Tag: Travel

WAKE UP YOUR DREAMS:With Good Summer Reads

WAKE UP YOUR DREAMS:With Good Summer Reads

You have dreams that need waking, aspirations of which you are unaware, mental landscapes that will escape your notice unless someone outside your acquaintance introduces you to them. That someone is waiting to take you to new places this summer, giving you hours of enlightening entertainment, for about the price of a large pizza.

Of whom are we speaking? Authors of course, those strange people who spend months, even years, in research and writing isolation so that you and I can travel new worlds in our imaginations.

Recreational reading does several beneficial things. Our brains need rest from the daily grind. Light reading helps us escape.  Most of us never travel to other cultures and cannot travel to other times. Good storytellers also take us places impossible to visit, expanding our horizons and understanding of human nature along the way.

And if you think you don’t have time to read, consider: the average American spends 608 hours per year on social media, and 1642 hours on TV. According to author Charles Chu, who did the math, we can read 200 books in 417 hours![1]

Books are better than movies too. The pace and length of a good novel or memoir replace the storytelling rush job that is a movie with time and space to imagine the world on the page, see the multiple motives and connections a movie doesn’t have time to develop, and strengthen our understanding in the process.

Good books, even if they aren’t overtly Christian, also strengthen our faith and stimulate our dreams. They help us see ourselves as we are and feed aspirations of what we might become.

A book is an investment of your time, so it is important to find a genre’ that you enjoy. If you aren’t sure where to start it helps to read reviews from trusted sources like World Magazine or Focus on the Family. Here are a few on my shelves broken down by genre’. In honor of the 74th anniversary of D-Day we’ll begin with WWII.

WWII, nonfiction – D-Day: The Climactic Battle of WWII, by Stephen Ambrose; Citizen Soldiers, also by Ambrose; Jimmy Stewart: Bomber Pilot, by Starr Smith; Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand; The Generals: Patton, Marshall and MacArthur and the Winning of WWII, by Winston Groom (author of Forest Gump); The Lost Airman: A True Story of Escape from Nazi Occupied France, by Seth Meyerwitz and Peter F. Stevens; A Man Called Intrepid: True Story of the Hero Whose Spy Network and Secret Diplomacy Changed the Course of History, by William Stevenson; Silent Running: My Years on a WWII Attack Submarine, by James F. Calvert.

Historical Fiction – The Winds of War, War and Remembrance, and A Hole in Texas, by Herman Wouk; The Hornblower series, by C.S. Forester. The Aubrey / Maturin series, by Patrick O’Brian (caution, strong language).

Biography / Memoir – Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World, by Eric Metaxas; Sailor and Fidler: Reflections of a 100-Year-Old Author, by Herman Wouk; God and Churchill, by Wallace Henley and Jonathon Sandys; West with the Night, by Beryl Markham; The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, and Charles Lindbergh and the Epic Age of Flight, by Winston Groom.

Mysteries and Thrillers – The Last Days series by Joel C. Rosenberg; The Testament, by John Grisham; Sydney Chambers, series by James Runcie; The Brother Cadfael Mysteries, series by Ellis Peters; Blink, by Ted Dekker.

Nothing here that suits your fancy? Find something that does, dig in and wake up your dreams.

[1] https://qz.com/895101/in-the-time-you-spend-on-social-media-each-year-you-could-read-200-books/

BLUE CHRISTMAS Rx

Depending on whom you ask Christmas is either the best or worst time of the year. For some, “it’s those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings when friends come to call!” For others it’s anything but.

True, the oft-quoted myth that suicides peak during Christmas is just that, a myth. The rates actually go down.

On the other hand, WebMD reports that “Holiday blues are a pretty common problem despite the fact that as a society, we see the holidays as a joyous time,” says Rakesh Jain, MD, director of psychiatric drug research at the R/D Clinical Research Center in Lake Jackson, Texas.

In other words, we’re less likely to do ourselves in, but perhaps more likely to think about it.

Those of us who have lost family members, or been through the trauma of divorce are most prone to the Christmas blues. Reminders of loved ones gone come in as many colors as gift wrap, and the complications of conflicts with step-families and feuding parents are well documented sources of holiday unhappiness. Add to that the amped up expectations for joy, the stress of preparations, travel, shopping, lack of exercise and extra eating and it’s no wonder some of us get grumpy and sad.

So if Blue Christmas is your holiday hymn, here are a few ideas to help you change your tune.

Change your geography. We humans are creatures of habit and highly sensitive to our environments. When we do the same things the same ways in the same places year after year it can be difficult to associate Christmas with joy, especially if the people who were part of that joy are no longer present. Change your geography. Do Christmas in a new location, the beach, the mountains, any place, so long as it’s a different place that you enjoy.

Change your traditions for the same reason. Change the routine. Drop some old traditions and build some new ones. Never baked Christmas cookies? Try it. Tired of baking? Stow your cookie sheets, send the kids to the store and tell them to be creative.

Change your attitude, about grief that is. Grief is like the tide; it comes in and goes out on its own schedule, unpredictable for us. We don’t think it’s appropriate for the holidays so we try to restrain it, but that’s the worst thing we can do. Like an ocean wave, grief has energy and that energy will find an outlet, even if we try to suppress it. Anger, bitterness, resentment, depression can be the results. Better to adopt a new paradigm for dealing with grief, to ride the wave rather than stand against it. When we do that it can take us to new places of healing and yes, joy. “Blessed are those who mourn,” Jesus said, “for they will be comforted.” We can’t be comforted if we refuse to mourn.

Finally, change your theology. Remember that the first Christmas wasn’t all angels singing, shepherds kneeling and Magi giving gifts. It was also Joseph doubting, Mary wondering, Rachel weeping, and the family fleeing into Egypt. They were stressed out by Christmas too.

And while you’re remembering that, remember this: The true joy of Christmas can’t be found in the food, the gifts, the family and friends. These are only the celebrants and the elements of the celebration. The true joy is in the Christ child who came to “save his people from their sins,” and in the knowledge that God on high has declared “peace on earth to men on whom his favor rests.”