"Life with a Capital ‘L’"

(Hard copies available from Barb--just ask!)

In Life with a Capital 'L' published by Thomas-Nelson, Nashville, Pine uses story-telling to urge a commitment to seven habits of authenticity : lingering, listening, learning, leaning, loaning, laughing, and leaving.

Being real in a frenetic, whirlwindy sort of life that technology imposes takes deliberateness.

E.E. Cummings said it well, "to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting." It's an 'L' of a job.

Watch this space for excepts from each 'L'

"ZAMBAKARI"

A Story of Strong Sorrows and Staggering Surprises" (yET UNPUBLISHED)

ZAMBAKARI, a Story of Strong Sorrows and Staggering Surprises has all the great storytelling elements – a compelling, persevering protagonist, an extreme complication, dramatic rising action, an unbelievable climax, and ultimate redemption that rises out of African and American hardship.

Hers was a privileged childhood, as privilege goes in a place without phones, power, plumbing, or peace. Her grandfathers were chiefs, her parents, London educated professionals, her training as a midwife was a coveted honor, and her marriage partner was traditionally and admirably selected. But privilege gave way. Prolonged sorrow and hardship swiftly followed.        

Jon Franklin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist wrote, “every deep story involves a subjective person slamming into an objective world.” That perfectly describes the Zambakari narrative. 

I met Arketa eight years after she arrived in America, two years after she received American citizenship and experienced the beating of her life by thieves who broke into her Arizona home. Our friendship leapt over the chasms of differing locations, cultures, economics, age, and race. 

My awareness of generalities dissolved to a specific story. The tragedies of thousands in our world came down to the tragedies of one. ZAMBAKARI is the story of one woman’s harrowing and extraordinary adventure; of our most unlikely friendship and how that made a difference. It is, most joyfully, the story of ultimate triumph, of unifying a family torn apart by one of the century’s most savage, destructive, and unrelenting conflicts.

"This Too Shall Pass ~ Keeping Faith During Tough Times"

By Publications International, Ltd, Pine is one of five contributing poets.

The Power of a Voice
Who was my sorrow for
last week when from my mud-room door
I watched an arrogant mallard drake,
From a wintering-over flock of eight
Fly to my lawn from the salty Sound.
He stumbled, injured,
Right leg strong, left folding down.
I watched that green-headed, curly-tailed drake
Hesitate. Then, heeding a hen's loud call,
He hobbled to corn scattered near a garden wall.
Oh God, I am injured, too
My sorrows slow to mend.
As I turned from the mud-room door,
a call from a favorite friend.  brp