Reading and listening: forgiveness, unforgiveness, the unforgivable

This morning I finished my first book of 2022: Gentle and Lowly. (A disadvantage to reading the Palliser Chronicles is that they do not permit a person to notch new items on her "books read" list very quickly. I am reading Eustace Diamonds every day, faithfully, and there is still so much Eustace Diamonds left to read.) I am not very involved with our campus organization for Christian faculty, but I get their emails. When the coordinator mentioned that they would be discussing Gentle and Lowly, the author's name -- Dane Ortlund -- caught my eye. In my early 20s I learned a lot from Anne Ortlund's books, and it seemed likely that these authors were related. (They are: grandson/grandmother.)

Gentle and Lowly stirred up some controversy, apparently, when it was released in 2020. In a now-deleted review, the folks at Grace To You panned it, insisting that the book needed more table-flipping, more of the wrath of God. (Maybe they should rename their site Wrath To You.) If you are Catholic, you may dislike the book's jabs at Catholic ideas about atonement, forgiveness, and grace. But I found that it spoke to my soul. I read it with my friend Becky, a chapter a day for three weeks, and on many of those mornings one of us would text the other some variation of "loved that G&L chapter!!" I think it is especially valuable for anybody struggling with scrupulosity or a performance mentality (i.e., my value lies in my productivity), or anyone who has struggled with a particular flavor of sin or suffering for a long time.

I have been listening to Gaslighter, the 2020 album by the band formerly known as The Dixie Chicks. (They dropped the "Dixie" around the time that this album came out.) Many of the songs are about the breakdown of the lead singer's marriage. And you guys, I'm finding it really interesting: the songwriting is compelling. The window into a marriage coming apart at midlife stirs up my sympathy. But I also keep thinking about their decision to put it all out there: let us tell you about this infidelity and its aftermath. Natalie Maines has sons in their teens, and it was definitely A Choice to craft an album so full of rage and disappointment WITH THEIR FATHER and send it out into the world.

Last fall, not long after I finished Intuitive Eating, I bought myself a book called Gentle Nutrition. I was excited to try some new things in the kitchen, and a dietitian writing from an intuitive eating perspective sounded really promising. But here's the problem: she loves dill. On page after page, there are pictures of PERFECTLY INNOCENT food with dill fronds sprinkled across it. In list after list of ingredients she tells me to add dill.

I keep telling myself not to be a big dill baby. It's not as if she's telling me to put turpentine in my food. I know how to substitute other herbs for dill; I've been doing it my whole life, because dill pretty much tastes like turpentine to me. I tell myself not to look at the pictures. (I hate dill so much that even the sight of it causes me to make unhappy faces. You should see me typing this post. I look like someone just tried to feed me surströmming with paint scrapings on top.) 

I'm not sure this book is going to work for me after all. 

So talk to me: what are you reading this January? do you have an opinion on the Art vs. Privacy question? do you hate any food as much as I hate dill? Do tell.

Comments

[Pippi]

I’ve been reading John Le Carré spy novels. I love the gray areas he explores. I’m not really a spy novel person but the characters and their struggles with the morality of their chosen career are interesting. I also reread the Out of Hitler Time trilogy by Judith Kerr after watching the new When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit with my kids. I had never read the last book in the trilogy from her adult years and it was so interesting. Her portrait of her mother who she clearly loves but who can also frustrate her is quite lovely and so thoughtful. It really showed how her family’s experience as refugees left deep scars. You can see how she appreciates how her mother held the family together and kept her safe physically and emotionally and also how she comes to understand the toll doing that took on her mother.

[Andrea]

The Weekday Vegetarians is actually a good cookbook. I was so surprised, but I’ve made 5 or so things from it already after I got it for Christmas. The braised cabbage over mashed potatoes is perfect winter food.

Other than that, Graeme Stimsion books to try and keep it light.

[Nicole]

So many opinions about Art vs Privacy! The first thing I think of is Sharon Olds' book "Stag's Leap" about her marriage's dissolution (after many books chronicling aspects of that marriage). There's a wonderful poem where she writes about making a fire out of something she finally realizes is her ex's old easel, and it turns into a meditation on the potential costs of her 'turning their family into art'—though their kids were a little older and I read that she waited ten years to publish the poems she wrote in the aftermath of the split. (Here's a link to the poem: https://www.thehairpin.com/2015/08/sharon-olds-the-easel/)

And then this outrageous story about Robert Lowell's appropriation of his ex's letters for his own art: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/16/marriage-betrayal-and-the-letters-behind-the-dolphin

And finally that recent NY Times piece "Who is the Bad Art Friend?" (The more I read, the less I liked either of them.)

I admit to taking voyeuristic pleasure in reading things that expose so much, but the cost to family seems high. (And not just to kids! So many memoirs feature adults writing about their parents in ways that make them sound whiny or petulant—even when they have clear causes for complaint.)

I am fond of dill, but pretty averse to parsley, which my husband likes a lot. It's a running joke that can tip over into mild irritation in either direction, depending on who's cooking :)

[Kellie]

Reading a Flavia de Luce novel (that's the protagonist, not the author) when I'm in the mood, because I like it, but I kind of have to be in the mood.

I like dill, but no matter how I try, I can't seem to like mushrooms. Different kinds don't help much. Chopping them up small doesn't help much. I'm just anti-fungus, I guess.

[Kellie]

(Except yeast for bread, I guess. I'm not against that fungus.)

[Angela]

Dill tastes like turpentine? Wonder if that's where the comment about Aunt Bea's kerosene cucumbers came from...