WOF: Your book has a backward and a forward – but they’re backwards!  That’s so typical of you.  Did you have to train yourself to look at things from a different perspective, or did you just come that way?

LUCI: I came that way.  I think to start a book when you’re looking backward is more interesting, because it’s more of a flashback.  The book is what I would say if I were mentoring a group.  They told me, “Write everything in this book you can think of that people ask for.”  So here’s where I’ve come from and here’s what has helped me.  There’s a backward, a present day ‘here’s where I am now’ section, and then a forward.  I want to go forward and I want to encourage the reader to go forward.

WOF: Listening sounds so simple, but it’s surprisingly difficult to do well.  What do you find to be the most difficult part of listening?

LUCI: I think the reason it turns out to be difficult is because the majority of people like to talk. They have something they feel is worth saying or something for someone else to listen to, whether it’s a parent, friend, teacher, or whatever.  I think listening is difficult because it requires a lot of attention; the best listeners have long attention spans.

It’s important because unless one gets all the facts of whatever we were listening to, we rush to conclusions; we rush to judgment. That’s often true with a parent/child relationship. The parent says “Why did you do that?  What were you thinking?” instead of “Tell me your side of the story.”  Most people like to correct others.  If we’re going to do that well, we need all the facts.

People are in such a hurry; they have a lot to do. Listening takes time, energy, and mental acumen to stay with the person and not run ahead to get in your own two cents’ worth. If we have something to say, we’re fearful that we won’t get the chance or we’ll forget it.  I have found that if I just wait, if I forget what I was going to say it wasn’t worth saying.  It’s a fine art.

WOF: You point out that “Life’s highway is littered with people who had good intentions but never punched the start button.”  What advice do you have for someone whose finger is hovering over the start button, but is reluctant to push it?

LUCI:  If they have done their homework, considered their options, and looked at where they are but are hesitant through fear, feelings of inadequacy, or low self-esteem, I would encourage them to punch it anyway. Punch that button. Unless we start, we never know.  We never have opportunity to figure out whether or not we can do that.  

We’re prone to be hard on ourselves.  “I can’t do it. Other people can do it better.  They don’t want me, they really want my brother Chuck. I’m not able to do, but I faked them out all these months and now they’ll find out the truth.”  We have a lot of self-incriminating feelings.

Once you get on that horse you think, Now what?  That’s the adventure of life, to just begin. If you trust God, once you start, doors open. It’s the key to making things happen.  We all have some measure of trust – it’s like flying.  If we don’t trust that we’re going to get there, we’d never get on the plane. We’ll never get anywhere if we don’t start!

WOF: You’ve devoted a whole section of the book to laughter.  Often, we think of God as all serious all the time.  Why is it so difficult to picture God laughing? 

LUCI: Most of the laughter to which Scripture makes reference is derisive or mocking. It’s like that line in Handel’s Messiah, “He laughed them to scorn.” It’s a great line; only God can laugh that loud.

It’s hard to think of God as a cheerful being. The consensus of opinion for those who are young in faith is that God is out to get you - he’s a big man with a big stick, and whatever it takes to bring us in line, that’s what he’ll do.  Those of us with more experience under our belts, who have walked with him longer, no longer see him like that.  He’s a just God, but he’s also a God of love and care and joy.  A lot of joy is just having fun, not taking yourself so seriously. 

WOF: What do you think makes God laugh?

LUCI: I think to see his own children at peace or trusting him or waiving their right to have their own way or enjoying his gifts or enjoying other people.  It makes God happy when we take a chance and believe on him – which really isn’t a chance, it’s a prescribed thing that he will work it out in his own way.

Often when I hear or see something beautiful I laugh. It’s a characteristic of my family. If we enjoy something a lot, we laugh. It’s a joyful response. Sometimes I think God laughs over his creation, like funny-looking animals, or people who get themselves in predicaments.  But that’s not mocking laughter, it’s laughter of acceptance and waiting for us to get to the point we come to him.

WOF: You’re famous for your journals.  Do you really enjoy writing everything down – even the painful or embarrassing stuff? 

LUCI: I don’t always write that part down anymore. My journals have been very valuable to me in my writing, because when I wonder, Now, what month was that?  Where did that happen? I have accurate information on hand. It’s also been a big help to most of my friends when they need to check facts.  And I like it. I like having a place to put things that have no other place. Being a neatnik, I need a place to put cards, or letters, or tags, or pictures that I want to tie to a date.  And it makes my mind sharper, having to synthesize a bigger thought and delineate it so it will fit on the page and make sense.

WOF: In your Contagious Joy message you talk about a cookbook called “Manifold Destiny”.  Seriously now, have you ever followed any of the recipes in that book?

LUCI: I have not. I have friends who also had the book and were planning to cook, but decided not to take the trip after all.  Y’know, that book is not only filled with interesting recipes, it’s an interesting book.  I know those guys had to do a lot of research and they’re good writers.  I was looking at it yesterday for a devotional I’m writing, and read that Attila the Hun used to put a piece of meat between his saddle blanket and his horse and it would cook while he was riding across the desert.  I assume he would wash the ‘horse’ off the meat before eating it, but you never know.  It’s just a fascinating thing to read.

WOF: What’s the best book you’ve read in the last year, and what are you reading now? 

LUCI: In last year….probably the best book I’ve read was The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard. It’s about group of men who went to Antarctica in 1928 or so; the Scott expedition to the South Pole.  It’s very detailed, describing what they took on the ship, all that stuff. Having been to Antarctica, I could see it all in my mind’s eye.  It’s a fabulous book.

I read another book by a guy named James Elkins about why people cry in front of  paintings called Pictures and Tears : A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings. He’s a professor at the Art Institute of Chicago.  His premise is that we cry in front of paintings because what we see is either too close to what we feel or too far from what we feel. He uses images of paintings throughout the book to show examples of what we cry about.  We have to feel something before we’re moved, but we’re often moved to tears.

Finally, The Story Of Art by E.H. Gombrich. He was Viennese, a professor at the University of London, who died in 1991.  This is the 16th printing. When I was in college as an art major, the first edition had just come out. I did not read it until this year, and I could not put it down. It starts with cave paintings and goes to modern work – modern in 1991, anyway. It’s very lucid, it flows with a lot of interest, moments of comedy, it’s just very well told. I have seen so much of the art of which he speaks that it made it come to life for me.

WOF: Do you have a favorite reading spot? 

LUCI: Well, don’t read much in my library. I like having a library a few steps away, but I generally read in a real comfy chair in my bedroom.  It’s a big slouchy chair that I’ve had maybe 15 years; I had it recovered when I moved into this house.  It has an ottoman, so I can spread out and read in my pajamas.  I do sit in my library on occasion, mostly when I’m doing research.  I prefer to use books to the Internet; I like the feeling of a book in my hand.  I have such a history with my own books.  I sign and date them in the back when I finish.

WOF: Each time you read it?

LUCI: Yes, I make a list in the back of each date I finished reading the book.

WOF: Do you have a favorite writing spot?

LUCI: I generally write in my studio, sitting at the moonship (my big computer).  When traveling use laptop.  I don’t like to use the laptop as much, but it is convenient if I’m on the road and I have a deadline. 

WOF: Is there anything you’d like to tell our readers?

LUCI: My big statement is, “Don’t wait to live.” Especially as we grow older, I want to encourage everyone to not hold back on something you want to do or accomplish or someplace you want to go or something you want to read or write or see.  We don’t know if we’ll have tomorrow. It behooves us to enjoy today, to celebrate today, be involved with people – their needs and hopes. We can’t do it all, but we can all do something. We can all do something that will help.