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Roots and Sky: A Journey Home in Four Seasons
When Christie Purifoy arrived at Maplehurst that September, she was heavily pregnant with both her fourth child and her dreams of creating a sanctuary that would be a fixed point in her busily spinning world. The sprawling Victorian farmhouse sitting atop a Pennsylvania hill held within its walls the possibility of a place where her family could grow, where friends could gather, and where Christie could finally grasp and hold the thing we all long for--home.In lyrical, contemplative prose, Christie slowly unveils the small trials and triumphs of that first year at Maplehurst--from summer's intense heat and autumn's glorious canopy through winter's still whispers and spring's gentle mercies. Through stories of planting and preserving, of opening the gates wide to neighbors, and of learning to speak the language of a place, Christie invites readers into the joy of small beginnings and the knowledge that the kingdom of God is with us here and now.Anyone who has felt the longing for home, who yearns to reconnect with the beauty of nature, and who values the special blessing of deep relationships with family and friends will love finding themselves in this story of earthly beauty and soaring hope.
210 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 2, 2016
60 people are currently reading
1923 people want to read
About the author
Christie Purifoy
9 books250 followersMy name is Christie Purifoy. I am a writer and gardener who loves to grow flowers and community.
I am the author of two memoirs, Roots and Sky: A Journey Home in Four Seasons (Revell 2016) and Placemaker: Cultivating Places of Comfort, Beauty, and Peace (Zondervan 2019). Garden Maker: Growing A Life of Beauty and Wonder With Flowers releases in January 2022 from Harvest House Publishers.
A decade ago, I earned a PhD in English Literature from the University of Chicago, but eventually I traded the classroom for an old Pennsylvania farmhouse called Maplehurst. I still love to teach, but today I teach virtually and for small groups here at the Maplehurst Black Barn.
Each Wednesday, I join my long-time friend and fellow writer, Lisa-Jo Baker, for storytelling and conversation on a new episode of the Out of the Ordinary podcast. We believe that the very best stories grow out of the soil of ordinary life.
Lisa-Jo and I, along with a whole host of others, are turning social media’s usual ways upside down through quiet, weekly rhythms of listening, sharing, and celebrating in a virtual gathering place called the Black Barn Online. You are invited to join us in helping to build a place where art and faith cultivated in community can take root, flourish, and grow.
I am the author of two memoirs, Roots and Sky: A Journey Home in Four Seasons (Revell 2016) and Placemaker: Cultivating Places of Comfort, Beauty, and Peace (Zondervan 2019). Garden Maker: Growing A Life of Beauty and Wonder With Flowers releases in January 2022 from Harvest House Publishers.
A decade ago, I earned a PhD in English Literature from the University of Chicago, but eventually I traded the classroom for an old Pennsylvania farmhouse called Maplehurst. I still love to teach, but today I teach virtually and for small groups here at the Maplehurst Black Barn.
Each Wednesday, I join my long-time friend and fellow writer, Lisa-Jo Baker, for storytelling and conversation on a new episode of the Out of the Ordinary podcast. We believe that the very best stories grow out of the soil of ordinary life.
Lisa-Jo and I, along with a whole host of others, are turning social media’s usual ways upside down through quiet, weekly rhythms of listening, sharing, and celebrating in a virtual gathering place called the Black Barn Online. You are invited to join us in helping to build a place where art and faith cultivated in community can take root, flourish, and grow.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 185 reviews
June 6, 2024
Christie is a prose-poet, and her writing is exquisite. It's lyrical in a way that is very accessible—not the sort of flowery, trying-too-hard language that many readers find off-putting, but clear, vivid language with striking metaphors. It has richness and depth. Christie’s wonder and her hunger are contagious. She invites the reader to marvel with her, feast with her.
Yet this isn’t just another “find the beauty in the ordinary” book. Its light is crisscrossed with shadows. Christie isn’t Pollyanna; she writes not only of extravagant beauty, but also of anxiety and loneliness, depression and failure and loss. She doesn’t merely cling to sweetness; she fights for hope. She bears witness to redemption. The beauty she captures is messy, not tidy; it is a beauty that makes you tremble. This book is a quietly beautiful companion, one to be savored and revisited. I underlined and starred provocative lines in nearly every essay. Highly recommended.
Yet this isn’t just another “find the beauty in the ordinary” book. Its light is crisscrossed with shadows. Christie isn’t Pollyanna; she writes not only of extravagant beauty, but also of anxiety and loneliness, depression and failure and loss. She doesn’t merely cling to sweetness; she fights for hope. She bears witness to redemption. The beauty she captures is messy, not tidy; it is a beauty that makes you tremble. This book is a quietly beautiful companion, one to be savored and revisited. I underlined and starred provocative lines in nearly every essay. Highly recommended.
January 28, 2016
Roots and Sky is first of all a beautiful read. Christie Purifoy has a lyrical, contemplative style that carries you along with her through each season of the year as her family begins making a home at Maplehurst. Purifoy is an intimate observer and her descriptions of home and landscape bring you right to the front door with her. But she is also an intimate observer of the emotional and spiritual landscapes, and her weaving of all three provide a richly compelling backdrop. This is a christian story, so Purifoy also braids a great deal of theology into the text, but this only serves to help us understand her worldview and provide the context for where she's leading us - which is ultimately toward hope. This is a book for slow, thoughtful reading - not because it is difficult to understand - but because we can understand it all too well, and there are depths here, truths, that are balm for the soul.
March 15, 2019
Roots and Sky seeped into my heart like rain seeps into the dry ground. The simple wisdom of Christie Purifoy's words resonated with me like few books do. This book is separated into seasons, with Purifoy sharing parts of her life, both it's outer appearance and her inner life as well. She strikes a perfect balance for me of being both introspective and reflective yet utterly accessible to the reader. Truly reading this book was like a balm to my heart. It's both her personal journey and an invitation to constantly seek goodness, to relish the beauty of the every day. This isn't a new message, but she relays it in a profound yet simple way. I read it slowly to savor it, but then once I got to the last quarter, I gobbled up the goodness, even knowing that I'd be sad when it was over. This is one that I'll be needing to buy in a hard copy. It's just that good, and I want to see if on my shelf to remember her beautiful message.
May 2, 2025
Rich, but also so hearty. This book renewed my heart and eyes to see God in the whole earth. Purifoy writes so beautifully, writing of ordinary days with extraordinary eyes. Her writing is an extension of her priestly work—a small sanctification of this dusty earth.
May 13, 2020
I loved this book. I didn't want it to end. It's the kind of book you could immediately pick up and begin again. Christie Purifoy's writing is delicious; simply lovely, exquisite, poetic, and inspiring. It's a quick, easy read, but you don't want to read it with a hurried pace. Instead, you want to savor it ever so leisurely.
May 11, 2020: I reread this for our Bookclub, and loved it once again. Back in September of 2019 I picked this book for our May read. Little did I know at that time that we would be going through a global pandemic, and that this was the perfect read for all of us during this time of uncertainty, worry, and stress. Christie Purifoy so beautifully exemplified that home is our sanctuary. Today, we are all under "stay-at-home" orders, and this is the time for us to make our homes our sanctuary. Thank you, Christie, for your wisdom.
If we are always comparing our now with our not yet, Then we will find it impossible to be glad in the day that God has given.
So many dreams are coming true, but it is as if they are being realized in dust and dirt and darkness. Some part of me still knows the bigger story. It begins in a stable but ends with streets of gold I know this. I know it well but there are no streets of gold in my neighborhood.
Always, there is something to wait for. I have waited for these things and other things, and I have learned that waiting is like wind it appears to be nothing, but it is a nothing as shapeless yet vital as breath. Waiting molds us, changes us, makes us ready in some way that is hard to grasp...We now have eyes to see in arms open more widely to receive.
The magi saw the star and followed it. No doubt the way was difficult, but I imagine the joy of their arrival was richer and deeper for all they had suffered.
May 11, 2020: I reread this for our Bookclub, and loved it once again. Back in September of 2019 I picked this book for our May read. Little did I know at that time that we would be going through a global pandemic, and that this was the perfect read for all of us during this time of uncertainty, worry, and stress. Christie Purifoy so beautifully exemplified that home is our sanctuary. Today, we are all under "stay-at-home" orders, and this is the time for us to make our homes our sanctuary. Thank you, Christie, for your wisdom.
If we are always comparing our now with our not yet, Then we will find it impossible to be glad in the day that God has given.
So many dreams are coming true, but it is as if they are being realized in dust and dirt and darkness. Some part of me still knows the bigger story. It begins in a stable but ends with streets of gold I know this. I know it well but there are no streets of gold in my neighborhood.
Always, there is something to wait for. I have waited for these things and other things, and I have learned that waiting is like wind it appears to be nothing, but it is a nothing as shapeless yet vital as breath. Waiting molds us, changes us, makes us ready in some way that is hard to grasp...We now have eyes to see in arms open more widely to receive.
The magi saw the star and followed it. No doubt the way was difficult, but I imagine the joy of their arrival was richer and deeper for all they had suffered.
February 1, 2016
Christie Purifoy's book Roots and Sky is stunningly, beautifully written - lyrical, evocative, gentle yet substantive. This journey through the first year in her new home -- an old brick farmhouse in Pennsylvania -- considers the meaning of home and place, digging into both biblical stories and personal narrative in order to explore the mystery of creation and the holy ordinary of simple moments in everyday life. At the same time, this book is not all light and lightness. I especially appreciated how Christie asks hard, sometimes unanswerable questions; searches for meaning in the dark places of depression, loss and despair; and does not sugarcoat the fact that heartache exists, even alongside hope. I highly recommend this book; Roots and Sky is one that I will read again and again.
January 27, 2016
When I picked up Roots & Sky, I found artful prose and engaging description of the everyday without unnecessary embellishment. She opens up about the simple longings and desires we all experience and invites us to sit with her over tea or to take a stroll in her garden to talk it over. It’s perhaps cliché these days to say that a book “helps you find God in the everyday events of life,” but this book takes a very unique, artful spin on that concept that I found engaging and enjoyable.
January 4, 2017
Absolutely beautiful book. It's one that I want to read slowly to truly savor it and, at the same time, read it quickly so I can immediately start reading it again. This will have a special place on my shelves!
October 11, 2020
Where does art come from? Like so many of the very best things in this world, its roots spread through emptiness and brokenness. Art begins when someone recognizes that things are not as they should be. Our art is born in the ache between death and resurrection, and we make art in the empty hours between Friday and Sunday. Whether we speak of poems or paintings or places, all art acknowledges an absence and dreams of something other, something more. Art is the material form of hope.
Roots and Sky is itself a work of art. It was hard to put down; not because of any dramatic action or storyline, but because Purifoy sees, and helps me to see, the beauty of this earthly plot, of God’s kingdom come to earth. I feared it would be fluffy. It isn’t. The author knows the grit and grime of life, the unanswered ache and the taste of disappointment. Yet she has learned to see and savor beauty, too. This is one read I won’t be forgetting.
Roots and Sky is itself a work of art. It was hard to put down; not because of any dramatic action or storyline, but because Purifoy sees, and helps me to see, the beauty of this earthly plot, of God’s kingdom come to earth. I feared it would be fluffy. It isn’t. The author knows the grit and grime of life, the unanswered ache and the taste of disappointment. Yet she has learned to see and savor beauty, too. This is one read I won’t be forgetting.
March 1, 2016
The prose is closer to poetry than narrative at certain key junctures. Sometimes, I was swept away by that, and sometimes, I wished she'd gone ahead and circled back to include a bit more of the story. There is much metaphor, and this worked for me.
Read
March 11, 2019The writing is beautiful, uniquely descriptive and contemplative but there's also a deep sense of melancholy and/or discontent in Purifoy's words. At 40 pages I decided this is a book, for me at least, that is best put aside for something that feeds my soul.
August 7, 2020
Beautiful, poignant book. This book is seasonally written, and I thought it should be seasonally read. It starts in September and finishes in August. Finishing this today was a beautiful way to say farewell to summer and embrace what comes next. Thank you Christie for this gift of rhythm and grace.
May 6, 2020
I read this a bite at a time. Everytime I picked it up, I felt like I could slow down and breathe. This is worth reading just to enjoy the author's writing. Beautiful! And definitely themes and ideas that I could relate to. Thanks, Mom for virtually pushing this into my hands.
March 6, 2019
A beautiful journal of her first year at Maplehurst--thought provoking and filled with descriptions of God's beauty on earth, plus Scripture references make it a joy to read. What tremendous blessings she has been given!
May 22, 2022
Lovely, healing words on every page. A book I would recommend to anyone in a season of transition or stagnation or everything in between. One of my favorites and not the last time I’ll be picking this up!!
June 1, 2022
Simply exquisite. No doubt does this book deserve a 5-star rating. Her writing is elegant, yet honest. I felt like I was reading an extended lyrical poem. A book that gives new lenses to see the world from a changed perspective with each chapter. This was more than a self-help book—it was an offering into the abundant life found in Jesus alone through the changing of rhythmic seasons. What a beautiful allegory! The wonderful, tangible changing of seasons that is so transferable to a life surrendered to walking in accordance with the Gospel. I walked away with a new understanding of what glory and home can mean. To dwell with Christ is to dwell richly within his presence that is found everywhere.
I cannot recommend enough! I will forever be giving this book as gifts. A definite re-read and yearly re-visit.
I cannot recommend enough! I will forever be giving this book as gifts. A definite re-read and yearly re-visit.
January 28, 2016
Beautiful, generous, tender, and true, Roots & Sky ministers to your spirit at every turn of the page. This book is a feast in every sense of the word, leaving me with an awakened, appreciative sense of what Home means to me. This is a book best read slowly, without any sense of rushing towards the end. As soon as I finished it, I started it again.
A book of deep, rich beauty, that continues to reverberate after it has been read.
A book of deep, rich beauty, that continues to reverberate after it has been read.
April 13, 2020
4/2020-Reread for me. This book is a comfort read. And I didn't realize how perfect it was to read it over Easter. I love reading it in the spring like I did a couple years ago. Her writing is so beautiful.
This is essays about her family's first year in their Maplehurst home. She is a devout Christian and it weaves through almost all of her essays. I found a lot of her insights to be very profound. All I can think of to describe this book is lovely. I really wish I could write like her.
This is essays about her family's first year in their Maplehurst home. She is a devout Christian and it weaves through almost all of her essays. I found a lot of her insights to be very profound. All I can think of to describe this book is lovely. I really wish I could write like her.
January 24, 2016
Review soon. For now, one word suffices: lovely.
July 30, 2018
Purifoy’s lyrical syntax is most likely meant to be read (digested) slowly: tasted, chewed, savored, like a 4-course meal (in 4 seasons), but patience isn’t my virtue, I’ve never been good at waiting between courses, so I devoured it in one sitting.
“Just how much heaven do we get to experience on earth?” (12)
“Heaven and earth meet in scratches and scars.” (14)
“Our lives are stories built of small moments.” (18)
She lives close to the earth on her 5-acre farm, planting and gardening; she writes about the metaphors for life in those activities. A reflective tone illuminates deep meaning and significance, but also the STRUGGLE of ordinary life.
“Just how much heaven do we get to experience on earth?” (12)
“Heaven and earth meet in scratches and scars.” (14)
“Our lives are stories built of small moments.” (18)
She lives close to the earth on her 5-acre farm, planting and gardening; she writes about the metaphors for life in those activities. A reflective tone illuminates deep meaning and significance, but also the STRUGGLE of ordinary life.
May 29, 2021
Beautiful memoir of a year in the life of an older home. Christie writes beautifully in each season and all those high and low moments, the times of stillness and busyness in making her house a home. She along with her husband and four children full those days planting , growing roots and making a home. She shares her faith in a way that is human, personal and real amd doesn’t come across as preachy. I enjoyed this read immensely! Perfect timing to remind us all the goodness that surrounds us all.
August 17, 2020
This kind of book is the definition of comfort reading for me---a simple collection of essays about the beauty and grace of simple, ordinary things. I might not agree with all of Purifoy's theology, but I love that she made me see the everyday in a new way, and that I was able to see my own daily existence mirrored in hers.
"Maybe the cultivation of beauty is a good way to spend one's days. Even one's whole life." (170)
"Maybe the cultivation of beauty is a good way to spend one's days. Even one's whole life." (170)
January 15, 2019
This is such a simple book filled with many profound ideas. I really enjoyed Christie's writing style, her topics, and the weaving of life, family, home, and God into everyday life. Highly recommended as a read and to give as a gift.
November 25, 2022
Wonderful reflections
July 18, 2018
Tear-jerking and gut-wrenchingly beautiful. I could not put this one down. Christie Purifoy’s gorgeous prose is only matched by the redemptive and ultimately triumphant way she sees the world. Glorious.
June 4, 2019
A little embarrassed it took me so long but I never read books I own because I need to return library books! Anyway, I also find PA beautiful and have a big old house myself that is falling apart and follows the seasons. I remember so many of these stories from Christie’s blog but they are different now that I hear the backstory on her podcast. I’m so glad to feel like I still know her life.
December 16, 2016
pg. 18 "Our lives are stories built of small moments. Ordinary experiences. It is too easy to forget that our days are adding up to something astonishing."
pg. 19 "Wandering taught me to desire rootedness. In the wilderness, I began to long for a place where my heart and body could settle, free of striving, free of restlessness. A place where my feet could touch ground. A place where I could grow. Like a tree. .... whether we are homebodies or world travelers, we all long for the moment of arrival. We all dream of the rest and peace we imagine waits for us at the end of a long journey."
pg. 20 "We trample messages like scattered leaves beneath our feet. If only we have eyes to see them. Ears to hear them."
pg. 25 "I want proof because I want hope. Life has been bleak these past few years. Like a long, hard winter. If I have come home, then surely life will get easier. Isn't that the meaning of spring? ... I secretly wonder if the pieces will ever come together. If this is my home, then how long will it be until I feel at home"
pg. 27 "Home is the place we cultivate with our love."
pg. 39 "I am a prisoner, bound tightly by the beautiful answers to my own prayers. .... Yet it is only when we are fenced in that we begin to know the true shape of ourselves and of our lives. What it is we long for. What it is we love. Hemmed in on every side, we begin to understand, I am not enough. Until every limitation and every need becomes a prayer. And every prayer a light revealing the treasure that is always, already ours."
pg. 42 "I feel stranded in Ordinary Time."
pg. 43 "Ordinary days don't matter all that much, but they are given to us. God gives the extraordinary - the birthdays, the holidays, the moving-in days, the days when we come face-to-face with him on the mountaintop. He also gives the deep-valley days. Days in the valley of the shadow of death, when, strangely, I have been more aware of his nearness than ever before. But as if these days were not enough, God gives us more."
pg. 59 "Advent is the darkest time of the year. But darkness isn't only a condition on the other side of your window. Sometimes it is a heaviness in your chest. Sometimes it is a fog between your eyes. Sometimes it is a creeping sickness caused by ...."
pg. 66"I feel drained of every emotion except the anxiety left rattling around in the dry husk of my self.....weighed down by the emptiness, I do nothing but keep my eyes lifted toward the clouds."
pg. 72 "If we are always comparing our now with our not yet, then we will find it impossible to be glad in the day that God has given us."
pg. 88 "Seasons are cycles of anticipation and fulfillment.
pg. 89 "It hurts to wait, especially when we do not know how long our wait will last. How long, Lord, how long? We repeat this ancient cry, and the words echo with all the burdens of a waiting world. Snow, spring, babies, degrees, jobs, weddings, healing, peace, and love. Always there is something to wait for. I have waited for these and other things, and I have learned that waiting is like wind. It appears to be nothing, but it is a nothing as shapeless yet vital as breath. Waiting molds us, changes us, makes us ready in some way that is hard to grasp. We now have eyes to see and arms open more widely to receive."
pg. 96 "I forget that every good thing requires cultivation. This is, in fact, part of the gift. Cultivation is participation. It is a glimpse of that unity we knew in the beginning. It is the way in which we, too, can walk with God in the garden. I long to see the glory of God in this place, to taste it even, but for everything there is a season. These are still planting days. These are the early days of small beginnings. Days to sow, quite often in tears, hoping, believing, that we may one day reap in joy."
pg. 102 "But first there is grief. A sign that I am being healed. Emerging from depression is like trying to restore life to a limb that has gone numb. The pins-and-needles sensation feels unbearable. I woke up from apathy and cried out my final prayers of anger and disappointment."
pg. 104 "Epiphany is the meeting place of miracle and prophecy with ordinary flesh and blood. .... Epiphany has traditionally been a day for saying a blessing over one's home. {Lord God of Heaven and Earth, You revealed Your only begotten Son to every nation by the light of a star. Bless this house and all who in habit it. Allow us to find it a shelter of peace and health. Make our house a place of warmth and caring for all who visit us. Fill us with the light of Christ, that we might clearly see You in our work and play. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.}
pg. 107 "It seems that we, like Jesus before us, will know trouble and displacement. We will be called away from so many great loves: love of family, love of our familiar fields. But we will also be tasked with the work of cultivating new homes and new fields and new relationships. We will wander. We will come home. But always we will follow."
pg. 115 "Hope is for the dark days. The days when all you can see is mud and mess, like so many forgotten toys strewn across the backyard. Those are the days when miracles begin.....Always, God is tugging us toward resurrection, tugging us and this whole weary, winter world toward new life. But the way is dark. The road is long. The path is quiet. It is paved with hunger.
pg. 118 "I know myself fairly well. I know that I do not like crowds. I do not feel comfortable with strangers. I struggle, mightily, with small talk. I am also cautious. ... to put it simply, I am afraid. I am lonely, yet I want only to be left alone. But the kingdom of God is pretty much the opposite of alone. Also, in the kingdom of God, there is this voice saying, 'Do not be afraid, do not be afraid, do not be afraid."
pg. 122 "We love beginnings, and we privilege endings, but we live most of our lives in some sort of middle. Life is perpetually unfinished. That is its nature. I want to know what the last words of Christ offer those of us who are still living in the shadow of the cross. Those of us who are living in unfinished places and in the midst of unfinished days."
pg. 140 "We mostly find God in the rubbing of shoulders with other, difficult people. People like ourselves. God shows up in the jagged edges between us."
pg. 141 "Eden was the first temple- a garden temple where God walked with us. Now we live in the after of Adam's curse. Jesus broke this curse forever when he gave his own body to be broken for us. By this wounds we and all creation are healed. Our bodies are temples, and God is here with us, in this place."
pg. 150 "Every beautiful thing is edged with brokenness."
pg. 164 "There was not one thing I desired wholeheartedly."
pg. 192 "Our bodies can feel like burdens even in sleep."
pg. 197 "Trees seem to hold all four seasons within themselves, revealing in turn bud, leaf, color, bare branch. Perhaps it is the same with us. We, too, are made up of so many hidden things. Seasons, stories, places, and people. We, too, depend absolutely on the sky, the earth, and all that is alive around us. Our identities are always relational, just as God's identity is relational."
pg. 200 "..a quiet life is not inevitable. It is not the default of this world. We may sometimes find ourselves in a very quiet place. Often, the road to suffering will carry us there despite our willingness to go. But nearly all of us must work to stay there. All the energies of the flesh, all the vanity of a world that has rejected heaven, seem bent on making noise. Bent on leading us away from the quiet life that sings so beautifully of the world that is to come."
pg. 202 "Quietness is a receptive emptiness. Only the meek will inherit the earth because only the meek have room within themselves to receive such a wide and wild inheritance."
pg. 19 "Wandering taught me to desire rootedness. In the wilderness, I began to long for a place where my heart and body could settle, free of striving, free of restlessness. A place where my feet could touch ground. A place where I could grow. Like a tree. .... whether we are homebodies or world travelers, we all long for the moment of arrival. We all dream of the rest and peace we imagine waits for us at the end of a long journey."
pg. 20 "We trample messages like scattered leaves beneath our feet. If only we have eyes to see them. Ears to hear them."
pg. 25 "I want proof because I want hope. Life has been bleak these past few years. Like a long, hard winter. If I have come home, then surely life will get easier. Isn't that the meaning of spring? ... I secretly wonder if the pieces will ever come together. If this is my home, then how long will it be until I feel at home"
pg. 27 "Home is the place we cultivate with our love."
pg. 39 "I am a prisoner, bound tightly by the beautiful answers to my own prayers. .... Yet it is only when we are fenced in that we begin to know the true shape of ourselves and of our lives. What it is we long for. What it is we love. Hemmed in on every side, we begin to understand, I am not enough. Until every limitation and every need becomes a prayer. And every prayer a light revealing the treasure that is always, already ours."
pg. 42 "I feel stranded in Ordinary Time."
pg. 43 "Ordinary days don't matter all that much, but they are given to us. God gives the extraordinary - the birthdays, the holidays, the moving-in days, the days when we come face-to-face with him on the mountaintop. He also gives the deep-valley days. Days in the valley of the shadow of death, when, strangely, I have been more aware of his nearness than ever before. But as if these days were not enough, God gives us more."
pg. 59 "Advent is the darkest time of the year. But darkness isn't only a condition on the other side of your window. Sometimes it is a heaviness in your chest. Sometimes it is a fog between your eyes. Sometimes it is a creeping sickness caused by ...."
pg. 66"I feel drained of every emotion except the anxiety left rattling around in the dry husk of my self.....weighed down by the emptiness, I do nothing but keep my eyes lifted toward the clouds."
pg. 72 "If we are always comparing our now with our not yet, then we will find it impossible to be glad in the day that God has given us."
pg. 88 "Seasons are cycles of anticipation and fulfillment.
pg. 89 "It hurts to wait, especially when we do not know how long our wait will last. How long, Lord, how long? We repeat this ancient cry, and the words echo with all the burdens of a waiting world. Snow, spring, babies, degrees, jobs, weddings, healing, peace, and love. Always there is something to wait for. I have waited for these and other things, and I have learned that waiting is like wind. It appears to be nothing, but it is a nothing as shapeless yet vital as breath. Waiting molds us, changes us, makes us ready in some way that is hard to grasp. We now have eyes to see and arms open more widely to receive."
pg. 96 "I forget that every good thing requires cultivation. This is, in fact, part of the gift. Cultivation is participation. It is a glimpse of that unity we knew in the beginning. It is the way in which we, too, can walk with God in the garden. I long to see the glory of God in this place, to taste it even, but for everything there is a season. These are still planting days. These are the early days of small beginnings. Days to sow, quite often in tears, hoping, believing, that we may one day reap in joy."
pg. 102 "But first there is grief. A sign that I am being healed. Emerging from depression is like trying to restore life to a limb that has gone numb. The pins-and-needles sensation feels unbearable. I woke up from apathy and cried out my final prayers of anger and disappointment."
pg. 104 "Epiphany is the meeting place of miracle and prophecy with ordinary flesh and blood. .... Epiphany has traditionally been a day for saying a blessing over one's home. {Lord God of Heaven and Earth, You revealed Your only begotten Son to every nation by the light of a star. Bless this house and all who in habit it. Allow us to find it a shelter of peace and health. Make our house a place of warmth and caring for all who visit us. Fill us with the light of Christ, that we might clearly see You in our work and play. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.}
pg. 107 "It seems that we, like Jesus before us, will know trouble and displacement. We will be called away from so many great loves: love of family, love of our familiar fields. But we will also be tasked with the work of cultivating new homes and new fields and new relationships. We will wander. We will come home. But always we will follow."
pg. 115 "Hope is for the dark days. The days when all you can see is mud and mess, like so many forgotten toys strewn across the backyard. Those are the days when miracles begin.....Always, God is tugging us toward resurrection, tugging us and this whole weary, winter world toward new life. But the way is dark. The road is long. The path is quiet. It is paved with hunger.
pg. 118 "I know myself fairly well. I know that I do not like crowds. I do not feel comfortable with strangers. I struggle, mightily, with small talk. I am also cautious. ... to put it simply, I am afraid. I am lonely, yet I want only to be left alone. But the kingdom of God is pretty much the opposite of alone. Also, in the kingdom of God, there is this voice saying, 'Do not be afraid, do not be afraid, do not be afraid."
pg. 122 "We love beginnings, and we privilege endings, but we live most of our lives in some sort of middle. Life is perpetually unfinished. That is its nature. I want to know what the last words of Christ offer those of us who are still living in the shadow of the cross. Those of us who are living in unfinished places and in the midst of unfinished days."
pg. 140 "We mostly find God in the rubbing of shoulders with other, difficult people. People like ourselves. God shows up in the jagged edges between us."
pg. 141 "Eden was the first temple- a garden temple where God walked with us. Now we live in the after of Adam's curse. Jesus broke this curse forever when he gave his own body to be broken for us. By this wounds we and all creation are healed. Our bodies are temples, and God is here with us, in this place."
pg. 150 "Every beautiful thing is edged with brokenness."
pg. 164 "There was not one thing I desired wholeheartedly."
pg. 192 "Our bodies can feel like burdens even in sleep."
pg. 197 "Trees seem to hold all four seasons within themselves, revealing in turn bud, leaf, color, bare branch. Perhaps it is the same with us. We, too, are made up of so many hidden things. Seasons, stories, places, and people. We, too, depend absolutely on the sky, the earth, and all that is alive around us. Our identities are always relational, just as God's identity is relational."
pg. 200 "..a quiet life is not inevitable. It is not the default of this world. We may sometimes find ourselves in a very quiet place. Often, the road to suffering will carry us there despite our willingness to go. But nearly all of us must work to stay there. All the energies of the flesh, all the vanity of a world that has rejected heaven, seem bent on making noise. Bent on leading us away from the quiet life that sings so beautifully of the world that is to come."
pg. 202 "Quietness is a receptive emptiness. Only the meek will inherit the earth because only the meek have room within themselves to receive such a wide and wild inheritance."
February 27, 2016
“I see the world through the lens of metaphor,” Purifoy writes. We look through that lens with her as she shares her thoughts on a year of her life.
She and her husband bought an old farmhouse (built in 1880) on five acres in southeastern Pennsylvania. We come alongside her to experience the first year there, exploring the meaning of home and homecoming in the context of God, family, and community.
Purifoy is an eloquent writer and her account of life on the farm is delightful. She weaves her thoughts on the liturgical year into her account of family life. I particularly liked her comments on sacred places. Now “the whole world has become the setting for God's encounter with us...” “Since Jesus, every place has the potential to be sacred. We carry God with us now, our bodies are temples.” She writes with similar insight about sacred time in our frenzied world of twenty four hour shopping.
She writes about family life and the birth of her daughter. She takes us through the darkness of winter and her depression. She writes of the silence that comes before God's answer. We find that gardening in spring is an act of faith. We realize hunger is a sign of being an image bearer.
This is a delightful book full of thoughtful insights into life, the liturgical year, and family, surrounded by the framework of moving into a new home. Reading the book is a gentle reminder that, as we rush through life, we could pause to recognize life and see God in all things. Where ever we may be, Purifoy suggests, “...surely God is in this place.”
I highly recommend this book as one that calms the soul and invites us to reconnect with God in the ordinary experiences of everyday life.
I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher for the purpose of an independent and honest review.
She and her husband bought an old farmhouse (built in 1880) on five acres in southeastern Pennsylvania. We come alongside her to experience the first year there, exploring the meaning of home and homecoming in the context of God, family, and community.
Purifoy is an eloquent writer and her account of life on the farm is delightful. She weaves her thoughts on the liturgical year into her account of family life. I particularly liked her comments on sacred places. Now “the whole world has become the setting for God's encounter with us...” “Since Jesus, every place has the potential to be sacred. We carry God with us now, our bodies are temples.” She writes with similar insight about sacred time in our frenzied world of twenty four hour shopping.
She writes about family life and the birth of her daughter. She takes us through the darkness of winter and her depression. She writes of the silence that comes before God's answer. We find that gardening in spring is an act of faith. We realize hunger is a sign of being an image bearer.
This is a delightful book full of thoughtful insights into life, the liturgical year, and family, surrounded by the framework of moving into a new home. Reading the book is a gentle reminder that, as we rush through life, we could pause to recognize life and see God in all things. Where ever we may be, Purifoy suggests, “...surely God is in this place.”
I highly recommend this book as one that calms the soul and invites us to reconnect with God in the ordinary experiences of everyday life.
I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher for the purpose of an independent and honest review.
April 4, 2016
I drank this book up like a parched soul, when I had not even known I was thirsty. Thirsty for pouring into a place and making it beautiful, and thirsty to know that the smell of simmering apples and cinnamon makes God smile too! Roots and Sky traces a journey toward homecoming. The tired days, the depressed months, the fists-at-the-sky tantrums, and the oh so thankful glimpses of what is “adding up to something astonishing.” I am thirsty to know that my apartment hopping, schedule swapping, career untangling days are still part of home, because home is not just a destination, it is a journey. Christy’s story is crafted by memoir, so it unfurls through her own dreams, and lessons learned, but she touches longings that we all share. God speaks to her in chipped paint, snowflakes, and scratched bannisters, and listening in reminds us to open an ear to God in every moment too. Her life includes many things mine does not: children, a house, or a green thumb. But everything in her story says that God has made all things good, and the weight of significance rests in peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches.
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Visit TheWillowNook.com for more thoughts on books, faith, and home.
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March 16, 2016 "Roots and Sky" written by Christie Purifoy is an inspirational book of `A Journey Home in Four Seasons`. I was drawn to this book by its no-nonsense cover. Also by the representations of the four seasons. Unless otherwise noted any scripture used is from The Holy Bible (NIV).
The author examines the question, "Just how much heaven do we get to experience here on earth?" I would suggest this book is an allegory as Christie writes of her families first year at Maplehurst, an old Pennsylvania farmhouse. This book is also written as an inspirational for women.
Built in 1880, Maplehurst is a square red-brick farmhouse wrapped in a white-spindled porch (pg 13). The setting is intended to be real with a garden, a henhouse, and apple trees. The time is set in the present with bicycles, two-car garages, and new backyard decks, instead of a place where cattle graze. (pg 13)
I am sure anyone who enjoys prose would enjoy this 202-page book I also believe it's a beautifully written work of art that the average reader can appreciate.
Disclaimer: I was compensated with this book for my honest review.
The author examines the question, "Just how much heaven do we get to experience here on earth?" I would suggest this book is an allegory as Christie writes of her families first year at Maplehurst, an old Pennsylvania farmhouse. This book is also written as an inspirational for women.
Built in 1880, Maplehurst is a square red-brick farmhouse wrapped in a white-spindled porch (pg 13). The setting is intended to be real with a garden, a henhouse, and apple trees. The time is set in the present with bicycles, two-car garages, and new backyard decks, instead of a place where cattle graze. (pg 13)
I am sure anyone who enjoys prose would enjoy this 202-page book I also believe it's a beautifully written work of art that the average reader can appreciate.
Disclaimer: I was compensated with this book for my honest review.
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