#62 - Bible and Sword - Barbara W. Tuchman

Title:   Bible and Sword

Author:  Barbara W. Tuchman

Genre:   Non-fiction 327.420569

Read by:  Wanda McCaddon

Originally Published:   1956

Publisher/Date:  Blackstone Audio/2009

Dates listened to:   9/9/17 – 9/29/17

CDs/Hours: 10/12.5

IBSN:  978-1-4417-0218-0

From the back cover of the CD, “In this acclaimed account, Barbara Tuchman reveals that today’s troubles in the Middle East originated long before the first efforts at founding a modern state of Israel.

“Historically, the British were drawn to the Holy Land by two major influences:  the translation of the Bible into English and, the imperial need to control the road to India and access to Middle East oil.

“With the lucidity and vividness that characterizes her work, Tuchman brings to life the development of these dual motives – the Bible and the sword – in the consciousness of the British people, until they were finally brought together at the end of WWI when the Balfour Declaration of 1917 established a British-sponsored national home for the modern survivors of the people of the Old Testament.”

From the epilogue “…the (Palestine) Mandate (aka the Balfour Declaration) might have had a chance.  Instead, it became a long effort by Britain to escape the consequences that conscience had committed her to.  The original pledge which she soon found was awkward to keep she attempted thereafter to whittle away, to invalidate and at last, desperately weary of the entanglement, to cancel.   The final years were spent in an attempt to stay on in Palestine as mandatory after having repudiated the terms of the mandate, until this position, too, became no longer tenable.  … Does Israel then exist today because of the British or in spite of the British?”

The answer?  Partly both, perhaps, depending upon each historian’s interpretation.

#61 - Dream Mire - Sharman Badgett-Young

Title:  Dream Mire

Author:  Sharman Badgett-Young

Genre:   Fiction

Publisher/Date:  Sharman Badgett-Young/2016

Dates read:   9/3/17 – 9/21/17

IBSN:  9781515337645

Pages:  202

Tiegen Richards, a determined grad student, cannot tell her dreams from waking reality.  Her journal system helps her identify what’s real, but sometimes a dream slips through.  Tiegen likes Geoff, from the UK, but hasn’t detailed her dream disability to him, because her ex-boyfriend labeled her “mental,” just before he dumped her.  

When Tiegen overhears a hate crime being planned, she and Geoff put themselves in danger, gathering evidence to convince the local police to act.  But how can she convince Officer Jessica St. Marie to take the threat seriously, when even Tiegen isn’t quite sure what’s true?

I’m delighted to read another Woodsdale novel by author Sharman Badgett-Young who does her research so thoroughly when writing about subjects of which I know little.  Mental illness, though plaguing Tiegen, hasn’t detracted from her ability to continue her pursuit of college as a grad student nor to have a romantic involvement.  Yes.  There are detours along the way in all parts of her tenuous life.  I love the suspense, too, when Tiegen and Geoff get deeply involved with the criminals.

#60 - You are What You Love - James K. A. Smith

#60

Title:  You Are What You Love

Author:  James K. A. Smith

Genre:   Non-fiction   264.001

Publisher/Date:  Brazos Press/2016

Dates read:   8/12/17 – 9/16/17

IBSN:  978-1-58743-380-1

Pages:  207

“Who and what we worship fundamentally shape our hearts.  We may not realize, however, the ways our hearts are taught to love rival gods instead of the One for whom we were made.  And while we desire to shape culture, we are not often aware of how culture shapes us.  In You Are What You Love, a popular speaker and award-winning author James K. A. Smith helps us recognize the formative power of culture and the transformative possibilities of Christian practices.”  This blurb is from the back cover.  

I quote it because the book is hard to read and even harder to review.  Our pastor decided to do a series based upon the book You are What You Love.  He did a great job in getting the ideas across to us through his weekly messages.  Through his insight of his material, his gift of summary, and a couple of short videos, he delivered the messages in good order.

For example, one Sunday we got to see in a video about the Backwards Brain Bicycle.  It seems a fellow named Destin Sandlin created a bicycle with an important hitch.  When you turned the handlebars right the front wheel turns left, and vice versa.   He went around the country, encouraging people to ride the bicycle.  People found that it takes practice to master the crazily-designed bike.  Little kids, like Sandlin’s son who had already learned to ride a regular bike, seemed to catch on right away.  It only took him two weeks to master the “backwards bike”.  Adults had the hardest time, simply because riding a regular bike, had become second nature to them.  “Only with extraordinary effort did Sandlin learn to ride the bike -- after eight months of practice!  Old habits die hard.”

The idea behind this metaphor is to show that a person who wants to become more Christ-like in their actions can do so by practice.  

St. Paul puts it this way.  To put on Christ is to clothe ourselves in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.  See Romans 13:14 in the Holy Bible.  These virtues take practice, especially if you haven’t mastered them by the time you’re an adult.  Spending an hour and a half on Sunday morning in church is not enough time to change the habits of our hearts that are immersed in our daily, secular activities.   

Another reviewer puts it this way.  “In this wise and provocative book, Jamie Smith has the audacity to ask the question:  Do we love what we think we love?  It is not a comfortable question if we strive to answer it honestly.  Smith presses us to do so and then shows us the renewed and abundant life that awaits Christians whose habits and practices – whose liturgies of living – work to open our hearts to our God and our neighbors.