Stuff YOU'VE Been Reading

I'm not really here.

Tell me what you've been reading and writing and watching and listening to this week.



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The Blank Slate by Camica

Cam is another one of my Twitter cohorts. She makes me laugh all the time with her tweets and she runs the fabulous Well Written Woman site. I'm so glad that I've had the opportunity to get to know her and I'm happy to share her writing with you as well today.


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Neither of my parents were religious. We never went to church, we never discussed God, we never prayed at dinner or bedtime and any questions I had about the origin of the earth, humanity or the universe were answered as scientifically as possible. If my parents couldn’t answer my question directly, the referred me to a full set of encyclopedias that were purchased for exactly such a reason. See, my parents were raised Mormon and Southern Baptist. Both fled their religious upbringings as quickly as they could. My grandparents didn’t hold it against them, but neither have been back to the church in my lifetime (though dad sometimes attends an Episcopalian church to appease my stepmom).

I had essentially been raised as an atheist, though the more militant of the Red A crowd called me an agnostic. I didn’t get the memo that for one to be an Atheist you had to have a strong desire to tell people who believed in God that they were wrong, instead I lived life as if I didn’t have all of the answers. I listened to discussions on religious practices, I engaged in a few angry debates with the more fundamentalist Christians, which unfortunately made up my mind that religion would never be something I could be involved in. I could never ignore evidence that was right there proven in front of my face. I couldn’t believe in God, because God wasn’t proven. That’s not to say he (or she) didn’t exist, just that there was no firm scientific, empirical data to prove existence or not. This singular idea made me a bad Atheist in the eyes of most of my fellow skeptics. They had the same close minded extremist view point as the fundamentalist Christians I had happily loathed.

I found myself spiritually misplaced. I asked my mom why she didn’t raise me with a particular belief system since the church had been so important to her family growing up. She explained she wanted me to make up my own mind and discover my own beliefs that worked for me. She thought it was important that I ask questions and live life by the truths that I found by way of experience rather than religion.

A few years ago I began to feel as if there were more to the world than just what I saw and could explain quantitatively. There was a stirring, a calling, a desire for more. I began to read about Buddhism, Hinduism, some Islam, but never Christianity. As Ghandi once said “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians” - I felt exactly the same, only I didn’t even want to get to know Christ because I was so turned off by the so-called Christians I had interacted with in my youth.

Then one day in the midst of a slightly snarky conversation that led to a profound philosophical discussion, my world changed.

“What do you believe?” my friend asked. I was gobsmacked. What did I believe? I fumbled through an answer because I didn’t have a “belief” I just did my best to be a good person. We talked more and more about the romance of Christ, I met more and more friends who were good Christians. Beautiful people with common sense and reason and understanding that didn’t judge me for being an Atheist or snidely proclaim they were praying for my eternal soul. This one simple question sent me on a new adventure in understanding and acceptance. I was enamored with his adoration of Christ, not religion, but the romance, the love story of Christianity. It was enough to open the door to an experience I had been avoiding for a very long time.
While I do not consider myself a Christian, I do consider myself a believer in something bigger. I believe we all find our way up the mountain, our journeys are all different, our arrival at our own truths imminent. What matters is that we all believe in uplifting one another in this life, encouraging each other to be the best possible version of ourselves and always, always extending a little bit of amazing grace to our fellow human being.

What do you believe?


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Camicia is a wife, wine lover, writer and surprisingly introverted gemini, despite her tweet count. Hobbies include sarcasm, potty humor, putting hats on her dog and LOTS of yoga. She is the founder of The Well Written Woman and you can find her tweeting incessantly or occasionally posting on her personal blog.





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A Little Late by Vernon Harmon

I met Vern through a mutual friend of ours. We would often comment on the same Facebook updates he posted, liked one another's comments and just generally seemed to have a fair amount in common. He sent me a friend request because we seemed "friend compatible" and that alone was reason enough to get to know him. He's a great source of info on They Might Be Giants and running and I'm so happy to be able to share his writing with you today!


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For various reasons it occurred to me this morning that I've never said thank you for all the help you gave me when I first started. I wouldn't be where I am today without your help getting on my feet. So a 13 year belated thank you. Hope things are going great for you and your family.

When I logged into Facebook one day a few years back, I was met with the above message from an old work colleague. To say I was taken aback would be an understatement. This was someone who was always very driven and has since gone on to create his own business with at least moderate success. I know I liked him when he started, but I can honestly say I don’t recall going out of my way to help him.

After some consideration, I rattled off the following response:

Thanks very much for the sentiment, but I think you'd have been fine. You were always on the ball, very focused, and creative. I remember being impressed with how quickly you took to the job. I appreciate you looking past me often being a jerk back then, and I'm glad we've kept in touch, even if we haven't been really close.

You see, when we worked together, I was quite a hot-head, with poor social skills and an over-sized opinion of myself. My explosiveness was even captured in a nickname a different co-worker gave me: Verno the Inferno. The thing is, though, I never wanted to be that person – the butt of jokes, the living caricature. But once you get a label, it’s not only hard for others to see you in a different light, it’s hard to see yourself differently, too. You get stuck in the rut of expectations, however unpleasant.

Photo by Vernon Harmon

I changed jobs in 2000 (and, not coincidentally, also met my future wife) and took the opportunity to re-invent myself: I became humble, outgoing, cooperative, and calm – and a lot happier. Qualities once called out as areas of weakness for me now became cited as strengths. I make this sound easy, like I simply awoke one morning and decided to be a different person, but it took a lot of soul-searching and a lot of focused effort. In the end, though, I discovered, interestingly, that it was much easier to be this person than the Angry Young Man. (Yes, I just dropped a Billy Joel reference.) As a result of this change, though, I often found myself looking back on my previous self with some amount of shame, hence my self-effacing comment about being a jerk.

My friend’s unexpected expression of thanks touched me, but I assumed that my response would be the end of the conversation. It wasn’t. I soon received the following response:

Sure I may have been fine, but we'll never know about that parallel universe. I guess that's what I meant - I may still have wound up in the industry via some other route. I might have been productive on [X] if you hadn't been working on the project. But I'm here because of the things that did happen and the people who were involved. And for that, I am thankful. 

As for you being a "jerk", you know I learned a lot from that experience as well. And after working in the industry a while, I realize that even at your worst you weren't a bad guy. I'm glad you were able to reflect on your experience and improve yourself because of it. I'm not blowing smoke when I say that it's been at least a little bit inspirational for me. I don't think a lot of people can look at themselves that way and then follow through on changing what they don't like. I struggle with it myself.

Wow. I was blown away. I knew what my transformation had meant to me, but it never occurred to me that it would mean anything to anyone else. And the recognition that “even at [my] worst” I was still a good person flew in the face of that long-held, deep-rooted, secret fear that people cannot look beneath the surface to see the truth of your intentions, your compassion, even when your actions seem to run counter to those ideals.

I wept.

I wept long and hard.

I felt like I had been granted forgiveness, like I had been given permission to let go of my shame over the old me.

I doubt my friend had an idea what his words would mean to me any more than I did about how my actions would affect him. But whether he meant to or not, whether I meant to or not, we both had an impact on each other simply by doing things that felt right to us, and by the very act of interacting.

We do not exist in a vacuum. Relationships are at the core of the human experience. Virtually everything you do can, and probably does, have an impact on someone else, whether or not you or they realize it – and I don’t mean that in a Butterfly Effect kind of way; I mean a direct, tangible effect on someone else.

I found myself so inspired by this experience that during the years since, when I find myself thinking about some old acquaintance, occasionally I will send them a note about a particular recollection of them that means something to me, or a note of thanks for some kindness they showed me, or even an apology for an old wrong that I regret. The results are frequently revelatory.

Have you considered telling someone thanks for having a positive impact on your life? Or apologizing for an old slight? What’s stopping you? You may be very surprised by the results.

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Vern is the last of the great Philosopher-Kings. He ponders the meaning of life in his Fairport, NY, castle where he dwells with Queen Wendy and two princesses, as well as three black panthers, the protectors of his grounds. He is an inspiration to some, an annoyance to others, and a friend to all. He loves clever wordplay and music. He has considered creating a blog many times, but has been unable to narrow his wide range of interests down to a single topic of focus. You can read some of what he has written here and here, and
he can be found on Google+ here. You can alsofind him on Twitter but that account is mostly used to autopost his running exploits.



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The Saint in the One-Story House by Shawn Smucker

I'm so happy to have Shawn back today for another guest post (see his previous contribution here). Shawn is a gifted writer and as such is a frequent contributor to the "Stuff I've Been Reading" lists each week. If you haven't subscribed to his blog yet, I encourage you to do so. You will not be disappointed, as he weaves stories in ways that are not easily forgotten. 


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I’ll admit, I was nervous. I walked up to the door of the one-story house and stood there for a moment. Then I reached up and rang the doorbell.

Sheesh. Feels like I’m going on a first date.

“You must be Shawn!” the young woman said, answering the door. “Come on in. We love visitors. Breaks up the day for us.”

I followed her into the house and through the kitchen and into the living room.

“Hey, Gordie,” I said quietly. “It’s good to see you.”

There he sat, a friend of the family, around fifty years old. He smiled at me from his electric scooter, a quiet sort of grin that remained almost unchanged throughout my visit. His nurse moved the small cup with a straw from his lap to the table, then put an iPad down in its place.

His arms looked like they weighed a ton as he moved his index fingers over his iPad, divining a sentence. He recently wrote on his blog:

As for me physically, I'm doing about the same as the last report…[but] my speech is no longer understandable and my fingers and hands are becoming weaker. I'm trying to enjoy each day...

I waited patiently while he typed, trying not to peak over the edge for a sneak preview. Then he pushed one last button and a computerized voice spoke on his behalf:

“Hello. Thanks for coming.”

He looked up at me with an amused grin, as if to say, “Can you believe this thing?” I laughed.

“That’s quite the contraption, Gordie.”

I had been nervous about trying to communicate with him. But it was fine – towards the end of my visit he even skipped the iPad and tried to talk to me, low sounds emitting from deep inside of him. I found myself able to understand some of the things he said, which I could tell gave him a lot of happiness.

Around noon he typed something then pushed the speak button.

“My nurse has to feed me before she leaves at 12:00.”

Recently, Gordie wrote on his blog:

Now instead of playing guitar, riding motorcycle, playing golf, and all the other plans I had, I'm living life with a body wasting away, rendering me helpless to do anything on my own. This definitely wasn't the picture I had in my mind. Am I mad at God? At first I admit I was, but as time passed, I came to realize this is God's plan for my life and I have accepted it as such. I am in the winter season of life and when spring comes I'll be able to say, my life has been the one that God intended for me to live.

“I’ll see you in a few weeks,” I told Gordie. He smiled and nodded slowly. It pained me to think that trapped somewhere inside the body that was failing him was a sharp mind, completely aware.

I walked out to my car and felt like the smallest of thing would make me cry. Mostly I felt like I just had the opportunity to be in the presence of a real, live saint. I drove away, clutching tightly to those thirty minutes with Gordie, like a letter from a parent, long gone.

There is something to be learned from our suffering. It is natural to want to eliminate it, to wish it away, yet there it is, going nowhere. There is something we can learn from the suffering of our fellow human beings.

Sometimes, though, it’s hard to see clearly past the pain and decipher what the message might be. But Gordie is helping me with this:

Five years have passed since I was diagnosed with ALS…I was still walking, driving, eating, talking, and doing all my own personal care…Now I can't walk, talk, eat, drive, or do any of my personal care. It's amazing what we take for granted until we lose the ability to do the simplest of tasks. But I trust God with a bigger plan for my life than what I can see.

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Shawn lives in Paradise, Pennsylvania with his wife, four children, ten chickens and a small mole that refuses to relocate from his garden. He loves writing and helping people find their voice more than just about anything else in the world. Be sure to check out his blog and follow him on Twitter.




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BlogHer Book Club Review: The Kid by Sapphire

I'm not really blogging, I promise! But I did want to let you know about a review of The Kid by Sapphire that I did for the BlogHer Book Club. It's very spoiler-y, so be warned. Also be warned if you're considering reading this book, it's brutal - both in content and in style. But you can find more about that in my sponsored review.

Thanks for checking it out!

Disclosure: I received a copy of The Kid by Sapphire for the purpose of review and I was compensated for my review, however my opinions are 100% my own. 




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Treasure Tree by Shanda Sargent

Shanda is just about one of the most gentle, lovely, encouraging people you will want to meet on the internet. I don't know how she stumbled across my blog, but I'm so glad that she did and I'm just delighted to be able to share her beautiful spirit with you today. 


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Photo by Shanda Sargent

Between our sidewalk and driveway, stands one of my favorite things, a weeping cherry tree. Each new spring she blesses us with an enchanting array of pink and white blossoms. When the wind whisks through her branches, the loosely attached buds create a seemingly endless snow of petals. Late spring, she offers another gift. FRUIT. Her branches fill with bright red cherries that are picked, pitted, and fashioned into Grandma's sour cherry pie. The summertime gift she offers is a hideaway for my children. They love to climb into her strong, twisted trunk and escape behind her waterfall of branches. Her secret cove is the perfect place to get lost in a book on a warm summer day. These are all splendid gifts to be sure, but the most valuable thing I've ever received from Treasure Tree is not in her beauty, her fruit, or her hideout, but in the lesson of her dead branches.  

DEAD BRANCHES…

A few springs ago, we stood beneath Treasure Tree to view her abundance of cherry clusters. As we stood in admiration, we were shocked to see several dead branches intertwined among so much life. I got to thinking about us. We aren't unlike Treasure Tree ourselves. We all have "dead branches." We all have parts of our lives that are broken and lifeless. ALL OF US. The dilemma that we fall into is that because we are broken, we don't believe that God can, will, or wants to work in and through our lives. It's tragic for us to believe we are unusable because we are weak, inadequate, and flawed. When we are smothered by this lie, the gifts we offer become inhibited. Treasure Tree was bursting with gifts in spite of her dead branches. Why do our dead branches debilitate us like they do? I think the issue is not solely about dead branches, but also about God's love. 

DO WE REALLY AND TRULY- DEEP WITHIN THE SOUL OF WHO WE ARE- BELIEVE THAT GOD LOVES US NO MATTER WHAT?

Can God really love me when He sees the lifelessness that seeps into the cracks of my secret places? Can His love wash over me and free me from my failures so they do not hinder the ministry of His gifts in my life? The gravity of my own dead branches has whispered lies into my depths for far too long. Worrying that I have rendered myself useless for His Kingdom has done nothing but bog me down under a blanket of shame that chokes the fruit He wants to produce. Treasure Tree did not cease to offer gifts, because dead branches were woven in and around her. Eventually, we clipped and pruned her lifeless branches so she could offer even more gifts:  more beautiful blossom snows, more fruit, and more healthy branches for a hideaway cove.  Knowing that I have a trusted Gardener, I need to embrace His complete love for me. I need to surrender fully to His clipping and pruning in my life, all the while, still bearing gifts. Instead of a blanket of shame, I need to rest under the blanket of His "no matter what I've done or ever will do" love. Only then, can the full capacity of my offerings bless others in spite of my dead branches, and that is the true treasure from this TreasureTree, indeed.

What areas of brokenness in your life have been used for good?


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Shanda Sargent is a wife to Matt, and a homeschooling mom of four. She is deeply moved by honesty, respects humility, appreciates love, knows failure, is reassembled by grace, indebted to mercy, and possesses a grateful heart.   She blogs transparently about life, faith, and being human at The Upside Down Pastor's Wife.  You can also follow her on Twitter.  











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Second Cup Friends by Sarah Bost-Askins

Sarah was one of my very first Twitter friends. Her coffee tweets every morning make me smile and her poetry is absolutely delicious. Sarah was the first person ever to guest post for me on my previous blog and as such, I am delighted to kick off this month of guest posts with this beautiful piece about friendship.

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We live in a world of one cup, rushed through friendships.

Our lives spinning through a maniac to do list while squeezing in time for a brief respite of conversation. We schedule our  coffee dates to avoid the inevitable guilt-laden nights, the I've been meaning to call messages, but mostly the guilt. The comfortable earth toned coffee shop fully equipped with WiFi, just in case we can fit another work task in, serves as the ideal meeting place. Music, loud espresso machines, and other talkative patrons mask the lag of our conversation. Lattes offer a brief distraction from the awkward pauses when we have run out of the compulsory topics—how's the hubby/partner, what grades are the kids in again, did you hear about...? Coffee gulped and general Facebook fodder shared; we rush off to the next thing and the next thing. Always a rush to check off each box on the to-do list.

Friendship is not for the to-do list.

But so often, carving out time for friendship, for an interweaving of our lives can be more difficult than scaling Mount Everest or more painful than a root canal. While scheduling time these days is inevitable,  a to-do list spot implies another chore, another duty. But our hurried pace rarely lets us live above the chores, the duties, the to do list.

So, we rush...

Through our coffee dates, our meetings with each other. Worse still, our hearts have hardly been opened to each other's company. Isn't that what friendship should be? An exposing of our inner selves, the part of us we don't tweet or post on Facebook, the part hiding behind the blog posts, the part waiting for a chance to speak to another exposed heart. Isn't that what friendship should be?

Let's Be Second Cup Friends.

At some point, we realize this rushed friendship erodes the very fiber of our souls. It covers up the beating heart, seals it inside with bricks and mortar, and offers very little comfort. But what if we chose to slow our lives down for a moment? Rather than a gulped down hurried coffee date, we chose to order another cup, the second cup.

The second cup of coffee has the real magic in it.

Within that second cup, we allow ourselves the pleasure of moving beyond the stereotypical conversations. We move a bit closer to that exposed heart, a bit closer to interweaving our souls in friendship. Second cup friends strengthen each other as we open up to our fragility, our wreakedness, our flaws. It is through our flaws that friendship grows and sustains itself.

Question: How are you a second cup friend?

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Sarah grew up reading, thinking, musing which led her to pursue a Bachelor's and Master's degree in English. This Virginian settled in the Carolinas where she lives with her husband Mark, two beautiful step-children AJ and Ashley, and three rambunctious English Springer Spaniels Ginger Snap, Cupcake, and Ophelia(Ophelia was thus named when no one in my family was hungry). She blogs at From Tolstoy to Tinkerbell and is a contributor for The Well-Written Woman. You can also follow her on Twitter.

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