Book Reviews

My Baptism Book Sophie Piper and Dubravka Kolanovic

I love baptisms. I love baptizing someone and watching the water drip down their forehead and sometimes their face. I love seeing someone be baptized and saying the baptismal promises out loud with all those witnessing the baptism. I love seeing pictures of people’s baptisms.

Four years ago, I was watched as my Dad baptized my niece, Ella Marie. I participated in her baptism by making promises as one of her godmothers. It is a very special memory for me. One of the gifts we gave her is her own copy of My Baptism Book. This is my favorite baptism gift. On these pages you’ll find Scripture readings in kid-friendly language, prayers and wise words from our ancestors in the faith and wise people of today. You’ll see beautiful artwork. You’ll read many names for God. Whatever your age, this book will remind you that you are a beloved child of God. I highly recommend this book as a gift for others and a gift for yourself.

A Song to Sing, A Life to Live: Reflections on Music as Spiritual Practice

Don Saliers and Emily Saliers

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I purchased this book years ago at the recommendation of a dear friend. She knew I love the Indigo Girls and thought I’d enjoy a book co-written by one of them. She was correct. This book seeks to break down the barriers between Saturday night (secular) music and Sunday morning (sacred) music. Emily represents the Saturday night side and Don (her father) represents the Sunday morning side because he is an organist, choirmaster, and professor of theology and worship. While it might seem that their musical styles are at odds, there are so many intersections and places of harmony found in their shared love of music. I enjoyed this book because I love music, and I strongly believe we need to break down the barriers between what is sacred and what is secular. Because God is everywhere and working in us all, everything can be sacred and everyone is a beloved child of God.

In this book, they tackle the difficult issue of music in churches. Their answer to the music wars (happening still in too many churches) is to listen to each other and be open to what you might hear in music you don’t yet appreciate.

Chapter 7, “Singing Our Sorrows” was my favorite chapter. Using music when one is grieving is a way to express one’s feelings when words often fail. I recommend the practice of planning one’s own funeral. Also, I recommend family members doing, saying, and singing what is meaningful to them when a loved one has died. A gift to me was hearing the backstory on songs I love. In this chapter, Emily talked about writing “She’s Saving Me” after her sister died. Without knowing this story, I have found this song comforting while grieving the death of a friend (and fellow Indigo Girls fan).

As I read this book, I was reminded of how music speaks to me and reminds me of times, places, and people I love. I must admit that I resonated with the songs they shared. I loved that I knew the hymns they mentioned and the Indigo Girls songs shared. For me, all of these songs are part of the songs of my life. Because so many of the songs were familiar, I may have enjoyed the book more than others might.

I recommend this book to anyone who likes to think deeply about music. I recommend this book to everyone who loves the Indigo Girls. I recommend this book to anyone who sees a divide between sacred music and secular music. This book will challenge that view.

Who are they writing for? “This book is for anyone who once took piano lessons and wishes now they hadn’t quit. It is for those who sing with their communities of faith but who are confused by secular music, and it is for those outside faith communities who wonder whether there is anything true in the songs of organized faith traditions. It is also for anyone who has sung around a campfire, tried to play the French horn, or been captivated by African or Asian drumming. This book is our yes to your musical memories and to your musical future. We offer it as an invitation to embrace a broader, deeper vision of the power and role of music in human life–and especially to embrace the spiritual and religious dimensions of attentive listening, collaborative music making, and honest thinking” (xvi).

“Music, we keep saying, is some kind of mysterious mediator between us and the God we seek” (5).
“Even some who have read the Bible all their lives are surprised to learn that there are more psalms of lament than any other kind of psalms, including those that offer thanks and praise to God. Perhaps we aren’t ready to notice them before we need them. The psalms of lament seem to lie in wait for us, ready to provide language when we are visited by pain and suffering” (125).

If this inspired you to check out the Indigo Girls, here is their song, “She’s Saving Me“.

Today’s photo was taken in the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress. I enjoy reading in beautiful places like this. I highly recommend visiting the Library of Congress and its Main Reading Room the next time you are in DC. Visiting the library is free and available to anyone. It is free to visit the reading rooms after you obtain a reader identification card.

Jesus is the Question: The 307 Questions Jesus Asked and the 3 He Answered Martin B. Copenhaver

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Most days, I am so thankful that my faith isn’t an easy answer faith. I don’t believe that if a happens then I need to do b. In my life, when a happens, I ponder and pray about the appropriate reaction, I consult my faith family, I read the Scriptures, and then discern whether b, c, or d are the correct course of action. Sometimes it takes longer to make a decision. I am included in the process of partnering with God and my faith community to see where God is leading me. Now on really rough days for just a few minutes, I covet a faith that has answers to every question. These times doesn’t last long. I am grateful to understand that God welcomes our questions, our concerns, our praises, our laments, and our anger.

“Easy answers can give us a sense of finality. By entertaining questions God has a chance to change us. Answers can be offered as a conclusion. Questions are an invitation to further reflection. For the most part, answers close and questions open” (20).

This book is not a book of easy answers because Jesus didn’t give us easy answers. Jesus asks 307 different questions in the Gospels. He is asked 183 questions (16). I’m thankful that someone else counted up these questions for us to let us know that Jesus asked almost twice as many questions as he was asked.

My sister sent me this picture recently. Her daughter has recently turned four and questions everything. While parents and others may tire of constant questions, questions are vital for learning. Maybe Jesus is asking us to channel our inner four-year old and ask more questions.

How does Jesus teach us? Questions and parables are two of Jesus’ favorite methods of communication. Both of these methods have in common that they are not direct answers. They are asking the listener to participate in this process of understanding. “The goal is not to communicate knowledge but to elicit new understanding in the listener. Information is not the goal. Transformation is” (20).

Jesus asks questions about longing, compassion, identity, faith, doubt, worry, the reach of love, and healing. And finally, in Chapter 9, we read about the questions Jesus answers. The book says that Jesus only answers 3 questions and that is because the author believes that Jesus directly answers only 3 questions. The following 8 are answers that Jesus gave, but they don’t always directly answer the question he was asked. Jesus tells us how many times we must forgive (Matthew 18:21-22), when a husband may divorce his wife (Matthew 19: 3-9),  what we must do to have eternal life (Matthew 19: 16-22), what is the greatest commandment (Mark 12: 28-34), why the disciples are unable to heal someone (Matthew 17: 14-21), where they will eat the Last Supper (Mark 14:12-16), who will betray him (John 13:21-30), and after many times not answering Jesus finally tells us who is (John 18:33-38).

Who is Jesus? Who do people say that I am? Who do you say that I am? These two questions are so similar and yet so different. The first one requires no commitment. The second one comes from the heart if we follow Jesus (Chapter 10). A Question from the Cross is a great look at what it means to have a Savior who asked, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” is the focus of Chapter 11. Chapter 12 finishes the questions with questions from the Risen Christ.

The book ends with a long list of questions in Chapter 13. The author encourages you to read them without thinking about the context or looking up the context. What are these questions that Jesus asks?
This book was recommended to me by a dear friend. She read this book and enjoyed it so much that she used it as a book study at her church. After reading the book, I would love to do the same. This book is easy to read and challenging in the way it makes you think. I would highly recommend this book to everyone who wants to grow a bit in their faith. I’d recommend it for individual reading as well as part of a book study. You should read this book!

Eating and Drinking Elizabeth T. Groppe

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This book is a part of a series by Fortress Press called Compass: Christian Explorations of Daily Life. This book is divided into three sections. Section 1 is a look at eating and drinking in 21^st Century America. Section 2 is a “Christian theological vision of eating and drinking” (4). And section 3 helps us make sense of the first two sections by reflecting on how we as Christians can eat and drink in ways that are more in tune with our faith.

In section one, she eats like a “typical American” for a day. She has coffee, serves her son a sugary breakfast cereal, a banana for a mid-morning snack, a fast food lunch, chocolate as an afternoon snack, and a dinner of frozen French fries and chicken nuggets. As she eats this foods, she describes the history of each food and how it comes to be in our grocery stores and homes today. I appreciated how she combined history and current farming practice to give us a full picture of how the food we eat is produced.

In section two, she utilizes the work of theologians and our sacred text to contemplate our relationship to food. She begins by exploring the two creation stories and then moves on to Adam and Eve in the garden. I found this thought about their sin to be thought provoking, “We transgress not because we desire things that are evil, but because our desire for lesser goods eclipses our desires for God” (49). What is it we value too much? How might we value God more? Did Adam and Eve’s fruit eating mark the moment when humans first became consumers? (49-50). We continue our journey through the Bible with the stories of Noah, Abraham and Sarah, and surviving in the wilderness. She reminds us of the biblical mandates to care for those who are hungry and to live in harmony with creation and with the plants and animals who also call creation home. Using miraculous stories of feeding and the story of the last supper, we are reminded that eating was important to Jesus.

Section three opens with my favorite Scripture, Luke 24, where the risen Christ is recognized at table in the familiar act of breaking bread. She takes this story and pushes it back at us asking if the disciples would recognize Jesus today in the meals we eat? In this section, she opens our eyes to ways that our ancestors in the faith have been faithful in eating. She discusses fasting as a way to be more connected with so many who lack food and a way to think about eating more spiritually. She reminds us to offer a blessing before eating food and to ponder if we can ask God for a blessing on our food if the food was not grown and harvested in a way that is compassionate for the animals, soil, or workers? She asks us to start or continue to share the bread we have with others who are hungry. We can have more involvement in our own food by working to turn our national swords into plowshares. In a few pages entitled “Feasting”, she shares the story of how she made new friends by sitting down and eating a meal with them. Her book ends with a reminder to give thanks to the Creator who gave us life. “To give thanks is to receive without grasping, to eat without consuming, to taste without transgressing, and to live in the awareness that both the bread on our tables and the food and drink on the altar are unmerited gifts of the God who is love” (112).

I apologize for not posting an image of this book. I read it in the Virginia Theological Seminary Library and forgot to snap a picture before I left the library. Augsburg Press has more information and a picture too!

Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs Tomie dePaola

In this true story from the author’s childhood, he shares his memories of his great grandmother and his grandparents. When he is still young Nana Upstairs (his great grandma) dies. The book deals with death of a loved one in a faithful and realistic way for a young child. While the book doesn’t address life after death, it does talk about how Nana Upstairs will not be physically here although she will live on in his memories.

The topics of death and grief are hard for us to discuss at any age. Despite the difficulty and range of emotions surrounding death and grief, these are topics we must be thinking and talking about throughout our whole life. I recommend this book for a child whose loved one has died or a child grieving loss. I recommend this book as a way to begin or continue a conversation about death, grief, and loss. Because this book is a loving tribute to his elders, I recommend this book for people of any age who have fond memories of their grandparents.

This is my 100th post. Thanks for reading through my first 100 and looking forward to continuing the conversation with you for many 100s more!

Beginner’s Grace: Bringing Prayer into Your Life Kate Braestrup

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In my professional life, I’ve been asked countless questions on prayer. My answers begin with just talk to God and get more complex as the questions continue. I’m always looking for great books on prayer to share. This book caught my attention because it is about prayer and written by Kate Braestrup whose books I have enjoyed.

This book looks at prayers for different times and circumstances in our lives. This book explores the prayers of many faiths and traditions although the majority of the prayers are Christian or Jewish in origin. And here is what she says about prayer, “What prayer, at its best and at our best, has always done is help us to live consciously, honorably, and compassionately” (9). Although plenty of prayers are found within these pages, it is not simply a reference book of prayers. Here you will find stories that will make you laugh and cry and wonder and you’ll want to pray along with everyone whose stories fill these pages.

One of my favorite chapters was “Considering the Grace That Saves.” This chapter calls us to be attentive to each other. I need to constantly be reminded that everyone I meet is a child of God. I need to look people in the eye and really see them.

I would highly recommend this book for anyone who struggles with prayer. I hope this will provide you with a new perspective on times and places and ways to pray. I recommend this book for people who love to pray and love to read about prayer. It is an easily accessible read for all.

“If as my husband defines it, disappointment is the feeling you get when reality doesn’t meet your expectations, gratitude is the feeling you get when reality exceeds your expectations. The truly rational, realistic person should feel overwhelmingly grateful all the time” (21). I have never been called a “truly rational, realistic person” and yet, I hope this statement serves as a reminder to me that there is so much for which I need to be grateful.

“But prayer, like the Sabbath, was made for the human, not the human for prayer” (155). This is a new perspective I had not pondered.

And I love this quote so much that I also mentioned it as it was used in her other book I reviewed, “Fill in the blank. Nothing matters more than _________. When you have filled in the blank, you will have given yourself a functional definition of God” (159).

In the midst of her chapter, “Singing your Prayers”, she shares this thought. “ ‘And the soul felt its worth,’ Father Boyle repeated, and wondered aloud whether any of us might, like Christ, somehow be able to offer our neighbor such love that her soul feels its worth. Maybe our faces should serve as loving mirrors, capable of revealing to a neighbor how good and beautiful she really is. Ever since hearing Father Boyle speak on the radio, I have considered “O Holy Night” to be a prayer” (164).

She begins her public prayers by saying, “Join me, as you will, in the spirit of prayer” (182). I found this an inviting and welcoming prayer invitation for people wherever they are on their journeys.

A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel Bradley Jersak

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When I selected this book, I hoped to read how the life of Jesus revealed God to us. Instead, the focus was on the death of Jesus. I had hoped for more about how Jesus’ ministry was life-giving for those he encountered, how Jesus saw ones who others ignored, etc. This book presented the death of Jesus as how we can more accurately see/know God. For this reason, I struggled to read this book. Because of his focus on the cross and our very different experiences with the church, this book did not resonate with me. I wanted to love it. I did love the second telling of “The Beautiful Gospel” beginning on page 280. He uses Scripture and modern story to illustrate how no matter what we do, God always turns toward us. It was an inspiring end to the book.

One goal of this book was to present a systematic theology that was accessible for the average reader. I think that was achieved. When he uses words that are more technical or words have a variety of meanings, he includes the definition that he is using. I found this to be very helpful as I read the book and imagine other readers would as well.

I did not understand the choice of language used for God in this book. On page 3, the author discusses the problem with using pronouns for God. “Even using the simple pronoun ‘he’ for God is awkward and inaccurate. I will use it, but when I do, I tend to cringe. God is not a ‘him’ or ‘her.’” (3). This made me cringe throughout the book. I wonder why he acknowledged this difficulty if he wasn’t going to change his language. His answer seemed to be I don’t like to call God he, but I’m going to do it anyway. This disappointed me.

My excitement for this book was because I hoped he would share my understanding that the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are God incarnate. While I do not attempt to explain and understand God completely, a good portion of what I know to be true about God is because of the ministry of Jesus. I also see God revealed through prophets and apostles. One tension for me has always been how to believe in Jesus without becoming a supersessionist. (This is the idea that Christ as the new covenant has replaced or superseded God’s covenant with the Israelites. If taken far enough, it means that Christians are the chosen people and the Jews are not because they haven’t accepted Christ as the new covenant). I am not a supersessionist and try hard to make that clear in the language I use. Here is one section that concerned me, “We read in John 1:17 that Moses gave us the Law (a system of rewards and punishments), but Christ brought us grace and truth. We read in 2 Corinthians 3:9 that Moses’ covenant brought condemnation but Jesus’ covenant brings righteousness, true freedom and transformation. What’s happening here? Rather than replacing Yahweh of the Old Testament with the Christ of the New, these authors emphasize that Moses’ revelation of God as the just Judge (the law-bringer) is being eclipsed as Jesus’ greater revelation of God the loving Father (the gospel-giver)” (75).

I would recommend this book for anyone who doesn’t know that God is love. This might be a first step on your journey to seeing God in a new light.

I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR,Part 255.

#SpeakeasyAMoreChristlikeGod

Children of God Storybook Bible Archbishop Desmond Tutu

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There are so many things to love about this book. The amazing artwork by 20 talented artists from around the world brings the diversity of God’s creation to life in these pages. The words selected to tell the sacred stories are beautiful and perfect for children, youth, and adults. My only complaint is the lack of inclusive language for God. With all the other diversity and inclusivity, why not be creative in describing and naming God too? This can be remedied by using different pronouns or your preferred name for God while reading it aloud. If children are reading it silently, a conversation or two about names of and for God can be helpful.

I highly recommend everyone read this book. Most people can read it in a very short amount of time. Or you may decide to savor it and read only one story per day. Either way, you need to read this book.

I love the words used for the Beatitudes on page 76.

“Blessed are you who feed the poor, for you are the hands of God.

Blessed are you who comfort the sad, for you are the arms of God.

Blessed are you who work for peace, for you are the voice of God.

Blessed are you who are loving and kind, for you are the heart of God” (76).