Laudable Linkage

Posted on January 17, 2015 by Barbara Harper

Here are some noteworthy reads discovered in the last couple of weeks:

My Love List, for when you need to remind yourself of God’s love for you.

What Everybody Ought to Know About Moms and Sons.

What to Say to That Immodestly Dressed Girl at Church. Mentioned this last Thursday but wanted to list it here as well.

Stages of Grief: Anger. Alicia has been discussing stages of grief, and Christian ways to handle them, in reference to a life-changing condition.

How to Write Good.

Finally, Carrie shared some bookworm problems earlier this week, and I could identify with many, especially these:

Hope you have a great weekend!

Books Read in 2014

Posted on December 26, 2014 by Barbara Harper

I like to list and look over what I have read for the year, and Sherry at Semicolon, who hosts a weekly Saturday Review of Books where we can link up our book reviews, is setting aside this last Saturday of the year for books lists – what we’ve read this year, favorite books of the year, books we are planning to read next year, etc. I included audiobooks in with the the others because I do consider them “read” even though I “listened,” and for many of them I reread or looked at excerpts from online versions or library or Kindle copies. But all of the audiobooks this year were classics except for one in the “other fiction” category.

I’m just listing the titles read and not including commentary, but I am linking the titles to my reviews.

Non-fiction:

Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus: Experiencing the Peace and Promise of Christmas, essays compiled by Nancy Guthrie, not reviewed yet
Crowded to Christ by L. E. Maxwell
Gospel Meditations for Missions, not reviewed.
Gospel Meditations for the Hurting by Chris Anderson and Joe Tyrpak, not reviewed.
The House Is Quiet, Now What? by Janice Hanna and Kathleen Y’Barbo
How I Know God Answers Prayer by Rosalind Goforth
How to Read Slowly by James W. Sire
Ida Scudder: Healing Bodies, Touching Hearts by Janet and Geoff Benge
Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me: A Memoir of Sorts by Ian Morgan Cron
The Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer
Loving the Church by John Crotts
Made to Crave Action Plan Participant’s Guide by Lysa TerKeurst and Ski Chilton
Made to Crave: Satisfying Your Deepest Desire with God, Not Food by Lisa TerKeurst
Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis
On Stories and Other Essays on Literature by C. S. Lewis
Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity by Nabeel Qureshi
Walking From East to West: God in the Shadows by Ravi Zacharias
Walking in the Spirit: A Study Through Galatians 5 by Steve Pettit
Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God by Michael Kelley
The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses by C. S. Lewis
Why We Are Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck
Women of the Word by Jen Wilkin

By the end of the year I will also have finished another round through Daily Light on the Daily Path, plus Traveling Toward Sunrise, a daily devotional by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman, and Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room by Nancy Guthrie

Classics:

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens
Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Gift of the Magi and Other Christmas Stories by O. Henry, Dostoyevsky, Henry Van Dyke, and Leo Tolstoy
The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
I will Repay by Baroness Orzcy
The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
My Man Jeeves by P. D. Wodehouse
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (did not review this time, but a review from a previous year is here.)
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
Persuasion by Jane Austen (did not review this time, but a review from a previous year is here.)
The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
The Sign of the Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Christian fiction:

Courageous by Randy Alcorn
Dear Mr. Knightley by Katherine Reay
The Girl in the Gatehouse by Julie Klassen
In Perfect Time by Sarah Sundin
Jennifer: An O’Malley Love Story by Dee Henderson
Just Jane: A Novel of Jane Austen’s Life by Nancy Moser
The Last Bride by Beverly Lewis
Lost and Found by Ginny Yttrup
Merry Humbug Christmas by Sandra D. Bricker
Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good by Jan Karon
Undetected by Dee Henderson
Unspoken by Dee Henderson

Other fiction:

The Book of Three by Alexander Lloyd
The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book IV: The Interrupted Tale by Maryrose Wood
The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival by Sara Tuvel Bernstein

62 books in all (65 if you count the three I’ll complete by the end of the year): 20 audiobooks and 42 made of paper. There were maybe three or so I wasn’t so thrilled with, but overall it was a good reading year. There was a lot less Christian fiction than usual and a lot more nonfiction, due mostly to the reading challenges I participated in this year, especially the TBR challenge. A lot of my TBR books are nonfiction because I tend to gravitate to fiction. I do enjoy nonfiction when I get into it, but I usually have to “make” myself pick it up. Yet my top ten or so books of the year usually are nonfiction. That’s coming up next!

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

Book Review: To Kill a Mockingbird

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Barbara Harper

Despite its title, you won’t find anything like this in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

🙂 I’ll forewarn you that I will probably say more about the plot than I usually do. I don’t like to reveal key details in a review, but since I read this one this time in connection with Carrie’s Reading to Know Classics Book Club, this discussion will involve others who have already read it, plus I am still processing some parts of it. But whatever I share about it, I will try not to spill all the major beans, and there will be much to discover if you do go on and read the book.

Published in 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird is set in the early 30s in a small Alabama town called Maycomb. The story is told through the eyes of Jean Louise Finch, known as Scout, who is six years old as the novel opens. She lives with her older brother, Jem, short for Jeremy, and her widowed father, Atticus, a lawyer. The first part of the book evokes a realistic feel of growing up in a sleepy Southern town. Jem and Scout and their friend, Dill, who comes to visit his aunt in Maycomb each summer, spend a great deal of their time trying to devise a way to get their reclusive neighbor, Arthur Radley, known as Boo, to come out. They meet with no success and get themselves in trouble over their escapades more than once. In these early scenes we get a picture of Scout, smart but bored at a school that scolds her for learning to read at home, Jem’s maturing into a young man, Atticus, who seems detached as a parent sometimes, but shows a depth of wisdom and integrity in handling his work, his life, and his children, and an overview of the citizenship of Maycomb.

There is something of a caste system in the South of this time, with “old” families concerned about their history and standing, to poor but decent folks, to uneducated “trash” who live near the dump. Then there are the Negroes or colored folks, as they are called in the book. There are varying degrees of feelings toward the colored people, with, sadly, most of the townsfolk considering them at least a race apart if not a race beneath. Atticus seems to be one of the few who believes that all people need to be treated with decency and respect no matter what their race.

The children get an inkling that their world is about to shift when they start getting taunted for their father being an “n-lover.” Scout is a scrappy tomboy and her first instinct in any confrontation is to answer with her fists. But her father asks her to refrain from fighting about this issue. The children learn that their father has been appointed the defense attorney for Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman. Most of the town thinks, at the very least, that it is not a good idea, and some are quite caustic about it, even to the children (which is low-down and dirty in my opinion.)

Tension builds until the day of the trial. Scout, Jem, and Dill sneak in to watch, and there is no room in the courthouse except in the colored section of the balcony, which welcomes them. Lee deftly handles the details of the case even though her narrator doesn’t really understand what rape is. The evidence is only circumstantial, and Atticus brings out the fact that the alleged victim, Mayella Ewell, has flirted with and lured Tom into her home, and since no one took her to a doctor, there is no proof that a sexual assault occurred. Tom insists that none did. But even though Jem is sure they’ve won the case, the jury returns a guilty verdict.

Though the verdict went the Ewell’s way, Mr. Ewell is angry with Atticus for “destroying his credibility” and threatens to “get” Atticus if it is the last thing he does.

There were many things that stood out to me in this book. One was how Atticus tried to prepare his children for the trouble to come. He didn’t want them to fuss about it nor to think ill of their friends who might say unkind things. When asked why he took the case when the townspeople and even his own relatives think ill of him for it, he says things like he couldn’t live with himself, couldn’t go to church, couldn’t ask his children to obey him if he didn’t. It was the right thing to do, and his conscience would smite him if he didn’t. The children don’t learn until the court day that Atticus was appointed to the case. Scout says it would have saved them many fights if they could have defended him with that piece of information. It says a lot about Atticus that he did not use that fact to defend himself.

Another was how often innocence saw truth. When Scout hears her teacher at the courthouse saying this trial will “teach ’em a lesson, they were gettin’ way above themselves,” she wonders how her teacher can hate Hitler and feel sorry for the Jews in Europe in their classroom and “then turn around and be ugly about folks right at home.” “It’s not right to persecute anybody, is it? I mean have mean thoughts about anybody, even, is it?” It’s Scout innocently talking with one of her neighbors about his son at school that halts an angry mob, unbeknownst to her at first. It’s Dill who gets upset and sick at the courthouse over how the prosecuting attorney is treating Tom on the stand.

I appreciated how the children’s view of their father changes throughout the book. They love him, but compared to other fathers, he is “old,” doesn’t play football, doesn’t have an interesting job, and reads all the time. Their neighbor, Miss Maudie, helps them understand him a bit better, finding out he is a crack shot helps immensely, and the course of events eventually helps them to see him for the man that he is.

One of the most poignant parts of the book for me was when Scout was helping her Aunt Alexandra (who throughout the book tries to make Scout into a lady) at a ladies’ missionary meeting. There are poor examples of womanhood, such as when some of the women say embarrassing things to Scout for a laugh and when others gossip or others laud the heart of missionaries in other countries but fail to acknowledge needs in their own county. When Atticus comes in with bad news about Tom and asks his colored cook to go with him to Tom’s wife, Scout, Miss Maudie, and Scout are shaken. But they don’t want to let the ladies know what has happened, so they put on a brave face and go back out and serve refreshments. Aunt Alexandra smiles at Scout, who thinks to herself, “If Aunty could be a lady at a time like this, so could I.” That contrast between real womanhood and the silliness of so many, and Scout’s realization of it, just spoke volumes to me.

So what does a mockingbird have to do with all of this? When the children are given air rifles one Christmas, Atticus tells them they can “shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” Miss Maudie explains to Scout that mockingbirds don’t do people any harm, but they “sing their hearts out for us.” This metaphor of it being a sin to harm the innocent comes up throughout the book, especially beautifully near the end when Scout realizes its meaning and applies it to Boo Radley as well.

Miss Maudie tells the children after the trial, “Atticus Finch won’t win, he can’t win, but he’s the only man in these parts who can keep a jury out so long in a case like this…We’re making a step – it’s just a baby step, but it’s a step.” Though the battle in this case was lost, there was much that happened that made it a baby step in the right direction. Race relations in this country are still not what they should be, but they’re a far cry from what they were in this time period, mostly due to individual steps along the way, some large and some small. I don’t know if massive cultural changes can be made by a revolution: I think they often come through slow change, through individual men and women standing up and doing the right thing within their sphere of influence.

Some quotes that especially stood out:

Atticus to Scout: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Miss Maudie (a neighbor) to Scout: “Atticus Finch is the same in his house as he is in the public streets.”

Scout: “Atticus, are we going to win it?”

“No, Honey.”

“Then, why – “

“Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.”

When Atticus tries to explain to Scout that “n-lover” is a term that “ignorant, trashy people use,” she ask, “You’re not rely one, then, are you?” He replies, “I certainly am. I do my best to love everybody.”

When Scout and Jem are asked to visit the crusty Mrs. DuBose, unaware that in her dying days she is trying to come out of a morphine addiction brought on my treatment of her illness: “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

Miss Maudie to the children: “There are some men in this world who are born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father’s one of them…We’re so rarely called upon to be Christians, but when we are, we’ve got men like Atticus to go for us.”

Miss Maudie to Aunt Alexandra: “Whether Maycomb knows it or not, we’re paying the highest tribute we can pay a man. We trust him to do right…The handful of people in this town who say that fair play is not marked White Only; the handful of people who say a fair trial is for everybody, not just us.”

When Scout comments that a boy who was thought to have done certain misdeeds hadn’t and was actually “real nice,” Atticus replies: “Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.”

I think Lee is an excellent author. There is so much that she brought out so well that I can’t explain or portray any more than I have. It is too bad she only wrote the one book.

The only thing that mars the book is a smattering of bad language – some “damns” and “hells” and a couple of instances of taking God’s name in vain. I am not shocked by them because I grew up in an environment where that kind of talk was common, but my family now doesn’t use that kind of language, and I usually avoid books with it. I don’t like to feed them into my brain. I had forgotten they were in this book. I always struggle with whether to recommend a book that is a great read in every way except this. That is up to the individual reader.

I first read this book in 2008, and I purposely didn’t read that review until I got done with this one. It was interesting to see what things stood out to me both times.

I’m thankful that Annette chose this book for Carrie’s book club. I listened to the audiobook ably narrated by Sissy Spacek, and her Southern accent really added to the feel of the story.

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

Reading Challenge Wrap-Up

Posted on December 15, 2014 by Barbara Harper

I’ve been finished with the TBR Pile Challenge for a while and finished or close to finished with the others as well, so I thought I would wrap them up all in one post except for the Back to the Classics Challenge, which I should complete within a few days. Some of these will overlap – I could not have participated in multiple challenges if they hadn’t.

The 2014 TBR Pile Challenge hosted by Roof Beam Reader was to read 12 books in a year that have been on your shelves unread with a publication date before 2013. My original post is here. My links are to my reviews:

1. Made to Crave: Satisfying Your Deepest Desire with God, Not Food by Lisa TerKeurst

2. Crowded to Christ by L. E. Maxwell

3. Ida Scudder: Healing Bodies, Touching Hearts by Janet and Geoff Benge

4. The House Is Quiet, Now What? by Janice Hanna and Kathleen Y’Barbo

5. How to Read Slowly by James W. Sire

6. How to Be a Writer by Barbara Baig

7. Walking From East to West: God in the Shadows by Ravi Zacharias

8. The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis

9. Loving the Church by John Crotts

10. The Book of Three by Alexander Lloyd

11. Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God by Michael Kelley

12. Why We Are Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck

I did not read How To Be a Writer. I want to some time, but just couldn’t get motivated to start it this year. However, we were allowed two alternates and I read both of them, totally 13 books for this challenge:

Girl in the Gatehouse by Julie Klassen

Just Jane: A Novel of Jane Austen’s Life by Nancy Moser

I haven’t decided yet if I will do this challenge next year, but I did like that it did motivate me to get to books that had been untouched on my shelves or in my Kindle app for too long.

The Cloud of Witnesses Challenge was sponsored by Becky at Operation Actually Read Bible, and the idea was to read nonfiction books by godly authors who have gone on to be with Jesus. Sermons or articles could count as well, but I did not keep track of those. I did plan to read at least four books, but got a little more in:

Crowded to Christ by L. E. Maxwell

How I Know God Answers Prayer by Rosalind Goforth

Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis

The Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer

On Stories and Other Essays on Literature by C. S. Lewis. I am not sure if this counts – it is non-fiction, and C. S. Lewis is in heaven, but though it is not a theological book, it does apply spiritual truth to the topic.

The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses by C. S. Lewis

By the end of the year I will also have completed Traveling Toward Sunrise, a daily devotional by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman, Daily Light, a devotional of Scripture verses compiled by Samuel Bagster, and Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, a compilation of essays compiled by Nancy Guthrie having to do with Christmas (some of those authors there would fit this category – Luther, Whitefield, Lloyd-Jones, Edwards, Spurgeon, Augustine, Schaeffer, etc.).

I am thankful to Becky for this challenge. It had been a long time since I had read Tozer and some of these types of books, and it was very beneficial to get back into them.

The Nonfiction Reading Challenge was to read any non-fiction book on any topic. There were different levels one could aim for:

Dilettante–Read 1-5 non-fiction books

Explorer–Read 6-10

Seeker–Read 11-15

Master–Read 16-20

I was aiming for Seeker. The non-fiction books I read so far this year are:

Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus compiled by Nancy Guthrie

Crowded to Christ by L. E. Maxwell

Gospel Meditations for Missions, not reviewed.

Gospel Meditations for the Hurting by Chris Anderson and Joe Tyrpak, not reviewed.

The House Is Quiet, Now What? by Janice Hanna and Kathleen Y’Barbo

How I Know God Answers Prayer by Rosalind Goforth

How to Read Slowly by James W. Sire

Ida Scudder: Healing Bodies, Touching Hearts by Janet and Geoff Benge

Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me: A Memoir of Sorts by Ian Morgan Cron

The Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer

Loving the Church by John Crotts

Made to Crave Action Plan Participant’s Guide by Lysa TerKeurst and Ski Chilton

Made to Crave: Satisfying Your Deepest Desire with God, Not Food by Lisa TerKeurst

Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis

On Stories and Other Essays on Literature by C. S. Lewis

Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity by Nabeel Qureshi

Walking From East to West: God in the Shadows by Ravi Zacharias

Walking in the Spirit: A Study Through Galatians 5 by Steve Pettit

Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God by Michael Kelley

The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses by C. S. Lewis

Why We Are Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck

Women of the Word by Jen Wilkin

In addition to Traveling Toward Sunrise and Daily Light, mentioned above, I will also have completed Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room by Nancy Guthrie.

So that’s 22, or 25 including the ones I will finish by year’s end, more than I had planned. Since I usually gravitate toward fiction, I am pleased. The TBR Challenge contributed greatly to this one: most of the books I have on my shelves but have not read yet are non-fiction.

As I said with the TBR challenge, I have not yet decided whether to participate in any of these next year, assuming all of the hosts will be hosting them again. I did enjoy that they got some books into my reading that might not have gotten there otherwise, but I didn’t like the self-imposed feeling of pressure at the beginning of the year that I “had” to get these done before I could pick up any book just for pleasure. I am not going to think about it until after Christmas. But I would recommend any of these challenges to you: they were all beneficial.

Book Review: The Return of Sherlock Holmes

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Barbara Harper

This book by Arthur Conan Doyle is titled The Return of Sherlock Holmes because Holmes was thought to have died at the end of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle had wanted to end the Holmes series to concentrate on historical novels, but he published The Hound of the Baskervilles (set before Holmes’ supposed death though published after) a few years later, and it was such a success that he was pressured to revive the series. Holmes returns to a stunned Watson three years after his disappearance, explaining that though Moriarty died (at the same time Holmes was thought to), his men were still alive and knew that Holmes was as well – one of them sought to kill him in the moments after Moriarty’s death. But Holmes is on their trail and has returned in disguise back to London.

This book is a series of short stories that appeared first in a magazine called The Strand over 1903-1904. Holmes’s clients vary from a governess to the prime minister, and the cases include a missing heir, a stalker, a blackmailer, and crust ship’s captain, busted busts of Napoleon, a student cheating on an exam, a missing rugby player, a false testimony, and a stolen document which could lead to war if not found. Quite a variety! Watson says “As I have preserved very full notes of all these cases, and was myself personally engaged in many of them, it may be imagined that it is no easy task to know which I should select to lay before the public. I shall, however, preserve my former rule, and give the preference to those cases which derive their interest not so much from the brutality of the crime as from the ingenuity and dramatic quality of the solution.” Holmes accuses Watson once of sensationalism: “Your fatal habit of looking at everything from the point of view of a story instead of as a scientific exercise has ruined what might have been an instructive and even classical series of demonstrations. You slur over work of the utmost finesse and delicacy, in order to dwell upon sensational details which may excite, but cannot possibly instruct, the reader.” When asked why Holmes doesn’t write them himself, he replies that one day he will in textbook form.

Holmes’s personality continues to unfold in these stories. Here are a few of Watson’s comments:

“My friend, who loved above all things precision and concentration of thought, resented anything which distracted his attention from the matter in hand. And yet, without a harshness which was foreign to his nature, it was impossible to refuse to listen to the story of the young and beautiful woman, tall, graceful, and queenly, who presented herself at Baker Street late in the evening, and implored his assistance and advice.”

“Holmes, however, like all great artists, lived for his art’s sake, and, save in the case of the Duke of Holdernesse, I have seldom known him claim any large reward for his inestimable services. So unworldly was he—or so capricious—that he frequently refused his help to the powerful and wealthy where the problem made no appeal to his sympathies, while he would devote weeks of most intense application to the affairs of some humble client whose case presented those strange and dramatic qualities which appealed to his imagination and challenged his ingenuity.”

“Lestrade and I sat silent for a moment, and then, with a spontaneous impulse, we both broke at clapping, as at the well-wrought crisis of a play. A flush of colour sprang to Holmes’s pale cheeks, and he bowed to us like the master dramatist who receives the homage of his audience. It was at such moments that for an instant he ceased to be a reasoning machine, and betrayed his human love for admiration and applause. The same singularly proud and reserved nature which turned away with disdain from popular notoriety was capable of being moved to its depths by spontaneous wonder and praise from a friend.”

“My friend’s temper had not improved since he had been deprived of the congenial surroundings of Baker Street. Without his scrapbooks, his chemicals, and his homely untidiness, he was an uncomfortable man.”

“I may have remarked before that Holmes had, when he liked, a peculiarly ingratiating way with women, and that he very readily established terms of confidence with them. In half the time which he had named, he had captured the housekeeper’s goodwill and was chatting with her as if he had known her for years.”

“Sherlock Holmes was a past-master in the art of putting a humble witness at his ease.”

Some of what I have read concerning modern depictions of Holmes seem to cast him as socially awkward, even rude, and perhaps having Asberger’s. I think these samples show that he was not socially awkward at all – he was described as being quite genial when he wanted to be, and he could carry on a conversation with anyone. But he preferred working alone or with Watson and one or two others – a classic introvert, in my opinion.

There were a few cases before now and a couple of cases here where Holmes decided justice was served, and he did not see a reason to report his findings to the police even when he was working with them. In one case he said, “No, I couldn’t do it, Watson…Once that warrant was made out, nothing on earth would save him. Once or twice in my career I feel that I have done more real harm by my discovery of the criminal than ever he had done by his crime. I have learned caution now, and I had rather play tricks with the law of England than with my own conscience. Let us know a little more before we act.” I wouldn’t advocate that in real life, but it did make sense in the context of the story.

At the end of this book Holmes was said to have retired, and only allowed Watson to tell a few of the stories long after they occurred. Since there are three more books about him, however, either he didn’t retire, or those stories are more past cases.

Once again I listened to the audiobook version superbly narrated by Derek Jacobi. In my journey through the Holmes books, I look for versions read by Jacobi now. I also looked at some portions in closer detail in the online version of the book provided by Project Gutenberg.

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

Why Read? Why Read Fiction? Why Read Christian Fiction?

Posted on November 12, 2014 by Barbara Harper

I have been reading Christian fiction for some 35 years or so, and for the most part have loved it. It has ministered to me in many ways. I always wince a bit when I hear someone “slam” it. Especially when they say “All Christian fiction is…” whatever it is they don’t like about it. My snarky(and probably fleshly) inward response is “You haven’t read all of it.” 🙂

I’m probably not going to convince anyone who is dead set against it, and that’s fine. We can still be friends. 🙂 But I wanted to share why I find it valuable, and to do that, it seems to me I need to start with reasons to read anything in the first place, and then reasons to read fiction, and then Christian fiction.

Why Read?

God chose to communicate to us through words. He created the world by speaking. His Son is called “the Word.” The Bible contains a number of different genres (poetry, history, letters, narrative, forensics).

To gain information

To learn – about other people’s experiences, other points of view, any of the many things we don’t know yet or know as much as there is to know

To understand how things work

To understand how others feel and develop empathy.

To gain perspective

To gain wisdom

To broaden horizons. There are places you’ll likely never go, experiences you’ll likely never have, except by reading about them. On the other hand, something you read may spark an interest in a new venture.

To understand your own culture better

To understand other cultures

To strengthen your views

To know you are not alone in your views.

To test your own beliefs against others

To understand others’ views

To improve reasoning skills

To find others who express thoughts you’ve had but couldn’t quite put into words

To improve concentration and focus

To improve vocabulary and communication skills

To relax

To be amused

To be challenged

To profitably pass time

To be surprised

To stave off boredom

To be inspired

To become a more well-rounded person

To become more creative

To immerse oneself in a subject. Randy Alcorn wrote at the end of Courageous that they wanted to write a full book after the movie partly so that people could spend 10 hours in a book thinking over the topics involved rather than just 2 hours of a film.

For enjoyment and pleasure

To understand cultural references so that when someone quotes Dickens or Frost or Shakespeare you have some idea who they’re talking about. If someone mentions “Two roads diverged….,” knowing the poem and its subject enriches your understanding of what the person is referring to.

To have a point of contact with one’s fellow man or woman. A friend’s son was planning to go into a vocational job working with his hands and struggled with literature classes. She felt that her son’s time and mental powers would be better employed just reading and studying the Bible. But even the apostle Paul quoted poets and took time to understand other people’s culture as a way of understanding them as a people and having a point of reference from which to share the gospel (Titus 1:11-13, Acts 17:21-23).

To inspire “noble action.”

“All literature, all philosophy, all history, all abounds with incentives to noble action which would be buried in black darkness were the light of the written word not flashed upon them.” – Cicero, Pro Archia

“I believe stories can broaden our empathy, helping us to love. They tell us we’re not alone. But they can also give us something to live up to, whetting our appetite for virtues we don’t yet have.” James D. Witmer, Stories That Lead By Example

To think. I found it interesting that a daughter of a friend teaching English and American culture in a Communist country said that parents there did not read books to their children for pleasure.

“Books are weapons in the war of ideas.” – U.S. Government Printing Office, Office of War Information, S. Broder (artist) 1942 World War II Poster. In totalitarian societies, books that disagree with national policy are banned.

“The books that help you most are those which make you think the most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.” Theodore Parker (1810 – 1860) (seen at Carrie’s)

To glean from the minds of great thinkers.

“The reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest men of past centuries who were the authors of them, nay a carefully studied conversation, in which they reveal to us none but the best of their thoughts.” Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650) (seen at Carrie’s).

To comprehend right and wrong

“The great fairy tales and fantasy stories capture the meaning of morality through vivid depictions of the struggle between good and evil, where characters must make difficult choices between right and wrong, or heroes and villains contest the very fate of imaginary worlds.” Vigen Guroian, Tending the Heart of Virtue

To gain power. Thanks to Janet for this one. She shared that

“In his autobiography, Frederick Douglass writes that his owner forbade his wife to teach a slave to read on the grounds that it would ‘forever unfit him to be a slave.’ ‘I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty — to wit, the white man’s power to enslave the black man,’ writes Douglass. ‘It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom… I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read.’”

Why Read Fiction?

You may agree with all the reasons listed so far for reading, but you want to read what’s “real” and have no room for fiction in your life. Here are some things to think about regarding reading fiction. I believe all of the above reasons apply to fiction as well as non-fiction, but here are some that apply primarily to fiction:

God employed fiction in the Bible (Nathan to David, parables in the NT, story of the bramble in the OT, plus many others). We have to be careful not to fictionalize or label as myth what the Bible indicates as fact – as someone once said of Bible interpretation, “Where common sense makes good sense don’t seek any other sense.” Some people want to categorize much of the Old Testament as myth, and that is going way too far for too many reasons to go into here. But God does make use of stories.

God created imagination and stories employ it.

A story might provide conviction and instruction when we see ourselves in the story (Nathan to David in the story about a lamb, Aesop’s fables). A lecture or direct confrontation is not always the best approach. In It Takes a Pirate to Raise a Child by Daniel B. Coupland, he tells of a time when he was trying to get across to his young son why the way he was acting towards his sisters was wrong. The son did not comprehend or agree with what his father was saying until he said, “You’re acting like Edmund” in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis. Then he “got it” and not only realized where he was wrong, but “The reference to Edmund hit my son in a very deep place in his heart, which only stories can reach.”

Fiction fleshes out truth. Sometimes during a sermon I am following along and understanding but find myself wondering what that truth looks like in real life. A story or illustration helps us know how to apply truth or helps us understand the truth better.

Fiction appeals to our minds. Somehow most of us are wired to tune in to a story. I read one preacher who lamented that his listeners got drowsy while he exposited Scripture but perked up when he told a story. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are unspiritual and shallow. I have often fought sleepiness during a message I really wanted to hear but then found myself wide awake when the preacher began to tell a story. That’s not to say preachers should tell more stories than preach the Bible – we do need to discipline ourselves to hear sound doctrine. But it is not always due to laziness that are minds are attracted to stories.

Here are what greater minds than mine have said about fiction:

“The appeal of stories is universal, and all of us are incessant storytellers during the course of a typical day.” Justin Taylor, How Stories Work

“Good literature erects bridges between different peoples, and by having us enjoy, suffer, or feel surprise, unites us beneath the languages, beliefs, habits, customs, and prejudices that separate us. When the great white whale buries Captain Ahab in the sea, the hearts of readers take fright in exactly the same way in Tokyo, Lima, or Timbuctu.” ~Mario Vargas Llosa, Seen at Semicolon

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. As by the one, health is preserved, strengthened and invigorated; by the other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished and confirmed. But as exercise becomes tedious and painful when we make use of it only as the means of health, so reading is apt to grow uneasy and burdensome, when we apply ourselves to it only for our improvement in virtue. For this reason, the virtue which we gather from a fable, or an allegory, is like the health we get by hunting; as we are engaged in an agreeable pursuit that draws us on with pleasure, and makes us insensible of the fatigues that accompany it.” -Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, The Tatler No. 147

“Stories give children the opportunity to think about morals, lessons, and conflict resolution. With practice, children begin to search for the moral at the end of the story, and some will even structure their own stories around a specific message. Children who listen and tell many stories begin to recognize trends in human behavior. Their perspectives expand, and they become more critical, observant thinkers. They begin to consider in broader terms what it means to be helpful, mean, practical, hopeful, spiteful or considerate. Creating characters – which teaches that multiple perspectives exist at every moment – gives children invaluable tool for understanding others and for finding their way in the world.” (page 13) Show Me a Story: 40 Craft Projects and Activities to Spark Children’s Storytelling, HT to Carrie.

“Some Christians view fiction as the opposite of truth. But sometimes it opens eyes to the truth more effectively than nonfiction.” – Randy Alcorn.

“It is only a novel… or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language” ― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” – G.K. Chesterton

“It might be expected that such a book would unfit us for the harshness of reality and send us back into our daily lives unsettled and discontent. I do not find that it does so….Story, paradoxically enough, strengthens our relish for real life. This excursion into the preposterous [speaking here of The Wind in the Willows] sends us back with renewed pleasure to the actual” –C. S. Lewis, On Stories and Other Essays on Literature, p. 14

Since it is so likely [children] will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. – C. S. Lewis, On Stories and Other Essays on Literature, p. 39

“The value of myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by the ‘veil of familiarity.’ The child enjoys his cold meat (otherwise dull to him) by pretending it is buffalo, just killed with his own bow and arrow. And the child is wise. The real meat comes back to him more savory for having been dipped in a story…If you are tired of the real landscape, look at it in a mirror. By putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it. As long as the story lingers in our mind, the real things are more themselves. This book [LOTR] applies the treatment not only to bread and apple but to good and evil, to our endless perils, our anguish, and our joys. By dipping them in myth we see them more clearly.” – – C. S. Lewis, On Stories and Other Essays on Literature, p. 90

Why Read Christian Fiction?

In addition to all of the above reasons for reading, which I believe can be applied to Christian fiction as well, here are some reasons particular to Christian fiction:

The missing element. Even the best of secular stories tends to leave God out of the picture and have the characters acting on their own initiative. Christian fiction shows how a Christian might act in dependence on God in some of these scenarios.

To see how Christians act in everyday life. I’ve mentioned here before that my mother was not, as far as I know, a Christian as I was growing up. In her later years she had some questions and concerns about it, but she did not want to discuss it. It was too sensitive, too personal for her to open up about it. I began sending her some of the Christian fiction I was reading. Not only did she enjoy the stories (Terri Blackstock and Dee Henderson were a couple of her favorites), but it helped her to see what Christianity in action looked like (we lived 1,000 miles away, so though we talked and wrote, we didn’t have that everyday life contact back when there was no texting or Facebook to keep in touch every day).

To display the gospel. I don’t think every Christian story has to include the plan of salvation or show a conversion, but if the gospel affects every aspect of our lives, that would be displayed in the stories in some way. I went into this further in an earlier post titled The Gospel and Christian Fiction. To repeat one thought from that post, while not every Christian story needs to explain the whole gospel, what it does share needs to be accurate. Because some have accused Christian fiction of being too “preachy” (more on that later), the pendulum has swung the other way lately, and some authors have tried to make their message a little more subtle. That can be fine: some stories would call for the book’s message to be a little more explicit, some call for more subtlety. But in some cases subtlety has generated obscurity or even misleading statements. I would not have sent those kinds to my mom so as not to confuse her, though a mature Christian might benefit from them.

To learn spiritual truth.

To be helped in your own life by another’s example. Just one instance of this in my life: for several years of our married life, my husband had to travel quite a bit, and I was often discouraged about it. During one of those periods I was reading Janette Oke’s A Quiet Strength, and the young wife in the story was experiencing something similar with her husband having to be away much of the time to work. Even though our ages, life situations, time in history, and number of years married was different, I was still encouraged by what she found that encouraged herself.

It’s clean – or should be. There is a growing trend to use bad language or sexual scenes to be more “realistic,” but I think explicitness in either vein is detrimental. I wrote about these elements in The Language of Christians and Sexuality in Christian Fiction, so I won’t reproduce those thoughts here.

Charges against Christian fiction:

Here are some complaints about Christian fiction that I have heard or read:

“It is predictable.” The person who is not a Christian becomes one or the problem a Christian has is solved or the lesson learned. But isn’t there a measure of predictability in every genre? Usually the guy and the girl get together in a romance, the detective figures out the mystery and “whodunnit,” the good guys win in the Western, the doctor helps save the patient, etc. (unless it is a series, and then a few lost cases are thrown in for realism). We expect a certain ending with most of the books we read, and the fun is in seeing how it is done and what unexpected twists and turns arise on the journey.

“It’s too preachy” or it is more of a sermon in the guise of a story. I’ve only found that occasionally. Of course authors, Christian or secular, usually do have some kind of truth they are trying to convey, but usually they try not to be blatant about it. Sometimes they are accused of being blatant when they are not: in C. S. Lewis’s book On Stories, he quotes Dorothy L. Sayers as saying, about the assumption that she wrote to “do good”: “My object was to tell that story to the best of my ability, within the medium at my disposal — in short, to make as good a work of art as I could. For a work of art that is not good and true in art is not good and true in any other respect” (p. 93). An author’s worldview is going to seep out into his story in some way. Lewis said that the Narnia stories were not intended as an allegory. They started with a couple of pictures in his mind, one of a faun, and some “supposings,” and developed from there.

I mentioned earlier that Christian fiction will show the everyday activity of Christians, so obviously there will possibly be prayer, reading and discussing Biblical truths, going to church, etc., in the story. But those elements should be woven in as naturally as possible and not just tossed in to label a character as Christian. One of the best at this is Jan Karon in her Mitford books, which are not even marketed as Christian fiction but convey a definite element of faith.

“The characters are too perfect.” I have rarely found this to be the case in the Christian fiction I have read. Most writers strive to make their characters realistically flawed.

“It’s poorly written.” I have only a handful of times found a Christian fiction book that I thought was truly terrible. There are some Christian novels that are mediocre, but, again, that could be said of any genre. I have found plenty of Christian fiction that has kept me glued to the page, instructed or inspired me, and some that had me looking up at the ceiling thinking, “I wish I could write like that.”

“As soon as someone becomes a Christian in the book, all of their problems are solved and they live happily ever after.” Again, I have rarely found that to be the case in the Christian fiction I have read, especially in recent years.

I think some of these charges might have been more true of some of the earliest Christian fiction, but most authors I have read over the last 25+ years have striven to make their characters and plots and realistic as possible.

If someone truly feels convicted that they should not read Christian fiction, of course one shouldn’t violate conscience. I have mentioned missionary Isobel Kuhn many times. For a time she came to a place of laying aside fiction because one time, after finishing a very exciting novel, she tried to read her Bible and couldn’t engage with what she was reading. She felt the Lord was telling her that trying to read the Bible after a novel was like trying to eat dinner after ice cream. She felt the fiction was stunting her taste for the Bible (I don’t know what kind of fiction it was). To that I would say, as parents the world over have, don’t eat your dessert before your main course. 🙂 Make sure to put Bible reading before any other reading. Probably that same kind of thing would happen if trying to read the Bible just after an exciting ball game or social gathering or play: it takes a bit of time to “change gears.” But I wouldn’t argue with someone who felt this way: sometimes God does call us to put aside things that aren’t harmful in themselves in order to give first place to the best things. Later on when Isobel’s husband became a superintendent for their mission and had to travel frequently, and she was left alone in lonely mountain villages for long periods of time, she did come back to the classics for moments of respite and company. She felt like she was visiting with old friends, and because she was familiar with them, she didn’t have the temptation to neglect duties to stay glued to the book to see what happened.

I am not saying Christians should only read Christian books – not at all. One good post I’ve seen on that subject is Three Reasons to Diversify Your Reading.

I am also not endorsing all Christian fiction. Just as I wince when someone says they think it is all bad, I would also wince to hear someone say it is all good. We need to use discernment in everything we read. I have found some Christian fiction that I did feel was either poorly written or was off-base in something it said, but those have been the minority.

Conventional blogging wisdom would suggest that I divide this up into several posts – but personally I like having it all in one place even though it makes for too long a post. I hope you don’t mind. I also have a few more quotes I was going to share about books and reading, but I think I will save those for another time.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about reading fiction and Christian fiction.

“Every great story tells in some part The Great Story. Each truth revealed helps us make sense of our world. And through each tragedy, comedy, and fairy tale, the Truth is woven through the fabric of our being.” – Julie Silander, Threads

(Sharing with Booknificent Thursday)

Why Read Biographies?

Posted on October 31, 2014 by Barbara Harper

You would think a post like this would come at the beginning of a series titled 31 Days of Inspirational Biography rather than the end. That would have been more logical – but I didn’t think of it then beyond the few remarks in my introductory post. However, having been steeped in biographies all this month, I have been reminded of several good reasons to pursue them.

I’ve always been interested in people’s stories, in what makes them tick. The very first book I remember checking out at my school library in first or second grade was a biography of Martin Luther (that may not have been the first book I ever actually checked out, but it is the first I remember). I’m sure I read more through my school years, but it was at college that an older woman spoke to a group of us involved in praying for missionaries about her years of reading missionary biographies and the benefit they were to her. That got me started reading Christian and missionary biographies, and that practice was reinforced at the first church we attended after we were married, where a part of the monthly ladies’ meetings included a book report by one of the officers from one of the books in the group’s lending library. So I have been purposefully reading biographies for some 35+ years.

The first benefits that come to mind from reading biographies are the same first benefits gained from reading anything: learning about other places, times, cultures, people, gaining empathy for the people in the story, and understanding how other people think and react.

While you can derive these benefits even from fiction (I have another post in the works about the benefit of reading fiction), biographies and “true life” stories have the advantage of being real. Though spiritual truth can be conveyed even in fiction, in a biography there is no arguing with how the story should have ended or what directions the plot should have taken. If you believe in God, as I do, part of reading a biography is tracing His hand in people’s lives, even, perhaps especially, when the circumstances are different from what we would have thought they would or should be. Though I primarily read Christian biographies, I enjoy some secular ones, and it is interesting to see not only what has influenced them, but they also often have some brush with spiritual truth (Robert Burns‘ story, for example).

We learn history for a number of reasons, among them: to better understand our current times, to appreciate our heritage, to avoid repeating mistakes. There are heroes in our national history who inspire us to a love of country and duty and courage. There are heroes of our spiritual heritage who inspire us in love and dedication to God and to greater faith in remembering that the God they served and loved and Who provided for and used them is the very same God we love and serve today and Who will provide for and use us. Though times and culture change, human nature at its core doesn’t change much, and God never changes.

For me the primary reason for reading Christian biographies is to follow others as they follow Christ, as Paul said. No, they won’t be perfect, but we can learn from their mistakes just as we learn from David’s or Peter’s in the Bible. Missionaries would never want to be thought of as super-Christians or a step above anyone spiritually, but by and large there usually is a seriousness and maturity in their walk with the Lord, some wrestlings and overcomings, if they have gone through everything they need to in order to get to a mission field. Even though I am not called to “the” mission field (it’s my belief that every Christian is called to “a” mission field, whether on foreign soil or in their own homes and neighborhoods), I can still learn much from what Christians who have gone before me have learned and experienced.

Some people, including a former pastor of mine, don’t like to read older biographies because they made the subjects seem almost too good to be true. Even Isobel Kuhn, whose writing I love, put Amy Carmichael’s books, which I also love, back on the shelf because she thought she was too high and unattainable (I think Amy would either be highly dismayed or would laugh that anyone thought such about her). Admittedly some older Christian biographies can seem unrealistically perfect. I think there are several reasons for this: I think a “warts and all” type of biography was not the fashion in older times like it is today, even in secular biographies, and since Christians are generally instructed to give each other the benefit of the doubt, love each other, overlook each other’s faults, and not gossip or “backbite,” I think that would come into play in writing a biography as well. Yet the Bible shares people’s faults and sins in a realistic and not malicious way. I think we relate to people better when we can see that they are as human as we are, but they acknowledge their faults and are growing in sanctification. I think many of them would probably blush to read the glowing reports people wrote after their deaths.

Let me share, as well, some points to keep in mind when reading Christian biographies.

When reading any book, of course we filter everything through our own frame of reference. But an author can’t possibly know what every reader’s frame of reference will be even in her own time, much less hundreds of years later. So it is the reader’s responsibility to try to figure out the author’s frame of reference or at least to give the benefit of the doubt.

Different times and cultures will yield different practices. It’s fairly common in older missionary biographies for them to speak of servants. That doesn’t mean they were living upper class Western lifestyles while ministering to more primitive people. In more primitive cultures especially, sometimes they would hire help in the kitchen or for certain household tasks so the couple, particularly the wife, could teach or minister in other ways. (Even in modern times I had a missionary friend who mourned over having to spend so much time in the kitchen instead of in ministerial pursuits: if that is so today, imagine what it would have been like 100+ years ago). Too, in some cultures where becoming a Christian could cost someone their job or family standing, sometimes missionaries would hire them in order to help them out. Today they might say they hired help or employed someone; likely no one would use the word “servant” today. Another example would be schooling situations. In a lot of older biographies, missionaries sent their kids off to a mission school at a fairly young age because there was no appropriate school available and home schooling as it is known today was unheard of. Often it was agonizing for both parents and children, and some stories share how God gave grace for the parents to cope. We can’t really hold it against parents then for sending their kids off if that’s all they knew to do at the time. I think the hardships involved as well as the realization that educating and raising their kids was a part of their ministry and testimony led to the changes we see today, where most missionaries home school and some send their kids to public schools in town. But we can understand that God could give grace to people who sent their kids away to school even while that is not a choice most of us would make today.

Even in the more glowing missionary books, you won’t agree with everything. You likely wouldn’t agree with everything even in a biography of your best friend or closest loved one. No two of us is going to agree on every little point of faith and practice. One of the things that stood out to me in 50 People Every Christian Should Know by Warren Wiersbe is that a lot of those people would be on opposite sides of certain fences from each other, yet God used them all. That doesn’t mean the fences and sides don’t matter: each of us is responsible to search out issues and take the stands we feel most faithfully represent Scripture. There are fundamental or foundational issues on which we cannot budge, but there are some beliefs and practices where we can give each other room to differ.

On the other hand, there are those foundational issues to consider. If someone is preaching a false gospel which is going to lead his followers to hell, we need to be aware of that and even warn people about it even though some of what they might say sounds compatible with Scripture, which tells us to “rebuke them sharply,” “mark them and avoid them,” “receive him not. ” Even the devil uses Scripture and appears as an “angel of light.”

I think to sum up what I have been verbosely trying to say in the last few paragraphs, we need to be discerning but not critical.

On the other hand, you might find practices you want to emulate, but don’t feel you necessarily need to change everything with every biography you read. In my early years of reading them, I might be inspired by how one had their time in the Bible, and in the next book I’d see a different way and wonder if I should try that. Feel free to try some of those things and glean what works best for you, but don’t feel tossed about or feel you have to do something just like they did.

Instruction. Encouragement. Inspiration. Illustration of the Christian life in action – overcoming difficulties, growing, seeking God’s wisdom, help and grace. Comfort from that which has comforted others. Warning from their mistakes. These are among the many reasons I enjoy reading Christian biographies.

I’ve often said that reading Christian biographies has been the most influential impact in my Christian life, next to the Word of God itself. I’ve posted this poem before, discovered by an unknown author in the first pages of Rosalind Goforth’s Climbing, but I post it here again as it embodies what Christian biographies have been to me:

Call Back!

If you have gone a little way ahead of me, call back-
It will cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track;
And if, perchance, Faith’s light is dim, because the oil is low,
Your call will guide my lagging course as wearily I go.

Call back, and tell me that He went with you into the storm;
Call back, and say He kept you when forest’s roots were torn;
That when the heavens thunder and the earthquake shook the hill.
He bore you up and held where the very air was still.

O friend, call back, and tell me for I cannot see your face;
They say it glows with triumph, and your feet bound in the race;
But there are mists between us and my spirit eyes are dim,
And I cannot see the glory, though I long for word of Him.

But if you’ll say He heard you when your prayer was but a cry,
And if you’ll say He saw you through the night’s sin-darkened sky-
If you have gone a little way ahead, O friend, call back-
It will cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track.

Robert Murray McCheyne said of Jonathan Edwards, “How feeble does my spark of Christianity appear beside such a sun! But even his was a borrowed light, and the same source is still open to enlighten me.” May we learn from these “borrowed lights” to seek the same Light they did.

For the 31 Days writing challenge, I have been sharing 31 Days of Inspirational Biography. You can find others in this series here.

(Sharing with Literary Musing Monday)

31 Days of Inspirational Biography: A Short List of Several

Posted on October 30, 2014 by Barbara Harper

For the 31 Days writing challenge, I am sharing 31 Days of Inspirational Biography. You can find others in the series here.

As we near the end of the 31 Days writing challenge, I find I have many more inspirational biographies I’d like to share than days left in the month, so I’d like to share a short list of the ones I didn’t get to with a few comments on each.

Last year I wrote about 31 Days of Missionary Stories and ended with a list of the favorites I had read over some 37 or so years. In addition to those, plus the ones I have listed for 31 Days of Inspirational Biography this year, I can recommend these (those with links are ones I have reviewed and linked back to):

Kitty, My Rib by E. Jane Mall is story of the wife of Reformer Martin Luther. He was a former priest, she was a former nun. She was a well-suited complement to his personality.

Ida Scudder: Healing Bodies, Touching Hearts by Janet and Geoff Benge. The Benges actually have a series of biographies aimed primarily at younger people, but I have enjoyed the ones I have read. Ida was a daughter of a missionary doctor in India and had absolutely no plans of being a missionary herself until one night when three different women died whom her father could have helped but who were not allowed to be seen by a male doctor. She eventually became a doctor herself and went back to India.

Bruchko: The Astonishing True Story of a 19-Year-Old American, His Capture by the Motilone Indians and His Adventures in Christianizing the Stone Age Tribe by Bruce Olson. I really wanted to talk about this one this month, but it has been too many years since I read it and I did not have time to reread it this month. I do remember thinking he was perhaps a little headstrong, but overall it was a great book.

Dorie, The Girl Nobody Loved by Dorie N. Van Stone. It has been years since I’ve read this one, too, and I’d like to reread it some time, but the story of a grueling, abusive childhood overcome by God’s grace was very touching.

Gifted Hands by Ben Carson. I’m not sure if Dr. Carson is a Christian, but this is a great book about overcoming difficulties in childhood and changing direction in life. He grew up in poverty, did not do well in school, and had a horrible temper, but ended up being a pioneering neurosurgeon.

The Valley Is Bright by Nell Collins, the story of her salvation, her training as a nurse and plans to go to Africa, and the disruption (as it seemed) of her life by a serious cancer diagnosis. Part of her testimony is here.

Walking From East to West: God in the Shadows by Ravi Zacharias. You may have heard his radio broadcasts or benefited from his apologetics ministry. This is the story of how he came to the Lord and some of the difficulties in doing so for those from an Eastern mindset.

The God I Love by Joni Eareckson Tada. I’d also recommend When God Weeps by Steve Estes and Joni, not a biography but a book about why God allows suffering, and Joni and Ken: An Untold Love Story by Ken and Joni Eareckson Tada.

The Titanic’s Last Hero about John Harper, who told people about the Lord while clinging to debris from the ship. A testimony of him is here.

Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore. How one man’s reluctant service in a homeless shelter led to a lifelong friendship. This was riveting.

Heir to a Dream by Pete Maravich. I mentioned in an earlier post that I wasn’t really a sports fan, but I loved this autobiography of “Pistol Pete.” His dad groomed him to play basketball, even tucking a basketball into his bed instead of a teddy bear. He achieved great success and acclaim, but it was all empty until he found Christ. I first heard a bit of his testimony on some news show – 20/20, I think – and he seemed so genuine that I had to read the book. I could not find that interview online, but I did find this one:

The Autobiography of George Muller. Wonderful testimony of his rescue from a debauched lifestyle to an exercise of faith in supporting orphanages by depending on God alone.

Mistaken Identity by Don & Susie Van Ryn, and Newell Colleen & Whitney Cerak. Another riveting story of two girls in a horrific accident, and the surviving one was identified as the other.

In Trouble and In Joy by Sharon James, short biographies of Ann Judson, Margaret Baxter, Ann Steele, and Frances Ridly Havergal.

Faithful Women and Their Extraordinary God by Noel Piper, short biographies of Sarah Edwards, Gladys Aylward, Lilias Trotter, Esther Ahn Kim, and Helen Roseveare.

Thunder Dog: The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero by Michael Hingson

50 People Every Christian Should Know: Learning From Spiritual Giants of the Faith by Warren Wiersbe

Infinitely More by Alex Krutov, about an abandoned orphan in Russia whom God brought to Himself.

A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken, about his relationship with his wife, their conversion after originally having no interest in Christianity, her cancer, and his letters to C. S. Lewis.

The Reel Story by Larry D. Vaughn. Wonderful story about how someone outside the “bubble” of the conservative Christian world ended up a Christian. Larry was a film buyer, and his pastor and almost everyone else said he should continue in his job to be a witness to the film community, but Larry felt his conscience pricked and provoked enough that he finally had to leave the business.

The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom about her family’s involvement in helping to hide Jews during WWII and the consequences.

More Precious Than Gold, the Fiery Trial of a Family’s Faith by John and Brenda Vaughn. A garage fire had devastating consequences for Mrs. Vaughn and her young daughter. This book details the circumstances and how God helped the family through this trial.

As I have shared biographies that have inspired me this month, I tried to include some from people of various walks of life and some that were older as well as some modern ones. I hope you’ve found something to inspire you in some of these posts as well.

Tomorrow I want to write about “Why Read Biographies.” I know, a post like that should probably have come at the beginning of this series. I didn’t think about it then, beyond the remarks in my introductory post, but as I have been steeped in biographies this month, some thought came to mind I thought I’d share.

31 Days of Inspirational Biography: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity

Posted on October 29, 2014 by Barbara Harper

In Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity Nabeel Qureshi first gives a window into a loving and devout Muslim home, with all its practices, disciplines, and teachings, as well as a peek into the perspective of growing up Muslim in a non-Muslim culture. Wanting to be a faithful representative of Islam, having been taught critical thinking in school and having a mind geared for it, he often turned the arguments of some of his Christian classmates on their heads, bringing up aspects they had not thought about before and were not ready to defend.

In college God brought to him “an intelligent, uncompromising, Non-Muslim friend who would be willing to challenge” him, someone who was “bold and stubborn enough” to deal with him but also someone he could trust “enough to dialogue…about the things that mattered to [him] the most.” Nabeel and his friend, David, were both on the forensics team and knew how to get to the heart of an argument and draw out and refute key points. For the most part they did this with each other’s worldviews good-naturedly, but when a given topic became too heated, they’d table it for a while. Muslims particularly have trouble with the reliability of the Bible, the deity of Christ, the Trinity, and the connection between Christ’s death on the cross and how it atoned for others’ sins. For three years Nabeel studied the Bible and its claims and others’ claims about it, fully confident that he’d be able to disprove those claims, and then to study the history of Mohamed and the claims of the Quran, fully confident that Islam would be justified. Though he was obviously biased toward the Quran, he really wanted to know the truth. He discovered the Bible’s claims were justified and Islam’s to be on shaky ground.

For some time he resisted acting on this knowledge. Being a Muslim was a matter of identity as well as religion: his whole life, everything he had always believed, his relationship with his family and community, everything would be turned upside down if he became a Christian. Yet he could not continue on, knowing what he now knew. In one of the most beautiful and touching passages in the book, he was seeking time to mourn before making the decision he knew he had to, and he opened the Bible for guidance this time, not simply to look for information to refute. He came to Matthew 5:4, 6:

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

Nabeel writes further:

There are costs Muslims must calculate when considering the gospel: losing the relationships they have built in this life, potentially losing this life, and if they are wrong, losing their afterlife. It is no understatement to say that Muslims often risk everything to embrace the cross.

But then again, it is the cross. There is a reason Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:34-35).

Would it be worth it to pick up my cross and be crucified next to Jesus? If He is not God, then, no. Lose everything I love to worship a false God? A million times over, no!

But if He is God, then yes. Being forever bonded to my Lord by suffering alongside Him? A million times over, yes!

All suffering is worth it to follow Jesus. He is that amazing.

I feel I must comment on one aspect of the story that I questioned at first and I am sure other readers might as well: When Nabeel mentioned early on being “called to Jesus through visions and dreams,” I admit I inwardly winced and wondered what kind of story I’d be reading. For reasons too long to go into here, I am of those who believe that once God gave us His completed Word in writing, then dreams, visions, tongues, and the like fell away as unneeded. The few modern instances I have ever heard or read of that seemed most in line with Bible truth were in cultures which didn’t have the Bible, often didn’t have a written language at all. Another problem with relying on dreams Nabeel discovered himself: one questions what it really means (his Muslim mother and Christian friend had completely opposite interpretations for what Nabeel’s dreams meant), wonders how much was due to wishful thinking, asks “Could I really hinge my life and eternal destiny on a dream?” etc. If that’s all he had to go on to become a believer, I would question what he was really trusting, but these dreams came after years of intense searching and study. In an appendix by Josh McDowell on this topic, he states, “Dreams and visions do not convert people; the gospel does,” but he explains, “In many Muslim cultures, dreams and visions play a strong role in people’s lives. Muslims rarely have access to the scriptures or interactions with Christian missionaries.” As in Nabeel’s case, “the dreams lead them to the scriptures and to believers who can share Jesus with them. It is the gospel through the Holy Spirit that converts people.”

One of many passages that stood out to me was in the chapter “Muslims in the West,” which described how Muslims view the West and Christians and, because they think both have corrupting influences and Westerners they are against Islam, they tend to keep to themselves. “On the rare occasion that someone does invite a Muslim to his or her home, differences in culture and hospitality may make the Muslim feel uncomfortable, and the host must be willing to ask, learn, and adapt to overcome this. There are simply too many barriers for Muslim immigrants to understand Christians and the West by sheer circumstance. Only the exceptional blend of love, humility, hospitality, and persistence can overcome these barriers, and not enough people make the effort.”

I didn’t agree with everything Nabeel’s Christian friend said in the section about the Bible, in regard to believing some sections in the Bible were added later and not part of the original canon, but I do acknowledge that some do believe that.

There are multiple good aspects of this book: the window into another culture and mindset and the understanding of the difficulties a Muslim would have in coming to Christianity; the example of David and other friends who shared truth kindly and politely rather than belligerently or condescendingly, who genuinely cared about Nabeel as a friend rather than a “project”; the wealth of information Nabeel found and shared from his studies which give a valuable apologetic (supplemented by several appendices>); and the touching yet agonizing conversion of a soul truly hungering and thirsting after the one true God.

(Reprinted from the archives. I hope regular readers will forgive my doing so with so recent a post. I was going to just summarize but then didn’t feel I could leave anything here out.)

For the 31 Days writing challenge, I am sharing 31 Days of Inspirational Biography. You can find others in the series here.