This was my Christmas vacation read, and I loved it. It helped that I had heard Cron speak at STORY in September. I literally had his voice in my head, so picking up his gentle spirit in the tone of his writing was easy. I had also experienced his gift as a true minister of Jesus. At STORY he closed his session by reciting a prayer over us that nearly took our breath away. I felt like I was reading the story of a friend, even though I had only briefly met him in a church lobby in Chicago in the fall.

Though my life may have few similarities with the one Cron describes, he still held me close to his experience through his beautiful writing. I felt his heart and emotions in so many of the scenes. I’m pretty sure just from reading the engaging narrative of his First Communion I was baptized as a Catholic!

“And then I fell into God.”

After I read these words, I was done. Finished. They so perfectly sum up the way I have experienced God throughout my life. It didn’t matter if the vehicle was old-fashioned or pentecostal or just plain weird. I know this feeling. I recognize this language. I’ve fallen into God myself. Somehow Cron does this again and again in this memoir.

I’ll admit some resistance to being this sucked into the language of a memoir. Cron discloses his approach in the introduction. It’s typical memoir-speak. The author may or may not have exaggerated certain events or descriptions in an attempt to help the reader feel the emotional weight of the actual event. I dont’ have a problem with this. I do it in my own conversations. Many times I’ve caught myself embellishing the story just a bit, just enough to make sure you REALLY understand the significance. I get it.

Still, I did catch myself wondering WHEN he was exaggerating. Did he add the tears on his face during that First Communion? Or maybe the priest’s knowing look? Was it his friend’s embrace when he finally admitted to a drinking problem? Maybe the photos of his father playing golf with Richard Nixon? I thought about this off and on until I realized it didn’t matter to me. I wanted to feel the emotional weight just as he felt it, even if he had to use a bit of artistic license to get me there.

I do hope the conversation with Miss Annie at the barbeque is exactly as written, though, because I want to tattoo those words on my arm (or on everyone else’s foreheads) so I don’t forget:

“Love always stoops.”

Read it. Live it.

Please, Rev. Cron, please tell me that’s really what she said! Because like the rest of the book, that just felt so real and true.

Wait, don’t tell me. I like just believing it.

I would like to write two separate reviews for this book. And that frustrates me.

The first review would be a full and complete endorsement.

The second review would be less favorable.

But I just don’t do “less favorable” very well, so instead I’m going to write a review on the book I read and a review on the book I WANTED to read.

Kisses From Katie – the book I read:

The beauty of Kisses From Katie is the story itself. I’ve followed Katie’s blog for a couple of years. At 19 years old, Katie chose the life of an adoptive single mom in Uganda over the life of a single college student in the United States. She does this at great cost to her family relationships (specifically her parents) and her romantic future with her then boyfriend. Instead, on what was supposed to be a one-year stay in Uganda to teach in an orphanage, Katie adopts six little girls within just a few months. Today, Katie is a mother to fourteen.

I assign Katie’s blog to my composition students for reading responses because her story is rife with challenging ideas. It is easy, on the one hand, to be inspired. It is also easy, on the other, to find Katie’s story somewhat out of reach. My students wrestle with her unconventional decision to adopt as a single woman. They argue over whether she could have lived a similarly God-pleasing life from the safer boundaries of her Tennessee neighborhood. They wonder if they could ever possess the selflessness they see in Katie’s life. These are great questions for first-year college students to consider.

For me, there is so much to love about this story. Katie owns an impulsive and brave spirit that allows her to make life-changing decisions in a moment. I envy that. Her heart for the poor, the sick, and the orphaned stir me to some kind of action. As a married mother of four, my story can’t look exactly the same, but I find courage in Katie’s story to challenge my own comfortable ideals and plans for the future. For these reasons, I highly recommend this book.

In Uganda They Call Me Mommy – the book I wanted to read: (new title, yes)

I think most of my problems with the first book (the one I actually read because it is published) are with the writing and presentation. There are so many things I would have done differently. I haven’t read any reviews that even mention these points, so maybe I’m being too critical. It just seems to me that an amazing story deserves to be well told. Was this a rush job on the publishing end because the topic is hot right now? Probably. Did that treatment serve the story well? No.

Here are the best parts of the Katie Davis book I WANTED to read:

1. The story is told like a novel. It begins in the yellow convertible of Katie’s American lifestyle as a typical teenager and moves us along bravely to the rusty motorbike bouncing over the dirt streets of Uganda. The prose is tight and image-rich. As a reader, I am gutted by the differences in Katie’s two worlds and sometimes shocked by her selfless but possibly reckless choices.

2. The narrator answers questions that aren’t already addressed on Katie’s blog. We hear the conversations between Katie and her frustrated parents. We see the officials who describe what it requires to adopt little girls even as someone who has very recently been one herself. We meet the boy she loves and we love him too, so that when he isn’t in the picture anymore we actually care. As readers, we share in the emotional life of Katie not just her thought life. Not just in the words she wants us to hear but in the words she never says but we feel just by watching.

3. The book isn’t preachy at all; it lets the story stand on its own as a testament to faith and bravery. We feel stronger just by reading it. We close the pages, sad to part with a new world and a very special family, and we look out onto our own horizons looking for our Uganda, our little girls, our places of service. We close the book and we don’t stop at admiration of one person but we move into action ourselves. Not because we feel guilty but because we feel called.

And THAT is the book I wanted to read. Maybe we’ll still see that book someday after the dust has settled and a little more life has been lived. I hope so. It’s really going to be a good one.

And this one is good, too, but it isn’t that one.

*Read more about Katie on the Amazima website or in this Christianity Today interview (this one actually answers some of those questions left out of the book).

This woman has adopted 14 orphan girls and makes a home with them in Uganda. She started a non-profit called Amazima that specializes in support for women and children, especially in the areas of healthcare, finances, and education. And here’s where it gets crazy – she’s only 21. Rare Rock for sure.

This is her story in the form of a book trailer. The book, Kisses From Katie, releases in October. I can’t wait.

In this post I want to BEG you to get this one for yourself and read it. I took my time with it’s almost 135 pages (it’s a handy little size) and let each chapter soak in deep before I moved on to the next. It’s been in my purse for weeks. I literally pull it out, read a little, and then have to put it away and think deep about what I’ve just read.

I took it along on a trip to Wyoming. In Starbuck’s I read one section – a list to help you determine if you have elder brother qualities – out loud more than once. (The answer to the question for me, if you are wondering, is YES.)

I’ve long admired Keller’s life and work, but only through video clips now and then.

I love a book that gives language to my hunches and also challenges my understanding of Christianity’s authentic expression. This one also renewed in me a love for and appreciation of the gospel in a way that appealed to my mind and my soul. A perfect combination.

I hope you’ll check it out. I know it will be the inspiration for some upcoming blog posts. In fact, after reading it I wondered if I should change the focus of my blog altogether! Yeah, it’s going to mess with you.

If you have read it already (I know I’m late to this party), would you like to discuss? How were you challenged or affirmed by Keller’s message? Did it inspire action in you or maybe worship? I’d love to hear!

For me, I know there is more. More that they will grow into and understand someday.

. . . .

This week driving Claire home from physical therapy (an hour each way), I was able to listen to a moving message by Chuck Swindoll. After he encouraged his audience to take the time to soak in the difficulty of the Passion Week instead of glossing over it as a means to an end, the musicians at his church performed a piece called “Pieta” by Joseph M. Martin. I assume the lyrics and music, which are both beautiful and haunting, were inspired by the famous Michelangelo sculpture of the same name.

I wanted to post the lyrics for you here as a reminder of what it really means to be an Easter Mom:

In the shadow of a manger, by a candle’s dancing flame, tender Mary holds her baby, and she breathes His holy name. “Jesus rest your weary head, close your weeping eyes.” As evening falls, she starts to sing a lullaby. “Lulay, lulay, peace be yours tonight.”

In the shadow of the temple, in a place so far from home, Mary sees her child of wonder, and she marvels how He’s grown. “Jesus rest your weary head, and think on gentle things.” With loving arms she holds her Savior and she sings, “Lulay, lulay, peace be yours tonight.”

In the shadow of Golgotha, underneath a darkened sky, Mary gently cradles Jesus. Through her tears she says goodbye. “Jesus rest your weary head. Your work on earth is done. And as the darkness falls, she whispers to her son, “Lulay, lulay, peace be yours tonight.”

*photo credit to borablu

Did you read this book as a child? I’m getting ready to read it to my kids as something of a non-liturgical person’s Advent. One chapter each night before Christmas. If you’re a devoted fan, you know there are seven chapters and I really only have six days left. That’s because I’ve built in one night when I know we’ll all say, “JUST ONE MORE CHAPTER!” Brilliant planning, friends, not procrastination.

So, of all books, why do I wish I had written this one? For me, it has all the classic elements. First of all, it is perfectly funny. The narrator is witty and sharp but with a tender heart. She’s a church kid, but she has compassion for those not quite like her. The Herdman’s, the welfare-fed and shockingly rebellious siblings without a stable parental figure, are cartoonishly wicked, and as a kid that is fun stuff to read. When I showed my son Jesse a draft of a children’s story I was working on last year, he loved it but thought I should “let the boy get into a little more trouble.” The Herdman’s are enough trouble to keep everyone entertained.

But after funny, this story is poetically and practically spiritual. I love it when those two elements work together in literature. In this story, the Pharisees, um, church kids, are exposed and the outcasts are celebrated in a re-telling of the Nativity. The Herdman’s understanding of Jesus’ birth spurs them to sacrifice and action. As it should for all of us.

Have you read this classic? Seen the movie? I can’t wait to share it!