Dear Reader,
Today's guest author Lori Lansens is very happy to be at the book club and she would like to share a little bit about herself...
I started writing my first novel when I was thirty-eight years old and expecting my first child, a son. I wrote the second novel while I was nursing my second child, a daughter. I wrote the next in-between homework and soccer practice, basketball games and art projects. The next, while navigating middle school, and the latest while both were in high school, which, contrary to popular opinion, are really not the best years of anyone's life. My love for my children and my experiences as a mother, directly and indirectly, are folded into every page of my novels. The babies are 18 and 20 now and they still influence the content and direction of my work. I've been grateful to see the world through their eyes and to revisit my own youth as I guide them in theirs. I've been asked on occasion if I have a muse. I shrugged off the notion, joking that I didn't have time to wait for any muse, but I know now that it's been my children all along.
Please email Lori, say hello and welcome her to the book club. Authors always appreciate hearing from readers. Email: [email protected]
Patience. We call on patience, especially now, even when we're certain we haven't got an ounce of it left. In an attempt to replenish my own reserves, and in the hope of finding some quotes or stories to pass along to my weary teenagers, I went in search of patience. No surprise that patience/forbearance is an anchor virtue of every faith. The Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Neibuhr was a top match: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; Courage to change the things I can; And wisdom to know the difference." There's a paradox to patience though, as it can sometimes feel like inaction and complacency. As I continued my search, I was struck by some powerful words on patience in the story of U.S. Navy Vice Admiral James Stockdale.
Commander James Stockdale was shot down from his Skyhawk jet in North Vietnam in 1965. He was captured, beaten and imprisoned along with other men, enduring starvation, daily beatings and psychological torture for more than seven years. When asked how he survived, and why he thought others didn't, he pointed to the dangerous magical thinking that can define optimism, explaining that the men who lived with blind faith and set arbitrary deadlines for their freedom were routinely disappointed and eventually lost hope. Stockdale sought to affect and influence his nightmarish existence without allowing himself the delusion that it would all be over soon. He accepted the things he could not change, had the courage to change what he could, and wisely calculated the difference. In James Stockdale's words: "This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end--which you can never afford to lose--with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever that might be."
I forwarded a link to James Stockdale's story (James Stockdale--Wikipedia) to my children and we discussed the question of sacrifice and endurance as his remarkable tale of forbearance puts our current situation into perspective. I sent Neibuhr's Serenity Prayer along to my kids too, even though I know they've heard it before. We agreed to work harder at summoning patience and promised compassion for each other during those times when one of us doesn't have an ounce of it left. Patience.
--Lori Lansens
Email [email protected]
Lori's new book is This Little Light, a timely, fast-paced novel about two high school girls on the run after they are falsely accused of planting a bomb at their elite school. It's told through blog entries left by the main character in case she and her best friend don't make it out alive. It's sort of a Handmaiden's Tale meets Gossip Girl--a very relevant read.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
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