Review: All Will Be Well

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All Will Be Well, Lacy Linn Borgo, Illustrated by Rebecca Evans. Downers Grove: IVP Kids, 2022.

Summary: Julian’s Mima is very sick and Julian is worried, sad, and angry and wondering if God hears or cares.

Julian’s Mima was sick and Julian was worried.

“God, please make Mima better,” she whispered.

All Will Be Well.

Anyone who has experienced the serious illness and imminent death of a beloved grandparent will resonate with this story. For many children, their first encounter with death is the loss of a beloved grandparent.

Julian longs so much to hear God’s assurance. Is God in the fiery autumn leaves, the whirling winds of autumn? What Julian does know is that the hazelnuts falling on her head are her Mima’s favorite. They are everywhere and she brings them home from school to share with Mima.

They talk about her day and Julian unloads not only her hazelnuts but her fear, her sadness, and the feeling she has that she’s going to explode. Mima just holds her hand and tells her she loves her. Then, at Julian’s request, she tells her the story of the saint, Julian of Norwich, after whom Julia is named. She reminds Julian of a message from God to Julian:

“If something as small as a hazelnut is loved by God, then we are loved by God too.”

The next day, she gives Julian a hazelnut to carry with the reminder “And God loves you.” And this helps her through her school day.

They talk the next evening about Julian’s concern about Mima dying. Mima asks a searching question: “Does God still love us when we die?” She assures her in the words of Julian of Norwich that because of God’s love for them both “All will be well, all will be well, everything will be well.”

The next day Mima dies and the remainder of the story follows Julian as she struggles to come to terms with this loss until she remembers the hazelnuts and the words Mima shared from Julian of Norwich.

The story brought back memories of my own last conversation with my grandmother, dying of cancer. She was in pain and it hurt to see her that way. She spoke of looking forward to being with Jesus, who she had taught me to love. And her words have stayed with me all of my life and become my own.

This book is like that, written with the sensitivity that allows a child to express the strong mix of feelings they have when a loved one is ill. The relationship with Mima is a model, where she listens and loves and then asks a gentle but important question, reminds her of truth, and shares a token to help bring that to mind.

The colors of autumn, which suffuse this work, both reflect someone in the late autumn of life, but also the splendor of God’s presence in color and wind and hazelnuts!

A note from the author offers suggestions for further practices that may help a child as they read the book together. The publisher’s website also offers a reflection activity that may be shared.

This is a wonderfully sensitive and rich work to help a child (and an adult) through some of the hardest realities of life, when we are most tempted to question God’s love. It makes space for all the feelings and doubts and fears one may experience. Using the life of Julian of Norwich, it invites us to trust that in life or death, “all will be well.”

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

Water Security

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Several weeks back I wrote a post on food security. It was in the wake of the Intel deal to build a huge manufacturing plant in Central Ohio, insuring the security of our micro-chip supply. But there is a form of security even more fundamental than food security, and that is water security. Human beings cannot live more than three days without water. Fifty-five to sixty percent of the human body consists of water.

In addition, we depend on water to grow both plant and animal food, as a source of power, for various manufacturing processes, and for transport among many other things. That Intel plant in Ohio? It is projected to use a staggering 5 million gallons of water per day, becoming the single largest user of water in Central Ohio. Ohio’s abundant supplies of water were no doubt one of the factors in siting the plant there. But they will now have to develop the infrastructure to move that water, and a reclamation plant to recycle at least some of the water used.

It seems that water may threaten our security in at least three ways:

When there is too little of it. Climate change is rendering many parts of our world much drier, not just for a year here and there but for the long term. The reservoirs that are supplied by the Colorado River have dropped by 50 feet or more to about 25 percent of their capacities, jeopardizing power generation as well as the supply of water to Arizona, California, and Nevada. And much of that supply, up to 80 percent, is for agriculture. It’s likely that the fresh fruit and vegetables in your refrigerator were grown there. But perhaps for not much longer–a major dislocation. NASA predicts that California has only one year of water. Given the low levels of water in rivers, streams and reservoirs, efforts are being made to tap into groundwater supplies in aquifers. But these are also finite and dependent on the same rainfall and runoffs for replenishment

When there is too much of it. We heard a presentation recently of a Christian school in rural eastern Kentucky that fought to recover from a hundred year flood last year, only to endure a thousand year flood this summer, with much higher floodwaters. One of the impacts of climate change in much of the eastern United States is more intense storms with heavier rainfall totals. That school has decided to re-locate out of its location in a hundred year flood plain because the once in a hundred or thousand year events seem to be coming much more frequently. Coastal communities like Fort Myers in Florida face greater storm surge, which in combination with rising sea levels can wreak ever greater devastation. And with the melting of ice from Greenland to Antarctica, rising sea levels will make many of our coastal cities new versions of Venice.

When impurities render it unpotable or toxic over the long term. It is a major wonder of infrastructure and technology that we can turn a tap, fill a glass, and drink it. This is not the case in many parts of the world, resulting in higher infant and child death rates, and underlying digestive illnesses for many. But bacteria are not the only danger to our water. Impurities are a major threat from lead that impairs child intelligence in many cities with aging water infrastructures to toxic chemicals that escape into adjacent groundwater, or are discharged by manufacturing processes. Finally, the possibility of sabotage always exists.

Many of our problems are ones that have been long foreseen, but ignored. John Wesley Powell, armed with watershed maps testified before Congress in 1890 about the limits the water supply of the West, situated in a desert climate, would impose on development. People did not want to hear him then and most still don’t want to heed his message. But it seems to me that the question needs to be asked whether the West, particularly in even drier and hotter conditions than Powell knew of, can sustain a growing population and the water uses to which it is accustomed. Likewise, climate experts have predicted with a high degree of accuracy the intensifying climate effects contributing to flooding and coastal inundations.

It seems it is probably past time for us to think about water:

  • How will what we know determine decisions about where we live, or don’t live?
  • How will we better steward existing resources, including the capture of rainwater runoffs, often wasted?
  • How will we protect and expand the supply of potable water, including in the permitting processes for industrial activity that may endanger it?
  • How will we manage water disparities in different parts of the country without creating water wars?
  • How will we think intelligently about various industrial uses of water to avoid disruptions in production while providing for other uses? How will we handle situations where demand exceeds supply?

Many places are already wrestling with these questions. Our presence on a burgeoning and changing planet means all of us need to grow in our awareness of these realities. We no longer have the luxury of ignoring the warnings of John Wesley Powell and the host of others who have given public testimony about the challenges facing us. Every single one of us are within three days of extinction without water. That seems to me to be enough reason to care,

Review: The King of Christmas

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The King of Christmas (A FatCat Book), Art by Natasha Kennedy, Text by Todd R. Hains. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2022.

Summary: The search for the King of Christmas by the Magi, and where the King was found…and where he was not.

I told you I had a second FatCat Book to tell you about, one that is Christmas themed. The King of Christmas draws on the story of the Magi and their search for the King of Christmas after sighting his star. The didn’t find him with the stars of heaven or the birds of the air, the fish of the sea or among the beasts of the field. He wasn’t at the tables of the rich, the courts of kings, the forts of soldiers, the markets, or with the scribes in the temple. Each page asks, “is the King of Christmas there?” with the answer of “No!” until at last they find him in a converted feed trough where animals were stabled.

But the story doesn’t end there. He’s found between criminals and wherever his word and name are. And that name is Jesus, the King of Christmas! But he is not found in a tomb. And as in the other stories, FatCat may be found on every page.

Once again, Natasha Kennedy accompanies Todd R. Hains text with vibrant illustrations that will be a delight to the child’s eye. Here’s just one example (from the publisher’s website):

Consistent with the series, a great diversity of people exist, including gathered at the table of a dark-skinned Jesus, with us as God’s Word is read and taught, in Baptism and at the Lord’s Supper celebrations.

As with other books in this series, the story is meant to be read and shared in families, and the author includes a Christmas prayer that may be read responsively. The book renders afresh the story of the humble beginnings of the King, his victory over death, and his presence with all who seek him and how he may be found. The text is simple and budding readers will want to learn the words, even as they enjoy the illustrations. So you will want to read this more than once–perhaps many times–and not only at Christmas.

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

Review: The Lord’s Prayer: For All God’s Children

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The Lord’s Prayer: For All God’s Children (A FatCat Book), Art by Natasha Kennedy, Text by Harold L. Senkbeil. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2022.

Summary: A lavishly illustrated book designed for parents to use with children in teaching them the meaning of the Lord’s prayer and praying together in family worship.

One of the things I love about this book out of the gate is that is designed for parents to use in introducing their children to the Lord’s Prayer, walking phrase by phrase through the prayer. I suspect that as parents do so with their children–perhaps no more than a phrase a day because the reflections are rich–the parents will learn as well. How many of us have reflected on the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer?

Here’s part of the reflection on “Thy Kingdom Come”:

"Lord teach us to pray.
Your kingdom come.

Can we make God's kingdom come? No!
His kingdom comes all by itself.

Where is God's kingdom?
Wherever Jesus is, there he rules as King.
He brings us life and forgiveness, peace and salvation.
That's why we pray for God's kingdom to come."

The book is lavishly illustrated in a rich palette of color showing Jesus in a variety of settings, each connected in some way with the phrase of the Lord’s Prayer being read about. Here is an example from the publisher’s website of the “Thy Kingdom Come” pages:

One of the features I noticed is that Jesus is dark-skinned, not the fair-haired blonde Jesus many of us grew up with. Also, there are people with a variety of skin colors and features, fitting with the title of this prayer being for all God’s children.

You may also notice FatCat, who appears on every page. Children will love looking for FatCat, who visually represents an important idea in this book–the “fatness” of the catechism–that it is full of meaning. This book, and others in the FatCat series are intended to teach in an approachable manner about central texts of the faith–the Apostles Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer.

The book builds on this idea in a discussion titled “Families are little churches” that follows the Lord’s Prayer. These book reflect the conviction that the family is where instruction (“catechesis”) has happened throughout church history and that this can be as praying what we believe together a families. A simple family prayer service that may be read responsively follows in the text.

The author concludes by sharing scripture texts that informed and bounded both text and illustrations for each phrase. It was clear in reading this book that great care was given to say both what this prayer does and does not mean and what we may learn both of Jesus who teaches the prayer and the Father to whom it is addressed.

This book is a gift to parents who want to actively take part in teaching their children about the faith. The combination of the beautiful illustrations, FatCat who roams the pages, the biblically grounded reflections, and helps in translating teaching into family worship make this a rich resource packed into just 32 pages.

Tomorrow I will be reviewing another book in this series, The King of Christmas.

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

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Charles N. Crandall

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Charles N. Crandall

“He was the mildest man I ever knew, with always a kind word for everyone” -a friend of Charles N. Crandall.

Crandall Avenue and Crandall Park in Youngstown are named after his family, which donated much of the land for both Crandall and Wick Park. Crandall lived across the street from Wick Park in a big stone house on Broadway, a well built three story home that is still standing.

He was a quiet man, often seen walking the streets around his home, smoking a long stogie, or attending events at Stambaugh Auditorium, described in his Vindicator obituary as “a lone bystander on the fringe of the crowd.” This lone bystander never married but devoted himself to civic affairs throughout the city of Youngstown. He was devoted to his church, Trinity Methodist Church, giving liberal sums to the remodeling of its building and a gift of $110,000 to Mt. Union College, affiliated with the Methodist Church and for which he was a trustee. He also gave $100,000 to an endowment fund of what was then Youngstown College. Upon his death the bulk of his remaining estate was left to the Youngstown Hospital Association.

He was one of Esther Hamilton’s candy butchers and a member of the Optimists, the Chamber of Commerce, and a number of fraternal organizations. He was active with the YMCA from its beginnings in Youngstown, serving as secretary for its southern camps. He avidly supported the work of the League of Women Voters.

He was able to do all this as an independently wealthy bachelor. His father, Nelson Crandall married Sarah Stambaugh, daughter of pioneer John Stambaugh, the father of Henry H. Stambaugh, after whom Stambaugh Auditorium is named. Nelson Crandall made his fortune working for David Tod‘s Brier Hill Iron and Coal Company. He acquired farm land encompassing much of the North Side of Youngstown, and it was from these lands that Charles Crandall and family donated the land as well as developing the residential neighborhoods around the park.

Born in 1870, Charles Crandall found himself heir to a fortune. It allowed him to pursue a quiet life of civic service, painting, and horticulture. He did all the work on the well-tended gardens around his home. A salesman, mistaking him for a hired gardener, scolded him for not calling “the lady of the house.” He was known as an amateur naturalist who could identify any flower or weed presented to him. One of the few luxuries he allowed himself was summer vacations at Lake Chautauqua, enjoying the concerts and lectures offered there each year.

Nelson Crandall devoted his life to acquiring a fortune as part of one of Youngstown’s early industrial enterprises. His son, Charles N. Crandell spent his life disposing of it in charitable work. He had no heirs. As it turned out, much of Youngstown was heir to his fortune. He died just shy of his 81st birthday after a 20 month battle with cancer. I like to think that the quiet beauty of Wick Park and Crandall Park and the remnants of stately beauty in the built environment of the areas around these parks reflect the character of this quiet man who loved beauty.

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!

Review: Uncle Tungsten

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Uncle Tungsten, Oliver Sacks. New York: Vintage Books, 2001

Summary: A memoir of Sacks boyhood and his explorations of chemistry encouraged by an uncle who used tungsten to manufacture incandescent bulbs.

I’ve enjoyed several of Oliver Sacks books recounting various neurological conditions and the workings of the human brain. I had not been aware of this book until receiving it as a gift. Sacks employs his gifts in telling the story of his childhood, and particularly his fascination with chemistry. In some ways, it came with the territory. His parents were both doctors, who saw patients at their home or permitted Oliver to come on house calls his father would make.

From childhood, Sacks was fascinated with metals and other substances, their color, their weight, how they responded to heating, to being combined with other chemicals. This fascination was fed by by his “Uncle Tungsten” a.k.a Uncle Dave. He was called Uncle Tungsten not only because he made incandescent lamps using tungsten wire, but because he was truly enamored of tungsten, thinking it quite a wonderful metal. He shared this wonder with young Oliver, as well as showing him other metals including aluminum and what happened when you applied mercury to its surface.

Eventually Uncle Tungsten showed him how to set up his own lab bench with the apparatus he needed and how to use it safely. Inevitably there were “stinks and bangs” including an episode with a cuttlefish that made a dwelling uninhabitable for a time. The story is one of curious, self-directed learning that studied spectra, chemical reactions, and families of elements. His discovery of the periodic table, Mendeleev’s Garden, helped make sense of why certain elements were similar in character to others, and even helped predict the character of elements yet to be discovered.

Perhaps the most fascinating chapters were those on “cold” light–fluorescent and phosphorescent elements–and that on X-rays and how they were produced. Here it was Uncle Abe who exposed him to things like radium, at a time when people were only beginning to understand the detrimental effects of radiation on the human body. He speaks of viewing a grain of radium through a spinthariscope and the “shooting stars” he saw through the eyepiece. One wonders if there was any connection between these youthful explorations and the ocular melanoma that resulted in Sacks death.

Sacks did not take up a career in chemistry, obviously. But in this memoir we see the curiosity that fueled his neurological research, his quest to understand how things worked. What a wonderful thing that there were adults in his life who nurtured that curiosity while allowing him the space to pursue self-directed learning. He was a “researcher” long before he became a researcher. And this led to the wonder beyond laws and equations and tables to memorize, the wonder of color, of order, of chemical reactions, and so much more. For Sacks, science became a matter of wonder and wondering.

In our own era of mistrust of science, one wonders if we’ve missed something in science education. What if, instead of mistrust of “authorities” we worked to foster curiosity and wonder? What if, instead of making pronouncements, we worked to foster curiosity? What if instead of endless encouragements of vaccines and masks, we invited curiosity about how COVID is so cussedly good at infecting its human hosts and what happens in the body when it does?

I don’t know if that would change any of our discussions, but I do wonder if a healthy dose of curiosity and wonder, like that which characterized Oliver Sacks “chemical boyhood,” might do us all a bit of good.

Good Riddance to Long Books?

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“Good Riddance to Long Books” is the title of a recent Spectator article by news journalist John Sturgis. He celebrated the current shortlist for the Booker Prize for being short books, one coming in at just 116 pages. He observed how much delight he took in Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, a short story of twelve pages and Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair, just 48,000 words.

I love Graham Greene’s work as well. There is an economy of writing within the richness of the plots and the themes he explores. I’ve been reading the works of Willa Cather, and I’m struck with the beauty of the writing, painting with words, the finely drawn characters, and that they are not one page longer than needed.

But I cannot say I choose works because they are short or long. Nor do most of those on my Bob on Books Facebook page in answer to the question, “To what extent is the length of a book a factor in your decision to read it?” While there was not a unanimous opinion on this, the general sense is that it wasn’t a factor, and many love losing themselves in a long book.

The general consensus was that it was all in the quality of the writing. It began with the first sentence, the first page. Did it catch your attention and draw you in? Beyond that, it seems to come down to an author’s ability to spin a story that the reader doesn’t want to end. So much of this has to do with writerly skill. There are long books that really needed to be shortened (one thinks of the “Wheel of Time” books) and ones that justify the scale on which they are written by the world created within them, the complexity of the characters, and the winding but not dragging course of the plot.

I also read a number of long books of history and biography. I am in the middle of Andrew Meier’s Morgenthau, which will probably be my longest book of the year at 1072 pages. What Meier gives us is really four interleaved biographies, four generations of Morgenthaus, the last three advisors to presidents Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy (Robert Morgenthau also distinguished himself as a U.S. Attorney). It’s the story of a family over those four generations and how both dynasty and character shape their lives. I find it fascinating to see how Meier spins it all out, and how this family left its mark in our national story.

Barbara Tuchman, David Halberstam, David McCullough, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Robert Caro, and Ron Chernow have all written massive histories and biographies. David Halberstam even wrote massively about baseball, and I loved it! To read each is not to get lost in a mass of detail but to get caught up in life stories and historical events that cannot be fully explored in just a couple hundred pages. The recently deceased Hilary Mantel did the same thing with her historical fiction trilogy on the life of Thomas Cromwell.

There are factors that have nothing to do with the writing that influence some people. If one still loves physical books, long books weigh a lot, especially those that are hardbound. Older readers find them hard to hold. For some of us, the question is when will we read them. A busy season of life draws out the process so much. You do want to savor a long book, but like a good steak, you don’t want to let it get cold. So it only makes sense to read when you can read consistently (or if you are like some, binge read, kind of like binge watching a whole season of a video series over a weekend).

I think it comes down to the writing. That’s what makes books long or short worth the read. It’s a magical something in the words that you know when your read them. A quote attributed to Jane Austen states, “If a book is well written, I always find it too short.” If we don’t want it to end, if we finish the book and savor it determining we will buy the next thing the writer publishes, that’s a good book, long or short. If we find ourselves peaking ahead wondering when you will reach the end, its not only too long but may not have been written well. Shortening it may not have helped, other than ending the pain sooner.

So, at least for me, it is not about short books versus long. A well-written book is always just long enough to accomplish its purpose while it leaves us longing for more, whether it is 200 or 1000 pages in length. It seems a bit like art, where painters execute masterpieces on postcards, and also on the ceilings of cathedrals.

There may be a difference in the reading experience and what different kinds of books ask of their readers. Short books remind me of a tasty salad on a summer day, when a taste of something may be all we need. Long books are more like a leisurely, multi-course banquet, enjoyed over many hours with good friends. The delight of reading is that we needn’t have a monotonous diet, that there are books for every occasion. Let’s hope book critics, writers, and publishers remember that!

Review: Dawn: A Proton’s Tale of All That Came To Be

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Dawn: A Proton’s Tale of All That Came to Be (Biologos Books on Science and Christianity), Cees Dekker, Corien Oranje, and Gijsbert Van Den Brink, translated by Harry Cook, afterword by Deborah Haarsma. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2022.

Summary: An imaginative account of cosmology, evolutionary biology, and the creation-fall-redemption story of Christianity, bringing all these together in one grand narrative, recounted by a proton who witnesses it all.

I’ve never encountered a book like this before. I’ve read books on cosmology. I’ve read books on evolutionary biology. I’ve read and re-read the biblical narratives. And I’ve read numerous books trying to relate cosmology and evolution with the Bible. I’ve never read an account attempting to describe cosmology, evolution, and the biblical account of beginnings, human rebellion, and God’s redemptive work as a single story. Until this book.

Furthermore, it is an eyewitness account. How can this be? The story is narrated by a proton, emerging in the first second after the Big Bang and persisting throughout the existence of the universe, combining with neutrons and electrons to become an atom, and bonding to others to become a molecule, witnessing the formation and death of stars, the beginnings of our own solar system, ending up on earth, becoming part of a strand of RNA incorporated in the earliest forms of life, witnessing cell division, and the emergence of various forms of life, including the advent of homo sapiens.

They witness Maisha and Womuntu (Eve and Adam) among an early human community, the rebellion against God’s command not to draw water from a particular well (not a tree in this account), the dire consequences, God’s restart in Abraham, the deliverance under Moses, the hopes under David and hopes dashed and the many years until Proton in a spider web witnesses the birth of the child, God’s Son among us. Yet here as well, it appears the plan is frustrated as it ends in the Son’s death, or so it seems until, as part of Peter’s walking staff, Proton witnesses the risen Lord and the work of the apostle John on Patmos. The narrative continues up to the present and a conversation between a Christian and skeptics aboard the International Space Station. On a space walk, Proton is carried back into space, having witnessed the fulfillment of the Creator’s loving plan.

The story was written as a collaboration of a scientist, a theologian, and a children’s writer gifted in explaining scientific ideas for young readers. It offers an imaginative rendering from a proton’s perspective of the first seconds of the universe, the forming of heavier elements, the cooling and coalescing of matter into stars and planets, the incorporation of atoms into molecules that form the building blocks of life, the experience from inside a cell of cell division. It also creatively retells the biblical narratives. This pivot is set up by the conversations Proton has with other particles about the purposes of the good creator, waiting with anticipation over the eons of how the creator would fulfill his purposes in creation, and the puzzling of how God would do so when humans rebelled against God’s command.

The account draws on current understanding of the evolution of human life, setting the first couple among a community of others, but singled out to know Creator’s intention (even the biblical accounts hint at the possibility of other humans in the marriage of Cain in Genesis 4). The fall also occurs as a result of drinking from a well rather than eating fruit from a forbidden tree. Otherwise, the narrative tracks closely with the biblical accounts, as rendered through the eyes of a proton. We capture the wonder of the nativity, the opposition of an enemy, the bewilderment and dashed hopes of the crucifixion, and the unbelievable joy of the resurrection.

The book does stretch credulity that this particular proton witnesses all this, but if one can set that aside, this is an imaginative rendering that weaves into one story the sweeping stories of cosmology, evolution, and the redemptive arc of God’s work with the human beings he loves.

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

Review: Native Son

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Native Son, Richard Wright. New York: Harper Perennial, 1989 (first published in 1940).

Summary: The story of Bigger Thomas, whose unpremeditated murder of Mary Dalton and second murder covering up the first, fires rage and fear in Chicago, and in a strange way gives meaning to a young man who felt himself imprisoned in Chicago’s Black Belt.

This is an uncomfortable book to read from the moment Bigger Thomas wakes up until the last pages. It is uncomfortable to view the rat-infested tenement room a family of four share, where Bigger’s first act is to kill a giant rat with a pan.

It is uncomfortable to hear Bigger’s mother nag him about going to the job set up by the relief program. He already has a record for theft, some of which he’s involved his girlfriend Bessie in.

It’s uncomfortable to hear him plot to rob a white jeweler with his three friends. Then when one doesn’t show up on time, he nearly slits his throat in anger.

It’s uncomfortable to go to the Daltons and be treated so well by the family and other household staff. Mr. Dalton has an interest in the companies operating the tenement housing Bigger lives in, confining Blacks to one area of south Chicago known as the Black Belt. He also gives lots of money to charities for the uplift of Blacks and employs people recommended by the relief agency who sent Bigger–an uncomfortable tension of interests that emerges as the story unfolds.

It’s uncomfortable to see Bigger on his first chauffeuring job, supposedly taking Mary Dalton, the Dalton’s only daughter to a lecture, but in reality to a rendezvous with a Communist lover, Jan. We sense Bigger’s discomfort as he takes them to a south side restaurant to eat “his kind of food,” and invited to socialize with them while proselytized into the Communist cause. We sense his discomfort as Jan drives with all of them in the front seat, then as they drink while he drives.

It’s uncomfortable to see Bigger having to help the drunken Mary into the house, and up to her room, getting her to bed, only to have her blind mother come in to this incriminating scene. We sense his discomfort as he tries to silence her so her mother won’t discover his presence and think Mary asleep in a drunken stupor, and when Mrs. Dalton leaves, to find he has asphyxiated her and she is dead.

It’s uncomfortable to witness Bigger’s desperation which leads him to stuff her in the trunk she’s taking to Detroit, to haul it to the basement and stuff her body into the coal furnace, hacking off her head so it would all fit, and then feeding the fire but fearing to remove the ashes for what he might find.

It’s uncomfortable as Mary’s disappearance becomes known to watch Bigger deflect suspicions toward Jan while involving his girlfriend in a ransom plot, ultimately telling her what he’s done, and then as Mary’s bones are found in the furnace ashes, fleeing with Bessie to an abandoned building where he has sex with her then kills her with a brick and throws her down an airshaft, where she did not immediately die.

It’s uncomfortable to see the police cordon close around him, then the final futile efforts to elude capture. It’s uncomfortable to hear the racist vitriol, of crowds who would lynch him and a prosecutor who charges him with rape as well as murder.

It’s uncomfortable to hear him tell his communist attorney, Mr. Max, how, for a brief moment, when he killed, he felt his most free and alive, how in these moments, he found meaning, a momentary escape from the destiny to which his birth and race, in his own mind, had imprisoned him.

His relationship with his attorney, who made an impassioned plea before the court for his life, is the one shining moment. Someone who asked him questions, and listened, and treated him as a man. No one understands more of his life than this man. But he is not a confessor. While Bigger tells the truth of what he had done, there was no remorse, no repentance.

We want to argue that Bigger could have made different choices. Yet the sense is of a human being trapped–in a tenement, into reliance on white charity, in an awkward social situation with two people with no clue who “mean well,” in Mary Dalton’s bedroom where no good explanation could be made for his presence. We’re rightly horrified by the murders, but also at the logic by which Bigger finds meaning in them.

We’re left uncomfortable with social structures that the execution of this young killer will not change. We’re left uncomfortable with the thought of how many other Biggers lurk in such structures–also wanting to do things with their lives, also questing for meaning, perhaps in distorted ways that will end badly for them and others. And this is as it should be. A minister friend of mine once remarked that he believed the gospel not only offered comfort to the disturbed but also disturbed the comfortable. This book does the latter. Don’t read it if you want to remain in comfort.

Review: Agents of Flourishing

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Agents of Flourishing, Amy L. Sherman. Downers Grove: IVP Praxis, 2022.

Summary: An outline of how Christians may pursue Christ’s redemptive mission in six areas of cultural life, encompassing the whole of life.

Years ago, I listened to Gary Haugen, the founder of the International Justice Mission, an effort responsible for the release of thousands of women and children from human trafficking, discuss the breakthrough insight that led to his efforts. He was wrestling with the question of why God permitted so many injustices in the world when he felt God turning the question around and asking, “why do my people permit so many injustices to continue in the world?”

Amy L. Sherman believes that the redemptive mission of Jesus is intended not simply to bring personal redemption from sin but also bring God’s shalom, God’s flourishing into every dimension of life. And she believes that God’s way of bringing this about is through his people, and in the context of this book, through local congregations working within their own communities.

Sherman follows a model developed by the Thriving Communities Group’s “Human Ecology Framework” that identifies six spheres of cultural life that must be healthy for a community to be healthy. They are:

  • The Good: Flourishing in the Realm of Social Mores and Ethics
  • The True: Flourishing in the Realm of Human Knowledge and Learning
  • The Beautiful: Flourishing in the Realm of Creativity, Aesthetics, and Design
  • The Just and Well-Ordered: Flourishing in the Realm of Political and Civic Life
  • The Prosperous: Flourishing in the Realm of Economic Life
  • The Sustainable: Flourishing in the Realm of Natural and Physical Health

Six of the chapters of this book articulate a basic theology for each of these spheres discussing God’s creational intent, the malformations that the fall has introduced, the ways redemption re-forms this and how Christians have contributed to that re-formation in history and challenges in our current context. For example, under “The True” the creational intent includes our design to be learners, the goal of which is to know God and his purposes in the world, that parents are the first “teachers,” that Jesus affirms education, that God teaches us much beyond religious matters, and that common grace means that God desires all to achieve a broad-ranging knowledge. Sherman discusses the malformations of modernity and post-modernity and educational inequities. She then cites the contribution of Christians to making books in the codex form, to literacy, to scientific inquiry, to establishing schools and the early universities, and in the promotion of secondary and university education in the black community. Two challenges she identifies are the anti-intellectualism in many evangelical quarters, even the suspicion of learning, and the withdrawal of evangelicals from public schools, sadly in some cases, when schools were integrated.

Many books stop here. Sherman goes further in offering case studies of what churches have done in their communities to pursue each of these six initiatives. She discusses instances of churches pursuing the good by strengthening marriages, the truth by partnering with public education, the beautiful by investing in the arts, the just and well-ordered through restorative justice and reconciliation, the prosperous by redeeming business for the community good and using assets to build assets, and the sustainable by fighting environmental health hazards and addressing food desserts.

One of the most inspiring stories for me was that of two churches in a low income area of Los Angeles plagued by petroleum drilling operations that failed to provide health protections that would be standard in richer communities. They prayed, they collected information about health impacts, demonstrated publicly and built media awareness while working with city officials, attending public hearings, resulting in enhanced safety requirements that led the drilling company to decide to cease drilling and clean up the site.

What I love about this book is that it moves beyond a broad and biblically grounded vision to examples of how churches have had a redemptive influence in their communities in each of these area–churches across the country. In the concluding chapter, she outlines the steps church leaders can take for similar engagement in their own communities. The language of flourishing crops up in almost everything I read these days. The difference in the case of this book is that it shows how ordinary believers working together have pursued flourishing in a variety of ways that contribute to healthy communities. This work doesn’t gain the notice that scandals and political alliances do. But it pursues the common good and commends the gospel of the kingdom. In my book that is far better than media prominence!

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