Call of a Coward: a Review and a Giveaway

"When this life doesn't make sense, it's good to remember you are just traveling through." - Marcia Moston

I first heard an excerpt from Marcia Moston's Call of a Coward: The God of Moses and the Middle-Class Housewife in a writing group a year and a half ago.  Through a series of random events (isn't it always), I found myself sitting at a table in Barnes and Noble with a group of writers.  Marcia read aloud chapter 8 "What's a Woman to Do with All Her Time," and asked for feedback.  All I could do was underline beautiful, telling sentences and think about what a powerful book it would be. 

Thomas Nelson obviously agreed, and the moving account of a family's journey from New Jersey to Guatemala to Vermont has now been published.

Call of a Coward is beautifully written.  While there is no attempt to glamorize the third-world living conditions, Marcia has a trick of seeing and describing the beauty of even the most mundane.

"These strong, hardworking women emerged from their dirt-floor adobe houses dressed in their colorful village wraps and elegantly plaited headdresses - statuesque princesses in plastic flip-flops, seldom stumbling on the dirt paths or cobblestone streets although laden with babies on their backs, and baskets of tortillas or bundles of wood on their head." 

On initially seeing the village, Marcia writes, "In retrospect, Hernando was the best possible person to show me the village for the first time.  He loved the land, and it was through his love I saw past the unlovely."  In turn, Marcia shows us the village, and it is through her love that we too see past the unlovely. 

Marcia strikes the right balance with her honesty and humility.  Her conversational tone works well for the transparency and poignancy of her book.  It never pretends to be more than it is: a memoir of God's faithfulness in one woman's life.  But that, in and of itself, is a powerful story that resonates across time and cultures. 

In Chapter 10, Marcia recounts a local woman asking her to give up her only bag of carefully hoarded chocolate chips.  Although torn, Marcia hands them over for the sake of the bigger picture - eternity: our true reality.  To this day, I am reminded of that when I reach casually into my pantry for my chocolate stash.  It is difficult to pinpoint what I'm hoarding when I have so much, but I have many things in my life that are as precious and jealously guarded as Marcia's chocolate chips. 

Perhaps the strongest element of the book is the lack of sentimentality.  Oscar Wilde wrote "A sentimentalist is one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it."  The book is powerfully emotional, but there is payment for the luxury - it is seen in the gut-wrenching accounts of self-doubt, the stark self-evaluation, and the daily sacrifice of even the most basic comforts taken for granted by the United States middle class. 

I would happily share all my chocolate chips and a copy of the book with each of you.  But for now, I will be giving away one copy. For a chance to win Marcia Moston's Call of a Coward, just leave a comment below.  A simple "hello" will suffice or share the title of a non-fiction book that impressed you.  A winner will be drawn at random and announced August 8, 2012.* 

You can read more from Marcia at her blog: On a Write Journey Following God.

For my upstate readers, Marcia will be signing copies of her book at the book launch August 4, 1:00 at Fiction Addiction behind the Haywood Mall.  More information can be found on the Fiction Addiction website.

*Entries available only for readers with a US or Canada mailing address.

Permission link: All excerpts from Call of a Coward: The God of Moses and the Middle Class House-Wife. Thomas Nelson ©2012. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson, Inc. www.thomasnelson.com.

That Salad. THAT SALAD

The recipe for THAT SALAD comes from here.  I'm not sure what it was the caught and held my interest - was it the picture of the pig conjuring up mixed memories or the writer's over-the-top description of being teased and pushed to your limits?  I don't know, but after a kaleidoscope of a day at work I found myself at Whole Foods putting the ingredients in my cart. 

The author at Food52 wrote about April Bloomfield's Lemon Caper dressing in glowing terms. It was the kind of description that makes you stop half-way through reading, look back , and question if you are still, in fact, talking about salad dressing. As opposed to Mother Theresa. Or penicillin. But I was intrigued by the idea of lemon segments in the dressing and her description of the acids working with the fats (which in April Bloomfield's case were fried pig ears).

I sent the link to Jennifer and she wrote back, "What on earth could you substitute for pig ears?" I wanted to find out.

Handling Hospitality

Seven years ago, I would never have invited  friends over for a bucket of fried chicken.  I knew how to fry my own chicken, thank you very much! But let me tell you about the only time I ever tried to fry chicken for company. My grease caught fire, I poured a full bag of flour on it, and we all ended up in the front yard eating take-out pizza while the smoke cleared.  Thankfully, the man I was trying to impress didn't mind too much and now lets me burn food for him all the time.  So glad I went that homemade route!

I think that those of us that enjoy cooking and entertaining have the hardest time doing it. We are so full of ideas. When it comes to executing all these ideas under time constraints  and with an audience, things often unravel.  My inner Crazy-Hostess still haunts me, but I've learned some things that help me be more realistic and successful with entertaining.

A Dish Best Served Cold

"For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?'' - from Jane Austen's Pride and Predjudice

I recently heard of a couple, having just adopted a child, who were asked, "Did you not want any children of your own?" Now I could dissect that statement and point out the at least four things wrong with it, but I imagine you can do that yourself.  Conversations like that make my stomach sink or make me squirm in discomfort.   I am left shaking my head and blinking my eyes in disbelief.

Then there are the times that render me speechless.  Like the time a well-meaning individual told me that the reason Matt has spina bifida is because his mother stood in front of the microwave while she was pregnant. I stood staring at her and not saying anything.  I considered quoting random Bible verses just to avoid saying the wrong thing.

Then There's a Pair of Us



Chairs by Hazelnuts



I'm nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?

Then there's a pair of us — don't tell!

They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!

How public, like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day

To an admiring bog!

- Emily Dickinson

My friend Charis likes to change the end of this poem to "To tell your name the livelong day/To an admiring blog." A pun that always makes me smile.

Here are some of my favorite frogs on the world wide bog:

Reindeer Games

Mr. Bach

"If I can't drink

my bowl of coffee three times daily,

then in my torment I will shrivel up

like a piece of roast goat."

J.S. Bach from the Coffee Cantata


Today in the break room, I brought up a question that has been puzzling me for a while.  A popular parlor game/ice breaker is posing the question "If you could meet anyone alive or dead, who would it be?"  However, there are many missing parameters that trouble me.  For instance, if you chose to meet Joan of Arc, would it be necessary to be fluent in Medieval French?  Or what if I was eager to meet Queen Victoria only to find she was scandalized my my loose hair and visable ankles.  Where are am I meeting this person?  What place?  What century?

You see the trouble.