“Stand up from the waist,” the tiny round-faced woman demanded. “Sit on the part of the body God gave you to sit on, and I don’t mean your back!” She always said it with a scowl that she could never hold without breaking into an infectious grin. For more than fifty years I have heard that voice in my head and scooted to the edge of my seat to comply every time. How can anyone pretend to sing slouched in an armchair?

Elise Marshall, my high school music teacher, formed me as a singer. She taught me to use my diaphragm, an open throat and a loose jaw.​

In the days since Black Mountain was released, I have been eagerly watching for reviews. I asked some people ahead of time and lined up several blogs. I have been mentioning them on Facebook, but didn't want to stuff your mailbox every time one went up. So here is a summary. I'd love it if you added your review to those on Amazon.

June 4     Rani's Simple Living  Rani thinks I need to write a book about Nicholas. I'll have to think about that!

June 8.     Book Reviews from an Avid Reader.  Joan likes the research (which I enjoyed very much.) She also says, "What I liked most in this novel is the idea of God redeeming and restoring the life of a repentant person. What a great representation of the life transforming nature of the gospel. I also liked the suspense at the end."

​June 9 International Christian Fiction Writers. Donna Fletcher Crow, author of Glastonbury; A Novel of Christian Britain, interviews me about Black Mountain. She says in her review, "Black Mountain concludes Leanne Hardy’s Glastonbury Grail series with a powerful pilgrimage, both physical and spiritual. Magic and faith, myth and eternal truth intermingle in this novel of the Holy Grail. With the beauty of an epic poem, it presents an allegory of the grace of God."

June 11 History Thru the Ages. This historical Christian fiction site features an article by me on how my Glastonbury Grail series came to be written. It's not too late to comment and enter a drawing for a free copy of Black Mountain.

June 12 History Thru the Ages. An article about how writing was viewed in the 16th century and the "new" 1536 translation of the Bible into English by William Tyndale. Comment again and enter your name in the drawing a second time.

The Lord longs to be gracious to you;
     therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.
For the Lord is a God of justice.
     Blessed are all who wait for him! (Isaiah 30:18)

Compassion and Justice, hand in hand. It is who our God is. Not one or the other, but both together. "Grace and Truth" is how one of his closest friends described him when he came to live with us--Word made flesh, the One and Only come from the Father (John 1:14). 

We are living in difficult times. But they are also exciting times. No, I don't expect to see the Kingdom of heaven in its fulness, coming in the next few months, certainly not by political efforts. But I do hope to see Christians standing for compassion, Christians speaking out for justice, Christians living out grace and truth in an age when it is so much easier to sling mud on the Internet.

“It demonstrates the deep pain of American people of color in an age of one police killing after another,” I wrote in 2016 of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book Between the World and Me. How many more killings have occurred since then? More than I can count. (There appears to be a Washington Post data base of police killings that might answer that question,  but I’m afraid I’m not a subscriber, so I don’t have access.)
Last week we watched in horror the video of a policeman kneeling on a black man’s neck until he died—far longer than necessary to subdue him even if he had been resisting arrest as alleged, which he is definitely not doing in the nine minutes of the video. The huge outpouring of protest in the days that followed show that much of the country agrees with me that until we hold police responsible for their actions, we will not see an end to this racist violence. (Holding a policeman of color responsible for shooting a white woman does nothing to break the cycle.)
​
I’m white. I can’t help that. But I can listen. And listen is what we are called to do in these days. In no way do I condone the the theft of TVs from Target or the trashing of local groceries and pharmacies, but I can hear the frustration that leads someone to pick up a brick and throw it through a window.
Read.
​Listen.
Hear with my heart, not formulating my own defense.
Look through God’s eyes of compassion, justice, and yes, wrath at evil.

Click here to read my 2016 thoughts on my own whiteness and Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book.

I was impressed this week: 

• with the power of peaceful protest; 
• with the presence of so many whites at demonstrations, proclaiming that they too are concerned—even angry—that this kind of thing continues to go on; 
• with those who held back their fellow protesters from slipping over into violence; 
• with police and national guardsmen who spoke out, knelt down, and otherwise identified with the cause of justice;
• with the conciliatory voice of Minnesota Governor Walz who identified with the anger of protesters and invited them to be part of the solution;
• With Governor Walz’s invitation to legislators to bring practical proposals for real change as early as next week—proposals that both parties can agree upon; 
• And that finally charges have been brought.

May this be the tipping point, when all Americans acknowledge the need to deal with systemic racism. George Floyd was not a perfect person; he was flawed like I am. He has been called “a person of peace,” the sort God’s people could work with, who wanted to see real change in his community. I have no doubt he would be honored if his death led to such real change.

My website contains extra information on my books. One thing that I try to include is something about the writing of that book and a writing tip that grows out of the experience. Here are some thoughts on the writing of Black Mountain, the third of my Glastonbury Grail series, out the first of June.

​Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us? (Luke 24:32)

Miriam stole a look at Cleopas. His head was bent. He stared down at the dusty road and forced one foot ahead of the other. At this pace, it would be dark before they reached their home in Emmaus. Did her husband even notice the fresh crisp air that had replaced the moldy smells of winter? 

​My husband has been going stir crazy ever since the drought of TV sports began, eager to go somewhere. Anywhere!  We cancelled last week's trip to Baltimore to see our daughter and family. In April we intended to return to where we used to live in Brazil for a wedding. We won’t be going. We hadn’t planned a road trip to Montana, but that’s where we went. 
​
In February my mother-in-law flew out to see her daughter’s family an hour south of Seattle for a birthday and a couple concerts. (Hey! This is a musical family. We’re very supportive of one another’s performances.)

​When I tried to call the airline Wednesday evening after cases of Covid 19 were reported in our daughter’s county and she knew someone with symptoms, the wait to talk to a person was 4+ hours. I’m an early riser so I figured calling at 6 AM would beat the crowd. Wait time only 2+ hours. But at least I would be awake 2+ hours later, and they have a system where you can leave your number and they call you back. In the end they forgave our non-refundable tickets without question. I’m grateful to Delta Airlines who is no doubt taking a huge hit this week.

So how do we pray in the midst of a situation like this?