2 more reading rules
books are read in chapter segments I won't switch books in the middle of chapters
following Jamie Smith I wil rotate between american, british, and "other" for fiction
"The moral duty of the free writer is to begin his work at home: to be a critic of his own community, his own country, his own government, his own culture"~Edward Abbey
books are read in chapter segments I won't switch books in the middle of chapters
I shall only read five books at a time
my first crack at a Nick Hornbyesque list
the unthinkable, the Kingdom is here Christ will return any day. New issue of "Harper's", fiction by Wendell Berry about the death of Big Ellis with first person narration by the one and only Burley Coulter. The Burley Coulter book is coming I can feel it in my bones.
In the spirit of my last post I have decided that not only can we not worship a God we can beat up but that we shouldn't listen to anyone we could beat up.
I was reading the new issue of Relevent (they were free at Jubilee) and there is an interesting conversation with some young Christian voices. And one question is about challenges facing the Church in the future and one respondent-Mark Driscoll-is concerned about the tendency of emergent churches to make Jesus into "a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with alot of product in His hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life" he contraists this to Revelation where "Jesus is a pride fighter with a tattoo down his leg, a sword in His hand and the committment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up."
One of my favorite celebrerity blogs is CrunchyCon. I enjoy Rod's somewhat cantankerous writing style and have fond many diamonds of thoughts amongst some rough. For every post on immigration or Islam that bother me I find enjoyable notes on homemaking and points to good authors (I loved E.F. Schumacher's " Small is Beautiful" and found Russel Kirk's book on Edmund Burke very thought provoking see Jamie Simth's blog for a good reflection on this) but one issue that I just can't decide on is children. Rod is a firm suporterof having large families and bemoans the fallinmg western birth rates. I think this is both a result of his belief that big families are culturally good things and his fear of a coming Eurabia (I'm going to pt aside the question of whether or not xenophobia is a good reason to have children).
I just finished "A Grief Observed" by C.S. Lewis and enjoyed it immensely. The book consists of notes taken from his journals following his wifes death. What impressed me most is that Lewis and his editors did not feel the need to smooth over the text Lewis goes back and forth and does not make steady progress but rather struggles in his relationship with his wife and with God.