good christian sex

Bromleigh McCleneghan's new book with HarperOne, Good Christian Sex: Why Chastity Isn't the Only Option--And Other Things the Bible Says About Sex, is a welcome addition to an ongoing conversation about sexuality and faithfulness among the people of God. A Methodist pastor, Bromleigh brings a generous theological lens to topics like pleasure, intimacy, fidelity, and more.

I appreciated her candid and warm pastoral tone, how she teased out desire from lust, and the ways she strove for inclusivity of queer sexualities, genders, and people. She is sensitive to singleness and survivors and does not deal in shame. Her incarnational take is refreshing and open, setting itself apart in a field that can otherwise tend toward narrow, prescriptive, and downright harmful. McCleneghan provides a compelling vision for sexuality that is mutual, holistic, fun, and faithful.

Her sexual ethic is much about love of neighbor: not objectifying or exploiting, treating one's partner and oneself with kindness and justice, and seeking the kind of vulnerability that cultivates growth and community. It's a vision that is healthy, fruitful, and deeply embodied, and one I am encouraged to see practiced alike by people of Christian faith, other faiths, and no faith at all.

And I suppose that's my only objection: if Christians are called to live in a manner "set apart," should a Christian theology of sexuality distinguish itself in meaningful ways from its religious and cultural counterparts? Are consent and mutual respect all God requires of the Church with regard to sex? They meaningfully ground a healthy and holistic sexual ethic that is certainly honoring of people made in God's image--and far too often missing in both church and culture at large--but is it wholly sufficient for followers of Christ?

I'm not sure it is, but I believe wholeheartedly that this is a conversation worth wrestling with together as people and communities of faith, and I'm thankful for McCleneghan's scholarship, witness, and contribution, particularly as she reclaims the God-given goodness of bodies and sexuality for Christians who haven't always or even often received that good news.

I received my copy from TLC Book Tours.

the eczema company {giveaway}

When Dylan was little, she had itchy eczema flare-ups. Her pediatrician recommended a popular petroleum-based ointment, which was pretty much the last thing I wanted on her sensitive skin. We experimented with a number of natural products, and ultimately, she grew out of it. But I know eczema remains an uncomfortable and frustrating condition for many, so when The Eczema Company reached out, I was glad to shine my little spotlight on their small business, owned by mom and green blogger, Jennifer Roberge. The Eczema Company carries a spectrum of soothing products, from oils and creams to laundry soaps, supplements, and protective clothes, and they've offered a reader giveaway of one of their family favorites, Manuka Honey Skin Cream.

Although we know longer deal with eczema, I was glad to give it a try, too, since it's healing for chapped winter skin and even wounds, and my own elbows had developed irritating, itchy patches. The cream's ingredients are straightforward and organically-sourced when possible: Organic Olive Oil, Organic Beeswax, Filtered Water, Grape Seed Oil, Organic New Zealand Manuka Honey and Manuka Oil Extract. From their website:

Manuka honey is native to New Zealand and is created when bees pollinate the manuka bush, a relative of the tea tree. Manuka oil is extracted from the leaves of the manuka bush. Manuka oil is actually 10 times more potent than tea tree oil. Manuka and tea tree oil are praised world wide for their ability to naturally treat infections and reduce inflammation. Unlike the very medicinal odor of tea tree oil, manuka oil and honey have a lovely delicately sweet scent. 

I'd say the scent is barely noticeable at all, and unlike other oils, balms, ointments, and creams, it's not sticky or greasy and absorbs quickly. The patches on my elbows, which had bothered me for a couple of weeks, cleared completely, and the cream feels great on lips and hands, too. I look forward to keeping it close this winter and am glad to have it in my holistic arsenal.

Want to give Manuka Honey Skin Cream a try? Visit The Eczema Company's website, and come back here with a comment about something you learned or a product which interests you. If you like, follow them on Twitter or Facebook. Giveaway ends Saturday at 11:59 PM EST and is open to residents in the U.S. and Canada. Good luck!

Feeln {like a Mothers' Day movie giveaway}

There's always been a soft spot in my cold robot heart for Hallmark Hall of Fame movies. (We all contain multitudes, don't we?) So when Feeln, the movie subscription service of the Hallmark Channel, contacted me about a promotion, I was game, so long as I could wrangle a giveaway or three for you.

Basically, Feeln streams movies people of all ages can watch together. I was a little bummed they don't have Sarah Plain and Tall, which I vividly remember watching curled up on the couch with my mom one Sunday night growing up, but they do have that one with Keri Russell and Skeet Ulrich that I also enjoyed.

But it's not just Hallmark stuff, though. Feeln has a variety of content, including award winners like Chocolat and Rain Man; classics like The Sting or Twelve Angry Men; favorites like A League of Their Own, Big Fish, and Finding Neverland; and kids' stuff like The Secret of Kells or Ella Enchanted. They have the 1985 Rainbow Bright movie which I am definitely putting on for the kids soon, along with 1989's The Wizard, with Fred Savage and Jenny Lewis. 

Feeln streams online; on devices such as Roku, AppleTV, and Xbox; as well as on mobile phones and tablets. New subscribers can save 50% and get a year for $.99/month with the promo code 0515BlogSally. Feeln also kindly put up for grabs three complimentary year-long subscriptions for Smitten Word readers. Just check out Feeln's movie offerings, and leave a comment here about a favorite film listed or one you'd want to see. That's it. Giveaway ends Monday, May 11 at 11:59 PM, EST.

Happy (almost) Mothers' Day, to everyone who mothers and mentors and loves well.

Feeln provided these (and my) movie subscriptions. Opinions mine.

now we are six {with party favors}

The Smitten Word, like our firstborn, is a kindergartner. Seven hundred seventy six posts (with a little help from my friends) was never something I fathomed when I began writing here on a whim six years ago, but this remains a favorite space to flex my creative muscles and connect with you. The early years had more parenting and natural living, but we've always wrestled together with embodied faith, poetry, feminism, media literacy, peacemaking, justice, and what it looks like to be the Church.

I'm grateful to everyone who's been along for the ride. You make it fun, and to say thanks, I've got a few party favors up for grabs. Leave a comment, and I'll pick a few winners at random on Thursday at midnight. Happy Monday, friends.

hard copy of Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals

hard copy of The Fault in Our Stars

12 oz coffee, porch-roasted by Jim

1/2 pint maple syrup, tapped in our yard

IndieFlix | streaming independent film {giveaway}

This giveaway is closed, and everyone who commented wins! I'm basically Oprah and will be in touch with your codes shortly:)

Summer staff and horses arrived yesterday, after a week which included my best friend's wedding in Philly, preschool graduation, kindergarten registration, two field trips, an amusement park outing, visits from both sets of grandparents, and a fantastic writing retreat all the way out in Michigan.

I haz tired. So let's do something fun, shall we?

I've got ten two-month subscriptions to IndieFlix, and they're not even that sketchy kind that make you give your credit card number in hopes just in case you forget to cancel your "free" trial. Nope, this is real, sixty day no-strings access to the kind of movies that are basically impossible to find anymore.

I miss video stores, man. There was this fabulous place in Pittsburgh in the back of the coffee shop down the block that carried the best and weirdest stuff that no one comes close to carrying anymore. You can't even find a West Coast with the suspicious curtain in the back and the mildly burned-out clerks who could always be counted on to recommend gems. The nearest art house theater is over an hour away, our local mom and pop video store shuttered its windows long ago, and even the gas station gave back its movie kiosk. Times are tough for film aficionados!

Enter IndieFlix, an online subscription service granting access to independent films and shorts of every genre and stripe. So far I've seen the delightfully strange Lovely by Surprise, a teaser of a documentary about Ben's Chili Bowl in DC (yay!), and Finding Kind, another documentary on female bullying that they're featuring until the end of the month. The kiddos enjoyed a few animated shorts, too.

Want to win? Just tell me one (or several) of your favorite independent, smaller studio/budget, non-blockbuster-y films, making sure to log in with an email or another way to get in touch if you win. Feel free to comment and enter multiple times if you've got recommendations to spare (or check out IndieFlix and comment with something you'd like to see).

Giveaway ends Thursday night (5/30/13) at 11:59 PM (EST) when we'll pick ten winners. These won't net you extra entries, but you are, as always more than welcome to subscribe or follow along on facebook, twitter, instagram or pinterest. Good luck:)

Giveaways and my own subscription provided by IndieFlix.

the mermaid of brooklyn

In tv land, there are generally two roles for the thirty-something woman: the (sexy) childless career woman or the (sexy) mother of a (sexy) teenager, a decidedly more supporting role. Motherhood dominates a commercial landscape for everything from paper towels to snack food, toothpaste, and air fresheners, but sustained storylines about parenting little ones are few and far between.

I posted a musing about this on facebook once, and a tired mom, admitting her own preference for escapist entertainment responded, Who wants to watch stories about real life?

I do, I thought. Not stories about diapers and crying, of course, but honest narrative about motherhood, relationships, change, identity, sex, self image, community, family, depression, joy, struggle, work, worth, meaning? Absolutely.

The Mermaid of Brooklyn is that story seldom told, a rare jewel and rough diamond both.

The sophomore novel from Brooklyn dwelling writer Amy Shearn is loosely based on her own great-grandmother, Jenny Lipkin, whose husband disappears one night without a word. He goes out for cigarettes and fails to return, leaving Jenny with their infant and toddler, his dog, and a host of questions.

The story takes place one scorching summer in Park Slope. It could be an enjoyable beach read, but it's no frivolous fluff piece. Shearn writes with honest insight and biting wit about new motherhood and the inevitable trials that set us off, set us adrift, or set us free.

Lipkin is a fascinating protagonist, because although she is not tremendously likable, she is strikingly relatable, and as a reader, you do want to see her succeed  The book takes a novel turn into the waters of magical realism, a charming plot device that serves the story and doesn't take away from its more down-to-earth enchantments.

I don't want to give anything away, but I especially liked the sensuality that Shearn imbues Jenny with as she re-learns to navigate her own body even while sharing so much of it with her young family. It was tender and true picture of life-after-baby.

Darkly funny, smart, and resonant, The Mermaid of Brooklyn tells a true tale about relationships, parenthood, second-guessing and starting over, even when today looks exactly like yesterday and the day before that.


Who is telling good stories about motherhood--or of women as more than romantic leads--in books, television, or movies? Are you reading/watching anything good lately?

TLC Book Tours hooked me up with a book, but these opinions are all mine. But you knew that;) Affiliate links, yo.

what it is is beautiful {giveaway}

I'm thrilled today to introduce you to Sarah Dunning Park, although since she is poet-in-residence for a little media empire known as Simple Mom, you may already be thoroughly charmed by her lyrical take on aspects of motherhood both sacramental and mundane. Her first volume of poetry, What It Is Is Beautiful: Honest Poems for Mothers of Small Children, had its official release this month, but I was lucky enough to receive my own copy when Sarah and I met up at our alma mater last May.

Sarah and I traveled in similar circles in college, but she graduated early, and I never got to know her as well as I wanted. Reconnecting last year on Twitter and then again in person for an afternoon with her and her girls was a delicious treat and exactly what my heart needed.

Sarah's a good mama, not because she's perfect or put together but because she's honest and kind. She generously agreed to share a poem here as well as a copy of her new book with one reader. (Yay!) It's available for only $4.38 right now at Amazon, so you might as well pick up a few for gifts. Mother's Day is just around the corner, and these poems are a cup of cool water and a needed "me too" to harried mamas in search of a little peace amid the storm of parenting littles.

Keeping the Peace

I saw it out of the corner of my eye,

noticed its tall, silver form
long before naming it in my mind:
heron. It perched, utterly graceful and
still, on a fallen trunk that sloped down
into the creek we cross over every day.
Fog was rising from the water,
and I wished I could stop the car,
approach quietly with camera in hand,
and somehow arrest the moment—
then lift it, intact, to take with me
as an emblem for the day.

Instead I turned away
to face the road again,
letting the moment flick past
like the flipping of channels,
and swallowing my awareness
that we live in a world with—herons.
The children were slumped behind me,
only just lulled into a dubious harmony
that would no doubt be shattered
if we stopped, or if I called out
for them to notice this marvel,
already now behind us.

I envisioned
three heads swiveling,
eager to broaden their horizons
with the wonders of the natural world.
Then I pictured a careless elbow
clipping a seatmate on the chin,
and two sets of hands clawing
at the sibling with the prime view—
of this animal
who has had the good sense to freeze
as we go barreling past.

No, I decided
(and it felt ungenerous):
today I would choose to keep
this emblem of peace to myself,
not sharing it with them directly,
but thereby preserving
the absence of conflict in the backseat,
and the heron’s solitary breakfast,
and perhaps most important,
that rare jewel—peace of mind—
for me.

© 2012 Sarah Dunning Park

To enter to win a copy of What It Is Is Beautiful, leave a comment in the vein of mothering or poetry, and we'll pick a winner Sunday night at 11:59 PM.

unsponsored content. affiliate links. please don't repost sarah's work without permission. you know the drill.

carry on, warrior

If you visit the internets now and again, it is likely that you have come across the words of Glennon Doyle Melton of Momastery.  Even if you've never read her, your sister, neighbor, or mom probably has: her post Don't Carpe Diem has 305,000 facebook shares, and that was before the Huffington Post syndicated it.

Girlfriend knows how to write words that connect, and Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed does just that. It's a roaringly funny, painfully honest, and uncommonly kind collection of personal narrative essays on life, recovery, family, truth-telling, faith, and loving well. Not everyone will appreciate Glennon's flawed-and-flighty-with-a-heart-of gold persona, but I did (and I'm not a regular reader of hers). She comes across as wildly over the top at times, but there is still something resonant and real within the silliness and self-deprecation.

A bit of the content has been previously published on her blog, which is kind of a bummer, except that they are still remarkably powerful essays. Every time, I'd be like, Man, I've totally read this one before! and then before I knew it, I was weeping or almost peeing my pants with laughter again, which speaks to the power of her storytelling.

Glennon might come across as too Jesus-y for folks who aren't religious and a little too much for some Christians (and others), but I found her grace and humor to be disarming and refreshing. I read a few passages aloud to Jim, and he loved it, too, so I'm pretty sure it's not a Women's Book (and also that Women's Books are not, in fact, real things).

Books that really make me laugh are rare, so I'll recommend them every time. There's more than enough outrage to go around, and sometimes you want to read something that makes you feel like the world isn't such a terrible place. Carry On, Warrior is like that.

TLC Book Tours hooked me up with a book, but these opinions are all mine. But you knew that;) Affiliate links, yo.

bread & wine: a love letter

Bread & Wine, Shauna Niequist's latest offering of essays are as charming and disarming as we've come to expect from this warm-hearted storyteller. The icing on the cake is the additional treat of favorite recipes which perfectly frame a narrative built around eating and hospitality.

Her stories are sensuous and evocative, celebrating memories shared around tables and the ways we nourish more than bodies in the breaking of bread. Shauna makes you want to cook and more than that, to feed people. Her vision of hospitality is one we seem to have lost along the way and long for again.

This is not a book about "entertaining" or showing off but eating together, eating simply, and eating well. She shares travel stories, heartbreaks, and lessons learned in community, balance, and embodied living. You definitely come away wanting to share a meal at Shauna's house, but it's still relatable: she confesses to serving cheese and crackers for dinner and admits it can be easier to feed a crowd than cook for your family day in and day out. She offers practical tips for doing both better, sharing her own learning process in between honest stories about friendship, parenting, celebration, shared burdens, and eating with joy.

I read an advanced copy that was missing a few recipes (although I have them in my inbox), and I look forward to putting more into my rotation. I did make her Breakfast Cookies. They were a little too wholesome for my picky eaters, who longed for a bite of chocolate with their banana, coconut, and oats, but they've been good for me before or after workouts.

I've been dressing salads in simple oil and vinegar for months, but Shauna convinced me that homemade vinaigrette can be just as simple and twice as versatile. Olive oil is no good in the fridge, but a maple Dijon balsamic dressing can sit out on the counter for up to a week and is as tasty on roasted asparagus as it is on greens (and probably quite good as a marinade, too). I've already made it twice, no measuring.

I definitely want to try the Dark Chocolate Sea Salted Butter Toffee and Annette's Enchiladas because hers look simpler than the way I make them, and I keep hearing rave reviews.

Both down-to-earth and inspiring, Bread & Wine captures the pleasures of fresh food, full-bodied flavor, and life shared around the table.

Gather the people you love around your table and feed them with love and honesty and creativity. Feed them with your hands and the flavors and smells that remind you of home and beauty and the best stories you've ever heard, the best stories you've ever lived.
There will be a day when it all falls apart...There are things we can't change. Not one of them. Can't fix, can't heal, can't put the broken pieces back together. But what I can do is offer myself, wholehearted and present, to walk with the people I love through the fear and the mess. That's all any of us can do. That's what we're here for. (come to the table, Bread & Wine)

review copy provided by zondervan. opinions mine, affiliate links, what-have-have. as you were, soldier.

beyond the possible

Cecil Williams and Janice Mirikitani have been at the helm of one of the most extraordinary churches in America for over fifty years. Beyond the Possible: 50 Years of Creating Radical Change in a Community Called Glide tells the story of their lives, their church, and unfathomably transformation wrought in San Francisco's Tenderloin District and beyond through the passion, love, and dedication of Glide Church and community.

It is a remarkable book, beginning in Cecil's childhood in segregated west Texas in the 1930s. He recounts harrowing and heartbreaking stories of racism and oppression in America and his own experience as the first of five black students at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. Janice spent her own childhood in Japanese internment camps. Both were well acquainted with injustice and longed to be part of something better, of healing and new life.

Cecil moved to San Francisco in the 1960s to pastor a dying white church in the heart of one of San Francisco's most notorious neighborhoods, a place where homelessness, addiction, violence, poverty, and sex work were rampant. He opened Glide's doors to everyone, resurrecting that dying church and the community itself by turning Glide into a safe haven, a center for city revitalization, and a catalyst for social activism and spiritual change.

The book fascinates. Glide was inclusive long before that was a cultural buzzword, welcoming people of all races, incomes, sexual orientations, and gender expressions, as well as addicts, sex workers, and people experiencing homelessness and mentally illness. The stories are jaw-dropping: the community organized against police brutality, embraced the unwashed and unstable, had unfathomable run-ins with hippies, and helped thousands experience healing after abuse, incarceration, and much heartbreak.

When Cecil came to Glide, it had 35 congregants. Today, it has 10,000 members, (and 25,000 volunteers serve its programs annually). They serve three hot meals a day, seven days a week and operate integrated housing facilities for working families, the mentally ill, and formerly homeless. Glide birthed community centers, after school programs, health clinics, and recovery programs, and they've changed the face of the neighborhood for the better in myriad ways.

The chapters are named after some of the church's core values, including Creativity, Freedom, Nonviolence, Recovery, Diversity, The Beloved Community, and more. Glide's commitment to storytelling, vulnerability, truth-telling, empowerment, and radical acceptance is inspiring, but Beyond The Possible doesn't pull punches, either. They share some of the hard and ugly realities encountered in fighting addiction, racism, and systemic poverty and glimpse the long road of healing after abuse and the ongoing difficulties inherent in a truly diverse community. They also share how publicity and celebrity friends brought a Glide a spotlight and funds as well as personal and other problems.

Cecil Williams ministers from and operates out of an understanding of liberation theology, and as I read, I realized how much the white church fails to comprehend Black theology in particular. Some might not find the book to be entirely orthodox (I'm not sure if Janice would describe herself as a Christian), but it offers an important perspective and a needed counter to some of what passes for orthodoxy in many evangelical churches. Williams and Mirikitani have much to teach the rest of us about love-in-action and the part we can play in bringing tangible, good news to our sisters and brothers here and now.

There's a lot to like in the book, especially for those interested in sixties counterculture and history, social ministry, community development, church diversity, vulnerability, shared power, church growth, social justice, storytelling, or faith activism. Honestly, if you're looking for a lot of Jesus, this may not be your cup of tea exactly, but a more conservative church or Christian could still gain a great deal of wisdom from the perspective and example offered within these pages.

For folks burned by trauma, closed doors, small questions, and church-as-usual, Beyond the Possible might just been the good news you're longing to hear.

Book provided by TLC. Opinions mine.

a long december {& link-up, giveaway}

...and there's reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last." --Counting Crows

Oh, I love me some Adam Duritz. I still do, although that video is unbearably depressing, what with Courtney Cox moping about and kicking trash. Or wait, this Soul Asylum one featuring angsty Claire Danes is even better. The 90s were kind of emo before emo was a thing, huh?

I'm getting a little distracted. December's been like that. I mailed all of zero Christmas cards, but since they have photos and say 2012, it's not like I can send 'em next year. I should get on that.

So, this year on the blog I started capitalizing sentences! (mostly.) I pulled off an entire 31 Day series on Practicing Peace with incredible help from my friends Danielle, S, Tara Pohlkotte, Becky MacKenzie, Kelly Chadwick, Amy Lepine Peterson, Bristol, Luke Harms, Kristin Tennant, and Kamille Scellick. I joined the team of writers at my favorite A Deeper Story and turned online friends into real ones at the Festival of Faith and Writing and Allume.

And I wrote some stuff. Blogger doesn't really keep great stats, but I can tell you that my most popular post (a deodorant recipe, natch) by about a million clicks is not even from this year. The rest of my writing? Not quite so pin-tastic. (But good on you, green/DIY bloggers!)

These were some of my favorites. Play along and link your own best-of or favorite at the bottom, won't you?

faith, church, and culture
a church disarmed | struggling toward love
youth exodus & consumer christianity
consume, critique, create | culture & the Kingdom
on disagreement & hate (& chicken)
making peace with feminism

personal narrative
unsilencing eve | part 1, part 2

the peace of killing the approval god
hazardous faith | a dreamer is humbled

acedia & motherhood | exorcising the noonday demon

poems

the word enfleshed
cape may diamonds

test everything

the cross and the empty tomb

elsewhere

of exile and home | A Deeper Story
the sacrament of yes | for Micha Boyett, This Sacred Everyday
laughing at the days | for Emily Wierenga, Imperfect Prose
ministry, mentors, & holy imagination | for Ed Cyzewski, Women in Ministry Series
this is my body, broken (only say the word) | for Preston Yancey, At the Lord's Table

I'm raising a new year's glass of bubbly (Emergen-C, but whatevs) to you, friends o' mine, for sticking with me. You leave the smartest, kindest comments that encourage my heart to no end. Love ya to the moon and back.

(giveaway closed. congrats to brenna megan with comment #4 #16 who is the winner.)

AND! Imma send one of you a copy of Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, because it's my favorite and so are you. Leave a comment by New Year's Day at midnight EST, and I'll that get that out to you post-haste so you can get liturgical in 2013. xo

this giveaway is sponsored by me and a deal on hardcovers that was too good to pass up:)

the radical gifts of christmas

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:16-21)

These are the gifts of Christmas, the ones delivered to us from God by Mary's son. There are more: 

comfort for all who mourn

provision for those who grieve

a crown of beauty (instead of ashes)

the oil of joy (instead of mourning)
a garment of praise (instead of a spirit of despair)

you shall be called by new names:

oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor

priests of the Lord, ministers of our God

you shall receive a new purpose:

rebuild the ancient ruins

restore the places long devastated
renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.

(instead of your shame) you will receive a double portion,

(instead of disgrace) you will rejoice in your inheritance.

“For I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery and wrongdoing. In my faithfulness 
I will reward my people and make an everlasting covenant with them."

I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me 
with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, 

as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations. (Isaiah 61)

---

The radical, reconciling, redemptive gifts of Christmas won't fit under any tree, (and I don't mean that as a "The true meaning of Christmas isn't found at the mall!" cliche).

Freedom from chains of shame and despair. Freedom to become the community that lives out salvation together.

Comfort. Joy. Justice. Praise. Meaning. Mission. Restoration. Righteousness. Healing. Shalom.

A gospel that is good news for the grieving and worrisome to the empire's halls of power. The upside-down kingdom of our God-with-flesh, born in a barn, who lived to set a broken world aright.

These are the gifts. This is the Giver.

Unto us a child is born. Emmanuel, who lights our way.

Updated: I wrote this before the shootings in Newtown, but this scripture seem even timelier now. Apologies that the giveaway, (now closed), seems out of place. 

---
DaySpring wants to cheer one reader with a Reversible Tree Skirt and Advent Tabletop Devotional which they kindly sent my way, too. U.S. shipping only, please. (Affiliate links.)

To be entered in the giveaway, leave a comment sharing something about how are you celebrating Christmas or what are you meditating on this advent. We'll pick a winner at random on Sunday at 11:59 PM EST, so please make sure you leave an email to get in touch.

The Smitten Word on Facebook
{shared with Tanya Marlow's advent series}

Tiny Prints giveaway {ends TONIGHT 11/19}

**This giveaway is closed (with sincerest apologies to email subscribers.)  I loved hearing all your traditions and memories in the comments! The winner is lindacarol. Congrats!**

It's beginning to look a lot like...Thanksgiving, right? It's not even Advent 'til December 2, but I'm of the opinion that the day after Thanksgiving is a great day to get out the Christmas decorations (and put on the Sufjan boxed set that makes Jim a little ragey).

But! None of this is the point, because no matter whether you're in the Christmas spirit yet or not, it's decidedly not too early to beginning thinking about holiday cards, and I have a sweet giveaway for one lucky guy or gal:

$50 worth of free goodness from Tiny Prints.

There is one code up for grabs for $50 off [not including shipping, cannot be combined with other offers]. This is also a super fast turnaround, and the winner's coupon code will expire 12/14/12.

We designed our Christmas cards last year through Tiny Prints, and they turned out absolutely beautifully. They have hundreds of fun, elegant, and stylish templates for all sorts of occasions featuring one photo or a dozen, and they're printed on quality card stock.

So, to enter: leave a comment sharing a favorite holiday memory or tradition. That's it. (You're always more than welcome to "like" The Smitten Word on facebook, but alas, it will not net you extra entries.) Random.org will spit out a winner tonight at midnight, so make sure you leave an email to get in touch.

Disclosure: this giveaway (and our own holiday cards) are sponsored by Tiny Prints.

what we need is here

After October's whirlwind posting schedule, it's been a little quieter here, but I'm still around, refereeing monkeys, tackling clutter one pile at a time, and trying to breathe deeply. Sweet mercy.

What We Need Is Here (Wendell Berry)

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

Heart-quiet? Yes and please. Mr. Berry, as my youngest would say, you are my best.

A blessed weekend to you all. Let us pray to be quiet of heart and clear of sight. What we need is indeed already here. 

On an unrelated but fun note, find details on designing 10 FREE Tiny Prints flat cards here (no purchase necessary). I also have a free shipping coupon code for Tropical Traditions coconut oil and natural foods in case this was the week you were finally going to try to make deodorant:)

the Midwife of Hope River {giveaway}

The Midwife of Hope River is the first fictional offering from memoirist and real-life baby catcher, Patricia Harman. Friends, I loved this book, a captivating amalgam of some of my favorite themes and interests: natural childbirth, history, homesteading, radical politics, and more.

You know I love Pittsburgh something fierce. History was one of my majors, and American urban/labor/immigrant history interests me most. Give me Pittsburgh history, and I will nerd out. (Rick Sebak documentaries are my happy place.)

The book's protagonist, Patience Murphy, lived in Pittsburgh during the early Jazz Age, rubbing shoulders with the time's most famous artists and organizers. Parts of the story look back on Patience's life there and elsewhere, but most of it focuses on her life in rural West Virginia after the market crashes and the Depression begins.

Patience is not her real name. She left Pittsburgh after tragedy, and is starting anew in Appalachia. Her mentor is dead, and she is alone with memories of much loss. She misses the city and feels out of place in her new home (with her two dogs named after anarchists!) but carves out a crucial community role for herself as midwife.

If you are interested in midwifery or medicine, you will love this rare glimpse into what birthing was like eighty years ago. If that's not your bag, the book's many birthing scenes could prove a bit intense, but it's still fascinating. Harman provides an interesting look at best practices through a narrative lens, and it's cool to see the historical context for aspects of natural birth that aren't trendy but, in fact, traditional.

Racial tension, rugged rural life, healing, spirituality, and friendship are the other threads that weave throughout The Midwife of Hope River. The story and characters are compelling, and I highly recommend it, particularly if you appreciate americana and women's history.

Want to win a copy? Leave a comment with your own book recommendation, and I'll pick a winner at random at midnight on Wednesday, September 27. (If your name is Jen Luitwieler, imma send you my own copy, because methinks this is right up your alley:)

Author Patricia Harman: website, facebook, twitter

Review and giveaway copies provided by TLC Book Tours. Opinions mine, as per always.  Amazon affiliate links. But you knew that:)

Diving Belles & secondhand treasures

I've not read many short stories since my paper writing school days, but I'm remembering why I love them well. Short and sweet is certainly the speed of life now with its stolen kisses and one thousand blurry photos of littles on the move.

Diving Belles is a glorious first foray back into the genre. The debut offering of Lucy Wood, just twenty-six, is a lush and lovely bit of magical realism. (What was I doing at twenty-six? Oh yes. Latte-slinging. Again.) 

Wood's stories converge along the coast of Cornwall, and the sea looms large, a character almost in its own right. Mythical and ancient lore undergird each story. Ghosts and spirits. Mermaids. Talking birds. Invisible lovers. Enchanted houses. Shape-shifters and giants. Fanciful and strangely ordinary at all once, Diving Belles was as perfect to read on a warm beach as wrapped in down on a rainy day.

In the volume's final tale, Wood introduces the reader to drolls, mythical storytellers according to Cornwallian folklore. In Diving Belles, Lucy Wood (herself from Cornwall), proves that she has the storytelling chops to spin new tales from old threads in a manner that is familiar and fresh, a little haunted, and wholly charming.

Anyone want my (worn, somewhat sandy) copy? Leave a comment about your favorite short story or something along such literary lines, and I'll pick a winner at random on Friday, September 21.

Review copy provided by TLC Book Tours. Opinions mine. As per always;)

the year of the gadfly {giveaway}

The Year of the Gadfly is author Jennifer Miller's first foray into fiction, and it captivates right from the start. Budding journalist Iris Dupont is fourteen and grieving. Her parents relocate the family after catching her

having a conference with my spiritual mentor, Edward R. Murrow. (And yes, I knew he'd been dead for forty-seven years, but why should a person limit here interlocutors to the living?) And because there was no "What To Do When Your Daughter Talks To Dead Journalists" chapter in the myriad self-help books my mom had been reading. she shipped me straight off to the good doctor...
I'd had a "very difficult year" (hardly breaking news to this reporter), and I needed a chance to heal. So off we went to my very own Magic Mountain.

Magic Mountain turns out to be a prep school with a storied past and plenty of secrets. Iris' science teacher, Mr. Kaplan, knows more than he lets on, and the house where the Duponts are staying harbors its own sad history. An underground newspaper and a secret society offer intrigue, danger, and a way for Iris to hone her investigative skills and find her footing.

Gadfly is a compelling mystery. It explores high school alienation themes quite capably and doesn't shy away from the uglier sides of exclusion and loss.

Iris is a smart and worthy protagonist. The poignant, funny, and true-to-life narrative kept me up all night on a transcontinental red-eye; mine was the only reading light lit for hours.  I recommend it heartily.

Although the story centers around high school, it's worth mentioning that I wouldn't characterize it as YA fiction. It certainly could appeal to teens (and doesn't contain any "R-rated" elements that I can remember), but it's really just good fiction, period.

If you live in the US or Canada and would like to read The Year of the Gadfly, leave a comment with your own fiction recommendations, and random.org will choose a winner on Friday 5/25 at 11:59 PM. Good luck!

Author Jennifer Miller Website | Facebook | Twitter. 

Thanks to TLC for providing review and giveaway copies.



Tweet

Happy Mothers' Day from The Nields {Album Giveaway}

Friends, have I got a treat for you: Massachusetts sisters and songwriting duo The Nields are offering one reader a copy of their latest album, The Full Catastrophe.  Their song structure and acoustic melodies remind me of  Dar Williams or the Indigo Girls, and the album is a tribute to the sacred, ordinary rhythms of family life.  It is tender, true, and sure to resonate with many.

Here is a video of Ten Year Tin, a stand-out song.  Take a listen. (You may need to click through if reading via RSS.)

The title of the album comes from Zorba the Greek:  "I'm a man, so I married.  Wife, children, house, everything.  The full catastrophe."

From their press release:

the Nields sisters have created a powerful, passionate, thoughtful, humorous work that explores the crazy ride that is this insane twenty-first century idea that in a post-feminist world it might somehow be possible for a woman to raise her children, maintain her relationship and career and contribution to her community while tending to her artistic soul at the same time.

Yes, please to all of that.  The album is the duo's sixteenth, and its birth was a true labor of love, recorded in three hour chunks between carpool and spanning the course of many years.  The oldest song was written in 2006, and the album released just last month.

I don’t need the good life
I just need life
The full catastrophe
If you’ll see me that way
With my feet covered in clay
I’ll meet you back at the fruit tree.

If you'd like to win your own disc of The Full Catastrophe, leave a thoughtful comment about music, mothering, or something related.  What musicians are you listening to these days? [Giveaway closes at 11:59 PM, EST on 5/15/12.  Random.org will choose a winner.]

Thanks to The Nields and Avital Nathman for hooking me up with a copy and introducing me to a beautiful band.  I'm looking forward to hearing more--including their non-eardrum rupturing children's music:)

Tweet

first you try everything

Two weeks of illness and a bit of travel on Jim's end translated into a bit of quiet here on the blog-front. Today, I am happy to report that skies are blue, energy returns, and I'm confident that spring will indeed swap snow for leaves before long.

We've barely left the house, and I have little to show for two weeks beside a messy house, but dang it, I did read a book (and watch nearly two season of Friday Night Lights, 'cause I'm literary like that:)  I'm happy to pass my copy of Jane McCafferty's newest novel along to another reader, so just leave a comment and I'll ship it out to one of you next week.


First You Try Everythingis the second novel from the Pittsburgh author, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University.  The Steel City figures so prominently as to be almost a character instead of merely the setting in which a love story unravels.  As a former Pittsburgher, that was a delicious surprise, but even non-yinzers will appreciate McCafferty's loving attention to place.

Ben and Evvie are in their early forties, married since youth.  They take turns narrating the tale, which is as much about Evvie's descent into mental illness as it is about the dissolution of a marriage.  Their story is heartbreaking and human, and the poetic way that McCafferty inhabits her character's thoughts, fears, and delusions is powerful and evocative.

There are no villains.  Evvie and Ben love each other, and even as he pulls away, his tenderness never wanes.  Their lives are so entwined that there can be no clean break; they are part of the fabric of one another.  But her illness is a wedge, and they cannot be healthy or whole together any longer.

It's not a feel-good story, obviously, but the emotion rings true, the characters well-drawn:

Her heart was big and opening, breaking in half like a drawbridge.
She looked at his face.  Now that he has crossed this radical, irreparable line, he loved her again, the way you love your old town as the train pulls away from the station.

Want to read it, too?  Leave a comment by 2/21/12 with your own book recommendation (and a way to get in touch), and I'll let random.org pick someone to send my once-read copy to.

Disclosure:  There is a (peanut butter?) smudge on one page, but that's sorta how things roll around here.  My copy was provided by TLC, and I was not otherwise compensated for this review.

Tweet