Lisa notes

Jeff and I saw this monument “Guns into Plowshares” in Harrisonburg, Virginia, on our way to Washington, D.C. last fall. It’s a large plow blade made in 1995 by Mennonite artist Esther Augsburger and her son Michael from 3,000 confiscated guns collected by the D.C. police department in an amnesty program.

It was moved from Washington, D.C., to Eastern Mennonite University in 2017, where it now resides.

I’m not anti-gun. I’m married to a hunter. We have guns in our house, safely secured.

But I am also pro-common sense gun laws.

And we don’t have enough of these, especially in my state of Alabama.

Our gun safety laws are among the worst in the nation.

So it’s not surprising that Alabama is #5 in the nation for firearm death rates (as of 2021 statistics), behind only Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico and Wyoming. Our gun homicide rate now even outpaces our suicide rate. (In most states, gun suicides are greater than gun homicides.)

We have been better at protecting guns than protecting people.
– Shane Claiborne

Gun violence disturbs all of us.

This book, Beating Guns: Hope for People Who Are Weary of Violence by Shane Claiborne and Michael Martin, shows how gun violence is both a heart problem AND a gun problem.

There is a way to slow down our gun violence problem in America. But are we willing to take it?

Claiborne and Martin write from a Christian perspective in this book, but you don’t have to be a Christian to benefit from the truths they share.

“Some will say, ‘All we can do is pray.’ That’s a lie.
We can pray, and we must pray. Gun violence is spiritual.
But we can do more than pray. We can organize. We can dialogue. We can boycott and keep vigil. We can write letters and make phone calls and go to jail for nonviolent civil disobedience. Gun violence is social and political and economic; it is also a moral issue.”

Beating Guns is full of statistics that reveal just how extensive our problem has been for many years.

• America has as many guns as people.
• More Americans have died from guns in the last 50 years than in all the wars we’ve been in.
• Americans own almost half the world’s guns, yet we are less than 5% of the world’s population.
• America’s biggest gun problem is suicide.

I recommend Beating Guns to anybody concerned about gun violence and wanting to make a change.

I also recommend joining or donating to your local chapter of Moms Demand Action, a non-partisan grassroots organization for all women and all men dedicated to ending gun violence.

Quotes from 

“The Golden Rule—do to others what you would have them do to you—is a greater commandment than the Second Amendment.”

~ * ~

“A gun is much more likely to be used in a suicide, a domestic homicide, or an accidental shooting than it is to be used to ward off a criminal.”

~ * ~

“The Jesus I worship carried a cross. Jesus did not tell us to kill our enemies; he told us to love them.”

~ * ~

“When Jesus said to love your enemies, isn’t it safe to assume he meant that we shouldn’t kill them?”

~ * ~

“We have been better at protecting guns than protecting people.”

~ * ~

“Every human is created in the image of God. We have love in our DNA. There is something in almost every person that recognizes that killing is wrong.”

If you also have guns in your homes, make sure they are safely secured. Did you know that 4.6 million American children live in homes with guns that are both loaded and unlocked? Get great advice here on how to safely store your firearms.

Have you lost anyone to gun violence, either homicide or suicide? Share your thoughts in the comments. 

You are on Day #20 of the series, A Book a Day {Nonfiction Favorites}.

Each day of February 2023 I’m recommending one book a day from favorite nonfiction books I’ve recently read.

The Table of Contents for all 28 books is here, updated daily.

Previous:
“Stories I Only Tell My Friends” {Book 19}

Next:
“How to Human” {Book 21}

As a young girl, I fell hard for Rob Lowe. Maybe first in St. Elmo’s Fire? Then I grew up and realized he’s just a person like every other person with his own set of problems. 

But when I heard he’d written an autobiography—and I kept hearing it was good—I wanted to catch up on him again. Not as a star, but as a very interesting person who’s had a very interesting life.

I don’t read many celebrity memoirs, but I am often delightfully surprised when I do. That’s what happened to me with this one, Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe.

I actually listened to it as an audiobook, read by Rob Lowe himself. His stories were fascinating and Lowe was very humble in the telling of them.

In the end, even though our experiences may vary wildly, our basic humanity is more alike than different.

Quotes from Stories I Only Tell My Friends 

“I followed my heart and stayed out of the results.”

~ * ~

“So I came to the realization: Nothing in life is unfair. It’s just life.”

~ * ~

“I’ve learned to only concern myself with my end of any transaction. I do the best job I can and then let the results be what they will. I am out of the people-pleasing business.”

~ * ~

“If you can’t get honest with yourself, if you can’t look yourself in the mirror, no matter how much money they pay you, or how much you are lauded, you are literally putting your life at risk.”

~ * ~

“Anyone can run a career when the going is good. But it’s in the down times, the quiet times, that long-term careers are really made. You need to find ways to stay in the conversation, to be current and to reinvent yourself.”

~ * ~

“You can’t build a life on a backstage pass or free swag at Sundance.”

~ * ~

“The best part is not the biggest, it’s the one that’s most memorable.”

What celebrity memoir would you recommend? I also recommend Bruce Springsteen’s memoir, Born to Run. Share in the comments. 

You are on Day #19 of the series, A Book a Day {Nonfiction Favorites}.

Previous:
“I Take My Coffee Black” {Book 18}

Next:
“Beating Guns” {Book 20}

You might know Tyler Merritt from his Instagram account. Or his viral video “Before You Call the Cops.” (Haven’t seen it yet? Watch it here.) Or maybe now as the boyfriend of Jen Hatmaker.

However you know him—or even if you don’t know him at all—listen to Tyler’s bottom line message:

Get close enough. To see each other. To hear each other. To love each other.

I’ve been rereading my notes from Tyler Merritt’s book, I Take My Coffee Black: Reflections on Tupac, Musical Theater, Faith, and Being Black in America. (Tyler is also an actor, entrepreneur, social activitist, and a Youtuber.)

Tyler says:

“Proximity for the win. Because proximity breeds empathy. And with empathy, humanity has a fighting chance.”

There are some things we can’t just phone in. We need to get near each other in space and time.

Who can you show up for today?

3 Excerpts from I Take My Coffee Black 

“I was thinking that maybe if you got to know me, you wouldn’t be frightened. Or better yet, maybe you’d see that we have more in common than you thought.

Or at the very least, the next time a six-foot-two black man comes near, you might think to yourself: ‘Maybe he’s listening to Bring It On: The Musical.’

And maybe we’d grab a cup of coffee, and you and I could laugh about it. Because I think you’d like me if you took some time to get to know me.”

~ * ~

“Because I’ve been black all my life, and that happens so much, you think maybe by now I’d be used to it. But I’m not. It still hurts.

Why did that couple that was jogging smile at me, when this lady in the blue-and-white older-model Ford truck got so scared? I don’t know. I was only a few feet away from her, but the separation was immense. Worlds apart.

If she would just get close enough to really talk and really see me, I bet we’d realize we have so much in common. So much. Like you and me.”

~ * ~

“And I would hope that if things got tough for me… Maybe really tough… Maybe because of the color of my skin… Maybe because some people don’t see me as a real person because of my melanin… It’s my hope that you’d stand.

And that you would say. In a loud and clear voice. Stop. I know that man. He’s a mix of the good and the bad, for sure. But I know him. And he’s my brother.

I hope that you’d stand with me. You better believe that I would stand for you. That’s what I hope for, that somehow by sitting across from each other, we’d end up side by side.”

Who are you near today? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Read More:

• What Is a Normal Reaction to Being Falsely Accused? Review of I Take My Coffee Black

You are on Day #18 of the series, A Book a Day {Nonfiction Favorites}.

Previous:
“The Book of Joy” {Book 17}

Next:
“Stories I Only Tell My Friends” {Book 19}

Do you see the glass half-full or half-empty?

I can’t vouch for other countries, but in the U.S., our culture tends to celebrate the half-full crowd and feel sorry for the half-empty folks.

But is there a downside to always thinking positively?

In this intriguing book, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, the late Barbara Ehrenreich (she recently died from a stroke in September 2022) writes that positive thinking is a “mass delusion” that we need to recover from.

When Ehrenreich was diagnosed with breast cancer, she was immediately plunged into the world of positive thinking. She was told by some that cancer isn’t a problem at all, but “a gift, deserving of the most heartfelt gratitude.” She said it was enough to make you “want to go out and get an injection of live cancer cells.”

But while having a cheery attitude might make you easier to be around (maybe?), this sugar-coating of real-life problems such as cancer can be dangerous.

• Constant positivity can cause us to deny reality, preventing us from taking action when it’s needed.
• It can cause us to squash other genuine emotions, such as anger and frustration.
• It can cause us to blame ourselves (or our faith or our God) for not being positive enough if the healing doesn’t occur (in which case you are encouraged to think even more positively).

According to Ehrenreich, “The failure to think positively can weigh on a cancer patient like a second disease.”

This book is about more than just cancer diagnoses though.

Ehrenreich walks you through many ways that positive thinking is becoming an obligation we impose on each other.

But is the antidote to embrace despair instead? No. Ehrenreich says,

“In fact, negative thinking can be just as delusional as the positive kind.”

The sweet spot? Ehrenreich doesn’t clearly define one. But she does strongly suggest that instead of acquiring only the skills of positive thinking, we should be highlighting the skills of critical thinking. Raise better questions, even if they’re uncomfortable.

But the book isn’t a downer.

Actually it might help you feel better.

3 Excerpts from Bright-Sided

“Breast cancer, I can now report, did not make me prettier or stronger, more feminine or spiritual. What it gave me, if you want to call this a ‘gift,’ was a very personal, agonizing encounter with an ideological force in American culture that I had not been aware of before—one that encourages us to deny reality, submit cheerfully to misfortune, and blame only ourselves for our fate.”

~ * ~

“Sometimes we need to heed our fears and negative thoughts, and at all times we need to be alert to the world outside ourselves, even when that includes absorbing bad news and entertaining the views of ‘negative’ people.”

~ * ~

“We cannot levitate ourselves into that blessed condition by wishing it. We need to brace ourselves for a struggle against terrifying obstacles, both of our own making and imposed by the natural world. And the first step is to recover from the mass delusion that is positive thinking.”

Are you a half-full or half-empty type? Share your thoughts.

You are on Day #16 of the series, A Book a Day {Nonfiction Favorites}.

Each day of February 2023 I’m recommending one book a day from favorite nonfiction books I’ve recently read.

The Table of Contents for all 28 books is here, updated daily.

Previous:
“No Time Like the Present” {Book 15}

Next:
“The Book of Joy” {Book 17}