Book Review: The Silver Suitcase

Posted on November 17, 2016 by Barbara Harper

I don’t remember where I saw The Silver Suitcase by Terrie Todd mentioned, but when it came up for a Kindle/Audible sale, I got it.

It begins with a young girl in Canada in the 1980s starting a school project with her grandmother about WWII. Part 1 features the grandmother, Cornelia’s, experiences at the end of the Depression and into the beginning of the war; Part 2 takes place in modern times with the granddaughter, Benita, grown and married with two children. In Part 3 Benita is given her grandmother’s old diaries and discovers much about her that she did not know. Throughout the latter parts, the scene jumps back and forth between Cornelia’s and Benita’s time frames, but it is not too confusing to follow since each chapter starts with the date.

Cornelia’s mother died when she was 12, and she had to quit school early to help her father run their farm. At a fairly young age she is doing everything a grown woman would do to maintain a household. She has never forgiven God for taking her mother so early, though she hides that fact from anyone else. Her diary is the only place she honestly pours out her heart. When she meets the son of her mother’s old friend, her life takes a turn for the better. But a tragedy and a momentous secret drive her to the point of desperation.

Benita’s husband has been out of work for some time, and the strain is wearing on their marriage. A series of losses, especially that of her grandmother, and a new opportunity for the family only add to the strain. Her mother gives her a silver suitcase that her grandmother wanted her to have. Besides several mementos, it contains decades worth of her grandmother’s old diaries. Benita learns of a side of her grandmother that she never knew and can hardly fathom: how can her sweet-faith-filled grandmother have ever been so vitriolic in her hatred of God?

The story is a good one, and there were several little touches I liked.A couple of my favorite lines:

Neither the why answers nor the how answers will satisfy your heart. One day, you will have both. But even if you could grasp them now, they would not heal your wounds. Only love can do that. And God loves you more than you can ever understand or imagine.

But most of the time, his words soothed her. It reminded her of her childhood, when she had come in crying with a skinned knee. How good it felt when her mother washed it off, pulled her onto her lap, carefully applied ointment to the knee, and gently rocked her to sleep. Although the cleansing stung, it was wonderful to feel so loved and cherished.

But one part was a major red flag to me.

This is the second book I’ve read recently involving somebody meeting their guardian angel. I hope it’s not becoming a trend. I can see it occasionally as a plot device (a la It’s a Wonderful Life), when the audience knows the writer isn’t really intending us to believe that this happened.

But in Christian fiction, it feels like cheating in a sense. Many might like a heavenly messenger to come down and tell us in person what God wants us to know and be able to ask him questions, but it’s far from likely. I think it would be more helpful and meaningful to show the character discovering spiritual truth through the Bible or a Christian friend. I know that’s not as dramatic, but it’s more realistic.

Nevertheless, I can live with an angel as part of a story, though it’s not my favorite. But there is an emphasis on Cornelia’s looking in his eyes that I find kind of disturbing, as if that’s somehow more reassuring than anything else:

When Cornelia looked directly into his eyes she could see that he spoke the truth. No one had ever looked at her like that.

She believed in a creator, and she believed in Jesus. She had found it difficult to accept that he loved her. But now, looking into this messenger’s face, there was no denying that fact.

Now, having looked into the eyes of Aziel, she saw things so much differently.

But worst of all, she writes much later in her diary, “I maintain my friendship with Jesus by talking to him daily…I read my Bible, too, but it’s still my experience of last December, of actually having his messenger beside me, which sustains me.”

The apostle Peter had one of the most marvelous experiences ever, something which only two others shared, when they saw Jesus glorified before their eyes. But after describing it, he said: “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (II Peter 19-21). God’s Word is more sure than even the most exalted religious experience.

Thankfully the author does have Cornelia sharing spiritual truth later in the book. Cornelia doesn’t tell anyone about this experience. It’s just sad to me that that’s what “sustains” her.

I also disagreed with a section where someone says, “Jesus comes in all shapes and sizes. You need to learn to see him in every pair of eyes you lock onto.” True, we’re all made in God’s image, and Jesus said whatever we have done “unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:31-46). I think the truth of either of these two passages would have made a stronger case for what the author is trying to say in this section, and probably that’s what she means by seeing Jesus in every pair of eyes. But Jesus isn’t actually in every person we meet. The distinction is made in several places in the Bible. Just one example: “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (I John 5:12).

So, I obviously have mixed emotions about this one. The story was fairly interesting, but due to some of the other issues, I probably won’t be seeking out this author again.

Genre: Inspirational fiction
My rating: for the story itself, maybe a 7 out of 10, but due to the theological problems, a 5 out of 10.

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books and Carol‘s Books You Loved )

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Book Review: Long Way Gone

Posted on November 9, 2016 by Barbara Harper

I put Long Way Gone by Charles Martin on my TBR list after reading Susanne’s review of it, and when I needed a new audiobook, checked to see if Audible had it. They did! I usually put new books back behind some of the others already waiting, but I wanted to get to this one right away.

Cooper O’Connor’s father was a traveling preacher who mainly spoke at tent revivals in Colorado and surrounding areas. Cooper’s mother had died when he was very young. A large black man named Big Ivory (or Big Big when Cooper as a boy could not pronounce Ivory), recruited by Cooper’s father when Big Big got out of prison, rounded out their ensemble and played the piano.

Cooper proved to be quite gifted at playing the guitar and singing at a very young age. When he got into his teens, talent agents began to seek him out. His dad wasn’t opposed to his making a career out of music, but he wanted him to be able to be himself and not be taken advantage of by unscrupulous producers. But eventually Cooper began to feel his father was holding him back, so he took his father’s truck, guitar, and some money and drove to Nashville. There he fell on the hardest of times, until about five years later when he met a singer named Daley Cross and gave her one of his songs. Things were riding high for a while until a betrayal and an accident took nearly everything from him.

As you might have guessed, this is a modern-day retelling of the prodigal son story in the Bible. The scene where Cooper left his father was devastating, and it was heartbreaking to see all that he had to go through. But his father, always watching for him, always ready to forgive and receive him back, was such a tender picture of the heavenly Father.

Charles Martin definitely knows how to spin a story and pull on heartstrings. I enjoyed the story, his writing, musings here and there about life, faith, and music, and even a bit of hymn history.

We would differ on angelology – but I am not sure whether his use of angels in the story is from his belief system or just a part of the story to illustrate how people might “entertain angels unaware.”

This is a book I wish both of my parents were still alive to read. Of course, I wish they were still alive for a myriad other reasons, but what I mean is that they would have understood Cooper and his world quite well.

Narrator Adam Verner did a superb job narrating the audiobook version.

Overall, a beautiful, heart-touching story. If you read the book, be sure to read the author’s afterword as well.

Genre: Christian fiction
Potential objectionable elements: Bar scenes, drinking, 2 or 3 instances of a character almost saying a bad word, with enough of it that the word is obvious.
My rating: 9 out of 10

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books and Literary Musing Monday, Carol‘s Books You Loved )

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Back to the Classics Challenge Wrap-Up

Posted on November 7, 2016 by Barbara Harper

I’ve read the following for the Back to the Classics challenge (titles link to my reviews) hosted by Books and Chocolate:

A 19th Century Classic – Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens. (Finished 2/22/16)
A 20th Century Classic – The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (Finished 6/3/16)
A classic by a woman author. Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder, part of the Little House series. (Finished 2/15/2016)
A classic in translation (originally written in a language other than your own): Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne (French) (Finished 3/15/16)
A classic by a non-white author. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. (Finished 2/29/16)
An adventure classic – can be fiction or non-fiction. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (Finished 4/29/16)
A fantasy, science fiction, or dystopian classic. The Sword in the Stone by T. H. White (Finished 3/24/16)
A classic detective novel. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (Finished 4/18/16)
A classic which includes the name of a place in the title. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain. (Finished 3/8/16)
A classic which has been banned or censored. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (Finished 6/23/16)
Re-read a classic you read in school (high school or college). The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. (Finished 3/26/16)
A volume of classic short stories. (One complete volume, at least 8 short stories, single or multiple authors). Great British Short Stories: A Vintage Collection of Classic Tales (Finished 7/5/18)

We’re allowed three children’s classics for this challenge, and I have two: The Wind in the Willows and Little Town on the Prairie. A few of the others later had children’s versions made of them and came to be thought of as children’s stories, but according to my research weren’t originally written as children’s stories.

Participants are eligible for prizes with a certain number of entries for books read. Since I read all twelve categories, I’m eligible for three entries. Yay!

I believe I listened to all of these via audiobook, but with some I got a free Kindle version because I wanted to read parts over.

I actually finished back in July: it helped that many of these were short, which I didn’t realize when I picked them. I could have read/listened to more and have accumulated more through sales, but I wanted to save them for next year’s challenge.

I’ve mentioned that I somehow missed being exposed to a lot of classics growing up, and I have made it a mission to seek them out and educate myself as an adult. Some of these I probably would not have chosen on my own, but I am thankful this challenge caused me to diversify my reading a bit. I enjoyed all of them in their own way, but probably the one I enjoyed most was Wind in the Willows.How did I get to be on the far side of 50 before reading that?!

Thanks, Karen, for the challenge! I am looking forward to next year!

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“Edgy” Christian Fiction

Posted on November 2, 2016 by Barbara Harper

“Edgy” Christian fiction is becoming an increasingly hot topic among authors and readers. Those for it contend that stories need to be realistic for people living in the real world with bigger problems than the color of the church carpet. Opponents say that Christian fiction, of all places, should be a safe haven from objectionable elements in literature.

I think, as do many I know, that we should take our cues from this as well as every facet of life from the Bible. Yes, the Bible is different from a novel, but even in our novels we can operate within its parameters.

There are certainly edgy people in the Bible: harlots, polygamists, thieves, liars, evil kings, adulterers, murderers, zealots, and so on. And edgy situations abound: a man rapes his half-sister and in return is murdered by his brother; a man cuts up his murdered and abused concubine in pieces and sends her out to the various tribes of Israel to drum up support for revenge; a woman seduces a young, naive man; a king sees a woman bathing and takes her to himself though they are both married, then arranges to have her husband killed in battle; a woman has been married five times and is living with a sixth man.

But nowhere in the Bible are any of these situations written in a way to entice people to sinful thoughts in the reading of them. Profane men are shown to be such without spewing profanity. Sexual sin is portrayed in ways to show how it came about and how the people were tempted, but not in enough detail to cause arousal in the reader. Violent scenes are not written with gratuitous detail.

I’ve mentioned before that I grew up in an unsaved family with a father who used bad words (in three different languages! It was humiliating and embarrassing as a child when I said something at a Hispanic neighbor’s house only to find out it was an offensive word. Thankfully I don’t remember what it was.) So it doesn’t necessarily shock me when I hear people say those words. But when I read them, they float around in my head, and I don’t want them there.

Novels will by their nature share more descriptive detail than a Biblical narrative. Good authors know how to draw a reader into a scene and make them feel and experience what the characters do. But that is the very reason Christian authors need to be so careful with sexual or violent scenes. We need to take responsibility for the fact that we’re putting thoughts, images, and ideas in people’s minds and make sure they’re not the kind that lead the reader into a lustful or lurid state.

I don’t object to edgy people or situations in books, depending on how they are handled. I can understand a person is foul-mouthed without hearing the words. I can understand a person succumbing to sexual temptation without details of bodily form and feeling. I can appreciate a violent scene, such as a murder in a crime drama or a battle scene, without descriptors like eyes bugging out, blood spattering, etc.

In addition to how such scenes and people are described and what images those descriptions put in our heads, another factor is how the situation is treated in the novel. For instance, in searching for something in my blog recently I came across a forgotten book review for a story that included a suicide. That happens, so it’s not in itself an objectionable situation in a Christian book. But in this particular novel, it was treated as the only thing the character could do, and more than that, right and sacrificial and even heroic, when Biblically it is never regarded that way. “Thou shalt not kill” certainly applies to one’s own life as well as others. There is a difference between taking a bullet for someone and aiming that bullet at yourself. Suicide is the ultimate taking of your own life into your own hands and the ultimate lack of faith in God to handle one’s life circumstances as He sees fit. There were Bible people who wanted to die, but they left the actual process to the Lord. Suicide is a tragedy, and I can understand its happening in a story, but I think it’s wrong for a Christian book to condone it or present it as a good thing. Similarly, the tone, consequences, and character responses to profanity, sexual sin, and violence can convey that those things are not right without devolving into preachiness and judgmentalism.

I think it actually takes a great deal more talent to portray certain scenes without going into unnecessary specifics. One of the most violent scenes I ever witnessed on film just showed the victim’s feet, kicking at first and then lying still. No blood, no gore, but the effect was chilling. “Less is more” applies in a number of these areas.

I do want to encourage Christian authors that readers don’t want insipid, plain vanilla plots and we do want authentic, full-bodied, real characters and believable circumstances. I know it’s hard sometimes to know where the line is, but it’s possible to write great and realistic Christian fiction without crossing it. I know; I’ve read it. And I’d love to read more.

(Linking with Thought-provoking Thursday) and Literary Musing Monday)

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Book Review: Secrets of a Charmed Life

Posted on October 31, 2016 by Barbara Harper

Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner begins with history student Kendra Van Zant arriving for an interview with famed watercolor artist Isabel MacFarland for a paper she is writing. Isabel almost never gives interviews, but agreed to this one because one of Kendra’s professors is her friend and arranged it. Kendra’s paper is on the effects of the blitz on London during WWII, and Isobel’s home was bombed during the war. As they start their interview, however, Isabel begins to tell the story of two sisters, teen-age Emmy and seven year old Julia.

They lived in London in the 1940s. Emmy liked to draw sketches of wedding dresses and hoped to be a designer one day. When she happened across a job opportunity in a bridal shop, she seized it. When the owner said she had a cousin who designed costumes and might be willing to take her on as an apprentice, Emmy was overjoyed.

But her plans were cut short when the city called on parents to evacuate their children into the countryside for safety. Emmy protested that she didn’t need to be evacuated, but her mother insisted. The girls were taken to a village in the Cotswolds and taken in by an older single lady and her sister. The setting was peaceful and idyllic, but when Emmy learned that her employer’s cousin was coming to London, she felt this was her only chance to make something of herself. She made arrangements to leave secretly for the rendezvous, but Julia found out in the meantime and insisted on going. Emmy decided to take her along, trusting that her mother could make arrangements to send her back. As the girls quietly sneaked out of the house to make their way back to London, what neither of them could have known was that the Luftwaffe blitz on London was going to start that very day.

I can’t go more into the plot without spoiling it, but slowly, as the story unfolds, the connections between Isabel and the two girls becomes increasingly clear.

I listened to the audiobook of this and was so drawn in, I kept looking for times other than my usual listening times to hear more. I’ve read many WWII novels, some even involving the evacuation of London’s children, but never quite from this angle. I thought the story unfolded wonderfully. I read some readers’ criticism of a section of the book near the end made up of journal entries, but I thought that was as well done as the rest of the novel. The fact that it contained a good bit of information that readers have been wondering about all through the book made it as suspenseful to me as the rest.

The faith element was perhaps a little too subtle for me. It is a vital part of the book, underpinning the plot, but mostly in the background, and only occasionally and somewhat vaguely referred to.

I thought I had not read Meissner before, but a search through my blog showed me I have, and I enjoyed those books as well, so I need to keep a lookout for more of her books.

Genre: Inspirational fiction
Potential objectionable elements: Emmy’s mother is what we would call a kept woman, and unmarried sexual encounters are mentioned, but details are not explicit. A few bad words (I can’t remember if they were “damn” or “hell” – perhaps one or two of both).
My rating: 9 out of 10

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books, Carol‘s Books You Loved and Literary Musing Monday)

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Book Review: I’m Still Here

Posted on October 26, 2016 by Barbara Harper

I first came across I’m Still Here: A New Philosophy of Alzheimer’s Care by John Zeisel at Lisa’s review here. One of the main points she discusses there, of not “testing” the person with Alzheimer’s (Do you know who I am? Who this is? Do you remember…) but rather giving them the information they need first hand (Hi Mom, it’s your daughter, Barbara, and this is your grandson, Jesse. We’ve come to visit you today) was so simple and practical and yet so good and helpful, I wanted to read the rest of the book. My own mother-in-law in our home does not have Alzheimer’s, but she has had bouts of dementia, and I thought some of the general information about aging might be helpful as well as the specifics about dementia.

One of the overriding themes of the book is to concentrate not so much on what the person has lost, but to deal with what they have now. “Those living with Alzheimer’s who use parts of their brains that still function well, feel enabled and competent, and are less apathetic, agitated, anxious, and aggressive” (p. 9). Those last four “A’s,” he says, are not so much symptoms of the disease itself but rather reactions or results that can be minimized.

Another theme would be to “discard old expectations and role relationships that limit our ability to see the person and relate to him or her in a new way” (p. 11).

Another would be that Alzheimer’s is more complex than just short term memory loss. For instance, a patient “doesn’t ‘forget’ how to get dressed or brush his teeth; it is just more difficult to put all the steps in the right order for multistage activities” (p. 70). Likewise, socially, it’s not so much that they “forget” how to act, but rather “losing control over naturally occurring feelings” (p. 71).

The author discusses the medical aspects of Alzheimer’s, which parts of the brain are affected and which still work well but may need help to be accessed, and gives multitudes of ways to help access that part of the brain and reduce some of the negative reactions. So many of these are so helpful and practical, such as the supplying of information rather than asking questions I mentioned earlier, or the birthday party he described for a person who angered easily. He suggested having it in a dining room, so the setting helps the person know what is expected (rather than a living room or community room where they don’t know what to expect), seating them next to a grandchild, which “evokes hardwired caring instincts,” and having everyone wear name tags (pp. 71-73).

One chapter dealt with arranging living spaces to facilitate patients’ movement and avoid problems. One good idea was “landmarks located at points where a decision must be made, such as a corner or a doorway.” Another was “camouflaged exits.” This was a big problem at one facility my mother-in-law was in. The main doorway was set off by a hall, making it so the workers couldn’t see it unless they walked that way. A lot of the residents accumulated at the doorway, making it hard for visitor to get in and out (in fact, I got scolded once for letting a resident out, but I didn’t know she was a resident. Visitors shouldn’t be expected to police the doorways). Another tip here would have helped this facility: have walkways that are safe and go somewhere, so the patient walks instead of wanders (p. 145). This particular place had no place for patients to “go” – they just had hallways to rooms and a big sitting area, and the aides tried to herd everyone in the sitting area to sit brain dead and silent in front of a TV to keep them under control and out of trouble (as you can surmise, I do not have good feelings or memories of this place). By contrast, the first facility she was in had walking paths that made a circle through the building (she was still using a walker then, and when my husband visited, they would “take a walk” around the circle). They also had a nice screened-in porch (without a door to the outdoors) so residents could enjoy the weather and view and fresh air and still be safe. “The hormone oxytocin is released in the brain when people feel safe. This in turn contributes to lower stress and to greater trust and sociability” (p. 138), so setting up an atmosphere as safe and wired for success as possible helps.

The author asserts that one area of the brain that still works well is creativity, and he spends a good portion of the book discussing the use of the various arts. My first thought was that that would not have been helpful with my husband’s mother, as she was never one for museums or art galleries or plays and such. But as he presented it, I saw ways they might have been useful earlier in her life, though I can imagine she would not have been excited about a trip to the museum at first. But many might find these tips helpful. I did appreciate some of the helpful, thoughtful tips scattered throughout this section, like not asking “What does this painting represent,” but rather asking a specific question about something in it, explaining why they were in the museum or gallery without being asked, not asking them what they saw a half-hour ago, not pursuing a line of conversation if they get anxious, and others (pp. 96-97). Some of these would translate well to other excursions.

One of the most valuable sections is on communicating with a person with Alzheimer’s. The author puts forth these rules and elaborates on them:

Hear and respond to the other person’s “reality.” Don’t try to talk them out of it.
Be honest.
Always address the person directly.
Don’t test (as discussed in the first paragraph).
Don’t say “don’t”; divert and redirect instead.

A few other important points:

It’s not right to think of Alzheimer patients as entering their “second childhood.” They have knowledge and life experience children don’t have (p. 10).

“Be sure to ask the person with Alzheimer’s for expressions of emotions rather than cognitive data. Ask how they feel about a topic, not who was there a little while ago, or someone’s name” (p. 190).

When moving someone with Alzheimer’s into a new living situation, don’t buy all new things for them or their room (p. 185). Make sure they are surrounded by familiar items, clothes, wall decorations, etc.

I admit near the end I got a little frustrated, because it seemed as if the author were saying that if we just did all of these things, everything would work out fine and Alzheimer’s would be a beautiful and rewarding experience, and I know from many friends experiencing this with loved ones that it is not that way, no matter what you do. But he does advocate, in a section on caring for yourself as a caregiver, having someone you can safely “vent” to, to “pour out your heart with all its anguish and fear” and share “the ‘terrible’ feelings you have” (p. 213). It helped to see this admission that there will still be those times. These tips won’t eliminate every difficulty with Alzheimer’s, but they will help in many ways.

There were a few places I disagreed with him. In one place discussing different types of health care and aid available, he mentions nursing homes as an option as if one can just choose and make arrangements to go there. I don’t know how it works in other states, but here, it’s pretty much impossible to get into one unless you’re coming from a hospitalization. One social worker said she could put us on a waiting list, but they almost never admit someone from a waiting list because they have so many admitted from the hospital (much of this due to Medicare regulations). A few pages later he mentions staff members in both assisted living facilities and nursing homes “who want to work there because they have a natural empathy with elders living with Alzheimer’s” (p. 206). As much as we would hope so and like to think so, that is just not the case (I could tell you stories….). Maybe they started out that way but got burned out, I don’t know. Finally, there is a New Age-y/Zen/Buddhist feel to parts of the book, culminating in a chapter on mindfulness meditation that I would personally be uncomfortable with and even find harmful.

But the strength of the book, and what I appreciated most about it, is the gracious and thoughtful approach to communicating with and dealing with those with Alzheimer’s that permeates every facet of the book.

Genre: Non-fiction
Potential objectionable elements: Buddhist-type philosophies
My rating: For what I mentioned in the last paragraph, I’d give it a 10 out of 10, but due to some of the philosophical differences, overall I think I’d give it a 7 out of 10.

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books and Carol‘s Books You Loved )

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What’s On Your Nightstand: October 2016

Posted on October 25, 2016 by Barbara Harper

The folks at 5 Minutes For Books host What’s On Your Nightstand? the last Tuesday of each month in which we can share about the books we have been reading and/or plan to read.

This is one of those odd months when there is still almost a week left after the last Tuesday, but I guess that will make next month’s reading look all the better with the extra week. 🙂 October seems to have flown by, but I’ve had some great times reading here and there.

Since last time I have completed:

Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus by Elyse M. Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson, reviewed here. Mixed emotions on this one: some good things, some I didn’t agree with.

The Prayer Box by Lisa Wingate, audiobook, reviewed here. A mom of a teenager and an 8 year old escapes from an abusive relationship to start a new life and is asked to clean the house of a neighbor who has passed away. In doing so, she finds boxes of prayers the women had written out to God and is impacted by her life. Drags a little in places but in others it’s wonderful.

Five Brides by Eva Marie Everson, reviewed here. Five roommates in the early 1950s pool their resources to buy a beautiful wedding dress, and this traces the pathways of each of them. Not my favorite of her books, but a pleasant read.

I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up For Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai and Christina Lamb, reviewed here. Fascinating.

Knowable Word: Helping Ordinary People Learn to Study the Bible by Peter Krol, reviewed here. Very good.

The Loveliness of Christ from the letters of Samuel Rutherford, reviewed here. Excellent.

I’m currently reading:

I’m Still Here: A New Philosophy of Alzheimer’s Care by John Zeisel

Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner. A real page-turner!

The Princess Spy by Melanie Dickerson

Up Next:

June Bug by Chris Fabry

Waiting For Peter by Elizabeth Musser

Radical Womanhood: Feminine Faith in a Feminist World by Carolyn McCulley

As usual, I have stacks both on my shelves and in my Kindle app to choose from after these.

What are you reading?

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Book Review: The Loveliness of Christ

Posted on October 24, 2016 by Barbara Harper

Puritan Samuel Rutherford’s writings were the inspiration for one of my favorite hymns (“The Sands of Time Are Sinking“) and he’s the author of one of my favorite quotes, but I had never read anything else from him. So when The Loveliness of Christ came through on a 99 cent Kindle sale last week, I decided to give it a try.

I was disappointed that the selections weren’t essays or letters (except for a few letters at the very end): rather, the book is mainly a selection of quotes gleaned from Rutherford’s letters. The writing is a little hard to understand in places, but there are some gold nuggets here.

After a brief biography of Rutherford, the quotes are listed. I am not sure if they are in random of chronological order: except for the full-length letters at the end, we don’t know to whom or when they were written.

Here are some that most spoke to me:

You will not get leave to steal quietly to heaven, in Christ’s company, without a conflict and a cross.

Christ’s cross is such a burden as sails are to a ship or wings are to a bird.

Let our Lord’s sweet hand square us and hammer us, and strike off the knots of pride, self-love and world-worship and infidelity, that He may make us stones and pillars in his Father’s house.

The devil is but God’s master fencer, to teach us to handle our weapons.

They are not lost to you that are laid up in Christ’s treasury in heaven. At the resurrection ye shall meet with them: there they are, sent before but not sent away. Your Lord loveth you, who is homely to take and give, borrow and lend.

O, what I owe to the file, to the hammer, to the furnace of my Lord Jesus!

Why should I start at the plow of my Lord, that maketh deep furrows on my soul? I know He is no idle husbandman, He purposeth a crop.

How sweet a thing were it for us to learn to make our burdens light by framing our hearts to the burden, and making our Lord’s will a law.

Our fair morning is at hand, the day-star is near the rising, and we are not many miles from home. What does it matter if we are mistreated in the smoky inns of this miserable life? We are not to stay here, and we will be dearly welcomed by Him to whom we go.

When we shall come home and enter to the possession of our Brother’s fair kingdom, and when our heads shall find the weight of the eternal crown of glory, and when we shall look back to pains and sufferings; then shall we see life and sorrow to be less than one step or stride from a prison to glory; and that our little inch of time – suffering is not worthy of our first night’s welcome home to heaven.

Let not the Lord’s dealings seems harsh, rough, or unfatherly, because it is unpleasant. When the Lord’s blessed will bloweth cross your desires, it is best in humility to strike sail to him and to be willing to be laid any way our Lord pleaseth: it is a point of denial of yourself, to be as if ye had not a will, but had made a free disposition of it to God, and had sold it over to him; and to make of his will for your own is both true holiness, and your ease and peace.

Welcome, welcome, Jesus, what way soever Thou come, if we can get a sight of Thee! And sure I am, it is better to be sick, providing Christ come to the bedside and draw by the curtains, and say, “Courage, I am Thy salvation,” than to enjoy health, being lusty and strong, and never to be visited of God.

Faith liveth and spendeth upon our Captain’s charges, who is able to pay for all.

Glorify the Lord in your sufferings, and take his banner of love, and spread it over you. Others will follow you, if they see you strong in the Lord; their courage shall take life from your Christian carriage.

Ye may yourself ebb and flow, rise and fall, wax and wane; but your Lord is this day as he was yesterday; and it is your comfort that your salvation is not rolled upon wheels of your own making, neither have ye to do with a Christ of your own shaping.

If Christ Jesus be the period, the end and lodging-home, at the end of your journey, there is no fear, ye go to a friend…ye may look death in the face with joy.

My Lord Jesus hath fully recompensed my sadness with His joys, my losses with His own presence. I find it a sweet an a rich thing to exchange my sorrows with Christ’s joys, my afflictions with that sweet peace I have with Himself.

The favorite quote I mentioned at the beginning was here only in part: I had seen it in one of Amy Carmichael’s writings as having been a comfort to her when one of the children at her compound died. It was written by Rutherford to someone who had lost a child. The larger quote is “Ye have lost a child: nay she is not lost to you who is found to Christ. She is not sent away, but only sent before, like unto a star, which going out of our sight doth not die and vanish, but shineth in another hemisphere. We see her not, yet she doth shine in another country. If her glass was but a short hour, what she wanteth of time that she hath gotten of eternity; and ye have to rejoice that ye have now some plenishing up in heaven.”

As a collection of quotes, some quite thought-provoking and others requiring thought to process, it seemed to work best to read a few a day rather than trying to take in a lot at one sitting. Even doing that, though, it only took about a week to read.

As you can see from the sampling of quotes here, some of the themes of Rutherford’s writing include the goodness of God in the face of any circumstances, His ability to use those circumstances to shape us, the joy of Christ in this life but especially in the life to come.

I’m glad I spent time with this little book and I’m sure I will again in the future. I’m even inspired to go on to the fuller Letters of Samuel Rutherford some day.

Genre: Christian non-fiction
Potential objectionable elements: None
My rating: 10 out of 10

(Sharing with Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books and Carol‘s Books You Loved )

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Book Review: Five Brides

Posted on October 20, 2016 by Barbara Harper

Five Brides by Eva Marie Everson tells the story of five different women who come together to share an apartment in Chicago in the early 1950s. Their different work schedules and social lives leave them with little time for interaction, but one rare Saturday when they are all free, they decide to go shopping in town. They’re not shopping for a wedding dress, but they see one in a shop window that stops them in their tracks. Just for fun they decide to go in and try it on. By the time they’re done, they decide to pool their resources and buy the dress together so each of them can wear it. One girl will store it and send it to the one getting married, and each bride will have it cleaned and send it back to the girl who is storing it. The last bride gets to keep it.

The five girls:

Betty is from a rich family in Chicago who is pressuring her to marry a man she doesn’t love.

Joan immigrated from England to meet up with her pen pal, Evelyn, to live and work in Chicago. She’s working multiple jobs to send money back home and has no time for or interest in dating…yet.

Evelyn’s father is a Georgia farmer, and she is more or less expected to marry another farmer, but she wants something more from life.

Inga is breaking free from a very strict Lutheran home in Minnesota. She finds a job as a stewardess and a boyfriend in LA, but is going after her ambitions in the wrong way.

Madga is Inga’s bookish sister, who finds a job in a publishing firm and has secret aspirations of writing her own book one day.

I didn’t realize, until I got to the author’s note at the end of the book, that this was based on a true incident (it was mentioned in the acknowledgements at the beginning, but it didn’t click as I read the story). Joan’s story was factual, and while the other girls were made up, Joan really did buy the dress with four other roommates, and each of them wore the dress.

Overall it was an enjoyable story. I liked the era: you don’t see much fiction written in this time following recovery from WWII. I don’t often read romances, but it was fun to follow the girls’ different journeys and see how things worked out for them. With their bosses, coworkers, love interests, friends, and families, it was a little hard sometimes to keep up with who was whom, but usually it just took a second to get oriented when the scene or point of view changed.

The girls all live together in the first part of the book, but in the latter part they are scattered. The first one marries and goes to live with her husband, one goes to work overseas, one goes home brokenhearted, one goes home under a cloud, and the fifth stays in Chicago but has to find a different place. It seemed to me that after they separated, the story splintered and felt a little rushed at the end. We didn’t see one of the girl’s weddings, though the others’ were described, but we did see her legacy, so I guess that offset it. One of the girls whose marriage started out with the most problems is not heard from much again after the wedding: she was the one I most wondered whether everything worked out for her.

This is not a big deal, but one thing that I found irksome was how often the author referred to people pointing – some 67 0r so times, and often in situations where I would find it odd for people to be pointing. Maybe she is just more demonstrative than anyone else I know. As I said, not a big deal, but once I noticed it, it began to grate every time I’d see it again.

I would call this inspirational fiction rather than Christian fiction. The girls are from a variety of religious backgrounds, some more devout than others, and I wouldn’t quite agree with everything in that department in the book, but it is probably historically accurate.

There are others of Eva’s books I have enjoyed much more than this one, but it’s a nice story with clean romances.

Genre: Inspirational fiction
Potential objectionable elements: An unwed pregnancy, but details are not explicit.
My rating: 6 out of 10

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Book Review: Knowable Word

Posted on October 18, 2016 by Barbara Harper

Knowable Word: Helping Ordinary People Learn to Study the Bible by Peter Krol lives up to its title. It begins with a section about why to study the Bible (to get to know the Person behind it). It concedes that Bible studies and commentaries and such are valuable in many ways, but promises to give the tools for the reader to mine from the Bible on their own and to get to know God better.

Sometimes…we seek a mountaintop experience where we can behold His glory and see Him face to face. We want to hear His voice speaking with clarity and power. We long to be wowed from on high. The apostle Peter had such an experience with Jesus, and he concluded that you and I don’t need to have to same experience.

“We were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,’ we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place.” (2 Peter 1:16b-19a) (pp. 13-14).

After a brief discussion of a few off-base approaches to Bible study, Krol dives into the method he advocates and teaches, which is not new but today goes by the acronym OIA:

Observation – what does it say?
Interpretation – what does it mean?
Application – how should I change? (p. 16)

He discusses each in more detail, explains why each is important, illustrates it from everyday conversation and from Jesus’ teaching when He brought out truth from the OT. He reminds us that no method or set of tools replaces our dependence on the Holy Spirit to guide and illuminate us.

The next several chapters discuss each of these steps in more detail and shows how to use them by applying them to Genesis 1 and 2. Observation, for example, means that we don’t bring in preconceived notions or gloss over familiar passages because we think we know what they say. Observation involves considering genre, the author, repeated words, grammar, structure, and mood or tone. He similarly delves into more detail with interpretation and application.

This a short book at 117 pages, but it is densely packed and contains little to no fluff. I have sticky tabs and markings on almost every other page.

One area where I would disagree with Krol just a bit is in application. I agree that we need to be doers of the Word and not just hearers (James 1:22) and we need to be specific rather than vague. He does admit that he delves into this more in the book for illustration and that in reality he would just take one or two specific applications. I agree that we need to apply the Bible inwardly as well as outwardly, and as he advocates, apply it to head, hands, and heart. The point where I have a problem is in coming up with measurable actions steps from each day’s reading. Sometimes that might be the case. As we read, we need to be asking God for wisdom in applying what He teaches us and we need to act on anything He convicts us about. But I imagine a scenario like this: I’m convicted about my need to be more loving (often) and my need to get out of myself and reach out to others. So after reading a Bible passage about Christian love, I might sit and think of ways to show more love to others and interest in them. So I decide I’ll bake some cookies for my neighbor and make my husband’s favorite dinner. And that may be exactly what I need to do. But in my thinking, after I have done those things, I can check “be more loving” off my list because I have done my good deeds for the day. On the other hand, if I ask God’s help to carry the reminder to be more loving with me throughout the day, He can guide me into situations that I didn’t know were going to come up and apply it all day. (Actually I have found that telling myself to “be more loving” focuses on my lack and inability. But if I remind myself to “love as Jesus loved me,” that removes the focus from me to Him, from my lack to His fullness.) There are points in the day I know I will desperately need that reminder, like when someone interrupts me at the computer and I lose my train of thought for the paragraph I am writing, and I have to remind myself that people are more important than tasks. Or when I go in to change my mother-in-law. Since she’s not verbal and often groggy, it’s easy to fall into just doing the task at hand and forget the person. But I have to remind myself to look her in the eye, smile, speak even if she doesn’t respond, show love and care and interest in her as a person. As I read about loving as Christ loved, those two examples come to mind first. But I’ll need to apply that truth in multiple ways, not just the two I thought about while considering application. I think Krol would agree with this: he’s not advocating just generating lists to check off. And measurable action steps are not necessarily a bad result of Bible reading. I just don’t know that I would end every Bible reading time with such a list.

One other section that had me scratching my head a bit described his church hiring a brand new preacher who made some mistakes in his first sermon, realized it, and braced for some criticism from the leadership. I agreed with them in dealing with the issues but assuring him that Jesus had died for him, including these issues, and they’d rather he “give it his all, making a few mistakes in the process, than that he hold back out of fear of imperfection. He was free to live out his calling as a preacher with confidence that he was accepted by God and already approved” (p. 96). But what I thought odd was that, under the idea of “If you’re going to make a mistake, make a big one,” the author said, “So let’s study (and especially apply) the Bible with such great confidence that we can ‘sin boldly,’ as Martin Luther once advised his student Philip Melanchthon, ” and then he shares this quote from Luther: “Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter (2. Peter 3:13) are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign.” I don’t know the context of Luther’s quote, and I do know that “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Romans 5:20), and I agree that we should “give it [our] all, making a few mistakes in the process, [rather] than…hold back out of fear of imperfection.” But still – I don’t see any encouragement in the Bible to “sin boldly” because we’re under grace.

As I said, I have multiple places marked in the book, but I’ll try to share just a few of the quotes I found most helpful:

Careless presumption will kill your Bible study. It will strangle observation and bear stillborn application. It will make you look like the stereotypical, narrow-minded Christian, and it will diminish your influence for the Lord. By strengthening your confidence in questionable conclusions, presumption will cloud your relationship with Jesus and your experience of his grace. When it comes to Bible study then, guard yourself against every form of unexamined presumption (p. 47).

Since we’ll continue observing new things in God’s Word until Jesus returns, our observations could be infinite in number. But interpretations are not infinite (though our grasp of them may mature over time). Biblical authors had agendas, and we are not authorized to add to those agendas. We investigate the facts of the text until we’re able to think the author’s thoughts after him. And since biblical authors wrote God’s very words, good interpretation trains us to think God’s thoughts (p. 49).

Don’t use minor details to make the text say what you want it to say. Don’t build a theology from one unclear verse (p. 51).

Ancient authors didn’t waste space with meaningless details. Every word has a purpose. Every sentence captures an idea. Every paragraph advances the agenda. And every section has a main point. The accumulation of these points promotes the goal of bringing the audience closer to the Lord. And once we understand how that main point directed the original audience toward the Lord, we’ll be ready to consider how it should shape us (p. 59).

I’d highly recommend this book to anyone, whether a new reader of the Bible or one who has read it multiple times for years.

Genre: Nonfiction
Potential objectionable elements: A couple of minor areas of disagreement.
My rating: 9 out of 10

(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books and Carol‘s Books You Loved )

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