April Month-in-Review

Books and birthdays

I’m writing this letter to you on Thursday night, as I prepare to leave for a weekend retreat I’m leading in Green Bay. If I haven’t told you before, I am by far my most productive (and I mean that in all the ways I despise that word) on the day before a trip. Today, I picked up my library book on hold, visited my mother, dropped off the dry cleaning, got a gift, returned the plastic bags to the grocery, bought a couple of travel-sized toiletries, hand-washed the table runner from the dining room table, ironed three pairs of pants, answered email, and prepared for a Zoom event (which is happening in 40 minutes). I have been trying to write this letter in the margins of the day—and here we are.

I’m glad to be getting things done, quite honestly, because May will be wonderfully blurry month of celebrations: 50 (!) for both me and my husband (technically, Ryan’s birthday is April 30), two college graduations, and one kid coming home who just got accepted to teach in France next year! We have a wedding shower for our oldest daughter mid-month—and then a wedding June 14. So LIFE IS GETTING LIFEY, PEOPLE! I have a feeling the May letter will reveal that I have read absolutely nothing. And it will all be okay because I am observing fitting time: not the kind of time that demands you must eke out the same unit of effort from every standardized minute; not the kind of time that worries about falling behind; not the kind of inhuman time that marches like a machine. Fitting time is attuned to the moment, the season, the invitations of the here and now.

So, enjoy the reflections from my reading this month. And if you want, tell me what you’re reading in the comments!

Why Everything that Doesn’t Matter, Matters So Much by Charlie Peacock and Andi Ashworth

The Gift of Thorns: Jesus, the Flesh, and the War for Our Wants by A.J. Swoboda

Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life by Luke Burgis

Ambition Monster: A Memoir by Jennifer Romolini

Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ by Eugene Peterson