Book Review: Genesis A Living Conversation

To be completely honest, Genesis: A Living Conversation by Bill Moyers has been on my currently reading list for a couple of years.  I started it as a way to move deeper into my scripture study. Then life got busy and the book got buried under a pile of other things and I forgot about it.  Maybe that was supposed to happen.  Like I mentioned in yesterday's post, I believe that we find what we need when we need it.  When I started reading it again a few weeks ago, and as I picked up the book to finish it last night, I found exactly what I needed to hear at those moments.  I found the ideas that tied in so well with the other books I'm reading or have read lately.

This book is a companion book to the PBS series of the same name hosted by Bill Moyers.  I picked it up because I absolutely love the book Healing and the Mind where Bill Moyers talked with numerous people from different walks of life about healing.  It was literally life changing for me.  I was hoping for a similar format and experience here.  I was not disappointed.

Bill Moyers brought together 38 people with different religions and philosophies, created unique and dynamic small discussion groups, and talked about the book of Genesis.  Each group tackled a particular section or story from Genesis, sharing their knowledge and perceptions of what it meant to the people of that time and what it means to us now.  In the epilogue, Moyers gives suggestions for starting your own group, and I think perfectly describes what happened with these groups.

Dialogue is about telling and listening.  As I participated in these discussions, I noticed several things that contributed to the pleasure and excitement.  People listened to one another without censure and disagreed without denunciation.  No one tried to mask his or her own religious beliefs, but respected the integrity and boundaries of the religious traditions of all others in the group...
Furthermore, although some participants were ordained or formally trained in biblical scholarship, no one resorted to expertise to claim authority over the others. Participants approached the story in the spirit of the great theologian Martin Buber, who urged people "to read the Bible as if they had never seen it."  Even the most faithful believers kept themselves open to surprise; the admission of not knowing exactly what the passage means made possible an unexpected visitation, revelation.
(pages 349-350)

I write to process what I am learning.  I learn through writing, but I also learn through talking things out with other people.  Whether the discussion happens online or in person, I grow from hearing other people's perspectives and opinions, even if I don't always agree.  I crave the kind of discussions that the groups have in this books.

In the discussion of exile, Burton L. Visotzky makes this statement:

The words are just there on the page.  But as communities of readers, we get together and when we talk, when we debate, when we get heated, that's when we hear the words of God.  That's when the text becomes revelation.  Revelation, which can happen in a secular community as well as a religious community, is a very powerful thing.  It's that lightbulb going on over your head.  You hear someone else with a different point of view, and that person doesn't even have to convince you so much as to show you that there's more than one reading of the text.  (pages 335-336) 

Let me repeat the most important part,

...when we talk, when we debate, when we get heated, that's when we hear the words of God.  That's when the text becomes revelation. 

Yes, personal study and thinking about it alone can bring knowledge, revelation and peace.  But, the words come alive when we wrestle with them, when we share what we think and open ourselves to other possible meanings.  It's too easy in Sunday School to answer a question with "THE LIST".  You know the list:  read your scriptures, pray, go to church, listen to your leaders, serve others, etc.  It's time to ask hard questions.  It's time to explore answers that might not be in the teacher's manual.  It's time to open ourselves to all of the possibilities of what God is saying to us through the scriptures.

Anyone want to join me?  Anyone want to warn my Sunday School teacher?

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear

Timing is everything.  This is going to sound really stupid, but I don't really choose the order that I will read the books that are on my "to read list".  They choose me.  There are literally hundreds of titles on my "to read" lists if you look at my list here, my list on goodreads, and my list on the library website.  And I add titles faster than I can read books.  But when I'm looking for something new to start, the right book has a way of making itself stand out.  I can't really explain it, but it has happened more than once.

For several years, when glancing over titles in the bookstore, I would pick up Women Who Run With the Wolves, read the cover, and set it back on the shelf.  I did this countless times.  It looked interesting, but it wasn't the right book yet.  Then a friend started an online book group and they were going to read the book, so I went to amazon and ordered a copy.  It was exactly what I needed to read at that point in my life.  Without this particular group of friends and the things I've learned from them, I don't think the book would have affected me the same way.  I could have read it years ago, but I read it in 2012 when my mind and spirit were ready for it.  And it was literally life changing.

Tonight I bought a book (Emotional Freedom by Judith Orloff) that has been on my "to read" list for 6 months.  6 months ago, I might have found the insights I needed, but now, reading it and thinking of the other things I'm currently reading or have just read, it is not just informative, but it is transformative too.

Yes, I have 7 books on my "Currently Reading" list, but they are all exactly what I need right now and they are weaving together in ways that I would not have imagined possible.  Hopefully, I'll have time over the next few weeks to write about it all.

Book Review: Help, Thanks, Wow

My first introduction to the work of Anne Lamott occurred at a convention of voice teachers.  The speaker quoted from Lamott's book Bird by Bird:  Some Instructions on Writing and Life, and I knew I had to read more.  I was hooked.

The thing I love most about Anne Lamott is that she is a real person, and her writing reflects that.  She understands struggle.  She understands frustration.  She understands knowing what you should do, but very much wanting to do something else.  And, she is hilarious.

In Help, Thanks, Wow:  The Three Essential Prayers, Lamott gets down to the basics.  She peels away the layers of what we think prayer should be or when we think we should pray and tells it like it is.

Prayer is taking a chance that against all odds and past history, we are loved and chosen, and do not have to get it together before we show up. The opposite may be true: We may not be able to get it together until after we show up in such miserable shape.
Lamott, Anne (2012-11-13). Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers (pp. 5-6). Riverhead Hardcover. Kindle Edition. 

I've probably heard hundreds of sermons on prayer, but Lamott speaks to my heart in a way that no one else has.

In prayer, I see the suffering bathed in light. In God, there is no darkness. I see God’s light permeate them, soak into them, guide their feet. I want to tell God what to do: “Look, Pal, this is a catastrophe. You have got to shape up.” But it wouldn’t work. So I pray for people who are hurting, that they be filled with air and light. Air and light heal; they somehow get into those dark, musty places, like spiritual antibiotics.
Lamott, Anne (2012-11-13). Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers (p. 16). Riverhead Hardcover. Kindle Edition. 

Prayer isn't really about the words we say.  It's about what we feel, what we need, and what we need to share with someone or something beyond ourselves.   That is why prayer can really be reduced to three words:  help, thanks, and wow.  Really.  That is every prayer you've ever said.

I worry that some of my friends may miss her wonderful message because they are distracted by her politics, her past, or the four letter words sprinkled through the text.  They may choose to dismiss her words because she sometimes refers to God as female.  Look past it.  She is a beautiful person whose ideas and perspectives on prayer will change you, the way you think about prayer, and the way you pray.  

Book Review: The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

Dying of cancer, Randy Pausch took the stage at Carnegie Mellon to deliver his last lecture.  The official video posted by Carnegie Mellon has had over 15 million views.  I picked up the book, expecting the text of the lecture, but was pleasantly surprised to find that he gives more of his personal story in the book.

The title he chose for his lecture was "Achieving Your Childhood Dreams".  In this book he tells us about his childhood dreams, how he achieved them, and how we can achieve our own dreams or enable the dreams of others.

There are two themes running through the book:  brick walls and head-fakes.  

"The brick walls are there for a reason.  They're not there to keep us out.  The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something."  (pages 51-52).

In story after story he shows us how he refused to give up and kept pursuing his dreams.

As a teacher, the concept that clicked most with me was the head-fake.  He explains the literal head-fake in football and then the second kind of head-fake (also used by his coach).

"The second kind of head-fake is the really important one-- the one that teaches people things they don't realize they're learning until well into the process.  If you're a head-fake specialist, your hidden objective is to get them to learn something you really want them to learn." (page 39).

This feel-good book is a quick read and offers much advice for a happy, productive life.  Although I didn't agree with all his advice, his positive attitude allowed me to just set those things aside and find the good that I needed and am ready for right now.

From my reading: Atonement

I will soon be getting back to the book reviews and discussions, but for today here is something to think about that I've been thinking about because of my reading.  

Atonement = Love.  It's not just something that happened because of love. It literally is love.    And it's not one event in the past.  Atonement is present, here and now, and every moment . 

Contentment

I grabbed a book off the shelf today, hoping for a quick, easy dose of feel-good reading.  The tiny book I picked up was I Hope You Know How Much I Love You and Other Advice for a Happy Life by John Bytheway.  He begins by telling us about the advice he got from his mother,

"Do your best.  Be good.  Be nice.  Say 'thank you.'  And don't worry, everything will be all right."

 He then goes on to explain that those are still important things to him, but they have evolved somewhat.

 "...'do your best' became be content."

I found this to be an interesting evolution considering my own struggles with "do your best."  To me, "do your best" was always something that would have been attainable if I had pushed myself a little bit harder.  I was one of those rare people that actually had a very good image of what my potential was, and any thing less than the full realization of that potential did not count, to me, as doing my best.  Contentment and doing my best were not even in the same ballpark.

Even today, I struggle with balancing the accepting of who I am and where I am, with striving for improvement.  Life, or God, or the Universe, keeps reminding me though.  Having a chronic illness that affects my energy, my pain levels, and my ability to think clearly has forced me to rethink what it means to do my best.  My best is no longer what I am capable of if I push myself really hard.  my best is now what my body will allow me to do.  My best doesn't get my house cleaned.  My best doesn't keep up on the business side of my music studio.  My best doesn't always get the bills paid on time.  And I'm starting to be OK with that.  Contentment or apathy?

Restorative Justice

I'm in the middle of reading Desmond Tutu's No Future Without Forgiveness, but I needed to post now, rather than later about a new concept I learned about:  restorative justice.  Somehow, I've lived my whole life thinking that justice was punishment and that was all it could be.  And then I found this wonderful book about South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Wikipedia gives some helpful information here, but I think it is most beautifully described in these two quotes from the book.  Desmond Tutu writes,

"Here the central concern is not retribution or punishment.  In the spirit of ubuntu, the central concern is the healing of breaches, the redressing of imbalances, the restoration of broken relationships, a seeing to rehabilitate both the victim and the perpetrator, who should be given the opportunity to be reintegrated into the community he has injured by his offense." 

He later quotes Marietta Jaeger whose daughter had been killed and kidnapped,

"...I had finally come to believe that real justice is not punishment but restoration, not necessarily to how things used to be, but to how they really should be."

Justice doesn't have to be just about punishment.  Justice can be about healing, and restoration, and reintegration.  Somehow, justice doesn't seem so harsh anymore. Is restorative justice easy? Definitely not.  But it has the potential to heal all parties involved in ways that punitive justice cannot.