Ladies, Get Your Mammograms

The Victoria's Secret Catalog Never Stops Coming
and Other Lessons I Learned from Breast Cancer
by Jennie Nash

This is a quick read and surprisingly entertaining, given its sober and scary subject matter. Jennie Nash is an anomaly - she was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 35, well before the age 40 threshold where physicians recommend annual mammograms. Some doctors say annual checks are not necessary until a woman hits 50. Statistically that may be true, but Jennie Nash would not have survived had she not followed her instincts and visited the radiologist.

Nash shares her experience very candidly, telling about her moments of courage and grace as well as her tantrums and moments of utter despair. She has a quirky sense of humor that comes through her narrative. As a writer, she believes that telling one's story is part of the healing process and she encourages other women to share their experiences as well. Jennie Nash's "lessons" range from wryly funny (perusing the "perfect" bodies in the Victoria's Secret catalog and instead of envying what she never had, mourning what she was about to lose) to devastatingly sad - in her chapter titled "Sometimes the Good Die Young" she shares the story of her friend Lisa who died of lung cancer at age 36. Not everyone survives.

This is a helpful book to read if you (or someone you know) are struggling with the decisions related to breast cancer and the body image issues that can result. It is also a word of hope for women who live in dread of the diagnosis. It is reminder to trust our own instincts about our bodies. Finally, it should prod those of us who procrastinate to schedule our mammograms and actually go to them. I scheduled an appointment this morning. Seriously.

Reverent Reader

Paint Away

Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith
by Rob Bell

This is a writer and pastor to pay attention to. Very similar to Brian McClaren, he is articulating things that people of faith have been experiencing for a long time, but that very few have had the courage to give voice to. He is able to unapologetically identify himself as a follower of Christ, yet also acknowledge and embrace the truth to be found in other traditions. Like a true adherent of the Reformed faith, he says that we as Christians have to constantly be in a process of examining our faith and doctrine and discerning what parts of it still have meaning and what needs to be re-thought in light of cultural shifts and new understandings of one another.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book:

"For thousands of years followers of Jesus, like artists, have understood that we have to keep going, exploring what it means to live in harmony with God and each other. The Christian faith tradition is filled with change and growth and transformation. Jesus took part in this process by calling people to rethink faith and the Bible and hope and love and everything else, and by inviting them into the endless process of working out how God created us to live (pgs. 10-11)."

"The Christian faith is alive only when it is listening, morphing, innovating, letting go of whatever has gotten in the way of Jesus and embracing whatever will help us be more and more the people God wants us to be (p. 11)."

"To be a Christian is to claim truth wherever you find it (p. 81)."

"Missions is less about the transportation of God from one place to another and more about the identification of a God who is already there. It is almost as if being a good missionary means having really good eyesight. Or maybe it means teaching people to use their eyes to see things that have always been there; they just didn't realize it. You see God where others don't. And then you point God out...So the issue isn't so much taking Jesus to people who don't have him, but going to a place and pointing out to the people there the creative, life-giving God who is already present in their midst (pgs.87-88)."

"For Jesus, eternal life wasn't a state of being for the future that we would enter into somewhere else; it is a quality of life that starts now. Eternal life then is a certain kind of life I am living more and more now and will go on forever. I am living more and more in connection with God, and I will live connected with God forever...For Jesus the question wasn't 'how do I get into heaven?' but 'how do I bring heaven here?'(pgs. 143 and 147)."

I think Rob Bell has his finger on an energizing shift that is taking taking place within the faith - less emphasis on guilt and fence-building, less encouragement for us to decide who is "in" and who is "out" and more emphasis on seeking truth and creating the kingdom of God in the here and now. It's not so much that he has invented this evolution as that he has noticed it and is bringing it out into the light of day. Change is less scary when it is named and expressed.

I would love to drink a Coke with this guy and pick his brain. Since he lives in Michigan, I don't see that happening any time soon. He is someone whose ideas could (and should) have a major impact on the church of the 21st century. Since I cannot dialogue with him personally, I will continue to read his stuff and wrestle with it. He challenges us all, but in a hopeful, exhilarating way.

Reverent Reader

*Too Wyrd

The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories
by Susanna Clarke

I just do not get it. I love the Harry Potter books, and I can think of other books that verge on fantasy that I have enjoyed (most notably The Sparrow and Children of God, both by Mary Doria Russell). But if a book gets too out there, too fantastic, too much "did that really happen or is this a hallucination?", too much difference between the world the author creates and the one we live in, it is difficult for me to get into it.

E. really liked Clarke's novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, so he got me this collection of short stories for my birthday a few months ago. Part of the problem may be the short story genre. This is a collection of eight pretty much unrelated stories, except they all deal with the faerie world in England. The time periods and characters jump around. If it were a novel and the reader could become immersed in one set of characters and one realm of fantasy, it might work better. As it is, I finish each one going "HUH?" Maybe I'm just a little dense. Having said that, I will admit to my own preference for novels over short stories, so my bias could be affecting how I experience the book.

At some point, I may give Clarke's novel a try - the longer stories of this collection prove more satisfying. I also would sometime like to do some reading about the folklore and culture of the faeries. I felt like I was missing something in this book, because I do not know the powers or pecking order of the faeries. In many cases, they sounded like witches or magicians, and I'm not sure what all the differences are. Oh well, we can't know everything. Gotta prioritize.

Reverent Reader

*I remember from reading Macbeth a thousand years ago that "wyrd" is how "weird" is spelled in Old English. Given that one story in this collection is written in Old English, and several of them throw in the odd phrase or two, it seemed appropriate to title this post in Old English.

Blood, Guts, Infection - WOW!

Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
by Atul Gawande

I've always been fascinated with the gross. I watch ER and Grey's Anatomy for the trauma and surgery scenes as much as the juicy story lines. When my friends had cuts or stitches when I was a kid, I always asked to see them. I certainly don't wish illness or injury on anyone, but must confess to a morbid curiosity about all things medical. This is a book that E. read several years ago and really liked. I had been intending to read it for a long time, and finally picked it up a few days ago.

Atul Gawande is a general surgeon, a staff writer for The New Yorker, a husband, and the father of three children. He must not need much sleep. Complications is about the uncertainty of medicine, how even the best doctors often have to rely on intuition rather than hard facts because even with all the advances in science and diagnostic technology, there is still so much that we do not know. He also acknowledges that doctors make mistakes, and goes into great detail about the efforts made to prevent and minimize error. Gawande is honest about his own mistakes, but his passion for the skill of surgery and his compassion for his patients is evident.

Gawande has several interesting chapters about various medical phenomena that are common but about which we still are woefully ignorant. He discusses the physiology of blushing at length, and how for a very small percentage of people, uncontrollable blushing can be a debilitating condition. His chapter on the causes of nausea and vomiting, and their relationship to one another, is enough to make you run for an emesis basin. Except for when the vomiter is one of my own kids, the sight or sound of someone vomiting has always been enough to get me started. Complications says that studies show that "sympathetic vomiting" is a real deal, and there are physiological causes for it! I always thought I was just a wimp.

Gawande's chapter on necrotizing fasciitis, a horrible lethal infection, is enough to scare anybody. I won't even go into it, or you'll be frightened to death with the slightest break of skin, even a paper cut. Let's just say that Gawande's way with words is so adept that just visualizing fasciitis is enough to generate some of the aforementioned sympathetic vomiting. Ugh.

This is a compelling read, and you will finish it with a greater appreciation for the work of physicians and a heightened sense of awe at the beautiful complexity of the human body.

Reverent Reader

A Cool 'hood

Morningside Heights
by Cheryl Mendelson

This is a wonderful story with believable characters, but my favorite part about it was the location. Morningside Heights is a Manhattan neighborhood near Columbia University where some dear friends of ours, J. and J., own an apartment. When they do not have the apartment rented out, they let friends use it for vacations and short-term getaways. We have spent some great times in their place and have many fond memories of it. Morningside Heights makes reference to restaurants where we have eaten (Tom's diner of Seinfeld fame, Le Monde, V & T's), bookstores we have browsed in (Labyrinth Books, Bank Street Books), and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which is around the corner from the apartment we love so much. Reading the book therefore felt like going home for a visit. So much fun. I understand that Mendelson intends this book to be the first of a trilogy, all about this same area of NYC. Definitely I will have to follow up and see what happens to these people, since in some way they feel like neighbors. Mendelson herself lives in Morningside Heights, and it is clear she loves her home.

Some of the characters are a bit spoiled and entitled, and a couple others are WAAAYY over analytical and self-involved, but essentially they are like many of us. They want an intellectually and culturally rich lifestyle over one that is lavish with material goods. They long for meaningful relationships but sometimes botch their social interactions. They struggle to remain in Manhattan as the price of real estate threatens to make their lifelong neighborhood economically beyond their reach. With all of the extreme poverty in the world, it is hard to feel sorry for people who are facing a move to the suburbs because the city is too expensive, but we also can sympathize with the bewilderment of hardworking people who have been accustomed to a lifestyle that is rapidly slipping through their fingers.

On the macro level, Morningside Heights is about the gentrification of certain sections of New York City, and people who have lived in those places all their lives getting forced out. At the micro level, it is about how one family and their group of friends cope with that stress. The heart of the novel is the Braithwaite family - husband and wife Charles and Anne and their four children. Mendelson very deftly expresses the inevitable tensions and passive-aggressive manipulations that develop between Anne and Charles as they face financial stress and the chaos of a young and growing family. However, she also shows us an underlying core of strength to their relationship, a persistent "we-ness" that we sense will prevail regardless of other circumstances. The moment when the air clears between them is moving and feels real. This commitment to one another, even when things are not easy, is a core value of marriage that Mendelson is able to demonstrate with her writing without being preachy.

The family life of the Braithwaites is punctuated by the input of close friends and extended family - it is this network of people that the Braithwaites hate to leave as they prepare to move to Putnam County. I have always thought of NYC as huge and impersonal, but Mendelson's story shows us that while location may be an important factor, how we live in a place makes a huge difference in whether or not it feels like home to us.

Reverent Reader

One Just For Fun

One For The Money
by Janet Evanovich

Sometimes you just have to lighten things up a little bit. This book is not going to set the intellectual or social commentary world on fire, but it's great for a beach, airport, or metro read. This is the first of a long series of Stephanie Plum detective novels that Evanovich has written. Lots of people in my congregation enjoy Janet Evanovich, so I figured it was time to give her a try. I was not disappointed.

Stephanie Plum is a scrappy Jersey girl who works as a bounty hunter for her cousin who is a bail bondsman. The book is narrated in first person, and Plum has a self-deprecating, Carol Burnett-ish way about her that makes the book a scream. The story is full of sleazoid characters, most of whom Evanovich manages to make likable. Evanovich subtly reminds readers that many people who get into less than ideal (and often less than legal) jobs - such as prostitution, drug running, or bounty hunting did not have aspirations to get there. People will do almost anything when they are desperate to survive. The character of Lula in One For The Money teaches us that.

This is a fun read, and you can knock it off on a rainy afternoon. I would compare Evanovich with Lindsey Davis or Carl Hiaasen, although I do not think she is quite as original as Davis or as clever as Hiaasen. Nevertheless, sometimes you just want to kick back and eat a bag of M &Ms. This is the literary equivalent of doing that. ENJOY!

Reverent Reader

P.S. More bad news - S. now has strep throat also. We have had to postpone our trip to NYC to see T. and S. Bummer. Pray for us that we can get everyone healthy and keep them that way.

Not Really So Simple

Simple Church: Returning to God's Process for Making Disciples
by Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger

Once again, I must apologize for my gap between posts. Ordinarily I like to post every couple of days, but it was a crazy busy weekend at work, and now G. has come down with strep throat AGAIN! For those who are keeping track, this is the third time in about seven weeks, with a bout of pneumonia thrown in around his birthday just to keep things interesting. Poor little guy. He is usually so cheerful, it is heartbreaking to see him point to his throat and say "OWIE!" He is now on yet another antibiotic, so hopefully will be feeling better soon.

Frankly, this book left me absolutely cold. For one thing, it's language is much more evangelical than my taste, but I usually can get past that if the writer has something interesting to say. The book also is poorly written. If another sentence began with "According to our research..." or "We asked the vibrant and comparison church leaders to evaluate..." I thought I would scream.

It's not to say that these guys do not have some good ideas. I agree with them that faith communities thrive best when the relationships are strong among the members and when they are committed as a group to learning more about how we are called to relate to God and each other. However, they claim to want to strip church life down to its barest essentials. Having served in churches in the past that were over programmed, I certainly see the value in doing fewer things better rather than trying to provide a program for every perceived need that comes along. However, Rainer and Geiger claim that their research shows that "growing" churches commit to a certain process from which they will not deviate. Everything in the life of the church is evaluated according to how well it fits in with their process. Sounds to me like the church leaders are going to spend so much time evaluating and tinkering with their process and "moving" people through the process that they are going to have little time for the relationships that they claim are so important.

I think one thing that I am reacting to is that any cookie cutter formula for being the church bugs me. So much emphasis on "process" and "evaluation" and "paradigm" a) makes me yawn and b) leaves little room for the work of the Holy Spirit. Plus I just do not think there is any one way to be a faith community. I am the first to admit that I am not a terribly strategic thinker - I tend to follow instincts more than process, so it could be that this way of thinking about church leadership makes me feel defensive. Having said that, though, with Rainer and Geiger focusing so much on moving people through a process of discipleship, it seems that we are trying to force them along, getting them to conform as quickly as possible to our agenda, rather than journeying with them as they experience Christ in their own lives.

One of my favorite ways of describing the faith journey is that each of us (and creation as a whole) is a "work in progress," moving forward and sometimes backward as we muddle through trying to become the people God has created us to be. Rainer and Geiger seem to think that people reach a phase where they are done, they have moved through all the steps and are now disciples. That just does not make any sense to me. I am not questioning the results of their research, as it sounds very methodical and well thought out. I would just raise the possibility that those churches that are growing are doing so as a result of something else about their spirit or way of relating to one another or their commitment. Being "simple churches" may make it easier to develop these other aspects of the community, but I doubt that the simplicity in itself is the primary attraction for people.

Agree? Disagree? Thoughts?

Reverent Reader

Sighs Matters

Bridge of Sighs
by Richard Russo

Richard Russo is just an awesome writer. I have read most of his work and have loved all but one. His first novel, Mohawk, written in 1986, is ok but not up to the level of his others. Straight Man is a favorite - absolutely hilarious. Bridge of Sighs does not have the dead on humor of some of Russo's other books, but it is a beautiful story beautifully written. Like most of Russo's novels, this one is set in upstate New York and deals with the hopes, dreams, and struggles of working class people.

At the deeper level, Bridge of Sighs is about the difference between those who believe that all people are fundamentally good and those who believe that everyone (even people who seem good) is a scuzball in disguise. This difference in outlook has major impact on the rest of the choices we make in how we relate to people and how we live our lives. Two of the major male characters ("Big Lou" Lynch and his son, also named Lou) frustrate their wives because they are so kind hearted (and some would say simpleminded) that they get taken advantage of. They are also basically optimistic people, even when they are given very little reason to be.

There are so many other themes in play in this big fat story - racial tensions, father/son relationships, mother/daughter relationships, friendships between boys, adolescent angst, class warfare, academic freedom, domestic violence, frustrated aspirations, marital communication (do we always tell the "whole truth?") and artistic expression are just a few that come to mind. Each of these themes could be a whole post in itself - that is how packed and moving this novel is.

In spite of the numerous and heavy subject matters, the story does not drag. The larger themes are wrapped around daily domesticity and everyday life in a way that Russo makes look easy, but is impossible for most writers. The characters are so well depicted that they seem like real people and we hate to say good-bye to them when the book ends. One great strength of the book is its ending - Russo leaves us feeling that it is never to late for us to grow, that if we continue to stretch ourselves there will always be new things to discover, even in the mundane areas of life that we so often take for granted.

Bridge of Sighs is a book for anyone who has ever wondered about the road not traveled, wondered if we should have regrets about options that we rejected or choices that we avoided. Although not specifically about faith, Bridge of Sighs restores our faith in the truth that grace is present in all our circumstances. We need only look carefully to find it.

I hope many, many people will read Bridge of Sighs. It is a wonderful book that will leave the reader appreciating family, home, and the wisdom that we accumulate over time.

Reverent Reader

In Memoriam

Dorothy Toner McClung

This is normally a blog about what I am reading, but I feel compelled today to pay tribute to someone who helped me see the place of reading and writing in having a full life that is intellectually and spiritually vibrant.

I learned last night that Dorothy McClung died a few days ago at her home of complications from Alzheimer's disease. She was 86 years old. Thirty-three years ago she was my second grade teacher. Many teachers, from elementary school through graduate school, have had a major impact on me, but Mrs. McClung was the first. She gave me ideas for books to read, and recommended the first chapter books that I tried. She nudged me to read "Little House on the Prairie," and after that I was off and running. She also encouraged me to write my own stories and put my thoughts into words. I still remember the special little book that she made for me - it had that paper in it that has lines on the bottom half and is blank on the top half so you can draw pictures to accompany your story. I felt like she believed I could write something really important.

As is often the case in small towns, Mrs. McClung continued to be a presence in our lives. She and her husband lived across the alley from us until we moved a few miles away when my sister and I were 12. Mrs. McClung brought chicken salad the day our parents brought our baby brother home from the hospital. She and her husband bought numerous raffle tickets, magazine subscriptions, and candy bars and all the other crazy stuff that school kids sell to make money for their various activities. Even when I was in high school, she would send me a note once in awhile saying she was proud of me. She kept on teaching me long after that 1974-75 school year was over.

Mrs. McClung was a gifted artist in her own right - a wonderful drawer and painter - but I will remember her primarily as a teacher. She did what every teacher should do - treated me like I was an intelligent person whose ideas mattered. There is no way to even guess how many people she influenced, but I know of one for sure.

Rest in peace, Mrs. McClung. You made a difference. I know that God has welcomed you and said "Well done, good and faithful servant."

Reverent Reader

Just in Case You're Looking...

Stories Jesus Told

by Mark Littleton

illustrations by Traci Monroney

It's always a relief when something that is lost is found (aren't there a couple of parables about that?). This book is a favorite of G.'s right now - the interpretation of the biblical parables is a little too fundamentalist for my taste, but G. really likes it because it has all those little flaps to lift up and look at things underneath. He spends a lot of time entertaining himself with them - legs outstretched, book on lap, brow furrowed on concentration. He also makes the noise of each of the animals pictured in the book. Adorable.

A few days ago G. could not find this book, and he wanted to take it to daycare. We were all looking frantically for it, with G. running around saying with his usual urgency and exuberance "FIND! JESUS!" Eventually the book turned up, in a very logical, close-by place. It was stuck between the bookshelf and the bed, in S.'s room. G. was ecstatic, especially since he was the one who found it. He clutched the book to his chest and went marching through the house with a big smile on his face. The sentence changed to "I FIND! JESUS!"

If only it were that simple. Maybe for a two-year-old it is. I hope that in some way each of you finds Jesus today, just a few inches away.

Reverent Reader