Bibles, Bonnets, and Brides: Christian Romance

Posted on May 7, 2012 by

When we moved from the Southwest US to the Midwest, I experienced some culture shock in the form of food. Craving Mexican food, we tried restaurant after restaurant. Nothing met our expectations; most of it seemed like ketchup with a little chili powder mixed in. Honestly, what self-respecting Mexican place offers a menu item called a “wet burrito”? Yet there it was in Michigan, all over the place. The idea that Taco Bell was true Mexican food…well, that just burned me like Mom’s huevos rancheros.

And the shock continued when entering the grocery store. Chili powder did have some ground-up chilies for color, but also a list of other spices tossed in, only diluting the lovely, smoky taste of pure chili powder. A search for corn tortillas showed me the disappointing nature of grocers in the Midwest: those crispy taco shells are the only things closely resembling corn tortillas, but there are no soft corn tortillas in many Midwestern grocery stores.

What does this have to do with fiction?

This has everything to do with the taste that one develops. Having grown up in the Southwest, eating typical New Mexican dishes, I developed a discriminating taste. Something less than that wonderful, pure red-chili flavor was disappointing, and not really what I wanted to settle for.

One can “develop taste” similarly with many other things: housing, fashion, music, or literature. If you have lived on a diet of junk food all along, you won’t know or appreciate gourmet food. When you partake of a steady diet of excellent literature, you are able to identify the characteristics of quality. And you will dislike literature of a lesser quality.

Which brings us to Christian fiction.

Most Christian fiction falls into two categories: Christian romance and Christian mystery/spiritual battles. Much of Christian romance is poorly written and follows a fairly predictable formula. They are not much better than Harlequin Romance books: they follow an impracticable romantic recipe that rarely changes.

When I was in junior high, a friend’s mom read many Harlequin Romances every week. Intrigued, I borrowed a few from her. It didn’t take very many books for me to find out that they were trash: very low quality writing, predictable formula, boring. I didn’t recognize it then, but the titillation of a Harlequin Romance causes the reader to fantasize, wish for a different or more exciting life, and eventually to become dissatisfied with her own life. In some cases, the titillation—the description of the love affair itself—is akin to soft porn. It becomes addicting.

I concluded, early in my young life, that the Harlequin novel was of poor substance, because I had been fed a steady diet of quality literature from my mother’s lap. She supplied us with much classical literature, curled up with us to read poetry, and took us to the theater (and opera) as much as she could. Thus from a young age I could distinguish between “trashy” novels and classical literature—just as I can between Taco Bell and true New Mexican food, or between McDonald’s and a good filet mignon.

Like the Harlequin Romance, Christian romance novels lure their readers into a dreamy, unrealistic view of love—albeit a cleaner one. The typical pattern of a romance novel only varies slightly: boy meets girl (or vice versa), boy loses girl, boy goes through a life-quest to find meaning. Boy regains girl. Add the Christian label, and you find some sort of loss-of-faith/faith-quest/coming-to-faith pattern mixed in.

Often, too, the characters are not at all realistically portrayed. Their dialogue is stilted and stiff, not at all the way you and I would normally speak (nor, I suspect, the way pioneers spoke to one another…). Men are strapping and strong, handsome and virile, perfect–without flaw (except the one bad guy…who’s really bad…and poorly portrayed). The women are flawed, weak, indecisive, abused, or neglected in the past.

They need rescuing. Yes, in fact, we all do (that is a great spiritual truth)! However, the unrealistic juxtaposition of these two character types is puzzling. Since the readers are women, are the main female characters portrayed this way so that the reader can project herself into that character? Does that enable the reader to fantasize herself in that role? This is just my guess.

However, contrast that aspect with great classical literature. Romance for romance (and I will argue that these are not “simple” romances, but let’s just say, for argument’s sake), Jane Austen’s novels portray weakness and flaws in every character, realistically. Women need rescuing at times, but at others, they are the ones whose brains are the only ones working for a time. Men are strong yet flawed, egotistical yet self-conscious. Austen’s stories are rich, beautifully written, timeless. I have yet to find those qualities in a Christian Romance.

Rarely do those novels ever resemble reality. If the effect of a Harlequin Romance is to draw the reader into soft porn, the Christian romance is a low-key version of the same. The result: increased dissatisfaction with one’s current life while daydreaming and fantasizing about the perfect romantic partner in some exotic, or pastoral, setting. (Just add a pastor.)

Just a sampling of bonneted beauties on the cover of some Christian Romance novels…

For some reason, many Christian romance novels feature pioneers or Amish women. Visiting a local library, we engaged in a totally unscientific survey: we pulled a cross-section of Christian novels off the shelf. We looked through 23 books and were astounded to find a whopping 8 bonneted beauties on the cover. Why? Perhaps because that time or place was supposed to be more simple, more romantic? I am still puzzling over that one. (If you have an idea, please chime in.)

If you have read my other blog about quality literature and read some of the suggested materials on discerning good reading material, you know that “good literature” can be Christian or secular. So can bad.

The quality of excellent literature constitutes how well the story is told—how well the picture is painted in the mind of the reader. Is the moral dilemma—the tension between good and evil—presented well? Does the book reward re-reading? Do the characters come to life? Is the vocabulary, and the writer’s voice, rich? Will the story stand the test of time, and will it make sense, will it ring true, four decades or a century from now? If you can answer yes to these questions, you may have a piece of quality literature in front of you.

Why do many Christian authors stop short of excellent literature? Your guess is as good as mine. Why do secular authors? Probably we’ll find the answer is the same for both. Danielle Steele writes countless secular romance novels, and she has done so for twenty or thirty years. They sell well. But like Harlequin Romances, Steele’s novels are not well-written. They are formulaic, predictable, simplistic, and they oftentimes don’t even bother with good grammar. (Yes, I read some. I picked them up to see what all the buzz was about. Frankly, I was more bothered that so many readers spend money on such poor writing, than that she writes them. She makes plenty of money, so her strategy works!)

Instead of settling for (or limiting themselves to) the majority of fiction labeled as Christian literature, parents should teach their children how to discern what is good about all literature. They should teach their children how to tell the difference, develop their palate for what is excellent.

Certainly some literature is to be avoided due to its content, its language, or its unnecessarily graphic depictions. Be willing to explain the criteria to your child and why certain books do not meet those criteria.

Here’s the challenge for Christian parents: explore your standards from a biblical worldview: watch the depiction of good and evil. Is it a battle? Does the moral tension reflect reality? Is good truly good, and is sin truly distasteful? Whether Christian or secular, does it gloss over the reality of evil and its consequences? Does moral tension drive the plot, or does the romantic, unrealistic quest for true love drive the story? Is immorality sugar-coated, underplayed, and simplistic, or is it real?

If up to this point you have limited yourself to Christian novels simply because you don’t have to do the work of discerning what’s good literature, step up to the challenge. Read the classics. Try some gourmet food instead of McDonald’s.

Next installment: My picks for excellent literature (you may be surprised!)

Posted in Biblical Worldview, Literature | 2 Comments

Partaking of fiction with a biblical worldview (part 1)

Posted on April 25, 2012 by

Numerous parents over the past two decades have approached me with grave concerns over what their children are reading. Their concerns are wide-ranging and unpredictable.

Some say that their children should only read specifically Christian literature; anything else would be too much of the world. In fact, I taught for a year at a Christian school whose curriculum oversight committee refused to allow its students to read anything besides specifically Christian literature. To repeat, I taught there only a year.

Some parents allow their children to read a small selection of secular fiction, but they fret over it. (“Should they really read these books with sinful characters?”) Others take a very relaxed stance, allowing their children to read whatever their hearts desire, but not helping provide any kind of filter through which to read and understand this literature.

Same goes for movies, only more so. Since it is such a visual medium, movies are more scary to parents, who approach them with fear and caution—and rightly so.

This all begs an important question: What standards can Christians apply toward viewing/reading fiction?

The obvious answer is the Bible. Most parents will use Philippians 4:8 as the criteria for judging the readability of a book: “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (ESV). Then they look at the work of fiction to see what is lovely, honorable, and just.

This is an excellent standard for a start. Let’s consider adding more of God’s Word to this list of criteria.

First, realize that “whatever is lovely” wants us to dwell on truth and beauty. Also realize that “whatever is true” includes not just beauty but also the whole truth about, well, truth. What’s true and real is that this world is full of sin. It’s ugly, and it warps everything it touches. And evil is evil; it is to be avoided, not desired.

How best to show that evil has consequences? Depict it in all its ugliness, and watch the consequences unfold. Well-written fiction will do just that. However, sugar-coating the truth provides an unrealistic picture of the “real world.” Does this mean that students should read every kind of pulp fiction out there? Absolutely not. Find good fiction that shows the true tension of good versus evil, that shows the repugnance of evil. Take a careful look at what happens when people give in to it.

Some of the dark literature of modernity will provide excellent examples. I want my students to read about the cry of man’s heart: “What do I do with the darkness I have inside me?” In realistically-depicted fiction, we can see what happens when man cries out for a savior and then tries to save himself, or invents his own savior, or destroys himself in pursuit of a better life. Perhaps he creates a whole new society in which everything can be manipulated so that human emotions and attitudes can be tightly controlled. We see how successful that is in Animal Farm, 1984, Brave New World, Hunger Games, Divergent, Anthem, and Atlas Shrugged, to name just a few. And can a student learn something from the failed experiment of the creation of a new society? You bet.

The naked, ugly truth is that deep down, man cries out for a savior. That heart-wrenching agony can be clearly seen in Romans 7, in which Paul tells the truth of man’s situation: the things I want to do, I don’t do; those things I don’t want to do, I do. Then Paul cries out “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). Isn’t this what every person despairs of, at some point in his life? What kind of sugar-coated, romanticized fiction ever depicts ugly, unbearable truth like that? Rarely does Christian fiction do it well.

However, look at Picture of Dorian Gray, Heart of Darkness, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, for example. The futility of trying to overcome one’s weaknesses by creating some sort of hero oneself is portrayed in all of its dark brutality. Did these authors know the one, true God? Some will argue the answer; however, it is clear that these authors realized the futility in their own lives and expressed it clearly.

Can a non-Christian depict the truth in his work of fiction? For an answer, take a look at Les Miserables or A Tale of Two Cities. (Some will argue that Dickens was a Christian; we will not take up that argument here—someone else can. We do know that Hugo was an avowed pagan.) What about revenge and its devastating results in The Count of Monte Cristo? The beauty of reconciliation and repentance is laid out clearly in all these books. Did God use these men? I would argue that yes, he did—and does.

So how do we approach literature with our children? Teach them the truth of the Law and the Gospel. Man is sinful and cannot save himself. He desperately needs a savior and tries to fill the void with his own works and inventions. Dead in his own sins, God reaches in and pulls him up out of the grave and into life. How tragic for those who have not been made alive by God!

Let’s see how this is played out in literature.

For more reading on how to view literature from a biblical worldview, see Reading Between the Lines by Gene Veith, The Twelve Trademarks of Literature by Jeff Baldwin, and How to Read Slowly by James Sire.

Part Two: “Bibles, Bonnets, and Brides: Christian Fiction”

Posted in Biblical Worldview, Literature | 1 Comment

Lessons from Job

Posted on March 26, 2012 by

My signature has changed.

That may not sound like much, but if you think about it, it’s pretty significant. I have lived with such tremendous pain for several months, that several physical changes have resulted.

Some are (I hope) temporary. Like the long-term dizziness and brain fog I’m experiencing. The fog kept me from reading too much at one time, or even finishing my thoughts completely. My family and friends have begun to finish my sentences for me in conversations.  (I actually typed a partial sentence here and couldn’t remember what I meant to say…)

The dizziness keeps me from walking too much, too quickly. Does pain make you dizzy? I guess it does, because drugs or no drugs, my head spins at unexpected times. That is ebbing away this past week, so I hope that the worst of my dizzy days are behind me.

Now for my signature. Chronic pain changes so many things. My strength is gone; stamina too. Holding a pen or pencil is an exercise in pain. When I need to sign a form at a doctor’s office or a charge at a store, I notice how jumpy my signature is. I no longer have the ability to control that pen the way I used to, and I do not recognize my own handwriting. Take notes in church? Forget it. This from the woman who is a writer, who has lived with a callous on the middle finger of her writing hand since high school. Pain has changed nearly everything. Nearly.

On those forms I need to fill out for each new doctor I visit, I must answer myriad questions about what my pain is like. Has your appetite changed? Your sleeping habits? Your temperament? Are you depressed? Talk about writer’s cramp. I could say a lot, but since I can’t hold a pen long, I must be brief.

Nearly everything has changed, as I said. I’ve lost a lot of weight, about which I do not complain. I had been only sleeping 1-2 hours at a time, until the doctor relented and gave me some drugs to help me sleep. Now I can make it until pain wakes me up at 5 or 5:30.

Depressed? Indeed. Wouldn’t you be depressed if you lived with unrelenting pain, 24/7? Depression is something I never thought I’d succumb to, but here I am. I can identify with Job, who lamented the day he was born. He sat in the ashes and scraped his sores, feeling sorry for himself. And who could blame him?

As for the temperament question, I asked friends and family if I had become irritable or if they had noticed my mood changed. No, they all agreed, but you are low in spirit. Again, who could blame me? But I am glad I haven’t given in to beating up on the people I love the most. Nor have I cursed God. Job’s wife told him to “curse God and die,” something he never gave in to.

Job lost everything. First his property, then his family, and finally his health. In all of it, Job never lost his faith. He lamented loudly, cursed the day he was born, wished that God would just end his misery (but never contemplated ending his own life), and debated with his friends over the cause of suffering. Yet he knew, in the depth of his soul, that God is good and that God is his redeemer.

As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God; Whom I myself shall behold, And whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me! (Job 19:25-27)

I began learning from Job when I was 15. Then my dad was in an irreversible coma, and we existed in a black wasteland, awaiting word that his body had finally given up. I lamented, naturally, and a family friend told me to read Job. Not many people can tell you that Job saved them, but I believe that God put me right in the middle of Job again and again over the next few years. He strengthened my faith while I watched Job’s tormented cries. He reassured me when I read God’s answer to Job and his friends. I loved seeing Job hang tenaciously on to his faith, despite what his friends said or did, and despite what state his tormented mind and body was in.

I’m reading Job again, which should not surprise those closest to me. This time I’m digging into the footnotes and commentary in the Lutheran Study Bible. Luther said something amazing:

When faith begins, God does not forsake it; He lays the holy cross on our backs to strengthen us and to make faith powerful in us… Where suffering and the cross are found, there the Gospel can show and exercise its power. It is a Word of life. Therefore it must exercise all its power in death. In the absence of dying and death it can do nothing, and no one can become aware that it has such power and is stronger than sin and death.

Again, another footnote from the Lutheran Study Bible, regarding Job 3, provides some encouragement:

Even the most optimistic people will reach despair when overwhelmed by pain and suffering, as the examples of prisoners of war demonstrate. The mind snaps just as bones do. Scripture does not teach that death is a friend to those who suffer–death is always an enemy (1 Cor 15:26), but one overcome by the Lord. Commend those who despair to Jesus, who likewise cried, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46) and rose from the dead to say, “Peace be with you” (John 20:21).

So just as in my teens I found solace in Job, and agreed with him that “my Redeemer lives,” and in my 20s when I lost a baby and despaired, now in this stage of my life when I am living through the most difficult pain I have ever experienced, I can still say with Job, “Though he slay me, I will hope in him” (Job 13:15). Why can I say that? Because I lean on a verse from my other “favorite” book of the Bible, John. “I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand” (John 10:28). I am His, firmly in His grip.

So my signature has changed. Many things have changed for me. Maybe I won’t be able to live the same way I had before this chronic pain has taken over. But one thing I know for sure: my God is good. “The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. ‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘Therefore I have hope in Him.’ The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of the LORD” (Lamentations 3:22-26). I have learned that my suffering is not all about me; this is not my story. It is God’s.

Posted in Biblical Worldview, Health, Pain and suffering | Leave a comment

Great contemporary speech for Rhetoric

Posted on February 21, 2012 by

If you are studying or teaching Rhetoric, this speech will make for some great discussion. I encourage you to save this one. It is passionate, articulate, focused, and uses ethics and logic quite well. Every word is well placed and carefully considered. His final paragraph is wonderful.

This man is the president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. He speaks before a House committee regarding a mandate under “Obamacare.”

Transcript of LCMS President Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison’s
Feb. 16 Testimony before House Committee on Government and Oversight
Mr. Chairman, it’s a pleasure to be here. The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod is a body of some 6,200 congregations and 2.3 million members across the U.S. We don’t distribute voters’ lists. We don’t have a Washington office. We are studiously nonpartisan,
so much so that we’re often criticized for being quietistic.

I’d rather not be here, frankly. Our task is to proclaim, in the words of the blessed apostle St. John, the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all our sin. And we care for
the needy. We haven’t the slightest intent to Christianize the government. Martin Luther famously quipped one time, “I’d rather have a smart Turk than a stupid Christian governing me.”

We confess that there are two realms, the church and the state. They shouldn’t be mixed – the church is governed by the Word of God, the state by natural law and reason, the Constitution. We have 1,000 grade schools and high schools, 1,300 early childhood centers, 10 colleges and universities. We are a machine which produces good citizens for this country, and at tremendous personal cost.

We have the nation’s only historic black Lutheran college in Concordia, Selma. Many of our people [who are alive today] walked with Dr. King 50 years ago on the march from Selma to Montgomery. We put up the first million dollars and have continued to provide finance for the Nehemiah Project in New York as it has continued over the years, to provide home
ownership for thousands of families, many of them headed by single women. Our agency in New Orleans, Camp Restore, rebuilt over 4,000 homes after Katrina, through the blood, sweat and tears of our volunteers. Our Lutheran Malaria Initiative, barely begun, has touched the lives of 1.6 million people in East Africa, especially those affected by disease, women and children. And this is just the tip, the very tip, of the charitable iceberg.

I’m here to express our deepest distress over the HHS provisions. We are religiously opposed to supporting abortion-causing drugs. That is, in part, why we maintain our own health plan. While we are grandfathered under the very narrow provisions of the HHS policy, we are deeply concerned that our consciences may soon be martyred by a few strokes on the keyboard as this administration moves us all into a single-payer … system.

Our direct experience in the Hosanna-Tabor case with one of our congregations gives us no comfort that this administration will be concerned to guard our free-exercise rights.

We self-insure 50,000 people. We do it well. Our workers make an average of $43,000 a year, 17,000 teachers make much less, on average. Our health plan was preparing to take significant cost-saving measures, to be passed on to our workers, just as this health-care legislation was passed. We elected not to make those changes, incur great cost, lest we fall out of the narrow provisions required under the grandfather clause. While we are opposed in principle, not to all forms of birth control, but only abortion-causing drugs, we stand with our friends in the Catholic Church and all others, Christians and non-Christians, under the free exercise and conscience provisions of the U.S. Constitution.

Religious people determine what violates their consciences, not the federal government. The conscience is a sacred thing. Our church exists because overzealous governments in northern Europe made decisions which trampled the religious convictions of our forebearers. I have ancestors who served in the Revolutionary War. I have ancestors who were on the Lewis and Clark expedition. I have ancestors who served in the War of 1812, who fought for the North in the Civil War – my 88-year-old father-in-law has recounted to me, in tears many times, the horrors of the Battle of the Bulge. In fact, Bud Day, the most highly decorated veteran alive, is a member of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

We fought for a free conscience in this country, and we won’t give it up without a fight. To paraphrase Martin Luther, the heart and conscience has room only for God, not for God and the federal government. The bed is too narrow, the blanket is too short. We must obey God rather than men, and we will. Please get the federal government, Mr. Chairman, out of our consciences.

Thank you.

President Harrison’s full transcript and video from the hearing, as well as a video message and previous statements to the church, can be found at www.lcms.org/hhsmandate.

Posted in Biblical Worldview, Government, Rhetoric | Leave a comment

Booklist from 2011

Posted on December 28, 2011 by

I tried to remember all the books I’d read this year, and I was amazed at how little free time I have, but how many books I got through. That tells me that if I just had more time on my hands, I’d really get a lot read!

Here are a few highlights from this past year:

Theology:

  • A Gospel Primer for Christians: Learning to See the Glories of God’s Love by Vincent Milton. This is a great little book. A student’s parent mailed it to me, and the next week our pastor held up his copy and encouraged us to read it. A couple of weeks later another pastor friend was underlining passages in his copy of the same book. I got the hint and picked it up. The entire message of this little gem is that we must preach the gospel to ourselves every day. What a simple thought.
  • On the Incarnation by Athanasius. This is another little treasure, written by a 3rd century Christian thinker. His logic is flawless, and his vision is centered on Christ, who He is, and what He has done.
  • Luther on Prayer. Martin Luther wrote about prayer based on the Lord’s Prayer. This is not a “pray these prayers” book, but as I wonder and focus on what prayer should be, I find his words helpful and insightful.
  • The Heidelberg Confession. The Westminster Confession is by far the better-known, but the Heidelberg lays out the Christian confession very clearly, with clear scriptural support. This is a good reference for anyone wanting to refer to doctrinal questions regarding the Christian faith.
  • Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This was a quick read, a simple look at the different Psalms and how they prayed in different ways to God. I am encouraged by Bonhoeffer’s insistence that praying through the Psalms will strengthen one’s prayer life. Indeed, whenever I have done so, I find encouragement in the psalmists’ admission of their own weakness and God’s strength.
  • Law and Gospel: How to Read and Apply the Bible by CFW Walther. Okay, I haven’t finished reading this yet, but I like working my way through each of Walther’s lectures. He emphasizes the balance of law and gospel (hence, I suppose, the title) as he teaches pastors, but even laypersons like me can learn how to apply Law and Gospel to my understanding.
  • Confessions by Augustine of Hippo. This is another I have been working my way through, and I love the way Augustine tells his life story as a prayer to an all-knowing God, who wove together the events in his life to bring Augustine to Himself at just the right time.
  • The Hammer of God by Bo Giertz. I should be putting this book in Fiction, but it is also Theology. It is a collection of stories, almost reminiscent of Dostoyevsky’s tone, that tells the same truth throughout: true faith is a balance of Law and Gospel. I loved this book and highly recommend it to all.

Fiction, Classics:

  • The Hammer of God by Bo Giertz. Okay, this is for those of you who skipped over the Theology portion of my list and just landed here. See the above description of this book and go out and find it. It is a beautiful read.
  • The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien. I hadn’t picked this one up in years, and it was just as delightful as I had found it as a young reader. I can’t wait until the movie comes out!
  • The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy. Sometimes I find books I hadn’t read as an English major, and this has sat on my shelf a long time without being read. I thought it was well done, intriguing all the way through, and not completely predictable. Hardy depicts a detestable character quite well.
  • Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton. This was another book that somehow I had never read. Not sure I’d read it again, but it tells a sad story of hopeless individuals…really a day-brightener, I must say.
  • The Awakening by Kate Chopin. This and Ethan Frome I promised a fellow teacher I would read and discuss with her. Thanks, Traci, for depressing me. This one shows the blossoming of a feminist perspective in the early 1900s. Selfish, self-centered, self-fulfilling, self-indulgent, and ultimately self-destructive. In a way, not too different from Picture of Dorian Gray. Lovely.
  • My Man Jeeves by PG Wodehouse. The author writes about a man with his butler near the turn of the 20th century. It’s cleverly written and amusing. I picked up his other books and found that they are pretty much the same thing, so I stopped there.

Fiction, Series:

  • The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling will always be on my list of favorites. I re-read it this year and loved it. I may have to do that again soon.
  • Flavia de Luce books by Alan Bradley. This starts with The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and includes four more books so far. I hope there are more. This is the tale of an 11-year-old girl in post-WWII England, living in a drafty manor and experimenting with chemicals to her heart’s delight. She solves mysteries. This could be a child’s story, but it is a very delightful series of books that any adult would love, full of endearing characters, humor, and excitement.
  • I finished the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins this year. These dystopian novels about a bleak future world will soon be made into a movie. They are labeled for young adult readers–like me (ahem). Actually, if you are older than I, you will probably like it too.
  • Divergent by Veronica Roth was another well-written dystopian depiction of young people coming of age in a future world. People have been divided into factions and assigned certain roles to keep their world ordered. Behind the scenes, though, there is intrigue and insurrection. This is not yet a series, but I hear the second book comes out in May, so I’m categorizing it here, with much anticipation.
  • The World War II novels by Jeff Shaara. Beginning with The Steel Wave, Shaara tells the true-to-life stories from the earliest days of Rommel’s battles on the African continent. I haven’t begun the second book yet, but I love every Shaara novel I can get my hands on.
  • Lord Peter Wimsey books by Dorothy Sayer. Beginning with Clouds of Witness, we meet Lord Peter and learn his quirky ways to solve a mystery. These stories are humorous and quick to plow through.

Fiction, Non-series:

  • So Brave,  Young and Handsome by Leif Enger. I loved his first book, Peace Like a River, so I took a chance on this one, and he did not disappoint. He is a master storyteller, very poetic, and he tells a good old-fashioned western tale with marvelous characters.
  • To the Last Man by Jeff Shaara. I’m just finishing this novel, and as always, Shaara is a master at telling the stories behind the wars the US has been engaged in. This one is about the First World War. I learned a lot that I hadn’t learned before about this devastating war.
  • Demonic by Ann Coulter. Okay, yes, she is a bit nutty. But I was intrigued by the description of this book, because she tells of the evolution of the mob. She uses the French Revolution for a prime example of the way a mob runs amok–and how crowds just blindly follow along. Since I am a history buff, and since some of my students are studying the French Revolution, I thought I’d pick it up. I don’t recommend her to just anyone, because she uses some crude language, but the historical progression is well footnoted and well-written.

What about 2012?

I am open to suggestions. You can see how eclectic I am as a reader. I’m looking for good historical fiction, sometimes a mystery or two, and some excellent, biblically-based theology that doesn’t turn into a mushy self-help, I’m-okay-you’re-okay pile of fertilizer. On my list continues to reside Law and Gospel, the rest of the Shaara books I have not yet read, a couple of David Baldacci and John Grisham books, and maybe, just maybe, The Help. I’ve resisted it thus far simply because I am a bit snobbish about the very popular Oprah-type books. But someone I respect has just finished it and assures me it is good. Sigh.

Posted in Biblical Worldview, Literature, Rhetoric | Leave a comment

Learning from pain

Posted on November 11, 2011 by

For a few years now I have lived with chronic pain. As it has gotten worse lately, I have had the opportunity to observe some things about living with pain. I am still learning to embrace what I’m observing, but it seemed like a good time to share them.

Living in pain messes with your mind, blows up your perspective. I don’t share this as a bit of wisdom; this comes from realizing that prolonged periods of pain cause me to think in ways I wouldn’t normally think. For example, I begin to doubt myself and question myself much more. I am much more given to despair.

Thus the need to remind myself–and for friends and family to remind me–of the truth. If I am doubting or despairing, I know I need a few things: a nap, a cup of tea, and some time with God’s word. I read the Psalms and Job and the Gospels for comfort, and often find myself in Ephesians or Corinthians for encouragement. Nothing like a good dose of truth to set my mind right again.

Pain is part of living in a fallen world. Sin affects everyone and every thing in this world. Romans 8:14 reminds us that all of creation groans, a result of the Fall. That means sickness and pain, sin and storms, poverty and wars happen all around the world, and they will keep happening until Christ returns. Knowledge of this doesn’t necessarily make my pain any easier to face, but it is the truth, and when in pain it is good to know it’s common to humans.

Chronic pain–pain that does not end–makes me want to hide. However, one friend asked me, “Where do you run to?” People have a tendency to run to drugs, alcohol, anger. They push away the very people who love them the most. Where do I run? When I am devastated, in pain, and I want to run, I open the Psalms. In the third Psalm, David cries out about his enemies all about him. However, he reminds himself: “But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. I cried aloud to the LORD,    and he answered me from his holy hill” (Ps 3:3-4). Somehow the picture of God putting a finger under my chin and lifting my head gives me great comfort when I am in terrible pain.

Pain sometimes screams so loudly that it is the most important thing in the room. So I occupy myself with something else. An old (funny) movie, a light-reading book, a puzzle or deck of cards will distract me well enough that soon I am thinking about something other than this dratted pain.

Pain has taught me to accept help. This may sound odd, but I am very good at giving, but not too good at receiving. Are you ill? Need a meal? Need me to sit with you? I’m there. But when I need help and someone offers, I am embarrassed or insistent that I can do it myself. However, a good friend has patiently taught me to sit still and accept the help that is offered. In fact, allowing myself to be served is allowing the body of Christ to do what it should be doing.

Here’s what a pastor just posted to his blog about suffering and pain:

Another purpose that trials can serve is preparing us to comfort those who will suffer in similar ways in future.  Paul writes in 2 Cor 1:3-4, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.  Pain trains us to help others who suffer.  Who can serve a parent who has lost a child better than another parent who has lost a child?  Who can come alongside one enslaved to a besetting sin more effectively than another who has struggled with the same issue?  When we go through that training ground, we are actually getting the same instruction Christ did – He is able to help us because He endured all the trials and temptations of we have.  When [we] use our experience to help others, we follow in His footsteps.

Most importantly, I learn how to cling ever closer to my Lord and Savior. I cannot heal myself. I don’t know if I will see an end to my pain in this life–I hope I do. But I know who is my Redeemer, and I know that He will restore me one day. And I can share that knowledge with others who suffer too. Somehow pain doesn’t scream so loudly when I focus on someone other than myself.

Posted in Biblical Worldview, Health, Pain and suffering | 1 Comment

Learning from the past

Posted on September 29, 2011 by

A friend and her husband designed the house of their dreams, scouted out land and bought the best lot they could find, then secured contractors. After clearing the land, the builders poured concrete for the foundation.

Returning the next morning to check on the concrete, they were astonished to find it had disappeared! The newly-poured foundation was gone.

Two more cement trucks poured more concrete, and by the next day, all that had been freshly laid was gone as well. To many of us it seemed now would have been a good time to investigate the reason for the disappearing concrete, but the contractor insisted that if it was just a little sinkhole underneath, the three trucks of concrete had taken care of it.

A fourth truck arrived and poured its load. True to the history of the past few days, that cement too disappeared.

Now it was time, the contractor decided, to determine what had gone wrong. (And we all thought, “Oh, ya think so?”)

It seems that the surveyor and the contractor had missed the fact that this land sat atop a cavern that extended way back under the land. They had been pouring concrete into a fissure. Four truck loads had barely begun to fill that cavern.

Had they been more careful, the surveyors, and all the other professionals involved in determining the fitness of this land, would have saved our friends a lot of money and worry. If they had just learned from their past error and stopped after the first load, or maybe even the second, they would have changed tactics or even abandoned the pursuit and searched for new land.

I remembered this story when listening to US economic and political news recently. Pouring billions of dollars into a sinking economy did not shore it up. In fact, the sinkhole just keeps getting bigger. Yet the professional bureaucrats who determine how our money is being spent have decided to pour several billion more dollars into that sinkhole.

My story is an imperfect analogy, but perhaps it serves to show the futility of pursuing a different result but using the same tactics–throwing good money after bad. In essence, we’re told, all we need is more cement to pour down the same sinkhole. We didn’t get results before, but by doing the same things again we expect great results the next time. Wait–isn’t that the definition of insanity?

It’s ridiculous to think that our bureaucrats will fix it this time when they didn’t last time. It’s even more ridiculous that anyone in America, who has observed the government’s futile attempts, would believe that it will work this time. Not learning from the past, we insist on doing the same thing over and over again and expect the same results. Insanity.

The tactic of bailing out companies that probably should have been allowed to die a natural death so that other more healthy enterprises could rise from the ashes–this is not wisdom.

Nor is decrying the wealthy, sneeringly calling them “fat cats,” and then vacationing with them (golf, galas, and garden parties) on Martha’s Vineyard.

Posted in Biblical Worldview, Government | Leave a comment