I own a business, a small publishing company, and since I got into business 4 years ago, in my forties, with no previous training or experience, I need to run it by prayer. Which I do. Successfully when I remember to pray, stressfully when I do not.

And here’s an example which is pretty amazing. We have published nearly 400 books over the last 3 years, with the help of 7 of our friends who are working with us. We’ve entered 40 of them into various wholesaler’s networks, and they have sold almost as much as the remaining 350 which we sell through retail outlets. So we’ve wanted to get all our books into wholesale channels and get out of retail.

But, though we have wanted to do this ALL YEAR, and were in agreement on it, setting up the titles with images, description and details to fit the wholesaler’s specifications is time-consuming. And somehow, much to our frustration, things kept coming up which seemed to be a higher priority. It was becoming like Mr. Holland’s Opus (remember that heart-breaking film?) and Roy was getting most irritated and frustrated by it, as was I, to a lesser degree.

Last Friday, it struck me: Gosh, I haven’t prayed for time. And so I did. “Lord, please provide time for us to undertake this massive project.”

And almost instantly, He did. Our clever daughter, Zoe, almost 16, who like Irene, 11, has a solid understanding of our business, having  seen it grow from nothing and been involved in all our deliberations about it over the supper table, came up with a solution. The printer had all the data. Get the printer to send us his spreadsheets. Upload those to the distribution networks. We did that, and in a few hours, the mammoth task was done.

Lesson 1. Automate everything you can.

Lesson 2. Never ever forget to pray!!

I hardly ever watch thrillers, since I get emotionally over-involved in them, and hence nervous. However, I was fascinated by the premise of this novel when I first read a review of it–Smilla who can read snow. I remember studying in linguistics that people find words for what is important to them. The Eskimos, for instance, are supposed to have 17 words to describe snow.

I wanted to read this book about this woman who could read snow. But time being the finite element that is, I watched the film instead.

It has the rarefied unsmiling quality of most Scandinavian films, but it also a totally gripping story of the conflict between big business whose money reaches up and down the corridors of power and society, and an individual determined to find the murderer of a six year old boy, even if it kills her. I particularly liked the portrayal of the six year old doomed boy, Isaiah, and his relationship with Smilla.

We watched it on a lethargic Sunday when we couldn’t find the energy to do anything else. I can think of worse ways of spending an evening.

The other joy of our summer, Irene’s in particular, was the three young baby rabbits. One of them is going to the Mitchells, but Irene has it for the summer, and has walked around cradling and kissing them, and got them so tame. Rabbits are the most loving animals ever, and are capable of multiple attachments, like a good dog, and so they are wonderful family pets if you take the time to love them, as Irene does. Our grown bunnies are Empress (black and white)  and Bandit and the babies are called Sunshine (brown) and Lightning (black with a white stripe).

I have a friend, who believes she has ME, who, perhaps because of her physical limitations, is forced into closer communion with God. She is very prophetic. We prayed together just before I went to Ireland, and she said that she had an image of a waterfall cascading down on me during my travels.

Well, it did. I woke up with a dream image, and wrote a short book based on it,”The Church Which Had Too Much.”

Holidays are very creative periods for me. I pray a lot. I reconnect with God. I get his direction for the next term. I tweak my life. I allow God to tweak my spirit. I come back, full of ideas and focus.
I am travelling again very soon. What I really need is the waterfall to cascade down on me again, not just on my mind, creativity and imagination, those shadowy realms in which our spirit and God’s spirit meet and intersect, but also on my heart and spirit, for I need healing, I need wisdom, and, most of all, I need God to pour his Spirit into my spirit, so that I have some of his love for people–for, in and of myself, I have little.

Hmm. I admire this book. It is exquisitely well-constructed. It is original. I love the way Roy plays with language and creates a language of her own. I love her vivid descriptions, and the exactitude and verisimilitude of her childhood memories. I can relate to what she mentions–the Indian childhood; the passion for “The Sound of Music;” the mean, very mean female relatives whose greed and pettiness eventually drove them crazy; the casual, mean and cruel bullying of children, especially free spirits; the repressive and pervasive smallness of mind that can drive free spirits crazy; the favouring of males. Oh overall, the sadness of it, the waste through repression and conformity of what might have been.

Having mentioned these things, it is not surprising that I found it very painful to read. The casual sacrifice and brutalizing of the lower-caste lover was unbearably painful, and then the subsequent ostracism of Ammu herself, which drove her to her early death; traumatized her son, so that he parted with his sanity; and left her daughter barely functioning, though traumatized. And then, the stereotypical vicious unmarried aunt, the villianness of the piece, who inherits all the gold–and wears it all at once, driven to a kind of craziness by her unrestrained greed.

I do recommend it, but will probably not read it again myself. It rouses a flood of anger and inchoate memories in me, all of them painful!

The plum trees that we planted in 2006 have been covered with the sweetest, most delicious plums this year. Interestingly it took them 3.5 years to bear fruit.
Hmm. My life has been marked by moves from city to city, from country to country.

Here is its trajectory–Born in Jamshedpur, India; moved to boarding school in Nainital, India when I was 9, volunteered with Mother Teresa in Orissa and Calcutta when I was 17-18, then lived in Madras,  then in Oxford, England, then Columbus, Ohio, USA; Binghamton, New York; and then I got married. As a married couple, we’ve lived in Cornell, New York; Palo Alto, California; Williamsburg, Virginia; Minnesota, Minneapolis; then back to Williamsburg, Virginia for another 11 years, then back to England, to Manchester, Lancashire; and then back to Oxford, England where we’ve lived for 5.5 years. I hope we have come full circle, that this is our metaphorical Ithaca, where we will stay for good.

We have lived in 10 homes over our married life of 20 years. So, on average, a move every 2 years!! No wonder, we have not been productive. Moving takes an enormous amount of physical and emotional energy, not to mention the necessity of making new friends, and establishing new networks. We love where we live now, and have no serious plans to move–ever.

I really enjoy slowing putting metaphorical roots into the soil of Oxford, getting to know people, a wide range of people, investing in their lives, slowly establishing friendships which steadily deepen. Getting to know this town even better, setting up rhythms, routines, and a life here. I am very happy here, and love living here.