So I mentioned a week or two ago that I had had the chance to do a brief email interview with Shauna Niequist, the author of Cold Tangerines.
And I’ve been rereading parts of her book (that I read awhile ago) recently.
Cold Tangerines is a collection of 40 stories about life and God and the author’s journey through life to find Him. Her writing is polished but conversational, her thinking is intense but absolutely natural, and her ideas are unique but common to the rest of us walking through marriage, motherhood and awareness of God and his goodnesses.
Shauna on Prayer:
Prayer heals all the muscles that I’ve been clenching fro a long time, while I’m holding it together, gritting my teeth, waiting for impact. Prayer, like yoga, like singing, brings soft from hard, pliant from brittle, possible from impossible, warm from cold, breath from breathless. And no matter what gets you there, it is better to be there than not. (CT, pg 149)
Shauna on Babies:
I think babies really do make you believe in God. They make you believe in God because there’s just something beyond understanding about their freshness and fragility and their smell and their toes. When they take their first breaths, and when they land, floppy and slippery, on your chest under the bright overhead light in an otherwise dim delivery room, when you watch their tiny sleeping selves, when you hear their wild animal cries, you know, you just know in your gust that God is real, and that babies have been with him more recently, have come more directly from him than our worn-out old selves have… This is my new prayer, my mother-prayer: Dear God, please please please and thank you thank you thank you. (CT, pg 188)
Shauna on Celebration:
For me, the first part of celebrating is noticing. I find it’s easy for me to get stuck in what’s broken or wrong with a situation instead of seeing the beautiful parts of it, too, or that I move so fast I don’t see anything at all. These days I’m trying to notice everything, to live slowly enough to see what’s unfolding around me, and especially to look for the tiny, beautiful surprises even in the midst of wreckage and ugliness. (from her interview)
Shauna has been more than generous with us. She has given me FOUR signed books to giveaway to my readers. So I am SO EXCITED to be able to host this giveaway this week.
What you have to do? Leave a comment. Please. Right now. Before 10 pm PST on Wednesday, June 17, 2009.
What I have to do? Announce the winners at the end of the week and then send off the books to the winners.
So comment. To win. Now.
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