It was just one week ago when we sat in a large sanctuary in Lancaster with other mourners, lamenting the loss of our friend Leslie Bustard. (For the record, it was called “A Service of Faith and Beauty in Honor of Leslie Anne Bustard.”) As I said in my adult Sunday School class the next day, it was one of the most memorable such services I’ve ever attended as it was grueling and at the same time deeply beautiful with a vivid sense of both loss and redemptive hope. I wept from the moment the good preacher of the Bustard’s church (Wheatland Presbyterian) greeted the guests saying that he was, and that we all may be, outraged by the awfulness of death. We are offended, he said, on behalf of the three strong, beautiful young women who will no longer have Leslie’s motherly guidance and friendship. Luke insisted that we are also offended on behalf of Ned, who lost his very dearly beloved. Death in the Bible is an enemy, and I felt that profoundly.

There would be no sweeping our pain under the chancel rug, it seemed, and while Reformed folks are often glad to rejoice even in suffering, knowing God has things under control, they resisted cheap sentiment or trite assurances. Pastor Luke said that this is not the way it is supposed to be — I am grateful for the book on sin and our fallen condition by that very name by Cornelius Plantinga — as he helped us all stare Death down, knowing of Christ’s victory. I don’t recall that he cited Hebrews 2:8, but he might have, strongly assuring us of Christ’s resurrection and reign, even if we don’t yet see all things made right quite yet.

(I am so glad for robust, generously orthodox theology that equips pastors and liturgists to lead us well in times such as these. There was no cheap talk about how spiffy it is that she is in heaven and certainly no pablum about God needing another angel, whatever the hell that means. I’ve heard some awfully dumb stuff at funerals — from fundamentalists and mainline liberals alike — and one is strengthened when solid gospel vocabulary is used, admitting pain with an eye to the new creation. Surprised by Hope, indeed!)

A few days before she died — she died on Good Friday if you counted by way of the Orthodox calendar — I posted this BookNotes column, naming a few good chapters Leslie had contributed to books, celebrated the one about children’s literature that she edited with two other women (Wild Things and Castles in the Sky, of which she was very proud and about which she was endlessly excited) and I recommended her recently published — and very good — poetry volume, The Goodness of God in the Land of the Living (Square Halo Books; $12.99.)

We are grateful that in response, some of the Bustard’s extended family of friends and Square Halo Books loyalists ordered her books. We are glad that some who never heard of Leslie (or even Square Halo) ordered some, to support them, and just to check out an author we had recommended. It was nice, and even a bit healing, getting to send her books out to you all even as she was in hospice care. Thank you.

Some readers, I have learned, didn’t realize that she has since died and I felt like I should mention it here.

Of course the funeral/memorial service bulletin had a linocut on the front done by husband Ned. It was an art piece named The Church and was “originally created to remind Leslie of a conversation she had with an older woman in the faith, in which the wise sister had impressed upon Leslie that in the midst of the storms of life Jesus was not looking down from heaven or even walking on the water beside her, but was actually in the boat with her.” Ned continues (in his note in the workshop booklet), “In Christian art a boat is often a symbol for the Church, and here Saint Peter (representing the Old Testament faithful) holds both the keys to the Kingdom and the symbol for Baptism while Leslie (representing the New Testament faithful) holds the Bread and the Wine.”

Opening the page, there were throughout the booklet tenderly chosen and expertly arranged poems and citations, prayers and song lyrics (including the lyrics to the very cool Innocence Mission song called “Bright as Yellow” which was, we were told, somewhat of a mantra for Leslie. Obviously.) It was performed live by her friend, the lead singer of that Lancaster-based band.

Ned, always the graphic designer, gave it his all, and I am weeping now even as I try to share with you, my friends and BookNotes readers, how beautiful this all was. From “Pied Beauty” by Hopkins to an essay by Luci Shaw to a paragraph by Henri Nouwen to “Whatever Is Foreseen in Joy” by Wendell Berry, the poems and reflections were remarkably helpful. That readers dear to the Bustard family (including the daughters) recited some of them was a great gift.

Of course some of Leslie’s own works were printed out, and some read. I can’t imagine how the readers handled themselves with such poise and recited so wonderfully. This — among other things, of course — is what poetry is for. We say “words cannot express…” and normal words sometimes cannot. But, creatively arranged in allusive, aesthetically-rich ways, the gift of well put words is a gift indeed.

They did not mention it, but for what it is worth, I think I’d recommend the recently acclaimed Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World edited and explored by Padraig O Tuama (Norton; $27.95) or, perhaps for better days, Joy: 100 Poems, edited by Christian Wiman (Yale University Press; $20.00.) For thinking nicely about how the imaginative arts can help Christian people in their Kingdom journey, you might appreciate the nice paperback (enhanced with art selected by Ned), Lifting the Veil: Imagination and the Kingdom of God by Leslie’s poet friend, Malcolm Guite (Square Halo Books; $18.99.) I am fond of the small Square Halo volume called Naming the Animals by Stephen Roach (Square Halo Books; $11.99) and the very impressive, recent release, Why We Create: Reflections on the Creator, the Creation, and Creating edited by Colorado culture-maker, Brian Brown (Square Halo Books; $18.99.)

The whole, long service was informed by this kind of theology with fruits of amazement and wonder, and it is notable how good liturgy and wise insights shaped our experience of saying goodbye to our sister and friend. Those who have immersed themselves in this kind of good thinking, using poetry and song and well-crafted prose are equipped, deep in their bones, it seems, to rise to the occasion of creating such a tragic/beautiful memorial service.

Many of you know how fond we are of (and how we were early adopters, for a while one of the only bookstores stocking) the Rabbit Room’s Every Moment Holy and Every Moment Holy Volume II: Death, Grief, and Hope, both expertly crafted by Douglas McKelvey. I cannot here tell you how rich and remarkable these two prayer books are.

Ned, as you may know, did the artwork within and the layout and design of both volumes. Leslie and Ned’s good friend, Douglas McKelvey, who, as I’ve said, wrote the prayers and litanies and liturgies in both Every Moment Holy volumes, arrived from Tennessee to participate in the service. Most of us are not fortunate enough to have poets/prayer-writers at our funerals or memorials, but these books are of immense help in honoring the spirituality of the ordinary (the first volume) and the hardship of our days, for the dying as well as the grieving (the second.) The Bustards used some of the prayers in these two prayer books consistently, and were glad for specific prayers about medical examinations and for use before surgeries and such.

At Leslie’s service Doug prayed, carefully, slowly, at times (painfully so), the following:

O Christ Who Reclaims What We Have Lost, even here at the epicenter of our sorrow, kindle afresh our eternal hope. Remind us that this song of lament we sing today will not endure forever. At the last, its discordant strains will be unmade, and changed, and woven back into the perfect patterns of a greater melody of joy and praise. This story does not end where some would say it ends, upon this funeral day. Make of us, O God, a people shaped even now by these songs of your coming redemption. For today’s goodbye is like the pause that stalls a single line of poetry, and we feel for a time the tension of that phrase suspended, unresolved.

But you, O Christ, are the Poet King, who crafts, creates, and labors to bring all things right — so that even this briefly interrupted line will find its great, fulfilling rhyme in the time of that glad wedding feast, when you, our God and groom, receive your bride. And all the gains that death had ever made will be reclaimed in resurrected life. And so this one we love will rise again, alive, remade, complete and whole, and robed in those eternal glories. So will we all, who hold your love more precious than our lives.

Now, even as a sailor in the dark of night might chart a true course by the brightest star, so let us navigate the sadness of these hours with hearts fixed upon the light of the hope of that promised and pending resurrection. Amen.

There was more poetry scattered throughout the service (before words by Ned, sharing Leslie’s own pre-written comments to her three lovely daughter, and a stellar sermon by Rev. Luke LeDuc.) We read or heard poems by Seamus Heaney, by Luci Shaw, by Anne Bradstreet and more. There was a live rendition of a Charlie Peacock song (of course — it was used each year at the celebration/remembrance of the Bustard girl’s baptisms) and a very cool duo performing a great version of the great take-off on the 23rd Psalm (“The House of God Forever”) by Jon Foreman (of Switchfoot fame) as done on an acoustic album of his. (Here is another version, live, shot in black and white.) Give it a view and say a prayer for all those who need this promise today.

Ned and Leslie loved the albums of Indelible Grace and Beth and I were glad to sing — hard as it was through our masks and tears — the upbeat, folkie version of “O Love That Will Not Let Me Go”, which gets to me even on a good day. (Here’s a live version, also quite nice.)

Their Wheatland musicians led us well and when, near the end, they opened to the chords of a congregational favorite, the Sandra McCracken tune, “We Shall Feast in the House of Zion” from her Psalms album, and there was hardly a dry eye in the place, even as we rejoiced in the hope of the gospel.

We will feast in the house of Zion

We will sing with our hearts restored

He has done great things, we will say together

We will feast and weep no more

 

We will not be burned by the fire

He is the Lord, our God

We are not consumed by the flood

Upheld, protected, gathered up

 

We will feast in the house of Zion

We will sing with our hearts restored

He has done great things, we will say together

We will feast and weep no more

 

In the dark of night, before the dawn

My soul, be not afraid

For the promised morning, oh how long

Oh God of Jacob, be my strength

 

We will feast in the house of Zion

We will sing with our hearts restored

He has done great things, we will say together

We will feast and weep no more

 

Every vow we’ve broken and betrayed

You are the faithful One

And from the garden to the grave

Bind us together, bring shalom

 

We will feast in the house of Zion

We will sing with our hearts restored

He has done great things, we will say together

We will feast and weep no more

You may have heard the story of what happened with the extraordinary painter who used to teach at Gordon College, the good, good artist and friend, Bruce Herman. (There will be a new Square Halo volume, The Art of Bruce Herman: An Unguarded Gaze, showing his work, coming soon, we’ve heard.) He sensed one morning that he was to paint a portrait of Leslie. He knew she was sick and he had been praying for her, but had no idea how very special this painting would become. Amazingly rich and exquisitely artful, he finished it and sent it to the Bustard’s where it arrived during a discouraging time a bit before Leslie’s final turn for the worse. What a joy it was, and so very appropriate for an art-appreciating family like theirs. It was quickly photographed and shared on social media, becoming somewhat of a banner for the Bustard’s end-of-life missives and a rallying point for those of us who love them.

The world-class poet/priest from England, the Reverend Malcolm Guite, saw it and wrote a poem for her, recalling his time spent with them in Lancaster this past winter and inspired by Bruce’s portrait:

Out of the turbulence, out of the wild

Haphazardness of background strokes, the brush

Still finds its form and forms her face:

So full of life and, lovely, like a child

Still making her own mischief, with a rush

Of energy. And yet we also trace

A woman’s wisdom in her concentration

On the still point, the whole point of it all,

Which was and is and always will be love:

Creative love and love in all creation.

This painting finds the poet in her, all

The heighth and depth she bodies forth as form,

To find her balance on the point of love,

When lovers know there’s nothing left to prove.

This recent poem isn’t found in any of his many books, but we wanted to share it here. Thanks for reading along.

Most of us don’t know famous poets, of course — I don’t — but it might be wise for all of us to think well about the real things of this fallen but being redeemed world of wonder, and prepare ourselves with Kingdom imagination, about how to honor those who die and support those in grief There are very good books on dying well and thinking about funerals — send me an email and I’ll create a list for you. I think, at the very least, you should have that second Every Moment Holy Volume II: Death, Grief, and Hope. Just to remind you, both of those handsome volumes come in two editions — the full sized leather hardbacks ($35.00 – OUR SALE PRICE = $28.00) and in soft, flexible leather in compact sized editions ($25.00 – OUR SALE PRICE = $20.00.) When sending us an order, please be sure to tell us which volume you want and which size/edition you prefer. Thanks.

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BookNotes

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In our last, heart-felt BookNotes I highlighted several good chapters and a book by our very dear friend Leslie Bustard, who is now, as her bereaved but hopeful husband Ned, put it, “on mercy’s shores.” One brand new book, Why We Create (published by Square Halo Books, where Leslie was intimately involved) included a new piece by Leslie on how having cancer made her more attentive, more grateful, and  more generative. It was a wonderful chapter and that it was released to the book buying world just days before her death seemed somehow — what? — I can hardly find the word. Appropriate. Blessed, maybe. So I wrote about it, gladly, if through my own tears.

It was a blessed thing, too, that many wrote to me, noting their concern and interest in this marvelous Lancaster-based woman. Her family was happy to hear that, and it was meaningful for Beth and me and our staff here. Thanks for caring. (You can read her obituary, here.)

This fascination with a good story of a good writer inspired me to finish up a BookNotes post I’d been working on the previous week about memoirs, mostly memoirs about folks going through loss or other painful, complicated stuff. I’ve read a few stellar ones these last few weeks, and am in the middle of two others. If I remind you of a few I raved about a few months ago, I’ve got a nice compilation of 10 great stories. As I often say, the best-written memoirs are almost as imaginative and surely as enjoyable as a fine novel.

Please allow me to tell you about these — all announced here at 20% off. If they aren’t your cup of tea, no worries, although I am sure many will love hearing about these.

To order just scroll to the bottom of the column and click on the “order” link which takes you to our secure order form page at the Hearts & Minds website.

Lessons and Carols: A Meditation on Recovery John West (Eerdmans) $25.00                                OUR SALE PRICE = $20.00

I start with this one but want to say it may be the most demanding of reads on this good list. It is, doubtlessly and assuredly, very well written. The author, John West, has himself been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and this memoir is poetic, nuanced, at times allusive, even, at times, staggeringly perplexing. And yet, it is one of the most brilliant bits of creative writing I have come across in a long, long time. It is clearly in a genre that transcends the categories of autobiography, even the category of memoir, and into sheer literature. Of a ragged, raw sort.

Indeed, one reviewer noted his “sensitivity and wild intelligence” suggesting he “enters a psychic and emotional netherworld.” It is gentle and reflective and and extraordinary achievement.

The title of the book comes from the loose format — if one can call it that — of being arranged around the traditional Anglican Christmas service of stories and songs; it is, admittedly, genre-bending, as the flyleaf promises.

Maybe redemption is not a place you find, but a system of mapmaking. Sketch a land. Pencil in dragons. Imagine it real, resplendent, and broken under a waxing moon.

Some of the story, as the subtitle promises, explores “the aftershocks” of alcoholism. That is true. Also, the author struggled with mental illness, and the anguish of that — told through “a fresh look at the powers of poetry, ritual, and community” is gripping.

Mark Wunderlich notes that West,

…moves among the shades of addiction, the fog of confusion, to emerge changed, connected to life and to love and to art…. Lessons and Carols is not a conventional story of adversity overcome, but the narrative of the author’s commitment to the making of a soul.

The “ritual” and “community” that is alluded to is a routine of gathering friends to read and sing the “lessons and carols” service — sometimes with what seems like a degree of camp, sometimes with flamboyant earnestness, even though, in some years, the participants are all atheists, or trying to be. The book isn’t only or even mostly about these yearly enactments, but they anchor the narrative a bit. West was young and wild and sexually active, when he started this yearly gathering;  later, through much of the narrative, he is a struggling new parent. It’s been many years since I held my own newborns, but, geesh, this evoked some feelings about that. And more.

Very impressive literary figures have endorsed this set of episodes — Mark Wunderlick, Megan Maynhew Bergman, and the always wise Sven Birkerts. But listen to this assessment by James K.A. Smith, editor of Image and author of, most recently, How to Inhabit Time. Jamie writes:

In poetic prose of spare, searing beauty, John West helps us see Christmas as another name for the human condition. These haunted, humane meditations are at once elegy and hymn, psalms of ascent and lament. West finds possibilities for language that birth possibilities for how to be. A singular book.

Where the Waves Turn Back: A Forty Day Pilgrimage Along the California Coast Tyson Motsenbocker (Worthy Publishing) $27.00              OUR SALE PRICE = $21.60

This book, quite simply, drew me in, caught me up short, made me think, made me laugh, and blew me away as I was struck by the unique style of prose (and the fabulous story.) I had felt this before (if rarely) and it struck me; maybe he’s a modern day Holden Caulfield, or at least a hip, artistic writer with an J. D Salinger vibe. Maybe I’m misreading, but I think the last time I felt like this was reading the first book by Donald Miller, and then, later, reading his second, mega-seller, Blue Like Jazz. Donald doesn’t write like that any more and I’ve not found anybody to replace that iconic space in the edgy-cool, post-evangelical world of faith and doubt and journey and discovery. Rachel Held Evans came close at times — I loved her searching story Searching for Sunday — but Miller, and certainly Motsenbocker, have a lot of attitude. And, yet, Motsenbocker’s attitude, when it isn’t exuding wide-eyed wonder at this strange and beautiful world, is, mostly, humble. Honest, raw, and humble.

He is open to everybody and everything and, even though this is a road-trip / hiking story of loss and doubt, he is generous and guileless, almost zen-like. He is not jaded, even if he is bitter.

The short version of the remarkable book is that his artsy, eccentric, Christian mom died (in her mid-50s) when Tyson, a rising singer-songwriter (on the circuit, opening for Switchfoot and doing sold out shows, gathering acclaim from Americana critics and NPR), was in his early 20s. Days after the funeral he takes up his mom’s enigmatic challenge to “do something irresponsible” and sets off to hike from San Diego to San Francisco. And like Kerouac, just like that, he’s on the road. Walking with bad sneakers and even worse knees, ill-prepared, carrying a film canister hosting her ashes.

The book follows his sometimes dramatic journey — part pilgrimage, part walkabout, part irresponsible, romantic gesture to honor his mom — on the Camino Real trail, created (and now nearly forgotten) by the controversial Father Junipero Serra. Everybody in California knows of this eighteenth-century monk who “dedicated his life to the idea that tragedy and suffering are portals to renewal” and created a series of still-standing adobe missions throughout the state. We learn just a bit about this Franciscan missionary (who came, we have to admit, as part of the repressive colonization of the abusive Spanish Empire) and we learn a lot about the geography of California. Each chapter in Where the Waves Turned Back has the name of a town or place as its main title, towns many of us have at least heard of, from Capistrano to Ventura to Santa Barbara to Big Sur. I couldn’t put it down.

Tyson has a great eye for detail and he vividly and earnestly tells of his explorations of run-down barrios, blue-collar, working-class harbor towns, smoggy industrial ports, busy superhighways, and multi-million dollar coastal estates which, further North, gives way to scenic vistas, bad weather, and incredible forests. He seems to be able to have good conversations with everyone, including cops and railway workers, Marine-base guards, hapless surfer dudes, folks who live in homeless encampments, not to mention other hobos and hikers and a fair share of diner waitresses, bar-tenders, and baristas. He connects with a few old friends along the way (and his well-told stories of these encounters are unforgettable) and he stops in a few sports bars to watch his beloved Seattle football team; his conversations along the way are reported in an often staccato way, he said, she said, I said. It works strikingly in a light-hearted way, funny, even, until he hits you with the punchline that is often much more than bravado, offering something approaching profound.

He has this way, pondering even the most mundane thing which gets him thinking about this or that, and then again wondering how things really are, rejecting truisms of American culture. He’s got an artist’s temperament and it is captivating, perhaps especial for those readers who are more conventionally logical and left-brained.

Where the Waves Turn Back is gloriously written when he describes the flora and fauna of the coast, the glories of the sky, the sea, the wind, the rain. As one who has done a few weeks of this sort of thing — hitchhiking from Pittsburgh to the West Coast and home again, back in the day — I only wish I had such gorgeously articulated memories of the changing scenery and Motsenbocker’s capacity for friendly conversations along the way. This book rings true, and the big, big backstory — a smart young man’s searching for a renewed faith and a healing from the loss of his mother — is not only entertaining, but important. It certainly captures the style and approach of a certain sort of young adult writer, a socially conscious, melancholy guy caught maybe between Coupland-esque Gen X searching and Millennial hope.

Another part of the story is how he weaves together — as if it is floating in his own memory as he walks and walks, with time to think — stories of his past, especially his time in war-town Haiti as a child; his parents were medical missionaries there until they were evacuated by the UN. His awareness of a toxic sort of religion, too, comes up, and his move away from simplistic fundamentalism is assumed. He has a good heart, though, a gracious attitude, child-like, at times. What a character he is!

I do not mean to be cheap or pretentious to say that this book could very well be this generation’s Blue Like Jazz. I hope the right crowd discovers it, the sorts of bohemian readers who would appreciate his wit and stream-of-consciousness ponderings, his non-dogmatic worldview.  Where the Waves… has more cussing in it than Blue but the questioning of pat answers is similar; the honest and unashamed open-mindedness goes beyond the general evangelical orthodoxy of Mr. Miller’s books. This spiritual memoir, based on his own frank and colorful on-the-road journals, will — as the flyleaf rightly promises — be a “thrilling and deeply satisfying read that asks questions that will resonate with readers seeking meaning in an utterly disorienting age.”

“One of the truly beautiful and terrible things about being human,” he says, “is our capacity to sense the gap between what is and what should be.”

My copy is loaded with little post-it notes marking sections I’d want to cite if this were a longer review, noting pages to read out loud if I had the chance to tell about it in detail. Like most books there are a few lines that left me scratching my head, but whole paragraphs are artfully quotable (and, again, many are glorious, and some are lots of fun) So much is so well done, in this unique style. I want to start over and read it again.

For now, though, listen to these two great blurbs, who each capture something right about this moving story:

Where the Waves Turn Back is a mash-up of things that don’t always go together: it’s heartbreaking and funny, honest about doubts even as it’s deeply hopeful, beautifully written and addictively readable. I’m so glad Tyson went on this wonderfully irresponsible journey, and I’m glad he wrote about it so we could, too. I loved this book.  — Andrew Peterson, sing-songwriter and author of The Wingfeather Saga and Adorning the Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making

With the curiosity of a traveler, the lyricism of a songwriter, and the hard-won wisdom of a griever, Motsenbocker brings us on a journey of honest reflection and healing. Stark, gritty, and authentic, Motsenbocker’s words sweep readers up into a story as varied and vast as the landscape he describes. This book will be a gift to anyone who has know the pain of loss and the joy of hope rediscovered. — Amanda Held Opelt, author of A Whole in the World.

If you are a fan of indie-rock, new folk stuff, you should listen to his several EPs and full-lenth albums (like his pal David Bazon, on Tooth & Nail, by the way.) 2016’s Letters to Lost Loves is about his coming to terms with the death of his mother and alludes, at times, to his epic pilgrimage, written about now in this new book. Check it out. I’m a fan.

Blood from a Stone: A Memoir of How Win Brought Me Back from the Dead Adam McHugh (IVP) $20.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

I wrote about this before and on more than one occasion tried to convince BookNotes readers to buy this book. (Heck, I even wrote to Tyson Motsenbocker about it, as it seemed somehow connected to his own California journey.)

Blood From a Stone is not the first book by accomplished writer Adam McHugh. He did the well-known and much-appreciated Introverts in Church and then a book which the complicated writing of which gets mentioned in Blood from a Stone, The Listening Life. This, though, is artistically much more creatively written than the other two excellent ones and it is both much more sad and much more funny. And, in a stretch for this reliably evangelical publisher, he cusses his way through doubts, depression, and deconstruction. It is a work of art unlike many I’ve read lately.

Like the young and spunky artist Tyson Motsenbocker, McHugh spends much of this book traveling around the middle of The Golden State. While Tyson is on pilgrimage and swigging water (and when he stops at a bar, beer or espresso) McHugh, as the subtitle says, finds his drink of choice to be the Biblical fruit of the vine. I don’t know what I liked more about this riveting book — the viniculture history, his own story away from pastoral ministry to a job in the wine industry, or his gloriously-written and utterly fascinating studies of Cali culture and the state’s bloody political history (including the mixed-bag influence of the intrepid Father Serro Juniper.)

In any case, Blood from a Stone is, as McHugh puts it, “the story of how wine brought me back from the dead….a corkscrewing tale of how I got to Santa Ynez, eventually, and the questions that came up along the way.” That’s putting it mildly. It is a story told with warmth and wit, though, and a great, great read. He is without a doubt a gifted storyteller.

A sparkling delight, laced with deep and earthy emotion, but ultimately finished with notes of hope and love.  — Alissa Wilkinson, author of Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking, and Living from Revolutionary Women

Shattered: A Son Picks Up the Pieces of His Father’s Rage Arthur Boers (Eerdmans) $22.99    OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39

I have been waiting to get a hold of this book for months; I have been on the edge of my seat wanting to read it and — of course — tell you, dear readers, about it. I say this for a couple of important reasons.

I believe Arthur Boers is one of the great, wise, working pastors and Christian thinkers writing today. He was mentored, in part, by Eugene Peterson and although we have never met, we have so many interlocking relationships and interesting connections and I’ve read his work and recommended it over the years that I feel like I know him. I bet some of you do, too. I would read any book he did and when I heard he was working on a very personal, intimate memoir, I shuddered. With a working title like Shattered you can imagine that it is not going to be light-hearted.

Secondly, besides the fact that I’d recommend anything Boers does — he is one of those small handful of authors who I trust and appreciate and want to read no matter what he is writing about. — I have heard that this long-awaited memoir, particularly, is exceptionally well written. Unlike his other books of solid, provocative prose, this is said to be a work of art. It is a literary memoir, a spiritual story told in elegant, movingly crafted words.

To back me up on this, in case you may wonder, the forward by Andre Dubus III, the famous novelist and essayist, who writes (in the exceedingly impressive foreword),

Yet this is not simply the impressive work of a pastor who can write really well. It is also a glorious expression of what Arthur Boers has also been for his entire adult life: a writer.

After which Mr. Dubus cites William James and Tobias Wolfe – not bad company for Arthur to be in, eh?

Dubus reflects,

All of our memories are a reaching for the shards of the past experience, a gathering of the fragments that may, in time, make a more meaningful and ultimately more restorative whole.

Indeed, this is one of the reasons, I think, that I find well considered memoirs to be so very rewarding to read; perhaps, for me, more formative than fiction, as important as novels are. Such memoirs help us construe life in a new way — towards that “restorative whole.” In any event, the gathering of fragments is a theme within Shattered, not just in the horrific scene where a glass is shattered, which his pious father violently threw…

Glass itself, too, is a bit of a theme, Boer’s Dutch Calvinist immigrant father in Canada ran a greenhouse design business. Cutting one’s hands in this dangerous work was not uncommon and such danger becomes a working metaphor for much of his own development as son, young adult, pastor, writer.

I mentioned that Eugene Peterson was an intellectual and spiritual mentor to Arthur. One sees that in books such as the brilliant Servants and Fools: A Biblical Theology of Leadership or even his Alban Institute monograph Never Call Them Jerks about healthy pastoral responses to difficult behavior among parishioners. One of Boer’s most beloved books — well written with a bit of a memoirist feel — is  The Way Is Made By Walking: A Pilgrimage Along the Camino de Santiago, one of my favorites of many El Camino books. (That one, by the way, carries a beautiful forward by Peterson and a great back-cover blurb by Marva Dawn, who herself would not have been able to hike the trail herself, but thrilled to read about it in Boer’s reliable storytelling.)

The other person who Shattered is dedicated to, alongside Peterson, is Henri Nouwen, who  with others, even, “became as fathers for me.”  Re-reading the dedicated after the grueling story of his abusive father, is poignant, if understated. You have to be touched by a line like that.

There is much to be said about this book which will surely be on many year-end “best of” lists. It is a different story than last year’s moving Where the Light Fell, the personal memoir by Philip Yancey, but it will be seen as similar, I suppose. It, perhaps like Yancey (if not more so) draws a complex and even tender picture of many of the main characters in this unflinching story. He does not attempt to justify or even minimize the male rage and abuse in this narrative, but it is not bitter. It is a remarkably graceful story, a story of beauty and goodness.

Listen to his friend (and fellow author of considerable writerly gifts), Winn Collier, biographer of Eugene Peterson and author of A Burning in My Bones:

It’s not all that uncommon these days to find a story told with unflinching honesty. But to find a story that’s also wise and tender and honors the complexity of every person, even those who’ve harmed us, even ourselves — now that’s a feat. And when the person who’s putting the words to paper truly knows the craft of writing as the alchemy of art and grace, well, then we have a book to cherish. Shattered is a book you’ll cherish.

And read and ponder this lovely endorsement from reader (and writer) extraordinary, Lauren Winner, who illustrates not only the beauty and grace of this well-done memoir, but how reading such a book can inspire us to consider anew things in our own lives and relationships”

This brave and wonderful book made me feel gratitude, care, and something like quiet awe. And it made me think–about generational inheritance, about the ways violence lingers, about forgiveness, and, most abidingly, about my own dead mother. I think of her, and of myself unto her, differently now that I’ve read Shattered.

Sistering: The Art of Holding Close and Letting Go Jessica Dickey and Danielle Neff (Pilgrim Press) $14.95  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.96

Oh my, don’t underestimate the power and beauty of this compact paperback from a religious publishing house (Pilgrim Press, one of the oldest publishing enterprises in the country, is owned by the United Church of Christ.) This little book is co-written by a pair of sisters, one of whom works in Los Angeles and New York in the TV biz and the other remained true to her central Pennsylvania roots and is a local UCC pastor. Both are obviously lovely, artful, morally serious people, even if it is laugh-out-loud funny at times. It is, an access who is also a sister says, “a stark-naked love letter to the magic of knowing and being known — to the sisterhood of art and holiness.”

Well. That’s a lot for a short book of back-and-forth memories by some central Pennsylvania gals. But, as Carol Lee Flinders (who wrote Enduring Grace, a classic biography of seven women mystics) puts it,

Like a timeless ballad sung in perfect two-part harmony, Sistering is an absolute delight and unlike anything I think I’ve ever read.

She continues,

It has all of the warmth and momentum of a great love story and at the same time raises searching, serious questions about love itself — raises them, though, in the context of a richly and sometimes hilariously narrated family history.

Trigger warning (and spoiler alert): there are two chapters, one by Jessica and one by Danielle, which tell of Dani’s rape as a 19 year old college student and how they both reacted. These sisters were tight and even now they are able to reflect on their responses to this gross injustice and its traumatic aftermath.

These gals are remarkably self-reflective, have great memories, and can swear like sailors in the vivid telling of teenage high-jinx and broken hearts, body changes and family drama, current callings and dreams of growing old as sisters. As one actor put it, reading this “put a lump in my throat, a smile on my face.”

All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir Beth Moore (Tyndale) $27.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $22.39

If I’m making a list of the best-written, most captivating and engaging memoirs I’ve read recently, I have to mention, again, this page-turner of a blessing, the honest life story of the famous Bible teaching lady, Beth Moore. A Southern Baptist until not too long ago, she writes very well, inviting us into her life story, and into very deep and broken places in her heart. It’s a read I will long cherish and which we very highly recommend.

Like others in this list it shares some hard stuff. She experienced anguish and brokenness worse than most and struggled to be faithful to God the whole way through; in this aspect, her well-crafted story fits with the others here that expose deep sadness in the life of the writers. True to form, though, this one — even in the very hard stuff she shares about very personal matters of faith and marriage and illness and abuse — is upbeat and truly inspiring.

Please read my previous review at this BookNotes column, here. And then order a bunch for your book club. It’s fantastic.

Evangelical Anxiety: A Memoir Charles Marsh (HarperOne) $27.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $22.39

Oh my, I’ve got to list this one again, a book that I raved about and promoted a bit on social media. I respect Marsh a lot, and really appreciate his ability as a writer to tell a personal story that is so very much set in a certain cultural and social and even theological milieu.

As you may know, he was raised amidst racial terror in the South — his dad, a Southern Baptist pastor, maybe somewhat quietly, but bravely, stood against KKK leaders in his small town. This had, shall we say, repercussions.

On the bright side, it motivated Charles to write several very important books about the civil rights era, such as a historical study of the use of the Bible in the opposing groups, God’s Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights (Oxford University Press), an unforgettable memoir of his dad’s struggle (The Last Days: A Son’s Story Of Sin And Segregation At The Dawn Of A New South) and a few about social justice and Christian faith, such as the fabulous one he co-wrote with John Perkins, Welcoming Justice: God’s Movement Toward Beloved Community. 

Marsh is also known as a Bonhoeffer scholar. I hope you saw our recent little BookNotes review of the fascinating Resisting the Bonhoeffer Brand: A Life Reconsidered which essentially is Marsh’s rebuttal to some German critics of his best-selling Bonhoeffer bio, Strange Glory.

As the above shows, Marsh is a thoughtful Christian who is intentionally involved in the world around him; he is a teacher at UVA and a scholar of Christian activism. And yet, through it all — we learn in Evangelical Anxiety — he has been in both serious psychotherapy and on medication for anxiety attacks and other mental health issues, perhaps revolving around the strictness of his fundamentalist upbringing. From sexuality to race, from dogmatism in theology to consumeristic trends in contemporary worship, he has seen much and experienced it in his own unique ways. His book chronicles this journey, this struggle, this path of discipleship that is honest and vivid and, at times painful. What a book.

Dinah Miller an author who has written about being a psychiatrist (Shrink Rap), says it is “beautifully choreographed” offering “lyrical prose that dances as he recounts a tormenting anxiety disorder.”  Calvin University philosopher James K.A. Smith (also editor of the arts journal, Image) says  it is “a bold, beautiful memoir.”Another reviewer notes that it “examines Christianity’s fraught relationship to the erotic…”

Darcey Steinke continues,

From the kudzu-strangled landscapes of his Deep South childhood to the spiritual salves of literary novels to the theological integrity of psychoanalysis, Evangelical Anxiety is as transgressive as it is vibrant

Please read my longer BookNotes review here.

Our Hearts Are Restless: The Art of Spiritual Memoir Richard Lischer (Oxford University Press) $34.95  OUR SALE PRICE = $27.96

This big book —over 375 pages counting the index — is one I have yet to start, but my copy is close by. I can’t wait, really. In case you don’t know his work, and why he is so perfect for this kind of book about the art of spiritual memoir, let me remind you a bit:

I so admire Richard Lischer, who first became a literary hero for me when he wrote in 2001, I think, Open Secrets: A Memoir of Faith and Discovery. The memoir of his first small-town pastorate — compared a bit to Garrison Keillor, the patron Saint of Lutheran storytellers — portrayed in rich detail the trials and joys of the young pastor’s first parish in rural Illinois. There still are not enough small town pastoral stories, so this is enduring. Later he wrote the gut-wrenching memoir of the years in which his adult son died, Stations of the Heart: Parting with a Son. I adored his book on preaching (the Yale Beecher lectures, given in years after 9-11, amidst the War on Terror, published by Eerdmans) called The End of Words: The Language of Reconciliation in a Culture of Violence; I read it maybe three times, wanting to believe in the power of preaching, the power of words. I reviewed at BookNotes his 2021 collection of sermons called Just Tell the Truth: A Call to Faith, Hope, and Courage.

In some circles, Dr. Lischer, a distinguished professor at Duke University, is best known for his exceptional volume on the preaching of Martin Luther King, Jr. First written in the 1990s, The Preacher King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Word That Moved America was updated with an expanded edition reissued in 2020. It combines the art of biography, his insights about being a pastor, and his expertise in homiletics and the power of words. Indeed.

Which brings us to the recent and magisterial-looking volume taking the title from the well-known line from Augustine who is said to have written the first modern memoir, a reflective telling of the author’s interior life.

Here is what they promise in this remarkable volume:

(It is) a guided tour of spiritual autobiography that grants readers new insights into and appreciation of the genre.

In this big book Richard Lischer examines the life writings of twenty-one figures from Thomas Merton to James Baldwin, from Julian of Norwich to Emily Dickinson (and even the outrageously lovely Anne Lamott and the equally edgy work of urban pastor Heidi Neumark.) He explores the “uncertainty principle” in John Bunyan and he has a great chapter on Etsy Hillesum. He calls his chapter on C.S. Lewis “Surprised by Death.” I can’t wait to read his bit on illness and healing based on the memoir of Reynolds Price, who I suspect he knew personally. The chapter I will start with first, though, is about the work of a favorite writer of several favorite books, Dennis Covington. Covington’s Salvation on Sand Mountain is one of the most amazing books I have read in my life.  What will Lischer see and what will he say?

Lischer is a perceptive reader and an engaging guide. I’m sure this will be a very rewarding, serious, perhaps quietly life-changing read.

A Living Remedy: A Memoir Nicole Chung (Ecco) $29.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

Oh my, this is a book that has so captivated me, I can’t stop thinking or talking about it. I’ve ordered her previous one, and can’t wait. I can’t quite say what it is that makes this so very compelling, but it has moved me deeply. It is a lovely story, nicely written. One LA Times reviewer said she “hit it out of the park.”

Not an overtly religious book, really, the author was raised Roman Catholic and her parents became Orthodox while she was in college.  She writes about the Christian liturgy during his burial with such beauty, it is nearly worth the price of the book, learning about her ill father coming to terms with his own mortality. (Ahh, she was surprised to hear this from the priest, and was understandably in a quandary; her dad knew he was dying? She lived across the continent but surely would have scraped together enough money for more plane fares had she known…) Later in the story, her mother dies (during Covid, no less) and the book is very much about emotional terrain experienced when one loses one’s parents.

This really is a memoir of family but the core of the book, even if anchored by the narratives of grief — is, as with her previous story, about being a Korean adoptee, raised in not only a very culturally white town (in Oregon, a place known historically for its “white only” laws) but raised by loving parents who were instructed by the adoption agency to raise her as white, unconnected to her Asian cultural heritage. She was a compliant child and never told her parents about the Asian taunts, the bullying, the racism she encountered even as a child and as a teen. She just couldn’t wait to leave.

As a working class family, her parents could not afford many of the things her upper middle class friends took for granted. She covered well and her family was loving and active in church. But when it came time to go off to college she hardly knew how to apply.

There are two chapters in this book that tell the story of the difficulties of being the first person from a family to go off to college and it seems to me that anyone who works in college life, in student affairs, in collegiate ministry, should read and ponder her story of economic woes while a student. At least at the East Coast university where she ended up (with hard earned scholarships) she was not the only person of color, not the only Asian.

Besides this being a book about an adopted Korean girl from a poorer, small-town, family, making her way through life, even in a big university (and the complications of marrying, young, a great guy from a family of means) it ends up, also, having a lot to say about the inequities in health care in this country. It is a memoir, of course, a narrative, not a polemic, but the insights just naturally pour out. Had her family been able to afford better preventive health care (including earlier diagnostic efforts) her father would not have died when he did. As Julie Otsuka (author of The Swimmers) put it, she writes “with nuance and empathy about what it means to be ill and economically insecure in America today.” Otsuka continues, “she transforms her rage and anguish into luminous prose on the page.”

She transforms her rage and anguish into luminous prose on the page.

There’s a lot going on, gently at times, told with vignettes that are entertaining and good, good reading. Her mentor Amani Perry (of the much-discussed South to America) notes that A Living Remedy is “brimming with insight about class, race, identity, and politics, it will move and transform readers with its beauty, spirituality, and wisdom.”

A transcendent memoir about family, class, and the contours of loss. . . . In her clear, concise prose, Chung makes the personal political, tackling everything from America’s crushingly unjust health care system to the country’s gauzy assumptions about adoption, a practice that is itself rooted in economic inequality. . . . With this work, Chung offers a luminous addition to the literature of loss, from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Notes on Grief to Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. Absorbing, spare and sometimes terrifyingly close to the abyss, A Living Remedy shows us the power of resilience. — New York Times Book Review

A Living Remedy is a bouquet of feeling–Nicole Chung weaves a groundbreaking narrative steeped in love, humor, the infinitude of memory, and the essentiality of community. Chung approaches the kaleidoscope of grief from its many angles, excavating its complexity with heart and candor; but Chung’s prose also soothes, uncovering hidden corners of the heart and its many permutations. A Living Remedy is elegiac and heart-expanding, a memoir that’s both an exploration of loss and a beacon for moving forward. We couldn’t be luckier to have this gift of a book. — Bryan Washington, author of Memorial

This astounding and immensely moving memoir is a gift. It is a chance to think about family, mortality, love, and grief. It is a chance to confront the broken healthcare system we live within. From the most intimate to the most public, A Living Remedy holds gem-like questions about all that matters. — Megha Majumdar, author of A Burning

The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening Ari Shapiro (HarperOne) $28.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.19

My goodness — who knew? I like Ari Shapiro from NPR but, to be honest, knew nothing about him. He is an empathetic interviewer, an astute questioner, a good reporter. I love his voice, I respect his sense of stories, his balance. I couldn’t wait to read his auto-biography, learning about who he really is.

Well, what a story. Where to even begin. I hardly knew he was Jewish (although, duh, right?) I did not know he was gay. I didn’t know — where have I been? — that he was a singer, touring often with Pink Martinis, a band with a campy, international flavor and following, whose CDs we have carried for years.

Each of these aspects of his identity and his role in the world are shared in the first portions of the book and I was utterly captivated.  Even after the first few pages I kept exclaiming to Beth how very interesting it was, and how joyfully entertaining. I read parts out loud. What an upbeat, clear, and fabulous wordsmith, and what a good storyteller. Naturally. I  truly can’t tell you of a book I’ve so enjoyed, just so enjoyed, in ages.

I suppose not everyone would be entertained by his early chapter about coming out in high school, his nerdy youth and coming of age with some rowdy gay friends in the underground scene in Portland. He was outgoing and mostly popular, although faced some bullying. (He had already come to appreciate being a stand out and even a bit of a performer while spending his earliest grade school years as the only Jewish kid in his Fargo ND elementary school, tasked with explaining Hanukkah to the kids celebrating Christmas.) Being gay in school a few decades ago wasn’t easy, of course, and think what you will of his telling, it is really engaging. He’s a good writer, an honest memoirist, and I kept turning the pages, smiling as I went. I like this guy.

After his journey to Yale he was surprised to get an internship with the great Nina Totenberg at NPR which got him in the door there, long before he became a host of All Things Considered. His stories from there unfold — what a great read, learning about that world. Later, his first day as a real employee was 9-11. Citing the old NPR staff joke that they reported stuff “a day late, and called it analysis” he realized there were so many stories to tell of that awful day. Soon, the nearby Pentagon is attacked and there are creepy vans outside of their own DC offices; employees must move away from the windows. This isn’t the most dramatic account of his journalistic career, but it is a riveting and poignant start.

A lot of his storytelling is a bit self deprecating. He tells of his first day as a White House correspondent when he ended up in the Oval Office by mistake. Ha!  He says good things about his colleagues in the press corp and is always honest about his own goofs, but, as we know, he is a consummate professional, a solid, solid guy, and a reporter with a passion for telling real stories, fairly. The Best Strangers takes you around the world.

Which leads to one of several “musical interludes” as he calls them, describing his role recording, and then singing, and then touring with Pink Martinis. They are the sort of band that brings in eccentric and unexpected guests, including Phyllis Diller, whose “swan song was a Pink Martini collaboration — a recording of the song “Smile” written by her old friend, Charlie Chaplin.” Exactly.

The band has done benefits for gay rights in the 1990s and is known for their peace-through-music vibe. But, as Ari explains,

Although the band doesn’t play at overtly political events today, there’s a clear element of musical diplomacy to what we do. Pink Martini goes to the reddest parts of Texas and sings songs in Arabic. In Greece, the band performs Turkish songs. We’re not opining on the Iran Nuclear deal or NATO from the stage. But as the singer Andra Day once told me, music is the only thing that can enter your psyche without permission. It’s hard to view someone as an enemy when you’re dancing and clapping along to their songs.

And then he tells how they had to curtail their famous all-around-the room Conga lines because of “Her Excellency” demands in a particular Arab country. And other threats and discriminations they’ve faced along the way as they’ve toured the world, from Casablanca to Tunis and Abu Dhabi, singing a song by his friend (A Jordanian Palestinian TV procure) suggesting empathy for Syrian refugees. It didn’t always go over well.

There is beautiful writing here about his marriage to his husband and lots about his personal life, but most of the book is about being a globally-inclined. human interest radio reporter, a world-renowned journalist of the first order.

He tells of eating reindeer stew and sipping Swedish vodka (while covering “a growing extremist anti-refugee movement” in Sweden, alongside a trip to the Fulani people in West Africa, and a story they did among the fisherman of Fraserburgh, a small Scottish town on the North Sea that was working on an ecological comeback by carefully rebuilding their cod fisheries.  From ending up with dramatic illnesses (and ending up in the wrong hospitals) to entering war zones, there is so much he has experienced and goodness he has covered.

Regarding the 2014 murder of a Palestinian youth (in retaliation for Palestinian militant’s murder of an Israeli teen) he writes,

I went to Abu Chedi family’s mourning tent in East Jerusalem, because I had heard that a bus full of sympathetic Jews was planning to show up, sit with the family, and offer condolences. I wondered how the encounter would go and wanted to see whether people would be able to build a bridge across this canyon of religion, identity, and mutual suspicion.

He also notes, “When I arrived, I was surprised to find there weren’t many other reporters there. To me, this seemed like an obvious draw for journalists looking for a break from the dark chronicle of rocks thrown and rockets fired.”  What a story ensues…The Best Strangers in the World explains it all.

Ari is a blast. He knows he is extraordinarily lucky (“blessed” he actually says) and while there’s plenty of fun celebrity stories — singing for Bono, performing a wedding where the Obamas are present — he also talks about curious stuff, from his problem with the sweats, an odd story about a zany, risqué party, all alongside heartbreakingly vital coverage of events such as the Pulse nightclub massacre, live from Orlando.

There’s a great few pages near the end where they ponder the “artificial divide between ‘hard news’ and ‘soft news.’ (He had tackled the topic of journalistic “objectivity” earlier.) He quotes his friend Sam Sanders (who created the podcasts It’s Been a Minute and Into It) who says it is “structurally oppressive — a way of diminishing marginalized groups.” Sanders continues,

All the stuff that the old school voice-of-God journalists want to call the “soft stuff”, that they don’t care about, always happens to be stuff about women, and Black and Brown folks, and gay people.”

Shapiro writes,

Sam and his podcasts are a testament that you can’t understand the so-called hard stories about “just facts” until you understand the cultural significance and emotional stuff that’s in the softer stories.

And, man, Arie is right — how very important are these human interest stories and background pieces, the fascinating, humane, even admittedly sometimes eccentric pieces about the human condition. His story about Zimbabwean freedom fighter, Savanna Madamombe, whose “weapons of choice” are flowers, is classic, and she ends up having influence at the United Nations. He shares it at the close of the book.

He and his NPR colleagues are national treasures, I think, common graces that we should elevate. This book will help. “I feel lucky”, he says, “to carry these kinds of stories.” He is blessed to “carry them with me, as examples of how to confront life’s ugliness with beauty, how to meet horror with humor, and how to smile in the face of whatever comes next.”

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In the last BookNotes I used the word resurrectionary. It was meant as somewhat of a play on the word revolutionary, since the resurrection really is nearly a revolution, inviting us to join the regime change, living all of our lives in ways that bears witness to the peculiar newness of the new creation that Christ’s bodily resurrection illustrates and assures. I listed a few recent books that seemed useful for anyone wanting inspiration for this extraordinary Kingdom calling.

None of the books were simplistic and none were cheap or formulaic. None were academic, but all were thoughtful. I think they would be fun to discuss together, to read with others, to allow them to further empower you to be a resurrectionary of sorts.

Please consider this as a bit of an addendum to that column.

LESLIE BUSTARD’S SPECIAL CHAPTER IN ORDINARY SAINTS

Ordinary Saints: Living Every Day to the Glory of God edited by Ned Bustard (Square Halo Books) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

One of the books in that fun list was Ordinary Saints. For those who read carefully, you might have noticed my mentioning a particular chapter in this wonderfully diverse collection that came out from Square Halo Books a few months ago. I said that there were several good reasons to read Leslie Bustard’s chapter on homemaking (not least, I might have said, because it is very well written and, frankly, inspiring for anyone who lives in a house wanting it to be more of a home.) I said it was good and beautiful and true, and I meant that.

What I did not say, and now feel a bit sheepish about, is that Leslie is a dear, dear friend of both Beth and me, and her husband, Ned, is one of my best pals. We admire their three young adult daughters and we love their small, indie publishing venture, Square Halo Books, run out of their row house in downtown Lancaster. I love that house — I even love their dog. Despite the embodied goodness Leslie described in Ordinary Saints about this modest, artful, warm, home she has created on their narrow urban street, I must say (if you have not heard) that as I write, she is in hospice, in something like a coma, dying of one of the cancers that invaded her body several years ago. We are grateful for the many, many folks who have been praying for her and her family. I didn’t mention this horrible matter in that previous review as I was trying to respect their privacy, such as it is.

I must say (if you have not heard) that as I write, Leslie is in hospice, in something like a coma, dying of one of the cancers that invaded her body several years ago.

Many of our BookNotes readers and Hearts & Minds customers have purchased Square Halo Books books from us. (They kindly published my own book for recent college grads, Serious Dreams: Bold Ideas for the Rest of Your Life, which many of you know.) I know you see their names pop up here from time to time. For instance, I have routinely mentioned a marvelous book Leslie dreamed up, edited, and compiled (with her daughter, New York City educator Carey Bustard and Pacific Northwest writer Thea Rosenburg), Wild Things And Castles in the Sky: A Guide to Choosing the Best Books for Children (Square Halo Books; $29.99 – OUR SALE PRICE =  $23.99.) See my previous BookNotes rave reviews here or here. I know Leslie is very (rightfully) proud of this major volume.

Leslie’s upbeat, Biblically-based chapter called “Homemaking” near the end of Ordinary Saints is thoughtful, important, theologically well-informed, and a genuine delight to read but it does not capture the sadness of these last few months. Those that know the Bustards — and they are known and loved by many — realize that they have lived rich lives these last few years, aware that Leslie’s remaining time might be short. They have worn it well. Leslie has been braver than you could imagine and a model of a faithful Christian facing the throes of dying. But, still, the chapter’s author and the book’s editor knew more about the spiritual haven that their home could be than they wrote about in that chapter. With no mention of her situation, it is simply a beautiful piece of writing and highly recommended.

(There are, importantly, several good chapters in Ordinary Saints, about coping with hard stuff; the Bustard’s dear friends and Square Halo business partners, Alan Bauer and Diana DiPasquale, each have good chapters that include some heart-rending anguish; another contributor has a chapter on chronic pain while another is glorifying God through the notion of limits. But there is nothing about dying. Perhaps it was too close to the bone, knowing what was coming, and now is.)

THE BRAND NEW WHY WE CREATE — WITH A NEW CHAPTER WRITTEN BY LESLIE BUSTARD

Why We Create edited by Brian Brown & Jane Scharl (Square Halo Books) $18.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

If Leslie’s great chapter in Ordinary Saints didn’t reveal her journey of trusting God amidst anxieties about her cancer journey, her brand new chapter in the brand new Square Halo Book release, Why We Create (edited by Brian Brown & Jane Scharl) was written exactly about that. As our dear Ned and his daughters sit with Leslie as she rests in hospice care this very week, she may not be aware that this book was just released. With Ned and his Square Halo colleagues so distracted by this personal Via Delarosa, they may not have known that the book has been released, is out in the wild, and is here at Hearts & Minds.

With their encouragement, I highlight it now, sharing what Leslie (and Ned and their daughters) would want: a good review of yet another good Square Halo Book. And this one really is in their wheelhouse — Why We Create is a thoughtful, substantive, introduction to the topic of creativity, imagination and the arts, emerging from a serious reflection on the essential creatureliness of our world and God’s call to culture-making, imagining, naming, making.

I am not ashamed to admit that I dipped in first to read the piece by Leslie, a piece I did not expect to see in this collection. I was gobsmacked, as they say, when she started the essay with a memory of being at a local restaurant in early 2020, sharing with close friends about her dual cancer diagnoses.

“One friend leans close and asks me, “Can you keep looking for beauty in this time? Will you share it with us, this new beauty you find?””

“Can you keep looking for beauty in this time? Will you share it with us, this new beauty you find?”

I could not stop reading, even as tears streamed down my cheeks. I knew how she would answer.

Leslie notes right away that these questions could seem rude, even heartless, given that she was staring at a death sentence. “But to me, — and my friend knew this,” she reports, “they were right on the mark.” Spot on, as her friend Malcolm Guite might say.

She continues,

This was the real core of the matter: how would I, who has continually sought after beauty in my everyday, ordinary life, continue the quest when the road turned into the valley of shadow?

This, I am sure, is a large part of what it will mean for any of us to be a resurrectionary, a person so taken with the truth of Christ’s bodily resurrection and the creedal affirmation that we, too, will “rise in glory” and live in a physically (re)new(ed) earth; the quest looms large: how will we continue the search for goodness, for truth, for beauty, even when life is hard in this sin-sick world?

We are, as we all know, “between the times.” In Christ, God’s Kingdom has come, but yet is not yet fully known or seen. Leslie loved that song “Mary Consoles Eve” by her friend Katie Bowser (singing with Rain for Roots) on their kids Advent album Waiting Songs, with the repeated chorus of “almost – not yet – already.” Indeed, we take great hope in the truest truths of Advent and Christmas and Easter, the realities of incarnation and resurrection. But still: how do we embrace hope in this good but broken world where the gospel is true but not fully realized?

Leslie writes maturely in this good new chapter called “Gratitude: The Foundation of Human Creativity” in Why We Create. She draws deeply from the Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper — she bought the books from us, I’m tickled to say — who proclaims, “To be conscious of gratitude is to acknowledge a gift.” Ooooh, there it is: she sees gratitude as one of the chief cornerstones of the human capacity to create and make. And to nurture the virtue of gratitude one must be clear about the abundance found in the conviction that life is a gift.

Bustard says:

Walking through that shadowed valley of cancer and seeking after beauty — everywhere from my backyard to my doctor’s office— became a journey of discovery for me, a life-lesson of how attentiveness leads to gratitude. This is the means of grace God offered me. He offers this means of grace wherever he calls His children to go.

Who writes stuff like this except one who has struggled with the deep intellectual questions, and, having rejected the options of stoicism, say, or nihilism, or hedonism, is thoroughly rooted in a Christianly-conceived and Biblically-informed worldview? Someone like Leslie Bustard.

She wisely cites Pieper a time or two more, moves (not surprisingly) to the dappled things of Gerard Manley Hopkins (and in a lovely surprise, cites one of the lesser known lines of that majestic poem), and tells us the plot and glory of the film Babette’s Feast. She offers a few of her own lines of original poetry and reveals a bit about her own heart as she struggled to remain on the look-out for beauty — she could have used Barbara Brown Taylor’s line about being a “detective of divinity” — and to learn to be grateful, even in her time in what she calls “cancer-land.”

Her candid, personal chapter is a gift in this rather meaty volume. The book is compiled by the Colorado-based Anselm Society and it is laden with world-class thinkers asking foundational questions about the Creator and His sub-creators. Yes, there are a lot of Tolkien-esque conversations here, with footnotes from Silmarillion, Leaf and Niggle, his essay on fairy tales, and more, alongside citations from Catholic philosophers, Orthodox mystics, and modern thinkers such as Dorothy Sayers, N.T. Wright, Norman Wirzba, and Esther Lightcap Meek. It’s that kind of a book.

The other contributors to this volume include Jessica Hooten Wilson, Marilyn McEntyre, Peter Leithart, Hans Boersma, Anthony Esolen, and more. (I loved a piece by Grace Olmstead — “The Art of Cultivation” — author of the much-discussed Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We’ve Left Behind.) Near the end, Jeromie Rand, an Anglican priest and admitted story-lover, asks and answers, finally, the title’s lofty question: why we create. His answer is rich and good, drawing on Alexander Schmemann and reflecting on the eucharistic life for the sake of the world.

Why We Create and its many thoughtful authors illustrate nicely much of what can be said of the tagline of Anselm’s project: seeking “A renaissance of the Christian imagination.”  It fits nicely next to other key books like this in the Square Halo backlist catalogue — It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God, It Was Good: Making Music to the Glory of God, Intruding Upon the Timeless: Meditations on Art, Faith, and Mystery by Gregory Wolfe, and, for instance, Lifting the Veil: Imagination and the Kingdom of God by Malcolm Guite.

(No book is perfect, not even Square Halo ones, and I could offer some small criticisms. Ensolen takes a swipe at a feminist artist that was gratuitous and needless; Brown suggests the Trinity is hierarchical, dancing near heresy; in an otherwise beautiful chapter on time, the author fails to cite Jamie Smith. But Leslie makes up for the oversight by citing both the remarkable Created and Creating by jazzman William Edgar and German luthier Martin Schleske’s beautiful The Sound of Life’s Unspeakable Beauty. Hooray!)

Here is a good interview with Anselm Society’s very impressive Brian Brown conducted by Lancia Smith at the Cultivating Project (which Leslie wrote for, by the way) in which he talks about the book.

I am glad Leslie was honest in this chapter about some of her pain as she walked through the Shadowlands. In any case, “Gratitude: The Foundation of Human Creativity” is a short piece that will be cherished, of course, by friends of Leslie, but, more, by any who suffer. And, even more broadly, by anyone wanting to cultivate the sort of character, the virtue, the interior life, that is able to do this sort of good, good work. Leslie has long been a great grace to Beth and I, as she has time and again shown an almost child-like curiosity, a eager and open mind, and a deep faith in her very solid, Reformed theology. And has always done so with lots of smiles and generous hugs.

(You may enjoy knowing that Square Halo may very well be compiling a larger collection of her recent writings — the cancer journey evoked much in her, including a remarkable outpouring of poems and prose, published mostly online. Say a prayer that it may be so.)

THE GOODNESS OF THE LORD IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING

The Goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living Leslie Anne Bustard (Square Halo Books) $12.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $10.39

I have commented on this before in previous BookNotes, but, again, I might not have been fully forthcoming. When it was clear that Leslie was not (short of an extraordinary supernatural miracle) destined for a long life, Square Halo Books released (just a few months ago) a beautiful collection of her poetry. As she notes in “Gratitude: The Foundation of Human Creativity” (in Why We Create) her diagnosis accelerated her exploration of what was already an obvious gift — her ability to appreciate and explain and, eventually, write poetry. She had long been a teacher and a lover of words. (She and Ned and Beth and I partially bonded over an appreciation of good pop/rock lyrics and somewhat out-of-the-mainstream faith-based contemporary music; she and Ned even had the great Charlie Peacock play at their wedding, which makes me smile to this day.) In her recent years she has deepened her love of wordsmithing and has advocated for women, especially, getting published in hip on-line journals and cool poetry sites. The Goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living is a gift to the world, a wonderful collection of various sorts of poems in various sorts of styles and themes, most quite recent.

Her friend Hannah Anderson wrote in a fascinating preface that:

Leslie has the ability to see beyond the world’s appearances to its realities and in doing so, remind us of its enchantment. With this, her first collection of poems, Leslie does the work of safekeeping, pointing our eyes back to those “unexpected items of world or unworldly enchantment” that we dare not lose.

There are too many poems to describe (and how does one do that, anyway?) and she playfully experiments with a handful of good styles here. The first portion walks through four seasons and these are very strong, rooted, placed. A few are about her cancer — one about a small scar below her breast — and a few of those are very powerful. Yet most are not directly about her season of illness. Most are about — as the old William Cowper song puts it, which inspired her own poem (”Light II”) — “sometimes a light surprises.” Indeed. And sometimes, these poems just might help you be surprised by the light of things, bright and dark.

And then there are two major sections, one in a unit she calls “Found” poetry, which is only to say they are inspired by other writings. There is a great one inspired by E. B. White’s own writing guidebook; there are several pieces inspired by Rilke, one “after Edith Stein, The Soul of a Woman (with Response)” and one inspired by Denise Levertov.

There are poems of Ekphrasis, which are poems inspired by works of art; for instance, there is a fascinating one after Rembrandt’s ‘Simeon and Anna in the Temple’ a good few on Cezanne’s works, some inspired by Rouault, and a couple that I am particularly fond of on her beloved Pennsylvania painter Andrew Wyeth.

And then there are tanka poems that are thirty-one syllable poems written in a five-line form — who knew? These are offered one for each letter for the alphabet (maybe an homage to Ned’s own alphabet books, such as Church History ABCs.) There are some lovely little poems about ordinary things, a few about theological topics and some offer nice words for friends like Luci Shaw and Karen Paris. But the ones for Carey, Maggie, and Elspeth, and for Ned, even now make me cry. There are great little works of art, and you will enjoy reading them over and over, even if you do not know Leslie or her family.

Numerous other wordsmiths, writers, and poets have weighed in with their great appreciation for this artful collection. From Karen Paris (Lancaster based singer with the band Innocence Mission) to Luci Shaw to Aaron Belz, thoughtful, respected artists have celebrated this beautiful, moving anthology. Although I’ve noted it before here at BookNotes, it seems timely to share about it here, now.

As her friend Margie Haack (another fabulous Square Halo author, whose This Place inspired Leslie’s own “Homemaking” chapter in Ordinary Saints) writes in her comments, the book is mostly about the threads of redemption running through the poems “carrying joy tinged with beauty.”  After beautifully written affirmations of Leslie’s attentiveness to the beauty found in ordinary things, the very goodness of creation, Margie continues:

But what makes Leslie’s poetry more deeply relevant is another thread that carries the faint tinge of illness and death. She stares into the hard facts of cancer with its unpredictable evil accompanied by its unpronounceable drugs. Her faith is not sentimental, rather it is strong enough to stand against the dark possibilities of her future.

It has been our privilege to be one of her favorite bookstores and we invite you to buy a book or two in her honor. We will be sure to pass the word to Ned, so he can lovingly whisper the news into her ear. Leslie Anne Bustard continues to bless the world with her good, good words.

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A few years ago in a BookNotes post after Easter, I used the word “resurrectionary.” I’m not even sure it’s a word, but it ought to be.  Who knows, maybe it will become seen as something akin to, but different than, “revolutionary.” In the light of the risen Lord who defeated Death itself, we can live as resurrectionaries.

I wanted to suggest some books this Easter day that might help us think about living out the truth of resurrection. There are so many good resources for deepening our discipleship and claiming the charge we are giving to harbingers of the Kingdom, but I thought I’d list a few recent ones that might move us in this direction just a bit.

As always, you can scroll to the end of this column to find the easy-to-use, secure order tab. As always, we are grateful for your support. Happy Easter!

Living the Resurrection: The Risen Christ in Everyday Life Eugene H. Peterson (NavPress) $9.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $7.99

Many years right after Easter we suggest this small book, a grand study of three post-resurrection encounters. It is Eugene Peterson at his down-to-Earth best, inviting us to three practices learned from these three Bible stories. He teaches us about resurrection wonder, resurrection meals, and resurrection friendships. As it says on the back, we can “discover how the practices and perspectives of resurrection life transform your daily job, your daily meals, your daily relationships.”It is very good.

There’s a lovely foreword by one of Eugene’s sons, Presbyterian pastor Eric Peterson, too, speaking about his father’s death and the power of resurrection. Wow. I love this little book.

If the Tomb is Empty: Why The Resurrection Means Anything Is Possible Joby Martin & Charles Martin (FaithWords) $17.99                                       OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

This is a thoughtful work by an evangelical megachurch pastor — at least it seems like a megachurch, The Church of the Eleven22 — and a bestselling inspirational novelist. Despite the grandiose subtitle, this is not promoting prosperity thinking or offering easy, formulaic miracles, but it is convinced that resurrectionary living should have us poised for the previously unbelievable.

This book offers a deep dive into the history of salvation by highlighting seven stories that happen on mountains where God reveals himself. As it says on the back, “As he describes each encounter with God, Martin shows us how the interaction on each mountain laid the groundwork for the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary.” Not only has God revealed promissory notes on these mountain-top encounters (Mount Moriah, Mount Sinai, Mount Carmel, the Mount of Beatitudes, the Mount of Temptation, the Mount of Transfiguration, and Mount Calvary) but he asks if we really understand the final words, “it is finished.” Is it? What is finished?

An Invitation to Joy: The Divine Journey to Human Flourishing Daniel J. Denk (Eerdmans) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

I knew that Eerdmans would not release a book that was cheesy or simplistic and I knew that with a foreword by Biblical scholar and justice-worker Christopher J.H. Wright (of the Langham Partnership) it would be solid, but I had little idea how badly I needed to read this myself. This guy gets the reasons why many of us are not overjoyed, he knows better than most the suffering found in this world — he has worked all over the world, including Eastern Europe, and has seen more injustice than most ever will. He is an introvert and not inclined, he tells us, to be that gushy or emotive about his intellectual faith. With blurbs on the back from scholars like George Marsden and Joel Carpenter, I felt like this guy was the sort of thoughtful leader I could trust to invite me to regain lost joy.

I appreciate Garwood Anderson’s note (from Nashotah House) that this book is both one we can learn from and that we can truly enjoy. It is, he says a gift “our rejoicing God wills to give us.” Indeed.

And listen to this recommendation from poet Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, who says:

Daniel Denk’s An Invitation to Joy: The Divine Journey to Human Flourishing is a powerful tool in these times of tremendous sorrow and pain, a book grounded in the word of God and in all we know as the foundation of our faith in Jesus Christ. I see this book in church libraries everywhere, in Bible study classes across denominations, at theological seminars, in classrooms, and on every family shelf. This is a powerfully urgent and long-awaited book. — Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, poet, academic, and author of Praise Song for My Children: New and Selected Poems.

Being God’s Image: Why Creation Still Matters Carmen Joy Imes (IVP Academic) $22.00                OUR SALE PRICE = $17.60

In an informal adult ed Sunday School class I help teach (you can watch it on Facebook if you want) I am doing a class next week on the ways a resurrectionary faith will lead us to be Earth-keepers and those who care well for creation. There are bunches of solid eco-theology books but this new one moves more deeply and more widely. It asks what it means to be human, what our essential calling is, our own purpose, identity, and significance.  Studying the imago Dei is certainly a key part of knowing our relationship to the creation itself. And this new book is, I suspect, the new gold standard for ordinary readers.

With a brilliant foreword by the Old Testament scholar, J. Richard Middleton (who wrote the definitive scholarly work on the subject, The Liberating Image), this book serves as a great introduction and meaty exploration of our identity and calling (and all it means for work, gender relations and more.) Recovering our core calling as humans is part of what it means to be redeemed, one of the huge consequences of Easter, with the image of Christ restored to us as we live in Him.Some readers may recall that she spoke at Jubilee 2023 and did a great, great job. This is going to be a key book for resurrectionaries.

Ordinary Saints: Living Everyday Life to the Glory of God edited by Ned Bustard (Square Halo Books) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

Well. I’ve highlighted this before and have gotten some very nice notes back saying how readers so appreciated it, a few folks naming their favorite chapters. There’s a lot here, and it is, I might suggest, a rare project — and almost a handbook for this movement of resurrectionary faith. How does the truth of the Empty Tomb and the Risen Lord influence us, really, day by day by day. Well, for starters (as one long introductory chapter explains) we are to give God glory, connecting faith and God’s reputation, bearing witness with our whole lives of the heaviness of the reality of God’s own reality. It seems almost a given, to say that God gets the glory. But what might that look and feel like for ordinary folks, doing what they do?

There are plenty of short chapters — a few quite heavy, but many nearly whimsical. There are pieces of how to glorify God in reading comic books and in roller skating. There are chapters about work (and I wrote one about the complexities of retail and living within economic systems.) There are chapters on things like knitting and drawing and there are rich chapters on suffering well, on bearing up under chronic pain; there is one about depression and one about therapy. From Calvin Seerveld’s wise, deep entry on knowing to Steve Scott’s piece on storytelling to Tamara Hill Murphy’s chapter on napping, to Curt Thompson’s amazing piece on “Presence” each shows how creaturely life can be lived well as ordinary saints. For a handful of reasons, you should read Ned Bustard’s intimate piece on lovemaking and for a handful of other reasons you should read Leslie Bustard’s wonderful piece called “Homemaking: Houses of Cedar and the Home of God” which, like the author herself, is good and true and beautiful.

Rethinking Life: Embracing the Sacredness of Every Person Shane Claiborne (Zondervan) $19.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Ever since Shane’s fabulous book that took the religious publishing world with such vigor and joy nearly two decades ago (Irresistible Revolution) we have promoted each of his new volumes. I’ve announced this one before, a month ago. Shane hasn’t written that much, though — he is too busy serving the poor in his Camden neighborhood, teaching blacksmithing and welding to young folks there (so they can, in one of his most well-received projects, literally turn guns into garden tools) and travelling around speaking out against the brutalities of the death penalty and the unbiblical incongruities of the religious right. His journey away from a right-wing fundamentalism to an “ordinary radical” as a “consistent life ethic” evangelical, informed by Dorothy Day and Ron Sider and Walter Brueggemann, say, is itself quite a story. We are fans, even if we don’t live the radical life he has so boldly chosen.

This recent book is key for anyone wondering about the social implications of a resurrection faith. Of course we talk about how the risen Christ has defeated death. The very power of Life breaks out of the tomb and animates his followers. What a way into this topic by asking what it means to seriously embrace the sacredness of every person.

This is not mostly a book about abortion; indeed, Shane starts with a discussion of wonder and awe (by way of talking with the Eastern University astronomer Dr. David Bradstreet) and draws in insights from Jewish thinker Martin Buber and agrarian theologian Norman Wirzba. As you can imagine, he is big on nurturing the prophetic imagination and invites us to think about being for “life” when topics like poverty and racial injustice and gun ownership come up.

Please read each of these endorsements by four different sorts of faith leaders and consider if you, too, should get this one on your reading list.

At a time of deep divisions, when religious faith is too often reduced to a marker of political allegiance and lines are too quickly drawn between friend and foe, Shane Claiborne offers a voice of resistance. Drawing on biblical teaching and church history, Claiborne invites readers to grapple with difficult issues with honesty, compassion, and courage. Rethinking Life is not just a book for progressive Christians but is for all Christians who seek to discern how to live faithfully in troubled times. This challenging, clear-eyed, and hope-filled book is a gift to the American church. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Calvin University, author, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation

My friend Shane has written another terrific book. He is once again insightful and clever and has filled these pages with predictably kind and sometimes hard words. Shane is a voice I trust. I deeply value his insights, and I know you will as well. — Bob Goff, Love Does, Everybody Always, and Dream Big

Rethinking Life is an intervention. In a moment when the politics of life is leading to death, master storyteller and public theologian Shane Claiborne leads followers of Jesus on a brave pilgrimage through the meaning, ethics, and politics of life–and death–and love. This is one of those books you will cherish and quote for the rest of your life. — Lisa Sharon Harper, president and founder, FreedomRoad.us; Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World and How to Repair It All

I resonate with this book in the marrow of my bones! In Rethinking Life, Shane Claiborne shows us what a genuine pro-life theology, ethic, and practice demands of us and looks like in practice. Authentic Christianity has always been robustly pro-life, but it must be more than a politicized slogan selectively and narrowly applied. In Rethinking Life, Claiborne’s thinking is as keen as his heart is compassionate. And best of all, Jesus shines through on every page. — Brian Zahnd, author, When Everything’s on Fire

By Bread Alone: A Baker’s Reflections on Hunger, Longing, and the Goodness of God Kendall Vanderslice (Tyndale Momentum) $17.99   OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

Bread is central to the Easter story — think of the last supper on Thursday night and the stories of meals at that post-resurrection breakfast or after being on the road to Emmaus. Kendall has understood this well, even, we might say, in the marrow of her bones. As she puts it, she has “struggled with hunger ever since she can remember — hunger for bread, yes, but also of community and the ability to “test and see” the goodness of God.”

She has learned that break offers a “unique opportunity to heal our relationship to the Body of Christ — and to our own bodies.” It seems to me that if Christ’s bodily resurrection teaches us anything it is that daily bread for our bodies matters, and that we live our faith together. Vanderslice teaches about this in her Edible Theology Project (which brings together the communion table and the kitchen table, so to speak.) She is a graduate of Wheaton College, Boston University, and Duke Divinity School, and wrote the excellent little Eerdmans book, We Will Feast: Rethinking Dinner, Worship, and the Community of God. I have talked before about this new book — part memoir, part “soulful, searching glimpse at trusting the goodness of God.” It seems perfect to move us towards authentic resurrectionary living. Hooray.

I am grateful for Kendall Vanderslice’s By Bread Alone — a sustenance of hope, a needed nourishment for us hungering to create beauty faced with the bitter gaps of our divided cultures. Her words give rise to our tenderness, and her memorable chapters fill our hearts with compassion. Every page of this book (full of recipes) is brimming with refractive colors shining through the broken prisms of her life, a communion journey of service in tears, as a sojourner baker, a fellow maker into the aroma of the new.            — Makoto Fujimura, artist and author of Art + Faith: A Theology of Making

Faith Like a Child: Embracing Our Lives as Children of God Lacy Finn Borgo (IVP) $18.00      OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

This is brand new and I can’t wait to read it. We stock everything in the spirituality-themed IVP “formatio” line and this new one in that imprint looks gentle and lovely and thoughtful and rich — that it carries an endorsement from Richard Foster speaks volumes, eh? It is about innocence and joy and wonder and trust and more. We hear much about this call to a “child-like” (although not childish) faith and this is one of the very few books about it. As Borgo puts it, “it’s often difficult to remember the natural patterns of our childhood selves that enabled us to live freely in God’s wonder-filled presence.”

Here is a big part of what this book will be about: “As we welcome our childhood selves, we allow God to heal our wounds so we can live in freedom with Jesus as our companion.”

Lacy Finn Borgo has written curriculum for children’s spiritual formation and is a spiritual director of the Renovate Institute. She works at Haven House, a transitional facility for families without hoes. I love her wholistic faith (and that she got her certificate in spiritual direction from Portland Seminary.) She is most well known for her excellent Spiritual Conversations with Children which we have touted. And the recent children’s book All Will Be Well.

“This book is a gift from a mother who sees the world through a lens of grace.”  — Linda Taylor, Episcopal priest and spiritual director.

Becoming the Church: God’s People in Purpose and Power Claude R. Alexander, Jr. (IVP) $18.00   OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

As you may know we have a huge selection of books about the nature of the church, about church revitalization, about small church life, about ministry, and tons for pastors and preachers. We affirm the Lordship of Christ over all areas of life and the priesthood of all believers, so our store has stuff on science and art and politics and sports and business and gardening, and so much more. But let’s face it — most of our customers are involved in churches and congregational life is certainly something that captures much of our time and attention.

I could name a dozen recent books on church life, but wanted to share at least this. For those of us inspired by the new life of Easter, whose imaginations are captured by the promises of the Risen Lord, we simply must, of course, pay fresh attention to the health of our communities of faith. Resurrectionary life is rooted in the local, worshipping body.

Becoming the Church is an inspiring call to not give up on the church, and it starts with a brief reflection on the end of John 20, an early post-resurrection account. Bishop Claude Alexander is senior pastor of The Park Church in Charlotte, NC, and while he serves on the boards of several respected evangelical ministries (including the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities), his primary calling is to the local church.

As Tom Lin, president and CEO of IVCF/USA nicely puts it:

Bishop Alexander’s love for the church inspires and challenges us. With thoughtful imagination and examination of the early church, he masterfully weaves together a tapestry of biblical voices that speaks to a beautiful vision of the church. This book is an essential guide for anyone wanting to help churches become what God intended, beginning with ourselves.

Pentecost: A Day of Power for All People Emilio Alvarez (IVP) $20.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

I know not everyone believes in the ecumenical insights drawn from the historic practice of living into the church year as seen in the liturgical calendar, but most of us know the wisdom of being attuned to at least some semblance of the flow from Advent to Christmas, Lent to Easter, etc. Easter’s resurrection invites us to live anew, and part of this, it might be argued, is to forthwith be paying more attention to these seminal moments in the church calendar.

IVP has done us all a great favor by commissioning wise authors to reflect on key moments of the year. The first in this “Fullness of Time” series was by Esau McCauley (Lent:The Season of Repentance and Renewal) and this one, Pentecost, is the second, just out last week.

(The next one, by the way, which you could pre-order now if you’d like, will be Advent: The Season of Hope, by Tish Harrison Warren. It will be in our store this August.)

Dr. Alvarez (with a PhD from Fordham, a Roman Catholic institution) is the presiding bishop of the Union of Charismatic Orthodox Churches, a communion that stands in the apostolic tradition, both liturgical and Pentecostal. Hooray for that. And, obviously, it situates him well to offer this one-of-a-kind introduction to the day and following season of Pentecost.

Each slim, hardback volume in the Fullness of Time series invites readers to engage with the riches of the church year, exploring the traditions prayers, Scriptures, and rituals of the seasons of the church calendar.

I like the good word from Christine Pohl, who notes that this book “draws on a rich array of ancient and contemporary sources” and that “Emilio Alvarez takes us on a brief and fascinating journey through various meanings and expressions of Pentecost.”

You shall receive power, Jesus promised. Easter may be the highlight, the day of vindication and victory, but the story isn’t over yet. There has been (as this book puts it) “a long legacy of minimizing the Holy Spirit’s role and gifts” which has drained Pentecost of much of its significance. I trust it isn’t too misunderstood (or ignored) in your church. In any case, I’m sure this new book will help.

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In the last BookNotes post I listed some books about the cross of Christ, atonement theories, a few about a theology of resurrection. Most were somewhat heady but I know that BookNotes readers are more willing than many to read widely and to dig deep. (Granted, Greg Beale’s thick, new Union with the Resurrected Christ: Eschatological New Creation and New Testament Biblical Theology is very academic and pretty expensive, even at our sale price.) From Fleming Rutledge’s magisterial The Crucifixion to her big collection of Holy Week sermons, The Undoing of Death, to a host of other books (old and new) we made some important recommendations.

In this relatively short BookNotes hitting your inboxes, as it does, during Holy Week, I want to suggest two very good reads, thoughtful books that are clearly written, combining cultural awareness and theology that can be applied in the deepest part of your own heart. They are about how gospel-centered faith relates to some particular aspects of what Michael Gorman calls “the cruciform life.”

I want to recommend Timothy Keller’s most recent hardback Forgive: Why Should I and How Can I? alongside his older, succinct, Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just. 

You can scroll down to the end to find the link to our secure order form where you can safely enter credit card info. There, you can tell us how you want them shipped, too. All books mentioned are 20% off, making them cheaper than some big-name internet sites.

Both books, I might add, can be better understood by first reading his excellent Hope In Times of Fear: The Resurrection and the Meaning of Easter which is not only an apologetic for the historicity of the resurrection but a fleshing out of its meaning for contemporary hope. It is profound, showing how to find a realistic and irrepressible hope. Written during his hard struggle with serious cancer, it is really quite a book!

Forgive: Why Should I and How Can I? Timothy Keller (Viking) $27.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.60

In typical Keller fashion, this new book starts with the big picture and places the Biblical call to forgive in the contemporary cultural context, which is to say, he highlights the current resistance to notions of forgiveness that are prevalent these days. With some degree of apparent sympathy he asks along with social activists and New York Times columnists and respected contemporary ethicists if, in fact, forgiveness — especially the Biblical assumption that we ought to forgive — is not, after all, finally part of the problem. He gives these voices a fair amount of space (even if one knows, surely, it is a bit of a set up as he will soon enough counter their logic and the consequences of their unapologetic worldview.)

Still, this is good at least for two reasons: religious readers who are not in tune with the times maybe ought to hear what some of our leading thinkers are saying about this well-loved bit of pious teaching and, as Keller at least somewhat admits, there really is something to this line of thought: too often the call to forgive has been harmful, especially to victims of abuse — sexual, domestic, racial. We dare not jump to quaint forgiveness without grappling with the real-world consequences of such seemingly noble virtue.

Also, as Keller often does, he shows not only what the culture thinks about Christian teaching, but shows how their insights — through God’s common grace perhaps — are onto something, and can shape a more mature and sophisticated view of the topic under consideration. So, in Forgiveness, the subtitle “why should I?” is taken seriously. He makes his case judiciously and powerfully.

Keller observes:

We live in a world where canceling, ghosting, and insults are the norm. You will experience snubs on a regular basis, and in some cases will experience real injustice. How are you going keep it all from turning you into a wraith controlled by the past? You must forgive and forgive well.

Forgive well? What does that mean? Well, he covers all this — including the copious and fascinating footnotes — in just over 250 pages!

He gives these sort of principles and steps, though, in summary:

We must name the trespass truthfully as wrong and punishable, rather than merely excusing it. Second, (he notes), we must identify with the perpetrator as a fellow sinner rather than thinking how different from you he or she is. It is to will their good. Third, it is to release the wrongdoer from liability by absorbing the death oneself rather than seeking revenge and paying them back. Finally, it is to aim for reconciliation rather than breaking off the relationship forever.

There is, throughout, plenty of Bible teaching. He unpacks popular (and lesser known) Biblical teachings, deftly retelling a parable of Jesus in the setting of those working in the world of  contemporary finance. There’s a lot of inspiring Scripture here.

Importantly, like most of Keller’s work, he is what has come to be called “gospel-centered.” That is, the very core teachings of the gospel — in this case, that we are forgiven through the Christ who offers His life for ours — are the very mechanism by which we are able to forgive wisely.

We have a “faith-sight” of Jesus’s costly sacrifice. As he explains, “That reminds us that we are sinners in need of mercy like everyone else, yet it also fills the cup of our hearts with his love and affirmation. That makes it possible for us to forgive the perpetrator and then go speak to him or her, seeking justice and reconciliation if possible.”

You see, this is a book, finally, about the cross, about atonement — that makes possible our own at-one-ment, as I sometimes put it, with others in a fallen and bruising world. He is not a pacifist and he is certainly not unrealistic. But he knows that only the good news of the gospel itself, related, of course, to the very death and resurrection of Christ Himself, is at the very heart of Christian living.

From his book on suffering to his book on resisting idolatry, from his masterpiece on work to his good guidebook on prayer, Keller comes back to the first things of the gospel over and over. He is considered a culturally-aware and trenchant observer of the modern zeitgeist; this is true. Yet, he offers a gracious and good bit of Kingdom insight about faithful Christian living in the world by primarily preaching the gospel and applying its riches and implications to the quandaries of daily living.

He draws on such a wide variety of authors and insights (from Nicholas Wolterstorff to Gregory Jones to Rachel Denhollander) but, nicely, returns to the mere Christianity of C.S. Lewis. He reminds readers of the great quote from Mere Christianity, noting that redemption is not the same as self-improvement. We can’t merely will ourselves to do the right thing, to be righteous. It isn’t like (as Lewis delightful puts it) trying to badger a horse into flying. Rather, it is more “like turning a horse into a winged creature.”  Lewis continues:

Of course, once it has got its wings it will soar over fences which could never been jumped and thus beat the natural horse at its own game. But there may be a period, while the wings are just beginning to grow, when it cannot do so: and at that stage the lumps on the shoulders — no one could tell by looking at them that there are going to be wings — may even give it an awkward appearance.

Forgive offers a compelling overview of modern views of forgiveness and relationships and justice and offers a thoughtful Biblical call to understand the imperative to forgive. But, deeply, it offers us great wisdom about allowing God’s forgiveness to so deeply enter our consciousness and transform us from the inside out that we become like that horse. We can forgive freely because we have been forgiven freely. It is just that simply, and it is just that amazingly complicated. There is a lot covered, here, and this book will help, I am sure.

(As you know, we stock lots of other books on this exact topic. Write to us if you need other recommendations.)

Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes us Justice Timothy Keller (Penguin) $18.00             OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

Similar to the way Keller explains how we are able to forgive because we understand forgiveness because we have been forgiven, so, here, he wisely shows that we can be agents of social justice because we understand justice because we’ve experienced justification. That is — get this! — we can be just because we’ve been justified.

Again, this small book — about an essential aspect of the Christian life (since, as the Bible teaches over and over again, the Lord desires justice in His world) — relates the faithful lifestyle of Christian discipleship to the core teaching of the Christian gospel: this book on public and social justice is gospel-centered and based on the work of the cross.

What is the work of the cross? Sadly, some churches have failed to adequately discuss this, mostly avoiding the messiness of it or offering platitudes and simple formulas rather than the rich complexity of the Bible itself; in some congregations there isn’t a widespread understanding of notions of justification or atonement or adoption or liberation or imputation (and the many other principles and metaphors offered in Scripture.) So this book is a fabulous reminder. We simply must connect the graciousness of God in ways that make us more gracious and we become agents of justice in the world by grounding our activism on the firm notions of the justification of sinners, saved by grace through the work of Christ’s death and resurrection. A wild idea, eh?

Again, Keller isn’t cheap and he doesn’t preach this in a fundamentalist sort of way. (Of course not, since few fundamentalists link justification with justice in the world and often separate the two in glaring ways. And there is today an weird ideologically-driven opposition to the very notion of social justice within some off-base so-called evangelicals.) But Keller insists that the words and notions of classic theology can be life-giving and revolutionary. Theology matters, after all.

As it says on the back cover of the compact paperback:

It is commonly thought in secular society that the Bible is one of the greatest hindrances to doing justice. Isn’t it full of regressive views? Didn’t it condone slavery? Why look to the Bible for guidance on how to have a more just society?  Indeed, secular authors like Christopher Hitches said that Christian faith “poisons everything.”

Fair enough. But Timothy Keller challenges these preconceived beliefs and “presents the Bible as a fundamental source for promoting justice and compassion for those in need.” In Generous Justice, he explores a life of justice empowered by an experience of grace — a generous, gracious justice.

I think you will learn a bit about modern views of justice and human rights and you will learn about alternative views, based on what we might term a Christian worldview. And this is good, good stuff. Again, we can be gracious because we’ve experiences grace. We can work for justice because we understand justification. We can be agents of change because we ourselves have been changed.

There is so much in this clear, concise text. He asks what justice even means (and in the end has a great chapter relating peace, beauty and justice.) He looks at the Old Testament and he looks at Jesus. He asks about our neighbors and their unique needs and he asks how we actually “do justice” in our more personal lives and in the public square. He is clear that a passion for this doesn’t emerge from an erosion of essential orthodox teachings about faith and spirituality, but emerges from it.

Some conservative evangelicals have been disappointed in Keller for his clear stance on this topic. Odd, isn’t it? The Bible is so clear about this and Keller — Presbyterian preacher that he is — relates it all to the gospel that is known in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

It’s a great little book to read when thinking about Holy Week, the cross, and the transforming power of the resurrection.

(As you know, we stock lots of other books on this exact topic. Write to us if you need other recommendations.)

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As we move closer to Holy Week and the experience of Jesus in Jerusalem, I hope you have a chance to peek into a book or two about the work of cross. In a way, it all comes down to this, doesn’t it? Christianity simply doesn’t exist without the way of the cross.

There are older classics I’ve suggested before; one can hardly do better than The Cross of Christ by John Stott. Deeper and wider, there is the masterpiece by Michael Gorman, Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross, now in a 20th anniversary edition with a good forward by Nijay Gupta. I say every year (and have said in an earlier Lenten post) that Fleming Rutledge’s collection of Holy Week sermons entitled The Undoing of Death, is one of my most valued books. You should order it today if you don’t have it. More provocative, but extraordinary, is James Cone’s 2011text, The Cross and the Lynching Tree. And I have regularly recommended the very readable and thorough The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’s Crucifixion by N.T. Wright which surveys every major Pauline passage about the cross. It’s a great book, perfect for this time of year.

Here are 10 (mostly) recent ones about the cross, atonement theologies, and, yes, resurrection and hope. Several are pretty academic while a few are quite lovely for more ordinary readers. All are 20% off. Just scroll down and use the order link at the very bottom of this list. May these thoughtful books help you stay, in the words of the old hymn I sang as a child, “near the cross.” And anticipate the victory of resurrection.

Rethinking the Atonement: New Perspectives on Jesus’s Death, Resurrection, and Ascension David M. Moffitt (Baker Academic) $35.00              OUR SALE PRICE = $28.00

When N.T. Wright writes the foreword and Richard Hays calls a book “game-changing” and Amy Peeler says it has “not only changed how I view Hebrews but how I conceive of my faith” and Madison Pierce of Western Theological Seminary calls it “spectacular” — well. Wow.

It is, in a way, a collection of connected essays on themes from the ancient New Testament letter called Hebrews. Moffitt teaches New Testament at Saint Andrews in Scotland and is considered one of the great Biblical scholars working today.

Alan Torrence, quite the heavyweight scholar himself, says “It will no longer be possible to write on the atonement, let alone Christology, without engaging in detail with the exegetical arguments that Moffitt presents. I cannot recommend this remarkable volume highly enough.”

The Cross in Context: Reconsidering Biblical Metaphors for Atonement Jackson W. (IVP Academic) $25.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $20.00

Anyone who has shared the gospel news with skeptics or unchurched folks knows that we sometimes grapple to offer reasons to believe that connect with our conversation partners. We try this line of thinking and that; we use Bible stories as we can, and move from metaphor to metaphor. The gospel allows us to have our debts cancelled; it frees us from our captivity; it invites us to be adopted; it offers forgiveness from guilt; we are recruited into a better Kingdom; we are washed clean, we belong to a new family, we are reconciled.

How can we gain and share more clarity about the variety of meanings of the cross and how can we be open to the many ways in which it all gets said in the Bible? Firstly, this theologian suggests, we must know the Biblical material. Instead of comparing theories of the atonement, we need to delve deeper into the Biblical story, where we “find a handful of motifs that combine to form a richer, more robust theology of the atonement.”

What would it look like if we allowed the apostle Paul’s statement that ‘Christ died for our sins’ to be truly explained ‘according to the Scriptures’ (1 Cor. 15:3)? In this provocative book, Jackson W. carefully peels back layers of church tradition, systematic theology, and folk Christianity to reexamine what Scripture actually says about the death of Christ. The result is a whole-Bible approach to sin and atonement that mounts a stimulating challenge to scholars and laypeople alike. Whether or not you agree with his conclusions, you will undoubtedly come away with a deeper appreciation for the richness of what Christ’s death accomplished! — Jerry Hwang, academic dean and associate professor of Old Testament at Singapore Bible College

Jackson W. explores the interplay of metaphor and atonement–thus this book is about the core of salvation in the New Testament. Atonement is complex, but this is a reliable and well-written guide through the variety of biblical images. Its contextualization offers the key to understand the core of the mission of Jesus Christ. A must-read for all who want to know what the Christian gospel means in diverse cultures! — Christian A. Eberhart, professor of religious studies at the University of Houston and author of The Sacrifice of Jesus: Understanding Atonement Biblically

The Cross-Shaped Life: Taking on Christ’s Humanity Jeff Kennon (Leafwood Publishers) $15.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.79

I respect this author a lot — he is the director of the Baptist Student Ministry at Texas Tech. This book, as you might guess, is clear and pastoral and while not without challenge, really uplifting. He cites famous authors, heavy theologians, and a bit of pop culture. It’s a handsome volume, well arranged and a very, very nice book.

Kennon notes that “in the cross, we discover not only who God is but who we are made to be.” We all want to affirm that we are made in God’s image and in doing so —harkening to the inherent dignity and worth we all have — we cannot forget the cross. As he says, “after all, God came, took on our likeness, and died on the cross. So what does it mean to live in the image of a God who is willing to die on a cross?”

That is a huge question, isn’t it? The Cross-Shaped Life takes you into the story of God from creation to salvation, but it culminates in Paul’s words found in Philippians 2: 5 – 11. Unpacking that helps him make his case that the truth is that “we only discover who we truly are when we live lives of humility, service, and sacrifice on behalf of others.”

This is outstanding. Listen to generative scholar and very reliable voice Michael Gorman:

In this insightful and readable book, Jeff Kennon tells the biblical story of how we are made to fulfill our human vocation by living a cruciform, or cross-shaped, life of service and sacrifice-of Christlike love for God and neighbor. Christians of all ages and churches need such a book, and such a life. — Michael J. Gorman, Raymond E. Brown Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology, St. Mary’s Seminary & University, Baltimore Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross

The Crucifixion of the King of Glory: The Amazing History and Sublime Mystery of the Passion Eugenia Scarves Constantinou (Ancient Faith Publishing) $22.95  OUR SALE PRICE = $18.36

This book came out just a year or so ago and the author — an Orthodox scholar — has gotten a good bit of publicity, rightly so. She is both a Biblical scholar and an attorney and is well positioned to help us not only explore these events that are so central to our salvation but to frame it all by the first-century historical and religious context in which the Crucifixion took place.

She promises to “put modern readers in the center of the events of Christ’s Passion” bringing the best of modern scholarship to bear (there is a little bit in the beginning on ‘the postmodern mind’) while “keeping her interpretation faithful in every particular to the Orthodox tradition.” It’s a thick, handsome paperback book.

Participation and Atonement: An Analytic and Constructive Account Oliver Crisp (Baker Academic) $29.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

This hardback is scholarly, and claims to “set out a new, comprehensive account of the nature of the atonement, exploring how this doctrine affects our participation in the life of God and in the shared life of Christian community.”

That line is vital, showing how this book (which certainly doesn’t break with the broad tradition of Christian thinking) moves constructively towards a systematic study of how understanding the atonement can help us realize our deeper union with God and our role in the fellowship of the redeemed.

As Lucy Peppiatt (of the Westminster Theological Centre in the UK) says, it is “rich, nuanced, and full-orbed” bringing “new and salient insights to what Paul calls the “things of first importance.”

Gavin D’Costa, of the University of Bristol, noting Crisp’s balanced approach and philosophical mind, says that “this is one of the most important recent treatments of the doctrine of the atonement.”

Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross: Contemporary Images of the Atonement edited by Mark D. Baker (Baker Academic) $24.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.20

This book is somewhat older and we are pleased to have a few left. It ought to be better known, I think, because there is no other resource quite like it.

Dr. Baker (with a PhD from Duke) is a professor of mission and theology at Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary in Fresno, California. Here offers a compendium of about 20 short readings — some quite clever and all very interesting — that offer a glimpse into what the cross is about. Hooray for these varying voices, these different insights, this array of men and women who offer a piece of the puzzle, so to speak. Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross explores the need for “contextualized atonement theology” and offers these creative examples of how the cross can be proclaimed today in ways that are both faithful and relevant. And maybe transformative.

Here we have C.S. Lewis and Brian McLaren; Frederica Mathewes-Green and Rowan Williams; Luci Shaw and Gwinyai Muzorewa; Chris Friesen and Curtis Chang. After each short reading, Baker does an expert job saying why he chose this excerpt, what to see in it and get out of it, and how it fits the larger picture. His words are very helpful and highly recommended.

Perhaps all of us shudder to think how narrow our earliest understanding of the atonement was. Mark Baker’s book offers us a treasure chest filled with complementary truths presented in distinct and surprising packages….This collection is an outstanding contribution to widen our comprehension and deepen our adoration!  Marva J. Dawn, Talking the Walk: Letting Christian Language Live Again

“He Descended to the Dead” – An Evangelical Theology of Holy Saturday Matthew Y. Emerson (IVP Academic) $30.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00

I have often said, if it comes up, how blown away I was by a long, serious read many years ago on this topic, the brilliant (and still available) Eerdmans book by Alan Lewis, Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday. It remains a formative read for me and I recommend it.

This one is not brand new but is much more recent. I was captivated by the first page as he cites the moving song “The Fourth of July” from Sufjan Stevens’s album Carrie and Lowell. (Okay, he had me right there.) Also, he has a passing reference to “Drum” by the black poet Langston Hughes, and copies “No Worst, There Is None, Pitched Past Pitch of Grief” by the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. So, yes, as Sufjan’s refrain has it, “we’re all gonna die.”

This fresh book examines this controversy, the meaning of the old phrase “the harrowing of hell”, and attempts to formulate a coherent and theologically plausible for understanding what went on between, as Lewis has it, “between cross and resurrection”  Rave comments from everybody from Fred Sanders at Biola  in California and Michael Bird at Ridley College in Australia. Emerson is a professor at Oklahoma Baptist University.

{As a very germane aside, although not exactly on the death or resurrection of Christ, I really, really like the excellent book by A.J. Swoboda, A Glorious Dark: Finding Hope in the Tension Between Belief and Experience (Baker; $15.00.) which is a honest, raw, evangelical reflection on the Triduum, or the three days.

The publisher explains:

On Thursday as they ate the Passover meal with Jesus, the disciples believed that the kingdom was coming and they were on the front end of a revolution. Then came the tragedy of Friday and the silence of Saturday. They ran. They doubted. They despaired. From their perspective, all was lost. Yet, within the grave, God’s power was still flowing like a mighty river beneath the ice of winter. And then there was Sunday morning.

Real, raw, and achingly honest, A Glorious Dark meets us right in those uncomfortable moments when our beliefs about the world don’t match up with reality. Tackling tough questions like Why is faith so hard? Why do I doubt? Why does God allow me to suffer? and Is God really with me in the midst of my pain? A. J. Swoboda invites us to develop a faith that embraces the tension between what we believe and what we experience, showing that it is in the very tension we seek to eliminate that God meets us.}

Resurrection Hope and the Death of Death Mitchell L. Chase (Crossway) $17.99                      OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

Last Sunday in my adult ed Sunday School class I was holding forth about Christ defeating Death. Death in the Bible, I wavered, means not only our own personal morality but the disruption and dysfunction of the whole cosmos. Christ’s resurrection defeats death (and we are given the gift of eternal life) but it also defeats “capitol D” Death, that evil force that has held captive the whole cosmos. Christ’s cross disarms the powers and his resurrection is the “first fruit” of a whole new world that is promised.

I had not read this book as I was preparing for that lesson but it sure seems to provide a good, conservative, Biblical foundation for this bigger picture of what the cross and resurrection accomplishes.

I have recommended before these meaty, small works in the “Short Studies in Biblical Theology” series. They are intentional about showing the unfolding drama of Scripture and the way Biblical truth can be seen from the whole story of God.

In one of the best contributions to the Short Studies in Biblical Theology series to date, Mitchell Chase clearly and succinctly presents what is at the heart of hope set before us in the gospel — unending, embodied, glorious resurrection life on a a renewed earth.  — Nancy Guthrie, Even Better Than Eden: Nine Ways the Bible’s Story Changes Everything about Your Story

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Exploring Its Theological Significance and Ongoing Relevance W. Ross Hastings (Baker Academic) $26.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

As the back cover of this recent book says, “Believing in the resurrection is one thing. Knowing what it means is another.” I love how this reveals hidden depths of the theological significance and ongoing relevance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ for “our being, our salvation, Christian life this, and our future hope.” I appreciate that he uses language of vocation when talking about our calling to live in light of the risen Lord. Ross Hastings (with two PhDs) teaches at Regent College in Vancouver, BC and knows how to make serious Bible teaching lively and relevant. There are discussion questions, too, making this a good study for a willing book club.

In this book Ross Hastings considers the vitality and importance of the resurrection of Christ in a fully worked out theological account of the Christian life. From discussion of the historicity of the resurrection, to its importance in our understanding of the atonement and our participation in Christ’s work, and on to the implications it has for life today and in the hereafter — this is a work that has a broad sweep, penned by a deft theological hand.  — Oliver D. Crisp, University of St. Andrews; Participation and Atonement

In The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, Ross Hastings demonstrates how central the resurrection is to the gospel, to Christ’s identity, and to our identity in Christ. Evangelical readers in particular will have their minds stretched and their spirituality enlarged by the dynamic resurrectional reality to which this book bears witness. — Michael J. Gorman, St. Mary’s Seminary & University; The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant: A (Not So) New Model of the Atonement

This is a book not simply for annual Easter preaching but for everyday resurrection living. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ traces out the creation-affirming, salvation-expanding, hope-declaring theological trajectories and practical implications of Christ’s resurrection for full human living. Learned, pastoral, and practical, Hastings makes much of the resurrection and so makes much of Jesus, presenting a brilliant vision of Christ in all his redemptive resurrection splendor. — Philip F. Reinders, lead pastor, ClearView Church; Seeking God’s Face: Praying with the Bible Through the Year

Union with the Resurrected Christ: Eschatological New Creation and New Testament Biblical Theology G.K. Beale (Baker Academic) $49.99   OUR SALE PRICE = $39.99

This is brand new and I’ve only glanced though hefty table of contents and perused the many footnotes. Years in the making by one of the most prolific serious Biblical scholars writing today, this is a sequel to his renowned (and massive) 2011 A New Testament Biblical Theology.

Here, they promise, Beale “fleshes out nineteen significant theological realities and benefits of the believers union with the resurrected Christ.

Richard Gaffin, emeritus prof at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, notes that “This volume represents the matured culmination of much of Beale’s decades-long biblical-theological work.” After a serious commendation, he says it is “truly a magnum opus.”

This is one of the most significant works, I am sure, on this topic — what Dr. Gaffin calls “a virtual encyclopedia.” It is, nicely, packed with application sections, too hoping to show at least somewhat more practical implications this scholarly theological vision.

“Ultimately,” says one reviewer, “coursing through the pages of Beale’s study is a sense of the victory that Christ’s own share in the new creation and the Spirit.” Just over 550 pages.  Wow.

When you see a giant online place selling books at really big discounts you know what’s usually going on. They are selling stuff cheaper than what we even pay; it’s a cruel strategy to get your loyalty.  Amazon has been clear about their goal to destroy small businesses, early on brazenly targeting indie bookstores specifically. (Yes, we take that personally and bristle every time friends and authors link to Amazon.)

The wholesale price and subsequent mark-up on books isn’t much so they often sell popular books below our cost. (Or at least they used to. Notice that increasingly, our BookNotes discount is better than theirs as they up their prices, now that they have so many hooked on their convenient process.) Early on they made their money on electronics and tires and jewelry and porn so they didn’t worry about losing money on books, as long as they captured the imagination and buying habits of consumers. With their huge tax breaks and government incentives and perhaps illegal workarounds they’ve damaged the economy, hurt the working poor, wrecked havoc on what people think about shopping and what they suppose books ought to cost, and, yep, Bezos has grown spectacularly rich while hundreds of stores have collapsed over the last decade. Their bazillion dollar greed has truly messed with the market.

Sometimes, though, a local bookstore owner goofs, stuck with too much inventory, and needs to sell stuff cheap. Occasionally, we find it more interesting to lose money by offering deep bargains to our customers rather than lose money by paying to return unsold merchandise.

So, we’re in a jam, here, with too many Lenten titles still on our shelves. We’d rather pass extraordinary savings on to you, our customers and friends, rather than have to pay to send stuff back as overstock. This isn’t a hurtful ploy but an earnest plan.

We are offering a few things at nearly our cost, the very best deal we can offer.

We’re calling it a three-day only flash sale. There are ten great seasonal titles going for 40% off. THIS OFFER EXPIRES WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 2023. While supplies last.

We’ve highlighted them all before so won’t say much about them now. Click on the highlighted link at the bottom of the newsletter to use our secure order form. After Wednesday night (midnight, EST) they go back to our more conventional, already generous 20% off BookNotes discount.  Happy book buying!

The Good of Giving Up: Discovering the Freedom of Lent Aaron Damiani (Moody Press) $12.99  OUR THREE DAY SALE 40% OFF PRICE = $7.79

This is a great, great read, explaining the history and importance of Lent by a former nondenominational guy who is now an Anglican. Very nicely done and very rewarding.

Lent: The Season of Repentance and Renewal Esau McCaulley (IVP) $20.00  OUR THREE DAY SALE 40% OFF PRICE = $12.00

Hopefully everyone knows how we esteem McCaulley, author of Reading While Black. This is a small hardback, the first in a series on the church year. It’s very good.

(We just got the new Pentecost one by Emilio Alvarez one in, which we will review soon. You can order it now at 20% off.)

Hearing God in Poetry: Fifty Poems for Lent and Easter Richard Harries (SPCK) $14.99  OUR THREE DAY SALE 40% OFF PRICE = $8.99

This book from the UK includes a fabulous array of poetry and helpful meditations on why the author selected them for the Lenten season. There’s a lot here, almost entirely from the broader British world with greats like Donne, Cowper, Yeats, Heaney, Hopkins, Auden. There’s Emily Dickinson and Bronte and Bonhoeffer, too. Highly recommended, apart from being seasonal.

Finding Jesus in the Psalms: A Lenten Journey Barb Roose (Abingdon) $17.99  OUR THREE DAY SALE 40% OFF PRICE = $10.79

Again, this is a solid study and would be worthwhile any time. She is a lively African American teacher and leader within the United Methodist church. A great introduction to this vital topic, finding Jesus in our day to day lives by way of studying and praying the Psalms.

The Art of Lent: A Painting a Day from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sister Wendy Beckett (IVP) $17.00  OUR THREE DAY SALE 40% OFF PRICE = $10.20

A well produced compact volume full of all sorts of paintings with great reflections on each. A fantastic little book — you should have this as a routine resource.

The Art of Holy Week & Easter: Meditations on the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Sister Wendy Becket (IVP) $17.00  OUR THREE DAY SALE 40% OFF PRICE = $10.20

A well produced compact volume full of all sorts of paintings with great reflections on each — hooray for this. Great for the art, great for the reflections.

A Way Other Than Our Own: Devotions for Lent Walter Brueggemann (WJK) $16.00  OUR THREE DAY SALE 40% OFF PRICE = $9.60

Brueggemann remains one of our favorite Bible scholars and preachers. This includes short, evocative pieces and good thought-provoking questions for discussion. Wow.

Lent recalls, this book notes, times of wilderness and wandering. How does all of this lead to our own journey as we walk the way of God’s grace?

A Just Passion: A Six-Week Lenten Journey Ruth Haley Barton, Sheila Wise Rowe, Tish Harrison Warren, Terry Wildman, and others (IVP) $12.00  OUR THREE DAY SALE 40% OFF PRICE = $7.20

This is a true gift, an amazing resource put together by the good folks at IVP.  A creative editor scoured their spiritual formation and social justice books — they have a lot! —and found pages to excerpt that could be put into a Lenten reader. While they compiled it nicely as a seasonal resource, complete with some prayer and reflection prompts, it is a fabulous introduction to dozens of authors you may not know. Get this — you won’t regret it.

Fight Like Jesus: How Jesus Waged Peace Throughout Holy Week Jason Porterfield (Herald Press) $17.99  OUR THREE DAY SALE 40% OFF PRICE = $10.79

I know we didn’t sell too many of these when we promoted its release last year but I still am convinced it is brilliant, wise, useful. It examines the text carefully, offering new insights about Jesus’s nonviolence as shown during Holy Week. If you are unsure about questions of Biblical nonviolence or just want a provocative study of the Holy Week texts, this is a must. A good foreword by Scot McKnight

Praying the Stations of the Cross: Finding Hope in a Weary Land Margaret Adams Parker & Katherine Sonderegger (Eerdmans) $22.00  OUR THREE DAY SALE 40% OFF PRICE = $13.20

What a moving, artful, compelling hardback, a fresh way to consider praying during Holy Week, using the ancient motif, strengthening our awareness of God’s healing presence. This is a creative, collaborative project by Parker, the artist (whose excellent work is rendered in black and white) and Sonderegger, the preacher (and world class Episcopalian Bible scholar.) Blurbs on the back by Michael Curry, George Hunsinger, and Ellen Davis. Wow.

TO PLACE AN ORDER 

PLEASE READ, THEN SCROLL DOWN AND CLICK ON THE “ORDER HERE” LINK BELOW.

It is very helpful if you tell us how you prefer us to ship your orders.

The weight and destination of your package varies but you can use this as a quick, general guide:

There are generally two kinds of US Mail options, and, of course, UPS. If necessary, we can do overnight and other expedited methods, too. Just ask.

• United States Postal Service has the option called “Media Mail” which is cheapest but can be slow. For one typical book, usually, it’s about $3.85; 2 lbs would be $4.55.
• United States Postal Service has another option called “Priority Mail” which is $8.50,  if it fits in a flat rate envelope. Many children’s books and some Bibles are oversized so that might take the next size up which is $9.20. “Priority Mail” gets much more attention than does “Media Mail” and is often just a few days to anywhere in the US.
• UPS Ground is reliable but varies by weight and distance and may take longer than USPS. We’re happy to figure out your options for you once we know what you want.

If you just want to say “cheapest” that is fine. If you are eager and don’t want the slowest method, do say so. It really helps us serve you well so let us know. Just saying “US Mail” isn’t helpful because there are those two methods, one cheaper but slower, one more costly but quicker. Which do you prefer?

– DON’T FORGET TO LET US KNOW WHAT SHIPPING METHOD YOU PREFER –

BookNotes

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In the BookNotes that went out just yesterday, I listed some children’s books that are about Lent and Easter. It was a good list, some older, some newer. I forgot to list one that I really, really wanted to tell you about so thought I’d do another quick listing, another BookNotes recommending books for kids. These would make great Easter gifts as almost all are, in one way or another, about faith in the resurrected power of Christ. The first one is about Easter, but all the others are very special, too.

You can get our 20% off discount by using the order form at the end of the column. Just scroll on down and click that link which takes you to our secure order form. Thanks for your consideration. Enjoy.

The King of Easter: Jesus Searches for All God’s Children Todd Hains, illustrated by Natasha Kennedy (Lexham Press) $17.99                                      OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

This is a splendid children’s book explaining the story of Christ’s life, passion and death and resurrection. It is illustrated so well by Kennedy and, in a great move, Jesus looks nearly black. Better than the goof-ball European ones we more commonly see. Hooray.

As it says in the promo material: “Whether friends or enemies — if they are lost, Jesus came to seek and save them. At every step, he brings his new friends to join the search.” It ends, by the way, with the conversion of Paul who carries on the mission. It’s very thorough and great for family use.

This is part of the developing “FatCat” series, where a chubby feline helps with the story. Silly as that sounds, it is serious and thoughtful. The first in that series (see below) was the stellar one The Apostles’ Creed by Ben Myers, after his fabulous, small adult hardback.

The Apostles’ Creed: For All God’s Children Ben Byers, illustrated by Natasha Kennedy (Lexham Press) $17.99            OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

This was the first in the FatCat line (the second being The King of Christmas: All God’s Children Search for Jesus.) I hope there will be more. This one is fun and accessible as it invites children to visualize, memorize, understand and confess this important, ancient, unifying creed. After every line from the creed there is a simple reflection for young readers and families “to tuck into their hearts.”  There is a list of Scriptures for further learning and a family prayer.

Who Is Jesus? 40 Pictures to Share with Your Family Kate Hox, illustrated by Joe Hot (New Growth Press) $19.99                               OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

I’ve been waiting for months to tell you about this stunning, provocative, interesting, clarifying book which is good for little kids or older ones, for that matter. As one professor from Westminster Theological Seminary puts it, “Kate and Joe Hox have produced a captivating and colorful mini-biblical theology.” The authors are graduates of Dordt College in Iowa.

It offers the gospel throughout Scripture, the gospel for all of life, by showing a picture (a symbol, an illustration, almost like a logo, not a full painting.) This whole Bible full of word pictures helps us come to know and love Jesus.

In Who Is Jesus? the husband and wife team combine illustrations and deep thoughts to teach simply about who Jesus is, what He did, what His Kingdom is about, the nature of the gospel.  It offers a great Biblical overview and is what graphic novelist John Hendrix calls “a gorgeous delight.” Every family with kids should have this on hand. Ideal for ages 5 -10 or so, I’d say 4 – 12. Yes, it is great for Lent and Holy Week, but useful all year long.

The Really Radical Book of Kids: More Truth. More Fun Champ Thornton, designed and illustrated by Scot McDonald (New Growth Press) $29.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

I hope you remember the game-changing extraordinary 2019 book The Radical Book for Kids which taught clear and relevant evangelical theology to middle-grade elementary kids with such robust gusto and strikingly vivid imagery that it was a book to share even with older ones. It was a blast to look at, a sincere bit of disciple-making to mentor kids into this vision of living for Christ.

Thornton is an acquisitions editor at Crossway Books and has done a number of gospel-based books for kids and families. This brand new sequel to The Radical Book, happily called The Really Radical Book has more imaginative plans to teach God’s Word. There are unusual foods to make, secret codes to break, fun crafts to try, and strange planes to fly. As it continues on the back cover, “You’ll also encounter exciting ways to read the Bible, factual reasons to believe, stunning truths about God, and incredible examples of “radical” men and women who trusted Jesus in challenging times.

We are really fond of this, even if they don’t run with the “radical” word in ways you might expect. That is, there is nothing about Dorothy Day or MLK or St, Francis, even; that is, it isn’t as radical as it claims to be. There is a great piece on Lemuel Haynes though, which is cool. Importantly, Scot McDonald is a whimsical and fun (and award winning) graphic designer whose wife is a children’s librarian. He knows his stuff. If kids really get this, maybe it will be subversive after all.

God’s Beloved Community Michelle Sanchez, illustrated by Camila Carrossine (Waterbrook) $12.99      OUR SALE PRICE = $10.39

I’m telling you, there is a lot packed into this succinct children’s book — one the adults sharing it with them will be challenged by, no doubt.

Michelle Sanchez is the exceptionally talented and visionary black woman who wrote Color-Courageous Discipleship for adults (as well as the adapted teen version, Color Courageous Discipleship Student Edition.) Here she offers for little kids, in lilting, rhyming text, a visionary invitation to build what Martin Luther King famously called the “beloved community” God calls us, she insists, from being “color blind to being color brave.” We can proclaim God’s own truth that all people are precious. God did, after all, create a world filled with vibrant variety and called it good! Hooray. As she puts it, “from flamingos and crows to shooting stars and rainbows, to all our different shades of hair, eyes, and skin, God declared it all very good.”

Ms Sanchez is the senior discipleship and evangelism leader of the Evangelical Covenant Church (with a degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a certificate in spiritual direction from Boston College.) Visual artist Camila Carrossine lives in Sao Paulo, Brazil and is a talented visual storyteller.

All Will Be Well: Learning to Trust God’s Love Lacy Finn Borgo, illustrated by Rebecca Evans (IVP Kids) $18.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.40

I hope you know Lacy Finn Borgo who wrote the thrilling and deeply spiritual volume Spiritual Conversations with Children: Listening to God Together and the forthcoming — due in early May! — Faith Like a Child: Embracing Our Lives as Children of God. She is an expert curriculum writer and has done this lovely kids book drawing, of course, on the lines from St Julian of Norwich. There is a sick grandma, a worried child, the gift of a hazelnut (of course — Borgo obviously knows her Julian) and a new sense of knowing God’s love.

There is a nice note from the author to adults in the back about helping children process grief, teaching them simple spiritual practices (like breath prayer) and how to lean into the famous promise of Julian — all shall be well. Very impressive.

Sparrow’s Prayer Roger Hutchison, illustrated by Ag Jatkowska (Beaming Books) $17.99                              OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

This cute children’s book is powerful for its earnest and profound claim that “each life is a prayer.” Sparrow wakes up each morning ready to sing a prayer of thanksgiving. As it says on the back, “Not today. Today his words get tangled and knotted in his beak like old yarn and straw. When he asks his friends how they pray, he discovers he may not need any words at all.” Wow.

The animals in this busy book each offer a certain insight about praying — from singing to dancing to being silent. Hutchison gets this — he has written other books about more reflective and contemplative prayer (and a marvelous book about using the arts in processing grief called My Favorite Color Is Blue and The Painting Table.)

The little Sparrow raises his wings at the end in praise as the text gives us Psalm 139. There’s an afterword, too, with some questions and things to ponder and to try. Sweet.

When I Talk to God, I Talk About You Chrissy Metz & Bradley Collins, illustrated by Lisa Fields (Flamingo Books) $18.99                              OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

We’re delighted that Chrissy Metz, the famous This Is Us star, has gotten some good buzz about her new book. We admire her very much and celebrate this book done by her and her partner — a leader in artist advocacy in Nashville. The book is colorful and evocative and sweet as it reminds children that their parents pray for them. What a true, true book, eh?

With large pictures of animals (babies and parents) the gentle rhymes honor the various fears and concerns of children, but reminds all that “When I talk to God, I talk about you.” And then, the big ending — “Did you know you can talk to God, too?” Hooray for this.

The Biggest Story Bible Storybook Kevin DeYoung, illustrated by Don Clark (Crossway) $29.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

I’ve highlighted this before and it stands out as one of the most colorful and well-crafted children’s storybook Bibles we know. We have a handful of favorites re-tellings — Libby Caldwell & Carol Wehrheim’s Growing in God’s Love: A Story Bible, Desmond Tutu’s Children of God Storybook Bible, The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name (by Sally Lloyd Jones), and The Lion Bible for Children, among others.

This one is bright, very modern looking, well-designed, visually captivating. The story telling itself has something that is persuasive — it seems to get the big narrative, the grand plot of the big picture. It was inspired by a shorter (and equally vivid) book by DeYoung and Clark called The Biggest Story: How the Snake Crusher Brings Us Back to the Garden, which I am fond of. This bigger one is spectacular.

The Ology: Ancient Truths Ever New Marty Machowski, illustrated by Andy McGuire (New Growth Press) $29.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

This is a hefty book, not as small or thin as many, and made with hefty paper, so it’s weighty and a keeper. The art is fairly conventional — very well done and appealing, if traditional in pastel wooden pencils, perhaps. There are flowers and butterflies and close up pictures of children studying, handsome drawings of ancient scrolls and crowns and trumpets, with some whimsical scenes, too — a squid holding a pencil.

This is essentially a theology for kids. It is about God and God’s redemptive story. It is honest about goodness, about sin, about redemption, about discipleship, about hope and glory. As they say on the back it offers “Deep Truth, Simply Told.”

No theology book (for adults, or the rare ones for kids) is complete and there are themes and notions that are left unexplored. But for the simple truth of the basic stuff of Christian conviction, this is a good start. I would suggest it for families of younger children, even though it is content-rich. Maybe ages 7 – 11.

See also their tremendously lovely, thick study of some of the Psalms called Wonderfull: Ancient Psalms Ever New (New Growth Press) $29.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.99

This one has a small plot as a boy named Oliver reads the Psalms and learns to use them in prayer with his aging grandfather. As Oliver and his grandfather read through the Psalms together, they learn about God’s love and pray for each other as the seasons change. Even when the leaves fall and Oliver’s grandfather grows weaker, the Psalms strengthen them both to put their trust in God” Whew. Wonder-full.

Discipleship for Kids: Helping Children Grow in Christ Rebecca Ruybalid Stone (NavPress) $9.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $7.99

I love this publisher but the cover is a bit of mystery. The subtitle on the top says “Helping Children Grow in Christ” which implies it is for parents or adult church leaders who are teaching children. The cover implies it’s for littler kids with the goofball art. The advance info says it is on a 3rd grade reading level, but it seems to me the good writing style, though, is for YA audiences, which is to say middle, school, maybe, or junior high, even? It’s brand new — wanna be the first to give this a try?

It looks really good, gracious and open-minded even as it invites youth to grow in a multidimensional and balanced way. The wheel on the cover shows up throughout the book as we circle around learning to pray and love, love and walk, walk and tell others, rooted in a love for God and the Bible and a clarity about Christ’s grace, among his community. The wheel is a teaching tool used by the Navigator’s disciple-making ministry all over the world, actually. It’s all very clearheaded and optimistic, if a bit truncated — it doesn’t cover all we do as followers of Jesus but it’s certainly some of the basics. We can do this. Let’s do this!

It does have a bit of Q + A throughout, short bits that imply some engagement from the reader; not homework, really, but some intentionality. Maybe that’s the point of the subtitle on cover — an adult may need to work through this with their child. Know anybody that needs a tool like this, one piece of the puzzle of whole-life formation?

Everything Sad Is Untrue (A True Story) Daniel Nayeri (Levine Querido) $17.99                                OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

In our years of bookselling there have been a handful of YA books that have such power — a magical story well-written with a profound moral center — that they become popular among children, parents, teens, older readers. You know the list of the truly great ones, the enduring books of the last 50 years. This, my friends, is doubtlessly one of them. We haven’t had such a buzz on a novel, let alone a youth novel, since, uh, maybe the hall icon days of Harry Potter.  This one is a masterpiece.

I’ve written before about having met Daniel a few times and our respect for his work as writer, thinker, a person of serious faith, and publishing leader. (He works professionally in the children’s book world.) His mother escaped house church persecution in Iran decades ago and she, along with Daniel and his sister — who wrote remarkably about her experience in the excellent memoir, The Ungrateful Refugee — landed, finally, in the US. This colorfully written children’s tale is, in a sense, his story, told with spiraling and interconnected pieces that recalls great Persian storytelling — some reviewers have linked it to classics like 1001 Arabian Nights.

Here is how the publisher has introduced it:

At the front of a middle school classroom in Oklahoma, a boy named Khosrou (whom everyone calls “Daniel”) stands, trying to tell a story. His story. But no one believes a word he says. To them he is a dark-skinned, hairy-armed boy with a big butt whose lunch smells funny; who makes things up and talks about poop too much. But Khosrou’s stories, stretching back years, and decades, and centuries, are beautiful, and terrifying, from the moment his family fled Iran in the middle of the night with the secret police moments behind them, back to the sad, cement refugee camps of Italy and further back to the fields near the river Aras, where rain-soaked flowers bled red like the yolk of sunset burst over everything, and further back still to the Jasmine-scented city of Isfahan. We bounce between a school bus of kids armed with paper clip missiles and spitballs to the heroines and heroes of Khosrou’s family’s past, who ate pastries that made people weep and cry “Akh, Tamar!” and touched carpets woven with precious gems. Like Scheherazade in a hostile classroom, Daniel weaves a tale to save his own life: to stake his claim to the truth. And it is (a true story.)

I have told you about this before and have cited some of the prestigious endorsements it has received. I’ve exclaimed how much, especially, Beth liked it. I’ll just say this more — a friend (who reads a lot) recently finished it and said he was so moved he wonders if he will be able to read another book any time soon. Whew!

The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams Daniel Nayeri (Levine Querido) $21.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59

Okay, this is the new one, Daniel’s follow up to his last bestseller, Everything Sad Is Untrue which the New York Times called “A modern masterpiece — as epic as the Iliad and Shahnameh, and as heartwarming as Charlotte’s Web.”

A week or so ago I posted at our Hearts & Minds Facebook page a free sample look at the first chapter of this new, sprawling tale, and then shared a link to the exquisite New York Times review of it. It isn’t every youth novel that gets taken this seriously and, fun as it is, one has a sense that it is also important. It is, at least, a story about stories, a reminder of the power of words, a look at the teller of tales.

Here is how the publisher indices us with a hint of the setting:

A mesmerizing adventure set along the enchanting silk road, where caravans of merchants carried spices, perfumes, furs, and in the case of one swindler named Samir, nothing but dreams.

A swindler carrying nothing but dreams. Who by the way, now calls himself Monkey. Oh my.

There are some classy, pastel art works to illustrate The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams. There is adventure galore and wild characters, including, a band of troublesome figures that were hired by the villagers, including, “a Viking berserker, a Rogue legion, a Persian mystic, a Bedouin clan, a Mongolian gunner, a Chinese abolitionist, and, if that wasn’t enough, the most terrifying killer of all, a mythic figure only known as Cid.”

Is this an epic tapestry or a buddy comedy? It is said to be “a heartfelt tale of what makes a family, the expansive nature of love, and the precise market value of a good story.” Ha.

TO PLACE AN ORDER 

PLEASE READ, THEN SCROLL DOWN AND CLICK ON THE “ORDER HERE” LINK BELOW.

It is very helpful if you tell us how you prefer us to ship your orders.

The weight and destination of your package varies but you can use this as a quick, general guide:

There are generally two kinds of US Mail options, and, of course, UPS. If necessary, we can do overnight and other expedited methods, too. Just ask.

• United States Postal Service has the option called “Media Mail” which is cheapest but can be slow. For one typical book, usually, it’s about $3.85; 2 lbs would be $4.55.
• United States Postal Service has another option called “Priority Mail” which is $8.50,  if it fits in a flat rate envelope. Many children’s books and some Bibles are oversized so that might take the next size up which is $9.20. “Priority Mail” gets much more attention than does “Media Mail” and is often just a few days to anywhere in the US.
• UPS Ground is reliable but varies by weight and distance and may take longer than USPS. We’re happy to figure out your options for you once we know what you want.

If you just want to say “cheapest” that is fine. If you are eager and don’t want the slowest method, do say so. It really helps us serve you well so let us know. Just saying “US Mail” isn’t helpful because there are those two methods, one cheaper but slower, one more costly but quicker. Which do you prefer?

– DON’T FORGET TO LET US KNOW WHAT SHIPPING METHOD YOU PREFER –

BookNotes

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DISCOUNT

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I know some of our customers are looking for gifts for Easter baskets, for grandkids, nephews and nieces, for neighbors or Sunday school classes. Heck, some of you just like children’s books for their beauty and interest. You can check some previous BookNotes here or here, of course, and if the books are still available we can send them to you. Below are a few special ones, a few are brand new; most are recent. All are 20% off. Scroll to the bottom to see the link to our secure order form page — or call. We love to chat.

Thanks for caring.

God’s Holy Darkness Sharen Green & Beckah Selznick, illustrated by Nikki Faison (Beaming Books) $17.99    OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

This is one we promoted in the dark days of Advent as it just seemed to capture that season of longing and lament. It is, as we said, one of the most amazing children’s books in many a year, powerful, aesthetically stunning, exceptionally well done. I highly recommend that you get it out if you had purchased in last season and if not, now truly is the time, even though it is not a Lenten title, per se.

There are two important threads of import in this striking picture book. Firstly, it is (obviously) about darkness. That in itself resonates with themes of Lent, doesn’t it? We really appreciate how artfully it shows this and how vital and captivating this book is, inviting us to “celebrate the beauty of God’s holy darkness.” (Perhaps you recall the wonderfully written memoir exploring this by the exquisite Barbara Brown Taylor called Learning to Walk In the Dark: Because Sometimes God Shows Up at Night; this children’s book is a good companion for that.)

The second theme is wanting to redeem the notion of blackness. Too often we hear, or assume subconsciously, that black is bad, that dark times are irredeemably bad, that night and dark are scary and troubling. We needn’t overstate the case but some black friends have said this can be hurtful or confusing, so we need to think this through. God’s Holy Darkness is, in a sense, an anti-racism book.

As it says on the back cover of God’s Holy Darkness:

From the darkness at the beginning of creation to the blackness of the sky on the night when Christ’s birth was announced, this captivating picture book deconstructs anti-Blackness in Christian theology by exploring instances in the story of God’s people when darkness, blackness, and night are beautiful, good, and holy.

We often talk about how the liturgical calandar draws us into the flow of the unfolding drama of the history of redemption. That is, we should frame our seasons by the whole story of God as portrayed in the big story of Scripture. This artful book does just that allusively, simply, walking us through the pages of Scripture. This is redemptive, nearly subversive, Biblical theology for children and I could imagine it being used during Holy Week and certainly on Good Friday and Holy Saturday.

Bare Tree and Little Wind: A Story for Holy Week Mitali Perkins, illustrated by Khoa Le (Waterbrook) $15.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $12.79

We highlighted this as one of our favorite picture books last year at this time and for those who missed it, it is a gem. Creative, lyrical, honest, the palm trees tell Little Wind that the Real King is coming. But who is this Quiet Man he sees instead? Perkins is a National Book Award nominee and a splendid writer. The art is both creatively and aesthetically pleasing while just a touch whimsical. Look for the pair to reunite for a Christmas book later this fall to be called Holy Night and Little Star: A Story for Christmas.

Darkest Night/Brightest Day: A Family Devotional for the Easter Season Marty Machowski, illustrated by Phil Schorr (New Growth Press) $21.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $16.80

I love this idea and the execution is fabulous — it’s one of these fun books that you read from front to back but halfway through you turn it around and upside down and read a different book through. The first half offers seven devotionals about the darkest days of Jesus’s last week (starting with Psalm Sunday) while the second half is the glory of the resurrection, offering seven lessons from Thomas’s doubts through breakfast on the beach to Ascension and Pentecost — there are fourteen Bible stories (again, seven in each “side” of the book.) Each side has a big die-cut hole showing some of the vivid art underneath. Cool!

There is a lot of text, gospel-centered content, good Bible discussion questions, and intense, modern, clear pictures. This is informative and passionate, serious, glorious.

They say the reading and comprehension level if for families with kids maybe as young as 5 up to about 11. It’s 64 pages.

Twas the Morning of Easter Glenys Nellist, illustrated by Elena Selivanova (Zonderkidz) $17.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

I love the good art in this one, the playful rhyming that isn’t too cheesy — Glenys Nellist should be well known as she has done a number of excellent children’s books — and find this to be a splendid telling of the good news of resurrection. (You may know the companion one called Twas the Evening of Christmas.) I was glad for the “whole creation” rejoicing and struck by how the artist portrayed Mary as so very young. Brings tears to my eyes…

The Garden, The Curtain, and the Cross: The True Story of Why Jesus Died and Rose Again  Carl Laferton (The Good Book Company) $16.99                                     OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

There are nearly a dozen of these very playful, interesting, and theologically robust stories in the “Tales That Tell the Truth” line, most connecting an Old Testament story with a New Testament one; they wonderfully show the gospel in all of the Scripture and the broad vision of the redemption of all thing, through Christ alone. The artist for almost all of them is Catalina Echeverri and she is energetic and whimsical, vivid, but with drawings all over the page that are often small.  Sometimes the printing is sideways, even. What fun!)

In this case the “garden” in the story is the Garden of Eden and it describes the goodness of creation, the fall and sorrow that came about, and the long hope for some answer to their mess. Jesus shows up, the story of the cross is very well told (with a bit of a side story of the curtain in the temple tearing) and the happy news that we can be one with God again as all things are being transformed. It is solid and Biblically astute, yet really, really engaging. I love all of the books in this “Tales That Tell the Truth” series. This is one of the best Easter books we know for ages 3 – 7 or 8.

Most have been made into board books, smaller and a bit cheaper but I think they are abridged a bit… The board book sells for $9.99; OUR SALE PRICE = $7.99.

Goodbye to Goodbyes: The True Story of Jesus, Lazarus, and an Empty Tomb Lauren Chandler, illustrated by Catalina Echeverri (The Good Book Company) $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

By the way, this one in the “Tales That Tell the Truth” series is really useful, too, for yet another way into the Easter story, for young or old. Again, this series is playful and smart, creative and passionate about the gospel. They say it is for ages 3 – 6 but it is so interesting and Biblically astute that I’d say old little kids would be interested.

Goodbye to Goodbyes is about Jesus rolling the stone away from the grave of his friend Lazarus and saying goodbye, an allusive way to explain death. It shows how we all have to say goodbye sometimes. But then when his own death and resurrection are explained (with the disciples sad about saying goodbye) we learn wonderfully about Christ’s defeat of death — and the celebration that great news causes. They have Jesus saying, “There is a day coming when we will say goodbye to saying goodbyes forever. Do you believe that?” Goodbye to Goodbyes: The True Story of Jesus, Lazarus, and an Empty Tomb is just wonderful.

(This one does not come in a board book edition.)

Faithful Families for Lent, Easter, and Resurrection: Simple Ways to Create Meaning for the Season Traci Smith (Chalice Press) $12.99     OUR SALE PRICE = $10.39

I appreciate that Tracie is an ordained PC(USA) pastor and is published, here, on the Disciples of Christ publishing house. This is upbeat and clear with bunches of ideas, somewhat framed by her mainline denominational Protestant orientation (even as she draws on ecumenically liturgical insights and points us towards some very nifty rituals and experiences.)

Everyone who helps children grow in faith will appreciate this hands-on resource designed to help children through the Lenten season, full of ideas, suggestions, prayers and blessings (Faithful Families: Creatine Sacred Moments at Home is the more general book; she has yet another called Faithful Families for Advent and Christmas: 100 Ways to Make the Season Sacred and one about praying as families. She has a colorful, small-sized book for little ones, too, published by Beaming Books called Little Prayers for Everyday Life; $12.99 OUR SALE PRICE = $10.39.) This is handy, holy stuff.

A Jesus Easter: Explore God’s Amazing Rescue Plan Barbara Reaoch (Good Book Company) $12.99    OUR SALE PRICE = $10.39

As many who know her have said, Barbara Reaoch (who served with Bible Study Fellowship for many years as the Director of their Children’s Division) is a master-teacher. She knows how to engage the imaginations of littles and she knows how to be clear about the gospel. This book —  not unlike the A Jesus Christmas which we mentioned in December — is rich and thoughtful and easily able to be adapted to a range of ages and needs.

There are 30 fun, thought-provoking devotionals covering Old and New Testament passages. There are miniature drawings throughout, clever and interesting — and even space for family journalling.

BOARD BOOK: Make Space for Jesus: Learning About Lent and Easter Laura Alary, illustrated by Ann Boyajian (Paraclete Press) $11.99    OUR SALE PRICE = $9.59

This is the adapted small sized board book with chunky pages of Make Room: A Child’s Guide to Lent and Easter which is a lovely paperback picture book that we also carry. I really like how Laura (who lives in Toronto) described Make Room — she explains that

the book has two aims. The first is to re-interpret the three traditional Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, and alms giving in a way that is meaningful, practical and accessible for children. The second is to root those practices in the larger story of the life and ministry of Jesus, so they aren’t just activities or more things to do, but a part of a life of discipleship. Make Room is a positive presentation of Lent as a special time for following Jesus along his path of openness, hospitality, and of making known the expansive love of God.

BOARD BOOK Holy Week: An Emotions Primer Danielle Hitchen, art by Jessica Blanchard (Harvest House Publishers) $12.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $10.39

I love these “Baby Believer” primer on central tenants of the Christian faith (from Let There Be Light which uses notions of opposites; Psalms of Praise, which uses ideas of movements, or From Eden to Bethlehem which shows various animals, and several more. This one is remarkable, naming various emotions that people might have when hearing the story of Jesus.

Of course it is for the very young and is simple, but may help little ones learn words — “exited” is the first word (for Palm Sunday) and there is “angry” and “loved” and “thankful” and “overwhelmed” and “frustrated” and “sad” and “joyful.” This is really interesting.

BOARD BOOK My Easter Storybook Laura Richie, illustrated by Ian Dale (David C. Cook) $8.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $7.19

This is a small book, illustrated with a fairly realistic style (unlike so many that are just too goofy in my view for this important occasion.) This has some cute questions for babies — point to the sandals, how many animals do you see? Can you say ‘Jesus is alive’?) It has several scenes from Holy Week and, interestingly, the one were the people wanted to “hurt Jesus” shows the cross and crucifixion only in the background with a solider in the foreground saying Jesus is the son of God.  Nicely done.

The Easter Fix Steph Williams (The Good Book Company) $4.99         OUR SALE PRICE = $3.99

This is a very colorful colorfully drawn paperback — just 24 pages — that is in this UK publisher’s popular “Little Me – Big God” series. We’ve enjoyed these, each with a unique, playful angle. This is the story of how God sent someone to fix everything. “Yes everything!” They say. That someone was Jesus.

As they say on the back, “Discover what Jesus came to fix, how he did it, and why it makes everything better.”  Wow, this is strong. Ages 2, maybe, up to 4 or 5. Short and simple, with some funny pictures alongside the important words.

ADULT BOOKS THAT MIGHT BE OF INTEREST TO FAMILIES WITH OLDER KIDS

The Art of Holy Week and Easter: Meditations on the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Sister Wendy Beckett (IVP) $17.00                               OUR SALE PRICE = $13.60

We sold a number of these last year and certainly many have enjoyed the extraordinary Art of Lent. This one has 30 wonderfully reproduced (in a small format, compact) art piece on glossy paper offering both ancient, medieval, and more recent, even modern-era artworks that captures something important of the Biblical story. Some are old and familiar masterpieces and a few are not well-known at all. All are superlative.

As the back cover notes, it is “brimming with Sister Wend’s irrepressible wisdom and enthusiasm.” It offers “a chance to hear again the voice of Sister Wendy as she leads you gently into a deep appreciation of all that these paintings convey to the discerning eye.

An Easter Book of Days: Meeting the Characters of the Cross and Resurrection Gregory Kenneth Cameron (Paraclete Press) $18.99 OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

We’ve highlighted this before, the daily reader designed to awaken your spirit by way of engaging your imagination this Lent and Easter-time. Gregory Kenneth Cameron offers 25 meditations accompanied by beautiful full color illustrations.

The small paintings here (like his Christmas one, An Advent Book of Days) are made to look somewhat like icons, making them seem weighty and reflective. Cameron is an Anglican Bishop in Wales. This is compact sized with French folded covers, very, very nice.

Poetry of Redemption: An Illustrated Treasury of Good Friday and Easter Poems Leland Ryken (P&R Publisher) $17.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

Dr. Ryken is a well-respected evangelical and Reformed literature prof, with emeritus status at Wheaton College. He has expertly pulled together a number of grand anthologies and is known for his great love of poetry and classic literature, and explaining their value with such gracious vigor. You may recall our celebration of his handsome Crossway hardback that came out a year ago, The Heart in Pilgrimage: A Treasury of Classic Devotionals on the Christian Life ($34.99 – OUR SALE PRICE = $27.99) or the important co-authored paperback volume Recovering the Lost Art of Reading: A Quest for the True, the Good, and the Beautiful ($21.99 – OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59.)

In any case, this is about how God’s redemptive plan came to fruition in the events of a tumultuous handful of days. As he notes, “in the two thousand years since, believers have sought to express the horror of Christ’s crucifixion, the joy of his resurrection and the wonder of the personal and eternal implications of both.”

This new one, slightly oversized in paperback, offers words of dozens of poets and hymnists alongside Scripture, full color paintings, strong graphics and a handsome, compelling, modern design. Helpfully, there are informative and devotional reflections on the images in word and painting, helping us take in the work “designed to fix our thoughts on God and the spiritual life and to awaken our religious affections.” What a book!

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BookNotes

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Sometimes at BookNotes I want to go into detail telling you a lot about a great book. Sometimes, like here in early March, we have so many incoming titles that I want to let you know about that I’m just going to announce most of them pretty quickly. I’ll try to be brief, but we’ll see. A few I have to explain, so it’ll take a few paragraphs. In any case, they are all 20% off and we’d be grateful to help you out if you want any of them. Gotta keep up, ya know. Busy as we are, reading is a crucial discipline and a great joy. Do it!

Depending on the device on which you are reading this you may have to scroll down to see to the very end of the column. And that’s where the links are to order. Click those buttons at the end to either inquire or to actually order. We’re here and eager to serve. Thanks.

The Great Story and the Great Commission: Participating in the Biblical Drama of Mission Christopher J.H. Wright (Baker Academic) $23.99    OUR SALE PRICE = $19.19

I announced this quickly a bit ago, but it is so new, and so important, and from what I can tell from a quick skim, so fresh and imaginative, that it simply must be mentioned again. How we read the Bible matters, and seeing the unfolding drama that offers a trajectory of ultimate healing and wholeness for all creation is essential. If you love the Bible, if you are glad to be following Jesus the King, if you care about the relevance of faith in the modern world, this work bringing the Bible’s big story to life and thereby reframing the concept of mission is for you.

As Mike Goheen puts it, “Wright continues to produce important books for the church.” Right!

A Body of Praise: Understanding the Role of Our Physical Bodies in Worship W. David O. Taylor (Baker Academic) $26.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

Another remarkable book out of Fuller Theological Seminary with their study of theology and culture  — amazing! I respect David Taylor so much (besides being a scholar and prof, he’s an art critic and priest He’s also the guy who did that great video documentary with Eugene Peterson and Bono talking together about the Psalms.) I know there have been other books that have approached this in Catholic scholarship, within mainline Protestant circles, and some evangelicals. But I do not know of anything that looks this good, this nuanced, this solid and passionate. Blurbs on the back include ravens from Rowan Williams, Constance Cherry, Joel Scandrett, Simon Chan, Beth Feller Jones and more.

As Taylor creatively argues, within the context of worship “there is something for our physical bodies to do that decisively forms Christlikeness in us.” A Body of Praise is, before pages of fascinating footnotes, about 160 pages. You should do this!

Redeeming Vision: A Christian Guide to Looking at and Learning from Art Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt (Baker Academic) $29.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $23.00

If you were following our social media output during Jubilee a month ago you maybe saw a  photo of this book, the first spotted edition out there in the book wilds, posted by a friend of the author who was browsing our huge arts section there. We were so thrilled (and learned that the author, from Covenant College in Tennessee, was near us here in central PA that weekend, visiting with the Square Halo Books folks at their own event with poet Malcolm Guite.) Small world.

Here’s what I’ll say quickly: Elissa is a rising rock star, a great teacher and a very good writer. This book is exquisitely produced and, yes, it cites Calvin Seerveld. His Rainbows for the Fallen World and Bearing Fresh Olive Leaves are plumb line items; if a book on aesthetics doesn’t cite them, I know something is missing, maybe off. In any case, she’s on top of her game, thinking Christianly and delightfully helping us all see what we should, and explaining happily why it all matters. As Bruce Herman puts it, “Redeeming Vision is an erudite and yet wonderfully hospitable invitation…”

Weichbrodt, as another reviewer puts it, provides “a useful toolbox of interpretive tools and frameworks for faithful and generative engagement with a great diversity of artworks.” Look: we are formed by the images we view and (as it says on the back cover) “from classical art to advertisements and from news photos to social media, the images we look at mold our ideas of race, gender, and class. They shape how we love God and our neighbor.” Hallelujah!

My Body and Other Crumbling Empires: Lessons for Healing in a World That is Sick Lyndsey Medford (Broadleaf) $26.99

OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

What an allusive title and cover. There have been lots of books coming out in recent years about the nature of the human body (some astutely theological) and about our many chronic illnesses and autoimmune disorders and painful conditions. I am glad for them, helping us to (in the words of Marva Dawn in her splendid book from years ago) “being sick well.” My Body… looks to be exceptionally profound, mature, prophetic, even. The great Shannan Martin says it offers a deft mix of “gentleness and fire.”

K.J. Ramsey wrote the forward and her three books are all exquisite and solid. Her introduction to this new book is very, very good. I’m glad the two women are connected.

Our friend J. Nichole Morgan, author of Fat and Faithful, says about it,

Medford weaves through the ways our lives are pushed and pulled in a system that is not set up to teach us to have a relationship with our body, just to conquer and tame it. She reminds us that self-care without community care, without centering and acknowledging those who are marginalized, misses the bigger picture. I highly recommend this beautiful guide to living in a body.

The Least of These: Practicing a Faith without Margins edited by Angie Ward (NavPress) $16.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

This brand new paperback is the third in Missio Alliance’s “Kingdom Conversations” series. We shared about the others (When the Universe Cracks and Kingdom and Country) and one adopts the same good format. There are edgy evangelical authors, multi-ethnic, missional and wholistic, Kingdom people, weighing in on various aspects of the topic. In this case there is a wide range of topics (and in this sense it reminds me a bit of the important recent book by Shane Claiborne Rethinking Life which offers a consistent ethic of life.)

In this fascinating discussion we have Dennis Edwards and Danielle Strickland, Aubrey Sampson and Christian Rice. Lisa Rodriguez-Watson asks “Who Is My Neighbor?” And David Hionides we are “Created in His Image.” Brandon Washington offers a “Comprehensive Gospel.” There is a chapter on “multi-ability” and a wonderful piece on being people of “(Glad) Hope.” Very nicely done.

Learning to Love: Christian Higher Education as Pilgrimage Alex Sosler (Falls City Press) $18.99    OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

Okay, I love this book. I love it! Sosler is a customer (and I helped a tiny bit with some of the editing of this one.) You may know we have a bunch of books about higher education, about reforming college education, especially about the small but important topic of distinctively Christian higher ed. As an alum of the Higher Education Degree program at Geneva College, how could we not? We have a number of BookNotes readers who do campus ministry, too, so caring about the context of higher learning is vital. Anyway, this new volume is a gem, and, believe me, we’ve read a number of similar sorts of books.

Granted, this is pitched to students going to a Christian College. Dr. Sosler is himself a professor at Montreat College in the Black Mountains of NC. (He is also an Assisting Priest at an Anglican Church in Asheville NC.) But I truly believe that it would be of use to anyone going off to college in any sort of school. It is, to be clear, an invitation to think about college as a time and place to grow in God’s grace and love. It is, oddly, still a bit radical to invite kids to ask “why go to college?” To ask all involved “what is the purpose of college” is urgent. Students are often bored and disinterested because they’ve never been given a vision of education worth pursuing with much vigor. As it says on the back properly, “In Learning to Love, Alex Sosler provides a rich vision of higher education by rooting education in love and affection.”  (Yep, they are swiping that word from Wendell Berry — it all turns on affection, as he puts it — and is influenced by Jamie Smith’s (post-modern) Augustinian reflections.)

Sosler quotes the wonderful Esther Lightcap Meek who teaches (in books like Longing to Know) that we love in order to know. And we know by loving well, appropriately. If words like joy and longing, desire and hope, renewal and human flourishing aren’t on the tongue of your young adult, buy them this book. College should help them become the kind of people who think and talk in these terms, who want to study in order to grow in charity and wonder, wisdom and service. I know that isn’t what their guidance counselor said. Most likely their church didn’t say much at all about the reason for going to college. The book is winsome and chatty but truly profound, saying things that somebody must say. I think your young adult friends will like it and, in time, they will thank you. Kudos.

The Digital Public Square: Christian Ethics in a Technological Society edited by Jason Thacker (B+H) $34.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $27.99

There are plenty of books about being responsible and ethical and wise in using technology. I’ve raved here about titles like The Tech Wise Family by Andy Crouch and his richer, more eloquent The Life We’re Looking For — a must read, I’d say! Thacker himself has done the prescient The Age of AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity in 2020 and just a year ago released the small sized, potent, Following Jesus in the Digital Age. Here he has edited a volume of serious folks thinking about what Matthew Kaemingk (in his back cover blurb) calls “the principalities and powers of the digital public square.”

This big book offers a “constructive public theology that can guide that engagement.” From public issues and policy questions from online censorship to hate speech, religious freedom questions to sexual ethics, various scholars (from David French to Bonnie Kristian, Patrica Shaw, Keith Plummer and many others) weigh in with the best collection of such work I’ve yet seen. Other blurbs on the back are from Dru Johnson, Ben Sasse, Russell Moore. This is surprisingly rich, thoughtful, weighty, even. Wow.

Reason to Return: Why Women Need the Church and the Church Needs Women Ericka Andersen (NavPress) $16.99                                   OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

A while ago I noticed — not surprisingly, I suppose — a number of books that were specifically about women’s experience of the church. Not just about abuse and toxic relationships with patriarchal structures in some denominations, but more broadly. There have been several books like that over the decades, understandably so. But with titles like Prey Tell: Why We Silence Women Who Tell the Truth by Tiffany Bluhm (Brazos) or the academic The Struggle to Stay: Why Single Evangelical Women Are Leaving the Church by Katie Gaddini (Columbia University Press) or Buried Talents: Overcoming Gendered Socialization to Answer God’s Call by Sean Harris Howell (IVP Academic) it was obvious that more attention was finally being paid within the publishing world to tell these kinds of stories.

Ericka Andersen (host of the popular Worth Your Time podcast) has written in important venues such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Christianity Today and World. She has had her eye on this stuff for years.

Many women have a complicated relationship with the Church. As it says on the back cover, “Statistics show that women are leaving their churches in droves. Although these women desire a close relationship with God, the imperfect churches of their paste hinder them from having their deep spiritual longing met today.”

Of course, that’s the back cover copy. Her writing is more glowing and more nuanced. But she does explore deeply the many reasons why many women are leaving their local congregations. She offers thoughtful analysis and gentle insights.  She offers lots of stories, and tells some of her own. I think many will appreciate her candor. She invites women who have left the church to “rediscover an important piece of their faith that has been missing.”

I don’t know why some have drifted from faith communities (although I sure know that if one is not respected or able to serve well in a overly authoritarian church there are plenty of others to try that will gladly welcome your gifts.) If it is apathy or the pandemic or past hurts, this book may help. She holds out hope that the church of your past does not have to be the church of your future. Sound good?

My friend Traci Rhodes, a spiritually ecumenical and happily wandering/wondering writer who knows a thing or two about all of this says:

Church is always and forever both highly personal and highly communal. In this book, Andersen boldly encourages us to keep asking Jesus for the right church balance in our lives. I found her arguments for being in church both convincing and encouraging. Traci Rhoades, author of Not All Who Wander (Spiritually) Are Lost and Shaky Ground: What To Do After the Bottom Drops Out

Resisting the Bonhoeffer Brand – A Life Reconsidered Charles Marsh (Cascade) $14.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $11.20

I read this short book in one long sitting and I am still pondering it, glad for this intellectual exercise, despite the awful cover typography and design. Who doesn’t want to know more about Bonhoeffer and how to apply his courageous faith and writing to our lives today? This isn’t a typical Bonhoeffer study, so you may not need it, but I couldn’t put it down. I love nerdy footnotes and this one wins the award — some of the lengthy footnotes cite articles in German! Whew. I have said that I’d read anything Charles Marsh writes and this one didn’t disappoint.

Here’s the backstory. Years ago Charles wrote one of the most engaging books on Bonhoeffer that has yet been done, the creative and energetic (and very well informed) biography Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It came out a few years after Eric Metaxas’s best-selling Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy.

I’ll admit I liked and defended most of Eric Metaxas’s Bonhoeffer and was glad so many read it. (Before that, the standard bio was one that was bone dry, and Eric’s was, at least, engaging and captivating and full of evangelical inspiration, even if some in Bonhoeffer scholarship circles hated it.) It seems that Charles (who had done his PhD thesis on Bonhoeffer, but was known for writing brilliantly about civil rights stuff) didn’t appreciate some of Metaxas’s speculations and tone. (This was before Eric went off the deep end into a bizarre Trumpian cult and conspiracy stuff.) So Marsh finally wrote the long-awaited Strange Glory.

Alas, some in the guild didn’t like it. They thought he was pushy, speculative, inappropriate. (Especially in suggesting that Dietrich had a homosexual relationship with his colleague Eberhard Bethge.) A German scholar named Ferdinand Schlingensiepen was especially critical of Marsh’s methods and content and he raged quite fiercely on both sides of the Atlantic.

Three things quickly happen in Resisting the Bonhoeffer Brand. First, right out of the gate, we realize that there are general methodological principles to be considered and Marsh cites a handful of literary critics and artists and writers about the process of doing biography. How do stories get told? Who interprets whom and based upon what data? What is the relationship between the teachings of a person and their life, their character? Exploring that is a huge matter but in a few pages and a few well placed quotes, Marsh raises foundational questions about literary criticism and writing and storytelling and the art of biography. I loved the section called “Theology and Biography” even though I had to read a few sections twice.

Secondly, we learn still more about Bonhoeffer, filling in some stuff that you might not recall, even if you’ve read a few biographies or articles. When critics say this or that about Marsh’s telling in Strange Glory he pushes back, documenting why he wrote what he did, appealing to the research he has done on primary sources, on location, which is to say, Bonhoeffer’s life and times. For instance, he makes a compelling case just how passionate Bonhoeffer was during a season in Barcelona. That season is actually discussed a lot in the Bonny academic literature, but Charles reports from the Spanish field by studying the sermons Bonhoeffer actually preached there. In a few pages a whole lot came into view.

Thirdly — and this is the heart of the book, I suppose — he replies to his critics, argues back, takes exception, and doesn’t back down. (Oh, there’s a few errors in Strange Glory which he quickly concedes, like calling a place a “hunting lodge” rather than a “foster’s lodge.” He called one historic German city Chamby, not Chambry. Got it. His mea culpa is sincere, but it also sort of sets the stage for the fight to come: he doesn’t say that Schlingensiepen is a jackass, but, geesh.)

And so it goes, page by page, topic by topic, accusation and rebuttal. It’s informative and fascinating, if a little bit odd. Whose life is being “reconsidered” here? Bonhoeffer’s, of course. But the two authors, too, perhaps. If only they could have just chatted over a good German brew and schwarzwälder kirschtorte.

Even if the conversation could have been more congenial, Marsh contends that “Bonhoeffer scholarship desperately needs the revitalizing energies of the theologian’s life story revisited and uncensored.”  And he’s right about that. Which is why Heath Carter of Princeton says, “Charles Marsh’s latest book is essential.”

Here is an endorsement by a sharpt pastor-writer-leader I deeply respect, Winn Collier, biographer of Eugene Peterson:

Bonhoeffer warned against being infatuated with a self-made idea about Christian community but not loving the actual community as it is: gritty and human, complex and wondrous. What a turn then — now we need Marsh to offer the same warnings about how we read Bonhoeffer himself. We like our saints to fit tidy boxes and rubber-stamp our presumptions. Marsh, with his historian’s eye and novelist’s pen, won’t let us make this mistake.  — Winn Collier, Western Theological Seminary

Don’t Hold Back: Leaving Behind the American Gospel to Follow Jesus Fully David Platt (Multnomah) $25.00  OUR SALE PRICE = $20.00

You may recall Platt’s book a decade ago, Radical, which invited gospel-centered, mission-minded evangelicals to focus less on the American dream and more on the cost of commitment. It created quite a stir —even though not that radical for those who grew up reading Ron Sider or Jim Wallis or Dorothy Day — and even made it into a quick scene to the popular TV show Madam Secretary. It was fine, and he was a serious-minded preacher.

Alas, he took a call to a large well-known, conservatively evangelical church near Washington DC and in no time at all he was being criticized. He was straight as could be on the hot button issues that most evangelicals care about but something about his passion for outreach, for meeting people where they are at, as we used to say, for grace and justice and kindness didn’t sit well. It has been a hard road, there for him.

Don’t Hold Back is his report back, Radical more than tens years later, wondering what it means to renounce the idols of the age in order to be a faithful evangelical in North America. He calls us to “leverage our lives” and to “rectify the great imbalance.” He’s hard on what he calls “the American gospel” but is boldly Christ-centered and conventionally Biblical, exhorting us to seek God through Scripture with intensity and boldness.

Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day Kaitlin B. Curtice (Brazos Press) $21.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59

I would very much like to write more about this but I am only part-way through it. I am sure you know Kaitlin Curtice from her lovely Glory Happens published by Paraclete and her indigenous vision, Native, that came out a few years ago from Brazos. Here she is reflecting on how as a native woman she has learned just how important the language of resistance is. She says it is our basic human calling and we each have a role to play. I appreciate her very much.

She describes four “realms” of resistance — personal/inward; communal, which entails social reform work; ancestral (exploring one’s roots); and what she calls integral (resistance that involves all parts of the self).

If it helps you place it a bit, this timely call to a socially aware and principled spiritual life is endorsed by Glennon Doyle (who calls it a “lifeline”) and Rev. Dr Jacqui Lewis who says she “fiercely and gently calls us home…” Rabbi Tanya Ruttenberg says it “forges a path to a more whole now and a more whole tomorrow.” Impressively, Latinx poet and storyteller Joel Leon says it is a “clear and beautiful path that feels accessible to all.”

Asha Frost (an indigenous medicine woman and bestselling author of You Are the Medicine) says it “reminds us of a fire we hold in our bellies and the spark we carry in our souls.”

Healing Conversations on Race: Four Key Practices From Scripture and Psychology Veola Vazquez, Joshua Knabb, Charles Lee-Johnson, and Krystal Hays (IVP Academic) $24.00                       OUR SALE PRICE = $19.20

This is another gem that I should write more about — it’s very impressive. There are bunches of books on racial justice and truly helpful and fruitfully honest conversations these days. This publisher, IVP and IVP Academic, has done excellent ones for many decades now. So this has integrity, vetted as it is, and emerging from a thoughtfully evangelical worldview. The authors are young scholars, all colleagues in the College of Behavior and Social Sciences at California Baptist University.

Race complicates our relationships, even when we reject racism and seek to walk a better path together. They are offering this research to see how we can get our thinking (and our conversing) “unstuck from entrenched patterns.” They are a team of experts in psychology and social work, so know social realities well. They interpret things in light of the grand narrative of Scripture, of course, and they do this well. But their genius is also in their Biblically-guided insights about social psychology and solid science which can help us learn skills to better discuss ethnicity.  From attachment theory to specific relational skills, Healing Conversations offers much. Highly recommended.

Hope for American Evangelicals: A Missionary Perspective on Restoring Our Broken House Matthew Bennett  (B+H) $17.99                               OUR SALE PRICE = $14.39

This book is easy to describe and it will be fascinating for many of our customers, I’m sure. Here’s the thing: one need not be a card carrying evangelical to appreciate much of this. And, in fact, I think he is wrong and/or shallow about a number of important topics, and I am less than thrilled with a few lines here and there. But, no matter: this book is a major contribution that needs to be discussed because it is almost exclusively one man’s interpretation of the vast body of work by the great missional thinker Lesslie Newbigin. As such, it’s really a great read.

A Church of Scotland missionary to India for most of his adult lifetime, Newbigin has quite a story and I won’t rehearse it here, other than to say he is a key figure in the broader body of Christ, respected and even revered (if sometimes fiercely debated) in mainline denominational settings, Reformed and Catholic and Lutheran and more, and within missional and evangelical circles. This author, Matthew Bennett — with a PhD from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary — was a cross-cultural missionary in North Africa and the Middle East and came back to teach missiology at an evangelical college and, perhaps like his hero Newbigin, was shocked by how things had developed in his homeland. And applied what he learned as a missionary to our post-Christian culture, here, now.

Bennett loves his evangelical tradition, the conservative values, what he sees as a Biblical approach, but, yet, this home needs some serious touching up and renovation. He goes “room by room” looking at what Newbigin’s insights might offer as we address so many aspects of our congregational and theological lives. Consider this an intro to how Newbigin’s work might be applied today, even if you are not convinced this telling gets it fully right. What a fabulous and provocative little book!

Trauma-Informed Evangelism: Cultivating Communities of Wounded Healers Charles Kiser & Elaine Heath (Eerdmans) $19.99                            OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

This just arrived and I am very eager to study it more. The first chapters were very captivating to me with Kiser telling his story about doing a church plant in a hip neighborhood in Dallas and coming to painfully realize just how much hurt and resistance there was to the church. Heath, an author of many good books, was his teacher at Duke and together they establish how toxic theology can wound and how bad evangelism has turned so many off.

I have some concerns these days about how many people are using the word trauma, as if it is any bad feeling or comes from any hurtful experience. This is not to deny that there really is trauma and that we desperately need “trauma informed” practices, but I worry about being cavalier or glib.

Trauma-Informed Evangelism, I am confident, is not simplistic about trauma studies nor is it overstating the severe woundedness experienced by some from church folks. Given that, how do we talk about faith, what witness do we bear? As Tiffany Yecke Brooks (author of the intriguing Gaslighted by God) says, “it is not enough to merely apologize for harm done in the name of Christ; we must work to change our own behaviors, attitudes and practices.” This book, she says, will help.

It is for anyone who cares about doing effective ministry in this cultural moment when so many are becoming more and more aware of abuse, wounds, privileges and slights, some of which lead to religiously-caused trauma. Heath, by the way, wrote a fascinating book several years back called The Mystic Way of Evangelism so crafting new ways to think about our calling to share the gospel and be agents of good news isn’t new for her. The guidelines here should be helpful. Let’s at least talk about it, shall we? It is urgent.

Reading for the Love of God: How to Read as Spiritual Practice Jessica Hooten Wilson (Brazos Press) $24.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $19.99

We highlighted this almost a half a year ago at BookNotes and took some pre-orders and now we are very glad to announce that we have it in stock and are happy to send more. Believe me, if you are a book lover, a reader, a hobbyist or scholar, you are going to want to get your hands and eyes on this as soon as possible. It is brilliant, wonderful, useful, wise, and fun.

I speak and teach on this kind of stuff a lot and while I bring different strategies, use some different Biblical texts, cite other authors and storytellers, our vision is similar and our hope to motivate better, wiser reading among people of faith is strong. In the first chapter, here, Jessica asks “What kind of reader are you?” It is a great question.

Hooten Wilson is a scholar of these things so she goes deep. The book is more serious in tone and more dense than our much-touted The Pastor’s Bookshelf by Austin Carty that we raved about last year. But for those wanting to go deeper, this is fabulous.

There are what she calls “bookmarks” after several chapters with titles such as “Reading Like Julian of Norwich” and “Reading Like Frederick Douglas” and “Reading Like Dorothy Sayers.” Each offers answers to typical questions of many readers (how to remember what you read, for instance, or — get this! — “What does the Trinity have to Do with the art of reading?”  Okay, maybe you haven’t ever asked that, directly, but she provokes in us the right sort of desires and offers these excursions into important readers and writers to show how it is done.

My, my, what a book. From the questions about “using” and “enjoying” books to the appendix on two ways to read a Flannery O’Connor story, to practical questions about using our four senses to read well, Reading for the Love of God is a gem. It will help you enjoy a good book, it will introduce you to many authors and titles you may want to explore further, and it will give you strategies to deepen your “spirituality of reading.” BookNotes friends, take note! This is for you.

I like the practical tone of this great endorsement by the lovely writer Tsh Oxenreider:

Jessica has the remarkable gift of making intimidating subjects accessible. Reading is one of those for many folks, and yet what a gift they’re leaving unwrapped if they keep the act of reading in the basement of ‘things done in high school’ or in the hallowed halls for only the enlightened. This helpful, encouraging guide is both for those who already know they love to read and for those who want to be someone who reads. We all benefit from Jessica’s winsome words on these pages, words that inspire us to pull more books off the shelf and ask, ‘How might this next one change my life?

Revelation for the Rest of Us: A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple Scot McKnight, with Cody Matchett (Zondervan) $26.99  OUR SALE PRICE = $21.59

Whenever Scot McKnight does a new book you know we will have it. Whether it is his heavy scholarly work, his lesser known liturgical spirituality, or his popular new Bible study series, we’ve on it. We so appreciate his work and this new hardback, informed by excellent scholarship but written for ordinary readers, is just the kind of book we love to highlight. It is a bit edgy, politically counter-cultural, altogether serious about being Biblical, and theologically and historically aware. It is deeply inspirational and somewhat practical. And a little funny.

As it says on the back, “How can a book about dragons, lambs, and strange beasts help us follow Jesus today?”

When scholars who love the church and have written important volumes (including on Revelation) like Michael Gorman endorse a book, alongside Lynn Cohick and Miroslav Volf, you know it’s a winner. One reviewer says it is “the most powerful interpretation of Revelation I have ever read” which, while we don’t know how many such books this reviewer has actually read, seems to ring true to me and is quite striking. I’ve read a lot, believe me! Beth Allison Barr says it “reorients us from bizarre prophecies and fiction bestsellers back to the truth of the gospel.”

I’m thrilled just glancing through the footnotes and books cited in this rigorous, broad-minded study. McKnight, a solid evangelical, is fluent in all kinds of research and he here cites feminist scholars like Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza and black liberationists like Brian Blount and classic evangelicals like Craig Keener.  He knows the work of Anabaptist anti-militarists and Presbyterian pastors like Eugene Peterson and, of course, Richard Hays and Michael Gorman and Richard Bauckham, the important work of Adela Yarbro Collins and nearly anyone else who has written responsibly on the apocalypse and being “dissident disciples.” He draws in Barman and reflects on gender stuff, reminds us of the formative importance of worship and he cites, wisely, Christopher Lasch. I didn’t see that coming. What a book.

The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie (Convergent) $25.00                             OUR SALE PRICE = $20.00

If you know who Kate Bowler is, you surely know her two extraordinary memoirs Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I’ve Loved) and No Cure for Being Human (and Other Truths I Need to Hear) Both are very well written, amusing and poignant as she explores her faith and her serious diagnosis with deadly cancer. Following those two bestsellers she joined with Jessica Richie to do a small daily devotional called Good Enough. Ms Richie runs the Everything Happens Project at Duke Divinity School and is the producer of the Everything Happens podcast. This new book is a follow up to their devotional, offering poetic prayers and blessings for a range of struggles in our daily lives.

The wording of these prayer-poem blessings are sometimes elegant but then again, they can be witty and surprising. (“Blessed are you, the strange duck. You with the very intense hobbies… you are a marvel.”)

The theme of the Good Enough devotional was to rest in God’s acceptance, rejecting the cultural pressure to be relentlessly perfect, happy and successful. Here, they wonder what to do if “our actual lives don’t feel very #blessed? They continue, “Might our everyday existence be worthy of blessing, too? Even an average Tuesday?”

Yep. Formatted a bit like a real prayer-book, these are real blessings on the full range of human activities, from garbage days to grief-stricken days, from ordinary stuff to hard stuff. Very, very nice.

God The Bestseller: How One Editor Transformed American Religion a Book at a Time Stephen Prothero (HarperOne) $32.99          OUR SALE PRICE = $26.39

Today is the official “street date for God the Bestseller and I just spent time with it last night. I wanted to skim the intro to understand more what the heck could be so important about this biography of one Eugene Exman, a guy most of us, I dare say, have never heard of. Late into the night I was still turning pages, amazing, gulping, stunned almost. What a story.

Prothero is a religion scholar who has done a few very good books showing (in grace and with liberal leanings) that all world religions are not alike, as some scholars in the 20th century have insisted. It’s just goofy implying, say, the Christian notion of heaven or new creation is the same as nirvana or paradise. Like a touchdown is a different thing than a home run, our distinctive matter if we are going to honor different religions as they are actually taught.

In the preface of this book Prothero tells of a serendipitous meeting of an old gent who had a huge library of his father-in-law’s books. Prothero sees first editions of everything from Martin Luther King’s first book (Stride Toward Freedom) with a note inside from Coretta, to other such seminal titles from the 20th century, from Abraham Heschel to Albert Schweitzer to Harry Emerson Fosdick to Aldous Huxley to Howard Thurman to the founder of AA, all with photos and intimate correspondence. Exman seemed to be, like Zelig, in the thick of the major religious questions of the world for decades and decades of the mid-twentieth century, from reforms in Judaism to the popularization of Buddhism to mystics and reformers around the globe.

As a young man in the Roaring Twenties Exman got a job as a new editor in New York for one of the most important publishing companies of our time, eventually Harper Brothers. As Prothero shows, Exman, a former fundamentalist bound for a revivalist seminary, brought religious publishing to the broader reading public at a time when it was largely sectarian and insular. He traveled around the world, meeting people who he thought might have something to say and got them published.

The story of this exciting man’s adventures in the world (and in the world of generally religious publishing) is itself worthy of a biography. Prothero, though, shows the influence — which, doubtlessly, Prothero thinks has been by and large a good thing — that Exman’s actors have had. He brings his sociology of religion lens to the projects and concludes two major things: there has been a shift towards the experiential (rather than the creedal or dogmatic) and there has been a shift towards a celebration of the spiritual seeker.

Exman knew everybody, various folks from various religions, races, genders, sexualities, classes. He knew Niebuhr, the Zen popularizer Alan Watts, AA co-founder Bill Wilson and his wife, Lois.  Prothero discovered endearing letters from Jaroslav Pelican, the famous guru Krishnamurti, and Dorothy Day. The books he brought to the world and the remarkable network of friends he collaborated with left its mark, for better or for worse, helping the world engage religious studies in new ways. That Prothero links him to William James (The Varieties of Religious Experience) is no surprise.

As an evangelical thinker and Presbyterian congregant, I have my issues with this whole shift in the zeitgeist, a shift that this remarkable man helped nurture. As a bookseller, I am delighted just to think of how books, for good or ill, can influence the world so very, very much. I’m captivated by stories of those who have been promoters of books and ideas and how those ideas have been adopted, passed on, taught, believed. This is a grave matter, of course, but we know well the rise of “nones” and “spiritual but not religious” believers, so there is nothing to be gained by being snide about it all. Exman must have been an amazing person; his inter-religious mystical bent (even leading him, as a church goer his whole life to experiment with LSD years before Timothy Leary) and fascination with the paranormal charged his impressive intellect with finding authors that shaped the 20th century and beyond. What a story!

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