The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Mark Haddon. Only a matter of a few hours to read, but lovely and touching (and quirky and suprising and interesting).
Calling all knitting geeks
Knitter’s Symbols Fonts by David Xenakis are totally cool.
Reluctant Saint: The Life of Francis of Assisi
Donald Spoto. Very interesting to read a current biography of St. Francis. The book is a little odd–Spoto capitalizes all the references to God (Who created us, Who sustains us, etc.) and he also has these little interludes where he theologizes under the guise of suggesting things like “What kind of a God did Francis believe in?” There are several great nuggets in these sections.
Similarly, the less we consider the particulars of our social, cultural and (at least in the broadest sense of the word) spiritual roots, the more easily do we fall into the trap of considering ourselves and everyone else as some kind of mythic “human standard issue.” The particulars of time and place always matter; more to the point, faith in God means that God continues to disclose Himself in the particulars of our time, our life, our circumstances. In this regard, one of the glories of medieval Christian spirituality was its conviction that God was God for them–that is, the confidence that God had not fallen silent, had not ceased to play a role in history. A God Who is distant and univolved, or Who once spoke and acted but has ceased to do so, is not God but a fragment and figment of an impoverished imagination.
“Traditional Christian Marriage”
Christian Century reports on page 7 of its Sept. 20, 2003, issue on an editorial from the August 16 Los Angeles Times:
The actions taken by the New Hampshire Episcopalians are an affront to Christians everywhere. I am just thankful that the church’s founder, [Henry VIII], and his wife Catherine of Aragon, his wife Anne Boleyn, his wife Jane Seymour, his wife Anne of Cleves, his wife Catherine Howard and his wife Catherine Parr are no longer here to suffer through this assault on our “traditional Christian marriage.”
Way to go, LA Times! (It’s on their website, but you have to pay to get the full text.)
Banned Books Week
Crossroads of Twilight
Robert Jordan. Book Ten of the series. This one is better than the last few. There are some nice plot twists, and amazingly enough there’s even some character development. I’m once again looking forward to reading the next one.
Martin Kelley, Ranter
Martin runs the Nonviolence Web and works for Friends General Conference. I originally met him through my friend Barbara and New Society Publishers. He has a blog that includes writings on Quakerism. Here’s a great post: The Younger Evangelicals and the Younger Quakers
Unfortunately most Friends in leadership positions don’t really understand the problems facing Quakerism. Well, that’s not true: they do, but they don’t understand the larger shifts behind them and think that they just need to redouble their efforts using the old methods and models. The Baby Boom generation in charge knows the challenge is to reach out to seekers in their twenties or thirties, but they do this by developing programs that would have appealed to them when they were that age. The current crop of outreach projects and peace initiatives are all very 1980 in style. There’s no recognition that the secular peace community that drew seekers in twenty years ago no longer exists and that today’s seekers are looking for something deeper, something more personal and more real.
The state of critical reviewing
Poets & Writers Magazine has a great article on literary criticism.
Clearly, critics and authors share a deep desire to maintain a culture that values reading and writing. “In the best of all possible worlds,” says Caldwell, “we’re all on the same side–toward the greater good of the novel or the cultural dialogue, or whatever you want to call it. “And while, as many admit, they sometimes fall short, critics, like all writers, seem to take their vocation seriously.
News & Features | Map it!
Very funny writing from the Boston Phoenix. (That is, if, like the author, you pay attention to where you are, where you came from, and where you’re going.)