Books I Bought:
Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
Going Away Shoes by Jill McCorkle
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling
Books I Read:
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (November)
The Princess Bride by William Goldman (November)
World War Z by Max Brooks (November)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by JK Rowling (December)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling (December)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling (December)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling (December)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling (December)
It's been a weird couple of months of reading for me. November started out strong with an amazing book by one of my favorite authors - Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. This book is about a normal guy who, through the simple gesture of helping someone the rest of the city overlooks, gets drawn into a crazy underground world that he never knew existed. It's like a grown-up Alice in Wonderland and I loved it.
After that, I wanted to reread one of my favorite books of all time, so The Princess Bride it was. If you've only seen the movie, you're missing out. (And if you've never seen it or read it, you're double missing out and you need to sort out your priorities!) The author of the book wrote the screenplay for the movie, so there are a lot of similarities, even exact lines of dialogue the same in both, but there are major differences of tone in the book and it's hilarious and beautiful.
With the previews for World War Z all over the internet lately, I wanted to reread the book before the movie came out, so that book was up next. I remember liking it way more the first time I read it, but I still enjoyed it on the second time through. I'm interested to see how the movie will pull this story off. It's told in flashback as a series of interviews conducted to see how the Zombie outbreak started and how the war was fought. If you're into these kinds of stories at all, it's definitely worth a read, though I think I like Robopocalypse better.
I read all three of these in early November, and then I hit a weird slump. I started reading 3 different books and just couldn't really get into them. They weren't awful, but I think it just wasn't the time for them. I'll be coming back to them another time for sure. But as I was getting into December and not finding any books I was really excited about to be reading, I thought maybe it was time to revisit a magical series to light the reading fires again, thus Harry Potter. (And this is why I bought Prisoner of Azkaban this month. I opened up my copy and realized it was falling apart because I've read it so much, so I figured it was time for a new one.)
There really shouldn't be much I need to say about good ol' Harry here. If you haven't read them, I'd really like to know what's been keeping you! I've read all the books multiple times, but this is my first reread of the whole series since knowing where everything ends up. It's been amazing to see things in the beginning books that have so much bearing on the end and wonder how planned out JK had the whole thing from the start. This is some great storytelling! If you happen to decide to do a reread anytime soon (or to read them for the first time), I highly suggest reading Muggle Hustle along with the books. This website archives the tweets of a guy who is currently reading through the series for his first time and tweeting his thoughts and reactions. It is hilarious and heartbreaking and full of profanity, so be prepared. It's absolutely my favorite twitter account of 2012, in case anyone was wondering.
Okay, time to get back to Hogwarts! Happy reading!
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Monday, November 5, 2012
What I Read: October 2012
Books I Bought:
The Woman Who Died a Lot - Jasper Fforde
The Last Dragonslayer - Jasper Fforde
Books I Read:
The Hangman's Daughter by Oliver Potzsch
The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro
The Woman Who Died a Lot by Jasper Fforde
Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson
I only bought two books this month. When one of your favorite authors releases two books on the same day, what else is a girl supposed to do? I also read them both this month, so I'm pretty pleased with myself.
First up in October was The Hangman's Daughter. I've wanted to read this for awhile, and my sister gave it to me for my birthday. It take place in 1659 in Germany and is about the town hangman during a series of mysterious murders that seem connected to witchcraft. I liked it. Mostly. There was definitely too much description that was a little boring, but it's mostly good. It's also interesting because the author based it on actual ancestors of his.
After that, my Jasper Fforde books came in the mail and I was so excited! The Last Dragonslayer is his first teen book, and it's the story of a girl who works with wizards in a world that is almost out of magic. One day, a prophecy is revealed that the last living dragon will be slain in the next week, and she finds out that she is the last in a long line of dragonslayers. It's really good!
Next I took a break from Fforde to read for book clubs. In my Seven Sisters of Soul book club, we're reading Ready Player One, which I read in July and wrote about here. It was still pretty fresh in my mind, and I probably didn't need to re-read it before book club, but it was so good that I wanted to read it again anyway. Still can't recommend this book highly enough!
For my Read Between the Hines book club, I read The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club. It's a collection of articles Laurie Notaro wrote about her life for a Phoenix newspaper. I don't want to write too much about what I thought here because we haven't met to discuss it yet. I will say that we chose it because we thought it would be similar to Mindy Kaling's book that we read and really enjoyed, and it didn't quite live up to that for me.
Book clubs taken care of, I next went back to Fforde. The Woman Who Died a Lot is the next book in the series that first made me fall in love with Fforde's work. The hero of this series is a woman named Thursday Next who has been a literary cop, seeking out Shakespeare forgers and things like that, and can also jump into novels and have adventures there. Clearly, these books take place in an alternate reality to our own. Literature jokes and references, time travel, action, comedy - these books are right up my alley. Start with The Eyre Affair and read them all!
And finally, I read Robopocalypse. It tells the story of the war between robots and humans and what happened after. If you've read World War Z, it's the same basic idea, but still it's own thing as well. Both books are surprisingly moving, and Robopocalypse doesn't seem that far-fetched. I loved it!
Thanks to a wicked case of strep throat, I made it through twice as many books in October as in September! 2,085 pages ain't bad. I guess that's the one bright side to strep.
The Woman Who Died a Lot - Jasper Fforde
The Last Dragonslayer - Jasper Fforde
Books I Read:
The Hangman's Daughter by Oliver Potzsch
The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro
The Woman Who Died a Lot by Jasper Fforde
Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson
I only bought two books this month. When one of your favorite authors releases two books on the same day, what else is a girl supposed to do? I also read them both this month, so I'm pretty pleased with myself.
First up in October was The Hangman's Daughter. I've wanted to read this for awhile, and my sister gave it to me for my birthday. It take place in 1659 in Germany and is about the town hangman during a series of mysterious murders that seem connected to witchcraft. I liked it. Mostly. There was definitely too much description that was a little boring, but it's mostly good. It's also interesting because the author based it on actual ancestors of his.
After that, my Jasper Fforde books came in the mail and I was so excited! The Last Dragonslayer is his first teen book, and it's the story of a girl who works with wizards in a world that is almost out of magic. One day, a prophecy is revealed that the last living dragon will be slain in the next week, and she finds out that she is the last in a long line of dragonslayers. It's really good!
Next I took a break from Fforde to read for book clubs. In my Seven Sisters of Soul book club, we're reading Ready Player One, which I read in July and wrote about here. It was still pretty fresh in my mind, and I probably didn't need to re-read it before book club, but it was so good that I wanted to read it again anyway. Still can't recommend this book highly enough!
For my Read Between the Hines book club, I read The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club. It's a collection of articles Laurie Notaro wrote about her life for a Phoenix newspaper. I don't want to write too much about what I thought here because we haven't met to discuss it yet. I will say that we chose it because we thought it would be similar to Mindy Kaling's book that we read and really enjoyed, and it didn't quite live up to that for me.
Book clubs taken care of, I next went back to Fforde. The Woman Who Died a Lot is the next book in the series that first made me fall in love with Fforde's work. The hero of this series is a woman named Thursday Next who has been a literary cop, seeking out Shakespeare forgers and things like that, and can also jump into novels and have adventures there. Clearly, these books take place in an alternate reality to our own. Literature jokes and references, time travel, action, comedy - these books are right up my alley. Start with The Eyre Affair and read them all!
And finally, I read Robopocalypse. It tells the story of the war between robots and humans and what happened after. If you've read World War Z, it's the same basic idea, but still it's own thing as well. Both books are surprisingly moving, and Robopocalypse doesn't seem that far-fetched. I loved it!
Thanks to a wicked case of strep throat, I made it through twice as many books in October as in September! 2,085 pages ain't bad. I guess that's the one bright side to strep.
Are you reading anything good?
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
What I Read: September
Books I bought:
Zero! This is a victory of self-control for me.
Books I Read:
The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma
Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Fewer books bought this month (hooray!), but fewer books read. September was the month when one of my bestest friends in the whole world came to visit and I got to spend almost 24 hours a day in her presence for 5 days, so very little reading was done. This was also a month where my boss and I had about 31 meetings with different small group leaders in 5 days, which also doesn't leave a lot of time for reading. But I did still read 3 books, so I'm considering September pretty amazing all around!
The Map of Time - The back of this book told me it was about time travel and Victorian English literature, so obviously I had to read it. A major character in this book was HG Wells and the plot involved saving classic works like Dracula from being destroyed. I'm all in. The plot definitely went some places I didn't expect, with some major plot twists, but I really enjoyed it, maybe even more than I expected to. I'd recommend it to anyone (except Camille, because she's weird and can't handle time travel discussions).
Next I read Prisoner of Heaven and it was wonderful. It's the 3rd book of his that's set in Barcelona and centers around the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. The first two were Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game. I would highly recommend this book, but probably after reading the first two books. It's a great story but I don't know how connected to it anyone would be without having read the other ones. All 3 of these books are mysterious and a little creepy and funny and sweet and awesome.
And finally, on the last night of September, I finished The Night Circus. I've wanted to read this book since the day it came out. It's magical and romantic and a little mysterious. It tells the story of a circus that comes into town unannounced, sets up overnight, and is only open from dusk until dawn for a few nights before it moves on. In the middle of all this are two people who are locked in a mysterious game of magic. It is SO great! I don't even want to say anymore about it, I just want everyone to read it!
That's it for September. Three amazing books amidst lots of busy-ness. What have you been reading?
Zero! This is a victory of self-control for me.
Books I Read:
The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma
Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Fewer books bought this month (hooray!), but fewer books read. September was the month when one of my bestest friends in the whole world came to visit and I got to spend almost 24 hours a day in her presence for 5 days, so very little reading was done. This was also a month where my boss and I had about 31 meetings with different small group leaders in 5 days, which also doesn't leave a lot of time for reading. But I did still read 3 books, so I'm considering September pretty amazing all around!
The Map of Time - The back of this book told me it was about time travel and Victorian English literature, so obviously I had to read it. A major character in this book was HG Wells and the plot involved saving classic works like Dracula from being destroyed. I'm all in. The plot definitely went some places I didn't expect, with some major plot twists, but I really enjoyed it, maybe even more than I expected to. I'd recommend it to anyone (except Camille, because she's weird and can't handle time travel discussions).
Next I read Prisoner of Heaven and it was wonderful. It's the 3rd book of his that's set in Barcelona and centers around the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. The first two were Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game. I would highly recommend this book, but probably after reading the first two books. It's a great story but I don't know how connected to it anyone would be without having read the other ones. All 3 of these books are mysterious and a little creepy and funny and sweet and awesome.
And finally, on the last night of September, I finished The Night Circus. I've wanted to read this book since the day it came out. It's magical and romantic and a little mysterious. It tells the story of a circus that comes into town unannounced, sets up overnight, and is only open from dusk until dawn for a few nights before it moves on. In the middle of all this are two people who are locked in a mysterious game of magic. It is SO great! I don't even want to say anymore about it, I just want everyone to read it!
That's it for September. Three amazing books amidst lots of busy-ness. What have you been reading?
Sunday, September 2, 2012
What I Read: August 2012
Books I Bought:
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The Hangman's Daughter by Oliver Potzsch
The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Books I Read:
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
True Grit by Charles Portis
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
After the book-buying spree of last month, I am thrilled that I only acquired 3 more books this month. And Hangman's Daughter was a birthday gift, so I only spent money on 2 of them. Night Circus is a book I've been wanting to read for about a year, and Prisoner of Heaven is another sequel to a book I LOVE called Shadow of the Wind, so I had to buy that one...right?
As for books I read, I actually started with 1Q84, but finished that one third. This book came out last year and is almost 1200 pages long, so the paperback version is split into three smaller books. Since I had 2 books to read for book clubs this month, I read one of those books in between each section of 1Q84. This book is hard to describe. It's about 2 people who find themselves in a parallel world dealing with a cult and some mystical beings. For the most part, I enjoyed it, but it was occasionally (and unexpectedly) too smutty, for lack of a better word. That makes it hard to recommend, though I did enjoy the non-smutty parts.
For my book club with Hines ladies (what we call Read Between the Hines), my cousin Erin gave us 4 Agatha Christie books to choose from. I believe we chose Murder on the Orient Express because there's a movie starring Sean Connery we can watch after we discuss it at dinner. I've found that I always enjoy Agatha Christie books. I especially liked this one because the murder takes place in an enclosed environment, so the murderer must be among them, but it's still hard to figure out who did it. In that way, it's similar to other Christie books I've enjoyed - And Then There Were None and Death on the Nile.
This was actually my second time to read True Grit. After reading it last year, I recommended it to Jen and she has been enjoying it and chose it for our book club. It was still pretty fresh in my mind, but I decided to go ahead and read it again because I just like it so much. The narrator is a young girl (Mattie Ross) who hires a marshal to help her find the man who killed her father. Mattie has definite potential to end up on my list of favorite characters in fiction. She's witty, spunky, and theologically sound. One of my favorite things about the novel is how she speaks the truth no matter who's around and she's not intimidated by anyone.
After finishing the last part of the sci-fi epic1Q84, I decided it was time for some straight up fiction. Rachel Clary recently told me one of her favorite books is Fall on Your Knees. I'd never heard of it before, and it had the Oprah's Book Club seal on it, so I was kind of skeptical. But Rach and I love a lot of the same books, and the story sounded intriguing. It's the story of a couple generations of a family and how certain sins and secrets affect all of them. It reminded me a lot of East of Eden in that way. The writing is beautiful and the story is so sad, and somehow the whole thing is really amazing.
As far as literature goes, August was pretty great! 4 books in 2,222 pages that I really liked!
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The Hangman's Daughter by Oliver Potzsch
The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Books I Read:
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
True Grit by Charles Portis
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
After the book-buying spree of last month, I am thrilled that I only acquired 3 more books this month. And Hangman's Daughter was a birthday gift, so I only spent money on 2 of them. Night Circus is a book I've been wanting to read for about a year, and Prisoner of Heaven is another sequel to a book I LOVE called Shadow of the Wind, so I had to buy that one...right?
As for books I read, I actually started with 1Q84, but finished that one third. This book came out last year and is almost 1200 pages long, so the paperback version is split into three smaller books. Since I had 2 books to read for book clubs this month, I read one of those books in between each section of 1Q84. This book is hard to describe. It's about 2 people who find themselves in a parallel world dealing with a cult and some mystical beings. For the most part, I enjoyed it, but it was occasionally (and unexpectedly) too smutty, for lack of a better word. That makes it hard to recommend, though I did enjoy the non-smutty parts.
For my book club with Hines ladies (what we call Read Between the Hines), my cousin Erin gave us 4 Agatha Christie books to choose from. I believe we chose Murder on the Orient Express because there's a movie starring Sean Connery we can watch after we discuss it at dinner. I've found that I always enjoy Agatha Christie books. I especially liked this one because the murder takes place in an enclosed environment, so the murderer must be among them, but it's still hard to figure out who did it. In that way, it's similar to other Christie books I've enjoyed - And Then There Were None and Death on the Nile.
This was actually my second time to read True Grit. After reading it last year, I recommended it to Jen and she has been enjoying it and chose it for our book club. It was still pretty fresh in my mind, but I decided to go ahead and read it again because I just like it so much. The narrator is a young girl (Mattie Ross) who hires a marshal to help her find the man who killed her father. Mattie has definite potential to end up on my list of favorite characters in fiction. She's witty, spunky, and theologically sound. One of my favorite things about the novel is how she speaks the truth no matter who's around and she's not intimidated by anyone.
After finishing the last part of the sci-fi epic1Q84, I decided it was time for some straight up fiction. Rachel Clary recently told me one of her favorite books is Fall on Your Knees. I'd never heard of it before, and it had the Oprah's Book Club seal on it, so I was kind of skeptical. But Rach and I love a lot of the same books, and the story sounded intriguing. It's the story of a couple generations of a family and how certain sins and secrets affect all of them. It reminded me a lot of East of Eden in that way. The writing is beautiful and the story is so sad, and somehow the whole thing is really amazing.
As far as literature goes, August was pretty great! 4 books in 2,222 pages that I really liked!
Are you reading anything good?
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Learning That They Can't All Be Good Choices
I hosted one of my book clubs this past Sunday afternoon. This is the first book club I joined/started, and we've been meeting for almost 5 years, I think. This is the one that technically doesn't have a name, but is made up of the 7 Sisters of Soul - my best friends since college. The books I've chosen when it was my turn to host have generally been well-received, with The Hunger Games being my crowning acheivement. (We loved that book so much that we put off meeting for an extra couple of months so that everyone would have time to read the whole trilogy instead of just the first one.) But you can't make good picks forever, it seems.
When I've picked books for the club, I've often chosen a book I've already read that I love and think others would enjoy. Or I've chosen books I know a lot about and have some level of confidence that we'll all like it. I kind of thought this choice was in the latter category, but it definitely wasn't. I brought 4 choices to the last meeting. They were all books I had on my shelves but hadn't read yet. We ended up choosing The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. As we always do when choosing books, we had read the back of it and the first sentence to get a brief feel for the style. It sounded like it would be good - a Dominican nerd growing up in the ghetto wants to be the next Tolkien and wants to find love, but has to battle the curse his family believes they're under. In some respects, it delivered on what I wanted from it, especially in the area of nerd culture. There were a LOT of fun, nerdy references to things like video games, comic books, sci-fi/fantasy literature, etc. I loved reading those things and feeling on the inside because I understood most of the references, and I enjoyed looking up the ones that were too obscure for me. But I think that hindered the enjoyment of the book for some of the other members. Some of those references were over their heads and they're not as nerdy as I am to want to look up the obscure ones and learn something new about Lord of the Rings. The characters also speak Spanish often and the narrator doesn't always tell you what it means. You have to figure it out in context, look it up, or just be content to not know exactly what they're saying. That last option is what most of us went with. And there was honestly WAY more sexual stuff than any of us could've expected from the description on the back of the book, and we did not want that. Another difficulty with the book was that it skips around telling the stories of different characters and that made it hard to connect with any of them very much.
But you know what? Sometimes you pick a dud, and there's still fun conversation discussing all the reasons we didn't like it and all the characters we didn't enjoy. We always wrap up each discussion by rating the book on a 1-10 scale. Here's what everyone said:
Allison - 7
Stacey - 4 (she didn't read the book, but this was her rating based on the conversation)
Erin - 4
Camille - 5
Kristin - 6.5
My rating would've been significantly lower if it weren't for the nerd references. I'm a sucker for that stuff.
If you're interested in what we thought about other books we read, and a complete list of all our books, check out 7sistersofsoul.blogspot.com and follow @7SistersofSoul on twitter!
When I've picked books for the club, I've often chosen a book I've already read that I love and think others would enjoy. Or I've chosen books I know a lot about and have some level of confidence that we'll all like it. I kind of thought this choice was in the latter category, but it definitely wasn't. I brought 4 choices to the last meeting. They were all books I had on my shelves but hadn't read yet. We ended up choosing The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. As we always do when choosing books, we had read the back of it and the first sentence to get a brief feel for the style. It sounded like it would be good - a Dominican nerd growing up in the ghetto wants to be the next Tolkien and wants to find love, but has to battle the curse his family believes they're under. In some respects, it delivered on what I wanted from it, especially in the area of nerd culture. There were a LOT of fun, nerdy references to things like video games, comic books, sci-fi/fantasy literature, etc. I loved reading those things and feeling on the inside because I understood most of the references, and I enjoyed looking up the ones that were too obscure for me. But I think that hindered the enjoyment of the book for some of the other members. Some of those references were over their heads and they're not as nerdy as I am to want to look up the obscure ones and learn something new about Lord of the Rings. The characters also speak Spanish often and the narrator doesn't always tell you what it means. You have to figure it out in context, look it up, or just be content to not know exactly what they're saying. That last option is what most of us went with. And there was honestly WAY more sexual stuff than any of us could've expected from the description on the back of the book, and we did not want that. Another difficulty with the book was that it skips around telling the stories of different characters and that made it hard to connect with any of them very much.
But you know what? Sometimes you pick a dud, and there's still fun conversation discussing all the reasons we didn't like it and all the characters we didn't enjoy. We always wrap up each discussion by rating the book on a 1-10 scale. Here's what everyone said:
Allison - 7
Stacey - 4 (she didn't read the book, but this was her rating based on the conversation)
Erin - 4
Camille - 5
Kristin - 6.5
My rating would've been significantly lower if it weren't for the nerd references. I'm a sucker for that stuff.
If you're interested in what we thought about other books we read, and a complete list of all our books, check out 7sistersofsoul.blogspot.com and follow @7SistersofSoul on twitter!
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
What I Read: July 2012
Books Bought:
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis
Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
The Snowman by Jo Nesbo
The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma
Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson
Books Read:
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
John Adams by David McCullough
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
So one of the books I read this month inspired me to start a monthly series here about books. The Polysyllabic Spree is a collection of articles Nick Hornby wrote for The Believer about reading and books in general. Every month he listed what he read and what he bought, and shared what he thought about them. It was funny and interesting and made me want to read even more.
As far as books I bought in July, I may have gone a little overboard... I don't usually buy this many books in a month (or I try not to anyway), but July just happened to be a month of great sales at Barnes and Noble and lots of coupons to there and Half-Price Books in my inbox. I couldn't pass all that up, could I?
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is the book we chose for one of my book clubs this month. In the interest of not spilling the beans before our club meets on Sunday, I'll just say keep an eye on 7sistersofsoul.blogspot.com for a blog post on what we all thought of this book.
I actually started John Adams about 2 years ago, then put it down for a loooong time. I want to read a bio on every president, so one of my summer goals was to finish it so I could move on (and I've already started the Jefferson one, so hooray!). Despite how long it took me to read it, this book was actually great! I learned a lot and McCullough is an excellent writer.
Next up was Anna Karenina, which was the final book on my summer goal list of classics to read. Some of this book was a little boring, but on the whole I really enjoyed it! It has potentially 2 of my favorite characters in literature (which seems to me like a bold claim. Maybe I should make a list of my favorite characters someday.) and potentially two of my least favorite. Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky both suck. I just really can't stand those kinds of self-centered characters that are never really redeemed and ruin the lives of many people around them without caring about it. I know there are people that would say I'm being harsh on them, but I don't think so. But Levin and Kitty...I just love them. Their story is sweet and I never wanted it to end.
After that came Polysyllabic Spree, and then came Ready Player One. This book, y'all. I don't know if I could ever explain how much I love it. I don't want to ruin anything for anyone by revealing too much about it. It takes place in the future and is full of 80s pop culture references. It's a thrilling adventure that I literally didn't want to put down. I read at every moment I could, and for three nights in a row I didn't stop reading until almost 3 am. I already want to read it again, and I'm pretty sure it's one of my favorite books of all time. (Am I over-selling it? Read it and find out for yourself!)
That's it for this month! Over 2400 pages. Not bad, if I do say so myself.
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis
Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
The Snowman by Jo Nesbo
The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma
Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson
Books Read:
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
John Adams by David McCullough
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
So one of the books I read this month inspired me to start a monthly series here about books. The Polysyllabic Spree is a collection of articles Nick Hornby wrote for The Believer about reading and books in general. Every month he listed what he read and what he bought, and shared what he thought about them. It was funny and interesting and made me want to read even more.
As far as books I bought in July, I may have gone a little overboard... I don't usually buy this many books in a month (or I try not to anyway), but July just happened to be a month of great sales at Barnes and Noble and lots of coupons to there and Half-Price Books in my inbox. I couldn't pass all that up, could I?
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is the book we chose for one of my book clubs this month. In the interest of not spilling the beans before our club meets on Sunday, I'll just say keep an eye on 7sistersofsoul.blogspot.com for a blog post on what we all thought of this book.
I actually started John Adams about 2 years ago, then put it down for a loooong time. I want to read a bio on every president, so one of my summer goals was to finish it so I could move on (and I've already started the Jefferson one, so hooray!). Despite how long it took me to read it, this book was actually great! I learned a lot and McCullough is an excellent writer.
Next up was Anna Karenina, which was the final book on my summer goal list of classics to read. Some of this book was a little boring, but on the whole I really enjoyed it! It has potentially 2 of my favorite characters in literature (which seems to me like a bold claim. Maybe I should make a list of my favorite characters someday.) and potentially two of my least favorite. Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky both suck. I just really can't stand those kinds of self-centered characters that are never really redeemed and ruin the lives of many people around them without caring about it. I know there are people that would say I'm being harsh on them, but I don't think so. But Levin and Kitty...I just love them. Their story is sweet and I never wanted it to end.
After that came Polysyllabic Spree, and then came Ready Player One. This book, y'all. I don't know if I could ever explain how much I love it. I don't want to ruin anything for anyone by revealing too much about it. It takes place in the future and is full of 80s pop culture references. It's a thrilling adventure that I literally didn't want to put down. I read at every moment I could, and for three nights in a row I didn't stop reading until almost 3 am. I already want to read it again, and I'm pretty sure it's one of my favorite books of all time. (Am I over-selling it? Read it and find out for yourself!)
That's it for this month! Over 2400 pages. Not bad, if I do say so myself.
What have you been reading?
Monday, July 2, 2012
Learning to Shift
A little over a month ago, one of my dearest friends/mentees moved to Denver, Colorado. I've known Rachel since she was a freshman at TCU and we've been close for the past 6 years. Needless to say, when she decided it was time for an adventure and she was moving to Denver, I was excited for her and sad for me. When her mom came in town to help her move, she unexpectedly offered to buy me a plane ticket home from Denver if I wanted to ride up with Rachel a couple of weeks later when she came back to Ft. Worth to get her car. Not being one to turn down a free trip, I said yes!
I absolutely LOVE a good road trip. I love picking out snacks for the car. I love thinking about the perfect thing for the passengers to listen to in the car. I even love taking my turn driving. (Sometimes I've been known to volunteer for the late-night shift when I know everyone else will probably fall asleep. There's something great about driving in the dark and listening to chill music.) But the problem with this road trip is that Rachel drives a stick and I've never learned how. Taking my turn at the wheel was not going to be an option, but Rachel didn't mind doing the whole 12-13 hours herself. She just wanted company.
But then our plans changed a little and we had a great idea. We were initially going to leave on Monday morning, but decided to leave on Tuesday instead. That ended up giving us an hour or so on Monday night for a driving lesson! We went to a nearby parking lot and Rachel taught me how to drive her car. The people I know who drive stick are always talking about how much they love it. How it gives them more control as they're driving, etc. I pretty much think it just gives me too much to do. Too many things I have to think about while I'm trying to sing along to my music. But I'm sure if I had more time to get used to it, I wouldn't have to think about it as much.
Anyway, I had already learned some of the theory behind it, so when we started driving in the parking lot, I kind of understood theoretically what to do. But when I was actually behind the wheel, using both my feet to drive, it was...weird. As we practiced, I never stalled out and Rachel said I did a great job. She even had me drive on a couple roads so I could deal with stop signs and traffic lights and everything. But I was definitely confronted with a little bit of my own perfectionism. Every awkward jerk as I shifted was so annoying to me. I wanted to be able to immediately transition smoothly between gears. I had to realize that that would only come with lots of practice, which we just didn't have time for.
The next day, we rolled out of my driveway a little before 5:30 am, and Rachel drove to Amarillo, where we stopped for lunch, and then for another hour or so until we got into less heavily populated areas. And then - we switched. I only drove for less than two hours, I think. But it was helpful to Rachel, because once we got going, she was able to nap a little bit. And I got pretty good at shifting between 4th and 5th gears in some construction zones. I drove us from New Mexico into Colorado and when we stopped for gas, Rachel took the wheel again for the rest of the way to Denver.
It was lots of fun, and a little stressful. I would definitely need more practice before I would ever try to drive anyone's car alone, but I at least feel confident enough to help in a situation like this. And I learned something I've always wanted to learn! Hooray!
I absolutely LOVE a good road trip. I love picking out snacks for the car. I love thinking about the perfect thing for the passengers to listen to in the car. I even love taking my turn driving. (Sometimes I've been known to volunteer for the late-night shift when I know everyone else will probably fall asleep. There's something great about driving in the dark and listening to chill music.) But the problem with this road trip is that Rachel drives a stick and I've never learned how. Taking my turn at the wheel was not going to be an option, but Rachel didn't mind doing the whole 12-13 hours herself. She just wanted company.
But then our plans changed a little and we had a great idea. We were initially going to leave on Monday morning, but decided to leave on Tuesday instead. That ended up giving us an hour or so on Monday night for a driving lesson! We went to a nearby parking lot and Rachel taught me how to drive her car. The people I know who drive stick are always talking about how much they love it. How it gives them more control as they're driving, etc. I pretty much think it just gives me too much to do. Too many things I have to think about while I'm trying to sing along to my music. But I'm sure if I had more time to get used to it, I wouldn't have to think about it as much.
Anyway, I had already learned some of the theory behind it, so when we started driving in the parking lot, I kind of understood theoretically what to do. But when I was actually behind the wheel, using both my feet to drive, it was...weird. As we practiced, I never stalled out and Rachel said I did a great job. She even had me drive on a couple roads so I could deal with stop signs and traffic lights and everything. But I was definitely confronted with a little bit of my own perfectionism. Every awkward jerk as I shifted was so annoying to me. I wanted to be able to immediately transition smoothly between gears. I had to realize that that would only come with lots of practice, which we just didn't have time for.
The next day, we rolled out of my driveway a little before 5:30 am, and Rachel drove to Amarillo, where we stopped for lunch, and then for another hour or so until we got into less heavily populated areas. And then - we switched. I only drove for less than two hours, I think. But it was helpful to Rachel, because once we got going, she was able to nap a little bit. And I got pretty good at shifting between 4th and 5th gears in some construction zones. I drove us from New Mexico into Colorado and when we stopped for gas, Rachel took the wheel again for the rest of the way to Denver.
It was lots of fun, and a little stressful. I would definitely need more practice before I would ever try to drive anyone's car alone, but I at least feel confident enough to help in a situation like this. And I learned something I've always wanted to learn! Hooray!
Friday, June 15, 2012
Learning About Worship
Maybe I'm a little too critical, but I kind of have a lot of opinions on worship songs. A friend of mine actually wrote a blog post this week on how he chooses what songs to lead during a worship service that states a lot of my own views way better than I could. This same friend is also an incredibly gifted writer of worship songs. (I'm actually blessed to know at least 3 people that write some of the best worship songs I've ever heard, but it's possible that I'm a little biased.) One song Casey wrote that we get to sing a lot at my church that I just can't stop listening to these days is called "The Privilege of Knowing the King" and I thought I'd write a little about why I love it so much. (If you want to hear it for yourself, you can listen to a live version of it here.)
Oh, how great is the privilege of
Those found with only His righteousness
He is enough for them, and they are content
He is all they will ever need
His blood washed over their depravity
Now they're clean
Oh, the privilege of knowing the King
That's verse one. This song is already packed with theological goodness! I think right away part of the reason I love this song so much is that this privilege is something that is so easy to forget. The fact that we even get to KNOW the King of the universe is unbelievable and we take it for granted, but then the song unpacks even more about our privileges that we forget as well. To be found with nothing but His righteousness is more than we could ever ask for. This is a righteousness we could never earn in a billion lifetimes, but He's given His to us and that should be enough for us. His blood cleanses our depravity.
Oh, how sweet His forgiveness for
Those bound and broken because of sin
His grace is enough for them, where freedom begins
He is all they will ever need
His love bought pardon for the weak
And set them free
Oh, the privilege of knowing the King
Verse two. Not only do we have His righteousness, but we've been given forgiveness. On the days when we don't feel like we've been screwing things up too badly, we take this for granted. But when we remember what we truly are without Christ - that we are bound and broken because of sin, yet He has, in love, bought our pardon and set us free - then His forgiveness truly is sweet and we remember that He is all we will ever need.
Great is the privilege of knowing the One
Who forever will reign by His goodness and love (3x)
He was broken and bruised for me and for you
Jesus!
This is the bridge and it gets me every time. One of my worship song pet peeves is when we repeat something that isn't the most important theological point of the song, but this one definitely is. We have to constantly remind our hearts of who Jesus is and what He's done for us. He is the King who will reign forever in goodness and love, and despite our totally not deserving it, He chose to be broken and bruised for us and we get to be with Him forever. That idea is absolutely worth repeating.
Oh, how firm through the ages are
Those crowned with life by the Father's hands
His Word is enough for them to endure til the end
He is all we will ever need
His life, our only hope and plea
Eternally
Oh, the privilege of knowing the King
The final verse. I love the reminder that this privilege isn't just ours now, but it is ours for eternity. If we know this King, if we place our only hope and plea in His life, His Word will help us endure til the end and we will be with Him eternally. What?! It truly is a privilege to know Him, and I hate that I take it for granted often, but I love that this song helps me remember not to.
Monday, June 11, 2012
What I've Read So Far
In my last post, I talked about my summer goals. One of my main ones was to read 5 classics, and another was to finally finish reading John Adams. That's a lot of reading, so I've been working hard and I've already got three books crossed off my list!
First up was Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne. I've been wanting to read some Verne for awhile and I'd heard this was a great one to start with. I loved it! If you're wanting to read a classic, but are intimidated by classics, this is a good place to go. It's a fun adventure story with mishaps and misunderstandings and twists and turns and a race to a deadline. The two main characters are delightful. I was genuinely excited to see what would happen.
Next I decided to go for an American book and read Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow. This one was honestly a little disappointing. I had seen it on a lot of lists of the best books ever and read some things about how it changed the genre of historical fiction, and these are some of the reasons I picked it. I also liked the idea of the time period - America right before WWI starts. One thing I didn't realize until I started reading it was that it was written in the 1970s and there really isn't much I like about that decade, including literature it seems. I never really connected with any of the characters and it was just a really different story from what I expected. The historical part of the historical fiction was neat though. Houdini, Ford, and other famous figures were also characters in the novel and that was interesting, but not interesting enough to save the book for me. I wouldn't recommend it.
After that I decided to completely switch time periods and genres and decided it was time to read The Once and Future King by T.H. White. I haven't read a lot of Arthurian legend before and this one was really fun. The first part is what the Disney movie The Sword in the Stone is based on. Whereas older epics like Morte D'Arthur describe a lot of what happened in the life of Arthur, this story delves into why things happened and how all the characters felt about it. It was written during and after WWII in England, and the narrator uses much of Arthur's struggles to comment on the nature of war and civilization in our own time. So despite it being the classic tale of Arthur, Merlyn, Lancelot, Guenever, and other knights that many of us already know, there was also a lot of new and interesting detail in it that I really enjoyed.
So now I'm taking a short break from the classics to read more of John Adams. I have about 350 pages left of that, so I'm going to read at least 100 pages and then read another classic. I'm also going to be watching some classic movies soon, so I'll post about those here too!
First up was Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne. I've been wanting to read some Verne for awhile and I'd heard this was a great one to start with. I loved it! If you're wanting to read a classic, but are intimidated by classics, this is a good place to go. It's a fun adventure story with mishaps and misunderstandings and twists and turns and a race to a deadline. The two main characters are delightful. I was genuinely excited to see what would happen.
Next I decided to go for an American book and read Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow. This one was honestly a little disappointing. I had seen it on a lot of lists of the best books ever and read some things about how it changed the genre of historical fiction, and these are some of the reasons I picked it. I also liked the idea of the time period - America right before WWI starts. One thing I didn't realize until I started reading it was that it was written in the 1970s and there really isn't much I like about that decade, including literature it seems. I never really connected with any of the characters and it was just a really different story from what I expected. The historical part of the historical fiction was neat though. Houdini, Ford, and other famous figures were also characters in the novel and that was interesting, but not interesting enough to save the book for me. I wouldn't recommend it.
After that I decided to completely switch time periods and genres and decided it was time to read The Once and Future King by T.H. White. I haven't read a lot of Arthurian legend before and this one was really fun. The first part is what the Disney movie The Sword in the Stone is based on. Whereas older epics like Morte D'Arthur describe a lot of what happened in the life of Arthur, this story delves into why things happened and how all the characters felt about it. It was written during and after WWII in England, and the narrator uses much of Arthur's struggles to comment on the nature of war and civilization in our own time. So despite it being the classic tale of Arthur, Merlyn, Lancelot, Guenever, and other knights that many of us already know, there was also a lot of new and interesting detail in it that I really enjoyed.
So now I'm taking a short break from the classics to read more of John Adams. I have about 350 pages left of that, so I'm going to read at least 100 pages and then read another classic. I'm also going to be watching some classic movies soon, so I'll post about those here too!
Saturday, June 2, 2012
What I'll Do This Summer
A number of years ago, my friend Jen and I decided to make a list of summer goals. It didn't start out as anything too intense. If I remember correctly, 2 of the goals were to watch the Back to the Future trilogy all in a row and to watch Sister Act 1 and 2. But we also included goals about books to read and new things to try - ways to keep our summer from being too lazy with no direction. Some of our other friends joined us and this has been one of our most fun traditions. Right around the time that my college students are finishing classes, Jen is finishing her grad school classes, and our teacher friends are getting out for the summer, we all start posting our summer goals. I always get so excited to see what my friends are committing to for the summer and what fun things they have planned that I can join them in! Jen has already posted her list on her blog, so I thought I'd post mine here and I'll write occasional updates over the summer on how things are going. Here we go!
1. Go swing dancing with Allison at least once, preferably more often - There was a period of my life where I went swing dancing 3 times a week, and I definitely miss it! Allison has been going consistently and I want to join her. I'm looking forward to getting a group of friends together because it's always more fun with a lot of people.
2. Eat only mexican food for a week - So you know how you love a food so much that you say you could eat it every day? We were talking about it in Belize and I decided I should test it. I don't eat breakfast, so I actually think this'll be really easy. And delicious!
3. Scat Jazz Lounge Black Dog night at least once - Long ago there was a place called the Black Dog and they had a free jazz jam every Sunday night. It was glorious. I recently learned that Scat has started hosting it again and I have GOT to go. Who's in? Great music, great friends, maybe we can use the swing dancing from goal #1!
4. Read at least 5 classics I've never read before - I always want to make sure I'm well-read, and I feel like I've been focusing too much on contemporary lit lately, so it's time for some classics. I spent a long time coming up with my 5 - Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin, Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne, and The Once and Future King by T.H. White. If I finish these, I have a backup list ready to go.
6. Finish reading John Adams by David McCullough - Years ago I decided I wanted to read a bio on every president to learn more American history and study for Jeopardy. I read one on Washington and stalled out. Last year I got about halfway through this and then got distracted by other things. I've got to get past president #2.
7. Make salsa - I freaking love salsa and I want to make my own. It'll be fun to try different recipes and find a good one.
8. Blog once a week - In January, Jen talked me into starting this blog. I've written on here 8 times. I figure if I blog at least once a week over the summer, I'll get in the habit and be better about it in the future.
9. Watch 5 classic movies I've never seen - I haven't chosen these yet. I'll look at lists of Best Picture winners and best movies of all times and find some that I've been meaning to watch but just haven't made it to yet. I love old movies!
10. Have 6 friends pick favorite movies I've never seen and watch them - I did this a few years ago and it was really fun! I've asked Jane, Kate, Callie, Josh, Will, and Kevin to pick movies. It's kind of a hard process because I've seen a lot of movies that people suggest at first, but it's fun to find ones I haven't seen! I'll update later when they've all picked movies for me.
11. Update pictures in frames in my room - I have a lot of pictures from the last few years I've been meaning to print and a lot of frames to put them in. I want to finally do that this summer.
12. Memorize the presidents in order - This was a goal last summer and I don't think I even worked on it a little. It's something I think I need to know if I want to be on Jeopardy someday, so I want to work on it.
13. Eat at 5 Ft. Worth restaurants I've never tried before - I love FW and one of my favorite things about it is all the unique restaurants we have. There are lots I've never been to, so I want to try some new ones.
14. Visit music class with Caitlin, Stacey, and Chavon - I won't be babysitting this summer, so I can finally go! I've heard some great stories about this class and I can't wait to see their little boys interacting with each other!
1. Go swing dancing with Allison at least once, preferably more often - There was a period of my life where I went swing dancing 3 times a week, and I definitely miss it! Allison has been going consistently and I want to join her. I'm looking forward to getting a group of friends together because it's always more fun with a lot of people.
2. Eat only mexican food for a week - So you know how you love a food so much that you say you could eat it every day? We were talking about it in Belize and I decided I should test it. I don't eat breakfast, so I actually think this'll be really easy. And delicious!
3. Scat Jazz Lounge Black Dog night at least once - Long ago there was a place called the Black Dog and they had a free jazz jam every Sunday night. It was glorious. I recently learned that Scat has started hosting it again and I have GOT to go. Who's in? Great music, great friends, maybe we can use the swing dancing from goal #1!
4. Read at least 5 classics I've never read before - I always want to make sure I'm well-read, and I feel like I've been focusing too much on contemporary lit lately, so it's time for some classics. I spent a long time coming up with my 5 - Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin, Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne, and The Once and Future King by T.H. White. If I finish these, I have a backup list ready to go.
5. Hang out with Elle, Alyssa, and Bailey - Every time we see each other at parties we talk about how we want to hang out and then it never happens. Well ladies, now it's on the list, so it's happening. Get excited!
7. Make salsa - I freaking love salsa and I want to make my own. It'll be fun to try different recipes and find a good one.
8. Blog once a week - In January, Jen talked me into starting this blog. I've written on here 8 times. I figure if I blog at least once a week over the summer, I'll get in the habit and be better about it in the future.
9. Watch 5 classic movies I've never seen - I haven't chosen these yet. I'll look at lists of Best Picture winners and best movies of all times and find some that I've been meaning to watch but just haven't made it to yet. I love old movies!
10. Have 6 friends pick favorite movies I've never seen and watch them - I did this a few years ago and it was really fun! I've asked Jane, Kate, Callie, Josh, Will, and Kevin to pick movies. It's kind of a hard process because I've seen a lot of movies that people suggest at first, but it's fun to find ones I haven't seen! I'll update later when they've all picked movies for me.
11. Update pictures in frames in my room - I have a lot of pictures from the last few years I've been meaning to print and a lot of frames to put them in. I want to finally do that this summer.
12. Memorize the presidents in order - This was a goal last summer and I don't think I even worked on it a little. It's something I think I need to know if I want to be on Jeopardy someday, so I want to work on it.
13. Eat at 5 Ft. Worth restaurants I've never tried before - I love FW and one of my favorite things about it is all the unique restaurants we have. There are lots I've never been to, so I want to try some new ones.
14. Visit music class with Caitlin, Stacey, and Chavon - I won't be babysitting this summer, so I can finally go! I've heard some great stories about this class and I can't wait to see their little boys interacting with each other!
Do you have summer goals? What are they?
Thursday, May 24, 2012
What I Read Today: Talking to Girls About Duran Duran
The title of this post today is quite literally true. I read this book in less than 24 hours, finishing it soon after I woke up this morning. It's the kind of book I just didn't get tired while reading, which is why I was awake until a little past 4 am. Oops!
Rob Sheffield is a music critic and pop culture writer for Rolling Stone, MTV, etc, and he's also written two memoirs. I read his first one when it came out in 2007, and I believe that was a one-day read as well. There's something about this guy's writing that I just can't stop reading. His first book, Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time, was about the brief years he spent with his wife before she died unexpectedly, and he tells their story through the lens of the music they shared. It was amazing.
Talking to Girls About Duran Duran came out last year, and was just as good, if not a little better. Each chapter is named after a song and the year that song came out, all during the 80s, and he talks about growing up through discussing pop music. I love 80s music, but there were a decent number of the songs that I'd never even heard of before, yet that didn't hinder my connection with his story. It's not so much about the specific song or artist he discusses as it is about how, as idiot kids, we think pop music is teaching us everything we need to know about life and love and who we are. When he was writing about being a teenager, I felt like a teenager. Even though my songs would've been more in the 90s, it didn't matter. I understood what he was talking about. It reminded me how much I love music, though I don't know if I'll ever love it quite as much as Rob does. One of my favorite things about him is that he makes no apologies for the types of music he likes - pop, indie, goth, new wave, punk, metal, whatever. He likes some of all of it and he doesn't care what you think. I firmly believe there should be no such thing as a "guilty pleasure"; if you like something, like it and don't be ashamed! Sheffield quotes Oscar Wilde as saying, "No civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man knows what a pleasure is." When it comes to music, I agree.
So, if you're looking for something to read soon, I highly recommend checking out either of these books!
Rob Sheffield is a music critic and pop culture writer for Rolling Stone, MTV, etc, and he's also written two memoirs. I read his first one when it came out in 2007, and I believe that was a one-day read as well. There's something about this guy's writing that I just can't stop reading. His first book, Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time, was about the brief years he spent with his wife before she died unexpectedly, and he tells their story through the lens of the music they shared. It was amazing.
Talking to Girls About Duran Duran came out last year, and was just as good, if not a little better. Each chapter is named after a song and the year that song came out, all during the 80s, and he talks about growing up through discussing pop music. I love 80s music, but there were a decent number of the songs that I'd never even heard of before, yet that didn't hinder my connection with his story. It's not so much about the specific song or artist he discusses as it is about how, as idiot kids, we think pop music is teaching us everything we need to know about life and love and who we are. When he was writing about being a teenager, I felt like a teenager. Even though my songs would've been more in the 90s, it didn't matter. I understood what he was talking about. It reminded me how much I love music, though I don't know if I'll ever love it quite as much as Rob does. One of my favorite things about him is that he makes no apologies for the types of music he likes - pop, indie, goth, new wave, punk, metal, whatever. He likes some of all of it and he doesn't care what you think. I firmly believe there should be no such thing as a "guilty pleasure"; if you like something, like it and don't be ashamed! Sheffield quotes Oscar Wilde as saying, "No civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man knows what a pleasure is." When it comes to music, I agree.
So, if you're looking for something to read soon, I highly recommend checking out either of these books!
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Learning about Easter Week
It's almost Easter, y'all! As I'm often heard to say when things like St. Patrick's Day or Valentine's Day come around, I'm not a fan of fake holidays. But I am a huge fan of holidays that actually mark something truly significant, and if that doesn't describe Easter, I don't know what does! I love to celebrate the day when our Savior rose from the dead, conquering sin and death forever! Christmas gets a lot of press, and deserves it, but Easter just might be my fave.
Anyway, I was preparing this week's email bible study for some of my college girls who are studying abroad this semester, and I wanted to include some stuff they could read and meditate on this week to focus on the road to the cross and resurrection. I came across this schedule of Scripture readings for each day this week that shows what Jesus and the disciples were doing as He approached the cross. I also found this great prayer in a book called Valley of Vision (if you don't have it, I highly recommend it!) that talks about what Christ endured at Calvary for us. I wanted to post them both here in case they might bless anyone else this week and help us all prepare our hearts to celebrate next Sunday!
Anyway, I was preparing this week's email bible study for some of my college girls who are studying abroad this semester, and I wanted to include some stuff they could read and meditate on this week to focus on the road to the cross and resurrection. I came across this schedule of Scripture readings for each day this week that shows what Jesus and the disciples were doing as He approached the cross. I also found this great prayer in a book called Valley of Vision (if you don't have it, I highly recommend it!) that talks about what Christ endured at Calvary for us. I wanted to post them both here in case they might bless anyone else this week and help us all prepare our hearts to celebrate next Sunday!
Passion Week Readings
Sunday: Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem – Matthew 21.1-11, Mark 11.1-10, Luke 19.28-44, John 12.12-18
Some Greeks see Jesus – John 12.20-36
Jesus returns to Bethany – Matthew 21.17
Monday: Jesus curses the fig tree – Matthew 21.18-19, Mark 11.12-14
Jesus clears the Temple – Matthew 21.12-13, Mark 11.15-17, Luke 19.45-46
Jesus returns to Bethany – Mark 11.19
Tuesday: Disciples see the withered fig tree on the return to Jerusalem – Matthew 21.20-22, Mark 11.20-21
Temple controversies in Jerusalem – Matthew 21.23-23.39, Mark 11.27-12.44, Luke 20.1-21.4
Olivet Discourse on the return to Bethany – Matthew 24.1-25.46, Mark 13.1-37, Luke 21.5-36
Wednesday: Jesus continues teaching – Luke 21.37-38
Sanhedrin plots to kill Jesus – Matthew 26.3-5, Mark 14.1-2, Luke 22.1-2
Wednesday/Thursday: Preparations for the Passover – Matthew 26.17-19, Mark 14.12-16, Luke 22.7-13
Thursday: Passover meal/Last Supper – Matthew 26.20-35, Mark 14.17-26, Luke 22.14-30
Upper Room Discourse – John 13.1-17.26
Jesus prays in Gethsemane – Matthew 26.36-46, Mark 14.32-42, Luke 22.39-46
Friday: Betrayal and arrest – Matthew 26.47-56, Mark 14.43-52, Luke 22.47-53, John 18.2-12
Trial before Annas – John 18.13-24
Trial before Caiaphas – Matthew 26.57-75, Mark 14.53-72, Luke 22.54-65, John 18.19-24
Trial before full Sanhedrin – Matthew 27.1-2, Mark 15.1, Luke 22.66-71
Trial before Pilate – Matthew 27.2-14, Mark 15.2-5, Luke 23.1-5
Trial before Herod – Luke 23.6-12
Trial before Pilate again – Matthew 27.15-26, Mark 15.6-15, Luke 23.13-25, John 18.28-19.16
Crucifixion (approx. 9am-3pm) – Matthew 27.27-54, Mark 15.16-39, Luke 23.26-49, John 19.16-37
Burial – Matthew 27.57-61, Mark 15.42-47, Luke 23.50-54, John 19.38-42
Sunday: Empty-tomb witnesses – Matthew 28.1-8, Mark 16.1-8, Luke 24.1-12
Resurrection appearances – Matthew 28.9-20, Mark 16.9-20, Luke 24.13-53, John 20.1-21.25
Valley of Vision Prayer
My Father,
Enlarge my heart, warm my affections, open my lips,
supply words that proclaim ‘Love lustres at Calvary.’
There grace removes my burdens and heaps them on Thy Son,
made a transgressor, a curse, and sin for me;
There the sword of Thy justice smote the man, Thy fellow;
There Thy infinite attributes were magnified, and infinite atonement was made;
There infinite punishment was due, and infinite punishment was endured.
Christ was all anguish that I might be all joy,
cast off that I might be brought in,
trodden down as an enemy that I might be welcomed as a friend,
surrendered to hell’s worst that I might attain heaven’s best,
stripped that I might be clothed,
wounded that I might be healed,
athirst that I might drink,
tormented that I might be comforted,
made a shame that I might inherit glory,
entered darkness that I might have eternal light.
My Saviour wept that all tears might be wiped from my eyes,
groaned that I might have endless song,
endured all pain that I might have unfading health,
bore a thorny crown that I might have a glory-diadem,
bowed His head that I might uplift mine,
experienced reproach that I might receive welcome,
closed His eyes in death that I might gaze on unclouded brightness,
expired that I might forever live.
O Father, who spared not Thine only Son that Thou mightest spare me,
All this transfer Thy love designed and accomplished;
Help me to adore Thee by lips and life.
O that my every breath might be ecstatic praise,
my every step buoyant with delight, as I see my enemies crushed,
Satan baffled, defeated, destroyed,
sin buried in the ocean of reconciling blood,
hell’s gates closed, heaven’s portals open.
Go forth, O conquering God, and show me the cross, mighty to subdue, comfort and save.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Learning about Belize! (AKA: Kristin has the best job in the whole world.)
And it's now officially been over a month since my last blog post again. I really will get better about this. Someday. I thought a good way to explain my absence would be to talk about the college ministry mission trip I've been preparing for and just got back from! That's what left me little extra time for things like blogging. This trip was one of my favorite ever in all my years of college ministry. It was just so so relational, and everyone got to share the gospel every day, and it was amazing. I thought maybe the best way to share about it would be to post the update emails I sent home each day for the parents of our kids on the trip, so here they are! Enjoy! (And check out International Servants, the team in Belize that we worked with. They are totally rad!)
Sunday
Hello from Belize!
I just wanted to send a quick note to let you all know that we're finally all settled in at the resort! All of our travel went very smoothly, and our two nervous flyers had great flights! Once we got to the resort, we had dinner on a dock out on the ocean, and now everyone's getting settled into their rooms and hanging out before we head to bed. Tomorrow we'll have our first full day of work and small groups and everything and I'll have much more to report, but for now I just wanted everyone to know we're safe and happy and sleepy!
Monday
Hello again!
So we've finished our first day of work! Everyone is pretty exhausted and finally making their way to bed now. We started our day off with breakfast at 7:30 on our dock, then had a short time of worship and our first meetings with our small groups. We headed to the school, where we split up into 4 teams. One team of 5 people went to the feeding center to help prepare and serve lunch to malnourished children. One group of 3 nursing students got to work in the small clinic at the school with the nurse. They saw 63 patients today! One group of 11 people worked on the construction site at the school, building an outdoor pavilion where they can have larger groups meet for assemblies and things like that. And everyone else put on the program we designed before coming here. Today we worked in the morning and afternoon with the 5, 6, and 7 year olds. We started off with them by singing some fun, loud songs, then we acted out the story of the Prodigal Son. After that, Jackie Cravello shared her testimony and we practiced our memory verse and split up into smaller groups to try to discuss the story and how it shows God's love for us. The discussion time was a little difficult for everyone today because the kids were so young and still learning english, but we still felt like some great connections were made! Then we just got to have lots of play time, which accounts for a decent amount of our exhaustion! This will basically be the pattern every day, but the groups will change, giving everyone a chance to do everything they're interested in.
Once we made it back to the hotel, we had a couple hours to swim, shower, or rest before another delicious meal on the dock. Then we sang a couple songs and Ben taught from our small group curriculum (which is called The Gospel-Centered Life, and is really amazing). After that, everyone wanted to worship on the beach for a few songs, and we ended up singing for an hour and a half! It's amazing to sing to God in such a beautiful setting and with people who love the Lord so well!
One thing we'll be doing every night while we're here is a time we call Give God the Glory. We spend a few minutes letting people stand up and give God glory for something He did that day. I want to end by sharing what people gave God the glory for tonight:
- for a kid we met at the feeding center who said, completely out of nowhere, "you're my brother because in Jesus we're all family."
- for guiding me today because I literally don't have any experience with kids, but it was fun and awesome and easy
- for the ridiculous cow outfit I wore in the skit that helped me connect with kids
- for making me realize how great I have it
- for showing me how blessed I am to get to be on this trip and for Kalla getting me to come. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else on my spring break.
- for giving us favor in the lives of these kids, who welcomed us so immediately with huge hugs
- for the kid who looked at a picture of Christ and said, "Wow, He died for me."
That's all for today! I know I promised pictures, but I'm pretty sleepy, so I'm going to send an email tomorrow during our afternoon break before dinner with just a bunch of pictures from today.
Thanks for praying for us!
PS - A few of you emailed me back about where we're staying. I'm sorry I forgot to mention that last night! It's a beautiful place called The Placencia. You can check out their website and find contact info at http://www.theplacencia.com/.
Tuesday
Hey everyone!
Okay, first of all, apparently there was some kind of disaster with the picture emails I sent out today and only a few of you got any of them. I sent two emails of pictures and almost all of them came back to me. I think what happened was that I attached too many pictures to the first email. So I'll attach just a few to this one and then send a few more emails following this with the rest of the pictures. Sorry if you get the same pictures multiple times!
Anyway, today has been amazing again! A bunch of us have been saying we can't believe it's only Tuesday because we have been so focused on being here and serving here and it feels like we've already been here for at least a week. Different groups went to the same 4 places today - the school, the clinic, the feeding center, and the construction site. The girls at the clinic told me it's been really fun to see some things they've been learning about in school and get to put it into action! The prodigal son skit was great, too; it's been funny to see people use acting skills I never knew they had!
In our small groups tonight, our lesson focused on the differences between false and true repentance. We split up into even smaller groups of guys and girls to spend some time being open and sharing about things we need to be repenting of in our lives right now and ways we've been avoiding that. I can't speak for the guy groups, but from my group and hearing from the other girls, I can say that it was definitely a great time of growing closer together and encouraging each other!
I think that's all for today! I'll send some more pictures following this email, and I'll write again tomorrow night!
Wednesday
(from Ben)
Hey Friends and Family,
I gave Kristin the night off from writing the update email…it's pretty late and has been a gloriously exhausting day. We are really settling in to the pattern of the work day but the relationships that we are building with the kids and each other are getting deeper and deeper. I'll keep this update short because my eyes are closing on me, but a quick story about what God is doing in our group:
Every night we have been on the beach worshiping together after dinner and it has been a sweet time! However, one of the trip organizers (from the ministry we are with here in Belize) planned a special pool party at our hotel for us to enjoy after dinner. The students all wanted to continue to worship so we turned the pool party into a two hour long worship service that was a beautiful time!
We are so blessed with an amazing team and an even more amazing God who chooses to use us on a week like this! Please continue to pray for strength, safety and hearts to be transformed.
Thursday
Hello again!
Today was a mostly normal day, as far as work goes, though it definitely seemed hotter than the last few have been! The construction crew was able to finish the pavilion at the school, which leaves them free tomorrow to focus on finishing some computer desks. If these desks get finished before our day is over tomorrow, then another group has promised to donate 8 computers to the school in April! When you think of us during the day tomorrow, please pray for endurance for the construction crew to get those desks done. No one will want to leave without finishing them, I'm sure. We've also been hearing reports of lots of great conversations with kids at the school about Jesus, so praise God for that! And you'll all be interested to know that after lunch at a pastor's house yesterday and today, many of you now have kids who have tried iguana meat, iguana eggs, and a true delicacy here in Belize, the meat of a giant rat! I can tell you that the first had a pretty great flavor, the second had a weird casing on it but was delicious inside, and the rat tasted a lot like jerky and was quite good! Many of us also got the chance to hold an iguana and a boa constrictor. Needless to say, we've been pretty adventurous this week.
The most exciting thing for me to report today is that at sunset in the ocean, we had baptisms! It's always my favorite part of the trip when students want to declare that they've identified their lives with Christ by being baptized in front of their friends here. The guys and gals who got baptized were Madeleine Rebouche, Madison Tooley, Becca Roth, Kalla Kline, Alexandra Brown, Nicoletta Bradley, Victoria Nachman, Riley Ralmuto, Brett Musslewhite, and Steven Stults. I'm so proud of all of them! Praise God!
And speaking of that, I really have been proud of and impressed by all of your kids this week! They are such hard, joyful workers, and they are so open with each other and excited to talk about Jesus with everyone! The team from International Servants who is working with us here have all been telling me the same things about our group, too. You should all be very proud!
Tomorrow will be our last day of working! Everyone is definitely going to be tired, so pray for strength and stamina (and good sleep tonight, if you happen to read this before morning). Thank you!
Friday
We had our last day of work today! It ran a little longer than usual, but all of the desks got finished and the school will get their computers in April! The clinic was also able to see a total of around 170 (I think) patients this week, with the help of the nursing and pre-med students! And hundreds of children at the school got to hear the gospel! As everyone was loading onto the bus to leave the school, there were tears from both the kids and our group. Many kids brought little presents for us to remember them by and promised to remember us in their hearts forever. It was definitely a special day!
After everyone got back and we had dinner, we had a time for giving God the glory and worshipping on the beach. We've been able to do that a few nights this week, and it's so amazing to worship in the dark under the brilliant stars with the sounds of the ocean next to us and remember how huge and wonderful our God is. Tonight, people gave God the glory for:
- showing each of us different things about Himself and ourselves on this trip
- the fact that we didn't know each other before we came here, but now we are a church body
- the tears that were shed as we left the school and the joy the kids put in our lives
- the guy who brought us fruit today from his own garden
- the kid today who said, "will you promise to be my friend forever?"
- humbling me
- sports and allowing us to connect to the kids through that
- being all-loving all the time
- meeting us where we're at - filling us up and sending us out
- the teachers at the school
- the fact that our mission doesn't stop when we leave here
- my new nicknames from the kids - "sir" and "big gringo"
- the hope we have in Heaven
- theological discussions we've been having and being able to love Him with all of our hearts and our minds
- leaders who have to worry about us and are still excited to see us every day
- walls being torn down and the Holy Spirit being among us
- the strength the children have and Amanda who runs the clinic
- the big ways God uses me
- that we're able to show Christ's love to the children the way He did in the Scriptures
- overwhelming emotions
- walls - the kind that get broken down to connect with each other and also the kind we hit when we're exhausted and show us that we can't do anything on our own
- calling Paul to be here and that he took a leap of faith 21 years ago to move to Belize
- the fact that we can sit on a beach and give Him the glory that we're sitting on a beach and realizing how big He is
- and the fact that the same God made and cares for each one of us
- how each person gave their all this week
As you can see, we spent quite a bit of time on the beach tonight! I know that's a long list, but I just didn't want to leave anything out because everyone here has so much that we're praising God for!
Tomorrow is our free day for shopping and hanging out on the beach and resting! And there is one group taking an excursion to what sounds like a pretty awesome reef for snorkeling. Right now our resort is having karaoke out on the dock where we eat breakfast and dinner, and I'm listening to everyone have a lot of fun with the other guests of the hotel! It really has been a great week and we're grateful for your prayers! One more day and then we'll begin our journey home!
Monday, February 20, 2012
Learning about Relationships
Oy. I need to get better about this blogging thing. This is my first blog post of February and it's the 20th. Oh well. Anyway...
In the college ministry where I work, we have an annual Q&A panel on relationships. We started this 4 years ago, and it's been really fun! Each year we invite people within our church to be on our panel and college students text in questions for us to answer. We had this year's last Sunday and I spent this past week putting together the packet of questions and answers we always provide after the panel. Since we're in a new location this year with different time constraints, we didn't have as much time as we usually like to take with the panel, so I decided to make the packet a "best of" the last 4 years. Even though a lot of the same basic questions and answers come up each year, it's always good for me to revisit the question of what it looks like to make relationship decisions that honor Christ. I love getting to work on this panel and packet every year. So I thought I'd provide the link to the packet here in case it could bless you or anyone you'd like to share it with! You should be able to view it in Google Docs here: https://docs.google.com/open?id=1UBq8b6MAOtuP0lRqUvsFCDZq2SuuiIoDmJlg8RZsq3ZkHtjtoGlAFL525Gm0
In the college ministry where I work, we have an annual Q&A panel on relationships. We started this 4 years ago, and it's been really fun! Each year we invite people within our church to be on our panel and college students text in questions for us to answer. We had this year's last Sunday and I spent this past week putting together the packet of questions and answers we always provide after the panel. Since we're in a new location this year with different time constraints, we didn't have as much time as we usually like to take with the panel, so I decided to make the packet a "best of" the last 4 years. Even though a lot of the same basic questions and answers come up each year, it's always good for me to revisit the question of what it looks like to make relationship decisions that honor Christ. I love getting to work on this panel and packet every year. So I thought I'd provide the link to the packet here in case it could bless you or anyone you'd like to share it with! You should be able to view it in Google Docs here: https://docs.google.com/open?id=1UBq8b6MAOtuP0lRqUvsFCDZq2SuuiIoDmJlg8RZsq3ZkHtjtoGlAFL525Gm0
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Learning About My Reading Habits
When I was in college I took a class on literature from the 1920s (which was totally rad) and we read a book called This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald. To be honest, I barely remember the plot of this book. It was probably one of the more boring ones we read that semester. But there was one important thing I took from it - the main character kept a log of books he had read. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald would give us the list of books the guy had been reading during that time of his life and, if we knew what those books were (which mostly we didn't because they were popular books then, but apparently didn't stand the test of time), we would gain insight into what was going on in our protagonist's head.
I loved this idea. Being able to look back at any given time and see what I was reading sounded really cool to me. And yes, "cool" is definitely a subjective term. So I have this little book where I've written down the titles of everything I've read since the summer of 2004. Initially I organized the lists by semester, but in the last few years I've been listing books by month. When I finish a book, I write it down and include a letter grade next to it so I can remember how much I liked it. I also note if I read the book for one of my book clubs or if it was a re-read.
At the end of 2009, I counted up the total from the list and found that I'd read 51 books that year. I decided that wasn't enough and that I needed to average at least one book per week, if not more. At the end of 2010, I'd read 53 books with a total of 17,880 pages. Today, I did my count for 2011 and got a little depressed. I only read 38 books last year, though the page count total was 16,062. I didn't drop too much page-wise, but total number of books read - that's a major drop. And I think I know the reason why.
2011 was also the year I got an iPhone. When my friend Jen got Phoebe, she asked me if I read less since I got my iPhone. I hadn't really thought about it before, but I realized the answer was probably yes. All those times when I'd be in a waiting room and would usually pull my book out of my purse for a couple minutes, I usually checked twitter and email on my phone first. Laying in bed at night when I would usually read until I fell asleep, I would often check my phone one last time and play people back on Words with Friends and then just go to sleep without reading anything. This just won't do. There are too many books in this world that I want to read, and new ones being published every week, so iPhone, I still love you, but 2012 is going to be a year of a little more distance between us. I need to spend some quality time with my books.
If anyone's interested, here's the list of books I read in 2011 (R=re-read):
The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Lost World (R), Praise Habit, True Grit, Outlander (R), Dragonfly in Amber (R), Voyager (R), Little Bee, Drums of Autumn (R), Born in the Big Rains, Be Victorious, Room, Fuel and the Flame, The Exile, The Book Thief, Girl's Guide to Homelessness, A Visit from the Goon Squad, Never Let Me Go, The Help, Drood, Dance with Dragons, One of Our Thursdays is Missing, Thank You Notes, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, In the Woods, Bossypants, Flight, Maniac Magee (R), From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (R), Before You Go, The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Keep a Quiet Heart, Scars and Stilettos, The Invention of Hugo Cabret (R), Doctrine: What Every Christian Should Believe, Her Fearful Symmetry (R), Girls Like Us, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (R)
In a year where I read some excellent non-fiction (Hello, Mark Driscoll and Elisabeth Elliot!), I'd probably have to say my favorite one was Girls Like Us by Rachel Lloyd. It's written by a former prostitute who now helps young girls who are forced into prostitution get out of the life. It was really eye-opening and I highly recommend it. For more on a similar topic, also check out Scars and Stilettos by Harmony Dust.
The best fiction book I read in 2011 also came out in 2011 - Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin. I read a lot of wonderful books this past year, but none was more highly anticipated than this one. I waited a long time for book 5 in his Song of Ice and Fire series and I wasn't disappointed. Another favorite from 2011 was also a new entry in one of my favorite series - One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde. The series has everything I want - humor, fantasy, literature references galore, and time travel. Check it out. And another book I loved that's in a totally different genre and much older was True Grit. Not my usual style, but excellent writing, a great narrator, and surprisingly solid theology!
I loved this idea. Being able to look back at any given time and see what I was reading sounded really cool to me. And yes, "cool" is definitely a subjective term. So I have this little book where I've written down the titles of everything I've read since the summer of 2004. Initially I organized the lists by semester, but in the last few years I've been listing books by month. When I finish a book, I write it down and include a letter grade next to it so I can remember how much I liked it. I also note if I read the book for one of my book clubs or if it was a re-read.
At the end of 2009, I counted up the total from the list and found that I'd read 51 books that year. I decided that wasn't enough and that I needed to average at least one book per week, if not more. At the end of 2010, I'd read 53 books with a total of 17,880 pages. Today, I did my count for 2011 and got a little depressed. I only read 38 books last year, though the page count total was 16,062. I didn't drop too much page-wise, but total number of books read - that's a major drop. And I think I know the reason why.
2011 was also the year I got an iPhone. When my friend Jen got Phoebe, she asked me if I read less since I got my iPhone. I hadn't really thought about it before, but I realized the answer was probably yes. All those times when I'd be in a waiting room and would usually pull my book out of my purse for a couple minutes, I usually checked twitter and email on my phone first. Laying in bed at night when I would usually read until I fell asleep, I would often check my phone one last time and play people back on Words with Friends and then just go to sleep without reading anything. This just won't do. There are too many books in this world that I want to read, and new ones being published every week, so iPhone, I still love you, but 2012 is going to be a year of a little more distance between us. I need to spend some quality time with my books.
If anyone's interested, here's the list of books I read in 2011 (R=re-read):
The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Lost World (R), Praise Habit, True Grit, Outlander (R), Dragonfly in Amber (R), Voyager (R), Little Bee, Drums of Autumn (R), Born in the Big Rains, Be Victorious, Room, Fuel and the Flame, The Exile, The Book Thief, Girl's Guide to Homelessness, A Visit from the Goon Squad, Never Let Me Go, The Help, Drood, Dance with Dragons, One of Our Thursdays is Missing, Thank You Notes, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, In the Woods, Bossypants, Flight, Maniac Magee (R), From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (R), Before You Go, The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Keep a Quiet Heart, Scars and Stilettos, The Invention of Hugo Cabret (R), Doctrine: What Every Christian Should Believe, Her Fearful Symmetry (R), Girls Like Us, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (R)
In a year where I read some excellent non-fiction (Hello, Mark Driscoll and Elisabeth Elliot!), I'd probably have to say my favorite one was Girls Like Us by Rachel Lloyd. It's written by a former prostitute who now helps young girls who are forced into prostitution get out of the life. It was really eye-opening and I highly recommend it. For more on a similar topic, also check out Scars and Stilettos by Harmony Dust.
The best fiction book I read in 2011 also came out in 2011 - Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin. I read a lot of wonderful books this past year, but none was more highly anticipated than this one. I waited a long time for book 5 in his Song of Ice and Fire series and I wasn't disappointed. Another favorite from 2011 was also a new entry in one of my favorite series - One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde. The series has everything I want - humor, fantasy, literature references galore, and time travel. Check it out. And another book I loved that's in a totally different genre and much older was True Grit. Not my usual style, but excellent writing, a great narrator, and surprisingly solid theology!
What did you read in 2011?
Friday, January 20, 2012
What I Read Today: Bonhoeffer
I've been reading this book that my lovely friend Allison gave me for Christmas - Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas. I'm only about 1/4 of the way through it, but I'm loving it already and had some thoughts I wanted to go ahead and blog about now.
But first, a little background. This book is a bio on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a man who was pretty freaking amazing, if you couldn't tell by the subtitle. He was a German Christian author and preacher, and during World War Two he helped smuggle Jews to Switzerland and became involved in a famous attempt to assassinate Hitler (I really can't wait to get to that part of the book!). Maybe his most famous book is called The Cost of Discipleship, and if you haven't read it, you totally should.
So far, I've got two main thoughts that keep coming up while I'm reading. The first is: Where have all the men gone? (Now the following is not meant to be a slight on all men. I know a LOT of great, solid Christian men, but just in general in the Church, I'm afraid some of these things are true.) Where I am in the book, Bonhoeffer has recently turned 25. He wrote a letter to his twin sister on their birthday. Despite having already received a doctorate at 21, publishing his first book, preaching in multiple churches around the world, leading many Sunday school and theology classes for children and adults, being an accomplished pianist and singer, and many other things we rarely expect from people of the same age now, he lamented that he still hadn't done enough with his life! He said, "If I were to imagine I had already been married for over five years, had two children, my own house, well, then I could feel fully justified turning twenty-five." I'm definitely not saying that every man needs to be a married, father of 2, homeowner by 25. But what I do think we're missing in general is men who even aim to be this grown up. As a society, it seems like we've allowed for this extended childhood/adolescence that doesn't make anyone take responsibility for their lives until they feel like it, and this is a huge detriment to the Church where the men are supposed to be the leaders. I've noticed this firsthand in college ministry. We have some great guys who get really involved, but they are FAR outnumbered by girls. We need men to get serious about their lives and their faith at much earlier ages and step it up!
My other thought is: The church local and Church universal is really important. It's interesting to be reading this at a time when so many people are posting that "Why I hate religion but love Jesus" video, but that's probably a whole other blog post. Bonhoeffer actually started off his life not really going to church regularly. Even when he became a Christian and started writing and teaching, he didn't understand the importance of church. But around where I am in the book, he's starting to realize how important it is, and I think he's eventually going to lead a big movement to remind people of that fact. In talking about Bonhoeffer's lectures, one of his students said, "He pointed out that nowadays we often ask ourselves whether we still need the Church, whether we still need God. But this question, he said, is wrong. We are the ones who are questioned. The Church exists and God exists, and we are asked whether we are willing to be of service." He began thinking and teaching this way after he spent some time in America during 1930-31 when the battle between the Fundamentalists and the Liberals in Christianity was raging. He went to various churches and found that they "preach about virtually everything, only one thing is not addressed, or is addressed so rarely that I have as yet been unable to bear it, namely, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the cross, sin and forgiveness, death and life." He was saddened by the fact that most of the (liberal) churches he was going to seemed to be little more than social clubs where people went to fill their time and maybe do some service in the community. But then he visited a church in Harlem. He heard gospel music. He heard Jesus Christ preached. He heard social justice preached as well, but finally in the context of the gospel. And he started going there every week and teaching Sunday school classes with the kids. I just love the idea of this pasty German guy being so involved in the biggest, most famous church in Harlem! And I love that it changed his life.
Okay, I think that's all for now. I'm probably going to write more about this book by the time I'm done with it. In the meantime, if you're looking for a good read, pick it up and let me know what you think!
But first, a little background. This book is a bio on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a man who was pretty freaking amazing, if you couldn't tell by the subtitle. He was a German Christian author and preacher, and during World War Two he helped smuggle Jews to Switzerland and became involved in a famous attempt to assassinate Hitler (I really can't wait to get to that part of the book!). Maybe his most famous book is called The Cost of Discipleship, and if you haven't read it, you totally should.
So far, I've got two main thoughts that keep coming up while I'm reading. The first is: Where have all the men gone? (Now the following is not meant to be a slight on all men. I know a LOT of great, solid Christian men, but just in general in the Church, I'm afraid some of these things are true.) Where I am in the book, Bonhoeffer has recently turned 25. He wrote a letter to his twin sister on their birthday. Despite having already received a doctorate at 21, publishing his first book, preaching in multiple churches around the world, leading many Sunday school and theology classes for children and adults, being an accomplished pianist and singer, and many other things we rarely expect from people of the same age now, he lamented that he still hadn't done enough with his life! He said, "If I were to imagine I had already been married for over five years, had two children, my own house, well, then I could feel fully justified turning twenty-five." I'm definitely not saying that every man needs to be a married, father of 2, homeowner by 25. But what I do think we're missing in general is men who even aim to be this grown up. As a society, it seems like we've allowed for this extended childhood/adolescence that doesn't make anyone take responsibility for their lives until they feel like it, and this is a huge detriment to the Church where the men are supposed to be the leaders. I've noticed this firsthand in college ministry. We have some great guys who get really involved, but they are FAR outnumbered by girls. We need men to get serious about their lives and their faith at much earlier ages and step it up!
My other thought is: The church local and Church universal is really important. It's interesting to be reading this at a time when so many people are posting that "Why I hate religion but love Jesus" video, but that's probably a whole other blog post. Bonhoeffer actually started off his life not really going to church regularly. Even when he became a Christian and started writing and teaching, he didn't understand the importance of church. But around where I am in the book, he's starting to realize how important it is, and I think he's eventually going to lead a big movement to remind people of that fact. In talking about Bonhoeffer's lectures, one of his students said, "He pointed out that nowadays we often ask ourselves whether we still need the Church, whether we still need God. But this question, he said, is wrong. We are the ones who are questioned. The Church exists and God exists, and we are asked whether we are willing to be of service." He began thinking and teaching this way after he spent some time in America during 1930-31 when the battle between the Fundamentalists and the Liberals in Christianity was raging. He went to various churches and found that they "preach about virtually everything, only one thing is not addressed, or is addressed so rarely that I have as yet been unable to bear it, namely, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the cross, sin and forgiveness, death and life." He was saddened by the fact that most of the (liberal) churches he was going to seemed to be little more than social clubs where people went to fill their time and maybe do some service in the community. But then he visited a church in Harlem. He heard gospel music. He heard Jesus Christ preached. He heard social justice preached as well, but finally in the context of the gospel. And he started going there every week and teaching Sunday school classes with the kids. I just love the idea of this pasty German guy being so involved in the biggest, most famous church in Harlem! And I love that it changed his life.
Okay, I think that's all for now. I'm probably going to write more about this book by the time I'm done with it. In the meantime, if you're looking for a good read, pick it up and let me know what you think!
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Learning about the Word of God
(Disclaimer: I hope to be constantly learning about the Word of God, so this should be just the first of many blog posts with this same basic title!)
So today was a big day for me in the growing up process - I joined the Women in the Word bible study at my church, Christ Chapel Bible Church! For those who don't know, I've been a member of CCBC since I was in college and I've been on staff with the college ministry for about 6.5 years. I wouldn't even know how to begin counting how many times I've been the leader of a bible study, but I did realize at some point last semester that it's been years since I've simply been a member of a small group - not leading, just sitting under someone else's leadership and participating. Not that I haven't been poured into! I have amazing bosses who take their job to shepherd me seriously and I've got great accountability with my friends, but I just felt convicted that I needed to do the small group thing. After considering multiple options, I found out that my friend Chavon was wanting the same thing and we decided to become more involved in the women's ministry together. Every Thursday morning a couple hundred women show up to the church, split into small groups to discuss Scripture together for about 45 minutes, and then gather in the sanctuary for large group teaching. Our new series is going through the book of Mark. (If you're interested, you can actually check out the lectures and lesson notes here.)
This morning was all about Mark 1. I've read this book multiple times, but what I love about Scripture is that every time you read it you are a different person because God is constantly changing us, so it speaks to us differently at different times. Every single time there's something new to apply to my life. Every single time there's something new to meditate on about Jesus and what He did for me. Every Single Time.
And yet - there are days when I only read it out of a sense of obligation. There are days when I think I should read it but I don't because I'm tired or busy or wanting to watch TV instead. There are days when I don't even think about reading it. Which is absolute insanity because it is God Himself speaking directly to me! Why wouldn't I want to read it?!
In Mark 1.12-13, we see a mega-brief (in totally Mark fashion) description of Jesus being tempted in the desert. We read Matthew 4.1-11 to get a more full picture of what that was like. One thing we noted was that Jesus answered every temptation Satan offered with Scripture. He knew the Word so well that He was able to answer anything Satan threw at Him with it. But another thing we talked about was that Satan also quoted Scripture. When his first temptation didn't work, Satan quoted Psalm 91 as he tried to get Jesus to throw Himself off the temple. Sure, he quoted it out of context and was using it to try to get Jesus to manipulate God, but he quoted Scripture. This got me thinking. Do I know the Word of God well enough that I can tell when someone is misusing it? Will I know when someone quotes Scripture out of context to warp its meaning to fit their own purposes? Or will I hear someone cite a Bible passage and passively assume they're using it right? We simply can't let Satan know the Bible better than we do! He is the father of lies and we are the sons and daughters of Truth Himself! If Satan studies the Bible to have it on the tip of his tongue to use in his evil schemes, we've got to have it written on our hearts to use when we come up against him.
So today was a big day for me in the growing up process - I joined the Women in the Word bible study at my church, Christ Chapel Bible Church! For those who don't know, I've been a member of CCBC since I was in college and I've been on staff with the college ministry for about 6.5 years. I wouldn't even know how to begin counting how many times I've been the leader of a bible study, but I did realize at some point last semester that it's been years since I've simply been a member of a small group - not leading, just sitting under someone else's leadership and participating. Not that I haven't been poured into! I have amazing bosses who take their job to shepherd me seriously and I've got great accountability with my friends, but I just felt convicted that I needed to do the small group thing. After considering multiple options, I found out that my friend Chavon was wanting the same thing and we decided to become more involved in the women's ministry together. Every Thursday morning a couple hundred women show up to the church, split into small groups to discuss Scripture together for about 45 minutes, and then gather in the sanctuary for large group teaching. Our new series is going through the book of Mark. (If you're interested, you can actually check out the lectures and lesson notes here.)
This morning was all about Mark 1. I've read this book multiple times, but what I love about Scripture is that every time you read it you are a different person because God is constantly changing us, so it speaks to us differently at different times. Every single time there's something new to apply to my life. Every single time there's something new to meditate on about Jesus and what He did for me. Every Single Time.
And yet - there are days when I only read it out of a sense of obligation. There are days when I think I should read it but I don't because I'm tired or busy or wanting to watch TV instead. There are days when I don't even think about reading it. Which is absolute insanity because it is God Himself speaking directly to me! Why wouldn't I want to read it?!
In Mark 1.12-13, we see a mega-brief (in totally Mark fashion) description of Jesus being tempted in the desert. We read Matthew 4.1-11 to get a more full picture of what that was like. One thing we noted was that Jesus answered every temptation Satan offered with Scripture. He knew the Word so well that He was able to answer anything Satan threw at Him with it. But another thing we talked about was that Satan also quoted Scripture. When his first temptation didn't work, Satan quoted Psalm 91 as he tried to get Jesus to throw Himself off the temple. Sure, he quoted it out of context and was using it to try to get Jesus to manipulate God, but he quoted Scripture. This got me thinking. Do I know the Word of God well enough that I can tell when someone is misusing it? Will I know when someone quotes Scripture out of context to warp its meaning to fit their own purposes? Or will I hear someone cite a Bible passage and passively assume they're using it right? We simply can't let Satan know the Bible better than we do! He is the father of lies and we are the sons and daughters of Truth Himself! If Satan studies the Bible to have it on the tip of his tongue to use in his evil schemes, we've got to have it written on our hearts to use when we come up against him.
So...have you read your Bible today?
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