I’m honored to be able to be a part of Renee Altson’s Virtual Book tour. Renee’s recently-released book, Stumbling Toward Faith: My Longing to Heal from the Evil that God Allowed, is published by Zondervan/EmergentYS, and you can purchase it from YS here. (They also have a sample chapter available)
Renee was kind enough to send me a copy a few weeks ago, and I’ve been able to read through about 1/4 of the book. In all my packing/unpacking/beginning classes/etc., I haven’t been able to read any more of it, but I still encourage you to look into it more, read through some more of her stops on the virtual book tour, and get a feel for what the book is all about. It is definitely an experiment in transparency, an exercise in laying out the truth, as it is: gritty, raw, painful…but real.
I asked Renee if she could send me one of her own works of photography to share with you all. I also asked her if she could reflect on the following question.
Renee, as you have been on this journey of grief, suffering, life and redemption, what books, music, art, people have given you hope, grace and breathed life into you?
Below are some of her thoughts.
BOOKS
the most significant book to me, a book that i stumbled across at a very lonely and desperate place in my life, is my name is asher lev, by chaim potok. i really don’t have words for what that book gave me — hope, certainly. grace, yes. understanding, and a sense of feeling finally understood, most of all.
here’s a section from “my name is asher lev” that i love:
“I walked for hours then beneath the naked trees of the parkway along streets that had once been my world but were now cold and gone from me. Sometime during the walking, I stopped in front of a mound of snow and with my finger drew in one continuous line the contour of my face. Asher Lev in snow on a cold Brooklyn parkway. Asher Lev, Hasid. Asher Lev, painter.
I looked at my right hand, the hand with which I painted. There was power in that hand. Power to create and destroy. Power to bring pleasure and pain. Power to amuse and horrify. There was in that hand the demonic and the divine at one and the same time. The demonic and the divine were two aspects of the same force. Creation was demonic and divine. Creativity was demonic and divine. Art was demonic and divine. The solitary vision that put new eyes into gouged-out sockets was demonic and divine. I was demonic and divine. Asher Lev, son of Aryeh and Rivkeh Lev, was the child of the Master of the Universe and the Other Side.
Asher Lev paints good pictures and hurts people he loves. Then be a great painter, Asher Lev; that will be the only justification for all the pain you will cause. But as a great painter I will cause pain again if I must. Then become a greater painter. But I will cause pain again. Then become a still greater painter.
Master of the Universe, will I live this way all the rest of my life? Yes, came the whisper from the branches of the trees. Now journey with me, my Asher. Paint the anguish of all the world. Let people see the pain. But create your own molds and your own play of forms for the pain. We must give a balance to the universe.
Yes, I said. Yes. My own play of forms for the pain.”
…..
i also adore adrienne rich’s poetry. her writing is translucent and her images are amazing. i find myself reading and re-reading her works to drown in her words. here’s one of my favourites from her:
diving into the wreck
First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it’s a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weedthe thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body
We circle silently
about the wreck
We dive into the hold.
I am she: I am hewhose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compassWe are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which our names do not appear.
i find continued grace in mary oliver, anne lamott, margaret atwood, walter brueggemann, and denise levertov. walter wangerin’s “ragman and other cries of faith” is tattered and worn, and i read both glimpses of grace by madeleine l’engle and listening to your life by Frederick buechner daily.
….
MUSIC
musically, the biggest source of hope has been tori amos. her lyrics always touch some silent aching part of me, and her piano playing is amazing. i always enjoy october project, happy rhodes, ani difranco, peter gabriel and almost anything by danny elfman.
….
ART
van gogh has been the artist i have most deeply connected with. i had a chance to see many of his works in person in boston, and was overwhelmed by them. monet is another inspiration — i think i am drawn to impressionists because they see the world without edges – it is all almost an illusion. i love the blurriness of their works.
….
PEOPLE
i have been privileged to have worked with mike yaconelli. he was truly an inspiration for my messy life. i loved the grace he gave me. his wife karla has been a friend, as well, i have really learned to honour myself through my relationship with her.
a former english teacher of mine is a dear friend, and continues to be my literary mentor, and my husband eric and daughter jordan are my best friends and teachers.
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You can continue to follow Renee on the virtual book tour, and she’ll be at Ragamuffin Diva Tuesday.