Category Archives: Books

Book Review: Beyond Stateliest Marble

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I first “discovered” Puritan poetess Anne Bradstreet in a college American Literature class, and loved her work. I focused on her for one of my 31 Days of Inspirational Biography series a couple of years ago. So when I heard there was a good biography of her life, I put it on my Christmas “wish list.”

Beyond Stateliest MarbleI finally got to it this past month: Beyond Stateliest Marble: The Passionate Femininity of Anne Bradstreet by Douglas Wilson. The title comes from a quote by Cotton Mather, leading preacher of the day, saying that Anne’s poetry provided a “monument for her memory beyond the stateliest marbles.”

In all honesty, I spent the first 3/4 or so of this book being aggravated at it for what it lacked as a biography. It took that long for me to realize it’s not really a biography. Wilson says near the end it’s a tribute to her. It’s part of a “Leaders in Action” series, so it’s presenting that aspect of her. And the great bulk of it is a treatise. So once I realized and acknowledged those things, I was able to relax and take it for what it was.

One of Wilson’s biggest purposes in writing the book (what I called his treatise) is to defend against two erroneous suppositions: that the Puritans were dour, repressed, cheerless, unimaginative, legalistic people as a whole, and, 2) that Anne was anything but a thoroughgoing Puritan. Many modern treatments of Anne will portray her as a closet feminist, or an anomaly, or as having written such bright poetry in spite of her setting and position as a wife and mother rather than her Puritans beliefs, community, and calling as a wife and mother being the springboard from which she wrote. I do believe these misunderstandings at best, or false accusations at worst, do need to be shown as mistaken and wrong, and this book does a very good job of that.

The book is divided into three parts: her life, her character, and her legacy. The chapters are generally thematic rather than linear. We do get some of Anne’s background in the first section: the kind of family she grew up in, the times and setting, her marriage to Simon Bradstreet, their decision to sail from England to America, the voyage, the adjustments for a cultured woman in a non-settled area, her children, and her writing. She had no intentions of publishing her work, but her brother-in-law took copies of her poems and had them published in 1650 in England under the title The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (or, to be exact: The Tenth Muse, lately Sprung up in America, or Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning, Full of Delight, Wherein especially is Contained a Complete Discourse and Description of the Four Elements, Constitutions, Ages of Man, Seasons of the Year, together with an exact Epitome of the Four Monarchies, viz., The Assyrian, Persian, Grecian, Roman, Also a Dialogue between Old England and New, concerning the late troubles. With divers other pleasand and serious Poems, By a Gentlewoman in those parts.)

It was well-received, to say the least, and her poetry has been well-read ever since.

The second section deals with about 30 different character traits (each chapter focusing on one and only about three pages) with Wilson illustrating those traits in Anne’s life either through her poetry or others’ comments about her. And the last section contains four chapters dealing with her legacy.

Though I appreciated what I learned about Anne in this book, overall I felt it contained too much of Wilson and not enough of Anne. I know that “show, don’t tell” is a mantra of fiction rather than non-fiction, but I felt Wilson spent too much space telling his opinions about Anne and what he thought was right and wrong and not enough of showing her through her own writings. I also didn’t like his tone, which I felt was condescending towards those he disagreed with. He faults others for the broad brush strokes with which they portray the Puritans, but then he does the same towards other groups. But most of the reviews I perused on Goodreads voiced high praise for this book, so don’t take my word for what I consider its problems. Maybe our personalities just don’t mesh: in his chapter on humor, I didn’t think anything he brought up as an example of humor was remotely funny (for instance, he says that when Christ brought up to the woman at the well in John 4 that she’d had five husbands and the man she currently had was not her husband, that he was teasing her [p. 163]. I don’t think Jesus would tease people about their sin, and she certainly didn’t seem to take it as a joke.)

However, I do agree with him that Anne is a worthy subject, and that the Puritans were not what people think of them today, and that Anne was content as a wife and mother within a conservative Christian setting and wrote from that setting contentedly, not rebelliously.

One quote of Anne’s that stood out to me was in reference to her children: “Diverse children have their different natures; some are like flesh which nothing but salt will keep from putrefaction, some again like tender fruits that are best preserved with sugar…Those parents are wise that can fit their nurture according to their nature.”

Though some of her poetry’s subjects include theology and even the Queen, my favorites are the ones dealing with her walk with God, and her home, and family. I’ll close with my favorite two:

By night when others soundly slept
And hath at once both ease and Rest,
My waking eyes were open kept
And so to lie I found it best.

I sought him whom my Soul did Love,
With tears I sought him earnestly.
He bow’d his ear down from Above.
In vain I did not seek or cry.

My hungry Soul he fill’d with Good;
He in his Bottle put my tears,
My smarting wounds washt in his blood,
And banisht thence my Doubts and fears.

What to my Saviour shall I give
Who freely hath done this for me?
I’ll serve him here whilst I shall live
And Loue him to Eternity.

___

To My Dear and Loving Husband

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me ye women if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,
That when we live no more we may live ever.

(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)

Book Review: Robinson Crusoe

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CrusoeI tried to read Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe some years ago, but, even though I know to be patient with older classics, I was bored to tears and never finished it. When I listened to The Moonstone recently, one of the characters in it referred to Robinson Crusoe quite a bit, and I thought, that’s it, I have got to finally read this thing. 🙂 I did not find it hard at all to get into this time. I think listening to an audiobook, read by David Warner’s easy-on-the-ears voice, helped immensely. I read parts in the online version on Project Gutenberg.

All I knew about the story was that Crusoe went off to sea in rebellion to his father’s wishes and somehow landed on a deserted island – deserted, he thought, until he had been there alone for some years and then was startled one day to find a single footprint that he knew wasn’t his, and that later he finds a black man whom he names Friday who becomes his servant. I didn’t realize that there were other adventures, both before and after his time on the island. In fact, the original (and very long) title to this book was The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver’d by Pyrates. Quite a mouthful! These days it’s usually shortened to The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe or just Robinson Crusoe.

Wikipedia says this book, published in 1719, “is often credited as marking the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre,” and Sparknotes comments, “His focus on the actual conditions of everyday life and avoidance of the courtly and the heroic made Defoe a revolutionary in English literature and helped define the new genre of the novel. Stylistically, Defoe was a great innovator. Dispensing with the ornate style associated with the upper classes, Defoe used the simple, direct, fact-based style of the middle classes, which became the new standard for the English novel.”

The story opens with a bit of background of Crusoe’s family. “Being the third son of the family and not bred to any trade, my head began to be filled very early with rambling thoughts.” His father wanted him to go into law, but Robinson “would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea.” His father earnestly admonished him that he had an opportunity for a comfortable life that had none of the problems of the very poor or very rich, and that he feared that if Robin persisted in his plans, it would come to no good end. Robin listened and waited a year, but in all that time could not make himself settle down to a profession. When he was nineteen, an opportunity arose for him to go out on a friend’s father’s ship, and “I consulted neither father nor mother any more, nor so much as sent them word of it; but leaving them to hear of it as they might, without asking God’s blessing or my father’s, without any consideration of circumstances or consequences,” he went.

His first journey is beset by storms and seasickness; his second journey ends with the ship being overtaken by pirates and his being made a slave.  After a while he escapes with a young boy named Xury, whom he makes his servant. They are rescued by the captain of a Portuguese ship, which takes him to Brazil. He sells Xury to the captain, obtains a plantation, and gets on fairly well for a number of years. Then he goes out to sea again with some others to obtain slaves, and that ship wrecks in a storm and Robinson lands, alone, on the island where he will spend the bulk of his life.

A great part of the story is taken up with his management on the island. He’s greatly afraid at first until he explores enough to find that he is alone and there doesn’t seem to be any kind of dangerous creatures. He fashions a raft and gets as much as he can off the ship before it’s broken to bits. Then he sets about making a shelter and planning how to ration his supplies and supplement them with what he can find on the island.

He calls it the “Island of Despair.” Many times he feels bad about his situation and prays to God for help, but he’s not really repentant yet. He’s like the stony ground in the parable of the sower in which something seems to be growing at first, but as the bedrock beneath has never been broken up, spiritual life doesn’t really take root. It’s not until some time later when he is very sick with ague that he comes to the end of himself and truly repents and turns to God. The book is surprisingly frank and orthodox about spiritual issues (surprising in the sense that a book this close to Biblical truth, and, in fact, somewhat didactic at times spiritually, has been so popular for hundreds of years. I’m glad – just surprised. Even the Sparknotes and Shmoop commentaries handle this aspect with being derogatory). When he gets discouraged, he makes up a list of the bad and the good: I’m alone on a desert island/at least I’m alive; I don’t have clothes/but I’m in a hot climate where I don’t need them, etc., and thus he is encouraged.

As first Robinson is in bare survival mode, but after a while his skills and possessions increase. He knows he must make provision for when his supplies from the ship run out. He throws out some leftover seed from a bag and is surprised when corn and barley grow from what he thought was just dust and feed remains, and he thanks Providence. He finds some birds which are good to eat, as well as turtles (which he cuts open to gather their eggs). He is pretty ingenious: one thing he lacked was any kind of iron. Once when cooking something in an earthenware pot he made, a piece of it broke off in the fire and became hardened. He began to try ways of heating his clay creations to make hardened, watertight vessels. Much of this and the rest of his work was trial and error, and many things took a great deal of time. Much of the middle section of the book is his dealing with these kinds of things and musing to himself.

He learns to be pretty content expect for the lack of companionship and sometimes feels like “my majesty the prince and lord of the whole island.” He even makes different areas to live, calling one his castle and another his “country house.”

But the pivotal moment comes when, after years on the island alone, he unexpectedly finds a man’s footprint in the sand. Further investigation leads to a site where cannibals have had a disgusting feast. Robinson determines to prepare for the next time they come to the island and kill them all, but then he wrestles with his conscience about whether that would be the right thing since they don’t know they are doing wrong. When they do come again, one of their prisoners breaks away. Robinson rescues him, names him Friday (that being the day of the week he found him), and makes him his servant.

This is one area that would offend modern sensibilities: Crusoe’s making Xury and servant and then selling him, and then making Friday a servant. Friday seems happy to be a servant in exchange for his life having been saved, but it seems arrogant and ungracious for one person to enslave another. It was the way of the world then, but Sparknotes makes this interesting analysis from Chapters 24-27:

The affectionate and loyal bond between Crusoe and Friday is a remarkable feature of this early novel. Indeed, it is striking that this tender friendship is depicted in an age when Europeans were engaged in the large-scale devastation of nonwhite populations across the globe. Even to represent a Native American with the individual characterization that Defoe gives Friday, much less as an individual with admirable traits, was an unprecedented move in English literature. But, in accordance with the Eurocentric attitude of the time, Defoe ensures that Friday is not Crusoe’s equal in the novel. He is clearly a servant and an inferior in rank, power, and respect. Nevertheless, when Crusoe describes his own “singular satisfaction in the fellow himself,” and says, “I began really to love the creature,” his emotional attachment seems sincere, even if we object to Crusoe’s treatment of Friday as a creature rather than a human being.

Robinson begins to teach Friday about God and Christianity, which Friday readily seems to accept.

What happens to Crusoe and Friday, what other visitors come to the island, and their other adventures off the island, I’ll leave for you to discover.

I’m glad to finally know the story of Robinson Crusoe. Have you read it? What did you think?

(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)

 

Book Review: The Hardest Peace

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Some of you may know the name Kara Tippetts. She was a young pastor’s wife and mom of four who blogged at Mundane Faithfulness, first as a mom blogger, but then sharing God’s grace in her diagnosis and battle against cancer. She passed away about a year ago and her blog now runs archives of her past posts. She came to national attention when, in the midst of her own battle, she wrote an open letter to Brittany Maynard, who was planning to employ physician-assisted suicide to avoid the downward spiral and suffering of a brain tumor, to beg her not to take that route, to promise that God would meet her in her suffering.

I didn’t read Kara’s blog regularly. I would look at the occasional post that someone linked to on Facebook or their blog. But it was too raw, too intense, too much (for me) to read every post.

Hardest PeaceBut I got her book, The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life’s Hard when it was on sale. And just recently someone asked me if I knew of anything to help a woman she knows who is struggling to face her own cancer diagnosis, so I thought I’d read this and see if it would.

Ecclesiastes 7:2 says, “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.” Nothing wrong with feasting (God planned some into Israel’s calendar, Jesus attended a wedding feast), parties, joy. But someone’s death or dying turns the heart and mind turn to the eternal like perhaps no other situation. We’re reminded that eternity is real, that life really is but a vapor, that Jesus provided a way for heaven, and not this world, to be our final home. That heaven isn’t a cheery add-on to a nice life, but it’s our real home, and this world is just one we’re “strangers and pilgrims” in.

And in Kara’s situation, it was not “just” illness, suffering, and death that she had to wrestle with. It was leaving her husband and children, and finding the peace to trust God that He would work this for good in their lives, and struggling to believe that this was His best for them, even praying for the woman who might some day take her place.

Kara gives us a brief biography of the kind of home she grew up in, of coming to know Christ as Savior, of going to work at a camp as a very raw, green, and unconventional recruit but experiencing life-changing growth in that place. Of meeting her husband and having to learn to put away the anger she grew up with. Of her four children, her husband’s ministry, a difficult church situation, moving to plant a church only to find their new home in a fire zone from which they had to be evacuated. And then receiving her diagnosis, fighting it with surgery and treatments, having it spread, and finally accepting that God was calling her home. She says in this trailer to a documentary made about her that she felt like a little girl at a party whose dad was telling her she had to leave early, and she was “throwing a fit” about it.

“Jason recently said in a sermon, ‘We want suffering to be like pregnancy—we have a season, and it’s over, and there is a tidy moral to the story.’ I’ve come to sense that isn’t what faith is at all. What if there is never an end? What if the story never improves and the tests continue to break our hearts? Is God still good?”

“It would be easier to shake my fist at the test results and scream that this isn’t the right story, but to receive—humbly receive—the story no one would ever want, and know there is goodness in the midst of its horror, is not something I could ever do in my own strength. I simply cannot. That receiving comes from the One who received His own suffering for a much greater purpose than my own.”

“That though the hard might come and our hearts be broken, that brokenness isn’t bad. The tears are evidence of our love for one another. They did not stop that day, and they will not stop in the days to come. But tears are a gift, not something to withhold or bottle up—they are the essence of the best of life.”

“Trusting God when the miracle does not come, when the urgent prayer gets no answer, when there is only darkness—this is the kind of faith God values perhaps most of all. This is the kind of faith that can be developed and displayed only in the midst of difficult circumstances. This is the kind of faith that cannot be shaken because it is the result of having been shaken. Nancy Guthrie, Holding on to Hope.”

“Sometimes the hardest peace to find is the peace in saying good-bye and leaving the work of justice and reconciliation to Jesus.”

“Hard is often the vehicle Jesus uses to meet us, point us to that peace, and teach us grace.”

“If the hardest is asked of us, we believe grace will be there.”

“Dear heart, the purpose of life is not longevity.”

“But because I believe God’s plans for me are better than what I could plan for myself, rather than run away from the path he has set before me, I want to run toward it. I don’t want to try to change God’s mind—his thoughts are perfect. I want to think his thoughts. I don’t want to change God’s timing—his timing is perfect. I want the grace to accept his timing. I don’t want to change God’s plan—his plan is perfect. I want to embrace his plan and see how he is glorified through it. I want to submit. Nancy Guthrie, Holding on to Hope.”

“Seeking grace has been a theme since I met Jesus, but it wasn’t the very air I breathed to get through each moment—each scary, hard moment. The looking has now become my practice. The names of the graces, the gifts I don’t deserve, is new to me. But I do not believe you need to face cancer to see the value of looking for and naming the graces in your own moments, days, weeks, lifetime. To capture this beauty in this weariness, even if your story doesn’t look like mine, will enrich your moments, give you a new perspective, and help you lift your head in the impossibility and pain in living. Hard is hard.”

So, yes, this was a raw, wrenching read in many parts. But it was still a good and necessary one, because we all have to face our own mortality, and there is no guarantee we won’t have to do so for 60-80 years. We need to be ready.

And whatever our “hard” is, as she said in the last quote, when we know Jesus, we can trust Him for the grace to meet it.

(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)

What’s On Your Nightstand: April 2016

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What's On Your NightstandThe 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.

The days, they are a-flying. But it’s nice to catch a few moments to read and seemingly slow time down for a bit.

Since last time I have completed:

True Woman 201: Interior Design by Mary Kassian and Nancy Leigh DeMoss, reviewed here. Excellent resource.

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, audiobook, reviewed here.

The Reunion by Dan Walsh, reviewed here.

A Slender Thread by Tracie Peterson, reviewed here.

Every Waking Moment by Chris Fabry, reviewed here.

What Follows After by Dan Walsh, reviewed here.

The last four were on my Kindle app. I’ve started reading from it at night before going to sleep – amazing how much you can read in that time! Occasionally a book will keep me up later than I should be, but not often. I got one more in than I thought I would due to a sick day home from church last Sunday.

I’m currently reading:

Beyond Stateliest Marble: The Passionate Femininity of Anne Bradstreet by Douglas Wilson. Not enjoying this one as much as I had expected to. 😦

Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder and Pamela Smith Hill

The Renewing of the Mind Project by Barb Raveling

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, audiobook.

The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life’s Hard by Kara Tippetts

Up Next:

Pride, Prejudice, and Cheese Grits by Mary Jane Hathaway

Ten Fingers For God by Paul Brand

If I finish these, I have a stack of books to be read on my bedroom bookcase and a multitude in my Kindle.

How about you? Have these spring days allowed you some reading time?

Book Review: What Follows After

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What Follows AfterIn What Follows After by Dan Walsh, Scott and Gina Harrison are separated, but no one knows it. They attend functions together and ask their boys, Colt, age 11, and Timmy, age 6, to pretend as if everything is all right. But everyone is miserable, and Colt has finally had enough. He decides to take the money he has saved and buy bus tickets for himself and Timmy to go to their favorite aunt and uncle’s house. They feel sure their aunt and uncle will take them in, listen to their side of the situation, and talk some sense into their parents.

Everything goes as planned until the bus stops for a short break. Colt and Timmy get something to eat at a nearby diner. When all sorts of Army vehicles begin to pass by, Timmy is enthralled and won’t come when Colt needs to use the restroom. Colt decides it won’t hurt to leave Timmy there for a few minutes. But when he comes back, Timmy is gone. The waitress said he went out with a man she thought was their dad. They had gotten on a different bus heading the opposite direction from their aunt and uncle’s house.

The story is set in 1962 Florida on the eve of the Cuban missile crisis, which, though it doesn’t affect the story directly (except in taking attention and manpower away from the kidnapping case), does add a layer of tension. I was born in the 50s and thought Walsh did a good job recreating that era.

There are a lot of threads to the story: Scott and Gina’s relationship, what led to its current standing, the kidnapping, the motive and the man who did it, race relations in the South at the time, and people’s reactions to the current crisis with Cuba. I thought the overall story was good, and Walsh brought out a lot of good points about the Harrison’s marriage and what needed to be done to mend it.

Walsh is known for writing that tugs at the heartstrings, for books that could easily be made in Hallmark movies. But though all the elements were there to make this another winner, somehow it just fell flat to me. The characters did not seem fully developed and some of the conversation seemed cliche. Whatever it is that draws me in and really makes me feel for the characters just seemed to be missing this time. But, skimming through reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, none of them seemed to have any objections except just a very few people who didn’t like the religious element. So maybe it was just me.

But even though I didn’t feel it was up to Walsh’s usual standards, it’s still a fine book and I’d still recommend it. Maybe you’ll like it better than I did. I especially like the paragraph from which the title comes, that “what follows after” a crisis or terrible situation can be good, that God can bring beauty and blessing out of misery and work all things together for good for those who love Him.

(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)

Book Review: True Woman 201: Interior Design

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True Woman 201I’m not sure how I first came across True Woman 201: Interior Design: Ten Elements of Biblical Womanhood by Mary Kassian and Nancy Leigh DeMoss (now Wolgemuth). But I saw that it was a study of Titus 2:1, 3-5, a passage I’m very much interested in, and I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read of Nancy’s writings. In fact, I’ve been asking myself why I haven’t read more of her. My “interior design” can always use some work, so this seemed like a good book to work through.

It is set up as a ten week study for either an individual or a group. Each week contains five daily 15-minute or so readings around one particular “design element.” There are leader resources as well as videos which run about 20 minutes that cover the highlights of the lessons on TrueWoman201. So a group studying together would work through the lessons for the week, meet together and watch that week’s video, and then discuss the lessons. I only watched 3 or so of the videos. Though they did provide a good recap, I just didn’t feel inclined to listen to the same things I had just read.

Normally when you hear Titus 2:1-5 preached or taught, people hone in on a woman’s responsibility to love her husband and children, be submissive to her husband, and be a “keeper at home,” with much debate over exactly what that last one involves. Off the top of my head I can only think of one time where I have heard the whole passage dealt with, and that was at a lady’s conference where there were sessions on each section. So I very much appreciated that the authors here dealt with every part of the passage, beginning with verse 1. Titus is told to “teach what accords with sound doctrine,” and the authors explain that one’s doctrine is a set of beliefs and that “sound” doctrine is healthy, without contamination. They discuss the use of a “plumb line” in decorating or building to help one’s work to stay straight and show how we need to use the “plumb line” of Scripture to make sure we’re “in accord with sound doctrine,” “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive” (Ephesians 4:14).

There is so much in here that it would be hard to encapsulate it all, but here’s a little bit about each “design element” after discernment:

Honor: “A True Woman makes much of Christ…She is ‘reverent in behavior.'”

“The basic meaning of the ‘fear of God’ is ‘reverential awe.’ It’s a personal, jaw-dropping awareness of God’s majestic greatness and holiness, reflected in a commitment to honor Him by turning from sin and faithfully obeying His Word” (p. 41).

Slander and being “slaves to much wine” (Titus 2:3) are seen as a lack of reverent behavior toward God and our fellow man, a self-promotion and self-indulgence that dishonors His sacrifice for us.

Affection: “A True Woman values the family…She “loves her husband and children.”

The authors make some interesting observations in this section, one noting what’s not on this list. If we were going to come up with a curriculum for discipling young women, we’d likely list Bible study, prayer, etc. – which are essential for all believers. But the specific things mentioned in this passage emphasize God’s priorities for women, which in our day is countercultural. This passage also emphasizes that these things must be learned. And they observe that this passage is for all women, even for those who are single or without children (Nancy was single with no expectation of marriage at the time of this writing), because marriage and childbirth is part of God’s plan of redemption, the marriage relationship picturing that between Christ and the church.

“As God designed it to function, ‘family’ helps us to understand what it means to have a heavenly Father and be part of a household of faith….God gave us these images so we’d have human thoughts, feelings, experiences, and language adequate and powerful enough to understand and express deep spiritual truths” (p. 68).

Discipline: “A True Woman makes wise, intentional choices…She is ‘self-controlled.'”

“Sometimes we focus too much on trying to change or stop the behavior, when what we need to do is go back and find out what kind of thinking produced that kind of behavior in the first place. It’s easier to fix the ‘what’ if we understand the ‘why.’…Here are some examples of the type of false beliefs that may have accounted for your behavior:

I have a right to return tit for tat.
Life should be easy.
He’s the problem, not me.
I deserve to be happy.
I just can’t handle it!
Indulging is better than holding out.

What if you paused to recalibrate your mind with truth?” (p. 101).

Virtue: “A True Woman cultivates goodness…She is ‘pure.'”

“Virtue and purity are two sides of the same coin: the presence of goodness and the absence of defilement” (p. 111).

The authors discuss the difference between “positional purity” that Christ wrought for us when He died on the cross for our sin, and “personal, practical purity (sanctification)” in which our everyday lives grow bit by bit to match our “position.”

“Two of the three times when diabolos refers to slander, it’s speaking specifically to women. God created women as relators and gave us an amazing capacity for verbal communication. Unfortunately, Satan likes to turn this strength into a weakness. He likes to turn virtue into vice” (p. 121).

“The Bible’s definition is broader…Slander means to speak critically of another person with the intent to harm…even if the information is correct. That’s why diabolos has been translated ‘malicious gossip’ as well as ‘false accuser'” (p. 122).

“Getting rid of vice and growing in virtue isn’t easy. It takes work. That’s why the Bible says, ‘Make every effort to add to your faith virtue’ (2 Peter 1:5). That’s right: love-motivated, Spirit-enabled, Christ-glorifying effort” (p. 131).

“In ancient Greek, the word pure originally meant ‘that which awakens awe’ or ‘that which excites reverence.’ Purity is ravishingly beautiful. It makes the gospel attractive and believable. When you make every effort to cultivate virtue in your life, the great ‘Refiner and Purifier of silver’ will reveal His beauty in you, and others will be drawn to love and worship Him!” (p. 131).

Responsibility: “A True Woman maintains the right work priorities…She values ‘working at home.'”

“In our minds, the question isn’t ‘Should women work?’ but rather ‘What is God’s view of work?’ ‘How do I choose which work receives the most time and attention at this stage of my life?’ ‘Am I giving my home the focus and priority God wants it to have?’ And ‘am I determining the value of my work based on earthly or heavenly economics?'” (p. 135).

“Work…exists because we’ve been made in the image of the great worker, God. We work because He works. Work is a God-ordained activity. Honest, diligent, attentive, productive, innovative, creative, faithful, fruitful, conscientious, hard work bears witness to God’s nature and character” (p. 142).

“Work does not primarily exist for the purpose of financial gain (though we may get paid). It’s primary purpose is to glorify God” (p. 142).

“No legitimate work, undertaken for the glory of God, is menial or meaningless. Hard physical labor wasn’t beneath the dignity of the Son of God. Jesus worked as a carpenter for about seventeen years and only about three years doing itinerant ministry. Carpentry was a lowly, ill-paying profession. Yet Jesus was doing God’s work when pounding a nail just as much as He was doing it when preaching on a hillside–because He was doing what God wanted Him to do when God wanted Him to do it” (p. 143).

“[The Proverbs 31 woman] could be a bit intimidating for the most energetic, gifted woman. But the thing that stands out in this passage is not so much all this woman’s abilities or all the things she does. What makes her extraordinary is the fact that she is so utterly un-self-centered and that she consistently demonstrates a heart to serve her family and others–all grounded in her reverence for God” (p. 149).

“To be idle is to ‘not be working or active,’ to habitually avoid one’s responsibilities, or to fill one’s time with things of no real worth or significance. Idleness is not the opposite of busyness. Idle people are often extremely busy. Take the woman of Proverbs 7 for example: “She is loud and wayward; her feet do not stay at home; now in the street, now in the market,  and at every corner she lies in wait” (Prov. 7:11-12). Though this woman was busy, she was actually being idle; for she wasn’t doing the ‘good work’ she was supposed to do” (p. 151).

“The reason we give priority to managing household responsibilities is not that vacuuming, dusting, or cooking are intrinsically valuable or satisfying tasks. It’s that we want to create a peaceful, orderly, welcoming environment conducive to nurturing and growing disciples for the kingdom of God” (p. 154).

Benevolence: “A True Woman is charitable…She is ‘kind.'”

“In the type of ‘random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty’ that society commends, the benefactor and the beneficiary generally have little if any awareness of each other’s deepest motivations and needs” (p. 159).

“For a believer, kindness is a fruit of the Spirit that is empowered, enabled, and directed by God. When our kindness extends beyond those who deserve or reciprocate our benevolence, when it reaches out to those whose shortcomings and failures we know full well, that is when we reflect the heart of Him who is ‘kind to the ungrateful and the evil'” (Luke 6:35) (p. 159).

Disposition: “A True Woman cultivates a soft, amenable spirit…She is ‘submissive.'”

“Jesus Christ is the epitome of submission. His ‘not-My-will-but-Yours-be-done’ attitude is at the heart of the gospel story” (p. 182).

Legacy: “A True Woman is a spiritual mother…She ‘teaches what is good.'”

“Deborah had a God-given nurturing instinct that gave her courage and compassion. She wasn’t driven by the things that drive many modern women–power, control, position, or recognition–but by a mother’s heart. She saw herself as ‘a mother in Israel'” (p. 211).

Paul’s use of the Greek word neos in Titus 2:4 “indicates that his categories of older and younger had more to do with experience, life stage, and spiritual maturity than chronological age. A neos is a newbie, a ‘greenhorn’–a fresh, inexperienced novice. It’s a woman new to the circumstance in which she is placed. The point is, if you want to be the kind of woman who brings glory to God, you should actively learn from the lives of women who have walked the path before you, and actively teach those who are coming after. Regardless of your age, the Lord wants you to be both a learner and a teacher” (p. 219).

“The older we get, the bigger the catalog of failures Satan can throw in our faces. You may think, ‘I don’t have anything to offer.’ But you can teach out of your failures as well as your successes” (p. 223).

Beauty: “A True Woman displays the attractiveness of the gospel…’So that the word of God may not be reviled.'”

“A Christian woman whose life doesn’t bear witness to the transformative power of the gospel causes the gospel to be blasphemed, defamed, and dishonored–it’s as though she invites vandals to deface it with foul graffiti. If, on the other hand, she cooperates with God and allows Him to change her, she ‘adorns’ the gospel. To adorn means to beautify it and make it attractive. Outsiders will look at her life and say, ‘Wow! Her life makes me think the Bible is true!’ We can’t just tell them it’s true. They need to see and feel and experience that it really is true through our lives” (p. 235).

They stress that God’s design for genders is not fluid according to whatever the world’s thoughts are: they’re a part of “sound doctrine.” On the other hand, they agree that God’s design doesn’t turn out cookie cutter Christians who all look the same, that how this works out in a life might differ from woman to woman. I appreciated that while they held fast to those areas where Scripture is specific, they dealt evenhandedly with controversial issues like a woman working outside the home, sharing a list of Biblical women who had other kinds of jobs, but stressing the primary ministry of home and family. They mention also that though many of these characteristics should be true of men as well, there are reasons that the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to list some characteristics for men and some for women.

If there is a “201,” there must have been a “101,” and there was: True Woman 101: Divine Design, which focuses on God’s plan and design for womanhood. I have not read it yet but probably will some day. It looks like it’s laid out the same as this was with 5 daily readings for each chapter, covering eight weeks rather than ten.

Back to True Woman 201: I thought the layout was a bit distracting at first. The spiritual “interior design” theme was couched in a similarities to the design of a home, and there are lots of photos relating to that kind of thing scattered throughout the pages. Verses and quotes are in sidebars. I got used to it after a while, and it’s a minor complaint. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this study. I appreciated the authors’ thorough and gracious treatment of the topic and I can enthusiastically recommend it to you.

(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)

Book Review: The Moonstone

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MoonstoneThe Moonstone by Wilkie Collins opens with a copy of a family paper from an unnamed source. The writer and his cousin, John Herncastle, were soldiers in the English battle for Seringapatam, India, in 1799.  The night before, stories were told by the men in the camp about various treasures to be found there, especially one called the moonstone, a large yellow diamond in the forehead of a statue of a moon god. The narrative tells of the history and legend of the stone, including three Brahmins who were supposed to keep it under constant watch and “certain disaster to the presumptuous mortal who laid hands on the sacred gem, and to all of his house and name who received it after him.” After the battle, the narrator and his cousin were charged with keeping the men from looting, but the narrator came across his cousin in a room with the diamond in his hand and two dead and one dying Indian at his feet. Though the narrator knew his cousin had stolen the diamond and killed the men, he could not prove it since he had not actually seen it done, so he didn’t bring it to the authorities. He did, however, turn his back on his cousin and has written this narrative to explain to the family why he has done so. The family in turn turned their back on John. The narrator concludes, “Although I attach no sort of credit to the fantastic Indian legend of the gem, I must acknowledge, before I conclude, that I am influenced by a certain superstition of my own in this matter. It is my conviction, or my delusion, no matter which, that crime brings its own fatality with it. I am not only persuaded of Herncastle’s guilt; I am even fanciful enough to believe that he will live to regret it, if he keeps the Diamond; and that others will live to regret taking it from him, if he gives the Diamond away.  ”

Fast forward 50 years or so, and John Herncastle tries to visit his sister and her daughter. His sister refuses to see him. He retreats, but leaves the diamond to his sister’s daughter, Rachel, in his will. Rachel’s birthday is coming up, and her cousin Franklin Blake has been assigned to bring the diamond to her for the occasion. Knowing the diamond’s history, he is unsure whether giving it to Rachel is the best thing to do, but after consulting with longtime friend and family butler, Gabriel Betteredge, they conclude that giving it to her is the only thing that can be done.

So Franklin gives her the diamond and fastens a little setting so she can wear it on her blouse. And who should crash the party but three traveling Indian jugglers, who can’t escape seeing the diamond.

The next morning, it’s discovered that the diamond is missing, stolen out of Rachel’s room. The Indians are the first suspected, but they have an alibi. Rachel is strangely uncommunicative about the incident.

The story continues from there with various people being suspected and cleared, various family secrets coming forth, and finally the mystery revealed.

The Moonstone is considered by many to be the first detective novel written (Poe wrote mysteries, but they were short stories) and contains many elements that soon became standards of the genre: bumbling local police, a famous detective with eccentricities, false leads, , the “least likely” suspect being the perpetrator, a plot twist, and the detective summing everything up and filling in the missing pieces at the end. The detective is oddly missing in the middle of the novel, but Franklin Blake pursues the mystery, and even Gabriel Betteredge confesses to getting “detective fever.”

The story is written as a series of accounts requested by Blake from various people of what they saw and experienced, so in a sense the reader gets to consider the evidence and play detective along the way.

I thought the story dragged a bit in the middle, when the accounts there seemed to have little to do with the diamond theft: later, however, the reason for those seemingly unrelated details comes to the forefront. Like Dickens, with whom Collins was friends and for whose magazine he wrote, there are no extraneous details or characters: everything fits into the plot, though it doesn’t always make sense until the end. The latter third of the book really picked up the action and I found it hard to put down at that point. The story was originally published monthly in Dickens’ magazine, and at the end of many chapters I thought Collins showed great skill in ending the chapter on a note that would makes readers breathless until the next installment. I was glad I didn’t have to wait a month between chapters! I also thought Collins shone in having characters reveal details about themselves unawares and seemingly contradicting what they meant to reveal about themselves..

The Moonstone and The Woman in White are considered the best of Collins’ novels. I had read the latter a couple of years ago and consequently wanted to read more of Collins, but shied away from this one because I wasn’t sure how much superstition about the stone would play a part in it. But that turned out to be a very minor part of the story, mainly contained in the first section about its history. As the first narrator said, ” crime brings its own fatality,” and the book mainly deals with the crimes along the way of the moonstone’s history.

Though I normally enjoy reading analysis in Sparknotes, I thought they were a little off in a couple of places concerning this book. Here they say the story is “a novel in which women don’t speak often and therefore do not have a distinctive presence.” But the women spoke quite often – one of the major narrators is a woman. And they assert that the moonstone is symbolic of Rachel’s femininity and virginity and the theft of it from her room symbolic of her “deflowering.” But I saw no reason to associate it as such, especially as she is not “deflowered” in the incident.

I enjoyed listening to the audiobook narrated by several and the perusing parts of the text at Project Gutenberg.

(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)

Winner of The Tenth Plague giveaway

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The winner of the giveaway of the paperback version of The Tenth Plague by Adam Blumer is Faith. Congratulations, Faith!

For those who didn’t win, check out Adam Blumer’s Facebook page, where he’ll be posting about various other giveaways over the next few months.

Thanks for entering, and thanks to Adam for sponsoring the giveaway and writing such great books!

Book Review: The Reunion

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The ReunionI’ve had The Reunion by Dan Walsh in my Kindle app for months now (or years…yikes!), but Lou Ann’s review caused me to move it up to my next Kindle read.

Aaron Miller is a Viet Nam vet who works as a maintenance man in a trailer park. Serious injuries sustained in the war sent him home and caused him to become addicted to painkillers. He lost his family, his job, his home, and lived on the streets for a time. But he found the Lord and began the slow road to recovery.

Even though his job might not look prestigious to most, he does it well. And in the course of it, he seems often to be put in the way of people who need help. A teen-age girl with an abusive boyfriend. A legless veteran who is on the verge of ending it all. An elderly woman whose home is crushed by a tree.

Unbeknownst to Aaron, three men he knew back in Nam are looking for him. And when one of them hires journalist Dave Russo, who is writing a book about Viet Nam vets in honor of his later veteran father, they just might find him.

All of Dan’s books that I have read are heartwarming, but this one is probably the most so. I kept thinking it would make a great Hallmark Movie. 🙂 I loved the Amazon introduction to this book: “There are people in this world we pass right by without giving a second thought. They are almost invisible. Yet some of them have amazing stories to tell, if we’d only take the time to listen…” I loved Aaron’s character and could just picture him as one of those kinds of people most would tend to overlook but who faithfully does his work well and who has a great story behind him. I enjoyed Dave’s story as well. Dan did a wonderful job weaving all the different elements of the story together and pulling at the heartstrings.

Here are just a couple of quotes that stood out to me:

Of course, it was clear the thing Billy needed most was a friend. It didn’t help that Billy talked so much once he got going. One thing after another, like he’d been sitting on a mountain of words and Aaron had come in and set off a volcano.

Most of the people who blame God for everything never even try things his way, so how can they blame Him when it all goes wrong? But they do. I did. For years, til eating that meal. That day, the lights came on. And I saw that all I ever did was do things my way, my whole life. And all it ever did was get me in trouble and more trouble.

I also enjoyed the Author’s Note at the end where Dan says two stories about two different WWII Congressional Medal of Honor winners (Bobbie E. Brown and Bill Crawford) who came home, eventually became janitors, and had very different endings inspired him and caused him to think about people we overlook who might have amazing life stories or might have accomplished great things no one would ever guess. Plus he was inspired by Jesus’ example of speaking to out-of-the-way, overlooked people. And I join him in expressing gratitude for “the unsung warriors whose actions have made it possible for the rest of us to live free.”

(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)

Book Review: A Slender Thread

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Slender ThreadIn A Slender Thread by Tracie Peterson, five sisters return home to Council Grove, Kansas, for the funeral of the mother who had abandoned them to pursue an acting career. They gather at the farmhouse of their grandmother, Mattie, who raised them and tried to instill in them a hope and faith in God. But each of the women has been affected in different ways by their mother’s desertion which causes conflict between them.

Ashley is married to a doctor, has two young boys, and is vying for Supermom status, trying to be everything her mother was not to her. Brook is a model who can’t let herself open her heart to the possibility of love. Connie feels alone because her two older and two younger sisters are close, and she has a different father, so she feels the odd woman out on many fronts. But she makes it worse by putting up walls that none of them can break through and making choices that she knows Mattie would be heartbroken over if she knew. Deirdre was the only planned child of her mother, conceived to try to heal her marriage. She’s the peacemaker but hides a secret obsession. Erica was the youngest, born barely 9 months after Deirdre, a gifted musician who puts her potential career above her love interest.

As the girls gather for the first time in years, tensions rise to the surface and harsh words break out on all sides. Mattie tries to point them to the love the have for each other, the “slender thread” that ties them together, and to God’s help and grace, but each one is too immersed in her own issues.

There’s a lot of bickering in this book. A lot. It’s meant to show that their issues go beyond the usual sibling rivalry, but they seem extraordinarily touchy and too willing to get offended by innocent remarks. Some of the same issues keep coming up over and over – which does happen when people are fixated on their past hurts without attempts to come to peace with them. But it did get old. The story seemed very slow in the first section when the girls were all together but the action picked up quite a bit when they all went back to their own lives and we saw them in their own setting. Their characters were developed quite a bit more then.

But I did appreciate the emphasis that we don’t have to be bound by a bad past or a parent who has failed us. We’ll forever be affected by them, but with grace and forgiveness and God’s help, we can put the past in perspective and forge new trails for ourselves and our families.

(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)