May Books

The Last Telegram by Liz Trenow -- A story about a young lady whose dreams to study in another country are canceled by impending war.  World War II. So she joins her family's silk weaving business and meets a host of interesting characters including Jewish German boys who were brought over to England.   Pretty interesting tale.

The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly by Matt McCarthy  - - a great memoir of a doctor's first year of doctoring.  This book made me cry at times, made me nervous, fearful, and made me smile quite often as well. He liberally uses (what I consider) bad words, but maybe that's just how doctors - and most of the rest of society?? - talk and write nowadays.  I loved seeing him grow in confidence throughout the book, and there were several memorable and favorite characters - both patients and medical personnel. 

The Mormon Mirage by Latayne C. Scott -- I think Amazon recommended this book to me. I really can't remember, but somehow I ended up with it, and I finally read it.  I often find deconversion stories interesting although I take what is said with a grain of salt.  I know a convert to Islam who said she was reading all the silly stories in Mormonism, and she ended up becoming atheist. She was honest enough to realize her own faith had silly stories. And, hey, with a talking donkey as a story I grew up hearing as truth, I realize I'm right there, too!  That said, this was a story of a Mormon convert or maybe her parents converted when she was young so she grew up Mormon.  I started this book several weeks ago and only finished it in early May so I forgot a few details. Anyway, she went to Brigham Young where it seems almost all Mormons go, but she ended up leaving the faith. She tells some interesting facts about Mormonism - some of which she claims isn't taught today in order to make the faith seem more... normal, less contentious??  I am not familiar with her at all outside of this book so who knows if she's legit.  The book was pretty interesting and reminded me (not that I needed it) why Mormonism isn't for me.  No polygyny and having a bunch of children in my heaven! At least Mormonism doesn't really have a lake-of-fire hell...that's a plus. Unless you wanted your enemies to burn forever....

The Returning by Ann Tatlock -- a family copes with dad returning from five years in prison, and he copes with fitting into the family and community again.

 

 

A Fifty-Year Silence: Love, War, and a Ruined House in France by Miranda Richmond Mouillot -- in the new books section of the library; the author's story of spending time with her divorced grandparents and trying to find out the history of their marriage, divorce and the years living in Europe during World War II.   Why, oh, why, does her grandfather speak of her grandmother with such hatred?  And why can't she get straight answers from either of them?

Japan Took the J.A.P. Out of Me by Lisa Fineberg Cook -- "The True-Story of a Domesticated Princess"  -- I saw this in a book exchange in Southport. I tend to enjoy stories of people living in other cultures, and I did enjoy many things about newlywed Lisa and her husband Peter as they moved to Japan just a few days after their wedding.  The chapters deal with adjusting to doing laundry, and cooking, weight gain, the difficulty in traveling without having a car, and not having a close friend.   Lisa's lifestyle and upbringing was far different from mine, but still I very much appreciated the few lessons she learned while living in another country and how she changed after spending time in a very different culture.   (I didn't even know what a J.A.P. was until several years ago when I lived beside someone from New York City, and she mentioned those Jewish American Princesses.)

With Every Letter by Sarah Sundin  -- a nurse who has a pen pal fighting against the Axis powers in World War II.  The story of Philomela (Mellie) and Tom, and how they write anonymous letters, and later get the chance to meet.  How would that work out?   An OK book. 

Heavens to Betsy by Beth Pattillo -- an easy read about a woman pastor and her desire to be a senior pastor when the current pastor suddenly retired; also, she wants to marry

If the Oceans Were Ink by Carla Power -- subtitled "An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran" -- a secular journalist with a Jewish mother and Quaker father discusses a bit about her growing up in Islamic cultures, and her friendship with an Indian sheikh, Mohammad Akram Nadwi.  She talks about visiting him in Britain, and also in his hometown in India, they discuss the Quran, Muslims, and all sorts of topics relating to the world and Islam. 

A few of the many things that took my attention. I stopped noting them after awhile...just read the book if this sort of thing interests you.

The sheikh's mentioning of Christianity's "abstract ideas, like closeness to God, and being a good neighbor, and loving one another" vs. Islam's rules like praying five times a day, and brushing your teeth like the Prophet. Details, details, details. Not big ideas.  (pg. 53)  This took my attention because I remember asking people before what they think "loving God with all your heart" looks like.

The talk about purdah was interesting when the sheikh and Ms. Powers went to the sheikh's village in India.  Brothers and sisters often times didn't even speak to one another. (!!!)

About practices that aren't Islamic, but just traditions - like the niqab.  "To someone who has grown up in the village, they think it is totally Islamic.  They can't separate what is tradition from what is Islamic.  The only thing people in Jamdahan know about the niqab is that the Hindus don't wear them, and Muslims do."  Like many village customs, "they are traditions not done from religious knowledge, but to build their identity as a group." (p. 90)

Something that bothered me: I wish she had pressed harder on some topics. Like that whole beating wives.  I know the sheikh said it placed limits on it since beating women was a common Arab practice, but even symbolically, even if you were going to hit me with a toothpick, THAT STINKS!  Men are often far more disobedient than women, and to make women into someone a man can discipline really really irritates me!

The Perfect Blend by Trish Perry  -- a rather silly girl starts over in a new town after her elopement plans don't go through when her fiance' doesn't show

Leaving Before the Rains Come by Alexandra Fuller -- I didn't realize at first that I'd read a another book by this author. I just saw this one in the new books section and thought life in Africa, troubled marriage to an American, and now living in the US sounded somewhat interesting. 

How to Bake a Perfect Life by Barabara O'Neal -- this is a story about a lady (Ramona) whose pregnant daughter has to go to Germany to visit her wounded-soldier husband, who takes care of her daughter's step-daughter, who manages a bakery in Colorado Springs, and Ramona's own story of when she was fifteen, pregnant, and sent to live with an aunt until her baby was born.  A pretty good book I found at another library in town.

Cherished by Kim Cash Tate -- this is a follow-up book from another that I'd read by this author a few weeks ago.  We see some of the same people, but are also introduced to a few new characters as they search for unconditional love.

If You Follow Me by Malena Watrous -- this is a pretty fun way to find out about a rural place in Japan - not a place on the map of most tourists!  I tend to like these stories of Americans living abroad, and while this one isn't real, the author interview made me realize probably much of it was based on true happenings during her own months in Japan.  The first third dealt with gomi (trash) rules, and I was like: how good can a book be if you have to keep reading about two American women who can't sort and dispose of their trash without getting in trouble?  But, you know, it was pretty good.  The talk of Marina's father made me reflect on my own which sometimes makes me teary-eyed. So there was some of that, too.

On Russia and Death

I recently went to a book warehouse in the county and bought a book about Russia for ninety-nine cents plus tax -- Night of Stone by Catherine Merridale.  For that cheap of a price I didn't care too much what it was about. It seemed interesting from my brief look at it, but I didn't realize until later that it was almost entirely about death***. You know Russians = death culture, right?

Each chapter has interesting tidbits. Like I didn't realize Russians thought animals didn't have souls. Well, I don't know that I do either, but the author mentioned BEARS being an exception.  As in they might have souls.  The first chapter deals with peasant life and I noted how important being buried on home turf was.  How some took cup fulls of dirt with them in case they died while away from home. Everyone wanted to be buried near home because Russians visit the graves of relatives - regularly. Take food (eggs, honey), picnic in cemeteries, and commune with the dead. Or they did traditionally. I'm still reading the book so I'm not sure if this is still practiced, but pre-Communism, this was the tradition.

Since this book is quite lengthy, yet has pretty neat facts, I decided to jot down a few tidbits about each chapter. I hate when I get to the end of a book and realize, while I found some interesting stuff along the way, I didn't note any of it (which translates to I will probably forget about it.) When I write stuff down such as I'm doing now, I tend to recall it better. Who knows when information about Russian deaths will come in handy.

Chapter 2 began with the low life expectancy. Such as even in the mid-1990s, it was 58 for Russian men.  Wow.  The chapter discussed the high suicide rate, public executions, and children with playground games of "death penalty" inspired by the prevailing culture. One five year old "accidentally strangled her three-year old brother after condemning him to death in a mock trial in their nursery."  (pg. 67)

The third chapter mentioned the Immortalization Committee which had the thought "preserve the mortal body using science, and one day science, too, will resurrect it."  (pg. 93).    Also the differences in "Red" and traditional funerals, and the way the Russians "neglected" their history in World War I were mentioned at some length.

Chapter 4 dealt with the trauma of civil war and how mentally ill patients were treated. Also children would play civil war: Reds vs. Whites. (One daughter of an Old Bolshevik noted that the girls always had to be the Whites.) (pg. 117)  Suicides were mentioned again.  They were deemed too individualistic for Soviet society.

E.M. Yaroslavskii, the "Communist Party's ideological spokesman" said "suicides were 'weak-willed, weak of character' and lacking in faith in 'the power and strength of the Party.' A Russian historian of the issue recently added that suicide, by the late 1920s, appeared to some to be 'a witness to the free right of an individual to choose its own fate. And that did not suit Soviet power at all.'"  (pg. 120)

I read most of chapter 5 today and who ever knew learning about the backlog of funerals could be so interesting? No really, there were so many bodies to be buried, yet the workers only did 7 burials per day so some bodies were in storage for over a month!  Some were shipped by train to other places. The Communists finally decided to cremate bodies (which was highly frowned upon in Orthodox Christianity, but who cares about them at this point). But their crematory was terrible and after many hours of building it, it burned to the ground after cremating only a small percentage of what was needed. The leaders finally decided to take over the cemeteries. They took down the monuments and made them parks.  This chapter also mentions the plundering of church icons and buildings and taking gold and silver for state use (some villagers fought this unsuccessfully).  The death and preservation of Lenin was amusing to me.  He was refrigerated, displayed, rotting so they decided finally to embalm him and then display him so the adoring masses could visit and commune with the departed leader.  An atheist approach to death mentioned: skip the coffins and rituals; my body "should be sent to a factory without any ritual, and in the factory the fat should be used for technical purposes and the rest for fertilizer," wrote M.S. Ol'minskii in July 1924.  (pg. 142)

I'm on chapter 6 now so I won't bother with any more notes, but I'll go ahead and post these in case anyone is interested in these Russian death tidbits.  What did you find most interesting?




*** (Er, I suppose the subtitled should have tipped me off: Death and Memory in Twentieth-Century Russia) 

June Books

Half the year is almost over! Hope you are enjoying your summer. Here are the books I finished in June.



The Chosen Peoples by Todd Gitlin and Liel Leibovitz -- The authors discuss the idea of chosenness - especially related to the Jews of old, America and the state of Israel - and how it has shaped world events.  They also touched on the "unchosen" or people other than these who believe they are also Chosen (e.g., Muslims).

"The idea of chosenness by a single God, having shaken a polytheistic world millennia ago, set off aftershocks that continue to shake the ground well into our own day.  And there is, in principle, no limit to the violence that can be justified against a people who were, after all, stamped long ago with the mark of Cain." (pg. 173)




A Short History of the Jewish People by Raymond P. Scheindlin  -- a very readable, and somewhat interesting look at the Jewish people from ancient to modern times.  I had these two things on Facebook at one point.

On September 1, 1939 Poland was the country with the highest concentration of Jews in the world and was the main center of Jewish religious and cultural life.

How crowded was the Warsaw ghetto? When all 400,000 of its Jews were required to live within the 840 acre ghetto and then an additional 150,000 refugees were crammed into that space, the density reached THIRTEEN PERSONS PER ROOM, and homeless people were dying of exposure, hunger and disease in the streets.

From Plato to NATO by David Gress  -- the big book I started on my birthday and finished on June 8 (my goal was to finish it by the end of August)

A few things of note:



A Roman "peculiarity" -- "To a Roman, as to a Greek, the most basic freedom was freedom from slavery, or, as in Herodotus, from foreign occupation. But Roman freedom included another aspect that related more directly to later Western notions. This was the idea of freedom as the right of the citizen not to be abused by the government, the freedom that implied equality before the law, and that was guaranteed by time-hallowed and solemn laws and by designated officials. Roman libertas in this sense had little to do with the Greek idea that the mark of the free citizen was that he participated equally in political decisions. The government of the Roman Republic was elected by a small number of rich and influential people and the republic was always an oligarchy. So in Rome, to be free meant that however insignificant the citizen, there were certain things the government could not do to him, because he was protected by laws that stood above any government."  (pg. 99)


"Americans prided themselves on being innovators and free of the past; Europeans, including the revolutionaries of France, prided themselves on continuity. Even the sign of the eagle changed character after its migration. In an amazing feat of symbolic transformation, Americans succeeded in defining their eagle as a bird of freedom and defiance, rather than symbolizing military conquest and the power of an authoritarian state." (pg. 125)


I found this cute:  "In 269, in an ominous precedent, Gothic hordes invaded Greece. Their king told his men not to burn the libraries of Athens, because as long as the Greeks could study, they would not fight."  (pg. 146)



"Many people in the West, including many in the liberal Anglo-Saxon democracies, believed that war was a test of national manhood and that periodic wars were necessary to purge the nation of degeneracy, which tended to spread if peace lasted too long. Angell recognized these ideas, but assumed they would die out and become unacceptable, just as, for example, the slave trade had become unacceptable to Europeans in the space of a single generation at the end of the eighteenth century.  In the past, values had changed, sometimes quickly, and in modern society, value change was coming quicker still. Therefore, those who spoke of 'unchangeable human nature' and insisted that war was a permanent fact of life were - according to Angell - mistaken." (pg. 340)


"The praise of toil in the Georgics was unusual and subversive in antiquity. Greeks and Romans considered earning your bread by the sweat of your brow dishonorable; not having to work was the mark of the full citizen. In such a culture, Virgil's praise of the iustissima tellus, the most just earth, which yielded its fruits only to hard human labor, was original.  Virgil's message in the Georgics, that all human life depended on the soil and therefore on labor, was, with Christianity, one of the reasons the later West turned the classical order of social and economic values upside down. Thus, where antiquity despised the man who had to work to buy his leisure time, the West, and especially America, regarded such a man more highly than the rentier, the 'man of leisure.' Work, in the West, ennobled the worker; in antiquity, it degraded him and made him unfit for the highest civic callings."  (pg. 366)


"Pity and compassion, to the Greeks, were comprehensible only if they served pride and the drive for fame.  To ancient philosophers, from Plato ... to Marcus Aurelius..., gratuitous pity 'was a defect of character unworthy of the wise and excusable only in those who have not yet grown up. It was an impulsive response based on ignorance. Plato had removed the problem of beggars from his ideal state by dumping them over the borders.'"  (pg. 79)



"The Third Empire was a political and theological category and was not easily compatible with Hitler's own program, which is why he disliked and in 1939 forbade the phrase to be used." (pg. 385)


"Relativism, Gellner concluded, was 'an affectation, specially attractive amongst the more naive provincials in privileged cultures,' by which he meant American academics. It was popular among those who could afford it, who derived some moralistic and masochistic satisfaction from it, and who mistakenly believed that they were doing the rest of the world a favor by adopting it. But they were not; the poor countries did not want Western postmodernism but Western science and technology, and in particular the methods by which science and technology became prosperity.  'Precariously modernizing societies, with an uncertain grip on the new benefits, are perhaps a little less likely to indulge in an orgy of science-bashing. ... But a really rich industrial country,' like the United States, 'can and does afford the luxury of denouncing and renouncing it all.' It was therefore in America, where the liberal synthesis had worked best of all and was therefore taken for granted, that relativism found the most fertile ground."  (pg. 511)




Iran:Empire of the Mind by Michael Axworthy  -- This book explores Iranian history from Zoroaster to the present day (or 2007 since this is when it was published)

I found this interesting:  "Since the 1979 revolution, Iranian women are subject to one of the most restrictive dress codes in the Islamic world, yet partly in consequence Iranian families have released their daughters to study and work in unprecedented numbers, such that over 60 per cent of university students are female and many women (even married women) have professional jobs."  (xiv)

This was a pretty good book, covered a wide variety of topics and helped me better understand the Iranians and what shaped them.  I must admit I struggled somewhat in following all the names, but I think I learned something so that's good!



The Call to Seriousness: The Evangelical Impact on the Victorians by Ian Bradley -- I can't even remember why I put this book on my Amazon Wishlist. I must have seen it recommended in another book sometime last year. It's not even a new book - as in, it came from a library. Likely they threw it out as too old to interest anyone.  But, it was really quite interesting to me!  These are Evangelicals of the Church of England sort. They greatly influenced the Victorian Age and, wow, about half the time I was really disliking these people when the author would share good things about them and I'd find myself admiring them.  I could relate to much of this as it sounds like things I remember growing up. Things I may not have been taught, but practices that were from my grandparents' generation. Such as playing cards being a bad thing. We did it although we never gambled (a no-no in my circles).  Attending the theater, reading novels, fairytales, dancing - all taboo amongst these Evangelicals. I guess the name of the book would tell you this: they wanted to be serious about life so amusements were frowned upon!  Drinking alcohol in moderation was OK, however. This is different from how I grew up where alcohol was a terrible thing best avoided.

The Evangelicals showed how people could influence society by getting involved in politics.  They wanted to impose their standards on the rest of society -- and not all of it was bad. Apparently English society was pretty rotten then and even many nonEvangelicals apparently liked some of the cleaning up of society that they legislated.  While I might disagree with some of their stances - such as their desire to make people attend church on Sundays - on the grounds of individual freedom, I like some others as they were hugely involved in abolishing slavery and animals fights and working for better factory conditions for workers.  They also contributed three-fours of the charity work in England and the author credits them with the volunteerism and charitableness of English people even today (or as of this book's writing anyway; it was published in 1976).

This is what I noted on Facebook about it:

I'm reading a book about the Evangelicals in England and their impact on the Victorians.  They liked legislating morality and had their own policing tactics that makes me think of a mix between Communist regimes where neighbors spy and tattle on rule breakers and present-day Saudi Arabia and Iran.  One guy was so into people observing the Sabbath that he introduced a bill which "included the closure of markets on both Saturdays and Mondays to prevent the necessity for Sunday travel"!  Can you imagine? Thankfully the bill never passed and the guy was not re-elected, but still!

May Books

Another month is nearly over, and I don't think I'll finish another book by tomorrow so I'll go ahead and post this now.  I'm still making pretty good progress on From Plato to Nato which is the somewhat intimidating book I started one month ago today. For those asking, I am on page 398.



What Saint Paul Really Said by N.T. Wright  -- the author claims Paul was not the founder of Christianity rather a "faithful witness and herald of Jesus Christ"; this book was a bit difficult for me to get into, but had some interesting points. I especially enjoyed the thoughts of Jesus within Jewish monotheism and how Paul's views of creation, for instance, would contrast with the pagans - as well as what many of us believe today



The Aquariums of Pyongyang by Kang Chol-Hwan -- My friend Adam has lived in Seoul for several years now and he recommended this book which I got for my birthday.  Political prisoners' families often are taken to camps to serve sentences. The author was ten years old when his grandmother, uncle, father, sister and himself were taken to such a place. This book tells the story of life inside the camp and Kang's escape to China and later South Korea.

Can you imagine? -- So in this book I'm reading on North Korea, Kang Chol-Hwan talks about a Confucian tradition "which continues to hold sway in present-day* Korea."  This happened in his family**:  "a married woman BELONGS to her HUSBAND'S FAMILY and remains so, irrespective of divorce or separation. If she tries to return to her parents' home, she will most likely be turned away."  (emphasis mine)

‎* This book was published in 2000 in France so maybe things have changed since then.

** His father at age 15 was forced to marry a girl about the same age. They didn't love each other so when he divorced her, she had to live with HIS parents. He went to Japan, married again and then brought his new bride to live at his parents' house. Where his exwife still lived. Awkward.


When Kang finally made it to South Korea he had a hard time adjusting at first.  He was one of the oldest at college, yet students would sit in front of him and smoke - something you didn't do to an older person where he came from. He said "The North is hypertraditionalist. Friendships between members of the opposite sex is not the norm.  When a man speaks to a woman his own age, he employs the familiar form of address, she the formal.  Relations follow a strict hierarchy.  Here, we were equal!  Some of the female students were so self-confident, they hardly paid me any attention when I spoke to them."  (pg. 228)

I posted these notes on Facebook, and Adam and I discussed them somewhat. That was interesting hearing his thoughts on Korean culture.




Not a Fan. by Kyle Idleman -- This pastor challenges us to be followers of Jesus, not just fans.

"For many Christians the concept of denying themselves was not part of the deal. They grew up with the message that such a radical decision really isn't necessary. So they signed up to follow Jesus, but if denying themselves was part of the explanation, it was definitely the fine print. That's especially true of American Christians. In part, this is due to the collision of Christianity with American capitalism. It has created a culture of consumers in our churches. Instead of approaching their faith with a spirit of denial that says, 'What can I do for Jesus?' they have a consumer mentality that says, 'What can Jesus do for me?'"  (pg. 148)




If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home by Lucy Worsley -- see previous post on childbirth and bicycling

"Before 1696, the basic tax upon a household was levied upon the number of hearths. But the 'hearth tax' was difficult to collect because tax inspectors needed to enter people's houses to check the number of fireplaces.  Clearly they weren't going to be welcome visitors. When in 1696 a new tax was levied instead upon windows, the inspectors had only to walk round the outside of the house and count."  Detractors called this "a tax upon light and air." (pg. 196)

"In 1908, Ellen Richards calculated that an eight-room house required eighteen hours of cleaning time a week just to remove dust.  Washing the windows and walls would take the total up to twenty-seven hours a week, even before the clothes-washing, bed-making and cooking began. This was simply unsustainable after the two world wars removed the huge infrastructure of servants who had done such work in the past."  So labor-saving tips were needed and "books for the newly servantless middle classes began to appear."  One taught how to break an egg, and advised "them not to chop onions with raw hands because the smell will linger and spoil the enjoyment of a later cigarette."  (pg. 266)


"[Refrigerators] were initially rather glamorous possessions, and in the 1930s their owners might invite their friends to a 'refrigerator party' where each course was pre-prepared and then whipped from its own shelf in the fridge.  Cookbooks from the period show guests in evening dress gathered in the kitchen to enjoy the novelty of eating an entire meal of cold food."  (pg.271)




Memories of Eden by Violette Shamash -- This book was the memoir of a Jewish lady who grew up in Baghdad before it was Iraq. Well, it became Iraq during her time there.  I enjoyed reading about interactions with the neighbors (she said they got along well with the Muslims and, in fact, often acted like mediators between Shias and Sunnis who argued with each other more than they did the Jews.) By the way, Jews made up 40% of the population of Baghdad at this time.   I found the Jewish culture aspects interesting though I think none of it really surprised me.  They favored sons.  Mother in laws were upset when mothers produced more daughters.  Same old stupid stuff.  Did you know haircuts were immodest?

"Before the 1930s, the mere idea of having a haircut was unthinkable, a girl's hair being considered her crowning glory. The only way to tame such a lot of thick and wavy hair was to wear it in two ringlet-like plaits. Almost all of us wore it this way, but it was time consuming and seemed old fashioned.  The breakthrough came when the first ladies' hairdressing salon opened and was patronised by the younger element - a controversial break with tradition. A popular song that captured the disapprobation of our elders went "...'The chaste daughter [of the house] has had her hair cut! God help us, where will that lead us? She's taken leave of her modesty.'"  (pg. 30)

And a girl's life mission - of course - was to get married, keep house and raise babies.  Education was not necessary for girls although Violette's dad let his daughters attend school.  Working outside the home was seen as something only girls from poor families would do. So well-to-do ladies would never stoop so low as to work.

The chapter on love and marriage was good as was her discussion of sabbath and "high holy days."

Also I was under the impression that Muslims welcomed Jews into the Middle East when it was awful Christians in Europe who persecuted Jews. Well, I suppose to some degree this was true, but not the entire truth. I was shocked to read of the Arabs embracing Nazism and turning on their Jewish neighbors and friends. Not all of them. The author gave very sweet examples of Muslims who protected scores of Jews. But still, I didn't realize the Arab Muslims (and maybe Christians?) embraced Hitler's ideas of ridding the world of Jews.  That was sad for me to read.

The author and her family ended up leaving Iraq for India, later Palestine, then Cyprus and finally London.



In the Steps of St. Paul by H.V. Morton -- This book was given to me by a thoughtful friend for my birthday.  Initially I thought I'd have to wait until I read the other big book I'm reading, but later when I was flipping through this one, I saw where it was not overly-deep and would be a nice book to read at the same time as the other book (From Plato to Nato).  In the past year or so I've enjoyed travel books from Vietnam, through various other parts of Asia, Iraq and the Middle East and even the one about the family who took a whole year to travel around the world.  This book tells of the author's journey to the various places mentioned in the Bible where Paul traveled - anywhere from his journey to Damascus to persecute Christians to his missionary travels to his imprisonment and supposed death in Rome.

The author talked of ruins he saw (he especially admired the Parthenon p. 312), customs of the people then and now, how Paul would have seen the cities (it was quite thought-provoking when he would describe the ghost towns some places now were compared to how they would have been back in their primes), people he met, how these certain 'races' were (sometimes these were a bit off-putting [i.e., describing how current Greeks were unlike the ones depicted on statues and the impression that they were not as pretty; how he described Arabs and Jews], but in the introduction Bruce Feiler warned about this so it wasn't as surprising). Actually that part was also rather interesting because his honesty revealed quite a bit about how people were perceived back then. Oh, did I mention this travel was in the mid 1930s?  So, yeah, I do wonder how things have changed in these cities/towns/ports in these last 75 years!

Some brief notes I took:

-- impressions of Tarsus - how St. Paul was born at this place that bridged East and West; rather fitting for a man who took an eastern faith into the western world  (pg. 68)

-- in Aleppo he met a sheik with four wives listed on his British passport (pg. 88)

-- he mentioned a custom of salting Arab babies (pg. 91)

-- he discussed Antioch's scientific achievements, modernity (pg. 99)

-- mused on Paul's 'thorn in the flesh' - could it be malaria, headaches?  (pg. 104)

-- talked about the destruction goats have caused by eating vegetation and seedlings and leaving lands barren (p. 125)

-- he met a Cypriot who could "speak American" (pg. 125) -- did I mention the author was English?

--  the author greatly admired the progress made by Ataturk and told of the great changes in Turkey; once he made me laugh when a Turk told a sexist joke and the author said with the new modernity in Turkey, he (the Turk who made the joke) should be a feminist (pg. 201)

-- I enjoyed the section on Paul "the babbler" which was when the Athenians wanted Paul to explain himself more. The author said Paul didn't speak from an Old Testament knowledge of religion which would have made no sense to these people. Instead he used common religious terms and ideas in order to establish some commonality.  (pg. 318)

-- The authors impressions of Greece and the Greeks in particular was interesting especially as I compared what a couple Greek men told him about their own people. "'That is the curse of my country,' said Sophocles.  'We all know. We all think we could do so much better than the people in charge. We all believe that if we were in control of the country everything would be all right. Every Greek rules Greece in his own mind.'"  (pg. 329)

-- The author mentioned the love of the sea is a modern notion because often in ancient writing the sea is an enemy. I enjoyed his musings on this.  (pg. 428)

Remembering Syria & January Books

It's the last few hours of January and I just now finished the final pages of a pretty big book. Yay, I am glad I finished it in time to add to this list.  Here's what I read this month. Not as much as some months, but I started off slowly and just have been busy doing other things.  Three years ago right now I was in Syria. I decided to remember my days there by posting a few pictures on Facebook. I'm trying to post ones that I didn't post on Facebook when we got home. And I'm trying to share a few tidbits about the places we visited or people we met or things we did.  Also I'm trying to add just a few pictures each day and trying to correlate them to the actual date three years ago. For instance today we would have visited the Umayyad mosque and a really fancy Shiite mosque. You can check out the album at this public link - Remembering Syria.  Syria is in a mess these days.  Some of my friends from our visit are out of there now, but many remain.  My thoughts are often with them. 


Captured by Grace by David Jeremiah -- although this was not on my wishlist, my brother gave me this for Christmas. What a challenging, good read for me!  A great way to start of the new year.  I made note of many things that spoke to me that I wanted to review later.  These are just a few things some of which I posted as Facebook status updates. 

‎"Mercy is God withholding the punishment we rightfully deserve. Grace is God not only withholding that punishment but offering the most precious gifts instead.

Mercy runs to forgive the Prodigal Son.
Grace throws a party with every extravagance.

Mercy bandages the wounds of the man beaten by the robbers.
Grace covers the cost of his full recovery.

Mercy hears the cry of the thief on the cross.
Grace promises paradise that very day. ..."  (pg. 22)

"Imagine discovering that the God you worship is Someone else entirely, Someone who bears radical differences to your most precious assumptions about Him. You would ask the very question Paul now asks: 'And he said, "Who are You, Lord?"'"  (pg. 112)


"...the essence of grace is surprise. There is nothing shocking about giving people exactly what they deserve. Grace subverts the rules and gives people what they don't deserve. It is motivated by the warmth of love rather than by cold calculation." (pg. 171)



Whose Bible Is It? by Jaroslav Pelikan - this was the first of my dozen Christmas books that I received and I got it from my Lil' Sis a couple weeks before Christmas day.  I cannot remember why I had it on my Amazon Wishlist, but enjoyed it nevertheless. The author started off talking about oral tradition in cultures and that lead to the writing down of the Bible over the centuries. His chapter on the Septuagint was interesting as was the Bible in various cultures. The binding of Isaac example was especially good.  He discussed peoples of the book and translating the Scriptures, the Bible according to Jews, Protestants, Catholics and so forth.  I should have been good and taken notes on these chapters. Alas, I did not.  He does conclude that the Bible is God's and "therefore really doesn't belong to any of us." 




The Book of Books: The Radical Impact of the King James Bible 1611-2011 by Melvyn Bragg.  This was one of those I found on the new books shelves at the library.  I enjoyed how the author showed how the KJB had influenced English speaking societies. I especially enjoyed his treatment of slaves and how the KJB spoke liberation to them and how they worked for their freedom. He made them seem very powerful.; see previous post for most information on this book





Jesus Before Christianity by Albert Nolan  -- one of those books I got from my Wishlist although I cannot recall why it was on there.  The author had some interesting ideas about things, however, so I'm glad I read it.  See previous posts for more details on this book




Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother by Xinran  -- this book was so sad, but good!  I am glad I read it as I know couples who have adopted children from China.  It's sad to read how valueless daughters are in China that they are often killed at birth. Yet mothers are mothers and many of them do have great pain following through with tradition's evil dictates.  This book shares cultural aspects of China and includes stories of women who have given up children for adoption. A very moving read. I was in tears several times.





Below Stairs by Margaret Powell -- Although this book was copyrighted in 1968 it was on the New Books shelf at my library.  It is "The Classic Kitchen Maid's Memoir That Inspired  Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey" according to the jacket cover. It was an easy read and pretty entertaining. If you want to know what life was like for one kitchen maid turned cook in England, this book might be for you.  A lesson I took from it is to respect all people and just because someone is a servant it doesn't mean she wants practical gifts and boring color schemes.



The Triumph of Christianity by Rodney Stark -- Last year I read a short book he wrote about the rise of Christianity and this book incorporates some of that information as well as quite a bit more. Prepare to have your thoughts on the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, the Dark Ages and the following periods challenged.  (Or maybe you'll simply scoff at how he makes a mockery of history.)  I actually enjoyed his point of view although I was left wondering if it were all true or a different sort of history revision.

Thoughts on Pagans, Christians, Constantine, Julian, Polytheism and Monotheism

For some reason I just can't get into the writing mood enough to make sense of this post. OK, maybe I got the writing part down, but the editing suffers.

Yet I wanted to record a few things from God Against The Gods by Jonathan Kirsch that I found interesting. Overall I really enjoyed the book. The chapters on Constantine and Julian were good. I know I've read some about them in the past, but it's been awhile so reading their stories - from this author's perspective and from my grown-up one (ha) - was good for me.   Kirsch asked if Constantine were really a Christian noting how he was labeled "the Great" in Catholic tradition and "St. Constantine" for the Orthodox.  Perhaps Kirsch recognized Constantine didn't seem all that devoted to the faith he claimed to fight for.  He wasn't even baptized until he was close to dying.  Maybe he wanted to commit all the sins he could in life before taking this crucial step because during his life as a so-called "Christian emperor," I surely wouldn't say by his fruits that I knew he was a follower of Jesus.  He had his own son killed for goodness sake!  I even went back and read where the Bible teaches

¹⁰By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.   (I John 3)

So does this mean if you kill your own son, you are not a child of God?

After reading all this about Constantine, I made the observation on Facebook:

If my only examples of Christians were the people Julian saw, I think I'd be "apostate" too. Whew!

Yes, I sometimes express my thoughts on books on my Facebook statuses. Just so you know.

Other bits from the book that made it on Facebook as well as other notes of interest.



"'Paganism' to the pagan never existed, ... It is not far from the truth to say that before Christianity invented it, there was no Roman religion, but only worship, expressed in a hundred-and-one different ways."  -- John Holland Smith in The Death of Classical Paganism  (Kirsch quoted from this guy on pg. 9)


The author shares that paganus is really just a villager and in Roman military terms it differentiated the civilian from the soldier. Christian "rigorists" ready to be soldiers for the One True God "characterized anyone who refused to take up arms...as a civilian, a slacker, a 'paganus.'"  Interestingly Christians were called "atheists" because they were against most of the gods, goddesses and godlings (as this author puts it) except the One True God.


This next bit was wild because the author talks about the fight between Christians because of the wording of Jesus being of similar substance to God vs. the same substance as God.  He said in Greek the only difference in the two (similar and same) was an iota.   Kirsch writes,


"The question of whether God and Jesus were made of the same stuff or different stuff was and is ultimately unanswerable - indeed, that was what church authorities meant when they characterized the Trinity as a mystery - but that did not stop ordinary men and women throughout the Christian community from literally brawling with one another over an iota."  (pg. 161)


Charming, no?  Seriously I wonder sometimes what God thinks of such things. Does He watch and shake His head at how we treat one another? Especially those of us who say we know and follow and serve and submit to Him.


"At the heart of polytheism is an open-minded and easygoing approach to religious belief and practice, a willingness to entertain the idea that there are many gods and many ways to worship them. At the heart of monotheism, by contrast, is the sure conviction that only a single god exists, a tendency to regard one's own rituals and practices as the only proper way to worship the one true god."  (pg. 2)

The heart of polytheism sounds somewhat like Universalism, doesn't it?  Actually the author ends the book claiming western countries with religious liberty and cultural diversity are honoring pagan values.



"Contrary to what we have been encouraged to believe by the teachings of monotheism, the phrase 'pagan morality' is not a contradiction in terms.  The pagans may have been guilty of hypocrisy, praising virginity and fidelity while indulging in sexual adventures of various kinds, but they were no more hypocritical than worshippers of the Only True God who have shown themselves to be equally capable of failing to practice what they preach." (pg. 59)

I just thought this was ouch-worthy. Too bad it's true too often concerning us hypocritical believers.


"No wild beasts are so hostile to mankind as are most of the Christians in their savagery toward one another."   - Ammianus (pg. 211)

It seems Christianity the Religion lost its Jesus roots a long, long time ago. Nowhere in the Bible does Jesus or any of the apostles tell us to be unkind to others. Instead Jesus tells us to love our enemies. So if your fellow Christian is an enemy, love him. And for those who believe Paul invented Christianity, he says pretty much the same thing in his letter to the Romans (see chapter 12 here).   These people of the Roman empire taking up arms for Jesus are just in error.  And killing fellow believers? Wow. 


Again, no wonder Julian decided to serve other gods. 


Though Julian didn't have much use for Christianity, the author claims he "admired and envied the superior organizational skills that the Christians brought to bear in setting up and running their churches."  (He liked organized religion...which I find in contrast to more and more people today who want to find God in their own ways.) He decided to copy them and "invented" a "pagan 'church' with its own all-encompassing theology and its own unified clerical hierarchy...He established a unified pagan priesthood. ... He encouraged the Hellenes, the term he used to describe what Christians called 'pagans,' to follow the Christian example in both chastity and philanthropy. Pagan priests were to avoid the excesses of the tavern, the distractions of the theatre and the seductions of erotic literature, and they must shun the company of actors, jockeys and dancers.  He even prescribed a set of dietary laws that he extracted from the cult of the Great Mother - root vegetables, pomegranates and pork were forbidden, and fish was to be eaten only when prescribed."   Additionally he made all the gods and goddesses subservient to the "the most high god whom Constantine had once worshipped, the solar deity variously called Apollo, Sol Invictus and King Helios." (pg. 255)

I thought the dietary restriction part was fascinating! Bye bye, morning glass of carrot juice!  And does this mean french fries were forbidden, too?  Ah!


To really get back at the Christians, Julian decided to allow the Jews (whom the Christians now regarded as their worst enemies) to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem.  Although the Jews were monotheists and Julian not, he saw the commonalities between the Hellenes and Jews.  "'We have all else in common - temples, sacred precincts, altars for sacrifice, and purifications,...in all of which we differ not at all from one another."  (pg. 260)

A series of natural disasters coupled with a rising threat from Persia got in the way of this Spite the Christians rebuilding project.



This quote was at the beginning of one of the later chapters.  Made me of think of morality police who make people keep outward rules - for God's sake of course!


"What should be said of us, who are forced to live piously, not by devotion but by terror?"  - Maximus of Turin (pg. 269)


Your thoughts on any of this? I'd love to hear 'em!

New Book and Blogs, Lack of Women and White Folks, Bible Stuff and Single Moms (though married)

Ah, I have so much on my mind, but don't know where to start. Some days I go through droughts with not much worth sharing, but then I go through, um, spouts where I have too much. It's not that stuff I want to share is oh-so-fascinating especially to you, but it's just thoughts that come to mind. So maybe this post should just briefly mention those things and maybe I'll "flesh 'em out" in later posts if the mood strikes.

I started a new book, The Rise of Christianity by Rodney Stark. He's not a historian, but a sociologist and he's trying to answer the question about Christianity's rise from that perspective. It's slightly technical at times when he gets into the arithmetic part, but I am enjoying much of the cultural tidbits very much!  His main question is this:  "How did a tiny and obscure messianic movement from the edge of the Roman Empire dislodge classical paganism and become the dominant faith of Western civilization?" He explores such things as primary (often women) and secondary (often their husbands) conversions, social networks, epidemics, status of women, fertility, conversion of Jews being higher than we think, Christians being from all social groups not only slaves.  Well, those are the ones I've read about so far. I'm about halfway through the book.

Just a bit ago I read some interesting facts about the declining birthrate and how the Roman Empire was giving incentives to men who would father at least three children.  The Roman Empire so very much needed its citizens to have higher fertility rates that many emperors imposed "political and financial sanctions upon childless couples, upon unmarried women over the age of twenty, and upon unmarried men over the age of twenty-five."  Perhaps if their male to female ratio were not 131 to 100 due to infanticide (killing mostly unwanted female infants), this would not have been such a problem.


The declining birthrate thing reminded me of this post Why Tanning, Barbie and God Forbid Belgian Chocolate May Disappear In the Future? by a Jordanian-Syrian man living in the United States. If you don't want to read the post, it's so titled because of the declining rate of white people in the world.  There is a reason places like Germany are inviting other nationalities into the country to study basically free of charge. 

By the way, that blog is one that I started reading this week and have found most interesting.  I especially love when Malik shares cultural tidbits from both the US and Arab world. I enjoyed reading his Arab perspective on the 4th of July, for instance.

Another blog about a serious topic is this new one by a Jordanian who is speaking out about childhood sexual abuse.  Visit Mohammed's blog here and lend him your support if you wish.


In other news, I was reading through Luke 2-4 recently and kept getting stopped by patterns I was noticing.  And then today I started rereading some things in those chapters and ended up visiting Deuteronomy and Exodus and three places in Isaiah because my Bible had links back to those places.  I was reminded again that I love Isaiah 40 and need to read it more often.

Note to self: write a post about Luke 4:14-30 and why Jesus didn't just leave well enough alone.  They liked him and were amazed by him so why challenge them to the extent they want to throw you off a cliff?

Random thought that came to mind as I was driving the other day:  I think I'd heard a story about single parenting and how many children are growing up in poverty due to mainly a lack of fathers. Then my mind went to polygynous families and how even if you have only one other wife, you've perhaps made your wives single mothers half the time.  I guess unless you live with both wives and all the children in one household. But for those men who have two separate households and maybe spend one week with Jane and her kids following by a week with Cara and her kids...that reminds me of the children I've always felt sorry for because their divorced parents had joint custody meaning they had to live one week at mom's followed by one week at dad's.  I assume the children get used to it, but it seemed rather dreadful to me.  Only with polygyny, it's the man of the householdS who must move from place to place.

Which lead me to wonder if that's OK really.  After all what is the father's role besides providing for his family?  If he is providing for Jane and her kids sufficiently why not also have a life with Cara and her kids if he can provide materialistically for them just the same?

QUESTION FOR YOU:  What roles did your father/grandfather have in your household? What about your husbands and adult brothers? The men in your life? Are they only useful for fathering children and then providing for them? Or do they have other roles that would be missed if they were gone 50% of the time to non-work-related things? Granted I know even in monogamous relationships, fathers can essentially make their wives into single mothers because they work too many hours or they pursue too many hobbies outside the household. Too much golf or fishing or maybe even just sitting in front of the television while the wife does all the child-rearing stuff.

The only other thing on my mind is remnants and I'll not talk about that now since this post is long and rambling enough.

Hope all are well!  And, can it be that Zach is ten weeks old today?

Last Notes and Lessons Learned from Stories of Jews in Muslim Lands

Last notes from In Ishmael's House: A History of the Jews in Muslim Lands by Martin Gilbert.


I finished the book! Ah, what an interesting read.  Definitely a side of the story I'd never heard especially the part pertaining to how the Jews were treated in Muslim lands leading up to and after Israel was created. What a mess!  Several times I got the impression that Arabs were simply frustrated at the British presence (like in Egypt) and angered by the creation of Israel so they took out their hostility on the local Jews. It is no different than Americans' mistreatment of Japanese living in the United States during World War II and blaming American Muslims for the sins of Al Qaeda or a rogue Muslim extremist. Or even our bombing of Iraq for what 19 mostly Saudi nationals did on 9/11. It's sad that the human race is such that we take out our wrath on innocent people when we feel injustice has taken place and we are lusting for revenge or dignity or whatever term we use to justify "making someone pay!"

Yesterday's post left off with Iraq and since then I've read about Egypt and the 1954 Lavon Affair in which the Israeli intelligence agency along with at least one Israeli Government Minister tried to implicate the Muslim Brotherhood in acts of terror!  "The plan was to have Israeli agents explode bombs against Egyptian, American and British targets while at the same time making the attacks look like a Muslim Brotherhood operation."  (pg. 253)  I suppose you can guess that this plan's failure only increased the difficulty for Egyptian Jews.

Oh, and also in my last post I talked about the Arab mistreatment of Jews only bolstered Israel, right?  If his stats are correct, the author states around 75% of the immigrants to Israel were from Muslim countries and not Europe where (I am assuming) the root of the problem started!  Weird how that works.  Interesting tidbit: even though the white, 'westernized' Jews make up only around a quarter of the Jewish population in Israel, most all of the big-time leaders have been from this group. The author said the Ashkenazis often looked at Jews from Arab countries - the Sephardi - as "primitive" and "fit mainly for manual labour and domestic service."  (pg. 311)  Racism exists from Jews towards Jews. Imagine.

Also I wondered yesterday why Arab countries would allow so many Jews to leave for Israel. Well continuing the book, I found not all of them did. Syria, for example, basically trapped their Jewish population for decades.  Finally in the 1990s after much international pressure, President Hafez al-Assad agreed that "all 3,886 Jews in Syria were free to leave -- for anywhere but Israel."  (pg. 308)  Some Arab countries were similar in not allowing travel to Israel while others like Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco seemed fine with it.

The last chapter discussed the roughly 50,000 Jews still living in Muslim lands today. Many of those are in Iran, by the way. (Jews in Persia predate Christianity and Islam.) The ones that made me smile most were stories of the one Afghan Jew who stays because he wants to represent the Jewish culture that was there for a thousand years and the three Jews, the Pinchas family, in Kamishli, Syria.  Also I think it's cute that two Jews are registered to vote in Sidon, Lebanon.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Here are two final stories I wanted to share.  One good, one bad. They represent to me much of the last half of the book which dealt with quite a bit more of modern Jewish/Muslim history than I recall from Zachary Karabell's book last year.  (Karabell seemed to detail more of the older history while this book dealt more with modern times.)



After some problems in Egypt between the Muslims who took out their anger for the creation of the State of Israel on local Jews ...

"In spite of the return to order, an Egyptian Arab wrote a revealing letter to the Bourse égyptienne newspaper on July 22: 'It would seem that most people in Egypt are unaware of the fact that among Egyptian Moslems there are some who have white skin,' he wrote.  'Every time I board a tram I see people pointing at me and saying "Jew, Jew."  I have been beaten more than once because of this.  For that reason I humbly beg that my picture (enclosed) be published with an explanation that I am not Jewish and that my name is Adham Mustafa Galeb.'"  (pg. 225)

YET ...


"Amidst all the political turmoil, incitement and violence, relations between Muslims and Jew were still possible.  In the Aboukir internment camp, Egyptian-born Abraham Matalon met the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Alexandria, who had also been imprisoned.  'At first,' Matalon remembered later, 'I didn't know he was a member. We embraced, and we started meeting every day.  He said he wanted to learn Hebrew, and I wanted to learn Koran, so this is how we spent our time. I wanted to have a dialogue with the Muslims, and they loved me for it!  I did the call to prayer in the camp and the soldiers admired it, they even answered me.  And they knew I was a Zionist, but they did not manifest any attitudes against me. They said we are friends in life. When you come to talk to your enemy, you see that he is a different person, you can see his human side."  (pg.221)


Perhaps we can learn lessons from the stories I shared from this book.  Thoughts?

June Books & I fought temptation and won!

Another month has gone, and we are half a year away from 2012, people!  Half a year away from making new year's resolutions and posting lists of books we read in 2011 and putting away the Christmas decorations after yet another busy holiday season. Time sure does move quickly.

So in my May post I told y'all I read a book about a road (from Damascus) and this month I read about another road (Eastern Orthodoxy).    Last month I read a book by an Indian (from Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh) who said very positive things about Christianity and the Bible. This month I read a book by an Indian (Native American) who didn't much care for most of the Christians he'd encountered. (I think he was OK with Jesus.)   I finished my journey through America with Akbar Ahmed and his team.  That book was rather long (500ish pages) and detailed, but kept my attention throughout.  I read a book about two "promised lands" - Israel and the United States. The latter dealt with Moses' impact in inspiring the settlers here.

Have you read any good books lately? 


Journey Into America by Akbar Ahmed -- fantastic book about American identity and culture and the ways minority groups have been treated here; see posts from late May and early June for many more details

"Through discussion and dialogue with my Jewish friends, I have learned about Jewish history and culture and how these shape Jewish identity -- the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the trauma of the Diaspora, and the tragedy of the Holocaust, which remains a dark and troubling cloud over the history of all humankind. I also learned of the deep attachment that Jews feel toward the city of Jerusalem and the land of Israel, which is more than just a country to the Jewish people. It is an expression of their religious and cultural identity.  Becoming friends with Jews allowed me to view the Israeli narrative from their perspective. In this way, while they saw and hopefully understood my Muslim narrative, I tried to understand theirs." (pg. 395)


The chapter on Mormons and Muslims showed me how similar the two faiths are. In fact the Mormon university has a geography class where one professor gives handouts showing 21 similarities between the two faiths. Granted, they also have huge differences, but the team said Mormons they met seemed to be the most accepting of Muslims in America.  When breaking down stats, Mormons over any other group put religion as number one in their lives (96%; Muslims were at 85%),  When asked about the biggest threats to America, Mormons were more likely to say the "breakdown of the family," "ourselves," "immorality," and "the economy." One student "named pornography as the greatest threat to America, calling it 'the root of a lot of evil.'"  "More Mormons saw America as a Christian country than did either Protestants or Catholics." (pg. 420-1)

When discussing the rise of Mormonism during what he calls "the Great White American Century" the author noted "Mormonism provided an optimistic theology in an era of hope and promise. Unlike the austere and puritanical preachings of Calvinism, Mormonism offered what scholar Fawn Brodie called an 'ingenious blend of supernaturalism and materialism, which promised in heaven a continuation of all earthly pleasures - work, wealth, sex and power.'"  (pg. 405)



The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy by Alexander Schmemann  --  I shared much more about this book here.


"In the record of Orthodoxy, as in the story of Christianity in general, there is no lack of defects and human sins. ... The true Orthodox way of thought has always been historical, has always included the past, but has never been enslaved by it. Christ is 'yesterday and today and forever the same,' and the strength of the Church is not in the past, present, or future, but in Christ."  (pg. 341)



Speaking of Jesus by Carl Medearis -- after having read a book filled with Christian Church stuff, this book was almost simplistic by contrast.  The author basically tells us to just talk about Jesus.  He reminded us that the complicated doctrines, explanations, egg illustration of God and often horrid Christian history are not what people need. They just need Jesus. And he shares what a joy it is for him to talk about one he loves so dearly. I like too that he stressed discipleship - a commitment of relationship - rather than evangelism which is often a one-moment deal (e.g., one altar call, one revival meeting, one door-to-door soul winning evening).  ; also see previous post

"We can't simply pull in our church boundaries, tell the rest of the world to drop dead, and then bomb the sand out of the Middle East. At least not if we are trying to follow Jesus.  The conservative movement here in the West often tries to embrace the moral code of Christianity without the self-sacrificial teachings of Jesus."  (pg. 148)

Here is an article of Carl's published at Huffington Post just yesterday.



Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto by Vine Deloria, Jr. -- Andrew asked why I got this book and I think it was in the footnotes of a book I read earlier this year. I decided I wanted to read a book about Indians from an American Indian rather than a white author so I found this one on Amazon and received it for my birthday.   Read more about my thoughts on this book here. 

And see my pictures from the Cherokee Indian Reservation here if you'd like.  We were there last Saturday.




The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace by Aaron David Miller -- My brother found this book somewhere and gave it to me for my birthday. He said he saw the word "Arab" and knew how much I like them so he got this.   About halfway through this nearly 400 page book I was ready to toss it aside because I was exasperated with how much time and money and energy has been used in trying to bring peace to this region! (Not to mention all the trees killed to write all those drafts and official treaties!)  To read more go here.




America's Prophet: How the Story of Moses Shaped America by Bruce Feiler --  I saw this on Amazon.com and decided to buy it. It was inexpensive and I like Bruce Feiler. I've read at least three of his other books.  See the previous post for some of the American Moseses (or Mosii per Amber's suggestion) discussed in this book.  Also I'll probably add a bit more from this book in an upcoming post.  I finished it just in time to add to June books! 



If you want to see most of these books because you are a visual person and maybe like to see that people actually are nerdy enough to take photos of their stacks of books, go here. From my stack of 18 books pictured there, I have only one left to read!  I actually went to the library once, had 3 books in my arms to check out and ...


(try not to faint when you read this)

PUT THEM BACK ON THE SHELVES!!!

I yielded not to temptation because I remembered I still had books at home that needed to be read.  Just a few more to go now and then Helloooooo, Library!  :)

An American Indian's Thoughts on White People, Tribalism, US Culture, Churches

Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto by Vine Deloria, Jr. -- note: the author uses Indian to refer to himself and his people throughout the book when not speaking of specific tribes (e.g. Cherokee, Sioux, Seminole) so I will use Indian instead of Native American in this post, but do realize we are speaking of the inhabitants of present day United States and not the Asian country!  I have questions for you at the bottom. Be thinking how you would reply to the author if you could and what lessons we can learn from his thoughts.

Andrew asked why I got this book and I think it was mentioned in the footnotes of a book I read earlier this year. I decided I wanted to read a book about Indians from an American Indian rather than a white author so I found this one on Amazon and received it for my birthday.  I expected this book to be more about the wars between Indians and the white people who came to the United States. I expected Custer to play some role in the book (the title kind of conveys this) yet he only came up a couple of times. This "Custer died for your sins" thing was actually a bumper sticker "originally meant as a dig at the National Council of Churches" and which "referred to the Sioux Treaty of 1868 signed at Fort Laramie in which the United States pledged to give free and undisturbed use of the lands claimed by Red Cloud in return for peace.  Under the covenants of the Old Testament, breaking a covenant called for a blood sacrifice for atonement. Custer was the blood sacrifice for the United States breaking the Sioux treaty." (pg. 148)

I knew the title was a rather clever play on words since most Christians say Jesus died for our sins.  It's a bit weird and good reading this book just after Carl Medearis' Speaking of Jesus which stressed, well, our speaking more of Jesus and essentially not bringing western cultural baggage into the mix. Jesus wasn't a westerner and although many bad things have been done in the name of Christianity, Jesus never started this religion nor did he ever instruct us to go and make Christians out of people or compel them to join the Christian cause. 

As I was reading this book I was heartbroken at times especially when I realized how different things could have been and could be if we acted like Jesus instead of going into situations as Christians bent on solving the Indian problem essentially turning these "savages" into respectable white people. As if that's what Jesus meant when he told us to go and share the good news with every creature!  The disciples struggled with this. Do the Gentiles have to become Jews? Must they be circumcised? Essentially, must they be one of us, adopt our customs, follow our law in order to follow Jesus?

NO.

This book gave me a different perspective on tribes. Of course the Bible - the Old Testament - is full of tribe talk.  There are the 12 tribes of Israel as main players after all.  And, of course, I was familiar with Indian tribes. I've always loved the names and found them fascinating to say.  Yet when I hear of tribes today, I think of conflicts in the Arab world and places like Afghanistan and Pakistan. I think of divisiveness (sectarianism) and narrow mindedness and keeping women down and exalting the almighty man.  Saudi Arabia's tribal culture - rather than its religion - is often blamed for the things I don't like about that country. Sure there are a number of good things, but those tend to be overlooked when compared to honor killings and the importance of virginity in women and the control of parents over their daughters.  Honestly it makes me feel smothered reading about such things.

Yet, this book helped me see tribes in a better light. How if there is a good hunting season, everyone eats. And if there is a bad hunting season, everyone suffers. There is not this hoarding of wealth and this great divide between the haves and the have nots.  The author notes "each man must be judged according to his real self, not according to his wealth or educational prowess. Hence a holder of great wealth is merely selfish unless he has other redeeming qualities besides his material goods. Having a number of degrees and an impressive educational background is prerequisite to prestige in the white world. It is detrimental in the Indian world unless the person has the necessary wisdom to say meaningful things also."  (pg. 233)


This book was published in 1969 during the era of hippies and black power movements.  Hippies, the author notes, had shrugged off some of the prestige qualifiers of white culture yet he found fault with them for not adopting the things that make for good Indian prestige. Hippies were basically passing fads and out for publicity.  The Indians often rejected the black power movements because equality meant the blacks would be equal to the whites. To Indians, equal meant sameness and they did not want to adopt 'white culture.' They were Indian and they had their own customs thus they refused to be 'white' no matter the effort government agencies and churches undertook to make them 'white.'

Speaking of 'white culture', Deloria says it's like a cancer. It destroys other cultures and the whites essentially have no culture except the violent culture they brought from Europe to the New World.  He says when we cannot solve problems, we use violence - overkill - to stamp out our enemies.  He says this country "has never made a successful peace because peace requires exchanging ideas, concepts, thoughts, and recognizing the fact that two distinct systems of life can exist together without conflict.  Consider how quickly America seems to be facing its allies of one war as new enemies."  "Violence is America's sweetheart," and America "alienates everyone who does not automatically love it."  (pg. 256)

You can imagine how much love I felt reading this book, right?  Yes, it's often painful to see ourselves through others' eyes yet we often need attention drawn to our blind spots and things we'd rather not consider. This book has definitely made me reflect on several issues - some serious ones like how Jesus, the wonderful person that he is, got so separated from people who claim to follow him (these "Christians").  Other issues perhaps not so serious, but still thought-provoking: do we 'white' folks really have no culture?  Is violence really our "sweetheart" and why do we alienate people who don't love us? Why do we "overkill"?

Has this ever truly been a Christian nation?  Or shall we once and for all separate the word "Christian" from "follower of Jesus" since there seems to be a huge divide between most Christian action and the actions of the Christ.

Thoughts? What do you think of tribalism?  Do you tend to view it negatively, neutrally or positively? Why? What do you think of the author's view of white culture? Do you think white people have no culture? Do you agree with Deloria's thoughts on black power (equality = sameness)? This actually reminded me of Akbar Ahmed's thoughts that I expressed in this post about Barack Obama acting like the white presidents.  Do you agree that we love violence?  Why is this? Do you think we should separate Christianity in the US from Jesus?  What took your attention from this post?  How would you reply to this author if given the chance?  Any lessons we can learn from Vine Deloria's thoughts?

I've already alluded to Deloria's disdain for the Christianity as shown by most churches. You should also hear his loathing for anthropologists and his views of Democrats and Republicans.  I would share more, but this post is too long already.

Eastern Orthodox Stuff: Constantine, Pagan Influence in the Church, Obliged to Believe, Christ

You may recall that I started off this year reading Timothy Ware's The Orthodox Church which had been recommended by two friends.  It was a great overview of this faith so when Amazon recommended The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy by Alexander Schmemann, I put it on my Wishlist. And a dear friend sent it to me for my birthday!  *feels the love*  So I just finished reading it and must admit the first book was better, more complete in explaining (so, Amber, your recommendation was better than Amazon's), but this one had many interesting aspects not covered in the first.  So I feel a bit more well-rounded after having read both!

Here are a few things that took my attention enough to jot down the page numbers with intent to share. There was other stuff that I just decided not to post although I found it educational as well.



This bit about Constantine was good.  I'll let you guess which side I fall under in the East/West divide.  I was especially surprised when I read that the Eastern Church puts Constantine up there with the disciples of Jesus! 


"For Eastern Christianity, Constantine still remains the holy initiator of the Christian world, the instrument for the victory of light over darkness that crowned the heroic feats of the martyrs. The West, on the other hand, often regards the era of Constantine as the beginning of an enslavement of the Church by the state, or even as the first falling away on the part of the Church from the height of primitive Christian freedom."  (pg. 62)


For some reason I found this incredibly interesting although I'm not exactly sure why. Is "becoming a Christian" being baptized, saying a 'sinner's prayer,' following Jesus or what?  Reminds me of becoming Muslim being as simple as saying the shahada. For the record, Constantine really wanted to be baptized in the Jordan River so that may be why he waited so long to be baptized. 


Constantine did not receive baptism "the only symbol the Church accepts of becoming a Christian" until his deathbed.  Thus the "primary, initial paradox" is "that the first Christian emperor was a Christian outside of the Church, and the Church silently but with full sincerity and faith accepted and recognized him." In Constantine's mind his faith in Christ "had been bestowed personally and directly for his victory over the enemy - in other words, as he was fulfilling his imperial duty. Consequently the victory he had won with the help of the Christian God had placed the emperor - and thereby the empire as well - under the protection of the Cross and in direct dependence upon Christ."  (pg. 66)



Ever heard how Christianity has a lot of pagan aspects to it? Like Christmas, for instance, isn't talked about in the Bible as being December 25. Easter eggs? Not there.  Christmas trees?  Nope.  Animal sacrifice and circumcision starting with the Jews as something new God gave only to them?  No again.


The author talked a bit about paganism and how people back then felt about their religions and in a section speaking of reverence for saints and their relics and the "increasing complexity of worship" and interest in holy places and such, the author notes that many have directly attributed this to "pagan influence in the Church and regarded [it] as a compromise with the world for the sake of a mass victory."  Yet the author states that the Christian does not need to apologize for this or try to explain it. "On the contrary, he may boldly accept the charge....Christianity adopted and assimilated many forms of pagan religion, not only because they were the eternal forms of religion in general, but also because the intention of Christianity itself was not to replace all forms in this world by new ones, but to fill them with new and true meaning." Instead of thinking of Christianity borrowing from and being influenced by pagan things, think in reverse. All things were initially good, but due to the fall, it has been distorted.  "The Church in its own mind has returned to God what rightly belongs to Him, always and in every way restoring the fallen image."  (pg. 98)  So in a sense, the pagan rites have been redeemed by Christ!


Even if you come to church for the wrong reasons, it's OK!  You can hear about Christ and - who knows? - your life may be changed because of it!

Speaking of the "cult of saints" even when their deeds were distorted greatly, the author says when people came to the Church and learned of the saints, they could see how lives were transformed by Christ.  "However much men may have brought into the Church what they had seen and sought in pagan temples, when they entered it they now heard those eternal and immutable words about the Savior crucified for our sins - about the perfect love that God has shown us - and about His kingdom as the final goal of all living beings."  (pg. 101)


Notice that last phrase and tell me if that won't make a HUGE difference in your "Christianity." Christian-in-name-only, anyone?

About a "Christian theocracy" -- "State sanctions gave the Church unprecedented strength, and perhaps brought many to faith and new life, but after Theodosius the Great it was no longer a community of believers; it was also a community of those obliged to believe."  (pg. 111, emphasis mine)


Well, hey, if many in your community were "obliged to believe," why would you not have this problem? What is our excuse today? This is how John Chrysostom saw the Church


"His central concern was the Christian life of his flock and its variety and everyday reality.  Before him was a world that had accepted Christianity but was still so close to paganism, so deeply poisoned by sin and ignorance, that it did not take the faith itself too seriously. People crowded into the churches, but outside church walls - and indeed, sometimes within them - were moral irresponsibility, hatred, and injustice."  (pg. 112)


This was the last bit of the whole book, the last sentence is included below.  I love the last three words.

"In the record of Orthodoxy, as in the story of Christianity in general, there is no lack of defects and human sins. ... The true Orthodox way of thought has always been historical, has always included the past, but has never been enslaved by it. Christ is 'yesterday and today and forever the same,' and the strength of the Church is not in the past, present, or future, but in Christ."  (pg. 341)

Thoughts?

Pondering extreme Darwinian thoughts and how they have influenced America

This post kind of goes along with yesterday's on the Darwin/Jesus conflict in Akbar Ahmed's point of view as expressed in Journey Into America.

One example of America's meshing of Christianity and Darwinian thought is evident in the life of former President Theodore Roosevelt who was threatened enough by Catholics and Jews from Europe coming here that he urged the Anglo-Saxon people to have more children in order to avoid "race suicide."  

Please! Have more children like these!

His friend Reverend Josiah Strong wrote a book in 1885 identifying seven "perils" facing America. 

1.  Catholicism
2.  Mormonism
3.  socialism
4.  intemperance
5.  wealth
6.  urbanization
7.  immigration

The solution: "encourage progress"

Achieved how: "the propagation of the Anglo-Saxon race."

Why? It was God's will "for the white race to spread across the world until it had 'Anglo-Saxonized mankind.'" Indeed, the world was "facing 'a new stage of its history -- the final competition of races, for which the Anglo-Saxon is being schooled,' and that before long the American race would 'move down upon Mexico, down upon Central and South America, out upon the islands of the sea, over upon Africa and beyond. And can any one doubt that the results of this competition of races will be the 'survival of the fittest'?"

Did such thinking influence their world race competition?

This stuff is rich!  I'm sure people who would have believed this stuff if they lived today (which we shall bury our heads in the sand and pretend they don't), are related to the ones screeching, "Islam is trying to take over the world!  Muslims are trying to make us all submit to Allah!  And they think this is God's will for the world!"

Yet here are "perfectly normal" white men of English ancestry - or admirers of the English - saying it was God's will to spread a certain "race" - a very specific one, no less - around the world!



Apparently Hitler was an admirer of the United States' eugenics programs and was especially fond of W. Duncan McKim and Madison Grant who decided "a 'gentle, painless' means of executing those whose hereditary was 'the fundamental cause of human wretchedness' would be gas chambers."  Yes, gas chambers!  Grant argued the "need to preserve the 'Nordic races' against the Jews and others by 'the obliteration of the unfit' and against the 'sentimental belief in the sanctity of human life.'"  Did this gas-chamber thinking fail when presented to civilized, evolved people?  Apparently not!  Grant's book sold 1.6 million copies in the United States and was to Hitler, his "'Bible.'"

Meddling where no one should dare to interfere?

I remember the other day I watched a propaganda documentary from 1945 on Here Is Germany which Samer had seen and recommended. He told me not all of it was factual, but that I might enjoy seeing how Americans thought of Germans after World War II.  After I watched it, we talked about it and he asked if I noticed how they didn't focus on the concentration camps. They did show piles of bodies of people who had been starved to death, but Samer was right: there wasn't a lot of focus on the concentration camps per se.  And one would think a documentary produced in order to justify American and other Allied occupation of Germany would totally focus on such a damning thing!

Samer said everyone was too shocked about the concentration camps, and they were still trying to process that mass executions of men, women and children by use of gas chambers had actually happened at this time in history.


After reading about Hitler enjoying the fruits of American eugenics programs, I am wondering if some of the shock was guilt. Guilt that maybe we who had claims to such a sensational book and physicians and scientists would have the audacity to admire people who promoted killing off those we deemed as less desirable than our superior white race.

Were we having to come to grips that our thinking was flawed? Have we gotten over it? Or do we still live as if white children are more valuable than children "over there."  As long as our kids have food and clean water and education does it really matter what happens to the black or brown children on other continents?

Do we value the least of these or do we believe only the "fittest" survive and we are going to do all we can to ensure we are among that group?

Sarah wisely pointed out on yesterday's post that it's a shame Darwin's ideas have been misused in this way. I doubt he ever had this sort of drastic thing in mind yet people took his theories and applied them in questionable ways. The same with the man who recommended the gas chamber as a way of obliterating the unfit. Did he really mean that? Did he really think someone would take him seriously and follow-through with it?  Did he realize Hitler would come along, deem Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and the physically-challenged unfit to live in this world and use his ideas to cleanse the world of these people?

What happens when someone in society decides the traits of you and your loved ones are not acceptable? That you don't belong to the favored race?  Favored sex?  Already I read of problems India and China may have in coming years when a male population ages and starts looking for wives because many females have been aborted or abandoned because daughters are not as highly valued in some families.

I, too, have the right to live, don't I?

When do we stop deeming who is fit to live and start accepting and loving people as the valuable creations that they are despite how "flawed" they may appear in our eyes?






quotes from pg. 74-75, 81