It's May, which means the school year will be ending for lots of young folks. That, in turn, means lots of parents and grandparents will be shipping the kids off to camp or summer school or to visit family. And that finally the adults will have a chance to catch up on some reading.
This is how the world works, right?
Well, if this in any way describes you, you may be looking for some faith-based books to digest, and I have a stack of them for you today to consider. So let's dig in.
-- The Reckless Way of Love: Notes on Following Jesus, by Dorothy Day. In any list of Americans, but especially of women, who have left a spiritual legacy that has lasted into the 21st Century, Dorothy Day would be at or close to the top. She was a Catholic convert who, in 1933, cofounded the Catholic Worker newspaper, which led to the Catholic Worker Movement, which today continues to transform lives and work for justice for impoverished people. This small book from Plough Publishing House gathers some of her most cogent spiritual wisdom as a guide for readers. There are lots of small gold nuggets in this collection, including some revealing her own path. For instance, she says she came to a relationship with God "when I was alone and most happy," not out of depression and desperation: "I found him at last through joy and thanksgiving, not through sorrow." She's also in touch with life's mysteries and ambiguities: "What a paradox it is, this natural life and this supernatural life. We must give up our lives to gain them; we must die to live; we must be pruned to bear fruit." (By the way, the Catholic Worker House I'm most familiar with in Kansas City is Cherith Brook, overseen by my friends Eric and Jody Garbison. Check it out.)
-- Do All Lives Matter? The Issues We can No Longer Ignore and the Solutions We All Long For, by Wayne Gordon and John M. Perkins. The authors are co-founders of the Christian Community Development Association. They write here that of course all lives matter, but that the "Black Lives Matter" movement properly seeks to educate Americans about the ways in which African-Americans continue to struggle against racist systems in this country. A few months ago I did a brief review here of Perkins' most recent book, Dream with Me: Race, Love, and the Struggle We Must Win. I recommend them both.
-- To Alter Your World: Partnering with God to Rebirth Our Communities, by Michael Frost and Christiana Rice. I had the opportunity several years ago to hear Michael Frost, a leading figure in what's called the international missional church movement. One of his primary messages was that Christians aren't called to grow the church. Rather, they're called to demonstrate in small, convincing ways what it will look like when the reign of God comes in full flower. In this book, Frost and Rice, who leads a neighborhood faith community in San Diego, make the point that Christians shouldn't be focusing so much on what they as individuals and as a collective body can do to change the world but, rather, should be focusing on where God already is doing transformational work and then join that: ". . .a belief in the coming kingdom of God doesn't evoke passivity. It mobilizes the believer to embrace our common mission to be a sign, foretaste and instrument of the coming reign of God."
-- The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place, by Andy Crouch. This is a much-needed corrective to help families put "wisdom and courage first, relationships at the center, and technology at the edges." The author is executive editor of Christianity Today and draws on new research from the Barna Group to help parents find the right balance of technology as they seek to give their children life-affirming values. The focus here is not on making life easier but making it better. And sometimes -- more often than lots of Americans imagine -- that means shutting off a lot of high-tech devices.
-- Lift Up Your Heart: A 10-Day Personal Retreat with St. Francis de Sales, by John Burns. In 1609, St. Francis de Sales published Introduction to the Devout Life. This long-loved spiritual guide turned out to be exactly what John Burns, now a Catholic priest, was looking for, having "searched for fulfillment in pleasure, popularity, possessions and whatever else," but finding it in none of them. Now Burns uses that ancient book to create a time of retreat for the reader that relies on the wisdom and insights of de Sales. But, in fact, this 10-day retreat is an invitation to a lifelong commitment to loving God.
-- The Life of St. Therese of Lisieux: The Original Biography Commissioned by Her Sister, by August Pierre Laveille. St. Therese, known as Little Flower, was canonized in 1925 and has become an inspiration to many Catholics and others. This is the story of her life written by Msgr. August Pierre Laveille, first published in 1928. Therese was a Carmelite nun who lived only until age 24, but whose devotion to a simple spiritual life has long been honored.
-- In Search of Theological Modesty: Biblical Lessons, by William Liss-Levinson. One reason I like -- and recommend -- this book is that it's in harmony with my own latest book, The Value of Doubt: Why Unanswered Questions, Not Unquestioned Answers, Build Faith. Although my book is rooted in Christianity, Liss-Levinson's book is grounded in Judaism and is particularly a response to the various ways Jews are divided. But in many ways the message is the same: We must be modest theologians, willing to discuss and debate the hard questions of faith while acknowledging that our finite minds cannot fully grasp the infinite. The author says that we must recognize "the dangers inherent in the certainty that one's beliefs and perspectives are the only ones reflective of God's truth and will."
-- Joined by Grace: A Catholic Prayer Book for Engaged and Newly Married Couples, by John and Teri Bosio. This small book seeks to show engaged and newly married Catholic couples how traditional Catholic prayer practices can strengthen their unions. It's a plea "to develop daily or weekly habits that allow you to pause whatever you are doing, quiet the noise and remember God."
-- Transcending Mission: The Eclipse of a Modern Tradition, by Michael W. Stroope. For many Americans, especially Christians, the idea of missionaries and the concept of mission in general still conjure up visions of the narrow and rigid missionary Nathan Price, described in Barbara Kingsolver's popular but disturbing novel, The Poisonwood Bible. In harmony with rampant colonialism, missionaries like Price went to save the savages in Africa and elsewhere and turn them into Southern Baptists or Methodists or some other brand of Christianity found in America. Christian mission work has changed rather dramatically from the 1950s and '60s described in Kingsolver's book, with much more focus on discovering the needs of the people being served and working in partnership with them to meet those needs. But the language of mission work -- whether done in the U.S. or overseas -- often remains stuck in those older days. This book, by a man who now teaches at Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University and who did international mission work for 20 years, is an effort to unpack all that old language and reshape it so that it doesn't hinder the work of well-intentioned, thoughtful mission workers today. It even raises the question of whether it's productive now to use the word "mission." As he notes, "Because mission has multiple meanings and uses, it creates problems in comprehension."
-- The Discerning Parent: An Ignatian Guide to Raising Your Teen, by Tim and Sue Muldoon. This is a guide for Catholic parents that seeks to explain how the Ignatian approach to spirituality can be helpful. The authors are parents of three and they bring that experience to their writing. One happy surprise here is that the Muldoons draw on, among others, theologian René Girard and his understanding of Mimetic Theory, which attempts to describe what happens when we want what we see others wanting -- and the s0metimes disastrous implications of that. Girard can be complicated but he has wonderful insights.
-- God Moments: Unexpected Encounters in the Ordinary, by Andy Otto. Speaking of Ignatian spirituality, this book draws on that approach to help readers sense God's presence in the normal, everyday experiences of life: "We're captivated by the extraordinary. Quite possibly the saddest part of our existence is being oblivious to the ordinary sacred mystery around us." The author is a campus minister at a high school in California.
-- The Wisdom of the Body: A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women, by Christine Valters Paintner. The author, who oversees the online Abbey of the Arts, draws on many spiritual sources to help women reject our culture's fascination with the perfect female body and to be comfortable in their own skin. It was good here to see her tie some of this to the reality that, as she writes, "we live in a culture very disconnected from the reality of death, especially our own. We constantly seek ways to stave off aging and mortality. We are marketed endless products to keep us young and vital. We deny our grieving hearts in a rush to move on to something more cheerful." Finding comfort with our physical being can help unplug that foolishness.
-- Live Your Happy: Get Out of Your Own Way and Find the Love Within, by Maria Felipe. The author is a Unity pastor in California. This book draws on a book called A Course in Miracles, which helped her, to help readers, in turn, find balance and happiness in their lives: "True abundance," she writes, "is recognizing that you are as God created you."
-- Holy Desperation: Praying As If Your Life Depends on It, by Heather King. After praying a 9-1-1 prayer as an alcoholic, the author began a journey toward healing and sobriety. Now as a Catholic convert she teaches others how to pray through desperate times using Catholic spiritual disciplines, including lectio divina. As for prayer itself, she writes, "The best way I know is just to sit down and talk to God, or open yourself to him, or do whatever feels comfortable or urgent or natural in the sense that you couldn't hold back even if you wanted to. Love is like that."
-- The Delight of Being Ordinary: A Road Trip with the Pope and the Dalai Lama, a novel by Roland Merullo. My regular readers know I rarely review or even mention fiction, feeling unqualified to judge it fairly. But I am making an exception here to let you know about a fun and intriguing piece of fiction in which the pope and the Dalai Lama join together for an imagined road trip through Italy. The pope's idea, proposed to the Buddhist leader when he visited the Vatican, is that they dress like regular non-religious folks and simply travel as regular tourists. There is, of course, much more to the story, including the pope's strange personal assistant who has to arrange for the men to sneak away. So this is a book you might want to haul off to the beach with you this summer. Or, heck, to Italy. Who knows whom you might run into there?
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HARVARD TO BE SOURCE OF SHARI'A INFORMATION
I continue to hear from people fearful that the world's Muslims want to turn the U.S. into an Islamic Republic and institute Shari'a law here. It's a silly fear. But maybe a new Harvard University project that aims to be a source of factual information about Shari'a and how it's used in legal cases will help. It's called SHARIAsource. For Midwestern folks (or, really, anyone) who want an excellent book that describes Shari'a, pick up Understanding Islamic Law (Shari'a), by University of Kansas law professor Raj Bhala.
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P.S.: It saddens me to report that the young Muslim girl with cancer for whom an interfaith group of friends created a lemonade stand last year to raise money for her has died. I wrote about her here. Several months after I wrote about this situation, her family moved back to Belgium. Her father just reported Rania Bouzahzah's death.
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