I’ve been slowly working my way through this spiritual memoir by Phyllis Tickle. I told Dan it was like a bar of bittersweet chocolate; I couldn’t bear to scarf it all down in few bites – it was meant to be savored. I’ve started and finished several other books since I opened this one in June, but I stayed true to my plan and only read a little at a time. Totally worth it.

I first heard this title in a Convergence DVD hosted by Donald Miller. He was interviewing Tickle (isn’t her name lovely?) about the importance of sharing our stories with one another. When she responded to his questions, I fell in love with her voice, her spirit, and her attitude. I didn’t want her to stop talking. She seemed so wise and yet so common. She looked elegant and comfortable at the same time.

And these are the very qualities that shine through in this memoir. It couldn’t be considered light reading, and yet much of it is connected so well that even the intellectual tangents make sense.

Here’s a list of the things I loved most:

1. Tickle’s approach to memories: “The luxury of memory . . . still revives in me some of that sense of carnival and adventure. I know now, of course, where the girl was going because I have become the woman she made, but I still shake my head sometimes at the strange way of our arriving.”

2. The way she allowed even small events to be part of her shaping. I’ve often looked at seasons of my life that were not long in terms of actual time but certainly long in terms of transformation. Tickle affirms this by describing even the small events in her life that shaped her soul.

3. Tickle describes prayer as a gift, as her “spirit’s vocation,” and it inspires me to follow in her footsteps. I have checked out several copies of her Divine Hours books (guides to fixed-hour prayer that include Psalms and selections from The Book of Common Prayer, among other liturgical readings) but I haven’t really worked them as I hope to eventually. (Alison, I think you might really love these! It’s like a bunch of daily mantras you could choose from.)

4. She affirms the sub-culture as an appropriate place for raising children. After working for a summer in a Jewish community center day camp, Tickle recognized the value of a sub-culture for making one “more self-aware.” There are dangers of prejudice and small mindedness, of course, but Tickle still defends the subculture as a gift: “More commonly, though, they are nobler, more socially useful things. Most commonly, they become the protectors and conservators of a community of the different which, while it engages the larger culture, finds itself most complete and realized within itself.”

You can catch a glimpse of Phyllis Tickle’s presence in this clip.

Trailer- Learning how to Share Our Stories from All Things Converge on Vimeo.

This extended quotation is from Dr. Howard Hendricks in his book Teaching to Change Lives.

Years ago I took part in a Sunday school convention at Moody Memorial Church in Chicago. During a lunch break, three of us who were teaching at the convention walked across the street to a little hamburger shop. The place was filled, but soon a table for four opened up. We saw an elderly lady whom we knew was attending the convention because of the bag she was carrying, and we asked her to join us.

We learned she was eighty-three and from a town in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. In a church with a Sunday school of only sixty-five people, she taught a class of thirteen junior-high boys. She had traveled by Greyhound bus all the way to Chicago the night before the convention. Why? In her words, “To learn something that would make me a better teacher.”

I thought at the time, “Most people who had a class of thirteen junior-high boys in a Sunday school of only sixty-five would be breaking their arms to pat themselves on the back: ‘Who, me? Go to a Sunday school convention? I could teach it myself!’” But not this woman.

Eighty-four boys who sat under her teaching are now young men in full-time vocational ministry. Twenty-two are graduates of the seminary where I teach.

If you were to ask me the secret to this woman’s impact, I’d give you a totally different answer today from what I would have said thirty years ago. Back then I’d have credited her methodology.

Now I believe it was because of her passion to communicate.

My heart’s concern for you is that God will give you a passion like that . . . and never let it die.

And I hope you never get over the thrill that someone will actually listen to you and learn from you.

I’m an English major and I’ve recently been studying the benefits of reading the Bible as literature. That sounds strange, doesn’t it? But we don’t always think of the Bible as literature. We forget this human element of the sacred.

We’ve become so accustomed to reading the Bible in bits and pieces that we forget that it really is One Story. A Bible teacher once commented, “You wouldn’t take your new novel up to the counter at the bookstore and ask the clerk where you should start reading, would you? Why do we do that with the Bible?”

This is the concept of literary unity.

Think about how strange (and slightly depressing and/or confusing) it would be to only watch clips of movies. Randomly. It simply wouldn’t work. And yet this is often how we approach Bible reading.

My suggestion as an introduction to reading the Bible as literature is the Zonderkidz Jesus Bible Storybook by Sally Lloyd-Jones, illustrated by Jago. It isn’t a literature tutorial, but it is the whole Bible paraphrased for kids in a way that demonstrates the Bible’s unity. We bought Ada the Deluxe Edition that includes the audio book on three CDs for her birthday. So far it has rave reviews from our house! The writing is brilliant, the artwork is gorgeous, and the voice work is amazing. (The first time Jesse gave it a try he listened/read for 45 minutes in the car and then asked to continue when I made a stop at the store.)

The tag line of the Jesus Bible Storybook is “Every story whispers His name” – I love this. Jesus is the unity of the Bible. Check out the book’s website and listen to the audio clips. I especially recommend to the first chapter, The Story and The Song.Or read the Creation story and enjoy the illustrations here.

Sometimes we need to make it simple. And remember the Big Story.

Have you read Walter Brueggemann? I’ve just been introduced, but what I’ve read so far is very challenging.

I’m reading from a collection of prayers from the book Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggeman, edited by Edwin Searcy .

This piece opens with the traditional refrain, “Thank God It’s Friday!” and continues with a list of reasons we do so: we are ready for a break, a rest from the work of our week, and we are somehow deserving of this respite.

The end of the prayer/poem is quoted here so you can feel the power of his words for yourself:

But mainly, as we come to Friday we know in our deepest places that Friday is your day of entry into the hurt and hate of the world, your day of bottomless weakness where we have seen you allied with the world in its deepest disorder. We know you to be a Friday God without the honors of omnipotence. And so we pray that you will “Friday us” into the very weakness where we may receive our new life from you.

We pray in the name of your Friday Child. Amen.

How does that challenge our American middle-class perspective on weekends? In more ways than I can count right now, but I’m certainly going to meditate on it. When I read it I feel challenged, but not hopeless. What are your reactions?

PRIMAL: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity

I should have posted this review in December. I may lose my completely self-assigned blogger credentials for not posting this review when it was due. And I do feel badly about it because Random House people sent me this brand new book and I was too busy taking finals and, well, trying to have Christmas, to get it finished in time. But now here it is, and I think Random House will ultimately be pleased with my review anyway.

Because here’s what happened. I seriously considered skimming the chapter titles, reading the italicized and otherwise highlighted headings, and hoping for the best. I know, shocking. But when I sat down to read through the introduction, I got hooked. I HAD to know what else Batterson had to say. I had to read the rest of his ideas because what he lead off with was gold.

The outline of this book comes from Mark 12:30: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (NIV). One of the unfortunate consequences of being a church baby is that familiar Scriptures lose some of their initial impact. (This is one reason I love finding new translations like The Voice.) Batterson’s creative paraphrase of these four elements brought all the power back for me: compassion, wonder, curiosity, and energy. The assumption here is that most of us accent one or two of these areas (in academic circles, of course, the mind is exalted over the heart) as concerning our Christian faith while Jesus’ commandment expects us to employ them all.

If you’ve read Batterson before, you’ll be familiar with his casual but passionate style. He doesn’t waste words either. When we borrowed another Batterson book from Dan’s dad (In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day), we laughed out loud when we glanced at what he had underlined (with ruler, I should add): almost every page was underlined from top to bottom! But while this does speak somewhat to Dan’s dad’s equally passionate nature, it is also testament to Batterson’s knack for getting straight to the point.

Throughout the book, Batterson returns to the opening analogy of what it felt like to tour the underground site of a second century church. I’ll quote one of my favorite passages from the “Soul of Christianity” section. In it, Batterson explains why intellect alone is an insufficient (though necessary) exploration of Christianity because our imaginative souls require more:

When you descend the flight of stairs into the soul of Christianity what you discover is primal wonder. When you get past all the traditions and institutions, all the liturgies and methodologies, all the creeds and canons, what you’re left with is raw wonder that is beyond logic and beyond words. It cannot be reduced to the logical constraints of the left brain. It cannot be reduced to the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet. Wonder defies logic. Wonder defies words. And anything else or anything less is religion.

This is just a glance at the great material in this book. You’ll love the sections on Bible reading and prayer – fresh perspectives that will recharge your willpower for devotion. You’ll love Batterson’s simple approach but challenging spirit. You’ll leave this book wondering how to make it happen – how to rediscover the youthful power of our ancient faith. A great first of the year choice! Check out more here:

Ada is our beautiful, too-smart, almost six year-old. Dan brought home some of her recent stories after parent/teacher conferences this week. This one is our favorite. I’ll let you try to decode and then give you the translation.

The stars swam quietly

The stars got scared because I made my bad-est face

I apologized and they took me up into the sky

Most of my readers know I’m a big Margaret Feinberg fan. Scouting the Divine is another favorite.

I actually listened to the audio version of the book read by Feinberg, a great touch considering the personal nature of this book. If you follow her on Twitter, you’ll even notice, like I did, when she was fighting that cold because her voice gets deeper. (Stalker material, I know.) This memoir-like journey by Feinberg is captured in her subtitle, “My search for God in wine, wool, and wild honey,” but the sensitivity and gentleness of Feinberg really shines through her voice in the audio version.

Dan bought the audio book for our 6-7 hour drive to Chicago last month for the Story Conference. It was a great way to set up our time there. Not only does Feinberg offer a unique perspective for reading the Bible, she also presents a writing strategy that really works in this format. Scouting the Divine is a pleasant and insightful read (or listen) for almost anyone.

As a writer, I appreciated the way Feinberg approached her topic. The book is basically a memoir of her visits with a shepherdess, a farmer, a bee keeper, and a vintner (wine-maker). Drink tea in their homes, wear your boots into their fields, and encounter divine appointments in the midst of an agricultural life. Feinberg even gives us the background stories about how she connects with each of her “experts.” Some of them are old friends, others are new acquaintances. Feinberg asks each of them, not all of them professed Bible believers, to interpret particular passages according to their knowledge of their profession.

This angle brings new life to familiar Scriptures. Margaret’s narrative brings new life to what could have been a familiar Bible study. One of my favorite ideas comes from the opening section. When Feinberg asks the shepherdess to tell her what she makes of the Nativity story, she says that in middle eastern cultures, the shepherds are often the weakest among the family – the children, women, or elderly. What a beautiful image that God would send his Beloved to be greeted by the “least of these” that would again and again share the spotlight in His earthly story.

This information, of course, means I have to get a shepherd girl for my Fontanini Nativity set this year! But I don’t mind, I love letting God and his story out of the box I put them in. Scouting the Divine would make a great gift this coming season or a wonderful audio gift to yourself if you have a long holiday drive. Check it out!