Finished reading (2009): The Winter Sun: Notes on a Vocation by Fanny Howe 📚

A thoughtfull work of journalistic essays. Stunning at times; always mystifying.

Reflecting on a retreat with the Dalai Lama:

“The buzz of the helicopter reminded us all of the war outside the walls of the monastery. And as usual, I was distressed by the assumption that the only way to come face to face with the truth is by fasting, meditating, practicing compassion and altruism, and entering a cell. Isn’t it possible that those are conscious disciplines for a few people that most others suffer in the course of an ordinary day: being hungry, getting high, crying out to God, being lonely, fair, generous, and full of pity for others?”

Finished reading (2021): Small Wonder: Essays by Barbara Kingsolver 📚

Been picking at this one for well over a year now. I’d like to think that this book is a good indicator for how much I have changed. Fifteen years ago, I could not, even just dispositionally, have read this collection—or had any interest in it, at least. Now, I think these essays are just dandy. 🤓

I’ve never read any of her fiction, but here Kingsolver writes with the heart of Wendell Berry. (She may even say as much.) It’s the sort of thing I wish came to people’s minds when they heard the word “conservative”: to live simply, deeply, and to conserve and consciously nurture what is good. And for me, there was also a line from Chesterton that came to mind almost every time I picked up the book, from his essay “A Sense of Proportion”:

“They say it is Utopian; and they are right. They say it is idealistic; and they are right. They say it is quixotic; and they are right. It deserves every name that will indicate how completely they have driven justice out of the world; every name that will measure how remote from them and their sort is the standard of honourable living; every name that will emphasise and repeat the fact that property and liberty are sundered from them and theirs, by an abyss between heaven and hell."

Finished reading (2021): Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver by Mary Oliver 📚

I don’t know a poet who was ever easier to pick up and enjoy, without fail, every time. And yet she also never fails to confront some part of your ego or to call you out for sleeping-walking through life. I’ll probably just start reading it over again.

But now we learn, as season followed season
And no one plants upon these hills,
How poor a gift is freedom to the spirit
That loved the labor.

Finished reading (2021): Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation by Jonathan Lear 📚

A fascinating and easily readable philosophical look into cultural vulnerability. It’s hard to imagine this book being irrelevant for anyone. Lear asks what it might mean to really listen and take seriously the experience of an end to a history for a people like the Crow—and for them to have hope nonetheless.

“It is one thing to dance as though nothing has happened; it is another to acknowledge that something singularly awful has happened—the collapse of happenings—and then decide to dance.”

Finished reading (2021): Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine by Alan Lightman 📚

Not as deeply thoughtful as I had hoped. In fact, Lightman’s reflections are often quite simplistic. But, as someone who has also spent a good amount of time looking up at the stars in Maine, I sympathize with the sentiment of the book. Ultimately, I think he asks the exact right question in an early chapter: “Do I know too much, or too little?”

Finished reading (2021): Evangelical Anxiety: A Memoir by Charles Marsh 📚

I’m too lazy to figure out all the reasons why, but reading this felt a lot like reading Stanley Hauerwas’s memoir, Hannah’s Child —I loved reading both, but I also found them strangly… conceited. In many places throughout Marsh’s book, there is a real quality of openness and honesty. But his honesty often seems more self-indulgant than vulnerable. Having grown up an anxious evangelical myself, I really wanted to relate deeply, but I’m afraid the book is geared toward (and from) something stereotypical like, oh, philosophy majors and professors of literature—not because it’s too heavy on philosophy or literature; the book is front-to-back beautifully and accessibly written. But there’s something about the air of it that, if nothing else, didn’t leave me with any desire to recommend it, nor, more importantly, to learn from it. I liked reading it, and there are points of depth and insight, but there isn’t much I will ultimately take to heart.

Finished reading (2021): The Dangers of Christian Practice by Lauren F. Winner 📚

A depth of honesty missing in almost every corner of theology and practice.

“This is a call for a kind of account—an account that speaks of the flaws and damages that we know to be inherent in the beautiful things with which we surround ourselves (or, better, the beautiful gifts with which God has seen fit to surround us).”

Finished reading (2021): The Emigrants by W. G. Sebald 📚

A piercing look into carried history. Finishing Sebald is always like waking up from a dream—whether dark or splendid I’m never sure.

Finished reading (2021): Bonhoeffer’s Religionless Christianity in Its Christological Context by Peter Hooton 📚

As expected, this did not disappoint. I don’t remember the last time a book on theology so thoroughly resonated with me. Though it remains limited in definition and shape, I have to think that there is an abundant, and growing, number of people, especially those in the current “deconstruction” movement, hungry for exactly what Bonhoeffer had in mind, to which Hooton has done diligent justice. I will definitely have more to say.

Currently Reading: Bonhoeffer’s Religionless Christianity in Its Christological Context by Peter Hooton 📚

I am beyond excited for this. As I wrote here, Bonhoeffer’s “religionless Christianity”—though mostly undefined and unfortunately titled—is pretty much where I’m at, but few seem to write faithfully about it. I have a good feeling about this one.