Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Candy Bar Books

harbarger theory: sweet and salty is like a party in your mouth!!

On a drive to pick up Molly's stuff in Missouri, I listened to a book by Anne Lamott (a fave of mine!) called Blue Shoe. It's a novel, but like most novels, sorta kinda grounded in her own experience.

It reminded me of one of my favorite candy bars, the PayDay. In case you are candy-bar deficient, PayDays are those incredible mixes of sweet caramel and salty peanuts. While most candy bars err on the side of not "too much" salt, PayDay goes for it!! Not as much as my beloved Michael's peanuts from Jackson, Ohio, but they do go for it. The mixture of the salty goodness with the rich, sweet caramel is like a party in your mouth!!! Woo Hoo!!!!

Like classic Anne Lamott, this book is a bit salty and a bit sweet, a party in your mind!! A bit heavenly oriented and a bit well grounded on earth. Like most of us, Anne Lamott (and her character Mattie) is a person who is trying to live out her faith while firmly in the midst of life. She makes mistakes. She even does stuff that make the more staid among us raise our eyebrows.

But, she makes no apologies and just keeps plugging along. Her characters are earth-bound saints who are simply seeking to find God, real life, joy and a bit of happiness along the way.

Kinda like the rest of us, eh? Most of us ... OK, ALL of us ... are not able to live that idealized Christian life where we never make moral compromise, we spend our evenings "in the Word" and we never get petty, lustful or have a little too much to drink. Anne Lamott has characters like this and doesn't apologize for them, nor does she laud them. She just lets them live among us.

I find her writing a blessing to me. She lifts my heart and stirs my soul. I'd like to hang out with her characters. I'd love to be their pastor. (I probably am!)

If you want a book that is a little salty and a little sweet, try Blue Shoe. I enjoyed it as an audiobook from our local library. But, if you click on the link, you'll find it at Amazon, too.

harbarger theory: sweet and salty is like a party in your mouth!!

3 comments:

Pastor K said...

Did you know that you can get a "Payday" effect by mixing roasted peanuts with candy corn? Tastes just like the candy bar, but at a fraction of the price!

An another note, good luck w/ the Lewis' readings. One suggestion: do mix in the fiction with the non-fiction. You'll be surprised how much the two blend together to give you a richer experience with Jack.

paul said...

need more lewis.

Joel said...

Kerry - Thanks for your insights! I'm reading CS Lewis in the order that he wrote them, so I'll be reading the mix of fiction and non-fic in the order he chose.

Paul - I'm getting there. Be patient, grasshopper!