Extra! Extra!

I have a second blog that is only about books and reading.  Because I need that space.

I even bought the domain name since I do read all the things.

It might not be for everyone or for you, but I thought I'd let you know.


https://readsallthethings.com

Review: CEB Women's Bible

A couple weeks ago, I was asking a group of [church-going] children what they knew about the Bible. Among other shared information, we tried to name some Bible characters. They quickly shouted out, "Jesus!... Moses!... Abraham!..." The oldest kid in the group is probably 8, so that was okay. I asked for the names of any women or girls in the Bible. Mary's name was speedily recalled and then there was a stall. My own son raised his hand and said, "I can't remember her name, but there was the girl in the garden who ate the apple." Great, our group could literally only name Mary and Eve. So, looks like my work is cut out for me. Good news: there's a Bible for that!

I recently received a copy of the CEB Women's Bible for free in exchange for a fair review. This Bible is in the Common English translation- hence, CEB. This is not my favorite translation. All translation is interpretation and all interpretation is political. So, accepting the CEB as a study bible was a stretch for me going in to this project. Not all pastors share this characteristic, many LOVE and endorse this translation of the Bible and find it to be as accurate and helpful as early translations.

It turns out that, translation notwithstanding, this is an excellent study Bible. Nearly all the chapters have summary introductions that could be used for the people who like a big picture view or as prayer prompts before or after devotions. The inserted commentaries on situations, circumstances, and people are very helpful. There is one on birth control near Genesis 38 and on one women and property at Joshua 17. There's celebration (Psalm 31), pleasure (Ecclesiastes 2), mercy (Romans 9), adolescence (1 Timothy 5)- plus ministry and widows (separately) in the same chapter.

These short explanations given insight not only to the time of the Bible's events or writing, but also for how the verses impact the life of the reader today. I enjoyed every one that I read and I think they are the best feature of this Bible.

My second favorite element of the CEB Women's Bible is that there is at least a sentence or two portrait of every single woman who appears in scripture. No matter whole small her role, how implied her presence, how unnamed she may have remained through the centuries- she or her group get recognition in this volume. Through recognition comes thankfulness and growth in understanding. I have been doing work in Daniel lately and, boom, there was the portrait in words on Belshazzar's mother (Dan. 5). She's actually critical in the story because she remembers Daniel and his skill, when others have forgotten him. Yet, she doesn't usually appear in the stories people tell off the top of their heads regarding the writing on the wall incident. Regular use of this Bible and encountering these portraits will help the reader become more familiar with all the women of scripture and, perhaps, more emboldened to speak up in times of trouble.

It is extremely exciting to flip through the front matter of the book and see how many women were involved in the creation of this volume. Lay women, professors, writers, and clergywomen all contributed their talents to the creation of this volume. I am of mixed emotions when I see this. I am so happy- nearly tearfully so- that these women were sought out and their vocations and talents used well for this book. At the same time, I hope that the work in and on this Bible will be noticed- especially in academic and professional religious circles. This amount of research, talent, and commitment deserves recognition beyond making a commercially viable devotional Bible (which is NOT nothing- far from it).

Despite my own reservations with the translation (which are NOT shared by all other pastors!!!), I believe that I will continue to use this Bible for personal devotional reading, along with others. I do say to people that the best kind of Bible to get is the kind you will actually read. This Bible is very readable and the portraits, summaries, maps, and drawings all serve the purpose of increasing knowledge and learning in faith. I recommend this Bible, particularly if you do not presently have a study Bible that you enjoy using. If you are the kind of person who is bothered by adjectives in the titles of Bibles, I still recommend this Bible and a roll of electrical or duct tape to cover the title (or use a Bible cover). Several people in my congregation do this and it seems to soothe their angst and help them to use the Bibles they find most accessible.

The stories of women in the Bible- known, forgotten, and unknown- deserve attention, scholarly time, and church/devotional study. This Bible accomplishes that task superbly. It does it so well in fact that I recommend considering one's own preferences or biases (translation, title, margin size) as adiaphora (or unimportant) relative to having a truly helpful and revolutionary study Bible that spotlights the work of women in history and the work of women today.



I received a free copy of the CEB Women's Bible from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

You can get a FREE sample of Ephesians from this edition of the Bible here. Try it!

Ruined (Book Review)

Lately, I've craved sentences. As a voracious reader, I absorb large quantities of words, words by the gallon, the bucket, the ocean. However, in the present time of my life, I long for and adore simple sentences. Literally, I'm looking for something that could tattooed on the top of my foot.

Ruth Huizenga Eberhart has just such a sentence. In the middle of Ruined, her wrenching memoir of rape and spiritual agony, she writes, "The fall is a more universal theme than restoration." 

The fall is a more universal theme than restoration. 

Maybe I don't want that exactly inked into my skin, but its message is indelible. So was the four hour encounter in Ruth's 20th year shaped everything that came after it. As it so often does, the will of neighbor- his or her poor choice- causes a crisis when one has to examine where that choice intersects with the will of God. 

Ruth's rape, the aftermath, her relationships- all of these things intertwine with her pain, her grief, and her questioning about the God about whom she'd taught and the God she was actually encountering in silence and in space. Her lyrical writing, sometimes a little slowly paced, allows the reader to realize that God's silence is not always a big NO, but an invitation into a smaller, yet more spacious yes. 

Grace is more than forgiveness; grace says that it’s all right to need forgiveness in the first place. It’s all right to be imperfect, to intend well and mess up. To try again. Grace is getting a do-over. 

The fall is a more universal theme, because so few lack the language for expressing restoration, for understanding it, for believing it is possible. When Ruth eventually takes proactive steps to avoid being forever terrified of men who resemble her attackers, my eyes were so wide. Living day after day is surprising after a horror or a tragedy, but it happens. One hardly believes one can keep breathing. Attempting to keep something "normal" is brave. Ruth is very brave. 

Actively seeking to change something within yourself is courageous. Ruth is incredibly courageous. Her courage is not just evident in how she learns to view herself through God's understanding, but even more so in how she comes to see her experiences through God, divine mystery, and love. 

The fall is a more universal theme, but I believe it is only because we actually crave the stories of restoration. We long for the redemption narrative. We want to see it come out all right. This is because, in our hearts, we know our own falls and faults and we long to know that we too will sing restoration songs. 

I received a copy of this book for an honest review. My honest recommendation is that this book is completely worth your time and effort. 

Book Review: You and Me Forever (Marriage in Light of Eternity)

As far as I can tell, Paul (the apostle) liked to be right. Luther and Calvin, may they rest in peace, both liked to be right. Yet none of those three ever wrote anything like this:

“I told you! I told you it would be worth it!!! This is unbelievable!!!!!!!!” I imagine shouting that one day when I see Lisa and the kids in heaven. They will no longer be my wife and kids, but we will love each other more than ever. I picture myself looking them in the eyes and saying, “I told you He would come through! I knew He would be true to His promises. I knew every sacrifice would be worth it. This is insane! He is amazing!!!” (p. 131)

If, at the start of the world to come, someone greets me by gripping me tightly and saying, “I told you so”- I will know without a doubt, no matter the scenery, that I am in hell. Unless the voice is coming from Jesus, in which case I will fall on my knees and say, “I believed, Lord, forgive my unbelief.”

Be that as it may, Francis Chan’s You and Me Forever: Marriage in Light of Eternity was not exactly hell to read, but it was not a glimpse of heaven, either. In this book, the Bible is to be taken literally. Marriage is an institution created by God and it is hetero-normative, period. Both partners exist within their commitment to one another to be certain that each will experience heaven (that is NOT a metaphor). The mission of their marriage is discipleship, a pure witness to the work of fulfilling the Great Commission (Matthew 28). Men lead, through submission to God. Women follow, through submission to God. The practical advice of the book consists of guides for both individual and mutual conversation, study, and prayer.

How many times did I want to throw this book against the wall? Many. However, I more frequently found myself despairing. Chan and I, theoretically want the same thing. First, that the world may come to know and trust in the grace, mercy, and faithfulness of God as those truths were revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. Second, that marriage would be understood to be a loving partnership for faithful growth and support- a sacramental gift from God that is the foundation of hope, stability, sanctification, and peace in communities. Our ability to agree on even these two sentences can only occur in a sterile environment because once we hit the ground, we are at odds which is lamentable to God (as far as I understand 1 Corinthians).

Chan writes:

Things are different nowadays. Sin is more accessible and acceptable. Two specific areas come to mind, both deadly to marriage: pornography and flirting.When I was a kid, a guy had to let everyone in the store know he was a pervert when he walked to the counter to buy a Playboy magazine. These days, people can look endlessly at pornography on the privacy of their own phones. And many don’t even consider that perverted. It’s the norm!When I was a kid, a woman would have to flirt with a man face to face, in a normal social setting. Once again, there was the shame of people seeing it and labeling her a “whore” or “slut”. Now with Facebook and text messaging, women and men can approach each other in secret to test the waters. And the affairs that spring from it, as well as the divorces that result from it, have become more acceptable. Even in the church. (26)

When I read the Bible, it seems to me that sin was fairly accessible to our forefathers and foremothers in the faith. None of them seemed to struggle with finding ways to violate God’s covenants and laws. If God is the same- yesterday, today, and forever, then, sadly, the forces that oppose God are the same. They may have shiny new ways to tempt, but they are no more powerful than they ever were or ever will be. Arguing that humans are more sinful or that evil is more prevalent denies the reality of history and the reality of God’s relationship to creation in history.

Furthermore, all sin (sexual and otherwise) is a result of failing to acknowledge that God alone is God (here Chan and I would agree). Thus, breaking the first commandment (I am the Lord your God, have no other gods before me) happens when we objectify and deify anything- bodies, natural resources, money, work, power, control. The examples Chan gives do not go deep enough to the reality of sin, a felt separation from God in the world. They are superficial, shaming examples with no followed-up basis for repair or correction. The failure of the church in this situation is not a failure to preach strongly enough against pornography, adultery, or divorce. It is a failure to lift up the reality that ALL is a gift from God- our bodies, the bodies of others, our sexuality, natural resources, other animals, money, time, talents. Failure to respect and honor God’s glory revealed in all of these is a perversion of God’s desires. Period. There is no hierarchy in sin.

According to Chan, many churches lack faithful elders who can teach the faith and the faith lived out in long marriages.

In speaking to young adults in America, they tell me of how they would love to be mentored by older people who are living by faith. But they can’t find any. Some may be joyful and friendly, but no longer living by faith. Sadly, their lives consist of visiting grandkids and taking vacations. Some are still acquiring more possessions, hoping to make the best of their last few days on earth. (185)

I recently did two back-to-back funerals. One for a man, aged 93, who had been married to the same woman for 68 years. He had been a stalwart member of three congregations, quietly revealing his faith in service and perseverance. The second service was for a pastor who died just short of 70 years of ordination. His funeral was standing room only. His wife of 63 years sat just to the side of his casket. Until just before he died, he could tell you what psalm he wanted to hear for the day and why. There are many older people who live by faith, but maybe not in the churches Chan visits. Has he encouraged these seeking young people to find faithful elders in the churches where they might be (mainline denominations) or do they lament together with no action, but prayer?

All in all, this book was disappointing. Other reviews praise it, but they seem to be people who knew what they would hear when they read the book. That’s called preaching to the choir. The literal Biblical interpretation, the frank substitutionary atonement (as the only understanding), and the failure to acknowledge the mixed history of marriage as an institution and the church’s need to grapple with that fact all combine to prevent me from recommending this book to anyone.

You need to know that this theology is out there and that your parishioners will encounter it. Since I can’t recommend this book and I don’t have a ready-made suggestion to go in its place, I’ll make an alternate recommendation.

I suggest that instead of reading this book, you re-read the book of Ruth and consider the following 1) that God took generations to bring healing out of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, 2) the most famous words of commitment in the Bible are between a daughter-in-law to her mother-in-law, 3) marriage is a wholly different scenario in the Scriptures, and 4) we are all called to emulate the righteousness of Boaz by using our time, resources, and faith in redeeming those who would be left on the margins.

I received You and Me Forever: Marriage in Light of Eternity (Francis and Lisa Chan) for review. I was not offered anything in exchange for the review other than a copy of the book.

This review was first published for RevGalBlogPals: http://revgalblogpals.org/2015/01/26/revgalbookpals-you-and-me-forever-marriage-in-light-of-eternity/

Book Review: Mission at Nuremberg

This review was first posted on 11/24/14 at RevGalBlogPals.org.

In the next six months, you will need to buy a present for someone. This person may be easy to buy for or kind of tricky. He or she might be religious, but persnickety about religiously themed books or movies. She might be a World War II buff, but who already seems to have/know everything. He might be a voracious reader of generalized military history, yet shies away from specific biographies. The person you know may have loved Unbroken (Hillenbrand) and wants to read something similar, but despairs of finding such a book.

Good news, friend! I have the book for this person, this situation, your (advanced) church book group, and maybe for you. Mission inNuremberg: An American Army Chaplain and the Trial of the Nazis by Tim Townsend is just waiting for you to buy one or two copies, read, and distribute. Frankly, I’m a voracious reader, consuming quickly and without discrimination. I dove into this book

and then I slowed, pacing myself.

Townsend, without directly saying so, tackles the perennial and omnipresent question of theodicy by pointing out that “Why” is the wrong question. There is only futility in persistently beating your head against a marble wall. The question to ask with regard to the presence of good and evil in the world is, “What do I do about it?” In so asking, the wall yields and there is an orchard of tender fruit to be harvested, handled carefully, and prepared so as not to poison, but to nourish.

Henry Gerecke (rhymes with “Cherokee”) is a pastor, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, in St. Louis in the 1920s and 30s. He is a very “successful” parish pastor, but he feels called to specific mission work with the poor and downtrodden of his town. Where there are people struggling with physical, spiritual, and emotional needs- Gerecke sees Jesus and finds his own sense of call there. In the midst of this necessary work, even during the Depression, Gerecke signs up for the Army Chaplain Corps just before his 50^th birthday, so that he may be of service during World War 2.

The book flashes back and forth between Gerecke’s specific life and details and then the larger world situation. The world building is necessary because it enables the reading to understand the scope of the trauma, drama, and mixed emotions that occur for a chaplain, and his soldiers, during a war. Gerecke’s original attachment found him serving on hospital grounds in southern England- funneling soldiers and POWs from mainland Europe, through triage at the hospital, and then on to specialty hospitals, back to the front, to prisons, or to convalescence from there. Gerecke is with the wounded, the dying, and the shell-shocked. He throws himself so fully into this ministry that even the most spiritually hardened reader immediately feels thankful to God for the chaplain’s life and call.

Gerecke’s dedication earns him attention he deserves. It also leads to his specific request and call, after the war ends, to serve as a chaplain at Nuremberg. Gerecke will be chaplain to the Protestant Nazis who are to be tried at the first and most famous Nuremberg trial, that of the Major War Criminals. Gerecke will be the pastor to and for such men as Hermann Goering, Wilhelm Keitel, and Albert Speer.

Here is the heft of this book- what does it mean to pastor a person who has committed something atrocious? As the rest of the world had the time to ponder “Who could do these things” as the revelations of Nazi actions came to light, Gerecke had to swallow that question for himself and ask, “How I help these men return to their Creator and Redeemer?” Gerecke’s specific understandings of scripture, the sacraments, and God’s eternal invitation are crucial pieces to how he not only did this work, but in underscoring why he thought it mattered.

This book is deeply emotional. I usually include little excerpts in my reviews of things that stayed with me, yet my notes in this book do not lend themselves to excerpting. Townsend has some deep reflections on what it means to understand evil as an absence of good, but with no power of its own. His discussion of the “mark of Cain”- as either a sign of a murderer or a reminder of God’s protection is riveting. Make no mistake, though, this is not an easy book to read. The chapter entitled “The Book of Numbers” is as difficult to read as its biblical counterpart. If the reader only has passing familiarity with the specifics of the activities in and around the death camps, particularly Mauthausen, this chapter proves a swift, abrupt, and raw education.

Who can forgive? One never gets the sense that Gerecke perceived himself to have the right or the power to forgive the actions of the Nazi war criminals who composed his tiny flock. Townsend’s contemplation of the nature and essence of forgiveness, and to whom it belongs, frankly, is a must read for any adult education class of any denominational stripe.

We live in a state of almost permanent conflict. War may never be explicit and yet the machinery of war- the weapons, the plans, the people- are always in motion, in preparation, and in action. There are those among us who pay a huge cost for that perpetual crisis situation. Mission at Nuremberg, at its very best, causes the reader not to reflect on the atrocities of specific Nazi leaders, but instead to consider what it means to understand each body in the world as a person- a child of God- with a desire to live, to matter, and to love and be loved. 

What are the dynamics of justice- punishment, pardon, and peace- when we keep those thoughts at the front of our mind? After all, we will not know in our lifetime the “why” of good and evil, but we can daily answer “What shall I say” in the face thereof. In Mission at Nuremberg, Chaplain Henry Gerecke is the first among equals as an example for how to respond to that question.

Video Share: John XXIII

I really enjoyed Fr. James Martin's book, My Life with the Saints.

He's made a video series about some of the saints he discusses. This one is interesting. Martin's own reflections based around John XXIII were rooted in his reflections on life in the priesthood and were very moving (to me).

Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery (Book Review)

Last year, I read a book called I [Heart] Sex Workers. Written by Lia Scholl, the book opened what I had previously assumed were my open eyes to some realities of how and why sex is sold, who sells, and who buys. Parts of that book have remained solidly with me, though I reviewed it in February 2013 here. Scholl wrote:

You might ask, if everything was equal, everyone had shelter, food, clothing, and jobs they loved, would people still sell sex? In all honesty, I believe they would. Some people sell sex because of sexual desire. Some people would sell sex to get one step further up the food chain. Some people would sell sex because they like it.
If everything was equal, though, the desperation around sex work would diminish. Sex works would be less likely to trade sex in risky situations. They’d be less likely to ignore their inner voice that says, “Run!” when a client is violent. They’d be less likely to have sex without a condom and risks HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections. They’d be less likely to get into coercive relationship with pimps and more likely to keep more of their earnings. (44)

I haven't forgotten that paragraph or Scholl's point that women who sell sex are in much more danger, typically, than johns or pimps. Not only at greater risk for being arrested, sex sellers (male and female) are simply more frequently in vulnerable positions wherein they can be harmed physically or otherwise.

All of this kept floating up to the top of my mind as I read Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker. The book give the personal histories of five young women whose bodies

were found in the brambles off a Long Island beach between 2010 and 2011. The women all had struggles with their families, frustrations in their lives, plans that were thwarted, and hopes that were expected to be realized. What all five actually have in common is that they were all killed and probably by someone who had contacted them through Craiglist or another site under the auspices of buying sex from the them.

They were not killed together, but over a span of month. Their bodies, along with the bodies of others who may or may not have been killed by the same person or have been selling sex, were all found along a stretch of a deserted highway.

Part of what made me ache about this book is how each woman came to make the decision to sell sex, often for short-term financial gain. Frequently, this decision came with a cavalcade of other situations- pimps or "bodyguards", drivers, competition, drugs. Not everyone who chooses to sell sex finds themselves in these situations, but that is what happened to most of these young women. The combination of crackdowns on streetwalking makes "escort services"- contacted through the internet- more appealing, especially since it can allow the sex worker to be his or her own free agent, separate from a pimp or madam.

Yet the decision to sell sex seemed to make these young women "less than" in the eyes of police and other investigators when their families first reported them missing. In the book's conclusion, Kolker notes:

It may no longer matter anymore whether the sale of sex among consenting adults is wrong or right, immoral or empowering. What's clear is that no good can come from pretending that the people who participate in prostitution don't exist. That, after all, is what the killer was counting on... Shannan, Maureen, Megan, Melissa, and Amber were over twenty-one. They were more or less working alone and of their own volition. Despite what some family members said after the fact, they were not lured or overtly pressured. Some would say this makes them complicit in their fate- in other words, they brought this on themselves by doing something so dangerous. But to suggest they had it coming because they put themselves in a risky situation is disingenuous; no one walks through life thinking they're going to be killed. (381)

These women were people, are people. Yet their decision led at least one person to think it wouldn't matter if they died. Maybe it led a person to believe that they should die because of the work they were doing. The police were also complicit in dehumanizing the women:

The police had failed to help them when they were at risk. They'd failed again when they didn't take the disappearances seriously, severely hobbling the chances of making an arrest. And they'd failed a third time by not going after the johns and the drivers. (363)

Frankly, this situation is unsurprising in that our culture generally chooses to thrill in women's sexual expression in certain social situations (product placement, magazines, movies, etc.), but frown on women's sexuality when it is expressed as blatant non-procreation activity, for whatever reason. Women who dare to engage in *that* get what's coming to them, whether it be STIs, unintended pregnancies, or murdered.

The murderer in these cases remains at large, insofar as anyone knows. Sex continues to be a commodity, but only the act. The bodies of those who deliver the commodity are still viewed as disposable. Women and children, and some men, are trafficked around the world for this trade. Others make the decision to sell sex for a wide variety of reasons. Some of these situations are far, far worse than others.

One thing remains, true though, a sex worker could be your sister or brother, your mother or uncle, your friend or neighbor, the person next in line at confession, or passing your groceries over a scanner. That woman or man is a person, a child of God. It is only when we start to think about society as a whole- education, opportunity, community, work, safety net- that we can begin to change some of the situations that cause some people to feel that selling their body is their only option.

If these girls, these women, are to have any legacy at all, let it be that we remember them with kindness, compassion, and a prayer for their families' peace. And that we do not fail them by refusing to see the truth around us.

Book Review: Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death at a Storm-Ravaged Hospital

I frequently find myself with good intentions for finishing one book, only to be sidetracked by another book. I eventually finish the first, but if the latter is amazing or absorbing- all bets are off until it is done. So it was this week in preparing for book review time. I have a stack of things that are finished or almost finished and ready for review, when I just happened to check out Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death at a Storm-Ravaged Hospital. Frankly, it’s amazing that I still paid attention to my family, work, and personal hygiene while reading this book. So it passed all other comers for today’s review because it is both an excellent book and because it raises some serious ethical questions that must be considered. 

Sheri Fink (M.D., Ph.D.) is a correspondent for the New York Times on a variety of issues, but especially on medical issues and crises. Five Days at Memorial is six years of painstaking research, interviewing, backtracking, and piecing together what happened at Memorial Medical Center between the actual storm of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and when all living people were evacuated from the hospital five days later. To be absolutely fair and clear, Sheri Fink was not in the hospital during that harrowing time frame. Neither was I. Most likely, neither were you. What we think we might have done is only speculation. 

The truth is that at least one hospital administrator, at least two doctors, and at least three nurses made the decision to divide patients up according to a survivability prognosis. Patients who were not likely to fare well in transferred to another facility, according to the decision of this small group, were administered heavy doses of morphine and a benzodiazepine sedative (Versed). This cocktail was administered with the intention of hastening death. Those who administered the drugs only know whether that goal was a secondary result of a primary desire to comfort the patients. 

The book details the fears and frustrations in the aftermath of Katrina. The reader is pulled along in the tumult of frantic messages for help, combined with hospital personnel sending empty helicopters away so that they (the personnel) could rest. There was a point during my reading when I said to my husband, “This is the worst train wreck ever and I can’t look away.” Ultimately, though Memorial Medical Center still had plenty of bottled water, food, and medicines, people panicked and a mentality of scarcity took over and ruled the day. 

It was not unusual for people to ride out a hurricane at the hospital and so many staff members were sheltered there, with family members and pets. Under the stress of no air conditioning or lights, frustrations were high. One doctor began to worry about her cat and several people asked for doctors to euthanize their pets, lest they suffer unduly by being left behind in a rescue (if that ever occurred). Once the word had been uttered, some people wondered why there was more consideration for the comfort of the animals that the people. 

Fink captures one doctor’s reflection: 

This is the United States, she thought, and was surprised at what was being said so frankly, out in the open, with maybe a couple dozen people around. She wondered how smart that was, but she thought euthanasia needed to be considered. It was obvious to her, although she couldn’t, in her normal life, have imagined it being a viable option. Now it seemed, while not the only option, perhaps the only humane one. She felt confident it was the right thing even before this conversation… She could no longer envision what would happen when life returned to normal… Having an end would give them a reference point for their options. Yes, she had heard they would all get out that day, but she couldn’t see it, couldn’t believe it, wasn’t convinced by [the leaders]… (p. 193) 

Fink carefully documents that in the months and years to come, people will differ on what they remember saying and who they remember saying it to and when. Some people will admit to participating in the conversations about euthanasia, about who should die and how. Other people were adamantly against it at the time and continued to be later. Others were ambivalent at the time, but would regret their actions, one way or another, in time to come. Regardless, people were killed in the hospital, by those who had been entrusted with their care, just as rescue was imminent. Almost all those who were injected with the drug cocktail died on Thursday, September 2nd. The hospital was emptied of its live occupants by that evening. 

As the book goes on, the reader learns that the Cancer Center at Memorial hospital continued to have some working generators. The upper administrators of the hospital stayed in office suites and comfortable waiting areas there. For stress relief, some nurses in the main hospital used oxygen masks to blow on their faces, cooling them and, temporarily, making the situation more bearable. Outside the hospital, chaos reigned. The local, state, and federal government scrambled and discovered the true gaps in their disaster preparedness, including and especially the lack of interoperable communications. The main doctor in the story, Anna Pou, later reflected that New Orleans during and after Katrina was “not America”. 

The first part of the book details the activity in the hospital. The second part details the legal investigations in the aftermath. It also contains the grief of the families of the patients who died, plus the struggles of the doctors and nurses who had been in Memorial. Memorial Medical Center was not the only hospital or nursing facility to have patients die in unexpected numbers, under suspicious circumstances. 

The interesting part of the book comes during the epilogue. Fink was present at a hospital in New York during Hurricane Sandy. Despite being years after Katrina, many of the same plant issues remained- electrical grids on the ground level floor or in the basement (at risk in flooding), inadequate generator fuel supplies for more than a couple days, lack of clear chain of command. Most disturbingly, Sandy revealed that the hospitals had worked on a plan to ration access to ventilators and, possibly, other life-saving equipment. 

The conversation for this plan (pre-disaster) happened within and among doctors and nurses. Patients and their families were not consulted about their wishes in creating the plan or during the disaster. While the situations that came out of Katrina mostly managed to be avoided with Sandy, some of the flotsam left behind these storms is the need to have these conversations in our community. 

Do you know the natural disasters (and/or manmade events) that are most likely in your area? 

Do you and, if applicable, your family have a clear plan and/or resources for this situation? 

Are you aware of community conversations regarding evacuating nursing homes, mental institutions, prisons, or other community living spaces? 

Do you know the protocol in your local hospital for providing care, triage, and/or rationing medicine? 

Fink writes, “Emergencies are crucibles that contain and reveal the daily, slower-burning problems of medicine and beyond- our vulnerabilities; our trouble grappling with uncertainty, how we die, how we prioritize and divide what is most precious and vital and limited, even our biases and blindness.” (p. 462) 


The thing that sticks with me about this book is that perhaps all the patients who were killed would have died soon anyway- during transport, awaiting care in another facility, in the chaos of the other locations to which people were transported. Perhaps they would have been hot, in pain, disoriented, alone. Was the death that came better? Ultimately, we must leave that question unanswered to pursue what truly matters- preventing that situation from occurring again in New Orleans, in your town, in mine, in the world. 

Tension

I have been re-reading parts of Victoria Sweet's God's Hotel for two months now. I've maxed the renewal time of my local library and finally decided to buy my own copy. Though the book is about the last almshouse in the United States, located in San Francisco, it is about more than healthcare. I strongly recommend this book.

Sweet writes about the spiritual and emotional dimensions of caring for the chronically ill. She studies the work of Hildegard of Bingen and considers how the tools of ancient medicine apply to practice today. In a sermon here, I talked about Sweet's understanding of the difference between anima and spiritus.

She also details the tension between different factions in the hospital, between doctors and nurses, administration and city government, willing patients and resistant patients. Though many of the decisions for the future of the hospital are necessary, but lamentable- Sweet reflects on the writing of Florence Nightingale regarding the necessity of tension in medicine.

Nightingale wrote:

“A patient is much better cared for in an institution where there is the perpetual rub between doctors and nurses and nuns; between students, matrons, governors, treasurers, and casual visitors, between secular and spiritual authorities… than in a hospital under the best governed order in existence.” (Nightingale, Notes on Hospitals, 184).

Sweet interprets: 

“But then I remembered what Florence Nightingale had written about the struggle between medicine and nursing and administration. That struggle was irresolvable and should not be resolved, she said, because it was in the patients’ best interest. If medicine ever won control of the hospital, too much would be practiced on the patient; if administration, too little; if nursing, medical progress would be curtailed in the interest of the spiritual and emotional care of the patient.” (Sweet, God’s Hotel, 327). 

Part of the reason I've kept this book for so long is for the passages like this. I turn this over and over in my mind and I wonder about the necessary tension in the church. What is the critical balance between laity, clergy/rostered leaders, and administration/judicatories? How do we balance the interests of all and how do we discern to whom God is speaking and who thinks the sound of their voice is God speaking? 

There is also the balance between history, tradition, and spontaneity, between styles of music, prayer, and preaching, between interpretation, meditation, and contemplation. 

Some of the truly difficult work of the church is learning to live with the tensions, when to give and who should give, and how to move forward. And in all this, we must also remember not to let the work of the church interfere with the work of the Lord. 

Sweet, Victoria. God’s Hotel: A Doctor, A Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine. Riverhead Books, New York. 2012. p. 327, 372

Book Review: Still (Lauren Winner)

Still is the most Southern thing I've read in a long time.

I do not mean that it is about the South or about Southern issues or even has a Southern voice. It has a Southern speed. 

The book reads like a long day with a friend you know so well that you don't rehash details. Lauren Winner reflects on the middle of her faith journey- what comes between the fiery beginning and the slow burn of the end. The book feels like a conversation she has with you, over a day or a weekend. 

Over eggs and grits with me, she confesses, "The enthusiasms of my conversion have worn off. For whole stretches since the dream, since the baptism, my belief has faltered, my sense of God's closeness has grown strained, my efforts at living in accord with what I take to be the call of the gospel have come undone." (p. xiii)

In my mind, I walk with Winner to pick peas in the garden, after breakfast, and she shares about her struggle to sit with her loneliness, "I tell the loneliness to pull up a seat. I notice she does not look so very threatening after all- she has a touch of the dowager about her, actually. She is clutching a handbag made of fat white beads, and she smells of rose water. We sit next to each other on my screen-porch sofa... I lean back. I breathe." (59) 

As we shell peas, on the same porch, Winner recounts, "I told my spiritual director I was praying (I doubt she was fooled). I told myself that I should be praying, that it would be good for me to pray; I said to myself, Of course you feel far away from God, how could you feel otherwise when you will not pray? But still, I persisted in not praying. My chastisements about my own lack of prayer became private jokes. When I nosed up against prayer, I felt angry..." (64) 

Winner walks me several miles to get a cold drink and we talk about how boredom masks other emotions, other experiences, our resistance. She says, "Boredom is, indeed, a restless state. I am, I hope, inching toward stillness." (126) 

When I try to recall an earlier comment, something she said about prayer, Winner tells me, "I am not a saint. I am, however, beginning to learn that I am a small character in a story that is always fundamentally about God." (194) 

Usually when I read a book for review, it's marked up, full of marginalia, little paper flags poke out beyond the page edges for attention and remembrance. I never touched a pen while reading this book. It felt like I would have interrupted the conversation. I needed to be present in the moment of the reading. The very personal, unwinding confessional, sipping whiskey nature of this book did not lend itself to notes on the first go around. 

When I go back, and I will go back, I will make notes. I will remember to mark the page where she talks about prayer as a marker of Christian life... not necessarily your own prayers, but perhaps the prayers of other people for you. When I read this again, I will be less interested in what happened in her divorce and more able to recognize the map of grief she is drawing for after a death and a divorce. When I read this again, what I appreciated about the tone of Winner's writing voice will have deepened. 

This is the first book of Winner's that I have truly liked, possibly because she always writes with an appeal to her reader to relate to her and her theological viewpoint. This time I do. I understand what it's like to be in the middle, to realize that there is a lot of sailing to do before hitting the other shore (God willing). And, as it turns out, you cannot always predict the weather, the pirates, the flora and fauna. All you can count on is the persistent presence of the sea, which can become so ubiquitous as to be forgotten. But is it still there? Is it still keeping you afloat? 

Still meanders and moseys, without clear plot or direction, but with clarity of voice and purpose. For the first time, Winner seems to be living the questions instead of providing answers with a questionable surety. You cannot solve Winner's problems or bring solutions to her, so you just listen. In the listening comes your own pondering of the middle, of your middle, of the middle of faith, of the middle of God. 

I received a copy of Still from Lauren Winner through a giveaway on RevGalBlogPals. No requests were attached to receiving the book and no promises were made upon receipt. All page numbers are from the hardback edition of the book, published 2012 by HarperOne. 

Unraveling Religion

I recently read Christianity After Religion, a new book by Diana Butler Bass. I reviewed the book here. 


Bass unpacks the struggle in contemporary society between Christian dogma (teachings) and Christian practice (habits). She argues that Christianity in America (and around the world) is undergoing a Great Awakening, the fourth in American history. 


One of the hallmarks of this awakening, Bass writes, is way people are combining their experience of the Holy with reason that comes through study, examination, and experimentation. Faithful people are trying to bridge the divide between the head and the heart and come together in the territory of the Spirit. Bass calls this experiential faith or experiential religion. 


Experiential faith seems to turn the current expectations of  religious life upside down. Bass details how in our vocations and our hobbies, we learn by joining a profession, a group, a mentor. We take on the habits of the people or person from whom we are learning. Over time, we then come to believe things about our profession or hobby- what it means to us and how it helps us. We belong, then behave, and then believe. Yet, we expect people to these tasks in the exact opposite manner when it comes to church.

If you want to knit, you find someone who knits to teach you. Go to the local yarn shop and find out when there is a knitting class. Sit in a circle where others will talk to you, show you how to hold the needles, guide your hands, and share their patterns with you. The first step in becoming a knitter is forming a relationship with knitters. The next step is to learn by doing and practice. After you knit for a while, after you have made scarves and hats and mittens, then you start forming ideas about knitting. You might come to think that the experience of knitting makes you a better person, more spiritual, or able to concentrate, gives you a better sense of service to others, allows you to demonstrate love and care. You think about what you are doing, how you might do it better. You develop your own way of knitting, your own theory of the craft. You might invent a dazzling new pattern, a new way to make a stitch; you might write a knitting book or become a knitting teacher. In knitting, the process is exactly the reverse of that in church: belonging to a knitting group leads to behaving as a knitter, which leads to believing things about knitting. Relationships lead to craft, which leads to experiential belief. That is the path to becoming and being someone different. The path of transformation. (202)
 

With all due respect to John Wesley, I think that’s one of the best descriptions of sanctification this Lutheran has ever read. The contemporary narrative touts Christian faith as adherence to dogmas and standing firmly behind the line of orthodoxy, no toes in sight. That’s Christian perfectionism, not perfection, and that’s not what Bass has in mind. Nor the early church. Nor Jesus. 

We are brought ever closer to the possibilities God has stored within us through our Christian practices. The practices, prayer, study, hospitality, discipline, communal life, create the space for the Spirit to bring us to perfection. We can best learn these practices from people who already love them, who are further along in their "mastery" than we are. 

Here's the question for us and for our congregations: do we love the Christianity we are practicing? Are we experiencing Christ? Are people learning about the Way of Jesus through us and from us? 

It's time to consider what it means to belong... to behave... to believe, in that order. Can we unravel what is a couple centuries of religious expectation and knit back together, with the help of the Spirit, a new way of living as Christians? 

Books of 2011

In 2011, I read 155 new books. Here are my top 10 recommendations from what I read, in no particular order:

1. True Grit I read this book prior to seeing the movie and I'm glad I did. Matty is the center of the book and her nerve, strength, and determination makes her better than a classic heroine. The biblical references, the smart writing, and the sharp dialogue moved this book into one of my all-time favorites. Each time I re-read it, I find something new.

2. God's Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America This is a history of Patrick Henry College and some of its recent attendees and alumni. The details of this story reveal the sense of call certain people feel, through their faith, into public service. That lifestyle then impresses itself into the kind of lawmakers Patrick Henry students support and that they wish to be. The details of this book, the personal stories, will remain with me for a long time to come.

3. Bossypants This was as funny and inspiring as I had hoped. I think many people expected this to be hilarious and were disappointed, but I found Fey's dry observations and witty reflections about her life and work very enjoyable.

4. Unbroken I had not read very many stories about World War 2's Pacific theater. This story of an American former Olympian turned POW in Japan was riveting, terrifying, and inspiring. It's not just his survival that moves the reader, but the details of how people can treat other people.

5. The Friends We Keep This book made me think about God's relationship with non-human animals in a new and different way. I reviewed it here.

6. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand I don't often read character-driven novels, but the gentle truth of this novel swept over me. It is about an elderly English widower as he comes to grip with the changing face and faces of his village and in his life.

7. The Blue Bear This is a provocative story of friendship and loss. Some recent Alaskan history may not be interesting to all readers, but the story of Lynn Schooler and Michio Hoshino is transformative in its ebbs and flows. 4 out of 5 tissues.

8. A Thousand Lives This book about Jonestown gave me the shivers. Jim Jones's powers of manipulation were terrifying, even years removed. I reviewed this book here.

9. A Canticle for Leibowitz I know that I missed a lot reading this through the first couple times. Written in the 1960s, it projects into an apocalyptic future where the remainders of the 20th century- like grocery notes, blueprints, and letters- become the artifacts of religion.

10. Those Who Save Us The last book I completed this year was a novel novel. Told about a mother and a daughter, it follows a German woman who is in the Resistance, but also maintains a relationship with an SS officer so that she and her daughter can have food. Revelatory about the struggles and moral dilemmas people face in a time of war, the books also mulled over how lifelong grudges, community outsiders, and our ability to understand the actions of our ancestors and predecessors.

Book Review: A Thousand Lives

When I heard Julia Scheeres had a new book coming out, I jumped on it. I read  her memoir, Jesus Land, several years ago and found it fascinating. I was even more eager to read the new book: A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception and Survival at Jonestown. I was not disappointed. Scheeres was working on a novel about a charismatic preacher from Indiana, when she looked up Jim Jones and then discovered the released, but untapped FBI archives, audio files and documents, of Jonestown.

In her introduction, Scheeres writes, “I believe that true stories are more powerful, in a meaningful, existential way, than made-up ones. Learning about other people’s lives somehow puts one’s own life into sharper relief… You won’t find the word cult in this book, unless I’m directly citing a source that uses the word… The word cult only discourages intellectual curiosity and empathy. As one survivor told me, nobody joins a cult.”

As I read this book, that last sentence came to me over and over: “Nobody joins a cult.” The book opens with a brief description of people arriving in Guyana to go to Jonestown. It quickly flashes back, then, to the early life of Jim Jones and his attraction to the church. He was drawn to the power and attention given to the man behind the pulpit and the physical aspects of devotion in Pentecostalism (speaking in tongues, slain the Spirit, dancing and prophesying). He began preaching in his late teens and proclaimed a message of God’s call to racial integration.

It was Jones’s push toward racial harmony that drew people to his church. In the book, many people recount how the Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church was their first encounter with black and white people worshipping together. The success of Jones’s ministry and its focus on neighborhood service drew much attention and many accolades. Many people were willing to give freely to such a mission and that initial dedication is what many of his followers would recall when they later thought Jones was straying from his message and, possibly, his sanity.

Jones later proclaims himself as “the one they call God” by denouncing the violence and segregation of the Bible (he repeatedly points to its “support” of slavery). When he moves his congregation from Indiana to California, everything becomes about loyalty to him. Even in the Indianapolis congregation, Jones presses people to lie on the floor one Sunday to test their trust in and faithfulness to him. This is one of the first signs of his maniacal behavior and the demands he will place on his followers. Even as evidence of Jones’s deceptions and pressures became evident, Scheeres writes:

True believers had an answer for everything. They excused Jones’s peculiarities with the maxim, the end justifies the means. The beatings, the swats- it was all showmanship, they said. The disciplines didn’t really hurt. Jones’s antics- like stomping on a Bible or [swearing during a sermon] – were all theater. He likes to get a rise out of people to force them to pay attention. Those members who were offended by his increasingly bizarre and cruel behavior kept quiet, and in their silence, seemed to condone it. (p. 88f)

Eventually as people move to Guyana, the book becomes like a horror movie. I could barely contain myself from screaming, “Don’t get on the plane! Escape through the jungle! Don’t eat the sandwich! Don’t drink the Kool-aid!” That last line is what most people know, if anything, about Jonestown- that nearly 1,000 people died there in November 1978 because they followed their leader, who was obviously crazy. People who are old enough to remember the story may recall a few other details- the number of children killed, the assassination of Congressman Leo Ryan, the pictures of the dead spread out in a field.

“Don’t drink the Kool-aid” is hardly the complete legacy of Jonestown, idealized to many who died there as a socialist paradise where everyone contributed and received according to their abilities and needs. Even as Jones obviously unraveled, people alternately agreed with him because they believed in the truth he had preached at one time or because they want him to leave them alone. Jones held two suicide “drills” in before the actual incident. People were routinely harassed into voting to “support revolutionary suicide” so many times that it ceased to become shocking. You know the ending to this book, but you don’t know the story.

One thing that I kept turning over in my mind as I read this book was the knowledge of the cults we have seen and that continue to exist since Jonestown. A thousand people died, manipulated to death by a drugged madman convinced he was God. And since we’ve had Branch Davidians, Heaven’s Gate, and several others (names intentionally omitted). My inability to complete the previous sentence in the way I want brings me to my point in recommending this book: just because people are clean and tidy or are technically protected under the First Amendment doesn’t mean they are not in a cult. No one joins a cult, but almost no one is able to voluntarily leave one. If you’re like me at all, names and pictures are coming to your mind of current organizations, supposedly religious in nature, that manipulate, mentally torture and extort those who join.

When we dismiss the people of Jonestown as weak-willed, we are ignoring the truth that history repeats itself and the only way to stop the cycle is to speak the truth. Loudly. Frequently. In all times and places (or close to it). Many people are still  surprised to be encouraged (or allowed) to ask questions in church and to examine the truth in which we claim to believe. Our ability to question and even doubt does not undo what is true, especially about God. The more questions are encouraged, the less anyone person can claim to have all the answers. That can be unnerving, but it can also be empowering. And it’s the only way to prevent the success of cult mind control. 

A Thousand Lives gave me the shivers… because of what’s in the past and what could easily be in the future. Probably not a book for a women’s circle, but possibly good for your book group, for fans of true crime or contemporary history, or anyone who wonders how things like this could (and do) happen.

Scheeres, Julia. A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story of Hope, Deception and Survival at Jonestown. Free Press; New York, NY. October 2011

Reviewed copy purchased by reviewer. 

A version of this review first posted at RevGalBlogPals on 10/24/11.