2006-08-18T02:51:00.000-07:00

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum
London: HarperCollins, 1994
196 pp.

I don't know where I picked this one up, except that it was footnoted in a more academic text. It's wonderful. It's a kind of homespun wisdom good read with Solomonic 'cut the baby in half' insights throughout. I specially like the bit where he tastes washing powder to find out what it's like. A man after my own heart.

Why am I recommending this? Well, it's not a Christian book, though I have a sneaky feeling that God's lurking in the background somewhere. But it really is a wise book, and it made me laugh, which is rare.

It contains the Storyteller's Creed:
I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge.
That myth is more potent than history.
That dreams are more powerful than facts.
That hope always triumphs over experience.
That laughter is the only cure for grief.
And I believe that love is stronger than death.

I can feel your bristles rising as you read this, but, calm down, I've done the theological reflection, and I learnt in kindergarten not to take things like this more seriously than they take themselves. It is an antidote to tired modernism, and it's a challenge to those of you out there who don't use the right hand side of your brains. Oh, and it's a reminder that God's got a sense of humour too.

The North Face of God

2006-08-18T01:35:00.000-07:00

The North Face of God by Ken Gire
Carol Stream: Tyndale, 2005
206 pp.

This is an excellently written book which uses the metaphor of climbing Mount Everest to address 'hope for the times when God seems indifferent.' It's one of those rare books which faces the hard side of life from a Christian perspective without becoming unremittingly glum. He uses the Psalms as the texts of the struggle, as thousands have done before him, but somehow he makes them fresh and new. It's also full of personal illustrations, references to other important texts like Lament for a Son by the Christian philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff or the songs of U2's Bono, and to tragedies that have captured the world's imagination, and fear.

From our vantage point, the span of biblical history seems a range of majestic peaks silhoutted against the horizon. I wonder, though, how majestic that terrain seemed to those who first traversed it. [p. xiii]

In contrast to the independent spirit of our culture is the dependent spirit of the culture of our faith. "My help comes from the Lord," the psalmist proclaims (Psalm 1221.2), and many of the Psalms are about our inability to help in any significant way with the pain and suffering we face in life. When the help we find in ourselves runs out, we are ready for the Psalms. Look at the prayers that are there. "Help me..." "Rescue me..." "Save me..." "Deliver me..." Unbearable circumstances are the mysterious strangers who bring us to those kinds of prayers. [p. 25]

Good Christian books

The North Face of God