January 4, 2015 · 7:09 pm

Book list from 2014, books planned for 2015

book-love-books-to-read-23017145-619-463While I love to read, 2014 was not a year for lots of books for me. I am lukewarm about several that I read, but other books did impress me–and I am picky about literature. Good literature only whets my appetite for more.

You’ll see what I have read, and then what I plan to read, both in novels and in histories. There’s even a very last, ambitious list at the bottom which I’ve just discovered. What books would you recommend to me?

2014 reads

  • The Children of Willesden Lane by Mona Golabek. I’m always intrigued when I learn something new from the tales of history. How surprising to learn of something called the Kindertransport. As Hitler was gaining power and darkness spread through Europe, some Jewish families sought ways to smuggle their most precious possessions–their children–to England. A network of synagogues, charities, and churches formed–the Kindertransport–and found homes for hundreds of Europe’s Jewish children. This book takes the stories of some children placed in a foster home in England and follows them through the war years. Not a brilliantly-written book, this was nevertheless an interesting portrayal of this little-known story from the perspective of one musically-talented young Austrian girl.
  • The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. Much has been written about this book, and thinking about going to the movie, I decided to break down and read it first. (You may not know that I don’t like following contemporary booklists, because I find much to dislike in what passes as popular “literature.”) The point of view of the narrator–death–took me by surprise, and he didn’t make me comfortable at all. I think that’s the point. This book was beautiful and horrifying, and its heartbreaking conclusion wiped me out. Though I considered it a good book, I decided not to subject myself to the movie. I can recommend this book, but only to folks who are not strongly affected by heart-wrenching drama.
  • Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson. This is the second book in his Stormlight Archives, after The Way of Kings. He is masterful at creating a fantasy world, as also seen in his Mistborn series. His characters, the magical world they populate, and the good battling evil drew me in and held me captive all the way through. I’m going to blame this book on my reason for not reading more books this year. This is an incredibly long book! Worth every minute, though.
  • Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson. His two series, mentioned above, made me want more of his fascinating fantasy storytelling. Steelheart did not disappoint. He definitely wrote this book for a YA (Young Adult) audience, but that doesn’t deter me from reading good novels. The main character, a teenage boy who is awkward and geeky, made me smile frequently. Sanderson does a masterful job of creating compelling and believable characters.
  • The Great Pearl Heist by Molly Caldwell Crosby. I thought I was going to read a mystery fiction, but this turned out to be a true story about an infamous crime from the turn of the century. Not a dry history, this story was compelling all the way through.
  • The Princes of Ireland: The Dublin Saga by Edward Rutherfurd. I’ve enjoyed reading his novel of England’s history (Sarum) and Russia’s history (Russka). His method is unique–telling the history by focusing on one geographic area and creating familes whose descendants interact with one another over more than a thousand years. I loved traveling through Ireland a few years ago, so I looked forward to reading Rutherfurd’s creative history. This was well done, as usual, and I recognized some of the landmarks. His related novel, The Rebels of Ireland, is on my list to read next. I also want to read his novel of Paris, because I dream of going back there someday.
  • The Dead in their Vaulted Arches by Alan Bradley. This is the latest in the Flavia de Luce novels that have delighted me for the past few years. I love this smart, funny eleven-year-old girl who plays with chemicals in her uncle’s laboratory and dreams of concocting poisons, while she solves mysteries. Bradley’s next novel can’t come too soon!
  • The Girl in the Ice by Jason Vail. I hadn’t realized that this was Book 4 of a series, mysteries solved in medieval England. This one wasn’t good enough to capture my imagination and draw me to read the other books in this series. Though I enjoy fictional history, and especially of medieval Europe, this one just didn’t do it for me. The characters aren’t well developed, and the story itself didn’t hold together well.
  • The Midnight Rose by Lucinda Riley. You might classify this as a romance, but I refuse to call it that. It’s a historical novel, well-written, easy reading. I like the author, and I always enjoy the setting she creates, usually in England or France. Not great classical literature, but every once in a while it’s a light divergence from the norm.
  • The Secret Gospel of Ireland by James Behan. This is basically a history of Christendom in Western Europe, beginning with Augustine. The author’s thesis is that Ireland saved Christianity in Europe. The historical detail is excellent, but he didn’t keep his thesis as a thread throughout the book. From what he described I could not reach the conclusion that he draws.
  • Jesus + Nothing = Everything by Tullian Tchividjian. If you know me at all, you know that I don’t often read devotionals or Christian books. I find them to be less theology, more navel-gazing, less law and gospel, more personality-driven. I prefer to study the Bible itself as the source of all biblical wisdom (funny how that works). This one we read with our small group from church. While it focused on Colossians, which I love, I found it to be pretty much personality-driven. Give me a book of the Bible and let’s discuss it instead!
  • The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss. Hungry for more Rothfuss (while we await the next book in his fantastic Kingkiller Chronicles), I decided to read this short book that focuses on one character from the Kingkiller Chronicles, Auri. What a disappointment! This is no more than a very long character sketch. I think the author wanted to remind us that he’s around while we wait for his next book. Seems like he was playing with phrases and adjectives, because there is no dialogue, very little action, and lots of introspection.
  • The Finisher by David Baldacci. I have enjoyed Baldacci’s novels of intrigue and mystery. This is a complete departure from his “usual” genre, a foray into fantasy for him. He writes with an entirely different voice and tone. Utterly delightful, this beautifully written novel drew me in from the very first page. Now I cannot wait for the follow-up novel, because this cries out for a sequel. The characters are fully developed, the story exquisite. Probably the best book I’ve read all year.
  • Jubal Sackett by Louis Lamour. While driving through the mountains of Colorado last summer, our son had us listen to one of Lamour’s Sacket novels. I can’t remember the title, but it was just the right novel for the rugged landscape that passed outside our window. So my husband picked up the entire (very long) Sackett series and exclaimed how much he enjoyed it last year. While driving again, we listened to Jubal Sackett. I will definitely begin this series on my own, because I’m a Western girl who loves the tone and description of these stories.

On my 2015 list

More ambitious at the beginning of each year than toward the end, I’ll list the ones that intrigue me, and we’ll see if I can maintain this level of ambition.

Novels:

  • More of the Sackett series by Lamour, definitely. It’s best to start at the beginning, way back in the 1600s, I’m told.
  • Jeff Shaara’s new Civil War series, beginning with A Blaze of Glory. I have already begin this one. I love all of his books, so I’m excited to pick up these books. (He has two out and intends one more in this series, which takes place earlier than his Gettysburg trilogy.)
  • More Rutherfurd books, as I described above. Probably the next Ireland one, and then Paris. They are long tomes, and I can only do them with lots of other books in between.
  • As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust by Alan Bradley. It comes out at the end of April, just in time for my birthday. Good planning, Bradley!
  • Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian
  • Painted Horses by Malcolm Brooks
  • Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
  • Miss Peregrin’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
  • The Home Place Carrie LeSeur
  • The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz
  • Heretic by Bernard Cornwell
  • The Norsemen by Jason Born
  • The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell
  • The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson
  • The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
  • When Christ and His Saints Slept by Sharon Kaye Penman
  • The Three Edwards by Thomas B. Costain

Histories (This is where my ambition comes in. I would like to study more histories…)

  • The Story of Christianity by Justo Gonzalez
  • A World Lit Only by Fire by William Manchester
  • The Wars of the Roses and The Plantagenets by Dan Jones
  • Rebellion: The History of England from James I to the Glorious Revolution by Peter Ackroyd
  • Mysteries of the Middle Ages; How the Irish Saved Civilization; Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter; The Gifts of the Jews; Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus; Heretics and Heroes, all by Thomas Cahill
  • The Venus Fixers by Ilaria Dagnini Brey; The Rape of Europe by Lynn H. Nicholas; Rose Valland: Resistance at the Museum by Corinne Bouchoux; Saving Italy by Robert M. Edsel; The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel (all these books have to do with the stories on which the movie The Monuments Men was based.

But wait! Look at this list that my son just sent! I have already read many on this list, but now I want to read several more and then travel to the English counties in which each was based! Behold The Stars

You can suggest more that might be intriguing. Let’s see how many of these I accomplish, or whether my ADD tendencies (Look! A bookstore!) cause me to wander into other titles through the year.

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November 25, 2014 · 3:39 pm

When treasure fails

Black and white portrait of a very sad old womanHer husband died a couple of years ago, after a long, lingering illness. Left alone in her advanced years, she quickly lost her grip on reality. She tried to drive places, got lost, and was taken back home by the police. She frightened some of her neighbors as they swerved to get out of her path when she careened through the neighborhood. She began verbally abusing her neighbors, shouting and accusing them of stealing her food, her clothes, her mail. She taped threatening notes to their doors, telling them her lawyer would be contacting them soon about those missing clothes.

When the county was alerted by the police, Senior Services came to investigate. She told them sweetly that her neighbors were taking good care of her, and they went on their way. But her neighbors shied away from her abusive nature, instead of “taking good care” of her. Some did try. They brought soup over and shoveled her driveway. But for the most part, they stayed away. Can you blame them?

The story gets worse. Neighbors called her son, who was living in another state. Come and take care of your mother, they urged. But the son, emotionally paralyzed, was unable–or unwilling–to do the right thing. And can you blame him?

His story was told to neighbors by the woman’s husband before he died. The woman was mean, abusive. She abused those around her, all her life. Her son couldn’t get away from home quickly enough once he was grown. Her husband shielded the world from her nasty, abusive temper. His kind, gentle nature was the buffer that everyone saw, and no one suspected what was going on behind closed doors.

But once her husband was gone, that buffer was also gone. The son, paralyzed by his years of torment at the hands of his mother, couldn’t bring himself to deal with his father’s death, nor could he attempt to manage the estate his father had left behind so that his mother could be cared for.

So for a couple of years, the old woman began drifting farther from reality, continuing to shout abuse at her neighbors. She began hallucinating about a big black dog in her house, calling people to say that she was cornered in her bedroom closet, because the dog had chased her there.

Finally Senior Services had done enough research and decided that, because no one was able to take care of her, she would become a ward of the state. She was taken to a nursing home.

The house stood empty until the state took over and put it up for auction–the house and all its contents. The proceeds would go toward her care.

On the day of the auction, the neighborhood was packed. Someone set up a concession stand with hot dogs and water, chips and soda. All the house’s contents sat on tables lining the driveway. The furniture inside was also up for auction. And bit by bit, all the accumulations from the past 30 years were sold off.

“And this box of Tupperware. Who will get the bid started? Two dollars? One?” The auctioneer named the pieces from the home–a porcelain pig. A few cross stitch patterns. An electric fondue pot. On and on, for two hours. And then, finally, the house itself was auctioned.

How sad, how very tragic, that this woman’s life was taken apart and sold, piece by piece, to pay for her long-term care. And even more tragic–the son, who couldn’t bear to bring himself to take care of those details himself, still paralyzed by the abuse he endured all through his childhood.

15 Pile of GutsThe piles of her household goods, sitting on the driveway, reminded me of a few trips we had taken to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf States. One by one, houses were emptied of their contents and left on the curb for disposal, mountains of furniture, clothes, books, and treasure laid bare for everyone to see. Though we were the ones to gut many houses, we averted our eyes from the mangled, moldy contents, such a pile of personal treasure completely ruined. We saw the grief in their owners’ eyes as they watched the years of accumulation reduced to garbage when two weeks of high water destroyed everything.

When what you value in life is ripped away, what is left? When the buffer between you and the world is taken from you, who are you?

The ancient book of Job describes just such a scene. This wealthy man, with many grown children, an abundance of livestock, servants, and treasure, had everything stripped away from him. He was afflicted with pain, illness, and sores all over his body. As he sat on an ash-heap, his wife scornfully advised him, “Curse God and die.”

What would you do? What would you say, if you were Job? He did moan; he groaned aloud, nearly paralyzed by grief and pain. “Has not man a hard service on earth, and are not his days like the days of a hired hand?  Like a slave who longs for the shadow, and like a hired hand who looks for his wages, so I am allotted months of emptiness, and nights of misery are apportioned to me.  When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’ But the night is long, and I am full of tossing till the dawn. My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt; my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh. My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle and come to their end without hope” (Job 7:1-6).

But Job, even sitting on the ruins of his lost fortune, and grieving the loss of his children and betrayal of his wife, and suffering physical pain as he was, had a deep assurance that there is something–Someone–more, and he invested his trust in that.

Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were engraved in the rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me! If you say, “How we will pursue him!” and, “The root of the matter is found in him,”  be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishment of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment. (Job 19:23-29; emphasis mine)

Life is hard; cruelties abound. Experience proves that we cannot rest our faith in our treasure, and that people will let us down. So when all around you fails, where do you place your trust and your faith? Job declared out loud that his faith was in God, and his faith never wavered, even in the midst of the worst kind of horrors. Be assured that there is only One who keeps His promises (“I will never leave nor forsake you,” Joshua 1:5) and who will never leave or forsake you, if you have placed your trust in Him.

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Filed under Biblical Worldview, Health, Pain and suffering

September 19, 2014 · 4:01 pm

Analyzing Media from a Biblical Worldview

LongmireMy husband and I have been watching a contemporary Western TV show taking place in Wyoming, called Longmire. We’ve enjoyed it a great deal, mostly because we consider ourselves to be westerners who love the big sky, the mountains, and the rugged terrain, not to mention the rugged individuals living there. The good guy wins. Even though he has a dark side, he pursues the truth and does what’s right.

In a series of episodes, the sheriff’s grown daughter is critically injured in a hit-and-run accident, and the sheriff decides it is because of some wrongs he has committed. He asks his best friend, a Native American, to help him atone for his wrongdoing. So in the final scene of one episode, they stand on the open range, at sunset, and perform a Native American blood-letting ceremony. There’s dramatic music, and plenty of Native American symbolism, and even a gorgeous rainfall off in the distance, with the sunset casting it in a beautiful glow. Blood is spilled on the earth, and Mother Earth is pleased.

So how would a Christian evaluate these episodes? One method would be to yell that you will never watch such heathen representations and turn off the show forever. Sometimes that kind of reaction is warranted. However, let’s explore another method for analyzing the worldview of that show. And this method of analysis will be vital for you and your family, if you intend to live in this world and interact with the unbelievers who surround you.

First, examine the worldview that undergirds these episodes. This means you need to understand other worldviews. Why? Often you will need to know the mindset of the people you interact with daily, so that you can see their deep need for a savior.

Karma

First is the idea that something the sheriff has done has led to the near-death state his daughter is in. That’s karma. This Hindu belief says “what goes around, comes around”–a person’s wrongful actions will result in bad things happening to him. But this idea is not unique to Hinduism; it pervades all cultures and beliefs. Even some religions that call themselves Christian have this belief embedded in their foundations. (And the health-and-wealth preachers teach the flip side: if you do good things, good things will happen to you.)

But Christ debunked this belief long ago. In Luke 13:1-5, he mentions a couple of instances in which tragedies befell some people. “Now on the same occasion there were some present who reported to Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. And Jesus said to them, ‘Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered this fate? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (NASB).

Likewise, he answers even more directly in John 9:1-7. “As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?’  Jesus answered, ‘It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.  We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work.  While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.’  When He had said this, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes,  and said to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.’ So he went away and washed, and came back seeing.”

So Christ rejects the idea of “What goes around, comes around” pretty soundly.

Blood Guilt

What about the Native American bloodletting ceremony? This one is quite profound, and from a worldview analysis, pretty amazing. If you do enough reading of history and cultures, you will notice that there exist some pretty similar notions about sin, or whatever that culture might call it. Greeks referred to it as “blood-guilt.” Greek literature is full of such references. But it didn’t begin with the Greeks. Blood guilt has its roots in the earliest people on earth.

The second recorded sin in the Bible is, of course, Cain killing his brother Abel. Interestingly, God tells Cain, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground. Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand”  (Genesis 4:10-11). And not too long after, God explains why the spilling of blood is so terrible: The life is in the blood. “Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. Surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man’s brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man” (Genesis 9:4-6).  Leviticus 17:11 and Deuteronomy 19:6 also repeat that theme.

Greeks believed that when blood was spilled, that blood-guilt required the blood of the spiller (the sinner) to be spilled. We see the theme revisited in many histories and cultures and literature from then on. And you can see how murder after murder gets committed, because each time blood is spilled, another person must come along and avenge the spilling of blood. What a bloody mess!

Why is this important? Here’s where the richness of biblical worldview analysis comes in. In this one dramatic TV scene, we see the ancient idea of blood-guilt being played out yet again. And though the method is pagan, the idea is very true. There is life in the blood, and only the spilling of blood will save someone from (will atone for) his sins. So here is where you can begin a meaningful conversation with someone who watches a scene like this, or any number of similar scenes in literature and media throughout time.

Yes, the spilling of blood is necessary to atone for sin. Yes, there is life in the blood. And yes, there is only one true Person whose blood, when spilled, saves you and me from our sins, and it only needed to be done once. The same God who required Hebrews to mark their door posts with the blood of a lamb so that death would pass over them, He also provided for a pure, spotless Lamb whose blood was spilled so that eternal death would pass us by.

So when you set out to analyze movies, TV, and other media from a biblical worldview, take time to peel back the layers of what’s going on. Explore the unspoken meanings in what you’re analyzing. Discuss it with your teens, and you are arming them with deep truths they can share with their friends.

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Filed under Apologetics, Biblical Worldview, Literature

August 11, 2014 · 4:11 pm

The “go and preach” paradigm

CoulterConservative columnist Ann Coulter posted an acerbic opinion piece excoriating the two missionary health workers who had been shipped back to the US to be treated for Ebola, which they contracted in Africa.

Her column did not scold them for bringing their disease back to America. She did, however, take issue with the money spent in bringing them back here. But her column spent the most time taking them to task for leaving the US at all in order to bring the Gospel to the people of Africa. “If Dr. Brantly had practiced at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles and turned one single Hollywood power-broker to Christ, he would have done more good for the entire world than anything he could accomplish in a century spent in Liberia. Ebola kills only the body; the virus of spiritual bankruptcy and moral decadence spread by so many Hollywood movies infects the world.”

In one respect Coulter got it right. In another, though, she missed the boat.

Should missionaries leave their home country to take the message of the Gospel to another country? Why leave the US, when there are plenty of unbelievers here?

Answers to the first question can be found in God’s word, where we see a promise and a command. Psalm 96:3 commands, “Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples” (NASV). And Isaiah 12:4 also urges, “And in that day you will say, ‘Give thanks to the LORD, call on His name. Make known His deeds among the peoples; Make them remember that His name is exalted.'”

In the New Testament, Jesus specifically combines the directive with the promise: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20). He directed his disciples again in Acts 1, where in the second half of verse 8 he said, “and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”

Jerusalem, where those disciples stood at that moment, was the local preaching of the Gospel. Judea and Samaria were the nearer regions, and then, they were directed, take this message to the far points of the earth! Jesus did not equivocate here; he was very clear. Yes, preach the Gospel locally, AND yes, take it to the rest of the world. And we, who have been recipients of the Gospel outside of Jerusalem, can be very thankful that the Gospel did spread! Men and women took that command and promise to heart, and they went forth!

Coulter implies, but perhaps does not mean to say, that people in impoverished third world countries are not “worth” the effort and expense it takes to bring them the Gospel. Truly, not one of us is “worth” it. My sins are no better, nor no worse, than anyone else’s. To rate the value of preaching the Gospel to one people group over another’s devalues the meaning of that Gospel.

The Gospel–the message that Jesus Christ, who is God and Man, lived a perfect, sinless life and died on a cross and was brought to life again so that our sins would be completely forgiven–is not America-centered. No, the Gospel is Christ-centric. God saves sinners to glorify himself, not to glorify any one person, country, or people.

What I believe Ann Coulter did intend in her column was to take American Christians to task for not making their own cities and neighborhoods their mission fields. “Which explains why American Christians go on ‘mission trips’ to disease-ridden cesspools. They’re tired of fighting the culture war in the U.S., tired of being called homophobes, racists, sexists and bigots. So they slink off to Third World countries, away from American culture to do good works, forgetting that the first rule of life on a riverbank is that any good that one attempts downstream is quickly overtaken by what happens upstream.”

She’s partially correct. However, take a look around the US: there are churches everywhere. The people of this land received the benefit of Gospel-preaching for more than three centuries, and now it has chosen to turn away and pursue its own degradation. Yes, America needs missionaries in its own streets. But I’d venture to guess that most of our “cultural leaders” in Hollywood have deliberately chosen to turn aside from the Gospel.

What about the people in other nations? Some have turned aside, yes, but most have never heard the Gospel.

If anything can be taken from Coulter’s column, it is the cry for the American Christian church to wake up. Wake up, she’s shouting, and see the mission field right in front of your eyes! We are happy to say we have gone to Africa on a short-term mission trip to preach to the lost. Can we be as eager to go to our own “Jerusalem,” our own cities and neighborhoods, and preach to the lost and dying here? It certainly doesn’t seem as glamorous or praise-worthy. But it is so very necessary.

samaritans-purse-haiti-cholera-gods-mercyAdditionally, there is something to say about the importance of doctors going where there is disease in order to work on a cure. The history of medicine is rife with stories of men and women who lived among diseased people and developed a cure: polio, smallpox, strep, leprosy, and more. The health workers who lived among Africans in order to minister to the sick and the dying knew what they were doing, and they believed they could not only bring comfort to the sick, but perhaps play a part in discovering a cure.

So while I find some points in Coulter’s column that don’t ring true to the intent of God’s commands to teach and preach, I also find, hidden in her acid tone, the challenge to the church in the US: wake up! Go, teach, preach!

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July 24, 2014 · 9:11 pm

Talk to me.

Talking with someone who has a chronic health condition

I hurried past the pastor’s office, where I could see him sitting at work. I was there to meet my husband, who was working with the worship minister on a Saturday morning.

“How’re you doing?” the pastor called.

I gave a little wave, hurried past his door, and said what I always say: “Okay!”

He called even more insistently. “Come in here and tell me how you REALLY are.”

I am one of those people with chronic, nearly-unremitting pain. It’s exhausting, grinding, mind-numbing pain. But I don’t often share with other people how I’m feeling. I resist mainly because it’s a long story. I hate seeing the look of sympathy in other people’s eyes. I don’t want to bore anyone, nor do I want to draw attention to myself. So I give a pat answer.

But the pastor was not interested in that. He was genuinely concerned, and I walked in, sat down, and answered his question in more depth. And afterward my day went a little more cheerfully.

A few days later I sat down with a friend over coffee. She has a chronic health condition and is frequently in bed all day with pain. She and I don’t need to talk much about how we feel. We understand that it’s not our favorite topic, and we both hurt a lot of the time, so we talk about other things. The nice part of this friendship is that if one of us cancels on coffee because of pain, the other truly understands!

This brings up a topic I’ve read about here and there, and it bears repeating. How do you talk with someone who has a chronic health condition?

  • Though our illnesses may vary, we still live among healthy people who may or may not really care to hear the full story when they are asking, “How’re you?” Thus the reason we may breeze past you with an easy “I’m okay.” If you honestly do want to hear how I’m feeling today, take the time to look me in the eye and ask, “How are you REALLY doing today?” I appreciate it when you pause to listen. I don’t judge you if you don’t.
  • When you propose some activity and I turn you down–even again and again–it probably isn’t because I dislike your company. It might actually be that the activity will drain me of my last energy reserves for the day or the week. It’s why I don’t commit to regular activities, like weekly Bible studies or book clubs. If I do, I usually end up canceling often, and that comes off as inconsiderate. (I hate letting people down.)
  • This blog contains a great story by a woman with lupus, who found a way to express to a friend how she must carefully consider her energy every time she must do something during the day. I like the analogy she uses, and I believe it’s appropriate for anyone with a chronic condition and with limited energy reserves. A couple of my friends understand the spoon analogy, and all I have to do is tell them I’m out of spoons for the day. They get it.
  • Just because I look okay–meaning I am dressed, have makeup on, my hair is brushed, and I’m walking–doesn’t always mean I am well today. But I am here, and participating in life, and glad to be doing it. (You might not know that I nap when I get home. But at least I was there!) I still carry around a burden of pain, nearly all the time, every day, even though I don’t always show it. (Remember that although we have a chronic health condition, we still love to laugh, shop, go to movies, take an occasional walk. Getting out and about doesn’t mean I am suddenly healed. It may very well mean I have a few spoons left today.)
  • “What can I do for you?” some may ask me. Sometimes I honestly don’t know. You can’t fix me a meal, because I have several dietary restrictions, and I feel like that’s too burdensome for an unsuspecting person to take on. So if you have a good idea, run it by me and I’ll tell you what I think. It might mean you can pick me up for a trip to the store or vacuum my floor. The little things help.
  • I wish I had a dollar for every time some well-meaning person approaches me with a story of a friend or relative who has a chronic condition. They will tell me about a new exercise, treatment, dietary supplement, or doctor. Really, I DO know that your story comes from a very caring place. It’s just that I have probably heard that before, or have already tried it, or have read that the treatment you mentioned is just a bunch of hokum. For the most part, I’m not going to run out and try your theory (I’m not going to run anywhere…), but I might look it up if I haven’t heard it before.
  • Please understand if I don’t want to talk about it. Sometimes I just want to cry, and I’d rather not make such a mess of myself. If I tell you I don’t want to talk about it, I really don’t. Understand that this might be a very bad day, and I’m doing my best just to keep it all together.
  • Sometimes you might see me on a particularly bad day, when it’s hard to keep it all together. Give me a gentle hug if you want–but please make it gentle, since everything hurts. Offer me a smile and mention me in your prayers. If you must, buy me some coffee (decaf, since I also have chronic fatigue) or chocolate (if it works with my diet), or loan me a good movie.
  • Look me in the eye and tell me you care. It lifts my spirits and helps me when I am low.

 

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April 26, 2014 · 9:58 pm

On dealing with pain

puppyA walk with my dogs gives me a picture of two opposite ways to view the world. Digory, the oldest, a terrier mix, is fearful and neurotic. He’s just a mess. Dobby is our cockapoo puppy, just learning how to walk on a leash. I can read their minds.

Digory: “Your feet are scary. Scary leaf. Scary water in gutter. Yikes–a dead squirrel! Eek–another dog. Scary sticks. Watch out for rocks. Ack–a car!”

Dobby: “Watch how fast I can stay ahead of you! Oh boy–a leaf to chase! Mmm, green water tastes great. Mom! Can I take the furry, stinky chew toy home? Look, look–a new friend! Wait for me! I’m tasting this rock! Oooh–a stick! Can I chase this big car?” He found a tennis ball on one of his walks and wouldn’t let me pass it by. Digory has seen many of those fuzzy round green monsters before, since our walk takes us by two tennis courts, and he makes a wide path around those scary things. Not so for Dobby.

Not to wax philosophical for too long about dogs with very little brains, I can see how their human counterparts can tend toward similar, widely disparate responses. My poor neurotic terrier (he really is a sad case) greets every challenge with fear and worry. And the little puppy finds adventure (and things to chew) around every corner. To him, as with many humans, even dark days have a few bright spots.

I’d like to think I’m like the latter, even though I am far from my puppy days. I don’t like dwelling on the negative for long, I don’t carry grudges (not very many of them, anyway), and I’d rather focus on the positives than reinforce the negatives. And in every situation, no matter how grim, I like to find the bright spots and remind myself of them from time to time.

It’s been two years or more since a huge spike in pain from fibromyalgia sent me on a round of doctors, including the Mayo Clinic, to seek answers. I’ve learned so much about pain and about myself. I rarely like to dwell on the negatives, but if my experiences can help a few people, so much the better. This ongoing “journey” through pain–because it hasn’t ended–might be a helpful bit of instruction for someone else. And it might help you to find the positives dotting a landscape that might be full of dreariness.

Pain does a strange thing to the body. Neurologists can tell you better than I, but my experience showed me that when a person’s physical pain increases, it affects all sorts of other areas. The brain may not be able to process it all. My memory suffered, my vocabulary shrank (I often couldn’t find the words), I didn’t sleep very many hours at a time, and I couldn’t work. I was dizzy from reactions to medicines (the journey to find the right meds is a whole other story); I became anxious and depressed. I couldn’t hold a pen, carry my purse, lift a laundry basket.

So what did we do about it? One doctor after another threw their hands up in the air and sent me on to other doctors. This taught us to be careful in choosing a doctor, asking questions up front about what they know and are prepared to help with. Some, but not all neurologists are prepared to help. Some, but not all rheumatologists are able or willing to help. Some, but not all chiropractors have a holistic view of fibromyalgia. And so forth. Because fibromyalgia exhibits differently in different people, doctors need to help assess the best path for each patient, and it might not look the same for everyone.

So let me give you a list of what helped me through my “journey.” (I really hate that word. Let’s try to find another.)

1. Carefully search for the doctor who is prepared to help. Ask whether they have many fibro patients, and whether they’ve been able to help many of them. Ask whether they are willing to consider natural methods as well as chemical. I found relief from chiropractics and from a method proposed by the Neurologic Relief Centers. (Anything I recommend medically comes to you with no guarantees. I’m just telling you about what has worked for me.)

2. Some fibro is relieved by eliminating certain foods, and you may want to experiment by using an elimination diet. For me, avoiding wheat and corn helps not only with the digestive issues common to fibro (not-so-pleasantly referred to as Irritable Bowel), but with some level of pain control–some of the time. Living gluten- and corn-free is not easy, but it’s definitely doable, especially when the alternative is painful. One doctor told me that most grains and dairy foods are rough on fibro patients. I can handle some dairy, sparingly.

3. Find a good psychiatrist. Fibromyalgia is often closely related to depression. I don’t know if it is a chicken-and-egg situation; did depression come first, or is it an effect of fibro? At any rate, many fibro patients need an anti-depressant to help manage the pain and depression. While a family doctor can help with some ailments, he or she may not know all the ins and outs of medicines related to depression. Interestingly, my psychiatrist experimented with different pain management meds in combination with anti-depressants, to find the right balance for me. I will not go into the meds that caused me more trouble than they helped, because everyone reacts differently. Just keep working to find the right balance, and find someone who will listen and who is willing to work with you.

4. Find a good counselor.  Sometimes fibro sufferers have emotional pain that exacerbates the physical pain, or vice versa. Talk with a counselor who can help you work through whatever has caused you to suffer emotionally.

5. Read up on fibromyalgia. It’s helpful to find other people who can talk to you about how they manage their condition. The Mayo Clinic has some educational information on their web site. Some organizations like the National Fibromyalgia Association have  newsletters with articles by doctors and fibro sufferers, so you won’t feel so alone.

6. Sleep. Chronic fatigue syndrome is also linked with fibromyalgia. (Isn’t it a delightful condition?) A good psychiatrist will help you with that as well. I learned that long naps are not so helpful, because they will mess up my nighttime routine. But a 20-30-minute nap will refresh me if my pain is running a bit too high.

7. Be willing to say no. I have a tendency to take on too much, whether work, or volunteer, or travel/tourist activities. Learn from your mistakes. Don’t plan on too many things at once. Allow yourself to decline invitations or even say no to other people’s expectations of you. Build some resting times in between the activities. I have to admit, this is the hardest one for me right now, because I have always been a pleaser. I hate disappointing people. So I’m preaching to myself right now: stop thinking you have to do everything/be everything. Say no, and be okay with it.

8. Find rest for your soul. This is the most important point, and I probably should have led with it. You can find all sorts of articles relating to “spirituality and pain” on the internet. But I want to go farther and emphasize that it is God alone–God the Father, the creator of the universe–who provides the answers to those suffering from pain. I encourage you to seek Him, run to Him, and find rest. Psychologist Phil Monroe at biblical.edu encourages sufferers in the following manner:

“The chronic pain sufferer who grieves well

  • asks God for relief
  • stays in community with others
  • seeks relief through human means yet has an attitude of waiting on the Lord, and
  • explores and confront[s] hidden sin in self that the pain may reveal.”

I can’t agree enough with this. Find someone who can pray with you, read Psalms to you, take you to church.

Learning how to wait on the Lord is not the easiest thing. For a very long time I tried to figure out what I had done wrong. Surely, I thought, if I pray the right prayer and show God that I have done all He wants me to do, He will find me worthy and heal me. I finally understood that there’s nothing I can do to seem more worthy, or to heal my spiritual self. My broken condition is also the human condition. Nothing I can do or say, no prayer of mine, can save me or heal me. That’s the bad news AND the good news, all at once, because the other side of the coin is that God alone saves; it is He who sets the captives free, and there is nothing I can do to save myself.

What has this got to do with my chronic pain? Everything. When I learned that I cannot save myself, I also began to learn how to wait on the Lord. The process of waiting isn’t yet another thing to do on a list I can check off. It’s a daily walk–praying, meditating on God’s word, and resting. Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29 ESV). It’s discovering God will hold you, hide you from the storm that’s raging: “For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock” (Psalm 27:5). You can read a couple other blogs of mine that address this attitude of waiting on the Lord, here, here, and here.

So there may be something to that earlier analogy of the dogs’ views of the world. Will I choose to focus on the dark and scary side, or will I find the bright and promising side? In all things, even in this long, painful storm, I see promise and hope, and I want you to also.

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February 4, 2014 · 7:38 pm

Clouds of dust over a Super Bowl ad

whites_onlyWhen I see narrow-minded bigotry, I think of signs like this that presided over a shameful period in US history. I heard some of my own family members who agreed with that sentiment back in the 70s. It embarrassed me deeply. I was ashamed to hear people I love saying such hateful things.

What a surprise to see similar sentiments rise up over something as simple as a Super Bowl Coca-Cola commercial.

The song was “Oh Beautiful,” and it is distinctly American. The words, penned by Katherine Lee Bates as she sat atop Pikes Peak looking over the plains of Colorado, praise the beauty of our country. The song was sung during the Super Bowl commercial in several different languages. The meaning is the same regardless of the language used to sing it: “Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple-mountain majesties above the fruited plain. America, America, God shed His grace on thee! And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea!”

We memorized that song in school, at Katherine Lee Bates Elementary in Colorado Springs, at the foot of Pikes Peak. It held special meaning for me then, and it still does today. It is uniquely American and speaks, interestingly, of American exceptionalism. The rest of the verses are included below.

Why are we arguing over the language used to sing those specific thoughts and ideas? The song praises America for its bountiful beauty–and, remember, for God’s grace on such a country! How beautiful can that be? (Don’t go all first-world on me, folks. Just saying, don’t try using your English-only argument about this song. Regardless of the language used, it still praises America!)

Social media is lit up with ugly comments on both sides about this commercial. Let’s take a step back and think. While one person on social media blasted that “The national anthem should be sung in English” (excuse me, but that wasn’t the national anthem anyway), others are taking Coca-Cola to task for injecting race issues into the Super Bowl.

Seriously. Take a breath.

Once you step foot on American soil, it does not mean you must drop your original language and never speak it again. Don’t get me wrong–I am conservative and want strong border enforcement and tough immigration laws. That’s not the issue here. The reactions to that Coca-Cola ad, though, did verge on bigotry, when people protested that the song should only be sung in English.

How petty and simplistic.

I believe the point of the commercial was to celebrate the mix of people and cultures we have in this country. Aren’t we the melting pot? What other country, when its athletes are marching in at the beginning of each Olympics, has such a mix of ethnicity among its team members? Isn’t that great?

And don’t forget that the song, sung during the Super Bowl, dared to sing that “God shed His grace on thee,” America. How bold, to perpetuate the idea that God is actively blessing people. Does He only shed His grace on people who speak English? (Yeah, that sounds ridiculous to me, too.)

So let’s take a deep breath and consider that while we do live in America, we are a rich mixture of ethnic backgrounds and cultures. Consider that we do indeed live in a beautiful country “from sea to shining sea,” and consider that regardless of the language in which we sing it, that truth remains the same.

Reject bigotry of all kinds. Challenge one another to think more deeply about the media messages out there. This little dust-up was misguided and narrow-minded. There are so many other things to get all riled up about. (Like the fact that I just ended that sentence with two dangling prepositions).

Here is the rest of the song. Pay attention to the words; they are distinctly American, and they also boldly honor God.

O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness,
And every gain divine.

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self control,
Thy liberty in law.

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December 27, 2013 · 5:42 pm

Books recommended, books panned for 2013

wisemansfear

Wise Man’s Fear gets my vote for favorite book of the year

This year I read a great deal, since I am still on low energy and need plenty of resting time. I chose many books based on recommendations from friends and family. I also went contrary to my nature and followed the recommendations of Amazon, since I read almost exclusively on a tablet device. Amazon and I have a close, enduring relationship. I pay Amazon lots of money, and it feeds my addiction. There might be something wrong about this relationship, but I can quit anytime I want to.

My taste in novels this year has been quite eclectic, such that you cannot pin me down to any one genre for very long.

This year I returned to some of my favorite contemporary authors, like John Grisham, Jeff Shaara, and David Baldacci. I also picked up a newly discovered novel by the late Pearl S. Buck, who has been a longtime favorite of mine. Loved the Grisham, Shaara, and Baldacci novels; grew very bored with Buck.

John Grisham:  Sycamore Row and The Racketeer. Sycamore Row returns to the same characters as in Grisham’s first novel, A Time to Kill. Though the new story has nothing to do with the old, I enjoyed revisiting the characters and watching them have a new legal adventure. At times it moved a bit slowly, but the ending was worth it. The Racketeer involves several intriguing characters and weaves a tale that is fun to follow.

David Baldacci: I stopped reading Baldacci a few years ago when he killed nearly everyone I cared about in Last Man Standing. My husband told me that he liked a new series by Baldacci, the King and Maxwell books. We read King and Maxwell on audio during a road trip. The story included many interesting characters and involved a great story of international intrigue.

Jeff Shaara is always good for a wartime history. I have never met a Shaara book I didn’t like, so I read his World War 2 novels and thoroughly enjoyed them. I’ll pick up his newest Civil War books in 2014. His World War 2 series: No Less Than Victory, The Steel Wave, and The Final Storm.

One of my longtime favorite authors has been Pearl S. Buck. In 2013 her heirs announced that a new manuscript of hers had been found and authenticated. Wanting to see if the book would match her earlier excellence, I read Eternal Wonder. I put it back down about half-read. It was boring and did not hold my interest in the least. What a disappointment.

I was eager to finish the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth, so I picked up Allegiant. The novel answered all my questions from the first two books, Divergent and Insurgent, but not well. I was disappointed; it seemed as if the author was in a hurry to finish the novel, and she didn’t wrap things up well.

Patrick Rothfuss has written a fascinating fantasy novel, The Name of the Wind, which I read in 2012 and loved. His next novel, The Wiseman’s Fear, could probably rate as better than the first. The story is brilliant, and its characters are deep and engrossing. With the exception of a strange interlude into a fairy’s lair, the entire story held together extremely well. I can’t wait to read the third, which comes out in 2014.

Brandon Sanderson writes good fantasy novels, such as his Mistborn series. I thoroughly enjoyed Mistborn (book 1) and Well of Ascension (book 2). I thoroughly recommend these to any fantasy fan.

Alan Bradley continues to write an excellent series on the character Flavia De Luce, an 11-year-old prodigy in post-WW2 England. She is delightful, curious, bright, and humorous, and I love how he weaves an excellent mystery into this young girl’s life. His newest novel, Speaking From Among the Bones, did not disappoint.

The novel Sarum by Edward Rutherford has long been on my reading list, but it always looked too long and boring. This was the year to read lots of books, though, and I piled them on. Sarum is the novel of England, from ancient times to the present. Since Rutherford has to leap from one age to the next in his novel, he can understandably only focus on a few characters for a brief time. Just as I got to enjoy a character, Rutherford leaped ahead a couple of centuries and I lost the character. However, the book was well-written enough that I wanted to read more of his books. I picked up Russka, the novel of Russia. I will read his novel of Ireland next year.

My favorite genre is historical fiction, so I tend to gravitate in that direction when I don’t know where else to go. I launched into my continued love of the Plantagenet and Tudor rulers of England, and some of the books were well-written. Please keep in mind that some of these novels contain some salacious moments and may not be appropriate for teens. (Some may not be appropriate for me either!)

Worth reading:

  • The Forgotten Queen by DL Bogdan
  • The White Princess by Philippa Gregory
  • The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir
  • The Kingmaker’s Daughter by Philippa Gregory
  • Captive Queen: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine by Alison Weir
  • A Dangerous Inheritance by Alison Weir
  • Stolen Crown by Susan Higginbotham
  • Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel
  • Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Not worth reading:

  • A Daughter of Warwick by Julie May Ruddock

Some miscellaneous novels were recommended simply due to my past reading choices:

  • She Wore Only White by Dorthe Binkert (not worth reading)
  • War Brides by Helen Bryan (slow-moving and disjointed)
  • The Orchid House by Lucinda Riley
  • The Girl on the Cliff by Lucinda Riley
  • The Lavender Garden by Lucinda Riley
  • Blood and Beauty: The Borgias by Sarah Dunant (horrid)
  • Murder on the Eiffel Tower by Claude Izner (boring and predictable)
  • The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro
  • Bristol House by Beverly Swerling
  • The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin (predictable)
  • The Bookman’s Tale by Charlie Lovett (great book!)

Finally, a friend challenged me to read something not on any of my lists, namely I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. Though it was never anything like the movie, the book was interesting. Asimov’s science fiction peered into the distant future but used low technology that was available to him at the time, like slide rules and television tubes and paper books.

Our small group Bible study met regularly to discuss the book The Hole in Our Holiness by Kevin DeYoung. I am not, have never been, will never be a fan of the self-help Bible study book or even any topical study book meant for Christians. So getting me to read this book took a lot of effort and coercion on the part of my husband. This book turned out to be pretty good, elaborating on the Reformed view of holiness–sanctification–of the believer.

In all, that looks like 37 books. For a person low on energy, that sounds just about right! Can’t wait to see what I will be reading in 2014! Let me know what you recommend.

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December 7, 2013 · 4:44 pm

Engage the culture: study the news

9-11On 9/11 all of America watched with a mixture of horror, outrage, and deep sadness the events that unfolded. My husband was stuck in another city on a business trip and could not get home because all flights were cancelled. We were just glad to be able to talk to one another on the phone, all of us safely on the ground on that dreadful day.

That evening I took the children to a restaurant so they could order whatever they wanted and we could talk together. “Are we at war?” “Who would do this to us?” “How many people were in those buildings?” “Are we safe here?” The questions rose up hard and fast, and they looked to me for answers. I had none, and no one else did that evening. We watched with rapt attention as President Bush addressed the nation. As much as we could, we kept up with the events that unfolded.

Suddenly my children were tuned in to world events like never before. We read what we could find, watched the news, and discussed it whenever we could, while driving in the car or sitting at the dinner table. We all became much more conscious of the world around us.

Sadly, I notice how little attention many families pay to what goes on in the world–especially homeschool families.  Some have no TV. Many do not read the paper or news magazines nor surf the web for news. How do I know this? I have talked with many homeschool families over the years and have found that they avoid world news.DADREADINGSON

I will not attempt to argue about the reasons that many families avoid the news–the reasons vary. However, I do take issue with the fact that Christian families–and particularly homeschooling Christian families–do not read about or watch the events that unfold around them.

When the culture begins to shift and ideas start to clash, who wins? When there is a power vacuum, what fills the void? The answers are obvious: the strongest power fills the void and overcomes the weakest. How will Christians react when they do not know what’s going on in the world? Can they afford to continue hiding away from events? Can they ever hope to shape the culture if they are not engaged in it?

The reasons we study history are clear: we need to see what men and ideas have shaped events. We learn what philosophies have impacted the movements and evolutions around the globe. Yet we stop our studies when it comes to what’s going on today?

Perceptive students will read the philosophers and historians who describe the “isms”–the ideas (like communism, socialism, feminism, existentialism, nihilism, etc.) that have shifted and changed events. They study Darwin, Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, and others whose works declared (or implied) that God is dead. These same students learn about the rise of socialism and the ideas that gave rise to communism.

And yet–contrary to logic–these same students have no idea of what is going on in their world today. Hello! Those astute students and their families could tie a beautiful bow on their biblical worldview studies simply by connecting the philosophies of the past with what they see in the world today! Those issues of ObamaCare, of “spreading the wealth around,” of Common Core implementation, or Progressivism–they all come from ideas promulgated centuries ago.

I have witnessed the effects of the lack of knowledge of current events in the classrooms in which I taught. Students who mixed their study of history and philosophy with the careful observation of current events were much better able to carry on a lively discussion, melding the two beautifully and noting how events of many decades ago have come full circle back into society and government today–just with different labels. Those who do not watch TV or read the news cannot participate so easily.

A part of one verse from the Bible is often quoted by Christians who urge their brothers and sisters to study the world around them: “Of Issachar, men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do…” (1 Chronicles 12:32). The greater context of this passage is a listing of men who came over to David’s side to battle and defeat King Saul. Every generation needs men and women such as Issachar: people who know the times, who astutely observe what’s going on around them and who can lend their wisdom to the decision-makers and the leaders in this world.

Charles Martel watched the culture and the events around him, in the early Middle Ages, the 8th century AD. He saw an evil influence marching his way. Islamic invaders were spreading across Western Europe, conquering territories and threatening the Christian world. Martel rallied his forces and stood fast, stopping the invasion and (in a simplistic nutshell) keeping Western Europe from becoming Islamic.

bonhoeffer2Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor in Germany, noted what was going on in his world. He saw the evil of Hitler’s reign, saw Jews being rounded up and sent to concentration camps, saw Hitler’s quest for a master race that would conquer the world. He went to America in 1939 but regretted having left his homeland. He wrote,

“I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people… Christians in Germany will have to face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose but I cannot make that choice from security.” (Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Eine Biographie, p736)

He returned to Germany and sided with those who tried to defeat Hitler. He was imprisoned and hanged just days before Germany was defeated.

Sticking your heads in the sand–not watching current events unfold–leaves you vulnerable. (It also leaves your hind end sticking up to get wallopped.) Christians, start becoming students of history AND of current events!

Does your child need to see everything that goes on in the news? Of course not–that’s not what I am arguing. However, as he gets older, he needs to be able to handle the reality of the world in which he is living. Have you protected him from the world by isolating him from current events? No–you have left him unable to engage the culture.

Christian parents, raise your children to be men and women of Issachar. Teach them (or find people who will teach from their fount of wisdom) how to connect the ideas and movements of history to what goes on today. Talk with them about the truth, and about where truth is sadly lacking. Help them and watch them form opinions about events. Sit with them at dinner, walk with them, pray with them, and show them how they can be shapers and engagers of the culture, rather than ostriches who hide their heads and leave their backsides vulnerable.

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November 19, 2013 · 5:54 pm

Everyone needs a superhero

If you had told me thirty years ago that I would be following the heroic antics of Marvel superheros in movie form, I would have laughed and walked away. The closest I ever got to comic books while growing up was a stack of Archie and Richie Rich back issues left behind in the mountain cabin we bought when I was little. I read them again and again until I was bored with them, and I never sought out any more comic books.

Superman_by_iGamerBut having raised geeky kids, and lived with a geeky husband, the superhero and his super deeds have become regulars in our lives.  Sitting through the latest Marvel super movie, the literary critic in me noticed once again that these stories usually run along a similar theme, and the characters in these movies (and perhaps in the comic books, though I haven’t opened one) follow similar archetypical patterns. The beauty of these patterns is that they reflect the deepest cries of the human heart. A biblical worldview perspective shows how universally appealing the superhero tale can be.

The story of the superhero follows a similar pattern, even though there are large variations from time to time.

The struggle between good and evil. The moral tale becomes very clear. Good and evil are clearly depicted. Even the colors, the setting, and sometimes the music that accompanies the good and the evil get treated very differently. Evil is dark and brooding; the lair of the evil ones is sinister, ugly, sometimes cold. Evil is depicted in such a way that the audience hates it, rejects it, finds it vile and wants it to lose. Evil, in short, is not pretty.

We identify with that theme, the great struggle of good over evil. It is one of the most universal, and one of the oldest, stories of all time. We want good to win. We recognize that good MUST win in order for us to survive. So good, as depicted in most superhero comics, does ultimately win. Our hearts are satisfied with that kind of an ending. It’s how we were wired.

Genesis lays out the ancient struggle between good and evil–the serpent and the human. Yet not too far into Genesis we learn the promise: evil will be trampled in the end (Gen 3:15). That promise was fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, who dealt the blow to Satan by defeating death itself.  And the promise carries forward to the Second Coming of Jesus and the end of the age, when Satan will be thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20). This moral victory, etched deeply on the human heart, is satisfying to experience over and over again in the superhero tale.

Bystanders are innocent and get caught up in the moral struggle. We laughed until we hurt when we saw the crowds of people in Superman 1 and 2 (1978 and 1980) get in the way of the epic battle between Superman and General Zod (or whatever villain got in the way). The cheesy bystanders  got tossed around; they cried for help in typical “woe is me” melodramatic fashion.

However, even this is part of the moral tale of good versus evil. The innocents need protecting by a powerful hero, and he does protect them, as promised! He keeps the bus from crashing to the ground; he prevents the mother’s baby carriage from getting crushed, and more. Again and again through superhero literature, we live out the need for someone powerful to save us because we are not strong enough to save ourselves.

The Superhero has incredible powers. He has huge muscles that seem barely contained by the clothes he wears. (In the case of the Incredible Hulk, his clothes cannot contain his overgrown muscles.) He is able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, spin a web to snare an enemy, throw his massive hammer over long distances to defeat a foe, to name a few superhuman skills.

He is a protector. He saves even those cheesy bystanders from the evil plans of the enemy.superheros

The earliest superheroes were found in the Bible, in people like Samson, whose long hair gave him the power to pull an entire building down on his enemies. Some have argued that the gods and goddesses of Greek and Roman tales were also early types of superheroes. Sometimes that works, although those gods and goddesses were pretty petulant and self-serving most of the time. They only saved someone if it made themselves look good, or perhaps ticked off a rival god.

Loki-Thor-2-loki-thor-2011-35584736-500-800The Villain is dark and brooding and pure evil. His world is dark; his demeanor is just as dark and brooding as his lair. Loki, from the Thor movies, is the antithesis of Thor. To Thor’s strapping muscles and long golden locks, Loki has black hair, wears all black, is of normal height and build (scrawny in comparison). Loki is all bad, all the time, even if he pretends to help Thor. In short, you can depend on the stereotypes most of the time: evil is evil, and good is good, all the time.

Batman seems to break the stereotype in several ways, since he is dark and brooding and often skulks in the darkness to hunt down the evil. As we saw in The Dark Knight, however, no matter how dark Batman is, his foe is always darker and more sinister.

Though some of you may find fault with my overt generalizations, you will have to admit that the human longing for good to vanquish evil is nearly universal. We work out our own longing by cheering for the good, urging them on to fight the good fight.

Why do we create a superhero, and why does it appeal to us so much?

We recognize the truth about ourselves–that we are weak and vulnerable, and we need someone greater than us to win on our behalf. Or perhaps we even place ourselves in the position of the superhero and live out that epic battle in our minds. We are still longing for evil to be conquered.

We desperately need to feel as if there is a remedy. We realize, somewhere deep in our hearts, that we are not the superhero. We live in a sick world, and we long for a cure. In fact, if we were to take a careful look inside, we would realize our desperate need for a superhero because we are trapped by our own evil, not strong enough to save ourselves.

We recognize that in our desperate need, mere man cannot overcome the evil out there. On our own we are weaker than the evil one, and like the innocent bystander, we need an advocate, a hero–someone stronger than ourselves. That superhero–that savior–is the only one strong enough to save us.

We need someone with powers that exceed our own meager abilities. The cry for help comes from deep within our hearts, at the mercy of an overwhelming evil.

Human imagination draws upon the universal archetypes of the superhero and villain, and of the war between good and evil, in order to work out the battle that rages inside. The story is as old as time and as universal as all humankind (and the fables of gods and superheros from many cultures around the world speaks to that universal theme). The human imagination replays, again and again, in its vast creativity, the epic struggle and the eventual victory of the superhero. The characters may shift and change, but their types remain essentially the same.

Though the authors may not have intended it to happen, I rejoice when I see these archetypes and themes. I see the universal story that the human heart depicts again and again, and it is overwhelming evidence of the human cry for a savior.

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