Jennifer Lambert

A Sacred Balance

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My Favorite Life Changing Books

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October 25, 2017 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

Some books just resonate, you know?

I vividly remember their words and turns of phrase. They teach something. They call to action.

They made me make some changes in my life. They helped me make a big decision. They changed my perspective.

These are my favorite life-changing books:

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Combining magic, mysticism, wisdom and wonder into an inspiring tale of self-discovery, The Alchemist has become a modern classic, selling millions of copies around the world and transforming the lives of countless readers across generations.

Paulo Coelho’s masterpiece tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different—and far more satisfying—than he ever imagined. Santiago’s journey teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, of recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life’s path, and, most importantly, to follow our dreams.

Why I love it:

It’s a great, uplifting story and I love the parable style. It’s such a familiar story and speaks to our hearts about how we’re all connected. I wish I’d gotten this as a graduation gift, but I only just recently discovered it. I laughed. I cried. I want all my kids to read it!

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn


TEACHER SEEKS PUPIL.
Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person.

It was just a three-line ad in the personals section, but it launched the adventure of a lifetime.

So begins an utterly unique and captivating novel. In Ishmael, which received the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship for the best work of fiction offering positive solutions to global problems, Daniel Quinn parses humanity’s origins and its relationship with nature, in search of an answer to this challenging question: How can we save the world from ourselves?

Why I love it:

It’s so unexpected. It made me think about what an impact I have, we all have –  on each other, the earth, animals, society. It makes me question everything I’ve ever been taught.

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver


Barbara Kingsolver’s fifth novel is a hymn to wildness that celebrates the prodigal spirit of human nature, and of nature itself. It weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives amid the mountains and farms of southern Appalachia. Over the course of one humid summer, this novel’s intriguing protagonists face disparate predicaments but find connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with which they necessarily share a place.

Why I love it:

I read this when I was a single mother. I was longing for meaningful connection. This book offered me hope that very different people can work together and find a place in each other’s hearts. I also love nature stories.

Surfacing by Margaret Atwood

Part detective novel, part psychological thriller, Surfacing is the story of a talented woman artist who goes in search of her missing father on a remote island in northern Quebec.  Setting out with her lover and another young couple, she soon finds herself captivated by the isolated setting, where a marriage begins to fall apart, violence and death lurk just beneath the surface, and sex becomes a catalyst for conflict and dangerous choices.  Surfacing is a work permeated with an aura of suspense, complex with layered meanings, and written in brilliant, diamond-sharp prose.  Here is a rich mine of ideas from an extraordinary writer about contemporary life and nature, families and marriage, and about women fragmented…and becoming whole.

Why I love it:

I read this book after some very difficult life circumstances.

Sometimes, I desire to be wild and free, lost in the woods, foraging and alone, cut off from the world. It helps me find myself again.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden.

Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television.

When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.

Why I love it:

I read it in 10th grade. I taught it to my students for several years. I read it with my daughter. It’s an amazingly hopeful book in the face of a tragic society.

Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr


In Falling Upward, Fr. Richard Rohr seeks to help readers understand the tasks of the two halves of life and to show them that those who have fallen, failed, or “gone down” are the only ones who understand “up.” Most of us tend to think of the second half of life as largely about getting old, dealing with health issues, and letting go of life, but the whole thesis of this book is exactly the opposite. What looks like falling down can largely be experienced as “falling upward.” In fact, it is not a loss but somehow actually a gain, as we have all seen with elders who have come to their fullness.

This important book explores the counterintuitive message that we grow spiritually much more by doing wrong than by doing right–a fresh way of thinking about spirituality that grows throughout life.

Why I love it:

It put together a puzzle for me about why I struggled so much until recently. It explains why so many others seem displaced and I don’t fit in.

These books have always resonated with me and I can read them again and again.

You might also like my Women’s Literature Study.

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Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: book list, growth

My Top 40

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure. Please see my suggested resources.

March 16, 2017 By Jennifer Lambert 14 Comments

I turned 42 on Sunday.

Sometimes, it hits me and I’m shocked because I don’t feel 42. I’m not sure what 42 is supposed to feel like.

I often still feel the same way I felt at 15 and 21 and 29 and 32. I have the same dreams and fears.

We live in such a casual time that it doesn’t matter what I wear, how I style my hair, or which fork I use.

During my mom’s generation, women over a certain age didn’t wear the color pink or their hair long. That was for younger women.

Sometimes, when I go out with my teen daughter, people mistake us for sisters and that’s delightful.

Other times, I feel very old and persnickety. My knees crackle when I stand up. My back hurts when I stand for a long time.

I’m past the desire to get tattoos or piercings. I’d rather spend my money on other things – experiences.

Sometimes, I feel panicky that I haven’t accomplished anything important. My time is too short and I have to hurry and do something, anything, quickly, write write write, create create create.

Then, I feel overwhelmed and it’s been all done before. I have nothing to offer. Do I?

I usually lie in bed at night and listen to the night sounds and make myself ill about what I should have done or could do better.

Then I think about all the things I have done and I’m able to breathe a little easier for another night.

I’m accepting that I’m an INTJ and a 1/5 combo on Enneagram. This is who I am and I constantly improve and grow.

I had some amazing experiences that shaped me into who I am today. When I look back on what means the most to me, my priorities are clear.

My top 40:

  1. I flew alone to Washington, D.C., when I was 9, to visit my grandma. It was a fun week.
  2. My parents took me to Puerto Rico when I was 14. It was a business trip for my dad. I missed a week of school, excused for “educational purposes.”
  3. My intro to art class in 10th grade. The teacher was quite a bitch, but I still remember the projects and techniques I learned. It ruined me but I’m rediscovering it.
  4. Entering college early. Dual enrollment was a new concept and my high school wasn’t too keen, so I just bypassed them. I got a double scholarship.
  5. “Wasting time” on college classes in Spanish, French, and German. The lessons I learned serve me well now in Europe and teaching my kids foreign languages!
  6. My college classes on art history and music theory still affect me today. Those professors were passionate and delightful.
  7. Overcoming depression. It’s a daily battle.
  8. Getting my Master’s in education. It was a joke of a program, but I jumped through those hoops and have the paper to prove it.
  9. Teaching in public school. I learned so much about kids, parents, learning, government school systems, bureaucracy, and more. I’ve taught at many levels, mostly middle school and high school, including ESL and gifted. I worked in elementary after school programs. I was also a substitute teacher in many different kinds of classrooms.
  10. The birth of my first daughter.
  11. Teaching college writing. Almost my dream job.
  12. Getting married. (The first two don’t count…) Surviving PCSes and a deployment. Deployment #2 coming up.
  13. Moving to Texas. This was a quite a catalyst for change. I couldn’t find work. We began homeschooling. It was the first time I ever lived away from my parents and home state. My husband’s parents both passed away. My husband changed job fields in order to remain in the Air Force. I birthed two babies. It was a stressful two years.
  14. Homeschooling. It’s been an amazing adventure!
  15. Starting a blog. It sure has evolved since 2005!
  16. The birth of my second daughter.
  17. The birth of my third daughter. A C-section is not a failure. I’m still telling myself this. Medical bullying and trauma is a thing though.
  18. Living in Hawaii for 3 years.
  19. My husband adopting my first daughter.
  20. Changing our lifestyle to be healthier and more natural.
  21. The birth of my son. VBAC, for the win!
  22. Stopped attending a legalistic fundamentalist church. Wish we’d left sooner!
  23. Introducing my husband and kids to camping.
  24. Family road trip to Yellowstone National Park.
  25. Living in Germany for 3 years. Being able to explore Europe!
  26. Traveling to Paris. Twice.
  27. Traveling to Prague.
  28. Traveling to Netherlands.
  29. Traveling to Greece.
  30. Traveling to London. Twice.
  31. Traveling to Porto.
  32. Traveling to Rome.
  33. Traveling to Ireland.
  34. Traveling to Normandy, France.
  35. Traveling to Florence.
  36. Traveling to Venice.
  37. Deciding to practice respectful parenting.
  38. Becoming credit card debt-free. We’re almost there!
  39. Doing Bible study at home instead of attending church.
  40. I have found my voice. I am still angry. I am not afraid.

I can do so much more now that I’m 42 than when I was in my 20’s.

I am more confident. I have more life experience. I am more discerning. I have my priorities straight.


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Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: growth

Abortion

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure. Please see my suggested resources.

January 19, 2014 By Jennifer Lambert 5 Comments

Apparently, there is a day called Sanctity of Life Sunday. I don’t know if I ever knew there was such a thing.

I have acquaintances who frequently post rather graphic images, videos, and quotes on social media about pro-life and anti-abortion and special needs kids (who all deserve life, despite doctors recommend terminating pregnancies if tests reveal any disorder).

I’m sure they mean well as their results show, with lots of comments and likes showing agreement.

I have friends who wear pro-life T-shirts and probably feel like they’re changing lives with the messages written across their hearts.

And maybe they are.

At women’s conferences, pro-life orgs proudly set up tables amidst the charities, Etsy shop vomit, and various vendor alley.

And what they do is well and good, I’m sure.

But aren’t they preaching to the choir?

Their profiles proudly state the number of children they’ve birthed. Some list the number of miscarriages as a “babe in heaven.”

Why don’t we talk about that?

If the embryo never breathed air, is it a child?

Does a heartbeat equal a viable person?

If a child is never named, is it a person?

If a baby is stillborn and isn’t baptized, what then?

I smile when they spout self-righteousness, but the smile doesn’t reach my eyes.

Because they don’t know.

They don’t realize how they’re turning that knife and carving out pieces of my soul with every word.

I’ve read various heart-wrenching stories of teen girls being coerced into an abortion by their families, their church, their culture.

I could’ve been that girl too.

But I was twenty-two. And I was married.

Too old to use the excuse of “she didn’t know any better.”

Right?

This is proof that you never know what someone is going through or has been through.

Don’t judge until you’ve walked a mile in my shoes.

So many excuses could’ve been laid out there.

The devil loves excuses.

I read all these fabulous adoption stories and something wrenches inside me. My baby could’ve lived and had a loving home. Maybe I could redeem the whole ordeal by adopting a baby. I’m horrified by women experiencing infertility and I long to comfort them somehow, some way, but who am I?

But that’s not the answer.

There was no real coercion. I was simply dead inside and followed to my doom. Sure, there were oodles of options. I even filled out a form for whatever state aid was available to me. I had planned to have that baby for a minute. No insurance. No job. Separated from my husband. No hope. Lost.

I turned to my parents – who should have protected me, who are supposed to know what’s best.

When I blindly trusted and obeyed, I could have rebelled and run away, far away, even if it had been to have my child in secret squalor, in love.

My parents led us like lambs to slaughter.

But it was ultimately my choice.

My decision.

The hardest decision that I’ve ever had to make.

But my life would be vastly different if the decision had been different.

I wouldn’t be married to my husband now.

I wouldn’t have four brilliant kids now.

So, for the good and juicy? Because that’s why you’re here.

I can’t bear to relive the details, much less type them out here.

It sure wasn’t glamorous.

I still remember the smell of the clinic.

I expected to see picketers outside like I’d seen on the news.

The nurse showed me an ultrasound of the seven-week old embryo and made sure I realized there was a heartbeat on that monitor. It was the law.

I saw.

I turned away from the flickering image, sick in body and soul.

And then I did the unthinkable.

I was quietly put to sleep while they sucked that precious little life out of me.

That heartbeat stopped.

Recovery felt like a dream, a void, a time lapse. Had I just been to the dentist or something? I was rushed out as soon as I was awake and able to walk.

My body recovered easily and quickly.

I pushed the experience away, to the depths of my being, to not be remembered.

The shame. The blame. The soul-sickness.

Only mine.

It was never spoken aloud. When I tried to express something, once, I was hushed with a harsh word and a harsher expression. So, I clammed up and moved on.

It’s never been expressed.

I thought my mother would understand my loss, my pain, my hopelessness.

Perhaps it was hers too, but she didn’t know how to cope or comfort.

So, silence.

I realize now that I’ve never even really grieved. It is a nameless, sexless child in my future memory. A nonbeing.

I never received any post-care. It’s unspoken.

People seldom ask questions. I occasionally fill out forms where I have to write in how many pregnancies – how many to term and how many not, and I pause in pain over those form questions.

I don’t feel forgiven because I can’t ever forgive myself.

Society and the church and the government has taught me to hate myself for my decision.

I am still amazed that God has blessed me with four perfect children.

I expected punishment. Do I deserve those perfect children? I live in constant fear in the back of my mind that they will be taken away, like I’m living in some dream of what could be, should be, an alternate reality – and because I didn’t appreciate nor protect that one innocent life, I will eventually awake and realize my punishment of childlessness.

This is my self-inflicted tragedy and I don’t expect anyone to understand it. Sure, you can quote Bible verses and suggest recovery groups or studies to “set me free,” but I don’t agree with those.

There’s a gaping hole that nothing can fill and I live with ambiguity.

It’s not my proudest moment, but it’s my history. It happened. This event propelled me to the life I live today.

People can scream on both sides of the political issue and that’s fine.

I hope and pray that those who feel so self-righteous about a woman’s body, her uterus, her choices, her future…I hope you never have to face that decision.

I hope it’s not you, your daughter, mother, niece, aunt, granddaughter, friend.

I hope you have it easy.

But no one gets to make that decision for us.

Because it’s so easy to spout self-righteousness and think it’s us vs. them, others who have these decisions to face. It’s about so much more – controlling women, brown bodies, socio-economics.

There is no black and white. No absolute right or wrong. It’s not all only pro-choice or pro-life.

Anti-choice rhetoric generally falls into three categories:

1. Extremely oversimplified and totally subjective (“Life begins at conception.”).
2. So incendiary that all who disagree are immediately marked as evil (“Abortion is murder.”).
3. An oxygen-less loop of tautology (“Life begins at conception, therefore abortion is murder.”).

The pro-choice movement, on the other hand, has never figured out an effective way to counteract anti-abortion propaganda because the omnipresence of that propaganda has terrified the vast majority of people who have abortions into silence and because for decades we have constantly been allowing ourselves to be drawn into a bad-faith debate over a fundamental human freedom that is not debatable. As soon as we are baited into correcting our opponents, it legitimizes their argument. Once you are arguing from the defense, you’ve already lost. ~Lindy West

Don’t just say that abstinence is best. Don’t condemn healthy and complete sex education. Don’t tell me there is adoption and foster care.

Don’t tell me that you’re pro-life if you don’t care about inmates on death row, immigrants seeking asylum, children who are living in poverty and hunger, uninsured people who need medical care and medications, police brutality towards minorities.

Don’t tell me what’s best for me.

I want the church to stay out of my uterus. 

I want the government to stay out of my uterus.

I want lawmakers to stay out of my uterus.

I fear for my daughters. I fear for women. I fear for those who have a uterus. Don’t get raped. Don’t get abused or assaulted.

Protect yourself. 

The government will not help you.

They just want to control you.

Only the embryo is important? Not the woman? Why doesn’t her decision, healthy, future have any weight?

https://twitter.com/celia_bedelia

Why doesn’t she matter?

Why are we punished for having a uterus?

I’ve spent twenty years thinking I’m a bad person because society and the church and Christians and the government told me I am a bad person.

I don’t have to apologize to myself every day.

You don’t have to apologize to anyone for your decisions about your body.

Make amends to yourself now. We do this every day for lesser things.

April 10.

When azaleas bloom and the world awakes to a new beginning.

One life went to sleep.

Why are these stories untold?

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Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: abortion

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