libros enero

the best books i've read this month...


high fidelity by nick hornby
what can i say? i loved this book. i'm on a major nick hornby kick right now. next i want to get my hands on a copy of 'about a boy'...





searching for God knows what by donald miller
alot of people are reading donald miller right now, & i don't have anything particularly brilliant to add to the discussion, but i just finished this one & i do whole-heartedly recommend it.



walking on water: reflections on faith & art by madeleine l'engle
i've been reading this one on the recomendation of my sister jenny, the girl with impecable taste. if you're interested in faith & art... well then, read this book.




end of the spear by steve saint
i was practicaly raised on the story of the 5 missionaries that were speared to death by 'auca' indians back in the 50's... so i was pretty keen to read this book, which is by the son of one of those men. let me just say that the story of jim elliot, pete fleming, ed mccully, nate saint & roger youderian is not complete without hearing what has happened in the last 50 years as a result of their martyrdom. i'm half-way through this book & i've already pulled 'through gates of splendor' & 'the savage my kinsman' off of my shelf, in order to have something to read when i finish it...

all this is too wonderful for me

people (ie: my mom) have told me for years that i always seem to want everything to go exactly the way i want it to, the way i think it should go. i like to think of this as something much less self-centered & a little more noble than it sounds... i like to think that this deep-seated desire for things to go a certain way, for things to go "right," is a sortof longing for eden, an evidence of what should have been. it's actually served me pretty well by pushing me to seek for meaning outside of myself & my world.
but i am realizing that i definitly do push this way of thinking too far. since i have this tendency to always be expecting things to go a certain way, i get pretty devestated when they don't. i have a hard time accepting pain as a part of life. so i end up unable to cope, which in turn leaves me miserable (which in turn makes me not exactly the most pleasant person in the world to be around.)
i've noticed a change in my way of thinking lately, in my way of dealing with stuff. i'm just starting to get my mind around what it is that's changing... but it has to do with circumstance, with coming to a point where you have to learn to be able to say, "shit happens." it has to do with whether or not God is big enough that all kinds of crap can happen, & He can still be good.
anyway, here is what some people who are older & wiser have to say on the subject...

"own your pain - that is, integrate your pain into your way of being in the world." ~henri nouwen

"life is pain, highness. anyone who tells you differently is selling something." ~wesley (princess bride)

"if there be anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe, i know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. but this was shown: that in falling & rising again we are always kept in that same precious love." ~julian of norwich

"safe?... who said anything about safe? 'course he isn't safe. but he's good. he's the King, i tell you." ~mr. beaver

"either God is sovereign or He's not. i choose to believe that He is." ~hallie johnson

"the edges of God are tragedy. the depths of God are joy, beauty, resurrection, life. resurrection answers crucifixion; life answers death." ~marjorie hewitt suchocki

"my friend john macmurray tells me the first book written in the Bible is the book of job. moses wrote job before he wrote genesis, most scholars agree, & so the first thing God wanted to communicate to mankind was that life is hard, & there is pain, great pain in life, & yet the answer to this pain, or the cure for this pain, is not given in explanation; rather, God offers to this pain, or this life experience, Himself. not steps, not an understanding, not a philosophy, but Himself. i take this to mean the first thing God wanted to communicate to humanity was that He was God, He was very large & in control,

sorting snow in kansas,

stopping waves at a certain point on the beach,

causing clouds to carry rain,

causing wind to race down imaginary hills of barometric pressure, & that if He could do all this, then He could be trusted, & that, perhaps, this would help us through our lives. & so from the beginning, from the very first story told in Scripture, God presents life, as it is, without escape, with only Himself to cling to. it worked for job, after all, because even before God healed him, & even before God returned his wealth & even while job was sitting by a fire picking scabs from his wounds & mourning his family, he would respond to the whirlwind God spoke through by saying, all this is too wonderful for me." ~donald miller

good times at capernwray

click here for some capernwray fun

props to spiro for the video.

who is spiro, you're wondering?

well, i'm glad you asked.

www.whoisspiro.blogspot.com

oh tell me the truth about love

by w.h. auden

Some say that love's a little boy,

And some say it's a bird,

Some say it makes the world go round,

And some say that's absurd,

And when I asked the man next-door,

Who looked as if he knew,

His wife got very cross indeed,

And said it wouldn't do.

Does it look like a pair of pyjamas,

Or the ham in a temperance hotel?

Does its odour remind one one of llamas,

Or has it a comforting smell?

Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,

Or soft as eiderdown fluff?

Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?

O tell me the truth about love.

Our history books refer to it

In cryptic little notes,

It's quite a common topic on

The Transatlantic boats;

I've found the subject mentioned in

Accounts of suicides,

And even seen it scribbled on

The back of railway-guides.

Does it howl like a hungry Alsation,

Or boom like a military band?

Could it give a first-rate imitation

On a saw or a Steinway Grand?

Is its singing at parties a riot?

Does it only like Classical stuff?

Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?

O tell me the truth about love.

I looked inside the summer-house;

It wasn't ever there:

I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,

And Brighton's bracing air.

I don't know what the blackbird sang,

Or what the tulip said;

But it wasn't in the chicken-run,

Or underneath the bed.

Can it pull extraordinary faces?

Is it usually sick on a swing?

Does it spend all its time at the races,

Or fiddling with pieces of string?

Has it views of its own about money?

Does it think Patriotism enough?

Are its stories vulgar but funny?

O tell me the truth about love.

When it comes, will it come without warning,

Just as I'm picking my nose?

Will it knock on my door in the morning,

Or tread in the bus on my toes?

Will it come like a change in the weather?

Will its greeting be courteous or rough?

Will it alter my life altogether?

O tell me the truth about love.

ahh, quality...

today

i've been thinking about all kinds of stuff lately & trying to think of a way to put it all into words so i could write about it on here. maybe later after i've spent more time driving around the south hill lost in thought & listening to crap music on the radio, i'll be able to spell out all these things that i'm thinking about & i'll wow you with the depth of my insight into life & grief & finding yourself & love & the church in a post-modern culture. buuuut... not today. today, words fail me. but check out this awesome picture that my long-lost friend simon hartt painted, eh?

a little chesterton...

"he is a sane man who can have tragedy in his heart & comedy in his head."

ther'll be roses

you know that kind of story that starts out sad? you read the first chapter of the book or watch the first scene of the movie & you start to realize that before this story began, everything had already gone wrong? i've found myself in one of those stories.

last night, my grandpa popped popcorn & poured 2 glasses of diet coke, & he & i went downstairs & stuck the movie "the secret garden" into the vcr. (wow - that is definitly a scenario i couldn't have imagined a few months ago!). he sat on the couch & i sat in a chair, we each curled up under our blankets, & watched the movie. it's a kids movie & i think both of us were much more into it than either of us care to admit. grandpa said at least 10 times "this is a GREAT story," & i spent most of the 2 hours with wide eyes, watching the video as if this story was the only thing that could validate my existence. (i tend to get a little overdramatic at times. i also tend to get really into a good movie. so sue me.)

how do you live in a story that starts out with everything going wrong? where key characters have disappeared, only to show up in dreams, & memories, & portraits hung behind curtains? where people are lonely or despairing or hypochondriacs? where people have been so hurt that they refuse to love?

i guess if you want to take this secret garden analogy a little too far, it goes past my own little life & the things that have gone wrong for me, to where we all live in that kind of story, where everything went wrong before this story ever started. you know, adam & eve & satan, & what not.

i don't have any answers to these "how shall we then live?" questions, but these are the things that i'm thinking about lately. i always love a good story that reminds me i am not alone.

art is a way of being

"art is neither a profession nor a hobby. art is a way of being."

~frederick franck