Karen’s Blog Post

You need to know how God-infused this journey has been.

I arrived at WAMU station early.

We actually went to the wrong floor but some British chap noticed how lost we looked and offered to escort us back to the right place.

To finish reading this post click here. 

I already know miracle.

L’Engle

I came across those words this morning in my readings. I started out reading’s Miroslav Volf’s A Public Faith. A man I have known for a very long time commented over coffee recently that he was pleased to hear me say before God and everyone gathered at a library event that I am a woman of faith.

There are some who wrongly mistake remarks like that to be some sort of braggart statement. It’s not. For me, talking about being a person of faith is like saying I’m married to my college sweetheart, or that I’m the mother of four grown kids, or a grandmother-to-be, or a Beaver Believer. It’s a way to define myself that tells you a bit of my history, what shapes me, what compels me, what I value, what I aspire to, and what I have failed at, time and time again.

A book reviewer for a big city newspaper ended her critique of my current book with this statement: Clearly, the author is a devout Christian, but her religious references will definitely turn off any non-believers.

To finish reading this post, click here. 

The girl with the gentle smile came up behind me, quietly, like a five-year old who knows not to interrupt when mommy is talking.

I’d just finished a talk at City Hall in Springfield, Oregon. Yes. The very home of Homer Simpson.

As far as I know none of the Simpsons were in the audience, although, I can’t say for sure since I knew very few of the crowd by name.

Aaron Donley was there.

I met him first. He was loitering outside the City Hall meeting room, same as me, waiting for someone to come along and open the door. We were the first to arrive for the 11 a.m. meeting. I don’t make a habit of being early, although I do make a habit of being friendly.

“Hi,” I said, offering my hand, “I’m Karen Zacharias.”

“Karen Zacharias?” he said, turning his head the way Poe does when he’s trying to figure something confusing out.

“Yes,” I said.

“I know you.”

That didn’t surprise me. The meeting had been well-reported. I was joining with Dave Ziegler, director (30 years) of Jasper Mountain, a family treatment center, and Greg Ahlijian, author of The Large Rock and The Little Yew, a children’s story of hope and survival.

To finish reading the post, click here.

They stood in groups of three or four

and some all by their lonesome

waiting for the opportunity to share a

story of

being the foster parent

the medical provider

the caseworker

the immigrant

or the husband to the wife

whose daughter was abused.

Some fought back tears

others anger

Many were shaken

troubled deeply by the recognition

of just how awful humans can be to one another

It would be easy for all of us to despair

To hole up within our homes

and ourselves

To give up hope

and to cry out: Where forth art thou, God?

But then the next morning, as I drove east

I passed through a forest

so enchanted

I pulled the car off to the side of the snaking road

and got out to take these photos for you

I know that I can’t begin to capture

the height or breadth

or the luminosity of these trees

as the morning light transformed each lichen-robed limb into a florescent glow stick

People stopped to offer me help but I waved them on. Thank you, thank you, I said.

But, really, truly, I am fine. Just marveling, that’s all.

Marveling at Creation and the Creator behind it all

And remembering how proud he was of his creation.

It is good, he said. It is good.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget how very pleased God was in the beginning

But it only takes a moment, standing under the old growth in the morning light to remember

the hope of Easter

That even in the midst of much suffering

and darkness

Hope roots itself deep

within us

And all we have to do is reach for the light above

Happy Easter, friends.

Thank you for the multitude of ways in which you live out the resurrection & hope of Christ

It’s simply breathtaking at times

seeing how strong and luminous you can be.

Psalms One

¹ Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
² but whose delight is in the law of the LORD,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
³ That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.

I just got off the phone with a writer from the Walla Walla Union Bulletin. I’ve spoken to morejournalists in the past week than I have in the past year. That’s good news because it means the press — the people who have to write these headlines stories that readers find too troubling to read — have an appreciation for Karly’s story. They are pulling for this book. They want readers to embrace it so that they can quit reporting on mothers who put babies in microwaves or boyfriends who torture children to death.

These journalists all ask me the same question — How did you do this?

It’s  not  a matter of technique they are seeking. They, after all, understand better than most the tedious process of pouring over court records and investigative reports.

What they want to know is how did I do this emotionally?

Some of you who have read the book (thank you) have wondered the same thing. You probably are curious as to whether I drank myself through this book. (No.) Or whether I was in therapy for it. (Not yet).

I don’t think any of you regular readers of this blog figure me for being the cold-hearted type. So you know I didn’t remove myself from it. You know that I’ve done what I always do — plunged in head first.

To finish reading this post, click here. 

And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders and went backwards, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.

I’m not going to post the video here but in all likelihood you’ve already seen it. The video of Invisible Children’s co-founder Jason Russell, nude and ranting, has been been front and center at The Huffington Post and various other news sources online, as well as played and replayed on all the major television news shows. Anchors have made one quip after another, smugly considering their verbal volleys all in good sport, considering.

But that’s the problem isn’t it?

To finish reading this post, click here. 

Over at her blog this week, Rachel Held Evans related her frustrations over working with a Christian publisher. In this case, Thomas Nelson, because they have banned the use of the word “vagina” in her upcoming book, “A Year of Biblical Womanhood.”

I suppose when they signed contract with Rachel it never occurred to the publisher that she would have the balls to talk about her vagina in a book about womanhood, heh? But then I suppose Thomas Nelson wouldn’t use the word balls either, heh?

To read the rest of this post, click here.

Congrads to the following winners of the Goodreads Giveaway. Hundreds registered to win the book. These ten did.  Thank you to all who put A SILENCE OF MOCKINGBIRDS on your TO READ shelves! If Karly’s story speaks to you, please tell somebody.

It’s not quite My Lai but it is a nightmare nonetheless. An American soldier, reportedly suffering  a mental breakdown, has killed Afghan civilians as they lay sleeping.

When Lt. Calley and his men lined up a village of women and children and executed them at point-blank range, nobody claimed the Great Satan was involved. The Vietnamese understood Lt. Calley to be a basket case. Not that they dismissed what he did. No. That happened when he and the others involved were tried in  a military court at Ft. Benning, Georgia — the military base in my hometown.

I grew up under the cloud of Lt. Calley, ashamed and silent, keenly aware of the public debate about Vietnam, and as I heard hundreds of time throughout my life — what a shame my father died in such a wasteful war.

Just as now, thousands of children whose fathers and mothers have died in Congress’s wrongly-conceived War on Terror will wake to the news that a U. S. Serviceman has gone apeshit and murdered families in their own homes.

To finish reading this post click here.