I think this may be the longest period of time that it’s taken me to finish a Brian McLaren book. I received it on it’s release date (the same day as Love Wins, if memory serves) and I just finished it last week. I chose to read it with a group of friends, and we’ve been slowly meandering through it, taking our time, discussing.

Naked Spirituality is not like most of Brian’s other books. Most of his books are more philosophical, theological or ecclesiastical in nature. This book is more similar to Finding our Way Again  - it’s spiritual theology, an exploration of what the journey of faith most often looks like. He works through four “seasons” of faith: “Simplicity,” “Complexity,” “Perplexity,” and “Harmony.” I found these categories helpful. It was especially insightful to discuss this with intimate friends – I think we all found ourselves in slightly different seasons. It has led to good, intimate discussions of what life with God looks like. And in true “emergent,” fashion, Brian doesn’t rank the seasons as if one season is better, or more “true” than another. In fact, [spoiler alert] he comes full circle and suggests that this isn’t necessarily a pathway at all, but maybe more like a funnel, where we keep going round and round through the seasons of spirituality, albeit a little differently each time. My only real critique is that I thought the structure (12 simple words) was a bit confusing at times, because each word had two chapters – it just felt a little clunky.

Of course, if his critics are even still reading, Brian is ornery as always and leaves himself open for punches from the religious right. And, at times he walks a fine line between “generic spirituality” and “Christian spirituality.” But, that’s what I expect from Brian, and I love him and appreciate his honesty and heart. If you’re in a small group, or book club, or you regularly meet with someone to discuss your spiritual journey I recommend this book.

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When this posts, I’ll be in the midst of my quarterly retreat. I was assigned for this past quarter Henri Nouwen’s The Way of the Heart: the spirituality of the desert fathers and mothers.

For those of you that don’t know, Henri Nouwen was a Dutch Catholic priest and writer (for more, here’s the wikipedia entry on Nouwen). He passed away in 1996, ironically about the same time that I read him for the first time. I love Nouwen’s books. Often they’re short – but profound. I find myself stopping a lot and just thinking. And this super short book (94 pages, fairly large text) didn’t disappoint. In it, Nouwen explores three components of the spirituality of the desert fathers and mothers: solitude, silence & prayer. I could say a lot of things here, but I’ll give you one extended quote that grabbed my attention, and if it whets your appetite, by all means, order the book!

In solitude, I get rid of my scaffolding; no friends to talk with, no telephone calls to make, no meetings to attend, no music to entertain, no books to distract, just me – naked, vulnerable, weak, sinful, deprived, broken – nothing. It is this nothingness that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions so that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe that I am worth something. But that is not all. As soon as I decide to stay in my solitude, confusing ideas, disturbing images, wild fantasies, and weird association jump about in my mind like monkeys in a banana tree. Anger and greed begin to show their ugly faces. I give long, hostile speeches to my enemies and dream lustful dreams in which I am wealthy, influential, and very attractice – or poor, ugly, and in need of immediate consolation. Thus I try again to run from the dark abyss of my nothingness and restore my false self in all is vainglory.

The task is to persevere in my solitude, to stay in my cell until all my seductive visitors get tired of pounding on my door and leave me along.

How true, how true.

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I’m careful about which Stephen King books I read. I’ve got an active imagination and some of his books are better left in the freezer (a la Joey Tribiani) – but there are other books of his that I rather enjoy. Of course they aren’t literary – but they’re entertaining – and I sometimes like the conflict between good and evil.

Anyway, a friend loaned me 11/22/98, King’s newest novel and I finished it last week. I told her that this felt different than other King novels. There was a lot more of a love story than in the other books I’ve read, and the evil was more subtle. Of course there were some gory King moments, but much of the book felt more like an enjoyable trip back to the late 50′s/early 1960′s, albeit with King’s more jaded perspective than the usual glossy, starry-eyed reinterpretations of that era. I like how the NY Times said it in their review:

“11/22/63” is a meditation on memory, love, loss, free will and necessity. It’s a blunderbuss of a book, rife with answers to questions: Can one man make a difference? Can history be changed, or does it snap back on itself like a rubber band? Does love conquer all? (The big stuff.)

If you haven’t figured it out by the title of the book yet, the book is about time travel. Specifically it’s about what might happen if you could go back in time and change a significant event in history. Of course, as with all time travel books and movies, the butterfly effect becomes a significant factor.

All right, I’ll stop rambling. If you want a real review, here’s the NY Times’. But here’s my pitch: 11/22/63 was a fun evening read – I enjoyed the journey.

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There is this book out there getting all kinds of buzz in the Christian interwebs – mostly negative from the sites I visit.

I’ve read some quotations from it that have really angered me. I don’t have much respect for the author – at best, I think he favors inflammatory rhetoric over grace. At worst, he really is misogynistic and believes that God hates people. I hope it’s the former. I’m fairly certain that reading his book will make me angry.

But at the same, I was frustrated this past summer when bloggers judged Rob Bell’s Love Wins, without actually reading the book.

Here’s my question – I’m looking for some input – I’m curious about what you all think. Should I read this book or not?

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I set a personal-best record this year: it looks like I’ll finished either 59 or 60 books before the stroke of midnight on Saturday. I’m not sure how. It seems like I have less time than ever to read at my office – but I guess I’ve turned off the television a lot more at home. It broke down to 19 fiction, leaving about 40 nonfiction. Rather than rank them, I just blew through my list and asked myself, what were my five favorite reads in each category? So, here they are, in no particular order:

Non-Fiction

The Pastor: a memoir – Euguene Peterson. Reading this book made me (a) proud to be a pastor and (b) inspired me to want to be more a pastor like Peterson than most contemporary expressions. (Here’s what I said about it after I read it.)

All is Grace: a ragamuffin memoir - Brennan Manning. I’ve already gifted this book because I love it so much. It’s really a beautiful, tragic journey of grace. (Here’s what I said about it after I read it.)

Falling Upward: a spirituality for the two halves of life - Fr. Richard Rohr. Good chance I’ll read this book again in 2012. It really helped me understand things about myself and this journey that I’m on. This book still comes up in conversations all the time. (Here’s what I said after I read it.)

Moneyball - Michael Lewis – I saw the movie, then had to read the book, and I wasn’t disappointed. Jennifer teased me after I read this because she said that she had never seen me talk so passionately about a book.

The King Jesus Gospel: the original good news revisited - Scot McKnight. McKnight seems to get at the heart of an important issue, without being unnecessarily offensive. I really resonated with much of what he said. (Here’s what I said after I read it.) 

Fiction

Juliet, Naked – Nick Hornby. I like Nick Hornby. Not much else to say. (Here’s a post that includes comments on this book and the next one on the list.)

Hunger Games Trilogy – Just fun reading. I can’t wait for the movies to come out.

The Shadow of the Wind -Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Beautiful literary novel.

The Prince of Tides – Patrick Conroy. I’m like 25 years behind on reading this, but it was moving and good. I’ve been told that the movie is terrible. I haven’t seen it, but the novel was good.

An Object of Beauty – Steve Martin. I tell people that Steve Martin’s novels are short, but beautiful and sweet.

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“Sip Charlie, don’t guzzle.” That’s what I told myself when I started Brennan Manning’s autobiography All is Grace: a ragamuffin memoir on Friday afternoon sitting in O’Hare, waiting for my plane to Denver.

I finished it mid-flight. If I were alone, I might have finished it in tears.

Although I haven’t read all of Manning’s books, I re-read the Ragamuffin Gospel this past spring with some dear friends, and I love it so much that I had quotations from it painted on my office wall. Otherwise, I only knew sketchy details of his life – that he was at some point a priest, then he wasn’t – that at some point he was an alcoholic – that at some point he was/is married? All is Grace fills in some of the white space for me and tells a tragic story of a loveless home, the ugliness of addiction, and the consequences of bad choices made over and over again.

I think we often want to believe that a Christian leader’s failures lie in the past. So that, in this case, Manning’s failures are prior to all his books and all his popularity. And yet, one of the most tragic scenes in the book (I won’t spoil it for you) comes in the mid-90′s, well after Manning’s name became familiar (at least to a generation of Young Life folks).

And yet, through the tragedy Manning’s central message – the theme that runs through all his writing and speaking – comes through loud and clear:

My desire is to be a witness, nothing else. My message, unchanged for more than fifty years, is this: God loves you unconditionally, as you are and not as you should be, because nobody is as they should be. It is the message of grace, the life-shattering gift my heart experienced in February 1956. It is the life-sustaining gift I remain broken by now in February 2011.

I’m curious – for you Brennan Manning fans out there – what is your favorite book?

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From N.T. Wright…

In a complicated, confused, and dangerous world, anything will serve as a guardrail for people blundering along in the dark. We oversimplify complex problems. We bundle up very different social and political issues into two packages, and with a sigh of relief – now at least we know who we are, where we stand! – we declare ourselves to be in favor of this package against that one. And we make life uncomfortable for anyone who wants to sit loose, to see things differently. (Simply Jesus, p. 15)

True in politics, double true in theology.

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If you know anything about me, you know that I love books and I love food. So a book about food and spirituality is Christmas morning for me!

I don’t know how I came to read The Spirit of Food: 34 Writers on Feasting and Fasting Toward God. I think it was one of the “Amazon Recommends” kind of things. But I’m glad I did. I’ve been taking my time with it for about a month, sipping it like a glass of good Port.

Of course in a collection of 34 essays, not all will connect. But at the same time, some of the essays in this collection got inside me, and made me want to cook, and to write, and to get all caught up in the mysticism of Holy Communion. I have such admiration for skilled writers. (and a fair amount of envy. sigh)

I know, everybody says they love food. But, then there are people who talk about it in almost sensual ways – and not just the food, but the preparation of it, the respect for the ingredients, the recognition that food comes from the soil, the smell, the labor… This is why I need a cooking club, because at this point, most people’s eyes start to glaze over and they think, “I wish this guy would just shut up about the food already!”

But, if you’re still reading. And you really love food. And you really love well-written essays. This is a delightful read – one to which I will return!

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Deism is the belief that while God created the world, he set it up and then walked away. The analogy that is most often employed is that God was like a watchmaker, who built the watch and then walked away and left it to run. God is therefore largely irrelevant in our day-to-day experience.

Skye Jethani, in his most recent book With: reimagining the way you relate to God, accuses contemporary evangelicals of having a strong deistic bent:

When the Bible is primarily seen as a depository of divine principles for life, it fundamentally changes the way we engage God and his Word. Rather than a vehicle for knowing God and fostering our comunion with him, we search the Scriptures for applicable principles that we may employ to control our world and life. This is not Christianity; this is Christian deism. In other words, we actually replace a relationship with God for a relationship with the Bible. If one has the repair manual, why bother with the mechanic?

What do you think? Is he right?

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You know how you have a vacation planned, and it’s several months away on the calendar, so you hardly give it any thought, but then as it approaches, you start bumping up against it on your calendar? When you look at planning something next month, you see it and you find yourself getting excited? (And then you admire your prescience in planning a vacation right where you needed it the most…)

Well, in just under a month, the Dean’s are going on a short vacation. We’ll be heading down to one of our favorite places – Anna Maria Island – simply to unwind on the beach for a few days. It will come at a good time. I love October, but it always seems jam-packed and this year is no exception. It’s a lot of good things, but we’ve been busy, busy, busy. This week alone we have friends visiting from out-of-town, and two wiener roasts this weekend!

Anyway… as I prepare for vacation, I start to think about what books I might take with me. (of course!)

So, I’m looking for some help.

On vacation, I like to keep it (in the words of a friend) “light & breezy.” I’m not completely sold to fiction, but I sure do like it. One book I’m considering for vacation is Sex on the Moon by Ben Mezrich. (I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with having sex on the moon – it’s the true story of the theft of some moon rocks from NASA – it’s very popular.)

Anyway… other books that would be good, if I hadn’t already read them recently would be Steve Martin’s novels, The Hunger Games Trilogy, and even some Stephen King… although I’m kind of particular because some of his stuff is just too creepy for my liking. (And here’s a sampling of vacation reading list, if you wanna get a feel for what I read on vacation.)

So please… fellow book nerds… help me out… I need some recommendations… what have you gotten excited about recently? Give me the title, maybe a brief description, and why you think I’d like it as a “beach vacation” read. I need ideas soon, because I do a lot of book through the library, and my library is small and it takes a while to get things through interlibrary loan… I probably need to have my order in by the end of the week, or first thing next week.

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