Boundary Waters (Cork O’Connor #2), William Kent Krueger. Simon & Schuster (ISBN: 9780671016999), 2000 (link is to a different edition in print).
Summary: A young country-western singer hiding in seclusion in a Boundary Waters cabin is pursued by a man claiming to be her father, FBI agents, a father and son from an organized crime family–and a couple of cold-blooded killers for hire.
Cork O’Connor is living in Sam’s old house, running Sam’s burger concession. His girls help in the summer but he and Jo remain apart. Unbeknown to him, a country-western singer, Shilohm, whose mother and Cork had been friends has used an Anishinaabe guide to hide away in a remote cabin in the Boundary Waters to seek clarity about her life.
A man known as Arkansas Willie Ray, who raised her and helped her build Ozark Records, shows up and hires Cork to help find her. She had been communicating and all communication had stopped. Then the FBI shows up at Sheriff Schanno’s office, also searching for her. They use strong arm tactics to compel Cork to help them along with Stormy Two Knives and his ten-year old son Louis, whose uncle, Wendell Two Knives had taken him when he brought supplies to Shiloh. Louis is the only one with any idea where she is.
They set out on a journey into the Boundary Waters as the weather transitions from fall to winter. Meanwhile, back in town, another “father” arrives, an aging organized crime boss and his son, also wanting to find her. Meanwhile, the search party doesn’t realize two other ruthless hired killers are also hunting for Shiloh. Already, they have tortured and killed Wendell Two Knives, without extracting any information. They also don’t know that Shiloh, tired of waiting for Wendell, has started back, using a map Wendell gave her. Something else is following Shiloh–a mysterious wolf who doesn’t attack.
While Cork and his party hunt Shiloh and realize they are also being hunted, Jo and the Sheriff figure out that all is not as it seems with the party that went out. Danger may not only be stalking Cork and the others but traveling with them. All this makes for a page-turning account where we wonder whether anyone but the killers will come out alive.
Meanwhile Jo struggles to believe with the support of her sister Rose, that all will come right, even as bodies are found (but not Cork). One senses that though their relationship was badly damaged, there is love that remains, to be explored if Cork survives. All this, along with Krueger’s well-drawn descriptions of the wilderness, make for a novel rich in its character relationships, setting, and thrilling plot.
I always love the places one may travel in books. I went from Neverwhere to an inside look at the lives of librarians and booksellers (a fun book for any bibliophile). I traveled with Israel, learning about their Tabernacle and followed the life and concert tours of Tina Turner. I got an insider look at the White House of the Kennedy and Johnson years and watched a couple of sleuths solve murders in rural English villages. I went on a journey with Saint Augustine and another with a boy, a mole, a fox, and a horse. There were journeys through worlds of ideas as well: catholicity, faith, our growing mental health crisis, getting beyond stalemated conversations, humility and hospitality, and chastity. Dr. Suess was right: “Oh, the places you will go!” All it takes is a few good books!
That I May Dwell Among Them, Gary A. Anderson. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802883063), 2023. A study of the tabernacle and sacrifice connections drawing out the idea of the incarnational presence of God in the physical structure of the tabernacle and the significance of the daily sacrifices for our understanding of atonement. Review
Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman. Avon Fiction (ISBN: 0380789019), 1996 (Link is to 2016 edition). When Richard Mayhew rescues a bleeding girl in the streets of London, he finds himself drawn into a world under London, the quest she is on and the evil forces set against her. Review
What is Faith?, J. Gresham Machen. Banner of Truth (ISBN: 9781800403598), 2023 (First published in 1925). An exposition of the Bible’s teaching on what constitutes vibrant and saving Christian faith. Review
Taken at the Flood, Agatha Christie. HarperCollins (ISBN: 9780062073846), 2011 (originally published in 1948). A young widow and her brother inherit a family fortune, stirring family resentments until a mysterious figure threatens blackmail and is found dead. Review
My Life as a Prayer, Elizabeth Cunningham. Monkfish Book Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9781958972106), 2023. A spiritual memoir describing the author’s journey from daughter of an Episcopal priest, through a variety of communities as a writer and multi-faith minister. Review
Dancing in My Dreams (Library of Religious Biography), Ralph H. Craig, III. Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802878632), 2023. A biography of the life of Tina Turner, centering on how her embrace of Soka Gakkai Nichiren Buddhism was transformative in the fulfillment of her dreams, including that of becoming a religious teacher. Review
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse, Charlie Mackesy. HarperOne (ISBN: 9781529105100), 2019. A graphic novel of the friendship of these four creatures who affirm the basic values of friendship, kindness, self-worth, and the love of cake! Review
Beyond the Clinical Hour, James N. Sells, Amy Trout & Heather C. Sells. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514001042), 2024. A proposal for collaborative efforts between mental health professionals and congregations to multiply the resources available to address the burgeoning mental health crisis. Review
Dancers in Mourning (Albert Campion #9), Margery Allingham. Open Road Integrated Media (ISBN: 9781504087315), 2023 (originally published in 1937). Mean-spirited pranks against the star actor-dancer in a musical becomes something more when as has-been actresses body is thrown of a bridge in front of the actor at his home. Review
Local and Universal: A Free Church Account of Ecclesial Catholicity (Studies in Christian Doctrine and Scripture), C. Ryan Fields. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514006719), 2024. A theological exploration of the contribution of churches in the free church, locally governed tradition, to the wider church’s understanding of catholicity. Review
From Broken Boy to Mended Man, Patrick Morley. Tyndale Momentum (ISBN: 9781496479860) 2024. The author takes us through his own journey of healing childhood wounds and leads through a process of reflection to identify childhood wounds, the ways they manifest in destructive behaviors, to finding healing and to shift perspective toward parents, other adults and one’s own children. Review
End the Stalemate, Sean McDowell and Tim Muehlhoff. Tyndale Elevate (ISBN: 9781496481153), 2024. Addresses how we move past impasses around disagreements to have meaningful conversations. Review
The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians, James Patterson and Matt Eversmann. Little, Brown, and Company (ISBN: 9780316567534), 2024. A collection of first-person accounts from booksellers and librarians about why they love doing what they do. Review
Humility and Hospitality, Naaman Wood and Sean Connable, editors. Integratio Press (ISBN: 9780999146354), 2022. Conference papers responding to a proposal that the virtues necessary for civility are humility and hospitality, particularly considering the qualifications that may be placed on this idea. Review
Chastity and the Soul: You Are Holy Ground, Ronald Rolheiser. Paraclete Press (ISBN: 9781640609471) 2024. An exploration of the meaning of chastity which has to do with far more than sex. Review
Remembering America: A Voice From the Sixties, Richard N. Goodwin. HarperCollins (ISBN: 9780060972417) 1995. A personal history of the 1960’s, written by an adviser to President’s Kennedy and Johnson. Review
On the Road with Saint Augustine, James K. A. Smith. Brazos Press (ISBN: 9781587434464) 2023. A “travelogue of the heart” exploring human longings and the heart’s true home. Review
What Hath Darwin to Do with Scripture?, Dru Johnson. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514003619) 2023. A study of Genesis identifying both remarkable continuities and important discontinuities with Darwinian and modern evolutionary theory. Review
Book of the Month: A group I was with in April raved about The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse, and after reading it I understand why. Handwritten and illustrated by an illustrator who doesn’t like reading (!), the conversations between the four creatures remind us of the qualities to which humans at their best aspire. It’s a book that can be read in minutes and lingered over for the rest of one’s life.
“In essence, chastity is proper reverence, respect, and patience. And in a culture that is often characterized by irreverence, disrespect, and impatience, it is much needed. To be chaste is to experience people, things, places, entertainment, the phases of life, life’s opportunities, and sex, in a way that does not violate them or us. In brief, I am chaste when I relate to others in a way that does not violate their moral, psychological, emotional, sexual, or aesthetic contours. I am chaste when I do not let irreverence or impatience denigrate what is a gift, and when I let life, others, and sex, unfold according to their proper dictates” (p. 4)
This book is a gem, speaking joyfully of the recovery of a long-dismissed virtue.
What I’m Reading. I’m still plodding away at Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age, a book that demands to be read slowly, even as a charts our transition from a world framed by the transcendent to the disenchanted world of our age. Hope I can finish it this month. I’m enjoying reading and discussing The After Party by Nancy French and Curtis Chang, exploring how we might get to a better conversation about politics. I have a couple mysteries awaiting review: William Kent Krueger’s Boundary Waters, with a truly dark killer, and another Brother Cadfael. It seems I’m reading a number of books about humility of late including Michael W. Austin’s Humility: Rediscovering the Way of Love and Life in Christ. I’m finally sinking my teeth into David Cape’s Matthew Through Old Testament Eyes. I’ve loved this commentary series. Vishal and Ruth Mangalwadi sent me The Father of Modern India: William Carey and I am amazed at what this shoe cobbler accomplished as a pioneering missionary in India (and yes, they take on the question of colonizing, wait for my review). Jonathan Haidt’s new The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness makes a case for how the limiting of play and the uncontrolled use of smartphones is directly correlated to the steep rise in anxiety and depression we are seeing among Generation Z youth. Finally, I’ve just picked up Christopher Tolkien’s Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle–Earth. Lots of background to things alluded to in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
I always love to hear what others are reading, or what you thought of a book you read after reading about it at Bob on Books–even if you didn’t like it. Leave a comment!
The Month in Reviews is my monthly review summary going back to 2014!It’s a great way to browse what I’ve reviewed. The search box on this blog also works well if you are looking for a review of a particular book.
Just over ten years ago, I wrote an article on what it was like to grow up in working class Youngstown. Little did I expect at the time that this one article would turn into a series that has run to over 500 articles, published weekly, for ten years. I’ve explored our favorite foods, restaurants, our love for Mill Creek Park and all the other iconic places of our shared youth. I’ve written about events in our history, stories of the people who contributed to making Youngstown a great city, and the stories of people who went on from Youngstown to do great things. I’ve learned so much more about Youngstown than I ever knew during the 22 years I lived there.
I’ve decided that it is time to take a break. I’m in the final months of my working life and finding there is a lot to this transition. It has been harder to find the time to research articles. Maybe this will change in retirement. I think this is a good time for a breather. I’m not sure how long a breather yet, but at least three months, the time I have remaining before retirement.
I am amazed how much I’ve learned from my readers, who have filled in so many gaps for me. At the same time, you have confirmed for me what a great and good place Youngstown was to grow up in. There is so much more to the story than car bombs and closing mills. We grew up in a city rich in traditions of food, faith, and family. Working class did not mean cultural desert–not with the Butler, the symphony, the Youngstown Playhouse and so much more.
I’ve loved telling the stories of people who should not be forgotten, from fallen soldiers to city founders. A dominant theme I found in so many of the stories is a deep sense of civic responsibility. Many devoted their adult lives to making Youngstown a better place.
This blog will continue. I started this as a book blog and have many books awaiting review as I write. I am deeply concerned that we may be raising a generation of children who can’t read. How thankful I am for my parents, for good teachers in Youngstown’s schools and good libraries for fostering the love of reading in my life and I want to do all I can to pass it along.
The other good news of continuing the blog is that all the Youngstown articles are still here. Just click “On Youngstown” on the menu bar to see them all. Looking for something in particular? Just enter it under “Search my Posts” and there’s a pretty good chance you’ll find what you are looking for. Back in December, I wrote “Ten Years of Your Favorites” linking to the top viewed posts of each year from 2014 to 2023. And if you can’t find it? Drop me a note. I’ll be collecting ideas for new articles.
Wrapping it all up, I am so thankful for what have really been ten years of conversations about the city we love. I’m always amazed that people read what I write. I feel a profound debt of gratitude to all of you. Thank you.
To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.”Enjoy!
Summary: A study of Genesis identifying both remarkable continuities and important discontinuities with Darwinian and modern evolutionary theory.
Dru Johnson takes a very different approach to how we read Genesis in light of Darwinian evolution. He takes the key concepts of scarcity, fit, and sex in Darwin and explores how these selection pressures are evident in scripture, as well as asking important questions about how the accounts diverge.
He explores first of all the question of scarcity and how it may lead either to competition and violence, or collaboration. Johnson notes continuities with the murder of Abel, the violence of Lamech, the violence leading to flood, and urban Babel as a buffer against scarcity. At the same time, in Abraham, the man of faith, and in the pre-fall Eden, there is abundance where scarcity is prevalent, under God’s care. Johnson carries this study beyond Genesis noting scarcity, competition, and violence and the providential care of God when his people trust God.
Second, he considers the idea of fittedness to habitat. He surveys a variety of evolutionary examples of fittedness and again turns to Genesis. We consider the habitats of the first three days and the creatures that fill them during the second three. He notes the name of the man is “dirtling” because he arises from the dirt. He notes the fittedness of the garden and this dislocation of exile and the arc of the biblical story toward new creation.
Finally, he considers sex. And here he notes a disjunct between evolution, where the focus is on males copulating with as many females as possible, a focus on reproduction, and the concern in Genesis, especially among women, for generation, the perpetuation of a family through one’s descendants. Certainly, there are examples of profligacy and even rape as evolution would predict, but also a distinctive focus upon a family line, and family lines, reflecting the promise of God.
In his conclusion, Johnson proposes that these continuities and discontinuities only make sense if there is some intersection of the metaphysical with the physical, which is the deeper issue between Darwin and scripture. He is hopeful that evolutionary and Hebraic conceptual worlds might be reconciled. The strength of what he proposes is that the approach takes both seriously as well as the expectation that if there is the possibility of reconciliation, continuities will be found. Yet Johnson also shows the anomalous in Genesis and throughout scripture that evolution-only explanations cannot reckon with. Might this help lead to a paradigm shift to a different and better faith-science conversation? One can only hope.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.
Summary: A “travelogue of the heart” exploring human longings and the heart’s true home.
James K. A. Smith encountered an interesting detour in his doctoral studies in philosophy. Setting out to study Heidegger, he found Heidegger and his contemporaries pointing him back to Saint Augustine and the discovery that the questions and the longings of our time are the very ones Augustine addressed in his time in Confessions, captured most succinctly in his statement “You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”
He draws on the restlessness of the characters in Kerouac’s On the Road that impelled their travels. He follows Augustine’s route, both in terms of places, and in the longings expressed in Confessions, recounting his own travels on Augustine’s “road trip.” Smith argues that this is an authentic word to our generation, addressing ten longings: freedom, ambition, sex, mothers, friendship, enlightenment, story, justice, fathers, and death. Finally he addresses the possibility of homecoming.
Smith contends that Augustine understood that we “practice our way into freedom” by joining in the practices of Christ’s body in worship and surrender. Augustine admitted that we will do most things with mixed motives but as we are rooted in God’s love ambition is fueled with a different fire. He addresses Augustine’s flawed understanding that only celibacy could remedy promiscuity and yet recognizes that there is a freedom in not being dominated by libido and that marriage may protect us from the excesses and abuses of sexuality while offering us longed-for covenantal relationship.
It seems as each of these longings are explored on Augustine’s journey, there is a kind of transformative turn that Smith observes in Augustine. Enlightenment comes not by scaling intellectual mountains but in humbling oneself. It is in brokenness that we become good fathers.
Many think, as in Kerouac, that “the road is life.” We’ve been told, it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. But deep down we do long to arrive home. But, Smith writes:
“You can’t get there from here. But what if someone came to get you? You can’t get to that last thing, but what if it came to you? And what if that thing turned out to be a someone? And what if that someone not only knows where the end of the road is but promises to accompany you the rest of the way, to never leave you or forsake you until you arrive?”
Smith reminds us that God has come to get each of us through the cross of Jesus who has bridged our unbridgeable void.
Reading Smith makes me want to pull out Confessions again. He reminds me that for all our differences across history, we have restless hearts and deep longings in common, and we are “on the road” because we long for home.
I’m borrowing my title from an article (paywalled) published on May 9 in the Chronicle of Higher Education under the same title. The article described the struggle of college professors with students not doing assigned readings, of reducing the number and length of readings without any improvement, and often summarizing readings in class. They noted declines in ability to follow a longform, complex argument, and fragmented and distracted thinking. This has been found to be accompanied by declines in writing ability (a 750 word essay being too long–ironic because this post will likely surpass that), and difficulties with notetaking if not structured by the professor.
The article explored various factors contributing to such decline:
Inadequate reading instruction going back to primary education.
Standardized test-oriented instruction, focused on close reading of short passages.
COVID related declines due to relaxed requirements and isolation from good instruction (although these declines were being noted pre-COVID–and have only accelerated)
Lack of leisure reading among teens.
Smartphone use and social media, where reading comes in fragments and rapid scanning..
Preference for information through audio-visual sources, often attended to while multi-tasking.
The upshot is either dumbed-down instruction or remedial efforts to teach reading, sometimes incorporated into instruction.
It is scary to think of the possibility that we are turning out functionally illiterate high school graduates and marginally literate college graduates without the habits equipping them to be lifelong learners. Yet it is disturbing to me that many state legislatures seem more concerned with what students should not be reading and what should not be on library shelves than the fact that students are not reading!
A few things seem vitally important:
Reading skills seem foundational. The article raises the use of whole language approaches that fail to teach phonics (which was an important part of my reading instruction).
Equally foundational is the association of reading with love. It can be the closeness of read aloud times with a parent or caregiver, sometimes learning the words of favorite stories. It is finding stories children love to read, sometimes with multiple readings.
It’s talking about stories, fostering critical thinking skills. This can be fun and discussions may be memorable!
It seems that learning how to read texts that are not “fun” is important. It’s more than just slogging through. It’s identifying what body of knowledge a text is addressing, what questions it is trying to answer, and then looking for how the writer unpacks those ideas.
I’m also struck by the fact that audio-visual culture might be an ally rather than an enemy. Book-Tok has been hugely influential in driving the sale of Young Adult fiction (this might be a good reason to save Tik-Tok!). I’d love to see media influencers exploring how they might encourage college-level reading skills among their followers.
I do think about how smartphone usage affects all of this–even for me as an inveterate reader. Perhaps this ought be a part of whatever passes for health instruction these days because of the far-reaching effects smartphones have on physical, mental, and reading health. Perhaps apps need to carry addictiveness and anti-social behavior ratings.
A final word here from the perspective of faith. Every faith has its sacred texts. The Abrahamic faiths are “people of the book.” God communicated God’s self in words that were written down on tablets, scrolls, and codices. Universities as centers of literacy arose from cathedral schools. In my own experience, I learned more about the close reading of texts, that I applied to great advantage in research papers, through the Bible studies I attended and led and Bible study methods I learned. I became a better reader of all books by learning to read the Bible well, having learned skills I wasn’t taught in school. Sadly, I hear little in most faith communities about fostering any sort of literacy, biblical or otherwise. There is a rich heritage here and a contribution to be made to our wider society that is at the heart of our faith.
The decline in reading ability in our universities ought to ring alarm bells. It would suggest a decline in many other areas–imagination. empathy and reasoned thought among them. It suggests systemic issues requiring thoughtful, evidence-based action. And it ought challenge all of us who love books and reading to think about how we might share that love winsomely and joyfully.
Summary: A personal history of the 1960’s, written by an adviser to President’s Kennedy and Johnson.
Richard N. Goodwin was an adviser to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and to the 1968 campaigns of Eugene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy. This personal history/memoir offers his insider perspective to some of the most important events of the 1960’s from the hopes of the Great Society to the tragedy of Vietnam and the retreat from a vision of what America could be.
Goodwin begins with his studies at Harvard law and his clerkship with Justice Felix Frankfurter. We see a young man with a promising legal future drawn to politics, beginning with the quiz show investigations of the late 50’s, giving him his first connections with the Kennedys, leading to becoming a speechwriter for Kennedy as he ran for president.
He was awarded with an appointment as Deputy-Secretary for Inter-American Affairs. He describes the development of the Alliance For Progress, including his contribution to its naming, and the tremendous hope it raised for America’s relationship with Central and South American countries. A conference of leaders ends with an off-the-record meeting with Che Guevara, who asks him to convey his thanks for the Bay of Pigs debacle and for how it solidified Castro’s support in the country. He narrates the growing engagement with civil rights and social programs, tragically cut short in Dallas.
He describes being recruited from a backwater job with the Peace Corps to be a speechwriter for Lyndon Johnson and his work on some of Johnson’s most famous speeches on voting rights and the Great Society, and the exhilaration of Johnson’s breathtaking vision and political savvy in enacting legislation. And then Vietnam and the dawning realization that it could not be won, that the dream of the Great Society was going down the drain, and his own judgement that Johnson was becoming increasingly unstable, leading to his decision to leave his position for a series of academic jobs and writing gigs, while becoming more vocal in his own opposition to the war.
He chronicles Bobby Kennedy’s indecision about entering the 1968 race, and his own to join the McCarthy campaign because McCarthy was the only one campaigning on his opposition to the war. He takes us inside the army of youth who were “clean for Gene” in New Hampshire, achieving a near victory in New Hampshire and beating Johnson in Wisconsin, leading to Johnson’s withdrawal from the race. Then Kennedy jumped in, and because of the longstanding friendship, Goodwin joined the campaign, which rapidly gained steam until that fateful night of his victory in the California primary, that ended on a hotel hallway floor.
Goodwin captures the sense of these years, at least for a “brief shining moment,” that America could realize its dreams of liberty and justice for all, a society where all would flourish and poverty be banished, and that America could lift other nations as she lifted herself. He also captures a growing sadness that pervades the latter part of the book as that dream vanishes.
Richard N. Goodwin was the late husband of Doris Kearns Goodwin, one of my favorite historians. Her new An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s is on my “to read” list, as it appears to weave together this story, that of her husband, and the treasure trove of documents from these years, a story only partially rendered in Remembering America–one they reflected upon together in his last years.
Summary: An exploration of the meaning of chastity which has to do with far more than sex.
“Can purity be a word that is ever used without a cringe?”
Father Ronald Rolheiser quotes Lisbeth During asking this question in her book, The Chastity Plot. Rolheiser, in this book that explores the meaning of chastity in Christian teaching, would most emphatically and joyfully answer “yes!” And that despite all the negative connotations, critiques of “purity culture,” and the connotations of prudishness and repressed sexuality with which the culture greets this word.
First of all, Rolheiser defines chastity, and it is clear from his definition that he is talking about far more than sex:
“In essence, chastity is proper reverence, respect, and patience. And in a culture that is often characterized by irreverence, disrespect, and impatience, it is much needed. To be chaste is to experience people, things, places, entertainment, the phases of life, life’s opportunities, and sex, in a way that does not violate them or us. In brief, I am chaste when I relate to others in a way that does not violate their moral, psychological, emotional, sexual, or aesthetic contours. I am chaste when I do not let irreverence or impatience denigrate what is a gift, and when I let life, others, and sex, unfold according to their proper dictates” (p. 4)
But why chastity? It comes down to our understanding of what we and other people are. Rolheiser, using the language of Moses’ burning bush encounter with God says that both we and every person we encounter is holy ground. Any approach that is irreverent, impatient, or that fails to respect the holy character of every human in the image of God is unchaste. I can see how this relates not only to sex but with how we engage with people in any shared endeavor. To disregard the gift of another, to force our way without accounting for another, is unchaste.
Chastity and sex need each other and are not at war with each other. Chastity protects us from misusing the power of our sexuality so that both people may fully be themselves with each other. Chastity, properly understood, doesn’t shut off sexual longing for the other that springs from the God-given reality that it is not good for us to be alone.
Rolheiser challenges those who would separate sex and the soul or even deny the soul. He sees this as the underlying basis for the explosion of “hookup sex” and the explosion of pornography. Yet we all have a sense that deep down, there is a place precious to us, that carries our deepest longings, our sense of self. and in sexual intimacy, we give another access to that place. It’s a place where we want to be protected, honored, and listened to. “Chastity protects the soul.”
Rolheiser goes on to explore the effects of pornography, addresses how we live in tension with our “inconsummation” and how we may learn from Mary and the virgin daughter of Jephthah. He is honest with us that celibacy has been the hardest part of his vows, “but, at the same time, it has helped create a special kind of entry into the world and into other’s lives that is a precious grace….”
He concludes the book with speaking of our need to recover a sense of wonder about our ordinary lives, which in Chesterton’s words involves learning “to look at things familiar until they look unfamiliar again.” It is chastity that protects the wonder of the holy ground that is another human being, the wonder of the holy ground that is us, and the wonder when two who have prepared in the patience of chastity and in the integrity of their vows for the divine fire of sexual intimacy.
This is a book that takes the “cringe” out of chastity. It’s not the mawkishness of chastity rings, of rules especially imposed on women in purity culture. Chastity is not about the evilness or dirtiness of sex but about its powerful goodness and about the holiness of every person in God’s image and ensuring that the powerful goodness never violates the holiness of us or others. This is good instruction not only for those awakening to their sexuality but for us at all ages, and not only for our sexuality but for all the ways we engage with people who are “holy ground.”
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.
I grew up in Youngstown watching the Vietnam War on the evening news. Meanwhile, young men from Youngstown were serving, fighting and dying in Vietnam. The war was unpopular, and sadly, we took it out on the returning soldiers, who, living or dead, did not always receive the honor they deserve. Each year, on Memorial Day, I remember one of those who died, representing the sixty-four from Youngstown who made the ultimate sacrifice.
Until May of 1967, North Vietnamese troops used the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the countries as a sanctuary and staging area for attacks into the South, assuming they would be safe for attack. That changed on May 18 when Marines, along with South Vietnamese troops were sent in to clear the DMZ of North Vietnamese troops in what was called “Operation Hickory.” They succeeded in heavy fighting with the largest death toll up to this point in the war, 337 Americans killed.
One of those Americans was Bruce Arthur Manton, of Youngstown. He was a Navy hospital corpsman, Petty Officer 2nd Class assigned to the 3rd Battalion of the 9th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division and they were engaged in combat in Quang Tri Province. He was fatally wounded on May 20, 1967 while treating wounded servicemen during “Operation Hickory.”
Bruce Arthur Manton was born November 22, 1945 in Berea, Ohio. He and his family moved to Youngstown around 1960 when his father, a Methodist pastor became pastor of Belmont Methodist Church. He graduated from The Rayen School where he he sang in the boys octet and chorus. He was active in his church and a district officer of the Methodist Youth Fellowship. Upon graduation, he enrolled at Ohio Wesleyan University but interrupted his studies after his sophomore year to enlist in the Navy in May 1965.
After basic training at Great Lakes, he went to Bethesda Naval Hospital, and then on to Camp LeJeune for further training as a hospital corpsman. He arrived in Vietnam in August of 1966.
Petty Officer Manton was awarded the National Defense, Vietnam Service, and Vietnam Campaign medals as well as being awarded the Purple Heart posthumously. His name appears on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall on Panel 20E Line 63. He gave his life saving the lives of others.
Rayen classmate Harry Kidd, who suggested this article, wrote this about Bruce Manton on the Wall of Faces:
FRIEND, CLASSMATE AND FELLOW NAVY VETERAN
Bruce and I attended the same high school – The Rayen School, Class of 1963. He and I separately both joined the Navy and are Vietnam Vets. I was lucky enough to come home. Bruce was remembered his fellow classmates at our class reunions.
Humility and Hospitality, Naaman Wood and Sean Connable, editors. Integratio Press (ISBN: 9780999146354), 2022.
Summary: Conference papers responding to a proposal that the virtues necessary for civility are humility and hospitality, particularly considering the qualifications that may be placed on this idea.
There have been many calls for a recovery of civility in our public discourse, and not least, in our universities. In the summer of 2017 Spring Arbor College sponsored the Forum 4:15 Unconference to consider the conditions necessary for civility. This was in the wake of several recent books by Richard Mouwm, Tim Muehlhoff, and Os Guinness putting forth their own proposals for how Christians might pursue civility in the public square.
The book is organized around a keynote presentation by Calvin L. Troup followed by a series of responses “interrogating” his proposal. Troup began by exploring the temptations and conditions that hinder civility and then proposed that the two Augustinian virtues of humility and hospitality are necessary conditions that underlie civility.
The responses that followed explored the nuances to considers and the problems that may occur with this proposal.
Mark A.E. Williams argues that not only are these Augustinian virtues necessary, but an understanding of Augustinian substance. In a world in which no one believes in substance, it is hard to reach agreement on what justice or civility is.
Michelle Shockness, writing from a social work background, observes that hospitality is an interaction that may be tainted by “Empire” in way that make host-guest relationships oppressive if the work of guests is not honored, if guests cannot say “no” and if the relationship cannot function with fluidity.
Susangeline Y. Patrick builds on this idea in missiology, proposing American Christianity needs to embrace a reverse and covenantal theology, where the recipient culture also hosts and all embrace a covenantal hospitality between God, people, and the land.
Naaman Wood also writes on this idea and the damages of colonialism and a recent denunciation of the doctrine of discovery. In North America, hospitality as a prelude to civility must take into consider the founding violence of those who colonized the land.
Jaime Harris considers the inhospitable character of churches toward LGBTQ+ persons, claiming that they, the churches, are the persecuted ones, while rejecting this persecuted minority. Too often, incivility has been useful.
Annalee R. Ward and Mary K. Bryant raise the question of the virtue of integrity and how it may challenge civility, using as a case study, the Barmen Declaration of 1934, which spoke against the Christian nationalism of Germany under Hitler and the complicity of the national church. Integrity reminds us that humility and hospitality cannot assent to everything.
Mark Allan Steiner, noting both the lack of trust of evangelicals in American culture and the Constantinian tendencies in their political engagement, argues that suffering, and not just humility and hospitality, must be embraced, using efforts for racial justice as a model.
John B. Hatch, in the concluding response, strikes a similar note in calling for the humility of prophetic lament, the acceptance of persecution, and the eschewing of attempts to grab at power rather than the uncritical support in recent years of Donald Trump.
This collection of essays certainly explores well the challenges of practicing civility with the diverse constituencies that make up our diverse landscape with one large exception. I do not find any discussion of how one practices civility toward the many conservative people who make up the country, as well as the many disaffected from working class and some ethnic communities attracted by the politics of Trump. While the “Unconference” participants ably dissected Troup’s proposal, it felt like preaching to a progressive choir. There was no similar critique of over-reaching contemporary liberalism, and the ways the lack of humility and hospitality in these quarters may be amended.
In sum, I think the basic proposal of humility and hospitality to help mend our frayed civility one worthy of consideration but the character of the responses appears to have given up on the exercise of these virtues among the population drawn to the politics of our former (and perhaps future) president. I think we must wrestle with the question Jesus raises in Matthew 5:46: “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?”
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.
