- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Zondervan (22 Jan 2010)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0310292476
- ISBN-13: 978-0310292470
- Product Dimensions: 20.2 x 14.2 x 1.5 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,087,929 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Picking Dandelions: A Search for Eden Among Life's Weeds
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Sarah Cunningham, a moderate middle-class white girl who grew up in the Michigan countryside, speaks about God with humor and honesty more characteristic of liberal west-coast writers.In this warm and witty memoir, she describes finding and keeping a personal faith in the quirky settings of her ultra-Christian childhood. Whether recounting living next to a cemetery, teaching at-risk high schoolers, or listening to her grandmothers stories about being a British "war bride," the author weaves faith into down-to-earth metaphors of growth and renewal, planting and reaping, greenery and weeds.In the end, Cunningham succeeds in sifting through the dysfunctions and flaws of human life and discovering pockets of Gods original Eden goodness for both herself and for you.Picking Dandelions is a candid and personal account of outgrowing laissez-faire Christianity, moving into mature faith, and realizing that a God-following person is a changing person and you just might follow suit.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
About the Author
Professor and chief diaper changer. She is a popular church and conference speaker, the author of Dear Church, and a contributor to several books, including unChristian. Sarah lives with her husband, Chuck their son, Justus, and their manic Jack Russell in Jackson, Michigan. They attend a church plant called Rivertree.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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49 reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
What Happens when Eden is Full of Weeds?
8 Feb 2010
Format:Paperback
Some people write because they are gifted at shaping sentences into beautiful, poetic expressions. Holding a book from a gifted writer is like drinking out of a stemmed glass of fine crystal. The look and feel is captivating, even when the wine inside was poured from a cardboard box. Other people write because they have a story worth telling. Depending on the significance of the narrative the quality of the serving cup can be somewhat overlooked. So when you find a writer who not only has the talent for words but also a tale to tell, you have a found a rare gift.
When I started reading Sarah Cunningham's second book, "Picking Dandelions," I knew I had found one of those memoirs that were worth championing both for its prose and its purpose. Often times Christian books seem nothing more than an outline from a speaker's favorite sermon that have been fluffed up to fit between the covers. Even when the message is worth sharing the art of story telling lacks any creativity that gives the book real body. But my early response to "Picking Dandelions" was that Sarah Cunningham could write. And as I continued, fully enjoying her story telling, I recognized its significance as well.
Cunningham describes her "Search for faith among life's weeds" from her days of growing up the daughter of a Baptist minister to her current roles as a teacher and new mother. Along the way she recognizes that her faith wasn't a "one and done" event like a sinner's prayer, but incorporates a lifetime of growing. Her journey to and through this understanding is full of imagery that will pull the reader into their own faith pilgrimage as well.
Though broken into nine sections, Cunningham's book has three main parts. The first two sections tell of the observations she had about faith as a child and adolescent. The next couple of sections concentrate on the segment of her life when she attempted to change the world around her. (There is a very poignant section where she describes her various outreach positions that sprung from her internships while at a Christian college and her staff roles at a church.) About half way through the book her energies are turned inwards as she realizes her attempts at creating a new Eden means she has to embody that garden within herself.
What does it mean to change? Does it matter if your faith is stale? How do you go about dealing with spiritual weeds? Cunningham asks these questions of herself, never getting preachy with the readers, which make this dandelion wine a rare, and worth imbibing, vintage.
When I started reading Sarah Cunningham's second book, "Picking Dandelions," I knew I had found one of those memoirs that were worth championing both for its prose and its purpose. Often times Christian books seem nothing more than an outline from a speaker's favorite sermon that have been fluffed up to fit between the covers. Even when the message is worth sharing the art of story telling lacks any creativity that gives the book real body. But my early response to "Picking Dandelions" was that Sarah Cunningham could write. And as I continued, fully enjoying her story telling, I recognized its significance as well.
Cunningham describes her "Search for faith among life's weeds" from her days of growing up the daughter of a Baptist minister to her current roles as a teacher and new mother. Along the way she recognizes that her faith wasn't a "one and done" event like a sinner's prayer, but incorporates a lifetime of growing. Her journey to and through this understanding is full of imagery that will pull the reader into their own faith pilgrimage as well.
Though broken into nine sections, Cunningham's book has three main parts. The first two sections tell of the observations she had about faith as a child and adolescent. The next couple of sections concentrate on the segment of her life when she attempted to change the world around her. (There is a very poignant section where she describes her various outreach positions that sprung from her internships while at a Christian college and her staff roles at a church.) About half way through the book her energies are turned inwards as she realizes her attempts at creating a new Eden means she has to embody that garden within herself.
What does it mean to change? Does it matter if your faith is stale? How do you go about dealing with spiritual weeds? Cunningham asks these questions of herself, never getting preachy with the readers, which make this dandelion wine a rare, and worth imbibing, vintage.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
If You Like Anne Lamott, You'll Like Sarah Cunningham
8 April 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
A lot of readers eat up Anne Lamott (including this author, I have a feeling, who mentions Anne in her preface). They like Lamott's honesty and her irreverence. And let's be real: they like the dramatic ups and downs of her life story. Cunningham is cut from the same stylistic cloth although you almost wouldn't expect it since her life took a decidedly cleaner path than Lamott's. Her life is different (more solidly rooted in the faith and less rocky). But Cunningham's journey is still compelling and inviting. It takes up leading a relief team to Ground Zero and living in a homeless shelter among other things. And although she isn't a Lamott clone, you get the sense you're reading the opening book of someone whose name is going to cling to book club lists the same way. If you like Lamott for her style and honesty and humor, I think you'll see some of her younger prattling idealistic side in Cunningham.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Great Book. Here's an Interview with Sarah
17 Mar 2010
Format:Paperback
So I interviewed Sarah Cunningham about her new book Picking Dandelions...
ME: Sarah, congrats on the new book. What's it about?
SARAH: "It's a loose collection of stories that play to a universal theme--that humans (especially people in the faith) can't afford the luxury of unchanged living. And it paints a metaphor of having to weed out one's life to make room for more Eden intentions; more of the life God intended."
ME: Who is it for? Cuz I see the dandelion, and I'm like...
SARAH: "I was thinking it would be 30 to 50 year old multi-tasking women, probably juggling a fast-paced career, laundry duty, and reading three or four books simultaneously. Maybe using a half-completed to-do list as a bookmark."
ME: But no?
SARAH: "I was surprised that six of the seven people who opted to endorse the book were... men. And after the book hit the shelves, men have consistently made up about half the reviewers."
ME: Well, there is a rumor going around that Donald Miller wrote the book under the pen name "Sarah Cunningham."
SARAH: "Its been funny to watch. A lot of the men who mention the book to me, in emails or online, abbreviate it as PD--as if the title and the bright fuzzy flower on the cover, becomes a little more masculine."
ME: Are you surprised that men are reading it then?
SARAH: "Sorta. I was a little surprised that men got over the cover image. It wasn't a bubble letter cursive font or hearts and lipstick smeared all over the cover, but it played to women. Now I imagine this underground group of muscle-y guys, flipping through the book with paper bags over their heads. Like the sports fans who are embarrassed by their teams."
ME: What do you think that means?
SARAH: "Maybe the metaphor is bigger than I realized then. Its not just women kneeling in their gardens pulling stray dandelions; it's men firing up the weed-eater and mowing down hundreds at a time."
ME: Yeah, that sounds like me.
ME: Sarah, congrats on the new book. What's it about?
SARAH: "It's a loose collection of stories that play to a universal theme--that humans (especially people in the faith) can't afford the luxury of unchanged living. And it paints a metaphor of having to weed out one's life to make room for more Eden intentions; more of the life God intended."
ME: Who is it for? Cuz I see the dandelion, and I'm like...
SARAH: "I was thinking it would be 30 to 50 year old multi-tasking women, probably juggling a fast-paced career, laundry duty, and reading three or four books simultaneously. Maybe using a half-completed to-do list as a bookmark."
ME: But no?
SARAH: "I was surprised that six of the seven people who opted to endorse the book were... men. And after the book hit the shelves, men have consistently made up about half the reviewers."
ME: Well, there is a rumor going around that Donald Miller wrote the book under the pen name "Sarah Cunningham."
SARAH: "Its been funny to watch. A lot of the men who mention the book to me, in emails or online, abbreviate it as PD--as if the title and the bright fuzzy flower on the cover, becomes a little more masculine."
ME: Are you surprised that men are reading it then?
SARAH: "Sorta. I was a little surprised that men got over the cover image. It wasn't a bubble letter cursive font or hearts and lipstick smeared all over the cover, but it played to women. Now I imagine this underground group of muscle-y guys, flipping through the book with paper bags over their heads. Like the sports fans who are embarrassed by their teams."
ME: What do you think that means?
SARAH: "Maybe the metaphor is bigger than I realized then. Its not just women kneeling in their gardens pulling stray dandelions; it's men firing up the weed-eater and mowing down hundreds at a time."
ME: Yeah, that sounds like me.
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