Blessed: Living a Grateful Life

By Ellen Michaud


New York, Best You from Reader’s Digest, 2011

175 pages Spiritual

Yesterday I had the day to myself, something that hasn’t happened for several months. I just let the work pile up, and I spent much of the day nurturing myself by reading the lovely little book, Blessed, a series of meditations on celebrating the blessings of our lives. I checked out the daffodils shooting up on the lawn, watched a pair of squabbling blue jays at the bird feeder, and executed a nice supper for my husband and son. A day of small blessings.

Ellen Michaud suggests that these small blessings are the “whispers of God.” She says in a video on her website that she hopes that her essays would be beams of “beautiful light that I could throw into the world.”

Many of the small blessings she celebrates come from living in a cottage near Lake Champlain in Vermont, where she works as a writer and has become a master gardener. She has quite consciously settled in to a rural life attuned to the rhythm of nature. She gardens, walks the dog, cans applesauce and salsa, tends to the neighborhood church, and visits the ubiquitous Vermont country stores.

One section of the books celebrates the lives of women who have taken on causes and work tirelessly to make life better for others. Several more of these essays concern women as caregivers, purveyors of casseroles and solace. I believe most of these essays come from her affiliation with Curves, the nationwide chain of fitness studios. While these were nice essays, I was more touched by the stories of daily life that fill the rest of the book.

I found solace in the short essays because in so many ways, they were echoes of my life, and I would guess, the lives of other readers. If I were the keeper of a journal, I would be writing about many of the same things. These small blessings are a part of all of our lives; we just don’t take the time to celebrate them. After a chapter on making apple pies, I made a note to remember the blueberry pie I made with my 8-year-old granddaughter Isabela this week. It was her spring vacation, and so she spent the afternoon with me. Her only wish was to make a blueberry pie. Another chapter mentioned a winter storm and reminded me of the three days we spent without electricity or heat in February and how my husband and I sat in front of the fireplace, played cribbage, and celebrated having nothing compelling to do.

I have read two similar books in the last year—The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. All these books urge the reader to settle down, breathe, and feel the blessings that surge around us. I find it fascinating that we have to be told to do this; giving thanks and feeling blessed should just be a part of our daily lives. What has happened to us that we have to be reminded to breathe?

Without preaching or being overtly religious, Ellen Michaud’s little book, Blessed, gives us insight into the small things of life worth celebrating. As she says at the end of most of the essays, “We are blessed.”

Here is a sample of her work as it appears in NJ.com: http://www.nj.com/homegarden/index.ssf/2011/03/author_ellen_michaud_writes_on.html

A nice blog review: http://printsofgrace.blogspot.com/2011/03/blessed-living-grateful-life.html

Ellen Michaud’s website: Her website: http://www.theblessedblog.com/

I received this book from the book’s publicist as an Advanced Reader’s Copy. It will go into my church library next week.

Thrift Store Saints: Meeting Jesus 25¢ at a Time

By Jane Knuth


Chicago, Loyola Press, 2010

160 p.    Spiritual

Today I am preparing a talk on books about discipleship for a group of women from my church. I had included two books that I read last year, Jesus Freak by Sara Miles and Things Seen and Unseen by Nora Gallagher. I bought Thrift Store Saints by local Kalamazoo author Jane Knuth to help fill out the book talk and was also including A Monk in the Inner City by Mary Lou Kownacki, which I have yet to read. I had planned to just introduce Thrift Store Saints, so I sat down to read a bit to get the flavor of the book, and I ended reading it all in one sitting. This is a truly insightful and inspiring book.

Jane Knuth became a rather reluctant volunteer at the St. Vincent de Paul Society thrift shop in Kalamazoo more than fifteen years ago. The store operates as a regular charity thrift shop, taking in castoffs, selling or giving them away, and using the proceeds to help people with rent, heat bills, food, or other necessities. As her experience broadened, she began to realize several things: that she was changing and that her perception of the poor was changing as well. “After more than a year working at the St. Vincent de Paul shop, I still keep looking for “the deserving poor”—the innocent ones who are blatant victims of in justice and hard luck. I want to help them and no one else. From what I can see, apart from children, most poor people’s situations seem to stem from a mixture of uncontrollable circumstances, luck, and their own decisions. Same as my situation.”

In a discussion with a friend, Jane discovers the definition of what it means to be charitable. Her friend thinks that there are three kinds of charity: the “recyclable” type where you give away what you don’t want or need anymore; the “sharing” type where you give some of your resources or money to help those in need; and the third type is where you give more than you can afford for the sake of someone else. This explanation resounded with me. Sometimes giving is easy. Sometimes it is the hardest thing we do, because it is filled with our own sacrifice.

Thrift Store Saints is full of stories of the people who work at the thrift store, the people who shop at the thrift store, and the people who receive the proceeds from the store. The book is agonizingly true and poignant, while at the same time, funny and perceptive. Jane Knuth finds that the people with whom she comes in contact have as much or more to offer her as she has to offer them. Growth comes both ways.

Mary Lou Kownacki says about her soup kitchen ministry in Monk in the Inner City, “The question is not whether the soup kitchen has changed things, made a difference, brought justice to the city’s poor. The real question is have we changed? After thirty years, have we become kinder, more merciful, less judgmental? Do we continue feeding the poor because we want to see the fruits of our efforts? Or do we continue serving soup because we love? And do we love enough not to give up on anything or anyone?” Jane Knuth and her thrift store saints would add their “Amen” to that.

Review in the Kalamazoo Gazette:

http://www.mlive.com/living/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2010/09/stories_of_thrift_store_saints.html

Jane Knuth's blog: http://thriftstoresaints.com/