#11 Sophie's World

Already a tussle to know which one to choose - it was nearly Tutus Groan, but on the basis of staying cheerful on a desert island, I've gone for Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder.

It's a mystery novel and a history of philosophy at the same time. As Sophie tries to unravel the mysteries of the plot, so she needs to understand the development of Western philosophy. So the book is really didactic, but given the subject, Gaarder does a good job of making it as pleasant as a story. The section on Jesus is a bit disappointing: even for a po-mo philosopher it doesn't credit Jesus with much influence, and he passes on quickly to more important things. But that aside, it's a painless way of learning the history of western thought.

Goldsworthy: NT effects on Psalms

Just started slowly wandering through Graeme Goldsworthy's Prayer and the Knowledge of God. Early on he makes an interesting point (I don't yet know how he is going to develop it), that we apply the coming of Jesus to a lot of OT issues, but not prayer...

[this issue occurs when] reading a passage from the OT and thinking about it without consciously relating it to the fulfilment of the OT in Christ. Some OT texts, such as those that deal with certain details of Israel's ceremonial law, cry out for us to make some adjustment for the fact that Jesus has come...But other faith matters in the OT, such as the prayers in the Psalms, are quite easily read as they stand and we simply assume the connection with ourselves.

Goldsworthy, p15.

Nouwen: choosing hope

"You are constantly facing choices. The question is whether you choose for God or for your own doubting self. You know what the right choice is , but your emotions, passions, and feelings keep suggesting you choose the self-rejecting way.
The root choice is to trust at all times that God is with you and will give you what you most need. Your self-rejecting emotions might say "It isn't going to work. I'm still suffering the same anguish I did six months ago. I will probably fall back into the old depressive patterns of acting and reacting. I haven't really changed." And on and on. It is hard not to listen to these voices. Still you know that these are not God's voice. God says to you,'I love you, I am with you, I want to see you come closer to me and experience the joy and peace of my presence. I want to give you a new heart and and new spirit. I want you to speak with my mouth, see with my eyes, and hear with my ears, touch with my hands. All that is mine is yours. Just trust me and let me be your God."
This is the voice to listen to. And that listening requires a real choice, not just once in awhile but every moment of each day and night. You can think yourself into a depression, you can talk yourself into low self-esteem, you can act in a self-rejecting way. But you always have a choice to think, speak and act in the Name of God and so move toward the Light, the Truth, and the Life.

Henri Nouwen

Addendum:
I recently found a bit more of this quote-

As you conclude this period of spiritual renewal, you are faced once again with a choice. You can choose to remember this time as a failed attempt to be completely reborn or you can also *choose to remember it as the precious time when God began new things in you that need to be brought to completion.* Your future depends on how you decide to remember your past. Choose for the truth of what you know. Do not let your still anxious emotions distract you. *As you keep choosing God, your emotions will gradually give up their rebellion and be converted to the truth in you.*

The Day Off ends

I don't often do this, in fact I never do this, but I want to briefly mention an obit from the news in a vaguely fanzine type way. Writer and director John Hughes died today.

The reason I mention him is, along with millions of other people of a certain age, his work kind of defines my late teenage years. OK, some of his stuff definitely plumbed the depths of teenage prurience (I wouldn't bother with 16 Candles again, and bits of Breakfast Club put me off permanently - though compared to contemporary teen-fare they are fairly AndyPandy).

But Ferris Bueller, Some Kind of Wonderful and, more relevant to a little later in life, She's Having a Baby, were kind of formative moments for me - just hearing the titles brings back endless summers, A-levels, and possibilities. On top of that was his ability to put a soundtrack together - outstanding compared to other fodder of the time. Would Suzanne Vega have made it so big without Left of Centre? Would Don't You (forget about me) be quite so iconic? Yello, Furniture, Flesh for Lulu, Psychedelic Furs, Bryan Ferry covering Van Morrison's Crazy Love.....And so on...

Well, I'm going to stop before I start sounding like a real blogger. But the end of an era all the same.

#12 Silver Hand

Actually this book was going to be the next one, but the #12 spot contains two books having a fight at the moment, so I thought I'd cheat and bring this one forward whilst the outcome is decided.

Stephen Lawhead is probably the most successful of modern Christian novelists (Left Behind excepted) and built up something of a cult following in the 80s and 90s. He started off with what, in my opinion, were great ideas and fairly mediocre writing, which then developed into really good ideas and good writing, and finally ended up as good writing with ordinary ideas. I have to admit I have not read his recent reworking of Robin Hood which is getting good reviews.

Bang in the middle of the good ideas and good writing came the Song of Albion trilogy. A celtic fantasy which intersects with our own time as the barriers between worlds is breaking down and wolves rome the dark streets of Oxford, it also had one overarching metaphor (which I won't spoil by revealing here, because it doesn't become apparent til the last chapter of book 3). It's a good adventure in a solid fantasy tradition, with some nice touches and only rare moments of kitsch, as an ordinary bloke from here ends up over there, but has to do something extraordinary to save both worlds.

Tech parenthood

Born into this vast technopoly, today's child understands her world primarily through mass media. Thanks to media's total-disclosure nature, she will be a world-weary 72-year-old by the time she reaches 12, but won't have the maturity of a medieval 12-year-old until about age 36. Ages 12 to 22 will be spent in mandatory survival training called higher education. Regardless of her primary course of study, her secondary course, undertaken when she is biologically fittest and physically strongest to raise children, will be the ironic but ironclad dogma that she must never consider having a child until she is economically, psychologically, and spiritually a fully realized autonomous self. If, after a decade of ingesting this dogma, she still has the desire to become a mother, she can only have at most two children.

If life's most meaningful work for couples is raising children, then it's a cynical system that requires the false choice between having children young, when a large family is physically possible but financially hard, or waiting until they can afford a large family, when fertility has dropped. Technology, it turns out, is a harsher taskmaster than biology, offering a world where the best form of birth control is economics, the best predictor of income is education, and the best deterrent to having children is guilt over failing to give them the very best a consumer society offers.

Meanwhile, the ocean of sorrow continues to fill with the tears of those who are childless or heartbroken by the lie that tells a woman she is free to be anything she wants, so long as she's a man about it.

Read Mercer Schuchardt, Christianity Today

Dickson: the hidden mission

Prayer is the hidden part of our mission...prayer is also the most basic part of our mission. Observing this reminds us that ultimately the mission is not ours but God's. If the fundamental gospel-promoting activity is hidden from us, it is clear that involvement in mission requires faith more than activism, dependence more than programmes, and humility more than boldness.

John Dickson, Promoting the Gospel, p65