The Serviceberry,Robin Wall Kimmerer, illustrations by John Burgoyne. Scribner (ISBN: 9781668072240) 2024.
Summary: A day of picking serviceberries leads to an extended reflection on natural abundance, reciprocity, and gratitude.
An invitation to pick serviceberries results in an extended meditation by Robin Wall Kimmerer on “abundance and reciprocity in the natural world,” in the words of her subtitle. She marvels at the abundant clusters of berries, rapidly filling her pail. This is sheer gift, both to her and the birds filling their bellies” with berries. All one can do is give thanks for this gift, and share the abundance. As she does so, she considers the web of reciprocity the berries represent. Bushes nourished by fallen leaves, birds nourished by berries. Birds spreading their seeds, spreading the bushes to new locations. Kimmerer recalls how the berries are part of the traditional Potawatomi food economy.
It’s an economy unlike the market economy that dominates most of our economic transactions. Instead, Kimmerer reflects on the gift economy her serviceberry experience represents. Specifically, it reminds her of the source of the gift and how that implies care both for the source and for the gift itself. And she considers how commoditization of gifts promotes accumulation rather than sharing, scarcity rather than abundance.
I was struck by how contrary to our individualism are the gift economies she describes. Instead of accumulating paper currency or its equivalent, the currency of gift economies is gratitude and connection. The prosperity of each is shared in the anticipation of enjoying the generosity of others. One charts, not the flow of money, but relationships. Kimmerer points to the potlatches of Pacific Northwest people as a well-known example of gift economy.
She reflects on ways gift economies function in our mixed economies. These range from free garden produce stands to Little Free Libraries (and their larger tax-supported counterparts). They include public parks and lands that we all enjoy. The latter part of the book then considers the ethic of honorable harvest in gift economies, versus the unchecked extractive nature of our commodity economies. Through a question posed by a fellow tribal member, she queries, “If the economy requires people to consume more resources than the earth can replenish, just to keep the whole thing from collapsing, isn’t it time for a new economy?”
Kimmerer is not an economist but an ecologist. But what she observes from her ecology and the wisdom of indigenous peoples, makes a case for economists to begin thinking about that new economy. What is most notable for me however is that Kimmerer’s ecology and her gift economy are full of gratitude, generosity, joy, connectedness, and wholeness. It is not an ethic of fear, guilt, or burden, or survival of the economically fittest. There is a goodness about what she describes that is perhaps the most powerful argument for devoting ourselves to learn the gift economy. G’chi megwech, Robin Wall Kimmerer!
Summary: Distinguishes types of secularism, opposes dismantling religious freedom, and proposes a new apologetic.
Religious Freedom. It is enshrined as one of the “first freedoms” of the First Amendment of the U.S., Constitution. Yet in recent years, both in courts and the public square, it has been a source of contention. From the left, the conflict between sincerely held belief and an all-pervasive interpretation of non-discrimination has led to efforts to weaken and dismantle this freedom. The political right in turn has weaponized political freedom, using it to galvanize political support from a segment of religious voters. And these polarities exist in many national contexts, including the author of this work’s home country of Australia.
Michael F. Bird seeks to do several things in this work. First, he argues that secularism, per se, is not the bogeyman. Rather, he argues that secularism properly understood creates a space for people of all faiths and none to engage one another from a position of safety in civil society. It means no one religion obtains political power and that persuasion rather than power is the way beliefs are promoted. The problematic form of secularism is militant secularism or secularization. This is where religion loses its social significance or is actively marginalized as dangerous. Militant secularism has risen as a critique of religious violence as well as a source anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination.
This brings Bird to his second aim, which is to address the arguments against religious liberty. Since in many countries, the opposition has come from LGBTQ+ efforts to assert rights, Bird focuses his treatment here. He discusses the efforts to balance LGBTQ+ rights and religious conscience. On one hand he argues that Christians doing business in the world ought to serve those with whom they disagree and that civil protections of LGBTQ+ rights are good. At the same time he, argues for protecting the rights of churches and Christian organizations to operate according to their own beliefs. Where each side respects liberties rather than seeking total wins, compromises protecting the rights and safety of both groups are possible.
Bird rejects both the weaponizing of religious liberty in the Christian nationalism some on the right embrace and progressive authoritarianism from the left. Instead, he upholds John Inazu’s idea of confident pluralism. This means refusing to use coercive power against either different identity groups or against religious groups. Finally, he argues that upholding genuine religious freedom, which is more than freedom of worship, is the best way to protect a diverse, multicultural society.
Thirdly, Bird outlines his ideas of what it means to be a Christian in a post-Christian, secular society. He calls this “the Thessalonian strategy.” First, he encourages a focus on “mere Christianity.” Second, he urges affirming religious liberty for all. This includes the making of friends with those of different faiths or no faith. Third, he believes Christians need to be known for their love, and for being counterculturally “weird.” This includes drawing our leadership from the cultural margins. Fourth, he argues for seeing our work as a form of worship and seeking to influence all sectors of society. By these “tactics” he believes Christians will, like the Thessalonians, “turn the world upside down” and make the most of our freedom.
Bird concludes by proposing that this is a “grand age of apologetics.” He argues that all religions, and not just Christian faith, offer significance, identity, a basis for moral reasoning, ritual, community, and hope. Religious freedom protects those contributions to society. And the Christian apologist has the opportunity to root these values in the story of a God who is there, is good, and through his Son, died and rose for our redemption.
I appreciate the balances Bird strike throughout. He recognizes that rights aren’t absolute but are worked out in the mix of competing groups. He affirms the value of secularism. It creates a space of safety for diverse groups. And I think a strength of his approach is his focus on persuasion rather than power. I can’t help but wonder if the resort to politics reflects a loss of confidence in the gospel. Bird reminds us we have something more powerful than partisan allegiance. We have the risen Lord.
Habits of Hope, Todd C. Ream, Jerry Pattengale, and Christopher J. Devers, editors, foreword by Amos Yong. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514010709) 2024.
Summary: Essays by educators on six key practices and how they may cultivate hope among faculty and students.
The pressures on those who teach in higher educational contexts have continued to ratchet up. The Covid pandemic intensified the pressure on professors and stresses in the lives of students. More recently, educational institutions have come under scrutiny and fire from federal and state governments that have included the suspension of research grants. Many educators are tired and discouraged.
The contributors to this volume don’t address how to ameliorate the larger cultural and institutional challenges. Instead, they focus on the practices at the heart of their work with students. Beginning with Jurgen Moltmann’s Theology of Hope, the editors root the theme of this volume in Christian hope. The opening essay by Kevin C. Grove, CSC draws on his experience as a member of the Congregation of the Holy Cross and their motto: Hail the Cross, Our Only Hope and talks about how the cross frames hopeful teaching at the University of Notre Dame.
Then, subsequent essays focus on hope in the following teaching practices:
Integration. Philip Ryken outlines some of the policies and practices at Wheaton that foster faculty development and student efforts to integrate faith and discipline.
Conversation. Cherie Harder, president of the Trinity Forum, discusses the value of discussing important questions in a disciplined and charitable manner. She advocates keeping it real, giving it time, listening, asking questions, avoiding invective, ditching your phone, reading widely, and practicing epistemic humility.
Diversity. Recognizing the controversial character of diversity initiatives, Kimberly Battle-Waters Denu emphasizes the theological and ecclesiological roots of diversity as a Christian practice and how that enriches the educational experience.
Reading. Hans Boersma, in one of the more abstruse essays argues for reading well as part of the process of “deification,” becoming more like God. The hope in understanding in our reading is that all the logoi we read participates in the Logos, the word God has spoken through his Son.
Writing. Jessica Hooten Wilson describes her own love of writing as a child and how we write out of the belief that there is something worth expressing, be it stories, history, or poetry. She shares some of her own practices with students including feedback on drafts rather than grades, written reflections, and reading other writers on writing.
Teaching. David I. Smith explores the how of teaching as more important to the nature of teaching than what is taught. He discusses how community within the classroom may work out practically.
As you might intuit, the context in which these educators work is the Christian college context. Yet educators in the public context might incorporate many of the elements of these practices in their teaching. In particular, Cherie Harder’s conversational practices are vital to Christians seeking to foster public square conversations in public universities. Everything Jessica Hooten Wilson writes about writing is applicable to any Christian working with students on their writing.
Hope is in short supply on campus these days. Yet the investment in the rising generation has always been an exercise in hope. No matter what else is going on, as long as there are students and teachers, there is opportunity for Christians to practice hope. This slim volume helps point the way.
____________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.
It’s funny how you end up reading related books, even when you didn’t plan it that way. In this case. several of the books I reviewed this month concerned the early church’s discussions of the Trinity and the Incarnation. I reviewed a couple of books from university presses, one on free will and one on inflation. I read a wonderful early work by Wallace Stegner and Nobel prize winner Han Kang’s latest novel. There are books in this list on communication and leadership. And of course, there are several mysteries, including the inaugural volume of the Thursday Murder Club and another Cork O’Connor mystery. I loved a new compilation of the works of Stanley Hauerwas and a classic by Simone Weil. You’ll find all these and more in The Month in Reviews: March 2025.
The Reviews
The Trials of Jesus, Paul Barnett. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802884336) 2024. The historical and geopolitical context, the principle figures involved, and the succession of trials Jesus undergoes. Review
Yellowface, R. F. Kuang. William Morrow (ISBN: 9780063250833) 2023. What happens when a famous author dies immediately after sharing an unpublished draft of her latest work with her writer friend. Review
Crowned with Glory and Honor (Studies in Historical and Systematic Theology), Michael A. Wilkinson. Lexham Academic (ISBN: 9781683597308) 2024. Argues for a Christian anthropology based on Chalcedon’s understanding of Christ’s person-nature constitution. Review
Heaven’;s Keep, (Cork O’Connor, 9), William Kent Krueger. Atria Books (ISBN: 9781416556770) 2010. The charter plane Jo is in in goes down in a snowstorm in Wyoming and is not found. Subsequent evidence offers hope. Review
Triune Relationality (New Explorations in Theology), Sherene Nicholas Khouri, foreword by Gary R. Habermas. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514008843) 2024. Argues that relationality is among the perfections of God that only a Triune God meets. Review
Leading Well in Times of Disruption, Joseph W. Handley, Jr., Gideon Para-Mallam, and Asia Williamson, editors. Langham Global Library (ISBN: 9781839739859) 2024. Amid global disruptions, focuses on the qualities needed in those who lead the church’s global mission. Review
Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson, Emily Dickinson, edited by Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Gramercy Books (ISBN: 0517362422) 1982 (originally published 1890, 1891, 1896). A republication of Dickinson’s poems as first published in three series shortly after her death. Review
Shock Values, Carola Binder. University of Chicago Press (ISBN: 9780226833095) 2024 An economic history of the United States, considering the various means used to stabilize prices and control inflation. Review
The Thursday Murder Club(Thursday Murder Club, 1), Richard Osman. Penguin Books (ISBN: 9781984880987) 2021. Four seniors meet on Thursdays to solve cold cases until a present day murder leads to something more. Review
Remembering Laughter. Wallace Stegner, afterword by Mary Stegner. Penguin Books (ISBN: 9780140252408) 1996, (first published 1937). An early Wallace Stegner novella. What happens when Margaret Stuart’s sister comes to live with her and her husband. Review
Communicating for Life, Quentin J. Schultze, foreword by Martin E. Marty. Integratio Press (ISBN: 9781959685098) 2024. An introductory text in communication grounded in a theology of communication and a vision of faithful stewardship. Review
Scripture in Doctrinal Dispute(Doctrine and Scripture in Early Christianity, Volume 2), Frances M. Young. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802882998) 2024. A study of how scripture was used in the doctrinal controversies concerning the Trinity and Christology. Review
Beren and Lúthien, J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien, with illustrations by Allen Lee. HarperCollins (ISBN: 9781328915337) 2018. An edited collection of different versions and extracts of one of the most celebrated love stories of Middle-earth. Review
Free Agents, Kevin J. Mitchell. Princeton University Press (ISBN: 9780691226231) 2023. An argument based on the evidence of the development of nervous systems, for the evolution of individual agency–free will. Review
Light Unapproachable, Ronni Kurtz. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514007105) 2024. An explanation of the doctrine of divine incomprehensibility as well as God’s gracious accommodation. Review
Waiting for God, Simone Weil, Translated by Emma Craufurd with Introduction by Leslie A. Fiedler. Harper & Row Perennial Library (ISBN: 0060902957) 1973 (Originally published in 1951, link and cover photo are to current edition in print). Weil’s correspondence with her mentor and four essays on her religious thought focused around loving and attending to God. Review
Jesus Changes Everything(Plough Spiritual Guides), Stanley Hauerwas, edited by Charles E. Moore with an Introduction by Tish Harrison Warren. Plough Publishing House (ISBN: 9781636081571) 2025. The radical implications of Jesus’ call to follow him for every area of life from personal to societal. Review
The Hollow (Poirot, 26), Agatha Christie. William Morrow (ISBN: 9780062073853) 2011 (first published in 1946). When Poirot sees Dr. John Christow lying dead poolside with Christow’s wife holding the gun, the murderer seems obvious. Review
Paul the Storyteller: A Narratological Approach, Christoph Heilig. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802878953) 2024. A narratological approach showing that Paul combines implicit and explicit narratives, making him a gifted storyteller. Review
We Do Not Part, Han Kang, translated by E. Yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris. Hogarth (ISBN: 9780593595459) 2025. Kyungha makes a harrowing journey through a blizzard to save a friend’s bird, confronting the reality behind her nightmares. Review
Best Book of the Month
I chose Light Unapproachable by Ronni Kurtz. I thought this an example of the best of theological writing. Kurtz offers a highly comprehensible account of divine incomprehensibility, writing with brevity, clear organization, and at a level understandable by the lay person.
Quote of the Month
One of the books I really liked this month was Stanley Hauerwas’ Jesus Changes Everything, part of the Plough Spiritual Guides series. These are edited compilations. In this case I thought it read seamlessly. I loved this statement by Hauerwas on the church:
“Put starkly, the first task of the church when it comes to social ethics is to be the church. Such a claim may well sound self-serving or irrelevant until we remember that what makes the church the church is its faithful manifestation of the peaceable kingdom in the world. As such, the church does not have a social ethic; the church is a social ethic.”
What I’m Reading
A few months ago, I read James F. McGrath’s Christmaker, on the life of John the Baptist. I liked it so much that I’ve followed it up with his more in-depth treatment, John of History, Baptist of Faith. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed a memoir by a former campus minister on the Ignatian Camino, a lesser known pilgrimage than the Camino de Santiago. It’s titled Finding God along the Way. Tending Tomorrow is an Anabaptist reflection on seeking the flourishing of both people and the planet. As part of an Anabaptist community, I find this of great interest.
I decided to tackle American Prometheus on the life of Robert Oppenheimer, who led the effort to make the atom bomb. From the trailers, the movie portrays him as brilliant and troubled. That comes through in the book as well. Finally, I’m reading another Cork O’Connor, in which Cork seems to be in the process of uncovering truths about his long-deceased father.
The Month in Reviews is my monthly review summary going back to 2014!It’s a great way to browse what I’ve reviewed. The search box on this blog also works well if you are looking for a review of a particular book.
We Do Not Part, Han Kang, translated by E. Yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris. Hogarth (ISBN: 9780593595459) 2025
Summary: Kyungha makes a harrowing journey through a blizzard to save a friend’s bird, confronting the reality behind her nightmares.
The nightmares began a few months after Kyungha, a historian, published a book on a massacre. She is making her way in a blizzard through a field of erect torsos like tree stumps as the sea behind her rises…. In the years since, she has struggled with depression and considered suicide. But she shared her dream with Inseon, a photographer who collaborated with her on documentaries. Inseon, who has become a friend, agrees to create an installation that will remember the massacre that was the source of the dreams. Kyungha is not so sure about this idea and asks her friend to drop the project.
Then she receives a text from Inseon, asking her to come to a hospital. Inseon, a woodworker, cut off the tips of a couple fingers and is undergoing a gruesome set of treatments that will last weeks to try to save the tips of her fingers. She has a favor to ask of Kyungha. In the rush to get her to hospital, she left behind her bird, that will soon die without food or water. Inseon lives on the island of Jeju in a remote location by a remote village. Getting there involves flights, bus rides, and hiking a trail up to her remote home. There is no one back home who she can ask to do this.
There are some things you do not deny a friend of twenty years. Kyungha departs immediately only to discover that she is flying into a blizzard. She is not adequately dressed. She manages to get the last bus to the village. Then, in a blinding storm, she has to make her way up to Inseon’s house. Kyungha gets lost, falls, yet miraculously makes her way. She is cold with soaked shoes. She soon begins to feel feverish.
This sets the stage for the second half of the novel, which reads like something of a fever dream. She finds Inseon had not abandoned their project, having cut one hundred logs for the installation. More than that, through a series of visions/dreams/hallucinations, Inseon recounts her mother’s personal accounts of the massive genocide that occurred on Jeju in 1948-1950. The South Korean government, with assistance from the United States, embarked on an effort to cleanse the island of Communism, resulting in the deaths of over 300,000 people [this really happened].
Kyungha confronts the nightmare reality of which her dreams were but a figment. It’s a personal account of Inseon’s mother, father, and extended family, many of whom died. But she experiences something else–the bond between her and Inseon of which the title speaks. Han Kang juxtaposes unspeakable violence and enduring friendship. She captures something of both the unspeakable evil of which we are capable and the nobility that breaks through the darkness. The imagery of dark stumps, rising seas, blizzards, light, and flame powerfully convey that juxtaposition.
Han Kang was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 2024 for her earlier body of work: The Vegetarian, The White Book, Human Acts, andGreek Lessons. While I’ve not read her earlier works, the combination of imagery, the plotting, and the juxtaposition of a friendship with a horror of history reveals Han Kang’s skill and artistic vision.
An image of some tattered old books brought to mind this quote from The Velveteen Rabbit: on how one becomes Real:
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
We often take what it means for stuffed animals to become Real and apply it to people. Hair, eyes, joints, shabbiness–by those tokens I’m becoming more real all the time! Much of this for stuffed animals comes down to being beloved companions. And I suspect that whatever “Realness” there is in me could not be apart from my wife and other loving companions.
But I mentioned books. Certainly they are already real, tangible objects. However there are books with many words on many pages that sit on my shelves that are little more than that. Then again, other books have become “Real” to me. I’ve come to live in Middle-earth, the ancient biblical world, “The Road Not Taken.” Most of the works of C.S. Lewis are “Real.” The pages are yellowed and marked up, the cover worn and curled.
The richness of reading consists at least in part of those books that become Real for us. One reading is not enough. But during first readings, we hear the book’s invitation. And something inside us answers, “I want to know you better.” You know a book has become real when it filters into your conversation. You describe a particularly hospitable home as like Rivendell. Or you refer to those times of encountering the Transcendent that changed you as “burning bushes.”
Do you have books that have become real? If not, are there books that resonated deeply whose invitation to know them better you’ve yet to heed. In answering that call, not only will some books become Real. You will as well.
Five Articles Worth Reading
One of the most “Real” writers I’ve encountered is Flannery O’Connor. This week marked the centennial of her birth. “The Immanent Grace of Flannery O’Connor” offers a glimpse into her insights into both our humanness and the grace we need.
This year also marks the hundredth anniversary of the publication of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitgerald. A.O. Scott, in a visual piece, “It’s Gatsby’s World, We Just Live in It“,” portrays how Gatsby turns up everywhere from Seinfeld to Peanuts.
It’s only been forty years since Neil Postman published a somewhat academic book title Amusing Ourselves to Death. It became Real for me because of its explanatory power. “Still Amusing Ourselves” explores why this book continues to have “legs.”
By the way, Citizen by Claudia Rankine was ranked number one in the Atlantic’s “The Best American Poetry of the 21st Century (So Far).” Looking for contemporary poetry to read? This is a list of twenty-five collections you might look for.
Quote of the Week
As I noted above, March 25 marked the centennial of Flannery O’Connor’s birth in 1925. Here’s a quote in which she “keeps it real”:
“I don’t deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.”
Miscellaneous Musings
Robin Wall Kimmerer’s little book, The Serviceberry is a ray of sunshine amid trade wars and sinking stocks. She writes of a different economy–one of generosity, abundance, and reciprocity–in short, a gift economy. One of the reasons I’ve never tried to monetize this blog or any other platform is that I receive so much from books (and the publishers who send them) that it just makes sense to pass along the gifts.
I wonder if a seed of much of our discontent is that we have not learned the meaning of “enough.” We want more and more (which we then have to figure out how to get rid of), we build economies around never having enough, and of late, in the U.S. have taken to thinking that this great land we call our national home is not enough. I think this will end very badly, and we will never be content so long as we live this way.
But I continue to be grateful for the fine writing of William Kent Krueger.I just began Vermilion Drift. Not only does he portray a middle-aged man dealing with loss as children move away (among other losses) as well as the fate of aging mining towns. It doesn’t hurt that his stories are page-turners as well.
Next Week’s Reviews
Monday: Han Kang, We Do Not Part
Tuesday: The Month in Reviews: March 2025
Wednesday: Todd C. Ream et al, Habits of Hope
Thursday: Michael F. Bird, Religious Freedom in a Secular Age
Friday: Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Serviceberry
So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for March 23-29, 2025!
Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page
Summary: A narratological approach showing that Paul combines implicit and explicit narratives, making him a gifted storyteller.
In my biblical training, we learned to distinguish genres, with the gospels generally consisting of narrative, whereas the letters of Paul were examples of discourse. Of course, neither of this is strictly true. Furthermore, two key New Testament scholars, Richard B. Hays and N. T. Wright pioneered “narrative approaches” to Paul. However, they dismissed the idea of explicit narratives in Paul, observing “narrative substructures (Hayes) or “implicit worldview narratives” (Wright).
Christoph Heilig, while appreciating the pioneering work of these scholars, believes they are wrong in dismissing explicit narratives. He wrote a 600 page dissertation (in German) in 2018. This work follows the organization of the dissertation but is about half the length and in English. He takes the narrative approach a step further, engaging in narratological analysis at a linguistic, grammatological level. While he confirms the use of implicit narrative, he also demonstrates that Paul incorporates a number of explicit narratives.
He begins with a definition of narrative by Kindt and Köppe: “A text is a narrative if and only if it deals with at least two events that are ordered temporally and connected in at least one further meaningful way.” He shows different ways this may be done and discusses the interpretation of story, using biblical examples. Then in chapter two, he turns to the grammar of narration and all the ways events may be linguistically connected. This is not for the faint of heart, running to nearly 100 pages. Grammar nerds will love it, especially Greek grammar nerds.
Chapter three turns to narratives within the wider context of Paul’s works. Explicit narrative connects to a broader frame narrative of Paul’s letters, Chapter four then turns to implicit “protonarratives” in Paul, offering numerous examples of these. Then, in chapter five, he returns to Hays and Wright, confirming aspects of their proposals, and arguing for much closer attention to the way Paul implicitly and explicitly narrates. Particularly, he critiques Wright’s worldview narrative approach as focused more on overarching plot rather than building up from careful analysis of both explicit narrative and implicit protonarratives.
As you may deduce, this is a rigorously technical account, putting forth an argument for a narratological approach to Paul. In addition to contributing to a larger scholarly conversation, Heilig offers resources to enrich the exegesis of Paul’s writing, foundational work, first for commentators, and then for preachers. While it is not easy work, good exegetical work never is. I hope Heilig will build upon and model this work in a commentary (or two!) on one of the Pauline letters.
____________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.
The Hollow (Poirot, 26), Agatha Christie. William Morrow (ISBN: 9780062073853) 2011 (first published in 1946).
Summary: When Poirot sees Dr. John Christow lying dead poolside with Christow’s wife holding the gun, the murderer seems obvious.
John Christow is a Harley Street physician. His patients love him. But his real passion in medicine is not the stream of patients to his office, but his efforts to cure Ridgeway’s Disease, focused on one gritty old woman, Mrs. Crabtree. His other passion? Women. He’s had a string of affairs before and after the dutiful and seemingly dull-witted Gerda, who is waiting his lunch upstairs. He’s slow to see his last patient thinking of Henrietta Savernake, his current affair, who he will see at the Hollow this weekend.
The Hollow is the country home of Sir Henry and Lucy Angkatell. All the relations are coming. Henrietta is Sir Henry’s cousin and an accomplished sculptress. Edward Angatell is a distant cousin, and the holder of the family home, Ainswick. He’s a bachelor but has loved Henrietta since they were teens. Meanwhile, Midge Hardcastle is a young cousin of Lucy’s, and has always held an affection for Edward. She renounced any family support, working in a dressmaker’s shop. Finally, David Angkatell is the youngest, a bookish, aloof, introvert who doesn’t seem to like anyone, but stands to inherit Ainswick if Edward has no children.
The one responsible for this gathering is Lucy. Forgetful, blunt, conniving, and surprisingly shrewd, she is the one who stage manages this gathering, as well as the family relationships and future, as best she can. She’d like to get Edward and Henrietta together and even loosen up young David. One thing she fails to control is the sudden appearance of actress Veronica Cray, resident of a nearby cottage, needing to borrow a box of matches. John Christow is starstruck. Before his marriage to Gerda, he and Veronica had a torrid affair, broken off because he wouldn’t follow her to Hollywood. She asks him to escort her home. But he doesn’t return until 3 am the next morning.
The next day is Sunday and Poirot is coming to lunch at Lucy’s invitation. As it turns out he has a modest cottage nearby. Just before he arrives, a gunshot rings out. Henrietta and Edward arrive to find John Christow lying by the pool, bleeding out from a fatal gunshot wound. And Gerda is standing over him as Poirot arrives and takes in the scene. Poirot kneels by the dying doctor, who intently looks at him, speaking one word. “Henrietta.” Then he dies. Henrietta, unwisely perhaps, takes the gun from Gerda only to have it fall into the pool, wiping out any fingerprints.
When Inspector Grange arrives, he’s pretty sure Gerda is guilty, even though she claims to have picked up the gun lying by Dr. Christow. Yet things aren’t as they seem. Ballistics reveal another gun killed him, possibly another from Sir Henry’s gun collection that is missing. Gerda goes free to mourn while the search is on. And there’s a country house of suspects. Was Henrietta jealous? What did Christow’s last word mean? What about Veronica Cray, who was heard fighting with Christow and threatening him earlier that morning? Even Gudgeon, the butler, and Lucy are spotted with guns. But when the murder weapon is found, the prints don’t match any of these people.
Poirot talks to all of them. And he comes away with the sense they all know something. The clues seem staged. But by whom? And for what end? In the end, Poirot will figure it out, preventing one more murder as he does so.
This was Christie at the top of her game. An intricate plot, numerous red herrings, and the diverting subplot around Edward. All the ingredients for a great country house murder!
Jesus Changes Everything(Plough Spiritual Guides), Stanley Hauerwas, edited by Charles E. Moore with an Introduction by Tish Harrison Warren. Plough Publishing House (ISBN: 9781636081571) 2025.
Summary: The radical implications of Jesus’ call to follow him for every area of life from personal to societal.
Did answering the call of Jesus to follow him turn your life upside down (or rather right side up)? Stanley Hauerwas has maintained through all of his writing that Jesus changes everything. Following him isn’t about inspiring messages followed by polite chit-chat in the church lobby that has little effect on life Monday through Saturday. Rather, this collection of readings from his works demonstrates how Jesus indeed changes everything from our life orientation to our identification with God’s people to our money, our pursuit of peace, and even our politics.
The book is organized in six sections. What follows is a brief summary to highlight what you will find:
Part I: Following Jesus. Jesus call is a call to follow him, giving him our ultimate allegiance, even unto death, to get out of the boat far from shore and come to him. It’s not a call to an abstract kingdom but into relationship with the living, breathing king. But to follow this king is not a modification of the existing social order, but to become part of a new social order. While love is central to that life, it is love defined by the cross, where Jesus fully identifies with sin and suffering to raise us to new life.
Part II: Good News. The good news is that in Christ the impossible of the sermon on the mount becomes possible. There is really more to life than living for ourselves. Jesus means it when he calls us to be perfect because that perfection is already in effect in him, and may be in us as we look at and follow him. This way of living subverts the existing social order as it embraces a community of reconciliation and forgiveness.
Part III: God’s Alternative Society. At Pentecost, God created something new out of people from every language group. Specifically he created the alternative society called church. It is a society characterized by truth and charity. It is our first family through baptism. For Hauerwas, this has radical implications for marriage, which is supported and derived from our other commitments. Hauerwas contends, “You do not fall in love and then get married. You get married and then learn what real love requires.’
Part IV: Kingdom Economics. Hauerwas is blunt. We have a problem with wealth and we try to soften the radical teaching of Jesus. The issue is whether we see our goods voluntarily at the disposal of others and are able to say “enough” to ourselves. To not offer help we are able to give is theft. Even the prayer for daily bread is for our bread. He asks whether we are closer to the extravagant Mary or the grifting Judas.
Part V: Sowing Seeds of Peace. The way of Jesus is the way of peace. He made peace with God and with one another possible at the cross. He challenges Christians to practice this when we have grievances and he speaks a challenging word to divisive political partisanship. Any identification of Christianity with party or nation is idolatrous. Rather Christians are to “help the world find habits of peace.” He unflinchingly calls Christians to non-violence which may mean “that we and those we love cannot be spared death.” This is dangerous business, only to be contemplated with the hope of the resurrection. He makes the modest proposal that Christians begin by at least agreeing that they will not kill each other.
Part VI: The Politics of Witness. The question is not which party or policies ought the church support. Instead, Hauerwas argues,
“Put starkly, the first task of the church when it comes to social ethics is to be the church. Such a claim may well sound self-serving or irrelevant until we remember that what makes the church the church is its faithful manifestation of the peaceable kingdom in the world. As such, the church does not have a social ethic; the church is a social ethic.”
Jesus alone is king. Rather than killing for freedom, we are called to faithfulness, even unto death. Instead of seeking social status through political alliances, we pursue our freedom to be the church apart from any social order. Rather than the polite society of Sunday mornings being the church could actually get us in trouble, Hauerwas concludes; “By God, sisters and brothers, being Christian could turn out to be more interesting than we had imagined.”
More interesting indeed. This is an uncomfortable book. But it has the ring of truth as being faithful to the one who went to the cross and bids us die. Charles E. Moore captures the message of Hauerwas across the years, and articulates an alternate path to quiet discouragement or political captivity. He skillfully edits the readings to make this a seamless composition. He also offers a brief biography of Hauerwas complemented by an Introduction by former Times columnist Tish Harrison Warren.
I love these Plough Spiritual Guides. Each one I’ve read calls me into both an encounter with Christ, and to the life of following him. This one is no exception. If you are discouraged with the state of the contemporary church, pick this up. It will both challenge your heart and capture your imagination.
____________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.
Waiting for God, Simone Weil, Translated by Emma Craufurd with Introduction by Leslie A. Fiedler. Harper & Row Perennial Library (ISBN: 0060902957) 1973 (Originally published in 1951, link and cover photo are to current edition in print).
Summary: Weil’s correspondence with her mentor and four essays on her religious thought focused around loving and attending to God.
Simone Weil is a “one off” figures. She struggled with migraine headaches. She worked tirelessly while paying little heed to her own nourishment or her worsening tuberculosis. Weil struggled with her intellectual inferiority to her brother, the mathematician Andre Weil, mostly because she struggled with geometry while producing profound religious and philosophic insight. She died young, at the age of 34.
Waiting for God captures the essence of her spiritual journey and insights into one’s relationship with the transcendent God. The title captures a theme running through the correspondence and essays that make up this book. In “The Love of God and Affliction” she writes:
“How are we to seek him? how are we to go toward him? Even if we were to walk for hundreds of years, we should do no more than go round and round the world. Even in an airplane we could not do anything else. We are incapable of progressing vertically. We cannot take a step toward the heavens. God crosses the universe and comes to us.”
Life consists of waiting for God to come to us in love and stir in us love for him. And in her spiritual autobiography written to her priestly mentor, Father Perrin, she describes how during prayer at Assisi and in reciting George Herbert’s poem, “Love,” “Christ himself came down and took possession of me.” Yet despite this profound encounter, she never felt she could enter the church.
Her letters to Father Perrin that make up the first part of this collection, explain her reasoning. Part of her answer is that she does not believe she loves God enough to deserve the grace of baptism. Another aspect is that while she loves the saints and liturgy, she does not love the church. Instead, she fears the flawed influence it might have upon her as a social structure, Thus, she anticipates many of the objections of the “nones” who would describe themselves as spiritual but not religious. While her intellectual integrity prevents her from entering the church, she takes great pains to express her gratitude to Father Perrin. At one point, she writes,
“In gaining my friendship by your charity (which I have never met anything to equal), you have provided me with a source of the most compelling and pure inspiration that is to be found among human things. For nothing among human things has such power to keep our gaze fixed ever more intensely upon God, than friendship for the friends of God.
What a friend Father Perrin must have been!
Then the second part of the book turns to her essays. First is her essay on school studies. Having worked in student ministry, this essay was worth the price of admission. Specifically, Weil draws the connection between prayer and study in the act of attention. In particular, the “lower attention” given to disciplined study develops this faculty in prayer. But I also found myself wondering whether attention in our prayers also may make us attentive in our studies.
From here she discusses “The Love of God and Affliction.” She speaks of the corrosive effects of enduring affliction on the soul and how help may only be found at the foot of the cross. Only by grace may we enter into an apprenticeship of obedience that awaits the coming of God to us.
Her longest essay is “Forms of the Implicit Love of God.” The essay is divided into sections on the love of neighbors, the order of the world, religious practices, friendship, and implicit and explicit love. In contrast to the clarity of her shorter letters, I found this essay more difficult to follow. Perhaps the best way to describe it is that it read a bit like the Pensees with her thoughts grouped under the subheadings.
However, she concludes on a high note in a line by line meditation upon the “our Father.” As have many others she concludes that the prayer “contains all possible petitions; we cannot conceive of any prayer not already contained in it.”
This is but one of the many works she produced, most published posthumously. I differ with her at points. For example, we will never deserve grace, in baptism or anything else. Yet hers is a voice that comes from outside of our echo chambers. Above all, her insight that life consists in waiting for and attending to God captures the heart of Christian devotion.
