Soul Carving

       For a while now, I've been wanting to introduce you to some of the songs and artists that I feel play such an integral part of my life. A surprise birthday gift gave me the perfect opportunity to do this. Richard shocked me with tickets to a Mat Kearney concert! Let me tell you a little bit about why we're such big fans.         Kearney (pronounced CARN-nee) hails from Eugene, Oregon. His latest album, "Just Kids" is perhaps his most autobiographical so far. You can hear a little bit about his inspiration for it in this brief interview. Kearney is a gifted storyteller. Often the setting plays a major role in these stories and is identified in great detail. It transports the listener right into the shoes of the singer, seeing what he sees, smelling the same smells and hearing the same sounds, sharing the same feelings. Consider these lines from a track on his first album : "I can still hear the trains ou...

       I got my first job at age 17, working at a Barnes & Noble store. The first thing the manager interviewing me said was, "Well, Bethany I would say you look twelve. But that would be an insult, so. . ."        Umm. Okay?        But I got the job. And the experiences I loved the most there involved working in the children's department: holding storytime, managing field trips, even dressing up as a storybook character. I remember the double-takes from the class of 6th graders as I tried to muscle my way through the crowded aisles to locate a book for a customer. Lots of them were taller than I was and the name tag slung around my neck really threw them for a loop. Then there was the time I was sitting on the floor, rearranging a display when an elderly woman approached me and asked, "Do you work here, or are you one of the children?" I guess I could have answered, "Both!"        Yesterday I turned ...

        The way I see it, we're all soul-searching. No matter who we are or where we live, at the most basic level, what we are all truly seeking is to be happy. And it is my humble opinion that this quest is not as complicated or challenging as we often make it out to be.         Abraham Lincoln is attributed with the wise words, "Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." The  concentration camp survivor and  author of "Man's Search for Meaning", Victor Frankl said, "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." And in the classic children's novel "Pollyanna" by Eleanor H.Porter, the reverend Ford is inspired by these words, "When you look for the bad, expecting it, you will get it. When you know you will find the good - you will get that."        I'm not saying th...

  "I don't want to be somewhere else anymore. Not waiting for anything new to happen.  Not looking around the next corner or over the next hill.  I'm here now.  And that's enough."        The above quote is from the movie Shadowlands , one of my mother's favorites. Anthony Hopkins portrays C. S. Lewis in the love story between him and his wife, Joy Gresham who is terminally ill. Mr. Lewis, or Jack as he is affectionately called in the film, says that this is his kind of happy - complete contentment with the now. Sounds good to me. Yet, not so easy to come by.        I'm sick. Not terminally ill - thank heavens. But what started out as a raspy sore throat has developed into a rousing cough and red swollen eyes with a profuse goopey discharge. I feel so toxic - as if others will get sick just from looking at me! I really don't have time for this. Not with homeschooling t...