Books this year: a book diary

I wish I could have a Q&A session with Seneca.  What would I ask the Stoic philosopher, a man of gravitas and eloquence?  I would ask, “Seneca, why are you so cool?”  He would chuckle and say, “Nathan, there is no time for questions like these.  Life is too precious to waste on frivolity.”  Which is basically what the treatises compiled in this little book are about.  Don’t waste your time.  Live.  I am glad this was the last book I read for 2008.  It has offered impetus to the resolutions I should make and keep for 2009.

Written by Kathleen Norris of The Cloister Walk fame, she details her very personal account of struggling with the vice of acedia, a Greek word meaning “lack of care.”  Acedia is what became known as “sloth,” which is one of Seven Deadly Sins of mediaeval church lore.  Acedia, or sloth, is not characterised by laziness as one would think, but rather a weariness of life and despairing of the future- an unwillingness to continue the journey.  And when this weariness sets in, it begans to rob you of all joy and hope.  The end result is that you don’t care- and you don’t care that you don’t care.  This book is well written in my opinion- this is a complicated matter, but she fills it with her often trying and at times harrowing life experiences that shed light on her struggle with this form of sin.  There is no real set scheme for the book, which to me makes sense since acedia doesn’t care about form in the first place.  This was a crazy good book on the vice also known as the “noonday demon” in monastic circles.  Her appreciation and immersion into the monastic heritage is evident as she makes her way through the book describing just exactly what it really means to give up, and have to fight to reclaim hope.

This was a real treat to read this year.  Very mediaeval, but also very graceful.  Fire and brimstone won’t be found here, but rather sweet reflections on the Christian walk as detailed in her visions and conversations with God.  For all I know she’s bat-shit crazy, but if Lady Julian of Norwich was alive right now, I’d want to marry her- if not for the fact she was a nun.  Go figure.

This is a modern Christian classic about the spiritual disciplines written by Richard J Foster.  This book is exceptional in detailing what it is one should do concerning areas of fasting, prayer, service, and much more.  Drawing from Scripture as well as ancient/modern sources of the Christian tradition, Foster gives a balanced and realistic approach to asceticism and spiritual exercises, lest those who think that being spiritual is about esoteric visions but not lifting a finger to help someone else.  To be spiritual is to be transformed by the Holy Spirit, and these disciplines, found in Scripture, will leave you open to transformation.  A truly wonderful book.

 

Again, another book not really worth saying much about.  Written by Bobby Henderson.  The idea- if other people can worship gods and prove them with spurious factual evidence, then anyone can create a god to worship if they “believe” in it.  Ha ha.  People who believe in God or gods are delusional and stupid.  Ok, I get it.  There were some cute moments in it, what with the whole Pastafarian movement (”Can I get a Ramen?”) made up by these baby-eating atheists, but the second half is page after page after page of useless satire of “proofs” that the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists.  Kind of a yawn.  There is better religion hating satire out there.  Look for it, because it isn’t here.  

I don’t really feel like saying much about this book.  It was written by John Eldredge as a sort of companion to his previous publication Wild at Heart.  Both deal with core issues of masculinity in a godly perspective, but this book got on my nerves.  It’s a good book, but Eldredge’s style is a tad ridiculous at times.  It makes me want to hit him.  But I think there are some really good concepts about masculine development that perhaps the majority of men should be exposed to.  If you’re in for wondering why you were gypped in life and ready for a crying session, go for it.  Just leave his prose behind.

This is one of the best books I read this year.  Written by N T Wright, Bishop of Durham of the Anglican communion, he delivers a forceful book concerning the hope of the future that Christians have- a hope which is found throughout the Scriptures and foundational to the way a Christian ought to live one’s life.  The first half does start a tad sketchy- he offers historical and scientific explanations for the resurrection.  These explanations fell flat in front of me for the most part, especially the scientific.  It came off as someone dabbling in the discipline and wielding it despite a lack of grounding in its fundamentals.  Heck, I’m no scientist either, but I wouldn’t use it in the first place.  Surprised by Hope really takes off in the second half, and in my opinion is completely astounding.  The implications that the resurrection has on our lives should make us a heck of a lot more crazy, passionate, and despised by the world  than we are now.

This book is a series of talks Lewis gave where he says he is “not trying to prove anything; only to describe what the Christian belief is,” as opposed to other works where he was unashamedly waxing apologetic.  This was a fun little read- though his logic appears quaint to me now.  In the face of baby-eating atheists nowadays, his attempts to explain the faith would be met with guffaws and chortles and belligerent cursing, a la any conversation thread on the internet.  Perhaps it was back then too, but for me, this isn’t the the point.  I think God belongs in the realm of poets and painters and someone with an imagination, and Lewis had one of the best.  These talks showed me not that God exists, but that it’s okay to be rooted in the Scriptures and be creative with the one who created existence.

I always find it a little strange to read something by one of the church fathers, which is probably why I don’t do it very often. There’s always something in them so totally foreign to our present context that it throws me off a little, especially because they believed the same things I believe.

In this book, it’s Athanasius’ arguments against the Jews and Gentiles. He says the Jews should believe that Christ is the Messiah because he so obviously fulfills all the Old Testament prophecies. And he does, but that argument is essentially worthless today. He says the Gentiles should believe because, basically, lots of people are being converted from idol worship - another argument entirely unconvincing to a contemporary audience.

But aside from those sections, which come at the book’s end, I really liked this one. Athanasius asserts throughout the truth that Jesus was fully and totally God, co-equal with the Father and the Spirit, and also fully and totally human. Moreover, he says Jesus had to be both fully God and fully Man in order to save us.

He also hazards a guess at God’s reason for the Incarnation: at the Fall, humans lost the ability to know God directly, and while they could know him through his creation, they tended to worship the creation instead of looking beyond it. Further, the situation was getting worse, and humanity was in danger of, basically, getting so stupid that they would lose the divine part of themselves altogether. Certainly an interesting idea, though it seems to suggest that the Incarnation occurred as a result of the Fall, and I like to think the Incarnation was part of the plan from the very beginning. Probably we’ll never know.

This is definitely worth reading, and it worked well to read it during Advent - it would probably also be good as a Lenten devotional read. I found my copy at a used book store, and it’s probably available from Amazon, but it’s also available free online, right here. Definitely worth your time, especially the first sections.

My wife and mother-in-law got me this book for my birthday a few months ago, both of them fully aware that my reading it would result in drastic changes to our lifestyle. They were both okay with this, citing my unilateral decision to use cloth diapers with Jack, which everyone initially greeted with skepticism, but which has turned out well anyway.

The book chronicles Kingsolver’s family’s year-long experiment in being locavores. They had recently moved from Tuscon to a farm in Virginia; it was a farm Kingsolver’s husband had owned for years, and had been a (somewhat rustic) summer home for the family. For a year, they ate (almost) nothingif they didn’t grow themselves or know the people who grew it. They raised and slaughtered chickens and turkeys, they grew copious amounts of vegetables, they foraged mushrooms, they shopped at farmer’s markets. They even managed to breed turkeys, naturally, by good old-fashioned turkey sex, which is practically unheard of.

It’s an amazing book, a manifesto for not just local eating but real community and family life, with a fair amount of diatribe against industrial agriculture and food production. It has some recipes, and some pieces of practical advice, but it’s not a how book, it’s a why book, and I, for one, am convinced. I’ll go so far as to challenge any of you to read it and not be convinced.

It’s not, however, a legalistic book; the Kingsolver’s didn’t give up coffee or spices, though they bought fair-trade. They couldn’t find locally-produced whole wheat flour,  so they had to buy it elsewhere. After the year ended, they alternated between local and imported wines. It’s not about rules, it’s about giving the finger to the agro-industrial complex and reclaiming the basis of our existence.

We as Americans have long forfeited our responsibility to feed ourselves; we’ve handed over the most fundamental part of our biological lives to giant corporations who only care about profit, not about our health in the short term or the health of the planet in the medium-to-long term. Eating food produced locally, by local people who do care about producing healthy food, and producing it sustainably, is a revolutionary act, a quiet anarchism, a reclamation of something vitally important that we’ve almost lost.

So any step in that direction is a positive step, and most of us are going to have to start small: shopping at farmer’s markets, growing a small backyard garden, forgoing processed pseudo-foods and learning that some things we consider necessities are, in fact, luxuries. It might be hard, but the right thing usually is, and failing to do it will end in disaster.