Category Archives: homesteading

should’ve known: regret, discouragement, & learning to forgive ourselves

Posted on by March 23, 2023

It took about six months before it looked like anything was happening. Finally, the seed pit split open and the tiniest sprout emerged.

And then it got taller. And taller. It leafed out, and stretched, and the sun shone through its veins.

should've known: regret, discouragement, and learning to forgive ourselves

And then a cat ate it.

OH NO YOU DIDN’T. (Yes. Yes, she did.)

I should’ve known. This is not the first avocado tree I’ve tried to grow; the last ones survived for a few years but then we got kittens who inflicted several months of repeated attacks on them. Those kittens (who are my darlings now, but this was before they knew Jesus) climbed the avocado plants, ate their leaves, slept in the base of the pot, knocked them into the bathtub…and after so many repottings and replantings, the last remaining one’s stem finally broke in a climactic dive (er, push) off the end table.

So this time I should’ve protected it. I saw those vulnerable new leaves and should’ve covered it because I know what the elements are.

But I didn’t. I was lazy, or I forgot, or I was distracted with a million other things. I thought I could get away with it this time. And now the plant was a stub. Demolished. Months of watering and waiting made worthless.

Have you ever worked so hard and waited so long to see the fruition of your work, and then you finally start to get a glimpse of victory and accomplishment, and someone comes by and cuts it down? It doesn’t have to be literal destruction; it can be the voice of an accuser who says aloud the doubts you’re already fighting in your head. Wow, they see it, too. I must really be a failure. That wasn’t really the confirmation I was looking for.

Even worse than the discouragement is the regret that we should’ve done something differently to prevent it. We should have had better boundaries. We should’ve held our ground. We should’ve done more research, or spent more time with our kids, or forgiven faster, or paid more attention, or worked a little harder. We should’ve known better. Or worse, we did know better, and that’s why it burns so badly. Yes, there was an attacker who destroyed this, and the attacker was us.

Our thoughts grow dim and overcast. The sun is going down and we sit in the darkness, forgetting to turn the lamp on.

Do you see what happens here? We start to take too much blame. Yes, we are responsible for our part, but we are not responsible for everything else. We are not responsible for the elements. We are not responsible how other people (including children, spouses, cats…) respond to those elements. We cannot predict the future. We did know better, but we did not know everything.

And yes, we can always do better – but if we always did better, we would be perfect, and if we were perfect, would we need Jesus so badly? Probably not.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

– Romans 6:1-2

Too much regret and discouragement makes us forget that the Lord is in the business of redemption. We would never say it this way but somewhere along the line we fell for the lie that we are all powerful, therefore all outcomes are our responsibility. And that sounds like sin, like the enemy made headway in convincing us that we were God. If we are despairing in regret — even regret over our sin — we are not trusting God for redemption.

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

– Romans 6:11-13

We are to present ourselves to God as those who’ve been brought from death to life, because He says so. “Present” here means yield, or appear – we do not address ourselves as failures because He has made us instruments for righteousness…or in other words, weapons of justice. (Go ahead and check the Greek.) We cannot be weapons of justice if we are just to others but simultaneously unjust to ourselves, and we cannot worship God as the One worthy of all praise if we still think we’re responsible for everything that’s going wrong in our situation.

We can only make our part right, not other people’s responses and choices. We influence the outcome, but we don’t decide it.

Why do we sit here in the dark, brooding?

If we believe in God’s forgiveness for others, then we need to believe it for ourselves, too. It’s not a feeling; it’s Scripture. We know that we’ve confessed and repented, and we know that God says He is faithful to forgive. So we need to trust that a) He does what He says He does, and b) He has higher standards than we do. Because doesn’t it seem a little arrogant when people are more strict than God is, as though they are more responsible than He is?

The Lord said something to me during worship in church last week:

Your kids need to see you focused on Me, not just interceding for them. Intercession is good but it’s not a substitute for your own worship. They need to see you engaged with Me. Can you trust Me to speak to them in those moments, to work in them and protect them? Because if you feel like you’re the one who’s always responsible, you’ll take more blame for their mistakes and more credit for their victories than you should. Worshiping Me means surrendering your kids to Me.

And a light started to dawn. After years of constant hyper vigilance even during worship, I laid that residual control freakiness aside and found new freedom in looking at Him.

The Lord knows our tendency to despond in the darkness, and He gave us this passage as one of the strongest antidotes to it:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness [gentleness] be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

– Philippians 4:4-7

Our regrets and anxieties over them are things we can bring to God in thankfulness, confident that He hears us and redeems us and does something about it.

And that’s a good start, but He wasn’t done yet. He knows we can be a little slow to pick up on things, so for our sanity’s sake he made Paul spell it out for us:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

– Philippians 4:8-9

We were never meant to stay in the darkness, repining about everything that has gone wrong and still might go even worse. We give far too much attention to the enemy when we do so.

To them pain and mishap present a far wider range of possibilities than gladness and enjoyment; their imagination is almost barren of the images that feed desire and hope, but is all overgrown by recollections that are a perpetual pasture to fear.

– George Eliot, from Silas Marner

Where can we find something lovely? Sometimes it’s not obvious, especially when we’re sitting in the dark. But it’s always worth searching for. If we get in the habit of thinking on the honorable and excellent things, our mind won’t continually default to should’ve and all the fear, dread, and regret when something goes wrong. We need images that feed desire and hope.

The stub of my avocado plant still had a few tiny leaves along the stem. And hey, did you know that avocado plants are supposed to be pruned after they get about six inches tall?

So this was an early pruning (cough) but hopefully, maybe, possibly not dire. What if I gave it more time? What is there to lose? It’s been six months already, so what’s another few weeks to see if something new emerges?

Can you imagine what we miss out on when we forget to look for what is true, or just, or lovely? How hopeless life would be if we took every discouragement as the finality of failure.

Can you imagine how sad sunsets would be if we didn’t realize the sun would be right back tomorrow morning?

What if we didn’t know, and we stood there in the cold and the dark, waiting for hours…and hours…and nothing. We’d keep watching where it went down but it would seem hopeless, no activity there except increasing darkness.

And then, if we waited long enough, we would realize there was light emerging behind us.

We would turn around and realize — oh joy! — there’s the sun again! We had just been facing the wrong direction, and almost gave up before the sunrise.

And now – here’s some redemption – we are listening better. We’re paying closer attention to His nudges and we’re looking for what’s lovely and true and excellent. We don’t want to miss His leading, we don’t want to blow off the Holy Spirit’s wisdom and warnings, because now we know better.

That avocado stem was just a ridiculous, ugly stick in the dirt. But I covered it with a vase and waited a couple weeks. It wasn’t dying, at least. And after a while, the leaf nearest the top did seem to be a little bigger. And then even bigger.

And then it looked like multiple leaves.

I turned the pot around to see it better.

And the leaf hadn’t just grown out, it had grown a new stem.

In sunrises and springtime God has made nature a reminder to us that light and life are ahead, and it cries out, Beloved! You can start over when all looks lost.

P.S. Dealing with serious discouragement? Don’t miss this post.

first things, part one: how we pray to heal the land

Posted on by February 17, 2023

Kav is sitting at the counter, staring blankly at his toast.

“The air makes my eyes blink,” he said.

I know, kid. Mornings are hard. The air makes my eyes blink, too.

The sun is rising earlier in the mornings now and setting later in the afternoons, and there’s a reckless feeling of freedom and hope that goes along with it after the shortest, darkest days of winter. We still have two months of snow left but we’re on the downhill slope of it and picking up steam.

first things, part one: how we pray to heal the land -- Shannon Guerra

You know what else is picking up steam? Crazy events around the world. I mean, we thought 2020 was nuts, but every year since seems to have taken it as a challenge to outdo the buffoonery of the one before. Talk about things that are hard and make your eyes blink: What can you do about a government that detonates chemical weapons in the heart of its own farmland?

It’s expected to affect at least 10% of America’s water supply. Fish, livestock, and pets are dying, people are getting sick, and many are afraid they’ve lost their homes forever. The mainstream media isn’t talking about it and has been trying to distract us with aliens instead because they think Americans are stupid (and for once they’re not completely wrong). It’s Look Here, Not There, because otherwise people will notice real things that are happening, like names being released of those who visited Epstein’s pedophile island, the beginning of World War 3, and, oh yeah, how the government has drastically escalated the sabotage of the US food supply.

But you won’t know about most of that if you’re getting your news from “the news,” which is exactly what they’re hoping for. Because, look! Aliens!

Since we do know, though, what can we do? How do we heal the land even while entities are actively trying to destroy it?

We can look at our own soil, and go back to the first things: We can pray. We can get in the Word. And we can get the Word out.

As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.

– Luke 8:15

It’s not common anymore, but every once in a while you hear about land that is so fertile you just have to throw seeds at the dirt and abundant, massive crops spring out of it. Giant tomatoes. Huge pumpkins. I’m not talking about the stuff made from junky, synthetic fertilizers; I’m talking about the good soil that has been nurtured and fed through cycles of work and rest. You can practically throw pennies into the dirt and dollars burst out of it.

It’s similar to how there have been seasons that were uniquely favorable for particular vocations or endeavors. You know, those times in history when something was almost a no-fail prospect because business was so good or demand was so high, the connections came together flawlessly and opportunities aligned. Those who raked in the windfall may have taken credit for the massive success, but they really only happened to be placed into it by the grace of God since, in the given circumstances, it would’ve taken a very special kind of idiot to fail.

And this is the time we are living in, for intercessors. And that means you who already know you are intercessors, and also those of you who are tempted to tune me out right now because you don’t think I’m talking about you. But I am.

Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary. Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.

– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

You know what makes fertile soil? Lots of manure, but it has to be stewarded well. And that’s a good picture of our calling in these days.

Our hearts are to be the fertile soil, where situations drop in and we bear fruit no matter what. And that can feel heavy, like striving, unless we remember that we only bear fruit through abiding – and then we realize it is less about doing and more about being.

We are to be in proximity to the Lord, and not as a passive Yes-of-course-God-is-always-with-me knowledge, but as an intimacy that feels the impact of Someone’s presence. You know how when someone walks in the room and you immediately look over because you felt a shift in the atmosphere? You know how when someone across the room looks at you, and you sense it, and you look back? That’s the kind of proximity we’re talking about. We are abiding with the One who changes the atmosphere. His eye is on us, and we are looking back.

Now that we’ve established that, we can move on to the big question we couldn’t answer before. So, here it is:

How can we pray when events feel too big, too hopeless? How can we heal the land?

One obvious answer is in this verse:

…if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

— 2 Chronicles 7:14

And that’s a great start. But if we’re honest, it’s maybe a little too familiar to some of us and way too unfamiliar for the rest.

So what else should we know? How can we pray? How did Jesus equip us for such a time as this?

I read the story of Jesus and the Centurion to my kids this week. You probably know it; the Centurion’s servant is sick and he asks Jesus to heal him, so Jesus offers to come to his house. But the Centurion says that’s not necessary because he understands how authority works: You tell someone to do something, and they do it. There’s no question, no wondering if they’re going to obey, it’s as simple as one number following the next. The man was a leader over a hundred soldiers (that’s what a Centurion is) and he knew what he was talking about.

Keep that in mind as we look at one of the wild things Jesus said:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

– John 14:12-14

Why did He say we would do greater things than He did? I’m not totally sure, but I think at least partly it was because He knew we would be living in days that required greater things. In Biblical times they had corrupt leaders, too, but they didn’t have governments detonating chemical weapons on their own land and poisoning entire water systems. They didn’t have our dependence on electricity and other utilities. They didn’t have the threat of nuclear war.

So let’s look at a few things Jesus did that we may be able to apply to greater things in prayer:

  • He did many things multiple times: raised the dead, fed the multitudes, cast out demons, healed the sick, made the blind see, made the deaf hear, made the lame walk.
  • He calmed the seas. And this is interesting because in Matthew this story is shared just ten verses after the story of the Centurion that we just talked about, and He asks, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Sorta like He was asking, Weren’t you paying attention? You need to start applying this.

And we do, too.

We can pray and direct wind currents, and command contaminants to be gone. We can take authority over the principalities and powers that have corrupted our churches and institutions. We can pray purity into contaminated water. We can pray for eyes to be opened and evil to be exposed. We can pray for the deaf to hear and people to come to know Jesus like never before. We can take authority over our food supply and cancel the works of the enemy who continues to sabotage it.

That same enemy will hiss at you about how foolish this is. His snarling accusations are a cover for the terror he lives in because he knows what happens when God’s people pray with authority. He knows what happens when people know the Word and say “It is written.” He knows what happens when people stop worshiping their own comfort and what other people think about them, and start doing the things God tells them to. He knows he loses ground fast. The fields are white for harvest.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

– 1 Corinthians 1:25-29

Not only did Jesus say we will do greater things than He did, but He emphasized twice right after that that when we ask in His name, He will do it. This isn’t about us being in authority over Jesus; this is about us being a conduit for His authority. He is eager to grant prayer that is aligned with His will. So it only becomes a question of knowing His will, and that goes right back to abiding and being in His word.

So now let’s look again at that scripture about healing the land, because things are starting to come together:

…if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

— 2 Chronicles 7:14

Alright, we’ll take it one piece at a time: We are called by His name. We are humbling ourselves, unafraid to look foolish to the world. We are learning to pray and seek His face; we are in the Word and living in what it says. And we are turning from our wicked ways…wait, wait, wait.

We’re not that wicked, are we? Let’s put aside the obvious sins for a minute and consider: Have we worshiped our own ease? Have we abdicated responsibility and authority to others (like the government, or even church leaders) that we should’ve been doing ourselves? Have we slacked off in intercession? Have we thought “pray without ceasing” was a well-intentioned but unreasonable suggestion, instead of a clear command?

Ohhh. So maybe we do have some wicked ways to turn from. Maybe there’s more room to move.

The best time to do it was years ago, but the next best time is now.

The good news is it’s a fast repentance; no hoops to jump through, no paperwork to fill out, no waiting in line. Jesus, we’re sorry for worshiping what was comfortable. We’re sorry for waiting to intercede until the pain hit too close to home. We’re sorry for neglecting the harvest.

We’re ready to go back to the first things, so we can do greater things.

There is a move afoot, a reckless feeling of freedom and hope that is picking up steam. The One who shifts the atmosphere and has our eye is eager to teach us how to be better conduits of His authority, shaming the wise, and uprooting the evil in the fields that we know.

Part 2 is coming next week, and it’s about reading the Bible and filling the pantry of our soul. Subscribe here to get it right to your inbox.

favorite books of 2022

Posted on by January 18, 2023

I was buying books and Vin asked me to look one up that he’s wanted for a while.

“They have it in paperback or hardback, which do you want?” I asked.

“Paperback,” he said. “It might suck.”

And that’s wisdom, my friends.

favorite books of 2022: Shannon Guerra

This was a tough year reading-wise for me. Not because I didn’t read much – I read almost fifty books – but because I quit at least five other books in disgust after anywhere from fifty to several hundred pages (I mention one of them here). Fortunately, it was also a year full of books that are tried and true, old favorites that I happened to be reading again, and they made up for it.

Reading good books is like gentle, gradual irrigation of the mind. Reading the Bible is more like a power washer, or a rushing river. But all good books dislodge rocks and embedded lies from us, and reveal truths that never change but somehow can always come alive in a fresh way. Good reading is both cleansing and nurturing; it grows within us the stuff that preserves from rottenness and brings flavor. It changes our landscape, deep and wide. We recognize things about ourselves and the world around us, and we see things articulated that we didn’t have words for before.

Good books rile up justice and goodness, and bad books make excuses for it.

Here are my favorites from last year that (mostly) do all the right stuff. I hope you find a few that become your favorites, too.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

“There seemed small need for watching in the days of our prosperity, and the guards were made over comfortable, perhaps — otherwise we might have had longer warning of the coming of the dragon, and things might have been different.”

Here is a case for rereading a classic that you didn’t care so much for the first time. (See also The Wind in the Willows.) I’ve read this twice before and it was okay, nothing that excited me too much. And then I read it again last spring with my daughter and our Gaining Ground group, and lo and behold…things came alive that I missed the first (and second) times around. I’m convinced now, it’s a keeper – and it makes the extremely Hobbity and slightly silly first chapter of Fellowship of the Rings (see below) make a lot more sense now. It is a fairy-tale-like children’s book full of trolls, spiders, thieving, sneaking, jealousy, fighting, shapeshifting, invisibility, riddles, and battles…but yeah, it really is a good book with solid values worth sharing with your kids. Or your spouse. Or your cat.

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

Hey, this one counts as seven – or actually six, because we just started the last book in the series again a few nights ago, but we read the other six out loud at dinner time to the kids throughout 2022.

If you have never read these, or you haven’t read them in years, or you only read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, or you only saw the movies (egad), you should find the nearest 4- to 18-year-old and start reading this with them, post-haste. You don’t need to read them in order (chronologically or in the order they were written, and yes, those are different) but I’m still noticing details in certain stories that allude to characters or events in the other ones that I never noticed before. Every single book in the Narnia series has truths in it that are articulated brilliantly and beautifully, and they will change your life and our culture for the better.

How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes by Peter Schiff

Make economics fun again! If you need an easy refresher on basic economics or a great book for your middle/high schooler, this book illustrates the principles through a fictional land of islanders who begin their own economy through trading fish and services, on just one fish a day. It explains principles without jargon and shows how they are both used and abused. And if you know your U.S. history, you’ll enjoy a lot of the snarky humor that identifies some of those abusers, as well.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

“The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am to you, and I am standing in the spirit at you elbow.”

My first encounter with this book was in the 8th grade when our English teacher read it aloud to us the week before Christmas break. I remember very little (as in, nothing) of it, which, combined with what I already told you about The Hobbit and Wind in the Willows, is an indictment on either the Anchorage public school system or my attention span. Probably both.

But now! Ohmygosh, I love this book so much. This is the second time we’ve read it aloud as a family, and even our little guys – ages 4 and 7 – liked it. (Giving characters different voices helps.) You don’t have to read this at Christmas; it is beautiful year round, and if you want an easy way to dip your toes into Dickens’ works, this is the one to start with. (Oliver Twist is probably a good second.)

Polyface Micro by Joel Salatin

This is a good book to read if a) your life has been taken over by poultry, b) you are aware of the crisis in our food system and know the egg shortage we’re seeing is only the tip of the iceberg, or c) you want to take your dreams of homesteading and start doing something about them. This is livestock farming micro-style, for those of us with yards instead of fields. Lots of ideas here on how to do the basics, plus plenty of insight and hacks that only come from someone with years and years of experience who is willing to tell you about his mistakes so you don’t have to repeat them.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

This one threw me for a loop at first. There’s a lot of dialogue but no quotation marks, an intentional lack of apostrophes in many contractions, and you quickly discover that rules can be broken if you write and tell a story as well as this guy. Every once in a while I came across a word I suspected he was making up, but then I’d check, and by golly, he pulls vocabulary up from the very bones of the earth and puts those words to work again.

It’s not a kids’ book but I’d recommend it to mature high schoolers. The story is intense and fascinating, about a father and son traveling through a post-apocalyptic wasteland just trying to survive. I read it in two days and then immediately put it on Vince’s stack and demanded he read it, too – which he did, and he also loved it.

The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker

File this one under “Information everyone needs to know and hopes they never have to apply” – which I guess you could also say for any book on farming. (Ha ha, I jest…sorta). Not a great book, but an important book about crime, human nature, and protecting yourself from whackos. Eat the meat, spit out the bones; it’s a three-star book with lots of five-star info.

Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard

If you are grieving or walking through a hard season, this book is a great companion. Much Afraid is a girl who has been threatened, gaslighted, and mistreated, and the Shepherd leads her on a journey that isn’t just escape, but destiny – she learns her true identity through a process of obedience, faith, and surrender. We read this in Gaining Ground last summer, and so many of us found great healing, encouragement, and revelation for different situations we were navigating.

Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley

A woman buys a book wagon and takes off across the countryside in the early 1900s, leaving her slightly selfish brother in the lurch and baffled at her gumption. A funny and fast book about books, and reading, and love, and surprises.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

“By reading only six hours a day, I shall gain in the course of a twelvemonth a great deal of instruction which I now feel myself to want.”

Why use a boring word like “year” when you can say twelvemonth? This story is about two sisters: Elinor is all things tact, courtesy, and self-control, and Marianne is all things honest, transparent, and idealistic. By the end of the book they are both stronger, wiser, and happier, and the reader is, too.

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

“It seemed that the evil power in Mirkwood had been driven out…only to reappear in greater strength in the old strongholds….the power was spreading far and wide, and away far east and south there were wars and growing fear….Little of all this, of course, reached the ears of ordinary hobbits. But even the deafest and most stay-at-home began to hear queer tales; and those whose business took them to the borders saw strange things.”

There’s a great evil in the world that has been hidden for ages, lurking unknown, unsuspected by those who are happily oblivious until some strange, seemingly unrelated occurrences start happening with increasing frequency. Once discovered, the evil must be completely destroyed before everything good in the world is destroyed first.

Sounds eerily familiar, yes? But no, it’s not the Deep State; it’s Sauron, the Lord of the Rings. I’ve read this at least five times but am finding parallels and wisdom for our current days that I’ve never seen before. Fellowship is the first part of The Lord of the Rings, which is really just one ginormous book of over a thousand pages, often separated into a trilogy. We’re currently tackling it in Gaining Ground and just started The Two Towers, the middle book. If you have tried Fellowship before and couldn’t get past the odd, folksy first chapter, please give it another shot. By chapter two it changes rapidly from a children’s book like The Hobbit into the life-changing and dramatic saga of good versus evil so many of us love.

Wait, you keep talking about Gaining Ground. What is that?

It’s our online book club on Telegram. It originally started a few years ago as a book club that incorporated writing coaching, but I’ve stopped coaching and now we just read and chat about books and share nerdy, bookish memes. Our group ebbs and flows every time we start a new book, but it’s grown to over a hundred people and you can join us here if you’d like.

My goal this year is more books, less videos; more pages, less screen time. More time together, more shared stories, more ideas, more joy, more justice. Less fabricated news, more newsworthy knowledge. More wholeness, goodness, and truth, with a side of coffee or tea. Probably a cat or two. Maybe a blanket. Plus a 30% chance of a huge bowl of popcorn, which I may or may not share.

P.S. Want more book recommendations? Here’s my list from last year. Reading great books is one of the easiest ways to transform our culture.