Best-read vs. Well-Read - Quote from Dennis Kinlaw

Five years ago I posted a quote from one of my favorite pastors and thinkers, Dr. Dennis Kinlaw, on the importance of deep reading. This week I was listening to one of his sermons, and was delighted to hear more of his literary journey. He shares about a time as a young pastor when he was acting as chauffeur for visiting speaker, A. W. Tozer:

Tozer had an 11th grade education. I had my Masters of Divinity degree and had studied a couple of years at Princeton. We talked books, and he told me about books I never knew existed. He was the best-read man I had ever talked with. Maybe not the most widely read, but the best-read. As we talked about books, he suddenly looked at me and said, "Kinlaw, don't ever read a good book!" I blinked and said, "I beg your pardon?" He said, "You'll never have time to read all the best ones, for goodness sake don't waste your time on a good one." 

That was a moment of liberation for me because I had a lot of friends. When we pastors would meet together, one of them would say, "Have you read...?" and I wanted to be able to say, "Oh, yes, I've read.... But have you read...?" And we played one-upmanship with each other. And the prize went to the one who'd read the most, not the one who'd read the best. 

After that moment, I found myself re-reading some things. You know you don't get any credit for a second and third time through. But it will make a radical change in the inner dialogue of your inner being. So I've always given thanks to A.W. Tozer [for deepening my reading life.]

I don't think this means that we only have to read theology books. But I do know that once I trained my literary taste buds to enjoy deeper books, it became very hard to read fluff. In between Christian classics, I also enjoy WWII memoirs, children's lit and vintage detective fiction. Plus, now that I'm 63, I definitely don't have to time to read mediocre books!

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,

How I Read Ten Books at Once

It is one of my greatest joys to sign into Goodreads and mark a book "finished." But every time I do that I see the eight or nine books that are still in progress. And they never go away! That's because I actually read that many books at one time. This is how I do it: (All of these are physical books unless marked otherwise)

1) With my morning Bible reading I always read a Bible study book (usually Kay Arthur) and a few
pages in my hymnal. (and the Bible!)

2) After breakfast my husband and I have prayers together and read a book with daily Bible passages related to the church calendar and another book of inspirational devotional thoughts.  

3) Friday is our date day and we read outloud to each other from a book of short stories. (It's been James Heriott for the last four years.) 

4) An audiobook to listen to while in the kitchen or doing exercises (varies between fiction and non)

5) One non-fiction book on my nightstand to read before bed

6) One non-fiction book on my Kindle to read when I'm bored (usually on a long trip)

7) One fiction book (Kindle or physical) for escapist reading

To tell the truth, beside the four titles I read every morning, I probably read only one or two of the others each day. So it's not as overwhelming as it seems. Still, it looks pretty crazy!

Anyone else a serial reader???

Blessings,

Set in Silver by C.N. Williamson

I thought I knew all the vintage authors worth reading, but thanks to a friend at Goodreads, I discovered the Williamson writing team. Charles (1859-1920) was a “motoring journalist” at a time when it was still a novelty to own a car. His wife, Alice, turned his travelogues into romance novels, which explains why much of the stories are embedded in facts about quaint, historic English towns.

Set in Silver is a far-fetched comedy of errors that was perfectly delightful. It’s a love story in two senses. First, it’s the tale of a man who comes back to England after many years and rediscovers his passion for the country of his birth. Second, it is the traditional yarn of boy-meets-girl.

I’m prejudiced toward British writers and the Williamsons did not disappoint. The novel was loaded with literary references to Greek mythology, literary classics and the Bible. It was not Christian by any stretch of the imagination (Lionel’s sister is annoyingly religious), but if you know the Bible, the off-hand allusions to scriptural passages were often laugh-out-loud-funny. The frequent references to Arthurian legends were also a big plus for me. (It’s amazing to think that this “light” novel was written with the expectation that people would catch all these references, which they still did in 1909.)

Even though I could hardly put this book down, it took almost a week to read. It was 400 pages on my Kindle and I refused to skim over the descriptive passages (except for the last 40 pages when I just couldn’t wait a second longer to see how it was all going to turn out).

If you like a good vintage novel that is more lighthearted than sappy, this should do the trick. It had me smiling from start to finish. And it’s free for Kindle. 

Blessings,

A Fugue in Time by Rummer Godden

What a strange and delightful book! It tells the story of a house that has sheltered three generations of the Dane family. The book opens during WWII as Sir Roland looks back over his life and over the century that his family has lived in the house at 99 Wiltshire Place. People are randomly introduced, but are fleshed out as the novel progresses. There are Griselda and John, Roland’s parents. Of their nine children, only three play a major part in the narrative. Another member of this second generation is Lark, an adopted orphan. Finally come Grizel and Pax (the third generation).

Another major character in the book is the house itself. It seems to hold the memories and conversations of all who have lived there. These voices sometimes talk to Roland, which may be disconcerting to some readers, but I found it intriguing. Take this paragraph which describes a young woman (granddaughter to John and grandniece to Roland) who comes for a visit:  

It seemed to her all at once that the house was immensely bigger than she had first thought; it had, she glimpsed, a common life far greater than the individual little lives that were her grandfather and herself. It held them both. He was dead, she was alive, but there was no difference between them in the house. Grizel did not like that. She was insistent. ‘No. No,’ she cried. ‘He is dead, It is I, Grizel, who am alive.’ Then her cheeks warmed. It was as if someone had coldly remarked, ‘What a clamor you make, Grizel.’ 

It can be confusing because the narrative is not told in a linear fashion, but jumps back and forth between time frames; you only know when a particular episode takes place by paying attention to the names given to the servants or to Sir Roland. (He is young “Roly” as a boy, and grows into “Rollo” as a young man. At the end of his life, he is referred to as “Rolls.”)

Being musically challenged, I did not know the significance of the word fugue in the title, but other reviewers helped me see Godden’s genius in using it. Sara (at Goodreads) explains, “A fugue is a musical movement in which melodic lines run independently but also merge to create a harmony…. Godden has created a fugue in her novel, telling individual stories, with individual voices, but layering them atop one another to show both the passage of time and the continuity of time, simultaneously.”

It's complicated, but patient reading brings rich dividends. The writing is lovely. For example, the empty nursery is described not as “vacant” but as a place with a sense of an inner cheerful life of its own like the sound of the sea, once known to the shell, that always remains.

One reviewer calls it a feminist book, but I beg to differ. Yes, one of the women in the family chafed at the marital yoke and wished she had never had any children. But the two unhappiest characters are those who have shut themselves out of relationships to stay “safe.” Grizel and Pax must decide if they will choose safety and order over the potential discomforts of joining their lives together.

This is a unique book that must be read slowly. Its beauty brought tears to my eyes more than once. 

Blessings,

What I Read and Watched in August

I've been too busy recently to do these recaps, but this month I watched two movies that were too good not to mention. A Hidden Life  tells the true story of Franz Jagerstatter (an Austrian who refused to pledge allegience to Hitler), and shows the terrible consequences he suffered. It is beautifully filmed (though the constant shots of windows and doorways seemed a bit quirky at times) and very harrowing. We had to spread it out - an hour a night for three nights. Not exactly a "feel-good" movie, but our hearts were strengthened after viewing it. 

No Highway in the Sky is an underrated gem that we found on YouTube with Jimmy Stewart as the proverbial "absent-minded professor." But this is no comedy. Theodore Honey is a widower. He is an aeronautical engineer who believes that a newly manufactured plane has not been tested sufficiently, and he goes to great lengths to prove that it is not safe for flying. There are many poignant moments and wonderful acting by Stewart - and also by Janette Scott (who plays his young daughter) and Glynis Johns and Marlene Dietrich (who both fall for him). The movie was extremely engaging and had a good balance of light and tense moments.

I also finished three books that I've been reading for months: The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis (Vol. 1), Poems and Letters of Emily Dickinson, and Listening to God in Difficult Times by Kay Arthur (a three month deep dive into the book of Jeremiah.)

I continue to plow through the Mitford series and read books 8 to 10: Shepherds Abiding, Light from Heaven, and Home to Holly Springs. I thoroughly enjoyed the audiobook of Agatha Christie's The Secret of Chimneys and C.N. Williamson's vinatage novel, Set in Silver. (review coming soon)

Honorable mention goes to an excellent book I finished in July that will be reviewed here soon: A Fugue in Time by Rumer Godden. 

It was a great month! Has anyone else enjoyed these movies or books?

Blessings,

Abide in Christ by Andrew Murray

Oswald Chambers (through his classic devotional My Utmost for His Highest) has often been the "kick in the pants" I've needed to keep me from being a lazy Christian. But when I feel fragile and need encouragement from a more sympathetic counselor, Andrew Murray is the one to whom I turn. His call to the holy life is just as strong as Chamber's, but his approach is decidedly more gentle and winsome. 

Teacher and theologian Dr. John Oswalt, in his book When Morning Gilds the Skies, writes, Many Christians are trying to live God's life in their own ability and wondering why they so often fail. It is when we allow the Spirit of God to take us over, to fill us, that He enables you and me to live His life. Yes, we have to cooperate with Him. Yes, we have to do our part, but in the end, it's a life of rest, of settling down in Him and allowing Him to do what we cannot do.

That is the continuous message that you hear in Murray's 31-day devotional Abide In Christ. My heart was encouraged and strengthened and I marked many passages to re-read.

Day 28 seems to have been written just for me: The Christian often tries to forget his weakness; God wants us to remember it and feel it deeply. The Christian wants to conquer his weakness and to be freed from it; God wants us to rest and even rejoice in it. The Christian mourns over his weakness; Christ teaches us to say, 'I take pleasure in infirmities; most gladly will I rejoice in them.' The Christian thinks his weakness his greatest hindrance in service to God; God tells us that is the secret of strength and success. It is our weakness heartily accepted, and continually realized, that gives us our claim and access to His strength. (II Cor 12:9)

A lovely bedside book!

Blessings,