Bumblebee Shadows and Book Titles

Writing with COVID

Welcome to my newest readers, fellow bibliophiles, and educators!

As light from the east peeked over my neighbor’s rooftop, the movement of a bumblebee caught my eye. Busy with his breakfast, he swung up and down on my Russian sage, his round body casting a shadow on the gravel path in my garden.

My husband and I both contracted COVID two weeks ago, and I missed almost a week of work. During days of fevers and aches, walking through my garden was the most activity I could handle. It may be a tiny part of this world, but shadow and movement in my garden tell tiny stories at the end of the growing season, stories of black-eyed Susan vine creating seeds pods, the final round of swallowtail caterpillars decimating my parsley patch, dark knight coreopsis in its only month of bloom as other perennials lay in weariness after a hard summer’s work.

black-eyed Susan vine

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My mind was not full of work or the next thing I needed to tackle. It was still, a stillness Gracy Olmstead wrote about last week as her Annie Dillard book club came to a close. Stillness can bring attention, a skill we all need more of.

It reminds me of Plutarch in the first century as he offers advice and admonition to young men in “On Listening to Lectures.”

Silence is a safe adornment for the young man, and especially so, when in listening to another he does not get excited or bawl out every minute.

Yes, Plutarch speaks about how to listen and what to listen for, but he also encourages these young bucks to attend. It’s an active choice whether you like a speaker or not. “Give your respect and attention,” Plutarch says. “And ask what good you can find.

And I have found some good in my time at home. I finished writing a book review I began nearly a month ago, a book on public school teacher training. Yes, public and classical educators may see education differently, but what if there was a bridge? What good would I find there? Could classical Christian educators learn from training designed for an urban charter network? My thanks to Paul Weinhold of ClassicalEd Review who was willing to cross that bridge with me. Read more at Love & Literacy

The final chapters burst with helps of every kind. The examples, passages, and questions are beyond valuable, especially to unseasoned teachers who need modeling in how to teach close reading skills and how to lead productive discussions.

On My Desk

For the past month I’ve been sharing about the book proposal I’m crafting. If you’re new to my letter, I am honing the idea that our life in Christ is like the tenacity of the sycamore fig tree and how its fruit comes to maturity.

Two weeks ago I offered a poll with different book title choices. Thank you, voters! The clear winner is . . . The Humble Fig: Biblical Botany and Scriptural Truths! It is now on page 1 of my book proposal as the working title.

For a nonfiction book proposal, a list of recent comparable titles comes next. Publishing houses want to see what has sold, where your book might fit, and what is unique about it. This list has taken me a literal year to figure out:

1. Taste and See: Discovering God among Butchers, Bakers, & Fresh Food Makers, Margaret Feinberg, Zondervan (2019). Feinberg passionately combines memoir, food travel, and biblical narrative with the bonus of immediate recipes. The Humble Fig also includes biblical narrative along with archaeology and botany to illustrate spiritual lessons.

2. The Soul of Wine: Savoring the Goodness of God, Gisela H. Kreglinger, InterVarsity Press (2019). Using her family’s heritage as vintners, Kreglinger examines biblical parallels in Jewish and Christian traditions in church history. She weighs varied perspectives about drinking wine against scriptural context. The Soul of Wine centers on wine physically and symbolically, a single commodity, as does The Humble Fig.

3. Plants of the Bible, Harold N. Moldenke and Alma L. Moldenke, (2019). The Moldenkes’ exhaustive plant encyclopedia from the 1950s was recently reprinted. Like their plant entries, The Humble Fig provides ancient historical narrative about the fig both as fruit and tree, including Greek and Hebrew etymology.

4. Trees, Fruits, and Flowers of the Bible: A Guide for Bible Readers and Naturalists, Peter Goodfellow, John Beaufoy Publishing (2022). From a biblical narrative, Goodfellow traces the geography and topography of ancient Israel as he explains the importance and meaning of biblical botany. A true guide, it is filled with vivid botanical drawings with brief entries. The Humble Fig expands upon a single entry, drawing on more than 400 mentions in the Bible.

5. Reforesting Faith: What Trees Teach Us About the Nature of God and His Love for Us, Matthew Sleeth, Waterbrook (2021). Sleeth weaves his testimony of coming to Christ with his love of trees. He traces when and why trees are mentioned in the Bible and how God designed them to illustrate His love for us. The Humble Fig outlines the biblical history and botany of the sycamore fig tree and how its fruit comes to maturity to parallel our life in Christ.

So, what do you think? Does reading this list make you think of another book I should look at?

Do comment or feel free to email me. And don't forget that the List Library at my website is always available to you, my readers.

Christine