2016 Book List

BOOKS I CAMPED OUT ON 

Impossible People: Christian Courage and the Struggle for the Soul of Civilization by Os Guinness. Weighty. Urgent. Relevant. This book stretched my brain power to its outer reaches, and as soon as I finished it, I knew I needed to read it again to try to absorb all I missed the first time. Guinness writes about the things we don’t want to think about, the big ideas and transformations in our world that will change life as we know it. Like the fact that the decline of the Judeo-Christian faith as the soul of the West has opened the door for two positions vying for control over the world’s thought: aggressive secularism and radical Islam. The consequences are vast. It’s much easier to keep our minds busy with daily schedules and a good fiction book, but sometimes we need to think bigger. This book is not to be missed—even if it is overwhelming.

American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers by Nancy Jo Sales. I blogged in detail about this book over the summer, and I’m still haunted by it. If you like to be informed about the state of our culture, and especially if you have children, I recommend you read at least the introduction. 

And also sounding the alarm on technology …

Nicholas Carr’s new book Utopia Is Creepy: And Other Provocations. There’s actually nothing new here; rather, this book is a collection of essays, blog posts, and book reviews since 2005. Carr had me at The Shallows, and I appreciate him as a writer, researcher, and social commentator. He shares my concern (abject terror?) over where technology is taking us and the effects it’s having on us, but he actually knows what he’s talking about. The last entry in this book, on biotechnology, sent chills down my spine. And here's a sample of Carr’s comments about Twitter: “What used to happen in the privacy of the mind is now tossed into the public’s bowl like so many Fritos. The broadcasting of the spectacle of self has become a full-time job.” Twitter is the medium of Narcissus, and Narcissism is the “user interface for Nihilism,” says Carr, allowing us to both “indulge our self-absorption and to distance ourselves from it by acknowledging, with a coy digital wink, its essential emptiness. I love me! Just kidding!” And it all masquerades as community. God, help us.

BOOKS BY SOME OF MY FAVORITE AUTHORS

The Pastor: A Memoir by Eugene Peterson. This book is aimed at two audiences: those who are (or want to be) pastors and those who savor Eugene Peterson like fine wine. I fall into the latter category. Having made my way through nearly all of C.S. Lewis’s works, I am now compelled to read at least one Eugene Peterson and one Tim Keller book each year.

Speaking of Keller, I read his book Counterfeit Gods this year. It was shorter than I expected, but contained a few gems, such as his discussion of four types of deep idols: power idolatry, approval idolatry, control idolatry, comfort idolatry. We can all recognize one of those in ourselves.

If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty. Eric Metaxas is on his way to becoming one of my favorites. This book takes its name from a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin. As the designers of the U.S. constitution walked out of their meeting in September 1787, a woman approached Franklin, then 81, and asked if the young country was really going to be a democracy. Franklin answered, “Yes, if you can keep it.” Metaxas uses this as his thesis: that liberty requires work. If we want to live in a free, democratic country, we all have to play a part in maintaining it. My crazy enthusiasm for the book waned as it became less about that principle and more about individual biographies, but it will still be required reading for the teenagers in my house.

I thought Brene Brown might become one of my new favorite authors, but after reading The Gift of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace You Are in January, I can’t remember a thing about it. Although I think back on it positively, I’ll need to read another of her books to determine if I’m a fan like other people are.

BOOKS THAT EXPANDED MY PERSPECTIVE

First, A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy by Sue Klebold. Couldn’t put this one down. Between the title and the author’s name, you can figure out what this book is about. Columbine hit me hard, both because it happened an hour from my house and because I was pregnant with my first child at the time. Throughout the years, the overriding thought in my head has been, “What was going on with those parents? How did they not know? How must this have affected them, and how do they live with the horror of it for the rest of their lives?” Sue Klebold answered all of my questions, and by the end of the book, she seemed more like a friend than an anomaly. I wanted to write to her, to tell her that despite all her efforts to redeem her tragedy—to make suicide-prevention her life’s mission, to give of herself ceaselessly to others—Jesus is the only answer to real, lasting peace. I may write to her yet.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. How can two people see the same thing—the shooting of a black man by a while police officer, for example—and have two vastly different perspectives of what happened? That question prompted me to read this widely acclaimed book. Coates is as different from me as he can be. He’s a black man who grew up in inner-city Baltimore. He has no belief in God. He has experienced things I can barely imagine: His son being angrily pushed by a white woman in a crowd, routinely being pulled over by cops for no reason other than his skin color. What surprised me most is that this man is terrified every day, for himself and for his teenage son. Because they’re black. I was also caught off guard by the words he used for people like me: “people who need to believe they’re white” or “people who think they’re white.” Hmmm. The book felt overwritten and too poetic for my taste (he is, indeed, a poet), and there were times when I had no idea what he was talking about. But I got the gist of it, and it was eye-opening. A different perspective is good for me.

BIBLE COMMENTARY

I read a lot of commentaries for my work and my girls’ Bible studies, but will only recommend one here for casual reading. It’s Michael Card’s Luke: The Gospel of Amazement. Card has written about all of the gospels. If you’re looking for brief, easy-to-understand commentaries, his are a good choice.

ENJOYABLE FICTION

Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple. This is a quick read with a quirky plot and clever writing. I breezed through it and thoroughly enjoyed it.

FICTION I HATED

Forgiveness 4 You by Ann Bauer. The only reason I’m admitting I read it is so that you will avoid it. The premise, marketing and selling forgiveness to those who don’t have time or interest in church, was provocative enough to persevere through it, but in the end, it was sacrilegious drivel and a complete waste of time.

BOOKS I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO IN 2017

You Are What You Love; Hillbilly Elegy; Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus; The Beckoning; Just Do Something. Please send me your own recommendations, and keep reading! 

Dogs, Cones, and Momentary Affliction

Surely I'm not one of those people who gets a dog and immediately feels she must blog about it. I'd like to think I'm not that trite. But who am I kidding? I got a dog, and I'm going to write about him. I'm even going to spiritualize the situation. Please humor me.

Oakley is a Pudelpointer. (A hunting dog who doesn't shed; look it up!) He came to live with us four weeks ago, and I'm already smitten. Our Lab Zeke died six years ago, and it took every minute of that six years for us to muster the courage to get another dog. I loved Zeke with every fiber of my being, but he was a monster. One of my coworkers actually pulled me aside to ask "if everything was OK at home" when I came to work with multiple scrapes, scratches, and bruises. "I just got a puppy," I told him, and he seemed to understand.

But this trite blog is not about Zeke; it's about Oakley, the new pup in my life. After recently getting fixed, he was forced into the Cone of Shame. (Shout out to one of my favorite movies, UP, for giving us that clever name.) No surprise, Oakley was not a fan of the cone. He spent pretty much every waking moment resisting it. He clawed at it, rolled in the dirt with it, and mashed his head into the couch with it. He growled and barked at it. He made pathetic faces at those of us who had the power to get it off him. During one particularly pitiful moment, my husband noted the sad fact that Oakley had no idea this was only a temporary situation. To a puppy, this was now his new life, trapped forever by a torture device that kept him from licking his itches and otherwise thriving in this world.

The apostle Paul wrote about light and momentary afflictions. The troubles of this life feel neither light nor momentary. They feel restrictive, irritating, burdensome, and oh so permanent. We scrape and claw and roll in the dirt, trying to shake them. They keep us up at night. Somethings they keep us from eating. Even worse, they cause us to doubt the goodness of God, the one who could so easily "take it off."

As I watched Oakley resist and struggle, it was everything I could do not to take the cone off. Sometimes I had to leave the room, even though my heart was no less with him. But he needed the cone. It was for his own good, to help him heal. In order to thrive, he had to endure the affliction. And I knew that it was a relatively light affliction at that, one that would go away in a couple of days.

Some people are surprised to learn that Jesus flat out said that we're going to have troubles in this world (John 16:33). You don't hear a lot about that at evangelism crusades. We focus on the victories rather than the troubles, as well we should, but the fact is, we're still going to hurt. Surrendering your life to Christ in no way ensures that things are going to go your way or that you're always going to be happy. In fact, in some places, taking on the name "Christian" makes things a hundred times harder. But Jesus also said, "Take heart! I have overcome the world."

"Light" and "momentary" are relative terms. Oakley only had to wear the cone for five days, but your suffering might go on for years. It might even last your whole life. But in the context of eternal life, even that is momentary. I wonder if God ever looks at us rolling in the dirt with our affliction and thinks, "If only they knew it won't be like this forever"?

Oakley's a week out of his cone now, and I bet he doesn't even remember it. That'll be us some day. Our shame, our pain, our burdens, our afflictions--all forgotten because Jesus has overcome for our sake. Think of that the next time you see a dog in a cone.