She studied brain dysfunction. Then one morning she woke up and realized she was having a stroke. In this TED talk, Jill Bolte Tayler shares her story (and that’s a real human brain in the picture, folks):
And the Cover of Our New Book Looks Like This:
This is the cover of our upcoming book, and it releases on December 10th in paperback and digital formats!
If you’re a blogger and you’d like to receive a free PDF copy in exchange for posting a review or excerpt on your blog, shoot me an email at shawnsmucker@yahoo.com
If you’d like a chance to win a free paperback copy, sign up for my email newsletter in the left hand column. Or go to Facebook and “like” my writer’s page. I’ll be giving readers a chance to win copies through those forums.
Thanks for helping Maile and I spread the word!
48 Books for $4.80 (and other Cyber Monday deals you don’t want to miss)
While you’re shopping online, be sure to check out some of these great deals:
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Bryan Allain is hilarious, and his new book is available: Actually, Clams Are Miserable: Deconstructing 101 Ridiculous Cliches. It’s the perfect gift or stocking stuffer for that humor lover you never know what to get for Christmas.
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Andi Cumbo has put together a free e-book, God’s Whisper Manifesto.
I want to explain why this place will be one where everyone is welcome, where money is a tool not an indicator of worth in any form, where we will be as conscious of our resources as we can without putting them before people, where all work is valued whether it be songwriting or car repair or accounting.
Sign up to for Andi’s email newsletter and you’ll receive God’s Whisper Manifesto free on December 1st.
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Lisa Delay is offering all four of her e-books for free!
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Jason Boyett is offering 48 copies of Pocket Guide to the Bible FOR $4.80?!?!
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On Tuesday and Wednesday, Ed Cyzewski is offering an e-book for free: Creating Space: The Case for Everyday Creativity. Check it out HERE.
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My friend Darrell Dow recently released an e-book, Fundamental Flaws: Seven Things Independent Fundamental Baptists Get Wrong (And How to Fix Them). It’s only $2.99! Check that one out HERE.
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My e-book, Building a Life Out of Words, is available today for $3.99.
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What other deals are out there? Let us know in the comments.
What Are You Afraid of Today? Jump.
The small boy walks through the tiny mobile home and stands at the edge of a door to no where. It’s a four-foot drop to the ground. His bare toes curl around the edge of the threshold. Spring meanders through the grass. The breeze pushes his wispy hair into dancing. He leans forward, falling, through the air and the years and into the arms of his grandfather.
Some time in the future the small boy will stand behind a recliner, combing his grandfather’s hair on a cold Sunday afternoon in exchange for a quarter.
Some time after that his grandfather will take him to the farmer’s market in the morning. The boy will sit on the console between the two front seats. The van will smell of hot coffee.
Some time after that the boy will walk barefoot with his cousins as they cover the long distance from his grandfather’s graveside to the house where his grandmother will live alone.
These years are moments. They are the subtle leaning, the sharp pushing off into air saturated with the future.
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Sometimes courage comes down to us through the generations, embedded in DNA, a predisposed affinity for risk. At other times it springs up on us unawares, like the memory of a small boy diving into the arms of his grandfather.
But courage always comes in the face of fear.
What are you afraid of today?
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Jump.
When Shouting “Remember!” is All I Know to Do
Too often these days I don’t understand.
Three months ago I sat on a folding chair outside of a mud hut just north of Colombo, Sri Lanka. A small child played on a straw mat, and, inside, the family’s cupboards were empty, save a few cups of rice.
The day before that we ate lunch with the community. We used our hands to scoop up the curried potatoes from plates balanced precariously on our legs. Later we drove past thatched huts housing people who have to walk far for water and hope the rain will be sufficient for their crops.
We met people who live from this day to the next. As in, How will I eat today?
Then, this past Thursday, my family and I joined hands in a circle around a table, a feast. My father-in-law asked me to pray over the food, and it was an honor, to give thanks, to voice my gratefulness.
Turkey and stuffing and potatoes topped with pecans and marshmallows. Thick slices of ham beside cranberry sauce. Sodas that serve my body no earthly good but as pleasure. Desserts that provide nothing but a sugar rush.
I don’t remember feeling so torn. Seeing poverty in Sri Lanka changed me, but not in ways that I expected. Standing around that table with my family on Thursday, I felt full to the brim with both satisfaction and something like desperate disappointment.
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The news shows people lined up to buy more stuff, and people protesting the idea of working on a holiday, and people lined up outside a homeless shelter. And I’m not sure what to do in the face of that kind of excess, that kind of lack.
I know enough to be thankful for what I have. For what we have. And I feel a new weight of responsibility, not to shout out in protest against it (I wrote that post already and then deleted it because it didn’t seem quite right). I don’t want to lay heavy burdens of guilt on my friends for being so blessed. So I simply shout as loud as I can:
Remember.
Remember that not everyone has a job to walk away from.
Not everyone has the luxury of protest-via-buying-or-not-buying-chicken-sandwiches.
Remember that not everyone has what we have.
Remember to share some of what you have with someone else.
Remember.
When the Turkey Blows Up
May your Thanksgiving culinary activities be less exciting than this: