"Putting Away Childish Things" by Marcus Borg

I recently finished reading Marcus Borg's new book. For those of you who know Borg's work, he has focused on Christian theology for a generation now. Up until this most recent book his material, to my knowledge has all been non-fiction. Perhaps after such an illustrious writing career he thought it was time to try something new. And so he has, quite successfully I might add with his new novel "Putting Away Childish Things."

I must say that I was not too sure what to think of a successful theologian writing a novel. After all I have found his theology very approachable and have used his book "The Heart of Christianity" in two different churches since it was published in 2003. That said, it wasn't too long before I really wanted to know what would happen next in the lives of his main characters.

The story is about an assistant professor of religion at a small liberal arts college and a semester of her life when she is confronted with a major, potentially life altering decision. Upon receiving an invitation for a one-year teaching appointment at a Theological Seminary she must struggle with what it means to be led in her decision making process by the God in whom she trusts. Along the way we are introduced to her circle of friends which include a fellow professor of religion, her Episcopal priest, her former lover who is on the faculty of the seminary as well as several of her students at the small liberal arts college.

Upon finishing this book I wanted to know more of what happened to the characters and I know that I will some day read this book with a group of people who care about Christianity and lived faith. Borg has done an excellent job venturing into new territory and for anyone who has ever read Brian McLaren's trilogy "A New Kind of Christian" Borg's writing takes things to the next level. This is a book for church groups open to the changes going on within Christianity as well as those who think there might be something more to church-life but aren't entirely sure how or where to put their finger on it.

"The Ides of March" & "Good Literature"

It has been sometime since I have read what some might call "good" literature, as opposed to say "popular" literature, but as this is April's book selection for the Men's Book club I'm in I followed through. And you know what? It wasn't as bad as I feared, or as boring as I first thought, either.

My first impressions probably didn't help. Soon after getting it, special ordered at the Barnes & Noble here in Twin Falls, the family and I stopped at Pizza Hut for pick-up and while Kathy ventured in to purchase our dinner I read the first page or so to Eric who was sitting in the back seat. The first few pages of this 1948 "classic" begin with fictional dispatches from Julius Caesar regarding some trivial matters of governance. It was not, to say the least the most auspicious beginning to a novel.

That said, I was soon sucked in to the story that Thornton Wilder spins about a suppositional retelling of the last months of Julius Caesar's life. Wilder very successfully paints a picture of Caesar as being very human and likable while his opponents in the book come off as overly cynical and duplicitous. Wilder's Caesar is the deep thinker of the book and when everything comes to an end on the very last page of the book I felt a little sad to know that the story wouldn't continue.

It will be interesting to see what the others in book club think about this month's selection. The person who selected it thought it was a great read, I'm not sure how many others will feel that way. Then again, if they enjoyed the one-liners and various passages of wisdom on life and politics that Thornton Wilder puts into the mouths of historical figures then there will be much for us to talk about.

If it has been awhile since you've read anything printed before this current decade and you like history then consider looking into Thornton Wilder's "The Ides of March."

"Cutting for Stone" an Excellent Novel

Just the other day I finished an excellent novel by Abraham Verghese titled, "Cutting for Stone." It tells the story of two twins, Marion and Shiva stone from how their parents met to their tumultuous birth through their childhood and adolescent years and then into adulthood. The majority of the novel takes place in Addis Ababa, the capitol of Ethiopia. And while the location may not seem like it would be all that important, Verghese makes that country and city come alive. He does this by telling some of the history and describing the world around Addis in a way that make syou feel like you're there. In addition to the excellent character development, the way he brings Addis Ababa alive is a huge bonus to this lively tale.

Marion and Shiva's life, from conception through their young adulthood is spent on the grounds of Missing Hospital (Verghese explains that the word "Mission" is not pronouncable to the Ethiopian tongue and so comes out as "Missing"). The hospital is run by Carmelite nuns, one of whom is the boys' mother and staffed by two doctors from India and up until the boys' birth an English Surgeon named Thomas Stone, the boys' father.

Although this may sound pretty far fetched, it is a beautifully, well written story with some very poignant vingettes. For example: before having to operate on an Ethiopian Colonel who is one the outs with the Emperor we get this beautiful confession of what the priorities of the nation should be;

"My journey, my pain, my operation...," the Colonel went on, "God was showing me the suffering of my people. It was a message. How we treat the least of our brethren, how we treat the peasant suffering with volvulus, that's the message of this country. Not our figher planes or tanks, or how big the Emperor's palace happens to be. I think God put you in my path." page 184

At another point in the book there is wisdom of another sort as Marion is sitting with his terminal step-father, one of the Indian Doctors named Ghosh:

"I spent as much time as I could with Ghosh. I wanted every bit of wisdom he could impart to me. All sons should write down every word of what their fathers have to say to them. I tried. Why did it take an illness for me to recognize the value of time with him? It seems we humans never learn. And so we relearn the lesson every generation and then want to write epistles. We proselytize our friends and shake them by the shoulders and tell them, "Seize the day! What matters is this moment!" Most of us can't go back and make restitution. We can't do a thing about our should haves and our could haves. But a few lucky men like Ghosh never have such worries; there was no restitution he needed to make, no moment he failed to seize.
Now and then Ghosh would grin and wink at me across the room. He was teaching me how to die, just as he'd taught me how to live." page 424

"Cutting for Stone" is a beautiful novel, well worth your time and attention. I hope you allow yourself the opportunity to allow Abraham Verghese's amazing story of life to wash over you.

"Life in Year One" by Scott Korb, a Review

As the old saying goes: the more things change the more they stay the same. That in a nutshell could sum up Scott Korb's highly readable book "Life in Year One: What the World Was Like in First-Century Palestine". Then again, such a summation might encourage you not to read it, which would be an injustice on my part because there is much that we need to take into account when considering the life and times that shaped the the New Testament generation.

Scott Korb sets up his book in a fairly straight forward way by examining ten fairly common things (the world, money, home, food, baths, health, respect, religion, war, and death) as they were in first century Palestine. In so doing he takes the fairly exotic topic of a world two thousand years removed from our own and puts it into terms that we can all readily understand.

Scott Korb not only examines how such familiar things as money and health were understood two thousand years ago in a part of the world that is as foreign to us today as it was way back then, the author also does a good job of putting those ancient situations into contemporary ways of seeing the world. For instance, in his chapter on food, Korb clues us into a huge shift that was happening in year one, in Palestine. That is, there was a large increase in the number of cities as well as a shift in population from rural to urban living. This shift impacted how people fed themselves, from a diversified largely vegetarian diet to a reliance on one crop--corn, or more specifically barelycorn.

In his attempt to get us to understand what this means both to first century people as well as twenty-first century people trying to understand them, he writes:

Indeed, it's hardly going too far to call these years at the start of the first century the birth of big agribusiness. It might be said, in fact, that during the first century a displaced tenant farmer in Galilee was witness to an ancient version of what food writer Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, has described in America as the "Conquest of Corn." And in those terms, we might call the dilemma facing the first-century peasant in Palestine the "Conquest of Barleycorn." (Korb, p. 87)

Not only does Korb do a nice job of pointing out similarities between our world and theirs, he also injects wit and humor that remind us of just how human our forebears are. In chapter nine "War in Year One" in his attempt to describe what exactly led to the revolt in year 66 that eventually led to the Romans sack of Jerusalem and destruction of the second Temple, Korb describes everything from the seriously historical to the seriously hysterical, if not down-right absurd.

Relying on first-century sources he shares the following story of what might have initiated the revolt:

Some blame even has to fall on an unnamed Roman soldier who, in the spirit of Monty Python, farted in the general direction of a crowd of Jews: "The people had assembled in Jerusalem for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the Roman cohort stood on guard over the Temple colonnade, armed men always being on duty at the feasts to forestall any rioting by the vast crowds. One of the soldiers pulled up his garment and bent over indecently, turning his backside towards the Jews and making a noise as indecent as his attitude." (Korb, p. 175)

These two examples are but just two of many that will make you think about the world of the New Testament in a whole new way.

Also of note, if you purchase or check out this book, Korb's footnotes are just as informative and worthy of attention as the main body of his work. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in a wider and deeper understanding of the world in which Jesus lived, died and rose again.

"A People's History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story" by Diana Butler Bass

This book was, in a word, Magisterial!

Diana Butler Bass succeeds and them some with her goal of telling the story of Great Command Christianity over and above what she calls "Big-C Christianity." The latter is what she says most people know about the history of Christianity, even if they don't know much, that is; Christ, Constantine, Christendom, Calvin, and Christian America. Big-C Christianity is the version of power and triumph that does not always take into account the life and love that the man Jesus of Nazareth taught. It is not as though Diana Butler Bass thinks there is no validity to Big-C Christianity, it is more that she wants us to hear the voices and wisdom of those who are often overshadowed by the leaders of Big-C Christianity.

On the other hand, or to borrow from the subtitle, Diana Butler Bass tells the other side of the story from the perspective of both men and women who have appeared throughout church history, some names we know and other names that are less familiar. The name for this "other side of the story," that is, Great Command Christianity comes from Luke 10:25-27 where "a lawyer approached Jesus and asked him, 'Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' Jesus responded, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart ... and love your neighbor as yourself.'" Most of "A People's History of Christianity" focuses on those who lived up to the command of loving God and neighbor, even if it meant doing so without being "in power."

The scope of the book runs from the Early Church Fathers and Mothers into Medieval Christianity, Reformation Christianity, Modernity and on down to our contemporary situation. I was able to pick this up at the Twin Falls Library and if you take the time to read these 300 pages you will be awakened to the wonders of Christian Spiritual Practices as well as an appreciation of the length, bredth and depth of the Christian Witness throughout 2000 years of humanity. As I said before, and I'll say it again, this book is impressive and a wonder to behold. I highly recommend that you take the time to read it, especially if you are interested in Church history and more importantly if you are interested in the people who have made the church what it is.

"How to Win a Cosmic War" by Reza Aslan

On an impulse, I purchased this book two weeks ago and could not put it down, especially after reading "Journey Into Islam". It wasn't a complete impulse-buy, because I had read his previous book "No god but God" and knew that his writing style appealed to me along with the depth of his scholarship.

This current book has as it's subtitle "God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror". Throughout the book Aslan provides both the history of how we have gotten to this point in global history as well as the way through the current rhetoric that would leave us at best at a permanent stall and at worst living in fear of the other for generations to come. At the heart of his argument is that both "sides" have raised the level of rhetoric beyond the earthly into the cosmic realm of good versus evil along spiritual and religious lines. But as he does so he points out that both Christian and Muslim adherents of such philosophy are a rather small percentage of those engaged in the conflict. That, as the book "Journey Into Islam" pointed out, the extremists in America and the extremists in the Muslim world are a rather small part of the picture and we (those not taken by the cosmic lines of battle) are letting the extremists frame the story.

And so it is to those of us in the middle, who may not completely trust the other, but who recognize that our enemy may be children of God as much as we are to whom Reza Aslan makes an appeal. He quite capably argues that democracy is compatible with Islam, but for democracy to succeed those who promote it must actually stand by the results of elections, even if we don't like those who are elected. Along with democracy as a tonic, Aslan points out that if we leave the War on Terror at the cosmic level the only way to win it is through means other than military.

This may not be the most politically expedient message to be promoting, but I believe that most Americans don't want to see a long, drawn-out, hot/cold war with an amorphos group of people who are never going to surrender. But Americans have historically shown that lifting others up through democracy and common interests is something we are willing to pursue. So if you are not drawn into the hyperbole that all Muslims are out to get us and if you believe that God desires for his children to get along, then I encourage you to take a look at Reza Aslan's latest book, "How to Win a Cosmic War".

"Journy Into Islam" by Akbar Ahmed, a review

Over the last week or so I have dug deep into a most excellent book that explores how Muslims see the world in which we find ourselves at the beginning of the 21st Century. The author, who is a Muslim born in Pakistan, teaches Islamic Studies at American University. The book contains his (and a small group of his students) observations and reports from questionaires gathered in Muslim countries stretching from the Middle East through Asia into South East Asia during a trip in 2005 & 2006.

The main thrust of the book seeks to dispel the charicature of Islam and Muslims that is usually presented by mainstream American media; that of the nearly always screaming Arab terrorist or cool and collected Arab dictator. What Ahmed replaces this image with is a much richer tapestry of faith and a desire to understand how that faith interacts with an increasingly interconnected globe.

At the beginning of the book and throughout, the author refers to three separate metaphors for how Islam is lived out based on three separate towns in India. First, the Ajmer form of Islam that is a mystic, transcendental faith that sees every person on the planet having an "Inner Light". This more universalistic form of Islam is not much portrayed here in the West, but is nevertheless an active form of Islam globally. The second, more predomidant form of Islam is Deoband which is more typically the fundamentalist stereotype that we think of, though the adherents of the Deoband style of Islam are not all out to "get" America as some in the media portray. The last style is called Aligarh, and this is probably the type of Islam that most of us along with the author hope to see rise throughout the Muslim world. Aligarh is the more modernistic form that seeks to synthesize things like democracy and modernity into its practice of faith. This third model can be seen as just barely hanging on in nations like Turkey.

The author does call into question US foreign policy as being partly responsible for the rise of the Deoband style of Islam, but traces our complicity back through several generations and does not make it overly political. This book is not for the casual reader, but is one that will expand your understanding of Islam as we move further into the twenty-first century.

"The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education" by Craig M. Mullaney--250 pages in

One of the things I find difficult about this whole blogging exercise is whether or not people are reading what I bother writing about. Not to make any of you feel guilty, its just when i see "0" comments it makes me wonder.

And so again I want to appeal to anyone out there who might read this post. Please read this book!!! It is not only a page turner, but also a great work of literature. It is a coming of age story, but also so much more. From West Point and the peculiar culture that is one of our nation's military academies to the peculiarities of Oxford University in England and then on to the confusion and frustration that is Afghanistan; this memoir is compelling reading for anyone interested in our role overseas as a nation and as a people.

Not only does Mullaney give an insiders' view of the American Armed Forces, but also he gives us a look at what it means to be engaged in Nation Building in a place that can just barely be considered a "nation". Equally compelling are his passages regarding his lead up to deployment. Receiving information about the flora and fauna of Afghanistan, while interesting, was not much help when faced with the indifference of people he was being sent to help.

Mullaney's book is a must-read for anyone curious about our continued role in Afghanistan--whether you are a died-in-the-wool supporter of the "Global War on Terror" or you wonder about how Obama will make new strides as Commander-in-Chief, this book is well worth your time and effort.

"The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education" by Craig M. Mullaney

As I turn on the TV after reading Eric's bedtime stories from a Children's Bible and a condensed version of "Robin Hood" what catches my attention is "Saving Private Ryan." This reminded me that I am reading a new memoir by a new author, Craig M. Mullaney who has crafted quite the page-turner in "The Unforgiving Minute".

Mullaney describes his upbringing in a blue-collar family and then attending and graduating from West Point. I am at the point in the book where he has graduated and is attending Ranger School between West Point and going to Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. The book then moves onto Oxford and Afghanistan where Mullaney sees combat in the War on Terror and finally moves into a third faze where he is a veteran whose brother is going into the armed forces in his brother's footsteps.

I guess what has intrigued me so much about this book is that it has so far received a five star rating by Amazon.com through 41 reviews. Also Mullaney's book has received critical acclaim from General Petraeus on the one hand and General Wesley Clark on the other hand. Now that's saying something; from George W. Bush's man in Iraq to a former Democratic Presidential Candidate says to me that this book speaks a truth that transcends the bickering and bitterness that has consumed too much of our country. And now that I am 100 pages into the book it is not only a balm for the ills of our nation but also a fantastic and compelling story of one young man's commitment to this nation and her values.

If you have the time, please, please consider reading Craig M. Mullaney's masterful memoir of duty and sacrifice. It may just restore your sense of what it means to love this country and more importantly to serve something larger than your own self interest.