A Booklover's Journal

I Could Never Write Like This...

2010-04-12T10:22:00.001-07:00

Marilynne Robinson is a new find for me (where has she been all my life?). But maybe this was meant to be: there are some things that one simply cannot grasp at age 20 or maybe even at 30...

I wanted to write a book review of two of my favorite books of all time, Gilead and Home, both by Robinson. And then I stumbled across this book review, and my mouth was shut for good. I'm almost in as much awe over his ability to capture the purest essence of these books as I am over the essence itself.

So I'm linking the article here (it's also printed and tucked safely into my own personal copies of the books themselves, sitting pleasantly on my bookshelf) for those of you who wish to explore some true literary genius. Amazingly, here we have a 20th century author who writes of wisdom and beauty, with goodness. Rare doesn't begin to describe that treasure.

NYTimes book review, here.

Havah

2010-02-09T19:31:00.000-08:00

Havah, The Story of Eve
by Tosca Lee

(note: this is a fictionalized version of the life of Eve. Obviously, there is very little information on her roughly 1,000 years of life on this planet. I'm writing this review in "story form," only because that's the mood I'm in at the moment. I do recommend the book, but I'm not going to pick apart something I think is so beautiful. If you don't like biblical fiction - which I usually don't - you might want to steer clear. But I was surprised at how much it made me think - and how beautifully it was written, definitely a cut above your average "Christian lit" genre. The book is not overtly "Christian." It doesn't knock you over the head with obvious "lessons" to learn. Go gently and read, and you'll find what you're intended to find, should you be interested... you may even find yourself in its pages. And I have to admit, I think that's the mark of a good book. One more thing of note: there are a couple of major themes woven through the book, and while I thought about choosing one or the other or pegging out both, I only ended up touching upon a few high points of each and not really fleshing it out like I could have. To do so would have interrupted the feel and made the writing more dogmatic. I chose to go another route, so feel free to go write a professional paper if you wish. I don't know if I've got it in my anymore, more's the pity... I'm going all fluff, apparently. Ah, well. It's a woman's perogative. :) )

"That day when he kissed me, I had two loves: one given to hold me, and One to woo my soul.
Surely I was the most beautiful creature on earth."

Havah is the story of the first woman -- but it is also the unfolding of the heart of Woman. We feel Havah's joy, we long for it - we recognize in her Paradise something we yearn for every day, every hour. We feel homesick again. In her fall we feel her desperation, her confusion, her determination. We pity her as she learns to live... like us. We see her stumbling attempts to love, and we recognize that, too. We are all of us shattered now, even our best attempts at goodness marred and warped; but unlike Havah, we have grown jaded with it, used to our fallenness... we rarely look for hope. We fail to breathe it in like our mother once did, as food and water, light and air. We fail to SEE, and if this book does nothing else, it removes some of those scales from Havah's daughter's eyes so that we can see more clearly the grace of God in which we live, move, and have our being.

"I used to fear death, but now I consider it a grace not to be trapped in this life or this body forever, with its wrinkles and ravages and this searing pain, with its aging and heartbreak. That is what it is: heartbreak. It is the last sadness, the last failure - no. The last joy - that bursts the vessel in the end."

The joy comes in the glimpses of hope given by the very world that frightens and breaks Adam and Havah's backs - our backs. The joy comes in the ability to see "The One That Is" even in the wind, to know finally that even if we have to learn to live with heartbreak, He is present and gracious. The fact that there is beauty and grace in a truly fallen world is nothing short of miraculous. The fact that God IS, and we ARE, and that He is nearer than our breath, this is miraculous. The fact that we can see one another's souls and see ourselves reflected in them to any degree is miraculous. The fact that our first parents heard the voice of God promising grace to them and to us, their children - this is life and breath and the essence of all hope. The world may be fallen, and we may be broken, but there is goodness, beauty, and truth still to be found in it... and with new eyes we can see it yet.

Onto a lush, perfect landscape, Havah hears a voice saying, "Wake." And she sees the blue sky above, and then the blue of Adam's eyes. He calls her "Isha," Woman, and their language is unspoken, their spirits in tune with all around them, and all the time they are learning together. Adam says to Havah's boundless curiosity, "To learn is joy, Isha." There is no hurry, no craving beyond her boundaries - Isha patiently learns, watching everything, absorbing knowledge, finding her place in Creation. She is content and well-loved - her Adam preaching the gospel of grace to her every day, their passion for each other, both physically and emotionally, teaching them both about The One That Is, finally feeling His good pleasure like sunshine on their faces. They were given gifts, then, to share in the Creativity of the One. There was an unquestioned, unmarred, secure sense of their identity and singularity in all the wide world: "... we knew we were special in all the earth, so that even the trees and mountains and heavens must watch with wistful sighs."

After the Fall comes the aftermath, still recognizable today, resulting not only in a broken world, but broken communion with God and each other:
"It was not the first time I had been angry with [Adam] for not knowing my mind," Isha confesses to her posterity. 'It is my wrong,' I said. 'It will wait.'
I wished I had not seen the relief so plain upon his face as he said, 'Come then, lie down.' I did, and he fell asleep at once...
I lay in his arms, feeling very much alone."

Adam's weariness and inability weigh him down and age him. His powerlessness to bring happiness to his wife, to instantly recognize her needs like he did in the Garden, effortlessly - these things cause him to turn inward, to be silent. Havah begins to assign motives, to wonder, to question his choices and his ability to reason wisely:
"Here at last was the source of my frustration that I, who constantly contemplated the past and the meaning of it and of our plight and all that had happened, and who mulled over the words of the One... did it all alone. Why should I burden myself always in looking for meaning as though I were the only thinking human on earth? When he went off by himself to find land or sheep or goat, what did he do with all that time? I saw no evidence of newfound wisdom or tortured seeking - how could he walk blindly into the life before us? Why did he avoid my gaze and my questions, taking to the field when it seemed I might want to lay all bare between us, though we must slave to do it with words unnatural and inadequate?"

Isolation. Loneliness. Need. Suspicion. All these creep in, even as their family grows and the years go by. Havah tells herself what she must to get through another day, another harvest, another 9 months of pregnancy, another year. She bounces between shooting words like arrows in attempts to pierce the armor of her husband - and then settling for peace when she cannot seem to achieve intimacy. Seasons come and go, and the children grow up alongside fear. In their silences, Havah and Adam allow their children to mature bearing nameless burdens, facing questions with no answers, struggling with multiple insecurities, grappling with shapeless fears. They love profoundly, but they have to learn how to do even that with great effort: "That night as we lay in our home, I wound my arm around the form of my husbnad. A part of me hated myself; I felt I paid dearly from the store of my dignity. But a part of me longed to be near him at any price."

It is a long lesson in this new, aging, decaying world that takes a lifetime to learn: love circles back on itself again and again - the effort is breathtakingingly painful, halting and limping, an experience of death-in-life. Not every pain is accounted for, not all wrongs righted, not every question answerable. But life goes on, with all its bitterness and sweetness, all its ugliness and beauty. It is a discovery to find that they are not dying forever, but moving towards something they only remember vaguely after 1,000 years on earth. And this is God-with-us, showing Himself through the beauty of the world, and the passions of our lives, and the brokenness of other souls that touch ours, as Havah discovers at the end of their long-lived lives: "...where I had once heard indifference, I now hear the breath of the One, that never stops, and never stills, but continues forever. I understand...
The One had not needed me to return Adam to that place. Having made His promise, He had carried it out in His own way, and He had not needed me to do it."

Havah witnessed the first deaths, she delivered the first babies, she wore authority like a mantle and even abused it in her new state of sinfulness. She wondered and wandered and she survived and she believed while she waited. She learned to grow comfortable with old age and all its blessings and its challenges:
"We had no need to work any longer, only to go to the council sometimes, but even that we had given over to Shet. What a man he had become, with 18 children of his own.

Well, that was his problem, and his blessing. As for me, I thought the world was noisy."

She gained wisdom, surely. Not easily, as it came in the Garden, but with effort, purpose, and sacrifice. She, of all people on earth, understood what sacrifice meant and she must have shook her head to look upon the generations that came after her in her old, old age:

"I believed by then [Adam and I] had come, separately, to the conclusion that we could only be with one another because, no matter what happened between us, we were the only ones who knew where we had come from and all that had happened before.

But these children knew nothing of that...
What did these ninnies know of anything, sitting here with their wide eyes, beaming at me as though the sun shone through the tops of their heads and out their rear ends?...

But I blessed them, thinking all the while of my own children - they were all my own children - hoping that they might seek more happiness in this life than a full belly and children underfoot. What a great surprise it would be to them when the day of redemption came."

What a great surprise it will be to us all. And when it comes, we will see what a woman's heart was truly meant to be, and how blessed we have been from the beginning of time by the tenacious faith of our first mother in her blessed Seed. Until then, may the One give us eyes to see and ears to hear the Gospel preaching "peace, peace to those who are far and those who are near," and "grace to you through Jesus Christ." May we hear it in the voices of our children and feel it in the tender hands of our husbands and know it when we bow our heads to receive the benediction of our Almighty, Most Merciful Father who created everything for His good pleasure. And - may we feel that good pleasure as we humbly, gratefully receive all His good gifts on this broken, fallen, beautiful planet.

Shopping for Time

2009-02-25T18:54:00.000-08:00

Shopping for Time, How to Do it All and Not Be Overwhelmed
by Carolyn Mahaney, Nicole Whitacre, Kristin Chesemore, and Janelle Bradshaw

I just finished a little book called Shopping For Time, How to Do it All and Not Be Overwhelmed. Catchy title (and the book jacket is pretty cute, too).

The authors of the book also have a blog called Girltalk (you'll find it in the links on the sidebar), which is where I discovered the book. It's a short book, running just under 100 pages; obviously, the themes are not deep and complicated. Instead, it was motivating and encouraging without leaving me feeling bruised. It was cute and fun and inspirational at the same time. I typically shy away from the "cute" books with cute covers that line the Christian bookstores these days: I'm not a "self-help" aisle kind of reader. I'm not looking for a life coach, really. But having read Girltalk for awhile, and knowing the background behind this family and what they do, I thought it would be worth $10.

And it was.

This was just what I needed: something simple, a do-able, practical guide to wise time management from a biblical perspective. It was flexible, realistic, but encouraging. Chapter One begins with an apologetic: "Why is it so important to become wise shoppers of time? Ephesians 5:16 gives us an answer: 'Because the days are evil.' We know this truth all too well."

Yes, "Life is Good." And yes, "the days are evil." There are days that I feel I am fighting time all day long; fighting to maintain my composure while calmly quoting one of my favorite lines of all time, "oh, the cursed animosity of inanimate objects." Hangers get stuck, the water won't boil fast enough, I forgot to buy the buns, the blasted gas tank is empty... again... just when I'm in a hurry.

And so we are advised to be prepared. OK.

But how? Next comes the "Five Tips." Love the five tips:
1. Rise early
2. Sit still
3. Sit and plan
4. Consider people
5. Plan to depend

They are simple but as they are worked out throughout the rest of the book, their beauty is uncovered in that simplicity. They work.

I also love the more recent list found on GirlTalk:

Disciplines:
1. Prayer
2. Preaching the gospel to our souls
3. Reading
4. Rising early

The second chapter expounded upon the first tip: rising early (joining the 5 am club)! I am NOT a morning person, but these women have me convinced. I ought to be a more disciplined, early riser. I took their advice to heart:
1. Set your alarm - on the other side of the room. Same time each day.
2. Do not hit snooze.
3. Get up, brush your teeth, and make the coffee.
4. Prepare yourself to be miserable for about 15 minutes.
5. Know that it does get easier.

And so while I cannot say that I do all of this every single day, I can say that I have been more consistent with it than not, and it's truly not as hard as I thought it would be. My own tip would be: keep moving.

The authors spend a little time discussing Mary and Martha when they cover tip three, "sitting still." This was actually a very interesting chapter to me, even though their story is familiar. I wrote a blog post not too long ago on Mary and how she was always found sitting at the feet of Jesus, and how this seems to me a good place to be found. The authors warn: "Our daily temptation is to bypass the 'good portion' that Mary chose in favor of our own resources... Our Lord did rebuke [Martha], but not for her efforts to serve. Rather, He rebuked her for not choosing what was most important - sitting at Jesus' feet.
Charles Spurgeon explained: 'We ought to be Martha and Mary in one: we should do much service, and have much communion at the same time. For this we need great grace. It is easier to serve than to commune.' "

That is SO true in my own life. Sitting is a discipline for me, and I know for a fact that I can use more on a daily basis. I know I need great grace in order to sit and commune, but I find that the more I do, the more satisfying it becomes, and the more it becomes a desire, not just a discipline. There is always something in me that is resistant and defensive, unwilling to share my time and energy with God, if I'm honest with myself. It's easy to talk about spiritual disciplines, or write about them, but it's very difficult to settle into them, to accept their intrusion into the illusion of control that I work so hard to develop, ha ha!
It is only the posture of humility and the remembrance of Christ that breaks that down, and I find it really needs to be done on a daily basis.

I have to laugh at myself here a little bit because for me, "sitting at the feet of Jesus" looks a lot like sitting in front of a computer most days! Sitting on a hard chair in front of brightly lit screen helps me to stay focused, and I can copy and paste directly to a Word document rather than handwrite everything or fall asleep reading quietly on the soft, warm sofa over there. :)
These were actually suggestions listed in the book. The book is short, it's true, but it's chock full of very practical advice.

Tips three and four pertain to planning, which is right up my alley. I can plan my life away, I just have trouble stickin' to the plan. ;) The book is really geared towards women, so there is a heavy dose of flexibility thrown in ("plan to depend" is tip 5!), and consideration of the changing seasons of life are key themes.

In busy seasons, the reader is encouraged to do 3 things:
1. Separate the "really-do-matter" items from the "really-don't-matter" items
2. Simplify those "really-do-matter" items whenever possible. Examine your essential to-do lists and ask yourself how you can make those tasks easier.
3. Size up your limitations.
"Only God gets his to-do list done each day. We are not God. We are finite creatures with serious limitations. Only God accomplishs everything He needs to do, in exactly the way He intends, in precisely the right amount of time. Only God!"

The book concludes with this timely reminder:

"...Phil. 1:27 is truly amazing. Here we are told to 'let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ...'
Consider, then, the staggering implications of our shopping-for-time tips. We don't evaluate our priorities, consider relationships, and simplify tasks merely to avoid being overwhelmed. We do it so that our manner of life would be worthy of the Gospel."

God has a plan for our days, and we can do everything that He wants us to do, without being overwhelmed. By doing things like rising early, asking for God's blessings upon our days, accepting our limitations, and evaluating priorities, we can all live more peace-filled lives. This must be true, because we are told throughout Scripture to "be found in peace," that we have a "Prince of Peace," and that "in Him we live, move, and have our being." We are told that He has plans for us, to give us a future and a hope. We are told that as we bring it all to Him in prayer, the "peace that passes our understanding will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."

Reading a book like Shopping for Time is not a magic formula. But it is good for us to encourage one another to good works and to hear someone else say, "if I can do this, so can you." Sometimes what we need is to hear someone say honestly what we know to be true in our hearts. In other words, sometimes we just need a swift kick in the rear. :)

That's what this book was for me: a swift kick that got me going. I need a lot of grace to KEEP going, but I'm so thankful for resources like this book, that provide help for me along the way.

pictures from Minnie Mouse's house, Disneyworld. Even Minnie has a to-do list. :)

Marie Antoinette

2009-01-20T21:11:00.000-08:00

Marie Antoinette, The Journey
by Antonia Fraser

I'm reading Antonia Fraser's Marie Antoinette, and strangely enough, I can't help but think of the Coldplay song, Viva la Vida, which has become my mental soundtrack to the words on the page:

I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own

I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemy's eyes

Listen as the crowd would sing
"Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!"

One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand

I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror, my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field

For some reason I can't explain
Once you go there was never
Never an honest word
And that was when I ruled the world

It was the wicked and wild wind
Blew down the doors to let me in
Shattered windows and the sound of drums
People couldn't believe what I'd become

Revolutionaries wait
For my head on a silver plate
Just a puppet on a lonely string
Oh who would ever want to be king?

I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror, my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field

For some reason I can't explain
I know Saint Peter won't call my name
Never an honest word
But that was when I ruled the world

I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing
Roman Cavalry choirs are singing
Be my mirror, my sword and shield
My missionaries in a foreign field

For some reason I can't explain
I know Saint Peter won't call my name
Never an honest word
But that was when I ruled the world

The movie was very good (and I now know it was also pretty true to the book that it's based upon). Kirsten Dunst was a great Marie Antoinette, only rather... American. But Sofia Coppola's take on the familiar story was pure pastel eye candy. It made me want to go BAKE something, preferably something with pastel buttercream oozing from it, plated on tiered trays with chocolate drizzled tropical fruits.

It also made me want to see Versailles - and speak proficient French. I also developed a lust for some baby blue dresses - or maybe pink - with sweet satin shoes and wide silky ribbons. (And why doesn't anyone wear hats and gloves anymore, anyway???) But I'd settle for some pastel bon-bons on a silver platter if you've got 'em.

The rock music soundtrack was a purposeful accompaniment: the story, after all, is about Marie Antoinette, rock star queen. To attempt to communicate that with classical music to a 21st century audience might be... impossible. True, Marie Antoinette's contemporary was Mozart, not Bow Wow Wow, but believe it or not, Mozart was the musical "rock star" of their day. It was an interesting way for Sofia Coppola to communicate history, I thought. And it worked! For me, anyway.

Now, in all honesty, it is also true that the "rock star queen" status may have been a Coppola tweak on the book (and on reality), but I guess that depends on how you look at it. Marie Antoinette wanted to please everyone, but as the saying goes, she ended up pleasing not much of anyone. Much of the nobility hated her for the changes she DID manage to bring to court ~ and then they hated her for NOT bringing changes to court ~ but mostly they hated her for being an Austrian outsider.

To the common people she was an available, easy scapegoat, and they swallowed any amount of lies about her willingly until to them she was not much more than an object, a caricature, something that might not even bleed if she were cut.

And so it must have been a lonely life for this young woman, and for that reason I do feel pity for her. She suffered enough losses, rejection, fear, pain and humiliation in her short life to make even Versailles with all its gold and buttercream pleasures seem pale in comparison.

During the opening days of the Revolution in France, our own Governeur Morris was there and recorded many of his personal insights and experiences. The few quotes from him in the book had a very "American" ring to them, even though America had only just found her own identity within the decade. His description of both King and Queen, though briefly stated here, were deeply insightful:

Fraser says, "As Governeur Morris wrote, Louis was 'an honest man and wishes to do good...' without having either "genius or education" to discover what that good might be." Wow, what an indictment. I personally cannot imagine a more pitiful thing to be said about me upon my death, unless perhaps if it were said of my children upon their deaths. Yikes.

Lack of education was definitely a large part of Marie Antoinette's problem, as well: she was raised in a household where by turns she was either neglected or spoiled "injudiciously."
Interestingly, I have read reviews that completely panned the film (and it was booed at Cannes) evidently because the character of Marie Antoinette herself is "uninteresting" - on a par with Paris Hilton, poor little rich girl who knows nothing and does nothing but parties, eats, and shops.

Well, she parties and shops, anyway.

The argument runs that it would be ridiculous to make a big-budget movie of the life of Paris Hilton, even if she did run up the deficit while eating buttercream bon-bons in gorgeous dresses and satin shoes - because she is of no consequence in her profound ignorance.

My response to that is:
1. The movie was FUN. It was eye-candy. I don't think deep conclusions were meant to be drawn, nor history taught, even.
2. It's true. Ignorance and silliness are generally not very interesting entertainment. "They just STARED at each other all day. Got very boring." (anyone recognize that line?) BUT... no one can say that the French Revolution itself was boring: and Marie Antoinette was a large part of it. I think the very fact that she was Paris Hilton-ish in such a climate and culture is extremely interesting to ponder:
and also a HUGE warning flag. EDUCATE YOUR CHILDREN. Get them to read some books, or something. Give them an ATTENTION SPAN, at least.

But I digress. Back to Governeur Morris:

What Morris, "a foreigner from a republican country," saw when he looked at the Queen was still a woman ~ humanity ~ and it seemed to him that most of the French seemed not to notice anymore. He said, "I see only the woman and it seems unmanly to break a woman with unkindness!" Yes, maybe even simple, ignorant women who eat bon-bons deserve some kindness, even in retrospect.

Marie Antoinette had felt the weight of unkindness for years of her life. Court life with its formality and pretense reminds me quite a bit of high school, and what a punishment that would be, to live your high school days forever!

"Unkindness" is a gentle word to use for some of the things that Marie Antoinette suffered, and these are documented facts, not fiction: there were pornographic caricatures of her in impossible situations published daily, sometimes hourly, until no one doubted their veracity anymore; she was hissed and yelled at to her face(one time at such a close proximity that she stumbled in surprise); she was called names; suffered rejection even from her close friends, and often found herself more manipulated than loved; she lived in a fishbowl, with very little to no privacy, in a beautiful home where people from the streets felt it their right to enter at any time, expressing to her whatever entered their minds; even in the midst of rebellion, she was expected to hostess her enemies in her own home to maintain court etiquette (and she did so, with dignity); even her own mother and brother blamed her often for governmental problems that she had no say in; and she received the sole blame for the deficit, much of which was the remains of a war long fought on foreign soil.
For years she handled it all with dignity, chin up, hopeful that lies would fade, and her matriarchal place in France would find its way into the hearts of the people.

Finally, however, with the death of her oldest son, the weight became too great. She retreated from the public, and from governmental affairs. Although her composure never left her entirely, her body became bowed and weakened, and illness set in along with the sadness.

All this is not to say that Marie Antoinette is a martyr, nor a saint: far from it. But no matter what you think of her, no matter what sins she committed or how foolish she was, you have to admit she is one of the more fascinating historical figures and we have a love/hate relationship with her. Beautiful from a distance, but we wonder about her heart... her face on canvas and her lavish lifestyle draw us in and we marvel and imagine... and yet we are frustrated because she is not what we want her to be, nor is her end a happy one, although it began like a fairy tale.

Was she beautiful, or pitiful? Was she maternal or manipulative? Kind or cold? Was that a mask she wore, or was there a human being in there somewhere?

Her reign was the last of its kind, the end of which screams for a Shakespeare to write her play. I'm sure he would have, had he been living.
She never had much of a chance, even though the beginning glittered temptingly...
and everyone loves an underdog.

I can't help but pull for her with the turn of each page, wishing maybe this time things might come out differently... wondering "what if...?" The mind rushes ahead, only to stumble back, reeling from gruesome images stored away from previous history lessons ~ the names Marat, Danton, and Robespierre looming like spectral monsters on the page. They will have their hour. I think of her children and their bleak futures ahead (and yet behind me...) and mourn for this mother whose greatest pain was surely not the loss of her country nor her life but the forced separation from her children - having to listen to the sounds of her 5 year old son sobbing nearby - and yet far away...
and then later, when hope was gone, having to leave her blossoming daughter, too, knowing she will soon be an orphan, alone in a cruel world.

Yes, I've gained some pity for Marie Antoinette...

and I've learned from her, too. And that makes a book worth reading.

photos: allposters, and Columbia pictures, copyrighted 2006

The Modern Era, The Social Gospel, Liberalism, and WWI

2009-01-12T03:38:00.000-08:00

Defending the Faith, by D.G. Hart
Christianity and Liberalism, by J. Gresham Machen
The Guns of August, by Barbara Tuchman

"One of these things just doesn't belong here, one of these things just isn't the same..." At first glance, The Guns of August doesn't appear to have anything to do with Christianity and Liberalism. (or... maybe one could make an argument for that, after all?...)

This is a good example of how my mind works and how my reading lists evolve. I have wanted to read about J.Gresham Machen for quite some time, and I finally had that opportunity this fall. Defending The Faith is a biography of Machen's life, the sub-title being: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America. As I read and learned more about this hero of our faith, I found myself for the first time ever wondering about World War I and its era. I've never studied that period of history, never particularly cared to, and now looking back I find it odd that there is still to this day a shroud of silence that hangs over it, due to what? Shame, embarassment, disinterest, confusion? As I read, my curiosity grew.

Next I picked up Machen's most famous book, Christianity and Liberalism. It may not strike us today, but at the time of its publication, the title was shocking and people bristled: "But liberalism IS Christianity! How dare he imply otherwise! Is he saying I am NOT a Christian?" I'm impressed by his courage, this professor and confessed lover of comfort and the higher learning environment.

I began reading, and was constantly, on every page, surprised to find how very similar that era was to our own; how Machen's concerns are still ours; how long-sighted he was, and how "prophetic" his words ring. I have still not finished the book because I put it down and headed to the library to find a good book on WWI. I wanted to know more about why he wrote this book - what was it that surrounded him and made him who he was, made him desire so urgently to say what he said?

I found that very good book: The Guns of August. Evidently it is not just A book about WWI, it is THE book. And what I read there filled in a lot of gaps for me.

So that is how I make my reading lists - one thing leading to another, layering knowledge a little bit at a time.

Back to where I started, Defending the Faith:

J.Gresham Machen lived from 1881 - 1937, "the scion of a prominent and genteel Baltimore family" with Southern roots that never dried up. Hart begins at the beginning, looking at Machen's family life: what it was like to grow up with a father whose tastes and interests were "rooted in the classical tradition of the Old South...he read the works of Horace, Thucydides, and Caesar with pleasure and found personal inspiration in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament and in the Greek New Testament." He was a lawyer who benefitted from the rhetorical training of a classical education, and determined to give the same benefits to his sons. It certainly benefitted Machen the man.

Mary Gresham Machen was also intelligent, well-bred, and well-read. She was a lover of Victorian poetry, a writer herself, and served in many capacities in her community. Hart describes the household thus: it "appears to have maintained an uneasy alliance between Victorianism and Southern classicism... Mrs. Machen inculcated Victorian norms of domesticity, spirituality, and restraint... [but] the male culture of the Virginia gentleman still survived in her home." And so Machen grew up knowing how to play the man, and yet remained comfortable in the classical, literary world of education.

Eventually Machen found himself teaching under men like B.B. Warfield and others who together found themselves a minority of conservative biblical thinkers in this historical bastion of the faith, Princeton University. They witnessed the decline of that bastion, and had the scars to prove it.
We live today in a Post-Modern society, some are calling it - and some even say we are post-post modern: but what came before Post-Modern was the "Modern" society that Machen saw the beginnings of. Science ruled supreme, Victorian sentiments were being ridiculed, new doubts were raised as new scientific facts emerged almost daily, and even the Bible itself was being looked at in a new light. "Where was the proof? How do we know? Maybe it's just a nice story to make a good point..." These are the times in which J.Gresham Machen lived and taught.

It would have been an easy life for him if he had only been quiet, happy enough to get into heaven himself, unconcerned if all the universities went to hell in a handbasket. But instead he took his stand and defended the historical, orthodox faith that he loved and clung to himself. He loved Princeton and he loved his life there. It wasn't fun having his name besmirched and his reputation tarnished, and the stress of it all finally did take its toll on his body, but he kept going to the very end in faith and confidence. Finally he had to leave his own denomination and resign from Princeton Seminary, which was also a comfortable home that he loved where many friends lived, as well.

He then used much of his own inheritance to found Westminster Seminary as well as a denomination to oversee it, and this is his legacy to us today:
"The preservation of Old School Presbyterianism through a Calvinist seminary and a confessional church free from the constraints of establishmentarian Protestantism - this was Machen's legacy and Westminster Seminary and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church clearly embodied those ideals. Although the size and influence of his church and seminary was small, Machen had managed to sustain a religious tradition that otherwise may have become extinct."
In reading this passage, I was reminded of Gideon, that "mighty man of valor" that God found hiding one day from the enemy: he didn't need hordes of thousands to do the job God called him to do, only 300.

Machen's main concern with the Modernists of his day was this: they were using Christian language to deny the Gospel. "The only legitimate solution as he saw it was a division between the parties." His book, Christianity and Liberalism, is a brilliant exploration of the difference between the two ways of thinking and how they cannot be logically or practically brought together. The Moderns accused him of being schismatic and divisive - they spoke "peace, peace" when there was no peace. Machen was a prophet in his own time, and not much has changed for prophets since the beginning of time: they still find themselves persecuted, lied about, laughed at, and usually rather lonely. But God seems to give them "fire in their bellies," and silence is not something to consider for these people, and neither is stagnation.

It is amazing how we are still fighting some of these same battles today, and in other ways, we are experiencing the consequences of those decisions made 75 years ago. If you want to understand the present, the best place to start is in the past.

Machen saw the arrival of the Social Gospel and watched it infiltrate churches, weakening them until they were merely "clubs" designed to "do good" in the world. The Gospel was shortchanged: "by becoming a 'political lobby' the church turned aside from its proper tasks. The responsibility of the church in the new age, therefore, was the same as it had always been: to testify that the world was lost in sin and that salvation from such misery, whether for individuals or for nations, could only come through Christ...

The gospel rarely carried the weight of important institutions or the 'pomp of numbers' and was often hidden away in 'individual congregations resisting the central ecclesiastical mechanisms.' Nevertheless, the message of sin and grace was precisely what the mechanical an dmetallic civilization of the modern age needed. The craze for efficiency and standardization as well as the desire to alleviate physical distress had led to the neglect of 'unseen things.' But the gospel restored a proper perspective on what was permanently valuable. For this reason, Machen thought the paradox of Christianity especially pertinent to modern life. 'This world's problems can never be solved... if you think that this world is all. To move the world you must have a place to stand.' "

That last reference is a reference to Archimedes, the one who discovered the power of the lever. He said, "Give me a place to stand, and I can move the world." I recently read a biography of Martin Luther that took this little sentence and applied it to his life: Machen and Luther were generations apart, but they both found their "place to stand" firmly on the Word of God, in the Gospel of Christ, and God did use them to indeed, move the world.

Regarding the Modern Era, it was helpful to me to read The Guns of August. Mrs. Tuchman writes beautifully, wittily, engagingly about something that could potentially become a very boring, detailed list of battles, weapons, and generals. The first paragraph of The Guns of August is a famous one: it took her 8 hours to write but has earned her praise for years. It pulls you right into the book, and shoves you off.

" 'Some damned foolish thing in the Balkans,' Bismarck had predicted, would ignite the next war." Thus begins chapter 6. An apt description of a war that seemed unnecessary, begotten from the foolishness and pride of men who longed to show their greatness and listened to ill counsel, refusing to see the truth: but a war that nonetheless changed history. It is a boundary line between "then" and "now" that most of us never acknowledge but experience every day of our lives. Everything changed between 1914 and 1918.
Tuchman tells us in her Afterward the story of the Battle of the Marne and within that "the story of the taxis: the last gallantry of 1914, the last crusade of the old world..." Things definitely changed.

In a world that seemed to be shifting on its axis, a world suddenly full of scientific discoveries and encroaching doubt, fear, and uncertainty; a world where suddenly nobility and the "everyman" were meeting and mingling; a world of walls falling and trust fading; a world where the old maxims offered no comfort anymore...
into this world God sent men like J. Gresham Machen to remind us that there IS solid ground, and somewhere to stand; men used as His instruments to protect the Truth and preserve it for us, their descendents. It is shame to forget, because if we forget, we cannot be grateful. Remembering gives us courage and confidence because we then recognize that "our trust is not in princes," and there is "nothing new under the sun."

Only the Gospel shows us the worst parts of ourselves, revealing our neediness so that we will look for a Redeemer and Saviour outside of our own petty imaginations. Only the Gospel offers us a Real Hero. If our only hope was in a liberal view of mankind, a false social gospel centered around a group of people sitting in a church building chanting "we can make a difference - we can make a better world," our hope would be small, indeed.

Men like J.Gresham Machen may not be popular, but they have their reward in heaven. Their words are worth listening to, in any era.

State of Fear

2008-12-26T12:25:00.000-08:00

State of Fear
by Michael Crichton

"Global warming is the heating up of the earth from burning fossil fuels.

"Actually, that is not correct."

"It's not?"

"Not even close. Perhaps you'd like to try again..."

"I don't understand," Evans said. "My statement - that's what global warming is."

"In fact, it is not." Balder's tone was crisp, authoritative. "Global warming is the theory - "

" - hardly a theory anymore - "

"No, it is a theory," Balder said. "Believe me, I wish it were otherwise. But in fact, global warming is the theory that increased levels of carbon dioxide and certain other gases are causing an increase in the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere because of the so-called 'greenhouse effect.' "

"Evans was starting to sweat... 'well, sir, I guess.. when you refer to global warming, everybody knows what you're talking about.'

'Do they?... when you have a strongly held belief, don't you think it's important to express that belief accurately?' "

And so Michael Crichton begins his book, State of Fear. The main character is a well-educated man, an attorney, who works for one of the champions of the Environmental Movement, a man whose wealth pays for many of their campaigns, helping them wield power and hold sway over others who likewise have money and hold more power.

Basically the story is a thriller, in which Evans the attorney finds his core beliefs challenged and his knowledge base shaken again and again. He also finds his life in danger on more than one occassion, and somewhere along the way he manages to fall in love and discover the hero inside that he didn't know existed.

But the book is more than a good yarn, it's also a venue for Crichton the Scientist to vent a little about the very unscientific methods that the Environmentalists often employ; it's an unveiling of the dangers inherent in half-truths, no matter the good intentions; and the tendency of otherwise intelligent minds to close when confronted with the repetition of crisis statements by the mass media and the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. The spin doctors in State of Fear sum it up well when they say: "What's logic got to do with it?... All we need is for the media to report it...
Back in the 1970's, all the climate scientists believed an ice age was coming. They thought the world was getting colder. But once the notion of global warming was raised, they immediately recognized the advantages. Global warming creates a crisis...' "

This example of a fictional local weather forecast sounds familiar, too:
"Hi, everybody. If you're a longtime resident of the Grand Canyon State, you've probably noticed that our weather is changing, and scientists have confirmed that what's behind it is our old culprit, global warming...'

'That's how they do it, these days,' Kenner said. 'They just read the copy outright... and of course, what he's saying is not true.'

'Then what's causing the increase in extreme weather around the world?' Evans said.

'There is no extreme weather.'

'That's been studied?'

'Repeatedly. The studies show no increase in extreme weather events over the past century. Or in the last fifteen years... If anything, global warming theory predicts less extreme weather.'

'So, he's just full of s---?'

'Right. And so is the press release.' "

Even though the book is a fictional account, the tricks of the fund-raising trade are also familiar:
"Kenner said, 'NERF spends nearly sixty percent of its money on fund-raising. It can't admit that, of course. It'd look bad. It gets around the numbers by contracting nearly all of its work to outside direct-mail advertisers and telephone solicitation groups. These groups have misleading names, like the International Wildlife Preservation Fund - that's an Omaha-based direct-mail organization, that in turn outsources the work to Costa-Rica.'

'You're kidding,' Evans said.

'No, I am not. And last year the IWPF spent six hundred fifty thousand dollars to gather information on environmental issues, including three hundred thousand dollars to something called the Rainforest Action and Support Coalition, RASC. Which turns out to be a drop box in Elmira, NY. And an equal sum to Seismic Services in Calgary, another drop box.'

'You mean...'

'A drop box. A dead end.' "

Throughout the book are woven interesting scientific facts through character dialog, making it rather easy to learn and by the end of the book feel like you have picked up a little more ammunition for yourself on the way to a satisfactory ending to a good story:

" 'Hey,' he said, controlling his anger, 'Antarctica IS melting.'

'You think repetition makes something true? The data shows that one relatively small area called the Antarctic Peninsula is melting and calving huge icebergs. That's what gets reported year after year. But the continent as a whole is getting colder, and ice is getting thicker.'

'Antarctica is getting colder?'

'...What we decided,' Kenner said, 'is that we're going to give you references from now on. Because it's too boring to try and explain everything to you.' "

And this is what Crichton does in the appendix. Want to find out for yourself? There is plenty of material listed in the back, footnotes, charts and all.

For example, did you know that...

~Carbon dioxide appears to be stimulating plant growth?

~The rate of emergence of new diseases has not changed since 1960?

~Global warming trends are closely associated with properous cultures and longer lifespans, whereas global cooling is associated with shorter life spans and more poverty?

~There is no known rate of species extinction? fifteen thousand new species are described every year... which makes it impossible to estimate how many species are becoming extinct, since we don't know how many species exist in the first place.

~There are 160,000 glaciers in the world and only about 67,000 of them have been inventoried with only a small fraction of those being studied with any care... which makes it quite difficult to say that they are all melting.

~Kilimanjaro has been melting since the 1800's - long before "global warming?" It has always been something of a mystery, anyway, because it is an equatorial volcano, existing in a warm region. Satellite measurements indicate no warming trend at the altitude of the glacier... and so deforestation appears to be the reason for its melting, not global warming, according to journal references.

~Sea levels are rising... only 4-9 inches per hundred years, and have been since the start of the Holocene era. Satellites do NOT prove that they are rising any faster now than they ever have.

~Computer models do not prove anything. They only predict, and so far they have failed to predict accurately.

~The banning of DDT is "arguably the greatest tragedy of the 20th century." Since the ban, 2 million people a year have died unnecessarily from malaria, mostly children. All together, the ban has caused more than FIFTY MILLION needless deaths. Banning DDT killed more people than Hitler, and the environmentalists have pushed hard for it. (the banning is done not by law, but rather by withholding foreign aid...)

~And it's not a carcinogen; it is safe enough to eat, with one study proving its safety by having people do just that for 2 years.

But as Kenner says in the book, "if you want to believe in them anyway, there is no arguing with faith." :)

The title of this book is compelling: it makes me question - "Do I want to live in the state of fear that other people are creating for me? Must I? And is it wise? "

" 'There was a major shift in the fall of 1989. Before that time, the media did not make excessive use of terms such as crisis, catastrophe, cataclysm, plague, or disaster. For example, during the 1980's, the word crisis appeared in news reports as often as the word budget. In addition, prior to 1989, adjectives such as dire, unprecedented, dreaded were not common in television reports or newspaper headlines. But then it all changed...

These terms started to become more and more common. The word catastrophe was used five times more often in 1995 than it was in 1985. Its use doubled again by the year 2000. And the stories changed, too. There was a heightened emphasis on fear, worry, danger, uncertainty, panic...

It seemed suspicious that it should coincide so closely with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Which happened on November 9 of that year...

At first we thought the association was spurious. But it wasn't. The Berlin Wall marks the collapse of the Soviet Empire. And the end of the Cold War that had lasted for half a century in the West...

I am leading to the notion of social control... To the requirement of every sovereign state to exert control over the behavior of its citizens, to keep them orderly and reasonably docile. To keep them driving on the right side of the road - or the left, as the case may be. To keep them paying taxes. And of course we know that social control is best managed through fear.' "

As a Christian, I am reminded of Isaiah's words:
"For the Lord spoke thus to me with a strong hand,
and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying:
'Do not say, 'A conspiracy,'
Concerning all that this people call a conspiracy.
Nor be afraid of their threats,
nor be troubled.
The Lord of hosts, Him you shall hallow.
Let Him be your fear.
And let Him be your dread.

He shall be as a sanctuary...' "

Another scientist in Crichton's book says it this way:
"At the very least, we are talking about a moral outrage. Thus we can expect our religious leaders and our great humanitarian figures to cry out against this waste [of billions of dollars in marketing in spite of more pressing and urgent issues of poverty and contagious disease in Third World nations...] and the needless deaths around the world that result. But do any religious leaders speak out? No; quite the contrary, they join the chorus. They promote, 'What Would Jesus Drive?' as if they have forgotten that what Jesus would drive is the false prophets and fearmongers out of the temple."

"Industrialized nations provide their citizens with unprecedented safety, health, and comfort. Average life spans increased fifty percent in the last century. Yet modern people live in abject fear. They are afraid of strangers, of disease, of crime, of the environment. They are afraid of the homes they live in, the food they eat, the technology that surrounds them. They are in a particular panic over things they can't even see... germs, chemicals, additives, and pollutants. They are timid, nervous, fretful, and depressed. And even more amazingly, they are convinced that they environment of the entire planet is being destroyed around them. Remarkable! Like the belief in witchcraft, it's an extraordinary delusion - a global fantasy worthy of the Middle Ages. Everything is going to hell, and we must all live in fear.
Amazing."

And convicting. Ouch. I feel the need to stand up and raise my fist and say, "NOT ME!
'Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You... In God I have put my trust, I will not fear.' "

The Bible also tells us that we are to take dominion of what we have been made stewards of. Obedience to that command is an act of humility, not arrogance. Some scientists recognize the need for this, as well:
"Passive protection - leaving things alone - doesn't preserve the status quo of a wilderness, any more than it does in your backyard. The world is alive... things are constantly in flux. Species are winning, losing, rising, falling, taking over, being pushed back. Merely setting aside a wilderness doesn't feeze it in its present state, any more than locking your children in a room will prevent them from growing up. Ours is a changing world, and if you want to preserve a piece of land in a particular state, you have to decide what that state is, and then actively, even aggressively, manage it."

If we're going to talk about arrogance, Crichton's scientist, Kenner, expresses my opinion on that well, too, as he argues with an actor turned environmentalist:
" 'I have a problem with other people deciding what is in my best interest when they don't live where I do, when they don't know the local conditions or the local problems I face, when they don't even live in the same country I do, but they still feel - in some far-off Western city, at a desk in some glass skyscraper in Brussels or Berlin or New York - they still feel that they know the solution to all of my problems and how I should live my life. I have a problem with that...'

Ted said, 'The point is, if all these other people industrialize, it will add a terrible, terrible burden of global pollution to the planet. That should not happen.'

'I got mine, but you can't have yours?'

'It's a question of facing realities.'

'Your realities. Not theirs.' "

I saw a very interesting show recently on the Discovery Science channel. It was a bit over my head, but fascinating nonetheless, and it held my attention, especially this quote from a scientist that they interviewed at the end who said: "The greatest hindrance to the progress of science is the illusion of knowledge..."
And it was Galileo himself who said, "Doubt is the father of invention, opening the way to the discovery of a truth." And this seems to be what we have walked away from: doubt and wonder...
Crichton's scientist in State of Fear puts it this way:

" Yes, Peter, climate is complicated. It is so complicated that no one has been able to predict future climate with accuracy. Even though billions of dollars are being spent, and hundreds of people are trying all around the world. Why do you resist that uncomfortable truth?... Yes, weather prediction has improved, but nobody tries to predict the weather more than 10 days in advance. Whereas computer modelers are predicting what the temperature will be one hundred years in advance. Sometimes a thousand years, three thousand years...

Climate science simply isn't there yet... One day it will be. But not now."

Suite Francais

2008-11-05T22:18:00.000-08:00

Book Review: Suite Francais, by Irene Nemirovsky

Mrs. Nemirovsky was a Jewish woman living in Paris when WWII broke out. She was a writer, and had written many successful novels already. She was married and had 2 daughters. Suite Francais was her last novel, left unfinished - it was intended to be written as 3 books, a literary equivalent to a musical composition. She only finished two of the three books, and they were not edited and polished. Still, they are beautiful and powerful because these are the words of a woman who knew her time was short.

She was recording the France that she knew and saw: the Nazis, the French men and women, the landscape, the fear, the quiet resistance. Before her books were all finished, she herself was taken to a death camp and killed. Suite Francais seems sacred, and the reader finds herself scavenging for clues that might explain the holocaust; or maybe some piece of knowledge about human nature that might help him feel more confident about how he might react in the same situation... asking himself many times, "what if...?"

"They hadn't yet been shelled. When it happened, they didn't know what was going on at first. They heard the sound of an explosion, then another, then shouting: 'Run for it! Get down! Get down on the ground!' The immediately threw themselves face down.

'How grotesque we must look!' Jeanne mused. She wasn't afraid... Later, she would remember that while they were stretched out on the ground, a small white butterfly was lazily flitting from one flower to another.

Finally she heard a voice whisper, 'It's over, they're gone.' She stood up and automatically brushed the dust from her skirt. No one, she thought, had been hurt. But after walking a few minutes, they saw the first fatalities: two men and a woman. Their bodies had been torn to shreds, but by chance their faces were untouched.

Such gloomy, ordinary faces, with a dim, fixed, stunned expression as if they were trying in vain to understand what was happening to them; they were made... to die in battle, they weren't made for death. In all her life that woman had probably never said anything but ordinary things like, 'The leeks are getting bigger,' or 'Who's the dirty pig who got my floor all muddy?'

'But what do I know?' Jeanne asked herself... 'What a horrible waste,' she thought again. She leaned against Maurice's shoulder, trembling, her cheeks wet with tears...

She and Maurice hobbled along, continuing on their way. All the could do was to keep walking and place themselves in the hands of God."

The story begins in Paris at the beginning of the Nazi occupation in 1940. The story follows several men and women and families thrown together, or pulled apart, by the war. And so the reader gets a glimpse into how occupation felt for the individuals that make up a war-torn country. We've learned the "big picture" in history class; now we zoom in for a closer look. Human nature is human nature, we find...
life goes on...
there is no reprieve from the demands of hungry children, farming, the cycles of birth and death.
The realities of life are not softened into a hazy picture:

"He wore the expression found on people who have died in an accident, in a matter of seconds, without having had time to be afraid or to suffer. They would be reading a book or looking out a car window, thinking about things, or making their way along a train to the restaurant car when, all of a sudden, there they were in hell."

Heroism is not always stoic; sometimes it is confused and riddled with angst:

" 'If only I could look after them for longer, ;' he thought to himself. But in his heart he knew he didn't really want to. He only wanted one thing: to be rid of them as soon as possible, to be relieved of his responsibility and this feeling of unease he felt weighing down on him. The duty of love, which, until now, he had felt was almost simple, so great was the Grace of God within him, now seemed almost impossible to feel.
'Even though,' he thought humbly, 'it would mean that, for the first time, perhaps, I would really have to try, it would be a true sacrifice. How weak I am!...'
Never had he felt anguish as he did today, on this journey, beneath this sky where lethal planes sparkled, among these children whose physical bodies were the only thing he could hope to save..."

Mothers still love fiercely:

"Oh, just to see him, to hold him close, to feel his cool rough cheek beneath her lips, to see his beautiful eyes shining close to hers, his deep expression, so alive. He had hazel eyes with long eyelashes like a woman, eyes that saw so many things! She had always taught him to see the funny and moving side of people. She liked to laugh and felt sympathy for others. 'It's your Dickensian spirit, Mother!' he would say. How well they knew each other!... She loved and respected Maurice, but Jean-Marie was... Oh, my God, he was everything she wanted to be and everything she dreamed of and everything that was the best of her: her joy, her hope... 'My son, my little love, my Jeannot," she thought, calling him by the nickname he'd had when he was five, when she would take his head gently in her hands and kiss his ears, tilt his head back and tickle him with her lips while he laughed and laughed."

Love breaks in when we least expect it and from surprising places. Noble intentions mingle with the lower ones; words do not always match the deeds, for good or ill:

" ' It's nothing to do with us, it's not our fault. In the heart of every man and woman a kind of Garden of Eden endures, where there is no war, no death, where wild animals and deer live together in peace. All we have to do is reclaim that Paradise... We are a man and a woman. We love each other.'

Reason and emotion, they both believed, could make them enemies, but between them was a harmony of the senses that nothing could destroy...

'No, Never!' she cried out. 'Never!' Never would she be his. She was afraid of him... He was whispering to her in German. Foreigner! Foreigner! Enemy, in spite of everything. Forever he would be the enemy, with his green uniform, with his heavenly beautiful hair and his confident mouth."

The plot is not a driving one in this book; rather, it is the characters themselves and the descriptions of their environments that keep the reader turning the pages right to the end. The author catches the very essence of a moment in words until you feel like you really can imagine where you would be in that moment, if you were there, too...

"All along the Boulevard Delessert, groups of people appeared outside their houses - women, old people and children, gesticulating to one another, trying, at first calmly and then with increasing agitation and a mad, dizzy excitement, to get the family and all the baggage into a Renault, a saloon, a sports car...

Not a single light shone through the windows. The stars were coming out, springtime stars with a silvery glow. Paris had its sweetest smell, the smell of chestnut trees in bloom and of petrol with a few grains of dust that crack under your teeth like pepper.

In the darkness the danger seemed to grow. You could smell the suffering in the air, in the silence. Even people who were normally calm and controlled were overwhelmed by anxiety and fear.

Everyone looked at their houses and thought, 'Tomorrow it will be in ruins, tomorrow I'll have nothing left. We haven't hurt anyone. Why?' Then a wave of indifference washed over their souls, 'What's the difference? It's only stone, wood - nothing living! What matters is survival!'
Who cared about the tragedy of their country? Not these people, not the people who were leaving that night. Panic obliterated everything that wasn't animal instinct...

And, on that night, only people - the living and the breathing, the crying and the loving - were precious. Rare was the person who cared about their possessions; everyone wrapped their arms tightly around their wife or child and nothing else mattered; the rest could go up in flames."

The author's voice compels us to listen. She had something to say to us at the end of her life. What was it? Maybe it's something like this:

"Evil is unspectacular,
and always human,
and shares our bed
and eats at our own table."
W.H. Auden

"Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real god is always new, marvelous, intoxicating."
Simone Weil

more on occuppied France: a moving read with pictures taken by Buffy at Buffy's Salon.

Authentic Beauty

2008-09-29T19:16:00.000-07:00

Authentic Beauty
by Leslie Ludy
Reviewed by Buffy

Authentic Beauty is the story of a modern girl's rebellion against a dysfunctional culture and her journey from typical American teen to a set-apart young woman.

Leslie Ludy holds up a looking glass to the society in which young people are raised and shows it in all its ugly glory. From as young as 10 girls and boys enter a maelstrom of dating, emotional upheaval, sex-without-strings and total disrespect for each other. Only a few escape spiritual and emotional bruising.

Our author found a different way when, as an emotionally drained and broken hearted teenager she re-connected with an old family friend.

"He didn't live his life the way anyone else did. He stood out like a neon billboard on a lonely desert highway. He was mocked and misunderstood by quite a few people in my life. I knew he would not fit into my world, would not be accepted by my friends, and would not be at home in most of my surroundings. How could I possibly love someone like this? What did he expect me to do - walk away from everything just to be with him?"

In the end, of course Leslie Ludy did just that because the one who took so much trouble to win her love and friendship was the old family friend Jesus Christ.

Leslie speaks of building a real relationship rather than worshiping a distant God. However, this relationship does not develop without an effort on her part. Her Prince (as she describes him) was to become the centre of her existence and that meant changing nearly everything about her life. She was to become a set apart woman and that meant no longer compromising with a world of sexual permissiveness, alcoholic or drug abuse, lying, cheating, flirting, gossiping, partying and so on. She sought to create a sacred sanctuary in her heart by clearing the rubbish that had gathered in her heart and mind. (She kindly provides tools for cleaning your sanctuary: part 1 and part 2.)

We are shown a new model for male/female relationships which is really not unlike an old model called courtship! But the author is clear that such a step can only be confidently taken after we have built a relationship with our "Prince" and after we've cleared out the accumulated trash that blights our lives.

Although this book is overtly written for young women I can honestly say that women of any age should read it. It both opens your eyes to the very damaging teen culture that is prevalent in modern Western societies and if offers a bright alternative. It’s true that some of the language is flowery, but this is in part to parallel the notion that every girl is looking for a fairy tale ending.

No one is too old to hear the messages of this book, particularly those of us who, as young women, unquestioningly entered the cynical merry-go-round of romance and rejection. She may be buried deep, but the hurt and bewildered young woman is still inside.

The Doctor's Plague

2008-09-03T19:03:00.000-07:00

I have wanted to read this book for years, but I just now got around to it. The author is Sherwin B. Nuland, and the subtitle is "Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis."

Anyone who has ever given birth will immediately be drawn in to the story as it begins with a young mother about to give birth, afraid and lonely. She walks the long distance to the hospital (hospitals were new in the late eighteenth, early nineteenth centuries) in Vienna. The first chapter deals with Liesl, who is single mother with hopes of a reconciliation with her father and a chance to raise her child at home. Liesl is told NOT to allow them to take her to the ward where the student doctors deliver - she must insist upon going to the ward where the midwives worked. But she has no choice. She is spirited away and put in a bed where she endures continual pelvic exams by various doctors trying to learn whatever they can. They are not gentle, they do not know what they are doing, and worse yet - earlier they have been downstairs, handling cadavers, or seeing to other patients with raging infections. No one ever washes their hands. While no one can see the germs, the smell is described as "putrid."

Almost immediately after childbirth, Liesl begins to have symptoms of "puerperal fever." Over the next 48 hours, she suffers tormenting symptoms and is soon unable to hold her baby and eventually is comatose.

This story repeated itself over and over in the early history of hospitals and maternity wards in particular. Obstetrics was a burgeoning field, and doctors were motivated to learn as much as possible. New information and diagnostic tools were being discovered constantly and it was an exciting time. Dr. Semmelweis was one of these doctors, learning from the best of the best. In fact, it was from the teachings of one of his professors in particular that he developed a very useful skill: observation, and the ability to "connect the dots." His logic led him to conclude over time that it must be the doctors who were carrying the infection to the young mothers.

Wherever Semmelweiss was allowed to establish sanitary procedures and rules, the statistics proved him right, again and again. However, most doctors were resistant to the idea that they could in any way be responsible for thousands and thousands of deaths... and Dr. Semmelweiss never would do an official study in order to publish his findings in a medical journal. Therefore, he was never understood, nor accepted. Thousands continued to die.

This book is a short one, just a spotlight upon a moment in history, a moment between darkness and light. Not long after Semmelweis died, Louis Pasteur wrote a study that finally made the first link between bacteria and changes in organic matter. Reading his papers, Joseph Lister used his skill at the newly developed microscope to examine the "lethal material" of many wounds. He eventually came to the same conclusions that Semmelweis had come to earlier - that destroying the odor would destroy the lethal material. When he discovered how to do this, much like Semmeweis had, his mortality rate, like Semmelweis', dropped by two-thirds and continued to improve. However, Lister, UNLIKE Semmelweis, published his findings in a medical journal and continued to provide a reasonable defense in a professional manner.

"Without knowing it at the time, [Lister was] announcing the introduction of the germ theory of disease." Until Lister and Pasteur, no one related observable "animalcules" to disease. This took time, but it changed the world - and after reading this book, I do not take sterile hospital conditions for granted anymore!

Lister also faced persecution and opposition, as Semmeweis had, but Lister had a very different personality, more suitable to the "marathon" that it would take to bring about this real change. It took about another 20 years before germ theory was fully accepted in hospitals across the board.

This was not a deep nor complicated biography. It was a simple story of how one man was able to see with his own eyes, not the eyes of the pervading culture around him. This is what men and women of vision do - they refuse to say "black" when they know something is "white." It's also the story of how he was finally unable to cope with that knowledge, unwilling or unable to patiently teach and let others come to the same logical - and right - conclusions.

It reminded me of the truth that we all come up against the same facts: but it depends upon what "lenses" we are wearing as to how we interpret those facts.

As C.S. Lewis said,
"... in every age, the human mind is deeply influenced by the accepted Model of the universe. But there is a two-way traffic: the Model is also influenced by the prevailing temper of mind...
We can no longer dismiss the change of Models as a simple progress from error to truth. No Model is a catalogue of ultimate realities, and none is a mere fantasy. Each is a serious attempt to get in all the phenomena known at a given period, and each succeeds in getting in a great many.

But also, no less surely, each reflects the prevalent psychology of an age almost as much as it reflects the state of that age's knowledge...

It is not impossible that our own Model will die a violent death, ruthlessly smashed by an unprovoked assault of new facts...
But I think it more likely to change when, and because, far-reaching changes in the mental temper of our descendants demand that it should... The new model will not be set up without evidence, but the evidence will turn up when the inner need for it becomes sufficiently great. It will be true evidence. But nature gives most of her evidence in answer to the questions we ask her. Here, as in the courts, the character of the evidence depends upon the shape of the examination, and a good cross-examiner can do wonders.
He will not elicit falsehoods from an honest witness.
But, in relation to the total truth in the witness' mind, the structure of the examination is like a stencil. It determines how much of that total truth will appear and what pattern it will suggest."

(The Discarded Image, C.S. Lewis)

On Reading Old Books

2008-09-03T18:56:00.000-07:00

From R.C. Sproul, Jr.
Tabletalk, September 2008 Issue :

"C.S. Lewis, in his essay, 'On the Reading of Old Books,' which is found in the collection of essays, God in the Dock, argues that we are all by nature time bound. This frailty will, of necessity, give us a parochial view of the world. We tend to confuse our current circumstances with what is 'normal,' that is, we think the experiences of our lives are perfectly capable judges of ultimate reality. We therefore come to reading new books with the same prejudices and unexamined presuppositions as the author, and so have difficulty stepping outside ourselves. When we read older books, on the other hand, we run into the prejudices and presuppositions of another age, revealing not only them, but our own as well. Stepping out of our time in our reading, he argues, helps us step out of our unspoken and likely unhealthy assumptions."

suggested reading: The Discarded Image, CS Lewis

Jane Austen

2008-06-18T22:30:00.000-07:00

Jane Austen, A Life
by Carol Shields

I know, I know, I've read more about Jane Austen than there can possibly be to know about this elusive woman. Still, this was a delicious little treasure of a book, and I will just say this:

If you are going to read a Jane Austen biography, start with this one. It's perfect in dimension, length, and scope. A true pleasure to read, and I did it in one afternoon, almost.

From the back cover: "Carol Shield's magnificent biography of Jane Austen is also a compelling meditation on how great fiction is created."
Considering the entire book is only a small 182 pages (it is a little book, easily held in one hand), that is high praise.

I echo it.

A Place to Stand

2008-06-18T22:04:00.000-07:00

A Place to Stand, The Word of God in the Life of Martin Luther
by Gene Edward Veith, Jr.

"If I had a place to stand," said Archimedes, "I could move the world."
He was referring to his simple yet powerful simple machine, the lever. In principle, a lever can move anything, if you have a fulcrum that is both long enough and strong enough... and a place to stand. This book is about Martin Luther, who found a place to stand: the Word of God.

This is part of a series called Leaders in Action. I bought it for school, and picked it up one day for myself. Although I don't remember why I picked it up exactly, I was pretty much riveted by it from the beginning, even though I have read another wonderful biography of Martin Luther called Here I Stand by Roland Bainton, which was equally wonderful, for different reasons.

I expected this to be a biography, again, like the other, and I expected to read things I had read before. Not so. As the title says, this book is more specifically about Martin Luther's relationship to the Word of God. And it is a truly inspiring one.

In the Leaders in Action series, the first part of the book covers a biography, complete with timeline. The last part of the book is a list of characteristics that a good leader ought to have, characteristics that the person who is being written about had in his or her life. I can never hear Martin Luther's story enough, I will never tire of it, it's just such a wonderful picture of God's grace and sovereignty. Still, however, I did learn a lot this time around, as the author came at it from another angle. I learned more about Luther's surroundings, the culture in which he lived, his friends and his family. Details. I love details.

Some of Luther's characteristics that are listed in part 2 are: a man of words, sinner, saint, called, bearing the cross, trusting in God's control, likable, sense of perspective, patience, unpragmatic, standing alone, boldness, openness, prayer, meditation, trial, ignoring self interest, hating chaos, humor, and my favorite,
accepting paradox.

Martin Luther was a man of faith if he was anything. He lived and died standing right there, on the Gospel. His faith was simple and immoveable. He accepted paradox as part of the Christian life, refusing to explain away anything others might find uncomfortable. Good lessons for us today, and Luther is a hero that we would do well to emulate.

This book is chock full of Luther quotes and I LOVE that! He was a passionate writer and preacher. This is one of my very favorite quotes:

"If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner, and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world...
Pray boldly - you too are a mighty sinner."

This was written to his dear friend, Melanchthon, who was often paralyzed by fear, much as we are today: "should I? shoudn't I? what if? is it God's will? what if it is not?" Luther exhorts us to stop calculating... act boldly, and if it is sinful, God is more gracious still. Not only that, but we ARE sinners, through and through - completely dependent upon the grace of Christ for every breath we breathe.
As Veith says, "Sometimes any option we choose will be tainted with sin. Christ did not die for 'fictious sin,' nor does He offer us 'fictitious grace...' the point of the statement is not boldness to sin, but the boldness of faith."

Luther's strong, passionate words are balanced by his humor and his personality. He was well liked in his day, and his words still bring smiles to my lips. He truly is "a character in my own biography," although the centuries separate us for yet a little while...

Age of Opportunity

2008-06-18T21:18:00.000-07:00

Age of Opportunity
by Paul Tripp

This is BY FAR the best parenting book I have ever read. By far. I'm not big into parenting books, having been traumatized by THAT when my first baby was born and did not fit the author's mold.

But now that baby is 13, and entering into a world that is new to both of us. My brother-in-law, of all people, bought this book for me, along with a few others, off ebay. He saw them and thought, "Jennifer would like those," and bought them! Wow, what a great guy. And I do like them, all of them, a lot.

So no, I did not expect to love this book like I do. But it is now in my bag that I keep my Bible and notebook in - it's that handy. I feel so blessed to have been given this as my oldest child is becoming a teen, rather than on the backside of those teen years. The book is written for parents of teens, but I would highly recommend it for parents of pre-teens, too, so that you can be prepared.

I also highly recommend that you discuss it with your spouse or even do it together with a study group - there is a study guide for your convenience in the back.

Okay, WHY do I love this book so much? I'll tell you why. No platitudes. No formulas. No guarantees.
Lots of common sense help. Lots of encouragement. Lots of logical, rational, well-thought out, well-described, well-written chapters.

But most of all...
TONS OF SCRIPTURE. It is saturated with GOSPEL, and that is why I love it. And while there is a lot of "common sense" to this book, there are times that the Gospel does NOT make sense, according the the world... and there the Gospel shines off these pages all the brighter by comparison. Too many books in the Christian bookstore today are SELF-help books. We have lost our faith in the "Mighty Counselor, the Prince of Peace." We are looking for something easy, some 12 step program, the newest, hottest thing on the block, rather than just doing what the Bible says when it advises us to "go to the old paths, and ask... and see..." There is practical wisdom in the Word of God. It really is "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, and for correction... for instruction in righteousness."

Who needs all of that more than our teenagers? And who in this entire world needs to hear the Gospel more than those same teens? Not just once but over and over. They need to be soaked in the truth that they cannot be good enough, but God is, and He is for them. They need to see us living that out, on a daily basis, and that will include apologies and inconvenient discussions, late nights, and many tears. It means breaking down barriers and getting into their private lives. It means retaining the influence that God gave us with them, despite the cost. It means getting past behavior and into their spirits.

Here is what grabbed me from the beginning, on page 17 to be exact:
"The tumult of the teen years is not only about the attitudes and actions of teens, but the thoughts, desires, attitudes, and actions of parents as well...
These years are hard for us because they expose the wrong thoughts and desires of our OWN hearts... they rip back the curtain and expose us. This is why trials are so difficult, yet so useful in God's hands...trials expose what we have always been. Trials bare things to which we would have otherwise been blind. So, too, the teen years expose our self-righteousness, our impatience, our unforgiving spirit, our lack of servant love, the weakness of our faith, and our craving for comfort and ease...

These are not years merely to be survived! They are to be approached with a sense of hope and a sense of mission. Almost every day brings a new opportunity to enter the life of your teen with help, hope, and truth. We should not resign ourselves to an increasingly distant relationship. This is the time to connect with our children as never before. These are years of great opportunity...
This is a book that believes that the truths of Scripture apply as powerfully to teens as they do to anyone else...

We want to approach these important years with hope; not hope in our teenagers or hope in ourselves, but hope in God who is able to do more than anything we could ever ask or imagine as we seize the opportunities He places in our paths. We want to approach these years with a sense of purpose and a sense of calling."

See why I love this book?

There is also a section especially for parents whose children are already struggling, maybe almost gone. There is hope in the Gospel like there is nowhere else. Any book that stresses that great truth will be high on my list of favorites.

The Thor Conspiracy

2008-06-18T20:54:00.000-07:00

The Thor Conspiracy
by Larry Burkett

I would never in a million years have picked this book up on my own instinct. Generally, I'm not attracted to Christian fiction, as it's rarely any good. Also, I'm not one who loves "thrillers," so that's two strikes against it. But a very good friend of mine put this right into my hands and her recommendation was enough. I am glad she sent it - it was a TERRIFIC book! It was one of those reads that I looked forward to during the day, hoping for a few minutes here and there to "see what happened next."

I was also pleasantly surprised by Larry Burkett's writing skills! When I was growing up, he was the money guru in Christian circles, not well known for writing fiction. However, the fiction that he wrote runs well along the lines of his interests. And mine. Mr. Burkett died in 2003, but he was ahead of the game. He saw what was coming and it's a little creepy, actually, to see how close he is to current realities. I'm not sure when he wrote this book; the copyright is 2006, so obviously it was published posthumously. I got the feeling from what I read that it was written before the big information renaissance - there are no cell phones, ipods, or even internet mentioned. It sounds like maybe the mid-nineties to me.

In The Thor Conspiracy, the action starts on the first page. He sets up the scenario well, and it's a good one: The EPA has run amock, and with an extreme Green ex-movie star as president, they are downsizing the military while arming the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). No one is allowed to have weapons except the government (and government groups - like the gangs who are allowed to extort and kill in exchange for their help), air-conditioning has been banned, gas is expensive and rare, the infrastructure is crumbling, universities are closing, the elderly are being left to die, and business is moving to other countries. A severe depression has hit the States as a Secret Society has manipulated the environmental movement for its own purposes, effectively debilitating the U.S. so that they can take over. The people who are being used do not even recognize that they are causing the downfall of their own country, so gradual has been each Act of Congress, each new law, and each restriction of freedom.

Mr. Burkett has done an artful job at revealing each step of the downfall slowly, at just the right time so as not to make his reader feel manipulated or bored. It is an eerily plausible story, despite its "worst case scenario" feel. And as I mentioned, many of the laws that Mr. Burkett was imagining have already been enacted. If the process is slow enough, and the lies are bold enough, if you make people feel like they are useful and noble, then a lot can be done if one is patient.

The book is also a great introduction to many Christian's responses to the Green movement, in a fun setting. There are lots of Christians out there who feel like "something isn't right," and yet they are made to feel horrible for not wanting to save Mother Earth, so this might be a helpful, unintimindating way for them to be both entertained AND informed! There is actually a good bit of information sprinkled into the storyline.

There were a few points where he lost me, I'll admit. So I skipped a few pages here and there, without losing the storyline. Obviously Mr. Burkett had an interest in science, computers, and rockets/spyware, as well as government and finances. What a renaissance man! :) He got quite descriptive at times with the details of rockets and computers, two things I myself do not care to know much about, I'm afraid. Don't let that intimidate you - it's not necessary to the plot.

The "twist" was actually pretty obvious from the beginning, but I won't spell it out. I'll just say that there is a huge government conspiracy in the works, and it comes down to just a few "heroes," just doing their duty, to save the world. Great clean story, fun characters, well written, fast plot, and while it's definitely "Christian" in its outlook, it does NOT hammer you with trite anythings, nor does it spell out Christianity for you. It's just not the focus of the book, and he did not force it, thank goodness.

This one surprised me, but it was a pleasant surprise. Can't wait for the kids to read it!

Keeping House

2008-06-18T20:32:00.001-07:00

Keeping House, the Litany of Everyday Life
by Margaret Kim Peterson

This is one of my very favorite books. I stumbled across it on Amazon and ordered it, but it sat on my coffee table for about a year before I ever got around to reading it. When I did, I found that it was simply inspired. I put it away vowing to read it annually, and yes, it would be a pleasure to do so. I also had the thought that I might never need another home-decorating book again! In my opinion, Mrs. Peterson has pulled off quite a feat - balancing the seemingly impossible: life on earth with a life of faith. Her context is the home, and it's sheer genius the way she uses the boundaries of the home to show us a picture of what Christianity looks like in this world.

The book is well-crafted, and beautifully written. Her words are soothing, calming, inspiring and motivating, and yet never so motivating as to cause the distress that comes with many "decorating books!" But this is far more than a home-decorating book, actually - it is an unveiling of that something that lies beneath our choices in furnishings, the dust or cleanliness of those furnishings and around them, the clutter or organization we develop in closets and drawers, all the things that define our housekeeping routines. We all know our houses are more than houses - they are HOMES. And what do they say? What can we learn and teach with them? How can we glorify our God with them? How can we carry out our duties before the face of God, and please Him in these places of grace? How ought we to see our homes that God has blessed us with?

Here is a beautiful sample of Mrs. Peterson's writing (Mrs. Peterson may actually be DR. Peterson, but the book cover does not make that clear...):
"Keeping house can be a very mundane activity. It is certainly repetitive, and the kinds of work that it involves are varied enough that few people enjoy all of them equally. But at the very same time, housekeeping is about practicing sacred disciplines and creating sacred space, for the sake of Christ as we encounter Him in our fellow household members and in neighbors, strangers, and guests..."

And here is one of my favorite sections, on Laundry:
"Ever so seemingly non-transcendent an act as putting clothing away can be a gesture of memory or of hope. We put laundry away in drawers and closets in the expectation that another day or season will come when we will need those things again. We pack away baby clothes in boxes in the hope that another child or grandchild will be added to the family or that an opportunity will come to pass things along to others who will use them. We save articles of clothing that belonged to a loved one who died, remembering the body that used to be clothed in these things and hoping for the day when our bodies and theirs will finally be truly, gloriously clothed."

Mrs. Peterson has done a beautiful job here, restoring glory and nobility to duty and routine and simplicity. She never advocates frivolity nor miserly habits. She celebrates children and marriage, food and comfort, memory and hope. Woven throughout her chapters are Scriptures, characters and stories from Scriptures, and she draws out the truths found there with accuracy, skill, and wisdom.

I HIGHLY recommend this book. It opened my eyes, pulled things into focus that were fuzzy before, helping me to see one more way in which to live a life in harmony with what I believe. Masterfully done!

Too Good to be True

2008-06-18T19:17:00.000-07:00

Too Good to be True, Finding Hope in a World of Hype
by Michael Horton

When this book was written in 2006, Mike Horton had just come through a series of trials that forced him and his wife to ask some hard questions, and fix their eyes on their only hope, the Gospel of Christ. This book is filled not only with his own story's details, but more importantly, it fixes our eyes upon the Gospel, showing us again and again how to go to the Word to find our hope in suffering, the only real and living hope in this world. There are no sure and fast answers, no pat replies for those who are hurting. Instead, there is Truth: hope in a world of hype.

Part One is titled "God of the Cross." The chapters include When Tragedy Strikes, Good News for Losers, Suffering on Purpose, Is Your God Big Enough?, Is Anybody Up There?, and If We Just Knew Why God Let it Happen.
In each of these chapters, Horton exposes the way we have learned to think, and the lies of the world that lead us away from the mind of Christ. The way of the world is exposed as "the theology of glory," which "sees God everywhere, in glory and in power, and presumes to ascend self-confidently to God by means of experience, rational speculation, and merit. It is the religion of the natural man or woman."

By contrast, the theology of the cross sees God only where God has revealed himself, particularly in the weakness and mercy of the suffering.

Only when we learn to despair of ourselves, to suffer our own nakedness in God's holy presence, to renounce our righteousness and listen only to God's Word, are we enabled to recognize God as our Savior rather than our just Judge and holy enemy."

Again and again Horton reminds us of this principle: "This is a key point of the theology of the Cross: God is most present precisely where He seems most absent." A good example of this is the Cross itself, a day in which God never seemed more distant, hope never seemed more lost; and yet on that day God was working in a way we could never have imagined or foreseen, nor do we even today understand it in its length, breadth, and height. Jesus was dying, reconciling the entire world to His Father, showing us how to suffer graciously, fixing our eyes upon what is unseen.

Another example that Horton takes to some extent is Job. Once again, things were not as they seemed. We come to this in Part Two, "God of the Empty Tomb." The chapters here include Out of the Whirlwind, a New Creation, The True Nature of Spiritual Warfare, and When God Goes to a Funeral.

Horton writes, "We are scandalized by the fragility of our own health... we daily face the reality that we are who we are now, and in the next moment we could be someone else...

Our culture has come to value only things that are practical, things that work. Every idea or conviction is judged by its utility: Will it help me raise my kids, build a successful marriage, live a healthy life? When an idea or conviction doesn't come through, we find it easy to move on to another product...
Like Job, we make conclusions based upon limited information... we don't have access to God's filing cabinet."

Ultimately, Horton believes that it is not hype but Truth that will ground us when our world is shaken. Doctrine, he says, is how we know God. If we have right doctrine, we will know God better. If our doctrine is faulty, we will be disappointed when the hype fails to deliver.

"Job replies with sound doctrine: 'But how can a man be righteous before God?' God doesn't bargain with us, Job retorts, as if to say that if we do our best, He will make our life prosperous...
Standing in a lineup with other mortals, Job appears innocent. But compared to God, 'my own mouth would condemn me; though I am blameless, He would prove me perverse... For He is not a man, as I am, that I might answer Him, that we should come to trial together.'
Here the horns of the dilemma well established in the historic problem-of-evil debate are captured in a terse summary: whatever the answer to our grief, God is sovereign AND just. Easy answers will sacrifice one for the other: either God is all-powerful or good, but He cannot be both. Job refuses to justify himself at God's expense...

There is no such thing as bad things happening to good people. 'There is no one who does good, no not one.' " (see Rom 3:12-18)

And so we are faced with the Truth about God's sovereign goodness, but where is our comfort? Job found comfort in God's mercy. That is where he put all his hope and focus. Job recognized his NEED. He said, "There is no arbiter between us, that he might lay his hand on us both... then I would speak without fear of him..."

Horton adds, "If we fail to see the connection between sin and suffering (even if we rightly avoid attributing SPECIFIC punishments for SPECIFIC sins), we never get around to asking for a good lawyer to mediate the dispute."
And our most desperate need is Christ and the Gospel, even in our deepest physical suffering.

A good point that is drawn from this book is that Job's hope was not in a release of his soul from his body... his hope is that he will see God. "Job is comforted not by platitudes that pretend to know God and the way the world works so well, or by abstract appeals to God's justice and sovereignty, but by the concrete hope of EASTER after Good Friday.

Of course God answers Job, thundering His replies to those who have been talking around and around an issue that no one understood. His replies shut their mouths, but do not explain anything. As Horton puts it, "God refuses to be figured out in these matters, and his counsel is hidden to mortals..."

Job had no idea that he was under cosmic scrutiny, but of course, we know the whole story. Instead of becoming caught up in our own trials, trying to discern what is beyond our reasoning, Horton counsels us to remember Christ Jesus. "Our trials will never become incorporated into canonical Scripture, but they too participate in this cosmic assize, where God stoops to our level, allowing Himself to be arraigned before the court of history...

Job's trial takes place within a larger trial in which Satan still seeks to seduce the jury into believing that God is either not good enough or powerful enough to command their homage.
Yet God triumphs because there IS a Redeemer, a mediator, who has crushed the Serpent's head... will right all wrongs, and make all things new."

The key in suffering is to fix our hope on Christ alone and pray with the Psalmist, "Turn my eyes away from worthless things," to say with the Preacher, "People know neither love nor hatred by anything they see before them..." (Ecc. 9:1)
We must preach the Gospel to ourselves every day, and learn to trust in our Advocate and Mediator, Jesus Christ, focusing on His accomplished work on our behalf. Therein lies true hope and no hype. Horton says it well, "Spiritual warfare is ALL about the Gospel...

The most exciting and liberating thing a believer can hear in the middle of spiritual and physical distress is not that there is a secret battle plan for defeating the powers of darkness if we will only come together and follow its failproof steps, but the announcement that Jesus Christ has already accomplished this for us in His first Advent."
This is not a generic "just trust God more" sentiment when you don't know what else to say to a suffering person; rather, it is an encouragement to "pay attention to the historical fact that God has done something to and for and in this world in Jesus Christ that can never be undone and will only bear more fruit...
Introspection leads to despair. Fixing our eyes upon Christ will allow us to "stand... and having done all, to stand." (Eph. 6:13)

"Do not say, 'why were the former days better than these?'
For you do not inquire wisely concerning this...
In the day of prosperity, be joyful,
But in the day of adversity, consider:
God has made one as well as the other." (Ecc. 7:10, 14)

Lies Women Believe

2008-05-23T14:51:00.000-07:00

Lies Women Believe by Nancy Leigh DeMoss
(posted by Buffy)

"I have discovered that very few Christians seriously consider the consequences of their choices. We simply live our lives, responding to the people, circumstances, and influences around us – eating what we crave at the moment, buying the newest gadget advertised on TV, adopting the latest fads, and embracing the lifestyles, values, and priorities of our friends. It all looks so good; it feels so right; it seems so innocent. But we end up in abusive relationships, head over heels in debt, angry, frustrated, trapped, and overwhelmed. We have been deceived. We have fallen for a lie. "

One of the earliest lessons of the Bible, perhaps the first and most important, is the danger of putting human judgement over God’s laws. Nancy Leigh DeMoss uses the story of Adam and Eve and that piece of fruit as a springboard for a book about the lies that are current in modern society and how they can damage our relationship with God as well as our own lives.

One by one she tackles the deceptions which are so good at knocking us off course. Some of them are obvious, some of them may be surprising, all give us pause to think. It is, of course, possible that you won’t agree with absolutely every word the author has written (I didn’t) but your eyes will be opened along the way and it all makes gripping reading.

The author looks at how we are being deceived in the following areas:

About God
About Ourselves
About Sin
About Priorities
About Marriage
About Children
About Emotions
About Circumstances

So it's a very comprehensive survey of the life of today's woman.
To give you an idea of what's covered, two lies that I thought the author dealt with well were: "I can sin and get away with it" and "If my husband is passive I've got to take the initiative or nothing will get done". I think these are two traps that modern women fall into again and again. One of the, sometimes overlooked, points about sin is that we are told not to do something because it is bad for us. Gluttony, promiscuity, holding onto anger and so on and so on will sooner or later cause us damage, and yet we are very good at convincing ourselves, when the moment is upon us, that we can get away one small sin. A little later when we are dealing with indigestion, worrying whether we caught an STD or just feeling depressed then how often do we vow "never again"? We really didn't get away with that sin after all.

Apparently a lot of women can relate to the desire to take the initiative when their husband appears passive. Women are often quick to jump in and take the reins, leaving the man to sit back and watch her steer, instead of giving their husbands enough space for them to be able to take control in their own time. Equally often, a woman's well meant criticism can nip any attempts at leadership in the bud as her husband retreats in embarrassed or angry silence.

It should be said that Nancy Leigh DeMoss is a woman of strong opinions and some readers may beg to differ when she argues that divorce or birth control should never be an option or that depression is always a spiritual rather than a physical problem. That said, you don't have to agree with the author's views wholesale in order to appreciate this book because really its aim is to make you question some of the assumptions that ultimately result in making you feel discontented. Some of these deceptions are thousands of years old, some of them are very new, but they all need serious questioning.

There is a companion workbook that you can use to help you go deeper in your understanding of the issues raised by Lies Women Believe.

On Writing

2008-04-11T23:05:00.000-07:00

I posted this first at my other blog, Gathering Grace. I was thinking originally about blogging, but the quote was specifically about writing of any kind...

I read almost an entire book today while sitting on my back porch. It was spring break (we only took 2 days) and it felt like early summer outside. The book was light reading but thoroughly enjoyable, and I came across one particularly great quote.

I don't consider myself to be "a writer," but I do understand what she means here. Sometimes I find myself looking for a reason to continue to blog, and I wonder if I'm being narcissistic. The written word can communicate volumes, but it can never communicate a gesture, an expression; it can never communicate gently spoken words, or the love that undergirds an essay, or the laughter behind the rant. I think writers must struggle with this limitation constantly - does the work stand on its own? Does it need interpretation? Is it helpful at all? How will the reader perceive it? Have I any objectivity left?
And of course, there is always the fact that most readers - of blogs or books - are strangers to the author. There is no shared history to help unlock the code, so to speak. It's hard to read between the lines when you've never met a person.

James says to us: "If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body."
And self-control is not my strong suit...
And how about Prov. 10:19: "In the multitude of words, sin is not lacking, but he who restrains his lips is wise."
Hm.

In this book I read today, Carol Shields writes:"Writers uphold and defend each other with discussion of their difficulties - this has always been the case - and persuade each other that their individual endeavors, which often seem no more substantial than paper airplanes tossed into the uninterested air, are not egotistical projections, not valueless streams of indulgences, but contributions (what a pompous word that seems!) to an ongoing civil discourse.
Writers can also, of course, be jealous and destructive of one another's efforts, but their shared presence, their friendships and correspondence, always serve notice that writing is valued in a community, and is far from the insane and solitary act it may appear to be.

"And so I guess I'll conclude my thoughts for now with this prayer:
"Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips." Ps. 141:3
And my fingertips.
Amen.

After A While

2008-04-01T22:37:00.000-07:00

Growing up to maturity is a journey. Parenting a child or children who are growing into maturity is a journey, as well. It's a letting go and a receiving... and we who are God's children are graced with the presence of Christ Himself on both roads, where He gives us strength and worth... enough to spread around.

After A While

After a while
you learn the subtle difference
between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

and you learn
that love doesn't mean possession
and company doesn't mean security.

And you begin to learn
that kisses aren't contracts
and presents aren't promises
and you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes ahead
with the grace of an adult,
not the grief of a child.

And you learn to build your roads today,
because tomorrow's ground
is too uncertain for plans,
and futures have a way of falling down
in mid-flight.

After a while
you learn that even sunshine burns
if you get too much
so you plant your own garden
and decorate your own soul,
instead of waiting for someone
to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure,
that you really are strong,
and you really do have worth.
And you learn . . .and you learn . . .

- Veronica A. Shoffstall

Excerpt from Christ the Lord, The Road to Cana

2008-03-31T10:57:00.001-07:00

I have to confess that I'm not sure how I feel about a book about Christ written in first person... but World magazine recently printed an excerpt from Anne Rice's later book, and it was tantalizing enough for John to go purchase it. I haven't read it, but I did read this section on the Temptation of Christ. It's powerful stuff.

Mrs. Rice told World magazine that "all of the novels I wrote before were a dress rehearsal for this. It helps you trust in God that there's a purpose for things even when you don't know what it is. Especially if you don't know what it is...I feel like I have this wonderful challenge ahead of me . . . that will fill up my whole life until I die. There's so much to study, so much to ponder, so much to write, so much to know...

She continued, "The temptation had to be complex, intense, something really challenging from the point of view of the Devil. Maybe that was my guiding principle: What would amount, in Satan's mind, to a real substantive temptation?"

(read the rest of the article, here)

from Christ the Lord, The Road to Cana, a novel by Anne Rice:

" 'I'm offering you a victory your people haven't had for four hundred years," he said softly.' 'And if you do not do this thing, your people are finished. The world is swallowing them...'

I didn't answer.

'It was finished for your people long ago,' he went on intently, as if truly lost in his own thoughts... 'If you don't give them this last chance, to come together around a mighty leader, your people will not die of hunger or thirst or by the sword or by the spear. They'll simply fade away... Pay heed to me, fool. I'm running out of patience. Nothing is done here without me. Nothing... And this is my world, and these are all my nations. Will you not get down on your knees and worship me?'... And he stared out over the world of his own envisioning with a desperate, sorrowful gaze.

For a moment I forgot him.
I forgot completely that he was there. I looked out, and I saw something, something I'd glimpsed before,... and something I saw vividly now. Altars falling, thousands upon thousands of altars tumbling down as if the quaking of the earth itself were dislodging them, and on top of them fell their idols, marble and bronze and gold shattering, the dust rising as the fragments scattered. And it seemed the sound rolled on and on over the world he'd laid out before me... All the altars going down...

I turned and looked at him, awakening from this terrible vision, this great sweep of destruction...
'Those aren't your nations,' I said. 'The kingdoms of this world aren't yours. They never were... None of it belongs to you. It never has... you rule nothing and you never have...

I'd laugh at you if you weren't unspeakable. You're the Prince of the Lie. And this is the lie: that you and the Lord God are equal, locked in combat... That has never been so!...

And always, always you seek to drive men to despair, to convince them in your envy and greed that your archenemy, the Lord God, is their enemy, that He is beyond their reach, beyond their pain, beyond their need. You lie! You have always lied!...'

'Stop it! I demand that you stop!' He shouted. He put his hands up over his ears...

'It's I who have come to stop you!' I responded. 'It's I who've come to reveal that your despair is a fraud! I'm here to tell one and all that you are no Ruler, and never were, that in the great scheme of things you are no more than a filthy brigand, a thief on the margins, a scavenger circling in impotent envy the camps of men and women! And I will destroy your Fabled Rule, as I destroy you - as I drive you out, stamp you out, blot you out - and not with hulking armies in baths of blood, not with the raging smoke and terror you so crave, not with swords and spears dripping with broken flesh. I will do it as you cannot imagine it - I will do it by family, by camp, by hamlet and village and town. I will do it at the banquet tables in the smallest rooms and greatest mansions of cities. I will do it heart by heart. I will do it soul by soul. Yes, the world is ready. Yes, the map is drawn. Yes, the Scripture goes forth in the common language of the world. Yes. And so I go on my way to do it, and you have struggled here once more - and forever - in vain.'

I turned and moved forward...
He shook his fist at me...
I laughed and walked on.

He came up suddenly to my shoulder.
'You'll die on a Roman cross if you try to do this without me!' he said.
I stopped and faced him.
He stepped back, then he fell back a great distance as if pushed by an invisible force. He scrambled for his balance.

'Get behind me, Satan,' I said. 'Get behind me!'...
And in a great gust of wind and rising sand, I heard him cry out and then the cry became a howling scream.

Now the sandstorm came in earnest...
I twisted and tumbled downwards... My ears were filled with the wind, filled with his distant howls, and then softly there came that sound I'd heard at the river, that soft rush of wings.

I heard the flapping, the fulttering, the muffled beating of wings. All over me came the soft touch as if of hands, countless gentle hands, the even softer brush of lips - lips against my cheeks, my forehead, my parched eyelids...
'No,' I said. 'No.'
It became weeping now, this singing. It was pure and sad, yet irresistibly sweet. It had the immensity of joy. And there came more urgently these tender fingers, brushing my face and my burnt arms...
'No,' I said. 'I will do this. Leave me now. I will do it, as I've said.'

I slipped away from them...
Alone again.
I was on the floor of the valley.
I was walking. My left sandal came loose. I stared down at it. I almost fell. I stooped to pick up what was left of it, this scrap of leather. On and on I walked, into the heated breeze.

The Bondage of the Will

2008-03-29T21:42:00.000-07:00

Martin Luther's masterpiece, The Bondage of the Will, is a rousing read that makes you want to stand and cheer... or at least stand.

(That was a play on words... get it? "Here I stand, I can do no other" - and if you don't recognize that, go find out...
and "having done all, to stand..." remember that? I'm trying to be very clever, so I just had to make sure everyone got that...) ;)

J.I. Packer says, "This is the greatest piece of writing that came from Luther's pen." B.B. Warfield said, "...it is... in a true sense a manifesto of the Reformation." As important and weighty as the book is, as valuable as it is to us as children of the Reformation, it is also a surprisingly enjoyable read. Luther has spirit, and lots of it. He has personality and it comes across on the pages of this book. Luther looked death in the face every day, and he had obviously already decided whom he feared - and it wasn't man.

The Bondage of the Will was a response to Desiderius Erasmus' "little book on free will," which is often referred to as The Diatribe ( Discussion, or Collation, Concerning Free Will). Erasmus was a humanistic scholar famous in his day, a master of words and a lover of the peace. Luther had recently been tried as a heretic and found guilty, while Erasmus was popular with Pope, The Emperor, and the King of England. Erasmus and Luther had an interesting relationship, respectful and yet antagonistic, hopeful of better and yet unobliging to change. They both knew that the world was watching them, listening to their words. And 500 years later, it is Luther's words we still read and find to be timeless.

Luther says to Erasmus at one point, "You alone have attacked the real thing, that is, the essential issue. You have not worried me with those extraneous issues about the Papacy, purgatory, indulgences and such like - trifles, rather than issues - in respect of which almost all to date have sought my blood... you, and you alone, have seen the hinge on which all turns, and aimed for the vital spot. For that I heartily thank you."

The debate raged over free will. Is there such a thing in a man, or not? Erasmus thought so, Luther asserted not. On a general level, though, "Erasmus held that matters of doctrine were all comparatively unimportant, and that the issue as to whether a man's will was or was not free was more unimportant than most. Luther, on the other hand, held that doctrines were essential to, and constitutive of, the Christian religion, and that the doctrine of the bondage of the will in particular was the cornerstone of the very foundation of faith...

Christianity, to Erasmus, was esentially morality... peace in the Church was of more value than any doctrine...
Luther's attitude was very different... Christianity to Luther was a dogmatic religion, or it was nothing... This, he held, was what distinguished him from reforming spirits of earlier days. 'Others, who have lived before me, have attacked the Pope's evil and scandalous life, but have attacked his doctrine.' " (J.I. Packer)

Luther believed with all of his heart that to be a Christian you must be able to make assertions - firm statements of the truth. In our day, this is rare and becoming rarer, as we hearken to the postmodern voices around us proclaiming that "all truth is relative." I find it heartening to hear someone say things like this: "To take no pleasure in assertions is not the mark of a Christian heart... let us have men who will assert, men twice as inflexible as the Stoics!...What Christian can endure the idea that we should deprecate assertions? That would be denying all religion and piety in one breath!" (Luther)
Today we hear Christians constantly saying things like, "Well, to me, God is love." Or, "To me, the Bible is simply a guildebook full of moral stories." Or, "Jesus, to me, was a Good Teacher Who set a good example."
It is defined as "humiity" to say such things, and anyone who would make a real assertion about the truth is, in turn, called "arrogant."
As Luther said to Erasmus 500 years ago, "What is this new-fangled religion of yours, this novel sort of humility...?" And so, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Luther's purpose in this book is to assert that man's will is bound - either by God's will or Satan's . Yes, "we are bound, but He is free!"
He goes about proving this point logically and biblically, from beginning to end, drawing from the Scriptures, addressing Church fathers, and responding to each point of the Diatribe along the way. He patiently responds to each "but..." that any person could think of, from "what does it matter, anyway?" (which was Erasmus' position) to "it's not fair." (which has always been man's position, see Romans 9 ... although one could go all the way back to Genesis 3... the Devil doesn't need new tricks!).

Ultimately, Luther finds no need to defend God Himself, even showing clearly that man's misguided attempts to clear God's name of anything that smacks of injustice to us is exactly what lands him in troubles to begin with. God needs no one to answer for Him. And until we realize that, we haven't bent our knees. Luther brings us back again and again to faith in God Himself, and all His goodness, not just a warm fuzzy generalized "faith" that we feel "deep down in our hearts" somewhere.
Luther writes, "...a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realises that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers... and depends absolutely upon the will, counsel, pleasure, and work of Another - God alone. As long as he is persuaded that he can make even the smallest contribution to his salvation, he remains self-confident and does not utterly despair of himself, and so is not humbled before God..."
We ought to remember the words of Scripture, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble."

Right away, from the very beginning, Luther's passion is contagious and unbounded...
"I hold that a solemn and vital truth, of eternal consequence, is at stake in this discussion; one so crucial and fundamental that it ought to be maintained and defended even at the cost of life, though as a result the whole world should be, not just thrown into turmoil and uproar, but shattered in chaos and reduced to nothingness...
Do you think that because your heart trembles at these upheavals you are the only one who has a heart? I am not made of stone..."

And at the end, he offers this rousing testimony:
"I frankly confess that, for myself, even if it could be, I should not want 'free will' to be given me, nor anything to be left in my own hands to enable me to endeavor after salvation... because, even were there no dangers, adversities, or devils, I should still be forced to labour with no guarantee of success, and to beat my fists at the air. If I lived and worked to all eternity, my conscience would never reach comfortable certainty as to how much it must do to satisfy God. Whatever work I had done, there would still be a nagging doubt as to whether it pleased God, or whether He required something more...
[but] I have the comfortable certainty that I please God, not by reason of the merit of my works, but by reason of His merciful favour promised to me; so that, if I work too little, or badly, He does not impute it to me, but with fatherly compassion pardons me and makes me better.
This is the glorying of all the saints in their God."

In between that beginning and end lies much territory to be explored, again and again. It is a timely book, as the introduction by J.I. Packer explains:

"Much modern Protestantism would be neither owned nor even recognized by the pioneer Reformers...we are forced to ask whether Protestant Christendom has not tragically sold its birthright between Luther's day and our own. Has not Protestantism become more Erasmian than Lutheran? Do we not too often try to minimise and gloss over doctrinal differences for the sake of inter-party peace? Are we innocent of the doctrinal indifferentism with which Luther charged Erasmus? Do we still believe that doctrine matters? Or do we now, with Erasmus, rate a deceptive appearance of unity as of more importance than truth? Have we not grown used to the Erasmian brand of teaching from our pulpits - a message that rests on the same shallow synergistic conceptions which Luther refuted, picturing God and man approaching each other almost on equal terms -
as if God exists for man's convenience, rather than man for God's glory?
Is it not true, conversely, that it is rare today to hear proclaimed the diagnosis of our predicament which Luther - an Scripture - put forward: that man is hopeless and helpless in sin, fast bound in Satan's slavery, at enmity with God, blind and dead to the things of the Spirit?
And hence, how rarely do we hear faith spoken of as Scripture depicts it - as it is expressed in the cry of self-committal with which the contrite heart, humbled to see its need adn made conscious of its own utter helplessnes even to trust, casts itself in the God-given confidence of self-despair upon the mercy of the Lord Jesus - 'Lord, I believe, help Thou my unbelief!'

We are compelled to ask ourselves: If the Almighty God of the Bible is to be our God, if the New Testament gospel is to be our message, if Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever - is any other position than Luther's possible? Are we not in all honesty bound to stand with him in ascribing all might, and majesty, and dominion, and power, and all the glory of our salvation to God alone? Surely no more important and far-reaching question confronts the Church today."

Sola fide
Sola gratia
SOLI DEO GLORIA

The Wind in the Willows

2008-03-29T21:36:00.000-07:00

(this is actually a previously written piece for my other blog, Gathering Grace, but I wanted to add it here, too, for my own sake...)

"The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home...Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was small wonder, then, when he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said, 'Bother!' and 'O, Blow!' and also 'Hang spring cleaning!' and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat. Something up above was calling him imperiously... till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.

'This is fine!' he said to himself. 'This is better than whitewashing!'... in the joy of living and the delight of spring without its cleaning, he pursued his way across the meadow till he reached the hedge on the farther side...He thought his happiness was complete when, as he meandered aimlessly along, suddenly he stood by the edge of a full-fed river.

Never in his life had he seen a river before - this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh playmates that shook themselves free, and were caught and held again. All was a-shake and a-shiver - glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble. The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated...when tired at least, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a swirling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.

As he sat on the grass and looked across the river, a dark hole in the bank opposite, just above the water's edge, caught his eye... As he gazed, something bright and small seemed to twinkle down in the heart of it, vanished, then twinkled once more like a tiny star... Then, as he looked, it winked at him, and so declared itself to be an eye; and a small face began gradually to grow up around it...
A brown little face, with whiskers.
A grave, round face, with the same twinkle in its eye that had first attracted his notice.
Small neat ears and thick silky hair.
It was the Water Rat!
Then the two animals stood and regarded each other cautiously.
'Hullo, Mole!' said the Water Rat.
'Hullo, Rat!' said the Mole."

And so begins a delightful tale - The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame. I just finished reading it. It has been sitting on my daughter's bookshelf for years, but suddenly I felt just like Mole, all springish and looking for something...

As I read that first page, I understood how Mole felt, as if something was calling him away from his beloved home and all its charming duties. But as I read on, I found myself becoming enamored of them all again as I continued to read about how Mole and Ratty got on...

"The Rat sculled smartly across and made fast... 'Lean on that,' he said, 'Now then, step lively!' and the Mole to his surprise and rapture found himself actually seated in the stern of a real boat...'This has been a wonderful day!' said he, as the Rat shoved off... Do you know, I've never been in a boat before in all my life.'
'What?' cried the Rat, open mouthed...
'Is it so nice as all that?' asked the Mole, shyly...
'Nice? It's the only thing,' said the Rat solemnly... there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing...'

He climbed up into his hole above, and after a short interval reappeared staggering under a fat, wicker luncheon basket...'O stop, stop,' cried the Mole in ecstasies: This is too much!' "

The story continues, as Mole moves in with Ratty, enjoying each season together along with their friends who come and go. The joys of home are hashed and rehashed and I feasted at a banquet of words like this...

"Toad, between his sobs, sniffed and reflected, and gradually began to think new and inspiring thoughts: of chivalry, and poetry, and deeds still to be done; of broad meadows, and cattle browsing in them, raked by sun and wind; of kitchen-gardens, and straight herb-borders, and warm snap-dragon beset by bees; and of the comforting clink of dishes set down on the table at Toad Hall, and the scrape of chair-legs on the floor as everyone pulled himself up to his work...

When the girl returned, some hours later, she carried a tray, with a cup of fragrant tea steaming on it; and a plate piled up with very hot buttered toast, cut thick, very brown on both sides, with the butter running through the holes in it in great golden drops, like honey from the honeycomb. The smell of that buttered toast simply talked to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; of cosy parlour firesides on winter evenings, when one's ramble was over and slippered feet were propped on the fender; of the purring of contented cats, and the twitter of sleepy canaries..."

And this...

"Then he got out the luncheon basket and packed a simple meal... he took care to include a yard long French bread, a sausage out of which the garlic sang, some cheese which lay down and cried, and a long-necked straw-covered flask wherein lay bottled sunshine, shed and garnered on far Southern slopes. Thus laden, he returned with all speed, and blushed for pleasure..."

I feel just like Mole - "Oh, stop! It's just too much!"

And today I read Mrs. Darling's delicious real-life post to top it all off. Behind every duty and every chore, there is a story waiting to be enjoyed if we can rouse ourselves to remember it, and take the time to tell it to ourselves or share it with a friend. And be grateful. "I am here at the grocery because we are celebrating our daughter's birthday. Yes, that was a good day, April 4th 11 years ago, and I'm glad to celebrate it."

Here while winter lingers a bit, and cold-weather foods are starting to taste a little blander, it's wonderful to read about the delights of things like hot-buttered toast and tea! I take too much for granted and I'm far too forgetful. Isn't it funny that a children's book could help me remember and bring me the just the chance to "escape" that I've been looking for? I never would have guessed, but I'm glad I listened to its call.

Disciplines of a Godly Woman, by Buffy

2008-03-11T10:42:00.000-07:00

Buffy of Buffy's Salon is a guest reviewer today. Stop by her blog to say hi!

I wanted to write a review of this book because I really enjoyed reading it and I am looking forward to applying it to my life.

Disciplines of a Godly Woman by Barbara Hughes is a great mix of uplifting and illuminating writing on a number of different, yet related, topics, a structure for 'renewing' your mind about the Scriptures by posing a number of relevant, thought-provoking questions and plenty of practical suggestions for how you can make real, quantifiable differences in your life to become more of a disciplined and Godly woman.

Why do we need to read a book about being disciplined? The author explains:
"In today's world and in today's church, disciplined Christian lives are the exception, not the rule... We can come up with plenty of reasons why Christians today avoid the disciplines that lead to godliness. Maybe teaching has been poor. Maybe it's the laziness of individual believers. But one reason that stands out in our current culture is fear of legalism. Let's face it: Many of us think of spiritual discipline in terms of 'living the letter of the Law' or as a series of draconian rules that no one could possibly live up to. Such legalism seems to us a path to frustration and spiritual death. But true discipline is a far cry from legalism - thank God! The difference lies in motivation: Legalism is self-centred; discipline is God-centred. The legalistic heart says, 'I will do this thing to gain merit with God.' The disciplined heart says 'I will do this because I love God and want to please Him.' The true heart of discipline is relationship - a relationship with God.... A Christian's life is about bringing the will under submission to God's will, and submission is an idea that has fallen on hard times. Confusion abounds about rights and boundaries, roles and authority. This confusion muddies our thinking about God and creates roadblocks to our spiritual growth. The only cure is a proper theology about God in order to bring every area of our lives under submission to His will. "

What's good about this book is how it will be just as relevant for a woman who has recently found Christianity and wants to know more, a woman who has wandered a little too far from God and wants to know how to take some steps back or a woman who has always been true to her faith but wants to know how to be more disciplined in her faith, or maybe just feels ready to explore some different avenues of her life to see whether she is committing better in some areas than others.

The author leads us through our spiritual life, our character, our relationships (with the church, our marriage, children etc), and our ministry (good deeds, witnessing etc). One of the delightful things about this book is that it is not aimed at one particular 'cardboard cut-out' type of woman; there is a chapter on being single, for example, and another about how we can utilise our God-given 'nurturing' abilities without being a biological mother. The author recognises that there are many ways to show our femininity. For example, she talks about how one of her daughters expressed her nurturing abilities through her love of dolls and the other through her care of small animals. Both children were encouraged to explore this part of their nature because their parents recognised for what it was: different ways to display a caring womanliness.

The only chapter that did not quite work for me was the one on suffering, but isn't this the hardest thing to understand?

This book will give you a real "work out" in the different disciplines of your life, but it's a book that inspires you to do well and to see the full extent of your spiritual range rather than one that makes you feel bad about what you are not doing. It's also solidly grounded in the Scriptures, frequently guiding you to read up on what the Bible has to say about this topic and asking you to apply what you have learned to your life. And there are some great resources at the end of the book, including reading lists, and opportunities for good deeds!

I'll leave you with some of the suggestions from the excellent chapter on disciplines of the mind.

1. Philippians 4:8 points your thought life toward positive ideals. How is it really possible to think about these positive things when the stresses and strains and disappointments of life are all around you?

2. What do Matthew 5:29 and Psalm 101:2-3 tell you about a disciplined mind?

3. How can you live out these verses this week?

4. If you have never read the Bible through in a year...will you covenant with God to do it in order to become more familiar with the whole of Scripture and to hear God's voice better through His Word?

5. Identify two Christian books that you have been meaning to read (make one a classic) and set a deadline for reading them.

Thanks, Buffy, for your excellent review.

Thoughts On Jan Karon's Mitford Series

2008-03-10T20:30:00.000-07:00

This was written by me, about a year ago, I believe. I came across it today, hidden away somewhere. I thought it might be blogworthy, although a bit long.

I love the Mitford series by Jan Karon. They aren't exciting novels, but there is something about reading them that draws me in and inspires me, to... something. Sometimes I am led past the characters, the setting, the weather, and the food, to the author herself, and I wish to be able to WRITE. But wishing is not the same thing as true inspiration, and so usually I put the book down and walk around doing my daily duties with a renewed desire and a narrative going on in my head, but nothing that actually makes it to the written page.

Last night as I went to bed, I read about Mitford again, and I even dreamed of it as I slept. You would think that upon waking I would feel the continued presence of those people, the beauty of the ordinary and the common, as it is often presented there. You would think I would arise from my bed praying with Father Tim, "Lord, make me a blessing to someone today!" You would think wrong. I was so irritable this morning! I was so tired. Not a good night's sleep. Sometimes I think, "If only the children weren't here today. Then I could get something done, then I could THINK!" I didn't even get breakfast because one thing ran into another - first Claire's grammar lesson, then Jack's breakfast, then the dish drainer was full, then the laundry, you get the picture. Then I had a headache. Then I realized I was stomping around, sighing a lot, and I thought to pray, "Lord, make me a blessing to someone today... but first, you're going to have to get rid of this attitude I've got going on - it's GOT to go!"

I went upstairs and soon Courtney was running up the steps after me... "There's a package for you - and one for us, too!" Ah, my birthday package from my old friend, Katie. Katie lives south of us, we don't see each other very often. we have known each other since the 4th grade after which she moved away. She has moved around with her family quite a bit, but somehow we always managed to keep in touch. We were pen pals for years as children and then as teens, until finally with the advent of email it has become more technologically savvy.

Katie is a talented, lovely person. She and her family have remodeled more than one home. I have not seen their current home but I have seen pictures and heard details, and it looks and sounds just like her. Katie is great with a needle and thread, and she has a great eye for bargains. Every year we exchange birthday and Christmas gifts and her boxes are always lovely to behold! She wraps everything beautifully in ribbon and pretty paper. She is very feminine in a Victorian kind of way - in my mind, she is pink and fluffy and sweet! When she is elderly, she will be just like Miss Marple. :) We both love tea, we both love papers and books and flowers and Jane Austen. We are both Christians, which makes our bond even stronger.

So today my birthday box came. I was expecting it, because she was making me a tea cosy, and she wondered what fabrics I would like. I was so surprised when I opened the box to find not one but several boxes nestled together, all wrapped in beautiful pink paper. Inside were my tea cosies - more than one - and they were beautiful and perfectly sized. The next box contained 2 lovely, oversized blue and yellow toile mugs, perfect for my kitchen. The last box contained a tea chest from an English Tea Shop - the same one I had recently looked at in a catalog, but did not allow myself to buy. It was just pure luxury, pure femininity, and it was all so unexpected. I felt my spirits lifting immediately! It was lunchtime, and while I waited for my lunch to warm, I enjoyed sprucing up my kitchen with my new, pretty things. I noticed my change in attitude, and my spirit's eyes looked up... I had to smile.

I had prayed that God would make me a blessing. I had also asked Him to change my attitude. I expected a good, swift kick in the pants, actually - NOT a beautiful, thoughtful reminder of my friend and her love for me. And don't all good gifts come from God? Yes, today, through Katie's kindness, God reminded me that He is a gracious God, far beyond what I could ask or imagine. I thought maybe I could be a blessing to someone even though I didn't feel like it... but God instead chose to lavish grace upon me by making someone else a blessing to ME. Upon receiving that gift, I was reminded WHY God wants me to be a blessing, and HOW. Relationships and community bless all of us in the family of God, because that is God's plan! The Son sent the Spirit to teach us how to glorify HIm, and it glorifies Him when we love each other. This requires some amount of sacrifice sometimes, and it always requires time. It's not an efficient way of creating people of depth and stability, but it's really the only way. Christ Jesus is taking His time preparing and purifying His Bride, the Church. It is a creative process, and one that we are to participate in with Him - joyfully. It can't be done alone! And it can't be hurried.

Jan Karon has done a remarkable job of communicating the responsibility and rewards of community. When we come to her books, we are drawn in because deep down we desire what her books represent to us - security, love, comfort, compassion, a place, and a purpose. To know and be known. This is where we can sink in deep, grow roots, and grow fruit, too. But you know what? Many of us already have what we are longing for... we just can't see the forest for the trees!

The characters in Jan Karon's books aren't all beautiful or perfectly well behaved. They are often annoying, cloying, self-centered, needy, shallow, and the list goes on... They often "get on each other's nerves," and sometimes friends snap at each other or wonder why they even try. Now THAT is reality, and an encouraging view of it, to me. It can be done! And it is being done, all over Christendom. Here in the South, I've seen it. People tend to stay around, face the craziness that we often live with, the stuff writers try to capture in literature. We may be a bit crazy, but we're HOME. We know who we are, and we know where we belong. And we're staying. There's a strong pull towards community if you don't resist for too long and you aren't trying to run from yourself. Father Tim's prayer, "Lord, make me a blessing to someone today" is a good one. But, oh, what a blessing we receive in return. "Every grace that brings us nigh," in fact.

It's always amazing to me - God has sent His Holy Spirit to help us accomplish His will upon earth. And then He blesses US for it. It's all grace, all of it, and the Christian Community is a great place to learn it. Sometimes we just need to see that forest we're standing in for what it really is. A glimpse into the fictional community of Mitford has helped me to see better from time to time, and that is the mark of a truly good book.

Riveted

2008-02-28T07:48:00.000-08:00

Poem: "Riveted" by Robyn Sarah from A Day's Grace: Poems 1997-2002. © The Porcupine's Quill, 2003.

Riveted
It is possible that things will not get better
than they are now, or have been known to be.
It is possible that we are past the middle now.
It is possible that we have crossed the great water
without knowing it, and stand now on the other side.
Yes: I think that we have crossed it. Now
we are being given tickets, and they are not
tickets to the show we had been thinking of,
but to a different show, clearly inferior.
Check again: it is our own name on the envelope.
The tickets are to that other show.
It is possible that we will walk out of the darkened hall
without waiting for the last act: people do.
Some people do. But it is probable
that we will stay seated in our narrow seats
all through the tedious dénouement
to the unsurprising end — riveted, as it were;
spellbound by our own imperfect lives
because they are lives,and because they are ours.

Thanks to The Writer's Almanac. Visit their site to hear this poem read aloud.

Passionate Housewives, Desperate for God... Book Review by Buffy

2008-01-28T09:26:00.000-08:00

Passionate Housewives, Desperate for God aims to give fresh vision to the hopeful homemaker. It's a reaction to modern, feminist and consumerist thinking that believes that women should limit the number of their children and that they belong in the workplace, and it argues for a return of the housewife and full-time mother in accordance with their interpretation of Scripture. This book stands up for all those women who see their purpose in life in a traditional female role and shows how the role of housewife has been demonised in the last 30 or 40 years.

However, being a stay-at-home mother is not a cure-all for stress and dissatisfaction as the authors (who write separate chapters) believe that taking the teachings of Christianity to heart are vital, alongside the role of homemaker and mother, for real fulfilment and happiness. In particular they think that many women need to move away from 'me-ology' and self-help gurus and embrace the idea of dedicating themselves to God and their family instead.

The authors see motherhood and homemaking as a 'sacred calling' and believe that being a supportive wife, having as large a family as God sends and ministering to all of them is truly the woman's biblical role. In other words mothers of young children who let a career or other pursuits get in the way of spending "quality time" with their children are shirking their responsibilities and could do harm to their families in the long-term.

The authors provide advice and comfort for mothers who are dealing with weariness and the ‘bondage of perfectionism’. They support the different roles of husband and wife and believe we should glory in the masculine/feminine differences. They speak from their personal experience. And they show a picture of what they think a Keeper at Home can look like!

This book delivers exactly what it says. It would be interesting for women of all ages who want to know more about being a full-time housewife and mother as well as those who are struggling in the role. My only criticism would be that there is an unwritten implication that the book is written for women with large families whereas many women are the mother of one or two and other women are married and want to pursue the role of housewife but do not have children.

This book is not one of those that is full of practical tips on how to be more efficient, it is more of a manifesto of the housewife and full-time mother. It's the sort of book that bucks you up and inspires you to do your best; maybe the one you read before you move onto the books on organisation and scheduling.

Thank you, Buffy, for this book review. The title alone makes me want to go buy the book!

Finding Jane

2008-01-20T20:25:00.001-08:00

This is the portrait most of us identify with Jane Austen. It is the only authenticated portrait we have of her, and it was sketched by her sister, Cassandra. It doesn't appear that Jane was being very cooperative, I'd say.

I just finished reading my second biography of Jane Austen, along with a collection of her letters. I've become quite familiar with her life and its patterns over the last few weeks and now I'm pretty saturated. I can hear her voice easily now, and I find that the knowledge of her that I've gained heightens the experience of reading her novels. But still, for all that, there are many gaps which imagination has to fill, including what she looked like.

I went to the internet tonight to fill in a couple of details regarding dates and such, and I was surprised to find that in the last year or so there has been some buzz about a couple of newly "discovered" portraits of Jane... and the question is, are they authentic? I don't think they ever will be officially given the stamp of approval, but the circumstances are interesting, and the pictures themselves certainly are fodder for that imagination that is much needed when it comes to Jane Austen.

Jon Spence says in his Introduction to Being Jane Austen,
"As a biographer, I welcome the film Becoming Jane... It allows us to see the young Jane Austen. Some will argue - have already argued - that Anne Hathaway doesn't look like Jane Austen. But then, do we know what Jane Austen looked like? The only visual likeness we have agreed to call Jane Austen is the sketch Cassandra drew of her in about 1810 when Jane was in her mid-thirties. The picture is problematical...

Cassandra's sketch, it seems to me, is almost single-handedly responsible for creating a general idea of Jane Austen as a dry, homely spinster that no words of description from people who knew her when she was young ('handsome with cheeks a little too full,' says one) have managed to dispel. Could this woman really have written the novels and letters? Rather than satisfying us, the sketch makes us yearn for a more 'recognizable' Jane Austen.

The film Becoming Jane has given us an image of Jane Austen that liberates our imagination. I envy readers of my book who come to it with Anne Hathaway's image of Jane in their mind's eye. You will not have to strugle against the image Cassandra created to see the Jane Austen who was young and pretty, lively and in love. Anne Hathaway's skilful portrayal of Jane Austen in Becoming Jane shows that art can have as much power to bring us closer to the truth as facts themselves can."

I also came across a pictures of her siblings. I have seen most of these before, but here is a new one to me of her brother, Francis (or Frank, or "Fly").
I had only seen a portrait of him as an elderly man, but this one, made in his younger days, reminds me a bit of Cassandra's sketch of Jane, above... and it enlivens my imagination along those lines. There are those "full cheeks."

So lets look at some of these portraits...
Here is a link to an article on a highly controversial "find." It's a very interesting article, but not long. Just look at this portrait! It sparks the imagination, doesn't it? If this is Jane, this is she at her best - visiting the library of The Prince Regent to whom Emma was dedicated at his invitation. The librarian there admired Jane's work, and was evidently an amateur watercolorist who collected his own "portraits" of his "friends" in his Friendship Book. Find out more by clicking here...

This one is called the Rice Portrait, and here's the link to the short article on its founding and the artist who painted it. It is touted as "the only painted portrait of Jane Austen," made when she was about 13, but its authenticity is disputed by some "historians." Click here to read the article.

Cassandra herself painted one more sketch of Jane, but while it is beautiful, it hides her face. Jane is skillful at hiding herself, it seems.
But it's fun to look for clues...

And now I'll pack Jane away for awhile and move on to something else. I've read her letters and watched her grow, thrive, write, endure, perservere, settle, fail and finally die an early death with an incomplete novel upon her desk, the only spark that could bring it to life dying with her. Then I watched it all over again in her biography, knowing what was coming, dreading it every time. It was so long ago, but when I read, I find myself in the scenes as they play out, and somehow it all feels close and real and immediate. So, I'm feeling a bit eighteenth centuryish and rather nostalgic and sad, but also quite ready for a little "meat" now. I've gorged upon the sweet stuff and I am ready for something more substantial. But I know I'll be back at some point, as always... and there is a new Mansfield Park to look forward to on PBS next week!

Elisabeth Elliot on WORDS

2008-01-10T15:46:00.000-08:00

Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Source: All That Was Ever Ours

Flesh Becomes Word
Isak Dinesen in Out of Africa tells how she was sometimes asked to sit in on a Kyama, an assembly of the elders of the farm, authorized by the government to settle local differences among the squatters. After a certain shooting accident she had to write out a statement, dictated by a man named Jogona Kanyagga, regarding events leading up to the accident and proving his own right to claim the victim as his son. When the long tale was told (during which Jogona sometimes had to break off, hold his head in both hands, and gravely slap the crown of it "as if to shake out the facts") the baroness read it back to him. As she read out his own name, she writes, "he swiftly turned his face to me, and gave me a great fierce flaming glance, so exuberant with laughter that it changed the old man into a boy, into the very symbol of youth. Such a glance did Adam give the Lord when he formed him out of the dust, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. I had created him and shown him himself, Jogona Kanyagga of life everlasting. When I handed him the paper, he took it reverently and greedily, folded it up in a corner of his cloak and kept his hand upon it. He could not afford to lose it, for his soul was in it, and it was the proof of his existence . . . the flesh was made word."

Words are inadequate, we say. So they often are. But they are nonetheless precious. "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." In a time of crisis we learn how intensely we need both flesh and word. We cannot do well without either one. The bodily presence of people we love is greatly comforting, and their silent companionship blesses us. "I know I can't say anything that will help, but I wanted to come,'' someone says, and the word they would like to speak is spoken by their coming. Those who can't come send, instead of their presence, word. A letter comes, often beginning, ''I don't know what to say,'' but it is an expression, however inadequate, of the person himself and what he feels toward us.

Before Eve heard the voice of the serpent summoning her to the worst possibility of her being, before Adam heard the voice of God summoning him to his best, the Word was. The Word was at the beginning of things, the Word was with God, the Word was God. That Word became visible in the flesh when the man Christ came to earth. Man saw him, talked with him, learned from him, and when his flesh was glorified and he returned once more to his Father, men declared what they had seen. "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands concerning the word of life . . . we proclaim also to you." That eternal Word had become flesh and through those who knew Christ that flesh had become once more Word. Those who hear that Word today and believe it begin to live it and again it becomes flesh.

If I had a choice, I would not want to do without either the word or the flesh. I want letters from my friends, but I want to see their faces. I see them, but then I want them to say something. I have a guest book in which I always ask people to write their names, explaining that they need not write anything more unless they want to, but I open it after they are gone in hopes that they will have written some word as well. "Say it with flowers," says the advertisement, but when the flowers come how eagerly we look to see what the card says.

When I come to God I want words. Even though "there is not a word in my tongue but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether," I want to say something to him. He knows what I look like, he knows my frame, remembers that I am dust. Does this flesh need words to speak to him? It does. There is, of course, a silence that waits on God. There is a lifting up of hands that takes the place of words. But there are times when we want desperately to speak. "Each in his own words" is all very well if you can find them, but often I find them only in the words of others.
I am troubled by the tendency today to assume that one's own words are ''better" or more sincere than someone else's. The bizarre wording of wedding invitations I have received makes me want to go and hide rather than "share the joy.'' I did actually attend a wedding ceremony composed ("created" was what they called it) by the couple themselves, complete with prayers of their own making for the minister to read. This was somehow supposed to surpass the words of the Prayer Book. It didn't. Surely it is possible to repeat in all honesty expressions which others have found to be adequate which are at the same time both noble and beautiful? Doesn't it draw one out of himself, beyond his own horizons, to participate in an ancient ceremony? Does it really follow that the substitution of something ''original" makes the thing richer?

Take the Psalms. They are human cries. Whoever wrote them knew the bottom of the barrel. He had felt his bones rot. He had sunk in slime, been ridden over, torn in two, betrayed, outraged, and bludgeoned. He knew the sweeping barrenness of loneliness, the forsakenness of grief, the bewilderment of unanswered prayer, and put them all into words that speak to my condition. So I read them back to God--with the expressions of faith and praise that punctuate the howls. "My heart is in anguish within me . . . horror overwhelms me . . . he will deliver my soul in safety from the battle that I wage" (Psalms 55:4, 5, 18); "My wounds grow foul and fester because of my foolishness . . . but for thee, O Lord, do I wait. It is thou, O Lord, who wilt answer my prayer" (Psalms 38:5, 15); "The earth reeled and rocked . . . but the Lord was my stay" (Psalms 18:7, 18).

How poor my own words would be compared to those of the Collect for Evening Prayer: "Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son Our Saviour Jesus Christ." I would be hard put to improve on Paul's prayer for the Roman Christians when I am praying for my friends (as an old lady in Canada used to pray for me, and included this prayer in nearly every letter she wrote me): "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.''

Hymns are a powerful source of strength to me. Who of us can match words like William Williams' "Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land" or Henry Twell's "Thy touch hath still its ancient power; No word from thee can fruitless fall; Hear in this solemn evening hour, and in thy mercy heal us all"?

In the old words of George Herbert such as "Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back" or in the more modern poetry of Amy Carmichael: "And yet we come, Thy righteousness our cover, Thy precious blood our one, our only plea; And yet we come, O Savior, Master, Lover--To whom, Lord, could we come, save unto Thee?"--in such words my own flesh (empty, dumb, aching, needy as it may be) becomes, to God, word.

Elisabeth Elliot on Books

2008-01-08T14:12:00.000-08:00

I receive a daily devotional from Elisabeth Elliot every day in my inbox. Wow, today's blew me away, over and over. I used to listen to her 15 minute radio spot on the way to Wednesday night church when the girls were little. Whenever I read her words, I hear her slow, calm voice. The last I heard, her voice was almost gone, and she cannot express her thoughts any longer, which makes me sad. At the same time I rejoice for her as heaven comes nearer.

On an aside, some of these books she mentions are also some of my own favorites... and when she mentioned the big dictionary, I smiled because guess what? Yesterday I found a bargain - something I have been looking for for 2 years! A heavy, weighted bookstand to set a great, big dictionary on: Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary, to be exact. Now I'm excited all over again.

Anyway, I felt compelled to share - and if you love to read Elisabeth Elliot as much as I do, click here for her daily devotional.

Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Source: All That Was Ever Ours

Some of My Best Friends Are Books

I have almost always been surrounded by books. I wouldn't be surprised if my mother put some in the crib along with my toys, just to get me used to them early. The first house I remember living in was one of those double ones of which there are hundreds in the suburbs of Philadelphia. We lived in Germantown, in what was probably a cramped house (although to me as a child it seemed large) and there were books in the living room, books in the dining room, books in all of the bedrooms and tall bookcases lining the halls. My father came home at night with a briefcase full of papers and books.

Before I could read much myself I looked at picture books, like everybody else. I remember the lovely women and elegantly handsome men in Charles Dana Gibson's book of drawings. I went back again and again to an animal book which had a horrifyingly hideous photo of an angry gorilla with teeth bared. The beautiful little pictures in Beatrix Potter's books of neatly furred small animals gave me a delicious feeling of order and comfort. My mother read these aloud to me, and how eagerly I stooped with Lucie to enter Mrs. Tiggywinkle's laundry; or accompanied Simpkin the cat as he made his way through Gloucester's snowy lanes. Mr. MacGregor was a big, bad bogeyman to me. Mother read, too, the Christopher Robin stories, and I found myself identifying her with Kanga, my older brother Phil with Pooh, Dave with Piglet, and myself, alas but inescapably, with Eeyore.

Evenings at home were often spent with the whole family sitting together, each with his head in a book. Or at times my father would read aloud. He bored us to death reading passages from Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, or George Borrow. The Bible in Spain was "good writing," he said, and he wanted us to hear it. He loved good writing, and as an editor had to read an awful lot of appallingly bad writing, but I am grateful now for his efforts to teach us the difference. He also read sometimes to us from Henry A. Shute's Real Diary of a Real Boy, which got the closest thing to a belly laugh I ever heard out of my sedate father.

A big dictionary was always within reach of the dining room table because it was there that arguments most frequently arose over words. He wanted them quickly settled, and made us look up the words in question.

A part of each summer was spent at "The Cottage," a big old lodge-type house in the White Mountains built by my great-great uncle, who was, among other things, editor of the New York Journal of Commerce and a writer of books. His bedroom on the second floor, an enormous paneled one with a huge fireplace, had hardly been rearranged at all since he died, and one wall was still lined with crumbling leather-bound books. A rainy day in the mountains was a chance for me to pore over field manuals from the Civil War, great volumes on law, Mrs. Oliphant's novels, or a tiny set, tinily printed, of the unabridged Arabian Nights.

There were magazines on the bottom shelves, too--old ones, with advertisements of Pear's soap or Glen kitchen ranges, and I found in them serialized stories by Robert Louis Stevenson.

The first full-length book I recall reading was not a piece of great literature, but it had a great effect on my malleable mind. It was called Hell on Ice, the saga of sixty men who attempted to reach the North Pole by way of the Bering Strait. Only a few survived, and I agonized with them as they froze and starved on the icy wastes. I was carried out of myself and my pleasant porch hammock into danger, suffering, and death. I became aware of vulnerability, mortality, and human courage.

To my detriment I managed to go through four years of high school without reading more than two or three classics. I had a good freshman English teacher who made me see vividly the world of chivalry and heraldry through Ivanhoe, so that I still love to visit the medieval halls of museums. In my junior or senior year I very hastily skimmed David Copperfield in order to write a book report. I may have read one or two others which I have entirely forgotten, but literature was merely a requirement. No other teacher made me understand what it was all about. (B. F. Westcott said, "It is the office of art to reveal the meaning of that which is the object of sense.")

But of course there was the Bible, in a class all by itself. This was The Book in our home, and we heard it read every day, usually twice a day. The King James English was as simple and familiar to me, with all its "beholds" and "it came to passes," as Philadelphia talk (pronounced twawk). The resonance of the Books of Moses, the cadences of the Psalms, the lucidity of the Gospel of John, the soaring rhapsodies of Paul on the love of God, the strange figures of the Book of the Revelation, all sank deeply into my heart and mind. Everything in life, I believed, had meaning as it related to what I knew of The Book.

There were many books in our home by and about people who lived by the Bible. It was in Amy Carmichael, a missionary to South India, that I found the kind of woman I wanted to be. She was at work for the Lord (an Anglican, she had founded a place for saving little girls from temple prostitution), and she took time in the midst of this to write of her experience as she walked by faith in a place where almost no one shared that faith.

A friend gave me The Imitation of Christ when I was in college, and I read it slowly, finishing it the following summer during evenings in a university stadium where I climbed up to watch the sunset.

One year when I was tutoring I came across, in the library of my pupils, a dull-looking novel called Salted With Fire. I had never heard of George MacDonald, but his writing gave me a whole new vista of the love of God. There was a shining quality to it, and a deep humanity. C. S. Lewis, I later learned, had found it, too, and did an anthology of MacDonald's work.

The biographies of missionaries--Hudson Taylor of China, James Fraser of Lisuland, David Brainerd of early New Jersey, Raymond Lull of North Africa--influenced the course of my life. Sometimes, if we can catch the sound of music that other people march to, we can fall into step.

It was when I lived in the jungle that books were hard to keep. Mold, mildew, crickets, and smoke did their worst, and I did not always have a way to transport more than one or two books at a time, or a place to keep them other than an Indian carrying net hung under the thatch. But they became even more precious, more indispensable in times when I had little contact with English-speaking people. I got around to reading some great books then--Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Teilhard de Chardin's The Divine Milieu, Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa. Each spoke to me in some powerful, personal way.

Kafka said that books should serve as "the axe for the frozen sea within us." Tolstoy showed me my own vulnerability and need of redemption--as Flannery O'Connor does, too, in her "stories about original sin," as she describes them. De Chardin illuminated for me the immanence of God. Dinesen reveals majesty and dignity in human beings and animals as creatures of God, and the laughter at the heart of things. (In one book, Seven Gothic Tales, she touches the courage of the Creator, the power of women, a herd of unicorns, the reason for seasons, the dogs of God, angels and chamber pots, coffee and the word of the Lord, and Mary Magdalene on Good Friday Eve. Imagine the humor and courage it takes to put all that in seven stories!)

A reader understands what he reads in terms of what he is. As a Christian reader I bring to bear on the book I am reading the light of my faith. "All things are yours, for ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's," said Paul. Browning's Fra Lippo Lippi expresses it this way:

. . . This world's no blot for us, nor blank; It means intensely, and means good: To find its meaning is my meat and drink.

Jane Austen

2008-01-03T21:42:00.001-08:00

I have to confess to being a Janeite. Why are we so drawn to her, 200 years after her death? What is it about Jane that so intrigues us?

Many years ago, my dad gave me a beautiful gilt-edged book called The Complete Jane Austen, and I have read it over and over. I love Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility, but my very favorite is Persuasion. (Everyone I know who has read all three say the same thing.) It doesn't matter how many times I read those stories, I still find myself straining to the end, as if I don't know what will happen, as if I am willing Darcy and Elizabeth to finally discover that they admire and love each other, as if I am worried that Ann Elliot and Captain Wentworth will never find their way back to each other in time. And I find myself wondering how much of Jane's life found its way into her books.

Recently I purchased a copy of Jane Austen's Letters by Deirdre Le Faye. The letters are principally written to her sister, Cassandra, and they are quite ordinary letters about ordinary events and plans and people. This is precisely what makes them so interesting to me. I enjoy imagining what Jane would think if she knew what conjectures people today make of her simple life, what an industry she has become! She is iconic, and we haven't even a single professional portrait of her face, only a simple sketch once roughly set down by her sister. I find that fascinating.

I have read more than one biography of Jane Austen; in fact, I have two on my bookshelf now patiently waiting to be read. However, I find that "we bring ourselves with us wherever we go," even when we attempt to go back in time. When I read Jane Austen, I do not find a feminist, nor a bitter woman who was overcome by regret, living in the sad memory of a lost love. Instead, I find an industrious woman who was surrounded by a "normal," affectionate family, busy tending to the everyday duties involved with being a member of that family. She had several brothers whom she remained close to, taking interest in their lives those of their children, and often helping with the care of them. She had a relationship with her parents that is quite like the relationships we form today - petty frustrations mixed with love, concern, honor, and responsibility. She had lifelong friendships and many acquaintances that presented their own opportunities for witty observations. Like most of us, she cared for some more than others, and with her sister, Cassandra, she was free to share the more caustic side of those observations with great wit, which I must confess, elicits a sly giggle from myself, all these years later. Often I find myself saying to myself, "Oh, yes, I know the type..." which makes her comments seem immediately funny.

At a later date I'll share from the recently purchased biographies, but here's a sampling from Jane Austen's Letters:

"What dreadful hot weather we have! - It keeps one in a constant state of inelegance - If Miss Pearson should return with me, pray be careful not to expect too much Beauty. I will not pretend to say that on a first view, she quite answered the opinion I had formed of her. - My Mother I am sure will be disappointed, if she does not take great care. From what I remember of her picture, it is no great resemblance...
Mary is brought to bed of a Boy; both doing very well. I shall leave you to guess what Mary, I mean."

"I assure You that I dread the idea of going to Bookham as much as you can do; but I am not without hopes that something may happen to prevent it; ...
I have had a cold and weakness in one of my eyes for some days, which makes Writing neither very pleasant nor very profitable... My Mother has undertaken to do it for me...
You express so little anxiety about my being murdered under Ashe Park Copse by Mrs. Hulbert's servant, that I have a great mind not to tell you whether I was or not, and shall only say that I did not return home that night or the next, as Martha kindly made room for me in her bed, which was the shut-up one in the new Nursery. - Nurse and child slept upon the floor; and there we all were in some confusion and great comfort. The bed did exceedingly well for us, both to lie awake in and talk till two o'clock, and to sleep in the rest of the night. - I love Martha better than ever..."

"Benjamin Portal is here. How charming that is! - I do not exactly know why, but the phrase followed so naturally that I could not help putting it down. -
I am very glad You liked my Lace, and so are You and so is Martha - and we are all glad together. - I have got your Cloak home, which is quite delightful! - as delightful at least as half the circumstances which are called so. - I do not know what is the matter with me today, but I cannot write quietly; I am always wandering away into some exclamation or other. - Fortunately, I have nothing very particular to say."

"Martha and I dined yesterday at Deane to meet the Powletts and Tom Chute, which we did not fail to do. - Mrs. Powlett was at once expensively and nakedly dress'd; - we have had the satisfaction of estimating her Lace and her Muslin; and she said too little to afford us much other amusement. -
Mrs. John Lyford is so much pleased with the state of widowhood as to be going to put in for being a widow again; she is to marry a Mr. Fendall, older than herself and with three little children..."

"My dearest Fanny,
You are inimitable, irresistable. You are the delight of my life. Such Letters, such entertaining Letters as you have lately sent! - Such a description of your queer little heart! - Such a lovely display of what Imagination does. - You are worth your weight in gold, or even in the new silver coinage. - I cannot express to you what I have felt in reading your history of yourslef, how full of Pity and Concern and Admiration and Amusement I have been. You are the Paragon of all that is Silly and Sensible, common-place and eccentric, Sad and Lively, Provoking and Interesting. - Who can keep pace with the fluctuations of your Fancy, the Capriciousness of your Taste, the Contradictions of your Feelings? - You are so odd! and all the time, so perfectly natural - so peculiar in yourself, and yet so like everybody else! It is very, very gratifying to know you intimately..."

"Poor Miss C. - I shall pity her, when she begins to understand herself."

"Sweet Fanny, believe no such thing of yourself. - Spread no malicious slander upon your Understanding, within the precincts of your imagination. Do not speak ill of your Sense, merely for the Gratification of your Fancy. - Yours is Sense, which deserves more honorable Treatment. - You are not in love with him. You never have been really in love with him."

"Adieu, dearest Fanny - Nothing could be more delicious than your Letter; and the assurance of your feeling relieved by writing it made the pleasure perfect. - But how could it possibly be any new idea to you, that you have a great deal of Imagination? - You are all over Imagination..."

And so, that is a taste of why I love Jane, in all her glorious ordinariness. Our spheres may be small, but who knows how large they will grow in time? Our cares and duties may seem insignificant, but who knows who may be interested in them years from now? A life chronicled with "insignificants" - those details that most would deem unfit for print - is a life worth reading about, in my opinion. The "insignificants" are what bring Jane to any kind of life for us, for that is all we have of her: a shadow, not a substance. But perhaps therein lies the fascination.

Related recommended reading: The Being Jane Austen mystery series, by Stephanie Barron; Becoming Jane Austen by Jon Spence; Jane Austen, by Carold Shields; What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew, by Daniel Pool; and Jane Austen, Her Life and Times, by G.E. Mitton

Suzanne Clark

2008-01-02T19:30:00.000-08:00

Fragments from Sketches of Home by Suzanne Clark

Salad Bowl
"In the salad I see glory. Cucumber lenses conduct light. Radishes hold white fire. Lavish petticoats of lettuce conceal mushroom peasants. And what a fracas of green: celery, shallots, peppers, spinach, parsley. But the tomato tells the most, ripe as a heart. I wince when I cut, for it is the most human fruit in all the bowl."

Starting Out...

2008-01-01T23:51:00.000-08:00

It's too late to start tonight...

But soon.

This started out as a way to educate myself on blogger, with every intention of

deleting the blog - but here I am in the wee hours still playing,

and feeling oddly stimulated by the creative efforts!

We'll see how it goes.

Good writing always inspires me,

so perhaps this will work...