Category Archives: Books

Book Review: Gentle Savage Still Seeking the End of the Spear: The Autobiography of a Killer and the Oral History of the Waorani

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Gentle SavageMenkaye was one of several Waorani (then known as Auca) men responsible for spearing to death Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Pete Fleming, and Ed McCully, five missionaries who had come to try to reach them with the gospel, in what was known as Operation Auca. Gentle Savage Still Seeking the End of the Spear: The Autobiography of a Killer and the Oral History of the Waorani by Menkaye Aenkaedi with Kemo and Dyowe is Menkaye’s effort to tell his story in his own words – at least, as close to his own words as possible. He cannot write, so he shared his story verbally with someone who spoke his language as well as Spanish, and then it was translated from Spanish to English.

Menkaye begins with what could be called “the Moipa years.” Moipa was a highly skilled Waorani hunter who, out of fear of reprisals for the people he had killed, began killing almost everyone who crossed him or who might someday: men, women, children (who might grow up to take revenge), grandparents, anyone. The people lived in constant fear of him, and many attempts on his life did not succeed. When he finally did die, killing at the slightest provocation, for any real, perceived, or potential threat or wrong had become a way of life. That included any outsiders. Their encounters with non-Waorani had not gone well, and what could they want anyway except to encroach on their territory or to steal from them or hurt them? Better to kill them off before they struck first, they reasoned.

The missionaries had known that the Waorani, or Aucas, as they knew them, were violent, but they had learned some Waorani words from Dayuma, a woman who had escaped the tribe some years before, had flown Nate Saint’s plane over them a number of times, shouting out Auca/Waorani phrases, had dropped gifts to them and received some in return, so they thought the people were receptive to meeting them. They set up camp in their territory, and a man and two women  from the tribe came to visit them, the man even going up for a ride. Everything seemed to be going well. But then a group of Waorani came at them and speared them and tore the fabric off the plane.

Years later, when Elisabeth Elliot had come to know them and asked them why they had speared the men, they replied, “For no purpose.” In Olive Fleming Liefeld’s book, Unfolding Destinies, when she went back to visit and asked the same question, they told her they had not understood the photos the men had shown them. They thought the photos of Dayuma meant that she had died, supposedly at the men’s hands. Later still, Steve Saint related in End of the Spear that when he went back to live and work with the Waorani for a time, he was told there was a disagreement between them about one’s man’s wanting to marry one of the women. Some who were involved got angry, and to divert their turning on each other, someone turned their attention to the missionaries, starting a raid. Menkaye relates that all of these are true. One of the men involved in the argument they were having about marriage began to say that the photos meant that the men were cannibals, and they should spear them before the men killed and ate them.

This event that shook the world is given relatively few pages in Menkaye’s book. With all the people they had killed, these men were just a blip on their radar, another threat averted. But some time later, Dayuma came back to the tribe and told them they had made God angry and they needed to stop killing. Amazingly, they were willing to lay down their spears and hear more. Rachel Saint (Nate’s sister) and Elisabeth and Valerie Elliot (Jim’s wife and young daughter) were invited to come and teach them. Though I had read in Through Gates of Splendor and other books that over time several of the Waorani had come to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior, it was touching and beautiful to hear this experience described in more detail by Menkaye and to hear him, Kemo, and Dyowe tell of the joy and freedom in their hearts. Dyowe told Rachel:

I want you to know…that I was one of the men…who killed your brother Nathanael when he was on the beach with the others. I know that God wants to forgive me. But I want to tell you too to forgive me for the things that I have done. I didn’t understand anything back then, and I didn’t know who they were. But I will say that I truly know God has forgiven me today. I want to give myself to Him. It was not only your brother who died. Many, many people died besides him at the point of my spear. But today is the last of my own spear for me. I have found a new spear to pierce the hearts of many people (p. 231).

Almost immediately they became concerned for other branches of the tribe that had broken off to live in new areas, and they tried to reach them with the gospel. Some were martyred in the attempt, and most of these other branches are still not believers, thus the second part of Menkaye’s rather bulky title about still seeking the end of the spear. In fact, one of the end notes relates that while the book was in progress, another raid had taken place against oil company employees.

The next part of Menkaye’s book tells of changes that have taken place in the Waoranis, and the last few chapters, some of the most valuable for anyone seeking to work with tribal people, are his vision for his people. He and other Waorani are not opposed to progress and to changes. They see them as inevitable. Menkaye’s own son attended aviation school in Michigan in the US. They don’t want their young people to lose their Waorani skills and heritage completely, though, and they want any future work within the tribe to be handled differently than it has been. In the past, people were sent in who pretty much took over instead of coming under the tribal leadership – even Rachel and Dayuma. Rachel wanted to set Dayuma in charge, but either Dayuma wasn’t quite cut out for it or the authority went to her head or she backslid or something – Menkaye details a number of problems with her leadership. To be generous, this was something Rachel and Dayuma had not been trained for, and mistakes were made. Menkaye and the others are not bitter and they appreciated everything done for them, especially helping them to understand the gospel, but they did want to point out some of the issues and correct them.

The ones who should be choosing the leaders are the Waorani themselves, based upon what we ourselves see in those candidates, young or old, who have demonstrated maturity from a Biblical perspective, and have carefully studied the Bible in order to know the principles in depth that will be taught and lived out. Never should it be a random choice based on a superficial view of any person., especially someone from the Outside (p. 323).

Reading this makes me appreciate even more the emphasis among missionaries our churches have supported in leading rather than driving the people and in training up leaders from within the people group they are ministering to rather than continuing to bring in leadership from the outside.

I’m sure another difficulty in working with tribal people is how to navigate changes. One doesn’t want to unduly influence their culture, but one doesn’t want to hold them back, either. That is all I can figure was going on when the people began to ask Rachel for clothes and boots, and she said they had done fine without them before and didn’t need them now, according to Menkaye. But they had always lived and worked in the jungle before, where it was shady, and Rachel had them out in the open under the hot sun clearing space for an airstrip and didn’t seem to understand they wanted protection from the sun beating on their backs. I think either she was trying not to change them in that way, or she was trying to squelch their looking for handouts, but evidently this is one area where she and Elisabeth disagreed: Elisabeth thought they should have clothes and arranged for them. (They kept wearing clothes but had mixed emotions about shoes. They found that boots protected them from “thorns, ants, and vipers,” but the weight of them felt odd to them, and “when we were climbing the steep mountain ridges, they made us slip in the mud and slide downward” [p. 227].)

I’ve mentioned before in other missionary book reviews (particularly here) that some people think of these primitive tribal communities as simple people frolicking in the sun who shouldn’t be disturbed by missionaries and businesses. Dr. Jim Yost says in the forward, “The tendency to idealize or romanticize ‘primitive’ culture falls to crushing blows here as the reality of life in the upper Amazon rainforest plays out in gruesome details often too explicit or vivid for the cushioned Western mind.” (p. v). How many of us would have wanted our culture to remain as it was hundreds of years ago just to preserve it? Progress has its problems but also its opportunities.

Menkaye and other Waorani are willing to embrace these opportunities while still maintaining the Waorani culture and autonomy. He has great ideas for them to integrate with the “World of the City,” to help his people explore endeavors in which they can make their own money, and to help their young people have the best opportunities for a changing future.

I do not intend to offend the churches of The Outside World who perceive their role as one of coming in to show us how to do things, but in reality, we can learn equally from each other. Is that not true? Do we not have many things to teach each other and to learn from each other? (p. 329).

If you bring us a new idea, we will welcome that, too. But we will always weigh and balance the influences and outcomes of every new component, and determine together what projects are useful and valuable, and which ones may be harmful in some way (p. 338).

The Waorani are storytellers, but their way of sharing stories is different from ours. There is much more detail than I would personally care to know about some issues, much less than I wanted to know about others, and the stories are laid out differently than we would be used to. There is an appendix of Waorani myths and legends at the end: some seem odd, some are gruesome. But then, they would probably think the same way about our fairly tales and Mother Goose rhymes.

I think this book is incredibly valuable to anyone interested in the heritage of the ministries of the Saints, Elliots, and others who initiated “Operation Auca,” and to anyone with an interest in missions, particularly in ministry to tribal peoples. I hope Menkaye lives a long time to carry out his vision and that others take it up as well.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Review: The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

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Case Book of SHThe Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes is the last of the Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It opens with a preface from Doyle himself, rather than Watson, saying that “I fear that Mr. Sherlock Holmes may become like one of those popular tenors who, having outlived their time, are still tempted to make repeated farewell bows to their indulgent audiences. This must cease and he must go the way of all flesh, material or imaginary.” He says that he “had fully determined at the conclusion of The Memoirs to bring Holmes to an end, as I felt that my literary energies should not be directed too much into one channel,” but he later revived him (reportedly due to public demand, though he doesn’t say so here). He goes on to note:

I have never regretted it, for I have not in actual practice found that these lighter sketches have prevented me from exploring and finding my limitations in such varied branches of literature as history, poetry, historical novels, psychic research, and the drama. Had Holmes never existed I could not have done more, though he may perhaps have stood a little in the way of the recognition of my more serious literary work.

The Wikipedia article on Doyle states that he “wrote seven historical novels, which he and many critics regarded as his best work,” as well as other pieces, but he’s best known for Sherlock Holmes.

A couple of variations in this volume are two stories written as by Holmes himself rather than Watson and one written from a third person point of view. One of the two stories by Holmes occurred when he criticized Watson’s style of storytelling, and Watson told him he should give it a try; the second occurred after Holmes had retired and was no longer in touch with Watson when he came upon an unexpected case.

Twelve stories are included in this book, with some editions arranging them in different orders. The very last Holmes story written was “The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place” in 1927.

The stories include a variety of cases brought to Holmes’ attention in a variety of ways, most often by someone connected with the case. The include a woman seen only in a veil, a mother accused of vampirism, a missing diamond, the theft of papers from a dead son’s trunk, a man searching for two other men with an unusual last name, a jealous wife, an unusual sea creature, a missing soldier, and a wax effigy of Holmes. In one of them, Holmes says, “In all my chronicles the reader will find no case which brought me so completely to the limit of my powers. Even my imagination could conceive no solution to the mystery.”

They occur in a variety of times as well: some when Watson was rooming with Holmes, some when he was not, one after Holmes retirement.

A few sentences stood out to me concerning Holmes’ regard for Watson. In “The Case of the Blanched Soldier,” one of the stories written from Holmes point of view rather than Watson’s, he says, “Speaking of my old friend and biographer, I would take this opportunity to remark that if I burden myself with a companion in my various little inquiries it is not done out of sentiment or caprice, but it is that Watson has some remarkable characteristics of his own to which in his modesty he has given small attention amid his exaggerated estimates of my own performances.” He says in this same story, “The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action which I can recall in our association. I was alone.” In “The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone,” the one written in the third person, it’s said that, “Watson was always the man of action, and he rose to the occasion.” In one story in which Watson was wounded, Holmes cried out, “You’re not hurt, Watson? For God’s sake, say that you are not hurt!” Watson thought to himself, “It was worth a wound–it was worth many wounds–to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.”

After receiving a note from Holmes in one case which simply read, “Come at once if convenient–if inconvenient come all the same. S.H.,” Watson muses:

The relations between us in those latter days were peculiar. He was a man of habits, narrow and concentrated habits, and I had become one of them. As an institution I was like the violin, the shag tobacco, the old black pipe, the index books, and others perhaps less excusable. When it was a case of active work and a comrade was needed upon whose nerve he could place some reliance, my role was obvious. But apart from this I had uses. I was a whetstone for his mind. I stimulated him. He liked to think aloud in my presence. His remarks could hardly be said to be made to me–many of them would have been as appropriately addressed to his bedstead–but none the less, having formed the habit, it had become in some way helpful that I should register and interject. If I irritated him by a certain methodical slowness in my mentality, that irritation served only to make his own flame-like intuitions and impressions flash up the more vividly and swiftly. Such was my humble role in our alliance.

Other interesting features in this story: in one Holmes refused to eat, and when Watson asked why, he replied, “Because the faculties become refined when you starve them. Why, surely, as a doctor, my dear Watson, you must admit that what your digestion gains in the way of blood supply is so much lost to the brain. I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix. Therefore, it is the brain I must consider.” I don’t think that’s the wisest course of action for most people, but it is interesting that he thought of himself primarily in terms of his brain. That appears to be a factor in his suppression of emotion and lack of relationships as well. Holmes says in one story: “Women have seldom been an attraction to me, for my brain has always governed my heart, but I could not look upon her perfect clear-cut face, with all the soft freshness of the downlands in her delicate colouring, without realizing that no young man would cross her path unscathed.”

Another observation I thought unusual for Holmes occurred when a man was taking a potion to seem to become more youthful: “There is danger there–a very real danger to humanity. Consider, Watson, that the material, the sensual, the worldly would all prolong their worthless lives. The spiritual would not avoid the call to something higher. It would be the survival of the least fit. What sort of cesspool may not our poor world become?”

One sentence that struck me as particularly clever: “When his castle in the air fell down, it buried him beneath the ruins.”

It’s been fun to read of the “real”…or at least, the original Sherlock Holmes. One of my main curiosities was whether he was really as rude as some modern conceptions of him make him out to be. I was happy to find he wasn’t. He was eccentric in some ways and could be egoistical, but he knew how to interact with people when he needed to and could even be kind and comforting when needed. He was a classic introvert and only had a very few close friends. I was surprised to find that his nemesis, Moriarty, only appeared in two books, with just a mention in one of them. I was also pleased to find that Watson was not a doddering old man, but was vibrant, described as “fleet of foot” in one story, and that Holmes valued him for his medical skills as well as his skills with a revolver, besides his being a good sounding board.

I was concerned, before reading the stories, about his rumored drug addiction, but it wasn’t enough to be an addiction, only appeared in a couple of books, and Watson talked him out of using drugs any more. I was also concerned because I had heard there were instances of spiritism in the book, but I did not find any. I did just read yesterday that Doyle was heavily involved in such, but Holmes, although he was not a religious man, did use various Biblical phrases and did not participate in anything like spiritism. There were a couple of cases where there were evidences of voodoo or something similar, but those involved were always portrayed as being from some island or another.

Here are my reviews of the other Holmes books:

A Study in Scarlet (novel)
The Sign of the Four (novel)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (short stories)
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (short stories)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (novel)
The Return of Sherlock Holmes (short stories)
His Last Bow: Some Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes (short stories)
The Valley of Fear (novel)

I listened to the first books read by various narrators, and the last ones read by Simon Vance in this collection, who once again did a wonderful job. This edition of all the Holmes stories together came through on a good sale, so I got it, but it was maddening that the divisions weren’t according to the books. They are just run together one after the other, which is fine if you’re listening to them that way, but it’s hard to find a particular book. Thankfully one listener posted a table of contents which shows where the various books begin and end.

I don’t feel all warm and fuzzy toward these stories as I do some other books, so I don’t know that I’d reread or relisten to them, at least not any time soon. But they were fun while they lasted! And Holmes is such an iconic figure with so many cultural references to him, it’s nice to be familiar with him now.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Review: Taken

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TakenWhen a kidnapped victim is released, we tend to think that’s the happy ending to their story, or at least to that chapter or ordeal. But Dee Henderson starts there in her newest novel, Taken. Shannon Bliss had been missing for eleven years, having been abducted at the age of 16. She escaped on her own and sought out private investigator Matthew Dane to help her take the next steps. He’s a former police officer, but he’s also the father of a kidnap victim: his daughter had been missing for a number of years, so Shannon feels Matthew can help her in a unique way that others could not.

I’ve always pictured recovered kidnapping victims as spending their first few days, after a medical check-up, giving their testimony to various officials. I don’t know how it works in real life, but in this book, Shannon shares the details of what happened in small bits at a time. One reason is that she can’t bring herself to lay it all out at once, but there are bigger reasons: the family who took her thinks she is dead, and her life might be in danger if they find out she’s alive, plus she is waiting on one friend who also had plans to escape, plus she has evidence that could put the whole family away if it’s shared at the right time and handled the right way. Her abductors were a large network of family members involved in a number of crimes, so Shannon wants to tread carefully in order to catch as many as possible, especially the most dangerous.

Matthew is friends with FBI Special Agent Paul Falcon (from Dee’s previous novel Full Disclosure) and is able to pass along information as Shannon shares it. His experience with his daughter’s kidnapping is helpful, but he has to learn that Shannon is older and copes in her own way. Still, he recognizes that she is still in survivor mode and that at some point the emotions will hit. For now, he helps her process things, acts as a buffer between her and the public and the police, and advises and protects her.

An added wrinkle is that her brother is running for governor and has mentioned his missing sister in his campaign. Deciding when to tell and meet with him and then when and how he should make the news public requires much thought.

Most of Dee’s books are edge-of-your-seat suspenseful. This was not that way, but I still enjoyed finding out Shannon’s story as it unfolded and seeing what happened afterward.

Of particular interest, and something Matthew is surprised at, is that her faith didn’t suffer through her ordeal. In quite an interesting conversation between them about free will, Shannon says,

“But God decided to create a world where free will was more important than no one ever getting hurt. There must be something stunningly beautiful and remarkable about free will that only God can truly grasp, because God hates, literally abhors, evil, yet He created a world where evil could happen if people chose it. God sees something in free will and choice that’s worth tolerating the horrifying blackness that would appear if evil was chosen rather than good. I find that utterly remarkable” (pp. 107-108).

“God gave Adam and Eve that free will and choice. He gave them one warning: eat of any tree that is here, including the wonderful tree of life, but don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…I wish Adam and Eve had thought more about what knowledge meant. Eve saw it as a good thing, to know more. But how do you really know something? You experience it” (p. 108).

I disagreed when she said “God expected, fully intended, for Adam and Eve to obey what He had said,” since the Bible speaks of “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). That and other verses (besides verses about God’s omniscience) indicate that of course God knew what was going to happen. But I agree with her conclusion that man’s evil choices don’t make God evil, despite the fact that God could have stopped them, and that He gives grace and help in the midst of that pain of people’s wrong choices. “God has been acting honorably throughout history regrading what He wants. We’re the ones at fault. God is good. And I still really, truly like Him” (p. 109).

I’m always reluctant to get to the end of Dee’s books, because the characters feel like friends and I kind of miss them when the story is over. But in the last few, characters from some of her other books make appearances in the newer ones, so it’s neat to feel like you’re touching base with them again.

This was a book I made time for beyond my usual reading times, and I very much enjoyed it.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Review: The Valley of Fear

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Valley_of_fearThe Valley of Fear is the fourth of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s full-length Sherlock Holmes novels. Like most of his other stories, it first appeared serialized in a magazine, this time in The Strand.

The book opens with Holmes and Watson trying to decipher a message from an informant concerning Professor Moriarty. The only other time Moriarty has been mentioned was in the last chapter of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, in which he died. So this story predates that one, but there is a bit of a disconnect in that Watson didn’t know who Moriarty was in Memoirs, and if the events in The Valley of Fear occurred in the timeline before that book, Watson would surely have known the name. But as far as I know that’s the only major slip up in Doyle’s narratives, so we can forgive him: he may have even been aware of the problem and decided to write this story as is anyway.

At any rate, Holmes and Watson are interrupted by the arrival of a Scotland Yard Inspector MacDonald asking Holmes to assist on a case and then being stunned to learn that the message Holmes had just deciphered concerned the very man who had been killed. The victim had been shot in the face with an American sawed-off shotgun. There are a number of odd incidents and clues that do not add up. Holmes fixates on one that the others do not think is important, and, of course, solves the mystery.

The second part of the book is the back-story of what happened leading up to these events and is written in a completely different style, much like the story within a story in A Study in Scarlet. At first nothing seems related at all, but the reader assumes that some of the characters are going by different names than what they’re known as in the first part. In this story, a young John McMurdo is fleeing from the law in Chicago and comes to a Vermissa Valley to start anew. He’s part of an organization called The Eminent Order of Freemen, which primarily engages in charitable works in Chicago. But in Vermissa Valley, it’s a tightly run gang of thieves, murderers, and extortioners called the Scowrers who have the area under their thumb so much that it is nicknamed the Valley of Fear. McMurdo has no choice but to become involved with the gang, even though his landlord kicks him out over it and refuses to let him see his daughter any more.

Events unfold with the Scowrers for several chapters until they learn that a Pinkerton detective is undercover in the area, and their focus turns to finding and dealing with him.

An epilogue ties up the loose ends of the story and brings it back to Moriarty’s involvement.

Though I eventually guessed who McMurdo was (and rereading the first few pages, I saw several clues which caused me to realize I should have guessed it much sooner), I was totally surprised by the twist in the second story. Though some of the first story gets a little boring with the deciphering and then the arguing over which clues mean what, the last couple of chapters were the most exciting of any of Doyle’s work that I have read so far.

After looking around Wikipedia a bit, I saw that the story was based on the real life Molly Maguires in PA and their encounter with Pinkerton Agency detective James McParland. I had heard the term Molly Maguires before but had no recollection of what it meant until reading about it just now.

I listened to the audiobook read by Simon Vance, who did a wonderful job not only with the various English accents and voices in the story, but also with American, Scottish, and Irish accents as well. I also read parts of the story online at Project Gutenberg.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Review: Feeding Your Appetites

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AppetitesFeeding Your Appetites: Taking Control of What’s Controlling You by Stephen Arterburn and Debra Cherry is based on the premise that most of our out-of-control desires are based on God-given appetites that are not wrong in themselves (food, sex, work, rest), but they can wreak havoc when they get out of balance. Even appetites for things that are wrong in themselves (gambling, drugs) can have a basis in a desire that’s not wrong.

Stephen discusses the nature, good purposes, and value of appetites God created within us. But “when pleasure becomes what we are searching for, we will soon learn that there is never enough to satisfy” (p. 33). “Our poor choices are rooted in self-indulgence and obsession with self-entitlement. We indulge to seek pleasure and avoid pain because we think we are entitled to it. The fleshly pleasure we seek is self-serving” (p. 35).

He discusses how change begins (seek forgiveness, stop make excuses, stop blaming others, stop believing falsehoods, and others), the many factors that influence us (including biology, culture, and a host of others), the ways Satan uses our desires against us to tempt us, ways to deal with or redirect our desires, and ways to cultivate a “divine appetite.” The last chapter on “The Surrendered Life” ties it all together in emphasizing that the only way to keep our appetites in their proper places is to walk surrendered to God every day. An appendix and study guide in the back help apply the truth personally.

Sprinkled throughout the book are case studies which are very helpful in fleshing out the principles Stephen is discussing. My only minor quibble with them is that they came in the middle of rather than at the end of sections. I don’t like having to either interrupt the section I am reading to read the case study or read on to finish the section I am in and then turn back to the case study when it could have easily been placed between sections. But, again, that is a relatively minor irritation.

A few quotes I found helpful:

[In Eden] Eve couldn’t overeat because her appetite for food would have been under control and submissive to her primary appetite to obey God” (p. 18).

When we have an out-of-control appetite for food, it signals that we have put that appetite above its rightful place as a necessary and God-given function (p. 18).

The question of how to satisfy our appetites becomes instead a call to seek to obey God in all circumstances and through all appetites and desires. That means making the necessary choices to satisfy our appetites in a manner that honors Him. When we do, true fulfillment is our reward (p. 25).

There were a few little points where I disagreed with his teaching, but not enough to get into long explanations. I will say that I disagreed with his concept of meditation, which he seemed to define as listening to God as opposed to talking to Him in prayer. Meditation is more of a ruminating, thinking over what He has said in His Word, not listening for Him to speak apart from His Word (see next to last paragraph here.)

Overall it’s a very good book. It covers some of the same ground as Taste For Truth by Barb Raveling except it expands to cover about every appetite you could think of whereas Barb’s book focuses on food. Barb’s style is much more direct, which I tend to prefer. I felt Stephen tended to over-explain or use too many words, but that may have been because I had just read many of the same principles in Barb’s book. This book might be especially helpful for a non-Christian or new Christian or a Christian who had not been taught very well along the way. But really, it can benefit anyone. I gleaned much good from it.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Review: The Monday Morning Club

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Claudia Barba is one author I know in person. I first knew her sister when we were classmates in college. Her dad was one of my teachers there. I met her mother as well through activities with her sister. Claudia and her husband and son came to our church for a week once when her husband was the keynote speaker for a conference, but I am sorry to say I did not introduce myself to her or get to know her at that time. Some years later her sister, now a pastor’s wife in a neighboring city, invited the ladies of our church to a weekend ladies’ conference where Claudia was the speaker. A few of us went…and I was greatly blessed by her speaking. Her strawberry story (which I am glad to see is in her book) especially convicted and touched me.

Claudia’s husband was a pastor at first, then traveled with his family in evangelism for a few years. Then he and his wife began Press On Ministries, in which they travel to spend a few months at a time helping a church planter get a new church off the ground and stable, and then they travel to another new church plant and do the same. One year our ladies’ group was looking for a speaker for our ladies’ luncheon, and Claudia and her husband were working near enough that I thought it might be a possibility that she could speak for us. A few e-mails and it was all arranged, and Claudia’s message was again a blessing.

Now we live in TN, and the Barba’s home base is close enough that they pop into our church every now and then between ministries. At their last visit, Claudia asked me if I had her new book, and when I said I didn’t, she took my address and sent me a copy – for free, with no expectation or request for a review, but rather just to be nice. 🙂

MMCThat book, The Monday Morning Club: You’re Not Alone — Encouragement For Women in Ministry, began with Claudia and her mother and sisters, who were all married to men in the ministry. They would e-mail each other on Monday mornings when they needed a friend to talk to, someone to “share my joys without jealousy and hear my frustrations without judgement” “whether Sundays were thrilling or discouraging.” (p. xiii). Then another friend asked to be included, and eventually it grew into an e-mail list to women all over the world. This book is a compilation of some of these Monday morning thoughts and devotions. Though many of them are aimed at ministry wives in particular, the bulk of them would be applicable to any Christian women. Even those that are specific to pastor’s wives are helpful for the rest of us to read because they give us a window into some of the trials, temptations, thoughts, and feelings a pastor’s wife might wrestle with, and give us a better idea how to pray for and encourage our own.

There are 94 in all, each covering only one to three pages. They could be read one or two at a time straight through, or dipped into at random, or there is a topical index where you can look up columns by need, such as “When you’re discontent,” or “When you’re lonely,” etc.

I love Claudia’s way of writing and speaking. It’s simple, but deep; sweet, but clear. She advises with wisdom and grace. Often she goes straight to my heart.

Here are a few samples:

When a friend thought that “marrying a pastor morphed an ordinary woman into a super saint”: I’m sure in her own mind she was honoring me by placing me on a pedestal. That is, after all, where we place statues of people we admire. But it’s not a comfortable place for a plain old human to live. It’s lonely on a pedestal. Other people think you are looking down on them. There are pigeons. And if you stumble even once, you’ll fall off (p. 5).

The Christlike life has nothing at all to do with satisfying, coddling, or promoting self, but everything to do with being poured out for others (p. 55).

When discussing her husband’s tendency to “jump off cliffs” spiritually in “great leaps of faith” and her own tendency toward security: “The fences I thought meant security were the walls of a prison instead…A fearful spirit is never from the Lord (2 Timothy 1:7). It’s the prison, not the cliff, that’s the scary place. It’s awful to realize that my female anxieties can hinder God’s working through my husband. When His divine leading is clear to my human leader, it’s time for me to stop digging in my heels and join him in bold strides of faith, not because my husband is flawless, but because it’s God’s work we are doing, and He’s the One Who keeps us safe” (p. 123).

Stability is not innate or effortless for most of us female-type humans. Only in Christ is “no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” He is the solid, immutable Rock of Ages, and He can keep you stable. When your earth quakes, anchor your thoughts to His unchanging promises. When storms roll in, hide in His shadow. When you’re too tired to handle the demands of the day, let Him be the Rock of your strength. When your heart is unsatisfied, let the sweet water flowing from the Rock quench your thirst. Whenever any scary or upsetting thing happens, just run straight to the Rock (p. 153).

Sometimes all that’s needed to heal a wounded soul and lift a sagging spirit is one loving listener, for at its core, listening is love–love that sacrifices its need to be heard in favor of hearing, a desire to lecture in favor of learning, an opportunity to show off in favor of showing compassion. Instead of always leading the way, a patient listener, just by nodding in all the right places, can help a wanderer discover the right path on her own (p. 170).

You can read more samples of Claudia’s writing here in their web site. One of my all-time favorites, “His Dear Wife,” is not in the book but a copy is here. I previously reviewed her Bible study When Christ Was Here.

There is a Kindle version of The Monday Morning Club here. I hope you’ll give it a try. I think it will truly challenge, encourage, and bless you.

Book Review: His Last Bow: Some Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes

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HisLastBowHis Last Bow: Some Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is another collection of his Sherlock Holmes short stories, most originally published in magazines. One story, “The Cardboard Box,” was originally in another volume and added to this one in later printings.

The book opens with a preface from Dr. Watson saying that Holmes was retired and doing well except for occasional bouts of rheumatism. He had refused many offers to take up cases until called into service by his government on the eve of war with Germany. Watson states that the last story in this collection contains the details of that incident, and the other stories are some that he has had on hand for some time but not used in his other collections, but added them here to supplement the last story.

There are eight stories all together, covering various time periods (some when Watson was married, some when he was rooming with Holmes. Most contain trademarks of the other Holmes stories. A few are different, however.

In “The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge” (sometimes published as two stories, “The Singular Experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles” and “The Tiger of San Pedro”), the inspector on this case, Inspector Baynes, is the only police official that Holmes has thought well of and thought almost as competent as himself. He had learned to work with Lestrade and Grayson and others, though he usually figured out the case long before they did. But Baynes he admired and predicted he would go far in his profession.

Some of the other cases involve assumed identities, stolen naval plans, a woman receiving severed ears in the mail, an incident that kills one sister and drives two brothers mad, a kidnapped woman, and Holmes’ seemingly fatal illness.

The last story, “His Last Bow,” is different in a few ways. It opens with someone other than Holmes or Watson, is told in the third rather than the first person, and is a spy story more than a detective story. It’s set after Holmes has retired but has been asked to help his government, and when it’s over, he and Watson reminisce as if they haven’t seen each other in a while and are catching up. I wonder if Doyle wasn’t planning to write more Holmes stories after this. There is one Holmes novel whose writing overlaps the time period when these stories were published, and one more collection of stories after this one. If all the stories were laid our chronologically, this one would be the last in the time frame though it’s not the last one written. It was published during WWI, and this quote was probably meant to encourage Doyle’s fellow countrymen:

“There’s an east wind coming, Watson.”

“I think not, Holmes. It is very warm.”

“Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. There’s an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it’s God’s own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared.”

In many of the stories, Holmes makes reference to Watson’s writings and even offers suggestions about what to include, even though he doesn’t like the way Watson tells the stories.

I found further evidence that Holmes was neither always rude nor antisocial or even autistic, as some modern portrayals seen to suggest. When interrupted from a project when asked to take on a case he is not interested in at first, Watson notes that  “Holmes was accessible upon the side of flattery, and also, to do him justice, upon the side of kindliness. The two forces made him lay down his gum-brush with a sigh of resignation and push back his chair.” In another case,

Holmes leaned forward and laid his long, thin fingers upon the woman’s shoulder. He had an almost hypnotic power of soothing when he wished. The scared look faded from her eyes, and her agitated features smoothed into their usual commonplace. She sat down in the chair which he had indicated.

In another place he said, “[The landlady] was fond of him, too, for he had a remarkable gentleness and courtesy in his dealings with women. He disliked and distrusted the sex, but he was always a chivalrous opponent.”

Watson does admit, though, in another case that, “It was one of my friend’s most obvious weaknesses that he was impatient with less alert intelligences than his own,” in this case Lestrade’s.

Holmes also doesn’t misuse Watson, as some modern depictions portray. In one case here he sends Watson on a mission when he can’t leave the case he is currently involved with, and when he does catch up with Watson, he exclaims,

“I cannot at the moment recall any possible blunder which you have omitted. The total effect of your proceeding has been to give the alarm everywhere and yet to discover nothing.”

“Perhaps you would have done no better,” I answered bitterly.

“There is no ‘perhaps’ about it. I HAVE done better. Here is the Hon. Philip Green, who is a fellow-lodger with you in this hotel, and we may find him the starting-point for a more successful investigation.”

The only time that he seems genuinely rude was when he was ill but did not want Watson to examine him, saying, “After all, you are only a general practitioner with very limited experience and mediocre qualifications. It is painful to have to say these things, but you leave me no choice.” Watson “was bitterly hurt.” But later Holmes discloses that he did not want Watson near him because he was on a case to try and catch someone, and Watson’s “astute judgment” would determine on a close examination that Holmes was well, and Holmes needed him to believe in the urgency of the situation in order to convince the man Holmes wanted to come. He assures Watson of his high “respect for your medical talents.”

In one unguarded moment after Watson saves both their lives, Holmes declares,

“Upon my word, Watson!” said Holmes at last with an unsteady voice, “I owe you both my thanks and an apology. It was an unjustifiable experiment even for one’s self, and doubly so for a friend. I am really very sorry.”

“You know,” I answered with some emotion, for I have never seen so much of Holmes’s heart before, “that it is my greatest joy and privilege to help you.”

He relapsed at once into the half-humorous, half-cynical vein which was his habitual attitude to those about him.

There was one other glimpse in Holmes’ heart when, in a case where someone avenged the death of his loved one, Holmes said, “I have never loved, Watson, but if I did and if the woman I loved had met such an end, I might act even as [he] has done.” That also seems further proof of something I asserted in an earlier book, that Irene Adler was not the love interest many thought her to be, but rather just a woman he admired for being one of the few people to ever outsmart him.

I listened to the audiobook read by Simon Vance, who did a great job with the different accents and inflections. Overall I enjoyed these continuing adventures of Holmes and Watson and and discovering more of their personalities. I look forward to the last two books.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

What’s On Your Nightstand: April 2015

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

Wow – it’s hard to believe we’re in the last week of April. Where did it go so fast?

Since last time I have completed:

A Million Little Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live by Emily Freeman, reviewed here. Had some issues with parts of it but overall it’s a good message.

He Is There and He Is Not Silent by Francis Schaeffer, reviewed here. A short book about philosophy, apologetics, metaphysics, epistemology – good but stretches one’s brain to the limit.

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters In the End by Atul Gawande. As I said in my review, if you’re planning on getting old, dying, or helping a parent as they age, you need to read this book.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, audiobook, reviewed here. Glad to be know the story now but glad to be done with it finally. 🙂

The Swan House by Elizabeth Musser, reviewed here. Loved.

Songs of the Morning: Stories and Poems for Easter compiled by Pat Alexander, including excerpts from C. S. Lewis, E. B. White, and others, reviewed here.

I’m currently reading:

The Monday Morning Club: You’re Not Alone — Encouragement For Women in Ministry by Claudia Barba.

Feeding Your Appetites: Taking Control of What’s Controlling You by Stephen Arterburn

His Last Bow: Some Later Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, audiobook

A pre-reading of a friend’s novel – will be happy to share more with you when the time comes! 🙂

Gentle Savage Still Seeking the End of the Spear: The Autobiography of a Killer and the Oral History of the Waorani by Menkaye Aenkaedi with Kemo and Dyowe. Just  started this one. These men were among the Waorani (or Aucas, as they were then known) who killed the five men who came to share the gospel with them (Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, and the others) and who later became Christians, Menkaye becoming like a grandfather to Steve Saint’s children. I am very curious to read their story in their own words.

Next Up:

Walking With God in the Season of Motherhood by Melissa B. Kruger

Christy by Catherine Marshall for Carrie‘s Reading to Know Classics Book Club for May. Read this years ago and am eager to revisit it.

Taken, the latest by Dee Henderson. Just got word it’s on it’s way!!! Can’t wait!

The Valley of Fear and The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, audiobooks, to finish off the good detective’s stories.

Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by Pamela Smith Hill. I don’t know if I will actually get to this in the coming month: I hope so.

That should keep me busy for a while. 🙂 What are you reading?

Book Review: The Swan House

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Swan HouseI picked up The Swan House by Elizabeth Musser when it came through as a Kindle deal because I liked her Words Unspoken so much (in fact, it was one of my top ten books from 2010.)

This story is told from the vantage point of 16-year-old Mary Swan Middleton, daughter of a wealthy Atlanta family in the 1960s. Tragedy strikes early in the book as her mother dies in an airplane accident along with a number of other Atlantans. The accident wounds her family and community deeply.

There are a number of threads in this book which Elizabeth weaves together nicely:

– Mary’s family and community dealing with their grief

– Mary’s (or Swan, as she’s called most often, or Swannee) quest to determine what happened to some missing paintings, one of them her mother’s, which were lost before they were to be debuted at the High Museum of Art

– Her black maid, Ella Mae, inviting her to come to her church to help with the weekly food distribution to the needy as a way to take her mind off her grief, where her eyes are opened to a whole different world and where she meets Miss Abigail, a white lady who has made it her mission to live and minister in the area.

– Her getting to know and becoming interested in a black teenage boy named Carl.

– The volatile racial tensions 0f the 1960s South and burgeoning civil rights movement

– Mary’s discovering clues that what was thought to be her mother’s artistic temperament might have been something deeper, something worse.

– Mary’s school life and activities, best friend Rachel, and budding interest in a boy named Robbie

– Mary’s spiritual development and crisis of faith.

In a sense it’s a coming-of-age story, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a book of rich depths. One of its themes is that there is often more going on behind the surface of a person’s life that we’re aware of.

Some of my favorite quotes from the book:

We were transported by that music in a ethereal way that later we would try to explain and couldn’t. But it was the first time I really felt what I had long understood: that something could be extremely beautiful and intensely painful at the same time.

She thought every church should be…a place where you could go without no makeup or fancy dress to hide behind and you could jus’ hug yore friends and cry and tell the Lawd how bad you’d messed up and ask Him to forgive ya and let ya git up and keep goin’.

It’s been through the hard times that I been able to he’p someone else. It’s been through believin’ that the Lawd somehow gonna git me through that the others done wanted to hear about my Jesus.

Guess I ain’t got no business tellin’ the good Lawd that He put me in the wrong place. He done shown me ’nuff times that He knows exactly what He is doing.

I mentioned in Why Read Christian Fiction that you would expect to find Christian conversations in Christian fiction but that some authors make it more subtle or only mention Christian truths in an offhand way so as not to be accused of being too heavy-handed with it. While some stories would call for subtlety, I am glad Elizabeth felt the freedom to have her characters have full-fledged conversations about what it means to really be a Christian and how Christianity should impact a life.

Elizabeth is a native Atlantan, and I enjoyed her afterword where she explained that many points of the story came from real life (even the airplane crash was a real one that impacted the Atlanta community). We lived just outside Atlanta for four years, and even though we didn’t go into the city that much, I felt like I was not only revisiting it but getting to know it better while reading this book.

I also enjoyed reading a little more about Elizabeth after reading this book. She and her family are missionaries in France, and she writes in a refurbished tool shed. She tells some of her writing journey here and photos of her writing place are here. I was exciting to see on Goodreads that this book “was named one of Amazon’s Top Christian Books of the Year and one of Georgia’s Top Ten Novels of the Past 100 Years.”

I enjoyed Words Unspoken so much, I am not sure why I waited so long to read another of Elizabeth’s books. But now that I have, I am looking forward to reading more of them.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Book Review: He Is There and He Is Not Silent

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SchaefferWhen I first saw the title of He Is There and He Is Not Silent by Francis Schaeffer, I thought it sounded like something from the Psalms, a response to a deep heart-cry of someone who needed God and found Him.

It’s not that, at least not like the Psalmist’s expressions. It’s a book of philosophy and apologetics. It’s actually the third book in a trilogy, The God Who Is There and Escape From Reason being the first two.

Elisabeth Elliot once said of some of C. S. Lewis’s writing that she could follow it, but it took several careful rereadings to grasp it well enough to be able to express what he said to someone else. That’s how I feel about this book. I could follow the thread of his arguments, but I couldn’t possibly reproduce any of them for you. You can get a brief overview of one chapter at Wikipedia and probably other places. Wikipedia’s overview sums it up nicely: “He Is There and He Is Not Silent is divided into four chapters, followed by two appendices. The first of these chapters deals with metaphysics; the second, morals; and the third and fourth, epistemology. The first appendix concerns revelation and the second the concept of faith.”

Honestly, reading sentences like, “The reason for the modern dilemma is that men have moved from uniformity of natural causes in an open system — open to reordering by God and man — into the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system” makes my head feels like it is about to explode (and some of the comments on Goodreads reassure me that others felt the same way). But it is good to stretch one’s brain sometimes, and I am glad for such masterfully written books because I do know people who think like this about these things, and it is good to know that Christianity not only stands up to scrutiny, but, as Schaeffer shows, it is the only reasonable answer to the many issues that he brings up. He and his wife hosted a lot of people, many of them students, in the 60s and 70s, and I am sure these kinds of things came up in their discussions.

I admit I am an intensely practical person, so when someone asks, “How do we know we are really here?” I am liable to think, “Maybe look in the mirror? Or pinch yourself. Hard.” This was written in 1972, well before The Matrix, but I guess some people really do wonder if reality is close to that kind of scenario.

It wasn’t until the fourth chapter, “The Epistemological Necessity: The Answer,” that the clouds began to clear. It’s the only chapter where I marked any quotes. Here are a couple:

The Bible teaches in two different ways: first, it teaches things in didactic statements, in verbalizations, in propositions…Second, the Bible teaches by showing how God works in the world that He Himself made. We should read the Bible for various reasons. It should be read for facts, and it should also be read devotionally. But reading the Bible every day of one’s life does something else — it gives one a different mentality…Do not minimize the fact that in reading the Bible we are living in a mentality which is the right one, opposed to the great wall of this other mentality which is forced upon us on every side — in education, in literature, in the arts, and in the mass media.

When I read the Bible, I find that when the infinite-personal God Himself works in history and in the cosmos, He works in a way which confirms what He has said about the external world (p. 78).

The strength of the Christian system — the acid test of it —  is that everything fits under the apex of the existent, infinite-personal God, and it is the only system in the world where this is true. No other system has an apex under which everything fits.That is why I am a Christian and no longer an agnostic. In all the other systems, something “sticks out,” something cannot be included; and it has to be mutilated or ignored. But without losing his own integrity, the Christian can see everything fitting into place beneath the Christian apex of the existence of the infinite-personal God who is there (p. 81).

The Christian should be the man with the flaming imagination and the beauty of creation (p. 87).

I’ve had this book on my shelf for something like 30 years. I am thankful for the TBR Challenge, which encouraged me to scour my shelves for unread books and finally get to them. If you like philosophizing, this book is for you.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)