Summary: Roger Angell essays covering the seasons of 1972 to 1976 that arguably transformed baseball into the sport it is today.
I’ve been discovering the marvelous baseball writing of the recently deceased Roger Angell, one of the great baseball writers. This book includes essays from the seasons of 1972 to 1976, my college years. One of the marvels of this collection was simply to relive in the reading the historic seven-game series between the Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Red Sox in 1975. It was the era of the Big Red Machine, Yaz, Carlton Fisk, Fred Lynn, and Luis Tiant with the Red Sox (the latter yet another great player traded away by the Indians!).
Along the way, he reminded me of the Oakland A’s championship teams united by their love of winning and their shared resentments of Charlie Finley, the brilliant and flawed club owner. By contrast, Angell recounts an afternoon watching the Giants in the twilight years of Horace Stoneham’s ownership, a gracious host.
We read of the final games of Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, as well as the years of Nolan Ryan’s greatness. He also writes of Steve Blass, who threw an amazing World Series game with the Pirates, and in subsequent years lost his control. He could pitch well in practice, his arm was sound, but he could not get his head sorted out. And finally he hung it up.
He takes us behind the scenes, at spring training games, the rebuilding of both Yankee Stadium and the Yankee team and Walter Alston’s brief playing career and the end of his managerial leadership of the Dodgers. We learn about the reserve clause that bound players to their teams, the fight to gain free agency, the owners lockout, and subsequent agreement that changed baseball as players won larger salaries and became more mobile. Angell tells the other side, about how many players want to remain in a community and hated trades.
One of the “behind-the-scenes” accounts in the book was Angell’s trip with Ray Scarborough, an Angel’s scout as he evaluated players. We learn what scouts looked for in pitchers (body, mechanics, and a good fastball with control) and hitters (good contact, whether they got hits or not) and the fraternity among them even though they scouted for rival clubs. It all came down to the draft and who chose who.
It was a time of change with the corporatization of the game, artificial turf, a changing of the guard of stars, and the power struggle between the Players Association and owners. But so much of this book just revels in the game, the ups and downs of each season, rain delays, and the quirks of each ball park, the contenders, the playoffs and the World Series. Angell reminded me of games I’d seen and players I remembered: Willie Stargell and Roberto Clemente, Vida Blue and Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson and Johnny Bench and Pete Rose (alias Charley Hustle).
For the young fan, the book tells us something of how we got to the present. For older fans, it is a time to remember. For all of us, Angell’s descriptions invite us to a special kind of fantasy baseball, reliving in our minds real games and personalities of the past.
Summer’s final full month offered the chance to enjoy books new and old. Among the older books were one on liberal learning in the classic sense, Anne Lamott’s classic on writing, filled with all her wit, a Ngaio Marsh mystery, a great survey of American history between the Civil War and the First World War, John Steinbeck’s delightful Travels with Charley, and what is the definitive work on pioneering mathematician and computer scientist, Alan Turing. Then there were the new books: on jazz and faith, on anxiety, on grief, Zionism, Christian nationalism, the power of our social groupings to shape identity, a new work on Abraham Kuyper’s Stone Lectures, a study on Jonathan Edward’s approach to deification, and a book on how context shapes calling. Another new book you might check out is Vaclav Smil’s How the World Really Works, a very clear eyed view of the environmental and technological challenges our global civilization faces. Here’s the list of my reviews:
A Student’s Guide to Liberal Learning (ISI Guides to the Major Disciplines), James V. Schall, S.J. Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2019. (Link is to free e-book download from publisher). A pithy little guide on pursuing the liberty that comes in the pursuit of truth and how one might devote oneself to liberal learning. Review
The Anxiety Field Guide, Jason Cusick. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2022. A practical guide with daily exercises to help face anxieties and reduce feelings of anxiety integrating clinical practices and biblical insights. Review
God Dwells Among Us(Essential Studies in Biblical Theology), G. K. Beale and Mitchell Kim. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021 (Originally published in 2014). A study of the theme of the temple from God’s garden temple in Eden to the New Jerusalem of Revelation, and the role of the people of God, his living temple, in extending the reach of God’s kingdom. Review
A Short History of Christian Zionism, Donald M. Lewis. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021. An account of the understanding of the Jewish people’s claim to their ancient homeland throughout history, and particularly since the Reformation, focusing on Great Britain and the United States. Review
A Supreme Love: The Music of Jazz and the Hope of the Gospel, William Edgar. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2022. A study of the roots and contributing streams of jazz music, proposing that the reason jazz moves from miserable lament to inextinguishable joy is the Christian hope found in the gospel. Review
How the World Really Works, Vaclav Smil. New York: Viking, 2022. A scientific, data-based assessment of how our advanced technological global civilization has developed, the challenges we face, and what it realistically will take to address these challenges. Review
The Psychology of Christian Nationalism, Pamela Cooper-White. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2022. A discussion of the rise of Christian nationalism in the United States, why people are drawn to it, and how to talk across the divide when one differs from those who embrace some form of Christian nationalism. Review
Bird By Bird,Anne Lamott. New York: Anchor Books, 1994. Anne Lamott’s advice to her writing students, basically, “almost every single thing I know about writing.” Review
Travels with Charley: In Search of America, John Steinbeck. New York: Penguin Classics, 2012 (originally published in 1962). John Steinbeck’s memoir of his 1960 roadtrip in his truck/camper Rocinante with his French poodle Charley. Review
Calvinism for a Secular Age, Jessica R. Joustra and Robert J. Joustra, eds. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2022. A collection of contributions considering Abraham Kuyper’s Stone Lectures of 1898 at Princeton and both their flaws and relevance for our contemporary context. Review
American Heritage History of the Confident Years, Francis Russell. New York: New Word City, 2016 (originally published in 1969). A survey of American history during the period between the Civil War and World War 1, 1866-1914. Review
Reading Black Books, Claude Atcho. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2022. Theological reflections on ten key pieces of Black literature. Review
Death at the Bar(Roderick Alleyn #9), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem Press, 2013 (first published in 1940). A holiday at a secluded seaside inn, and a challenge at darts ends up in murder from prussic acid (cyanide). Review
The Power of Us, Jay J. Van Bavel, PhD, and Dominic J. Packer, PhD. New York: Little, Brown Spark, 2021. How the groups of which we are a part help shape our identity, how this can lead to personal change, and understanding both how these identities may divide and unite us. Review
The Qur’an and the Christian, Matthew Aaron Bennett. Grand Rapids, Kregel Academic, 2022. A scholarly discussion of the origins and place of the Qur’an in Islam with the aim of encouraging Christians to read, and understand how to read and discuss the Qur’an with their Muslim neighbors. Review
Jonathan Edwards and Deification(New Explorations in Theology), James R. Salladin. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2022. In response to the growing interest in the idea of theosisor deification in Eastern Orthodoxy, this work examines the idea of “special grace” and participation in divine fullness in the thought of Jonathan Edwards as a Reformed counterpart that preserves the Creator-creature distinction while recognizing the saving relational communion between God and humans. Review
Alan Turing: The Enigma, Andrew Hodges. London: Vintage Books, 1983, 2012 (publisher’s link is for an updated edition by Princeton University Press, 2015). Perhaps the definitive account of the brilliant mathematician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist, Alan Turing, who was prosecuted for his homosexuality, not long before the end of his life due to cyanide poisoning. Review
Grief: A Philosophical Guide, Michael Cholbi. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022. A philosophical discussion of the nature of grief, why we grieve, and its importance in our lives. Review
Calling in Context, Susan L. Maros. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2022. A work on vocational discernment that recognizes that this process is shaped by our context, our social location. Review
Book of the Month: I don’t usually choose more technical works of theology, but James R. Salladin’s Jonathan Edwards and Deification is a carefully and clearly argued case for Edwards’s unique approach to “deification,” in his language, “divine fullness,” that both emphasizes relational communion while preserving the Creator/creature distinction. Reading this was a wonderful experience of thinking great thoughts about the Triune God.
Quote of the Month: William Edgar’s A Supreme Love is a wonderful exploration of the roots of jazz and how these intertwine with Christian hope. This quote captures the gist of the book:
How could the music that grew out of the realities of the enslavement of Black people, forced migration, rape, husbands and wives being separated, and children being ripped from their families not reflect this suffering and pain? If, as I will argue, jazz is the story of deep misery that leads to inextinguishable joy, then we cannot ignore the sources of sorrow that are found at the root of this music, from spirituals to blues to jazz (Edgar, p. 27).
What I’m Reading. I am reveling in Willa Cather’s luminous My Antonia! There is a description of a Christmas celebration that was wondrous reading. I’ve just finished Roger Angell’s Five Seasons, articles on the baseball seasons of 1972 to 1976, including the singularly memorable World Series of 1975 between the Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Red Sox. I also have just completed Richard Weaver’s classic Ideas Have Consequences on what he sees as a decline in thought and culture in the West and what a return to right reason entails. I’m just getting into Paul D. Miller’s The Religion of American Greatness, one of the new books addressing Christian nationalism. Unlike some other works I’ve seen, Miller’s critique of Christian nationalism is one of a classic conservative in the David French tradition (French wrote the Foreword) who worked in the George W. Bush White House, is a military veteran, intelligence analyst, and Georgetown professor. I’m looking forward to an online interview with him September 15! I’ve just begun a Georges Simenon Maigret, Maigret’s Pickpocket, which has already piqued my attention. I’m also reading Four Views of Heaven, which is just that. I think it is possible to be so earthly minded that we are no heavenly or earthly good. I’m enjoying read four scholars in conversation about what we do and don’t know about these things. Finally, I’m just starting Peter Wehner’s The Death of Politics. I’ve appreciated his thoughtful op-eds in the New York Times as well as an interview I heard with him and look forward to more extended reading of his work.
Already, the sun is setting earlier and in another month, we’ll get the first taste of the cooler weather of autumn. I’ll be trading the ice tea for coffee with pumpkin spice, hot cider, and other warmer drinks. The drinks at my side may change, but the pleasures of a good book do not. Happy reading, friends!
Summary: A work on vocational discernment that recognizes that this process is shaped by our context, our social location.
In her work as a professor of leadership in a Christian seminary, Susan Maros came to a realization as she worked with students on discerning their callings. The ways that she had learned to discern calling in her White evangelical context were not necessarily the ways calling was discerned in other racial, ethnic, and cultural settings. This led to a process of examining her preconceptions about calling.
In this book she shares her learning. To begin with, she discovered that calling took different forms in scripture. The call of Abraham, Moses, and Nehemiah were each unique. Furthermore, calling unfolds over a lifetime, even when punctuated by particular calling moments.
Social location is a critical factor in how people experience calling. Social location includes racial, ethnic, and cultural background, socioeconomic status, and gender. These shape what opprtunities are most accessible and the ones considered “off-limits.” It also affects how we “hear” a call-an inner sense, a prophetic word, the counsel of community.
The last part of the book begins with understanding how we engage power, including understanding our own power and that of our community. Part of this is discerning how power works in social systems. The journey is a long one. Maros commends establishing sustainable rhythms of work and rest, community, companions, and lament. Underlying the discernment of calling is the recognition of and living out of purpose.
The principles and insights developed in this book are illustrated throughout by calling stories of a variety of ministry leaders representing various racial, ethnic, cultural, socioeconomic, gender, and age. Maros both illustrates from and draws insights from these stories, which form an integral part of the book. All of this comes together in a message of hope in the God who meets all of us in our social locations and bids us into lives of purpose under his grace.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.
Summary: A philosophical discussion of the nature of grief, why we grieve, and its importance in our lives.
The journey of the last several years has been a time of grief for many of us, losing loved ones to the pandemic or to other causes. A host of books have been written over the years, addressing psychological and spiritual dimensions of grief. What distinguishes this book is that, while referencing this literature, this work is a philosophical discussion that seeks to understand what grief is, who is the object of our grief, and how grief is important within the human experience.
Michael Cholbi observes that in much of the philosophical literature, grief is regarded as shameful, a sign of weakness. Cholbi argues otherwise, getting there through a sustained inquiry into the nature of grief. He admits that this may not help a person amid the tumult of grief, but may help prepare us to understand what is happening and how we may grow through it. He begins by considering for whom we grieve, why we grieve some and not others. He proposes that we grieve those in whom we have invested our practical identities, that is those who play important roles in our lives. He then considers what grief is, arguing that it is not a single emotion but a series of affective states, not necessarily those of Kubler-Ross’s five stages, or in that order. In addition, he suggests that grief is a form of attention, challenging us to interrogate the meaning of our emotions toward the one who has died, and what they reveal about our relation with the one who has died, a relation that has been transformed by death.
He then turns to some ethical questions. One concerns what he calls the paradox of grief. Grief is both painful and distressing, which seems detrimental to our flourishing and yet also capable of yielding insights and self-knowledge, shaping how we may live, moving forward. Can something so terribly painful be good? Cholbi moves on then and explores the rationality of grief. Instead of considering grief either arational or irrational, he argues that it is contingently rational, that is, it is “rational when we feel the right emotions in the right degree in light of the loss of the relationship with the deceased that we have suffered” (italics in the original). He then considers whether we have a duty to grieve. He argues that we do not have a duty to other grieving persons or to the deceased but to ourselves because of the good of the self-knowledge that may come when we attend to our relationship with the deceased and grow as rational agents. Most intriguing is that he wonders whether C. S. Lewis, at least on the evidence of A Grief Observed, grieved well in terms of growth in self-knowledge.
One of the most interesting questions Cholbi deals with is whether the peculiar “madness” of grief is a type of mental disorder. Cholbi would argue that grief is a human experience rather than a mental disorder, one from which most emerge, often with greater self understanding that shouldn’t be circumvented. Rather than treating grief as a pathology, he would want to treat the instances of pathology that emerge when grief goes awry.
In his conclusion, he distinguishes grief from other traumas, like divorce, contending that the loss of a person is more severe. I’m not so sure–sometimes the loss of a spouse or a parent to divorce is a living wound that never resolves. He also considers whether a considered philosophy of grief may change the experience of grief. While it may offer understanding of what we are undergoing, the emotional experience of grief and its course is unpredictable, nor can it determine what the specific content of our self-knowledge will be.
I suspect this is not the book to give someone amid grief, if one even can read books at some points during the grief process. I found the book helpful in reflecting upon what my experiences of grief have meant for me. I also suspect such a book, with its contention that we ought lean into the paradox of grief with attentiveness, is helpful. I believe attentiveness is the basis of various spiritually formative practices. It seems consistent that this would be so in the practice of grieving the loss of someone significant to us. Also, the careful discussion that distinguishes grief and mourning, that thinks about who we grieve and why, and that normalizes grief as part of the human experience are all important contributions of this work.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.
Alan Turing: The Enigma, Andrew Hodges. London: Vintage Books, 1983, 2012 (publisher’s link is for an updated edition by Princeton University Press, 2015).
Summary: Perhaps the definitive account of the brilliant mathematician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist, Alan Turing, who was prosecuted for his homosexuality, not long before the end of his life due to cyanide poisoning.
The title of this work reflects both the important, and long secret work, Turing did to decrypt German transmissions encrypted by their Enigma machine, for which he was awarded an OBE, and that Turing, in life and death was something of an enigma, even to those closest to him. Andrew Hodges wrote this tour de force of a biography, dealing both with the singular scientific accomplishments of his life and the struggles he faced in his time as a gay man. As both a mathematician and a leader in the London Gay Liberation Front, Hodges was uniquely suited to write this work and it reflects these qualifications.
This is a complete biography, from his earliest years. We learn of the early roots of Turing’s interest in the function of the mind, and the shift to a materialist focus after the death of his close friend Christopher Morcom, who was his first love. This would be reflected in his efforts to create machine intelligence that worked like human intelligence. He was elected a fellow at King’s College for his proof in 1935. of the central limit theorem, which, unknown to him, had been previously proven, although his proof used a different and innovative approach. A year later, he published his most famous paper, On Computable Numbers, in which he proposed a hypothetical universal computing machine (often referred to as a Turing machine) that laid the theoretical basis for computers. Once again, another researcher, Alonzo Church, had addressed the same problem, again by a different approach. And so Turing went to study with Church at Princeton, building an electro-mechanical binary multiplier while he was there.
This reveals another theme in Turing’s life. He was not only interested in the theoretical but also in the engineering aspects of realizing the machines of which he theorized. This led to the next major involvement of Turing, during the war, in the decryption of German radio transmissions encrypted with their Enigma machines, thought to be unbreakable. Building on Polish efforts, he not only developed innovative statistical methods to break the code but developed the bombes, a type of computer, that would radically speed up the process. It was for this work, kept secret for many years, that he received the OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) from King George VI.
Hodges also covers his post-war work on computers and his further interest in artificial intelligence, resulting in his paper on “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” with his proposal of an experiment that later became known as the “Turing Test.” His ideas of universal machines, that could be used for various computational tasks, led him to write some of the earliest programs, including a primitive chess program.
The account of Turing’s scientific work is interwoven with his relationships with men, his brief engagement to Joan Clark, which he realized would not work out, and the relationship that led to Turing facing criminal charges for his homosexuality. There is extensive background offered as well as discussion of the legal and social conventions of the day. Perhaps the most troubling, and some have suggested it contributed to Turing’s death, was the agreement, in lieu of a prison term, that Turing would undergo estrogen treatments to suppress his homosexual inclinations. I also found it puzzling why Turing incriminated himself with the police investigating a burglary of his home by a friend of his lover.
It seemed to reflect an “out of touchness” that manifested itself in everything from his unawareness of similar research to his own, to his inability to manage others well. He seemed to expect people to act logically as he would, and was surprised when they did not. My sense is that he thought it should be no big deal to love the people he wanted to love, and I think was genuinely surprised that even though such behavior was illegal, the police would look the other way.
His death in June 1954 was another enigma covered by Hodges. It was ruled a suicide by cyanide poisoning through an apple dipped in a cyanide solution and then partially eaten, found by his bedside where he was found dead. He had cyanide on the premises, using it in a process to electroplate gold onto silver spoons. Oddly, the apple was never tested, there seemed no preparations for suicide, and it was speculated that this was an accident during his experiments, either from inhalation or grains on his fingers. Supporting suicide was the way the body was composed on his bed. An enigma.
The book goes into fine detail with his life, reflecting a huge amount of research, due to the limited material left by Turing. This is a strength and weakness. Included in the detail are extensive mathematical and engineering discussions that are heavy going for those unacquainted with these fields. I estimate that probably at least 100 pages of text might be cut out if these were summarized more succinctly.
Hodges work reveals not only the enigma but the genius of Turing. Subsequent to the initial publication of this work in 1983, Prime Minister of Great Britain Gordon Brown in 2009 issued a statement apologizing for the “appalling” way Turing was treated. In August 2014, Queen Elizabeth pronounced a royal pardon of Turing in August 2014 and a law exonerating all men charged with “indecency” was passed in 2017, informally known as “Alan Turing’s law.” These actions removed the cloud hanging over the genius whose theoretical and practical work laid the groundwork for the computer on which I write this review and the “behind-the-scenes” work so crucial in the fight against Germany in World War 2, especially in ending the depredations on Allied shipping. It would not surprise me that this biography played an important part in the recognition of the importance of his work, even as it served as the basis of the film The Imitation Game.
William “Bill” Whitehouse. Ⓒ Anthony F. Belfast. Used with permission.
One of the great assets that made Mill Creek Park such a treasure throughout much of its history was a succession of great naturalists, who knew about anything that lived in the park and loved sharing that knowledge with the public, especially school children, enhancing everyone’s love of the park. It began in 1929 when Ernest Vickers became the first naturalist. His son Lindley joined him in 1930, as assistant naturalist, and became naturalist in 1947 when Ernest retired at age 76. Many of us remember going on field trips and being led on nature walks with Mr. Vickers, who also had a regular column in the Vindicator of his nature observations in the park. The Vickers also established the nature museum at the Old Mill that many of you may remember visiting when you were young, before the Mill was renovated.
In 1952, Lindley Vickers observed a young man who was a regular at the museum from boyhood and offered him a job as attendant. That young man was Bill Whitehouse. At the time, he had been working up at Idora Park for $.75 an hour and the park was offering $1.00 an hour. That led to a thirty-three year career at the park and a volunteer association with Mill Creek for many years after that. In 1954, he became assistant naturalist, and soon began leading some of the nature walks. College followed at Youngstown College (later University) where he completed in 1966 a major in mathematics and a minor in biology, including a forestry class from Dike Beede! All this while continuing his full-time duties at the park, part of the time as naturalist, part of the time on a park work crew.
Nature hikes. Ⓒ Anthony F. Belfast. Used with permission.
Between 1954 and 1966, due to lack of public interest, there were no public nature hikes, only school programs. Then in September of 1966, they proposed the idea of Sunday afternoon nature walk was proposed, accepted and publicized. Over 200 turned up to the first and they became quite popular, and an ongoing part of the park programs. In this YouTube video, from a walk he led in 2016, he tells the story of these nature walks.
Bill Whitehouse presenting a nature program with a school group. Ⓒ Anthony F. Belfast. Used with permission.
When Lindley Vickers finally retired in 1970, Bill Whitehouse took over as the park’s third naturalist. One of his first projects was the opening of the Ford Nature Center. In 1968, the children of the late Judge John W. Ford donated the stone mansion the Fords had occupied to the Park. Working with assistant naturalist Tony Belfast, they created the exhibits that would go into the Nature Center. He was constantly on the go presenting nature programs at schools and with many community groups, as well as leading the nature walks and field trips from schools. Following in the footsteps of Lindley Vickers, he also wrote a regular column, Mill Creek Park Bulletin, that was also distributed to the YSU Biology Department and the public and parochial schools. He also consulted with Youngstown State’s teacher training course in “Elementary Science Field Experiences.”
“Mill Creek Park Bulletin” by William Whitehouse, Youngstown Vindicator, August 27, 1972
For many of us, The Green Cathedral by Dr. John Melnick is our Mill Creek Park Bible. Bill Whitehouse played an important role as a consultant in the writing of the book, which was published in 1976, during the time that Whitehouse was naturalist. He also became a mentor to Ray Novotny, who first met Whitehouse at age 12. Novotny told Whitehouse that he wanted his job. Seventeen years later, he succeeded him as naturalist, after Whitehouse’s retirement in 1985. In 1988, Novotny interviewed Bill Whitehouse on Mill Creek Park History as part of Youngstown State University’s Oral History Program, an interview that is the source for much of the material in this article. The men remain close friends until this day.
Following retirement, Bill Whitehouse continued to serve as a volunteer naturalist, helping with nature education programs until as recent as 2016. He was part of a line of four generations of naturalists extending from 1929 through 2016. Bill Whitehouse alone, worked for and volunteered with the park between 1952 and 2016, 64 years or nearly half of the park’s history. He and the others represented the “soul of Mill Creek Park”–its connection with the vision of Volney Rogers. It is to be hoped that the new generation of nature educators at the MetroParks will be keepers of that vision and that ways will be found to remember the legacy of Bill Whitehouse and the other great naturalists who taught us to love Mill Creek Park.
To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.”Enjoy!
I read approximately 180 books a year and so I get asked regularly, “how do you read so much?” Here are some of the “hacks” that help me read. I don’t necessarily think it is a virtue to read a lot of books. I do it in part because I just love reading and in part because I get the opportunity to review a number of new books. Sometimes, I defend myself by pointing out that President Theodore Roosevelt read a book a day. I only read one every two days! But the things I suggest here will help you no matter how few or many books you read.
Hack #1. Unless you “read” via audiobooks, pay attention to your eyes! One of the gifts my eye doc gave me because I read a lot is reading glasses. I wear glasses all the time, with progressive lenses. The reading part is small and at the bottom. How nice it is to use the whole lens to read! Our eyes change over time and if you struggle to focus on the text, a trip to the eye doctor is well worth it!
Hack #2. Stow the phone when you really want to read. It’s just too much of a temptation and a quick check of the phone often means 15 minutes of reading time lost to scrolling. Put it in another room where you can’t hear it.
Hack #3. Read demanding material when you are most alert. For me, that’s early morning after I dress and exercise. At the end of the day, I’m just not able to absorb it.
Hack #4. If you are falling asleep when you try to read, go with it. Set an alarm, take a 20 minute power nap, and you’ll come back fresh. I find I read more in 40 minutes than during an hour when I’m struggling to stay awake.
Hack #5. Create a comfortable reading spot (or several). A comfortable, supportive chair, perhaps a side table for a beverage, and good light are essentials. Optional extras: a pet, as long as he/she doesn’t constantly vie for your attention, a comforter in cold weather.
Hack #6. Suit the book to the setting, time of day. I read fiction or lighter material later in the day. Memoirs or short essays make good bathroom reads–anything where the chapters are just a few pages so you are not tempted to take up residency. [There are two kinds of readers in the world–those who read in the bathroom and those grossed out by it and neither understand the other.]
Hack #7. If you read more than one book at a time, only take on one long book at a time. If you are in the middle of several long books at the same time, you can get to feeling bogged down.
Hack #8. Don’t try to multi-task. Don’t read and have the TV on. I do listen to music with lighter reading, but not music with vocals. Actually good books and good music each deserve our full attention.
Hack #9. Step back from time to time. I learned this when painting. Sometimes you get too close to the canvas. Likewise with books. Step back to review the plot or the arguments so you don’t miss the forest for the trees.
Hack #10. Whatever you do, read as you can and not as you can’t. Don’t worry about what others say you should read. Read what interests you and read when you can. It is said that if you can find 15 minutes a day to read, you can read 15 average size books.
Famous reader, Mortimer Adler, commented, “It’s not how many books you get through, it’s how many books get through you.” No matter how few or many books we read, the object is to read well, not fast. Hopefully, these hacks will help.
I’m writing this on the day the President announced a plan to forgive $10,000 in Federal student debt for anyone earning less than $125,000 a year. My point in this article is not to debate this politically volatile proposal but rather to observe that it is symptomatic of our dysfunctional system of post-secondary education. This concerns all of us, no matter our party.
The United States has invested in public education in one form or another since before we were a country. The first public school was established in Boston, Massachusetts in 1635. Building on that precedent, Horace Mann, secretary of education for Massachusetts established publicly funded education throughout Massachusetts. The practice spread throughout the country during the 19th century, but the first real step toward equity in public education was the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965, which helped fund equal educational opportunity for all students.
There was a day when most jobs required little more than a high school diploma and this investment in public education provided the literacy and math skills as well as hands on skills that prepared graduates for most jobs and the growth of the U.S. from an agrarian to industrial society.
The G.I. Bill after World War Two led to an explosion in post-secondary education, with many veterans, who otherwise may have not had the chance. This, in turn led to a technological explosion in many fields and propelled the U.S. into space, helped create the computer revolution, advances in health care and life expectancy, and a variety of other societal advances.
The point is that investment in education is investment in the public, and not simply the private good. My basic contention is that we need to face the reality that a post-secondary degree or license in one of the various trades is the equivalent of a high school degree a century or even fifty years ago. And if you care about national greatness, this is a vital place to invest that will repay many times over the investment.
A few thoughts that likely will reveal my lack of expertise in public policy but that I think we all need to wrestle with:
Post-secondary is not just college. There is a huge need in the skilled trades which are requiring even more skills as we develop smart homes, buildings and vehicles. For many, training in these fields is a far better option than college and crucially needed. No call center in another country will help you solve a plumbing or HVAC problem. The push to get everyone to go to college is misguided. And we need to recognize the intelligence that supposedly “blue collar” jobs involve.
College costs do need to be addressed. Many of the increases in cost have come outside the classroom in terms of residence and recreation facilities. Some of these improvements are necessary, particularly in developing sustainable campuses, but few taxpayers want to invest in the costs of college not directly linked to education.
There needs to be equity in education investment, providing those with the least in resources the same opportunities for education. The celebrity admissions scandals reveal we are far away from equity.
Stringently regulate for-profit schools, who have accounted for significant student debt and typically have much lower graduation rates.
Investment in education should be coupled with some form of state residency and/or national service. Since public education depends on a combination of state and national funding, this makes sense. It may come in the form of an agreement to work in the trade or field one has prepared in for a period of years, where one may pay forward that investment in the services they provide and the taxes they pay.
I’ll stop here. If we truly are committed to national greatness and equal opportunity, it is time to figure out how to extend our model of public funding to post-secondary education.
Summary: In response to the growing interest in the idea of theosis or deification in Eastern Orthodoxy, this work examines the idea of “special grace” and participation in divine fullness in the thought of Jonathan Edwards as a Reformed counterpart that preserves the Creator-creature distinction while recognizing the saving relational communion between God and humans.
Contemporary theology has focused increasingly on Eastern Orthodox idea of theosis or deification or divinization of human beings. For some, this relates to our participation in the divine in salvation but others go further and explore ontological participation in God, how by creation, we participate in the divine being of God. The appeal of this is that it overcomes the sense of distance often felt in Protestant theology in which one experiences God’s saving work yet, even though not estranged, God is other and seems distant. At the same time, this raises questions about the obliteration of the Creator-creature distinction.
James R. Salladin, through a close reading of Edwards’s work, points us to the thought of Jonathan Edwards as offering a theology of relational participation in the fulness of God through grace mediated by the Holy Spirit. It is a communication of God’s fullness, though not God’s essence making possible soteriological participation in communion with the Triune God, rather than ontological participation, preserving the essential distinction between Creator and creatures.
Salladin unpacks these ideas in a careful argument drawing on Edward’s works. Chapter 1 focuses on the koinonia participation by which, through the Holy Spirit, given us in special grace, we participate in divine fullness. Chapter 2 then shows how the special grace of divine fullness is infinitely above created nature, not ignoring common grace or common participation, but also noting that this is not special, saving grace, nor communicates God’s essence to us. Chapter 3 then focuses on the other side of the distinction of divine fullness from divine essence. Salladin shows how Edwards carries this distinction through his doctrines of the Trinity, Christology, his doctrine of the Holy Spirit and doctrine of salvation.
Chapter 4 turns to the relation of created nature to divine grace. While creation does not participate in the divine essence, we were created for the end of participating in divine fullness. Finally, Chapter 5 develops Edwards’s vision of fulfilled humanity, patterned closely on the fulfillment of humanity evident in the hypostatic union of Christ’s divine and human natures in the union of faculties, expansion of capacities, and display of divine excellencies.
What is important is that Edwards offers a distinctly Reformed understanding of participation, one that is both imaginative, consistent with the doctrine of Christ and the Trinity, and that preserves distinctions of creature and creator and salvation by grace alone. I came away from this reading with a deepened appreciation of Edwards greatness as a theologian. Also, in the accounts of participation in fullness experienced in David Brainerd and one of Edwards’s own slaves (noted with lament by the author), we become aware of a blessedness of intimate relationship with the Triune God well worth believing and desiring. All this comes through Salladin’s clear, careful, step by step, well-documented exposition.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.
It’s not one of those things that will shape the future of reading, the next best seller, or decide the question of e-books versus paper books (a silly argument, I think). But I discovered recently that most people have a decided preference for whether they read with their shoes on or off. And for the vast majority, if the readers at the Bob on Books Facebook page are any indicator, we like to read with our shoes off, if at all possible (and some of us would live that way if we could!).
I suppose that it just makes sense. We all came without shoes in the beginning. Remember one of the favorite game of little ones? Taking off shoes. I never knew a little one whose favorite game was putting on shoes. As long as it is comfortable, we like the feeling of our feet being free! Shoes basically came into existence for protection, from both sharp objects and the cold, and in battle, enemy weaponry. Leather shoes have been found dating back to 3500 BC–most moccasin-like affairs. Then someone got the sense of shoes as not merely functional but decorative, and likely less comfortable. We wanted to get those things off as soon as we could.
So what does all this have to do with shoes and reading? And why are we even talking about it. It all came of seeing an art image of a young woman reading on a veranda, barefoot. It looked so comfortable, particularly coming, as I do, from “shoes on” people. So I asked about it, and found that I’m in the minority. For some, it is just part of a household, “shoes off” etiquette. Most of my reading friends, unless they are in a public indoor place where footwear is required, prefer reading barefoot (and I suspect even in some places, like coffee shops, they surreptitiously slip those shoes off under the table.
I suspect that this connects to the fact that reading, even for understanding, is most often a leisure activity. We try to find a comfortable chair, or even a soft patch of ground under a tree on a summer day, with a drink nearby, and perhaps a beloved pet. Many of us like to put our feet up, on a hassock or footrest, or even stretched out on a sofa. Somehow, when our feet can breathe, the rest of us follows.
The ultimate, though, is reading in bed, a favorite reading spot for many readers. One doesn’t even think of wearing shoes there. And perhaps that logic works backward to other reading locations.
Some are hybrid readers when it come to the shoes on/shoes off choice. I’m like that. Early in the morning and after the day’s work is done, I’m shoes off. At other times, I’m usually reading with shoes on. For some, it is seasonal–summer is shoes off, cooler weather is socks, and maybe lined slippers in the winter. Some people just have cold feet, usually someone to whom you are married, and they usually don socks or slippers.
What this all reminds me of is that reading is an immersive embodied experience. It isn’t simply eyes reading words off a page and trying to make sense of them in our brains. It is lighting, and comfortable seating, perhaps a chair side table for beverages, reading glasses, and maybe a dictionary or commonplace book. It has to do with the comforts of body which often convey ease to the soul as we become absorbed in a good story. It stands to reason that these comforts extend to our clothes and even the shedding of shoes. And that’s OK–take off your shoes and set a spell,” as they say.
