Oxymoronica by Dr. Mardy Grothe

Oxymoronica: Paradoxical Wit & Wisdom From History's Greatest Wordsmiths, is quite possibly the most fun in book form that I've had all year.
Oxymoronica is a term created by the author, combining:

Erotica. Literature or art that is intended to arouse sexual desire.
Exotica. Things that are curiously unusual or excitingly strange.

with the word oxymoron:

In ancient Greek oxus means "sharp or pointed" and moros means "dull, stupid, or foolish." So oxymoron is itself an oxymoron, literally meaning " a sharp dullness" or "pointed foolishness."....The best examples of oxymoronica don't contain a simple contradiction in terms; they contain what might be described as a contradiction of ideas.

I'm sorry, but if you did not find that passage extremely sexy, perhaps this is not the blog for you. To me, the proclaimed uber-booknerd, lover of the clever turn of phrase, this book borders on word porn. (I so hope that last sentence does not provoke all sorts of vulgar Google ads. Please tell me if it did.)

Like my beloved Thoreau, Dr. Grothe has written a book to be savored in small bites, so I'm just offered up an appetizer tray of quotes this morning. Bon appetit!



Architecture is frozen music.
-Goethe

Tragedy is if I cut my finger.
Comedy is if I walk into an open sewer and die.
-Mel Brooks

We think about sex obsessively except during the act,
when our minds tend to wander.
-Howard Nemerov

Criticism is always a kind of compliment.
-John Maddox

Loneliness is now so widespread it has become, paradoxically, a shared experience.
-Alvin Toffler

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished.
That will be the beginning.
-Louis L'Amour

Henry David Thoreau's Walden

I am still wending my way, slowly, deliciously, through Walden.

I so fervently wish that, like Thoreau, I could go off and stake out a piece of land, cut my own lumber to build my own cozy little abode. I will have to be content with slinging Jeff's machete to take down the vines squeezing the life out of my trees. Except I'm not allowed to play with the machete. Or the axe.

My favorite part, as a child, was how he tallied up the costs of building his house on the land he claimed "by squatter's right":

Boards.............................................$8.03, mostly shanty boards.
Refuse shingles for roof and sides 4.00
Laths.................................................1.25
Two second-hand windows
with glass.................................2.43
One thousand old brick..................4.00
Two casks of lime............................2.40 That was high.
Hair....................................................0.31 More than I needed.
Mantle-tree iron..............................0.15
Nails...................................................3.90
Hinges and screws...........................0.14
Latch..................................................0.10
Chalk..................................................0.01
Transportation.................................1.40
I carried a good part on my back.

In all......................................$28.12 1/2

It was with particular delight that I encountered this passage again. It was just as I remembered it; for some reason that doesn't happen a lot when I reread childhood favorites. The telling is shifted and changed in my memory, by time and circumstance.

Anyway, the boards were recycled from a shanty that Thoreau buys for $4.25, after a particularly pretty recounting of his experience hewing and mortising the main timbers (no, I don't know what that means, but it sounds manly). He reflects that

"They were pleasant spring days, in which the winter of man's discontent was thawing as well as the earth, and the life that had lain torpid began to stretch itself."

He sees a snake "run into the water" and lay there for a long period of time, because it had yet to leave the torpid state. He muses,

"It appeared to me that for a like reason men remain in their present low and primitive condition; but if they should feel the influence of the spring of springs arousing them, they would of necessity ride to a higher and more ethereal life."

In the next paragraph, he describes the shanty he is about to purchase from James Collins;

"James Collins' shanty was considered to be an uncommonly fine one....The roof was the soundest part, a good deal warped and made brittle by the sun. Doorsill there was none, but a perennial passage for the hens under the door-board...It was dark, and had a dirt floor for the most part, dank, clammy, and aguish."

Ah, yes, it does sound uncommonly fine.

So here we have a man who is obsessive, frugal, preachy; recycles; uses his communing with nature to inform his poetic musings on the nature of man; and then, in the next paragraph, gives a snarky description of another man's home.

I am so in love with Henry David Thoreau.

The edition that I have borrowed from the library (and sadly, will soon have to return) is the 150th (!) Anniversary edition, an oversized hardback with lush photography of present-day Walden Pond. It is the sleek black Jaguar XK edition of this book. It is beautiful.

As much as I covet Amazon's Kindle and its ability to fit 200 books into its seven-and-a-half inch body, its search feature- oh, how I long for the search feature- there is no way it can compare to the experience of supporting the heft of this book, and turning its crisp, smooth pages.

I just flicked over to Amazon to grab the code for the Kindle link, and read through all the features, and now I really really want the Kindle.

Thankfully, I have my lovely stoic Henry David Thoreau to stay my hand. He reminds me that putting $399 on my credit card, plus the cost of uploading books thereafter, is a loser's proposition. After all,

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation...
But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things."

Buying things on credit is never the solution. Debt is slavery;

"Always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow,
and dying today."

Yes, Henry David. I am calmer now.
I am so lucky to have you here, at my bedside, for another twelve days. So glad to

"follow the bent of [your] genius,
which is a very crooked one..."

A humble house I found in the woods. Wonder who resides within?

Book Review: Sink Reflections by Marla Cilley

I have been focusing on the greening of cleaning over at my family blog this week; indeed, cleaning house has very much been a prominent topic in my mind for some time now.

I think in some ways it was the emergence of Spring and the change in attitude that comes with that; the quickening of the spirit, the surge in energy, the need to throw open the windows and see sheer white curtains billow, to let the sunshine in.

Of course, that sunshine then illuminates the dirt, the clutter; and one is inspired to clean, to free up one's space, within and without; to begin anew.

However, if I am being honest about the true source of my newfound passion for keeping clean and tidy, I would be remiss if I did not credit Ellen at Everyday Crafty Goodness for introducing me to the phenomenon that is the Flylady.

The Flylady is, in her own words, part cheerleader and part drill sergeant, and she is on a mission to save us from our own clutter, a condition she calls CHAOS: Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome. This refers to the fly-off-the-handle crisis cleaning we do when visitors are unexpectedly on their way. I think we've all been there.

Her website is a treasure trove of inspiration and motivation, but for me, the most important service the Flylady supplies is an option to receive daily emails, reminding you to declutter, to plan out your meals, to do zone cleanings. It provides the little extra push I need to do all the little things I have been meaning to do.

And yay, Marla Cilley (aka Flylady) has written a book titled Sink Reflections, gathering all her optimism and advice in one brightly colored pink paperback. Let's start with the title.

The Flylady's first task for you is to shine your sink. Physically scrub the bejesus out of your kitchen sink and then buff it up to a high shine. Why? She wants it to be your beacon of clean and shiny hope, to start you off on your way.

"When you get up [in the] morning, your sink will greet you and a smile will come across your lovely face. I can't be there to give you a big hug,but I know how good it feels to see yourself reflected in your kitchen sink. So each morning this is my gift to you."

Yes, it is a little corny. She is like a very affectionate aunt. And at first the notion of shining your sink seems silly. But eventually I was worn down by her enthusiastic admonitions by email, and I went and shined my sink. And, yes, it felt darn good. And it made the whole kitchen look cleaner.

Here it is today:

Shiny!

Step two is to get dressed to lace-up shoes. Again, this seems nonsensical. I am an at-home mom, I bake a lot, I garden. I am a filthy mess at the end of the day. Why should I get dressed?

I'll tell you why. If the UPS man drops off a package, or if some guy runs out of gas and knocks on my door, I'm not embarrassed by what a sight I am. If I suddenly need to leave the house, I can leave right away. And most importantly, because getting dressed to shoes makes me feel better about myself, and ready for the day.

Step three is a before bed ritual: pick out your clothes for tomorrow, and get a good night's rest. The Flylady scores again: My tomorrow morning goes a lot more smoothly when I follow this step. (It helps that the Flylady reminds me to turn off the computer and go to bed each night. )

The Flylady program starts with the premise that we have become paralyzed by our need for perfection, that the knowledge that the mess in our houses is so immense that we don't know where to begin.

"This mess is so big
and so deep and so tall,
We can not pick it up.
There is no way at all!"
-Dr. Seuss
"The Cat in the Hat"

Well, she 's going to tell us where to begin. Enter the"Babysteps", a progression of daily habits that enable you to take control of your life. Steps one through three I have covered above. After you've internalized these, you are ordered to start digging your way out of your clutter, through a series of "27 item flings", "5 minute room rescues", and 15 minute decluttering sessions. (A chirpy reminder that "You can do anything for 15 minutes!" often greets me when I check my Inbox.)

After the clutter is under control, the Flylady has a system of zone cleaning that ensures that every part of your house will undergo a seriously thorough cleaning at least once a month, and a more general surface cleaning once a week. Everything is broken up into quick tasks that take fifteen minutes at most, so you are never overwhelmed.

It seems like voodoo magic, but it works. It just takes commitment, and time. The emails definitely help keep you going, as do mantras like:

• "Your house did not get messy in a day, and it won't get clean in a day either."


• "Stop whining cold turkey."


• "Your dryer is not a laundry basket."


• "You can't change anyone but you."


• "Set the example in love and quit being a martyr."

When I started receiving the emails, I would open and read and delete them. I don't even know why I signed up, initially. Then one Monday morning, the Flylady asked me to wash out my bathroom trash can. I deleted the email. But then I felt bad. She's so nice, she's so positive, she has dedicated her life to trying to help people be comfortable in their own homes. How long could it really take to wash out my bathroom trash can? The thought rankled the back of my brain all day. Finally I heaved myself up and washed out the damn bathroom trash can. And man, it was dirty. It's funny how you don't notice those details because you see them every day, and it just becomes white noise. But just like the kitchen sink, it made the whole room look better. The Flylady is good for that.

Unless you are some sort of weird Martha Stewart drone, I am going to hazard a guess that you don't get everything done, all the time. Marla Cilley is like a very helpful neighbor. She is a little over the top, but I am willing to overlook that, because her program really does work. Don't believe me? Go shine your sink, and see how much better you feel.

Book Review of sorts: What Color is Your Parachute?

First, a little background: why I would choose to read Richard Nelson Bolles' What Color is Your Parachute? when I'm not actively looking for a job?

• I am 31 years old;


• I have no college degree;


• I have not held a real job in over a decade ( I am choosing not to count babysitting, occasional tailoring, helping out at the tux store, or "housewife")


• My last real job was a photography shop, where I learned all sorts of useful things that have been rendered nearly, if not completely, obsolete by the takeover of digital;


• Therefore I have no truly marketable skills.

I have two more years before my youngest will be in school full-time, and at that point I will need to go full-time as well. What can I do to make myself more hireable before then? What am I good at? And given the choice, what sort of job should I look for?

What Color is My Parachute? delves into these questions and gives solid, concrete guidelines for searching for a job. It outlines ways to ferret out what skills you have, what skills you like to use (and where those two distinctions overlap), how to stand out in a crowd of resumes, the etiquette of job interviews. It stresses the importance of looking for the job that fits your life, even if you have to find a job "for now" to cover your bills. In fact, this book is so useful for your day-to-day pounding the pavement how-tos of the job hunt, that it proved to be less practical for my needs, which are more hypothetical. Definitely I will refer to this book when I have a start date looming in the near future, and I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a job, or considering a career change. That's hardly new advice, of course; that's how it wound up in my hands. However, since I can't apply many of the applications to my current situation, I can't give any sort of "it worked for me" testimonial.

What I can do is offer up the part of the book that lingered in mind days and weeks after reading it, so much so that I took the time to copy it down (hopefully accurately). It carries a distinct Christian flavor, which I'm not sure about, but the philosophy is sound.

What stuck with me was the concept that we should all be seeking out our Mission in life, and perform it with enthusiasm. Bolles points out that the word enthusiasm has its roots in the Greek entheos, which translates as "God in us". Mission is defined in our trusty Webster's dictionary as "a continuing task or responsiblity that one is destined or fitted to do or specially called on to undertake".

Bolles then goes on to clarify:

Your first mission here on Earth is one which you share with the rest of the human race, but it is no less your individual Mission for the fact that it is shared: and it is, to seek to stand hour by hour in the conscious presence of God, the One from whom your Mission is derived. The Missioner before the Mission.

Second, once you have begun doing that in an earnest way, your second Mission here on Earth is also one which you share with the rest of the human race, but it is no less your individual Mission for the fact that it is shared: and it is, to do what you can, moment by moment, day by day, step by step, to make this world a better place...

Third, once you have begun doing that in a serious way, your third Mission here on Earth is one that is uniquely yours, and that is:

a) to exercise that Talent which you particularly came to Earth to use- your greatest gift, which you most delight to use,

b) in the place(s) or setting(s) which God has caused to appeal to you the most,

c) and for those purposes which God most needs to have done in the world.

Tweak the word "God" as needed to suit your views.

Am I living out my Mission in the job I hold now, as wife and mother and human being? I try.

• I try to find time every day to find beauty in the world, to find good in people, and to share these things with others.


• I try to only perform actions that are consistent with my beliefs.


• I try to use my influence as a mother to shape my children's ideals and morals, because they will fall back on these in adulthood.


• I try to step back to allow them to form their own molds, not just conform to mine.

For now, this is my most important work, helping my kids develop into the adults they will become, so that they can exert their own influence and help improve this world we share. What work will I find when all my kids are in school, and they rely less on my guidance?

I don't know. I don't know. For now, if it's OK with you, I'm focusing on today.

I know that many people feel that I am spoiled, that most people don't have that luxury, to focus on today. I don't know that it's a luxury. More and more, I think that maybe it's a necessity.

We know nothing of tomorrow;
our business is to be good and happy today.
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Book Review: This Year I Will...How to finally change a habit, keep a resolution, or make a dream come true

We are our habits, yes? I have lots of bad habits. Unfortunately, most of mine are psychological rather than physical, and not so easily broken. It was not so hard for me to quit smoking, even though I smoked for nearly two decades (that's quite a bit more than half my life, people, ugh, I'm so ashamed). It was also not so hard to make a conscious decision to clean as you go, wake up earlier, or spend an hour every day doing whatever my three-year-old wants to do no matter how mind-numbing it is.

For me, it's much harder to stop being so negative and hyper-critical or stop worrying so much.

Almost impossible to remember that sarcasm is not the same as humor.

(Getting easier, though: write every day, tread lightly on our earth, and find time to be happy.)

How lucky for me that M.J. Ryan wrote a book to aid me in my quests, with the admittedly awkward title This Year I Will...

First off, I feel that this title seems to imply that I have committed to a New Year's resolution, which I have not and never will. But I was so intrigued by the notion that someone had written a whole book about how to change a habit or keep a resolution, that I had to give it a quick read. And it is a quick read, lots of short chapters, not terribly taxing, just perfect for before bed.

As it turns out, This Year I will... is not the piece of fluff that I suspected it would be, but full of good advice and practical information, inspirational quotes (my favorite!) and testimonials.

It is divided into into three major categories:

Section One: Preparing to Change. You have to be committed to the change or you will make wishy-washy excuses not to do it. This will happen in spite of the fact that you are perfectly aware that it will happen. These are the bits I found most pertinent to my situation:

"No Time is the Perfect Time to Begin". I know that I am guilty of thinking, I'll write when all the kids are in school full-time. We'll really start saving money after we pay off this bill. I'll start sewing things to sell in a shop on Etsy after I figure out all the functions on my sewing machine. But the truth is, I can procrastinate like nobody's business. There is always going to be something I can find to fill my time or fritter away money on. So, from now on, it's all about today. Leo on Zen Habits has a sign that reads "Don't Talk. Type." Maybe I should post something that screams, "What are you waiting for? Do it NOW!"

Ryan uses this quote to illustrate her point:

Every successful person I have heard of has done the best he could with the conditions as he found them, and not waited until next year to be better.

-E.W. Howe

I think this is just as apt and much more elegant:

In American lives, there are no second acts.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

This one is nice too:

Do not delay;

The golden moments fly!

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"You Can't Get Fit By Watching Others Exercise." Ryan says that we "confuse reading and thinking with doing"; also that "we're all experts at reading and talking about change and beginners at putting change into action." Ahem. Ok. Guilty as charged. Let's move on.

Talk does not cook rice.
-Chinese proverb

Section Two: Getting Into Action. Here we find the advice and motivational skills to get off our butts and get started. I found lots of useful info here; most importantly:

"It's Going to Feel Awkward at First." Ryan points out, "When you first begin to do something new or different, you are not very good at it." Oh. Wait. That's true for everybody? I can't tell you how many things I've abandoned or not even started because I wasn't very good at it or didn't make measurable progress right away. This was the epiphany moment for me, and it's so stupid and little, something you hear all the time. Practice makes perfect. Rome wasn't built in a day.

"Yes, You Can Find the Time." I've been working on this; I get up at 5:45 in the morning and I'll shoot for 5:30 soon now, I'll start getting up at 5:30. I liked the quote:

Time is a created thing. To say "I don't have time" is to say, "I don't want to."

-Lao Tzu

"When You Don't Know What to Do, Channel Someone Who Does." Ryan relates the story of her friend who grew up very shy, and learned to present herself as Katharine Hepburn to pull her through social situations. I was tickled by this because, having grown up painfully shy myself, I will channel Audrey Hepburn to suffer through social situations. However, while Ryan's friend is channelling the traits she sees in Katharine- courageousness, honesty, and generosity- I will physically dress as Audrey and put on a show, so to speak. For me, it is easier to play a role and be remembered as the weirdo who came in costume, than to be myself and be judged on those grounds.

I was also struck by the irony that I have always seen myself as already being too much like Katherine Hepburn- tomboyish, horsey and brash, with perhaps a tendency to talk a bit too loudly. I've always seen it as a Hepburn vs. Hepburn scenario, with Audrey clearly winning out, for who wouldn't want Audrey's poise, simple elegance and delicate beauty? Reading this chapter made me realize that perhaps being compared to Katharine Hepburn- and make no mistake about it, this comparison is only in my own mind!- is maybe not the worst thing in the world.

Section Three: Keeping Going. Now that I've decided I need to change, and made the push to just do it, how do I keep the momentum rolling, day to day, for the rest of my life?

"Don't Let "Them" Bring You Down." Yes, I am continually being teased at home for being a booknerd and a hippie. Really all it took was a mental mindshift for this to stop getting in my way. I quit seeing it as a personal attack and chose to view it as affectionate teasing. Slowly, I realized that's probably what it was from the beginning.

This also applies well to the day-to-day stresses of parenting. If my three year old is whining up a storm at Happy Harry's, because she wants all the toys and coloring books and bubble blowers that are so helpfully lined up right next to the waiting area in the pharmacy, where we have to sit for ten minutes to get antibiotics that she has to have because she is sick, remember, and older women start exchanging pointed glances and muttering about how they would never let a child act like that in public, well, I'm giving myself permission to blithely ignore them. Because M.J. Ryan told me not to let "them" bring me down.

"You Can't Change What You've Done, Only What You're Going To Do." Ha! I think I'll print that out too, and hang it next to my "Do it NOW!" sign. Maybe with this quote for further inspiration:

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

-L.P. Hartley

"Ask for Help from Invisible Hands." Around these parts, we (and by "we", I mean "I") call this "the universe provides" and "the karma effect". Yes, I am vaguely embarassed to publicly admit to such a New Age-y concept, but I can't dismiss it. When I am positive, good things happen. When I am negative, bad things snowball, until I hit bottom and look for help from any quarter. And then something coincidental and wildly unlikely will occur to bail me out.

This has happened to me so many times that even my husband, Mr. Skeptic Meany-Pants, has accepted it as some sort of weird personality defect. As Ryan points out, you don't have to understand or believe. It just happens, and when it does, I like to step back and be grateful for a second. And whenever I can, I try to do something kind to send a little of that positive energy back into the universe.

In summary:

This Year I Will...How to Finally Change a Habit, Keep a Resolution, or Make a Dream Come True. Odd title, full of solid advice and positive thinking, nice inspirational quotes, not preachy or touchy-feely, a fast before-bed read, highly enjoyable, now available at your local library. "What are you waiting for? Do it NOW!"

Your beliefs become your thoughts.

Your thoughts become your words.

Your words become your actions.

Your actions become your habits.

Your habits become your values.

Your values become your destiny.

-Mahatma Gandhi

Book Review: America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook

Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
-Susan Ertz
Anger in the Sky

OK, technically I have not "read" this book, but holy cow, do we use it. A team of chefs allegedly cooked every recipe in this cookbook a billion different ways, using different techniques, ingredients, and cook times; they then selected the one that is the best combination of flavor and ease, and delivered unto you this holy grail. Thank you, test chefs.

The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook is full of pictures (over 1500), including clearly illustrated how-tos. It offers up 1200+ recipes, variations on those recipes, emergency substitutions, and helpful tips. It alerts you to the best equipment- the best slow cooker, the best cookie sheets, whatever. It tells you how long to boil hard-boiled eggs (start raw eggs in cold water- bring to boil- remove pot from heat- steep for 10 minutes) and the best way to cook corn on the cob (add sugar to water to enhance sweetness- hold the salt to prevent toughness)-the sorts of things other cookbooks assume your mother taught you. I have not come across a loser recipe yet. We will regularly flip through because we have a spare chunk of time, select a recipe because we have those particular ingredients on hand, go ahead and make it, and it will be delicious.

Case in point: yesterday, to warm up the house on a rainy Sunday morning, we made monkey bread (I like to call it "monkey bread, monkey bread", in a singsong voice, for no good reason). Here it is in all its golden sticky glory:



And yes, it is super yummy, although a lot of the caramel goodness ran out of the pan (our Bundt has a removable insert, and it leaked through) and smoked up our oven. I now recommend a solid pan for monkey bread, monkey bread; the one William-Sonoma sells is a thing of joy and beauty forever.

The one complaint I have about the Test Kitchen Family Cookbook is that it consists of a binder with rather thin pages, and in our oafish enthusiasm (think frantically flipping pages with oven mitts on) we have ripped a number of pages out of the binder. I've remedied the problem with hole reinforcers, but really, I don't think I should have to bust out the office supplies while making Sunday brunch. I suppose if they made the pages of a heavier stock, it would make the binder heavy and unwieldy. So, another recommendation: if you are not a crazy office supply collector like myself, pick up hole reinforcers if you buy the book. You will need them sooner or later.

In summary: The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. Better than The Joy of Cooking. That's right. I said it.

Book Rant: Change of Heart

I have mixed feelings about Jodi Picoult.

Everything about her plotlines scream "Ripped from the Headlines!" and "Destined for Bestseller's Lists and Fiesty Book Club Discussions!" Generally I find this kind of sensationalism and guaranteed popularity to be a turn-off. In fact, if more than two people recommend a book to me I will mentally take it off my must-read list. Of course, this is me being a pain and a booksnob and in no way a sign of discerning taste.

To some extent, Jodi Picoult is formulaic. All of her novels that I have read are Moral Dilemmas, and the plotlines require a bit beyond your normal "willing suspension of disbelief". She likes multiple narratives that reveal all sides; often the truth is obscured, and you may find yourself sympathetic to an unsympathetic character.

As a result, every time I begin a Jodi Picoult novel, I do so with reservations. And every time I get about halfway through, I look up at the clock and realize that I've been reading for three hours straight, and it is too late to start anything decent for dinner.

On Picoult days, we eat pasta for dinner. With a salad on the side.

I read this book in two three-hour sittings, the second session by solar flashlight (it was the evening of Earth Hour). I woke up the next day tired, with a crick in my neck, and very excited to discuss this book with my non-existing blog readers.

The problem with reviewing Change of Heart is, I do so want everyone to read it and enjoy it as much as I did. But I think that to get the full experience, it's best to walk into it not knowing any relevent plot points.

So I'm not telling you anything about the book's plot or characters. Instead I'll tell you what I thought of it, and what I took away from it. Hence: Book Rant and not Book Review.

Interestingly, I don't really feel the plot or the characters are this novel's greatest strengths. That designation goes to Picoult's ability to force the reader to ask themselves difficult questions. Specifically, the Picoult formula provokes these questions:

• Who do I believe?



• Where do my sympathies lie?



• What would I do in this situation?

The beginning of the novel is highly reminiscent of Stephen King's The Green Mile, almost plagiaristically so. The fact that Picoult refers to this similarity within the dialogue ("Hey, Green Mile," he yelled as he was wheeled off the tier, "how come you didn't save me?") does not excuse it. If you are familiar with The Green Mile (and if you are not, you should definitely put the movie on your Netflix list), then you will be unsurprised that this novel also delves into a bit of mysticism.

Change of Heart relies heavily on Picoult's interpretation of a series of accounts of Jesus' life, called the gnostic gospels. For me, this is what really made the novel worth reading.

A happy digression into the nature of the gnostic gospels:

These scrolls were discovered in 1945 in Upper Egypt. They were found to be contemporaries of the texts we find in the New Testament, and contain many of the same sayings and events of the New Testament gospels, but within a different context.

• So, our first interesting insight: Some editing took place when compiling the works that made up the New Testament. What else was left out? On what criteria were these works selected or not selected? How much of each is true?

Gnosis is a Greek term meaning "knowledge"; at the core of Jesus' message in the Gnostic gospels is man's capacity within their lifetime to achieve self-knowledge, insight, to find God within one's own self. When this insight is achieved, we are the same as Jesus. We are divine.

• Interesting insight #2: This sounds a lot like Buddha finding Enlightment under his lotus tree. I like it when religious and spiritual philosophies overlap like this. It makes everything seem a lot more like an natural conclusion.

Naturally, the Catholic Church dismissed this as heresy. The Church teaches us that God is "other". The nature of original sin ensures that we will always be less than God and the best we can hope for is divine intervention and forgiveness. Jesus, as son of God, was also "other". He was born without original sin to save us.

• Why all this need for "other"? Is it to create a need for guidance, for saving? When we are taught that life is the greatest miracle, doesn't it make sense to examine our own lives for signs of divinity and redemption?

The New Testament was holy propaganda, crafted for the purpose of conversion, as were many of Catholicism's central Holy Days. It is no coincidence that Easter and Christmas fall so near to the summer and winter solstice; all the easier to assimilate those pagans. This was the work of Paul, converting the masses with all the religious fervor of a converted zealot. Paul was not only not one of the twelve apostles chosen by Jesus to be "fishers of men", but did not even know the man. And yet one could argue that he built the Church as we know it today.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John- the personal accounts, or gospels- had not yet been written when Paul was doing all this converting. What did Paul even know about Jesus and his message? How did he hear it? Did the version of Christianity he was preaching dovetail with the actual preachings of Jesus?

And yet, of the 27 books in the New Testament, thirteen of those attribute authorship to Paul!

Why didn't Sister Roseann mention any of this in first-period Religion class?

Please note, I am not knocking Christianity. I was born and raised Catholic. (My mother was a converted Buddhist and was fierce about Catholicism. My father was a practicing Catholic with Buddhist leanings. I like to pick and choose; I think what bother people is that I think I'm allowed to.)

I have a healthy interest in religion, how it affects people, how it is shaped by the culture it is born into, how it evolves over time; to the point where I took a class on The History of Christianity that met twice a week for three hours a class. Much of what I've discussed here is coming from my notes from that class ( I knew it would come in handy someday! Totally worth hanging onto for ten years).

• A quick digression-within-a-digression: Belief and religion are not the same thing. Think about it this way: Religion is like a car. I choose a model based on how I drive, how much, the extent I value safety vs. speed vs. cost. Some people arrive at the same conclusions I do and buy the same car. But ultimately it's just a vehicle to get me where I need to go.

I think it's important to question. I think it's important to know about other religions, other forms of belief. We need to question and do research, if only to force us to clarify what we think we believe, hold that against how we live our life, and adjust either our beliefs or our actions accordingly. If life is our greatest miracle, then we need to really live it.

How do we do that? By not accepting without question the beliefs handed down to us, by our families or our region or our church. We use that as a starting point, as a foundation. We look for evidence. We look at the lives we've lived so far. We think to ourselves, Why am I here? Seriously, all joking aside, how often do we think, Why was I put here, on this earth? But if you don't ask that question- again, with utmost seriousness- then you're not living. You're sleepwalking. Getting through today to get to tomorrow, over and over, until it's over.

As Henry David Thoreau so elegantly puts it:

Always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow,

and dying today.

Another application of this particular idea, I think, is when Jesus says in Matthew 18:3,

Verily I say unto you,

Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Children have no sense of tomorrow and only a vague sense of yesterday. Children are mostly about right now.

When we fix our beliefs firmly in our minds, and consciously apply those beliefs to our actions; when we stop living for tomorrow and instead look at our lives as a series of right nows; when every action consciously reflects what we believe, that's living.

• So now, an interesting line of thought, one that I'm not really going to get into: if everyone lived their lives this way, would we all be better people? If everyone took some time to put their beliefs under intense self-scrutiny, does it necessarily follow that everyone would act in a way that would be commonly thought of as "good"? Are there people who really, at their core, believe in things that are "bad" or "evil"? How much of our lives are coincidence? How much is Fate?

But wait, you say. I didn't sign on for this. I wanted to hear a Jodi Picoult story. Instead I get a dissertation on gnosticism and all this nonsense about the meaning of life and measures of goodness. I'm not sure whether I'm inspired or bored.

And that, dear reader, is exactly what reading "Change of Heart" is like.

Remember our Picoult formula questions?

• Who (or what) do I believe?



• Where do my sympathies lie?



• What would I do in this situation?

I think we would do well to ask ourselves these questions all the time.

I think that if you got this far through my rant, you should definitely read the book.