page or email Amy (amy@litfusegroup.com) stating where you bought the book and how many copies you purchased.
I mentioned before how much I've been enjoying Amish fiction lately. I think it has to do with having recently read Amish Peace. In any case, I did enjoy The Sound of Sleigh Bells by Cindy Woodsmall. It was a poignant holiday story, and I particularly enjoyed getting an inside glimpse of an Amish store. Here's a little more about the story from the publisher (who sent me a free copy of the book to review).
