Read all the things. Learn all the things. Talk about all the things.

I'll try to keep this brief. It's 8:30 already, and I am still in my pajamas, sitting on the couch, alternatively reading, writing, and answering emails. I should be working or cleaning or something that is more productive than this.  I spent some time asking questions about justice and Jesus and the American church in my previous post about Mark 11 and Jesus overthrowing the money changers in the temple. I don't have answers really, just questions. And then I started my next book, Reading Romans Backwards: A Gospel of Peace in the Midst of Empire , by Scot McKnight. I'm hopeful that this book will help me see who Jesus is in the justice/equality/politics debates. And this isn't a debate about Republicans and Democrats; there are deeper issues than that. It's just that politics touches every aspect of life. I suppose it always has; I just wasn't aware of it. But being a follower of Jesus Christ isn't about being a good conservative or a good ...

Context: I read a lot. For my mental health, or at least that's what I tell myself. And certainly I feel more balanced when I am reading, learning, imagining. More than that, the reading, learning, and imagining help me see the world in new ways. For example, when I read about the Nazi children, I begin to see parallels in the world today, ways the Western world has chosen to overlook its own complicity in oppression, whether it is the Jews or indigenous people, blacks, Asians, Latinx. That helps me see the problems in my country, the West, and the world in new ways. And it helps me see myself in new ways. That's my most recent example, but it's early still, and I want to get to my point before I forget. I have spent a lot of time in Philippians this summer. Who am I as a member of the community of God? How do I fit in? How should I live with others? How can I grow in love and service? How can I be like Christ? That's probably why I started reading about t...

Children of Nazis: The Sons and Daughters of Himmler, Göring, Höss, Mengele, and Others— Living with a Father’s Monstrous Legacy by Tania Crasnianski My rating: 4 of 5 stars I've been fascinated by the second world war since I learned about it in eighth grade. My fascination centered around the Holocaust, the attempt to exterminate the Jews. It seemed so clear who the good people and the bad people were. The Germans, Italians, and Japanese were bad; the Americans, British, and French were good. The Soviet Union was also bad, but it did help beat the Germans. Corrie Ten Boom wrote about hiding Jews in the Holland home she shared with her father and sister in The Hiding Place. Anne Frank wrote her diary about hiding in a similar place. And then the Americans entered the war and it ended. At least that's what is seemed like in the history books I read in high school. Later on I began to see the complexities, the complicity of the French. The British who w...

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple My rating: 5 of 5 stars This has been my year of reading about quirky characters who captivate me with their whimsy and their humor. (At least when I'm not reading about Nazis, the Holocaust, or time travel.) Where'd You Go, Bernadette fits into the quirky category, and I almost didn't read it. It seemed too popular. After all, a movie based on the book comes out in a week or so. And then I saw a trailer for the movie and said, "Why not." Indeed why not. I got sucked into the sarcasm, the over-the-top characters, the extreme situations. A dear sweet eighth-grader everyone loves Balakrishna, also known as Bee). A private school with all the intrigue between parents. A genius mom who has quit creating (Bernadette). A genius (and clueless) father who works for Microsoft (Elgie). A trip to Antarctica. A personal-assistant from India who is really an identity theft racket in Russia. And ...

It has been a long time since I used this blog to reflect on my devotional reading, and I wonder why. I was reading, mostly. I have some things written in my private journal, but those are mostly not in response to books. In fact, given that I have been working through a very short book by Manning and a longer book by Dekker since May, I think the reason may be that I am not doing a lot of devotional reading. Both books have reflective questions at the end of chapters, and that is amenable to reflective writing, but I haven't taken the time. I'm reading steadily, mostly, but in short spurts. And I'm distracted by prepping for the start of class, responding to student work, creating a schedule that has taken me too long, and planning for the trip to Dallas/Cancun. (What will I wear for the wedding? Am I thin enough to wear a two-piece swimsuit? Hey! I want to do brow micro-blading so I can go in and out of the pool and still look like I have eyebrows.) And that...

The Avenue Goes to War by R.F. Delderfield My rating: 0 of 5 stars One of the things I like about reading physical copies of books is its actual physicality. In the days when I read hard copy books, I choose what to read from the weight of the book, the cover, the synopsis on the back of the book. Now I primarily choose books by their price. Are they on sale? Is the Amazon description of the book intriguing? Of course I have forgotten that description by the time it comes to choosing a book from the list on my Kindle. And then the list is long. It's like going into a library. I have a list of books I want to read, but I've forgotten why I wanted to read them. I also have no idea how long they are when I choose to buy a book. I imagine I could find that information, but that is besides the point. I think I chose this book because of its subject matter, how a neighborhood in England deals with the strain of war. I did not know the book was publ...

The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God by Dallas Willard My rating: 4 of 5 stars This 1998 book by Biola philosophy professor Dallas Willard has become a Christian classic, so I purchased it several years ago and it sat on my shelf until I read a book by John Ortberg who mostly talked about Willard's influence in his life. The book was "meh," but Willard seemed like someone I might like to read. I pulled the dusty tome off my shelf and started the book last April. I am finally finishing. It took me a long time to get through the book for several reasons: 1) the book is big and long and heavy; 2) I have been traveling and did not want to take the book on airplanes; 3) it is deep and I needed to think about the ideas Willard was putting forth in order to hold them and let them speak to me. That is not to say that the book is hard to understand; it's just that the ideas are deep. We can skim over a book on disciple...