What Am I Reading?

One of my favorite questions to ask someone, if there is a longer time to talk, is this: What are you reading right now?

The first time I was asked this question I felt like I was being tested. And maybe I was! But when I headed out on my latest vacation, my beloved bible study of five young women about ready to graduate and launch into the big world asked me what books I was taking with me. And that question prompted me to blog during my vacation out of what I ended up reading during the trip. Thus the six posts preceding this one... Thanks for asking, ladies!

But now I'm home. And while it is PURE DELIGHT for me to have nothing but time to read my little heart out on vacation, I find it so much more difficult to discipline myself to stick with substantive reading in the midst of "real life." My days tend to fill up with a bunch of things that are demanding my attention: appointments, errands, a never-ending email inbox... plus fundamental needs like sleep, exercise and prayer.

Nevertheless, I vowed on this vacation that I would not let my deeper reading slip up when I returned home. So here I am. What am I reading?

Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today by Joan Chittister. By and large, I have really enjoyed this book. I can't deny that at times it gets a little too touchy/feely/mushy for me, but overall, it has been a lovely read. For example, these sentences kicked me in the teeth this week:

“Our time gets totally out of balance. We spend it all on friends, or we spend none of it there. We spend it all on work, or we spend it all on our compulsions… we go from one personal prison to the next.

Balance, the Rule says. Balance. And harmony. And awareness… Benedict says that we must bring a sense of order and awe and proportion and perspective." (pp 75-76)

"Benedictine spirituality requires that we live life to the full." (p. 79)

How MUCH do I want to live out those challenges on a deep and sustainable level?! Reading them here were powerful reminders of where I desire to put my priorities.

Travels in Alaska by John Muir. If you have a Kindle, search for all the free books you can download. Pile about 10 of them onto your Kindle, in case you actually have some extra time to dive into something just for fun. That's what happened on my vacation, and is continuing as I finish up this book. Ponder the photo I've included in this post: it says it all. This book is a GEM. Unexpectedly, I have found it to be spiritually moving too. Though I would not want to split hairs over Muir's theology, in this particular book he references God frequently. In fact, one of the people who was with him in much of his travels was a Presbyterian missionary named Mr. Young, whom he referred to as "an adventurous evangelist." I love that! Frequently, Muir describes how he experienced God in his enjoyment of creation:

[Describing past visits to the Sierra Nevada mountains in California] ...they seemed to me the most telling of all the terrestrial manifestations of God. But here the mountains themselves were made divine, and declared His glory in terms still more impressive.

The New Parish: How Neighborhood Churches are Transforming Mission, Discipleship and Community by Sparks, Soerens and Friesen. I found this book through the Twitter recommendation of my friend Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, someone who is not prone to shameless promotion. If he recommends a book, he means it. So I grabbed it on my Kindle and started reading. I'm halfway through it, and am finding that it really captures much of what we are experiencing in our own first year trying to live "on mission" in Santa Barbara's Westside community. Here's something from the introduction that sums up my heart as well:

Our collective story doesn’t begin with a grand vision or contagious momentum. It begins with deep hope for the church in the twenty-first century and an honest need for one another.

Whether or not you leave a comment here, I challenge you to ask this question in a conversation this week: What are you reading these days? 

Dream a Little Dream

I have books all over my house. My home office is filled with three separate six-shelf bookcases, crammed with books (and there is a stacker in the closet that holds a bunch more). My living room holds all of my housemate's books, and my bedroom has another shelf of books on the wall, a maple table with books, and my bedside table has about ten books lined up on it. As I mentioned last month, I have now entered the Kindle world, so now my crazed book ownership can go somewhat underground.

The books next to my bed are my "secret stash," books I have acquired over several years, most of which I have not read. I sometimes wonder if I enjoy owning them more than reading them, because I am unconsciously so hesitant to read them.

I should mention that every single one is about the craft of writing.

If I sit and analyze this a bit (as I am doing right now), I think there are several competing reasons for my resistance to reading them. Most strongly, I think of these books as treasures that I do not want to fritter away carelessly. I want to read them when I can truly enjoy them. I am the sort of person who eats the frosting last when eating a piece of cake. I am good at delaying gratification. These books are the ultimate dessert for me.

But I also know that a rather large part of me is slightly afraid of these books as well. To read them feels like I am claiming that I am a writer, and I am not ready to do that. I certainly love to write, but in no way would I call myself a writer. Yes, I have written some articles, but those are three to four pages at most, and emerge out of my own experience and training. I would not say they truly emerge out of some deeper place, though at times I have twiddled with the edges of it.

Lastly, there is a part of me that feels pressure: once I finish these books, there will be no more excuses. No longer would I be able to say that I cannot start writing until I have learned how to do "it." Believe me, I know that is completely lame and one only learns how to write by writing, and rest assured, I do that almost every day. I just haven't figured out if I want to go further than that. I love everything I am working on in my life, but many times I have had the conversation of whether or not I have at least one book in me...

So this week, I had some space to let myself pull out one of my precious treasures. There is only one other book in the stack that I have read: The Faith of a Writer, by Joyce Carol Oates, that I read this past June during my vacation in Grand Teton.

This new one is pictured above: Writers Dreaming: Twenty-Six Writers Talk About Their Dreams and the Creative Process by Naomi Epel. First off, let me say, this is a funny little book. It was published in 1993, and quite possibly the most quaint thing about it is how often each writer refers to working on a word processor. My, how times have changed.

And I am not sure one can really call it a book as much as a collection of interviews. Epel has apparently hosted a weekly radio show called "Book Talk," and she is also a "dream researcher" (right, I don't know what that is either). Writers Dreaming compiles the notes from her interviews of writers and how dreams have influenced their work.

I will tell you that I pay attention to my dreams. I do not see anything magical in them. They are not crystal balls that I consult to figure out my future. As a mentor has told me, Dreams are simply your unconscious trying to figure yourself out. So I pay attention to my dreams to find out what is really bothering me, what I am afraid of, what I am yearning for, etc.

Let's be clear: I do not plan on sharing any of my dreams with you! But I want to tell you that this book, quirky as it is, actually has some great things to say about writing and how it works. I am learning a lot as I read.

Here are some examples:

• Isabel Allende: Maybe I'm a writer because I'm desperately trying to clean up my mess. Here's another one: Without my demons what will I write about?
• Maya Angelou: I do believe dreams have a function. I don't see anything that has no function, not anything that has been created. I may not understand its function or be able to to even use it, make it utile, but I believe it has a reason.
• John Barth (I have never heard of him either): Those rituals of getting ready to write seem to conduce a kind of trance state.
• Richard Ford: I'm trying to cause people to be interested in the particulars of their lives because I think that that's one thing literature can do for us. It can say to us: pay attention. Pay closer attention. Pay stricter attention to what you say to your son. Pay stricter attention to what you say to someone you love.
• Sue Grafton: As I write I keep a journal for each novel that I work on... I'm finding now that some of the freest writing I do is in the journal because psychologically that feels like playtime.
• Spalding Gray: So what I had the students do first was to speak their stories, their autobiographic story, into a tape recorder. Then I'd have them transcribe it and begin to work on making the transcription like writing. My theory was, and it works, that they will find their personal voice in that way because it is their voice. (Is that brilliant or what??)
• Allan Gurganus: Writing is a kind of free fall that you then go back and edit and shape. I think the best things that I've ever got as a writer come frequently all in a burst.
• James W. Hall: There's this romantic picture of writers, sometimes, that you either are going to be a great writer or have a great life. And you have to choose one or the other. I don't think that's true for me. I don't believe that that has to be an either-or choice. But you have to consciously decide that. You can't let your ordinary life drift and just sink into the creative world all the time.

That last one is perhaps the greatest advice for me. I will never forget, after having spent several academic quarters plowing through Coleridge (opium addict, bipolar), Hemingway (shot his head off), Fitzgerald (drank himself to death), Sylvia Plath (suicide), et cetera et cetera, coming to the conclusion that I could never be a great writer because I was simply too normal! I have operated under that assumption for nearly thirty years. So Hall's statement is a gift. 

Consider tracking this book down on half.com or finding it in your library. It's worth the time, in my opinion. I'm only about halfway through it, so you may be hearing from me again on this subject...

My Pretty Library

The acquisition of a book signalled not just the potential acquisition of knowledge but also something like the property rights to a piece of ground: the knowledge became a visitable place.

James Wood, from "Shelf Life," New Yorker magazine, Nov 7, 2011

The photo to the left is taken from my home office. Looking at it gives me, alternatively, both joy and misery. I love seeing all of my books, but they also look sort of disheveled and sloppy, and I am a little embarrassed for you to see them.

I have a complex relationship with books. I chose to be an English major in college purely because I love to read. It seemed incredible to me that my "job" for four years would be to simply do something I would rather do than nearly anything else.

However, not surprisingly, somewhere during that journey, reading became a bit more of a chore, and nearly 30 years later I have yet to recover a real enjoyment for fiction. I firmly believe it got killed off (not completely, but deeply wounded) when I took not one but two English lit courses and had to consume 17 novels during the ten-week span of an academic quarter. That essentially meant reading two books per week, and it basically did me in.

Upon graduation, I don't think I probably read an entire book for two years. I was burned out, and also very distracted by a full-time job as a technical writer and my first foray into youth ministry as a Young Life volunteer. But fortunately, two things occurred: I heard the horrifying statistic that 42% of all college graduates never finish another book, and I started going to seminary. Both of these situations vaulted me back into my love for reading.

But a love for reading is different than a love for owning books, I believe. For years I shlepped around my many boxes of English major books as I migrated from tiny, cheap apartment to slightly less tiny, slightly less cheap apartment. The books were already beat-up paperbacks to begin with, with massive underlining and highlighting. But I couldn't let them go. I liked having the proof that I had read them.

At some point though I went through some major need to get rid of stuff (perhaps because I have never had a garage), and decided to get rid of all of my books from college, telling myself that a) I didn't need to prove anything anymore and b) I would eventually re-read every book someday and buy them in hardcover in order to do so.

Where in the world I got that second idea is baffling to me. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful that I have read classics like the Odyssey, the complete works of Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer and the like. I read everything that Jane Austen, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Henry James ever wrote. Large doses of Wordsworth, Hawthorne, Dreiser, Lawrence, Herbert, Coleridge, and Percy can be added as well... And let's not forget I went to seminary too. I have jammed a lot of books in my brain.

But what I have discovered is summarized perfectly in the quote at the beginning. For me, reading is as much as about acquisition as it is about enjoyment. I love holding a book in my hand, and I love putting it on the shelf when I am finished, knowing that I have read it. But the second I am done, I am hungry to acquire more, NEW knowledge. So a paradox rages inside me: I like keeping a book that I have read (though I will most likely never read it again) AND I love acquiring new books!

Indeed, it is not about owning the books themselves. Rather, it is about the opportunities that await! It takes genuine self-discipline on my part to keep myself from buying too many books. I have to limit myself to a certain quota, to be honest. But that gets all thrown off if people choose to give me books, tee hee!

So between the closing of Borders stores and the generosity of friends, I have a delightful pile that beckons me, and that pile never diminishes. I spent years daydreaming about a sabbatical where I would simply read all day, every day. I envisioned chipping away at a glorious pile of all the books I have wanted to read. It was a happy place in my imagination that I returned to regularly. In this magical land, I would stay on that sabbatical until I had read them all...

Ironically, in November 2008 I went on said sabbatical. And I read about 10 books in 3 months. And didn't make more than a little divot in the pile! The sabbatical succeeded in dissuading me of my fantasy. Instead, I have finally realized that the joy is in the journey. I will never "finish" reading all of the books I want to read. And I don't want to anymore. I will just read as much as I can and enjoy every second!

I am going to list my current books that are patiently waiting for me, not because I think it is impressive, but simply because it sheds some light on the "visitable places" where I want to go sometime soon:

• Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through The Five Books of Moses, by Bruce Feiler.
• Movements That Change the World: Five Keys to Spreading the Gospel, by Steve Addison
• Istanbul: Memories and the City, by Orhan Pamuk
• The Norton Anthology of Poetry
• The Multicultural Leader by Dan Sheffield
• C.S. Lewis & Francis Schaeffer: Lessons for a New Century from the Most Influential Apologists of Our Time, by Scott Burson and Jerry Walls
• Muscular Faith, by Ben Patterson

I will further admit that I keep a list of books I would buy in a New York minute if I got a gift card! (Please do not take this as a hint -- I am simply illustrating my hopeless addiction.) I will spare you the titles.

Instead, please tell me tell me -- do you keep a pile of books too? What are you looking forward to reading? Oh! The places we will go!

John Stott Memorial Page

If you are also a John Stott fan (and several of the comments I've received from my previous blog post indicate that you're out there), spend some time on the memorial website established by his foundation... in the photo album are two shots of him birdwatching in Santa Barbara :)

John Stott Memorial Page

I Still Read Books - Part 2

The summer reading continues... while my first book took me (a few) weeks, I knocked down the second book in two days! I do not believe that indicates that this second book was WAY easier, but I will be the first to admit that I did not have to look up any words in the dictionary for this book. It also helped that it's summer and my schedule is nice and slow. So I had several uninterrupted hours to devour this book -- and let me tell you, it was a delight from start to finish.

The title, as you can see, is The Wisdom of Stability: Rooting Faith in a Mobile Culture by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Jonathan is a friend of mine. He married a former student from my youth group, his lovely wife Leah, and I even assisted in their wedding. So I cannot promise a completely objective perspective.

That being said, I will tell you that I believe Jonathan is a very gifted writer and a prophetic voice in the kingdom. He is wise beyond his years, and I am still stunned over how many books he has already written!

I hate it when book reviews just give a Spark Notes version of the book, so I will not reiterate a laborious listing of quotes. I'll just share what spoke to me...

I was a kid who moved a lot. I went to 3 kindergartens (in one year, thank you very much), then moved after 1st grade, 2nd grade, and 5th grade. I made a commitment deep in my heart as a child that when I grew up, I would live in ONE PLACE. I was jealous of the kids who had known all their friends throughout elementary school, and who had teachers who knew their siblings. My experience of elementary school was mostly about being the new kid, spending the early months of the school year eating lunch alone, getting picked last for kickball and having my teachers mangle my last name over and over... and over.

Lest you think I'm just looking for your sympathy, I have come to discover that living in one place isn't always what it's cracked up to be. Even living in beautiful Santa Barbara has its downsides. And more than once I've really wanted to relocate and have a do-over.

But I had vowed to stay in one place and figure out how to make it work. Especially because I have no real extended family, I have wanted to have a family here. But as I have stumbled and tumbled through the bumps and bruises of that process, I have yearned for direction at times. And that is the beauty of this book. And Kathleen Norris says in the book's Foreword, "Committing to stability is never easy, but it is always worth a try."

Jonathan takes the practice of stability to a new place to me -- no longer is it a personal point of stubbornness, but instead, it is a spiritual discipline. He sums it all up so beautifully in his opening sentence: "This is a book about staying put and paying attention."

As I consider what it means to be an active member of the kingdom of God, hopefully persevering in faith and service as I seek to encourage others to do the same, it is easy to get discouraged. It feels like the divorce culture in America has obliterated this millennium's understanding of commitment. The threats of terrorism, tsunamis and a troubled world economy overwhelm us and make us want to withdraw and focus on ourselves. The internet puts the world at our fingertips -- then blinds us with such an endless parade of options that we can't stay focused on anything more than 6 seconds. How can anyone pursue "a long obedience in the same direction"? Jonathan says it this way: "Staying, we all know, is not the norm in our mobile culture." But he refuses to accept that, because "I am convinced that we lose something essential to our existence as creatures if we do not recognize our fundamental need for stability."

He then goes on to describe how we find this stability, this rootedness, in God... as expressed in committed community life.

Life in the house of God is life with other people who are every bit as broken and messed us as we are. We learn to dwell with God by learning the practices of hospitality, listening, forgiveness, and reconciliation -- the daily tasks of life with other people. Stability in Christ is always stability in community... Stability demands that we do the long, hard work of life with other people in the place where we are.

There, I've said enough. I promised I wouldn't just regurgitate a bunch of quotes. I've seen this book on sale with Amazon for $6... try to track it down and read it. It will force you to think about the trajectory of your life in some profound ways.

I Still Read Books

I'm not trying to sound superior in my title... I just have not (yet) made the dive into Kindle or Nook or iPad. I'm not against e-Book technology necessarily -- but I cannot deny that I still love the feeling of holding a book in my hand... seeing those books in my shelves... pulling them out occasionally to look for the underlined quote or section that my visual memory is recalling... Ah.

I'm on a sabbatical of sorts this summer. My contract to teach ended in June and I don't start up again until the third week of August. So I'm working about half-time and am grateful to say I have enough income to not fret over the temporary decrease. Instead, I'm using the extra time to read. Ah.

I've piled an ambitious stack of books in my room, and hope to chip away at a book per week for 6 weeks or so. I'm already a week behind, but I am not daunted. I have finished one and am halfway through another. I've even tossed one aside that bored me within 50 pages.

I hope to put some thoughts here after each one I read, so here goes on the first book of my summer reads....

Reader Alert: Unlike normal people, I'm not a let's-just-read-something-light-in-the-summer kinda gal. I relax by reading, period. Sometimes it's thick stuff, but often the need to concentrate on what I'm reading is even more relaxing. I'm a weird one.

A FAILURE OF NERVE: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix by Edwin Friedman

I picked this book up for three reasons:

1. I loved Friedman's book Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church & Synagogue when I read it in a seminary class some 20 years ago, so I especially trusted him as an author. Generation to Generation was a game changer for me. Not only did it help me to tap into some of my own family stuff, it helped me to see how family systems are at work in the church. This really helped me understand the intricate relational dynamics swirling around me as a youth pastor. (Of course I wish I had been mature enough and smart enough to avoid the many pitfalls I still stumbled into, but at least I understood them, mostly in hindsight...)
2. I had read an article that referred to this new book, A Failure of Nerve, and the quotes were really intriguing. I had to read more.
3. Leadership. I really care about leadership -- how to bring it out in others (especially pastors), how to discern it in young people, how to identify it, how to live it out myself. There is a pile of lousy leadership books out there. After reading the quotes from this book in the article I sensed that Friedman had something different (and NEW) to say.

I promptly ordered the book, and started reading it as soon as I got it. Soon I remember one significant quality of Friedman's work: he is a rather dense writer. Not impossible, certainly, but not one to casually scan either. Be prepared to dig in, and perhaps only read in small chunks.

Friedman must've been one very smart cookie -- he was both a Marriage & Family Therapist and a rabbi, and consulted with countless organizations and congregations. His books roam through history, theology, psychology, hard science, sociology... But I think I enjoy his books so much because they are not "same song, different verse," especially when it comes to the qualities of spiritual leadership. He has truly unique, thought-provoking things to say. Here's a simple example:

A well-differentiated leader... [is] someone who has clarity about his or her own life goals, and therefore, someone who is less likely to become lost in the anxious emotional processes swirling about. I mean someone who can be separate while still remaining connected, and therefore can maintain a modifying, non-anxious, and sometimes challenging presence. I mean someone who can manage his or her own reactivity to the automatic reactivity of others, and therefore be able to take stands at the risk of displeasing.

In my own work with pastors and church leaders, I find the most prominent areas where they (myself included) get stuck is in trying to remain in front of the many tasks, projects and people under our care. There is a huge tendency to get buried by the demands and urgency of them all, be drawn into all of their crises, and become deeply tired and overwhelmed. One ends up becoming a manager of endless to-do lists or worse, a firefighter consumed with putting out the "Fire of the Week." All of that is tremendously draining and a fast ticket to burnout.

Friedman reminds us that our job is to lead. Yet rather than follow the route of the leadership and motivational books one sees filling the stacks of airport bookstores (The Complete Idiot's Guide to Motivational Leadership, Heroic Leadership, Oprah's Guide to Life, 50 Self-Help Classics...) Friedman avoids gimmicks and methods completely. Instead, he goes straight to the heart of the matter, and stays there. He insists that the reader grapple with the deeper, more fundamental issues that percolate inside all of us. This "requires commitment to the lifetime project of being willing to be continually transformed by one's experience." Remember the subtitle: "Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix." Friedman insists on one leading out of a profound, ethically-driven sense of mission, purpose and calling. He made me really look at how much chronic anxiety is at work in every corner of American life, and how much I succumb to it. As he says, "Living with crisis is a major part of leaders' lives." It "comes with the territory." But the book then sheds tremendous light on how to lead in spite of all those dynamics at work. If the leader can stay above the reactive fray, then he or she can move from a "seatbelt" mentality to one of adventure and prophetic wisdom. I must listen to God far more than I listen to the emails, voicemails and appointments in my day. This quote says it all:

In the final analysis, the relationship between risk and reality is about leadership.

Friedman gives insight into all the various expressions of leadership in front of us: as parents, in the church, at work, in our culture. As soon as I finished this book I went back to page 1 and reviewed the entire book again, taking notes this time. (I mentioned I'm weird). I could go on and on with the value of this book, but I'll end with this simple quote:

Most of the decisions we make in life turn out to be right or wrong not because we were prescient, but because of the way we function after we make the decision.

Friedman reminds me that while I cannot control nearly anything in this world, I can certainly decide, in and through Christ, how I will respond to the things I face every day. As the Apostle Paul says,

I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return. May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God. (Philippians 1:9-11)

The Lion, The Mouse and the Dawn Treader - a review

Over the break I was given a book: The Lion, the Mouse and the Dawn Treader by Carl McColman. Sad to say, I was more than prepared to not like it. I'm still not real fond of the cover, and it struck me as some cheesy knockoff that was cranked out to take advantage of the release of the third Narnia film.

But for whatever reason, as I was looking at it, turning it over in my hands and trying to decide whether to put it in the thrift store pile, I saw the website address for the author. My computer was open, so I checked out the site. Unexpectedly, I was drawn in by its layout and a quick scan of some of the authors he quoted -- authors like Evelyn Underhill, Julian of Norwich, St. John of the Cross -- told me this book wasn't perhaps what I assumed.

It was Saturday night and I wanted to read anyway, so I sat down on the couch and opened up the book. Immediately I liked it. I read at least a quarter of it; the next night another half, and then finished it off a few nights later.

What drew me in? Perhaps this sentence in the opening chapter:

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is not directly related to any stories of the Bible. Even so, it may be the most useful of the seven Narnia books, for it is the one that most directly maps out the contours of the Christian spiritual life.

A good subtitle for this book would be Mysticism 101. McColman, whom I found out later has written a book titled, aptly enough, The Big Book of Christian Mysticism, does a tremendous job breaking down, in manageable steps, the process of pursuing spiritual mysticism. This is something I find surprisingly difficult to explain concisely, and I was humbled by McColman's nimble approach.

In this book he "translates" C.S. Lewis' third book in his seven-book series The Chronicles of Narnia, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, as a book that can be understood as containing

...much of the wisdom and insight about spiritual living that has come down to us over the centuries from the great mystics and saints of the Christian world.

At the same time, McColman respects Lewis' claims that the books were never to be taken as direct allegories. He simply chooses to look at its symbolism and story as a platform to guide the reader into an understanding of spiritual mysticism.

What am I talking about? McColman tells us that much of the conflict that we face in life is not so much the battle between good and evil as it is the conflict within ourselves. Put another way, do I want to live life on the surface, reacting to the highs and lows of daily life, or do I want to dive below and engage with the deeper, bigger, harder issues and questions that flirt along the edges of our existence? More importantly, do I want to find God in the midst of that?

McColman, in describing Eustace's resistance to the voyage he eventually finds himself on with Caspian, Reepicheep and the Pevensies, connects that with our own determinations about spiritual journey. We are faced with deciding whether or not we are willing to pursue a life based on conscious communion with God (quoting Evelyn Underhill). Here McColman gives us a definition for mysticism as simply a can't-miss-it experience of God's presence in our lives, even to the point of feeling at one with God. He then spends the rest of the book showing The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as a wonderful, enchanting description of the various aspects of Christian spirituality.

Brilliant! THIS gives a great definition of much of the content I post on this blog (once you weed through the organic recipes and ramblings about green living, that is...)

So if you are saying to yourself, I think I know what Kelly is referring to regarding this Christian mysticism stuff, but I am not completely sure I get it (or necessarily want to!) I say, buy this book. It never condescends. But like Lewis did throughout the Chronicles, it uses the childhood experiences and perspectives to tap into far deeper, eternal truths. And it walks the reader into a journey of spiritual disciplines that I believe we each deeply hunger for -- a journey of mystery, nurture, unknowing, and occasional, breathtaking a-ha's.

This would also be a great book for a group committed to Bible study, prayer, discipleship, or even just spiritual exploration. Reading it together would prompt tremendous conversation, questions and spiritual experience.

A couple of days ago, I read this from Henri Nouwen:

Choices. Choices make the difference. Two people are in the same accident and severely wounded. They did not choose to be in the accident. It happened to them. But one of them chose to live the experience in bitterness, the other in gratitude. These choices radically influenced their lives and the lives of their families and friends. We have very little control over what happens in our lives, but we have a lot of control over how we integrate and remember what happens. It is precisely these spiritual choices that determine whether we live our lives with dignity.

Spiritual mysticism helps me make the choice of gratitude, even in deep pain and disappointment, and certainly in great joy. It helps me know Christ intimately, in real relationship, and not merely in philosophical premises and theological pronouncements. My faith moves from my head, where it still needs to have traction, into my heart as well.