The professor that had the most impact on my faith and vocation is a dynamite American lit professor named Christina Bieber Lake. I could rave endlessly about how the way she teaches and lives shaped me, but that's not the purpose of this post. Suffice it to say that when I saw this scrawled on a bulletin board in a dorm my junior year I thought that the Bieber was referring to Dr. Bieber, as her students call her.
Alas - most people are as untouched by her influence as I am untouched by the Justin Bieber fandom. Their loss. One of my best friends and I have declared that Dr. Bieber and Dr. Mazzarella (one of the other professors in the English department) are our spirit animals and we will be a dynamic duo like them when we grow up and achieve our professorial dreams.
Anyway. Dr. Bieber wrote a book that just came out this month: The Flourishing Teacher: Vocational Renewal for a Sacred Profession. I preordered it, squealed when it arrived in the mail, and read it in four days. It's a mix of wit and wisdom - practical and spiritual - for the teaching life. Though, to be honest, I would give it to just about anybody because it's basically just a good perspective on life in general. I laughed and nodded and underlined and cried and wrote notes in the margins that only I or friends who actually took her classes would understand.
That was the huge gift of this book - I got to see how Dr. Bieber approaches teaching very deliberately and that the impact that she had on me and my friends was not by chance. I got to marvel anew at the privilege I had of sitting under her as a college student - and of being able to learn from her again as a new teacher, since she is one of the main reasons I figured out I was supposed to teach in the first place.
One of the many life-giving tips Dr. Bieber gives in her book is to build what she calls a soul shelf - a shelf of the books that you can always count on to rejuvenate, inspire, and give your soul rest.
Being the good student that I am (and also being someone who never needs to be told twice to rearrange a bookshelf as a good pastime), I went and built my soul shelf this afternoon. It only took me about 10 minutes, because I know the books that speak to me like that - I just had to collect them on one shelf. It makes me happy just looking at it.
Dr. Bieber ordered her soul shelf according to three categories:
Beauty -"What makes me remember that my life here is a gift of immeasurable beauty?"
Simplicity - "What helps me recognize that it is possible to live in the present moment in peace and the fullness of joy?"
Love - "What inspires me to come out of myself and cultivate a healthy love for others?"
Now. These are lovely and very helpful categories. I fully intended to order this list according to them as a handy reference for anyone who stumbles across it. However. Most of the books on my soul shelf fall into at least two of them, and there are many that belong in all three categories.
So here they are. In an order that makes sense to me. Some of them are already on The Bookshelf, while others are new to me in the two years since I created that list. I'll add those to The Bookshelf soon.
BEAUTY * SIMPLICITY * LOVE
A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry, edited by Czeslaw Milosz - I found this at a used bookstore in January and bought it because I loved the title, I know Milosz, and most of the poets were unfamiliar to me (highly unusual when I pick up a poetry anthology), and most of them did not originally write in English. This book is truly luminous. I read it from cover to cover, which is actually unusual for me when it comes to poetry anthologies. In case you're curious, and these names mean something to you, some poets included who I was previously familiar with are Denise Levertov, Mary Oliver, Walt Whitman, Raymond Carver, and Robert Frost.
Milosz says this in the introduction to one section:
Epiphany is an unveiling of reality. What in Greek was called epiphaneia meant the appearance, the arrival, of a divinity among mortals or its recognition under a familiar shape of man or woman. Epiphany thus interrupts the everyday flow of time and enters as one privileged moment when we intuitively grasp a deeper, more essential reality hidden in things or persons.
A Thousand Mornings, by Mary Oliver - This is the only volume of Oliver's poetry that I own (hopefully that will change soon), but it's a good one. Her poems are exquisite, humorous, and bracing by turns. I am always refreshed when I turn to them.
The Stream and the Sapphire, by Denise Levertov - I actually first encountered Levertov through Dr. Bieber, who gave me this slim little volume when I graduated. This is a collection of her poetry engaging with ideas of faith. I particularly love "Annunciation," which is too long to include here, and "Avowal":
As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit's deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns that all-surrounding grace.
Come and Eat, by Bri McKoy - I wrote about this book in this post. Bri winsomely and with great joy makes the case that if we want to share the love of Jesus with the world, we need to start by inviting others to share meals at our tables.
"Too often I notice how I can become hardened by the seemingly insurmountable evil in this world. But here's the thing: we know who ultimately wins the battle. We know our Rescuer's name. He is not calling us to rescue anyone; he is calling us to pull out a chair and sit amongst the broken. He is the Rescuer. We are simply an extension of his great love and peace. And he calls us to continue stepping into brokenness and gives us the strength to face the unimaginable under the banner of his love. So we must show up."
Adorning the Dark, by Andrew Peterson - This book. It's a Christian creative manifesto. Peterson started the Rabbit Room, a collective of Christian creatives inspired by the Inklings and Wendell Berry, among others. I underlined and starred and annotated the heck out of this book.
"Righteousness means more than pious obedience; it means letting a strong, humble mercy mark your path, even when - especially when - you don't know where it is taking you. . .Your heart is so full it must be must be poured out. You see the world as a dark, messy place that needs rearranging, and with all that light shooting out of your pores your just the person to do it."
The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom – every Christian should read this at some point. As much the story of a family living faithfully in ordinary life as the story of how they handled the extraordinary circumstances of occupied Holland in WWII.
“When He tells us to love our enemies He gives, along with the command, the love itself.”
A Circle of Quiet, by Madeline L’Engle – lyrical memoir by the author of A Wrinkle in Time about faith, life, and creativity.
“An infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers...To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy.”
Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy, and Women’s Work by Kathleen Norris - very short, practically a pamphlet, on how important small, ordinary things are in developing the rhythms of life that give us space to walk with God. Dr. Bieber assigned it in the first class I took with her.
“The ordinary activities I find most compatible with contemplation are walking, baking bread, and doing laundry. ”
“My goal is to allow readers their own experience of whatever discovery I have made, so that it feels new to them, but also familiar, in that it is a piece with their own experience. It is a form of serious play.”
One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp – beautifully crafted piece about gratitude, trust, faith, and living in the present. A long-time favorite of mine.
“...the secret to joy is to keep seeking God where we doubt He is.”
“A life contemplating the blessings of Christ becomes a life acting the love of Christ.”
Surprised by Oxford, by Carolyn Weber – riffing off Surprised by Joy, the author’s story of questioning and faith during her time as a masters’ student in Literature at Oxford University. Oozing with literary references and a delightful read.
“He quickened his stride: 'The truth is in the paradox, Miss Drake. Anything not done in submission to God, anything not done to the glory of God, is doomed to failure, frailty, and futility. This is the unholy trinity we humans fear most. And we should, for we entertain it all the time at the pain and expense of not knowing the real one.”
The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis - beautiful, funny, poignant, and quick to read, these books provide better imaginative and intuitively graspable illustrations of the life of faith than a lot of theology I've read. (Which is why they so often crop up in sermon illustrations.) And they are simply good stories. The world is a different place with the Pevensie children and the people of Narnia in it.
The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien - I reread this trilogy every few years, and it gets better every time. Tolkien creates a world where evil is so palpable and powerful that there is only the slightest thread of irrational hope that good will win. The journey of the members of the unlikely fellowship to overcome evil and restore good is moving, funny, imaginative, and profound. It is a reminder that courage and beauty and hope and friendship can be found in the most unlikely of places - even when the forces of evil seem insurmountable.
"There's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for."
(To be completely honest, I'm not 100% sure if the above quote is from the book or the movie, but it's a great quote all the same.)
The Tale of Desperaux, by Kate DiCamello – I love this book about a very small mouse with very large ears, a kingdom in desperate need of soup, and a princess named Pea. Is it choice or lineage that makes someone what they are?
“Once upon a time," he said out loud to the darkness. He said these words because they were the best, the most powerful words that he knew and just the saying of them comforted him.”
Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo – this book. Detective story, redemption story, love story, revolution story, with a good dose of random background information on the battle of Waterloo, the sewers of Paris, street slang, and obscure convents thrown in. Stunning on every level.
“A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in--what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.”
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee – a classic for a reason. It’s so much more than a story of racial injustice in the Jim Crowe South. It’s a story about childhood and growing up, family, community, and walking around in someone else’s shoes. And who doesn’t love Scout Finch?
“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”
Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis – widely considered to be Lewis' best fictional work, this one blows my mind every time I read it. Reimagining of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, with profound things to say about love, integrity, the longing for home, and knowing oneself.
“The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.”
Jayber Crow, by Wendell Berry - This novel is the ruminations of a man who didn't go many places or do much, but who led a whole, good life. It's a book about inward change even when externals haven't changed much. It's like the river which plays a prominent role in the story: it doesn't go anywhere, but it's always changing. It's a book about calling, about valuing what is, about quiet doubts and quiet faith, with a lot of dry humor thrown in. It's about letting go of the need to "make something of yourself."
"You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out - perhaps a little at a time."
"Faith is not necessarily, or not soon, a resting place. Faith puts you out on a wide river in a little boat, in the fog, in the dark. Even a man of faith knows that (as Burley Coulter used to say) we've all got to go through enough to kill us."
Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson – a stunningly beautiful book. One of my top 5 favorite books ever. A letter from a dying father to his young son, it’s a meditation on grace, fathers and sons, forgiveness, faith, and the beauty of this earthly life. People tend to either absolutely love it (that’s me) or be bored to tears because not a ton happens. I love the sequel, Home, too (it’s a kind of prodigal son retelling), but I may just be partial because it touches on themes near and dear to me.
“This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.”
The Elegance of a Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery – pensive, funny, mildly crass and decidedly European book about a concierge in Paris who is actually a brilliant autodidact. A treasury of small and beautiful things. Originally written in French.
“When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things. Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet know how to set a jewel of infinity in a single moment?”
Little, Big, by John Crowley – I read this for a Christianity and Fantasy class in college, and I’m not sure whether I would have fallen in love with it as much as I did if I hadn’t had the guidance of a fabulous professor. That said, the poetry of the dense prose, the multigenerational narrative, the themes of faith, doubt, love, longing, home, and narrative make this a fantasy I’m confident I’ll return to throughout the years. Be alert to skip some bedroom scenes.
“The further in you go, the bigger it gets.”
East of Eden, by John Steinbeck – extremely dark at times but also at times exquisite, this book is well worth the 600 pages. Set in California around the turn of the 20th century, it’s a multi-generational story about individual choice, the consequences of familial love and lack thereof, and asking questions about what determines someone’s character. I love this book for the secondary characters. Like Les Mis, exceptionally well-done on every level. Lyrical description, powerful exploration of themes, excellent characterization.
“I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. . . . There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?”
