It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old…or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.; Reprint edition (April 25, 2011)
***Special thanks to Audra Jennings, Senior Media Specialist, The B&B Media Group for sending me a review copy.***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Randy Singer is a critically acclaimed author and veteran trial attorney. He has penned 10 legal thrillers, including his award-winning debut novel, Directed Verdict. Randy runs his own law practice and has been named to Virginia Business magazine’s select list of “Legal Elite” litigation attorneys. In addition to his law practice and writing, Randy serves as teaching pastor for Trinity Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He calls it his “Jekyll and Hyde thing”—part lawyer, part pastor. He also teaches classes in advocacy and civil litigation at Regent Law School and, through his church, is involved with ministry opportunities in India. He and his wife, Rhonda, live in Virginia Beach. They have two grown children.
Clark Shealy is a bail bondsman with the ultimate bounty on the line: his wife’s life. He has forty-eight hours to find an Indian professor in possession of the Abacus Algorithm—an equation so powerful it could crack all Internet encryption.
Four years later, law student Jamie Brock is working in legal aid when a routine case takes a vicious twist: she and two colleagues learn that their clients, members of the witness protection program, are accused of defrauding the government and have the encrypted algorithm in their possession. After a life-changing trip to the professor’s church in India, the couple also has the key to decode it.
Now they’re on the run from federal agents and the Chinese mafia, who will do anything to get the algorithm. Caught in the middle, Jamie and her friends must protect their clients if they want to survive long enough to graduate.
An adrenaline-laced thrill ride, this retelling of one of Randy Singer’s most critically acclaimed novels takes readers from the streets of Las Vegas to the halls of the American justice system and the inner sanctum of the growing church in India with all the trademark twists, turns, and the legal intrigue his fans have come to expect.
List Price: $13.99
Paperback: 432 pages
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.; Reprint edition (April 25, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1414335695
ISBN-13: 978-1414335698
ISLAND BREEZES
Just when you think the pumping of adrenalin caused by this book will never let up, it does.
Then you’re going to need that box of tissues for a bit before that adrenalin rush starts up again.
Not only do you have plenty of action here, you also have a ton of people to try to figure out. Who are the good guys versus the bad guys? Who’s telling the truth and who’s lying?
Grisham get out of the way. Here comes Singer. I can’t wait to begin reading the rest of his books. I really loved this one.
AND NOW…THE FIRST CHAPTER:
MONDAY, AUGUST 9
THE LONGEST THREE DAYS of Clark Shealy’s life began with an expired registration sticker.
That was Clark’s first clue, the reason he followed the jet-black Cadillac Escalade ESV yesterday. The reason he phoned his wife, his partner in both marriage and crime . . . well, not really crime but certainly the dark edge of legality. They were the Bonnie and Clyde of bounty hunters, of repo artists, of anything requiring sham credentials and bold-faced lies. Jessica’s quick search of DMV records, which led to a phone call to the title holder, a Los Angeles credit union, confirmed what Clark had already guessed. The owner wasn’t making payments. The credit union wanted to repo the vehicle but couldn’t find it. They were willing to pay.
“How much?” Clark asked Jessica.
“It’s not worth it,” she replied. “That’s not why you’re there.”
“Sure, honey. But just for grins, how much are we passing up?”
Jessica murmured something.
“You’re breaking up,” Clark said.
“They’d pay a third of Blue Book.”
“Which is?”
“About forty-eight four,” Jessica said softly.
“Love you, babe,” Clark replied, doing the math. Sixteen thousand dollars!
“Clark—”
He ended the call. She called back. He hit Ignore.
Sixteen thousand dollars! Sure, it wasn’t the main reason he had come to Vegas. But a little bonus couldn’t hurt.
Unfortunately, the vehicle came equipped with the latest in theft protection devices, an electronically coded key supplied to the owner. The engine transmitted an electronic message that had to match the code programmed into the key, or the car wouldn’t turn over.
Clark learned this the hard way during the dead hours of the desert night, at about two thirty. He had broken into the Cadillac, disabled the standard alarm system, removed the cover of the steering column, and hot-wired the vehicle. But without the right key, the car wouldn’t start. Clark knew immediately that he had triggered a remote alarm. Using his hacksaw, he quickly sawed deep into the steering column, disabling the vehicle, and then sprinted down the drive and across the road
.
He heard a stream of cursing from the front steps of a nearby condo followed by the blast of a gun. To Clark’s trained ears, it sounded like a .350 Magnum, though he didn’t stay around long enough to confirm the make, model, and ATF serial number.
??
Six hours later, Clark came back.
He bluffed his way past the security guard at the entrance of the gated community and drove his borrowed tow truck into the elegant brick parking lot rimmed by manicured hedges. He parked sideways, immediately behind the Cadillac. These condos, some of Vegas’s finest, probably went for more than a million bucks each.
The Caddy fit right in, screaming elegance and privilege—custom twenty-inch rims, beautiful leather interior, enough leg room for the Lakers’ starting five, digital readouts on the dash, and an onboard computer that allowed its owner to customize all power functions in the vehicle. The surround-sound system, of course, could rattle the windows on a car three blocks away. Cadillac had pimped this ride out fresh from the factory, making it the vehicle of choice for men like Mortavius Johnson, men who lived on the west side of Vegas and supplied “escorts” for the city’s biggest gamblers.
Clark speed-dialed 1 before he stepped out of the tow truck.
“This is stupid, Clark.”
“Good morning to you, too. Are you ready?”
“No.”
“All right. Let’s do it.” He slid the still-connected phone into a pocket of his coveralls. They were noticeably short, pulling at the crotch. He had bought the outfit on the spot from a mechanic at North Vegas Auto, the same garage where he borrowed the tow truck from the owner, a friend who had helped Clark in some prior repo schemes. A hundred and fifty bucks for the coveralls, complete with oil and grease stains. Clark had ripped off the name tag and rolled up the sleeves. It felt like junior high all over again, growing so fast the clothes couldn’t keep up with the boy.
He popped open the hood of the wrecker, smeared his fingers on some blackened oil grime, and rubbed a little grease on his forearms, with a dab to his face. He closed the hood and walked confidently to the front door of the condo, checking the paper in his hand as if looking for an address. He rang the bell.
Silence. . . . He rang it again.
Eventually, he heard heavy footsteps inside and then the clicking of a lock before the door slowly opened. Mortavius Johnson, looking like he had barely survived a rough night, filled the doorway. Clark was tall and slender—six-three, about one-ninety. But Mortavius was tall and bulky—a brooding presence who dwarfed Clark. He wore jeans and no shirt, exposing rock-solid pecs but also a good-size gut. He didn’t have a gun.
Clark glanced down at his paper while Mortavius surveyed him with bloodshot eyes.
“Are you Mortavius Johnson?”
“Yeah.”
“You call for a tow?”
Mortavius’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. The big man glanced at the pocket of Clark’s coveralls—no insignia—then around him at the tow truck. Clark had quickly spray-painted over the logo and wondered if Mortavius could tell.
Clark held his breath and considered his options. If the big man caught on, Clark would have to surprise Mortavius, Pearl Harbor–style, with a knee to the groin or a fist to the solar plexus. Even those blows would probably just stun the big man momentarily. Clark would sprint like a bandit to the tow truck, hoping Mortavius’s gun was more than arm’s length away. Clark might be able to outrun Mortavius, but not the man’s bullet.
“I left a message last night with the Cadillac dealer,” Mortavius said.
The Cadillac dealer. Clark was hoping for something a little more specific. “And the Cadillac dealer called me,” Clark said, loudly enough to be heard on the cell phone in his pocket. “You think they’ve got their own tow trucks at that place? It’s not like Caddies break down very often. If everybody could afford a Caddie, I’d go out of business.”
Clark smiled. Mortavius did not.
“What company you with?” he asked.
“Highway Auto Service,” Clark responded, louder still. He pulled out the cell phone, surreptitiously hit the End button with a thumb, then held it out to Mortavius. “You want to call my office? Speed dial 1.”
Mortavius frowned. He still looked groggy. “I’ll get the keys,” he said.
He disappeared from the doorway, and Clark let out a breath. He speed-dialed Jessica again and put the phone back in his pocket. He glanced over his shoulder, then did a double take.
Give me a break!
Another tow truck was pulling past the security guard and heading toward Mortavius’s condo. Things were getting a little dicey.
“I left some papers in the truck you’ll need to sign,” Clark called into the condo. But as soon as the words left Clark’s mouth, Mortavius reappeared in the doorway, keys in hand.
Unfortunately, he glanced past Clark, and his eyes locked on the other tow truck. A glint of understanding sparked, followed by a flash of anger. “Who sent you?” Mortavius demanded.
“I told you . . . the Cadillac place.”
“The Cadillac place,” Mortavius repeated sarcastically. “What Cadillac place?”
“Don’t remember. The name’s on the papers in my truck.”
Mortavius took a menacing step forward, and Clark felt the fear crawl up his neck. His fake sheriff’s ID was in the tow truck along with his gun. He was running out of options.
“Who sent you?” Mortavius demanded.
Clark stiffened, ready to dodge the big man’s blows. In that instant, Clark thought about the dental work the last incident like this had required. Jessica would shoot him—it wasn’t in the budget.
A hand shot out, and Clark ducked. He lunged forward and brought his knee up with all his might. But the other man was quick, and the knee hit rock-solid thigh, not groin. Clark felt himself being jerked by his collar into the foyer, the way a dog might be yanked inside by an angry owner. Before he could land a blow, Clark was up against the wall, Mortavius in his face, a knife poised against Clark’s stomach.
Where did that come from?
Mortavius kicked the door shut. “Talk fast, con man,” he hissed. “Intruders break into my home, I slice ’em up in self-defense.”
“I’m a deputy sheriff for Orange County, California,” Clark gasped. He tried to sound official, hoping that even Mortavius might think twice before killing a law enforcement officer. “In off hours, I repo vehicles.” He felt the point of the knife pressing against his gut, just below his navel, the perfect spot to start a vivisection.
“But you can keep yours,” Clark continued, talking fast. “I’m only authorized to repo if there’s no breach of the peace. Looks like this situation might not qualify.”
Mortavius inched closer. He shifted his grip from Clark’s collar to his neck, pinning Clark against the wall. “You try to gank my ride at night, then show up the next morning to tow it?”
“Something like that,” Clark admitted. The words came out whispered for lack of air.
“That takes guts,” Mortavius responded. A look that might have passed for admiration flashed across the dark eyes. “But no brains.”
“I’ve got a deal,” Clark whispered, frantic now for breath. His world was starting to cave in, stars and pyrotechnics clouding his vision.
The doorbell rang.
“Let’s hear it,” Mortavius said quietly, relaxing his stranglehold just enough so Clark could breathe.
“They’re paying me six Gs for the car,” Clark explained rapidly. He was thinking just clearly enough to fudge the numbers. “They know where you are now because I called them yesterday. Even if you kill me—” saying the words made Clark shudder a little, especially since Mortavius didn’t flinch—“they’re going to find the car. You let me tow it today and get it fixed. I’ll wire four thousand bucks into your bank account before I leave the Cadillac place. I make two thousand, and you’ve got four thousand for a down payment on your next set of wheels.”
The doorbell rang again, and Mortavius furrowed his brow. “Five Gs,” he said, scowling.
“Forty-five hundred,” Clark countered, “I’ve got a wife and—”
Ughh . . . Clark felt the wind flee his lungs as Mortavius slammed him against the wall. Pain shot from the back of his skull where it bounced off the drywall, probably leaving a dent.
“Five,” Mortavius snarled.
Clark nodded quickly.
The big man released Clark, answered the door, and chased away the other tow truck driver, explaining that there had been a mistake. As Mortavius and Clark finished negotiating deal points, Clark had another brilliant idea.
“Have you got any friends who aren’t making their payments?” he asked. “I could cut them in on the same type of deal. Say . . . fifty-fifty on the repo reward—they could use their cuts as down payments to trade up.”
“Get out of here before I hurt you,” Mortavius said.
??
Clark glanced at his watch as he left the parking lot. He had less than two hours to return the tow truck and make it to the plastic surgeon’s office. He speed-dialed Jessica.
“Highway Auto Service,” she responded.
“It didn’t work,” Clark said. “I got busted.”
“You okay?”
He loved hearing the concern in her voice. He hesitated a second, then, “Not a scratch on me.”
“I told you it was a dumb idea,” Jessica said, though she sounded more relieved than upset. “You never listen. Clark Shealy knows it all.”
And he wasn’t listening now. Instead, he was doing the math again in his head. Sixteen thousand, minus Mortavius’s cut and the repair bill, would leave about ten. He thought about the logistics of making the wire transfers into accounts that Jessica wouldn’t know about.
Pulling a con on pimps like Mortavius was one thing. Getting one by Jessica was quite another.
It is time for aFIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old…or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Stumbling Toward Heaven is about my struggle with cancer in particular and life in general. It describes in detail what the disease has done to my body and what life before and during treatment has done to my mind, which has never been very stable in the first place. It follows my physical and spiritual journey toward the Valley of the Shadow of Death and beyond. It’s written for everyone who has been impacted by life-threatening catastrophes.
This book is also meant for those who find themselves spiritually “off the reservation” as novelist and cancer survivor Kinky Friedman would say. For a long time I’ve been “out where the (church) buses don’t run”—another Kinkyism—and it’s surprising how many people have wandered out here for one reason or another.
On May 16th, TV News 5 (Colorado) ran a story about Mike. Click HERE to see the interview!
Product Details:
List Price: $14.99
Paperback: 270 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace (March 24, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1461005000
ISBN-13: 978-1461005001
ISLAND BREEZES
I read this book as a nurse who rarely worked in oncology. Most of my contact with cancer as a nurse was caring for the non-survivors as a hospice nurse. I also was a caretaker to my mother as she was in the end stages of her battle.
I find Mr. Hamel’s book to be a clear statement of what it’s like to live with cancer. The added bits of humor just pulled me in closer to the action, since that’s what nurses (especially ER) use to combat the intensity of what faces us.
I got more than one chuckle from the statement “Too much of it can lead to a case of St. Paul’s supposed malady: Acts 26:24.” I’m not telling you. You have to look it up yourself for the full impact. I, too, enjoyed his section “In Praise of Pus.” See. I told you nurses are a bit warped.
It’s been a long time since I’ve taken classes, but I found myself taking notes while reading this book. I usually share my books with others, but this one will remain on my bookshelf.
Thank you, Mr. Hamel for sharing such a personal part of your life. I’m sure this book will help many of us cope, not just with cancer, but with life, as well.
AND NOW…THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Good News, It’s Cancer!
July 2, 2008
“I have good news,” Dr. Dillon said, leaning forward on his elbows. “You have cancer. The biopsy shows the lump in your abdomen is Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and not an omental tumor as the initial scan suggested.”
Lymphoma is good news indeed. The first time I’d seen the good doctor a few weeks earlier he’d said, “You have a nonspecific mass in your omentum.”
“I didn’t even know I had an omentum,” I replied.
“It’s a fatty covering in the abdomen.”
“How big is the mass?” (“Mass” sounds more benign that “tumor.”)
“About the diameter of a grapefruit,” he said, making a circle with thumbs and forefingers. “The nearby lymph nodes are also enlarged.”
Dr. Dillon had no idea how long the tumor had been growing. I got introduced to it in the spring of 2008. I was getting low-grade cramps after sitting at my computer all day, which I put down to poor posture. Then I woke up two nights in a row with abdominal pain I couldn’t blame on posture or indigestion. That’s when I first felt the hardness in my gut.
The cramps went away about the time I made an appointment with my family physician but the lump remained. I remember kneading my gut on the way to the doctor’s trying to rekindle the pain that had caused me to make the appointment in the first place. Turns out I didn’t have to worry about wasting the doctor’s time; he could feel the abnormality and wouldn’t buy my glib explanation that it was my abs of steel.
“It’s only hard on one side,” he pointed out.
“Okay,” I conceded, “How about ab of steel?”
“How about you get a CT scan,” he countered.
The scan revealed a mass large enough to warrant an immediate trip to a surgeon/oncologist, which is how I wound up at Dr. Dillon’s.
Larry Dillon is a personable man with salt-and-pepper hair, an open face and straightforward manner. During our first visit he had explained to my wife, Susan, and me that the normal course of treatment is a complete surgical resection of the omentum. Before we left he warned about doing research on the Internet because the information on solid omental tumors “will scare you silly.”
He got that right.
I had no problem finding authoritative articles on omental masses. I had hoped it was something Catholics attended during Lent, but no such luck. An article on eMedicine clinically stated that, “Patients with primary malignant tumors of the omentum have a median survival time of only six months. Only 10-20% of patients are alive two years after surgical excision.”1
The word that popped out at me was “survival,” a stark concept for a fifty-six-year-old who had seldom been sick and who had only been in a hospital as a visitor. Till now my closest brushes with mortality had been conducting funerals as a pastor. All that was about to change. Since then I’ve been in and out of hospitals, clinics and doctor’s offices. I have gone from a high-energy to a high-maintenance lifestyle; from avoiding even aspirin to popping up to twenty pills a day and having lethal doses of toxic chemicals injected directly into my chest.
Scan This, Biopsy That
The transition from diagnosis (determining what’s wrong with a person), to prognosis (discerning how a disease will progress), is facilitated by a plethora of tests. It was a CT scan that sent me to Dr. Dillon. He in turn ordered a biopsy of the mass in my abdomen.
Computed Axial Tomography, aka CAT or CT scan, was invented in 1972 by a British engineer and a South African physicist, both of whom later received Nobel Prizes for their contributions to medicine and science. Tomos is Greek for “slice” and graphia means “without a knife.” The CT scan uses X-rays and computers to examine the body in 3-D, which sure beats exploratory surgery! It allows radiologists to see diseases and abnormalities that, in the past, could only be found by surgeons—or coroners. Thankfully, the procedure is painless, unless you count drinking the contrast solution, which tastes like banana-flavored chalk.
I reported to Memorial Hospital on June 26 for my tumor biopsy. I remember talking to a nurse named Tammy while on the examination table and the next thing I knew I was in the recovery room an hour later. Thanks to the wonders of modern medicine and the skills of top-flight professionals, I can truly say the process was painless.
As I looked at my stomach after the biopsy, I noticed the “x” they made before the procedure was an inch below the actual cut. I pointed this out to Tammy, who explained that they’d marked me while I was holding my breath during the scan. Once I was under, I relaxed, hence the change in location. There went my hopes of a malpractice suit. Actually, I was impressed at how personable and professional the medical personnel have treated me) an observation that has held true throughout my treatment).
All I have to show for the biopsy the next day is a small bruise and a slight soreness. I feel pretty upbeat but I’m careful not to get too exuberant or else I’ll pay the price. To an extent, I believe Newton’s Third Law also applies to emotions: “For every feeling, there is an equal and opposite feeling.” Like other natural forces, emotions come finely balanced on a shifting fulcrum.
The hardest part of this ordeal so far has been telling family and friends and hearing the concern and tears in their voices. The possibility of a shortened life hasn’t registered on me yet. I’m not trying to suppress my feelings; they just haven’t gotten too worked up.
Obviously God has entered my thoughts but this crisis hasn’t suddenly cured my inability to pray. For a few years now I’ve suffered from the loss of a sense of God’s presence and shed my evangelical worldview. I’ve been adrift in a spiritual Sargasso Sea, which may have contributed to my getting sick. More on this later.
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old…or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
***Special thanks to Anna Coelho Silva | Publicity Coordinator, Charisma House | Charisma Media for sending me a review copy.***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jillian has been a member of American Christian Fiction Writers for several years. She has also been a member of Romance Writers of America for 20 years and a member of The Beau Monde, Kiss of Death, and Faith, Hope, and Love specialty chapters of RWA. With a master’s degree in social work, Jillian is employed as a counselor for nursing students, which reflects within the pages of her first novel, Secrets of the Heart, which won the 2009 Inspiration for Writers contest, previously finaled in the Daphne du Maurier, the Noble Theme, and Faith, Hope, and Love’s Touched by Love contests.
Madeline Whittington, daughter of the deceased Earl of Richfield, emerges from English society’s prescribed period of mourning in the winter of 1817. Madeline believes that she no longer belongs in a world of gossip and gowns after experiencing multiple losses. When she rescues a runaway from Ashcroft Insane Asylum, her life will be forever changed as she discovers the dark secrets within the asylum walls.
Because of his elder brother’s unexpected death, Devlin Greyson becomes Earl of Ravensmoore and struggles between two worlds: one of affluence and privilege and one of poverty and disease. Torn between his desire to become a doctor and the numerous responsibilities of his title, he wrestles with God’s calling for his future. Will he be able to honor this God-given gift and win the woman he falls in love with in a society that does not value gentlemen who work? And will Lady Madeline be able to honor her father’s memory when she is attracted to the man she holds responsible for her father’s death?
Product Details:
List Price: $13.99
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Realms (May 3, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 161638185X
ISBN-13: 978-1616381851
ISLAND BREEZES
I didn’t want to do it. Truly I didn’t, but I had no choice. I planned to read for about an hour before going to bed. I shouldn’t have chosen this book.
I glanced up and midnight was staring me in the face. No matter. I absolutely couldn’t stop reading. I was determined to continue fighting my eyelids.
I won. The eyelids kept drifting, but I didn’t let them slam shut. Give yourself time and maybe keep that box of tissues near.
This book was particularly special to this nurse as one of my specialities was mental health nursing. Plus I just love any books with even a hint of mystery.
AND NOW…THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Prologue
Yorkshire, England, 1817
Who’s there?” Lady Madeline Whittington reined her horse in and listened. She looked into the dense, wooded edge of the forest of Richfield, her family home. “Did you hear something, Shakespeare?” She petted her gelding’s neck. The horse’s ears pricked forward. She studied the fading sun. Darkness would close in soon. It would be unwise to tarry over long. The forest edges, thick with bare brambles now, would become heavy with foliage in the next few months. If she was fortunate, the blackberries would return. Last year’s winter had been harsh, and she’d had to go without that succulent treat. A shadow flitted from within, causing a branch to tremble. “Come out.” Madeline hardened her voice. “Come out at once.”
Papa had taught her to be firm and bold when encountering the unknown, but also cautious. She reached for the revolver in her pocket wishing she hadn’t sent Donavan, their groomsman, on ahead. But she’d desperately wanted to ride alone for a few short minutes.
Two huge brown eyes in a tear-streaked and muddy face peered between parted branches held back by long slim fingers. Blood trickled from scratches on the girl’s arms and hands.
“Who are you? Why did you not answer me?”
The eyes grew wider.
Madeline’s heart softened along with her voice.
“It’s safe. I won’t hurt you.” She tore a hunk of bread from a leather pouch strapped across her shoulder. “Are you hungry?” She offered a large portion. Crumbs fell.
The girl took a step toward her and bit her lower lip. Bruises colored the young woman’s wrists and ankles, her only covering a torn chemise and ill-fitting shoes with no laces.
“What’s your name? Can you understand me?”
Brown Eyes held out a hand.
“You are hungry. Of course you are. Come closer. I’m going to toss the bread to you. Is that all right?”
The pitiful creature nodded and held out both hands.
She understands me. Madeline aimed and carefully threw the bread.
The silent stranger caught it and stuffed the bounty into her mouth so fast that Madeline feared the girl might choke.
“Will you come with me?” Madeline held out her hand. “You may ride with me.”
Brown Eyes stepped back.
“Don’t go. It’s dangerous. You cannot stay here. I won’t hurt you.”
The girl looked into the woods at the lowering sun and then at Madeline’s outstretched hand. Brown Eyes stepped backward. One step. Two steps.
“Wait.” Madeline unbuttoned her cape. “Take this. It’s far too cold with only a chemise to cover you. You’ll freeze to death.” She threw the long, fur-lined wrap to Brown Eyes.
The girl gathered the offering and backed into the forest, keeping her eyes locked on Madeline’s until she turned and ran.
“No! Wait. Please wait.” Madeline searched for a way through the thicket. Not finding any, she pushed her mount farther north until she found an entry. How could she help this girl without scaring her out of her wits? She found the girl’s path. Darkness chased them.
“Where are you?” Madeline shouted. “It’s too dangerous.”
Shakespeare’s ears pricked forward, and she caught the sound of scurrying ahead and then spotted Brown Eyes. Low-hanging branches attacked Madeline, clawing her with their long-reaching arms as she herded the girl toward a nearby hunting cabin. Minutes
later they broke through the trees and entered a clearing where the outline of a small cabin was silhouetted against the fast-approaching night sky.
Pulling her mount to a stop, Madeline kicked her booted foot out of the stirrup and narrowly avoided catching her skirt on the pommel as she slid to the ground.
“I won’t hurt you,” Madeline called. The girl hesitated and then ran again. Gathering up her skirt, Madeline chased after the girl, grabbing for the cape that trailed behind. She easily caught the girl, who fell to the ground in a heap and rolled into a ball with the cape wrapped around her.
Madeline knelt beside her and spoke gently. “Please don’t run. I’m not going to take the cape from you. It’s yours. A gift.”
Brown Eyes panted with fear.
“It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you. I want to help.” Madeline patted the girl’s shoulder.
She flinched.
“I’m sorry you are afraid. I want you to stay here. See the cabin? You can stay here.”
The girl peeked out from behind the cape, her ragged breathing easing from the chase through the woods. She looked at the cabin and then at Madeline.
“I know you’ve suffered something horrid. Come. You’ll be safe here. Trust me.” Madeline stood and offered a hand up.
Brown Eyes took her hand and followed her into the cabin.
One
Each one sees what he carries in his heart.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Have you ever made a mistake?” Madeline settled into her saddle, avoiding her friend’s probing gaze. Anxiety rippled through her as she stroked the neck of her large bay gelding while they waited for the hunting horn to sound.
“Not to my recollection.” Lady Gilling gathered her reins. “I’m quite good at avoiding them.”
“I shouldn’t have come.” Madeline’s gloved hands trembled. “I hate hunting.” She’d tried to avoid the ride today. She wanted to visit her brown-eyed fugitive, and she’d been unable to take food to the girl this morning because of the hunt. Mother had insisted she rejoin society this morning, and she’d enlisted her best friend Hally, Lady Gilling, to be certain that she rode today.
“You used to love the hunt.” Hally circled her dappled gray mare around Madeline’s horse, inspecting Madeline as though she were about to enter the ballroom instead of the final hunt of the season.
Madeline shook her head. “You’re wrong. I love riding, not hunting.”
“Perhaps. However, at one and twenty, you are far too young to give up on this world. And even though I’m only two years your elder, I’ve had my sorrows too, and I have found ways to battle the pain. You must do the same.”
“I’m sorry, Hally.” The heat of shame spiraled into her cheeks despite the sting of the cold, early spring air. She thought of her brother and sister who had died during the past two years and of Papa who had joined them last year. What could be worse—losing
siblings and a parent or a beloved husband, as Hally had only two years ago?
Madeline’s horse pranced in rhythm to her rising anxiety. “Easy, Shakespeare. Easy, boy.” She tried to focus on the gathering outside Lord Selby’s manor house where horses and riders crowded together in a flurry of anticipation. She took a deep breath to rein
in her frustration and hoped her mount would settle down along with her. “Hally, you pick the most difficult of times to discuss such personal issues.”
Hally edged her mount next to Madeline’s horse. “I do this because you have been in hiding ever since your father died. If you refuse to mix in polite society, they will refuse you.”
“Have I become a ghost?” Mist floated over the fetlocks on her horse, a dreamlike ground covering that made it seem like they waited in the clouds. “Do you not see me?” She wanted to slip away from this show of rejoining society. She wanted to check on the girl. She wanted to leave. “Does society not see me here today?”
“For the first time in a year at the hunt.” Hally reached over and pushed back the netted veil that covered Madeline’s face, tucking the material into her hat. “There, that’s much better. Now everyone can see you.”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” She reached up to pull the veil back into place, but Hally stopped her.
“Your mother worries, Maddie. Since your father died, you have refused to mingle, you have refused to travel, and until today you have refused to ride with the hunt. Your father would have scolded you for such behavior.”
Madeline’s chin trembled. “That was cruel. I enjoyed the hunt because Papa loved it when I rode with him. He’s gone now. I don’t have to hunt to ride.”
Hally lowered her voice. “I’m sorry. I know you miss him, but society’s prescribed period of mourning is quite enough. I’ve always believed six months far too long, and here you are six months after that. You need not suffer further isolation.” She leaned closer and whispered. “For heaven’s sake, Maddie, your mother is out of mourning.”
“I’m afraid she thinks of allowing Lord Vale to court her.” There, she’d said it aloud. “May God forgive her. She dishonors Papa’s memory.”
“So that is what worries you. Your mother is interested in a man.”
“He’s not just a man, Hally. He’s Lord Vale, and there’s much speculation about his actions and investments. Yet here I am, pretending all is well.” Madeline lifted her chin and watched her breath dissipate like puffs of smoke on the wind.
“Pretending is a fine art.” Hally smiled. “Everyone must pretend to some extent, dear, or life would be far too complicated.”
“I wonder where life will lead now. Mother isn’t thinking clearly and allows Vale too much time with her at Richfield. I no longer know where I belong, but certainly not in this world of gossip and gowns.”
“We will discuss your fears later, my dear. But for now, your mention of gowns is a subject that warrants further consideration. I think it is time we turn our thoughts toward lighter matters, and talk of fashion will do nicely.”
“Fashion?” Madeline scrunched up her nose. “Please tell me you jest.”
“Fashion is always important.” Hally tilted her head in thoughtful study. “Your black wool riding habit does nothing to draw attention. Green would set your hazel eyes ablaze or, at the very least, a lush russet to show off the highlights in your hair.”
“Why does this matter so much to you?” For the first time that day, Madeline studied her friend in turn. A dark lavender velvet riding habit enhanced her figure. The fabric against the gray of her horse together with the soft early morning light provided Hally with an air of regal confidence, confidence Madeline envied. She was already looking forward to the end of this event.
“Because you are my friend, and melancholia does not become you.”
“Nonsense. I used that emotion up long ago.”
“So you say.” Hally scanned the area. “The chill has bestowed you with blushing cheeks, a most charming quality that will endear you to the male population. There are some very eligible and very handsome gentlemen here today. I shall be most pleased to make an introduction.”
Tentacles of panic snaked through her. “I don’t believe that is required today.” Nor any other day. The thought of an introduction to a gentleman terrified her. She’d witnessed Mother’s agony when she’d lost her children and then her beloved husband. Why allow the heart such vulnerability to begin with? “Really, Hally. Do you never grow weary of your matchmaking schemes? Do you not find such things awkward?”
“My James was a rare man. I’ll never stop missing him . . . and the children we might have enjoyed. I want you to experience that kind of love, Maddie.”
Sorrow shadowed Hally’s blue-green eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so selfish.” The last thing she had wanted to do was cause more heartache.
Hally waved a dismissive hand. “It’s all about love, dearest. Don’t forget that.”
“But love is—”
“Necessary. Not awkward. You must accept that. You missed your London season four years ago. I know many at this event. As a respectable widow I can be a great help.”
Madeline didn’t argue. “I appreciate your concern.” She hoped to get through the hunt and the social gathering unscathed by men and their unwanted advances. The gathering after the hunt could prove to be difficult. Many men would drink, and some would drink too much, making themselves perfectly obnoxious. “Perhaps we can just ride today and think on these matters another time.”
“Forgive me, dear. I’m overzealous when it comes to you. I will not speak of opportunities again this day. But I pray you’ll think about what you are doing, think about your future, think about your life. If you continue to hide yourself away, you will not be accepted by polite society. And since your mother is ready to begin living again, should you not as well?”
The budding tree branches swayed gently in the early morning breeze and, bending toward her, seemed to hesitate on the wind, awaiting her reply. “I am in no mood to meet anyone.”
“We’ll speak of your moods later.” Hally smiled. “Let’s enjoy the present.”
Bright streaks of sunlight burst through the cloudy, late March sky. Madeline contemplated her friend’s advice. “You’re right. It’s a beautiful morning. Time to imagine the future. As for now, I’m just not certain how to proceed.”
Hally reached across her mare and patted Madeline’s hand. “I’ll be happy to show you the way.”
Lord Selby’s raucous laughter roared through the crowd as he muscled his way through with his horse. Another rider crashed into her while trying to get out of Selby’s way, causing Madeline’s mount to lurch sideways into Hally, nearly unseating each of them.
Madeline’s breath caught, but she quickly tightened her reins and gained control.
“Easy, Shakespeare. It’s all right, boy.” She stroked the gelding’s neck to calm him and looked to see if the other rider had recovered his balance.
A pair of green eyes, wide with concern, locked on her. The beginning of a smile dimpled the man’s cheeks. A strong chin, straight nose, and clean-shaven face provided him with the good looks of a gentleman in a Van Dyck portrait. She felt the heat of a sudden blush and, not trusting her voice, held her tongue.
Apology etched his handsome face. “I beg your forgiveness.” He arched a single black brow. “Are either of you hurt?”
Madeline sucked in a deep breath to calm her nerves and brushed her skirt free of imaginary grime. “I am unscathed, sir,” she assured him, pulling her gaze away. “Lady Gilling?”
“No injuries here.” She pushed her purple plumed hat back into place.
Madeline turned back to him. The sudden urge to chuckle surprised her, but instead of laughing, she molded herself into a woman of politeness and poise. “It appears that we have survived the excitement.”
“I’m afraid Lord Selby is already in his cups this fine morning.” The charming stranger maneuvered his mount closer and lowered his voice. “Hippocrates here found Selby’s bellowing objectionable.” His smile radiated genuine warmth. “I must concur with his animal instinct.”
The blare of the hunting horn filled the air. The fine gentleman tipped his hat and disappeared into the crush of riders. A twinge of disappointment tugged at Madeline’s heart.
“Are you certain you are unharmed?” Hally asked as they trotted their horses out of the gate. “You look a bit pale.”
“I can’t help but think I’ve seen that man somewhere before.
Does he look familiar to you?” Madeline searched for him as they rode out.
“No. I don’t believe so. Could it be that you just met a gentleman of importance with no introduction from me at all?”
“Strange. I can’t recall where, but I’m almost certain.”
“The hounds are on the move,” Hally said. “We must discuss your newly made acquaintance later. We’re off!”
The baying hounds drowned out the possibility of further discussion. A glimmer of anticipation lightened Madeline’s heart. The challenge of the ride distracted her from other concerns and strengthened her spirit. Perhaps I have been a bit melancholy of late.
Her worries lessened with each stride of her horse and with each obstacle cleared, but flashes of the past whirred by her as swiftly as the hunting field. The horses in front of her threw clumps of dirt into the air as they pounded across the countryside in pursuit of a fox she hoped would evade them.
A pheasant burst from its nest. Startled, Shakespeare faltered as he launched toward the next stone wall. Madeline leaned far forward and gave him extra rein in an attempt to help him clear the barrier, but she knew immediately he was off stride.
The crack of rear hooves against the top of the wall thundered through her heart. Shakespeare stumbled and went down on his knees, tossing her over his head. Madeline landed with a jarring thud on her left side. She struggled to get up, but racking pain paralyzed any attempt at movement.
“Maddie!” Hally dismounted, ran to Madeline, and knelt at her side.
She rolled onto her back and groaned. A fine mess. “Shakespeare? Is he hurt?”
“Are you all right?” Hally clutched Madeline’s hand in her own. “Maddie?”
She lay still, trying to assess the damage. “I believe I may have broken my arm.” Tears stung her eyes. “Where’s Shakespeare?” She prayed he bore no serious injuries.
A shadow fell over Madeline. “I’ve already looked at him. He’s shaken, temporarily lame, but on his feet. He will be taken to Selby’s stables to begin the healing process. Unlike your horse, young lady, I suggest you not move.”
The gentleman had returned. And here she lay, flat on her back, her riding skirt disheveled, an indelicate position, indeed. She did not need a man now, especially this very interesting man.
She squeezed Hally’s hand. “I’m not presentable,” she whispered.
“This is hardly the time to be concerned about one’s appearance,” Hally whispered back, smoothing Madeline’s skirt down toward her ankles, a gesture that reminded Madeline of her maid making the bed. She’d have laughed if she weren’t completely mortified and on the verge of fainting. Her arm felt like glass under pressure, about to shatter.
“You took quite a tumble.” He dropped to his knees. “May I be of assistance?”
Madeline tried to sit up again, determined not to appear weak.She prided herself on her independence and strength, but her body rebelled and collapsed as if she were a marionette whose strings had suddenly been severed. “Who are you, sir?”
“I’m Devlin Grayson of Ravensmoore. Where does it hurt?”
“My arm.” Madeline gingerly cradled her left arm and tried to blink back the tears. “You’re Lord Ravensmoore?”
He nodded.
She felt suddenly vulnerable, looking into this stranger’s intense gaze. “I couldn’t prevent it.”
“Lie still, please.”
“Everything happened so fast. It’s been so long since I’ve been on the hunt field,” Madeline said, embarrassed. “Poor Shakespeare. I hope he’s not hurt. I’m such a fool.”
“You are no fool. This could happen to anyone. And your horse appears to be recovering from the shock. A fine horse. And you have given him a fine name.”
She gazed up into his caring green eyes. “Thank you.”
“May I ask your name before I examine you? That is, if I have your permission?”
She found it difficult to concentrate. “Lady Madeline Whittington.” Her head throbbed. “Examine me? Are you a doctor? No, that wouldn’t be right, would it? Not if you’re Ravensmoore.”
“I will be soon.”
Fleeting thoughts of Papa suffering in the hospital filled her mind with fear and anger. The doctors had not helped him. He had died under their care. The slightest of remembrances bubbled to the surface of her thoughts. She turned her face away from him and looked at Hally.
“Lady Madeline,” Hally pleaded, glancing across at Ravensmoore. “He is offering you his medical skills.”
Madeline turned back and looked him in the eye, trying to catch the elusive memory. Where had she seen him before? “Something is not right.” The memories, one after another, tumbled into her consciousness and revealed themselves as they broke through her defenses and exploded into the present. “I remember you.”
“Remember me?” He paused and studied her, searching her face for details, some recollection of the past.
“You were at the Guardian Gate when we took my father to the hospital.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “You killed him.”
Ravensmoore paled. “What do you mean?”
“Lady Madeline! What an unkind thing to say.” Hally looked at Ravensmoore. “She must have hit her head. Maddie, have you lost all reason?”
“My father, Lord Richfield, bled to death because of your ineptness.” A ripple of pain burst up her arm.
“Lady Madeline—of Richfield?” he asked, turning a shade paler. “Your father? I . . . I do remember. I’m very sorry.”
Hally gently touched Madeline’s cheek and wiped away a tear. “He is only trying to help you.”
“I don’t want his help.”
“I assure you, madam, I am not a murderer. I am most sympathetic to your loss. I promise to be gentle.”
“A fine promise,” she scoffed. “But I have no confidence in your abilities, sir. It is regrettable, but it is the truth.”
He pressed on. “The bone might be broken.”
“I do not need your attention,” Madeline snapped. “It’s most unnecessary.”
A pulse throbbed at his temple. “You don’t understand.” He recovered his composure. “If you refuse to let me examine you, then I must insist on escorting you to Lord Selby’s home where you can rest.”
Madeline groaned in frustration. “I refuse to return to that man’s home. He’s drunk.” The two of them outnumbered her. “I want to go home.” She allowed them to assist her to a sitting position.
“She accepts your kind offer, sir,” Hally put in.
“Lean against me, Lady Madeline, until we see if you can stand,” Ravensmoore said.
“I appear to have little choice.”
Ravensmoore put his arm around her waist and gently guided her to her feet. The strength of his body proved to be an unexpected comfort.
“That’s it. Keep your left arm pressed against your side,” he instructed.
The last thing she wanted to do was lean against this man who dredged up bitter memories of Papa’s death. “I’m fine, really,” she lied, in hope of escaping him. Her body betrayed her in a sudden burst of pain that forced her to stiffen. She repressed a moan and
fought to keep her balance. Emotions from the past and present collided in a haze of confusion.
Madeline pushed away from him. “Lady Gilling will assist me.” She held her hand out and stumbled. Ravensmoore caught her.
“And you will pull your friend to the ground with you.”
How could she have considered this man attractive? The thought made no sense now that she had put the pieces together. Yet, he seemed kind, not at all how she remembered him, wearing that horrible blood-spattered apron. Her father’s blood. She squeezed her eyes shut trying to ward off the image. “I don’t want your help,” she said through clenched teeth. “I can ride by myself.”
“You’re not strong enough. I’ll take you home.” Ravensmoore skillfully lifted her in his arms, careful to keep her injured arm protected. “You’ll ride with me.”
Madeline sat in front of Ravensmoore for the ride home. She tried not to lean against his chest for support but found the effort impossible. She’d never been so close to a man, his breath kissing her cheek. She straightened and had to smother a moan of agony when pain radiated through her arm.
When the high stone walls of Richfield came into view Madeline sighed in relief, grateful to be close to home. The great manor house spread before them, the additional wings on either side providing a sense of comfort and safety. A maze of hedges to the left of them and the soon-to-be-blooming gardens magnified the opulence of Richfield. To the right of the edifice stood stables and paddocks for the horses and housing for those who tended them.
Madeline swallowed hard. She’d just returned home with the man who’d killed her father, the man she held responsible for her father’s death. Betrayal weighed heavy on her heart, for this is where Papa had loved and raised his family.
Madeline longed to be in her bed as they drew near the entrance. She vowed to escape from this horrid day and to her room as fast as she could manage.
“Are you ready?” Ravensmoore asked.
Startled from her pain-filled thoughts she said, “Yes.” But that was a lie. Madeline’s head throbbed simultaneously with the beating of her pulse. She fought for control and blinked back tears when the three of them reached the steps leading into the arched entrance. She nearly crumpled when Ravensmoore dismounted, and she clung desperately to the pommel of the saddle. He reached for her. “It’s all right. I’ll help you.”
“There is no need to coddle me, sir. I assure you, once again, that I am perfectly able.”
“Excellent! Then this should not be too difficult for you.”
Madeline fell into his arms, light-headed and shaky. She wobbled when her feet touched the ground. He held her, keeping her safe.
“Allow me to carry you, Lady Madeline.”
Pain sliced through her arm from the jolting ride. “There’s nothing wrong with my legs, sir. I can walk.” She took two steps and swayed precariously.
“I think not.” Ignoring her protests, Ravensmoore scooped her into his arms again. His warmth and scent—spice, leather, and sweat—mingled together in a balm for her pain.
Her mother, Grace, the Countess of Richfield, ran down the steps to meet them. “Madeline, you’re hurt!” Her mother placed a hand on Madeline’s cheek. “What happened?”
Madeline bit her lip, trying not to reveal the depth of her pain. “It’s nothing, Mother. I took a spill off Shakespeare.” She would not be the cause of further anguish. Mother’s grief over the past two years had been more than many tolerated during a lifetime.
“She’ll be fine, Countess,” Hally said. “We’ve brought a doctor with us.”
“A doctor? Thank God. Follow me, sir.”
Now, beyond caring, she laid her head on his shoulder. Once again his breath whispered past her cheek as he took the stairs and delivered her safely into the embrace of her home.
“Phineas, bring some willow bark tea,” Grace instructed the butler. “Bring her into the sitting room, sir.” The countess continued her directions while fussing over Madeline. “The settee will do nicely. That’s it, gently.”
Ravensmoore’s hand lingered a moment on hers as Madeline sank gratefully into the plush green velvet cushions. Surely the man would leave her in peace now.
Her mother pushed back the gold damask draperies, and muted light filled the room. A fire burned in the hearth, and Madeline shivered, perhaps from the lack of the body warmth she had shared with her rescuer on the ride home.
The butler returned with a pot of tea. He poured the hot liquid into a rose-patterned cup and cautiously handed it to her. “There you are, Lady Madeline.”
“Thank you, Phineas.” Steam rose from the cup. Madeline watched her mother. “Please don’t worry so. It’s not serious.”
Ravensmoore knelt beside her. “I recommend you take a swallow of that tea as soon as you can.”
“Sir, your services are no longer needed. And I will drink my tea when I am good and ready, thank you very much.” Madeline spoke more curtly than she’d intended, but she longed to be alone.
“Drink the tea, young lady,” Mother ordered. “The willow bark will help you relax and ease your pain. And you will permit the doctor to examine you. Do not argue with me on this matter.”
“But Mother, you don’t understand. He—”
She touched her daughter’s hand and their eyes met. “I understand enough.” She turned to Ravensmoore. “What can we do, sir?”
“Allow her to rest a few moments. Then remove her riding jacket so I may examine her arm. Is there a place where I might wash up?
I must have left my gloves on the field, and I don’t want to cause further distress by smudging a lady’s clothing.”
“Of course. Phineas will show you the way.”
As soon as he’d left the room, Madeline looked at her mother. “Let me explain. You must know that he”—she pointed in the direction he’d just gone with cup in hand—“was the physician-in training who allowed Papa to bleed to death in York.”
“I didn’t recognize him.” A veil of sadness shrouded her mother’s eyes. “I didn’t think to see any of them again.” Even the worry lines that creased her mother’s brow could not diminish the sculpted features of a woman who resembled a Greek goddess, though she seemed utterly unaware of her beauty. The name Grace suited her.
“He’s not a doctor . . . yet.”
Grace plucked a pair of shears from a nearby sewing basket. “You have made that perfectly clear. Now, allow Lady Gilling and me to cut away your jacket. You might have broken your arm, and there’s no point in causing you any more pain.”
“You still want him to examine me?”
“Of course. I must think of your welfare. The past is the past.”
“But—”
“He may be able to help you. It will take a servant a long time to ride into town, locate a physician, and return with him. Let this doctor help you.”
Madeline looked from one to the other, then handed Hally the teacup. “Do be careful.”
“Of course we’ll be careful, dear.” Grace cut away the jacket in moments.
“Oh, Maddie. I’m so sorry this happened.” Hally handed her the teacup again. “It’s entirely my fault.”
“That is not true.” Madeline finished the tea. “Don’t be silly.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I am quite dizzy.”
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old…or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
***Special thanks to Audra Jennings, Senior Media Specialist, The B&B Media Group for sending me a review copy.***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Stephen G. Post is Professor of Preventive Medicine, Head of the Division of Medicine in Society, and Director of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics at Stony Brook University. He was previously (1988-2008) Professor of Bioethics, Religion and Philosophy, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, and Senior Research Scholar at the Becket Institute of St. Hugh’s College, Oxford University. Post is a Senior Fellow in the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University.
Since the late 1980s Post has focused on issues surrounding the care of others. He is an elected member of the Medical and Scientific Advisory Panel of Alzheimer’s Disease International, and was recognized for “distinguished service” by the Association’s National Board for educational efforts for Association Chapters and families throughout the United States (1998). In 2003 Post was elected a Member of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia for “distinguished contributions to medicine.”
He is equally recognized as a leader in the study of altruism, love, and compassion in the integrative context of scientific research, philosophy, and spirituality. He is President of the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, with support from philanthropist John Templeton and the Templeton Foundation. Post studied the theology of agape love with the distinguished African-American Rev. John T. Walker, who later became Dean of the National Cathedral. Post is an elected member of the International Society for Science and Religion, and writes
a blog for Psychology Today entitled “The Joy of Giving.”
The Bible clearly tells us that we are to love one another; it also proclaims we are to bear one another’s burdens. Research has revealed that when we show concern for others—empathizing with a friend who has lost a loved one, mowing the lawn for an elderly neighbor, or volunteering to mentor a school-aged child—we improve our own health and well-being and embrace and give voice to our deeper identity and dignity as human beings.
“Everyone stumbles on hard times. After all, no one gets out of life alive,” writes Stephen G. Post in his latest book, The Hidden Gifts of Helping: How the Power of Giving, Compassion, and Hope Can Get Us Through Hard Times. “Today, even those who had considered themselves protected from hardship are being touched and their lives changed by volatile economic markets, job uncertainty, and the increasing isolation and loneliness of modern life.”
In this moving book, Post helps us discover how we can make “helping” a lifetime activity. The Hidden Gifts of Helping explores the very personal story of Post and his family’s difficult move and their experience with the healing power of helping others, as well as his passion about how this simple activity—expressed in an infinite number of small or large ways—can help you survive and thrive despite the expected and unexpected challenges life presents.
Post’s story is a spiritual journey that we can all relate to at some time in our lives. Intertwined with supporting scientific research and spiritual understanding we see that looking outside of ourselves we gain better well-being and strengthen our faith. This book can become your companion and guide to the power of giving, forgiving, and compassion in hard times.
“No one gets out of life alive.” What a profound statement on which to begin this book which is an exploration of community and giving.
Dr. Post writes about healing by loving other from both personal experience and research. The recollections of Dr Post’s experiences and those of others will touch your heart and inspire you.
This book will help you find your gifts of helping, and thus, healing.
Yes, I needed that box of tissues for this book.
AND NOW…THE 2nd CHAPTER:
Chapter 2: The Gift of “Giver’s Glow”
About five months after our move to Stony Brook, settling in to my new work but still struggling to deal with feelings of displacement and loss, I ran headlong into the holiday season. I missed our friends back in Cleveland, our church, the small traditions we’d established over the years. Although our Christmas mantel was decorated with many cards from friends who I know truly did wish us a happy new year, I found myself feeling a bit quiet when all I wanted was to enjoy the holidays. Then one of those serendipitous moments came along that refocused me toward what I knew to be true: that the hidden
gifts of helping would far outlast the other gifts these holidays might bring.
During a December train ride on the Long Island Railroad, traveling back to Stony Brook from a meeting in Manhattan, I fell into conversation with my seatmate, Jack, an amiable man some years older than myself. In the sudden intimacy that can arise between strangers who know they will never meet again, Jack told me that his wife of twenty years had divorced him and that he had been fired from a job he’d
held for thirty years, was newly diagnosed with cancer, and was close to running out of his retirement savings because he’d had to spend the money on day-to-day living. The one thing that was holding him together through all this, he said, was a volunteer job he had serving meals at his church’s soup kitchen
in Port Jefferson. “It’s not just that I can’t feel really sorry for myself when I see so many others who have no resources at all,” he explained. “When I put that food on their plate, and I know they’re really hungry—they can’t just run to the fridge, like I can—I can see that I’m really helping someone. Even if
they’re too exhausted to acknowledge me or say thanks, that’s okay. I don’t know,” he shrugged, “it just makes me feel like I can keep going another day, and things might start to get better. It’s odd, but some days I feel better than I ever have.”
“Thank you.” I felt as if I had been jolted awake from a deep sleep.
“Sure,” he said, clearly confused about what I was thanking him for, and why I was smiling. But I felt as though I’d just been handed my first real gift of the season. This man had far more reason than I had to be suffering the holiday blues, yet by sharing his story he had helped me let go of some of my concerns and remember what I already knew: when all else fails, we can still give to others. And doing so will always be our salvation, our reconnection to the world. This phenomenon of “the giver’s glow”! I have learned never to underestimate its power.
You’ve probably seen people waving brightly colored glow sticks at a nighttime event, and you may have had the pleasure of experiencing the magic of snapping the tube and seeing it suddenly light up, creating a soft, colorful glow that lasts for hours and can light your way on a dark night. The principle is simple: the chemicals in the translucent plastic tube mix to create the glow—but only when you break the tiny glass
capsule inside the tube. The brokenness is part of the process, just as the broken parts of our lives can allow us to reach out to others and create radiance, lighting the way not only for those we serve but also for ourselves and everyone we meet. The amazing thing is that with advances in brain scan technology, we can now begin to understand this glow at the physical level and measure it with biological markers. When we help others, we are tapping into a caregiving system that involves the brain as well as hormones.
Mitsuko, Andrew, and I all agree that the lowest point of our lives came a few days after we had left Cleveland and landed on the rocky Long Island shore. We were spending a few nights at a hotel in Stony Brook Village while we waited for the movers to arrive with our worldly goods. We were crammed into a little cottage that felt old and cold because it was. There were two beds, a few old bits of furniture, and a
drab bathroom, and it was thunderstorming and utterly dark outside in the early evening. This was the perfect place for all hell to break loose, and it did. The enormity of this move began to sink in at a really deep level. Andrew started yelling at me, as kids do, and Mitsuko was crying out in tears, “I can’t believe this! What a total disaster!” I was the least popular husband and father on the face of the earth. I said, “Let’s give it some time; things will work out,” but my credibility was at an all-time low. I needed hope, which is wrapped up in faith, because mere optimism was too superficial and was clearly not going to do the trick. I took a drive on my own for a while, and after I returned, Mitsuko and Andrew were asleep.
I tiptoed quietly.
Fortunately, the movers came quickly. A few days after we moved into our new house, Mitsuko went across the street to the local elementary school, where she found a position helping first-graders with behavioral or learning problems. She was assigned a student who was especially cherished, and who presented behavioral issues during the course of the day. Mitsuko spent the next nine months with this little girl, helping her throughout the school day. It was often challenging, and there were more than a few evenings when Mitsuko felt exasperated. But she found great meaning in this way of helping. And in the evenings she would make beautifully creative origami gifts for the children in her class, illustrating for them the characters in stories the students were reading as a group. Mitsuko put so much work into these wonderfully elaborate posters and cards and illustrations that it astounded me. But this was her way of giving, through creativity; her hands were at work crafting things in the spirit of love. More than once, she’s told me, “I cannot imagine how I could have survived without those kids.”
For Andrew, the transition was a jolt, and he let us know it. He wanted so much to start school with his old friends in Shaker Heights, but he couldn’t. The day that middle school started in Cleveland without him was a rough one. And on his first day at the Gelinas School here in Setauket, we couldn’t say a single word to Andrew because it was so hard for him as he reluctantly left the house for the bus. Andrew was the new kid, and he had no friends. He knew no one. “That morning,” Mitsuko remembers, “he looked really sad and was speechless. But that afternoon he came home and said, ‘Mom, I had a very good day. Ten people, including girls, wanted to have lunch with me at the same table.’ ” That was joyous! And a few days later, our son adopted a new name the other kids had started using, “Drew,” and he asked us to start called him that too. He was reinventing himself. Drew is definitely an extrovert, and this allowed him to connect with new friends quickly.
I also began to connect with my new colleagues. Mitsuko began to connect beyond the children, with teachers and parents and the larger community on our little island. The new Drew, with the resiliency of youth, continued to make friends, and began a transformation that continues to amaze us. Together, we helped each other recreate our lives.
HELPING OTHERS MAKES US HUMAN
Here’s the recipe for living a rich, less stressful, healthier, and more meaningful life than you thought possible—even if your world has been pulled out of midwestern earth and transplanted on an island: give of yourself to someone else. Even the smallest act is healing. In fact, studies show that just thinking about giving seems to have a physiological impact.
In the 1980s, the renowned Harvard behavioral psychologist David McClelland discovered that Harvard students who were asked to watch a film about Mother Teresa’s work tending to orphans in Calcutta showed significant increases in the protective antibody salivary immunoglobulin A (S-IgA) as compared to those watching a neutral film. What’s more, S-IgA levels remained high for an hour after the film in
those subjects who were asked to focus their minds on times when they had loved or been loved. McClelland called this the “Mother Teresa Effect.”1 There may be some alternative explanations, but the idea that tapping into the emotions of caring has an impact on biology is the most plausible and well
established.
These researchers concluded that “dwelling on love” strengthens the immune system. And a growing body of rigorous research shows that generous people who frequently give of themselves to others live healthier, happier, longer lives than people who don’t. Think about it for a minute: How could we humans survive without taking the welfare of at least some others as seriously as we take our own? We require the love and care of others, and we seem to have a profound, deeply evolved need for close, giving relationships. Parents are spontaneously generous and giving to their children, sometimes to the point of sacrificing their deepest desires and even their lives for them. Friends are also frequently generous with their friends, and strangers are often compassionate toward one another—as we’ve all seen happen with those everyday people who dropped everything in their own lives to help the survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and those displaced by the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Something about moving beyond self and looking toward others brings happiness. When we stop expecting others to do things for us, and stumble on the happiness of doing things for other people, we can’t help but realize that whatever happens, we can handle it.
We eat because it keeps us alive, and we help others because it keeps us human. This is what we are born to do, and the benefits are great—not only to those we help but also to our own emotional and spiritual well-being. Science tells us that there appears to be a fundamental human drive toward helping others. We prosper—physically, mentally, emotionally—under the canopy of positive emotions that arise through the simple act of giving.
Evolution suggests that human nature evolved in a manner that confers health benefits to the practice of benevolent love and helping behaviors. Well over a century ago, Charles Darwin, in his great book The Descent of Man, described in simple terms how compassion and generosity could have evolved so deeply into human nature that their inhibition would be disadvantageous: “For those communities, which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members, would flourish best, and rear the greatest number of offspring.” Darwin, like David Hume and other philosophers who were keen observers of human motive and action, saw compassionate love as a powerful driving force in human nature. It makes perfect sense that if this disposition is selectively advantageous for group survival, there would be a related biological substrate conferring benefits on the giver. Today, a new science connects prosocial and giving activities with happiness and health, and we are learning more all the time.
HELPING IS BUILT INTO THE HUMAN BRAIN
Not too long ago, we thought of the body as a machine and the brain as some sort of computer that ran the show. But much recent research indicates that the brain is essentially a social organ with its cells and pathways wired for empathy, for experiencing the joys and sufferings of others as if they were our own.
Our brain, our hormones, and our immune system are an intimately related care-connection system. Of course this system can be turned off by fear, vengefulness, anger, and other emotional states, but the care-connection system reasserts itself when these other states subside. The role of spirituality at its best is to gain self-control over the destructive emotions and to displace them in favor of sincere love of others. Spiritualities include sophisticated techniques of prayer, meditation, visualization, and positive affirmation that sway the balance toward living better.
The workings of this care-connection system are perhaps best described by the remarkable researcher Stephanie Brown, a colleague of mine at Stony Brook. According to a new theory that she and her father, psychology professor Michael Brown, reported in Psychological Inquiry, “The same hormones that underlie social bonds and affiliation, such as oxytocin, also stimulate giving behavior under conditions of interdependence.” This action helps link those whose survival depends on one another.
Giving and helping are wired into us, and our brains typically reward us with feelings of joy and satisfaction. How many times have people said that doing things to help others “just feels good,” or that “I get as much out of it as they do.” Researchers at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke have worked with the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute on Aging on a collaborative project titled “Cognitive and Emotional Health Project—the Healthy Brain.” The goal was to uncover the neurology of unselfish actions that reach out beyond kin to strangers. Nineteen subjects were each given money and a list of causes to which they might contribute. Functional magnetic resonance imaging revealed that making a donation activated the mesolimbic pathway, the brain’s reward
center, which is responsible for dopamine-mediated euphoria. When people do “unto others” in kindness, it lights up the primitive part of the brain that also lets us experience joy. This is good news: even contemplating doing good for others goes with, rather than against, a big portion of the grain of human nature.
This system is deeply integrated into the human brain and human nature. Although we may have learned to think of ourselves as primarily rational and even selfish beings, science tells us that this simply isn’t so. It seems we humans are as much homo empathens as we are homo sapiens! I strongly believe that in the next five years, most of the benefits of selfgiving love and helping behaviors described in this chapter will be understood as a basic biological system. When this system is active, we tap into something vital that allows us to flourish.
Fortunately, activating it is easy: we just have to help someone. In a 2010 survey of forty-five hundred American adults, a good majority of those who had volunteered during the past year—a full 68 percent—reported that volunteering made them feel physically healthier. In addition,
89 percent reported that “Volunteering has improved my sense of well-being.”
73 percent agreed that “Volunteering lowered my stress levels.”
92 percent agreed that volunteering enriched their sense of purpose in life.
72 percent characterized themselves as “optimistic” compared to 60 percent of nonvolunteers.
42 percent of volunteers reported a “very good” sense of meaning in their lives, compared to 28 percent of nonvolunteers.
Service is a key solution to many of the challenges facing this nation—not only new challenges brought on by the volatile economy but also the education, health, and environmental challenges we continue to confront. Fortunately, Americans are responding to these needs. According the Corporation for National and Community Service, key findings on national volunteerism for 2009 include the following heartening
statistics:
In the midst of a lingering recession, 63.4 million Americans (age sixteen and older) volunteered in 2009, an increase of almost 1.6 million since 2008. This is the largest single year increase in the volunteering rate and the number of volunteers since 2003. In 2009, the volunteering rate went up from 26.4 percent in
2008 to 26.8 percent. In 2009, volunteers dedicated almost 8.1 billion hours to volunteer service.
The challenges we face are bringing out the better side of Americans and slowly centering our attention on the things that matter most. As you will learn in this chapter, scientific investigations tell us that relatively modest activities—a few hours of volunteering once a week, or perhaps a “random act of kindness” a few days a week—help us live longer, healthier lives as they stimulate a shift from anxiety, despair, or anger to tranquility, hope, and warmth.
This feeling of elevation is sometimes described by psychologists as the “helper’s high.” At the psychological level, the helper’s high was first carefully described by Allen Luks, who in 1991 surveyed thousands of volunteers across the United States. He found that people who helped other people reported better health than peers in their age group. This health improvement was set in motion when volunteering began. Helpers reported a distinct positive physical sensation associated with helping: approximately half of the sample said they experienced a “high” feeling, 43 percent felt stronger and more energetic, 28 percent felt warm, 22 percent felt calmer and less depressed, 21 percent experienced greater feelings of self-worth, and 13 percent experienced fewer aches and pains.
Most commentators on the helper’s high believe that prosocial giving to others triggers the brain to release its natural opiates, the endorphins, but there is probably a lot more to this, including the involvement of such hormones as oxytocin, which causes the sense of calm in the helper’s high.
Now, obviously not every helper feels this euphoria, so the glass is only half full. What can we do to fill it up more? Joseph E. Kahne and colleagues completed a survey of five hundred teenagers in the eleventh and twelfth grades and followed them for three years after graduation. Students found volunteering more meaningful and uplifting when they had forums in school that allowed them to talk about the social issues they were grappling with, such as homelessness and illiteracy. Sincerity and good mentoring make a difference in the quality of any volunteer experience. Volunteers need to be well managed in meaningful venues that allow them to use their talents and strengths in order to be more effective, and it is important to let them select their preferred areas for volunteering. There is a lot we do not yet understand about
how best to organize, acknowledge, celebrate, and reward volunteers.
I have spoken with several dozen teen volunteers over the years and conducted one survey. For the most part their experiences are positive and life changing. But there are always those volunteers who have been poorly managed, overwhelmed, frustrated, asked to do things they were uncomfortable with, or given leadership roles that they did not embrace. The more we enhance the organizational aspects of helping others, the more that people will experience elevated meaning and happiness uniformly.
THE HELPER THERAPY PRINCIPLE
I first heard of something like helper therapy from my Irish mother, Molly Magee Post. When I complained of feeling bored as a child, she told me, “Stevie, why don’t you just go out and do something for someone?” Notice that she did not say, “Stevie, go read a book” or “Stevie, go clean up your room.” I read a lot anyway, and kept an orderly room. So I would head across the street and give old Mr. Muller a hand raking leaves, or help Mr. Lawrence fix his mast. It always felt pretty good.
My mother’s advice, which I have shared with others many times, turned out to be more fundamental to the course of my life than she had probably imagined. In fact, it has been documented that volunteering in adolescence enhances social competence and self-esteem, protects against antisocial behaviors and substance abuse, and protects against teen pregnancies and academic failure. Simple chores—helping
with the dishes, making one’s bed, helping cook meals, doing laundry, and the like—are daily practices that make helping second nature. This kitchen table wisdom is the basis of scouting, Montessori schools, healthy families, and flourishing communities.
And, once again, science supports what we already know to be true. Adolescents who are giving, particularly boys, have a reduced risk of depression and suicide. And giving during the high school years predicts good physical and mental health more than fifty years later, according to an ongoing study that began in the 1920s.
The helper therapy principle can be a big part of the lives of recovering alcoholics. Both Bill Wilson and Dr. Robert Smith, the eventual cofounders of Alcoholics Anonymous in the mid-1930s, emphasized that the principle of alcoholics helping other alcoholics is, along with spirituality, the key to sobriety. The idea that helping others might have special therapeutic value was best articulated three decades later in 1965, in a widely cited article by Frank Riessman, the distinguished social psychologist and founder of Social Policy. Riessman defined helper therapy on the basis of his observations of Alcoholics Anonymous and offshoot self-help groups that adopted AA’s twelve-step program—groups that have involved hundreds of millions worldwide. Riessman observed that the act of helping another often heals the helper more than the recipient. In the early 1970s, discussion of the helper therapy principle appeared in the premier psychiatry journal. Scientists were observing the health benefits to helpers in a variety of contexts—including teens tutoring younger children.
Recovering alcoholics since 1935 have practiced the twelve steps and noted the benefits to their lives. But the first empirical support for the link between helping others and staying sober first appeared only in 2004 in the work of investigator colleague Maria Pagano. Using data from Project MATCH, one of the largest clinical trials in alcohol research, Pagano and her colleagues found that alcoholics who helped others during chemical dependency treatment were more likely to be sober in the following twelve months. Specifically, 40 percent of those who helped other alcoholics avoided taking a drink in the twelve months that followed a three month chemical dependency treatment period, in comparison
to 22 percent of those not helping. In two subsequent investigations, researchers demonstrated that 94 percent of alcoholics who began to help other alcoholics at any point during the fifteen-month study period continued to help16—and they became significantly less depressed.
The use of the AA model by more than three hundred offshoot organizations—such as Al-Anon (for families and friends of alcoholics), Alateen (for children of alcoholics), and Narcotics Anonymous—is one of the great success stories of our modern times. Members use the power of their own experience and of their own wounds to lighten the burdens of others, and heal themselves in the process. They feel redeemed through helping others, move past shame, and accept new self-identities as role models. They are also attacking the narcissistic roots of their alcoholism. The benefits they receive in regard to an elevated recovery rate are most potent when they are helping other alcoholics, but the benefits are nevertheless considerable when they report significant helping outside of AA.
HELPING OTHERS IMPROVES MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL HEALTH
The benefits of helping others who have the same chronic problem as oneself extend to mental illnesses. In 2006, a major report on curing mental illness emphasized the role of helping others through involvement in mutual help groups. The report recommends this activity to people recovering from illnesses as disparate as depression and schizophrenia.
This recommendation is encouraging, but it’s something mental health professionals have long known. In some ways, it is reminiscent of the “moral treatment” era in the American asylums of the 1830s and beyond. Then, individuals suffering from “melancholy” (what we would call depression) and other ailments were directly engaged in helping activities for others in their therapeutic communities. Dr. Thomas Scattergood, a Philadelphia Quaker with a benevolent last name, and his colleague, Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride, understood that contributing prosocially to a community of fellow sufferers would
help the melancholic helper. The concept of helping others was put into practice as a treatment module by Kirkbride and other founders of the American Psychiatric Association, and has a place in the origins of American psychiatry. The idea of the benefits of helping cannot be separated from the Quaker emphasis on benevolence.
Today, the therapeutic treatment of helping others is embodied by many mental health communities, such as the International Center for Clubhouse Development (ICCD) model, founded on the belief that recovery from serious mental illness should not be based on marginalization of the sufferer, but instead “must involve the whole person in a vital and culturally sensitive community. A Clubhouse community
offers respect, hope, mutuality and unlimited opportunity to access the same worlds of friendship, housing, education and employment as the rest of society.” This model originated from the Foundation House in 1948 in New York City, and today there are more than two hundred ICCD clubhouses thriving throughout the nation as well as abroad. Lori D’Angelo, Ph.D., director of Magnolia Clubhouse in
Cleveland, said, “I think that people tend to be more stable and happy if they feel like they are benefiting people more than themselves, or outside themselves. It helps them feel connected to a larger picture, and I would think that of human beings in general.”
HELPING OTHERS RELIEVES STRESS AND SOOTHES NEGATIVE EMOTIONS
A woman named Ilene recently wrote to tell me her story. It seems that she was especially caring and devoted while her husband was slowly dying of Huntington’s disease, during what should have been the prime of his life. It was a crushing amount of stress for anyone to bear.
During that terrible time, “I had two choices,” she says. “Remain miserable or do something good. I consider myself quite an optimist, and chose the latter.” Interestingly, she was inspired by her husband, who had managed to stay positive throughout his prolonged illness, “right down to his last day on this earth. There were days that I would come to him with my own troubles, both out of a need to have this continued ability to share feelings with him to keep the intimacy in our relationship, and also because it really was difficult towards the end. Each time, he’d lift my spirits, even though I was there to lift his. I sensed that giving him the opportunity to comfort me actually helped give him some added sense purpose, as well.”
While he was in the final stages of his illness, she said, “I also gave freely of myself as an alumni volunteer to my alma mater, Hofstra University. This helped counterbalance all that I was experiencing emotionally, giving me something positive to do to help others.”
And after his death, Ilene continued to share her giver’s glow.
Seeing there were no groups around for young widows and widowers in the area, I started one of my own: the Long Island/NYC Metro Area Young Widow/ers Group. This turned out to be one of the best things I have ever done. I’m continually helping others dealing with their situations, which is an uplifting experience for me as well. I’ve made many friends and also, in hearing their stories, I’ve gained a better perspective about my own situation. I realize I have many blessings in my life that others are not as fortunate to share. The amazing thing is, after only a short time since his passing, I find myself one of the most positive people I know, and my goal is to continue helping others around me also achieve this positive attitude.
In June 2010, I addressed Ilene’s group in a restaurant gathering in Farmingdale, New York. They all understood from experience the power of coping with loss through self-giving. There was only one fellow there who disagreed. He said, “I never do something for nothing.” I asked him if he was happy, but got no response. The group chimed in to support the role of self-giving in their own lives, but to no great avail. Some of us get so steeped in the ideologies of individualism that we become caught up in the idea that it is a bad idea to help others freely; this is just “a sucker’s game,” a “do-gooder’s foolishness,” an altruist’s “self-neglect,” or a way of encouraging “irresponsibility” in those whom we assist. This idea that helping others freely is for suckers does great harm to those who think this way, inhibiting the very capacity for self-giving that can bring them inner freedom and joy. I see it influencing the lives of those adolescents who seem to resist any display of kindness and are locked into an image of tough and clench-fisted indifference. These people are missing the best things in life. This crazy dualism of “I” versus “you” makes no sense.
Increasingly, the scientists are catching up with the giver’s glow. The results of a recent bereavement study by my colleague Stephanie Brown and her husband, Dylan Smith, showed that people with a heightened stress response recovered from depressive symptoms more quickly if they helped others. I have seen this often, so I was not surprised by the findings, but it’s always nice when science backs up what you know to be true. It is a privilege to be working alongside these leading researchers. They also are working on research showing that dialysis patients who engage in helping behaviors experience less depression than those who do not.
Giving may be useful in ameliorating depression because it allows positive emotions like concern and compassion to push aside negative ones like hostility and bitterness, which take a toll on health. Science has long known about the connections between Type A personality, hostility, health problems, and early death.23 Many have concluded that hostility is truly a health-damaging personality trait. Most researchers explain the increased mortality in hostile individuals from coronary disease and cancer on elevated levels of the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline (also known as epinephrine), and a related lowering of the immune response, perhaps mediated by lowered serotonin levels. So if you are the kind of person who falls heavily on the horn because the driver in front of you has the audacity to slow down at a yellow light, and you yell out some expletive in the bargain, you have a problem. Multitasking or being fast paced isn’t what does damage; it is the protracted emotional hostility that creates a health issue for the heart. And the best way to turn this hostility around is to engage in doing “unto others” with helpful acts of kindness, reclaiming the heart at its best and for its best.
Although some studies have shown that certain kinds of low-level stressors may be beneficial to human health, the relationship between excessive stress and disease has been well documented. In response to such stressful emotions as rage or anger, the body secretes hormones that prepare it for physical exertion: the heart and lungs work faster, muscles tighten, digestion slows, and blood pressure goes up. These changes are good when we are running away from an attacker, but perpetually negative emotions eat away at us like acid burning metal. Negative feelings even slow down wound healing and are correlated with some forms of cancer. In contrast, positive emotions can promote health and healing. When we
reach out to others, our negative feelings of hostility, rumination, resentment, and fear are displaced by positive feelings of concern and love.
HELPING OTHERS MAY HELP US LIVE LONGER
Remember that saying “Only the good die young”? Don’t be fooled into accepting its sad implications. I prefer to think of it this way: whenever we die, however old, we will feel young at heart if we live generous lives. In fact, the good actually die a bit older, generally speaking. People who volunteer tend to
live longer, for instance. Longevity is the most studied physical health benefit derived from helping, and the findings are impressive. In a thirty-year study that began in 1956, Cornell University researchers followed 427 wives and mothers living in upstate New York. Women who volunteered at least once a week were found to live longer and have better physical functioning independent of baseline health status, number of children, marital status, occupation, education, or social class.
But this is far from the only study. In their 2005 analysis of a nationally representative sample of 7,527 older adults from the Longitudinal Study of Aging, researchers Harris and Thoresen from the Center for Health Care Evaluation at Stanford University found that frequent volunteering was linked to longevity, and that giving to others—even if you’re older, without friends and family, and in less than ideal
health—can help you live longer. They built on the work of Marc Musick, a professor of sociology at the University of Texas, and colleagues, who reported in the 1999 Journal of Gerontology that according to his research on elderly volunteers, “simply adding the volunteering role was protective of mortality.”
Doug Oman, a professor in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, studied more than two thousand elderly residents in Marin County, California, over a seven-year period beginning in the early 1990s. He found that those who volunteered for two or more organizations were 63 percent less likely to die during the study period than those who did not volunteer at all. When Oman controlled for various factors—age, gender, number of chronic conditions, physical mobility, exercise, self-rated general health, health habits (such as smoking), social support (including marital status and religious attendance), and psychological status (for example, the presence of depressive symptoms)—he still found that the volunteers were 44 percent less likely to die during the time of the study than nonvolunteers. As
it turns out, the likelihood of death during this period was more affected by helpfulness than it was by physical mobility, regular exercise, or weekly attendance at religious services. “If the present results are sustained,” Oman and his colleagues concluded, “then voluntariness has the potential to add not only quality but also length to the lives of older individuals worldwide.”
An intriguing five-year study found that older adults who provided no instrumental or emotional support to others were more than twice as likely to die during those five years than people who helped spouses, friends, relatives, and neighbors. It seems that it truly is better to give than to receive!
REACHING OUT
As my family and I made our transition to a new life in a new community, we realized that our choice was clear: giver’s glow or doubter’s darkness. We did a lot of little things every day to reinforce our giving practice, even just remembering to smile at those we met during the day.
Reaching out to help others saved my life, or so it feels. I know Mitsuko feels that way. “Every child is so special. Getting absorbed again in helping other children took my mind off dealing with my own difficulties in this time of adjustment. I had to look outwards, toward these kids, rather than looking inward at my own problems.” I felt the same way, and with the astonishingly high quality of medical students at Stony Brook, this was easy to do.
For most of us, helping means being ready to lend a helping hand, or being willing to have our work interrupted when others need our time to make their lives a bit more manageable. This can occur in the family, in the neighborhood, in the workplace, in school . . . or just about anywhere. Recently, I received an e-mail from a woman who had been compelled to move from her country home to a city apartment better suited to her physical condition. Just before her move, she had some trees trimmed, separating a mother squirrel from her nest and scattering the babies. She gently gathered the babies, placing them near the tree, and watched until the mother returned to carry them one by one to an alternate nest. She wrote, “So, while I moved to another town, I came back to the house twice a week, called, “Momma! Momma!” and she would come to me . . . or, to the handful of walnuts I offered. This has gone on for many months, as I haven’t sold my house. Believe me, I, too, get ample nutrition for my soul.”
When I arrived at Stony Brook University, I was blessed to have a remarkable administrator as my right hand in all things. Elisa Nelson has been synergistic with me in every decision—without her, I would probably have perished grappling with the astounding educational bureaucracy. Elisa is one of the most diligent, generous, and spiritual women I have ever known. She was raised in a very distinguished Cuban family that had to flee during the revolution. Her mother worked menial jobs to raise her daughter, and
she raised her magnificently as an exemplar of self-giving love. I could not have asked for a more perfect colleague for this project on compassionate care. Recently, the Face of America Project included Elisa in a commentary on its Web site. Here are just some of the kind words they had for her:
She is a giver, a helper, a doer of good deeds. In the time we were at the medical center, she helped us find a location for our shoot. She helped us fix a problem with our tripod. She saw to it that we had a quiet place for our interview. She made coffee for us. She introduced us to other staff members. She willingly shared her story with us. She volunteered to stamp our parking ticket. She took us to the cafeteria for a bite to eat, and she walked with us to the parking garage where we exchanged warm farewells.
Elisa is proactive, thoughtful and helpful in all the ways that matter. She is a woman of grace, dignity and humility who has mastered the art of selfless giving to others. Her face of America is one we will never forget.
So here’s the recipe for a better life: enjoy being a generous, giving person and be generous and give often. The helping that goes on in everyday life, in the home, between friends, at work or school, or with a stranger at the food line is not what we would call heroic.
Here in Stony Brook, I kept it simple. I tried to be a consistent helper in small, everyday ways, even with just a bright smile and a hello. I accepted every little unpaid invitation to speak publicly at local libraries or volunteer events, and built up a presence in the local community.
One important practice for me was offering hospitality to my new faculty recruits. Each time we had applicants in, we really concentrated on making their stay an inspiring one. One of the best philosophers of altruism moved here from California, leaving behind many friends, good colleagues, and a developed reputation in the university community there. Three others came from Michigan. They all went through upheavals in relocating, just as I and my family had. Our empathy for each other helped us through the ups and downs of building a new program and rebuilding our lives.
Despite all our efforts as a family, we still had some bad days, some arguments, some sadness, of course. The stresses were unavoidable—that’s the nature of moves. Yet by giving to others, we managed to keep our minds off our own issues (some of the time, at least) and that has helped heal us.
TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF WHILE HELPING OTHERS
But there can be too much of a good thing: “selfless” giving does not require you to neglect yourself! Giving is worth doing—but not to the point of exhaustion. Good people need to know how to draw boundaries around themselves so they can have time to take in nature, exercise, enjoy friends, and get away. Take the example of clergy members who feel the need to be available to congregants 24/7. Numerous reports indicate high burnout rates, and significant numbers end up leaving ministry because it gets to be too draining. Sometimes, when people feel called by God to do something, it is hard for them to acknowledge their emotional and physical limitations. Yes, we are one human family, and we are connected together in a common good. But we also need to learn to say “enough” and entrust others to take over for a while. I have known some really great doctors and social workers who have given their all to the neediest but did not know how to back off and find balance in their lives.
Please avoid the altruistic treadmill of doing more and more, running faster and faster. And don’t compare yourself to others. Our need to give will vary at times and across circumstances, and we have our own unique physical and psychological limits. We all have certain fundamental needs to be loved and cherished, to be secure and respected. Helping others is not at all about getting rid of these needs, but rather about fulfilling the universal need to give and live better.
Balance is the key. At the right dosage, self-giving is a one-a-day vitamin for the body as well as the soul. We just have to be careful not to give away too much of ourselves in the process. We still have to look after ourselves, get some rest, eat well, and organize our lives to be effective in the long run. The last thing I want is for you to read this book and be inspired to run yourself ragged. Helping provides lots of hidden gifts for the helper, but do not exceed your capacity. Over the course of a lifetime, our giving can light many thousands of candles, but if our own wick gets too short through self-neglect, it can die out. Think long term, not like a sprinter.
One of the best ways to help others is by making it possible for them to step back and take a break. When I was just getting started at Case Western, I spent four years providing respite care one day a week for family caregivers of loved ones with Alzheimer’s disease, just to give a break to people near breaking themselves. And it was certainly the most rewarding activity in that period of my life. But it was just one day a week. All these studies on volunteering and health describe “thresholds” of helping others that seem to create a shift in our emotional lives, but none of this research ever suggests that the more helping we do, the better we will feel. When it comes to cultivating generosity and kindness, however, do it all the time.
REPAIRING THE WORLD
Being concerned with the welfare of others simply has every kind of evolutionary advantage. Children do not thrive unless they feel cared for and experience empathy and loyalty. People in a particular group will prosper to the extent that altruistic emotions and behaviors like compassion and cooperation operate effectively. However we look at it, there are big advantages to helping emotions and behaviors. At the same time, it can be difficult to move from concern for our own group to concern for humans as a whole, for the “we” in the sense of a shared humanity. But that’s where we can use spirituality and religion and also the power of the mind to move us away from the very shaky ground of thinking of ourselves as superior and others as inferior.
As a student of world religions and a Christian, I am convinced that when Christianity speaks of being a light to the world, when Buddhism talks about wholeness, and when Hinduism refers to the true self, at least part of what these traditions are talking about involves tapping into the euphoria, calmness, and warmth that scientists describe as an outcome of doing “unto others.” This giver’s glow has healing properties. Inner wholeness and true peace are related to the activity of self-giving love.
In the Jewish tradition, tikkun olam (“repairing the world”) is thought to bring blessing and long life to the giver. It is through giving and helping that we lose our self- centeredness and gain a life energy that bonds us with others and with life itself. In support of this, Judaism also has a religious obligation called tzedakah. More than simple charity, it requires giving anonymously to unknown recipients, regardless of one’s own circumstances. The Old and New Testaments both extol the rewards of giving: “He who refreshes others will himself be refreshed” (Proverbs 11:25) and “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). And the Dalai Lama distills thousands of years of Buddhist thought into this simple guideline: “Our prime purpose in this life is to help others.” This is old wisdom, yet scientific evidence for its truth allows us to understand its depth better and take it more seriously as a way of life.
Whether we are looking at studies of older adults, middleaged women, or preteens, we see that self-giving behavior casts a halo effect over people’s lives, giving them greater longevity, lower rates of heart disease, and better mental health. This “kindness kickback” occurs partly because focusing on others causes a shift from our unhealthy preoccupation with ourselves and our problems, and it reduces the stressrelated wear and tear on body and soul. It also seems to activate a part of the brain associated with joy, is associated with hormones that are linked to a feeling of inner calm, and even seems to provide a little immune system boost. Add to these biological benefits a more balanced perspective on our own problems and a greater sense of purpose, selfworth, and self-control, and wow! There is a real mind-body
wellness upgrade.
Giving validates our own existence, and we can start right where we are. We do not need to travel far at all. Right here in this place is fine. We do not need to race around doing everything we can for others 24/7, as if the more we do the better we will feel. Helping others should be something about which we are all mindful on a daily basis. If we can hang on to the thread of self-giving over the course of a lifetime, this will create a glow of greater happiness and health over all that we do.
I cannot predict the future of the New York State economy or whether someday my status as a state employee will be threatened by big furloughs or layoffs. Nor can I predict how far housing values will fall, whether this will be a “double dip” recession, or if the burden of taxes will become even heavier. Things may get a lot harder in the United States as national debt goes through the roof and our children have to foot the bill. But come what may, we can all stay in close touch with the better angels of our shared human nature. This is where our strength lies. As Sir John Templeton wrote, “Every act of helping is a way of saying yes to life.”
FINDING YOUR OWN HIDDEN GIFTS
Giving
Giving to others, as should now be quite clear, has remarkable benefits for the giver. But it’s not a cure-all—nothing is. It does not cure cancer, though I have known many cancer survivors who, feeling that they have been given a second lease on life, have devoted themselves to lives of amazing giving. It does not overcome aging and eventual death, though it seems to enhance longevity. It does not cure Alzheimer’s disease, though love provides whatever resurrection-of-a-sort there can be in the lives of family caregivers and affected individuals. And people who are really deeply depressed cannot just “help” their way out of it; they generally need medical treatments first that will allow them to start to reach out to others.
Yet, regardless of condition, we can still give—whether it is a meal to a hungry soul, a hug to crying child, or a walnut to squirrel. You may not be able to trust that the world you have come to love will not shift beneath your feet, but you can trust your own heart always to reach out with love, even if it is just a
matter of intentionally smiling.
Take a few moments now to think about how you can find the hidden gifts of giving in your own life:
Keep a journal about the large and small ways you are giving to people right now. If you are having trouble thinking of any (I hope not!), ask a friend or loved one. You may be surprised to find that a friendly smile, a question about how things have been going, or an offer to pick up groceries helped someone through a rough patch and allowed him or her to keep going. Once a week, write down all the things you thought of, and discover how much you are already giving! Jot down how helping others makes you feel, in terms of meaning, joy, and health. Keep doing this for the rest of your life, whatever else happens.
Think about the ways others have given to you, right now or in the past. You may want to give back to them with a simple, heartfelt thank you, or even a letter letting them know how much they helped you.
Visualize helping. Every morning, take just five minutes to close your eyes and visualize yourself performing positive helping actions with some of the people you know you will encounter during the day—family, friends, coworkers, and strangers. Imagine a few specific interactions, including ones with the negative people you will inevitably meet. Use a little affirmation, such as “My words and actions heal.” In psychology, this is called “priming.” And there are lots of new neuroscience data to tell us why it is so effective in shaping behavior. You do what you envision, and you are what you think you are, all day long. If you do a little positive mental imaging before your day begins, you’ll be more likely to respond helpfully to the world around you, especially in hard times.
Make it a practice to help one person every day. This is an easy and gratifying exercise that with very little practice can become a natural part of your daily routine. It is simple to keep track of. Whether you help by holding the elevator, dropping a dollar into a homeless person’s hand, pitching in to help with a loved one’s chore, accompanying a friend to a doctor’s appointment . . . notice how this makes you feel, and write about it in your journal at the week’s end.
Draw on your own talents in giving. We all have special strengths and talents. You may love music, art, or writing; you may be athletic or mechanical; you may love reading and sharing what you’ve read; you may love cooking or sewing or any of the homely arts; you may be a computer whiz or a math lover. However great or meager your talent, as long as you’re passionate about it, that’s what counts. Research shows that we benefit most when we help others by drawing on our natural gifts—and they benefit too. Use the talents you possess. Develop them as far and as deeply as they will go in the service of others. People tend to stick with helping others when they are doing things that they feel they are good at.
Sarah’s jumbled thoughts gradually righted themselves. No matter what she had promised her mother, she could do nothing for her father unless he chose to change. Indeed, she was just as likely to sacrifice her own life and happiness – and that of her little brother’s – and still not get her father to give up his hopeless quest.
After a brief respite from writing, award-winning author Kathleen Morgan pens a masterpiece novel set against the backdrop of the beautiful Colorado Rockies. A Heart Divided (ISBN: 978-0-8007-1884-8, May 2011, $14.99) will capture readers with a saga of family feuding, abandonment, intriguing love, betrayal, and forgiveness.
It is 1878. The Caldwells and Wainwrights have been feuding for twenty-seven years. The patriarchs of each family will not let the feud end; their hearts are bent on destruction. Sarah Caldwell has misgivings when her father pressures her into distracting a ranch hand while he and her brothers rob the Wainwright ranch. When it becomes clear that hand is actually Cord Wainwright, Sarah realizes she needs to lay low. But Cord spots her in town and, with the sheriff away, makes a citizen’s arrest, dragging her off to the Wainwright ranch until the sheriff’s return. As the family feud continues to smolder, Cord and Sarah make a most inconvenient discovery–they are falling in love. Can they betray their families for love? Or will their families betray them?
In a powerful and historically authentic love story, Morgan explores themes of family In a powerful and historically authentic love story, Morgan explores themes of family loyalty, self-determination, what it meant to be a hero in the Old West and, above all, how love can change everything.
ISLAND BREEZES
You’re really going to need that box of tissues before you finish this book. It’s not easy to come out on the other side of a horrendous feud.
Lives are destroyed and people die while Cord and Sarah attempt to get past this family feud. One of the families includes seriously stubborn people.
It took nearly the entire book before I saw it. This is the story of the prodigal son and the emotions of that son.
My heart’s still back in the Rockies. I’m glad this is the beginning of a series. I’m looking forward to more about these families.
***Review copy provided by Donna Hausler of Revell Books.***
Kathleen Morgan is the award-winning author of many novels, including those in the bestselling Brides of Culdee Creek series. She lives in Colorado with her husband.
Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group, offers practical books that bring the Christian faith to everyday life.? They publish resources from a variety of well-known brands and authors, including their partnership with MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) and Hungry Planet.
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old…or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
***Special thanks to Cat Hoort of Kregel Publications for sending me a review copy.***
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Heather Munn was born in Northern Ireland of American parents and grew up in the south of France. She decided to be a writer at the age of five when her mother read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books aloud, but worried that she couldn’t write about her childhood since she didn’t remember it. When she was young, her favorite time of day was after supper when the family would gather and her father would read a chapter from a novel. Heather went to French school until her teens, and grew up hearing the story of Le Chambonsur-Lignon, only an hour’s drive away. She now lives in rural Illinois with her husband, Paul, where they offer free spiritual retreats to people coming out of homelessness and addiction. She enjoys wandering in the woods, gardening, writing, and splitting wood.
Lydia Munn was homeschooled for five years because there was no school where her family served as missionaries in the savannahs of northern Brazil. There was no public library either, but Lydia read every book she could get her hands on. This led naturally to her choice of an English major at Wheaton College. Her original plan to teach high school English gradually transitioned into a lifelong love of teaching the Bible to both adults and young people as a missionary in France. She and her husband, Jim, have two children: their son, Robin, and their daughter, Heather.
SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:
When had God ever stopped a war because a teenager asked him to?
For fifteen-year-old Julien Losier, life will never be the same. His family has relocated to southern France to outrun Hitler’s menace. But Julien doesn’t want to run. He doesn’t want to huddle around the radio at night, waiting to hear news through buzzing static. Julien doesn’t want to wait.
Angry, frustrated, and itching to do something, Julien finds a battle everywhere he turns.
Soon after his family opens their house to a Jewish boy needing refuge, Julien meets Nina, a young Austrian who has fled her home by her father’s dying command. Nina’s situation is grave and Julien suddenly realizes the enormity of having someone’s life or death depend on… him.
Thrown together by a conflict that’s too big for them to understand, these young lives struggle to know what to do, even if it is not enough. Is there a greater purpose in the shadows of this terrible war? Or will their choices put them in greater danger?
Endorsements:
“The Munns have written an engrossing historical novel that is faithful to the actual events of World War II in western Europe during the tumultuous year 1940. But How Huge the Night is more than good history; it is particularly refreshing because the reader sees the conflict through the lives of teenagers who are forced to grapple with their honest questions about the existence and goodness of God in the midst of community, family, and ethnic tensions in war-ravaged France.”—Lyle W. Dorsett, Billy Graham Professor of Evangelism, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University
“Seldom have the horrors of war upon adolescents—or the heroism of which they are capable—been so clearly portrayed. I loved this coming-of-age story.”—Patricia Sprinkle, author of Hold Up the Sky
“The book expertly weaves together the lives of its characters at a frightening moment in conflicted times. As we read of their moral dilemmas and of their choices, we too wonder, Would I do has these in the story have done?”—Karen Mains, Director, Hungry Souls
Product Details:
List Price: $14.99
Reading level: Young Adult
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Kregel Publications (March 9, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 082543310X
ISBN-13: 978-0825433108
ISLAND BREEZES
This book is a story of two teenagers, lives running parallel during the war waged by Hitler.
It is a story of how this boy and girl manage to survive and come to terms with the deprivation and suffering.
It is a story of coming of age in cruel times.
And eventually it is a story of compassion when these two lives intersect.
A rather haunting book.
AND NOW…AN EXCERPT:
From Chapter 23
Thursday the power came back on. They sat in the living room, around the radio that crackled with static; they looked at each other, and then away. The room grew quiet as the announcer began to speak.
“Since Mussolini’s declaration of war on France two days ago, Italian troops are pushing west—”
Mama was on her feet. “The thief!” she hissed. “The backstabber, the coward!” Her face was red. Everyone was staring. She sat down.
Papa looked at her. “Saw his chance, I guess.”
“He’s a shame to his nation,” Mama snapped. Julien stared. Then they heard the shift in the announcer’s voice and turned sharply to the radio.
“German troops are approaching Paris at a rapid pace. As we speak, the vanguard is reported to be fifteen kilometers from Versailles. This will be our last broadcast for a while.”
They did not look at each other. The silence was total.
“Today Paris has been declared an ‘open city.’ Our military will not defend it. This decision was made to avoid bombardment and the great destruction and loss of life that it entails. . . .”
Julien realized he had not been breathing. It was an amazing thing, breathing. Tears shone in Mama’s eyes.
“They won’t bomb Paris,” said Papa quietly.
“They won’t bomb Paris,” Mama whispered.
Benjamin stood, his face very still. He walked slowly to the door and took the stairs.
Julien waited, breathing, seeing Paris; seeing Vincent and his mother look up out of their second-floor window at a clear blue sky. He waited until the news ended, until they had read a psalm that said The Lord has delivered.
Then he followed Benjamin.
Benjamin’s door was closed. Julien hesitated, biting his lip, and went into his own room.
He looked out the window in the fading light. They wouldn’t defend it. This was it, then. What Pastor Alex said was true. German tanks would roll down the Champs-Elysées for real in just a couple days. Then the boches would come here. And they would stay.
He pulled Vincent’s last letter out from under his nightstand. I can’t believe you almost died, it said. That’s crazy. He got up, and went and knocked on Benjamin’s door.
No answer.
“Benjamin? You all right?”
“Fine.”
Julien opened the door. Benjamin turned quickly, scowling.
“Did I say you could come in?”
“Well sorry,” Julien growled. How am I supposed to help when he’s like this? “Just wanted to say good night.”
“Good night then.”
“Look, it’s not as bad as it could have been, okay? They could have bombed the place to shreds like Ro—” He bit his tongue.
“You’re right,” said Benjamin, looking away. “That’s good for your relatives. I’m glad.”
“And your parents!”
“Nothing’s good for my parents.” His voice was toneless. “Look, Julien, we can talk about this in the morning. I need to go to bed.”
Julien knew when to quit. He turned away. “Sleep well.”
“You too.”
But he couldn’t. He turned and turned in his bed, twisting the sheets.
He got up and looked out at the crescent moon and the stars high over Tanieux, so white, so far, always the same; they would still be there when the Germans were here; they would still be there all his life. They were still there over Rotterdam, too. It didn’t make any difference.
When he finally slept, he dreamed: Paris on the fourteenth of July, the fireworks, bursts of blue, of gold, of red above the city. A whirling rocket going up with a hiss and a bang. Then a louder bang. Then a bang that threw up a great shower of dirt and stones, and people screaming, people running as the shells began to fall—
He woke, and lay shivering. He got up to close the window. The stars shone down like cold eyes.
He heard a faint scratching. Mice maybe. A floorboard creaked. He listened.
And he heard it. Very slow, stealthy footsteps going down the stairs.
He sat up slowly. Magali or Benjamin. Tiptoeing down the stairs to the kitchen, wishing there was something to eat. . . . He got out of bed and leaned out the window, watching for the faint light that would come through from the kitchen. No light came.
But on the ground floor, the heavy front door opened, and a dark shape slipped out into the street. A shadow with a suitcase in its hand.
He ran across the hall and threw open Benjamin’s door. A neatly made bed, a letter on the pillow. He grabbed it, ran back to his room, jerked his pants on over his pajamas, and ran downstairs in his socks. He’d catch him. Benjamin was on foot. He had to catch him. He scrawled on the flip side of the note, I’ve gone after him, pulled on his shoes and jacket, and flew down the stairs and into the dark.
He raced down the shadowed street and stopped at the corner, heart pounding, looking both ways. North, over the hill: the road to St. Etienne. A train to Paris, like he’d said? There were no trains now. Or south—south to where? Oh Lord if I choose wrong I’ll never find him.
Think. What would he do if it were him? He’d go south—north was suicide, but—he didn’t know, he didn’t know Benjamin. Who did? Nothing is good for my parents, he’d said—he didn’t seem to even care that Paris wouldn’t be bombed—
Because his parents weren’t in Paris.
Julien turned, suddenly sure, and ran.
The Kellers had left Germany because of Hitler and his people. Would they stay in Paris and wait for them? “Let’s walk south,” Benjamin had said—and that stupid map—he should have guessed.
He ran, breathing hard, his eyes on the dark road ahead. Oh God. Oh Jesus. Don’t let me miss him please—please—
He broke free of the houses; the Tanne gleamed in front of him under the splintered moon, cut by the dark curve of the bridge. He froze. He ducked into the shadows and breathed.
There on the bridge was a slender figure leaning on the parapet, looking down at the dark water.
Oh God. Oh Jesus. Now what?
Benjamin turned and took a long, last look at Tanieux. Then he adjusted his backpack, picked up his suitcase, and walked away.
Julien slipped out of the shadows and up to the bridge, his heart beating help me Jesus help me, his mind searching for words. Come home. And if he said no? Drag him? Help me Jesus. He was across the bridge, ten paces behind Benjamin; he broke into a silent run on the grassy verge of the road. He caught up to him. Laid a hand on his arm.
“Benjamin.”
Benjamin whirled, eyes wild in the moonlight. They stared at each other. “Why.” said Julien. “Tell me why.” His voice was harder than he meant it to be.
“Let me go.”
“No.” He tightened his grip on Benjamin’s arm.
Benjamin tried to pull away. “Julien, let me go. You have no idea. You have no idea what they’re like.”
“The boches?” This time his voice came out small.
“The Nazis, Julien. Ever heard of them? Yeah, you heard they don’t like Jews—I don’t think any of you people understand.” The sweep of his arm took in the school and the sleeping town. “Your parents are great, Julien—offering shelter and all—they really are. But they don’t know. Yet.”
But they do. They know. “Know what? What’ll they—do?”
“I’m not waiting around to find out.” His face was white and deadly serious. “Trust me on this, Julien. They are coming here and when they do, it’s better for you if I’m long gone.” I believe it is very dangerous to be a Jew in Germany. And soon—
Julien stood silent. The night wind touched his face; the hills were shadows on the horizon where they blotted out the stars. Suddenly he felt how large the world was, how huge the night, how small they stood on the road in the light of the waning moon. Ahead, the road bent into the pine woods, and in his mind, Julien saw Benjamin walking away, a small form carrying a suitcase into the darkness under the trees. His fingers bit into Benjamin’s arm.
“I don’t care,” he said savagely. “Where would you go?”
Benjamin said nothing; the moonlight quivered in his eyes as they filled with tears. He turned his head away. “I don’t know.” His voice shook.
Julien caught him by the shoulders, gripped him hard. “Well I do,” he said fiercely. “You’re coming home.”
If you want to raise great kids, the first step is to become a great dad!
A Complete Do-it–Yourself Guide for Becoming a Great Father
There is a do-it-yourselfer in every man. He looks for a project to do on weekends, but what about the project of becoming a better dad? Project Dad (ISBN: 978-0-8007-1999-9, April 2011, $12.99) is a humorous, enjoyable, biblically-based guidebook written for dads by a dad. Author, Todd Cartmell, Psy.D., takes readers on a fun and compelling journey of re-building a dad to become a great dad if you want to raise great kids.
Project Dad speaks the language of dads: short entertaining chapters, tongue-in-cheek humor, references to BBQ and a complete look at what it takes to be a great dad. The chapters are broken into five key components:
1. How to look at your children
2. How to talk to your children
3. How to connect with your children
4. How to act toward your children
5. How to lead your children
At the end of each chapter, there are discussion questions making this book ideal for individual or group study.
This guidebook encourages fathers to raise their children with a renewed sense of purpose and gives them the tools they need to become the dad their children are longing for.
Project Dad is a humorous and practical guide book written by a dad to other dads. Todd Cartmell’s warm and engaging style will have fathers laughing from the first few pages, and gives doable hands-on advice for becoming a better dad. This book will make an excellent Father’s Day gift!
ISLAND BREEZES
What do you think makes a great dad? It’s difficult for me to round up all the virtues that I think make a great dad. I don’t think I have the space to list them all. I’ve had two great fathers in my life and the one quality that comes to my mind is love. My first father was not my biological father, who chose to abandon my mother and me. My father was the man who chose to marry my mother and adopt me because of the love he had for us. Then much later in life my stepfather entered the picture when he married my widowed mother. He was another shining example of love. He made me happy, because he made my mother so happy. I’ve truly been blessed with the dads in my life.
About the Author: Todd Cartmell is a licensed clinical psychologist and a father of two. He is in full-time private practice in Wheaton, Illinois, where he works with children, adolescents, and families. He lives in Geneva, Illinois, with his family.
Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group, offers practical books that bring the Christian faith to everyday life.? They publish resources from a variety of well-known brands and authors, including their partnership with MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) and Hungry Planet.
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old…or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
Randy Singer is a critically acclaimed author and veteran trial attorney. He has penned 10 legal thrillers, including his award-winning debut novel, Directed Verdict. Randy runs his own law practice and has been named to Virginia Business magazine’s select list of “Legal Elite” litigation attorneys. In addition to his law practice and writing, Randy serves as teaching pastor for Trinity Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He calls it his “Jekyll and Hyde thing”—part lawyer, part pastor. He also teaches classes in advocacy and civil litigation at Regent Law School and, through his church, is involved with ministry opportunities in India. He and his wife, Rhonda, live in Virginia Beach. They have two grown children.
Clark Shealy is a bail bondsman with the ultimate bounty on the line: his wife’s life. He has forty-eight hours to find an Indian professor in possession of the Abacus Algorithm—an equation so powerful it could crack all Internet encryption.
