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Celebrating Our Culture |
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Whether it is a group
of men who hunt and fish together or a group of women who meet for lunch,
at the beauty salon or a women’s club – friendships inspire and define
the culture of the South. Lynne
Hinton in her debut novel Friendship Cake captures the unique
qualities of bonding that brings five unlikely women together as friends. For her setting, Hinton
chose the Women’s Guild of Hope Springs Community Church in North
Carolina. This was a natural
choice for Hinton, who serves as pastor the First Congregational United
Church of Christ in Asheboro, North Carolina.
She comes from a family known for putting their faith into action.
Her father and brother serve as Southern Baptist ministers and her
sister is a youth minister. Lynne
Hinton credits her family with preparing her to heal with words.
“ My upbringing was conservative and strict and even though I
have landed in a very different place theologically from my parents and
siblings, the significance of faith is of up most importance for me. Faith
has some pretty important components that certainly affect me, components
like hope, purpose, wholeness, and love. Because I was raised in a home
where faith was taught and valued, I cannot escape the hold faith has on
my living and my writing.” In Friendship Cake,
the women join to support Louise Fisher as she cares for her best friend
and Alzheimer’s patient Roxie. Lynne
Hinton drew on her experience as a former hospice chaplain, and
acknowledges that experience with shaping her ministry and giving her the
courage to tell stories. Hinton discovered three major life lessons from the hospice.
“ 1. Life is short; don't waste time being petty or holding
yourself back. 2. Tell the people you love that you love them. You never
know when that last chance will be. And 3. Laugh deeply and a lot and cry
as much as you need.” If Hinton’s goal is
to heal through words, she picked women in life situations that needed to
be healed through the spirit, soul, and body.
Some of her women could be considered controversial in a small
southern town. Her group of women included: a young pastor who craved the
order of the church compared to the dysfunction of her home; a black
activist who joined a white church as an act of rebellion then made it her
home; a bossy woman and funeral home cosmologist who made up corpses as
she thought they should have looked in life; a childless teacher who
attracted teenagers with problems and was a natural peacemaker; and a
woman who passionately loved another woman yet never acted on that desire
physically. Hinton admitted that the
story lines are controversial. “Some
folks won't be comfortable with them. My parents still have not spoken
about them with me. But the issues and the characters weren't ‘chosen’
like a text for a sermon. They just appeared and had to be dealt with. I
only hope I did them justice.” As the story develops
in Friendship Cake, the process of sharing and bonding nurtures the
cookbook committee members. According
to Hinton, “a woman's church committee is loaded with possibilities for
grace, every church committee is; that is what's so great about them. That
is what is so great about the church. A group of folks can think they're
just meeting about stewardship or building and maintenance and the next
thing you know, somebody prayed and the Holy Spirit decided to come
calling. When a committee is open to a force greater than themselves, it
can be an exciting place to be!” As Hinton began writing
her novel, she found she was dealing with “a bunch of noisy women.”
Hinton described it this way, “It was like these characters all
sort of barged in my room and started talking. The only way I could make
any sense out of it was to say, ‘alright, one at a time.’ Writing the
chapters in the beginning with the different voices [or point of view each
chapter] was simply a way for me as the ‘scribe’ to tell their
stories.” In Friendship Cake, each chapter is introduced with a recipe by that chapter’s voice. “There is some relationship in every chapter between what happens in that chapter and the recipe,” Hinton explained. “It's fairly obvious I think, wedding cookies, a wedding happens, pickle recipe for a chapter with a conflict, Beatrice and her prune cake; some sort of connection is intended. The recipes came from a local restaurant, Fran's Front Porch, the owners were members of my last parish, and a church cookbook from one of the first churches I ever worked in, First Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, Greensboro.” This past spring, Lynne
Hinton taught a writing seminar at the National United Church of Christ
Women’s Meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“As with any workshop I lead, I wanted the participants at the
creative writing workshop to have permission! Permission to feel and
experience and taste and smell and eavesdrop and dance and cry and write!
Lots of permission to write!” Lynne Hinton’s first published book was a fifty-two week devotional called Meditations for Walking. The book takes the reader through the season on a journey of self-discovery in faith. Hinton was inspired by a real life event. “Meditations for Walking came from my experience of trying to clear away a path in the pine tree forest behind our house,” Hinton remembered. “As I "unbuilt" and walked the path, I learned all sorts of lessons for my spiritual life. And there are so many images of walking in the Bible. I had lots of texts to choose from!” Lynne Hinton has been busy with booksignings since Friendship Cake was released in April. “The most exciting event since getting published is finding my sixth grade teacher,” Hinton smiled. “Ms. Bullard was a very important adult in forming who I am now as a woman. I loved her! And I thought I would never see her again. At one of my signings, she showed up. I still cry when I think about it. It was so right to find her again. And now, it looks as if we're going to be friends. Reunion is a very cool thing. That's why I think heaven will be a gas.” Lynne Hinton’s next novel is The Things I Know Best, a coming of age story, to be released in Fall, 2001.
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