Leanne Shawler, Artist

After having seen recommendations for Micha Boyett’s “found: a story of questions, grace & everyday prayer” on various blogs, I checked it out and put it on my wish list. I wasn’t quite sure as it seemed to be another new mother in search of God story. As someone who doesn’t have children, nor never will, new motherhood non-fiction isn’t exactly something that grabs me. (This is putting it mildly. The original rant went more like: "why are all these books about motherhood?!”) However, my Mum saw it on my wish list and sent it to me and I’m glad she did. You see, while she equates motherhood with the rhythm of a monk’s life, I quickly realized that all I had to do was replace “new baby” with “full time job” and it was then I could fully enter into her writing. So much so that I finished it in one day while on retreat — and that’s with three naps throughout the day. Her book got me thinking about rebalancing my life: not letting work consume, not falling back...

When Christine Valters-Paintner from Abbey of the Arts asked for volunteers for her blog tour, I signed up. I don’t do book reviews unless it’s something I just happen to have picked up and really really want to share with the world, but as I was halfway through one of her previous books, “The Artist’s Rule” I wanted to review “Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice” .  I received a Kindle copy of this book in exchange for my honest review, which as I use Kindle on my iPhone probably wasn’t the best format. Perhaps because what I had was a review copy, there were some formatting issues throughout with the subtitles and quotes. But I knew agreeing to review this book was the right idea when I read the section on “The Art of Beholding” in Chapter 1. One of my words for this year is “behold” (the other is “abide”). In this book, I learned about my word in a way that will reinvigorate my exploration of “behold”. I am not much of a photogr...