The trip to AZ afforded me a luxury I have not been able to indulge in for some time – fiction reading. I almost always have several books going at a given time but the usual themes are art, theology, homesteading, and education. Generally they in some way push me a bit further along a path I am traveling down at a given time. While I love a good story the truth is most books written for women are less than edifying today. It was most intriguing then to read the exerpts of Grace Livingston Hill’s novel’s at Pleasant View Schoolhouse. Anna’s blog exudes grace and calm and the lines she would share seemed to promote that same sense of loveliness. I was fascinated!

I tracked down the first two titles recommended, Cloudy Jewel and Recreations. Admittedly the first left me disappointed. The plot was a bit predictable through the first third of the book and the dialogue was a little too precious and gushy. I feared the whole books would be less inspiring than the exerpts. Then Recreations came. I threw it in the van at the last minute and was so glad I had. Within a few pages I was completely absorbed in the story of a young woman with a ‘sense of the beautiful’ who is called home from her study of interior design to labor for her family, down on their luck and relocated to a shabby neighborhood, while their mother was hospitalized. She initially bemoans her fate, pouring out her disappointment to a fellow passenger on the train home. The older woman assures her, "However unpleasant and gloomy that new house may be, it will begin to glow and blossom and give out welcome within a short time…Count the little house as your opportunity, every trial and test in this world really is, you know, and you’ll see what will come."

That advice struck my heart in all sorts of old places and brought back my own miserable attitude crossing the threshold of one government housing unit after another and bemoaning my own fate. I wish I had had this wise counsel earlier on in the journey. The heroine in this story eventually learns it is most admirable to take the design skills she has been gifted with and apply them to these very humble projects, lifting dismal abodes to the heights of beauty and charm, thereby lifting the spirits of those who reside within those walls as well. She also discovers that the social hustle and bustle at college, which once seemed all-important, paled in comparison to the rewards of family life. She found those pastimes shallow when stacked against the very real challenges testing the souls of those dear to her. Meeting those challenges well did more for her character than all the years of study that came before.

It happens that you can be told of certain virtues ad nauseum and while that droning advice eventually plants a seed of guilt within us it rarely inspires us. I found Grace Livingston Hill, like her heroine Cornelia, to be "just dear" and to "seem to find such pretty things to say to make me understand." She doesn’t tell women how to behave, she gives a most inspiring example in story. Showing is generally more effective than telling in my experience. I feel I have found a wonderful resource for sharing with my daughters those ideals I cherish.  She shows the impact a bowl of flowers, a fluffed pillow, and a special dish has on those we love. These endeavors are not ends in themselves but a means to an end. It is about creating a stage on which their lives will play out. She helps the reader see that setting is as important to real life as it is to literature.

If you want to learn more about her there is a website called Gracelivingstonhill.com.