Author: rtrube54

Review: The Gospel of Jesus Green

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image of "The Gospel of Jesus Green" by Neil J. Whitehouse

The Gospel of Jesus Green, Neil J. Whitehouse. Wipf & Stock (ISBN: 9798385200245) 2024.

Summary: Weaving scripture, theology, systems thinking, and science, concludes that Jesus is Green and preached a home for all.

Neil J. Whitehouse is trained both as a zoologist and a theologian and is the minister of a United Church of Canada congregation in Montreal. In this book, Whitehouse weaves all of this training and thought and experience together to make a startling assertion. It is not simply that the gospel is Green or that Jesus is Green. He will propose substituting Green for Christ to identify Jesus as Jesus Green. Just as early believers saw him as the Anointed of God, Whitehouse believes Jesus Green expresses our emerging consciousness that our planet is a home for all, not just humans. This epitomized Jesus’ message and mission.

Whitehouse takes us on his own journey toward embracing this conclusion. He explores the different “Jesuses” of contemporary theology. He elaborates what he means by “Green” which combines energy, movement, choice, and consciousness. This brings together biological systems, or what he calls biophilia, political life, human choice in work and play, and a consciousness that combines awareness and praxis. He explores what evidence we might find of a Green Jesus in scripture in his references to nature, his formation in the wilderness, and in his prophecies and parables.

Perhaps the most intellectually stretching chapters are four and five, in which he thinks about the interrelatedness of all things. Then he posits Jesus as the ultimate systems thinker as he articulates a vision of the realm of God. He acts on this vision in his attack on the temple, corrupted by the religious leaders, who then killed him. For many, this will be their first introduction to French biologist-theologian Teilhard de Chardin.

For me, the most illuminating chapters are the last two. In concluding, Whitehouse sees the cross as the culmination of Jesus Green. Specifically he gives his life upon a tree that has already given its life. This is the same Jesus through whom, as Paul says, all things were created. He is the one who reconciles all things to Godin the cross.. Hence, truly, the gospel of Jesus Green is one of a home for all and not just humans.

It is clear that Whitehouse himself is a big picture, systems thinker. His attempt to incorporate his wide reading and experience makes for a dense and hard to follow discussion at times. As well, his theology is more “progressive” than mine. From what I can tell, he doesn’t believe in Jesus’ bodily resurrection but that this was simply a belief of early Christians, that Jesus rose “spiritually” in their faith. I think this weakens Whitehouse’s claim for Jesus Green. It is the Christian hope of the one who will return and renew creation that sustains Christians in care for that creation, proclaiming in our praxis our expectation of that day.

That said, Whitehouse offers us not only a deep look at Jesus and a striking meditation on the significance of the cross for all creation that I can fully affirm. He models a posture of learning not only from scripture but many other fields and how each may illuminate the others that is a model of integrative thought.

_____________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author for review. I’m grateful for his initiative to introduce me to a unique perspective on Green!

Review: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image of "Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow" by Gabrielle Zevin

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin. Vintage Books (ISBN: 9780593466490) 2022.

Summary: Childhood friends, Sam and Sadie collaborate as game developers, in a different kind of love story.

From the ancient Greeks to C. S. Lewis, people have written of the different kinds of love. This is a story of a different kind of love. One that is not familial, nor one simply of friendship, nor erotic. Sadie meets Sam when they are both eleven. Sadie’s sister is being treated for cancer. Sam is recovering from surgery to try to put together his left foot, mangled in a car accident. One that took the life of his mother. She meets him in the hospital game room during one of those interminable times of waiting around when someone you care for is in the hospital. He’s really good at Super Mario Brothers. And they strike up a friendship.

Only later does she learn from a nurse that this is the first time he has spoken since the accident. So the nurse asks if Sadie would continue to visit. Her mother reminds her of the service requirement for her Bat Mitzvah. So surreptitiously, she gets credit for her time visiting Sam–over 600 hours! And they deeply connect, Grok, if you will, until Sam learns that she has counted her time with him for her service project. He cruelly ends the relationship until…

They run into each other seven years later in Harvard Square. She is a student at MIT, and he, at Harvard. Sam spots her and manages to get her attention by calling out a favorite phrase from their gaming discussions. She is delighted to see him and hands him a floppy disk of a game she has written for a class. And so resumes the complicated friendship of Sadie and Sam.

Sam plays the game and loves it. They talk, and conclude that they ought to work on games together. They develop a game, Ichigo, in which a genderless child tries to survive being swept to sea in a giant wave. Sam’s roommate, Marx, offers their apartment as a workspace, and helps support the effort with everything from food to promotional ideas.

Sam and Sadie’s collaboration makes each of them, and the game better. There is a kind of oneness of mind between them that is more than close friends or even lovers, which they never become. Sadie’s lover was a former prof, Dov, a brilliant game developer who also had a penchant for sado-masochism. Sadie eventually gets out of the relationship, but not before securing permission to use Dov’s game engine to create visual effects for the game. Sam had urged this on her, oblivious to what he was asking. And so begin the tensions between them that intensify when they try to sell the game to a company that wants to make Ichigo male. Ideas of success and creative tensions pull at the collaboration, which Marx, now their business manager tries to hold together.

Then game promotion complicates things. Sadie’s insecurity comes out and Sam is the one on the stages promoting the game, and treated as its creator in the male world of gaming. While he gives Sadie due credit, press perceptions still represent Ichigo as his game, even though it was significantly an expression of Sadie’s genius and developing skills. And it is wildly successful. A sequel is developed, and Sam, Sadie, and Marx use their profits to create their own company.

Gabrielle Zevin traces this complicated friendship over 30 years as they build a company and do amazing creative work. Yet Sam drives himself so hard that his cobbled-together foot becomes infected, jeopardizing his life. Sadie and Sam create a “two worlds” game. Sadie’s side is technically brilliant, but it is Sam’s more prosaic side to which people flock. While creating non-violent games, an act of real world violence devastates both of them, and their company, and further drives them apart.

The title, quoted by Marx from Shakespeare, alludes to the allure of games, in which no character ever dies permanently. They keep coming back with each new game play. Both are haunted by death. Each asks if the other is dying when they first meet. Sam witnesses a woman jump from a building, landing in front of him and his mother walking on the sidewalk. Sam’s mother, on the cusp of success in Hollywood, dies when another driver fails to see them parked on the side of a road at night. Then, in the time following the act of violence, we wonder whether the unique love between Sadie and Sam will be stronger than death.

I am not into the gaming world, and my world is a far cry from the one Zevin creates. Yet the compelling characters and their unique, fraught relationship drew me in. Zevin offers an exploration of what an intellectual, creative, and yet deeply bonded love that is non-sexual might look like. She subtly underscores the toxic masculinity of the gaming industry, and the flaws in a society that believes in solving problems with a gun. It does not surprise me that Zevin is the recipient of numerous book awards. I will be on the lookout for her next work.

Review: Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image of "Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic" by Nadya Williams

Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic, Nadya Williams. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514009123) 2024.

Summary: Parallels the Western disdain for mothers and children with ancient Rome, and what early Christians can teach us.

Nadya Williams decided in 2023 to walk away from a traditional academic career. But it was not, primarily, to freelance, or consult. She walked away to homeschool her children. As a result, she experienced the incredulity of friends and professional colleagues who tried to make sense of her choice. They confirmed her assessment that in a Western, post-Christian world it makes no economic or professional sense to do this. Having children costs a lot of money both directly and indirectly. And the choice of motherhood ahead of professional career has been increasing framed as an inferior, or even oppressive choice, even when freely chosen. Williams argues that her experience reflects a societal devaluation of the personhood of children and mothers and a disdain for maternal bodies.

In the first part of the book, Williams elaborates this argument. She begins with the experience of expectant mothers in modern ob/gyn practices. She describes practices in which the office decor features contraceptive advertising and Botox advertising to remove the after effects of pregnancy on a woman’s body. Williams contrasts it to a midwives practice to which she switched that featured pictures of babies on the wall. [My wife sees a conventional ob/gyn at which pictures of babies adorn the walls, so this must not always be so.]. But she makes the point that one must prevent pregnancy or remove its effects on the body to maintain societal ideals of beauty.

Likewise, if one has children, they are increasingly designed through fertility practices and genetic testing. Then children endure an assembly line education to prepare them to be good and productive citizens. Thus, we deny by objectification and commodification their personhood. Finally, motherhood is denigrated in comparison to being productive creatives by feminist writers.

The second part of the book looks at the parallel devaluation of life in ancient Roman culture and the counter-culture of early Christians. She contends that women were largely considered mere sex objects. The value of children depended on their status and health. Deformed children killed, and others, often girls, left exposed to die. War only underscored the devaluation of women and children, who were raped, killed, or enslaved. She contrasts the ethic of the early church that valued all persons, including the single, childless, mothers, children, and others on the margins. They rescued exposed infants, and cared for the sick abandoned by families during plagues.

What may we learn from the early church in a parallel, though distinct context? In the third part of the book, Williams answers this by appealing to three writers, two ancient, and one contemporary. First she introduces us to the prison journals of Perpetua, who along with an enslaved Christian, Felicity, were martyred. Felicity bore a child shortly before her death, while imprisoned. Perpetua’s discussion of motherhood speaks powerfully to anti-motherhood tracts of modernity.

The second was Augustine, whose City of God speaks of the theological basis for valuing lives amid the dehumanizing sack of Rome. His writing to sustain the Christian community models redemptive writing for our day. He spoke life-giving words into a culture of death. Finally, she calls our attention to Wendell Berry, whose life work has been to connect human dignity both Godward and to the land which sustains us as we seek its flourishing.

Williams concludes with arguing that to be pro-life involves far more than preventing abortions. The diminution of mothers and the commodification of children is a far cry from the human dignity a consistently pro-life stance entails. Of course, this extends across the whole spectrum of human existence. Perhaps the most powerful and counter-cultural witness our communities can engage in is to value mothers and children, as well as other members of the human community.

Williams speaks powerfully to the “we need more babies” contention. This still treats babies as a commodity. Rather, she holds out the ideal of communities who love children.

She models a mother who is creative both in parenting and writing. I do think she needs to address the “Handmaids Tale” fears of women. There is a toxic patriarchy that also “affirms” motherhood at the expense of dehumanizing women. I also know families in which men have forgone careers to raise (if not bear) children. Such men are also denigrated. I’d love to see more said about the dignity of their choices, which equally affirm the worth of children.

I also appreciate the nuance she brings to discussions of education, in which homeschooling as well as public education are part of the assembly line. Each can equally commodify children instead of treating them as image bearers. And each reflects a contest over who controls the assembly line. It often feels to me that we “machine” children to be optimal cogs in our nation’s workforce.

It seems to me that the major challenge is to create a culture of life within our Christian communities that is more compelling than the commodifying culture around us that marginalizes or kills its “non-productives.” I think it means disengaging from the conflicting political narratives of our culture. Neither dignifies life. And I think it means forging communities where we deeply connect across generations and stages of life. Superficial fellowship times over coffee don’t cut it. Nadya Williams identifies a key place where we can begin. We can value our children. We can affirm the choices of moms (or dads) to stay home to raise children. And we can be the village that helps them do it. Yes, this is a costly choice but one Christian communities can embrace. We know loving a child or valuing a mother is costly but this is what God has done.

_____________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Tom Lake

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image of "Tom Lake" by Ann Patchett

Tom Lake, Ann Patchett. HarperCollins (ISBN: 9780063327528) 2023.

Summary: Lara, while cherry-picking with her daughters, recounts her love affair with actor Peter Duke, and how she met the girls’ father.

This is one of the best stories I’ve read with the COVID pandemic as a backdrop. In the summer of 2020, Lara’s three daughters have returned home to her and Joe’s orchard near Traverse Bay, in northern Michigan. And its a good thing, because the pandemic has thinned the ranks of workers who usually pick cherries. So it is “all hands” and Lara and her daughters spend their days in the orchards.

Nell, the youngest, is an aspiring actress. She knew her mother not only had a brief acting career but had a summer-long love affair with Peter Duke, who later went on to become a screen actor. None of them knew much about this part of their mother’s life. So, plying her with questions, Lara, over successive days of pickings, and evenings at the kitchen table, unfolds the story–at least most of it.

Beginning with high school, she recounts getting the part of Emily (the name of her oldest daughter) in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. She stars in the same role in college, and in a turn of fate, a Hollywood agent realizes she is perfect for a film in the works. She turns in what everyone says is a great performance, but the film sits in the can. Her agent gets her an audition for a Broadway production. She’s good enough, but without the movie, not famous enough. Just then a popular summer stock company loses their “Emily” and she takes the part.

The company is located by Tom Lake, in northern Michigan, part of a cultural festival site with offerings for downstate residents and others fleeing the heat. Another cast member, Peter Duke is a young, good-looking, and charismatic figure, and before long, Lara and Peter are lovers. Lara tells (and remembers) the story of that relationship, in the life cycle of a summer stock production where days are weeks, weeks are months and months, years.

Casts develop tight relationships. Thus we not only meet Peter Duke, but also Pallace, a Black woman who is Lara’s understudy, fighting the prejudice that wouldn’t cast “Emily” as Black. Pallace falls in love with Sebastian, Peter’s brother, a tennis pro at an exclusive Detroit area club. And we meet Uncle Wallace, a venerable old actor who plays the stage manager. Sadly, Uncle Wallace collapses in Lara’s arms during a performance, a consequence of years of drinking.

Toward the end of the season, Peter and Lara are rehearsing another role. To get into the role, which Lara plays badly, they drink (as do their characters. Lara then plays a tennis match with Sebastian, the best in her life, until she blows out her Achilles tendon. She cannot take the Stage as Emily. And she realizes that playing Emily is about the extent of her talent. And Duke moves on to Pallace. At the end of the summer, they part ways, and Peter begins his ascent to Hollywood fame, ironically through Lara’s agent

She also tells the story of meeting her husband, who was also at Tom Lake that summer. Because of Peter Duke, he couldn’t tell her. Only later do they connect, marry, and make the cherry farm their home. Patchett offers an interesting contrast between the meteoric passion between Peter and Lara, and the quieter, durable love of Joe.

Patchett explores the intricacies of the stories of our youth. Lara must decide what to tell her daughters as she remembers. We learn of one memory that remains secret, except to the readers.

Patchett also weaves in an underlying story of place. The cherry farm had belonged to Joe’s Uncle Ken and Aunt Maisie (after whom the middle daughter is named). And Emily, the eldest, and her fiance, Nelson, are already thinking of the future of the orchard, perhaps combined with the farm of Nelson’s neighboring parents. Meanwhile, Maisie, a veterinarian in training, already is caring for the community’s animals. Only Nell has aspirations to move away and act. I wonder if she will after this story!

I won’t say how Patchett ends this one. I’ve not always found her endings satisfying, as much as I’m a fan of her writing. While there are some unexpected twists in this one, I felt the conclusion just “fit” for me as did the conclusion to The Dutch House.

Review: The Love Habit

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment
Cover image of "The Love Habit" by Rainie Howard

The Love Habit, Rainie Howard. Broadleaf Books (ISBN: 9781506496740) 2024.

Summary: Learning to manage emotions, expectations, and relationships through daily habits enabling becoming the love one desires.

Rainie Howard believes good people can learn to become addicted to unsatisfying lives. As a result, they approach life from a victim mindset that attributes both happiness and lack of fulfillment to outside circumstances. In this book, she argues that one can transform from a victim to a “victorious creator” through developing a new set of habits, centering around the love habit technique. Specifically, LOVE is an acronym Howard uses that may be applied in a number of contexts:

  • L-Learn. Listen to and learn from oneself about goals, feelings, passions, hurts in a particular context.
  • O-Optimize. What results from my habitual response and what responses can I develop to care for myself and relate in healthy ways?
  • V-Validate yourself. What can you affirm about your strengths, gifts, and actions?
  • E-Experience. What does it feel like to be the person you desire to be in this situation?

She develops these ideas in three parts, the first of which is “Reinventing Yourself.” So often, nice people are mistreated. However, Howard maintains we allow this mistreatment, and teach people to treat us that way subconsciously. She discusses different personality expressions of this behavior. Reinventing ourselves involves letting go of our worries about others and how they think of us, which we cannot change. Rather, we accept responsibility for our own lives, evaluate how we want to be treated, set boundaries that reflect how we want to be treated, and write out a vision for how we want to experience our lives and relationships. This last includes a set of self-affirmations to use every day. Howard then deals realistically with the reality that this new self may not always fit in with our old friends.

The second part focuses on habit techniques to form a healthy self image. She emphasizes confident habits that build belief in and trust of oneself. These include trusting oneself, knowing and understanding oneself, allowing yourself to try new things, taking actions to support goals, becoming comfortable with being different, and surrounding oneself with positive people. She then applies these ideas in the areas of romantic relationships and one’s work context.

Part three focuses on discernment. Negatively, she discusses identifying deception and manipulation. I thought the principle of looking at patterns especially helpful. If a person mistreats others, it’s very likely they will mistreat you! Positively, she encourages intentionality, vision, confidence, seeking support and self-awareness. She coaches readers in becoming more influential through preparing one’s mind, nowing oneself, speaking one’s truth, and focusing on one’s strengths. She offers insights on using one’s intuitions. Finally, she concludes with a chapter on connection, including some wonderful insights from how she and her husband have grown in their love.

This is an excellent example of the genre of self-help books emphasizing the idea of “change your thinking, change your life.” Howard offers an abundance of practical insights into self-defeating behaviors, setting boundaries in relations, and discerning toxic people. And she recognizes the power of habit and how the exchange of good habits for bad is part of personal change.

However, as I read, it occurred to me that I was reading an outstanding example of moralistic therapeutic deism, which sociologist Christian Smith observed in a study of the beliefs of American youth. Yes, there is a God, but we change through our own thinking and moral efforts. God is a therapist who affirms our intuitions. I think the book offers a shadow of the substance of good Christian teaching on the transformative work of God through his grace in Christ. Through that grace we are reconciled to God and other. Our minds are renewed and God’s Spirit progressively bears his fruit in our character. Thus, he enables us to truthfully love others. And we approach work and all of life as calling.

What surprises me is that a Lutheran publishing house is the publisher of this work. The gospel of self-help seems the antithesis of the gospel of grace through faith. Self reinvention seems a far cry from salvation by grace alone through faith. But this seems a sad commentary on the dearth of good and compelling Christian instruction. Rainie Howard is right about malformed identities. She rightly recognizes the harms fallen people can inflict. Moreover, she recognizes our human dignity. But she grounds this in self rather than in being the redeemed image bearers of God. Her book is good as far as it goes. But where are those who speak with her practicality about the renewed self, renewed relationships, and renewed work in Christ?

_____________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

The Weekly Wrap: January 5-11

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment
woman in white crew neck t shirt in a bookstore wrapping books
Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

Ways of Reading

I’ve posted a couple articles recently (and one more here) about deep reading. One is a review with that title. The other is my 2025 Reading Challenge post, which includes challenges to encourage deep reading. But a comment on the review forced me to be honest. It concerned the quantitative challenges that are about pages and numbers of books read. And the reader asked if I was one of the “old-fashioned” who enjoyed readings and gave them the attention they deserved.

I had to be honest and answer “sometimes.” The truth is, I read a lot of books (237 last year according to Goodreads). It’s not a competition, but rather this retirement avocation of reviewing. I have a stack of books from publishers awaiting reading and reviewing. I generally post at least four reviews a week and typically have five books (plus a book club book) going at a time.

Part of how i do that is that i read different books differently. For example, I am reading a long, somewhat polemical tome which I read quickly to follow the argument (which to be honest didn’t need 900 pages!). Meanwhile, I am savoring a graphic biography of the composer Arvo Pärt, enjoying how the illustrations capture something of the essence of his composing philosophy. On the other hand, a Margery Allingham mystery is a pleasant evening diversion, although her labyrinthine plots do require attention. And an argument for how technology will help us “win’ the climate war is a straightforward matter of following a clearly stated argument. It’s a fast read.

What I don’t want to do is read a deep work of theology or philosophy as I would a murder mystery. Nor can I read poetry as I would a straightforward non-fiction essay or argument. This is what makes reading such a rich part of one’s life. Books offer us both meat and mind candy. We just don’t want to mistake one for the other nor only focus on an exclusive diet of either.

The commentor made one observation that I thought was so good that I will share it: “For me, reading is about enjoying a book and taking the time needed to honour the author and really get into it.” I totally agree!

Five Articles Worth Reading

Speaking of deep reading, I came across this article from William Deresiewicz from last May: “Deep Reading Will Save Your Soul.” He describes how students and faculty, frustrated with the state of reading in higher ed, are fashioning their own programs to deeply engage important works.

I thought this was an amazing rendering of two poems using a “Greek chorus” and instrumental accompaniment, appearing in Open Culture, titled “Laurie Anderson’s Mind-Blowing Performance of C. P. Cavafy’s Poems “Waiting for the Barbarians” & “Ithaca.” “Waiting for the Barbarians” is chilling.

Ought we read escapist lit? In “Trying and Failing to Figure Out “Escapism” in Books,” Molly Templeton says part of the question is what we mean by escapist and part is why we are reading. Sometimes, she suggests, we need a respite to give us perspective when reality is wearying.

There are a number of books on fathers and their maturing children. In “Two Different Ways of Understanding Fatherhood,” Lily Meyer reviews two recent books exploring the transition of men into fatherhood.

From fathers to children. Board books are, for many children, their first encounter with books. In “Jon Klassen on the Art of the Board Book,” the author-illustrator describes the experience of creating books for little ones who can’t read.

Quote of the Week

“However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.”

Astrophysicist and writer Stephen Hawking embodied his words. He was born January 8, 1942.

Miscellaneous Musings

I finished Tom Lake this week. I told you I sometimes found her endings disappointing. She nailed this one. Look for my review next week.

I’ve done enough editing work that the editor’s voice plays in my head when I read some books. I’m thinking of a book I’ve mentioned that could easily have shed half of its 900 pages. I suspect the editor found that too daunting, and having contracted for the book, published it more or less in its form. Another book by an author with a very fertile and big picture mind tried to incorporate everything he thought into his work, barely hanging onto his thesis. Less is more is a hard lesson for authors and preachers to learn.

I mentioned the Arvo Pärt graphic biography I am reading. My son bought it for Christmas, along with four CDs of choral works by Pärt. I’m listening to some of it as I write. Arresting music that reflects his faith and immerses me in his distinctive compositional style. The book helps me understand the life journey leading to the creation of such music. What thoughtfully paired gifts!

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Rainie Howard, The Love Habit

Tuesday: Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

Wednesday: Nadya Williams, Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic

Thursday: Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Friday: Neil J. Whitehouse, The Gospel of Jesus Green

Well, that’s The Weekly Wrap for January 5-11, 2025!

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page.

Review: Deep Reading

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments
Cover image of "Deep Reading" by Rachel B. Griffis, Julie Ooms, and Rachel M. De Smith Roberts

Deep Reading, Rachel B. Griffis, Julie Ooms, and Rachel M. De Smith Roberts. Baker Academic (ISBN: 9781540966957) 2024.

Summary: Practices to grow in attentive reading that subverts distraction, hostility, and consumerism.

Many books on reading focus on what to read, offering reading lists of good or “great” books. The authors of this book take a different approach. They believe we are in a culture that undermines the deep reading of any text. Thus they focus on practices to subvert what they believe are three vices of our culture: distraction, hostility, and consumerism. Likewise, they believe these practices help cultivate virtue and good character. Unlike other approaches by Christian educators, they focus on practice rather than worldview approaches that often feed vices of hostility and consumerism that work against virtuous reading and the appreciation of a text.

For each of the three cultural advices the authors address, they consider two sets of formational practices

Subverting Distraction

First of all under this heading, they consider practices to cultivate temperance, particularly with the digital devices in our lives. The authors observe the disembodied attention digital technology engenders as opposed to embodied engagement with a text and a community of other readers. They suggest gradually extending periods of uninterrupted reading, leaving phones and other screens in another room. Positively, they encourage the use of practices like lectio divina and other slow reading practices to deeply engage texts rather than the skimming we often practice.

Second, they focus on “Attentive Reading Processes for a Digital Age.” Surprisingly, they do not rule out using a variety of media to engage a text: audio-, electronic-, and physical books. This is one of the first books on reading I’ve read to recognize neurodiverse readers and that reading processes will vary from person to person. Equity and inclusion allow for these different approaches, even allowing students to secure different (and sometimes cheaper) versions of a text rather than as syllabus-mandated version, requiring adjustments when referencing the text. One of the authors describes setting aside time in class for communal reading using reading logs and how this helped students develop attention.

Subverting Hostility

First the authors engage the practice of developing diverse reading lists, often using worldview as a launching point for polemics for and against ideologies. Rather, they encourage the development of reading lists to develop empathy and charity. They discuss listening to texts from the past with neighborly charity, not ignoring racism or patriarchy, but also seeing past them to enter deeply into the author’s perception of the world in their day. Sometimes a contemporaneous text with a contrasting view may be read alongside.

Second, rather than fearing harm from diverse worldviews, the authors address reading practices for interpreting worldviews. They encourage an approach of prudent wisdom rather than hostility or fear. This includes reading widely, reading primary texts rather than hostile summaries. It means reading with self-forgetfulness that seeks to meet a text on its terms rather than ours. It involves distinguishing cultural mores from good and evil. The authors also consider the use of trigger and content warnings.

Subverting Consumerism

Reading can often be reduced to a transactional activity where information is a commodity and even others in online communities are commodified. First of all, the authors explore reading a as a gift-giving conversation. This assumes reading in a community. It begins with forming open-ended questions of the text and one another and practicing generosity in conversations in putting away distracting media and communicating intent listening through one’s body. It assumes a collaborative rather than competitive approach to understanding a text.

Finally, the authors address learning to read for enjoyment, rather than just getting one’s money’s worth. They explore Joseph Pieper’s idea of leisure in contrast to the total work/total entertainment ethos of our culture. In teaching settings, they encourage beginning with easy or familiar texts and incorporating humor. One author uses commonplace books in which students record compelling passages or pair poetry and images.

Reflections

As may be apparent, this book is written by Christian educators, reflecting applications in a primarily Christian setting. Yet I believe the practices they commend may be adapted more widely. In particular, there is a crisis of student disinterest in reading in higher education, a place where reading deeply is crucial to student formation. The practices commended here appear to address the recovery of reading for joy at the heart of a lifelong love of reading.

The practices the authors commend seem applicable beyond the classroom. Many of us are conscious of the ways our culture has undermined our own experience of deep reading. In particular, the stress on vice, virtue, and character gets at what many of us believe, but do not always experience–that reading can be transformative.

I also appreciate the authors critique of worldview approaches to reading. I learned to read this way as a young adult. And I appreciated the discernment it offered me. Only in more recent years have I realized the implicit hostility with which I approached texts. This prevented me from fully appreciating them and understanding the world of an author or the characters.

Finally, there is so much here about reading in community and how that may be done well that has applicability to Bible studies and book groups. In our individualistic society, we tend to view reading as a solitary activity. I love the idea of conversations around texts as a form of gift-giving. Reading, or even talking about books with others, is almost invariably mutually enriching.

I so appreciate the approach of these authors. Rather than rail against disinterested or distracted readers, they invite us into the joy of deep reading by showing us how. Rather than complain about consumeristic approaches, they commend a better way. Instead of protesting polemics, they position us to listen and engage with charity. and in so doing, they help us become not only better readers, but perhaps, better people.

_____________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Brother Cadfael’s Penance

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments
Cover image of "Brother Cadfael's Penance" by Ellis Peters

Brother Cadfael’s Penance (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael Number 20), Ellis Peter. Open Road Media (ASIN: B00LUZNZB0) 2014 (first published in 1994).

Summary; Olivier, Cadfael’s son from his crusading days, is held hostage without ransom. Cadfael forsakes his vows to save him.

Frustrated by the stalemated civil war and Maud’s imperious and inadequate leadership, Philip FitzRobert switches sides to King Stephen. Philip is son of Robert of Gloucester, half-brother of Maud, and her most staunch supporter, so this hurts. Philip’s castellan also surrenders Faringdon. But not all of his men, among whom is Olivier of Bretagne, abandon their loyalty to Maud. They are held hostage for ransom. With an attempt at peace talks, a list is published. Olivier’s name is missing and his whereabouts unknown.

Olivier, if you remember, is Cadfael’s son from his crusading days. When he left Maria, the woman he loved to return home, he did not know she was with child. He only learned of this after his vows, when he and Olivier crossed paths. In passing, Olivier mentioned his mother’s name and the circumstances of his birth. However, to not interfere with Olivier’s life, Cadfael kept this knowledge secret, except to his confessor.

The bishops, tired of war and wanting to recruit for another crusade, bring Stephen and Maud together for a peace conference, offering safe conduct for all, including Philip and the castellan, Brien de Soulis. Hugh Beringar is among those attending. Cadfael secures permission from Radulfus to go to the conference to seek information about Olivier. But he must return with Hugh. Anything further is a breaking of his monastic vows.

When they arrive, Cadfael recognizes Yves Hugonin, Olivier’s brother-in-law, who Cadfael had rescued as a child. Yves is also seeking news of Olivier. But in his impulsiveness, he attacks de Soulis, accusing him of treachery. Order is restored, and in an audience with Empress Maud, he is both disciplined and given hints that she would not be displeased were de Soulis to be killed.

The peace talks fail. And Cadfael fails to get an answer to the whereabouts of Olivier. But before the proceedings end, at the end of Compline, Yves, one of the first to exit, trips over something and cries out. It’s a body. Brien de Soulis is dead, stabbed in the heart. And because of the earlier incident, Yves is the prime suspect. But Empress Maud invokes the safe conduct, and he leaves with her troops. But before they reach their destination, he is seized, most likely by Philip’s men.

Cadfael learns of this. He and Hugh also look at the body. They find de Soulis was killed with a dagger thrust, face to face with someone he had no reason to suspect. It couldn’t be Yves, an open enemy. They also find a strange seal among de Soulis’ possessions. Cadfael makes a fateful decision to break his vows and part from Hugh. He believes Philip is holding Yves, and Olivier.

On his way to Philip’s castle, La Musarderie, Cadfael finds one more clue confirming Yves innocence. He learns the seal belonged to one of deSoulis’ captains. Supposedly, he set his seal to the surrender of Faringdon before going on an errand. He was found dead, supposedly thrown by a horse. Everything points to de Soulis as his murderer, because he wouldn’t agree to the surrender. Someone else had a motive to kill de Soulis.

When Cadfael arrives at La Musarderie, he sees Philip, presenting the evidence that secures Yves release. He also learns that Philip is holding Olivier. Philip offers no explanation. He names no ransom. Though moved, he even rejects Cadfael’s offer of himself in place of his son.

Yves returns to Maud. Hoping to secure Olivier’s release, he reveals that Philip himself is at La Musarderie. Robert of Gloucester, Philip’s father, is away. Maud uses the opportunity for revenge. Not only will she besiege and conquer La Musarderie. She will take and hang Philip. Even Yves knew this would be disastrous. It would mark an escalation of the war. He gets word to Cadfael at La Musarderie.

Will they find a way to avert this grievous mistake? And will Cadfael somehow succeed in rescuing Olivier? And even if they manage to escape the sack of the castle, what will become of the apostate Cadfael? Will he have saved his son only to lose his vocation and his soul? And should Olivier learn that Cadfael is his father, how will he respond to this knowledge? When Cadfael parted from Hugh, in disobedience to his abbot, he risked all that was sacred. But would he succeed or would he lose all?

In John 15:13, Jesus says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Cadfael embodies these words in the last of the Cadfael stories. We wait with bated breath in wonder that, even with faint hope, Cadfael risks all.

Review: The Backyard Bird Chronicles

/ rtrube54 / 3 Comments
Cover image of "The Backyard Bird Chronicles" written and illustrated by Amy Tan

The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan (text and illustrations). Alfred A. Knopf (ISBN: 9780593536131) 2024.

Summary: Four years of journals on the birds visiting Amy Tan’s backyard, with sketches and detailed drawings.

At age 64, Amy Tan took art lessons from Jack Muir Laws, a nature illustrator. This led to walks viewing birds, sketchbook and drawing pencils in hand. She learned to make quick, rough sketches capturing essential features of the birds that she saw. Then she realized that her own backyard was a haven for birds, and her house, with extensive windows looking out on that yard, the ideal ‘blind” {except for the birds trying to fly through the windows, remedied with various decals).

She filled journal after journal with her observations, accompanied by sketches with captions, and sometimes the imagined thoughts or conversations of the birds. Her observations range from elation and love when a hummingbird feeds from a feeder in her hand and she can feel the brush of its wings, to profound sadness when she sees a bird that looks puffed up and realizes it is ill and probably dying. That leads to the practical action of emptying and cleaning her feeders so that she doesn’t spread the infection to other birds.

The book offers a selection of her entries, each accompanied with her sketches. She identifies species, telling us distinguishing marks. She makes detailed observations of their behavior, often accompanied by questions. For example, on May 22,2020, she watches baby titmice feeding. She identifies the leader, notes how the birds eat, sometimes attempting to eat things too big for them, sometimes taking and rejecting items like sun chips. All this is captured in a drawing on the facing page.

Along the way, Tan unashamedly displays her obsession with backyard bird, describing at length various types of feeders, efforts to discourage squirrels, and the variety and prodigious amounts of bird food she buys, including the mealworms she stores in their refrigerator. Needless to say, she has a supportive husband!

In addition to the journal sketches, Tan includes detailed drawings of various birds in fine detail. These approach the quality of an Audubon work. Tan’s skills of observation and description are evident in these drawings and throughout the text.

Tan’s enthusiasm about birds makes one think differently about the birds in one’s own backyard and surroundings. While not heavy-handed, we sense her awareness of these precious lives to be preserved. She sees the effects of nearby wildfires. She rescues injured birds, and grieves when they don’t make it. And if she has inspired you, she offers a list of the books, apps, and other resources she found helpful. All in all, this book is a delight to the eyes and food for the spirit.

Don’t be surprised if this book makes at least a backyard birder out of you!

Review: Plundered

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment
Cover image of 'Plundered" by David W. Swanson

Plundered: The Tangled Roots of Racial and Environmental Injustice, David W. Swanson. InterVarsity Press (ISBN: 9781514007747) 2024.

Summary: The tangled roots of racial and environmental injustice. Traces exploitation and oppression of people and land to a common root of greed.

The basic premise of this book is that systemic racism and environmental destruction stem from a common root. Specifically, greed, and its outworking in theft, in the eyes of David T., Swanson, are the sources of what he sees as two intertwined ills. Often, those subject to racial injustice also suffer from depredations on the environment. The point of this book is not to argue what are disputed ideas in some quarters nor to propose policies for society as a whole. Instead, Swanson asks how churches might engage in caretaking of both people who have suffered injustice and the land they inhabit, often in urban settings.

Swanson comes uniquely qualified to address these questions. After training as an outdoor educator, Swanson experienced a call to establish a church on the South Side of Chicago, New Community Covenant Church, where he has lived with his family and worked the past fourteen years. The book reflects his own efforts to love and care for the people and place of the South Side of Chicago, specifically the Bronzeville neighborhood.

Before addressing his key insight, Swanson begins with the gift of creation, weaving biblical narrative and insights of Indigenous Christians into his sabbath day walks by Lake Michigan near the Center of Science and Industry, through the woodlands, canals, and lagoons of what was the site of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. From here, he considers our vocation, which he describes as priestly caretakers. As priests, we both bless the Creator and the creation. As caretakers, we seek the flourishing of all God’s creation, recognizing that our flourishing depends upon it.

Then, Swanson explores what we have actually done. We have so refashioned creation, resulting in mass extinctions and changing weather patterns. Scientists contend we have entered a new era in Earth’s existence, the Anthropocene. We have pursued extractive and exploitative policies not only with the creation but with ethnic minorities, the Black and Brown peoples of our country. As a result, these people often suffer the worst effects of our environmental depredations in what is called environmental racism. As Christians, we have often been complicit. Real healing can only begin with repentance, leading to repair, reconciliation, and renewal.

Part of how this happens, Swanson contends, is through our detachment from our place. We often do not know where our water, food, energy, clothing, and other necessities come from. And so we often can be oblivious to the exploitative and extractive practices implicit in our existence. But there is hope and the last two chapters in part one begin exploring what priestly caretaking under Christ’s redemptive work might look like in our communities, from gardens, to welcome of newcomers, to fighting for the quality of local schools.

All this comes in the first part, under the heading “tangled roots.” The second part is headed ” becoming naturalized.” Instead of detachment, Swanson considers what it means to become indigenous to a place. Swanson urges three practices to nurture our relationship with our place and its people. Instead of detachment, we nurture belonging, listening to and learning about our community. Instead of unceasing exploitation, we sabbath, resting both ourselves and the rest of creation and practicing generosity. Finally, in place of greed, we nurture virtue–prudence, justice, courage, temperance, faith, hope, and love.

Priestly caretaking is not idealistic utopianism. Rather it is a form of “long obedience in the same direction. Swanson writes:

“Caretaking in the ruins of industrialized extraction and exploitation is a generational commitment. Who can say how long it will take for a racialized people centered on Jesus and pursuing repair together to find that creation has re-exerted its formational power over them? How long will it take for a people who’ve been severed from the earth to learn to walk humbly and gently among their creaturely neighbors? There is no program for this, no curriculum or metrics. There is only the good and slow work of learning together how to exist as a blessing and a gift.”

What I appreciate about this book is that it doesn’t try to do too much. It doesn’t propose macro solutions for racism or environmental problems. Swanson does for urban communities what Wendell Berry does for rural farming communities. Both focus on care for people with names and their place. We can’t seek restoration everywhere if we don’t practice it somewhere. Swanson invites us to begin where we are to engage the long, slow work of community caretaking.

_____________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.