On Books

Review: Dancing in My Dreams

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Cover image of "Dancing in my Dreams: A Spiritual Biography of Tina Turner

Dancing in My Dreams (Library of Religious Biography), Ralph H. Craig, III. Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802878632), 2023.

Summary: 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.

If you remember Tina Turner, most likely your memory of her was in performance, singing “Proud Mary” or “What’s Love Got to Do With It”, often beginning low and slow and climaxing in a frenzy of dancing by her and her backup singers as she belted out powerful vocals–a revival service at a rock concert.

Maybe that should have cued me to powerful spiritual roots in her life. Even so, there was much new for me in this spiritual biography of Turner’s life. What should have been evident, knowing the stories of other, was her Black church experience, beginning at the Woodlawn Baptist Church in rural Nutbush, Tennessee, and later Pentecostal Church of God in Christ churches in Nashville. Growing up as Anna Mae Bullock, she was the child of a strict religious mother and absentee father who died young, She also lived part of the time with an aunt Zelma and her uncle Richard, who she eventually would live with after her mother left, moving to St. Louis where she encountered the clubs, sang for Ike Turner, eventually becoming part of his act, becoming “Tina” and marrying her.

On one hand, Ike Turner turned Tina into the professional who could walk into a studio and lay down a vocal track in one take. But it came at the tremendous cost of physical abuse, making her life a study of partner abuse and the psychological fear and dependency that kept her from leaving for many years, even as Ike further descended into drug addiction.

What distinguishes this book is Ralph Craig’s account of the turning point in her life, resulting from a number of spiritual practices including consulting with readers, astrology, and most significantly, Soka Gakkai Nichiren Buddhism. Through Wayne and Ana Maria Shorter and their friend Valerie Bishop, she was introduced to the chanting associated with this Japanese form of Buddhism and the peace and focus she gained from this practice and their support helped her leave Ike for good, and over several years, launch her solo career, pursuing a dream of performing in stadiums. Craig goes into depth concerning the history of this branch of Buddhism and the embrace of Buddhism in Black America.

He also describes what he calls Turner’s “combinatory religious repertoire” in which she draws upon all her religious influences although Soka Gakkai Nichiren Buddhism remains central. A quote from Vanity Fair (1993), cited by Craig may give a sense of this:

“I do something about my life besides eating and exercising and whatever. I contact my soul. I must stay in touch with my soul. That’s my connection to the universe….I’m a Buddhist-Baptist. My training is Baptist. And I can still relate to the Ten Commandments and to the Ten Worlds [a concept from Soka Gakkai]. It’s all very close, as long as you contact the subconscious mind. That’s where the coin of the Almighty is….I don’t care what they feel about me and my tight pants on stage, and my lips and my hair. I am a chanter. And everyone who knows anything about chanting knows you correct everything in your life by chanting every day” (p. 175)

Craig goes own to recount how she used chanting to prepare herself to connect with audiences in concerts. And he recounts the slow climb from smaller venues to arenas, the struggle and prejudice she encountered with getting recording contracts with American companies and the much more favorable reception she enjoyed in Europe leading to her move to England and eventually Switzerland, where she married again.

The final chapter records her retirement after her Wildest Dreams concert tour, where she filled stadiums, in 2009. In her remaining years, she pursued one final dream, to teach what she had learned, releasing several recordings sharing religious teaching. Her life after 2013 became increasingly a struggle with declining health as she suffered a stroke, kidney disease and later, cancer. Her last US appearance was in 2019 at the New York debut of Tina: The Tina Turner Musical. She died May 24, 2023.

Craig offers an in-depth account of how Soka Gakkai Nichiren Buddhism profoundly shaped the second half of Turner’s life, and offers her as an example of the experience of other Blacks who followed her path into Buddhism. One senses that for Turner, and perhaps others, the church remained culturally formative but failed to offer the spiritual resources found in Buddhism. As much as I wished she would have found the support to leave an abusive partner from the church (even her mother supported Ike against her) and found in the spiritual practices of the church, what she needed to sustain her in her performing life, I’m grateful for the solo career she achieved, her body of work, and the preservation of her life from the violence many women do not survive. Ralph H. Craig, III has added an important, though religiously divergent account, to Eerdmans Library of Religious Biography.

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

Review: My Life as a Prayer

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Cover image of "My Life as a Prayer" by Elizabeth Cunningham

My Life as a Prayer, Elizabeth Cunningham. Monkfish Book Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9781958972106), 2023.

Summary: 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.

Elizabeth Cunningham may be known to many as the author of the fiction series, The Maeve Chronicles, in which Mary Magdalene is reconceived as the daughter of a line of Celtic warrior witches. This, her first non-fiction work, traces her spiritual journey from growing up in the home of an Episcopal priest to becoming a multi-faith minister. Throughout, she describes her life as a prayer and explains what this might mean toward the end of the book:

“The prayer of oblation may be what I mean by life as a prayer. It may be what in Judaism is called a mitzvah or Buddhists mean by mindfulness. Or what Brother Lawrence called practicing the Presence of God while sweeping the floor, of scrubbing pots. The attention of Miss Sang [a mentor] gave to setting the table. what if we made all tasks, each small act, an oblation? Nothing to do with success or failure, obscurity or recognition. Just an offering. I believe that the Dalai Lama once said that his religion is kindness, and religion is only useful in so far as it helps him to be kind. If it helps to make an offering to a deity, then good. An offering is an offering even if we never knew to whom it is made or who receives it” (pp. 254-255).

This gives a good flavor of her outlook. She grew up the daughter of an Episcopal priest. Even as a child she struggled with how God was portrayed in the Bible, but more comfortable with Jesus Her relationship with her father is complicated. She respects his social conscience and activism but his faith didn’t seem to find warm expression in their family life. He seems to have had anger issues and struggled with alcoholism. She grew more distant, eventually joining a Quaker Meeting. A further stage came about the time of her miscarriage when she discovered the Goddess, who became a guide to her. She recounts a decade of hosting with Miss Sang a multi-faith retreat center and community, High Valley.

An important part of her life is the enchanted character of the natural world from the forest next to her childhood home to the land around High Valley to her own garden. This reflects the neopagan influences that sees all things as animated by gods or spirits. She also recounts her writing efforts, the rejections and how she came to write the Maeve Chronicles.

I had several responses to the book. One was that I think it is a reflection of the spirituality of many who would say they are spiritual but not religious, involving both the rejection of some traditional belief while retaining remnants of that faith combined with other practices from diverse sources with self (or the god or goddess within) as the final arbiter.

I was saddened by the account of her childhood encounters with Christianity and found myself reflecting on my very different experience of parents, relative, and a number of adults in my life with vibrant and thoughtful and gracious Christian commitments. Working in collegiate ministry, I’ve been struck by how many who struggle with faith or have rejected it had negative childhood or teenaged experiences of that faith.

I also was struck with the indeterminacy of the object of her life of prayer. To God, to the spirit in all things, to herself, her Goddess, or even a type of well wishing to others (“sending prayer”)? It seemed all of this at various points. How different from a Christian understanding of knowing that we come freely and boldly to our Father, that we are heard, and that prayer is communing with the lover of our souls.

At the same time I loved the idea of life as prayer, in the language of St. Paul, “living sacrifices.” Cunningham offers an example, albeit multi-faith of living that out that is worth observing and affirming.

Flannery O’Connor wrote of the “Christ-haunted south.” There is a Christ-haunted character to this memoir, with snatches of Jesus’ life, of Episcopal liturgy, the writings of C.S. Lewis, of forms of prayer, and more. It feels like something from which she turned away but that still has a hold on her. I wonder what the author will make of that in time to come.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through Librarything’s Early Reviewers Program for review.

Review: Taken at the Flood

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Cover image of "Taken at the Flood by Agatha Christie

Taken at the Flood, Agatha Christie. HarperCollins (ISBN: 9780062073846), 2011 (originally published in 1948).

Summary: A young widow and her brother inherit a family fortune, stirring family resentments until a mysterious figure threatens blackmail and is found dead.

Gordon Cloade was the benefactor of the Cloade family. During the war, he meets a young widow, Rosaleen Underhay on a ship, and marries her. Two days after they arrive in England, all but Rosaleen and her brother David, who has joined the household, are killed in a bombing raid. Cloade had not had time to change his will to provide for both wife and family. This meant that Rosaleen, for the duration of her life inherited the income from the capital of Cloade’s life, depriving the family of needed support.

But all may not be as it seems with Rosaleen. Her first marriage had been an unhappy one. Her husband separated and then was reported dead. But a conversation where a Major Porter was overheard by Poirot, while sheltering in a club from a bombing raid, suggests that Underhay never died, but was abroad under the name of Enoch Arden, a reference to a Lord Tennyson poem about one thought dead who was not.

Christie introduces us to the various Cloades, in various states of insolvency. Jeremy, the lawyer, has been pilfering funds, and a reckoning approaches. Lionel is a physician, and has become a morphine addict, to the detriment of his finances. Rowley has been able to eke by as a farmer but had hoped for more, particularly as he anticipates marrying the village girl, Lynn Marchmont, who has returned to live with her mother after Lynn’s service as a WREN during the war.

Needless to say, many wish Rosaleen dead, or at least her claim on the Cloade fortune disproven. Then a mysterious figure shows up in town, identifying himself to David, Rosaleen’s brother, as Enoch Arden, and threatening blackmail. When Arden is found dead, Rowley, acting in the family’s interests asks Poirot to confirm the identity of the man named Arden. He calls on Porter, who testifies at the inquest that he knew Underhay and that the dead man was Underhay, despite Rosaleen’s denials. David, as prime suspect is arrested.

There’s a tangled web that Poirot has to unravel before all becomes clear. Two more die along the way. Poirot will say one is accidental, one is a suicide, and one is murder. But which is which and how are they all connected is for Poirot to discover, as he talks to people and learns things, while those around him underestimate his abilities.

I thought this a cleverly written mystery that also offered an instructive tale on the follies of depending on the wealth of a benefactor–from family or otherwise. Along the way, there is a diverting subplot as Lynn, finding Rowley somewhat dull after her war adventures, is drawn by the allure of the roguish David. I’m not sure I like Christie’s use of partner violence in this plot. As a mystery, I think this one of her better efforts, written at the height of her powers in 1948.

Review: What is Faith?

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Cover image of "What is Faith/" by J. Gresham Machen

What is Faith?, J. Gresham Machen. Banner of Truth (ISBN: 9781800403598), 2023 (First published in 1925).

Summary: An exposition of the Bible’s teaching on what constitutes vibrant and saving Christian faith.

“Believe in Jesus!” “Saved by faith!” “I don’t have enough faith.” “We just have to have faith.”

The language of faith, even in our secular age, is bandied about a great deal. But are we all talking about the same thing? Sometimes, it seems like faith simply means some sense of the transcendent or a “religious sentiment of the heart.” At the other end of the spectrum, “faith” may be connected with affirmation of a particular set of doctrines–the faith. Faith is spoken in Hebrews 11:1 as the “substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” and yet in many minds faith is a vague feeling rather than substance and a hope in what one is pretty sure is not true.

It seems that this treatise by J. Gresham Machen, nearly 100 years old has never been so needed. He decries the fuzzy thinking, the lack of clear thinking, and the attack upon intellect in general and among Christians specifically in his own day. Nowhere is this so evident as in understanding the true nature of biblical faith, and this is what he sets out to address in this biblically grounded and carefully reasoned work.

He begins by observing that faith must have some object. For the Christian, this is the triune God. To believe in God (or any personal being), one most know the character of the one believed. This is both “doctrine,” and as it is understood becomes personal trust. All this is predicated on the idea that God has revealed God’s self. It also concerns our standing with God as sinners and how God, consistently revealed as loving Father, has addressed that standing through his Son, in whom there is redemption.

What then does faith involve? Faith combines knowledge of the truth with belief that the God may be trusted, and acceptance as undeserved gift what God has accomplished through his Son. As he sets forth these classic ideas, he engages the modernist challenge of his day with its “Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man,” emphasizing humanitarian good works and imitating Christ as a good teacher. He speaks bitingly of the “Good American” character education of his day and argued that spiritual and moral education was not the work of schools but churches and comparable religious institutions. For those who think this is a way to Christianize society, he argues that this moralism inoculates people against a genuine awareness of sin and need of the saving work of Christ.

He continues to address modernist challenges in his chapter on faith and salvation, really a classic exposition of justification by faith, answering the question of how we may hope for right standing with God. He addresses the ever-present temptation to combine faith with our works as salvific. Rather, those saved by faith work, with work arising from, rather than contributing to their faith. In the final chapter he addresses “faith and hope” and the experience of “weak” faith. He emphasizes that while the object for all Christians is to grow in their confident faith in God, it is not the size of our faith, as if it were some spiritual force, but the gracious and powerful character off God that matters.

This is a rich work filled with practical examples as well as careful reasoning. While some of the controversies today are different (and some not so much), Machen’s insights are important to anyone committed to the task of making disciples: from communicating the gospel, through conversion, and in encouraging the life of faith. As with so many classic works, Banner of Truth has served the church well in the re-publication of this work, soon to be joined by two others, God Transcendent and The Christian View of Man.

Review: Neverwhere

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Cover image of "Neverwhere" by Neil Gaiman

Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman. Avon Fiction (ISBN: 0380789019), 1996 (Link is to 2016 edition).

Summary: 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.

You have embarked on a conventional but successful career, are engaged to a fashionable and beautiful woman, living in urban London. Then on a date one night, it is as if a door opens in a wall, and out tumbles a disheveled girl, bleeding from a stab wound in her arm, lying in the street in front of them. This is the situation that confronts Richard Mayhew and his fiancée, Jessica. She wants to quickly move on from an awkward situation for dinner with her boss. Richard cannot. Despite the threat (carried out) of a broken engagement, he takes the girl back to his apartment. And everything in his world will change in consequence.

He quickly learns both of a world under London from which the girl has come and that she is being pursued by two sinister assassins who have already killed the rest of her family. The assassins, Croup and Vandemar, show up at Richard’s apartment but the girl, named Door (so named for her ability to find and open doors), makes herself scarce and eludes capture. Richard agrees to help by finding a figure from the underworld, Marquis de Carabas, who helps Door escape. Only Richard is changed–he has become invisible to the overworld of London. He eventually finds Door in the underworld and joins her in the quest to find the entity who ordered the death of her family–and hopefully to find his way back to his life in London above.

This will take him on what is alternately a quest and a flight from Croup and Vandemar in this dangerous underworld of phantom subway lines, courts in rail cars, mysterious night time Floating Markets in the overworld, and sewers. He faces life and death ordeals and encounters with everything from rats and their Rat-speakers, the fierce warrior woman, Hunter, who becomes Door’s bodyguard, and an angel and a hideous beast. Most of the time, he feels himself a loyal but useless appendage, yet eventually finds in himself resourcefulness and courage unknown to him. It’s a quest in which it is not always clear who may be trusted. Yet a bond grows between Door and Richard.

Gaiman does an incredible job of world making in the London underworld he creates, both the physical space and the characters with which he populates it. If you think Croup and Vandemar sinister, wait until Door finally finds who they’ve been working for! The one other fascinating aspect of the world Gaiman creates are the characters who have lived in the underworlds of other cities, including mythical Atlantis, and the mythical foes like the Beast of London, that roam the underworlds of these other cities. Having previously read American Gods (review), I appreciated being introduced to this earlier work, a novelization of a TV series.

Gaiman almost makes one wonder what lurks below our own cities….

Review: That I May Dwell Among Them

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Cover image of "That I May Dwell Among Them" by Gary A. Anderson

That I May Dwell Among Them, Gary A. Anderson. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802883063), 2023.

Summary: 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.

The passages detailing the construction of the tabernacle and the institution of sacrifices for many of us are a “flyover zone” in our reading. After all, the tabernacle instructions are repeated twice in almost identical detail. Yet Gary A. Anderson proposes that these passages are rich with detail for the development of the Old Testament theology of both incarnation and atonement that will become important in our understanding of the person and work of Christ.

Regarding the tabernacle explores how in the construction, layout, and furnishings of the tabernacle, God indeed dwells among Israel in physical form. The tabernacle in some sense participates in the deity of God. Anderson shows evidence for this in the language used to describe the proper handling of the physical articles that furnish this “house.” While Anderson would certainly not confine God to this structure, he would suggest that in it God is in some way “embodied” in the midst of his people.

He then explores the sacrifice instructions arguing that the central sacrifice is not that of atonement but rather the daily offerings each morning and evening that began on the eighth day of the inauguration the tabernacle and the Aaronic priesthood. In his discussions he explores the intricacies of the procedures, the problem of the “strange fire” of Nadab and Abihu, the golden calf, and the connections in language between the tamid instructions and the Aqedah of Genesis 22. Ultimately, Anderson argues that what is central in sacrifice is the self-giving of Israel rather than the substitution of the death of an animal for sins.

While there was much in Anderson’s study of the tabernacle and in the connections he draws to Abraham, his de-centering of atonement in favor of tamid seems to me driven by his idea that penal substitution must be cruel and we can’t have that. Certainly it is true that there is a self-giving, indeed self emptying aspect to the work of Christ. Might this suggest ways that all the sacrifices from tamid to atonement point to him? But why does Jesus self-empty but to die for sin, acting both in love for the father and humanity through the instrument of the genuinely cruel human actions of whipping and crucifixion that brought about his death? Penal substitution actually makes sense of the cruel death Jesus died, that he could have evaded. Anything else to me appears masochistic on the part of Jesus and truly cruel of God.

What Anderson does offer is an invitation to closely study these “flyover” passages, pointing to their central importance in the life of Israel and in the theology of the church. In particular, he shows how there is no divorce of matter and spirit, no distant deity of the deists in scripture. He insists that we ask what the meaning of Israel’s sacrifices are and that their relevance hasn’t ceased even though they have.

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

Review: Moms at the Well

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Cover image of "Moms at the Well" by Tara Edelschick and Kathy Tuan-Maclean

Moms at the Well, Tara Edelschick and Kathy Tuan-Maclean. IVP Bible Studies (ISBN: 781514006788), 2024.

Summary: A seven week Bible study experience addressing the struggles moms face in parenting, looking at women in scripture and how God encountered them.

Being a mom isn’t easy. Sometimes it is working hard and feeling unappreciated. It’s worry over every sniffle and fever, over every time the kids are out of sight. It’s all the ways moms evade or numb the pain of inadequacy and failure. It’s comparisons with other moms. It’s the anger that wells up and explodes over the children. It’s the struggle with control and the gnawing sense that at the end of the day, whatever control one has is illusory and the attempts to make it work are counterproductive. It’s heartbreak.

Before developing these studies, Tara Edelschick and Kathy Tuan-Maclean surveyed over 700 moms from those in their 20’s to those in their 60’s. And the struggles named above were the ones that surfaced over and over in their survey results. Then they looked at women in scripture who faced these issues.

  • Hagar with feeling unseen.
  • Jairus (and his daughter Talitha) and the woman with the flow of blood, and worry.
  • The Samaritan woman and running from pain.
  • Leah and Rachel, and comparison
  • Herodias and anger (I don’t ever think I’ve taken a close look at Herodias before!).
  • Mary, the mother of Jesus, and control.
  • Hagar (again) and hearbreak.

The guide they wrote is designed to be a seven week of shared study and discussion, five personal studies, and a family sabbath exercise. The flow of each study includes:

  • A group check-in.
  • A short introductory reading
  • A video accessed through a QR code in the study, in which Kathy and Tara discuss their passage and their own experiences with the particular struggle (about ten minutes).
  • A study of the relevant passage with room in the guide for notes.
  • A “Holy Spirit Check-in” with a prompt for quiet reflection.
  • A “breath prayer” connected to the theme that can be used through the week.
  • A leader benediction.

Each of the daily personal studies return to the passage going deeper with one particular aspect.

Tara and Kathy don’t come off as the “together moms” but are real about the ways these struggles were their struggles, sharing real stories from their lives, like the poem Kathy’s daughter wrote about Kathy’s anger shared with the whole third grade class or Tara being described by her children as having “dictator syndrome.” They keep it real, naming the ways struggles manifest, ask insightful questions, and pointing to hope in scripture and prayer.

The book is printed on quality paper with great typography and artistic photographs at the beginning of each chapter. There is plenty of room to jot down notes and reflections, making this each mom’s meeting place with God at the well (by the way, did you know that God’s first encounter with Hagar at the well was God’s first encounter in scripture with anyone at a well?).

I’ve already given this guide to a young mom I know. I was delighted to do so because I knew it would encourage and not add a heap of guilt in the life of a mom who is actually a great mom. I believe there are many moms under the weight of the same struggles Tara and Kathy found in their survey, who will be relieved to discover they are not alone and that God is with them and loves them as moms.

And a word for dads. Don’t let the title put you off. Many of us wrestle with similar issues (perhaps a companion might be written?). But sharing this with your wife may well help you understand life a bit more from her perspective, and what she struggles with as well as prompt you to explore how some of these struggles manifest in your own life.

This study may truly be a gift shared by two to a roomful of women going through it together. It’s great for whatever stage of being a mother one is in. Above all, this stands apart as not one more book of parenting advice but as an invitation to spiritual transformation occurring in five steps:

  1. God meets us where we are.
  2. God welcomes us into honest conversation.
  3. God calls us to trust and obey.
  4. God transforms us and sets us free.
  5. God invites us to be agents of shalom.

Its the kind of refreshment one finds at a deep well with clean, cold water.

Listen to Tara and Kathy talk about Moms at the Well:

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

Review: The Raven in the Foregate

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Cover image of "The Raven in the Foregate" # 12 in the Chronicles of Brother Cadfael by Ellis Peters

The Raven in the Foregate (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael #12), Ellis Peters. Mysterious Press/Open Road Integrated Media (ISBN: 9781497671386), 2014 (Originally published in 1986).

Summary: A graceless priest comes to Holy Cross church in Foregate and alienates his parish and is found dead, while a young man who came with him, assigned to Cadfael, is not what he seems.

December of 1141 finds both Abbot Radulfus and Hugh Beringar on the road. The Abbot is called to Winchester for a council to reaffirm church loyalties to King Stephen, now free after an exchange in which Robert of Gloucester returned to the side of Empress Maud. He returns with a priest, formerly clerk to Bishop Henry, along with his housekeeper, Diota Hammet and her nephew Benet, an apparently simple, unskilled young man. He is assigned to help Cadfael. Shortly after, Hugh, who assumed but has never been confirmed in the office of Sheriff, goes to a council with Stephen, his future uncertain.

Father Ailnoth is appointed to the parish of Holy Cross in Foregate. The former priest, Father Adam has recently died and was loved by the parish for his pastoral care, particularly the mercy he showed and the light penances he gave when the people came to confess their sins. Father Ailnoth is cut of different cloth and in just the brief time before Christmas has alienated most of his parish. Passionate but believing Eluned could not resist the enticements of men but came in genuine penitence. Ailnoth refuses her absolution, penance, and communion. Cast out from the church, she throws herself in a pond. A young worker comes pleading for Ailnoth to baptize his dying infant. Ailnoth will not come until he finishes praying his office. The infant dies and then Ailnoth refuses the babe burial in consecrated ground. He strikes boys with his staff when their play near the parish house annoys him. He accuses the baker, an upright man and known for his bread, of giving short measure, He gets into a property dispute.

Meanwhile, Cadfael has taken joy getting to know the lad Benet who works hard at all the tasks he has given with cheer. He quickly realizes there is more to Benet than was apparent. He’s a quick study with the herbs, and can be trusted to look after things in Cadfael’s absence. But he wonders, who is this young man, really? He notices when Diota visits not only his affection for his aunt but the message he slips her. He also sees the visit of Sanan Berniere from the house of local noble Ralph Giffard, formerly associated with Maud, and the instant bond that forms between her and Benet, who is plainly not cut out for a monastic life.

Christmas Eve is a cold blustery night signaling the coming of winter. Cadfael is out walking when he sees Father Ailnoth rapidly walking out of town, and Giffard unhappily walking back. He also notes clues that Benet and likely Sanan had been in his workshop during the latter part of Matins. Early Christmas morning, Diota comes to the monastery. Father Ailnoth never returned home. A search is formed and his body is found, out past the mill, with a wound on the back of his head.

There are a host of suspects who had motives to kill the priest. Hugh arrives home as newly confirmed Sheriff to confront this situation. He also has a task from Stephen, to hunt down Ninian Bachilar, a supporter of Maud suspected to be in Shrewsbury. Giffard, eager to put his connections with Maud in the past, announces that Benet is Ninian, from the secret message Diota had carried, and accuses him of murdering Father Ailnoth, who had learned of the young man’s true identity from Giffard. Father Ailnoth’s hasty mission out of town was to confront Ninian, who had been supposed to meet Giffard.

Benet/Ninian, with the help of Sanan has gone into hiding, but not before telling Cadfael the truth. In fact, Cadfael at points warns the young man not to tell him certain things. Neither Cadfael nor Hugh are convinced that Ninian is Father Ailnoth’s killer and play a coy game of turning a blind eye to what each knows about the fugitive young man and the woman who loves him. The discovery of two missing articles, not found with Ailnoth’s body, hold the clues to how Ailnoth met his end, if the pieces can be put together.

Peters makes an interesting contrast in the story between the graceless Ailnoth and the ways Hugh and Cadfael approach his death, seeking truth to be sure but without jumping to graceless conclusions, seeing all those who could be suspects in their full humanity. There is a commentary here about how law is administered, both in church and society. In Cadfael, we see devotion to God and in Hugh, devotion to the king, and yet both pursue very different paths than the hapless Father Ailnoth, who never had the chance to learn mercy.

Review: Character in the Garden

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Cover image of "Character in the Garden" by Doris Erika Brocke

Character in the Garden, Doris Erika Brocke. Brocke House Enterprises (ISBN: 9780991835515), 2021.

Summary: A compilation of photographs from the author’s surroundings combined with quotations focusing on the qualities of character.

Doris Erika Brocke and her husband Dale live in northeast British Columbia. Both are photographers and gardeners. Dale is also a stained glass artist and Doris a writer. Doris has entertained a dream for fifty years of writing a book on character. In Grade 5 she was given a Gideon’s Bible with a list of character qualities and associated Bible verses. Twenty-eight virtues in all. Over the years, she used this list to examine her own character and how she might improve as a person. And she dreamed about writing a book about these qualities, a dream realized in this book.

She created a book that combines so many facets of her life: the place where they live with its gorgeous gardens and woodland surroundings, stunning photography by her and her husband, a plethora of quotations organized by character qualities, and shaped by the faith and love shared by the two of them.

The book begins with an introduction and five sections on thoughts, purpose, actions, habits, and character. This is followed by twenty-eight sections ordered alphabetically of those Gideon Bible character traits beginning with Cheerfulness and ending with Truthfulness. The book concludes with five more sections on nature, trees, God, destiny, and death. Each page has one to four photographs paired with quotes. Sometimes a quote will be set aside on its own. Quotations are drawn from the Bible and writers from Augustine to Voltaire. An index at the end lists authors alphabetically.

The photographs feature various animals from squirrels to deer and moose. There are a number of exquisite shots of hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees on flowers of every imaginable species. I love one of a bumblebee covered in hollyhock pollen under the section on “Honor.” In his diligence, this bee truly has covered himself in a kind of honor. That brings me to an observation. Each section on character uses a number of photographs of the same type of flower, bird, animal, etc. The section on “honor features hollyhocks, The one on “Patience” focuses on apples–I guess patience is involved in awaiting their ripening. And of course, “Love” features deep red roses. The bleeding heart photographs in the section on “Discretion” were exquisite.

A collage of a few of the photos in the book. From the Rhubarb to Roses Glass & Books Facebook page.

If I were try to capture for you all the quotes I loved from this book, it would be a very long review. I will share one I particularly appreciated by Iris Murdoch:

“Love is the very difficult understanding that something other than yourself is real.”

I’ll be thinking of that for a while.

This book is a feast for the eyes and nourishment to the heart. There is so much wrong in the world, so much devastation, and so much deceit, that we may quickly lose sight of goodness, truth, and beauty. Yet many people of character quoted in this book distinguished themselves as they upheld goodness, truth, and beauty amid the world’s troubles. Often, the virtues they displayed were cultivated in the “hidden years” or even failure experiences. We so need works like these that focus on the goodness we would cultivate in our lives and relationships, the truths we will live by, and the beauty around us that inspires us and which, in turn, we must tend and protect.

I’ll leave the final words on this book to the author and others who have read the book.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author for review. It was deeply appreciated!

Review: God’s Revolution

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment
Cover image of "God's Revolution" by Eberhard Arnold

God’s Revolution: Justice, Community, and the Coming Kingdom, Eberhard Arnold. Plough Publishing (ISBN: 9781636080000), 2021.

Summary: A collection of the writings of Eberhard Arnold, describing the life of discipleship embodied in the Bruderhof, as a radical alternative to the institutional church.

I was in an online conversation today, provoked by posting an image of a new book titled Claiming the Courageous Middle. The person who responded thought I was talking about the idea of being a political moderate and wondered how many biographies have been written about great moderates. I remarked that none of those labels fit what I’m talking about and I rather agree with the implied characterization of moderate as being something like insipid. As a Christ follower, I have a different allegiance, to God’s kingdom and a way that is far more radical than anything politically on offer, the way of Jesus. If I were with the person, I would just offer him a copy of the book I’m reviewing by Eberhard Arnold and say, “Read this, if you want to understand what I’m talking about.”

Eberhard Arnold is the co-founder of the Bruderhof, “an international movement of Christian communities whose members are called to follow Jesus together in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount and of the first church in Jerusalem, sharing all our talents, income, and possessions (Acts 2 and 4).” Writing in the 1920’s and early 1930’s as National Socialism was rising in Germany, he articulates the defining features of this alternative Christian community, differentiating it from the institutional Christianity of his day, increasingly identified with and supportive of the state. Eventually the German community fled to neutral Switzerland, while other Bruderhof communities flourished in England, Canada, the U.S. and eventually South America. This work was drawn from his notes as he taught the German community and is organized thematically with the date the message was given.

This work is organized into four parts. The first reflects his own sense of the crumbling civilization of his time and contrasts this with the inbreaking of the kingdom of God. He describes the Church as “an embassy of God’s future reign.” that looks for the day when that kingdom will extend to the whole world, uniting all under Christ in peace. The Sermon on the Mount reflects the way those who embrace the hope of the kingdom live, and the early chapters of Acts, on which the Bruderhof is modeled, reflect the living out of the sermon.

The second part talks about the fleshing out of this new order heralded by Jesus. The church was established and continues to be established by an outpouring of the Spirit, forming her as a community and empowering her for mission. He writes about the community, that it must be built by God in contrast other communal efforts built on human effort. He recognizes the evil power of money as the reason for the sharing of possessions and no private ownership or savings. Entry into community comes through repentance, a “recognition of the gravity of what we have done.” Baptism represents our break with the status quo, reflecting our spiritual rebirth. The Lord’s supper is a feast of bread and wine, remembering not only Christ’s perfect sacrifice but our communion with each other, one cup, one loaf. Arnold takes seriously the scripture saying we ought not worship if we have a quarrel with someone in community; we should settle it first. Finally, the expectation of the coming kingdom of Jesus calls every one of us in some way into the church’s shared mission.

Part three focuses on the individual in relation to the community. Our bond is not our intention or vision but the Spirit who unites very different people, and fits them, with their gifts, together. Arnold doesn’t speak of leaders but elders who are servants of the word (and housemothers responsible for the women and their work–it appears there was for Arnold a real gender division in the communities). Arnold emphasizes how important is the heeding the leading of the Spirit in one’s speaking in the community. This is a community that practices discipline–“straight talking with love.” At the same time, life in community is always voluntary. If one wishes to leave, they may. All are expected to work, health permitting, according to their gift. Arnold considers marriage a sacrament to be enjoyed in unity and purity between man and woman. Life is to be revered, children welcomed. He denounces abortion. Singleness is also honored. He discusses the high value the Bruderhof place on education although his emphasis is one the formation of character through consistent discipline. The aim of education is to help children see Christ everywhere, in every field of study.

The final section concerns the commitment to peacemaking and non-violence. What is striking is that this commitment rules out work in government, which only makes sense for these self-sustaining communities. While not anti-government, the call is one of “hands off,” of no political involvement. I do wonder how, beyond personal service to humanity and in the order of Bruderhof communities, justice is pursued. What is clear from the final chapter is a deep call to identify with Christ’s sufferings in the suffering of humanity.

I certainly have not captured all the nuances of Arnold’s thought here. He offers bracing challenges to the comfortable traditional church, foremost of which is, do not the scriptures call us to this kind of life together? Nor do I know the extent to which this describes present day Bruderhof communities, although the description on their website sounds consonant with the teachings of Arnold. What is striking to me though is that Arnold thought and taught deeply about how the kingdom life should be lived out among God’s people, particularly around the issues of money and property, as well as the renunciation of violence in any form (including corporal punishment). He challenges all the excuses we make for why we don’t pursue this life. He reminds us of how radical it really can be to say, “I have decided to follow Jesus.”

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