Hi
Everyone!
Summer vacation has finally arrived and although my brain is
still regenerating depleted cells caused by a very, very long school year, I’ll
attempt to provide you with some information about the last three books and meetings.
The most exciting book club news is the fact that we read
our 100th book, The Boy Who
Met Jesus: Segatashya of Kibeho! This book about a young boy who received
apparitions of Jesus and his mother Mary was one of my picks. Segatashya was
born in Rwanda. He was a poor shepherd with no education or understanding of Christianity.
The author of Segatashya’s story wrote the book in an effort to spread the
messages that Jesus and Mary gave to him. The messages are so important for all
of us as they involve our futures, our eternity. If we can just recall each day
some of the vital points made by Segatashya when he revealed the messages to
the world, and live a more prayerful life, what peace we will find:
- Jesus says, “Your lives are filled with miracles, but you are too distracted by material things to see them. Your lives are miracles: a child in the womb; a mother’s love, a forgiving heart is a miracle.”
- On Judgment Day, the Lord will show everyone their entire lives, and people will know that they are the authors of their own fate.
- If you need help to open your heart to Jesus, pray to His mother to come to your aid.
- The world will end in fire, and Jesus will come back to the world and carry everybody who lives with a pure heart and who loves him up to paradise to be with him forever.
- Jesus says, “All who seek earthly pleasures above the truth of my words are risking their eternal souls. Look for my words in Matthew 24:35
- We must stop working several times each day and think about our souls and our eternal life
- The greatest, most redeeming force in the universe is the power of God’s love and forgiveness.
- Jesus taught Segatashya The Lord’s Prayer and the Sign of the Cross, how important must these prayers be for us then!
- “The End of Days is upon us… All of us must cleanse our hearts of hatred and sin by sincerely praying The Act of Contrition,” (yet another prayer Jesus taught Segatashya).
- Jesus explains why He created man, “When you have a child, you have it out of love, and you hope the child who is given life by God will continue to think of God.
- Jesus says, “Tell all people to read the Bible and find my words, tell them to believe every word I every spoke and to live by those words.” “But beware of Satan’s interpretations of God’s words!
- Jesus says, “If people knew when the world is going to end, they would convert out of fear, not out of love for God.”
- “Because I saw a glimpse of heaven, nothing in this world would ever please me again,” explained Segatashya.
- Jesus told Segatashya, “Those who know more will be asked more; you will be judged by what you know.”
I could continue on and on citing
the imperative messages from Ilibagiza’s book, but I’ll move on to April’s
title, Sue Monk Kidd’s The Invention of
Wings!” This book will definitely go down in book club history as one of
our favorites. Outdoing her bestseller The
Secret Life of Bees, our very first book club title; in The Invention of Wings, Kidd transports us deeper into our country’s
racial history to Charleston, South Carolina’s pre-Civil War Era. The dual
narration from the point of view of Sarah Grimke, the daughter of a wealthy
judge and slave owner and her family’s slave Handful, opportune us with insight
into two very contrasting lives taking place under the very same roof! Individually,
if your education of slave history is a bit on the scanty side, this book will
make you streetwise to the horrors of the time.
On our recent vacation to
Charleston last week, we toured the Magnolia Plantation. As our tour guide
shared details about the estate, he referred to the name “Grimke” as the first
owners. As I kept thinking, “Where have I heard that name?” it was Lori who remembered.
I asked the guide and he validated that, yes, it was the same Grimke family. The
owner of Magnolia Plantation was an ordained minister in the Episcopalian church
and the uncle of Sarah Grimke, the same Sarah Grimke from The Invention of Wings. He went on to plug their gift shop, where
we could all buy copies of the book. My visit to the plantation was enhanced
with the knowledge that Sarah Grimke probably walked the same garden paths that
we ventured on her family visits. Did she breathe the same intoxicating scent
of magnolias? Was she startled by the snakes and alligators lurking in beautiful
flower beds and garden ponds? Did she wonder in fascination at the Spanish moss
suspended so mysteriously from the live oak trees? Did she refill her lemonade glass five times
just to survive the heat of the afternoon!
Sarah Grimke lived ahead of her
time. She was tired of the rigid social customs of the wealthy in the south.
She knew slavery was wrong, even as a young child, and wanted to make a
difference. Sarah painfully wished she could free Handful, but she was
powerless in a culture where women had no say. Instead, she found her power through
dissidence. She taught Handful to read even
though it was forbidden for slaves to be literate. She said, “I told myself
reading was a kind of freedom; the only one I could give.” Sarah’s yearning to
right the wrongs done to blacks continued through her adulthood. Even though
she struggled with a speech impediment, she became tired of living with her
fear of speaking. She shares, “I couldn’t explain that rising up, this coming
fully to myself, the audacity and authority my life had found.” Her story of
overcoming the challenges of a wayward culture is history; Sarah becomes a
Quaker minister, and ultimately a pioneer for women’s rights and abolition. As
for Handful, we believe she led her to freedom.
May’s book title Happy, Happy, Happy by Duck Commander
Phil Robertson continued our reading marathon of moral messages. Phil writes
with honesty and simplicity as he shares his life’s journey in the pages of his
biography. The point of his words is in the title. Happiness is not dependent
on things, it is the result of a simple and God centered life. Phil tells us
about the best and worst times of his life, his falling away from God and his
return. The lessons he learned through his mistakes are invaluable for us all. But
the most important advice he can give us, Phil admits, isn’t from him at all.
He says there is a blueprint for living we can all find very easily, just open
up the Bible. He is concerned with the state our country is in today and sees
the parallels of our behaviors in Romans 1:28-32:
“Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the
knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do
what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of
wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife,
deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent,
arrogant, and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their
parents, they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, and no mercy.
Although, they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things
deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve
of those who practice them.”
All three books shared deep
concerns for the immoral patterns of living we see around us. Each book proposed
simple and prayerful lifestyles. Sagatashya of Kibeho, a shepherd, reminds us
to stop working several times a day to pray and to give up material things to
concentrate on Jesus, Sarah Grimke strengthens us, as she gave up the luxuries
of her southern belle life and opted for the simple life of a Quaker, and Phil
Robertson challenges us as he lives off his land and makes God and family the
center of his world. I believe that we were blessed in reading all three of
these books, and I believe that through their pages there was something that
reached out to all of us, something to apply to our own lives and our
interactions with God and others.
Finally, to announce our next book
title, it is Traveling with Pomegranates
another novel by Sue Monk Kidd. This is a memoir recalling a trip the author
took with her daughter. At the time, each of them is seeking to move forward in
their lives as each is struggling with personal change and conflict. If you
have already started this one, I hope you are enjoying the book’s vacation destinations,
Greece, Turkey, and France! Meanwhile, think of Jodi as she is traveling the Alps
of Switzerland!
Members in attendance at the May book
club were Barb K., Becky, Cheryl, Ginnie, Jodi, Lori, and Lori’s friend
(possible new recruit), and me. We met at Natilie’s Pizzeria on Main Street but
made the proposal to meet somewhere new for June’s club. On Sunday, after
returning from our vacation, Tim and I stopped at the Field House on Rte 356
and found in to be refreshing. As we are looking for outdoor seating, this is
the place for the beach town dining ambiance in Butler (of course, minus the ocean). There
is plenty of seating available, and a patio roof in case of the chance of rain.
The scenery is comprised of greenery, grass and trees, instead of a parking lot
or highway. There are plenty of menu choices from salads to sandwiches to full
dinners. They even have dessert; my favorite is the pecan ball, I was in
heaven! It is perfect! So plan on meeting at the Field House Restaurant at 6 PM
on Monday, June 30 for our next meeting! Hope to see you then!
Sincerely in reading,
Tammy :)
