Summary: A collection of essays that remind us that the things that matter most are as close as the beauty of things around us from fireflies, to Fred Rogers, to friends and family, and to the tip of our fingers.
A few years ago, we were staying at an inn with a patio that looked out over fields in a rural setting. We were sitting as the evening was coming on and we began to see the meadow before us lit up with a light show of fireflies. We sat in wonder, recalling our memories of catching fireflies as children and the unfading wonder of these insects that can generate their own light beckoning, “Here I am.”
Christopher de Vinck’s collection of essays brought these memories to mind and how such simple and wondrous things point us to what matters most in our lives. His essays take us from the sea shore to the woods and to the wondrous “blue birds” seen by his mother, emigrating from Belgium, our common blue jay.
More than the wonders of our world, he explores the wonder of friendships. One of the earliest essays in the collection describes his “spiritual neighbor,” Fred Rogers who often ended conversations saying, “Well, Chris, you know who’s in charge.” He writes of the compassion of a policeman who caught up to his son on the highway to return a wallet the son had left on the car roof.
He moves from personal friends to those in literature from Hamlet to Jay Gatsby to Atticus Finch and Emily Dickinson and May Sarton, all people who give him some insight into the question of what matters most. He gives thanks to Wendell Berry and Toni Morrison. He reminds us of what J.D. Salinger, Paul Revere, and Alfred Stieglitz have in common–a shared birthday. He writes of helping the students he taught to find themselves in the literature they read:
“When we know who we are we can build a life upon wisdom, love, and compassion, and set the footprint of our lives firmly onto the earth for others to find who need the evidence and the inheritance of goodness as a guide for the future. When we know what matters most, we know where we are going” (p. 18).
His memories run back to his own childhood, to the Kennedy assassination, and down to the present, the closure of a neighborhood hardware store, and the death of loved ones. An essay of hearing a dripping of melting water outside turns into a reflection of the passage of time, and this is something that runs through his essays. He makes us aware of the fleeting wonder that is our lives, how full and rich and precious our shared moments are, precisely because they pass.
He concludes with recounting the death of his mother at 99, as “time ran out.” Not long before she died, she observed, “You don’t think of it, Christopher, but far ahead, yet closer than a heartbeat, something immense, wild, holy grabs you and won’t let go.” Her final words to Christopher? “I love you.”
We live in a broken and yet beautiful world with eternity in our hearts and mortality as our future. Christopher de Vinck offers us wonderful reflections on the seemingly ordinary, that point us to the truly precious in life.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.
The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafón (Translated by Lucia Graves). New York: Penguin Books, 2005.
Summary: Daniel Sempere’s life is changed when he finds a mysterious book in the Cemetery of Lost Books, and embarks on a quest to learn the true story of its mysterious author, one that places him in great peril.
Daniel Sempere is the son of a widowed bookseller, struggling to retain the memory of his mother’s face. Then his father takes him through the labyrinthine streets of Barcelona to the Cemetery of Lost Books where he is directed to find one book that would become his. The book he chooses will be one he is to make sure never disappears. The book he chooses is one titled The Shadow of the Wind by a Julian Carax. He is enthralled and would know more about its author.
His father sends him to a fellow bookseller, from whom he learns that he possesses the only copy, all the others having been burned. He falls for the man’s blind daughter, several years older than he, and even gives her the book at one point, only to catch her in flagrante with her piano teacher. He retrieves the book.
A mysterious, and seemingly sinister figure approaches him to buy the book. He calls himself Lain Coubert, the name of a character in the book. He smells of smoke and his face darkened, shriveled. Daniel refuses, keeps his commitment to the book, and to learning the truth of Carax. He is aided by a beggar, Fermin, who he and his father take in. Fermin turns out to be a fascinating figure, and his and Daniel’s investigations take them on escapades throughout the city, one of the funniest in an asylum where they make a promise to a horny old man, He becomes Daniel’s mentor in the art of love as Daniel falls in love with his friend Tomas’ sister Beatriz.
Their investigations bring upon them an old enemy of Fermin in the form of police detective Fumero, an ambitious figure who pushed a mentor to his death, and has a vendetta against Carax. Their investigations also lead to a woman with a connection to Carax’s publisher, Nuria Monfort. They learn that Carax had been in love with Penelope. the daughter of the powerful Aldaya family, coveted by Fumero. In the end, he flees to Paris, where Nuria came in contact with him. He was supposed to have returned to Barcelona for Penelope, only to have supposedly died in a duel–Julian’s father seems to indicate that it was not his son whose body was found. It turns out that Nuria knows much more, revealed in a letter she writes for Daniel when she realizes her own life is in danger. It occupies the last third of the novel, revealing the truth about Carax, as well as truths of which Carax was unaware.
The reader notices the parallels between Julian Carax and Daniel. Both worked for fathers, with mothers dead or estranged. Lain Coubert, a character of Carax, haunts Daniel. Then there are the loves of Julian and Daniel, including Daniel’s trysts with Beatriz in the abandoned Aldaya mansion. Above all, there is the book, and Daniel’s quest to know its author.
It’s a plot that drew me in, along with the delightful and sometimes riotous relationship between Daniel and Fermin. One almost can visualize their Barcelona (and the book includes a walking tour of the real places). Zafón has been compared to the likes of Eco and Marquez. I actually preferred Zafón, whose writing involved more realism and less magic, One delights in the affection of Daniel’s father for his son, and the loyalty between Daniel and Fermin, who supplants his friendship with Tomas. The one plot element I wonder about was using Nuria Monfort’s letter to unravel the mystery of Carax. So much of the story is in that letter, which is a engrossing read, but one wonders if Zafón could not find another way to unravel the story through the investigations of Daniel and Fermin.
The novel doesn’t end with the letter bur I will refrain from saying much more except to say, what an ending, well worth the 450 pages that precede it!
Why the Gospel?, Matthew W. Bates (Foreword by Scot McKnight). Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2023.
Summary: Instead of asking what the gospel is, explores why has God made this proclamation of good news, centering on the kingship of Jesus and what this means for those who place allegiance in him.
Matthew W. Bates has written several books contending that our idea of what it means to place faith in Christ are inadequate to the biblical meaning of faith, which he contends is allegiance, an unqualified allegiance to Jesus as King [I have reviewed Salvation by Allegiance Aloneand Gospel Allegiance]. In this work Bates further elaborates on this idea.
He begins with an intriguing question. Why the gospel? He observes that there are many discussions of what the gospel is, indeed that this is what his previous books have addressed. What he believes we rarely consider is why the gospel and that when we do, our answers focus on things like forgiveness, getting us to heaven, freeing us from rules, improving society, reuniting us with God, and so on. He contends that these are not wrong, but not first. What is first is that we need a king and Jesus is the king we need and the king has come! We are lousy kings of our own lives and anything else to which we give our allegiance is no better. Jesus is the only worthy king, most notably in fulfilling prophecy, in the life he lived and the victory of the cross and resurrection, rescuing us from our bondage to sin and death.
Bates then proceeds to elaborate the purposes of God in sending Jesus to be our King. God wants to make us famous! The salvation that comes through Jesus the King comes with eternal glory (2 Timothy 2:10). It is not merely that God seeks his own glory through Jesus the King; He intends that we share in that glory, that we enjoy everlasting honor and fame. Over two chapters he describes a “glory cycle” beginning with God’s glory, humans given glory to rule over creation, our failure to carry that glory in the fall and human sinfulness, Jesus as the perfect image of intended human glory launches glory’s recovery, as we gaze on the glory of Christ, we are transformed, recovering our lost glory, and finally, we reign gloriously with King Jesus in the new creation.
His final two chapters work out the implications of these ideas, first for “nones” and then for our proclamation of the good news. He believes this “King first” gospel addresses the hypocrisy so repellant to “nones.” Allegiance to a king isn’t simply a matter of “trust” but allegiance involves both mind and body, not permitting us to profess one thing and living another in our bodies. For those objecting to politicized Christianity, this is not an apolitical message but rather one that is more political, asserting the rule of Jesus over all, yet one that is non-coercive, that suffers with and for the suffering, and seeks restoration. The King Jesus gospel calls people into authentic relationships of mutual discipleship and to a holistic vocation that sees Jesus’s calling in every human endeavor.
The implication for our proclamation is to “flip” the message. Instead of, for example:
“Because he offers forgiveness, Jesus is your Savior. Accept his salvation. Next he wants to be King of your life.“
Bates advocates:
“Jesus is the King. Accept his kingship, because through it, Jesus is offering you saving rescue, including the forgiveness of your sins.“
He offers a number of examples of invitations focusing on different aspects of the gospel, each with a “typical” and a “King first” focus.
I have not seen Bates address this, but the “king” language is triggering for some. In some minds, it represents an imperial, colonial age that is past. For others, it seems averse to democratic ideals. The male-gendered character of “king” also evokes patriarchy. Very clearly, the kingship of Jesus is different and the idea of a good king runs through so much literature, for example, The Lord of the Rings. Addressing the cultural resonances of the term would be helpful.
That said, I appreciate the focus on Jesus as King as the center, the why of our gospel, rather than simply the results of his kingly rule. Beyond that, Bates focuses on something far beyond our needs, that is our destiny to share in the glory of the King and to rule with Him. I suspect few Christians think about the idea that this is what they have been both made and redeemed for, nor for how this ought to infuse our vision of our daily lives on this good earth.
Lastly, I’ve long objected to the way we have often presented a “two stage” salvation, first Jesus as Savior and then Jesus as Lord or King. Bates frames this so well in observing that all the things we associate with salvation are the gifts of the King for those who turn from other allegiances to follow him alone.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.
The Emotions of God, David T. Lamb. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press. 2022.
Summary: A study of the emotional language used of God in scripture, considering seven emotions spoken of both in Old and New Testaments.
The title of this book caught my attention. God has emotions? Readings in systematic theology taught me that God was impassible, that God does not experience passions or emotions, pain or pleasure, in ways that would change the unchanging God. Part of the reason for this is that emotions, at least as humans experience them do reflect real changes in our state of being, vacillating between highs and lows, sometimes unpredictably. Yet as this work amply demonstrates, scripture in many places attributes emotion to God. And the author freely admits that he does not believe in an impassible God, but rather one who is “affected emotionally by the behavior of humans” (p. 6). He chooses not to engage the theological discussion but rather to examine the biblical material supporting the idea of God having “emotions.”
It should be noted that in making this assertion that Lamb considers emotions not only to be strong feelings, but they may involve actions, can be rational, may be controlled, and may be understood. He then proceeds to introduce the scope of his study, seven emotions, all of which are evident in connection with God in the Psalms: hate (5:5; 11:5 45:7;), anger (6:1; 30:5; 78:21), jealousy (78:58; 79:5), grief (78:40), delight or joy (18:20; 22:8; 35:27), mercy (25:6; 28:6; 103:4), love (5:7; 25:6; 136).
In each of the following chapters Lamb takes one of the seven, defines the term, identifies the different Hebrew and Greek words used in Old and New Testaments respectively associated with the emotion, and then considers a number of key texts and what they reveal about these emotions in reference to God. With hate for example, he discusses what it may have meant to say “Esau I hated” or Jesus reference to “hating mother and brother and sister,” the latter which he would propose meaning “loving less.” In scripture, much of God’s “hatred” is directed against evil, and reflects the obverse of his intense love for his good creation, deeply hating anything that mars it and his good purposes for it. God hates injustice and falsehood. He discusses ways in which we do not hate like God (for example, being inconvenienced), and that we ought hate the things God hates, that sometimes, these should make us furious. He recommends that we take this to prayer but that this will also mean resisting evil and injustice.
In similar ways, Lamb moves from definition and word study to key texts to application with each of the seven. I particularly enjoyed his discussion of what God takes joy or delight in, from the creatures of the deep to his people, each and all of us! His chapter on sorrow centers on the reality that God may be grieved, and that Jesus wept deeply for Lazarus. He distinguishes compassion, which is more episodic and empathic with love that is faithful and enduring. In the process, Lamb invites us into the redemption of these emotions in our lives: to hate what God hates, to be angry but not sin, to be jealous for God and the things of God, to grieve and lament with God the world’s deep brokenness, to revel in and join in God’s delight in his world and people, to show mercy and compassion, and to love steadily and faithfully and selflessly.
My only wish would be that Lamb had said something more about emotions and how God may be both responsive and unchanging. We believe God is both transcendent and immanent, infinite and yet personal, is spirit, and yet in the second person of the Trinity, for eternity to come the Incarnate Son. As we hold other truths in tension, is there a way in which we are also called to hold God’s unchanging nature and evident emotional response to his creatures in tension? To deny a belief in impassibility does not seem enough, nor is a denial of the emotional language attributed to God. Often, we cannot fully explain these truths in tension, yet it seems we must hold them in tension in mystery, wonder, and faith, hoping that one day we will know more fully, even as we are known.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.
Photo Finish(Roderick Alleyn #31), Ngaio Marsh. New York: Felony & Mayhem, 2016 (originally published in 1980).
Summary: A New Zealand trip for Alleyn and Troy goes sideways when Isabella Sommita, a soprano and diva is murdered after she debuts a badly written opera composed by her latest love interest.
Troy has been invited to paint the portrait of famed soprano Isabella Sommita by her Aristotle Onassis-like friend, Montague Reece. It appears to have all the trappings of a romantic getaway for her and Alleyn. She has been invited to Reece’s Waihoe Lodge on a remote lake in New Zealand. Alleyn has been invited separately to “consult” on dealing with a particularly annoying member of the paparazzi, calling himself “Strix” who has managed to insinuate himself into a variety of situations where he has taken the most unflattering pictures of The Sommita. Alleyn is reluctant to go, given the penchant they have for getting mixed up in murder cases together. The deal is sealed however by his superior, who thinks he ought to go because of a vague international drug connection that The Sommita is rumored to have some association with.
The setting and the Lodge are as stunningly beautiful as Troy and Alleyn imagine. Marsh, a native New Zealander, describes the scene so vividly I could see it in my mind’s eye, and a storm section later in the book so palpably that I felt I was hearing the wind and rain pelt the Lodge. Reece has set up a well-appointed studio for Troy to use for the portrait and they are treated as guests of honor. But she will never make more than preliminary sketches.
Isabella Sommita, like many of the stage figures in Marsh’s books is full of herself, in this case the definition of diva. She is barely tolerated by her entourage, the maid Maria, her manager Ben Ruby, and the rest of the household staff including the very proper housekeeper Mrs. Bacon and the officious secretary of Mr. Reece, Ned Hanley. She has taken under her wing (and into her bed) Rupert Bartholomew, a young composer who has written a mediocre work just for her, The Alien Corn, with The Sommita playing the title role of the biblical role, complete with a climactic song that allows her to hit her famous high notes. They will debut the piece at the Waihoe Lodge with a cast of supporting singers, a music critic and Signor Beppo Lattienzo, with whom The Sommita had trained.
It’s thought that the remote location was safe from the increasingly hostile photographic intrusions of “Strix” but an incident during rehearsals, another photograph taken, suggests “Strix” is in their midst, yet he cannot be found. As the performance approaches, Rupert Bartholomew, who will conduct, begins to realize what a mess he is. He is awakening both to the poor quality of his composition and how he is in thrall to The Sommita. He tries to back out but neither Reece nor The Sommita will hear of it.
The guests arrive as a storm is setting in. The production comes off, with The Sommita giving her all to a very poor piece. As everyone is applauded, Bartholomew summons the courage to apologize for his shoddy work. The Sommita is infuriated and storms off to her bedroom while Rupert faints. When The Sommita doesn’t appear, Reece covers for her and asks Maria to take her a warm drink. A scream follows. The Sommita is lying spread-eagle on her bed–dead. A stiletto has been driven into her heart (post-mortem as it turns out) with a photograph taken earlier in the day pinned to her.
The storm has risen and most of the guests, save the performers and a few special guests have just gotten out in time. The rest are stuck there and the lake is so turbulent that the police cannot come. So Alleyn reluctantly takes charge and does his best to secure the crime scene and to collect evidence while it is fresh with the assistance of Dr Carmichael, even though he has no authority other than Mr. Reece’s permission.
Was it “Strix”? Or Rupert, who had a key to the bedroom as her lover? Or someone else in the household? And does a book Alleyn found in the Lodge library describing a vendetta between two New York crime families in which a young woman dies under similar circumstances have anything to do with the case? By the time the authorities arrive, Alleyn has figured out who “Strix” is and is ready, with Inspector Hazelmere to resolve the case.
I have to admit that having read a number of Marsh’s works, this felt a bit formulaic to me–a stage personality, a remote house party, a performance with the death of a lead, an extreme weather event leaving Alleyn in charge. Even so, the final denouement had some twists that caught me by surprise. And I have to admit that I have always enjoyed the New Zealand settings the best. This work was the next to last published in her life, two years before she died, showing her still quite competent in re-mixing the standard devices into an engaging story.
The Trinity in the Book of Revelation(Studies in Christian Doctrine and Scripture), Brandon D. Smith (Foreword by Lewis Ayers). Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2022.
Summary: A Trinitarian reading of Revelation, drawing upon the insights of the pro-Nicene fathers to elucidate John’s vision both of the One God and the working of the Father, Son, and Spirit.
Discussions of Revelation often focus on the vivid imagery of the book trying to make some sense of its significance. Yet at the heart of John’s vision is the triune God acting as Father, Son, and Spirit in concert to bring about the final victory of the Lamb, the eradication of all forces of evil, and the heavenly city come down. It is this on which Brandon D. Smith focuses in this study of Revelation’s portrayal of the triune God.
His approach is to draw upon patristic resources and the pro-Nicene formulations articulating the doctrine of the Trinity to elucidate the theology of the Godhead revealed in John’s vision. Smith defends against the charge of eisegesis in arguing that the Trinitarian formulations best make sense of the unarticulated theology of the biblical text of Revelation, that they offer the best explanation of what we find in Revelation. One patristic approach that particularly frames Smith’s study is that of redoublement, the idea that we must speak of God “twice over,” first considering what the persons have in common (the divine nature) and what distinguishes them (processions or missions).
After establishing this approach, the following three chapters consider Father, Son, and Spirit. The first part of each chapter considers the pro-Nicene material and then the latter part the key texts pertaining to the member of the Godhead. Smith highlights the Father as fountainhead of the divine nature who gives revelation to Jesus, shares the throne with Jesus, and the Spirit, and receives their mediatorial work. We see the Son receiving worship, carrying out divine prerogatives, and claiming divine titles. Perhaps most interesting is the material on the Holy Spirit, focusing on the “seven spirits.” who he makes the case for being a reference not to angels but to the Holy Spirit, noting the facing of the spirits outward from the throne and joined with Father and Son in receiving worship. Drawing on patristics, we see emerging in John the triune God, one in nature, sharing in the worship of all those in the heavenly throne room, both acting singularly and indivisibly as one being and yet distinctively as three persons.
The writer concludes by arguing that this patristic-biblical reading of Revelation centered on the triune God challenges our modern readings of Revelation often devoid of a high Christology or binatarian in nature. Furthermore, he gestures toward the ways in which such a reading is of benefit to the church in reinforcing our confession of faith, in undergirding our existence as the church gathered in Christ, pardoned by the Father and united by the Spirit, by how it points us toward the one who “was, is, and is coming” and by recognizing the Trinity at the center of our reading of all of scripture.
Not only does Smith offer an interesting approach to reading Revelation, he centers our focus where I think it should be, not on the signs, but rather the triune God who gave John this vision, and who is at work through all that John sees to accomplish God’s purposes. Smith doesn’t offer a prophetic scheme or a timeline, but calls our attention to the glory of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the glorious kingdom that is the destiny of the multitudes surrounding the throne, worshipping with the help of the Spirit the Lamb who is seated with the Father on the throne.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.
The Apostle and the Empire, Christoph Heilig (foreword by John M. G. Barclay). Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2022.
Summary: Focusing on 2 Corinthians 2:14, Heilig argues for an alternative to either hidden or unexpressed criticism of the empire in Paul’s writings, proposing that we might also consider texts that have been overlooked.
Until N. T. Wright, most commentators on the Pauline works considered Paul to be silent on or even supportive of the Roman empire. Wright changed that with an article in 2000, “Paul’s Gospel and Caesar’s Empire,” proposing that subtexts could be found in Paul’s writing of an anti-imperial nature, referred to as hidden subtexts. John M. G. Barclay responded with a critique outlining five necessary conditions that would need to be met to accept Wright’s hypothesis that Wright answered in a chapter of Paul and the Faithfulness of God in 2013. A more recent paper by Laura Robinson questions the “hidden subtext” idea proposing that they are not hidden but just are not there, and that the concerns evoked by Wright about surveillance by the empire were unwarranted.
In this work, Heilig seeks to move the discussion to a new place. In addition to challenging Robinson’s assessment of the dangers Christians faced, invoking for example, the Pliny-Trajan correspondence, and the troubles Paul actually found himself in, he proposes the idea that Paul’s criticism is not so much hidden as perhaps, at least in some passages, overlooked. After mentioning passages like 1 Corinthians 2:6 and 1 Thessalonians 3:3, he focuses much of this monograph on 2 Corinthians 2:14:
But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere.
2 Corinthians 2:14, NIV.
A significant part of Heilig’s argument, overlooked in most commentaries, is the contemporary context of the victory procession of Claudius in 44 AD, celebrating his victory over Britannia. The Corinthians actually had an emperor cult that celebrated this victory. References to a triumphal procession would readily evoke this event in the minds of the Corinthians, not simply a general military practice. He explores the challenge to empire implicit in the reference God leading this procession, spreading the knowledge of the victory of Christ. Heilig argues that this, at very least expresses a sense of “unease” with the empire. He also suggests that this may be found even in the “clearest” of the passages on the empire, Romans 13:1-7, although I am surprised the author does not explore the standards for the just exercise of power implied in these passages, that is an implicit judgment against the much more arbitrary exercise of “the sword” in actuality.
In the last chapter before the conclusion, he decries the woeful state of access to the most current scholarship on context for biblical commentators, illustrated by the “overlooked” material on Claudius. I felt that, while this may be valid, I would have been more greatly helped by a discussion of further research along the lines of this work, and at least a preliminary overview of other passages where he thought criticism may have been overlooked rather than hidden.
That said, I do think this proposal offers new ground for work on Paul’s unease with empire and the realities faced by early Christians navigating Roman society, one that recognizes both Paul’s courage and discretion.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.
The Art of the Commonplace, Wendell Berry, edited and introduced by Norman Wirzba. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2002.
Summary: Twenty essays articulating an agrarian vision for society that offers health to land, food, and the wider society.
If you have followed Wendell Berry over the years, you probably have encountered most of the essays in this collection in other works. In this collection, edited by professor of theology and environmental writer, Norman Wirzba, we are given twenty essays that articulate Berry’s vision for the reform of agricultural practice and what that can mean for food, for the land, for local communities, and the health of the wider society. Wirzba’s fine introductory essay underscores key themes of Berry’s writing: that an agrarian vision focused on wholeness with the earth, each other, and God simply reflects a proper understanding of our place in the world and that is significant for all of society, both rural and urban.
The essays are grouped into five sections with a brief introduction to each. The first is “A Geobiography” and consists of a single essay, Berry’s early “A Native Hill.” and is Berry’s description of the history, topography of the upland on which his farm and community is situated. the evidence in pastures and old walls of those who farmed there before him, his many walks over it, through forests, hollows, the soil, and his own place in all of this.
Part Two, “Understanding Our Cultural Crisis” connects our cultural crisis to agricultural practices. He speaks of the harm to land when we make food a “weapon” and pursue endless growth. He challenges “Big Thinking” suggesting we need to “Think Little,” planting our own gardens, and focusing our production within our communities rather than importing energy and exporting produce and waste. He observes the seemingly intractable problem of racism, aggravated when agricultural was industrialized and the “competent poor” able to subsist on the land were forced into our cities for which they were not prepared. In “Feminism, the Body, and the Machine” he explores how separating work from the household has changed marital relationships. Where once couples worked together, indeed families, in the work of a household, what is shared now in marriage is little more than the marriage bed. In this he also defends the way he and his wife work together as she edits his handwritten work, not as an act of subordination, but shared work in the body, believing they are better without computers.
Part Three offers the positive counter to the preceding negative critique in “The Agrarian Basis for American Culture.” This begins with a long essay on “The Body and the Earth.” Berry challenges the ways we divide up the body medically and the dualism of soul and body that downplays the vital importance of our embodied, material existence. He returns to how this plays out in sexual relations, households, and our changing ideals of fidelity which includes our fidelity to the place of our shared life. These ideas recur in “Men and Women in Search of Common Ground” considering how place, shared work, and community sustained the fabric of fidelity between couples. He asks questions about our health care system including why rest, food, and ecological health are not basic to our approaches to staying healthy and to healing. He maintains that key to restoring community is restoring local community and the respect of the differences of different communities. “People, Land, and Community” uses the example (again) of the hillside farm, and how the skillful, multi-generational work of a community is required to preserve that land.
Part Four focuses on “Agrarian Economics.” He writes of the problems of relentless competition for agriculture, and the destruction of pleasure in work, leading to our vapid pleasure industries. The first essay, “Economy and Pleasure” closes with Berry spending a day doing farm chores with his grand-daughter, letting her drive the team, unloading dirt on a barn floor, at the end of which she said, “Wendell, isn’t it fun.” In “The Two Economies” he contrast our industrial economy where we create value with the Great Economy, which recognizes the inherent value in things and what is lost when they are used–soil for example. “The Idea of a Local Economy” is perhaps Berry’s clearest articulation of how the Global Economy has been destructive of the local, and how his vision of what a local economy built on neighborhood and subsistence would look like. “Solving for Pattern” includes a list of farming and land use practices that preserve farm economies..
The book closes with “Agrarian Religion,” in which Berry makes more explicit the theological convictions that undergird his agrarian vision. Interestingly, the section begins with “The Use of Energy,” citing our sewage systems and the internal combustion engine as two prime examples of wastefulness. Good energy use recycles into the environment in a cycle of production, consumption, and return. He reads Genesis 1 as “The Gift of Good Land” to be stewarded with the care with which we’d handle the sacrament, not desecrating it. He affirms that the charges by conservationist against Christianity are, by and large, warranted. He criticizes the focus on the holiness of churches but not on the holiness of all of life and the dualism that denigrates the body rather than understanding our souls as dust plus the breath of life from God. This leads us to deny the goodness of physical work and to be indifferent to the physical creation. Like the economy we are concerned with relentless growth. He also articulates the political captivity of the church that has risen to extremes in our own day. It is a trenchant critique from a churchman.
In one sense, the final essay brings together all he has been saying as he discusses “The Pleasure of Eating.” He urges urban audiences to “eat responsibly.” This simple act, followed to its logical conclusions addresses all the concerns discussed here. As we can we grow our own food, prepare our own food, learn the origins of what we buy and buy food grown as close as possible, dealing with local growers where possible. We become aware and wary of what is added to food, learn about the best farming and keep learning by observation. Eating responsibly, we become reluctant to eat food, animal or vegetable, that has been grown under poor conditions.
These essays challenge us to think of agriculture not as a reality separate from the daily existence of most of us but rather the bedrock on which that existence rests. They challenge us to see that the health of our bodies and our culture cannot be separated from our agriculture, and our highly industrialized agriculture has put the fabric of our communities and our health at risk. Berry focuses so much on local community, but I wonder if these have been so decimated that it will take several generations to restore them. I wonder if a beginning is to think about seeing states or regions become as self-sufficient as possible in agriculture, reducing long distance logistics and diversifying local production and in the process, improving land use and crop rotation. In my own part of the country, studying how the Amish do (and prosper) might be helpful. But what will ultimately drive this is the idea of eating responsibly. That will require a different agricultural economy. And if Berry is right, it will change our culture.
The Way of Perfection, St. Teresa of Avila, Foreword by Paula Huston, Translated by Henry L Carrigan, Jr. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2009.
Summary: St Theresa’s reflections on growing in love, humility, and the life of prayer.
About a year ago, I reviewed a different, out of print, edition of this work from the same publisher. The folks at Paraclete were so generous that they sent me their “in print” edition of the same work, published for the 500th anniversary of the writing of this work. In addition to a foreword by Paula Huston reflecting on her own encounter with this work, the translation is one into contemporary English, with instances where the translator changed sentences in the passive voice to active. In reading this edition, I felt like Theresa was speaking directly to me.
The Way of Perfection breaks down into two parts. The first focuses on the spiritual life and how one of those in the Carmelites might progress in becoming like Christ. She explains the benefits of poverty, the importance of unceasing prayer and the necessity that women love each other equally without favoritism, which can wreck the harmony of a house. She instructs on detachment from all earthly affections to focus on the love of God. This includes gifts from family. She addresses answering unjust accusations:
“No one can ever blame us unjustly, since we are always full of faults, and a just person falls seven times a day. It would be a falsehood to say that we have no sin. Even if we are not guilty of the thing we are accused of, then, we are never entirely without blame in the way that our good Jesus was” (p. 57).
She devotes several chapters to mental and vocal prayer and contemplation. She urges people to pray as they are able and that the Lord is as pleased with our vocal prayers as our silent mental praying. She stresses that the state of contemplation, resting in the Lord, is a gift that may come equally to those praying vocally or mentally.
The second part turns to the great vocal prayer of the church, the Our Father. Theresa takes us through the prayer phrase by phrase, mining its richness. She marvels how much Jesus gives us in the first words, “Our Father.” She reflects on the significance of “hallowed be thy name” and “thy kingdom come” side by side, that the presence of God’s good rule on earth reminds us of the holiness of his name. She acknowledges the challenge of yielding our will to God. She tends to spiritualize the idea of daily bread, focusing on the bread of Christ. Perhaps it is well that our need for daily physical bread be a reminder of the need to be daily nourished in Christ. She emphasizes the underlying love of each other behind the prayer to be forgiven as we forgive. “Lead us not into temptation” is not a shrinking from spiritual conflict but our awareness of our vulnerabilities to temptation and the protection of God.
I’ve but touched on the richness to be found in these pages. It certainly did not hurt me to read The Way of Perfection again. I suspect that multiple readings are warranted because, in each reading, we are different people and will hear different things.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.
Summary: The life of this storyteller in a series of stories, arranged roughly in chronological order.
True confessions. This is the first James Patterson book I have read. I think I understand why he has sold so many books and is so popular. The guy can tell stories. In this case, he tells stories on himself, recounting his life in story after story. He’s hardly the first person to try to do this. You know the person you listen to for a while, and then look for an excuse, even nature’s call, to make a graceful exit. Not so with Patterson. Break out the Depends. I’m sticking around.
We learn about the period he worked in a mental ward, the same one in which James Taylor wrote “Fire and Rain.” It was the place where he began reading and writing like crazy.
He jumps back to his Catholic upbringing with stories of eating the unconsecrated communion host as an altar boy. He describes his first kiss from Veronica Tabasco, and later encountering her grave next to his grandfather’s. His dreams of being a star athlete when writing was nowhere on the radar. His college days ushering at the Fillmore East for some of the biggest rock acts of the time. His Woodstock experience. His grad school days at Vanderbilt, curtailed by the Vietnam war, although not because he served.
Perhaps one of the biggest revelations was that Patterson made it big…I mean really big in advertising as a “mad man.” He created the Toys ‘R’ Us jingle for J. Walter Thompson, one of the big Madison Avenue agencies that he helped turn around. We learn about the financial advice he successfully followed when offered three lucrative packages to choose from.
His encounter with Jimmy Breslin, who was cruel, taught him to be kind at book signings. He recounts his early efforts at trying to get published and how Francis Greenberger got him his first book contract, for which he won an Edgar and gave what was probably the shortest acceptance speech on record. He reveals his writing secret: outline, outline, outline. He also talks about all the co-authors he’s loved working with and how he works together with them.
We learn of his two great loves. There was Jane, who he was with for seven years until cancer took her. And there is his wife Sue, who he met at the ad agency and to whom he’s been married since 1997.
He’s golfed with three presidents. He thinks Trump the best golfer but he loved hanging around with Clinton. Perhaps that’s why they’ve written two books together. He even called him an [expletive deleted] when he missed a put. Who does that with a former president unless you have a special relationship? He wrote a book with Dolly Parton as well, who sang him happy birthday and called him J.J. He has nothing but good to say about her.
He’s passionate about getting kids to read and even launched a series of books for kids. He is thrilled when someone says they became a reader because of his books. I loved his reading list toward the end of the book. I think I’ve read about half. Maybe after I’ve read some of his, we could talk books. Probably not, but I loved his taste in reading. He shares his passion for helping bookstore owners and staff, and how it warms his heart when he hears that one of his grants allowed one to go to the dentist.
He tells a compelling story of the five balls we juggle in life, the four made of glass that can scratch or shatter, and the one made of rubber that bounces back, telling you which one you can afford to drop. He shares the time when he let one drop to be with a dying friend.
There’s lots more where this came from. He not only helps us understand his take on the writing life, but his take on life and what it means to be a (mostly) decent human being who has never forgotten his roots and remained “a hungry dog.” If you’ve never read one of his books, this one might get you started and make you want to read a second, and a third…. We’ll see.
