THE BRIGHT HOUR by Nina Riggs

Ancient Egyptians brought skeletons to their feasts, exhorting guests to drink and make merry while they still could. American Puritans in the 17th century kept skulls as warnings to sober up and focus on the afterlife. Memento mori, the gruesome reminders were called: remember that you must die. People died suddenly, and young. They wanted to be prepared. 

Nina Riggs did not feel prepared when she learned that a small spot in her breast was malignant. Cancer ran in her family: it had taken three grandparents and several aunts, and her mother was in treatment for multiple myeloma. But Riggs was only 37. Her sons, Freddy and Benny, were eight and five; she was not ready to leave them. Merrymaking had its place, but it didn’t address her concerns. And the afterlife, if it existed, was unknowable.

That's how my review of Riggs's The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying begins. It's in the Fall Books issue of The Christian Century, and you can read the rest here for a few more days. After that, the magazine will likely put the review behind a firewall that can be breached only by paid subscribers.

It's a short review; you have time to click and read. Seize the day. Enjoy the now. That's what Riggs advises. In the words of her great-great-great-grandfather Ralph Waldo Emerson, she wanted to be "cheered with the moist, warm glittering, budding and melodious hour that takes down the narrow walls of my soul and extends its pulsation and life to the very horizon. That is morning; to cease for a bright hour to be a prisoner of this sickly body and to become as large as the World."

Reviewers don't always like the books they describe, but I loved this one.

10 reasons I'm giving up Facebook

Some of my friends use Facebook judiciously. Some, like me, spend far too much time on it. And clearly some, also like me, feel worse and worse because of what they see there.

If Facebook is making your life better, far be it from me to criticize. I suspect, however, that it is stripping joy from my life. Here are ten reasons I'm planning to stay off Facebook indefinitely.

1. Time on Facebook is time not reading books.
2. Reading about friends’ lives is great; seeing all the articles they liked, not so much.
3. The barrage of memes, games, quizzes, and “sponsored” stuff continually increases.
4. Call it “recommended for you,” it’s still an ad.
5. Facebook is a rich mine of information for marketers, scammers, thieves, and election fraudsters.
6. Facebook is an ideal platform for liars and haters.
7. Facebook widens divisions and calcifies opinions.
8. It is painful to see friends fall for propaganda from unknown or unreliable sources.
9. It is futile to point out facts to people who prefer ideology.
10. Constant attention to the president and Congress deepens depression. 

I'm hoping that, in the absence of Facebook, I'll spend more time in the physical world, having actual conversations with flesh-and-blood people. I'm hoping I'll pet more living, breathing kittens and puppies, see more sunshine on leaves and lakes, smell more fresh-baked bread, listen to more happy music.

Maybe once I’ve regained Paradise I’ll give Facebook another try: I do love hearing from far-flung friends and seeing pictures of their activities, their families, and their pets.

Meanwhile, I encourage friends and family to stay in touch via phone calls, emails, texts, and actual meet-ups. Then I might never need to imperil my soul by going back to Facebook.

Anyone for lunch?