Shawna Atteberry

Baker, Writer, Teacher

Company Girl Coffee: It's My Birthday Edition!

Yes, Company Girls, you heard right! Today is my birthday!  As of 10:06 a.m., I’m 40. My Mom called and made my day. My Hubby woke me up with kisses and wishing me a Happy Birthday. The Cat just wanted to be fed. I’ve had a nice lazy morning, and I have decided I will do what I want today. What is the point of being self-employed if you can’t enjoy your birthday? Which means, instead of working on all the non-fiction stuff I’ve been working on lately–I’m going to work on fiction today! Because it’s been forever since I wrote any fiction, and I want to!

Tonight The Hubby and I are getting together with Lainie at Juicy Wine Company and celebrating with wine and all sorts of wonderful cheeses, cured meats, sauteed mushrooms, and incredible applewood smoked bacon.

My review of N. T. Wright’s After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters is up for The Ooze Viral Bloggers (thanks for the free book!). Yay!

It is a beautiful sunny day here in Chicago, and I am loving all of the sunshine pouring through my windows. The maid service came earlier this week: I have a clean house, so no housework today! (That is a birthday gift in and of itself.)

The Matisse exhibit is open at The Art Institute. I am thinking of going and looking at all the wonderful Matisse paintings and write poems or stories about them!

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Book Review: After You Believe by N. T. Wright

Have you ever thought: “I’m saved, now what?” Or “I know I’m a Christian, but there has to be more to Christian living than waiting around for heaven.” If so, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters* is the book for you. Bishop N. T. Wright (Anglican Bishop of Durham, England) has taken up the topic that most Protestants have been shying away from or vilifying for the last 500 years: good works. First Wright picks up with the topic of his last book, Surprised by Hope*, which corrected one of the biggest fables of Christianity: that heaven is the ultimate destination of the Christian. Our ultimate hope is not as disembodied spirits somewhere out there. The true Christian hope is bodily resurrection and inhabiting the new earth and new heavens. After You Believe tells us what difference our ultimate hope makes in living this life in this body (both individual and corporate) on this earth. Because we are called to be priests and one day will rule creation with Christ in the new earth, we need to learn the ways and language of that new world and that new way of life.

The way we learn to live this new life and prepare for our roles in God’s new creation, is through learning and living the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love. This goes beyond a “keeping the rules” mentality or the “if you go with your heart you can’t go wrong” philosophy. Like learning a new language or learning how to play an instrument, this is not easy or natural at first. But the more we keep committing ourselves to choosing the ways of faith, hope, and love, the easier it becomes until it is second nature. Wright ties the Christian virtues to the fruit of the Spirit: “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, greatheartedness, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self control” (p. 194). He notes that “‘the fruit of the Spirit’ does not grow automatically. The nine varieties of fruit do not suddenly appear just because someone has believed in Jesus, has prayed for God’s Spirit, and has then sat back and waited for ‘fruit’ to arrive” (p. 195, emphasis author’s). Just like gardening which takes pruning, watering, mulching, and looking out for blight and mildew to grow plants, we each have to cultivate a life in which the fruit of the Spirit can grow. For those who think that the Spirit’s fruit does come automatically Wright points them to the last characteristic on the list: self-control. No one comes by self-control automatically: it’s something everyone has to work on and develop throughout his or her life.

The final chapter of the book describes how virtue can be practiced, and how we learn to start living as the priests and co-rulers that we will be in the new creation. Wright calls it the virtuous circle, and the circle includes Scripture, stories, examples, community, and practices. It is by engaging with this circle as both individuals and communities, that our character will be transformed and loving God and loving others will become our second nature. These practices will prepare us for the new language and the new way of life that we will have in the new creation. There is an excellent “For Further Reading” appendix for those who want to delve more into virtue, Christian virtue, ethics, and character.

My few criticisms about the book have more to do with style than content. Wright does get repetitive, and you go over a lot of the same ground again. I was also annoyed when he would bring up a subject then say we would get to that later on in the book. It happens numerous times, and I thought: wait till we get to that part before bringing it up. There are also several occasions where he makes a comment, then says something to the effect of, but we can’t go into that here; it’s another book. If those asides are any indication, there are several more books on the way.

Overall I thought this was a good, informative book, and it starts to fill a gaping void in Protestant practice: where do good works and character fit into the Christian life without becoming something we have to do to earn salvation. I recommend it for anyone who wants to know more about how to live as a Christian in this body, in this world, at this time.

*Affliate Link

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received the product mentioned above for free by The Ooze Viral Bloggers in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This article has been reposted at The Ooze Viral Bloggers.

Company Girl Coffee: Columbia College Story Week Edition

I know it’s been at least a month since I got in on Company Girl Coffee. I was determined to play today, which means I had to do a little copy and pasting. Havi has a Friday ritual too called The Friday Chicken where we all chime in on our weeks: what was hard and what was good. So here is my week in review, The Hard and The Good:

The Hard

I have not slept most of this week due to the evil, demonic entity known as insomnia. The rest of the hard stems from that. I’m way behind reading a book I’m reviewing, I’m way behind on the sermon I will be preaching Sunday, I’m way behind on writing projects and finding paying writing gigs. I’m way behind.

The Good

Hiring the personal trainer was a really good thing. I need the accountability to take care of myself through physical exercise. Plus I was feeling like crap yesterday when I went in (see evil, demonic insomnia above), and by the time we were done, I felt great. And I felt good the rest of the day. Getting up and moving does help me feel better. Now I need to find the same sort of accountability for my writing.

Columbia College’s Story Week Festival of Writers was just tremendous. I went around and heard authors read their work and talk about the craft, and it was marvelous. David Morrell (his books include First Blood, The Brotherhood of the Rose, and The Shimmer) totally rocks, and it you ever get a chance to hear him speak go. Change whatever you have to, reschedule whatever you have to, sell the dog if you have to, if you’re a writer and get the chance: GO! His love and dedication to writing is phenomenal. He is very blunt about how hard it is, but it’s also very obvious how much he loves what he does. And he has lots of good practical advice. I’ve just ordered his book The Successful Novelist. (Sorry for no links for the books, I don’t have the time right now. I’ll try to get them in later.)

I was sent a free book to do an advance review of by one of my favorite theologians! (N. T. Wright in case anyone was wondering.) And it is a very good book, and one that the Western Protestant Christian Church needs to hear. I’m not sure how much I can say before the reviews start going up, but I’ll let you know when I post the review.

I have set the number of pages I need to write a day on The Book Proposal. Like David Morrell said yesterday, I will write them everyday, no matter how long it takes. He made the point that writing is a perishable skill, and if you don’t use it everyday, you will lose it. That my friends, is one of my problems: I write a couple of times a week and am constantly reteaching myself the basics. To move on, I am going to have to write everyday. I had never thought about it before, but he’s absolutely right. Just like playing scales on an instrument, if I’m going to be a virtuoso at what I do, I am going to have to practice everyday.

Now I have to get ready to head to yoga then on to Trader Joes. I hope everyone has a great weekend! Wait! Before I go here is the literal, photogenic view from my window:

We are having a beautiful day in Chicago, and I am going to enjoy it. It’s supposed to snow this weekend. You gotta love Midwest weather.

Writing Is NOT for the Wimpy of Heart

Writing is brutal business. You think and you worry and you’re scared to death, but you still feel compelled to bare your soul to the world, wondering if you’re going to get back in one piece. Then you want to write but you’re frozen because you’re scared to death over what everyone is going to think . It really is a ridiculous process. You really have to be called to write. You have to know this is what you want to do. Otherwise it will tear you up and throw you to the side of the road. The Muses are not benevolent mistresses. It literally is gut wrenching work. Yet me and many others continue to do it. We continue to face the resistance or fear. Or we run away from it. There are days we let it distract us. We let it lull us into a protected web of TV watching and web surfing. I have done more TV watching and web surfing since I became a full time writer than any other point in my life (except when I had surgery). Of course it doesn’t help that I work at home.

Writing is not for wimps. It’s not for people who want to make an easy living or want to make money (fast or at all). It’s hard work. And most of the time no one notices. And yet millions of people in the past and present and millions in the future will bow to this brutal mistress and start putting words onto a page. Writing can be a relentless mistress who will make you grovel. But when you get it right… When the words flow… When you read back over a paragraph and wonder where the hell did that piece of art come from… It’s divine. When someone says that they read a piece of yours and liked it, loved it; it made them think; may be it will even change their lives, for awhile you forget the fear, self-doubt, and endless solitary hours. It must be like forgetting the pain of childbirth, once you hold the baby in your arms. Another divine moment.

So we writers keep plugging along. Sitting down everyday at the computer or the typewriter, or with a notebook and pen or pencil, and keep facing up to the doubt, the fears, the sheer resistance we feel at putting our very souls onto the page. When we finally get it right (after multiple drafts, breakdowns, and lots of chocolate), it can look so easy. But don’t fool yourself. It’s never easy. And it will never be easy.

Most of the time I have a love/hate relationship with my craft and its Muse. I’m not sure you can have any other relationship when you work in a creative field.

What about you? What creative work do you do? How do you feel about it? What kind of relationship do you have with your craft and your muse?