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© Catherine Haslag

Dear Ms. L’Engle

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Dear Ms. L’Engle,

My copy of A Wrinkle in Time, which I read in 5th grade.

It started as a school assignment

in 5th grade. Eighteen copies of A Wrinkle in Time lined up on the shelf like identical little soldiers as Mrs. Hitz talked about the first novel we were reading for the year. We were going to read 4 such novels between August and May. Yours has been with me ever since.

I still have the copy we read. Since our parents provided the money to buy the copies for the classes to share, we got to take them home at the end of the year. It has had an honored spot on my bookcase ever since. My steady companion for 30 years. It was my introduction to the sci-fi/fantasy genre of books. I loved the whimsy of Ms. Who, Ms. What, and Ms. Which. The tesseract boggled my young mind.

I related strongly to the heroine Meg, an awkward girl who doesn’t yet know or trust her abilities. Who doesn’t yet know where she fits in the world. My 11-year-old self hadn’t yet begun to really test what she was capable of let alone trust her abilities. Meg gave me a role model to learn from.

I eventually discovered there were four books about the adventures of Meg and her brothers. I devoured A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet. I couldn’t get into the adventures of Sandy and Dennys in Many Waters. I am sorry to say they were my least favorite characters in the world you created. The only book of the Time Quartet I didn’t read.

In college, I discovered Meg had a daughter, Polly, when I read An Acceptable Time. I was at another turning point as I was stepping into the adult world. I could relate to Polly just as I had Meg when I was 11.

I recently listened to A Wrinkle in Time on audiobook through my library. It reads just as well at 40 as it did at 11. This time, I was reminded that I still have that unsure girl in me, my own internal Meg, but I also have experience that reminds me I have been tested and that I am strong. I know what I can do and I can trust my skills. I now know my place in this world. Your books helped me make this journey because I could relate to your characters and their challenges. Thank you for bridging that gap so I could grow into who I am today.

Sincerely,

Catherine

Willie and me horsing around.© Catherine Haslag

Lasts

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© Catherine Haslag

The Face of Lonely

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The Confessional Podcast Review

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I am a podcast addict. History, current events, personal growth, science – I listen to more podcasts than is probably healthy for a person. Some of my favorite podcasts involve people sharing stories about their lives. The types of deep, open conversations that would make most people uncomfortable. That’s my jam. The podcast I highlight here creates a space for those types of conversations and intimacy.

This image is taken from Audible.com.

Nadia Bolz-Weber is a minister and founder of the House For All Sinners and Saints church in Denver, CO. She is the author of 3 books, a YouTube limited series called Have a Little Faith produced by Makers, and an outspoken advocate for the outcasts. She began The Confessional podcast in April 2020.

The Confessional is a place for people to share things they have done they are not proud of. We all have done things we aren’t proud of, so the conversations had here are for all of us. The conversations in the podcast are frank, intimate, and use adult language. I get a big kick out of hearing an ordained minister use the F-word. If you don’t like coarse language, then this podcast may not be for you. The use of adult language only makes me enjoy this podcast more because the focus is on accepting and embracing our humanness, not about being “perfect” or conforming to what some religion thinks is appropriate behavior. Bolz-Weber focuses on honoring all our parts, not just the shiny clean pieces. She wants to have read discussions about all parts of the human experience.

Bolz-Weber offers the guest a prayer at the end of each episode. She emphasizes that while the prayer may be specifically written for her guest, it could be for any one of her listeners. She offers absolution not just to her guest, but to all of us. Her confessional encompasses all of us. Her grace, compassion, and love envelopes all who listen to the conversation.

The thing I love the most about this podcast is it shares stories of real humans in an authentically compassionate way. Bolz-Weber creates a space for her guests to share their biggest secrets and shames in life in a real, compassionate space. By providing a place for her guest to share their story, Bolz-Weber creates a space for all of our stories to be told, examined, and accepted. Being human is messy. We mess up. We do things we are not proud to admit. Bolz-Weber allows us to accept the flaws of our humanness, embrace our screw-ups, learn from them, and do better in the future. She practices the kind of compassion that Jesus taught. While I am not a Christian, I still believe Jesus was a good person and taught us how to love each other. Bolz-Weber is a walking example of the behavior of Jesus. Listening to these stories reminds me that while I am not perfect, there is always the opportunity to do better in the next moment.

Until we have examined our dark secrets, shames, and mistakes and accepted that we are fallible and imperfect humans, we are unable to embrace who we are and the journey we are undertaking on this planet. Until we can reconcile our undesirable pieces, we can’t grow into the person we wish to be. Bolz-Weber opens the door for each of us to examine and accept those pieces of ourselves so that work can begin.

You can find The Confessional on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Audible, or wherever you get your podcasts.

 

Some of my favorite episodes of The Confessional

Dr. Ray Christian, Storyteller and Fulbright Specialist

Forgiveness and Reconciliation with Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg

Kasey Anderson, Singer/Songwriter

Amy Brenneman, Movie Star

Megan Phelps-Roper, Former Member of the Westboro Baptist Church

© Catherine Haslag

The Alchemist

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Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man

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© Catherine Haslag

Book Worm

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I love to read. I usually have 3-4 books going at any one time: a fiction novel or memoir, something for personal/professional development, and a book on history/current events. It’s safe to say that I have an addiction to books. As addictions go, there are worse in the world. This one doesn’t involve needles and my brain gets a great work-out. The hard part is finding shelving space for my collection.

This addiction is genetic, I inherited it from my mom. By the time I was walking, I already had an impressive library of Dr. Seuss, Frog and Toad, and Beatrice Potter stories. My mom read to me every night before bed when I was young. I have always had a library of books to access, be it my own or my mom’s. When I was a toddler, my mom invested in a series of fairy tale books that came with cassette tapes. Anytime I wanted to hear a story, I could just pop a cassette in my brown Fischer Price tape player and push play. The tape dinged when it was time to turn the page. I was never without a way to hear a good story from that day forward.

In second grade my teacher, Ms. Taylor, introduced me to a book about Helen Keller and I became obsessed. I read everything I could find about her. Later, Abraham Lincoln was my reading fixation. Eventually, I was introduced to Madeline L’Engle and Luis Lowery and read as many of their books as I could find.

In junior high, I was into R.L. Stein, Christopher Pike, and the Gymnasts series. I borrowed my mom’s copy of Rosemary’s Baby when I was 14. I read it in just a few days…in the very old house I grew up in…after dark. It was (and still is) the scariest book I had read, but it was my first step into adult fiction…and what a step!

My freshman and sophomore years of high school, I was deep into reading Star Trek books. I read on the school bus and any moment I could get between classes. The books provided a shield from the rejection I experienced those first two years of high school. I was a fat, smart kid who wore glasses and hand-me-downs, which made me an easy target for bullies. I discovered that as long as I had my nose in a book, people mostly left me alone.

I read some in college, but not as much as in K-12. Most of my time reading in college involved textbooks, but I always found time to read the latest edition in the Harry Potter series. I picked up reading for pleasure again after grad school. A friend of mine turned me onto Brave New World, The Handmaid’s Tale, and books by Ann Patchett.  I have had a book in progress ever since.

Books are my friends and teachers. They provide me transportation to places I can’t experience on a daily basis. They are also far cheaper than a plane ticket and don’t require any vacation days to visit. They teach me about the world and help me connect more to myself. I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by readers, so I am always able to find a new good book to read. There is truth to the saying, “So many books. So little time.” I doubt I will ever be able to finish my reading list.  It grows larger by the day.

I want to share some of my favorite books here. The first Wednesday of each month I will post a review for a book I enjoyed. My hope is that I will provide you with another good story to add to your reading list.

May you never reach the end of that list.

© Catherine Haslag

A Traveling Legacy

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© Catherine Haslag

What I Didn’t Know

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May 25, 2020

I didn’t watch the full video. 8 minutes and 46 seconds. I saw parts of it, but not the whole tape. I can’t watch the video of George Floyd dying, of anyone dying.

I had the privilege of sitting with my feelings on this for a while. To learn more. To take it all in. I began reading. Looking. Researching for anything I could find.

I found a mountain of information. Podcasts. Books. Videos. Theses. Documentaries. Journal articles. Newspaper pieces. Magazine reports. Websites. There was no end to the documentation. What I could read, view, and listen to. New information to learn, to shatter my old misunderstanding, and develop a new, more accurate picture.

I shouldn’t have been surprised by the deluge of resources I found, but I was. It was eye-opening. Once I started looking, learned so much about US history. More than in any class I took. Our history spells out the impact of racism and how far its tentacles stretched. Education, healthcare, housing, travel, restaurants, the GI Bill, voting rights, religion, policing, marriage, redistricting. There isn’t an area of life that isn’t affected by systemic racism. Every person in the United States has either benefited from or been disadvantaged by this disease.

There are many perspectives to history. The white perspective is the primary one told in this country because white is the dominant race, the dominant caste. There is a vast amount of US history that isn’t taught because it doesn’t paint white people in a positive light. This creates an incomplete and unfair narrative of our country, its history, and its people.

Redlining. Gerrymandering. Jim Crow. Segregation. Racial profiling. Stop and frisk. Voter ID. Poll taxes. Travel bans. Internment camps. Reservations. The war on drugs. All forms of racism make it harder for people of color to live their American dream. All efforts to keep the privilege in the hands of white people. White privilege. White power. White supremacy.

Equal rights have not been established. All lives don’t matter until all lives are treated like they matter. Black and brown lives don’t matter in the United States. Four hundred years of history demonstrates this. The evidence is there for anyone to see if one is open to seeing it.

I believe that the United States of America is a great country. I believe in the quest to form a more perfect union…more perfect union for ALL those who call the United States home. I also know that quest is a messy one. We are not a country of saints. Far, far from it. To paint this country as such is a lie and dooms us to repeat our sins of the past.

If you are open to learning about how systemic racism permeates our society, I encourage you to access the Google Docs link below. It is a file that contains the list of resources I found in my research on systemic racism. As I continue collecting resources, I will continue to update this document.

#SystemicRacism Resources Google Docs Link

These resources tell another side of US history, it’s not a pretty one but it’s true. My hope is that the research I have done will help open more eyes to the reality of our nation and those who are mistreated in it because of the color of their skin. My dream is that as we know the fuller story of US history we will break the ongoing cycle of systemic racism.

© Catherine Haslag

Piney

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She started as a foster kitten. My boyfriend’s foster kitten three years before he was my boyfriend. Rather than being adopted by another family, he kept her, loved her, made her part of his. He was happy to turn his apartment into a kitty play place for her, for all of the kittens he fostered. He has a heart bigger than any space can hold.

I met Piney for the first time in Spring 2020. She is a skittish cat. She typically runs when someone walks her way. She hides from guests. She is scared of the loud, the unfamiliar, the new. She took to me quickly. Let me rub her belly. Slept on my feet. The next time I saw her weeks later she came running to me, begging in her cat way to have her head and neck scratched. This was unusual for her and her humans noticed.

When my boyfriend needed to be away from home for weeks to handle a family matter, I offered to take her so he didn’t need to worry about her. So she didn’t need to be alone. She spent the first day hiding in the covers on the floor at the foot of my bed. She snuck around the house, afraid of everything. All the sounds were new, the smells were different, and her male human was nowhere around. It was just us girls and she was uncertain.

It took some time, but she started to venture out. She didn’t run when I walked past her or bent to scratch behind her ears. She snuggled at my feet in the evening when I read and slept between my legs at night. She found the squirrels that live in the tree on my patio and tracked the birds that perch in the front bush. She climbed to the top of her cat tree and watched the cars pass on the street. She made this her home and picked me as her human. She became a different feline. My boyfriend was amazed at the change in Piney and decided she had picked her forever home. She stayed with me.

Piney has become my 4-legged furry teacher. Slowly wedging herself into my life. Between the covers of my bed. Balancing like a gymnast on my headboard and dismounting onto my nightstand. Our relationship expanded from sleepover buddy to roommate.

I am very particular about my home, yet she has charmed me into buying a cat tree for the office, a small hidey-hole for her in the living room, and rearrange my kitchen to allow space for a litter box. I love having her here, but living alone for the past 5 years has caused me to atrophy. I am not as malleable as I once was. Piney has made this clear to me. Loving her is easy but making physical space in my home for her has been a challenge.

I have become rigid in my middle-age. My adult life has been guided by routines, plans, and Google Calendar. Piney doesn’t fit in any of those. She can’t be scheduled and her needs are different than mine. She is teaching me to make space for the unscheduleable, for the belly rubs on the carpet at 6:13a and the catnap at my feet at 7:42p. She has left her paw marks on my heart, her fur on my couch, and kitty litter everywhere.

She is slowly prying me open to her, open to life. Reminding me that the best things in life aren’t planned. That there is time in the morning to sit and stretch for a minute. That your perspective can change with a purr and a good neck scratch. That change can bring good things into your life.