Show and Tell

Well my head is quickly swelling with a copious amount of fresh knowledge. Ok maybe it’s not from new knowledge maybe it’s the resurgence of my allergies since spring has arrived in full force. Either way I can give you an update on my insane reading challenge now. I didn’t think it was all that insane when I came up with it but that seems to be what everyone’s opinion is that I hear from. Be that as it may I will continue on undaunted by the skepticism. As of today which is about 2 weeks since the start of the lunacy I have successfully completed reading 6 books which is right on course. The good news is that for the rest of May I will be quite free to do more reading than deemed safe for such a small brain. We are fortunate enough in the band to enjoy a month off of the road to catch up or catch a glimpse of normal life. So other than a couple weddings at the end of the month I am free to read until I’m sick in the head.

I’ll give a quick run down of the current titles completed and maybe a brief description of them. I don’t want to go into exhaustive detail about each one because you probably really don’t care. I will try to just highlight some key issues in each book unless there is more that I feel the need to share. Hopefully I can be a little more current too in updating this blog so I can just write about 1 book at a time instead of 6 at once.

All right, the first book I read I’ve already blogged about which was The Last Days. The next two books I read were authored by the same writer named Thomas Cahill. They were The Gifts of the Jews and How the Irish Saved Civilization. Cahill is an historian but writes about religious movements. I can’t really tell specifically where he stands on his personal faith but he definitely sheds some interesting new light on the past. The Gifts of the Jews is a book which shows the development of the Jewish peoples as depicted in the Old Testament. This book was great at giving me a better general idea of how things progressed in a chronological way. It also developed the cultural events that were occurring during those times and how that shaped and influenced the way the Jews lived and the decisions they made. Cahill carefully shows how many of the ideas and values that we hold today came directly from the Jews. In the book How the Irish Saved Civilization, Cahill shows how the Irish went from a very warlike and barbaric group of peoples with no faith to a nation revitalized by the gospel and now known as the "isle of saints and scholars". It was the many Irish priests and monks who saved much of the ancient literature that we now have today. They devoted their lives to making hand written copies of thousands of manuscripts so that they could survive. Many barbarian groups were trying to destroy these documents and would have been completely successful had it not been for the Irish. So next time you read Homer or Plato or even your Bible, make sure you think of the Irish.

The next book I read was Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport. This book was given to me by a friend who works for the publisher and the title caught my attention right away. It is written by the president of Fuller Theological Seminary Richard J Mouw. I thought Mouw did a great job of making the controversial subject of Calvinism relatable to the 21^st century in a tactful and loving way. It is obvious when reading it that Mouw has come to his beliefs by struggling with them and being open to all the ideas and possibilities. He doesn’t tow the familiar party line in the Calvinist camp. He challenges Calvinists to examine themselves and be sure that at their core they are acting in Christ’s love and grace. I thought he made some great points and I appreciated his insights.

The last book I read was The Ragamuffin Gospel. The book was just good for my soul. Brennan Manning’s aim in this book is to make you understand just how intense and complete is God’s love for us. Brennan is shockingly honest and frank with the reader in exposing how human he is. The point is we are all human and sinners but God is bigger than our sin. He shows how important it is to embrace the unconditional love of God. He also shows that once we embrace this love and accept that we are all fallen people we can view others differently. We can view them the way Christ does and hopefully love them the way he did. We can see that beneath the arrogance and anger of an individual is someone who is hurting and in need of the Saviors love just like us. We really aren’t too different from one another after all. This book is highly recommended if you haven’t fully grasped this concept yet. I know I needed to hear it.

Well that catches you up on my reading journey. If you read this whole post you were on a bit of a journey as well. This reading challenge has been a great experience so far. It seems that the more I read the more my eyes are slowly opened and I start to see the world in a new way. I also realize each day just how much I don’t know. What I do know is that God is sovereign and changing me everyday with his perfect love.