Category: Books Page 18 of 19

In the fall of 1894, Southern Presbyterian theologian Robert Lewis Dabney, suffering the afflictions of advanced age, visited Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky to deliver a series of 18 lectures.

This should be a forgettable bit of knowledge for all but the most zealous scholars of Dabney’s life. However, I own a copy of Dabney’s book on preaching called Lectures on Sacred Rhetoric, a sturdy and aged edition published in 1881. The detailed inscription indicates that it was purchased for 94 cents from a J. E. Wylie by an R. M. Caldwell of “L.P.T.S” (i.e. Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary) on October 4, 1893.

If Mr. Caldwell was studying preaching at LPTS in the fall of 1893, it is likely that he was still studying in the fall of 1894. I like to think that this book was held in Mr. Caldwell’s hands sitting in the lecture hall hearing its author speak. The book links me concretely with the sounds and smells and language of another age.

This sentiment would be appreciated by Anne Fadiman, the author of a book about books Ex Libris. This collection of short essays (18 in all), a genre in which Fadiman excels details the author’s life-long love for books and the words they contain. It reflects with heart what only those who love books can understand.

With loving reverie she writes a love letter for books, buying books, storing books, building castles with books, passing on a love for books.

At one point she speaks of books as an integral part of marital intimacy. Commenting on the habit she and her husband share of reading books aloud to one another in bed, she notes, with mature wisdom:

“As [my husband] leans over to kiss me good night, I do not regret having graduated from the amorous sprints of our youths. Marriage is a long-distance course, and reading aloud is a kind of romantic Gatorade formulated to invigorate the occasionally exhausted racers.”

Spoken with the wisdom and passion of a true lover.

Sitting at Starbucks yesterday, I was struck by the t-shirt worn by a woman sitting nearby. The design was in the form of a to-do list which progressed as follows:

☑ Wake

☑ Read

☑ Sleep

☑ Repeat

I found out that the woman was a recently retired high school ‘media specialist’. A librarian. But as we talked, it became clear that books were not simply her job; they were her passion. I loaned her Ex Libris, and while she waited for her friend, she read.

My new librarian friend told me that a friend of hers believes that we like to trick ourselves into thinking that when we buy a book we are also buying the time to read it. Oh that it were so.

My passion therefore for books is limited greatly by the time available to me. But to participate through these essays in this author’s experience of books is to renew and revisit the experiences we ourselves have had with books.

I’m a bad parent – I gave up reading parenting books long, long ago because they never seemed to help me and only succeeded in making me feel guilty.

So, today, not reading a parenting book, I came across what is without a doubt the best parenting advice ever offered. I still don’t do it, not with the consistency and intention that I should, because I’m a bad parent. But it certainly aims us in the right direction.

“It is surprising how seldom books on parenting talk about prayer. We instinctively believe that if we have the right biblical principles and apply them consistently, our kids will turn out right. But that didn’t work for God in the Garden of Eden. Perfect environment. Perfect relationships. And still God’s two children went bad.

“Many parents, including myself, are initially confident we can change our child. We don’t surrender to our child’s will (which is good), but we try to dominate the child with our own (which is bad). Without realizing it, we become demanding….

“Until we become convinced we can’t change our child’s heart, we will not take prayer seriously….”

Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life, pages 168-169

At the encouragement of several of you, I inserted into my reading list Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird between Anna Karenina and my current read, Ex Libris. I’m grateful to those who urged me to do so.

I’m probably one of a dozen people who managed to make it through high school and college (BA in English education, mind you) without ever reading this book. What a loss.

So for you eleven others, this: the book is told through the eyes of a precocious young girl, as she tells of life in a small Alabama town and the impact of her attorney father defending a young black man against a spurious charge of rape.

Sounds depressing, but it’s not. There is life here, the life of young children coming to understand the gray world we inhabit, yes, but children enjoying the delights of childhood. There are fussy, nosy, hypocritical old ladies, but ones we come to understand and with whom we sympathize as well. Depressing? How can a book which portrays a father and his children in a deep relationship of love and respect be depressing? How can a book who has its character dress as a ham be depressing?

There is sadness, yes, but not a sadness devoid of hope.

The remarkable thing is how well Lee inhabits the skin of her characters, be they white, black, young, old, sympathetic, or scoundrel. I grew to love Scout (the narrator), to pity Tom Robinson (the accused), to despise Bob Ewell (the accuser), and to want to be Atticus, the attorney/father/Hero, (aka Gregory Peck).

The movie is wonderful. But it cannot match the power of the book.

+ + + + +

I must make note of the view that nine year old Scout takes of her fifty year old lawyer/father, whom she calls by his first name, Atticus.

I wonder how I, a fifty-three year old bespectacled pastor/father, appear to my nine year old son?!

Those who have been following my progress through Tolstoy’s massive novel Anna Karenina will be pleased to know that as of today, August 11, 2009, I completed my first reading of it.

I say first reading because Mortimer Adler stresses that to really come to grips with a book requires multiple readings. As well, several of the readers of this blog have confessed to multiple readings. Will there be for me a second reading of this book?

That was the question that came to me around page 700. Yes, I read novels slowly, and only at night and on vacation. And, yes, this being the heart of baseball season, I had been consuming some of my reading time watching (with increasing levels of frustration) the Tampa Bay Rays on television. But as Tolstoy seated me as observer to yet another political discussion by his characters, I told myself that there would by no means ever be a second reading of this book. It was just taking too, too long.

I confessed this, and was told, “Wait – something BIG is yet to happen.”

It did, and I’m not likely ever to forget it.

Tolstoy uses a lot of words, but he is not wordy. Words and situations are carefully chosen to clearly and precisely introduce us to a society of people who, though created 130 years ago, are as modern and relevant as any you and I meet today. At the center of it are two: young, beautiful, passionate Anna, and sober, thoughtful, suffering Levin. They are so real to me, having spent the past two and a half months with them, that one would be hard pressed to persuade me that they no longer exist.

And in a very important sense, they do exist. Or shall I say that WE exist with elements of both, in differing proportions, within us.

Yes, I wanted Tolstoy to snap it along. I wanted a quicker pace and less detail about Russian politics, farming, peasant life, and social conventions. But now that I have completed it, I’m not sure what I would have eliminated. Moby Dick without long dissertations on whaling would no longer be Moby Dick.

So, will I read it a second time? Perhaps. Hard to say. But thanks to those who urged me to read it the first time, and to press on when wanting to abandon ship at page 700!

Here are the books to read at the beach, according to NPR listeners.

Anyone currently reading any of the books on this list?

I’m 82% done with number 42.

Had I been reading at the beach, I would be completely burned beyond recognition by now!

I read this with sadness.

I want to attribute it to the law of unintended consequences. But I’m grieved to think about those consequences.

I intend to continue to expose my children and grandchildren to the hazards of the old books.

Happily picked up, finally, Kevin DeYoung’s (the guy with the dream job) wonderfully helpful little book Just Do Something. There have many books published to help Christians sort through the ‘how do I know the will of God’ conundrum, but this one is not only dead on right, but highly accessible.

So much could be said, but just read the book. I particularly commend it to those who counsel those struggling with decision making.

What is the will of God for you? As DeYoung summarizes, it is this:

According to Jesus, it is to seek first the kingdom of heaven.

And according to Paul it is

1) to live a holy life
2) to rejoice, pray, and give thanks
3) to bear fruit and know him better
4) to be filled with the Holy Spirit

That is, the will of God is for us to grow in Christ-likeness.

Whether you do these things in Detroit or Dubuque, married or unmarried, as a minister or motorcycle mechanic, is up to you.

Such a freeing, and biblical, perspective.

Not only do I love the title (and subtitle) of this book, I’m intrigued by this recommendation.

I’d like to lay down the cash and time to read it. Anyone familiar with it who wishes to give it an endorsement or a caution or an alternative? Please.

I’m speaking to you science types out there.

In an earlier post, I commended my friend David McWilliams’ new commentary on Galatians.

More insight into David’s work can be found in this interview.

David at one point says this:

Let me add that I don’t like what is happening to commenting today where everything that a scholar might know about a book is poured into one volume. Those commentaries might have a place but I think that scholars would serve the church well by returning to Calvin’s approach – “lucid brevity.” And so, I have attempted to say a lot in a little space, to write a commentary in which I have not said all I know about Galatians, but have attempted a true, scholarly and sound exposition that presents what I think a minister or student of the book might need to think through to preach or teach Galatians.

In this David seems to be reflecting what I find so helpful in any commentary by John Stott. If he has been successful in his goal, he will have added a significant resource to the pastor’s and teacher’s tool box.