Review: Theo of Golden

July 23, 2026July 23, 2026 / rtrube54 / 1 Comment

Theo of Golden

Theo of Golden, Allen Levi. Atria Books (ISBN: 9781668236512) 2025.

Summary: An old man moves to Golden, sees portraits in a coffee shop and in powerful personal encounters gives them to their owners.

I think I’m a latecomer to the Theo of Golden party. For months everyone who has read this book, including friends with discriminating book judgment, have raved about this book. Truthfully, I feared buying the book and being disappointed. Instead, I was won over from his first portrait bestowal to Minnette. For those who haven’t yet read, the story in brief is this:

An old man, Theo moves from New York City to the southern town of Golden to look after his properties. On visiting the local coffee shop, he notices the pencil-drawn portraits of local residents. He conceives the plan to give them to their proper owners. He purchases them, works with Mrs. Gidley, the administrator for James Ponder, whose vacant apartment he has rented, to contact each with a personal note. In it he invites them to meet him at a particular bench by a fountain known as the Fedder..

Along the way, he becomes deeper friends with some of the residents. James Ponder becomes not only advisor but friend and confidant. Others include Tony, a Vietnam vet bookstore owner, a little girl, Lamisha, with extensive injuries from a car crash, an eccentric, homeless cyclist, Ellen and a gifted young cellist, Simone. Then there is his deepening friendship with the artist of the portraits, Asher Glissen.

I won’t go further than that in the plot except to note we know little of Theo’s background except that he grew up in Portugal, lost a daughter, and obviously is a man of great means. What we do learn, and what makes this book so compelling is the humble and beautiful character of Theo.

What most seems to stand out is how fully present he is to each person he meets. Instead of talking about himself, he listens to and draws out stories, making people feel safe with him. Theo even wins the trust of Ellen, the eccentric homeless woman, with whom he eventually goes on a bike adventure, something no one has ever done. He notices and names. He studies each portrait and then speaks of what he sees in that person from what they’ve said and what he sees. Then he gently invites them to live into what he has named.

He loved beauty and joy. Whether it was evening reveries by the Oxbow River, delight in a street musician, or enjoyment of a rare bottle of port with his bookstore friend on that man’s birthday, he had a great capacity to take joy in beauty. We learn that giving away portraits in Golden has been the happiest time of his life.

Yet he was a man who knew deep sadness in a romance broken off, and the death of his daughter. One of the most profound passages, in which he names a gift of the artist, Asher Glissen is about sadness. He has just observed that he sees sadness in every portrait of Glissen’s.

“It is a very high compliment, young man. A very high compliment indeed. Perhaps I am mistaken but, at some point, if we are wise, we must all confront our sadness, our brokenness, our disappointment. I am quite certain that your portraits help some people in a very tender and courteous way, to ask themselves, maybe for the first time, ‘Who is that person? What do I know to be true, really true, about that face?…Asher, we are masters at masking our sadness, but deep down inside, if we are honest, we know that there is an unsatisfied longing deep inside all of us. Your portraits invite people to be alone and quiet and truthful with themselves, to admit the longing and to discover the goodness in their sadness. Maybe?”

Asher is also one who notices and names through his portraits.

Finally, Theo is a man of deep faith. While Tony, the bookstore owner scoffs at the idea, Theo quietly hopes in heaven. This vision of heaven is evident in the Christmas gifts he gives. He invites Simone, the cellist, to play for the angels. He calls the little girl, Lamisha, a daughter of the King. And he writes to Asher,

“It is an imponderable thought that the Giver of Faces, the face of heaven itself, the face for which every heart yearns, became a wee babe, misty-eyed and helpless, looking Himself for the tender face of his mother on the night of the angels.”

I understand why this book has touched the hearts of many. We are confronted with heartlessness in our media every day. Levi’s book speaks to a yearning in us that believes “another life is possible” as my friends in the Bruderhof describe it. Theo embodies that life. His presence paints a picture of the Christ-transformed life. He incarnates the deep humility, gentleness, generosity, playfulness, and compassion of the Lord of heaven. And quietly, Theo of Golden invites us into that same kind of life.

Review: Can You Just Sit With Me?

October 6, 2023October 6, 2023 / rtrube54 / 1 Comment

Can You Just Sit With Me?, Natasha Smith. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2023.

Summary: An extended reflection for Christians permitting ourselves and others to grieve well and how we may accompany those who are grieving.

Can you just sit with me? Have you ever felt like that in a time of pain, grief, or loss? You don’t want to be asked questions, or to be fixed, or told to “get over it,” or be counselled. You just want a friend or friends who will be there with silence, a listening ear, a caring hug, and to hand you another tissue when you need it.

The title captures both the longing of the grieving and the point of this book so well. Natasha Smith has known more grief than one would think one could bear in a lifetime. It has left her with lots of questions, including questions for God. But one thing she knows. Our culture isn’t very good at giving people the space to grieve and the time to heal. Out of her own experience she helps others who are grieving to understand that what they feel is normal. And she helps those who want to care to know how to sit with the grieving.

She discusses the nature of grief and particularly offers a helpful chart contrasting myths versus facts about grief. The first of these is that the myth is that everyone grieves in stages when the fact is that grief doesn’t follow the rules. Another resource in this discussion that is powerful is Alan D. Wolfelt, Ph.D’s “Mourner’s Bill of Rights” which begins, “You have the right to experience your unique grief” and enumerates nine more “rights.”

In successive chapters she discusses the truth that God understands, the many questions loss and grief raises and the freedom to confess these to God, our struggles with unanswered prayers, and our struggle to finds meaning. In discussing the dual process of loss- and restoration-orientation in grieving, Smith proposes that we can take a break from loss to long for home, to think about rebuilding. She discusses the invisible griefs, the losses that are not always recognized as losses to grieve. Grief is also revealing–it reveals what is true of us and our identity in God. Smith uses an “I am…” exercise to help us identify the things we are coming to understand both about ourselves and who we are in Christ. She talks about how we may both love Jesus and grieve in her “Both/And Jesus” chapter. She observes Jesus own path of grief and what we may learn about the healing of grief from him. In her concluding chapter “As We Sit,” she ties it all together. She offers a helpful series of statements we can share with others in our grief.

Each chapter combines Smith’s personal stories, biblical principles centering on Jesus, and a grief exercise in each chapter. We are invited to retell our grief story, to recollect the names of God, to confess our questions, to pray breath prayers, to consider what grief does in us, to write a lament, to journal and pray our invisible griefs, and more.

The book reads like a conversation–we are invited to “feel all the feels.” Smith both helps us understand the grief journey and unabashedly speaks of how God meets us in it–not to fix it or to tell us to get over it, but to accompany us, to quietly minister to us, to heal us, and to change us. This understanding of grief and how God meets us is also important for those who care for those who grieve. We can just sit with the grieving, both because grief doesn’t follow rules, and God alone heals. We so want to do more, and yet that is not for us. We sit, and listen, and weep with, and love and pray. And with God, that is enough.

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

Reading When Others Want to Talk

July 18, 2019July 15, 2019 / rtrube54 / Leave a comment

Screenshot of GIF posted on BookBub

Have you ever been trying to read when others want to talk and you end up reading the same paragraph over and over again? Do you find yourself internally “clinching up” and having to stifle your impulse to scream “shut up!”

Unless we decide to become hermits (who still depend on others for the necessities of life), a reality of life is that there will be times when we want to read and others want to talk. Even more, sometimes they want to talk with us!

Here are a few thoughts of how I (very imperfectly) deal with this dilemma:

Sometimes you just need to give it up and choose relationships over books. Especially with spouses or partners or children who want to talk with us. Does it really pay to lose those you love to lose yourself in a book? I hope you don’t have to think too long about that!
This also applies to social gatherings. Most people don’t assume this is a time for reading unless it has been arranged as a reading party–yes there is such a thing, and I’ve written about it.
Try reading when others are sleeping, although this means sleeping on a different schedule.
Agree on times that are “reading times” as a family. For the sake of the talkers, don’t exceed them! People will more readily allow you time to read if they know when you will be available–and you are.
Sometimes, finding a quiet place, like a library reading room can work if that is the shared expectation. It only takes one loud talker on a cell phone to spoil it!
If you want to read where there are conversations going on that don’t involve you but can be distracting, choose books that engage your attention, and don’t involve careful reading of densely articulated ideas.
Depending on how you and other people in your household feel about it, and their bodily needs, the bathroom can sometimes offer a temporary refuge–emphasis on temporary!
Weather permitting, is there a place outside your home that might be secluded, perhaps a “readers garden”? (I draw this term from a nearby bookstore of the same name).
Speaking of bookstores, these also sometimes have alcoves or seating that allow for reading, and should be places that respect that.
Sometimes, the best answer that combines reading and sociability is to read aloud together. Maybe you can even give each member of the family or group a chance to share a passage of what they are reading.

Reading is a conversation with an invisible author and requires our full attention. So do conversations with people. Most of the time, trying to multitask means we end up doing both badly, present to neither conversation. At least part of our screen time on cell phones is also reading–texts, comments, news, and shopping sites. Perhaps the offense of not being present happens here more than anywhere. Sometimes we are more present with what is on the screen than the person we are sitting with.

It all comes down, I guess, to which conversation we really want to be in.

Review: Life in the Presence of God

November 20, 2017November 19, 2017 / rtrube54 / 1 Comment

Life in the Presence of God, Kenneth Boa. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2017.

Summary: A contemporary discussion of the idea that a vital Christian life is one increasingly lived on a moment by moment basis in the presence of God.

So what exactly is an authentic Christian life? A set of activities or practices does not quite seem enough. Nor is adherence to a set of beliefs. Kenneth Boa, in this book, joins generations of Christians in proposing that a vital Christian life is led increasingly in the moment by moment presence of God. In his introduction, he frames it this way:

“Sure, it’s good to give the first–or the last–moments of our day to God. But what about the rest of the day? It’s so easy for our hearts and heads to end up somewhere else. Is that how God really wants us to live? Is that what he really had in mind when he said he’d give us abundant life (John 10:10)?

I’m proposing that we take our life with God–and our awareness of his presence–with us everywhere, not just into our quiet times but into our noisy times too, incorporating practices into our lives that help us keep that awareness right in front of us, throughout the day, every day.”

Boa’s book is divided into two parts. The first explores the biblical basis of this idea. This wasn’t thought up by Brother Lawrence, but rooted in the reality of what it means to be in Christ. Boa explores the biblical images, biblical exemplars culminating in Christ, and the image of “walking” with God that runs through scripture.

The second part turns to how we may learn to practice God’s presence. Here he does commend Brother Lawrence, the experiment of Frank Laubach and other practices of learning increasingly to abide moment by moment in Christ. Boa points to modern neuroscience’s understanding of the plasticity of our brains and how they may be re-wired through repeated practice. This also involves learning to re-see our world, specifically that we see that all of it matters to God and seeing it in the light of eternity. How we see our time is critical, especially in an age of busy-ness. Taking time to surrender our days to God in our waking moments, finding time to recollect ourselves through the day, and to conclude our days in thanksgiving and reflection are all important as well as establishing rhythms of work, rest, and sabbath.

Suffering and sin are also realities that intrude upon our lives. In suffering, we learn both to lament and to walk in God’s presence in the way of the cross. In sin, growth in experiencing God’s presence means learning to recognize the stages of temptation (a section that was worth the price of the book for me!) and to quickly confess and repent.

The book concludes with two chapters that focus on our visions of community and of the well-lived life. While we can have unhealthy notions of community, which Boa discusses, good communities practice encouragement that leads to growth, accountability, and living the gospel with “one another” in communities where good soul care is practiced. Finally, to live in God’s presence is to become who we were meant to be–to live into our calling–even as Strider the Ranger must become Aragorn the King in Lord of the Rings. To be in the Lord’s presence is to live with a different vision of the “good life” centered around a vision of eternity.

Each chapter concludes with practical exercises that help us hear God’s Word and to practice his presence. It is the practical element, combined with good biblical grounding and Boa’s own experience, that makes this book so helpful whether you are a recent convert or a lifelong believer. Boa focuses his attention on the everyday in our lives, which in fact make up most of life. To live in God’s presence here is to discover God’s presence in all of our lives from the seemingly mundane to the moments of crisis. And to live in God’s presence is to take creatures rooted in time, and help them live in the light of eternity. Could anything be more important?

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Luminous

May 17, 2016May 16, 2016 / rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Luminous, T. David Beck. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2013.

Summary: Explores how purpose, presence, power and peace enable us to radiate the light of Christ in our everyday lives.

“Jesus never intended his people to sit in neat rows like drones on Sunday mornings, or even to fill up our schedules doing things for him because we think he would like them. He wants relationship—such a close relationship, in fact, that he actually shines through us. That’s how he wants to show the world who he is.”

It was to this conviction that David Beck came after a life-changing mission trip to Haiti when he had the opportunity to save the life of a sick child he had been looking after in a feeding program. This led him to a fresh embrace of the truth that living the Christian life was not a matter of living for Jesus but with him, in which his presence becomes luminous in our lives.

In this book, Beck traces the formational practices that position us to shine with the light of Christ under four words: purpose, presence, power, and peace. First of all in chapter two he talks about embracing the missional purpose of Jesus and to keep saying “yes” to that purpose in a life of ever deepening surrender. Chapters 3 through 5 explore the idea of presence with God, our bodies, and each other. Striking here to me is that Beck joins a growing number of those who stress the importance of affirming our embodied life and the practices of offering that life to God.

Chapters 6 through 8 focus on power. There is paradox here as he talks about the power of surrender and the power of humility in the first two of these chapters. Yet the surrender is indeed empowering as we surrender our tyrannous selves to the God who can free us, as we relinquish prideful control to be receptive and available to God. All this opens us to the empowering presence of the Spirit of God, which he discusses in chapter 8. This may make some uncomfortable with its openness to Pentecostalism and yet focuses on the essential that life- and light-giving ministry must be in the power of the Spirit. He affirms a simple, wait-receive-go pattern to ministry.

Chapter 9 then speaks of a peace or shalom that re-frames evangelism as compassion that draws people into conversation about Jesus, mercy that models the mercy of God toward all, and justice that seeks the liberation of people from spiritual as well as physical oppression. The book then concludes with the challenge to accept trials and a life of simplicity in a high contrast life of light in darkness.

One of the most helpful aspects of the book are pauses at the end of almost every section to reflect and act upon the content of each section and prayer exercises at the end of most chapters. What separates this book from many books on mission and many books on spiritual formation is how it unites the two of these at a very personal, and not merely theoretical level. Yet this makes so much sense. Mission is leading people into encounters with the living, risen Christ and how can this occur if He is not indeed living within us?