Category Archives: Books and Articles

Thanks Andrew for the link to the story on Madelaine L’Engle.  She is one of my favorite authors.  I watched the Wrinkle on Monday night.  I have seen better movies although it was OK in a mediocre way.  The book is much better – whoever wrote the movie script needed a better imagination.  It sort of lost it’s magic in the filming.

It was interesting to page through The Covenant Companion, our denominations publication, when I picked up today’s mail.  In this issue is an article on communion by the Dean of North Park Theological Seminary, John Phelan JR.  The article is entitled “Should we fence the table?”  Unfortunately, this particular article is not online.

In it he talks about “open communion” and what that means.  I liked the way he uses the term “Jesus’ table fellowship” and talks about how Jesus both extended and accepted being at table with a variety of people.  And he says, “If Jesus refused to keep sinners from the table and did not fear the corruption of his holiness by their presence, why should we?”

I guess I have always liked the words of the invitation to the table that are used in the Covenant service of Communion and Phelan quotes these in his article as well.
     “Come to this sacred table… not because you are strong, but because you are weak;
      not because you have any claim on the grace of God, but because in your frailty and
      sin you stand in constant need of God’s mercy and help”

I guess serving communion to children on Sunday; children that really did not grasp the significance of the meal they were sharing in, made me think.  None of us grasp fully the significance of the meal we share at Christ’s table.  Yet Jesus gathered little children to his knee and told the adults around to become like them.  So Jesus makes room for all of us; the old and the young; the silly and the serious; the wise and the imprudent.  We come in all shapes and sizes and colours. There is always room for one more at this table where together we remember what he has provided.  This table – unfenced and welcoming.  I like his table!

Jordon linked to this article by Mark Bernsteinon on writing for the web.  It is worth reading.

Once again Vivid has written a poem (yours is the day) that arises out of Psalm 74.  Read it and be blessed.  I especially like the way she expresses that for God the day is always new and that he always has time – for us.

Our study group is going to be discussing Chapter 4 of The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancy.  I reread it tonight in preparation for tomorrow.  The whole outlook on the temptation of Christ in this chapter was enlightening to me.  I see myself so much in this quote from this book:

“My faith suffers from too much freedom, too many temptations to disbelieve.  at times I want God to overwhelm me, to overcome my doubts with certainty, to give final proofs of his existence and his concern…
I want God to take a more active role in my personal history too.  I want quick and spectacular answers to my prayers, healing for my diseases, protection and safety for my loved ones.  I want a God without ambiguity, One to whom I can point for the sake of my doubting friends.”

So Jesus refused the temptation to coerce, to manipulate and force obedience instead sticking to his original plan of creating a people who would choose to follow him out of love.

Lord, forgive my wanting to tempt you to do exactly what I want you to do.  Teach me to love you and so return to you the worship you want from me.

Checking out some links from Vivid, I came across this version of the Lords Prayer – in language only a post-modern could (might be able to) appreciate.  Thanks to Brianna at her site.

Let us Pray.

An Other who art in nothing
Narrative is thy (language) game
Thy societal construct is
No more or less real than any other
Give us this moment our perceptions
And deconstruct our stories
As we deconstruct those who out-narrate us
Lead us not into metanarrative
But deliver us from (un) reality
For thine is the societal construct
From interlude to interlude
Nihil

~Edward Green

If your reply to questions about how you are doing has been “busy” read this and slow down a bit.

The book Sold Into Eygpt by Madeleine L’Engle is turning out to be full of gems of truth and wisdom.  She traces Joseph’s journey into “human being” as she traces her own steps through grief following the death of her husband.

I found this passage to be especially meaningful – from Chpt 6, Naphtali:
     “What must Joseph have thought about as he lay
      in prison?  There were as yet no Psalms to
      comfort him, no written scripture to give 
      him guidance and hope.  Again he was
      plunged into the darkness of betrayal,
      alone with his thoughts, in a strange land
      among strange people…
      Slander from the mouth of a selfish and greedy
      woman is more understandable than slander
      from those who loudly proclaim themselves as
      Christians.  Potiphar’s  wife slandered because
      she didn’t get her own way.  “Christains” often
      appear to slander for love of slander…
      I have received a good bit of this treatment. 
      When A Wrinkle In Time was yet again
      attacked during Hugh’s last summer, at a time 
      when he was at home between hospital stays,
      he said, “They are afraid” and I suspect that
      he was right…”

She goes on to explain that the attack had come as she realized that the work of writing was her “vocation” – God’s gift to her. 

She goes on to say:
      “Hugh again pointed out that the
       attackers are afraid, afraid that their safe
       little God-in-a-box may not be safe at all
       – loving, perfectly loving, but not safe in
       a finite sense.  Or afraid that their cozy
       and exclusive beliefs may possibly be too
       narrow.  But when we truly have faith in
       God’s love, then the wideness of God’s
       mercy does not terrify.”

I have just finished reading two books -Phillip Yancy’s The Jesus I Never Knew and Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace.  Quite different books but both good reads. 

A couple of friends and I are going to read and study The Jesus I Never Knew together.  I’m glad I’ve already had a chance to read it through once since it is full of lots of stuff that I can stand to read over more than once.  Sometimes it seems that I need more than one reading for things to sink in.  Discussing it with friends is bound to help too.

So I guess it will still be one of the books I am reading.

I am also going to start another book by Madelaine L’Engle Sold into Egypt  Joseph’s Journey into Human Being.  I enjoy M. L’Engle’s works so am expecting that it will be good too although it is less of a novel than her time trilogy’s.

Esther de Waal in her book The Celtic Way of Prayer quotes this prayer which is from Carmina Gadelica, III, p. 178.  It is a prayer prayed as the prayer was leaving his house for whatever task lay ahead. 

This morning, I am leaving the house for a whole whack of things that have to be done – strating with driving my daughters to their high school soccer game, then groceries, then who knows what!  It’s an ancient prayer for the day but fits my busy today one.

God, bless to me this day,

            God, bless to me this night;

Bless, O Bless, Thou God of grace,

            Each day and hour of my life;

Bless, O bless, Thou God of grace,

            Each day and hour of my life.

God, bless the pathway on which I go,

God bless the earth that is beneath my sole;

            Bless, O God, and give to me Thy love,

O God of gods, bless my rest and my repose;

            Bless, O God, and give to me Thy love,

And bless, O God of gods, my repose.