Dr. Richard Swenson is a medical doctor (with a physics degree). In Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives, he writes about his experience as a physician in encountering the results of overloaded lives. On a more in depth perspective, he writes about his own coming to terms with the need for more margin in his life.

What Is Margin?

“Margin is the space between our load and our limits. It is the amount allowed beyond that which is needed. It is something held in reserve for contingencies or unanticipated situations. Margin is the gap between rest and exhaustion, the space between breathing freely and suffocating.”  Continue Reading…

Not What We Expected?

I have childhood memories of being thirsty and expecting to take a big drink of juice, only to have my senses startled when I find I’m drinking water or milk instead. On a few occasions, the shocking sensation was heightened when what I assumed to be something sweet was actually a cup of milk that had gone sour. Sometimes, the expected juice that was actually milk eventually ended up tasting good, once I got my mind off of my expectation of juice. When I began reading J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy, I experienced a similar mental hurdle. Although I had realized this probably wouldn’t be comparable to the Harry Potter series, I was still expecting to taste a certain literary quality from J.K. Rowling that I thought I had previously experienced.

On the surface, The Casual Vacancy is an adult novel that may seem rather boring and confusing as readers try to figure out nearly 30 characters and how their lives and sub-plots tie together. Its pages contain strong language, and the lurid, violent, and vengeful thoughts of the characters, though the sexual themes are neither explicit nor salacious.  The cast of characters each share their own secret hypocrisies; and that, I believe is the main thrust of the book.

The story begins as the small town of Pagford is shaken when Barry Fairbrother dies of a brain aneurysm. His death leaves a parish council seat open, a “casual vacancy,” as it’s technically called. The vacancy is to be filled by an election, with various town members vying for the opening. This book is the story of what happens as that vacancy is attempted to be filled.

[SPOILERS AHEAD] Continue Reading…

In What Every Body is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People, Joe Navarro offers a comprehensive guide to collecting information by observing bodily messages and non-verbal communication.

As a child, Joe Navarro was the child of Cuban immigrants, and came to the States with his family at age eight. In his situation, he did not speak English at his time of arrival, and before he was able to master the new language, he learned to pick up on even the slightest non-verbal communication to understand what people were really saying. It was this skill that he took with him into the FBI and allowed to enhance his career there. Today he attempts to share these skills with many people: detectives, police officers, and poker players, and anyone who is interested in his book and reading body language.

This is a fascinating book to help guide individuals to better observation of the world around them. One could think of Joe Navarro as a modern day Sherlock Holmes. And as Holmes succinctly stated in “A Scandal in Bohemia,”[Y]ou see, but you do not observe,” is the same issue that Navarro hopes his readers will be able to overcome after to putting to practice many of the observational skills laid out in his book.

Navarro is careful to point out that making snap judgments merely based on the way a person moves, breathes, or reacts can be an oversimplification when the broader context is not taken into account. Although I felt Navarro did a fairly good job at making sure to clarify after each section, I still fear that it could be all to easy to take some of these ideas and use them to make inappropriate conclusions about others (especially if you are a legalist).

I also felt that it would have been helpful for Navarro to touch on personality differences a bit more, and how that affects how different people will react in various situations. Also, I had to wonder if a serial, planned criminal studied this book enough, if s/he could master and overcome the typical limbic responses and body language. Navarro briefly addressed how actors and actresses in movies portray enhanced body language to communicate without words, and so one would think that if a criminal thought to “act” the role of being not guilty, or lied to himself about the crime enough, etc…, he may be able to evade some of the natural bodily responses.

Likewise, to learn to observe body language and non-verbal communication takes skill and practice. The book is helpful in that it includes charts and photo illustrations of the expressions and nonverbal in discussion.

If you need to do some interrogations in the future, you will likely find this a helpful book. Similarly, if you like to play the role of a Sherlock Holmes, you will undoubtedly find this instrumental in your daily activity. However, if you just want to learn more about the subject, this will still most likely prove a fascinating study; it just might make your friends and family a little nervous when you’re around them.

Table of Contents:

From the beginning of the book, Richard Louv makes it clear that in his titling of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, he is not just trying to add another another opportunity for parents and physicians to diagnose children and prescribe corrective drugs. Yet, anyone who has had a childhood with time spent in nature should know the effect that keeping a child indoors and cooped up would have on that child’s development.

Louv assesses our current situation and looks at the various reasons of why children are spending so much less time in nature/less time outdoors. He asserts that although the “stranger danger” awareness (that has been proclaimed over the past few decades) holds some truth, it may have done more harm than good. Similarly, there is a healthy awareness of the natural dangers that nature holds, but then there is also an exaggerated terror. Often the overreaction to such hype is merely an illusion of guaranteed safety, and it comes at a price: the nature-deficit disorder. And then, there is the busyness, the hyper-parenting  and over-schooling that all lead to spending less time in nature, as well.

The book is filled with anecdotes, so I’ll add my own. For the first eleven years of my life I grew up on eleven acres of land. I loved playing in our creek and taking walks in the woods. I was heartbroken when I heard we would be selling our house and vowed that I would never enjoy living in the city. (Not that it was truly urban–just a town, really; but vastly different from my first years of childhood, nonetheless.) My dad was very safety conscious, and even a bit beyond in some realms (e.g., making us hold his hands to cross the street while in our preteens). At the same time, he was quite reasonable and risk-taking in others (e.g., I was shooting a gun quite early in life, with his careful instruction). But to the point of how my childhood in the country relates to this book: my dad was concerned that there might be rapists roaming in our woods, which was very much a result of the stranger danger campaigns going on during that time. Our creek was accessed via a short walk through the woods, and as a result of my dad’s concerns I was never allowed to take this walk on my own (or even with another child). So it definitely didn’t happen as much as I wished–I did long for that alone time in nature. And although my dad’s overcautiousness meant I was not allowed license to roam the land, I was still afforded many opportunities that many of my city-dwelling cohorts did not experience. (Meanwhile my husband was roaming the mountains, parking garages, and streets of Korea with his brothers, and I’m gradually growing less and less shocked at what adventures they were permitted to have.)

Addressing the busyness factor, Louv acknowledged that it may be difficult for some to think that spending time in nature is essential if it is viewed from the perspective of being leisure time. To correct this, he points out the importance of spending time in nature in how it affects mental and physical health, both for the parent and child. When viewed from this paradigm, parents who make their preschoolers too busy with countless tutoring sessions and lessons to help “advance” the child will be more likely to make sure their children to spend sometime in nature.

The book also emphasizes that although nature can include a simple backyard or a park, it is quite important that we also view nature as “the wild” parts of nature, and spend time protecting and enjoying that realm, as well. He gives ideas and solutions, and recognizes that “some of any type” is better than “none.”

An interesting aspect that Louv addressed was the spiritual element of interacting with nature, and he even addressed some of the specific concerns that many conservative American Christians have regarding such interaction. I felt that he addressed these well, and seemingly, somewhat unbiasedly (at least, without knowing much more about the author than what is presented in the book.)

As a side point, and in conjunction with some of my other reading, I also thought about the common American Christian response to anything that hints of “environmentalism.” The apocalyptic view held by many American conservative Christians has predominately been used as the scapegoat that dominion is a license for destruction and that we can carelessly use nature and the environment without giving thought to how our use or misuse could impact nature and people in future generations. Of course, this is a misguided view, and in this view we show our anachrocentricism (I think I made that word up?), ethnocentrism, and narcissistic view of stewardship.

I did find the book to run on in many points and it could perhaps have been written more concisely (and consequently, briefly). For anyone who already sees the importance of spending time outdoors and in nature, little of the book will contain shocking revelations or new information. At the same time, it is a helpful book and does go over many helpful considerations and solutions. For anyone, though, I think this book is a wake-up call.

Table of Contents: 

I’ve been looking forward to reading Work Shift: How to Create a Better Blend of Work, Life, and Family since I heard about it a few months ago. Even with the title, I wasn’t sure quite what the focus of the book would be.

Blogger Anne Bogel of Modern Mrs. Darcy wrote Work Shift to share with women the possibilites of combining work and family. She explores what this can look like by looking at the ways 30 different women are doing this. Although there are some exceptions, the majority of the examples show how mother and father can function as the primary caregivers, while also arranging scheduling and work so that both are able to work.

I appreciated this book for a number of reasons, but particularly so because our family has somewhat unique work arrangements (although I am only doing a very small percentage of the “working.”) Like a good number of the families featured, my husband works from his home office, and has a small degree of flexibility in the way he is able to arrange his schedule and work location. We have done this purposefully (though we realize it’s not always possible), and it was affirming to read of other families doing similarly.

Of course, we have computer-based jobs for the most part, but Work Shift also shows how women and men working more traditional jobs can also arrange their jobs and schedules in a way that allows for a unique blend of work and family. There are excellent examples of families doing these very things.

The beginning of the book focuses on some of the history of the workplace–our current cultural view of work is such that we tend to forget that our current construct not the norm prior to the industrial revolution. Anne then goes through how the work-family blend operates, and then looks at individual examples over a broad variety of family situations and work arrangements.

I found this book helpful and inspiring. Like others have commented, I wish I had spent more of my unmarried and childless years exploring and training for options that would allow me to blend work and family; at the same time, there are still plenty of options to allow me to both spend time being a primary caregiver to my children, family, and home while also exploring creative outlets and income-producing opportunities. This book provides an excellent picture of what such opportunities can look like.

Table of Contents:

If ever there was a case in which you should not judge a book by its cover, Jesus Made in America: A Cultural History from the Puritans to “The Passion of the Christ,” would be a classic example. Though the cover art leaves you thinking it’s going to be a pop-theology book or Jon Acuff-style book (although there is definitely a place for Jon Acuff’s books), this book is quite academic in its examination of American church history and theology. Continue Reading…

When his knee continually bothered him while running, journalist Christopher McDougall wasn’t satisfied with the answers doctors and specialists were giving him. Orthotics and spring-loaded shoes weren’t solving his conundrum, and it didn’t make sense that he should need to give up running altogether. So he did what any good journalist would do, and set out to find out (and report) why others of his build and age could run for what seemed like forever and never grow tired of it or feel pain. His journey took him to high altitude ultra-marathons in the United States, and then to the Mexican Copper River Canyon where he encountered the Tarahumara Indian super-athletes  Along the way, McDougall found his answer, along with a lifelong love for ultra running, just for the sheer enjoyment of it. He chronicles this fascinating story in Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen. 

This book drew me in with my love for anthropology, science, and medicine. (Though, before reading this book, I told people, “I like the effects of running, not necessarily running itself”.) Like, McDougall, I also have a “bad knee,” and orthotics haven’t been helping. As a result, reading this book saved me about $150. (I took back my recently-purchased, tested-mostly-indoors, heavily-cushioned, arch-supported shoes that still weren’t helping my knee pain. These, I had purchased after custom-made orthotics weren’t working, either.)

McDougall is a strong advocate for “barefoot running,” and this theme is prevalent throughout the book. Thorough, and somewhat convincing explanations are given as to why the body works best this way. To clarify, barefoot running doesn’t necessarily mean no shoes at all.

McDougall’s conclusion is that humans were made for running, and we do it best when we allow our bodies to do so using their natural biomechanics. As a Christian, the heavy and frequent references to evolutionary biology are simply an indicator of our intelligent, creative Designer.

Those who do not consider themselves to be passionate athletes (myself included, in spite of my brief high school athletic career and current cardiovascular endeavors) will still likely find this book, and McDougall’s writing style, compelling. But likely, readers will also be ready to hit the trail afterwards, at least for one good run.

And if you do love to run, you’ll like find the book full of inspiring, compelling quotes.

(No table of contents for this book.)