“Faithful Unto Death”

A Review of 118 Days:
Christian Peacemaker Teams
Held Hostage in Iraq,
edited by Tricia Gates Brown.

By Chris Smith.

118 Days: Christian Peacemaker Teams
Held Hostage in Iraq.
Tricia Gates Brown, editor.
Paperback. CPT. 2008.
Buy now from: [ CPT $15] [ Amazon ]

For twenty years now, the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) have been calling the Church to be more intentional in bearing witness to the peace of Christ in some of the worst conflict situations of the modern world.  In recent years, their work has focused primarily on the conflict regions of Iraq, Palestine and Colombia.  Stories of their work have been recorded in books like Shane Claiborne’s Iraq Journal 2003, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove’s To Baghdad and Beyond and Getting in the Way, a collection of essays edited by Tricia Gates-Brown.  Since October 2002, CPT has been working in Iraq, befriending the Iraqi people, praying for peace and documenting human rights abuses.  On November 26, 2005, two CPT members (Tom Fox and Jim Loney) and two CPT-associated peace advocates (Norman Kember and Harmeet Sooden) were kidnapped in Baghdad, a story that was thrust into the spotlight of world news for many subsequent weeks.  The story of this kidnapping has now been captured in a new book 118 Days: Christian Peacemaker Teams Held Hostage in Iraq.

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The bread-n-butter of our bookstore business is the sale of used books, and we do a fair amount of scouting around for used books each week. In this section we feature some of the interesting books that we have found in the past week. Generally, we will only have a single copy of these books, so if you want one (or more) of them, you’ll need to respond quickly.

Creative Ministry.
Henri Nouwen. Hardcover. Doubleday. 1971.
Very Good condition. Clean pages, moderate wear.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $7]

Stories For the Christian Year.
The Chrysostom Society.
(includes stories by Madeleine L’Engle, Eugene Peterson, et al)
Hardcover. Macmillan. 1992.
Good Condition. X-library copy. Clean pages, moderate wear.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $5 ]

A Poet’s Bible:
Rediscovering the Voices of the Original Text.
David Rosenberg.
Paperback. Hyperion. 1991.
Very Good Condition. Clean pages, minimal wear.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $5 ]

There’s a certain slant of light

There’s a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.

None may teach it anything,
‘ Tis the seal, despair, —
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, ’tis like the distance
On the look of death.

The New York Times review of Tom Vanderbilt’s
Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do
(And What It Says About Us).

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/books/review/Roach-t.html

“Traffic jams are not, by and large, caused by flaws in road design but by flaws in human nature. While this is bad news for drivers — there’s not much to be done about human nature — it is good news for readers of Tom Vanderbilt’s new book. “Traffic” is not a dry examination of highway engineering; it’s a surprising, enlightening look at the psychology of human beings behind the steering wheels.

An alternate title for the book might be “Idiots.” Vanderbilt, who writes regularly about design and technology, cites a finding that 12.7 percent of the traffic slowdown after a crash has nothing to do with wreckage blocking lanes; it’s caused by gawkers. Rubberneckers attend to the spectacle so avidly that they themselves then get into accidents, slamming into the car in front of them when it brakes to get a better look or dig out a cellphone to take a picture. (This happens often enough for traffic types to have coined a word for it: “digi-necking.”) Exasperated highway professionals have actually tried erecting anti-rubbernecking screens around the scenes of accidents, but the vehicle toting the screen typically gets caught in the traffic jam it’s meant to prevent.

…”

Read the full review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/books/review/Roach-t.html

Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do
(And What It Says About Us).
Tom Vanderbilt.
Hardcover. Knopf. 2008.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $20 ] [ Amazon ]

“Libraries seem to specialize in hard chairs, reminding me of hard-backed pews. Libraries are too quiet, too linear, too predictable, and there’s no coffee or food. They’re not open late, either. Traditional libraries are stiff and institutional, they have sterile architecture, and the chairs are uncomfortable—just like a lot of churches.

The fundamental difference lies in their philosophy of space. Libraries and churches often think functionally, rather than environmentally. They design themselves for information, rather than experience.

Like libraries, most churches are institutions of modernity and are based on how we thought people learned. … “

Read the full excerpt:
http://www.emergentvillage.com/weblog/unlearning-church-engaging-the-whole-person 

Unlearning Church.
Michael Slaughter.
Paperback. Abingdon. 2008.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $14] [ Amazon ]

“Whenever I read Steven Millhauser, I dream either about visiting the dollhouse museum on the outskirts of Niagara Falls (my family visited it when I was eleven) or about arriving early for a dinner party at Steven Millhauser’s house. But the two sets of dreams are so alike that, on waking, I never remember which place I visited in my sleep: the dollhouse museum or Steven Millhauser’s house.

In fact, the plot of these dreams never varies. I walk—with an odd gait, like that of a nightgown-clad ballerina stage-snooping—through a house. I never cross paths with anyone, not a jointed doll or a nimbler Millhauser. But, without fail, I come across a cast-off library card-catalogue, its drawers filled with oddments: pince-nez, lumps of coal salvaged from melting snowmen’s grins, bottle caps, photo corners. In the basement, I find a collection of comic books and Nabokov novels, ordered according to which color matters most to the story.

These dreams outdo ordinary life for vividness.

As do Steven Millhauser’s stories. Including the stories that make up his most recent collection of fictions, Dangerous Laughter.  …”

Read the full review:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/books/features/bookwk/080825.html

Steven Millhauser.
Dangerous Laughter.
Hardcover. Knopf. 2008.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $19 ] [ Amazon ]

Register now

for the

Godspeed the Plough! conference

http://englewoodcc.com/plough/

Nov 7-8

Indianapolis

Keynote speaker:

Ragan Sutterfield (Blog here)

BONUS: The 1st 100 paid registrations will receive
a free copy of Ragan’s booklet “God’s Grandeur”

FACEBOOK USERS: There is now a Facebook event announcement.

“The God who is Home”

A Review of Beyond Homelessness,
by Steven Bouma-Prediger and Brian Walsh.

By Laretta Benjamin.

Beyond Homelessness:
Christian Faith in a Culture of Discplacement.
Steven Bouma-Prediger and Brian Walsh.
Paperback. Eerdmans. 2008.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $22 ] [ Amazon ]

Wow! Never have I been more surprised by a book. Expecting a fairly typical essay on the many causes and struggles of homelessness in our culture, I was blown away by the very insightful – and most importantly, Scriptural – treatment of the subject. My definition and view of homelessness has been shattered as a result of reading this book. It feels like someone has flung open all the doors and windows in my understanding of “home”. So many times when we tackle a difficult subject in conversation or writing, there’s the feeling that “there’s just something we’re missing”. I think this book offers the “something we’re missing” when it comes to discussing homelessness.

Home . . . belonging, recognition, acceptance, safety, refuge, security, shared memory and story, connectedness, lasting relationship, identity, order, direction, rootedness, permanence, hospitality (there are windows and doors, right?). These are just a few of the mental images used by the authors to draw us into a view and perspective on “home” that few of us hold and even fewer actually experience. For many people, home has meant disrespect, estrangement, disorientation, transience, fear, forgetfulness, violence, alienation, and meaninglessness. The “street-people” brand of homelessness we experience in every large city in our nation is easy to see. The homelessness experienced by so many others in our culture, despite their being surrounded by four walls, a roof over their heads, and every physical comfort known to man, is a little harder to identify until we take the time to look deeply into Scripture and God’s purposes in creation and redemption. Homelessness takes many forms: socioeconomic, cultural and ecological. In a culture such as ours, where displacement – disconnectedness and rootlessness – are the order of the day, homelessness abounds in many ways.

The authors lead us to the incredible “home-making” God we serve, taking us through the story of Scripture and God’s working throughout history. We are faced with the basic truth that we are all homeless and there is only one true “home”. We are all invited to the “homecoming” – to enter the Shalom of God. “At the heart of the Christian gospel is the message that we all are homeless, but that there is a home in which our yearning hearts can and will find rest. That home is creation redeemed and transfigured, a place of grace that is inhabited by an indwelling God of unfathomable love. The Christian gospel, in other words, is a grand story of redemptive homecoming that is at the same time grateful homemaking.” (p. 320)

Thank you to Steven Bouma-Prediger and Brian Walsh for thinking and caring deeply enough about this issue to search the Scriptures and to seek out the mind and heart of God in the midst of it. They have truly taken us “beyond homelessness” to the bigger picture and to the God who is HOME.

The bread-n-butter of our bookstore business is the sale of used books, and we do a fair amount of scouting around for used books each week. In this section we feature some of the interesting books that we have found in the past week. Generally, we will only have a single copy of these books, so if you want one (or more) of them, you’ll need to respond quickly.

Unmasking The Powers (Vol. 2 in the Powers series)
Walter Wink. Paperback. Fortress. 1986.
Good Condition. Mostly clean pages, moderate wear.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $7]

The Tax Dilemma:
Praying for Peace, Paying for War.
Donald Kaufman.
Paperback Herald Press. 1978.
Very Good Condition. Clean pages, minimal wear.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $5 ]

Behold the Beauty of the Lord:
Praying with Icons.
Henri Nouwen.
Paperback. Ave Maria Press. 1996 printing.
Very Good Condition. Clean pages, minimal wear.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $5 ]

THOU SHALT NOT KILL

I had grown weary of him; of his breath

And hands and features I was sick to death.

Each day I heard the same dull voice and tread;

I did not hate him: but I wished him dead.

And he must with his blank face fill my life--

Then my brain blackened; and I snatched a knife.

But ere I struck, my soul's grey deserts through

A voice cried, 'Know at least what thing you do.'

'This is a common man: knowest thou, O soul,

What this thing is? somewhere where seasons roll

There is some living thing for whom this man

Is as seven heavens girt into a span,

For some one soul you take the world away--

Now know you well your deed and purpose. Slay!'

Then I cast down the knife upon the ground

And saw that mean man for one moment crowned.

I turned and laughed: for there was no one by--

The man that I had sought to slay was I.

A Brief Review of Jim Forest’s
Praying with Icons
by Brent Aldrich

Orbis Books has just released a new, expanded edition of Jim Forest’s book Praying With Icons, in which Forest describes icons as “bridges to Christ, as links with the saints, as reminders of pivotal events in the history of salvation.” Forest is a convert to the Russian Orthodox Church, and presents here the history, technique and stories of icons.

Much of the text in the book’s first part “In the Image of God” describes the history of icon painting and the necessary spiritual and technical disciplines involved in that work. This information is of the sort contained in almost any book collection of icon reproductions, from both faith-based and secular historians, and this part of the book will be familiar to anyone who has read about (or prayed with) icons before.

The second section, “Prayer,” involves much that relates specifically to the Orthodox liturgy and sacraments, although most of the content here is universal for any church tradtion. What I found interesting, coming from a tradition that is not at all Orthodox, is the incorporation of the body in prayer, to affirm the “physical reality of Jesus Christ.” Included in the back of the book are several traditional prayers for evening, morning, peace and intercession to use in developing a rule of prayer.

What distinguishes Forest’s book from others on icons are the collections of stories about Christ and the saints, and their associated icons in the book’s final three sections. For all the different forms of icons of Christ, for example, all have specific stories, theology, colors and shapes associated with them. The same is true for icons of all the saints. The practice of icon painting has been passed down through the church and has developed structures which are invoked with every new painting, giving to icons both a rich tradition and a sacramental quality. The creation of icons, as well as their veneration, are acts of remembering stories of faithfulness, of retelling the life of Christ and the early church and of recognizing the saints who have gone before.

Icons have preserved history in light of the church since shortly after the era of Christ; these are the stories that Praying With Icons recounts in word and excellent color reproductions, and these stories are ones we should remember and ones to which we should submit ourselves daily.

Jim Forest.
Praying with Icons. Revised and Expanded Edition.
Paperback. Orbis Books. 2008.
Buy Now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $17 ] [ Amazon ]

A Brief Review of Modern Spiritual Masters
Edited by Robert Ellsberg

by Chris Smith

Modern Spiritual Masters is an excellent collection of portraits of those faith leaders of the twentieth century whose lives embodied both compassionate action and careful reflection. Such a balance is a rare gift, and stories of this kind of faithfulness deserve to be collected and passed on in a volume such as this one. Each person represented here is described in a brief biography and then his/her story is fleshed out through representative excerpts from his/her writings. Modern Spiritual Masters would be an excellent volume to use with high school or college students in teaching the recent history of our ancestors in the way of Christ. There is great diversity represented in this collection: a balance of males and females and a broad array of ethnicities and locales are represented. There are also many familiar figures represented (Mother Teresa, Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen), as well as some that might not be so well-known (Thea Bowman, Mother Maria Skobtsova). Although I realize that the audience of Orbis Books is largely Catholic, it would have been good to see figures here from a broader range of church traditions – perhaps including people like Eberhard Arnold (Anabaptist) or Clarence Jordan (Evangelical).

To some readers this point might be negligible, but I was a little uncomfortable with the use of the term “masters” to describe these faithful ones. As I read, I wondered: how comfortable would those represented be with the use of such language? Does the use of such an exalted title assist or hinder the communication of the radical way of Christ to which we are all called? (One is reminded in this regard, of Dorothy Day’s quip “Don’t make a saint; I don’t want to be dismissed so easily”) However, regardless of the title’s language, this book is a beneficial collection for the followers of Christ, and its stories can and should be read in a way that encourages us to enter more deeply into the way of Christ that is both contemplative and compassionate.

Robert Ellsberg, ed.
Modern Spiritual Masters.
Paperback. Orbis Books. 2008.
Buy Now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $15 ] [ Amazon ]