The Common Rule by Justin Whitmel Earley

There are lots of books about spiritual disciplines, but this one is unique because it addresses the use of digital media head on. When our phones take up so much of our time, how do we, as Christians, create healthy habits around them?  

Justin Whitmel Earley encourages four daily habits and four weekly habits that are designed to draw us closer to God and wean us away from dependence on social media for affirmation and dopamine hits. The daily habits are 1) Kneel for prayer three times a day, 2) Eat one meal with others, 3) Spend one hour with your cellphone off, 4) Read Scripture before turning on your phone.

The weekly habits are 1) Spend one hour of conversation with a friend, 2) Curate your media (movies/videos) to four hours, 3) Fast from something for 24 hours, and 4) Keep the Sabbath.

The chapter on Daily Habit #3 (Turn of your phone for one hour a day) was the most important chapter in the book for me, not because I don’t already limit my cell phone use, but because it gave good theological reasons for continuing to do so. Presence is the essence of life itself. It’s at the heart of who we are because presence is at the core of our relationship with God. From creation to salvation, the story of the Bible is fundamentally a story of presence. Eden was Eden because the unmediated presence of God was there. God was with Adam and Eve till sin broke the bliss of that presence. After they sinned, Adam and Eve wanted to cover their nakedness and hide. This is the hallmark of life as we know it now.  We hide from each other and we hide from God. We long for the face of God, but we can’t bear his gaze either. Sin has turned a people meant for presence into a people of absence. Fortunately, the story of the Bible doesn’t end there. God in His mercy still pursues His rebellious children.

Although I appreciated this book very much, I found parts of it to be annoying (Earley’s bragging about how good he is at speaking Chinese was one example). Also, the subtitle of this book could have been “Spiritual Disciplines for Social Justice Warriors” because of how often he tacked on social justice issues to each discipline. Don’t get me wrong. I LOVED his emphasis on spiritual disciplines that are rooted in the two commandments to “Love God and love your neighbor.” What better motivation can you have for getting off your phone than to be fully present to those around you and to pursue the goals that God has put into your heart to fulfill His purposes?

But some of the ways he prescribes to do that are just plain odd. In the chapter on curating your media time, he strongly suggests that you watch things that show the injustice in the world so that you can feel miserable about it. But feeling bad about injustice is not biblical justice. (See Voddie Baucham's explanation of the difference in this video.)

Anyway, this book stretched me in a lot of ways and I'm glad I read it. Any thoughts?

Blessings, 

The Four Loves by C.S Lewis

I was intrigued when I heard that C.S. Lewis narrated this book himself, and was pleased to see that my library had it for digital download. But I didn’t realize that there were two versions. The one that Lewis does so wonderfully is a set of four lectures he gave on the radio in 1958, and is basically a rough draft of the final book, which was released two years later. I enjoyed the radio talks so much that I dug out my physical copy to underline favorite bits. I discovered, however, that it was practically impossible to find the same passages because the final book is twice as long as the radio talks. Obviously, he reworked and rewrote quite a bit of it.

The four loves are 1) Storgé/familial love, 2) Friendship, 3) Eros/romantic love, and 4) Agape/Charity. His description of storgé was so endearing that I had to stop listening and write it down. It comes from Greek and refers to affection, especially of parents to children.

It’s usually the humblest of the loves. It gives itself no airs. Storge is modest, even furtive and shame-faced. Storge has a very homely face. So have many of those for whom we feel it. It’s no proof of your cleverness or perceptiveness or refinement that you love them nor that they love you. To have to produce storge in public is like getting your household furniture out for a move. It was all right in its native place, but it looks tawdry out of doors. And the feeling of storge is so nearly organic, so gradual, so unemphatic, that you can no more pride yourself on it than on getting sleepy towards bedtime. It lives with humble, unpraised private things: the thump of a drowsy dog’s tail on the kitchen floor, the sound of a sewing machine, easy laughter and easy tears on some shrewd and wrinkled old face, a toy left on the lawn. It’s the most comfortable and least ecstatic of loves. It is to our emotions what soft slippers and an easy, almost worn-out chair, and old clothes are to our bodies. It wraps you round like a blanket almost like sleep. At its best, it gives you the pleasure, ease, and relaxation of solitude without solitude itself.

Beautiful, right? But just when I was completely enamored, he delineates all the ways this kind of love can be distorted. That is how the book goes. He explains each type of love at its glorious best and then shows how easily it can turn into something manipulative and selfish. His conclusion comes in the final chapter where he emphasizes the importance of self-giving love as the only solution for keeping the other loves from becoming corrupted. In this chapter he writes his famous lines:

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable…. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. (p. 121)

Note: The book gets a bad rap for some comments he makes about the differences between men and women, but, honestly, don’t let that keep you from reading it. Anything written by Lewis is worth tackling for his wonderful clarity and depth.  

Blessings,

Stories of Faith and Courage from World War II by Larkin Spivey

I must confess that most of my reading about WWII (over 100 books) is about the home front or POW stories. I know very little about specific strategic battles. When I picked up Stories of Faith and Courage from WWII, I was expecting the personal narratives that I’m accustomed to (i.e., uplifting stories of people whose faith helped them to get through the trials of the war), but it was something quite different.

Each month covers a different battle or aspect of the war. January covers the European front with a brief historical overview and includes a map which shows where the major battles were fought. The daily readings, though not heavy on military details, mention the battles, and it is very helpful to have the map at hand. Though the readings are mostly personal reflections from diaries, letters and speeches, I appreciated being able to read them in the context of the much bigger picture.

Also, though many of the entries were uplifting and encouraging, many others gave details of the thousands and thousands of lives lost. Intermixed with letters displaying unusual courage were letters admitting discouragement and despair. Accounts of heroism were inspiring yet heartbreaking. It was a very sobering read.

Here is just one example from March 13:

Life aboard a merchant ship in convoy across the Atlantic was a mixture of boredom and fear. Long days and nights passed without incident. However, when something happened, it usually happened suddenly. Life jackets and precious valuables were kept close at hand. There was also the issue of where to sleep.

The civilian Merchant Marines who manned the ships grimly calculated where they slept aboard ship by the cargo they carried. If you were hauling a load of iron ore, you slept on deck for you had only a few seconds to clear the ship once a torpedo hit. If you carried general cargo, you could sleep below decks but kept your clothes on because your survival time was calculated in minutes. If, however, your ship carried a load of aviation fuel, you were free to sleep naked below decks, with the door closed since you would never have the time to escape the certain and sudden oblivion of a torpedo attack.

This is supposed to be read as a daily devotional book, but I had trouble putting it down. It would be an excellent primer for someone who wants a good overview of the history of the war. I am so glad I read it.

Blessings

The Dazzling Darkness by Guy Bowden

I bought The Dazzling Darkness (1950, Longmans, Green and Co.) mostly because it was the perfect size for reading in bed at night. It was also hard cover, inexpensive, and about a subject that I always enjoy. The subtitle is “An Essay on the Experience of Prayer” and the main title is taken from Henry Vaughan’s poem, The Night. I couldn’t find any pertinent information on Bowden so I went into the book “blind,” which was an advantage since I couldn’t judge the content by any pre-conceived notions.

Bowden opens the book self-deprecatingly: Books about golf are usually written by experts; so are books about Prayer. This one is not. It is written by one who has made, by personal experience, most of the mistakes it is possible to make in praying, and has discovered by the method of trial and error a great deal about “How Not to Pray.” His advice is extremely practical and his excellent prose is sprinkled with quotes from a variety of writers such as St. Teresa of Avila, St. Francis de Sales, Anthony Trollope, C.S. Lewis, E.M. Forster, Shakespeare, Dante, biblical authors, and Carl Jung (more about that later).

Although Bowden does not deny the mystical aspects of prayer, he affirms again and again that it is often just plain hard work. Yet it is a "duty" that brings rich spiritual dividends. I loved his constant emphasis on prayer as willful obedience – not as a slave to a master, but as a son to a beloved father. If we wait until we “feel like” praying, it will rarely happen.

To realize His presence is a very different thing from having sentimental fancies of sugary religiosity in which we can imagine ourselves to be enveloped as it were in the eiderdown of His protective care. To seek for an emotional thrill in every prayer is sentimental nonsense. If the emotion comes, it comes; let us thank God for the refreshment, take courage and go forward. If it does not come, it does not; we have to accept the fact.

We must not think, then, that because there may be very little pleasure in prayer, we must, therefore, be failing miserably. To judge the worth or the value of prayer by the amount of pleasure it affords is to apply far too subjective a test. It directs attention to us and our feelings rather than to God and His purpose and thereby makes us the center of interest instead of Him. If we expect prayer to be always pleasant, we are saying in effect, “Every time I say my prayers I ought to be provided with appropriate feelings” – presumably by God. But the assumption that God ought to do anything wrecks the whole relationship between soul and God, because it puts God in the position of a servant who is expected to perform certain duties, whereas He is King and sitteth between the cherubim. (p. 24)

My only quibble with the book is Bowden’s occasional nod to psychology. He never lets it take precedence over true faith, but he interjects a Jungian understanding of the soul when he talks about repression and the subconscious in chapter 10. That did not, however, dampen my enthusiasm for the book. It was a great encouragement to me to be more diligent in this area of my Christian life knowing that God is greater than all my weaknesses. And that the rewards far surpass any effort involved.

Blessings,

What I Read and Watched in November

When I'm overwhelmed, I do more movie viewing than book reading, so November was light on books. I finished the excellent Norms and Nobility by David Hicks, which is a marvelous book primarily about the fundamentals of classical education, but secondarily about what it takes to be a flourishing, virtuous society. (It's pricey so I'm glad my library had a copy.) Next came Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey, which I really liked after getting past the feminist intro and reading the actual diaries (last 1/5 of the book);  then came Rose-Garden Husband (a fluffy vintage novel), which fit the reading mood I was in. Edith Schaeffer's Hidden Art was not difficult reading, but my brain couldn't quite take it in.  

I enjoyed all the films I watched this month. We like the older Hitchcock movies because they are less grizzly and have a good dose of humor in them. Dan and I watched Foreign Correspondent (1940) and The Lady Vanishes (1938) on YouTube. On another date night we enjoyed I am David (2003) for its good acting and filming. By myself I watched the classic holiday film, The Shop Around the Corner, with the wonderful Jimmy Stewart. I also chuckled through Signed, Sealed and Delivered for Christmas.

Ever have months when reading just seems impossible? With less deadlines in December, I'm hoping to improve! 

Blessings,

The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Farrar Capon

I have never understood the allure of food memoirs, but The Supper of the Lamb may have converted me. Capon, an Anglican priest, author and home chef, opens the book with self-deprecating honesty: I am an amateur. If that strikes you as disappointing, consider how much in error you are. Amateur and nonprofessional are not synonyms. The world may or may not need another cookbook, but it needs all the lovers – amateurs – it can get. It is a gorgeous old place, full of clownish graces and beautiful drolleries, and it has enough textures, tastes and smells to keep us intrigued for a lifetime. Unfortunately, however, our response to its loveliness is not always delight: it is, far more often than not, boredom. And that is not only odd, it is tragic; for boredom is not neutral – it is the fertilizing principle of unloveliness. In such a situation, the amateur – the lover, the man who thinks heedlessness a sin and boredom a heresy – is just the man you need.

He continues: The world looks as if it has been left in the custody of a pack of trolls. Indeed, the whole distinction between art and trash, between food and garbage, depends on the presence or absence of the loving eye. 

Hence his emphasis on the importance of slowing down and paying attention to life’s myriad details, including the delights of cooking from scratch. At times he uses a wise grandfatherly tone; at other times he is more like a back-slapping older brother who loves a good joke and a good cigar. Some passages were hilariously funny. He waxes eloquent on the beauty of onions, the necessity of sharp knives and (most memorable of all) the glory that is baking soda.

Capon uses cooking as a metaphor for life. Don’t go for the processes pre-cooked garbage that passes as food because it’s more convenient. The best things in life take time and care and may even give you heartburn. “Real life” will cost you.

We were given appetites not to consume the world and forget it, but to taste its goodness and hunger to make it great. That is the inconsolable heartburn, the lifelong disquietude of having been made in the image of God. All man’s love is vast and inconvenient. It is tempting, of course, to blunt its edge by caution. It is so much easier not to get involved – to thirst for nothing and no one, to deny that matter matters and, if you have the stomach for it, to make your bed with meanings which cannot break your heart. But that, it seems to me, is neither human nor Divine. If we are to put up with all other inconveniences out of love, then no doubt we must put up with the bother of love itself and not just cut and run for cover when it comes.  

The last 25% of book is recipes, which are a pleasant, but non-essential addition. The main "recipe" is in the first 250 pages and it is on how to live life to the fullest.

 May your eyes be open “to see the bounty of small things.” 

Blessings,

12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You by Tony Reinke

"Owning a smart phone is similar to dating a high

 maintenance attention starved partner."

Every few years I read a book on how technology affects the brain so I can remember why to limit screen time. This year it was Tony Reinke's 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You. Frankly, I was surprised at how pro-technology the book is. 

Reinke contends that technology is morally neutral and that it began in the garden of Eden. Technology is the reordering of raw materials for human purposes.... Musicians re-order notes and sounds into music. Novelists re-order the raw material of human experience into stories. Technology pushes back the results of the Fall (less pain in childbirth, easier ways to plant and harvest, etc.) He admits that technology unhitched from fear and obedience to God quickly becomes a pawn in human power plays and uses the tower of Babel as an example, but, says Reinke, it is the human heart and not technology that is at fault. (If you've read anything by Paul Kingsnorth or Jacques Ellul, you will not agree that our constant upgrading in mechanization is "neutral" or, even, indeed, a sign of human progress. But I digress.)

In each chapter Reinke highlights one way in which our phones are changing our habits. In Chapter 1, he shows how we have become addicted to distraction; in Chapter 2, he writes about how our super-connectedness has robbed us of real relationships. Chapter 8 deals with easy access to porn. You get the idea. 

Although I didn't agree with everything he wrote, I always appreciate someone who makes me think through my habits with more clarity (and less self-delusion!)  

In the chapter on how our phones are making us illiterate, Reinke writes, If you want to internalize a piece of knowledge, you've got to linger over it. But we have been trained not to linger over digital texts. Our lack of self control with digital "marshmallows" malnourishes our sustained linear concentration. Deep reading is harder than ever. What we have today is not illiteracy, but aliteracy: a digital skimming that is simply an attempt to keep up with the deluge of information coming through our phones rather than slowing down and soaking in what is most important. He contends that this way of imbibing the written word leaks over into our Bible reading. The more time I spend reading 10-second tweets, the more it affects my attention span, weakening the muscles I need to read Scripture for long distances.

My favorite emphasis of the book was on how online distractions rob us of our ability to experience deeper pleasures: [As] we feed on digital junk food, our palates are re-programmed and our affections atrophy.... The more we take refuge in distraction, the more habituated we become to mere stimulation and the more desensitized to delight. We lose our capacity to stop and ponder something deeply, to admire something beautiful for its own sake. By seeking trivial pleasures in our phones, we train ourselves to want more of those trivial pleasures. These become the only pleasures we know. Our capacity for deep enjoyment is thus destroyed.

One of the biggest ways my phone has changed me (even though I limit my time on it quite a bit) is that I now have the attention span of a gerbil. The irony is not lost on me that I listened to this book on my phone at 1.25 speed so that I could get through it quickly and move on to other things.

I'd be interested to hear any thoughts you have on this book or on your own digital habits.

Blessings, 

The Valley of Vision by Arthur Bennett

The Valley of Vision is a powerful antidote to the popular teaching that Christianity is primarily about personal success and happiness. My husband and I have been reading a prayer a day for the past year and have often been overwhelmed with the beauty and clarity of each one. 

The focus is always on Christ rather than self. An example from the prayer on repose: Thou art so good, wise, just, holy, that no mistake is possible to thee... I yield to thy sovereignty all that I am and have; do thou with me as thou wilt. Thou has given me silence in my heart in place of murmurings and complaints. Keep my wishes from growing into willings, my willings from becoming fault-finding with thy providences, and have mercy on me.

I loved the book so much that I hate to mention my one quibble with it: the occasional emphasis on self-loathing. A humble recognition of our unworthiness to receive God's grace is everywhere in Scripture. Self-hatred is not. Many verses remind us that God has blotted out our transgressions to remember them no more. Who are we to undo what God has done?

That was a minor complaint. Overall, The Valley of Vision is a rich resource for godly, heartfelt prayers that point us to our heavenly Father in trust and worship. A final quote that I loved was, Give me knowledge of thy goodness that I might not be over-awed by thy greatness; give me Jesus, Son of Man, Son of God, that I might not be terrified, but be drawn near with filial love and holy boldness. 

The Gospel Coalition has an interesting post on the origin of these prayers, which were written by Arthur Bennett (1915-1994). Because Bennett uses the beautiful language of the original prayers (adapting them very slightly), it is hard to believe that this classic was first published in 1975. 

Blessings

A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life by William Law

After 30 years of teaching Theology of John Wesley, I finally decided to read A Serious Call because apart from the Bible it was one of the books that most formed Wesley’s thinking about Christianity. Law begins this devotional classic by defining the nature and extent of Christian devotion, which holds little resemblance to what passes for Christianity today. He reminds us that it is a “serious call” after all, and requires every ounce of our being.

The first chapter goes straight to the sticky issue of how Christians should spend their money.  Using our money in any way we please, says Law, shows we lack intention to please God in all our actions. (Wesley followed Law’s advice to the letter by living frugally all of his life and giving money away as fast as possible. He felt that accumulating wealth was equivalent to holding on to hot coals.)

The next chapters encourage a wholehearted pursuit of God by rising early, reading the Scriptures and singing the Psalms. He writes: Prayer is the nearest approach to God, and the highest enjoyment of Him that we are capable of in this life. It is the noblest exercise of the soul, the most exalted use of our best faculties and the highest imitation of the blessed inhabitants of heaven.

Starting with Chapter 16 he adds suggestions for how to take advantage of certain hours of the day for specific prayers. At 9 a.m., for example, a Christian should spend a few minutes focusing on his need for humility. (He follows with a whole chapter on what true humility entails.) In Chapter 20 he recommends using the noon hour to pray for more love toward others, and follows this up with a clear explanation of  the high cost of real love. (This was my favorite chapter in the whole book and I felt it could easily have been re-titled: "How to pray for those whom you despise and learn to love them in the process.")

Chapter 22 advocates stopping at 3 p.m. to pray prayers of consecration and resignation to God’s will. The whole nature of virtue consists in conforming to, and the whole nature of vice in declining from, the will of God…. Whenever you find yourself disposed to uneasiness or murmuring at anything that is the effect of God’s providence over you, you must look upon yourself as denying either the wisdom or goodness of God. For every complaint necessarily supposes ill usage. (Ouch!)

In Chapter 23 he suggests stopping at 6 p.m. to review the day and confess any sins that were committed. Oddly, the updated version of this book removes all mentions of specific times of day (to avoid sounding too Catholic?) and thus robs the reader of a simple method for remembering when and how to pray for these needs. Tripp’s version was also jarringly anachronistic. The language was not updated very much, but the examples were, which resulted in old-fashioned English phrases next to illustrations about people playing video games, wearing yoga pants and watching movies. Halfway through the Tripp version, I switched to the original version and had no problem with the language or the original examples. And the Dover version came with very helpful footnotes.

Once I got hold of a good version (free download from my library), I couldn’t believe how much I loved this book. It is a book to be read slowly and prayerfully that will comfort and strengthen the heart of any earnest seeker.

Blessings,

You Are Not Your Own by Alan Noble

Weeks after finishing You are Not Your Own, its ideas continue to resonate with me. Noble sets out to explain how we Americans have come to the place where hyper individualism is killing us rather than fulfilling us.

He writes, If I am my own and belong to myself, then I must define who I am…. And the terrifying thing is that everyone else in society is doing the exact same thing. Everyone is on their own private journey of self-discovery and self-expression, so that at times, modern life feels like billions of people in the same room shouting their own name so that everyone else knows they exist and who they are – which is a fairly accurate description of social media.

The irony of a culture that promises that you “can be all you can be” without reference to any higher good or higher power is that no plateau is high enough. There’s always some level of perfection or self-actualization just out of reach. The freedom of sovereign individualism comes at a great price. Once I am liberated from all social, moral, natural, and religious values, I become responsible for the meaning of my own life. Hence the lie: If I am completely responsible for my life, then the greatest moral failure would be for me to fail to pursue what I desire most. I owe it to myself to be happy. The only problem with this is that unlimited desire and consumption always leave us exhausted and empty.

But there is good news, says Noble. Christ frees us from the unbearable burden of self-belonging.

An anthropology defined by our belonging to God is diametrically opposed to the contemporary belief that we are autonomous, free, atomistic individuals who find our greatest fulfillment in breaking free from all external norms. Our selves belong to God, and we are joyfully limited and restrained by the obligations, virtues, and love that naturally come from this belonging. This living before God is not easy. It requires sacrifice and humility, perpetual repentance and dependence upon Christ. In a secular age such as our own, it requires an intentional effort to remember that we belong to Christ, and that belonging is not merely a doctrine, but a reality that touches every aspect of our lives.

This is a tremendous book if you are feeling overwhelmed by breath-takingly rapid changes in our society and want to step back and see how it all happened. It is also a wonderful reminder to vigilantly resist the false promises the world offers for self-fulfillment.

Interestingly, I was primed for this book by, first, experiencing ministry burnout and, second, by reading A Gentleman in Moscow. Both experiences caused me to question the frenzy of always doing more, and to ponder ways to live more humanly within our God-given limits. 

Blessings,

The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 2

I’m finally reviewing my favorite book of 2021. Volume One of the Letters of C.S. Lewis covers his early life and ends with his conversion. In Volume Two (1931-1949), we see how he grows in his faith and begins writing his fiction and his apologetical books. I was drawn in from the very first letter and was kept interested by the variety of his correspondents and his overwhelming kindness and humility. I was taken aback initially by a bawdy joke he included in a letter to his brother, but chortled at his nickname for a project in which he was unwillingly involved (The Oxford History of English Literature) that he referred to as “O Hell!”

There is much to savor in this volume: details of his friendship with Tolkien, his unbelievable patience with Jane (a cantankerous woman who was Lewis’ houseguest until the end of her life), his gentle, wise responses to people who asked him questions about his faith, and the endless list of books he was reading.

In spite of his brilliance as a thinker and writer, his letters are infused with a guilelessness that is disarming. He wrote to a Catholic nun on August 9, 1939, Though I’m forty years old as a man, I’m only about twelve as a Christian, so it would be a maternal act if you found time to sometimes mention me in your prayers.

In another letter written in April of 1935, he is renewing an old acquaintance and sums up his life simply, My father is dead and my brother has retired from the army and now lives with us…. I am going bald. I am a Christian. Professionally I am chiefly a medievalist.

As his fame grew, he was answering seven letters a day year-round and his brother, Warnie, began helping. Thank goodness hundreds and hundreds of those letters have been preserved for posterity. This book was a thousand pages and I loved every one of them.  

I was fortunate to pick this up when it was being offered for a few dollars on Kindle. When I investigated the possibility of purchasing hard covers for my permanent library, I found they are way out of my price range. Happily, the Kindle prices, though still high, are more accessible. Volume 1 and Volume 3 may be my big splurges for 2022.

Blessings,

Anthony Trollope: An Autobiography

I have to agree with my sister that Trollope's Autobiography is for diehard fans. Having read 23 of his novels, I put myself in that category, and, still, this book was an occasional slog. The early chapters were painfully sad memories of his poverty-stricken childhood and how he eked out an education at Harrow where he was regularly beaten. At nineteen, he left school and came home to find his father fleeing to Belgium and his mother dismantling the household in order to pay the creditors. The whole family joined the father in Europe, and since almost all of them were dying of consumption, his mother took on the full support of the family with her novel writing. Trollope's admiration for her knows no bounds:

The doctor’s vials and the ink-bottle held equal places in my mother’s rooms. I have written many novels under many circumstances, but I doubt much whether I could write one when my whole heart was by the bedside of a dying son. Her power of dividing herself into two parts, and keeping her intellect by itself clear from the troubles of the world, and fit for the duty it had to do, I never saw equaled. I do not think that the writing of novel is the most difficult task which a man may be called upon to do, but it is a task that may be supposed to demand a spirit fairly at ease…. My mother went through it unscathed in strength, though she performed all the work of day-nurse and night-nurse to a sick household – for there were soon three of them dying. 

Soon he was summoned to work as a clerk in the London Post office. He gives detailed descriptions of his post office duties through the years and how he managed to begin his own career as a novelist; he recalls his different books and how long they took to write and how much he got paid for them. Sometimes he compares how he felt about them with what the public felt about them.  (He didn’t give a hang about public opinion.) Regarding TheSmall House at Allington, he wrote, In it appeared Lily Dale, one of the characters which readers of my novels have liked the best. In the love with which she has been greeted I have hardly joined with much enthusiasm, feeling that she is somewhat of a prig. 

Chapter Thirteen was a commentary on fellow Victorian novelists and includes Trollope’s fascinating predictions of who would last and who would fade away. His “keepers” are Thackeray and George Eliot. He acknowledges Dicken’s popularity, but vehemently disagrees with it. His predictions for the “losers” were mostly right. He predicted that the novels of Charles Read, Henry Bulwer, Annie Thackeray, Rhoda Broughton, Charles Lever and Charlotte Brontë (!) would sink into oblivion.   

Although parts of this book were tedious, I was sad when it was over. The narrator, Bernard Mayes (with his grandfatherly British voice), did such a good job that I felt like I had just had a long conversation with a good friend that suddenly came to an end.

I will close with a favorite quote from Clifton Fadiman: Above all give me Trollope, from whom I have received so much pleasure that I would willingly call him another St. Anthony; his half a hundred novels are good for five years of bedside reading. Of those who minister to the tired, night-welcoming mind, Trollope is king. He never fails to interest, but not too much; to soothe, but not too much. Trollope is the perfect novelist for the bedside.

Blessings,

Reading Year in Review - 2021

Thank heavens that I came out of the pandemic-induced reading slump of 2020! This year got off to a roaring start because of the Literary Life Podcast group since their reading challenge caused me to attack my most daunting books right off the bat: Kristin Lavransdatter and Anna Karenina! Towards the end of the year I was reading much lighter fare, while dipping into Dante's Divine Comedy three times a week (via the 100 Days of Dante reading project.) It was a great year! (All 90 books, good and bad, are listed on my Goodreads challenge.) 

Here's the rundown of favorites: 

Most work, but worth the effort: Kristin Lavransdatter (reviewed here) After this, Anna Karenina was a cinch!

Best light fiction: A Tangled Web by L.M. Montgomery (reviewed here)

Most fun: All Creatures Great and Small by Herriot (reviewed here), and the first five Lord Peter Wimsey Novels by Sayers (reviewed here)

Favorite audio: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by R.A. Dick & Pied Piper by Shute

Favorite re-read: Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury (with the Lit Life group)

Favorite classic: Mansfield Park by Austen (with the Lit Life group)

Unexpectedly knocked my socks off: The Inferno by Dante/Ciardi (To be honest, this was only after listening to the videos explaining each canto.)

Favorite non-fiction: Christian Faith in the Old Testament by Cockerill

My two top picks for the year were  C.S. Lewis' Letters, Vol. 2 (1,000 pages) and Six Centuries of Great Poetry (600 pages). My daily sips into their contents brought me constant delight. I felt bereft when I finally reached the end of Lewis' letters.

What about you? Have you read any of these? Did you have a favorite book of the year? 

Blessings,

Live Not by Lies by Rod Dreher

Live Not by Lies, by Rod Dreher, contains some of the same themes spelled out in The Benedict Option (loss of support for Christianity within the culture and the necessity of strong religious communities to sustain it), but LNBL is more hopeful. Yes, the situation in our culture is even worse than when Benedict Option was published five years ago, but in this book Dreher recounts stories of families who survived totalitarian governments (chiefly communist countries in Europe), which show the fruit of faithful perseverance. 

I marked so many passages that it would be impossible to touch on everything. My biggest take-away was understanding how American government has increasingly become totalitarian (what Dreher calls "soft totalitarianism") in the way that it rewards/condones certain behaviors and punishes/cancels "unacceptable" ones. (Cake bakers and florists are just two examples.) 

Today's totalitarianism demands allegiance to a set of progressive beliefs, many of which are incompatible with logic - and certainly with Christianity. Compliance is forced less by the state than by elites who form public opinion, and by private corporations that, thanks to technology, control our lives far more than we would like to admit. (p. 8)

In our therapeutic culture, [no belief in a Higher power and with personal comfort as the primary goal] the great sin is to stand in the way of the freedom of others to find happiness as they wish. (p. 13)

Without Christianity and its belief in the fallibility of human nature, secular progressives tend to rearrange their bigotries and call it righteousness. Christianity teaches that all men and women - not just the wealthy, the powerful, the straight, the white, and all other so-called oppressors - are sinners in need of the Redeemer. All men and women are called to confession and repentance. "Social justice" that projects unrighteousness solely onto particular groups is a perversion of Christian teaching. Reducing the individual to her economic status or her racial, sexual, or gender identity is an anthropological error. It is untrue, and therefore unjust. (p. 64, 65) 

When so much of what is being taught (in schools, on the news, on social media) is untrue, how does one stay grounded in reality? In the chapter called "Families are Resistance Cells", Dreher writes of  a Catholic couple, Václav and Kamila Benda, who were part of the Czech dissident movement in the 1970s. On a personal level they prepared their children to resist the lies of communism by filling their moral imaginations with the good. Kamila read to her children for two to three hours a day. She read them fairy tales, myths, adventure stories.... More than any other novel, though, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings was the cornerstone of her family's collective imagination. (138)

Finally, Dreher addresses the problem of suffering. He worries that this generation of Americans (including Christians) has become so attached to their comforts that we would submit to government overreach to keep them. A time of painful testing, even persecution, is coming. Lukewarm or shallow Christians will not come through with their faith intact. Christians today must dig deep into the Bible and church tradition and teach themselves how and why today's post-Christian world with its self-centeredness, its quest for happiness and rejection of sacred order and transcendent values, is a rival religion to authentic Christianity. (162)

Even if you don't agree with everything in the book, there are a lot of important ideas to wrestle with in light of ever-decreasing religious freedoms in our present world.

Blessings,

The Tech-Wise Family by Andy Crouch

The Tech-Wise Family by Andy Crouch is not a "how to" as much as a "why to" book on limiting technology. This book is about much more than just social media, or even screens. It's about how to live as full, flourishing human beings. Maybe it will even turn out that in that quest for flourishing, technology in its proper place can actually help. Crouch's definition of a family, and what it takes to make a family healthy, made this a strong four-star read for me. Technology must serve the needs of the family, and not be its master. Technology is in its proper place when it helps us acquire skill and mastery of domains that are the glory of human culture (sports, music, the arts, cooking, writing, etc.) When we let technology replace the development of skill with passive consumption, something has gone wrong.

I appreciated his many insights into the false promises of technology to make life easier. Easier and flashier platforms, games, and programs often encourage us to opt out of activities that take more mental and emotional energy. These harder activities are the ones that enrich us and help us grow. The last thing you need when you are learning, at any age but especially in childhood, is to have things made too easy. Difficulty and resistance, as long as they are age appropriate and not too discouraging, are actually what press our brains and bodies to adapt and learn.

I was completely taken aback by the last chapter on how Christians must live in incarnational community, including the dignity of "low-tech" dying. This probably wouldn't have hit me so hard if it hadn't been for the families I know who suffered the loss of a loved one due to COVID and could not be with them at the moment of their passing. Crouch writes, We are meant not just for thin, virtual connections but for visceral, real connections to one another in this fleeting, temporary, and infinitely beautiful and worthwhile life. We are meant to die in one another's arms, surrounded by prayer and song, knowing beyond a doubt that we are loved.

Crouch wrote so winsomely of his daily, weekly, and yearly fasts from his devices, that I decided to get on board by making Sunday a no-screen day. I had no idea how hard that would be. Ignoring my TV and computer was a cinch, but because I use my cell phone as a kitchen timer and podcast source, and my Kindle's white noise app for taking naps, the temptation was always there to  mindlessly scroll through social media when I picked up these tools. This is a fast that I'm still determined to learn how to do.

I never dreamed that a little book on the dangers of technology overload would be so inspiring. Definitely another of my favorite books of 2021.

Blessings,

The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom

Sometimes reading non-fiction is like taking a vitamin pill. I do it because I know it's good for me, but my appetite naturally runs toward a well-written story. In The Hiding Place there is no dichotomy between the two. It tells the true story of Corrie ten Boom and her family's work in protecting Jews during the Nazi occupation of Holland. It chronicles their quiet life as watchmakers and how they became involved in the Dutch underground. The dangers they face increase with every chapter. 

Early in the book a young Corrie cries out to her father that she doesn't want him to die. He comforts her by reminding her that when they travel on a train together, he gives her the ticket just when she needs it to board. So, also, God gives the grace to face each trial just when it's needed. That conversation set the tone for the rest of Corrie's life. With each new trouble, God provided the necessary strength. 

The first chapter recounts the 100th anniversary of the watch shop and Corrie writes, It was a day for memories. A day for calling up the past. How could we have guessed as we sat there - two middle-aged spinsters and an old man - that in place of memories we were about to be given adventure such as we had never dreamed of? Adventure and anguish, horror and heaven were just around the corner, and we did not know. O Father! Betsie! If I had know would I have gone ahead? Could I have done the things I did? 

The book is chock full of wonderful stories, some humorous, some horrifying, but all pointing to God's faithfulness. As I read, I grew to love Corrie's wise and good father, her beauty-loving and gracious sister, and especially Corrie, herself, who was used powerfully by God in spite of her doubts and shortcomings. She never brags. Much to the contrary. Every line of the book seems to say, "If God could use me, He can use anybody." I can't give more details without spoilers so I'll close with a hearty five-star recommendation. If you want your faith in a powerful, miracle-working God to grow, this is the book for you. 

Blessings,

The Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren

Do your daily small tasks really matter in the whole scheme of things? In Liturgy of the Ordinary, Tish Warren walks us through the rhythms of a typical day and highlights lessons that can be learned from each simple practice.

Christians are taught to look for a radical life, a life of conspicuous sacrifice and service - a life that seems obviously set apart for something more than the mundane and unimportant... We tend to want a Christian life with all the dull bits cut out. Yet God made us to spend our days in rest, work, and play, taking care of our bodies, our families, our neighborhoods, our homes. What if all these boring parts matter to God? What if days passed in ways that feel small and insignificant to us are weighty with meaning and part of the abundant life that God has for us?

She emphasizes that it is in the dailiness of the Christian faith - the making of the bed, the doing of the dishes, the praying for our enemies, the reading of the Bible, the quiet, the small - that God's transformation takes root and grows. Evangelicals tend to focus on a "radical Christianity" full of excitement, passion and risk. Quoting Eugene Peterson, she writes, There is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for the long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness.

In addition to a radical faith, we American Christians love a productive faith. The busier we are in God's work, the more spiritual we feel. But Tish gently reminds us that if we realize that ALL we do is for God's glory (even the mundane), it helps us to resist the idolatry of work and accomplishment. She reiterates this in her chapter on rest where she writes that sleep reminds us that ultimately it is God who does the work. When we lie down at the end of the day, it is a confession of our limits and a recognition of the holiness of rest and the blessedness of unproductivity. As we stop all our "doing," we joyfully acknowledge God's watchcare over our lives.

This is not a book that will bowl you over, but it is a perfect book to read during lockdown. I, as a missionary, appreciated this careful analysis of what a life of faithfulness looks like, especially when opportunities for [frantic] Christian service have been curtailed.

Blessings,

Evangelism as Exiles by Elliot Clark

As biblical values crumble in our surrounding society, how should Christians respond? The natural reaction is fear, but Elliot Clark writes, Instead of whining and feeling sorry for ourselves because the culture is becoming unrecognizable, Christians should align their vision with that of first-century Christians. If opposition mounts to the place where it can be rightly called persecution, we are called to follow the apostles, who left the Sanhedrin rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering for the disgrace of the name. (Acts 5:41)

In Evangelism as Exiles: Life on Mission as Strangers in Our Own Land, Clark walks the reader through the book of 1 Peter which teaches that suffering and social exclusion are actually the most normal thing in the world…. The Christian in exile is called to embrace the shame and social humiliation that come as a package deal with the cross. We’re to be first and foremost God-pleasers and not man-pleasers.

In Chapter Five he writes about an aspect of Christian living that is often ignored in modern circles – the need for holy lives. Holiness is not only the result of conversion, it’s also an embodied argument in support of the gospel’s veracity. Gospel declaration is linked to life transformation. But in America Christians think the gospel is more credible to others when they see us as most like them. We’ve come to believe that God is most glorified and people are most evangelized when the church is either hip and trendy or when it’s struggling, broken and weak. Now is not the time for us to try to make the Christian message fit into the world’s mold. We should keep Christianity weird. And in so doing, we just might reach our neighbors. (!)

As hopes diminish and fears increase, as opponents rise to power and our cultural influence fades, as we become outcasts and even refugees – it’s then, at this very moment, that the church will have an incredible opportunity for the gospel. (This is also one of Rod Dreher's main points in The Benedict Option.) 

Clark offers a lot of food for thought in these pages. Most books about evangelism tend to say, “Do it this way and you’ll have success.” I appreciated Clark’s approach because his own experiences as a missionary in a Muslim country taught him there is no “one-size-fits-all” method. My only quibble is that he emphasizes witnessing out of fear (awe) of God and fear of the other’s eternal damnation. I prefer LOVE as motivation because it overcomes the other fears that Clark so eloquently describes in his book.

Blessings,  

Affliction by Edith Schaeffer

While searching for my daily dose of non-fiction, Edith Schaeffer's Affliction seemed like an appropriate choice. With the whole world in crisis mode, I knew her calm voice and clear thinking would strengthen and encourage my heart.

She begins abruptly by talking about the ugliness of death. It should not be taken as a normal, beautiful "release," but as an enemy which separates body from spirit and human beings from each other. This is the beauty of Schaeffer. She never softens the truth. But she wisely guides her readers into a deeper understanding of it. Her main argument is that there are two victories connected with suffering: victory FROM it and victory IN it. She gives many examples of those who have been delivered miraculously from pain and many other examples of those who demonstrated peace and faith even when their prayers were not answered. Scripture references are woven throughout.

She wrote, We have had individuals come to us who have been crushed and discouraged to an extreme because of being mistakenly taught that the criterion of being in the Lord's will is to have everything go well - with no shocks and disappointments. But the Bible teaches that affliction is an expected part of the lives of God's people.

Chapter Eleven, called "Aborting Affliction," packs a powerful punch as Schaeffer deals with the increasingly common idea that if we don't want to be troubled with something, we can just make it go away. This could be an unwanted baby, a disappointing spouse, or an aging relative. She concludes, If affliction and tribulation are to be aborted, then patience, steadfastness, experience and hope are also aborted.... When can love be patient and longsuffering if there aren't any concrete opportunities?

I must admit that although I liked this book very much, I found it difficult to finish. You'd think that the Covid-19 quarantine would be a book-loving introvert's dream come true, but the underlying stress of living in a world on pause has made it more difficult to concentrate. I save my sharpest mental moments - in the early morning - to pray, sing hymns and read scripture. During the rest of the day, I have to force myself sit down with a book. But this book made me glad I made the effort.

Blessings,


P.S. I noticed this was free for Kindle Unlimited if you (like me) keep a running list of books to read when a KU deal comes up (usually at the end of the year.)

What I Read and Watched in March

At the advice of Brazil's minister of health, we've been home-bound, but we have plenty to eat and plenty of books to read (and time to read them). Unfortunately, being in hibernation mode makes me want to spend all day in the kitchen making comfort food. Ha!

I'm reading some theology books for a class I'm teaching in the fall. Grace, Faith and Holiness is a chunkster, but by pacing myself at 30 minutes a day, I've reached page 200 (of 600). I've also been pondering the thoughts of John Wesley in his 52 Sermons (15 minutes per day) and I'm halfway through.

For fun I read Storm in the Village (#3 in the Fairacre series) and Over the Gate (#5) by Miss Read. I took advantage of  one of Audible.com's free audiobooks (as long as schools are closed) and listened to My Ántonia by Willa Cather. I'm still processing it and hope to write a review for my next post. 

Twice a week, we've been watching some of our favorite DVDs of Perry Mason and Murder She Wrote. We watched the second Lord of the Rings movie, The Two Towers. I also rented Snipped in the Bud, a Hallmark mystery when I needed some quiet and alone time. (My husband and son stay miles away when there's a Hallmark movie on!)

Are you reading anything good lately? I hope you are all safe and well.

 Blessings,