Glitter in the Sun

Regular readers of this blog already know I’m 41. Until just recently I thought turning 42 might be kind of cool because then I’d have reached the Douglas Adams zenith, the Answer To Life The Universe And Everything. I had no idea how accurate that sentiment would turn out to be.

I say this because I’ve already begun to fall apart. Not in a leprous way… I’m not dropping bits and pieces of fingers behind like a trail of breadcrumbs. It’s more like a machine that has not been well maintained and that is beginning to grind down on the inside. Things that have ticked along with almost clocklike regularity are no longer reliable – and in fact are beginning to cause problems. It’s not that I’m going to miss that monthly visit from Aunt Flo. In my opinion she could have taken a long hike off a deep, steep cliff as soon as my second son was born. It’s the other stuff.

A suitable peace offering, photo by Whitney

Take yesterday, for example. I was at the office (a.k.a. the coffee shop with the lovely scenic view of the backside of McDonalds) clacking away. It was hard enough to focus before the young mom came in with her two little boys. For some reason taking a thought to its conclusion yesterday was like chasing a rabbit through thick fog. I heard her order one hot chocolate to split between the two of them and I felt a little pang of nostalgia. This is exactly what I used to do with my boys on days when the walls were squeezing in and I needed to get out of the house. Then I made the mistake of looking toward their table. One of the boys caught me looking and grinned at me. They were just gorgeous. Brown eyes and blonde hair and impish grins. Well-behaved and sweet and all boy just looking for something to climb.

Oh. My. Giddy Aunt. I’m getting all verklempt all over again.

This sponge cake soaked in syrup response from a woman who was quite sure until she was 31 that children were of no interest at all. (At that point, however, the biological clock which had never uttered so much as a tiny “click” suddenly went off with the urgency of an air-raid klaxon.) As a teenager I only took babysitting jobs because 1) I lived way out in the middle of nowhere so there were no neighbors I could do yard work for, and 2) if the job was in town I would be able to watch MTV. Cooing over other people’s kids is so out of character for me!

I seriously wanted to call my mom up and ask her what was wrong with me but I already knew the answer and was quite sure I was too choked up to ask a coherent question to start with. And trying to explain my emotionally fragile state to my husband? I could have been speaking French for as much sense as it made to him. If someone wanted to make me cry all they would have had to do was stroke my hair and tell me “everything’s gonna be ok, sweetie”, and I would have been a quivering mass of Jello. On the other hand, if they were suicidal all they would have had to do was piss me off and I’d have taken that whole “how do I want to die” problem right out of their hands.

The worst part is feeling so close to the edge of out of control. I don’t like it here. I’m thinking about self-medicating with dark chocolate and raspberries.

Fancy, schmancy, yes?

Check it out!

For the first time in nearly 10 years I have a “real job”. This is not to say I haven’t been busy. I have been a freelance writer for various publications. I have written grants and sold Pampered Chef. I worked on a political campaign. I worked at a church in their youth department and even wrote two books. And let’s not forget the most important not-a-job of all, raised two boys.

But, for some reason, I always felt I had to defend those positions, especially the stay-at-home-mom part, not only from outside detractors but also from my own expectations.

Now, and I feel this is a reward for putting my family first these past few years, I get the best of all worlds. I get to work with other authors and their books doing what I would be doing for my own book anyway – doing everything I can to put these books in the hands of people who may need or appreciate them. And the fun part? Everything I’ve done in the past 10 years, including all the lessons of child-rearing, come into play. It is, once again, a testament that God wastes nothing placed in His hands.

The not-always-on-target Google Alert I’ve set up for all things Twilight returned something very interesting this morning.

It was a post on the PJ Lifestyle blog by Rhonda Robinson that defended Twilight from a Christian point of view. Rhonda’s very first point is to make it very, very clear that she is not a Twi-Mom. Vampires, flying monkeys and all other unnatural things always got under her skin and creeped her out for days in the past. She said if she’d known there were vampires in the first Twilight movie she would have never seen it.

But… she did… and she found in it allegories about the truth of evil (that it can be incredibly attractive) and the truth of love (it can be incredibly difficult), that sold her on the value of Twilight. She uses her platform on the blog to entreat her fellow Christians to reconsider any hardline stance against the Twilight Saga lest they throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Needless to say, I completely agree with her.

It’s worth saying again. Right now a vast swath of the culture speaks “Twilight”. If we are to be intentionally missional with our life (“you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” kind of applies to everyone everywhere) we need to speak the native tongue.

Having disrupted CNN and Huffington Post in November with my scandalous opinions concerning spirituality and the Twilight Saga – as printed in the pages of Glitter in the Sun - this month I take on book reviews and YouTube.

In this link I review the Once-A-Day Devotional for Women on Read the Spirit. These easy bite-size portions make keeping your New Years’ resolution to read the Bible every day super easy. Each page includes a passage of scripture, a two-paragraph devotional and a prayer prompt. Although short and easy, suitable even for the mother of toddlers, they are not simple. There is genuine challenge and potential for growth. In short – you have no excuse!

Host Steven Hill and me on the set of ASAPubNews

But these are the links that might get people talking – it is my interview for ASAPub News, the local cable access literary talk show. The one hour segment is broken into four sections. My favorites are sections three and four because by then I’ve relaxed and it really shows in how I interact with the host, Steven, and the cameras. (The canned sound effects at the end of Part 3 are a little eye-roll-inducing, however!)

Jane Wells interview, Part 1

Jane Wells interview, Part 2

Jane Wells interview, Part 3

Jane Wells interview, Part 4

I have an extra copy of the Once-A-Day Devotional for Women that I’d like to give away.You may enter simply by commenting below – but you get an additional name in the hat by sharing this post via Facebook, Twitter, blog or e-mail (however, you only get one extra entry for e-mail – no matter how many you send… sorry!) Include  your share links in your post here to get credit.

I’ll have one of my boys draw a name from a hat this Friday, December 30, then I’ll e-mail the winner for your physical address.

Good luck! And I can’t wait to hear from you!

At a certain level I worry about how much I enjoy being in the spotlight…

Host Steven Hill and me on the set of ASAPubNews

Last night, for example, I was on the set of ASAPubNews being interviewed by host Steven Hill about Glitter in the Sun. I don’t think it would be too much of an exaggeration to say at times I ran away with the show. Although, any video proof of that will not be available for a week or so yet.

It’s interesting, though, what different people key in on when reading a book. Steven was fascinated  with the parallel I drew between the Cullens’ dietary choice which resulted in family, and the Christian practice of fasting which results in spiritual growth. This was the first time anyone picked out that chapter as one to focus on and discuss more thoroughly. Of course, this being a Twilight-related book, the issue of sex and abstinence was also a hot topic. What Steven drew out though, was the fact that the world has changed in the past 100 years.

Click here to buy Glitter in the Sun from Amazon.com

Attitudes toward sex and marriage have changed in just the past 50 years, in fact, and we spent quite a bit of time talking about the effects this profound cultural shift has had on this generation.

I can’t wait to see how his crew edits our rambling conversation into a cohesive half-hour, and I promise to post links to it here, on Facebook and on Twitter as soon as it’s available.