While My Nose Was In A Book- part 1

 

Two months since my last post. Maybe it's a good sign that I haven't had too much time to sit and think about things to write blogs about. Maybe its also because my usual place of escape has been the staging area for a big bathroom remodel. Or because I spent half of May taking my virtual learners back and forth from schools and testing centers for state standardized testing and finals. 

Or, maybe because life is starting to resemble a life NOT lived in a pandemic, one vaccine, and one tiptoeing social gathering at a time...two weddings, one of which I had the honor of officiating. Wacky Wednesdays at church, where we throw water balloons, eat popsicles, and wear masks indoors because we love some kiddos with extra risk factors and delicate health situations. A trip up north to use our fourth grader's park pass. An indoor drive-in movie night at church. Prepping for kids' camp. A six week class on Biblical interpretation. 

But also, I guess I've been reading more than I've been writing. Sometimes books with paper that I can scribble notes in and share with friends. Sometimes, actually more than sometimes, books I can listen to on Audible and Libby to make boring tasks like driving and dishes go faster. 

If you're putting together your summer road trip reading list, here's what I've read (that I can remember) since January-ish. 

First, I'd say I've been strangely interested in the Dust Bowl and The Great Depression. Both boys happened to study it in school this year, and suddenly I hated that I didn't know more about this dramatic period of time which shaped my grandparents, and therefore shaped me. There was a strange hopefulness in knowing, in the midst of our current difficult situation, that hard times pass, and that people have lived through much worse than this. It also fostered additional empathy and compassion in the window this gave me into the immigrant experience, even today.

The Great Depression list started with:

1. The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah. This is one of her best. I felt like I knew my Grandma, who would talk about putting wet sheets in the windows and listening to the cries of starving cattle growing up, much better having read it. So much so that I gave the book to my mom for Mother's Day. It made me think about the hard decisions people in hard places have to make and was a reminder to never dehumanize those in marginalized groups. Each of the "Oakies" of the dust bowl had a family and a story...they were just like you or me. 

This led to...

2. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. JUST KIDDING...I tried...about 1/3 of the way through I gave up and me and Daniel watched the movie. But I caught enough to understand the references in "The Ghost of Tom Joad" by Rage Against the Machine.

I then listened to...

3. Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate. I have a favorite, very modern, style of storytelling, in which the author starts at the end, and the beginning, and then works backwards and forwards simultaneously until the stories crash into one another. Kind of a "This Is Us" route. And this was the perfect example. The beginning and end of the story filled me with so many questions that I could not press pause until I saw them wrap their arms around each other. Taking place both in modern day and the 1930's this gave me one more window into the desperate and lean times of the Great Depression, and opened my eyes to pieces of history I previously knew nothing about. Highly recommend, but be prepared, it's rough and maybe especially hard for anyone who's experienced severe childhood trauma. 

I still hadn't had enough of the 1930's I guess because now the boys and I are listening to...

4. The Mighty Miss Malone by Christopher Paul Curtis. It's important to me that my boys experience diversity through reading, and that they have the opportunity to walk a mile in different shoes through the voice of many different storytellers. This book lets them see the world through the eyes of a little black girl about Moses' age, growing up during the Great Depression. It takes place in Gary, Indiana and Flint, Michigan, once again covering some locational history we knew little about. This little girls' passion for education, and her tenacity is truly inspiring and I can't wait to hear how it ends. 

But it hasn't been all historical fiction. I've been really journeying through some weird times in ministry. Nazarene Bible College offers exactly zero courses on Pandemic Children's Ministry 101. But thankfully, I've found some comfort in the books and journeys of faith leaders I admire.

Several of these books have specifically been written by Nazarene church leaders. 

5. Radiant Church by Tara Beth Leech (https://www.ivpress.com/radiant-church) took the air out of my lungs and the words right out of my mouth in a good way. At the time it was written Tara Beth was the pastor of one of the oldest and largest Nazarene Churches, Pasadena First, where as a geriatric millennial (like myself), she was leading through a pandemic, a year of reckoning in the story of racial inequality and unrest in our country, and also perhaps the most polarizing election in American history. As a girl pastor. It was excruciating and people are difficult. But that's not exactly what this book was about. And it wasn't about wishing for the death of the church age or walking away from the institution. It was about a love of the Church, the bride of Christ and a longing to see her live into all she could be. There was a calling out of hatred, nationalistic idolatry, polarization, consumerism, racism, and power grabbing. But it was with the shared burden of a team mate, rallying the tired players just before the final quarter, the tenderness of a mother calling forth the best in her children because she has her eyes on their future, or of a devoted editor jotting notes in red ink because they're just as invested in that story. Tara really took some of the jumbled thoughts inside my head that keep coming out all wrong and spoke so many of my same truths. It was both a fire and a balm and I hope more people read and love it as much as I did. 

6. Way, Truth, Life by David Busic. There's something happening in my denomination. Maybe kind of Renaissance-like. And David Busic, one of our General Superintendents, is stirring that pot with this book, and the focus it's put on discipleship. 

Just a little history as to why this is important-We're a people who claim John Wesley as our theological grandpa. And what Wesley was best known for was his method for making disciples, modeled after the discipleship "methods" of Jesus. Wesley's plans included different types of group meetings focused on forward moving faith. The "small groups" and "life groups" of today are kind of a Cliff's note version of these. He also has caused some stir over his use of the term "entire sanctification." This basically means that God doesn't leave us where he found us. The goal of making disciples isn't butts in pews. We are daily being transformed into the likeness of Christ (the word Christians literally means little Christs), and we should be more like him today than we were yesterday, and more like him tomorrow than we are today. He ultimately wants to free us from the power of sin and inaugurate a new way of kingdom living even right here on earth. 

When I first learned about this it made me realize how complacent we've gotten since the days of Wesley. The goal of the Church in many ways has become to get a lot of people into a building together (and we know how well that went this year...), and then we can rest easy knowing we "got them to church." But then what? Is that the whole thing? This squeezing lots of people into a building for an hour each week? Is this the "journey of grace"? The Christian walk?

This book explains Grace as a person rather than a thing or a destination. Grace does more than give us a ticket to heaven. Grace pursues, seeks out, saves, transforms, and carries us. It's not just where you're going but the road you're on, and I love that reading this is just a start of something.

7. Perfectly Imperfect by David Busic...because apparently David Busic is on a roll and must have had a little time on his hands? Although, this was published in 2014 so who knows what was going on. My Zoom Bible study group has been going through this book, and loving it. It tells the story of quite a few imperfect New Testament characters, and what their lives show us about God and also his plan for us. His slightly humorous storytelling ability pairs well with the lives of these people. It has inspired some treasured conversations with some of my favorite women these past two months. 

There's more...but this is pretty long, and everything fit pretty neatly. So I'll leave it at that and call it part one. Maybe part two will be out tomorrow, maybe in a few weeks. But, if you're making your library or amazon wish list, hopefully this will get you started!

So...what's everyone else reading lately?