cold tangerines : shauna niequist
I have a running list of people that I’d like to invite to an imaginary dinner party. Imaginary because I don’t actually know these people, so the likelihood of said party actually happening is rather….small. After listening to Bittersweet as an audio book last month, and now finishing Cold Tangerines, I’m extending an imaginary invite to Shauna Niequist.
Both books read like sitting down for coffee with a good friend. Shauna has a way of peeling back the pleasantries and getting to the good/real stuff. A few of my favorite bits…
“For me, to write is an act of rebellion, an uprising against that part of me that needs to be responsible, helpful, adaptive. It is one of the first things, maybe the very first thing, that is entirely my own, that doesn’t help anyone, doesn’t make anyone else’s life easier, doesn’t facilitate or provide structure or administrative support for anyone else.”
“I have had my vision and I thought it would come in a flash, a bright beam of knowing. But it has come in the same way that all things come to me. It has come to me with a fight. It has come to me the hard way, through tears, and fog and fear and chaos and now has landed in the palm of my hand like a firefly. There now, I have had my vision.”
“I am thankful, I realized in those moments, thankful for the breaking of things that needed to be broken, that couldn’t have been broken any other way…”
I suppose that Shauna’s books technically fall into the “christian memoir” category (is that a thing?), but I find that she writes about faith & spirit with a messy grace (yes, that’s a thing) that is pretty much the opposite of preachy. <- that’s a compliment.
Note: I read Cold Tangerines via my Oyster Books subscription – loving this service! Joining from this link means that we’ll BOTH get a $15 credit. Win-win!