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!

What did you read in 2011?

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!

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...have you read your Bible today?

Learning About Blogging

One thing I've learned about blogging is that most blogs begin with an obligatory post about how the blogger started blogging and what their blog will be about, so here's mine. (How many different forms of the word blog did I just use in one sentence?!) 

I guess we need to go back one year to get to the beginning of this story. Last year, TCU went to the Rose Bowl (Go Frogs!) and some friends of mine were driving to the game through Phoenix. One of my bestest friends ever, Jen, had recently moved there with her husband, so I jumped at the chance to hitch a ride with the road trippers and visit her while they went to the game. We had a BLAST together that week and mentioned multiple times that a New Year's trip to Phoenix should be a tradition for me. One year later, I found myself in Phoenix again, having even more fun than the last time. 

Besides throwing another New Year's Eve Fiesta, hanging out with friends I met in Phoenix last year, meeting up with a couple of my college girls, seeing 4 movies in one day at the $2 theater, and visiting some of Jen's grad school classes at ASU, one activity she had planned for us was to hang out with two of her lovely blogger friends. Heather and Erin are two ladies that Jen first met in the online world and then decided to meet in real life a few months ago, and they've formed a really precious friendship. It was so fun to get to be part of their day - seeing Jen's new house for the first time, eating lunch and Sprinkles and yogurt, walking up to the ticket counter at the botanical gardens and promptly turning around when we saw the $18 entrance fee, and just laughing a lot and talking about life and love and the Lord. These ladies had barely heard of me before, but they accepted me as one of their own right away and I had so much fun with them. 

All throughout the day, though, there was quite a bit of pressure to become one of them. They raved about the joys of blogging and insisted that I would love it. Before Erin left Jen's house at the end of the day, I had my orders - a comment on her blog with the link to mine by Monday or else (emphasis mine, probably). I wasn't totally against it, but I wanted to have a good idea. I felt like if I started a blog without a clear purpose then I would either become really boring and rambling or just quit altogether. I conducted a brief twitter poll and Ricky suggested that I blog about "books and media and stuff. Either reviews or your perspective about how it affects...stuff." My eloquent friend had a point. I do consume quite a bit of media and that's definitely something I could enjoy blogging about. And Jen pointed out that I could chronicle the things I learn as I study to hopefully be on Jeopardy someday. (This is why she's my Jeopardy coach - always encouraging me and always reminding me that I need to study for it.)

And thus was born a blog. I'll get on here occasionally and share what I've been learning and what I think about it. I hope it'll be fun and we can all learn together. Enjoy!