On Books

Review: A Gun for Sale

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A Gun for Sale, Graham Greene. New York: Open Road Media, 2018 (originally published in 1936).

Summary: A paid assassin murders a foreign minister of war, creating an international crisis that could lead to war but is betrayed by the middleman who paid him, who he pursues even as the police pursue him.

Raven is a paid assassin whose life represents a series of betrayals from being born with a hare lip to finding his mother dead by suicide as a child. Taking lives for hire does not trouble him. And so being hired to kill the Minister for War of Czechoslovakia is just another. He cleans up, killing the overly diligent secretary as well.

Back in England, he discovers that the payment from Mr. Cholmondeley (pronounced “Chumley”) is in stolen notes and police, in the person of detective Jimmy Mather is on his tale. He’s betrayed again by a doctor he asks to operate on the telltale hare lip. His picture is in the papers and serial numbers in the possession of shopkeepers. Betrayed. He has to flee and wants to find Cholmondeley. He spots him on a train to Nottwich, to visit a theatre he supports under the name Davis, using his patronage to pick up women actresses. Anne Crowder, Jimmy Mather’s girl is on the same train, to try out for a part at the theatre.

In short order, Anne escapes attempts of both Raven and Cholmondeley to kill her only to be taken hostage again by Raven as the police, including Mathers, converge on a coal shack where the two are sheltering. A “Stockholm syndrome” type of situation arises as Raven trusts Anne and Anne learns of the plot behind the assassination, to create an international crisis leading to a war that will profit a steel company Cholmondeley/Davis works for. But will Anne survive to tell the story and Raven to exact revenge?

Greene crafts a story at a personal level around trust and betrayal. Raven, as noted, has crafted his life story around betrayal. Anne, the hostage, is in the midst of it. She’s torn between betraying Jimmy and betraying Raven, all to save her life. The story is also about betrayal at a larger level–powerful companies manipulating foreign policy at the cost of many young lives in war (and the expendability of their assassin). Greene includes several scenes showing the vapid social relations among the elite who indulge themselves while preparing to sacrifice young lives. He reminds me of Dwight Eisenhower’s famous and prescient warning about the military-industrial complex.

This was one of Greene’s earlier novels, and in my opinion, not one of his best. Anne’s ability to get into and out of trouble stretches credulity as does the setup that she just happens to be Jimmy Mathers girl. Still, the relationship that forms between Anne and Raven, and the dialogue in the coal shack signals to me what Greene would become as a writer.

Review: The Missionary Movement from the West

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The Missionary Movement from the West (Studies in the History of Christian Missions), Andrew F. Walls, edited by Brian Stanley, foreword by Gillian Mary Bediako. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2023.

Summary: A history of the last five hundred years of Christian mission efforts from the Europe and North America.

Andrew F. Walls was perhaps the dean of mission scholars until his death in 2021. In this volume, we have his final work, a survey of mission efforts from Europe and North America over the past five hundred years. Missions historian Brian Stanley edited this work drawing upon recordings of Walls lectures, and one has the sense that we are listening to Andrew Walls.

The book is organized on a developmental theme from birth, marking the decline of Christendom, following European migrations to North America, Africa, and the East, to mid-life and the high water mark of the world Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, to old age following the Second World War, the end of colonial empires and the rise of world Christianity. He begins with tracing the transition from crusade to colonization, and with that the missions, both Catholic and Protestant that accompanied commercial efforts and European migrations. Gone was the conversion of whole peoples under Christendom but rather efforts of preaching and evangelization. Walls also sees these migrations as the beginning of an increasingly secularized Europe, signaling the death of “Christendom.”

In succeeding chapters, he covers the early mission efforts of Puritans and Pietists with native peoples in North America, focusing particularly on Jonathan Edwards and David Brainerd. He recounts the rise of early missionary societies in England, the Church Missionary Society and the London Missionary Society, and the early efforts of William Carey in India. It was striking that many of the early workers were drawn from working classes, unlike the beginnings in North America in the university student movement that traces from the Haystack Prayer Meeting of 1806 at Williams College. Walls also notes the strong humanitarian impulse connected with Christian missions in this period, particularly the influence of Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect on abolishing slavery and addressing other social reforms.

The second period Walls addresses might be called “early adulthood to midlife.” He looks at nineteenth century Bible reading and growing concerns around end time prophecy and how this mobilized missionary efforts toward world evangelization. He introduces many of us to the work of Rufus Anderson of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. We learn of the early vision from Henry Venn of the idea of the national church and the first expression of the Three Self Principle–that churches be self-governing, self supporting, and self propagating. Missions forced grappling with race, culture, and society, and led to the rise of language and culture studies, particularly in the context of African mission. This was likewise true in early mission efforts in China, where it was recognized that it was not enough for the missionary to get into China. China had to get into the missionary–sometimes to the disapproval of sending boards. Walls profiles Robert Morrison, a Scot who pioneered medical missions.

The third period is the “midlife crisis period. It begins on a triumphal note with the great missionary conference of 1910 at Edinburgh, a thorough-going effort to delineate what was entailed in the “evangelization of the world in our generation.” Access to nearly every country was possible–it was simply a matter of mobilizing a missions movement–still from the West. Then in just four years came the First World War. Nevertheless, many doors were open and medical missions led the way, but became increasingly costly to mission boards with advances in medical care. Walls then features the International Missionary Council in Tambaran, India, and the signs of rising indigenous churches and strainings to shed dependence on the West that would become full-blown following the Second World War.

The final part of the book covers the movement into Old Age, exploring in successive chapters the growth of the church in a time of transition from Western mission efforts in India, China, and Africa. The book concludes with the rise of world Christianity and the movement of Christians to the West, even as the West becomes increasingly secularized.

The narrative Walls provides traces a story arc that ties a number of developments into a fascinating account. Along the way, he introduces us to the contribution of key mission leaders. He offers a thoughtful account that recognizes both the ways the mission movement was implicated at times in colonialism and at times struggled against it in thoughtfully contextualized efforts designed to foster indigeneity.

I was surprised by the absence of treatment of the Lausanne movement which certainly represented a transition from western to global Christianity. Likewise, there was no coverage of efforts centered at Fuller Seminary around missions mobilization and church growth, nor was there coverage of more recent student missions movements continuing the tradition of the Student Volunteer Movement through the series of Urbana Missions Conventions beginning in Toronto in 1946. All of these reflected the changes in understanding of the role of the West in global Christianity–although not into senescence, perhaps, but into a new paradigm of new wineskins.

Nevertheless, this may be forgiven because Walls covers something less familiar to many Western Christians–the rise of Christianity in Latin America, Africa, and both South and East Asia, where he has traced developments throughout. Walls helps us understand the role of the West in reaching our present moment, offering inspiring models and salutary lessons worth heeding by global Christian leadership.

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

Review: Creation Care Discipleship

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Creation Care Discipleship: Why Earthkeeping Is an Essential Christian Practice, Steven Bouma-Prediger. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2023.

Summary: A discussion of why and how earthkeeping is integral to following Christ, drawing upon scripture, Christian theology and Christian thinkers throughout the breadth of the church.

Steven Bouma-Prediger is a professor of theology at Hope College who also overseas the environmental studies program at his college. In this work, he brings those seeming disparate worlds together in framing a comprehensive argument about why Christians should care for creation. He argues for the term “earthkeeping” as the best term to express our call as disciples, going back to the call in Genesis to “serve and protect” the garden. There is much of creation we can’t care for–galaxies for example! “Stewardship” smacks of funding campaigns for the church, or a human-centered marshalling of creation’s resources for the development of the human economy.

He begins with a biblical vision of creation, focusing on how scripture begins and ends with rivers and trees. He then turns to theology and ethics, that we are holy creatures of God among his creatures, caring for a world he will come to restore and over which we will share in his rule. He then turns to the contributions made by the church’s theologians of various traditions. He references Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ but also contributions from Patriarch Bartholomew concerning creation as an integral whole, Lutheran theologian Paul Santmire, who emphasizes our partnership with creation, Rosemary Reuther’s ecofeminist and Randy Woodley’s indigenous theology emphasizing the Harmony Way and Shalom.

Having the right words is not enough if not coupled with action. Here, Bouma-Prediger’s work with students offers examples of developing ecological literacy. Bouma-Prediger places a significant emphasis on eco-justice, recognizing how often injustices fall on the backs of the powerless. He discusses simplicity, and particularly thinking less about results than doing what is right. He includes helpful practical of the small things that can make a difference. He speaks of the challenge and call to be people of faith and fruitfulness in a time of fear. He concludes the book with an extended reflection on a vision for shalom that involves not only flourishing but that understands how integral the flourishing of all creation is to our flourishing.

Between chapters, Bouma-Prediger offers biblical reflections, some of which are creative passages situating the reader within the passage. Throughout, Bouma-Prediger helps us realize how much the scriptures are set within the created order, and how deeply this matters to God. What makes this book unique, I believe, is its starting place with God’s care of creation to which we are invited to join in as earthkeepers. While the book is cognizant of our environmental challenges, far from burdening, the book holds out the deep joy of living out are calling as earthkeepers. Freeing us from results-oriented thinking, he bids us into the work of caring for our backyards, our own places, as well as seeing the neighbors for whom the call of love is to relieve them of the burdens of environmental injustices. Instead of seeing earthkeeping as something for eccentric tree huggers, Bouma-Prediger casts a vision of serving and protecting the earth simply as part of the joy of following Jesus.

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

Review: Paul Laurence Dunbar

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Paul Laurence Dunbar: The Life and Times of a Caged Bird, Gene Andrew Jarrett. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2022.

Summary: Perhaps the definitive biography of Paul Laurence Dunbar, one of the first African writers to achieve fame for his poetry and other writings.

On the sesquicentennial of the birth of Paul Laurence Dunbar (b. 1872), Princeton University published this extensively researched biography of a man who, arguably was one of the first great African-American poets and writers. Born of former slaves, including an alcoholic father who soon divorced his mother Mathilda, he was able to enroll in Dayton’s top high school when few African-Americans achieved more than an eighth grade education. A classmate of Orville Wright, being educated in a classically-oriented curriculum, he began writing, teaming up on several publishing efforts with Wright.

Dunbar gained the attention of influential men like James Whitcomb Riley and Frederick Douglas early on, giving him connections, the opportunities to read his poetry, and reviewing his books. This was a mixed blessing. Fellow Ohioan William Dean Howells praised an early collection of his poetry, bringing him wider notice of the literary public but also imposing the first of the “cages” Jarrett depicts that would trouble his brief, yet brilliant career.

Dialect poetry. Howells especially praised his dialect poetry, often around scenes of southern life pre- and post-Emancipation in the language and idioms people supposed Blacks to use. Throughout his career Dunbar composed poems both in formal English and dialect, the latter to satisfy the demand of the public. This also represented a larger struggle against the racial stereotypes that both shaped public taste and yet Dunbar strove to transcend. He wanted to be known simply as a great poet, not as a Black poet.

Poverty. While publishing his first collections and trying to cultivate connections who would help publicize his work, Dunbar struggled with lowly jobs such as an elevator operator in Dayton, earning a meager $4 a week while trying to help his mother. Poverty would be a cage against which he would struggle, shaping his efforts both in writing prodigiously for papers, periodicals, several musicals, one of the early Black librettists, as well as his book publishing efforts. This also necessitated relentless travel to readings, all while working at the Library of Congress, efforts detrimental to his health.

Alcoholism. Like his father, Dunbar drank increasingly throughout his life. On the one hand, it seemed to facilitate his composing, as when he turned out a school song for Tuskegee Institute on short notice and, increasingly hampered his readings when he turned up drunk. It also released violent tendencies exacerbating problems in an already troubled marriage.

A difficult marriage. Fellow writer Alice Ruth Moore came to his notice in a magazine article and they began writing, developing a deepening bond long before they met. At this time, as throughout his life, Dunbar had flirtations (and perhaps more) with a number of other woman. For this reason, she was slow to engage, and then to set a date for a wedding. Neither her parents nor Mathilda would give the couple their blessing (and Mathilda would occupy an unhealthy place in their eventual marriage). Jarrett covers at length Dunbar’s rape of Alice (when inebriated) during their engagement. Apparently she had physical injuries requiring medical attention and leave from work. It nearly broke the engagement. After several years of marriage, there was another violent incident, leading to permanent separation (though not divorce) during which she refused to respond to his attempts to apologize and reconcile. Dunbar, in declining health, purchased a home in Dayton. living with his mother.

Tuberculosis. Through most of his adult life, Dunbar was in frail health, frequently laid low by “colds” that signaled something more. Eventually, it became clear he was sick with what was then called “consumption” and is now known as tuberculosis. During his life, before the age of antibiotics, there wasn’t a cure. Dunbar even rationalized drinking as curative. A trip to Colorado brought a remission, but after his break with Alice, his condition worsened. All he could do was read and write. The end came in February of 1906, when he was but 33 years of age. He was buried in a different part of the same cemetery where his father was buried.

Jarrett not only covers the “cages” of Dunbar’s life but also how the caged bird sang. He traces his literary career, citing a number of poems. He traces Dunbar’s transition to writing several moderately successful novels as well as the previously mentioned musical collaborations. One wonders what Dunbar would have done had he lived longer or not faced the constraints he had. Yet were these constraints the very thing that drove and inspired Dunbar?

As a fellow Ohioan, I knew of Dunbar but welcome what is probably the definitive biography on Dunbar. Jarrett confirmed to me the extent of Dunbar’s greatness. He also confirmed me in his recognition of his and my favorite Dunbar poem, “We Wear the Mask,” and arguably one of his greatest, with which I will close:

  We wear the mask that grins and lies,
  It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
  This debt we pay to human guile;
  With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
  And mouth with myriad subtleties.
  Why should the world be over-wise,
  In counting all our tears and sighs?
  Nay, let them only see us, while
        We wear the mask.
  We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
  To thee from tortured souls arise.
  We sing, but oh the clay is vile
  Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
  But let the world dream otherwise,
        We wear the mask!

Paul Laurence. Dunbar, “We Wear the Mask.” from The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar. (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, ) via Poetry Foundation

Review: Sweet Danger

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Sweet Danger (Albert Campion #5), Margery Allingham. New York: Open Road Media, 2023 (Originally published 1931).

Summary: Campion and friends seek to prove a rural family to be the rightful heirs of Averna, an oil-rich seaside village on the Adriatic while pursued by an unscrupulous financier.

Campion and his friends Guffy Randall, Eager-Wright, and Farquharson meet up in the scenic village of Averna, on the Adriatic coast. The district is rich in oil. Campion is seeking proof that the Fitton family are rightful heirs. Their pursuit of proof takes them from Averna to a rural village, Pontisbright, in Suffolk, where they arrange to stay as paying guests of the Fitton family.

Campion isn’t the only ones seeking proof of their ownership. An unscrupulous financier, Savanake, also wants to lay claim to Averna, and along with a band of thugs is in hot pursuit, attacking and rifling the contents of the family home. Amanda Fitton captures Campion’s attention. She is a spirited red-head, seventeen and an adventurous tomboy who runs the mill and has even hooked up an electric generator. She’s clever, resourceful, and determined. She leads Campion to clues involving a crown, a drum, and a bell.

For a time, Campion abandons the scene, supposedly to go to Peru, only to show up unexpectedly in woman’s garb. Interestingly, Campion takes out an insurance policy leaving a tidy sum to Amanda. Along the way Campion and friends encounter a crazy doctor and Campion will face a fight for his life with Savanake. Meanwhile, we wait with baited breath to see if the clues will lead to decisive proof that the Fittons, and particularly Amanda’s older brother Hal, are the rightful heirs of Averna.

Allingham’s plotting is especially twisty in this book, and the reader does well to follow closely, or spend a lot of time re-reading. Campion’s attraction to Amanda, and his recognition of her resourcefulness and courage bring energy to the plot and makes me wonder if we haven’t seen the last of her. Of the “Queens of Crime,” Allingham strikes me as the least conventional, the most likely to leave the reader wondering, “where is this going?” And therein lies the fun.

Review: Pray This Way To Connect With God

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Pray This Way To Connect With God, Hal Green. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2023.

Summary: A book on learning to pray, focusing on God’s initiative toward us to teach us to pray and prayer as focused on deepening our relationship with God.

“Lord, teach us to pray.” That was the longing expressed by the disciples of Jesus. Hal Green encourages us that the “good news is that God will teach you how to pray” and that the journey begins with “speaking whatever is in your heart,” that we learn to pray by praying, and that we pray as we can and not as we can’t. In a collection of readings, generally a page and a paragraph long. Green leads us into praying.

The readings are divided into eight sections

  1. About Prayer: a number of reflections on the nature of prayer: why, what to pray, how to tell if a word is from God, on distractions, and more.
  2. Breath Prayers: Explained and examples around peace, love, faith, hope, joy, gratitude, forgiveness, etc.
  3. Praying the Scriptures: A single chapter on how to pray scripture.
  4. Hebrew Scriptures: focusing on the Psalms and Prophets.
  5. The New Testament: Numerous passages from Matthew through Revelation
  6. Praying With the Saints. Prayers of the saints from Augustine to Henri Nouwen.
  7. Meditative Prayer: Resting and knowing God’s touch, breath, and gaze.
  8. Contemplative Prayer: The God Hug, Abiding Prayer, The Romance of God and more.

Green advises beginning with the prayers themselves and then going back and reading the “About Prayer.” While each reading is short, to pray the prayer meditatively may take anywhere from five to twenty minutes. This is a book to be taken slowly, taking a day or several days on the prayer in a reading.

Green leads us into prayer that isn’t about getting things from God but about communion with the Triune God of love. He speaks of desire that becomes romance, the love and being loved of lovers, of oneness with God. One senses that for those who experience this, human sexuality is a good but pale shadow of this love. This may be the journey of years. But along the way we learn to pray with scripture, to breathe in God and breathe out what is in our hearts, and to rest contemplatively with God.

There is so much wisdom here, whether it is dealing with the distraction that plagues all our prayers (that’s one of the reasons he encourages praying for five or ten minutes and not fighting oneself) or discerning if we have really heard God’s words (they are generally brief, understated, and concise, yet penetrate to the heart).

I’ve learned the most in prayer by praying along with someone further on the prayer journey, yet such people are rare. Hal Green’s book, the culmination of a fifty year journey and the leading of many prayer retreats offers us a companion who says “pray this way” and helps us to understand as best we humans can, the ways God teaches us and meets us as the lover of our souls.

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

Review: After Dispensationalism

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After Dispensationalism, Brian P. Irwin with Tim Perry. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2023.

Summary: A study of the history, key beliefs, and teachers of dispensationalism with an assessment of the movement’s strengths and weaknesses along with a treatment discussing reading prophetic and apocalyptic books within their context.

Dispensationalism has been an influential movement within American Christianity, influencing presidents and shaping policy on everything from Israel to the environment. Dispensational readings of scripture for many is understood as Christian orthodoxy, even though much of the theology is of relatively recent origin, and by no means accepted through much of church history or by much of the global church.

Brian P. Irwin, with Tim Perry, provide a text that is at once an orientation to the history, teachers, key beliefs of dispensationalism and a critical assessment, framed against a backdrop of how we ought read prophetic and apocalyptic writing. They argue that our starting place must not be today’s newspaper but rather that context and worldview of the intended recipients of these works–how they would read these works.

The first part offers a study of dispensationalism on its own terms. The authors explain and illustrate with charts the idea of dispensations. They trace history of end-times predictions throughout church history, offering these conclusions:

  • Don’t make a prediction about the end of the world.
  • Remember that the books of the Bible were not given to us first.
  • Read a biblical book as a whole for its meaning.
  • Remember that Jesus himself told us not to bother.

Irwin and Perry then discuss the key teachers of dispensationalism: J. N. Darby, C. I. Schofield, Lewis Sperry Chafer, J. Dwight Pentecost, John Walvoord, Hal Lindsey, Jack Van Impe, and Tim LaHaye, and their distinctive emphases. They offer an extended summary of the dispensational end-times story including the restoration of Israel to the promised land, the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple, the rapture including the pre-tribulation belief of many, the judgment of the saved, the marriage feast, the great tribulation, the false prophet and dragon, the 144,000 and the two witnesses, Armageddon, and the return of Christ, the millennium and great white throne judgment, the new heaven, earth, and Jerusalem. They show the key passages for these beliefs, which helps make the case for how these are often used in isolation of their context in the books of which they are a part.

The final chapter in this section offers an assessment, both positively and negatively. They focus on the literalism that fails to read literarily, failing to recognize poetic speech and symbol, even while fostering dedication to Bible reading and study. They note the somewhat arbitrary character of “dispensations.” While the Israel/church distinction has protected the movement from anti-Semitism it has led to forms of Christian Zionism and an uncritical support of modern Israel, though it is both secular and often has unjustly treated Palestinians (including Palestinian Christians who seem invisible to much of the American church). On the one hand, this movement has fostered vibrant evangelism because of the belief in a pre-tribulation rapture. On the other hand, it has been suspicious of creation care, development, justice, and peace efforts.

Part Two focuses on how we read prophetic and apocalyptic literature. They show the connection between prophecy and the covenantal blessings and curses in the Pentateuch. Many warn Israel, in its idolatry and injustices, that God is both withdrawing blessing and bringing promised curses. They also offer material on apocalyptic passages, such as those found in Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation. (It should be noted that the writers accept recent scholarship on Daniel as a second century work, referencing both sixth century and near future events.)

Part Three offers three chapters of more extended studies (not commentaries) on Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation. The writers show the structure of each book (including a chiasmic structure for Revelation 4-19). They treat key passages cited by dispensationalists in their larger contexts, refusing to “daisy chain” references. With Revelation, they discuss historicist, preterist, futurist, idealist and their own eclectic approach to the book.

The book concludes with “thirteen theses for encountering the end of the world” encompassing both their critiques of dispensationalists approaches and their own positive approach. This is too lengthy to list here but I would particularly single out numbers 11 and 12:

11. To live in expectation of Christ’s return does not require knowing when Christ will return.

12. Questioning the idea of the rapture or other dispensational teaching is not to question the hope of Christ’s promised return in glory to a creation made fit for eternal life.

This book takes on an ambitious agenda. The writers offer both an overview and critique of dispensationalism and an alternative approach to prophetic and apocalyptic books. Each would warrant its own book. What they offer is a readable and usable resource for pastors and teachers in the church who may not have roots in dispensationalism who are confronted by those immersed in such teaching who want more teaching on “the end times.” This work helps people understand both what may be meant by this and offers approaches to favored texts in their contexts that address both our hope for Christ’s return and how early readers may have read these texts. It’s a book that matches the passion of dispensationalists for Bible study while grounding that study in sound interpretive practices that guard us from reading the newspaper into scripture while helping us read our times in light of scripture.

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

Review: A Non-Anxious Life

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A Non-Anxious Life, Alan Fadling. Downers Grove: IVP Formatio, 2024.

Summary: Proposes, as an alternative to an anxiety-driven life of hurry, restlessness, worry, and performance, a life under the non-anxious presence of Jesus of stillness, rest, peace, and fruitful love.

“For most of my adult life, I’ve been a master of anxiety…” With these words, Alan Fadling begins this book about his own journey toward a non-anxious life. Anxiety had been his basic way of approaching situations and people. But it came at a cost of tunnel-vision, the draining of his energies, and knee-jerk assumptions about life. He discovered that the presence of the Prince of Peace in his life and his ongoing shepherding has led to a less hurried, worried, and restless life. He’s honest about the truth that this doesn’t mean an anxiety-free life but rather learning how to relinquish anxieties to One who cares.

He reminds us of Jesus lesson about the birds, reinforced by watching the birds about his home. Jesus says that as much as he cares for the birds and flowers, even more does he care for his friends. His care for us today means we don’t need to import tomorrow’s worries into today. He’s learned to practice the four movements of Philippians 4:6-7 of prayer, petition, thanksgiving, and requests. Prayer isn’t rehearsing our worries but leaving them with God, exchanging them for peace. He notes the presence of grace and peace at the beginning and end of Paul’s letters, suggesting a rhythm of breathing in and breathing out God’s grace and peace, becoming grace- and peace-filled people.

We enter into peace as we exchange the presence of anxiety for the presence of God. He describes an exercise of experiencing God’s presence in our whole bodies, noticing those places where we are particularly tense. He sees wisdom in the example of Saint Francis, who urged his followers to “live Jesus” in the virtues of humility, patience, simplicity, kindness, and gentleness, virtues that displace worldly ways that engender anxiety. He invites us into the dependence and surrender that says:

  Don't try so hard with God.
  Receive what God is giving.
  Enter into what God is doing.
  Offer a simple expression of your love to God.
  Be as gentle with yourself as God is.
  Don't come to God only to feel better.
  Welcome however God wishes to be present.
  This is the way of peace (pp. 84-85).

He observes the deep and abiding joy of God and the amazing truth that God takes joy in us! Living into that knowledge replaces burdens with buoyancy, joy and hope. He invites us to consider the Goliaths that constrict our lives including the Goliath of our smartphones, filling a page with all the functions they have taken over in our lives (p. 116). He describes being kept awake with worry and the promise of Isaiah 26:3-4 that helped him of God keeping him in perfect peace as he trusts in him.

He offers a chapter on rhythms of peace useful for retreats and practices and precepts to help us to be non-anxious in our work. He concludes with inviting us to exchange being masters of anxieties and to embark on the path of becoming masters of peace. In addition to sharing practices for exchanging anxiety for peace in each chapter, he offers “Non-Anxious Reflection” at the conclusion of each chapter. The book includes a beautiful “non-anxious prayer” in one appendix that we might use regularly and a guide for groups in a second appendix.

Fadling alludes at points to seeing a counselor and to using anti-anxiety prescribed medications. It might have been helpful, without giving medical advice, to discuss when one ought to explore these options in addition to the spiritual practices he has found helpful and why counseling and medication needn’t be opposed to spiritual practice.

That said, Fadling’s example of personal transparency and combination of precept and practice throughout this book invites readers into a life of trust and rest instead of anxiety and hurry. Imagine that the Prince of Peace wants us to share in his peace. Imagine that the God of joy would have us share in that joy and find it our strength. Alan Fadling helps us to not only imagine these things but invites us to join him on the journey toward a non-anxious life.

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

Review: The Yellow Dog

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The Yellow Dog (Inspector Maigret #6), Georges Simenon. New York: Penguin Books, 2014 (Originally published in 1931).

Summary: Maigret is called in when a distinguished wine merchant is shot, followed by a murder, a disappearance and another shooting in which a common element in several instances is a yellow dog.

A well-thought of wine merchant makes a late night of it at the Admiral Hotel in the seaside village of Concarneau. Making his way home, he stops to light a cigar, and is shot, though not fatally. A yellow dog shows up nosing around the wounded man. Maigret, setting up a mobile unit, is nearby and called in by the town mayor. He stays at the Hotel and meets an interesting cast of characters. Shortly after he arrives, the doctor, who never practiced but is involved with real estate, recognizes poison on a drink being served. The next day another associate, Jean Serviere vanishes, leaving behind a car with blood-stained seats. Then the doctor has a drink with the third in this circle, Pommeret, who goes home and drops dead of poison.

Hysteria in the town is rising. The dog has been seen several times around the time of the murders as well as a giant vagabond, who becomes the prime suspect in the eyes of most. He is sought–and captured only to break free and elude re-capture. The mayor wants Maigret to do something. Yet he seems curiously inactive, baffling his assistant, who he tells:

‘You’re lucky my friend! Especially in this case, in which my method has actually been not to have one … I’ll give you some good advice: if you’re interested in getting ahead, don’t take me for a model, or invent any theories from what you see me doing.’

Pressed by the mayor to arrest somebody, he arrests the doctor, who is terrified for his own life after what happens to his two associates. While waiting for events to develop that will reveal the murderer, Maigret observes Emma waitress at the Admiral and sometime mistress to the doctor. He senses she knows more than she tells.

When another assault on a customs official occurs, suspicion centers on the vagabond, who is re-captured. But because Maigret has been watching Emma, he knows better as he reveals in a final scene in the doctor’s prison cell.

I have to admit that I was as perplexed as the mayor and the assistant with Maigret, so this was not at all predictable to me, and made Maigret all the more fascinating, particularly for the generous act on his part at the end. Simenon does all this in a short work that can be read in an evening.

Review: These Precious Days

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment

These Precious Days, Ann Patchett. New York: Harper Collins, 2022.

Summary: Essays on family, friendships, the life of writing and bookselling, and mortality.

I’ve read most of Ann Patchett’s fiction, loving the writing if not always the ways her stories resolve (or not). I personally consider The Dutch House one of her best, along with Bel Canto. This is my first foray into her non-fiction, and I thought these essays revealed more than the character of Ann Patchett, particularly of her love of friendship and love of both writing and bookselling. It was a collection that reflects on marriage, on our families, on the literary world, and on mortality.

The title essay does all of this. “These Precious Days” is a lengthy account of her unlikely and mutually transforming friendship with Sooki Raphael. Sooki was the personal assistant to Tom Hanks, who Patchett met on an interview with Hanks. Further contacts with Hanks, including asking him to narrate one of her audiobooks led to continued contacts. During one of these, she learned Sooki had undergone surgery and treatments for pancreatic cancer. Staying in touch she learned of the cancer’s recurrence and Sooki’s plans to explore clinical trials. Patchett’s husband, a physician at Vanderbilt, learned of this from Ann, and was aware that Vanderbilt was running a number of clinical trials for pancreatic cancer. This led to Sooki coming to live for several months in Ann and Karl’s basement suite (at the height of Covid-19). The essay beautifully recounts the ways this unexpected friendship transformed both of their lives, as well as the beauty of Ann and Karl accompanying this woman in ways that never diminished her dignity while generously supporting her as she fought this beastly cancer.

In other essays, Patchett describes her three fathers and how each influenced her life. She discusses her decision to not have children, the people who insisted she should, and the intrusive questions she sometimes has faced when she would prefer to talk about her work. She writes about her mother, who often was mistaken as one of Ann’s sisters, due to her youthful beauty. She introduces us to Tavia Cathcart, the bombshell high school friend who moved from acting to becoming a premier nature interpreter, and how their friendship evolved as both she and Ann grew into their adult selves.

There is a healthy dose of gentle humor. She recounts her adventures with her friend Marti in Paris, and the tattoo she never got. She tells the story of a caller who insists on bringing her a letter documenting an award she had received from the Veterans of Foreign Wars, found in a nightstand that had once belonged to her. Then there is an incident where Karl comforts a woman worried about her baby’s development by offering the woman $20,000 to adopt the child! No way, and the woman stopped worrying. She describes her year when she gave up shopping. She recalls the Thanksgiving when she stayed at her college and decided to cook Thanksgiving dinner for her friends–from scratch! She writes about her husband’s love of flying–and of his insistence on finding deals on used planes. She reveals her on again, off again embrace of knitting.

She offers us glimpses of the literary world. Under her hand you find yourself drawn successively into Kate DiCamillo’s works for children and the work of Eudora Welty. In “A Talk to the Association of Graduate School Deans in the Humanities” she chronicles her experience in the MFA program at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop with her friend Lucy, her one interview for a faculty position and how failing to get that position gave her the chance to write. She speaks of the joys of owning a bookstore and the important lesson she didn’t learn in grad school–“if you want to save reading, teach children to read.”

Patchett recounts her own memento mori moment upon being elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an honor reserved to 250 living members. She describes the portrait gallery in the Academy with photos arranged in order of members induction, going back to Samuel Clemens in 1898 up to her own picture in 2017. As she went back in time she realized she was moving increasingly from the company of living members to the deceased. At some point they all were. She realizes this will be true of her. She describes the simple card she receives with the death of another member, forty between her induction and the time of writing, including John Updike, who she had been so thrilled to be seated with at her own induction. She remembers his handing her the certificate of membership, a check, and giving her a fatherly kiss on the cheek.

Patchett brings to these essays the same insightfulness into the complexities and wonders of human beings, their relationships, and their lives as she does to the characters in her novels. One senses we are seeing all of this woven together in another story, that of the author, who writes with increasing appreciation of “these precious days” in her circles of family, friends, and acquaintances. And it nudges us to be mindful of similar “precious days” with the people and in the work we love.