My Review of Surprised by Oxford: A Memoir by Carolyn Weber

Surprised by Oxford: A Memoir

Surprised by Oxford encompasses Carolyn Weber’s first year of graduate studies in literature at Oxford University. From this Canadian native’s mishaps with British busses, to the memorable professors, colorful students, and descriptions of student life at Oxford, there is never a boring chapter. Weber shows us her search for a true life course, rather than her coursework. From time to time the linear pattern based on the sessions at Oxford, digresses to reveal her less than perfect childhood, but never to the point of self-indulgence. Brief glimpses of her family show a selfish and absentee father, balanced by a tight-knit family of mother, sister, and brother. From the time she arrives at Oxford, Carolyn “Caro” Weber’s world view is confronted by the literature she reads and by her fellow students and professors. Reluctantly she sees her life change in a way she had never imagined.
Now, before I continue I must state that I don’t read memoirs. Why would I want someone else’s memories when I cannot fully appreciate my own? I would not have read this one were it not for the word Oxford in the title. Oxford summons for me all the mystery of cloistered halls inhabited with the characters and spirits of, among others, C. S. Lewis, (“and now the bridge is breaking. . .”); J.R.R. Tolkien (“A man that flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a short cut to meet it.”); Thomas Hobbes (Appetite, with an opinion of attaining, is called hope; the same, without such opinion, despair.”); John Locke (“The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.”); and John Donne (“More than kisses, letters mingle souls.”) How could I refuse such a book, if it would, only in snatches, put me in the presence of such as these. I love Oxford for the writers it has nourished, who have then nourished me.
But, on to the book. I fully expected to hate it as a memoir, but the more I read the more I wanted to read. I soaked up every quote at the beginning of each chapter and the quotes within, quotes from U2 and the Beatles to poets, poets, and more poets. I found myself laughing at her mishaps and cringing at her pain. When I finished reading, I found myself wanting to stand in Oxford with her. I wanted to eavesdrop on her conversations. I wanted to know her friends. Beyond every pain and the paradox, she found joy. And when it all came to a close, it became a small love story within a larger love story that overcame the author’s doubts as she learned to live with paradox and promise. It very much reminded me in some intangible way of Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis.
Surprised by Oxford makes you want to stop and listen; to ask questions along with the author, the same questions she was asking. Why does God let babies die? Why do horrible things happen if there is a loving God? Why are people so evil? Why does everyone else have it all together and I can’t seem to catch up? How does Christian faith work in real life, in academia? These are questions I have asked, and some that I ask still.
Surprised by Oxford is a book written by a writer who loves the English language and shows it. She uses British terms and spelling but never without an explanation. Some other reviewers found this to be a problem, but I enjoyed experiencing Oxford life, Briticisms and all. I recently read another memoir by another literature grad student and found it so dull I could barely finish it. Surprised by Oxford

Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life

is in a different class, one that instead of dragging the reader down, lifts the reader up and inspires the reader to ask questions. If you wonder whether Jesus is for you, this is the book you should read. If you love literature, this is a book for you. If you want Jesus and literature, this is the book.
I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

Relatively Obscure Great Books

I recently wrote about my most memorable books.  Those books are popular and easily accessible.  How about the less popular? 

The Place of the Lion

Charles Williams—a British writer in the early 20th Century, wrote novels which are both memorable and difficult to read.  Difficult to read because the language and situations are so strange that I could rarely relate.  The memorable—one of his novels, I can’t remember which one, but I think it’s this one: 

Descent into Hell, a Novel

described the act of bearing someone else’s burdens in such a way that I have never forgotten it.  The female character had an overwhelming fear.  A male character in whom she confided told her that if she would give her fear over to him, he would bear it for her.  Not simply a statement that he would “pray’ for her in her distress, but an offer to bear the fear and the distress of the fear for her.  Her only obligation was to give it up to him.  When was the last time you said that to someone.  I have said it twice.   I don’t know what happened with the original bearer of the fear and I don’t know that I suffered the fear in the same way (I don’t think that’s necessary), but it’s an interesting concept.

There are other authors so obscure (for those still living, I apologize) that I cannot remember their names with any regularity.  One of these is Frederick Buechner

Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons

Here is an excerpt from another of his books:

The Alphabet of Grace

From The Alphabet of Grace, pages 95-97 NOTE: Some of the references and imagery are from earlier parts of the book.

The interlocutor speaks. He is sitting at the opposite end of the . . . table where I teach, as if to raise the question which is the head of this table and which is the foot. He tips back his chair. "You mean you think you should be thrown there in the thick of it, right? Salving your conscience in one of the more plausible ghettos? Slogging it out beside Spock and Coffin. Marching on the Pentagon. Delivering turkeys at Christmastime. The trouble is you don't have the face for it, sir. You don't have the face for it or the guts for it. If you ever left this room and entered the real war, you know what you'd end up doing, don't you?"

I know, of course, but I shake my head. I would rather have him be the one to say it.

"You'd end up rolling bandages," he said.

"Maybe I should be rolling bandages," I say.

Come unto me, all ye with guts and without guts, with the right kind of face and the wrong kind of face. This is your first and last and only day. Be alive all day in it. Where your feet take you, that is who you are. My feet are crossed under the table where I write. The heel of one is pressed into the instep of the other. My legs are broken.

On the blackboard above her picture, Jane McWilliams has written Jesus Answers a Question. Through this story I am trying to write in this room about an old man's journey, I also want to answer a question. Perhaps it is the same question although I cannot be certain of this. My trouble is not only that I am not sure what the answer to my question is but that like Gertrude Stein on her deathbed, I am not even sure what the question is. I believe, however, that it has something to do with the price of being a human being. How much does a tin man have to pay for a heart? How much does a cowardly lion have to fork out for courage? What does it cost a scarecrow to be a man? Some question like that.

One day the old man in my book comes on a puddle of rainwater with the sky and the trees reflected in it. A bird is swimming there deeper than the tops of the deepest trees and there are fathoms and fathoms of sky still deeper than that. The old man has the impulse to jump down into this sky, but he resists the impulse. "When you are sick to your stomach and wish you were dead," he writes about it later, "there comes a moment when you must get the poison up somehow. But you do not stick your finger down your throat. You swallow down the freshets of saliva that come welling up into your mouth. You resist the protesting spasms of your own bilge. Because the poison you have to get rid of to be well is part of who you are, you will not let it go without a rumpus. From my childhood, I have never been able to retch without weeping. It was the same at the edge of the puddle. I did not jump in because I could not let myself go. Not even in order to live could I let go my death."

Is the reason the trees are so angry that the walrus is sick and refuses to vomit? Is it possible that it is not a walrus at all but a crouching man and that what I took for a large moustache is his mouth wide open because the pain is more than he can handle with his mouth closed? Is the question Jesus answers: "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" and the answer when all's said and done: "Come, follow me," which means--following him--that one way or another you end up with dried spit on your face if maybe only your own dried spit; means maybe that you end up with a sick smile rolling bandages because some poor pig has to roll them, or that you live with your guilt at not rolling bandages but at doing instead whatever other crazy job you like to think the voice in the dark room set you.

A Poem Inspired by My Review of WITH

Prepositional Truth

(Prepositions are insignificant words that we are unable to exorcise from the English language.)

of, in, by

What do I

desire, fear, battle

 

to, for, with

One who holds

complete, secure

 

at, down, from

spirit rub spirit

flesh press flesh

 

over, under, against

evil, famine, drought

sickness, ruin, death

 

between, above, before

time and space

expand eternity.

 

Of the Father,

In the Son,

By the Spirit

evermore.

With by Skye Jethani

I was initially disappointed with With.  At first glance it was another one of those one-word titled manuscripts that are a fluff of common facts and anecdotal yarns spun in a way to tickle the minds of those blind to the emperor’s new clothes and designed to land on the bestseller’s list. Malcolm Gladwell did it with Outliers and Blink. And now Skye Jethani, is doing it with With, taking one-word titles to a new low by using a preposition, one of the English language’s lowliest parts of speech containing only a singular meaning. If it seems as though I’m tired of one-word book titles, you have it right. However, my initial reservations were blown to pieces by the time I reached the halfway point in the book. Despite his overuse of prepositions, Jethani has crafted an expose worth reading. Jethani confronts the comfortable mindsets of believers and non-believers in Jesus, exposing those mindsets as deficient to satisfy our deepest longings and relieve our deepest fears. Drawn from his experiences as a pastor and his research into current events, Jethani points to four attitudes that deprive us of intimacy with God and fail to relieve our fears.

Jethani’s four approaches to life are named, defined, and expounded in the first five chapters using personal anecdotes, observations from his life and ministry, and quotes from contemporary literature. Life Over God, the easiest to of the concepts to understand, is life lived apart from God; God is not part of the picture of daily living. Life Under God, is the second least difficult to understand. Commonly termed “legalism”, it is the belief that adhering strictly to a set of rules will provide blessing from God.

The next two approaches hit closer to home. The person living Life From God views God as a means to an end, perhaps not overtly, but holding an interior view that God’s gifts, His blessings, are more valuable than relationship with Him. Here, Jethani discusses consumerism and its contained spiritual lie, but his most valuable illustration is the wayward son in Jesus’ parable in Luke 15. There we see the son valuing his inheritance and his way of life over relationship with his father. Indeed, don’t we all sometimes feel that our relationship with God just doesn’t cut it and we’ll go out to eat, enjoy a movie, or indulge in some other pleasure to fill the void, while feeling secure in our salvation?

Finally, Life For God, is a life lived for the mission, the life-purpose, rather than for the One who created your life. It is a life lived for the purpose and authentication provided by accomplishing the mission or goal, rather than remaining in relationship with God and letting Him provide our value. The most poignant story Jethani related in this chapter is his encounter with Christian students at a Christian college who believed that God was disappointed with them because of their struggles. They weren’t living up to God’s standards; They felt that they had failed God. As I continued to read this chapter, I suddenly felt like I had gained understanding of the preceding chapters.

Everyone, everywhere, at some time, stands with their soul’s arms and feet stuck in one or all of these non-relational positions, like a cruel game of Twister, never able to reach the goal because the goal changes with each turn of the wheel. That’s exactly what I’ve found life to be like with a God who is spirit, interpreted by imperfect humans. I’m writing here about myself and the preachers in my life, from my parents to my friends to the ones in the pulpit. What God wants is relationship and we want it too, except we get scared and fall back to our fall-back positions which end up being one or more of these mindsets, Life For God, Life From God, Life Under God, or Life Over God, where we become users of God instead of people who value God. What is the solution? How do we move from these destructive attitudes to the faith and assurance we desire?

The last four chapters of With tell us the value and method of living Life With God, a Life With Faith, a Life With Hope, and a Life With Love. Life With God teaches us to treasure, unite with, and experience God. How do we do this? First, we must learn to practice prayer as communion with the Father, in constant connection with Him, even if no words are exchanged. Examples from the life of Mother Theresa and Billy Graham show how they prayed in just this way.

A Life With Faith is a life without fear. It is trusting surrender to the One who holds us. Not cited in this book, the 2nd Chapter of Acts song “Nobody Can Take My Life Away” (from the album Rejoice) illustrates this for me. “Nobody can take my life away, because I gave my life to You.” It’s that simple: we surrender our lives in trust and He holds our lives securely against all forces and foes and turns a dangerous world into a safe one. Jethani presents a modern example of this: the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., whose trust in God enabled him to walk into the dark places free from fear for himself or his wife and children.

Life With Faith is extremely important because it influences our entire vision of the world around us. With sobering words, Jethani writes: “An unaltered vision of the word means most other elements of the Christian life will fail to make sense to us as well.” The Christian life as Jesus posited it will seem unrealistic, impossible, and foolish.

Why is it so difficult for self-identified Christians to believe, let alone obey, [everything that] Jesus said? Well, if they still see the world as a fundamentally dangerous place in which their well-being is in constant jeopardy, then the call to love your enemy, give freely, and not worry can only be dismissed as ludicrous.

It is only when we live with God and come to experientially know his goodness and love that the shadows break and these commands begin to make sense. If I am eternally safe in the care of my Good Shepherd, and I come to see the world as a safe place, then I am set free from my fears. I am free to give rather than hoard. I am free to enjoy each day rather than worry. I am free to forgive others rather than retaliate against them. And I am even free to love the person determined to harm me.

In Life With Hope, Jethani discusses our search for meaning and significance and how we seek to satisfy ourselves with external constructs such as our career, our family, or deriving order and meaning from religion or morality. But they all may fall like a house cards as the squalls of life blow through our lives upsetting our careful constructs. We attain meaning and significance from God, not from what we do for God.

Are you married? Then engage your marriage with God and learn to love your spouse as God has loved you. Are you single? Then be single with God and devote yourself to him. Are you a mechanic? Then commune with God in your work and repair cars as an act of devotion to him. Are you an office worker? Then welcome Christ to your desk as you serve your employer. . . In other words, the fullness of Christian life can be lived anywhere, in any circumstance, because God is with us. No condition of life is more honorable than another, because nothing God does lacks value.

Jethani gives us the moving example of the African slaves brought in chains to our country, and specifically of a slave in Maryland called “Praying Jacob.” No one had worse circumstances than the slaves, but more hope in Jesus. As Praying Jacob said to his owner, “I have two masters—Master Jesus in heaven and Master Saunders on earth. I have a soul and a body; the body belongs to you, but my soul belongs to Jesus.” Jethani advises us to encourage our hope through regular corporate worship and snatched moments during the day when we can commune with God.

Life With Love starts with love that quelled a prison riot and focuses on filling ourselves with God’s love by practicing silence and solitude that we might more fully commune with God. God’s love binds us to him in a way that lets us see Him as He is and to see ourselves as we truly are: Beloved of the Creator.

At the end of the book are two short appendices. The first, Communing With God, contains some practical exercises and references. The second contains group study questions. And finally, the notes. My constant quibble with end notes is the inability to easily find them while reading. Because they are labeled only by chapter number and not name, you must first locate the chapter you are in, find its number, then the note. How difficult would it have been to include the chapter name in the notes?

If you, like me, abhor one-word book titles, get over it and take a look at With by Skye Jethani. Ignore the prepositional title and chapters and the difficult beginning and read it to the end for a look at renewed community with God and others, renewed faith, renewed hope, and renewed love.

NOTE:  the publisher has provided me with a complimentary copy of this book for review.  I am glad they did; I might not have read it otherwise.

With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God

What Makes A Great Book?

First, let me talk about what makes a book bad.  Bad is a broad category but I was pulled into it recently when an author I liked moved to a different publisher and then released a new book which appeared to be of a different genre than he had used previously.  I was excited to read where he was headed now, but the book was disappointing.  Errors kept stopping me.  Missing words, wrong words, words repeated too frequently and used inappropriately.  Each one brought the flow of the text to a halt and forced me to consider what happened.  I decided that the move to a new publisher came with a sub-standard editor.  Editors are supposed to catch those sorts of things before the book is released.  Next, the book was a type of mystery.  I thought I knew from the start the identity of the evil-doer, but I hoped I was wrong.  We all want to be surprised.  The end was a disappointment because I was right.  I don’t put a lot of thought into reading fiction, so only poor writing could have caused this.  Finally, I found the characters so unrealistic that I could not believe in the story.  What do I mean by that?  It is the author’s task to create an environment where we can believe what is happening.  This author failed to do that.  I really liked his last series of books, so I will not mention his name here.  Everyone has a flop at some point and I hope this will be his only one.

Next, I’ll move on to books that are memorable for one or more reasons.  A contemporary author who has created some of the most memorable scenes for me is Ted Dekker.  No, he is not what I would consider a great writer, but there are places in his books, where I need to stop.  Not because of poor word choice or bad editing, but because he has described something so transcendent that I don’t want to forget it.  That makes him an author whose books I remember and refer to in years to come.  Not all of his books do that for me, but certainly his Circle Trilogy did.

Black/Red/White (The Circle Trilogy 1-3)

Other authors cause me to question life as I view it.  Madeleine L’Engle has singularly done that for me since childhood.  Any one of her books, at some time of my life, has pushed me into places I needed to go and restored me from the depths.  I have read every one of her books, many of them more than once.  She is the writer whose writings I most want to emulate.  My only regret is that I never met her in person. 

Annie Dillard is another writer who has made a difference in my life.  The first time I picked up one of her books, I could not get through it because I was stopped short by a scene she depicted.  It moved me so greatly that I could not continue.  In the years since that time I have tried to find that same scene and failed.  Did that scene exist or did something she wrote create an image in my mind that was different from her words?  I don’t know the answer.  Her use of language is something I try to emulate.  She paints pictures with words.  It is my goal to read all of her books in my lifetime.  I am grateful she hasn’t written many because her books take time to read and ponder.

Flannery O’Connor wrote letters, book reviews, short stories, and novels.  I own her collected works because it includes her novels, short stories, and letters.  Flannery wrote many letters by typewriter to readers and other writers and friends.  She used carbon paper to keep a copy for herself.  I find her letters easier to read than her novels and short stories which have given me images that cannot leave me. 

What books move you?

Whose Writing Influences Me?

 

One of my greatest influencers in word choice and usage is Annie Dillard.  I found these notes from her on the web somewhere and wanted to share them.  I don’t agree with all of them, but some of them will apply to any writer:

 

• Never, ever, get yourself into a situation where you have nothing to do but write and read. You’ll go into a depression. You have to be doing something good for the world, something undeniably useful; you need exercise, too, and people.
• Read for pleasure. If you like Tolstoy, 

  Great Short Works of Leo Tolstoy (Perennial Classics)

  read Tolstoy; if you like Dostoevsky, 

  Crime And Punishment

  read Dostoevsky. Push it a little, but don’t read something totally alien to your nature and then say, “I’ll never be able to write like that.” Of course you won’t. Read books you’d like to write. If you want to write literature, read literature. Write books you’d like to read. Follow your own weirdness.
• People in the arts, I read once, take about eight years just to figure out which art they’re in! Notify your parents.
• MFA and MA writing programs are great fun, and many are cheap or free.
• Learn grammar. Get a grammar book and read it two or three times a year

  THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE (UPDATED 2011 EDITION) The All-Time Bestselling Book on Writing English Newly Edited (Special 2011 Edition) BY WILLIAM STRUNK, JUNIOR ... Style OVER 10 MILLION COPIES SOLD! [Revised]

• Learn punctuation; it is your little drum set, one of the few tools you have to signal the reader where the beats and emphases go. (If you get it wrong, any least thing, the editor will throw your manuscript out.) Punctuation is not like musical notation; it doesn’t indicate the length of pauses, but instead signifies logical relations. There are all sorts of people out there who know these things very well. You have to be among them even to begin.
• Check the spelling; proofread. Get someone else to proofread, too.
• Don’t use passive verb constructions. You can rewrite any sentence.
• Don’t misspell dialect. Let the syntax and words suggest the pronunciation.
• Don’t use any word for “walk” or “say” except “walk” or “say.” I know your sixth grade teacher told you otherwise. She told me otherwise, too, and is still telling her sixth graders otherwise.
• Always locate the reader in time and space again and again. Beginning writers rush in to feelings, to interior lives. Instead, stick to surface appearances; hit the five senses; give the history of the person and the place, and the look of the person and the place. Use first and last names. As you write, stick everything in a place and a time.
• Don’t describe feelings.
• The way to a reader’s emotions is, oddly enough, through the senses.
• If something in your narrative or poem is important, give it proportional space. I mean, actual inches. The reader has to spend time with a subject to care about it. Don’t shy away from your big scenes; stretch them out.
• Writing in scenes doesn’t mean in television scenes. No dull dialogue: “Honey, I’m home! Where’s the beer?” “In the refrigerator!” (I think most fiction contains far too much dialogue.)
• Capturing the typical isn’t a virtue. Only making something new and interesting is. If you find life dull and people hateful, keep thinking until you can see it another way. Why would any reader pick up a book to read a detailed description of all that is most annoying in his daily life?
• Don’t use any extra words. A sentence is a machine; it has a job to do. An extra word in a sentence is like a sock in a machine.
• Buy hardback fiction and poetry. Request hardback fiction and poetry as gifts from everyone you know. Give hardback fiction and poetry as gifts to everyone. No shirt or sweater ever changed a life. Never complain about publishing if you don’t buy hardcover fiction and poetry regularly.
• Write for readers. Ask yourself how every sentence and every line will strike the reader. That way you can see if you’re misleading, or boring, the reader. Of course it’s hard to read your work when you’ve just written it; it all seems clear and powerful. Put it away and rewrite it later. Don’t keep reading it over, or you’ll have to wait longer to see it afresh.
• Don’t write about yourself. Think of books you like. Isn’t it their subjects you like best? Boring people talk about themselves.
• The work’s unity is more important than anything else about it. Those digressions that were so much fun to write must go.
• Usually you will have to rewrite the beginning the first quarter or third of whatever it is. Don’t waste much time polishing this; you’ll just have to take a deep breath and throw it away anyway, once you finish the work and have a clearer sense of what it is about. Tear up the runway; it helped you take off, and you don’t need it now. This is why some writers say it takes “courage” to write. It does. Over and over you must choose the book over your own wishes and feelings.
• Ignore your feelings about your work. These are an occupational hazard. If you are writing a book, keep working at it, deeper and deeper, when you feel it is awful; keep revising and improving it when you feel it is wonderful. When you are young and starting out, often it is better, however, to write something else than to labor over something that was a bad idea in the first place. Write something else; then write something else; then write something else. No matter how experienced you are, there is no correlation, either direct or inverse, between your immediate feelings about your work’s quality and its actual quality. All you can do is ignore your feelings altogether. It’s hard to do, but you can learn to do it.
• When you are writing full time (three to four hours a day), go in the room with the book every day, regardless of your feelings. If you skip a day it will take three painful days to get to believing in the work again. Have a place where you can leave the work out and open, so you don’t have to get it all out and spread before you can start again.
• The more you read, the more you will write. The better the stuff you read, the better the stuff you will write. You have many years. You can develop a taste for good literature gradually. Keep a list of books you want to read. You soon learn that “classics” are books that are endlessly interesting almost all of them. You can keep rereading them all your life about every ten years and various ones light up for you at different stages of your life.
• Don’t find an interesting true story a life, say, or a historical incident, and decide to turn it into a novel instead of a biography or a historical account. The novel based on fact is a muddy hybrid; readers can’t tell what’s true. Publishers won’t touch these. Write it as nonfiction if you want to write it.
• If you want to write novels (and if you buy hardcover novels regularly), go ahead and write novels. Publishing has changed, however, and novels are very difficult to publish. If you want to improve the odds that people will read what you write, write nonfiction narrative.
• For fiction, poetry, or nonfiction, the more research you do, the more materials you will have to play with. You are writing for readers a very educated bunch in this country. It’s hard and interesting to tell them something they don’t know. The more you read, the better you will know what they know.
• No one can help you if you’re stuck in a work. Only you can figure a way out, because only you see the work’s possibilities. In every work, there’s an inherent impossibility which you discover sooner or later some intrinsic reason why this will never be able to proceed. You can figure out ways around it. Often the way around it is to throw out, painfully, the one idea you started with.
• Publication is not a gauge of excellence. This is harder to learn than anything about publishing, and very important. Formerly, if a manuscript was “good,” it “merited” publication. This has not been true for at least twenty years, but the news hasn’t filtered out to change the belief. People say, “Why, Faulkner couldn’t get published today!” as if exaggerating. In fact, Faulkner certainly couldn’t, and publishers don’t deny it. The market for hardback fiction is rich married or widowed women over fifty (until you all start buying hardback books). The junior editors who choose new work are New York women in their twenties, who are interested in what is chic in New York that week, and who have become experts in what the older women will buy in hardcover. Eight books of nonfiction appear for every book of fiction. The chance of any manuscript coming into a publishing house and getting published is 1 in 3,000. (Agents send in most of these manuscripts. Most agents won’t touch fiction.)
• When a magazine rejects your story or poem, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t “good” enough. It means that magazine thought its particular readers didn’t need that exact story or poem. Editors think of readers: what’s in it for the reader? There is a cult of celebrity, too, in this country, and many magazines publish only famous people, and reject better work by unknown people.
• You need to know these things somewhere in the back of your mind, and you need to forget them and write whatever you’re going to write.

What Makes A Book Great?

First, let me talk about what makes a book bad.  Bad is a broad category but I was pulled into it recently when an author I liked moved to a different publisher and then released a new book which appeared to be of a different genre than he had used previously.  I was excited to read where he was headed now, but the book was disappointing.  Errors kept stopping me.  Missing words, wrong words, words repeated too frequently and used inappropriately.  Each one brought the flow of the text to a halt and forced me to consider what happened.  I decided that the move to a new publisher came with a sub-standard editor.  Editors are supposed to catch those sorts of things before the book is released.  Next, the book was a type of mystery.  I thought I knew from the start the identity of the evil-doer, but I hoped I was wrong.  We all want to be surprised.  The end was a disappointment because I was right.  I don’t put a lot of thought into reading fiction, so only poor writing could have caused this.  Finally, I found the characters so unrealistic that I could not believe in the story.  What do I mean by that?  It is the author’s task to create an environment where we can believe what is happening.  This author failed to do that.  I really liked his last series of books, so I will not mention his name here.  Everyone has a flop at some point and I hope this will be his only one.
Next, I’ll move on to books that are memorable for one or more reasons.  A contemporary author who has created some of the most memorable scenes for me is Ted Dekker.  No, he is not what I would consider a great writer, but there are places in his books, where I need to stop.  Not because of poor word choice or bad editing, but because he has described something so transcendent that I don’t want to forget it.  That makes him an author whose books I remember and refer to in years to come.  Not all of his books do that for me, but certainly his Circle Trilogy did.

Black/Red/White (The Circle Trilogy 1-3)

Other authors cause me to question life as I view it.  Madeleine L’Engle has singularly done that for me since childhood.  Any one of her books, at some time of my life, has pushed me into places I needed to go and restored me from the depths.  I have read every one of her books, many of them more than once.  She is the writer whose writings I most want to emulate.  My only regret is that I never met her in person. 
Annie Dillard is another writer who has made a difference in my life.  The first time I picked up one of her books, I could not get through it because I was stopped short by a scene she depicted.  It moved me so greatly that I could not continue.  In the years since that time I have tried to find that same scene and failed.  Did that scene exist or did something she wrote create an image in my mind that was different from her words?  I don’t know the answer.  Her use of language is something I try to emulate.  She paints pictures with words.  It is my goal to read all of her books in my lifetime.  I am grateful she hasn’t written many because her books take time to read and ponder.
Flannery O’Connor wrote letters, book reviews, short stories, and novels.  I own her collected works because it includes her novels, short stories, and letters.  Flannery wrote many letters by typewriter to readers and other writers and friends.  She used carbon paper to keep a copy for herself.  I find her letters easier to read than her novels and short stories which have given me images that cannot leave me. 
What books move you?

BURIAL

(a reflection on Gustav Courbet’s Burial at Onan and his exchange of romanticism for realism)

The corpse: clay-molded

tint and timbre of living being,

gaspless, tearless, hidden,

like life’s mourners stolid, lifeless

obscuring thoughts of self-demise.

The priest alone cradles hope

but repetitious, death fatigues

like the Christ of the crucifix

A cruel staccato rat-a-tat-tat

until, in our numbness,

we give up our own souls

to the pit

And one kneeling at the grave looks up.

Is that all you have:

dirt and dust and soul in the sky?

No tear for loss,

only the book and crucifix

and another who dies as we.

Even the dog looks away

but you, your darkened tones

speak your melancholy melody

Orphaned, distanced,

darkness is all you know.

Your heart bangs shut

in violent storm

Scattered shadows locked within

a heart that will not see.

A Poem Inspired by My Review of WITH

Prepositional Truth

(Prepositions are insignificant words that we are unable to exorcise from the English language.)

of, in, by

What do I

desire, fear, battle

to, for, with

One who holds

complete, secure

at, down, from

spirit rub spirit

flesh press flesh

over, under, against

evil, famine, drought

sickness, ruin, death

between, above, before

time and space

expand eternity.

Of the Father,

In the Son,

By the Spirit

evermore.

With by Skye Jethani

I was initially disappointed with With.  At first glance it was another one of those one-word titled manuscripts that are a fluff of common facts and anecdotal yarns spun in a way to tickle the minds of those blind to the emperor’s new clothes and designed to land on the bestseller’s list. Malcolm Gladwell did it with Outliers and Blink. And now Skye Jethani, is doing it with With, taking one-word titles to a new low by using a preposition, one of the English language’s lowliest parts of speech containing only a singular meaning. If it seems as though I’m tired of one-word book titles, you have it right. However, my initial reservations were blown to pieces by the time I reached the halfway point in the book. Despite his overuse of prepositions, Jethani has crafted an expose worth reading. Jethani confronts the comfortable mindsets of believers and non-believers in Jesus, exposing those mindsets as deficient to satisfy our deepest longings and relieve our deepest fears. Drawn from his experiences as a pastor and his research into current events, Jethani points to four attitudes that deprive us of intimacy with God and fail to relieve our fears.

Jethani’s four approaches to life are named, defined, and expounded in the first five chapters using personal anecdotes, observations from his life and ministry, and quotes from contemporary literature. Life Over God, the easiest to of the concepts to understand, is life lived apart from God; God is not part of the picture of daily living. Life Under God, is the second least difficult to understand. Commonly termed “legalism”, it is the belief that adhering strictly to a set of rules will provide blessing from God.

The next two approaches hit closer to home. The person living Life From God views God as a means to an end, perhaps not overtly, but holding an interior view that God’s gifts, His blessings, are more valuable than relationship with Him. Here, Jethani discusses consumerism and its contained spiritual lie, but his most valuable illustration is the wayward son in Jesus’ parable in Luke 15. There we see the son valuing his inheritance and his way of life over relationship with his father. Indeed, don’t we all sometimes feel that our relationship with God just doesn’t cut it and we’ll go out to eat, enjoy a movie, or indulge in some other pleasure to fill the void, while feeling secure in our salvation?

Finally, Life For God, is a life lived for the mission, the life-purpose, rather than for the One who created your life. It is a life lived for the purpose and authentication provided by accomplishing the mission or goal, rather than remaining in relationship with God and letting Him provide our value. The most poignant story Jethani related in this chapter is his encounter with Christian students at a Christian college who believed that God was disappointed with them because of their struggles. They weren’t living up to God’s standards; They felt that they had failed God. As I continued to read this chapter, I suddenly felt like I had gained understanding of the preceding chapters.

Everyone, everywhere, at some time, stands with their soul’s arms and feet stuck in one or all of these non-relational positions, like a cruel game of Twister, never able to reach the goal because the goal changes with each turn of the wheel. That’s exactly what I’ve found life to be like with a God who is spirit, interpreted by imperfect humans. I’m writing here about myself and the preachers in my life, from my parents to my friends to the ones in the pulpit. What God wants is relationship and we want it too, except we get scared and fall back to our fall-back positions which end up being one or more of these mindsets, Life For God, Life From God, Life Under God, or Life Over God, where we become users of God instead of people who value God. What is the solution? How do we move from these destructive attitudes to the faith and assurance we desire?

The lastl four chapters of With tell us the value and method of living Life With God, a Life With Faith, a Life With Hope, and a Life With Love. Life With God teaches us to treasure, unite with, and experience God. How do we do this? First, we must learn to practice prayer as communion with the Father, in constant connection with Him, even if no words are exchanged. Examples from the life of Mother Theresa and Billy Graham show how they prayed in just this way.

A Life With Faith is a life without fear. It is trusting surrender to the One who holds us. Not cited in this book, the 2nd Chapter of Acts song “Nobody Can Take My Life Away” (from the album Rejoice) illustrates this for me. “Nobody can take my life away, because I gave my life to You.” It’s that simple: we surrender our lives in trust and He holds our lives securely against all forces and foes and turns a dangerous world into a safe one. Jethani presents a modern example of this: the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., whose trust in God enabled him to walk into the dark places free from fear for himself or his wife and children.

Life With Faith is extremely important because it influences our entire vision of the world around us. With sobering words, Jethani writes: “An unaltered vision of the word means most other elements of the Christian life will fail to make sense to us as well.” The Christian life as Jesus posited it will seem unrealistic, impossible, and foolish.

Why is it so difficult for self-identified Christians to believe, let alone obey, [everything that] Jesus said? Well, if they still see the world as a fundamentally dangerous place in which their well-being is in constant jeopardy, then the call to love your enemy, give freely, and not worry can only be dismissed as ludicrous.

It is only when we live with God and come to experientially know his goodness and love that the shadows break and these commands begin to make sense. If I am eternally safe in the care of my Good Shepherd, and I come to see the world as a safe place, then I am set free from my fears. I am free to give rather than hoard. I am free to enjoy each day rather than worry. I am free to forgive others rather than retaliate against them. And I am even free to love the person determined to harm me.

In Life With Hope, Jethani discusses our search for meaning and significance and how we seek to satisfy ourselves with external constructs such as our career, our family, or deriving order and meaning from religion or morality. But they all may fall like a house cards as the squalls of life blow through our lives upsetting our careful constructs. We attain meaning and significance from God, not from what we do for God.

Are you married? Then engage your marriage with God and learn to love your spouse as God has loved you. Are you single? Then be single with God and devote yourself to him. Are you a mechanic? Then commune with God in your work and repair cars as an act of devotion to him. Are you an office worker? Then welcome Christ to your desk as you serve your employer. . . In other words, the fullness of Christian life can be lived anywhere, in any circumstance, because God is with us. No condition of life is more honorable than another, because nothing God does lacks value.

Jethani gives us the moving example of the African slaves brought in chains to our country, and specifically of a slave in Maryland called “Praying Jacob.” No one had worse circumstances than the slaves, but more hope in Jesus. As Praying Jacob said to his owner, “I have two masters—Master Jesus in heaven and Master Saunders on earth. I have a soul and a body; the body belongs to you, but my soul belongs to Jesus.” Jethani advises us to encourage our hope through regular corporate worship and snatched moments during the day when we can commune with God.

Life With Love starts with love that quelled a prison riot and focuses on filling ourselves with God’s love by practicing silence and solitude that we might more fully commune with God. God’s love binds us to him in a way that lets us see Him as He is and to see ourselves as we truly are: Beloved of the Creator.

At the end of the book are two short appendices. The first, Communing With God, contains some practical exercises and references. The second contains group study questions. And finally, the notes. My constant quibble with end notes is the inability to easily find them while reading. Because they are labeled only by chapter number and not name, you must first locate the chapter you are in, find its number, then the note. How difficult would it have been to include the chapter name in the notes?

If you, like me, abhor one-word book titles, get over it and take a look at With by Skye Jethani. Ignore the prepositional title and chapters and the difficult beginning and read it to the end for a look at renewed community with God and others, renewed faith, renewed hope, and renewed love.

NOTE:  the publisher has provided me with a complimentary copy of this book for review.  I am glad they did; I might not have read it otherwise.

With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God