This week also marks our 41st wedding anniversary, which we plan to celebrate in Chicago. Last year I blogged about 40 years with 20 suggestions for newlyweds. Since that time, both children have married, and we have enjoyed their weddings and our vacations together to the max. We are deeply grateful for the way our own life stories are woven together.

This blog was begun as a way to encourage reflection on the joys, pains, challenges, and opportunities of memoir and memoir writing. After two years, it has achieved many of its aims, including the aim of creating good memoir lists as a resource for others and reading at least 100 memoirs. We’ll see what next year’s memoir journey brings. Stay tuned!

Anthony, Chelsea, Kate, Nik, 2010

It occurred to me, as I was returning from my third trip to NYC last week, that perhaps I have been around the world (24, 901 miles) in the last 80 days. Using rough estimates of round-trip mileage, it appears that I can claim Jules Verne’s title if not his characters’ adventures: Here were my trips since September:

1. NYC Sept. 10-13

2. Vancouver Sept. 24-28

3. Los Angeles Oct. 9-11

4. Tulsa Oct 15-17

5. NYC Oct. 22-26

6. Prague Nov. 9-15

7. NYC Nov. 19-20

8. Pittsburgh Nov 25-28

Travel extends the mind’s eye like no other experience, even the “frigate” of a book, to borrow Emily Dickinson’s phrase.  When outer journeys lead to inner journeys and inner ones extend out into the world, growth happens. Does the “inner imprint” of growth justify the outer impact of a big “carbon footprint”? I can’t claim that it does. I feel an obligation to the earth to become a better person if I expend the personal and business expense (not just in dollars but in time and carbon also) of travel.

One way to make travel worthwhile is to “ponder it in the heart,” which is one reason I value blogging.  Already readers of 100Memoirs.com have learned about the wedding trip in September to NYC.  And along the way Stuart and I have shared on FaceBook a number of slideshows intended to be “frigates” for friends and readers who are interested in either the places we visit or our experiences of those places.

For now, I will simply offer you links to slideshows and then ask you to share your own reflections on travel and self-exploration.

Wedding weekend slideshow:  New York, Sept.

Vancouver Peace Summit/Fetzer Prize for Love and Forgiveness to Archbishop Tutu and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Second slideshow featuring Vancouver.

Tulsa, OK, weekend with our new daughter-in-law Chelsea’s family.

Combo slide show of LA, Tulsa, and NYC-all October weekend trips.

Personal/business trip to New York with Anthony,Chelsea, Bill Moyers, Judith Moyers, Judy Collins

Prague business (for me) and personal (for Stuart with me squeezing in a little tourist time also)

NYC quick business trip to see Karen Armstrong at TED headquarters. No slides.

Pittsburgh. Slides will follow.

Stuart traveled to Lithuania right before I went to Vancouver. Here are his pictures from that trip.

Between the two of us we may have circumnavigated the world twice in the last 80 days. We feel blessed and stretched. And obligated to you and to the rest of the world. Travel is a great privilege. We hope to settle down for a few weeks in the Advent season and “ponder these things in our hearts.”

What have you learned from your own travel? What would you like to know about the trips described above?

Our son Anthony and our new daughter-in-law Chelsea were married September 12 at All Souls Unitarian Church in Manhattan. It’s time to share more of the story that has been unfolding here since they announced their engagement. I described the synchronicity in their meeting–their origin story involving Forrest Church and Match.com here.  And I described the Vaughn family tradition of rhyming poems as toasts here. So the first thing several people asked when I returned was, “How did the toast go?”

Well, we changed our plan. FaceBook friends had some helpful advice when I asked for suggestions on giving toasts. We thought of doing a sonnet but gave up that idea.  For one thing, neither Stuart nor I had ever written a sonnet of any merit. For another, poems were a Vaughn family tradition, not a Showalter tradition.

So we wrote a short dialogue as our toast. Here it is.

Toast, September 12, 2009

Stuart – We join with Kate in thanking the Vaughn family for making this day so special.

Anthony, early-on there was something in your laid-back, easy-going disposition that led me to give you a nickname: “Son-Shine.”

Shirley—I loved that name. And I loved watching the two of you together. Once, Anthony, when Dad was taking you for a bike ride down the street, and I was looking at both of you receding in the distance, I burst out laughing. It was like, “Honey, I shrunk the kid.” The little Stuart looked so much like the big one.

Stuart – But you, Anthony, are no clone of me. You have grown into your own man. You are an entrepreneur — now a social entrepreneur — using your considerable problem-solving skills and technology expertise to help other people. Anthony, we are proud of you and we love you.

Shirley – And we are so delighted that you found, courted, and are now married to Chelsea. Your love for her has returned the spring to your step and the light to your eyes. You did not make the marriage decision lightly, but you have made this commitment today with a level of wisdom, humility, and maturity that we honor and appreciate.

And Chelsea, your warmth, intelligence, curiosity, and courage charmed us from the beginning. Your spirit is deep and wide—and all of us Showalters can use a good dose of your incredible organizing skills. Chelsea, we love you.

Stuart – Chelsea, we treasure you as our new daughter and Kate’s new sister. You have our son, and, hence, you have our sonshine. Here’s to a long, fulfilling, and joyful life together.

Toasts are not a Mennonite tradition, since most Mennonites of our generation and earlier were, or are, teetotalers. But for one who loves life stories–memoir!–toasts are wonderful.  We heard about Chelsea the straight -A student with the best science project on seashells ever–and her brother coming after her who claims he had the worst ever. We heard about Anthony the quiet one in the room who somehow makes it safe for others to reveal more about their inner lives than they expected to do. From Anthony’s sister Kate there was the story of watching the Frugal Gourmet and then experimenting in the kitchen afterward–along with encouragement to keep on taking risks in life and in cooking. Chelsea’s sister Vanessa encouraged the newlyweds to learn from their parents, and her parents capped off the toasting with a rollicking rhyme fest that brought the house down.

Here are two slideshows that only take a few minutes to watch and tell more of the wedding story. The first one (photos I took) depicts what went on behind the scenes.  The second slideshow, with much better photographs (including the ones in this blog post) taken by photographer Lowell Brown  shows the wedding and reception itself.

Nothing compares to the joy one feels when one’s children are deeply happy.  As Stuart and I walked Anthony down the aisle moments before the Vaughns escorted Chelsea, all hearts were full. The members of this wedding have pledged themselves to support this marriage. The hearty “we will!” that came from the congregation was the best toast of all.

What memories of weddings or toasts do you have to share? Any words of encouragement or advice for the bride and groom–or for their parents?

Harvest is a good theme for all summers, but perhaps especially for the summer of 2009 in our lives. We celebrated 40 years of marriage and reflected on what we learned here. We helped prepare both of our children for their weddings, and now we are only a week away from the celebration of Anthony and Chelsea and only eight months away from the date Kate and Nik have set, May 1. Weddings celebrate the harvest of investments families and friends have made in their children and in the hope of future generations.

Institutions enjoy harvest seasons also. At Goshen College, where Stuart and I served together for 28 years, and where I was president for the last 8 of those years, harvest comes twice a year–at graduation in May and in the welcoming of the new class in August. The new “crop” of students at GC was large and enthusiastic this year to the delight of many.

President Jim Brenneman’s wonderful opening convocation address, which you can read here, focused on Healing the World Peace by Peace. President Brenneman has embraced the core values of Christ-Centered, Global Citizens, Compassionate Peacemakers, Passionate Learners, and Servant Leaders that the community adopted in 2002, four years before he arrived. Each president and administration gets the opportunity to start over–and needs to–but when some of the work deepens and grows from generation to generation,the fruit harvested deserves to be called heirloom. The core values simply named what Goshen College had been at its best in the previous century. They live on because the college continues to need, value, nurture, and support them.

Some of the joy seeds we tried to spread fell on rocky soil during the eight years of my presidency, 1996-2004. But a few other seeds hit pay dirt and continue to prosper and grow year after year. One tradition I especially loved was the applause tunnel. Here is the 2009 applause tunnel:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4FvBwD8IMA&hl=en&fs=1&]

Below is another Goshen College video. This one celebrates the love of soccer and soccer teams at GC. I love the blend of urban and rural (rapper next to a corn field), the willingness to claim peacemaker identity even on the field of “battle,” and the connection between music,  sports, and the “5 cores”–the five core values: May each new generation harvest them with as much creativity as the one now filling the residence halls, classrooms, and green spaces of Goshen College.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70hkaOCFq8M&hl=en&fs=1&]

As Paul Newman might say, “This was a failure to communicate.” I thought I was bringing the value of simplicity and economy to the process.  My professor saw only shoddy thinking or academic sloth.

I named this blog 100 memoirs because of the advice given by Heather Sellers in Chapter by Chapter to read 100 books in the genre you aspire to. I have several thousand books in my basement library, collected over many years of being an English professor and avid reader.  I knew I had read 50-100 autobiographies and biographies. But I began buying new ones.  My future daughter-in-law works in the publishing industry, so new memoir began pouring in. Thanks, Chelsea!

So the question now is.  Which ones are best?  If reading forms the mind, and if reading takes precious time, then surely one wants to read the best 100 memoirs and not just 100 memoirs!?

When a form becomes popular enough long enough, a canon emerges. That may be happening in the memoir genre right now.  Perhaps you and I can contribute to that process by defining what we admire most and selecting memoirs that fit those criteria.  Or, we could flip the process by naming the books and then describing what makes them great. More and more courses are being taught about autobiography and memoir. Professors are creating reading lists and these eventually become the canon.

The beautiful sentences contest taught me that asking for the best without describing the criteria can produce frustration.  So let’s start with criteria.

I will throw out one criterion and give an example. Then I hope you will follow with your own examples or another criterion.

Criterion:  Authentic voice.  Agents and publishers love this word. And I do too. Voice on the surface looks like personality.  For example, Julia Childs’ memoir of her years in Paris and America as she built her career sounds just like her distinctive voice on the air–a little breathless and patrician without sounding pedantic.

Haven Kimmel’s voice in her breakthrough memoir Zippy is down home and mystical and amused (therefore amusing).

Classic memoirs earn their status in part because of the unique voice of the author. Hemingway’s Moveable Feast, for example, takes you far, fast. You move with him through the quotidian details of the day with energy.  When he is hungry, his readers are also. He gets you to the destination rapidly, but your senses are more alive than if you had lingered for hours on the path.

Natalie Goldberg’s newest book on memoir contains a list of her favorite memoirs at the end.  Some Amazon reviewers have made lists of their best ones.  I would like to create my own here. But I need your help. I may also need Anthony’s help with the technology.  I think I need a list on the home page of this website. That way, readers can see it emerge.  There are books I reviewed in the blog that I would not put on the list of 100 best. And there are many on other people’s lists that I have not yet read.  There are also lots of books I have read but not reviewed.

Are such lists helpful to you? Would you like to see a list on the home page?

Is authentic voice a useful criterion for selecting high quality memoir?

What one memoir (or other book)  stands out for you because of the voice of the author?

Forrest Church is former Idaho Senator Frank Church’s son. He chose ministry over politics in order to become his own person. Church begins the book by telling us that love and death have been the subjects of almost all his sermons at All Souls Unitarian Church–even before he got cancer. When he was 19, his closest friend at Stanford died, leaving him bereft and changed forever.  This death taught him that “We cannot protect love from death. But by giving away our hearts, we can protect our lives from the death of love.”

When the doctor gave Church his recent cancer diagnosis, what surprised him most was the immediate acceptance he felt facing death.  He had no unfinished business.  I hope you can listen and watch him on a Religion and Ethics Newsweekly broadcast last October as he talks to Bob Abernethy about both his own acceptance and his wife and family’s rejection of that acceptance.

Church’s themes are repeated in this book many times. They illustrate the genius of simplicity, the kind that lies on the far side of complexity, and his approaching death seems to have boiled down even that simplicity into the most exquisite sauce. Like a fine chef’s reduction, each chapter of this book returns to what Church calls his mantra:

• love what we have
• do what we can
• be who we are

Church is a Christian Universalist and therefore uses the life and teachings of Jesus as a framework for his theology.  As a Mennonite, I appreciate this emphasis, which helps me to see the universal truths of my own tradition.

Forrest Church has come into my own life through an interesting set of “coincidences.”

• Our family spent Christmas eve of 2007 in New York and chose to attend the All Souls Christmas Eve Service before any of us had we ever heard of Forrest Church.  We heard him give the now-famous closing prayer (read it here) of the service, which is included in this memoir as the last chapter.
• Our son Anthony was with us and also heard the prayer.
• A few weeks later, he was searching on Match.com and noticed a young woman who was an active member of All Souls
• On Sept. 12 of this year, almost two years later, he and Chelsea will marry–at All Souls
• I ordered Church’s memoir because of Chelsea’s admiration of her minister and my appreciation for her as we welcome her into our family

Anthony and Chelsea

None of us, including Forrest Church, know the time when death will come.  But all of us can learn from him how to prepare–by loving what we have, doing what we can, and being who we are. Only the love we gave away will remain behind.  The motto on the wall of my childhood farmhouse home said it in a more Mennonite way:  “Only one life, ’twill soon be past.  Only what’s done for Christ will last.”

Next Sunday, May 31, 2009, I hope to hear Forrest Church deliver the sermon at All Souls, something he has not done in a long time.  Anthony and Chelsea will be celebrating their engagement that weekend with friends and family and have invited all of us to attend church with them. Our daughter Kate and her own fiance’ Nik will be there also. Love has already enveloped us this year, and for that we can only respond with gratitude.  What better place to do that than church?

Kate and Nik engagement photo

Chelsea tells us we will need to arrive early in order to be sure to have a seat. Apparently, love attracts a crowd.

Forrest Church does not know that his story has woven itself into a Mennonite family from the midwest. But he already knows that love is the greatest force in the universe.  He has lived this truth all his life–and, having looked into the jaws of death–is living it even more!