Pauline's Bookshelf: Stepping Heavenward

I'd use book covers for these posts, but copyright law is kind of convoluted and I don't want a DCMA notice.

Stepping Heavenward was a lovely read! It’s a fictional diary by Elizabeth Prentiss, following the life of a girl named Katherine Mortimer. One of my mentors gave it to me during a phase I went through where I was rather caught up in trivial worries of this world. In my journal I wrote of it, “This book is such an encouragement! A delightful breath of air, relieving such a sense of suffocation – and I have only reached chapter seven.” Part of this “sense of suffocation” came from being mired in the filth of some exceedingly worldly books I was attempting to analyze. When a Christian is entrenched in a field of godless thinking, they can only feel suffocated and depressed – which is what happened to me.

Now that you know where I was when I started reading Stepping Heavenward, let me tell you some of my favorite parts of the book!

My first realization that I would enjoy this read came when I saw the frivolity and impulsivity of the protagonist, sixteen-year-old Katherine Mortimer, or Katy. (“How dreadfully old I am getting! Sixteen!”) Though Katy is a fictional character, she is more genuine than some girls I know, including myself. This book is set in the 1830s-1850s, but young Katy has much in common with teenage girls of today: a tendency to oversleep, a fierce devotion to her BFF, and even a messy bun as her go-to lazy hairdo. I didn’t know messy buns were a thing back then!

But aside from her lighthearted thoughts (or “levity,” as she would call it – this book was published in the 1800s, after all), young Katy also struggles with how to live the Christian life. She promises herself she’ll pray more, control her temper, and exercise the discipline of self-denial, but this doesn’t work and she constantly berates herself for her failings. After an honest conversation with her pastor, Dr. Cabot, in which Katy admits she doesn’t know if she loves God or not, she still doesn’t have all the answers. And that is okay. Many people who grew up in Christian homes could relate to this conversation – when one has been raised by judicious Christian parents, says Dr. Cabot, one cannot identify a turning point in their lives in which they turned to God. “The question is not whether you ever gave yourself to God, but whether you are His now.”

I know what this is like. When I was eleven, I thought I wasn’t saved because I never recited that prayer that’s always printed on tracts. So I snagged a friend at church and asked her to lead me through it. Looking back, I don’t think I understood anything at all! I didn’t truly fall in love with Jesus until I was fourteen and had read Authentic Beauty by Leslie Ludy, which presented our Lord in an intensely personal way.

As Katy comes to the same understanding I found, her joy fills the pages. But she has to learn contentment by the only means possible: sorrow. The loss of family and friends, a broken engagement, and poor health give Katy plenty of reason to mourn – and to seek out her Savior. The journal spans twenty-seven years and ends on an overwhelmingly enraptured tone in the midst of chronic illness: “Yes, I love everybody! That crowning joy has come to me at last. Christ is in my soul; He is mine; I am as conscious of it as that my husband and children are mine; and His Spirit flows forth from mine in the calm peace of a river whose banks are green with grass and glad with flowers. If I die, it will be to leave a wearied and worn body and a sinful soul to go joyfully to be with Christ, to weary and to sin no more. If I live, I shall find much blessed work to do for Him. So living or dying, I shall be the Lord’s.”

True to the style of the era, the writing is verbose and decidedly untweetable, but I’ll try to pick the more succinct of my favorite lines:

“[Mother says] I am growing careless about my hair and my dress. But that is because my mind is so full of graver, more important things. I thought I ought to be wholly occupied with my duty to God. But Mother says duty to God includes duty to one’s neighbor and that untidy hair, put up in all sorts of rough bunches, rumpled cuffs and collars, and all that sort of thing make one offensive to all one meets.” (Chapter IV)

 “Moral – Mothers occasionally know more than their daughters do.” (Chapter V)

“Duty looks more repelling at a distance than when fairly faced and met.” (Chapter VI)

“It is not optional with God’s children whether they will pay Him a part of the price they owe Him and keep back the rest. He asks, and He has a right to ask, for all you have and all you are.” (Chapter VI)

“One need not be fanatical in order to be religious.” (Chapter VII)

“The only true way to live in this world, constituted just as we are, is to make all our employments subserve the one great end and aim of existence, namely, to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” (Chapter VII)

Many of my favorite quotes are from the earlier chapters of the book, when Katy is around my age and I relate most to her then. Later chapters tell of her dealings with the disappointments in married life, difficult in-laws, and lessons learned in the crucible of motherhood – all things I have yet to experience, but I hope that the truths presented here will help me prepare myself for my future.

I give this book six out of five stars and recommend it to anyone struggling with how to live in a heaven-minded manner while dealing with earthly suffering.

Pauline's Bookshelf: The Hidden Art of Homemaking

I can only wish my bookshelf looked like this.

I really didn't want to read this book.

I'm no feminist, but..."homemaking"? Geez. This is 2016, people.

Nonetheless, I saw it on my best friend's bookshelf. I'd heard of it before, and my friend said it was good, so I borrowed it.

It sat on my dresser, untouched, for a few months. This book is probably full of stuff like how to tidy your house and how to cook food and how to sew your own clothes. (Never mind that I browse that kind of stuff on Pinterest. All. The. Time.)

Finally, one day, I looked at it and thought, "Aw, what the heck. I need to get it over with. Who says I should only read things that appeal to me?"

I am so glad I read it!

The Hidden Art of Homemaking by Edith Schaffer was much more enlightening, relatable, and relevant than I expected. I don't recall anything about cleaning house, actually - it's all about enriching one's home with creative living, or "hidden art," as Schaffer calls it.

I thought it would be written entirely to women, but Shaffer occasionally addresses men directly as well, since the principles apply to both genders. "It is true that all men are created in the image of God, but Christians are supposed to be conscious of that fact, and being conscious of it should recognize the importance of living artistically, aesthetically, and creatively, as creative creatures of the Creator."

Even more, I was surprised when Shaffer called out young women who were waiting for a husband to come along before they would make the effort to express themselves: "If you *stop* putting off homemaking until your hope of marriage develops into a reality, and *start* to develop an interesting home right now, it seems to me two things will happen: first, you will develop into the person you could be as you surround yourself with things that express your own tastes and ideas; and second, as you relax and become interested in areas of creativity, you will develop into a more interesting person to be with." And I had come to this book thinking it would be a manual for young married women to establish their household. I'm really glad I'm wrong. We need more of this sort of sensibility in the world!

Shaffer's book has 14 chapters on topics ranging from gardening, to food, even to the environment and conservation. It's hard for me to pick my favorite chapters, because I learned something new in all of them, but those three in particular stood out. I especially love what she said in the chapter on food: "Food cannot take care of spiritual, psychological and emotional problems, but the feeling of being loved and cared for, the actual comfort of the beauty and flavour of food, the increase of blood sugar and physical well-being, help one to go on during the next hours better equipped to meet the problems."

What I realized is that my notion of homemaking involved chores - sweeping, dusting, dishes. But these are merely housekeeping - maintaining a state of order. Making a home is an entirely different matter. A hospital is in an excellent state of order and cleanliness (hopefully), but I don't think I'd ever feel at home in one.

Making a home is allowing your living space to express who you are. I've grown up with a lot of clutter, which I guess is why I didn't always feel like I was at home - there were too many things I clung to that did not express who I was, and I often felt like I needed to go somewhere else to express myself. The Hidden Art of Homemaking helped me understand what I needed to do: get rid of things I don't use or want, and learn to express my creativity in the comforts of my own home.

The old Pauline: "I'm going to hang on to this tub of yarn in case I ever learn how to knit. I'm going to hang on to these markers because they could come in handy. I'm going to hang on to these old clothes I don't really like because...because, um...I don't care if they get dirty doing farm work."

The new Pauline: "I have had this yarn since I was a child and I have never learned how to knit - I'd rather be designing dresses and learning to sew! I don't ever color with these markers - pencil is the medium I'm familiar with, and watercolors are the medium I'm interested in. Why should I do farm work in ugly clothes? I can at least choose sturdy clothes that I like to wear."

(The exception to the ugly work clothes rule is if I work on my car. Then it's jeans and an old shirt!)

"It seems to me that whether it is recognized or not, there is a terrific frustration which increases in intensity and harmfulness as time goes on, when people are always daydreaming of the kind of place in which they would like to live, yet never making the place where they do live into anything artistically satisfying to them. Always to dream of a cottage by a brook while never doing anything to the stuffy house in the city is to waste creativity in this very basic area, and to hinder future creativity by not allowing it to grow and develop through use."

I would recommend this book to anyone who feels stifled in our fast-paced, prepackaged, screen-infused world.