I Can Fly

This book by Fifi Kuo is just beautiful. I've bought it as a Christmas present for my very new niece Lily and, because it's very short, managed to read it before wrapping it. Replete with washy pastel illustrations that shiver with life & cold, the story follows a baby emperor penguin as they discover (much to their chagrin) that unlike most other birds they can see - they can't fly. But then... they learn to swim. A life-affirming, broad-strokes tilt at that elusive monster - the perfect children's book. If only Julia Donaldson and Lynley Dodd were out of the game, this one would be in with a shout.

Journal of the Unknown Prophet

This book, despite its title, is by someone known to be called Wendy Alec - and it claims to be a series of revelations pertaining to various End-Times matters during a visitation of Jesus Christ to her over a ten-day period in November 1999.

   If that sounds to you like mumbo-jumbo, let me assure you that my initial reaction was also of the same grotesque cynicism that characterises, quite hegemonically, our twenty-first century's general sociocultural attitudes toward "the prophetic" - which is deeply & systematically misunderstood; people know it has some general mystical or supernatural component but since the typical individuals' apprehensions of covenant relations with God are so corroded the true nature of prophetic ministry is completely unheeded and people seem to just presume it's a weird magical means of predicting future events. Or summat. 

   Indeed - for want of a better place to tell this story, I'm going to recount here something that happened to me over summer. I had the privilege of being part of my work's team sent to the New Wine festival, and on the penultimate night of my week or so there, I met a man in the bar area (whose name, to my fault, I can't remember) whose claim, during our introduction, was that he held and exercised a prophetic ministry. And despite having grown up in Christian environs - this was not a claim I'd ever heard anyone make. Ever. I was skeptical, and to be completely honest somewhat tipsy, and given the range of other things going on in my heart at the time in a very strange place spiritually - and so I met this claim with something akin to derision; but we talked at some length of what he meant by it, what this looked like for him on a day-to-day basis with his relations with and ministering to people inside and outside of Christian communities, and after the bar had closed and my colleagues gone to bed I found I was still talking to this man - felt in myself deeply convicted by God of my own ignorant arrogances of which I'm still trying to repent and decolonize: we prayed together around midnight as he tried to wrap things up to head back to his tent and he, during that prayer - said things about me that even I didn't know I knew to be true, asked God for things that I didn't realise I needed; ending on a simple request that through the providence of the Holy Spirit that I would be given "some connection" that would help me make sense of my walk with Christ at that stage. And nothing immediately happened, of course. But looking back - thinking through - this "connection" I think was something God had already been abundantly showering me in: to come to know, fully, humbly and joyously, the realities of Jesus's work made real through his accomplishment on the cross and re-enacted by his stumbling followers ever since - I've been blessed enough to grow up in a Christian household, and a very good church, and to now have a job I love literally studying the ongoing work of the Church in the UK to see how it can better see God at work and follow his will better - but have always felt in my heart somewhat spiritually bereft, homeless, driftwood-like: even having in the September of the autumn before the winter during which I started this blog I'd had, at a UCCF weekend retreat, feeling particularly keenly this alienation from the "felt" realities of my faith which seemed to flow so freely among my peers and worrying what was going wrong - I walked off alone into a field and threw my complaints tearfully toward Heaven; "why does this all seem so right to my mind yet feel so empty in my heart? why aren't you letting me feel whatever it is my brothers and sisters seem to be feeling when they thrust hands in the air during moments of ecstatic worship, or their voices break during prayers, or why do you even let me think these things and feel the nagging doubts that I am maybe surrounded by fakers, by superficial christian spirituality, or if it is real WHY are you letting me not feel it?" and during an earlier worship service on that same weekend we'd been prompted by someone at the front to think of our gifts, our callings, and I'd had no idea - the only thing I knew I was really good at was book-learning, and short of becoming a theologian there didn't seem to be any tangible means of using this to bless or serve the body of Christ nor aid in their missions: but following this prayer from this prophet, whose name remains unknown to me, at New Wine, it was gradually & overwhelmingly revealed to me how blind I'd been of God's own work in & through & for me - answering this prayer of lonely desperation, helping reform my mental, emotional and behavioural attitudes to bring myself fullerly, truerly, toward the Throne of Jesus with everything I could be & do: and thinking backwards reflectively over the nature of the workings of the spirit I began to see evidence of God's interventions everywhere in my life, ranging from the enormous upheavals like saving my life as a child through the NHS to the bizarre minutiae of things like the encounter that prompted me to read this book that would go on to radically shape the way I thought about God, humanity, creation, rationality and so much else at a time appropriate for these thoughts to impact my spiritual growth and intellectual development - and so much else, big, small, normal-everyday, weird: it became impossible for me to now not be able to look at life without some degree of a mystical lens to it, and if coming to the budding emergence of this element in my perspective doesn't qualify as an answer to the prayer of this man for some meaningful connection to manifest in my life I don't know what does.

   Anyway, other than all that - I've realised I've barely talked about this actual book. It's not an easy read, and this might be not an easy thing to believe but on reflection I think I believe it's genuine. Though now for having said that, I'd like to remind you that that means I believe this book to be a faithful account of Wendy's revelations from Jesus Christ himself - and given the magnitude of that it would be very difficult for me to talk about the contents of the book much without feeling obliged to go into loads of analytical depth cross-reffing it with Scripture and history and current contextual factors and whatnot and this post is, I'm feeling, already long enough, but if you've made it this far through without thinking I'm an absolutely insane person then perhaps this is the kind of book you'll grow somewhat or take something from.

Notes on a Nervous Planet

This book by Matt Haig is a punchily honest & disarmingly thoughtful series of reflections on how we can try to maintain our mental health in a world increasingly beholden by all of our modern era's weirdnesses, stresses, etc: drawing on everyday biographical snippets and pretty robust common sense this book skips around a lot but weaves together a bright cogent narrative of our Real Living Selves, navigating political chaos, new technologies, & all the myriad fuckeries these bring to bear on our poor battered brains. Personally I got a lot of encouraging ammunition from this book to apply to my own struggles with the stuff Haig* talks about here; I'd highly recommend this to anyone similarly looking for some kind of individual stability and reasonableness throughout the bluster that is becoming of this fucking decade.

* Btw it is indeed same author as this fantastic novel, which in itself was inspired by Haig's own disassociative experiences with extreme depression & anxiety, as further unpacked in this other more testimonial work.

How to be a Bad Christian... and a better human being

This book by the brilliantly irreverent Reverend Dave Tomlinson is as it says on the tin. As per its opening quote - "a Christian is one who is on the way, though not necessarily very far along it, and has at least some dim, half-baked idea of whom to thank" - this is a deep dive, though written with excellent simplicity and accessibility, into what it actually means to be a Christian - with a no-holds-barred-approach to calling out the bullshittery that we so often allow to proliferate in Church communities, setting up expectations or dogmatic stringencies that either aren't there or shouldn't be held as the defining elements of Christianity that they are - because Christianity is, and only ever has been, all about Christ - and that's it. And that facilitates an outrageously generous worldview that is, as Tomlinson found in his own ministry and I have experienced in my own sojourn, just sometimes sadly absent in its full realisation among the very people purporting to practice it.

   This book is an incredible gift to the Church's missional momentum: stop taking ourself so damn seriously, take Christ seriously and take him out there into the world with us. I've been doing a lot of reading & thinking about this over the past year and what it might look like in ways I've never quite dared to let myself imagine, because of the evangelical ideological constraints that are part of the particular Christianity I've grown up in; can we really be saying we're trying to imitate Christ if we're not willing to call out the religious authorities and blind-spots of our own age, as he did? can we really consider ourselves to be servants of the King if every invocation of Christ's Kingship leads back into the same old circular argument about "the now and the not yet" instead of leading us to joyously and daringly insist on trying to make it the now? why should we expect people who have never had reason to find sacredness in the material trappings of our own faith to do so, if we have barely even started to put in the time required to listeningly look at places in which they may be seeking the sacred, wondering why, and responding discerningly with love and hope? and how can we be seriously expecting people to get excited about, or even remotely curious about in positive ways, models of Church community life that do very little to meet people where they're at and facilitate inclusive creativity, or that re-tread the same ground every Sunday talking about the divine peace of knowing God which is celebrated by the sabbath but the very weekly maintenance of such an ongoing rotational responsibility for both preacher and preached-at seems to bestow little if any meaningful restfulness amid the busy noise of our culture, or which seems to be bogged down in almost obsessive managerial planning of discipleship courses or theology lectures or etcetera because the lived, real relationship with Jesus is so seemingly stultified that such options are the only real route the church leaders look to be able to manifest when it comes to thinking about their future?

   These aren't necessarily questions that Dave asks or answers in the book - he covers a lot of ground and I would rather give you a feel for its gist than attempt a summary. But if any of what I've said here resonates with your own experience of the Christian faith, whether you think of yourself as an adherent of it [regardless how "good!"] or not - then I reckon you'll find much of comfort and affirmation in this book. Though if I'm honest, the people who'd really benefit most from reading it are exactly the kind of Christians who probably wouldn't anyway because the title pissed them off... which is kind of Dave's point.

Yorkshire Wisdom

This book, edited by Joe Moorwood, is a reyt good compilation of quotes from all manner of folks from God's own county. Ranging from famous'uns like Alan Bennett, Judy Dench, t'Bronte sisters and Jarvis Cocker* - and also, for sake of maintaining locally-apt respect for t'common people, a selection of particularly wise-sounding, witty or just damn well-n-truly Yorkshire quotations, apothegms, axioms, one-liners, etcetera from folks you'll've never've heard of but I'll tell thee now they know what life's about. Great depth & breadth of variety in themes, content, whatnot - this'd make a grand present for pretty much anyone as you don't have to be from the best place Earth's got on offer to keep a smallish almanac of wisdom from there as a toilet book or summat.

* Who for my bargaining has the best range & writ of wurbage in here, though I'm probly biased.

THIS ISN'T MECHANICAL & DOESN'T REALLY KILL ANYTHING PROPERLY

This book is not one I am going to say very much about at all, apart from that I wrote it. A full pdf of the first edition (of which one hundred printed paperback copies have been procured from that wondrous old thing The Internets) is available through that link, and in years to come I will probably look into developing and unleashing expanded versions of the book aforementioned. If you think the title is silly by the way, you're damn right.

The Beautiful Poetry of Donald Trump

This book by Rob Sears is an absolute gem. Extracts from those endlessly articulate, baffling and mental-gymnastical goldmines of the mind of its 'author', be these speeches, tweets, or just things he's said on TV or in interviews or whatever - are lovingly chopped up and reconstituted into really quite tremendous poetic formats. The net result is fucken hilarious - made moreso by the diligent referencing of each quote-snippet so we can fact-check each and every word, phrase & ramble just in case one wanted to make sure Sears wasn't crafting all these himself and we, the readers, could truly trust that what we read here are indeed very much the words of the man himself - and while he maybe didn't put those particular bits of words into those particular orders, the resultant poems are deeply and beautifully emulative of Trump's truest and biggest public persona, with all its nuance & complexity, all its humbly-acknowledged flaws & profound reflective wisdom. Seriously - a book worth engrossment for any who perhaps have not seen the quieter meditative side to our current Excellent President, as this book will enlighten as much as entertain.

the Incredible Book Eating Boy

This book by Oliver Jeffers was presented to me recently by my dad recently, with the accompanying snide remark "it's about you". Keen to disprove him, I read it in a short sitting this evening, only finding before I wrote this I had to text him to confirm his initial comment. You don't care about such biographical rambling, I'm sure.

   Anyway, it's a story (with chunky cool stylised illustrations, and the version I've got has a range of innovative pop-up sections, which no doubt younger readers might find even more exciting than I did) about a boy called Henry who starts eating books, develops a taste for them, tries to eat as many books as he can because he wants to be the smartest boy ever, gets sick, slows down his eating habits, and discovers he enjoys reading rather than eating the books.

   So back to the abstruse bio-commentary - it's not really about me, because I've never eaten a book. Nor do I (any longer - though for a period in my late teens and early student days this was certainly a fair cop) feel there is much point trying to read as much as possible to try to be a particular kind of cleverer or better. I read to broaden my horizons bit by bit in all manner of ways, generally quite a lot slower than followers of this blog might expect. I think maybe then it is about me anyway, only I'm at a stage of life where I've already learnt the lesson Henry concludes this plot with; reading is great, don't go mad. A good one for the budding bibliomaniac kids.

Holy Listening

This book by Margaret Guenther dives into the mystique and fuzziness around the term 'spiritual direction' to draw out clear guidelines as to what it is, where it can happen and how it can happen well in these contexts, and what people should be sensitive to when being given or attempting to give spiritual direction. It has the feel of a book which packs an intellectual punch (as, it does) but is eminently readable, practical, and resists obtuse theorizing, always coming back to the relationality of the people involved and God above. While this will not be discussed at length in my summary/commentary below (as to those who see the linkages it will be obvious enough and for those who don't I can't justify elongating this blogpost into yet another feminist-theology polemic which probably won't convince anyone of owt anyway, or even, wouldn't if people read this), there is a final chapter exploring some of the particular strengths of women in giving spiritual direction to both genders.

   First - what is spiritual direction? Guenther talks about it in a very nuanced and person-centred way, so it is almost certainly an oversimplification for me to say this, but it is basically the process of helping another person, whatever stage of faith they are at, best discern ways in which God is calling them to do or be particular things, whether that is to become a Christian at all or pursue particular ministries. Needless to say this process will involve deep committed listening, both to God through scripture and the promptings of the Holy Spirit alongside the person themselves in their own complexities and context.
   This process (described in the book's subtitle as an 'art', which resonates) is then discussed in three distinct but complementary and in places overlapping roles or forms;

• Hospitality - through showing it, unconditionally and inclusively, we help create real spaces and times in which people can be themselves authentically, and so draw out underlying aspects of character or need which can then be responded to. Also in the doing of this we model the love of God for all peoples.
• Teacher - in developing questions and gently leading conversations to the suggested answers given by God, we help inform and direct people's thoughts, and thus actions and so journeys, more into line with an overall narrative from Heaven which is fully transcendent over all earthly knowledge. Theology here takes a backseat to will.
• Midwife - as elements of people's character and life-journey lead them closer to the core of questions they are wrestling with, closer to God, closer to particular kinds of ministry, etc, through the combined processes of deep listening, open conversation and nurturing mutual exploration, a spiritual director can help a person 'birth' their own realisations of certain things and so empower them toward new paths.

   As I've said, there is a final chapter on the speciality of women in this kind of activity which, while I will not discuss here, I think says a great deal of potent common-sense on the ways in which listening and mutuality are life-givingly important, yet which because of patriarchal sociocultural structures and norms men (who still dominate the clergy) are generally less well-equipped to do.

   In any case, if you are a spiritual leader who is to any degree responsible for the souls of people under your care, then I would wholeheartedly recommend this book, as it contains many highly insightful stories as examples of how it can be done well, badly, in-betweenly, how God uses both people to sharpen each other, how the very process itself can be wholesome in the practice of discernment over dogma.

It's a Book!

This book by Lane Smith is a brilliant exercise in getting kids who can read to get even more excited about the mere activity of reading. It revolves around a series of anthropomorphic animals who don't recognize what a book is, though by the end, surprise surprise, they do. Not particularly gripping or innovative despite its promising premise, and still I'd reckon worth a punt as a gift for kids under 7 you know who like books.

Inspector Smart & the Case of the Empty Tomb

This book, by Michael Tinker (and, outrageously, illustrated by me) is an exploration of the probably-well-known-enough-that-a-summary-here-isn't-necessary story of Jesus of Nazareth, in particular his rising from the dead, despite the fact that Roman centurions were notoriously good at making sure people who were meant to die died. It takes the shape of a mystery - with Inspector Smart, the lead detective, interviewing witnesses in the Judea region to build a better picture of what went on.

   I can't sing the praises of this book's illustrations too wholeheartedly because I did them* and they're not brilliant but they get the story told. Writing-wise this is I think a clear and innovative retelling of the classic core christian story, that makes it compelling to younger audiences. That said I think this book would probably function best as an apologetics primer for small Christian children - but it could still prove an entertaining read for non-believers' families who enjoy mystery and intrigue.

* I'm still waiting for my royalty payments for the Inspector Smart branded mug which was released at some point over the last few years that says on it "He-brew", which is a great pun as well as probably the best tea in Israel... I know they exist, I haven't said anything, I don't really mind or care. It's cool to have some part of my work succeed enough to make it onto a mug, so there's that.

the Snail and the Whale

This book by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler (yes, the very same duo who were behind the Gruffalo) unexpectedly hit me right in the feels. I read it to a child from church,* and it seemed to go down well, which I can only partly attest to its quality as a children's book because I'm an incredible read-out-louder. That said - the text is rhythmic and flows aloud perfectly, and is even occasionally a bit funny, the plot is genuinely quite compelling, the illustrations are beautiful, the friendship between the two main characters thoroughly heartwarming. A classic.

* For those of you who suspect this is just another excuse for the fact that for an intellectual 24-year-old I read a lot of children's books, yes, you, shut up.

the Imitation of Christ

This book is well-known as claiming to be the second most widely-read/translated book in our history after the Bible itself - I can't speak as to the veracity of this claim, but the pragmatic spiritual density of Jesuit monk Thomas á Kempis's text herein may merit such a reality were it so. It's broken down into short, digestible but highly potent chapters - and I've been reading it extremely slowly, giving each chunk time to permeate through reflection, prayer and other reading; there is so much in here that I found of immense help on my walk with God, and I would hopefully expect that it would likely be so for others too. A big thing I think I've learnt through the book and surrounding experience is that of the nature of Christian catholicity - that of course being the innately-designed one-ness of the Church established by Christ and maintained through the Holy Spirit's movement among his apostles ever since... it's not been entirely comfortable, you know? I've realised elements of the christian culture I've grown up in, and whether this is things deliberate or not but certainly latent to enough of an extent in the Protestant evangelical normativity I'd taken for granted as the "right" kind of Christianity - this just doesn't hold up to its own desire for hegemony of truth when properly and humbly compared to the realities of value found running deep through the "other" churches. Especially now having to have had to reconcile my upbringing with working at an Anglican charity, having met and learned from Anglicans, Catholics, and other kinds of christian that until recent times I'd kind of just presumed to be lost causes, or at least misled. I feel extremely convicted that a prolonged period of decolonization needs to be undertaken - this is already to real degrees something I've been trying to do with regards to racist & chauvinist attitudes, but I think the over-segregation of small ideological shades within Christian traditions is likely just as harmful and deep-set a prejudice of such kinds - perhaps not one directly linked to as many obvious social repressions or structures, but certainly things that less than fully glorify the God who calls us into his body, and so it is something of which I am trying, bit by bit - to repent. Even if that means venturing into territories whence my brothers and sisters might start considering me the same kind of heretic I'm trying to stop "seeing": I'm not sure where this path leads. But I know Jesus walks it with me; so I will try to step well and without anxiety.

A Philosophy of Walking

This book by Fréderic Gros is, as the title suggests, a philosophical stroll through the nature and psycho-biosocial mechanics of, and historically-significant figures associated with that simplest human means of locomotion. Or should I say perambulation? Probably. It deals in utter magnificently eloquent terms with the silences, solitudes, slownesses and strangely metaphysically inspiring spaces found when one walks: Nietzsche, Nerval, Rousseau, Kant, Rimbaud, Thoreau and Gandhi get their own chapters examining the purposes and uses of the "art" of pedestrian travel; I'm fairly sure the book was written as such that this shines through the text but it may be a facet of just my own over-egged poetic reading, that the book works even more fantastically than it presumably still does otherwise should one take the whole notional field of "walking" as the metaphor for the dogged, day-by-day, step-by-step human travel through their own life - I certainly found it yielded many insights personally that were not necessarily there in the text itself with a grasp of such in the halfway-back of my mind. I loved this book and you can very probably expect to see a second post on here about it in the years to come, on the inevitable re-read.

Markings

This book is compiled from the private spiritual journal of Dag Hammarskjöld, who was a devout disciple of Christ & the UN's general secretary from 1953 until his untimely* death in 1963. It became an instant classic, having been translated masterfully from the Swedish into English by Leif Sjöberg and poetically refined by W. H. Auden; indeed, the edition I've got boasts a foreword by Jimmy Carter (and if you don't think he's the greatest of all living ex-US-presidents what the hell are you doing on this blog!?).

   My lighthearted tone notwithstanding I am under no allusions that this is a potently holy and worthy book.** Dag writes of struggle, of joy, loss, hope, grief, God, Christ, the world and its fullnesses & emptinesses, justice, equality in the deepest sense, truth, peace - all mediated through a poetic but totally honest presentation of his own soul, bared in lonely prayerful discourses as he bears the gigantic blessings & burdens of his humanitarian role and seeks to undertake it in action as perfectly informed by his Christian contemplation as he can possibly manage, by the grace of God. I defy anyone to read this book and come away unchanged. It's been an incredibly humbling, emboldening, fortuitous vägmärk on my own road of think-reading my hazy way across a life of faith, and I will be returning to it for nourishment and encouragement many times more throughout my journey, I'm sure.

* And actually really quite suspicious, but that's a story for another whole documentary.

** It went onto my 'to-read' list some eleven or twelve years ago, my dad having been lent it by a man with whom he had had a long conversation about faith and life and stuff & on asking what book if any was indisputably the most powerful to change one's views on such my dad came home with this, and reading the blurb I remember thinking "wow this is too much for me but I'll flag it for when I really need the spiritual fuel" and I'm Glad I did.

Jesus' People: What the Church Should Do Next

This book, by ex-Bishop-of-Sheffield Steven Croft, is a punchy, well-put, highly accessible and relevantly practical reflection on the nature of church and how it can or should be rising to meet the challenges currently facing it in this country.*

   At risk of overly simplifying what is an edifying and biblically deft read, his answer to the titular question - what the church should do next is exactly what it always has been meant to be doing, only with renewed unity, zeal, and diligent service. So - helping people from all over the place encounter personally the God of love by a variety of means, and building meaningful communities of these people around discipleship, which (because I know it's churchish jargon but I'm about to define it okay) essentially means encouraging and holding each other accountable to making Jesus the model of our lives and beings.

   Simple, right? You'd think so. Then why do Christians keep churning out endless books about problems in this process or ways to overcome them, when according to generally orthodox belief all the answers are in the Bible anyway? I don't want to say I can't answer this question but I can't be bothered to type it out, nor risk such a rabbithole of potential theological debate bursting out in my comment sections, because as we all know this blog gets millions of passionate readers.

   As a final comment - this book does also contain a really timely endnote on the current challenges of integrating 'fresh expressions of church' into the pre-existing and largely staler (sorry, everyone) economy of congregations, which is not in itself an overly useful or interesting bit of text but should go some way to pointing many churchfolk in useful and interesting directions.

* I won't discuss these in much particulars here, as I already put myself through far too much stress-inducing thought into such questions for my day-job.

Kobane Calling

This book is a graphic recount by Italian artist Zerocalcare and translated into English by "RB" - dealing with events surrounding what is happening in Northern Syria, or Western Kurdistan, at the moment - given the revolution that's going on there. If you don't know much about it then this short comic might be a good introduction, as it does take the whole situation seriously and goes some way toward being of educational value. However if you find yourself wanting to go deeper into knowing more about the Kurds & the things going on in Rojava, may I point you toward my Masters dissertation where you may well find what you're looking for in the bibliography. As a comic though this piece works in its format really well; I love the art style, and the visual atmosphere it maintains gives a real edge to the subject matter - the battle for Kobane itself, where YPG-YPJ forces held the city against Daesh - is dealt with appropriately respectfully and the story told in the pages of this slim volume does end on a hopeful note, as I'd like to think we can say of the story of the Kurds generally some day soon.