Summer Reads

If you are about to take a vacation and would like to take along a good book, perhaps you might enjoy some of these titles.

What is the What? -David Eggers: the journey of a "Lost Boy" from Sudan to the U.S.

The Hiding Place - Corrie Ten Boom: autobiography of a Holocaust Survivor from Holland

Out of the Silent Planet - C.S. Lewis: the first book in his Space Trilogy. Not typical Sci-fi

Perelandra - C. S. Lewis: second in the Space Trilogy, and one of my all time favorite books

One Thousand Gifts- Ann Voscamp: a sweet book about life-changing gratitude

Mountains Beyond Mountains - Tracey Kidder: follows a famous doctor through Haiti and the world

Searching For God Know What - Donald Miller: an honest and humorous book about faith

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte *: high drama, Gothic romance... A love story with all the crazy twists

A Tale of Two Cities -Charles Dickens *: a classic about human nature, set during the French revolution

Cry, The Beloved Country - Alan Paton: about the ties that reach beyond Apartheid in South Africa

The Number One Ladies Detective Agency - Alexander McCall Smith: entertaining and endearing, set in Botswana. I think Precious Ramotswe and I would be friends if she were not fictional.

Black Like Me - John Howard Griffin: an eye-opening journey through 1950's Jim Crow South

The Great Divorce - C. S. Lewis: an allegory of heaven and hell that's more approachable  than Dante

And It Was Good - Madeleine L'Engle: unusual perspective and thoughts on the creation of the world

The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien: adventure, dragons, goblins, little hairy men... could it get better?

The Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis: My sister once thought that she could get to Narnia through our closet, which is proof of a great story!

The Reason for God - Tim Keller *: a look at the Bible, God and the meaning of life

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: a collection of mysteries solved with amazing logic

Summa Theologica.... just kidding, summer vacation has to have some limits.

It's a random list, ranging from easy to intense reading. The ones with an (*) are either long, have complicated language, or just require more brain power. You have been warned.

These are some of my favorites, most of them have impacted the way I see the world.  

I hope you may enjoy them as much as I have!

Happy reading!

Choosing What is Better

Mary and Martha. Sisters. Personal friends of Jesus. There story, in Luke 10:38-42 of the Bible, carries immediate associations for those familiar with it. Jesus comes for a visit to their house, which sends Martha into a frenzy of hospitable activity. While she eagerly bustles to make everything perfect, Mary curls up at Jesus' feet and listens to Him teach, apparently unaware that there are other things to do. When Martha complains to Jesus, asking Him to get Mary moving, He replies: "Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." 


Poor Martha. Her behavior has sullied her name throughout history. Being labeled a "Martha" is a delicate church slur. You don't want to be like her. Always busy, always doing. Better to be like Mary the contemplative, who chose time with the Lord over the distractions of this world.


And it's true. Martha wasn't choosing what was best. But I wonder if we've missed the point.  "Martha" often evokes a certain personality type: busy, type A, administrative, ambitious, active, distracted. Conversely, "Mary" typifies mystical peace, calm, reverence, devotion... she may as well have a halo.


And yet, perhaps this story isn't about preference given to comtemplatives over busy-bees. Perhaps this story is more about choices than about personality traits.


My wedding day started out poorly. Everyone had come to town, and being the remedial delegator that I am, I was fielding a lot of phone calls and last minute questions. The majority of my wedding attendants was late to the salon. I needed to get food for lunch and make sure a crumpled dress was steamed. As often happens, family and tension come to parties together,  and I, the designated "peace-maker", felt thinly stretched. By the time the ceremony started, I was close to cracking: exhausted, fatigued, anxious and alone. 


But then, the miracle. My soon-to-be husband and I knelt and took bread-body broken, and wine-blood shed, and God interrupted my imminent melt down. I became acutely aware of His great love for me. Jesus, body broken, blood shed, for me. Present moment love.  Not only this, but blessing upon blessing, here I was, kneeling at an altar next to a beloved man who was promising himself to me for our lifetime. It was as if the Lord was whispering in my ear, "I am here. I love you. This is important. Don't miss it."  The Lord is here, rich in love, be still and know, be anxious for nothing and rejoice with thanksgiving! 


And I did rejoice.


Of course, the Lord is always with me, no matter the time or place. But there are moments, break through moments, where He presents Himself in deliberate, personal, stop-and-listen ways. He comes as a guest to my house. 


And it's not my activity that prevents me from enjoying His presence, but the motives behind it. Perhaps Jesus read in Martha the desire to impress. Perhaps He saw her wanting to earn His approval. I know He saw my desire to prove to my family that I had a good life, that I was competent, that they should be proud of me. I know He saw the undercurrent of calculations that I ignored in myself. Thank God, He broke through.


Perhaps this vignette of Martha and Mary is about choosing to trust. Will I let God lead today, or am I too afraid to rescind my control? 


Maybe it illustrates the constant battle of proving worth versus receiving love. Who am I trying to impress? Why am I trying to impress? Will I let go of that desire?


Perhaps their story is an exhortation to stop, listen, and be present with Jesus in the moment, to let Him govern the pace of life, the importance of my activities, to let Him love me. 


Perhaps He is calling to Martha, to me, to sit a while until His unconditional love penetrates my thick defenses and frees me into obedience.


Maybe then, when His love overflows me with thanksgiving, I can work in freedom too, a love-offering instead of a love-earning.  

The Scandalous Fall into Grace

It seems like whenever I flip on a newscast, there is another big-name scandal to report: politicians with hidden mistresses and love children, leaders misappropriating funds, powerful people behaving badly. Recently, a reporter described one such debacle as "the most dramatic fall from grace in recent history."

"... fall from grace." Fall from Grace? The phrase stuck in my mind. It's a common idiom that has skipped unnoticed past my ears many times.

"... fall from grace." The words rolled around in my brain.  I know it has come to mean one who has fallen out of favor, lost esteem, done something so reprehensible as to become an outcast.

But this is wrong. Completely wrong. This is a lie.

Grace does mean favor, but not favor based on merit. It's a free gift, lavished on us with good will. It's not based on our performance, but upon the Will that is good and desires to give it.

Grace by definition cannot be earned, and therefore cannot be lost through bad behavior. It is extended while we are reprehensible enemies of God. Unmerited mercy combined with generous restoration-- this is Grace. It means we don't get what we deserve but instead are given good gifts.

Where does this leave our smarmy politicians? It means that they can't fall from Grace by their terrible behavior. In fact, the terrible behavior puts them in prime position to fall into Grace.

What a scandal.

We don't like the sound of that. We want them to fall. Hard. Our whole lives are based on having our good behavior outweigh the bad. If we are good enough, we earn position on earth--  even in heaven. These miscreants should not be given grace.

But, as it turns out, this good-enough belief disqualifies us from grace. When I looked up the origin of "fall from grace", I found this:

"You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law (read: being good); you have fallen away from grace." Galatians 5:4(NLT)

We really don't like this. No pulling up by boot straps. No earning approval or hierarchy of goodness.  Grace is for the wretched.

Grace is the humiliation of mankind, and the leveler of superiority. It destroys worth based on comparison to other people. Accepting Grace means that we put off ever trying to be good enough, put off earning gold stars. If we continue to good-work our way through life, we are fallen from grace.

We don't like this at all, not until we find ourselves fast falling and in desperate need of a lifeline. Only when we are wretched do we understand Grace.

This is the scandalous love of God: He took our place in shame and guilt and wretchedness, died the death that we deserve, and rose again to make Grace available.

Because of Him, when we fall, we can fall into Grace.

Who is to blame?

I watch a lot of documentaries. I inherited this habit from my dad. In a recent phone conversation, I interrupted his viewing of a documentary on Machu Picchu, which coincidentally, I had watched the previous week. Our conversation about ancient, mountain-top drainage systems makes me laugh. This apple fell right under the paternal tree.

Documentaries are like visual thesis papers. They present facts, tell an historic tale and try to persuade the audience to accept a point of view. (All of this sounds about as exciting as a tooth extraction, I'm sure...)

In honor of Memorial Day,  our PBS station aired a documentary about a bloody battle during the Korean War.  It's called "Hold at All Costs", and they interview men and women from both sides of the battle. The overall picture of what happened is straightforward and devastating.

The end of the documentary gives the reasons for why it happened, why so many had to die, why fighting was right and good and necessary. This is the part where history ends and persuasion begins.

It made me curious about the Korean War. What were they fighting over? In the documentary, U.N. forces were protecting the weak South Koreans. In Chinese histories, the reason for helping North Korea was to prevent the American Imperialists from threatening their homes and way of life. Both sides place themselves in the right, both vilify the opposition. Which one is telling the truth? With so many casualties, so much horror, who is to blame?

My husband and I watched "Inside Job" this weekend. It's a whistle-blower documentary about Wall Street corruption. A few weeks ago we saw "Food, Inc.", which highlights the nastiness of our current food industry. The rallying cry is to press the government for financial regulation and eat organic food! Save the planet and the common man!

I suppose the underlying theme of these films is that the world is a mess, and (point the finger) is to blame, so fight back!  They can really raise my righteous ire with a mental: 'How dare THEY do THAT!'

This is the danger of documentaries for me.  I get busy looking at what everyone else is doing wrong.

I don't doubt that Wall Street is corrupt, or that the food industry is greedy and hurtful to our nation. I don't doubt that on both sides of war their are people doing evil things with poor motives. That is not the issue.

The issue is, given the choice, power, position, would I do any better? I hope so, but I do not know so. We are so good at justifying our behavior and trusting our own hearts. Even in confessing wrong-doing, I try to soften the edges of my own infamy.  I have so many good excuses that a prosecuting attorney would sympathize with my plight.

We prefer to think of ourselves as basically good people, born good, with good intentions. But any mother will tell you how difficult it is to train a child to do right, to live unselfishly. Our hearts are deceptive above all things.  I know when injustice is happening to me or to someone else, but I do not readily see when I am unjust. I do not want to see the corruption of my own heart. I like to be associated with the victim and not the oppressor.

Perhaps the best exercise for me after watching documentaries is to turn the lens on myself, and with the help of God, uncover the malignancies in my own character. Because it's so easy to blame, so easy to vindicate self and overlook personal culpability...

Lord help me see what I do not like to see. Be merciful to me, a sinner.