In this post, I share my June book club takeaways: one fiction and one nonfiction, both with themes centering on home which reminds me that my home is in Christ.
We are six months into my 2024 Book Club, and it’s summer here in West Michigan, a time when I rarely leave home because the weather is delightful, the beach is nearby, and the summer season is short.
I selected both of these books last fall and didn’t really have a reason other than that Dandelion Wine is a summer book and Our Way Home has been calling my name from my to-be-read shelf for a few years. In the beautiful serendipity I’ve seen before, these two books are connected. They both help us see the place we call home.
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June Book Club Takeaways
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
Years ago, I had lunch with Mr. Ray Bradbury in Ogden, Utah. He’s the most famous person I’ve ever shared a meal with. We were a table of eager listeners and enjoyed fresh salads and Mormon Muffins with honey butter as the Ogden River roared down the canyon on that early summer day. He sat one seat away from me (gasp!) and graciously signed copies of his books. I wish I could remember some of his wise words about writing and reading, but alas, I was starstruck. (I was fortunate to have a friend who was on the committee for the writing workshop he offered to high school students.)
About Ray Bradbury’s and His Work
Perhaps you know Mr. Bradbury better for his dystopian book Fahrenheit 451, or his sci-fi The Martian Chronicles, or the creepy Something Wicked This Way Comes. And those are powerful stories you may have read in high school. All good.
What surprised me, as I learned about Mr. Bradbury, is that his work is filled with a love for life which probably reflects his Christian heart. While his work is not overtly Christian, it certainly offers themes and truths which we can cling to. In a 1990 article, “Ray Bradbury: Hope in a Doubtful Age,” Calvin Miller, a Christian commentator writes, “No other contemporary writer sees the world so full of possibility.”
One article calls Bradbury a “prophet of joy.” Bradbury himself said, “Every so often, late at night, I come downstairs, open one of my books, read a paragraph and say, My God. I sit there and cry because I feel that I’m not responsible for any of this. It’s from God and I’m so grateful, so, so, grateful. The best description of my career as a writer is ‘at play in the fields of the Lord.’ It’s been wonderful fun and I’ll be damned where any of it came from. I’ve been fortunate. Very fortunate.”
About the Story
Dandelion Wine is a beautiful illustration of Bradbury “playing in the fields of the Lord.” It’s by far my favorite, especially as I have gotten older. It’s lovely and reminds me about what’s important. An autobiographical collection of twenty-seven vignettes reflecting on home, summer, love, death, and friendship. Much of it is from a 12-year old boy’s perspective living in a 1928 summer in Green Town, Illinois (loosely based on Bradbury’s hometown Waukegan, Illinois). His writing is lyrical, rich, and invites you to slow down. It’s not a page-turning beach read, so be prepared to linger and delight in his reflections.
Douglas is the narrator for many of the vignettes, and he’s a young writer (Bradbury in his youth).
“He brought out a yellow nickel tablet. He brought out a yellow Ticonderoga pencil. He opened the tablet. He licked the pencil.”
I love that simple revelation because it brings me back to my earliest writing days and the joy and promise of a blank page and a newly sharpened pencil. What stories could I tell!?
Douglas collects his thoughts, and his crazy discoveries include things like “finding out maybe that Grandpa or Dad don’t know everything in the world.” And his most profound discovery?
“I’m alive . . . Thinking about it, noticing it, is new. You do things and don’t watch. Then all of a sudden you look and see what you’re doing and it’s the first time, really.”
I’m alive! This book reminded me of this simple truth. Not so long ago, I was a little kid and everything was new and delightful and promising. We ran barefoot in the grass and licked the ice cream that dripped from the bottom of the sugar cone! But it’s so easy to forget and to be complacent about the joys of simple pleasures.
Here’s Douglas.
“I’m really alive! he thought. I never knew it before, or if I did I don’t remember!”
I could write pages about this book, but I’ll focus on just a few key themes.
Multi-generational conversations
When was the last time you sat around a table with many generations? Maybe you are blessed with family or friend gatherings. This is the beautiful picture of a full life this side of heaven. A table or a front porch filled with people of all ages with no agenda other than a good laugh or quiet or a story.
Bradbury writes, “Sitting on the summer-night porch was so good, so easy and so reassuring that it could never be done away with. These were rituals that were right and lasting. The lighting of pipes, the pale hands that moved knitting needles in the dimness, the eating of foil-wrapped, chilled Eskimo Pies, the coming and going of all the people.”
What a lovely image. Ah, home.
Simple joys and no technology
Douglas is a young boy of a lost generation where his greatest desire is for a new pair of sneakers and the wonder of what-might-be.
“The magic was always in the new pair of shoes . . . last year’s pair were dead inside . . . he felt that this time, with this new pair of shoes, he could do anything, anything at all.”
And he lives in an age when he could wander the town freely, exploring hidden ravines, neighborhood attics, and pinball machine-arcades with wax figures. No screens or battery-powered entertainment.
Bradbury shares one recipe for solving childhood ills: “A good night sleep, or a ten minute bawl, or a pint of chocolate ice cream, or all three together, is good medicine.”
Isn’t that gloriously true sometimes? Ah, home.
Childhood and friendships
I sometimes think the childhood joys are being lost as so many climb aboard the fast-train of school demands, scheduled sports, and every organized thing from morning to bedtime. Do we (or our kids/grandkids) ever just wander and dream and be lazy without an agenda? I’ve recently read The Opt-Out Family: How to Give Your Kids What Technology Can’t. It’s packed full of solid information on giving your children those experiences. It’s written for today’s parents, but it’s also well worth grandparents reading to be informed.
Along with childhood play comes friendship. Or perhaps friendship leads to childhood play! One of the most moving chapters for me was when Douglas’ best friend announces he’s moving away. Walking through their final day together as the kids all play “statues,” I was right there anxiously waiting for their sad goodbyes. Douglas grieves in the only way he knows – with anger when he’s alone. “John! You’re my enemy, you hear? You’re no friend of mine!” I think we all sometimes mask our sadness with angry words, especially with those we love. Ah, home.
Mysteries and forgiveness
Douglas and the other characters face things they don’t always understand. Mysteries, unknowns, fears, sadness, suffering.
On the last night Douglas sees his friend, he grapples with that loss. At bedtime with his younger brother, Douglas asks him to make a promise. “You may be my brother and maybe I hate you sometimes, but stick around, all right?”
Tom responds, “You can depend on me.”
Then we hear the mystery. “It’s not you I worry about,” said Douglas. “It’s the way God runs the world.”
Tom thought about this for a moment. “He’s all right, Doug,” said Tom. “He tries.”
No, this may not be theologically correct, but isn’t this a wonderful childhood perspective about who God is and what He does? Life isn’t fair. There’s sadness and things we just don’t understand. But God is right here and in control. (We just happen to be fallen human beings wandering in the dark ravines.)
And forgiveness fills the pages of this book in subtle ways if you look for it. Just hearing this conversation between brothers reminds us of relationships and forgiveness and trust. Ah, home.
Our Way Home: A Journey through the Lord’s Prayer by Daniel E. Paavola
Our Way Home: A Journey through the Lord’s Prayer is a beautiful study of the Lord’s Prayer from a pastor and professor who shares not just theological insights but also vivid story-telling from his life experiences. Like Bradbury, he invites readers on a journey to see things with fresh eyes. To see this prayer and home from a new perspective. He shares images and stories about this world-famous prayer which many of us can recite without even thinking. As the title of the book suggests, this prayer depicts a path to our heavenly home, a path that we can follow moment-by-moment and day to day – as we play in the fields of the Lord! – until He calls us to our eternal home.
Dr. Paavola shows us the “anatomy” of the prayer from the Introduction through the seven petitions, and then the conclusion. Using visuals as well as words, we travel the circle from heaven to earth and back to heaven again in the nine chapters. I love how he includes a “Pray even when . . . “ section in each chapter. These are beautiful invitations to help us pray in the hard times. For example, “Pray even when it is too late” and “Pray even when all you can say is, ‘have mercy.’”
The book is filled with references and images from scripture passages and Luther to Jane Austen, camping trips, dairy farms, and wave pools. Dr. Paavola is a story-teller who paints new pictures for us to see as we say this prayer. This is a great book for personal study and could also be adapted for a small group. (I purchased the paperback and found the print a little too small and light, so I opted to read it on my Kindle!)
Interestingly, I see similar themes in this book as in Dandelion Wine. It’s not a perfect pairing, like wine and cheese, but here are a few quick thoughts:
Multi-generational conversations and prayers
Christians have been saying this prayer for thousands of years across continents. And prayer is a conversation of sorts, right? We are talking to our Heavenly Father, joining with voices all over the world who are saying the same prayer. I love this connection, this family of believers.
Ah, home with all the saints.
Simple joys and no technology
One of the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer that I cling to each time I say it is “give us this day our daily bread.” This one helps me let go of my control or my charade of control.
In chapter four on this Fourth Petition, “Showers When They Come,” Paavola writes, “In the summer of 1976, West Central Minnesota had a terrible drought. Our dairy farm had virtually no rain for over two months from June through August…on June 7 of the next year, we sold our entire dairy herd . . . The scorched earth cracked open in jagged lines, looking like a lightning strike that had grounded itself. Real lightning came often at night. I listened to the thunder and our windows rattling and prayed that it would rain. But it didn’t.” (Doesn’t this sound a little bit like Ray Bradbury? Honest, simple, true.)
Sometimes the rain doesn’t fall, sometimes we don’t get what we think we want, sometimes lightning strikes. But we do receive daily breath, daily bread. Simple. Nothing fancy. No plugged-in virtual reality or electric cars here. Daily bread you can taste and see and smell. Daily bread that fills you just enough for today. Most importantly, our daily bread includes the certainty of our eternal home because of Christ’s sacrifice.
Ah, the forever home.
Childhood and friendships
We are the children of the Heavenly Father! Our Father. We pray this with the fellowship of all believers. I often wondered. Shouldn’t I say “MY Father?” No. It’s a corporate prayer. We are together in this life professing our faith and that’s a blessing. We walk through life, our sorrows and joys, our triumphs and heart cries, with all believers from the beginning of time to the end. God is our Father and I am part of His family.
Dr. Paavola fills his book with scenes of childhood play and the comfort of coming home to a well-lit house where our parents welcome us. Here’s one example: “We’re like children climbing up a playground ladder, calling to our father who’s standing behind us, ‘Watch me. But catch me if I fall.’ When we ask Him to catch us, He says, ‘I already have’” (127-28). Ah, the forever home.
Mysteries and forgiveness
Forgive us our trespasses. Yes, the Lord’s Prayer and Dr. Paavola’s book focus on forgiveness as it is the heart of God’s love for us in Christ Jesus. And it’s a mystery how His kingdom will come.
There’s also a mystery, according to Paavola, to the temptation petition in this prayer. “There is a central mystery to this prayer whereby God, who opposes Satan and evil and does not wish His children to fall, still allows temptation and harnesses it for His own purpose. To our reason, this is an impossible contradiction. Our expectation is that God would simply crush Satan and all temptation. Instead, He allows it to come, though He is not the beginning of our temptation. He does, however, limit the nature of it.” (130)
“Given a chance, we’d tell God exactly what gifts we want and when they should arrive” (91). But just like Douglas in Dandelion Wine when he was so angry his best friend had to move away, we cling hard to the earthly things we desire as it slips through our fingers. Ah, our earthly home.
Your Home
Home. This means different things to each of us depending on our life experiences. Some of you may have unhappy or even tragic memories of your childhood home. Perhaps you are now in a stressful home where there is no peace but only anxiety, fear, and questions. Why? What can I do? My prayer is that you can find strength in our Lord and from the loving family and friends He has surrounded you with.
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I would encourage you to read both these books if you are looking for some thoughtful and rich deep dives into your life, memories, and faith.
Ultimately, may you find your home in Christ.
For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2 Corinthians 5:1 ESV
What’s all this about Beth’s Book Club? Let me fill you in.
In case you missed it, this year I chose 24 books to highlight for a “reading club,” two per month. One fiction. One nonfiction. Because that’s what I love to do. Then I write a blog post about those two books at the end of the month. I chose a variety of books, and I realize you might have zero interest in reading some. That’s okay. Read what you want, if you want, before or after I post. My blog post are filled with my Beth-review and takeaways. Nothing fancy. No quizzes. Just reading fun!
Playing catch up? Here’s what you might have missed:
