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| 1956267832
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| 6
| unknown
| Mar 28, 2023
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it was amazing
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McKevitt & Freckman’s Thinking Biblically and Purposefully About your Wealth is SOLID, CONCISE and WISE. SOLID: I was interested in their business aft McKevitt & Freckman’s Thinking Biblically and Purposefully About your Wealth is SOLID, CONCISE and WISE. SOLID: I was interested in their business after learning both men were Certified Kingdom Advisors, but I didn’t know whether their theology was merely a methodical implementation of the training (perhaps a business move?) or the foundation of the Purposeful Wealth Experience they designed. - If you want to know more about the Kingdom Advisors program to seek certification as a Financial Planner or to locate an advisor in your area, see https://kingdomadvisors.com/find-a-cka - As I had hoped, the book clarified that they have built their entire business (which does not discriminate/ is accessible to believers and non-believers alike) on Biblical principles. Passages chosen and principles articulated demonstrate searching the Scriptures over time to inform, mold and clarify their own decisions and their financial planning work. The first chapters indicate that 1 Timothy 6:6 “Godliness with contentment is great gain” and the Parable of the Rich Man were especially influential in McKevitt & Freckman’s journey toward a Biblical perspective on financial planning. Luke 12:16-20 NASB 16 And He told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man was very productive. 17 And he began thinking to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and I will store all my grain and my goods there. 19 And I will say to [a]myself, “You have many goods stored up for many years to come; relax, eat, drink, and enjoy yourself!”’ 20 But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night [b]your soul is demanded of you; and as for all that you have prepared, who will own it now?’ 21 Such is the one who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich in relation to God.” I appreciated that when the book moves toward practical implementation, Messrs. McKevitt & Freckman focus on the guidance of Biblical Principles for clients to implement according to their own convictions. For example, they provide principles from Scripture on things like investing, ministry resources (time & money), managing debt, tithing/ offering/ giving, retirement, and estate planning, that each individual/ couple needs to work out how to implement in their own unique circumstances. They present their role as decision facilitators, not decision makers. CONCISE: It’s amazing this book is only 123 pages. The information has depth, but the authors demonstrate a humility in acknowledging the hardest work is the purposeful implementation of these principles by their clients and the numerous options that they as advisors provide for their clients’ consideration. The reading level is not difficult. Chapters are short, under 15 pages. Font is large. Layout is spacious, allowing space for pull out quotes and white space (margins and chapter end pages) for notes. Also, a simple but effective chart with two columns, “Default Financial Planning” – a worldly approach, and “Biblically & Purposefully” – a Biblically foundational approach, are contrasted through briefly summarized contrasting points organized into rows. WISE: The authors give snapshots of implementation of these principles by and with their clients, and in their own lives. They also cover anthropologic theology particularly as it relates to work (generation of wealth), retirement (the off ramp of wealth generation and beginning of draw down), and inheritance (what happens to what you leave behind?). I also appreciated that they don’t get bogged down in complicated details. For example, many systems advocate for laborious budget management, which we find exhausting, overly focused on money, and difficult to get any momentum around maintaining when life’s stressful storms blow through. McKevitt & Freckman have developed a way to measure the impact of your spending and facilitate adjustments, without requiring a regular Quicken report on your entire life. Certainly, there is a place for documenting the details in areas where you want to make a change, but I appreciated the approach to limiting that so that it does not takeover your focus or overtake your resources (see pg. 65ff). There are a couple of items I would like to discuss with the authors, not because I necessarily have a disagreement with them, but because the book is written to provoke purposeful implementation. This is another wise strength of the work; it successfully stimulated a great deal of productive discussion with my spouse. Specifically, I have some questions about their proposed general investment strategy, which focuses on indexed funds (“Principle #2: Own it all” pg 77ff). My concerns center around the destructive impact of ESG on the health of companies (and their returns), and whether or not there are options that avoid this destructive concept. For more on ESG, see this review of Paul H Tice’s book, The Race to Zero: How ESG Investing Will Crater the Global Financial System (published February 2024). https://lawliberty.org/book-review/ho... Additionally, in the section on Legacy, I felt the section on Financial Legacy wasn’t as tight as the rest of the book. McKevitt & Freckman are still young men and it could be that their ideas here are not as practiced as those that come earlier in our financial lives. Principles for stewardship were somewhat ambivalent from the surprising idea to avoid treating all inheritors/ children the same to the discussion of giving according to a child’s need (yes, surprise! a Marxist principle!) contrasted with giving according to an inheritor’s competence. The book closes with citations and helpful recommendations for additional reading. I strongly recommend this work and will be purchasing copies to give as gifts to friends and family. For more on McKevitt & Freckman, see their business page: https://gf-wealth.com/ For more on where theology and economy meet, see: Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism is the Solution and Not the Problem, Jay Richards, 2009 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ...more |
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Feb 16, 2024
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Sep 18, 2024
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Feb 16, 2024
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| 0801075734
| 9780801075735
| 0801075734
| 4.50
| 1,008
| Jun 2023
| Jun 27, 2023
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it was amazing
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None
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Dec 11, 2023
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not set
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Jun 29, 2023
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| 0007508948
| 9780007508945
| 0007508948
| unknown
| 3.74
| 98
| Sep 30, 2004
| Sep 12, 2013
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really liked it
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This is a recording of Agatha Christie talking through her publishing career, so it's only available as an audio file. I got it from Audible. It would
This is a recording of Agatha Christie talking through her publishing career, so it's only available as an audio file. I got it from Audible. It would be a lovely complement to a project of reading her work in the order published. It's fascinating to hear her voice and her recollection of certain challenges with each novel, tidbits about what she liked and didn't like, and growth she noticed in herself as she gained confidence as a writer. ...more |
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Feb 05, 2023
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| 1585422207
| 9781585422203
| 1585422207
| 3.97
| 6,710
| Jan 01, 1991
| Apr 28, 2003
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I started off strong, eagerly reading the Introduction on Napoleon's Buttons, and embarking on the fascinating discussion of How 17 Molecules Changed
I started off strong, eagerly reading the Introduction on Napoleon's Buttons, and embarking on the fascinating discussion of How 17 Molecules Changed History. Early Chapters on 1 Peppers, Nutmeg and Cloves 2 Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C) 3 Glucose 4 Cellulose 5 Nitro Compounds 6 Silk and Nylon ...were fascinating and informative. The chemical connections between Peppers, Nutmeg and Cloves in the first chapter gave way to additional insights shared throughout. However, the authors create a historical narrative to explain how the particular molecule came to be discovered, was utilized, and changed the world. Then, the chapter details the chemical make-up of the molecule and how to annotate it. As I got into the book, I began to notice that it was written by chemists. While this is not a bad thing (nothing against chemists), their expertise is not HISTORY, and some of the historical information was a bit... simplified? suspect? inaccurate? Having completed high school and college chemistry, with little need to go back there, I found myself skimming through the expert chemistry and becoming somewhat annoyed by the un-expert history... 7 Phenol 8 Isoprene 9 Dyes 10 Wonder Drugs By Chapter 11: The Pill, I simply lost interest is the narrative. This is an ebook, so maybe on some long trip I will return to sort it out... After all, the later chapters DO look interesting... 12 Molecules of Witchcraft 13 Morphine, Nicotine and Caffeine 14 Oleic Acid 15 Salt 16 Chlorocarbon Compounds 17 Molecules versus Malaria If I had to take chemistry again, I do think reading a chapter directly connected to the science being studied would be interesting, even though my time here was crowded out by life and other reading adventures. ...more |
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Nov 26, 2022
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| 1587431963
| 9781587431968
| 1587431963
| 4.00
| 373
| Oct 01, 2007
| Oct 01, 2007
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it was amazing
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We have a problem in Protestantism. The Protestant Reformation burst into European society with Martin Luther’s posting of the Ninety-Five Theses in W
We have a problem in Protestantism. The Protestant Reformation burst into European society with Martin Luther’s posting of the Ninety-Five Theses in Wittenberg in 1517. This the event to which all Protestant denominations anchor their origins. However, there is a gap of well over a thousand years between the time of Jesus Christ and the emergence of Protestantism – a vast expanse of which most Protestant believers are completely ignorant. The fact is that God was at work through those years from the hearts of the apostles, to the church fathers, through the Great East-West Schism of 1054 that divided the Eastern Orthodox from the Western Roman Catholic Churches, and beyond to Valdes’ shepherding of the Waldensians (d. c1205), the monastic movement kicked off by St. Francis of Assisi (d. 1226), John Wycliff’s (d. 1384) ministry to get the Bible to all Englishman in their own language , Jon Hus’ (d. 1415) martyrdom to get the gospel to the Czech’s, or even Erasmus’ (d. 1536) work in reformation and transformation within the Roman Catholic Church. In my anecdotal experience, most Protestant Christians do not know the history of the Christian Church and are therefore unequipped to field questions from both themselves and others (believers and unbelievers). Into this breach, Professor Bryan Liftin offers Getting to Know the Church Fathers: An Evangelical Introduction. Liftin, as an evangelical, writes for fellow evangelical travelers in the Protestant tradition (it should be acknowledged there are also evangelical Roman Catholics and evangelical Eastern Orthodox believers). I found him to be a fair, reasonable and charitable guide. The book opens with a first century map of the Mediterranean World and a timeline of important events that span the past, present and future of the Church Fathers. While most of these highlights in the history of Christianity are covered throughout the work, chapters are specifically devoted to the following individuals: 100 – 165 AD Justin Martyr 115 AD d. Ignatius of Antioch 130 – 202 AD Irenaeus of Lyons 170 – 215 AD Tertullian of Carthage 182 – 203 AD Perpetua of Carthage 185 – 254 AD Origen of Alexandria 306 – 373 AD Ephrem the Syrian 349 – 407 AD John Chrysostom 354 – 430 AD Augustine of Hippo 378 – 444 AD Cyril of Alexandria 435 – 460 AD Patrick of Ireland Litfin’s presentation has several strong points. Each chapter is well organized to include: an opening illustration, reference to where the individual Church Father fits in the timeline via dates and narrative, context of the subject’s life and ministry, copious footnotes, insights into particular challenges the church and faith encountered in the featured individual’s lifetime, Reflections On… section which details how the influence of this Church Father carries into present day evangelicalism, Provocative Questions segment to stimulate personal or group interaction, Good Books to Dig Deeper in the study of the individual, and a Key Referenced Sources Bibliography. Yet, the presentation remains highly approachable and engaging, without feeling overly formulaic. Liftin presents subjects graciously. He articulates points at which evangelicals would disagree with the subject, areas the Church Father may have experienced failure or difficulty, while highlighting how God multiplied the spiritual maturity of imperfect human beings to be His witnesses from their generation, through 1000+ years, into our day. Much of the debate and scholarship of the infant church concerned Who Jesus was, His attributes, relationship to the Father and the salvation He purchased for all that is to be received by believers. Liftin presents the Lord Jesus as the cornerstone in our beautiful Church foundation with brevity and wonder. The book closes with a helpful Epilogue that focuses on application. I found this paragraph from the Epilogue to provide helpful insight into Liftin’s content and style: “As you have gotten to know some of your fellow sailors from ancient times, it is my prayer that your perspective on the value of church history has widened. In light of what you’ve learned, I hope you’ll continue to carry out the tasks Jesus has assigned you to do, just as he had tasks for the ancient Christians as well. And as you go about your daily life, discharging your God-given responsibilities, I pray you will do so with an awareness that you are part of something bigger than yourself. You are indeed part of the Church Universal: that great sweep of Christianity through the ages, with all its ups and downs, its twists and turns, its heroes, and villains. This is your story, your family heritage. The fathers and mothers of the church are your spiritual ancestors.” (Getting to Know the Church Fathers, Liftin, pg 276). Finally, an index aides students in locating subjects, events, and topics within the text. On a topic that can easily become bogged down, it’s important to note the entire text is only 280 pages, presented in a reasonable font size. In everything, Liftin’s expertise as a teacher emerges: Getting to the Know the Church Fathers is an excellent textbook. I can see how it would also make for outstanding group discussion/ learning. Having finished a first read, I’m already looking forward to a second – hopefully with friends! For another excellent church history resource, see Church History, Simonetta Carr, 2022 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ...more |
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May 26, 2023
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Jul 2023
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Nov 26, 2022
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| 1601788568
| 9781601788566
| 1601788568
| 4.54
| 41
| unknown
| Sep 30, 2022
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it was amazing
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For many years, I’ve been searching for an excellent history of the Christian Church for all ages. In Simonetta Carr’s Church History (2022), I finall
For many years, I’ve been searching for an excellent history of the Christian Church for all ages. In Simonetta Carr’s Church History (2022), I finally found it! I now recommend it for everyone wanting to learn more about the history of the Christian Church and specifically for those looking to educate at home. Not only does Carr provide an effective timeline of events, Church History presents the material in an engaging way that encourages engagement. Strengths of the book are it’s success in documenting the geographic panorama that expands from the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in Israel during the Roman Empire to the year 2000. Carr covers both the structures of the church (such as liturgy, buildings and leadership accountability) and ministries of the church (such as pastoral and mission endeavors, institutional establishments -universities, hospitals, etc, and compassionate public assistance). Prompts throughout the book challenge readers to transformational application of theology to life through the church’s development of human rights ethics and compassion ministries. From beginning to end, Simonetta Carr’s Church History presents a biography of the Christian Church in such a way as to encourage thoughtful study. Opening with A Note to the Reader and the Introduction, Carr references the helpful Glossary and thorough Index to invite her guests to begin to not just read, but ponder the analysis presented. In addition to the opening sections and ending reference material, the book also closes with a summary, More Than Conquerers, and Acknowledgements. Carr’s work is presented in 9 parts with thematic titles for each period, a Map of the geography focus, and a Timeline of key events discussed. I thought prospective readers would want to see how the information is outlined. Each section is not uniform in length. While this is clearly a content driven discussion, when working through the book cover to cover, it does mess with a reader’s expectations. In addition, while there are a couple instances the timeline breaks around world events (such as World War I forming the break between Sections 8 and 9), for the most part, these chapters are framed by key events in the life of the Christian Church. Can you identify what those events are? If not (or even if so!) Carr’s book will be an aid to you! Part 1 [12 pages] The Early Church (30-312) Part 2 [26 pages] The Church in Late Antiquity (312-622) Part 3 [14 pages] The Early Middle Ages (622-1000) Part 4 [26 pages] The High Middle Ages (1000-1517) Part 5 [20 pages] The Protestant Reformation (1517-1600) Part 6 [22 pages] A Troubled Century (1600-1700) Part 7 [20 pages] A Time of Revivals (1700-1789) Part 8 [56 pages] A Changing World (1789-1914) Part 9 [51 pages] The Modern World (1914-2000) The entire tour of Christian History is accomplished in 266 pages of a coffee table large format book. Throughout these sections, Church History uses various formats to organize, highlight and supplement the chronology. Red Quote Boxes highlight primary source material. Red text describes photographic images. Great Questions of the Church discusses clarification of Christian theology by scholars and ministry leaders. Paragraph length mini-biographies of missionaries, poets, writers, martyrs and apologists are featured in the Some Men and Women of the [section]… The Think About It segments prompt written or oral examination of practical quandaries faced by practicing Christians. At times, particularly starting out with learning the format, I found the layout a bit clunky, unable to decide whether it is a text book or a coffee table book, but at the same time, these image and textual additions enrich the narrative. My only disappointment was that while Carr has chosen to focus on internal development, conflicts, and even failings of the Christian Church, I thought the coverage of external conflicts between the church and other powers – particularly other religions such as Islam, with governmental conflict receiving a bit more attention – was unsatisfying. However, there is plenty of information here from which to jump into deeper exploration. Prior to publishing Church History in 2022, Simonetta Carr was already the successful author of the outstanding Christian Biographies for Young Readers series. I’m thankful the title of this work wasn’t limiting, as “…for All Ages” would have been more accurate than “…for Young Readers.” I highly recommend that series, which has over 20 titles. But the comprehensive approach of Church History may be a better place to start your reading of Simonetta Carr’s work – though I wouldn’t stop there! I’ve been literally waiting for this book since I started homeschooling in 2009! I’m happy to highly recommend it now that it’s here! Chronologically, the first title in Christian Biographies for Young Readers is: Irenaeus of Lyon (Christian Biographies for Young Readers), Carr, 2017 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... For another excellent Church History resource that focus' on the early Church, see Getting to Know the Church Fathers, Liftin, 2007 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ...more |
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2
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Oct 21, 2022
not set
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Jan 17, 2023
not set
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Oct 21, 2022
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Hardcover
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| 1641603143
| 9781641603140
| 1641603143
| 4.22
| 133
| unknown
| Mar 03, 2020
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liked it
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The passing of Queen Elizabeth has given me a desire for English children's literature. After her connection with Paddington Bear in the final months
The passing of Queen Elizabeth has given me a desire for English children's literature. After her connection with Paddington Bear in the final months of her life, I found this inquisitive look at Michael Bond's creative process and put it on hold at my library. Rosanne Tolin has written a charming middle grade biography of Mr. Bond that mimics his rosy Paddington style. Concrete, simple but deep, compassionate and gentle, the text informs the reader of various influences upon Mr. Bond's creative composition of the well-loved Peruvian bear becoming Englishman, specifically: the impact of WWII refugees (both domestic and international), a multicultural neighborhood, and work at the BBC as a camera operator. The touch of surrealism as Mr. Bond and some family members treat Paddington Bear as living, sometimes visible, friend, may wrap young readers in whimsy, although, it may cause adults to question Mr. Bond's mental stability. The account of Mr. Bond and beloved Paddington begins to take on cultic religious fervor as Mr. Bond's life encounters challenges in personal and professional relationships from which he cannot feverishly work away. While Mr. Bond's diligence is admirable, his production prodigious, there is a sense in which constant escapism to the world of Paddington through writing has become his sanity. However, when presented in film or even in Mr. Bond's Paddington books, human interaction with the vivacious Paddington is lovely and untainted by real life concerns. You can get a feel for these fanciful events in this published excerpt.... https://www.myiu.org/stories/arts-cul... More than Marmelade was published in 2020. I did not realize that Mr. Bond passed away in 2017! I thought I remembered reference to a cameo appearance in the movie, but incorrectly thought it was computer generated. Not so. Ms. Tolin set it straight. My entire family, young and old, adored both movies, making Mr. Bond's approval of them an added pleasure. I hope there will be more. The set of the first 8 (of over 150?!?) Paddington Books remain a family library treasure. Though I (and a voracious reader family member both) enjoyed More than Marmalade, I was content to read and return to the library. For the stories themselves, start here... A Bear Called Paddington (Paddington Book #1), Michael Bond, 1958 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... For a look at the backstory of the other famous English bear, see: Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bear, Lindsay Mattick, 2015 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ...more |
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1
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Sep 14, 2022
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Sep 27, 2022
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Sep 14, 2022
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Hardcover
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| 0316324906
| 9780316324908
| 0316324906
| 4.50
| 9,998
| Oct 20, 2015
| Oct 20, 2015
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really liked it
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The year 2015 saw two lovely picture books published with the history behind the creation of Winnie the Pooh. The other book is: Winnie: The True Story The year 2015 saw two lovely picture books published with the history behind the creation of Winnie the Pooh. The other book is: Winnie: The True Story of the Bear who inspired Winnie the Pooh https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... In mourning the Queen, I have a strong desire for English literature. I read both picture books. They both tell the story of the Canadian Bear, who lived at the London Zoo, as a beloved member of the community from 1915 to 1934. This presentation is designed to be read in two parts and takes a more literary approach. I also love the khaki military color scheme of the images. It is more personal as the mother and son presented have a Canadian familial link to the veterinarian solder that cared for Winnie. Loved the photo album at the end. I slightly preferred this presentation and would give it 3.5 stars. For the Winnie-the-Pooh stories themselves, see The Complete Tales & Poems of Winnie the Pooh, Milne, 1961 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ...more |
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Sep 14, 2022
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Sep 21, 2022
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Sep 14, 2022
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| 0805097155
| 9780805097153
| 0805097155
| 4.31
| 2,558
| Jan 20, 2015
| Jan 20, 2015
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liked it
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The year 2015 saw two lovely picture books published with the history behind the creation of Winnie the Pooh. The other is: Finding Winnie: The True St The year 2015 saw two lovely picture books published with the history behind the creation of Winnie the Pooh. The other is: Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bear https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... In mourning the Queen, I have a strong desire for English literature. So, I read both books in one sitting. They both tell the story of the Canadian Bear, who lived at the London Zoo, as a beloved member of the community from 1915 to 1934. This book approaches the facts with an historical appreciation for detail. I liked the numerous vintage photographs and thorough research of this title. Even though I preferred the more personal literary touch of the other title, this presentation is a solid 3 stars that would also make a lovely addition to a home library - particularly one in which Winnie the Pooh is read and loved. For the Winnie-the-Pooh stories themselves, see The Complete Tales & Poems of Winnie the Pooh, Milne, 1961 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ...more |
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Sep 14, 2022
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Sep 21, 2022
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Sep 14, 2022
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| 1433580047
| 9781433580048
| 1433580047
| 4.39
| 285
| unknown
| May 10, 2022
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it was amazing
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After reading Simonetta Carr’s excellent biography of B.B. Warfield, I wanted to read some of his work in his own thoughts. Though it does not mention
After reading Simonetta Carr’s excellent biography of B.B. Warfield, I wanted to read some of his work in his own thoughts. Though it does not mention The Emotional Life of Our Lord specifically, I commend it to you as a thought provoking glimpse of Warfield’s brilliant work, most of which was completed at Princeton Theological Seminary (of Princeton, NJ). B.B. Warfield (Christian Biographies for Young Readers), Simonetta Carr, 2019 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Concurrently, I read Dane Ortlund’s Gentle and Lowly, which devotes Chapter 11 – The Emotional Life of Christ to this essay (The Emotional Life of our Lord) by Warfield, my assignment was clear. Gentle and Lowly: God’s Heart for Sinners and Sufferers, Dane Ortlund, 2020 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Though you won't get the poignant introduction by Sinclair Ferguson (which reviewers seem to think worthwhile), you can read the text of The Emotional Life of Our Lord by Warfield online. The file I located contains 65 pages, which seems long. End Notes, which are basically annotated citations, are enumerated from pages 37-64, which both reduce the length of the main arguments and create many additional roads of thought to explore. Link here: https://www.monergism.com/thethreshol... For this review, I would like to lean in to Warfield’s writing to explain his line of reasoning in illuminating the emotional life of Jesus, what we can learn of Jesus and from Jesus. I’m merely summarizing the highlights of this read through. Warfield’s writing is dense and deep. I imagine I myself, as well as others, would be struck by various other themes or lines of reasoning if reading the essay at a different time in my life or in the future. As I said in the introduction and will say in the conclusion, I highly recommend you take the time to read the essay yourself as it is profoundly conceptualized and executed. Introduction Warfield wrestles with our human limitations in knowing a God-made-man, which are summarized in our tendency to go to extremes in conceptualization of Jesus. “There is a tendency in the interest of the dignity of his person to minimize, and there is a tendency in the interest of the completeness of his humanity to magnify, his affectional movements. The one tendency may run some risk of giving us a somewhat cold and remote Jesus, whom we can scarcely believe to be able to sympathize with us in all our infirmities. The other may possibly be in danger of offering us a Jesus so crassly human as scarcely to command our highest reverence. Between the two, the figure of Jesus is liable to take on a certain vagueness of outline, and come to lack definiteness in our thought.” B.B. Warfield “The Emotional Life of Our Lord,” 1912. Compassion & Love In this section, Warfield explores the relationship between compassion (internal emotional orientation) and love (external sacrificial action). We have record of Jesus’ expression of love for God, for mankind, and for His people. Warfield also explores Jesus’ compassion toward all people and participation in the human affection of friendship with Mary, Martha and Lazarus. “In point of fact, this [compassion] is the emotion which is most frequently attributed to him. The term employed to express it was unknown to the Greek classics, and was perhaps a coinage of the Jewish dispersion. It first appears in common use in this sense, indeed, in the Synoptic Gospels, where it takes the place of the most inward classical word of this connotation. The Divine mercy has been defined as that essential perfection in God “whereby he pities and relieves the miseries of his creatures”: it includes, that is to say, the two parts of an internal movement of pity and an external act of beneficence. It is the internal movement of pity which is emphasized when our Lord is said to be “moved with compassion” as the term is sometimes excellently rendered in the English versions.” B.B. Warfield “The Emotional Life of Our Lord,” 1912. “No other term is employed by the New Testament writers directly to express our Lord’s compassion. But we read elsewhere of its manifestation in tears and sighs. The tears which wet his cheeks when, looking upon the uncontrolled grief of Mary and her companions, he advanced, with heart swelling with indignation at the outrage of death, to the conquest of the destroyer (Jno. xi. 35), were distinctly tears of sympathy. Even more clearly, his own unrestrained wailing over Jerusalem and its stubborn unbelief was the expression of the most poignant pity: “O that thou hadst known in this day, even thou, the things which belong unto peace” (Lk. xix. 41)!19 The sight of suffering drew tears from his eyes; obstinate unbelief convulsed him with uncontrollable grief. Similarly, when a man afflicted with dumbness and deafness was brought to him for healing we are only told that he “sighed”20 (Mk. vii. 34); but when the malignant unbelief of the Pharisees was brought home to him he “sighed from the bottom of his heart” (Mk. viii. 12).21 “Obstinate sin,” comments Swete appropriately, “drew from Christ a deeper sigh than the sight of suffering (Lk. vii. 34 and cf. Jno. xiii. 20), a sigh in which anger and sorrow both had a part (iii. 4 note). We may, at any rate, place the loud wailing over the stubborn unbelief of Jerusalem and the deep sighing over the Pharisees’ determined opposition side by side as exhibitions of the profound pain given to our Lord’s sympathetic heart, by those whose persistent rejection of him required at his hands his sternest reprobation. He “sighed from the bottom of his heart” when he declared, “There shall no sign be given this generation”; he wailed aloud when he announced, “The days shall come upon thee when thine enemies shall dash thee to the ground.” It hurt Jesus to hand over even hardened sinners to their doom.” B.B. Warfield, “The Emotional Life of Our Lord,” 1912. Indignation & Annoyance Going into reading this essay, the section on Indignation & Annoyance was particularly appealing to me, for two reasons. First of all, as previously stated, The Emotional Life of Our Lord came to my attention through it’s citation in: Gentle and Lowly: God’s Heart for Sinners and Sufferers, Dane Ortlund, 2021 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Secondly, the topic of the Emotional Life of our Lord also interacts with a book I read through Lent 2022 entitled: Fight like Jesus: How Jesus Waged Peace through Holy Week, Jason Porterfield, 2022 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Warfield’s argumentation through this section is wisely concise. The three points that were particularly impactful to me were: 1) A pure being must be outraged by wickedness, particularly that which causes harm to His beloved children; 2) This holy rage Jesus experienced was not tempered by mercy or grace, His full experience of this emotional strain was a profound aspect of the insult of taking on humanness. 3) Only a God-Man could maintain a righteous anger and perfectly just judgement, wholly embodying both of what to the small mindedness of men look like contradictions. “Precisely what we mean by a moral being is a being perceptive of the difference between right and wrong and reacting appropriately to right and wrong perceived as such. The emotions of indignation and anger belong therefore to the very self-expression of a moral being as such and cannot be lacking to him in the presence of wrong. We should know, accordingly, without instruction that Jesus, living in the conditions of this earthly life under the curse of sin, could not fail to be the subject of the whole series of angry emotions, and we are not surprised that even in the brief and broken narratives of his life experiences which have been given to us, there have been preserved records of the manifestation in word and act of not a few of them.” B.B. Warfield, “The Emotional Life of Our Lord,” 1912. “John modifies its external sense by annexed qualifications: “He raged in spirit,”“raging in himself”He thus interiorizes the term and gives us to understand that the ebullition of Jesus’ anger expended itself within him. Not that there was no manifestation of it: it must have been observable to be observed and recorded;57 it formed a marked feature of the occurrence as seen and heard.58 But John gives us to understand that the external expression of our Lord’s fury was markedly restrained: its manifestation fell far short of its real intensity…. What John does for us in this particular statement is to uncover to us the heart of Jesus, as he wins for us our salvation. Not in cold unconcern, but in flaming wrath against the foe, Jesus smites in our behalf. He has not only saved us from the evils which oppress us; he has felt for and with us in our oppression, and under the impulse of these feelings has wrought out our redemption.” B.B. Warfield, “The Emotional Life of Our Lord,” 1912. “The holy resentment of Jesus has been made the subject of a famous chapter in Ecco Homo.The contention of this chapter is that he who loves men must needs hate with a burning hatred all that does wrong to human beings, and that, in point of fact, Jesus never wavered in his consistent resentment of the special wrong-doing which he was called upon to witness. The chapter announces as its thesis, indeed, the paradox that true mercy is no less the product of anger than of pity: that what differentiates the divine virtue of mercy from “the vice of insensibility” which is called “tolerance,” is just the under-lying presence of indignation. Thus — so the reasoning runs, — “the man who cannot be angry cannot be merciful,” and it was therefore precisely the anger of Christ which proved that the unbounded compassion he manifested to sinners “was really mercy and not mere tolerance.”” B.B. Warfield, “The Emotional Life of Our Lord,” 1912. Joy & Sorrow Warfield’s illumination of Jesus’ joy in conquering was inspiring and filled me with hopeful worship. Also covered was a discussion of the emotions Jesus did NOT experience (for example, we have no record of Jesus feeling either awe in the divine presence or gratitude). With all this information and examination of Jesus’ emotional state, Warfield backs away from labeling the “temperament” or “personality” of the Messiah as Jesus handled His emotions with a purity we lack. He does however devote time to a discussion of the completeness of Jesus’ emotion (without division in his nature or experience, without passivity, etc), including their physical expression. It’s all fascinating. “In any event we must bear in mind that our Lord did not come into the world to be broken by the power of sin and death, but to break it. He came as a conqueror with the gladness of the imminent victory in his heart; for the joy set before him he was able to endure the cross, despising shame (Heb. xii. 2). And as he did not prosecute his work in doubt of the issue, neither did he prosecute it hesitantly as to its methods. He rather (so we are told, Lk. x. 21) “exulted in the Holy Spirit” as he contemplated the ways of God in bringing many sons to glory. The word is a strong one and conveys the idea of exuberant gladness, a gladness which fills the heart;77 and it is intimated that, on this occasion at least, this exultation was a product in Christ — and therefore in his human nature — of the operations of the Holy Spirit, whom we must suppose to have been always working in the human soul of Christ, sustaining and strengthening it.” B.B. Warfield, “The Emotional Life of Our Lord,” 1912. “Meekness in our Lord was not a weak bearing of evils, but a strong forbearance in the presence of evil. It was not so much a fundamental characteristic of a nature constitutionally averse to asserting itself, as a voluntary submission of a strong person bent on an end. It did not, therefore, so much give way before indignation when the tension became too great for it to bear up against it, as coexist with a burning indignation at all that was evil, in a perfect equipoise which knew no wavering to this side or that.’ It was, in a word, only the manifestation in him of the mind which looks not on its own things but the things of others (Phil. ii. 5), and therefore spells “mission,” not “temperament.” We cannot in any case define his temperament, as we define other men’s temperaments, by pointing to his dominant characteristics or the prevailing direction of his emotional discharges.” B.B. Warfield, “The Emotional Life of Our Lord,” 1912. “Various as they are, they do not inhibit one another; compassion and indignation rise together in his soul; joy and sorrow meet in his heart and kiss each other. Strong as they are — not mere joy but exhultation, not mere irritated annoyance but raging indignation, not mere passing pity but the deepest movements of compassion and love, not mere surface distress but an exceeding sorrow even unto death, — they never overmaster him. He remains ever in control.” B.B. Warfield, “The Emotional Life of Our Lord,” 1912. “He is only solicitous that, as Christ did not disdain to stoop to the feeling of our infirmities, we should be eager, not indeed to eradicate our affections, “seeking after that inhuman apatheia commended by the Stoics,” but “to correct and subdue that obstinacy which pervades them, on account of the sin of Adam,” and to imitate Christ our Leader, — who is himself the rule of supreme perfection — in subduing all their excesses. For Christ, he adds for our encouragement, had this very thing in view, when he took our affections upon himself — “that through his power we might subdue everything in them that is sinful.” Thus, Calvin, with his wonted eagerness for religious impression, points to the emotional life of Jesus, not merely as a proof of his humanity, but as an incitement to his followers to a holy life accordant with the will of God. We are not to be content to gaze upon him or to admire him: we must become imitators of him, until we are metamorphosed into the same image.” B.B. Warfield, “The Emotional Life of Our Lord,” 1912. Conclusion Finally, Warfield concludes with an overview of ground covered. This essay is so rich, I could read it repetitively (say, every year) and find new insights into the LORD, His emotional experience/ expression and how to imitate His self-control. “It is germane to our inquiry, therefore, to take note of the fact that among the emotions which are attested as having found place in our Lord’s life experiences, there are those which belong to him not as man but as sin-bearer, which never would have invaded his soul in the purity of his humanity save as he stood under the curse incurred for his people’s sins. The whole series of his emotions are, no doubt, affected by his position under the curse. Even his compassion receives from this a special quality: is this not included in the great declaration of Heb. iv. 15? Can we doubt that his anger against the powers of evil which afflict man, borrowed particular force from his own experience of their baneful working? And the sorrows and dreads which constricted his heart in the prospect of death, culminating in the extreme anguish of the dereliction, — do not these constitute the very substance of his atoning sufferings? As we survey the emotional life of our Lord as depicted by the Evangelists, therefore, let us not permit it to slip out of sight, that we are not only observing the proofs of the truth of his humanity, and not merely regarding the most perfect example of a human life which is afforded by history, but are contemplating the atoning work of the Saviour in its fundamental elements. The cup which he drank to its bitter dregs was not his cup but our cup; and he needed to drink it only because he was set upon our salvation.” Warfield’s writing is rich in thought and substance. This is a mine to which I want to return often. I felt inspired that maybe I should track down some of his other essays or books. Simonetta Carr usually includes a biography in her books, so I think I will start there. As for you, dear fellow pilgrim, I would recommend Warfield’s wisdom to your heart, as words through which the Holy Spirit can work. ...more |
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| 9781643139098
| 1643139096
| 4.33
| 1,704
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really liked it
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“On 6th February this year Her Majesty The Queen became the first British Monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee, marking 70 years of service to the
“On 6th February this year Her Majesty The Queen became the first British Monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee, marking 70 years of service to the people of the United Kingdom, the Realms and the Commonwealth. To celebrate this unprecedented anniversary, events and initiatives will take place throughout the year, culminating in a four-day UK bank holiday weekend from Thursday 2nd to Sunday 5th June. The four days of celebrations will include public events and community activities, as well as national moments of reflection on The Queen’s 70 years of service.” (https://www.royal.uk/platinum-jubilee..., Retrieved 8/6/2022) On April 5th of 2022, Robert Hardmann published the 690-page biographic overview of the reign as Queen of our Times: The Life of Queen Elizabeth II. An appropriate title, as QE2 *has* been the Queen of our times. My entire life she’s reigned, and for most of the life of anyone who is likely to read this review, even should she pass into eternity any day, she has been Queen of the United Kingdom and various realms for almost a century. This basic fact of longevity makes Hardman’s accounting of the QE2’s reign a summation of the history before a reader’s birth and a review of what has happened since, told from the perspective of the Queen. Queen Elizabeth II’s service has had broad impact across the English-speaking world, both directly through the Commonwealth and indirectly through the European Union and former colonies that share the English Common Law legal system, English language, and English customs. What a skillful dance the once Empress of India has played in continuing the planned divestment of Empire begun by King George VI. Hardman walks through year by year the Queen’s dance of global leadership combined with freedom for democratic electorates to choose their own beat, while companionably dancing with those countries that wanted to stay ensembled through the Commonwealth. The passages explaining the complexities and hostilities of the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth and the European Union are full of helpful commentary and quotation from people who navigated these diplomatic quandaries. Also insightful are sections on the many countries that vacated the Queen and the few that added her as Head of State, all of whose ceremonies were attended by the Queen or her representative (usually Prince Charles in her later years). Yet Hardman has not limited himself to merely a state history. For the Queen’s story is also the story of a family. When she came to the throne, the family was recently in crises due to her father’s shocking untimely death at the age of 56. Hardman does a good job of illuminating how two men anchored QE2’s reign and family life: her father, King George VI and her husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. Both men were capable, diligent, and determined to serve in their role to the best of their God given ability. It is, of course, here, among her family, that the Queen has made many public mistakes. While her sense of duty and service anchored her firmly in times of diplomatic or political storm, her struggles of motherhood are particularly plain in the salacious stories of her offspring. It is hard not to be absorbed Hardman’s stiff English accounting of the scandals that have rocked the family and impacted the Queen’s reign. Diana, Diana, Diana in the 1990s, followed by Charles & Diana and Charles & Camilla surely ranks high on the list of definitive points. The Diana storyline, which took place in the line of succession, was so strong that it overshadowed the profligate behavior of the Queen’s younger son, Prince Andrew. While Charles has gotten his personal life together through faithfulness to Camila, Prince Andrew ran wild for another two decades before being forcibly retired from public life in the early 2020s. But in the Platinum year of 2022, the headlines are dominated by the current Duke of Sussex and his wife, Meghan, as they attempt to monetize their royal standing without serving the crown directly. Meanwhile the Duke of Cambridge, Prince William and his wife Katherine have taken a steady approach to living as family in royal public life. With all the drama of these younger generations, it is easy to forget the propensity for scandal plagued generations before the Queen. The Duke of Windsor’s famous dalliances culminated in his choosing to marry the American, Wallis Simpson and abdicate to the throne to King George VI (Queen Elizabeth’s father), who was raised the spare, not the heir. These events are well covered in Queen of our Times. However, youngsters may not be aware that each generation going back through the previous House of Hanover and beyond has had trials for both the righteous and wicked, which has served to sort them respectively – as they do for all, little and great. It’s part of the job and leading this very public family can often be the most difficult part. Along the way in telling the public and private story of Queen Elizabeth II, Hardman gently promotes the Royalist value from the monarchy argument – both explicitly and implicitly. The churn of Prime Ministers and governments through the decades of QE2’s reign illustrates the wisdom of a royal hand in long term diplomacy as a small group of people have a lifetime commitment to upholding the history, the confidentiality, and the service of the head of state. It’s a wonderful system. The flow of American Presidents – who fulfill *both* political leadership/ executive enforcement AND ceremonial roles (greeting World Series Winners, recognizing American public service & achievement, and coordinating State Visits by world leaders), also underlines the gravitas that the Queen’s permanence gives to the ceremonial functions she owns, which has allowed the trail of English influence to extend into the 21st century, far beyond the dissolution of Empire. It’s a good system, especially with a benevolent, long tenured, and ethical monarch intent on serving the people. It also allows the government to minimize the damage of a bad monarch, though whether the royal family could survive such mismanagement at any point is open for debate. It’s clear that the capability and faithfulness of QE2 has shut down that debate during the later part of her life. Whether Republican anti-royal attacks will emerge at her death and the ascension of the brazenly less capable Prince of Wales to the throne remains to be seen. Though Hardman attempts to be fair, measured and encouraging of the Prince of Wales, I found little to ease my opinion of Prince Charles’ abilities. For a resent critical article declaring concerns about Prince Charles’ leadership ability, see https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti... There is of course, an ethical question at the center of the constitutional/ parliamentary monarchy. It is this: Recognizing all the benefits of this system, particularly those realized through a capable long reigning monarch, the great percentage of which cannot be realized by an appointed rather inherited royalty: Should the United Kingdom be breeding people for this role? Perhaps the Duke of Windsor (formerly King Edward VIII) and Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, have strengthened the monarchy by leaving. They have demonstrated that your fate is not completely sealed by birth into the State system because, whether already King or merely in the line of succession, you can step away from public service to the monarchy. Likewise, perhaps the expulsion of Prince Andrew for his long-documented abuses of status indicates the family can be self-monitoring to maintain their beneficent role? Meanwhile, the success of the Queen, her husband Prince Philip, her daughter Princess Anne and son Prince Edward (with his wife Sophie), and Prince William (and his wife, Katherine) highlight that the role can be fulfilled well. After all this background, you may wonder: Who is Robert Hardman and is he worth listening to? His Goodreads Author page states (retrieved Jul 2022) “Robert Hardman has covered aspects of royal life for more than twenty years and is the writer of both the film and the book Monarchy: The Royal Family at Work as well as Her Majesty: The Court of Elizabeth II, also available from Pegasus Books. He writes for the Daily Mail in London.” I found him to be an reasonable guide in the typical understated manner of an Englishman entrusted to exercise a certain amount of discretion in his coverage of the family and it’s households. Obviously, he wants to preserve the sources he has cultivated over decades, and his Royalist accounting is not sensationalized in either it’s praise or reserved censure. You can get a feel for Hardman’s style and content in this article, published by the Daily Mail on June 1, 2022, the eve of the Queens Jubilee Celebrations announced in the opening statement of this review: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti... While I’m not interested in the celebrity of monarchy, I am interested in the governance/ geopolitical precedent of the English system. Most of my reading of the Royal Family has taken place in context of history and biography. I also watch a few documentaries. Though I write more of my musings about the ethics of the system in my review, the only other book I have also read/ reviewed is the inferior: Not in Front of the Corgis: Secrets of Life Behind Royal Curtains, Brian Hoey, 2011 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... For the Jubilee, I also watched a few documentaries about Queen Elizabeth. My favorite was, The Unseen Queen, 2022. Elizabeth: The Unseen Queen tells the story of the Queen's life through BBC exclusive access to never-before-seen home videos and footage of Elizabeth’s private moments, making it the most complete look at her life in existence to date. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt20123174/ This article from Elite Daily contains a nice list of documentaries if you would like more in that genre... https://www.elitedaily.com/entertainm... ...more |
Notes are private!
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May 30, 2022
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it was ok
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PLEASE NOTE: This is a review of the Young Reader’s Edition published in 2009 (Pollan and Chavet), NOT the full length 2006 work. The Omnivore’s Dilemm PLEASE NOTE: This is a review of the Young Reader’s Edition published in 2009 (Pollan and Chavet), NOT the full length 2006 work. The Omnivore’s Dilemma for Young Readers was assigned for my student’s eighth grade English, a class traditionally focused on literature and composition. Reading the preface, I was disappointed. Looking over the assignments, which culminated in a persuasive essay, I was further disappointed. What I found was political, economic, and environmental activism being marketed as education. The Omnivore’s Dilemma (for adults) was published in 2006 and this Young Readers Edition (adapted by Richie Chavet) was released in 2009. I realized I would have to the take the time to read the book, write a review, and discuss with my student. I’m aiming for this review will serve triple duty: 1) Assist me in having an organized discussion with my student. 2) Articulate my perspective to share with my child’s school. I have been unable to resolve classification of The Omnivore’s Dilemma for Young Readers. Classification is no insignificant thing as murky typing allows books to work their way into curriculum even though they lack a clear subject matter component. This is a red flag that the book’s material is ‘something else’ outside the traditional structure of grammar or dialectic academics. Are you noticing more and more of our children’s education is about the “something else”? For example, the Natural History Museum is no longer about Natural History, but evolution, environmentalism, or the making of the latest media property. Math class is about stories or economics instead of facts and functions; Civics is not about our shared governmental structures, processes, and responsibilities as citizens, but activism for leftist causes. As a result, students struggle with both basic knowledge of the world and the common sense that arises from mastery of it. At the end of the Preface, we get the straight up statement that Pollan’s objective is political indoctrination. Specifically, he wants children to learn to vote “for the kind of world you’d like to live in.” However, no one gets to vote for the kind of world they would like to live in. All of us long for a world uncorrupted by sin and wickedness, but this is not the world we inhabit. Therefore, we only get to vote for how we want the world we actually live in to be managed. “…There is a lot we can all do to push the food system in this direction, but it begins with informing yourself about what’s at stake, and then voting – with your fork now, and then in a few years with your ballot—for the kind of world you’d like to live in.” (The Omnivore’s Dilemma for Young Readers, “Preface”, Pollan & Chavet, pg. 5-6). Earlier in 2022, I read a helpful text that introduces fundamentals of economics: Money, Greed and God: Why Capitalism is the Solution and Not the Problem, Jay Richards, 2009. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... In Money, Greed and God, Dr. Jay Richards articulates a natural law approach to economics – in other words, recognizing the world operates according to discoverable economic laws that we cannot change. This would stand in direct contrast to Pollan’s “vote for the kind of world you’d like to live in” appeal-to-power to make our own rules, decide for ourselves how the world functions. Money, Greed and God examines 8 Myths, many of which apply directly to Pollan’s arguments about food production and consumption as presented in The Omnivore’s Dilemma for Young Readers. The Preface of Omnivore’s Dilemma features Money, Greed and God’s Myth #1: The Nirvana Myth, which involves contrasting capitalism with an unrealizable ideal rather than with its actual real-world alternatives. Pollan calls for government intervention in the agricultural market to align it with a world that uses less industrialized processes, chemicals, and fossil fuels, without examining the real-world trade-offs required. Winston Churchill’s famous statement comes to mind, ““Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…” Winston S Churchill, 11 November 1947. Also present in the Preface and throughout the reasoning of the Omnivore’s Dilemma for Young Readers is strong promotion of the Piety Myth (Richards #2), which focuses on fanciful good intentions instead of the unintended real outcomes of our actions. The Piety Myth runs like cancerous blood throughout the body of the text, calling for happy wholeness with complete disregard for the inability of non-industrialized agriculture to provide plentiful food at an affordable price. In Part One: The Industrial Meal Food from Corn, Pollan continues with the myths of the preface, but also engages in The Zero-Sum Game Myth (Richards Myth #3), asserting all trade requires a winner and loser in opposition to the reality that when people freely trade each receives something they want/ need more than what they traded away. For example, people trade money for food because their family needs to eat. On pages 46-51, Pollan gives a big picture glossy on how the US Government has destroyed the free exchange of the agricultural market through subsidies, specifically corn subsidies. Though he doesn’t get into any other agricultural subsidies, he does talk about the economic impact of these market modifications on both individual farmers and large agribusiness operations. Even as Pollan mourns the devolution of diversity in American farming, the restrictions of the market when the government props up corn (partly to push for ethanol production), the overuse of fertilizer to increase production, the reduction of rural population/ community/ business, and how corn shows up in everything because the government is making it cheap for agribusiness to use as a food additive – he nowhere explores the obvious step of pulling this huge root of the problems by ending the subsidies and reducing government interference with the market. Rather, his conclusion is (seeking Nirvana and Piety, Richards Myths #1 & #2) all industrial farming necessitates peaceful but revolutionary overthrow and we should reject it by refusing to eat food produced through this market. Mr. Pollan does not seem to appreciate that though fast food generally and McDonald’s specifically is exotic to him, this transgression, (which he commits for the sake of his research) is a regular part of middle- and lower-class life in America. People who work two or three jobs don’t have time when traveling from one to the other for a sit down, much less home cooked, healthy meal. A family where both parents are working struggles to find time (and energy) for the labor of preparing healthy meals at home and consuming them together. Parents driving from one child’s activity to another struggle to have a meal on hand for multiple humans. Finally, most people do not fly across the country to travel. They drive. And when they drive, they eat fast food on the way to Grandma’s house. Mr. Pollan’s commentary on driving through McDonald’s, ordering, and eating the meal with his family in his sports car with the top down is astonishingly elitist and offensive. It shows complete ignorance for both his subject matter (which he stated as the “values of eating”) and the lives of the families (including the young readers) to whom he is advocating (see pg 126). “We finished our meal in under ten minutes. From the packaging to the taste, fast food is designed to be eaten quickly. Real food is a pleasure to eat. You want to take your time and enjoy every bite. There’s no point in taking your time with fast food. After a few bites, you forget what you’re eating. It’s not exactly food, but a kind of food substitute. So you eat more and eat more quickly, bite after bite, until you feel not satisfied exactly, but simply, regrettably, full.” (Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan, pg. 126). No one denies the pleasure of eating well prepared healthy food. However, many meals are simple eat-to-live affairs. Most people in this world (and throughout its history) spend a greater percentage of life on the necessity side of the continuum, while Mr. Pollan clearly lives in the opposite pleasure extreme. Good for him. Yet Mr. Pollans writes as if Americans driving through McDonald’s are doing so in rejection of their local farm-to-fork Michelin rated eatery – with complete disregard for the cost + time + labor difference between the two. It’s not that people disagree with him about the qualities of a fast food meal, a scrumptious gourmet home cooked family affair, or a lovely candlelit farm-to-fork romantic dinner, it’s simply that people don’t have the access Mr. Pollan does to the money + time necessary for consistent enjoyment of the costly meals. Just as if the books were written side by side, Pollan’s next section in Omnivore’s Dilemma, Part Two: The Industrial Organic Meal, illustrates the Materialist Myth (Richards Myth #4), which embraces the false conviction that intelligence cannot solve problems to create value. This is clearly seen as Mr. Pollan completely rejects the organic industrial hybrid process. Even though organic industrial food like that sold at Whole Foods (where Mr. Pollan can afford to comfortably shop) has an idealized values driven backstory marketed to consumers (stories very similar to those Pollan is telling, stories he enjoys reading when browsing Whole Foods), Pollan weighs them in the balance over just 35 pages (compared to 112 pages in Part One: The Industrial Meal Food from Corn) and finds them wanting. The farmers Pollan met told him their small organic farm approach was economically unviable even when they cooperated, but Pollan faults these organic pioneers because, “the hippie commune was now under the control of corporate America… this wasn’t because they saw the error of their ways. They just recognized that a growing number of consumers wanted organic food, and they wanted a piece of that business.” (Omnivore’s Dilemma for Young Readers, Pollan, pg. 157). Why is it wrong for farmers to want to make a profit to both provide for their own families and develop their farms, while responding to consumers desire for organic food? Does Mr. Pollan not appreciate the foundation of civilization is mass production of food? Mass production of food – by a few – allows people to specialize in other areas such as engineering/ building both private (shelter) and public infrastructure (such as water aqueducts), medical care, government, manufacturing (clothing, household necessities, etc), religious practice and cultural/ artistic advancements. If a large percentage of a population is engaged in subsistence farming (see third world countries today and countless cultures going back to ancient times), we will not generate enough food for university professors, such as Mr. Pollan, to be paid elite salaries to teach, speak and write. For tragic contemporary case study currently playing out in 2022, look at what is happening in the island nation of Sri Lanka. Follett & Cochran. “Sri Lanka Is a Wake-Up Call for Eco-Utopians.” Human Progress.org. July 15, 2022. https://www.humanprogress.org/sri-lan... By the time we get to Part 3: Local Sustainable Meal: Food From Grass, Mr. Pollan uses 72 pages dripping with honeyed poetry to advocate for his target agricultural solution. Writing idealized bucolic scenes, Mr. Pollan presents Jay Richards’ (Money, Greed and God) Artsy Myth. The Artsy Myth confuses aesthetic judgements with economic arguments. Deflecting the economic arguments, Mr. Pollan utilizes the Artsy Myth to praise small organic family farming with modern sensibilities as the solution for delectable values-based sustenance. The value of beauty and peace indicates to Mr. Pollan that the artisanal farm, worked by humans instead of machines, is the shalom we are seeking in food production and consumption. Nonetheless, immersed in this gorgeous natural setting stylized by the Artsy Myth, Mr. Pollan crashes head-first into the reality of the labor of farming (see pg. 166-67). Labor seems to be another aspect of the food production quandary that Mr. Pollan doesn’t factor, at least not for Young Readers. After his MacDonald’s meal of industrial commercial produced food, Mr. Pollan freely describes his culinary efforts in the meals he prepares from other food production lines. But the text is notably sparse about the significant human labor associated with food production. The previous chapters present industrial farming as a machine with little to no human involvement, even though these farms employ hundreds or thousands of people. Though he discusses carbon footprints for various agricultural products and processes, never mentioned are the man hours fossil fuel energy replaces. In previous chapters, I had been pondering how the Omnivore’s Dilemma was a book with unstable economics and pushy politics. In Part 3, the environmental dimension of energy production and consumption began to take center stage. It actually began at the end of Part 2, with the below quoted section, presented by Mr. Pollan without irony for the following facts: 1) Pollan wanted to order meat, not vegetables, which might indicate higher economic value to the meat? 2) Pollan has a FedEx account number (either his or his employers) that he can use to order food for research. 3) Most of the population of the world lives in the temperate latitudes of the North Hemisphere. This means that food cannot be produced year-round, which is why fresh healthy produce is flown from the tropic or southern summer to the northern winter throughout the non-productive months. 4) Pollan flew – one would guess on a commercial airline – from California, where he was living, to Washington DC, and then drove 150 miles to Polyface Farm to write about his experiences in Part 3 (the next section) of his book, in which he advocates for us all to consider how we can reduce the use of fossil fuels to save the earth. Pollan and Mr. Saladin have big problems with moving food to people – even large groups of people, but no problem moving the right kind of people to the food? Unfortunately, due to the GoodReads space limit, see pg 159-160 for the text. When writing this review, I came across this article: Emmett Penney, “Energy Lysenkoism”, Compact Magazine, May 24, 2022. https://compactmag.com/article/energy... Mr. Penney identifies 4 aspects of Lysenko’s destructive Soviet energy policy, and how those factors are playing out in contemporary debates concerned with energy production and consumption as quantified in carbon footprints/ climate change models – themes abundant in Mr. Pollan’s writing. According to his bio at MichaelPollan.com, at the time of writing the Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan held the position of “…the John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism.” The environmental debate provides context for The Omnivore Dilemma’s attack of American agriculture. Mr. Penney’s statements in the above linked article about energy policy are directly applicable to Mr. Pollan’s theories on agriculture presented in Omnivore’s Dilemma – including the evasive technique of presenting the argument in such a mythological way (the ‘something else’) as to deny both clear discussion of the problem or the solution to which he is pointing, namely the dangerous reduction of (energy and) food supply upon which all people are dependent. A market that only allows for the high-priced artisanal food production favored by Mr. Pollan’s values will only be able to feed the elites that can afford to pay others directly (or the indirect energy cost) to produce it in the manner they desire. Yet, food production requires either energy or labor and most likely a significant amount of both (see Bible, Genesis 3:17-19), which is a natural law that we cannot change. Also notice Penney’s referenced research on the kind of low energy consumption, pre-industrial, agricultural labor Mr. Pollan advocates. REA refers to the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. “Robert Caro once described Texas farm life before electrification this way, “The one almost universal characteristic of the women was that they were worn out before their time, that they were old beyond their years, old at 40, old at 35, bent and stooped and tired.” The absence of electricity meant the absence of indoor plumbing, and the only way to get water was to manually carry loads of water, often weighing over 100 lbs., between wells, rivers, and lakes, and the home. After the REA, both freshwater and volts flowed through farms—a nearly incalculable improvement in the quality of life for farmers and their families.”” As quoted by Emmet Penney, “Energy Lysenkoism” Compact Magazine, May 24, 2022 Students could learn more from reading the accomplished economist Bjorn Lomborg, which I shared with my student after he completed his class assignments. He immediately recognized why he couldn’t find any data that organic food was plentiful and affordable, as well as the human rights ramifications of conforming to food production processes that lack these essentials. Lomborg, Bjorn. “Organic Farming Is Great Business, but a Bad Investment: Despite best intentions, organic farming is harming, not helping, the environment.” USA Today, Aug 11, 2016. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinio... Lomborg, Bjorn. “Want to Alleviate World Hunger? Ditch the Organics” Boston Herald, May 31, 2022 https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/05/... At this point, I have to confess I just did not have the fortitude for Section 4: The Do-It-Yourself Meal: Hunted, Gathered and Gardened Food. Reviews (mostly glowing) by those who endured were helpful to me in determining that I did not want to spend time to read further of Mr. Pollans experiences. I did, however, read the Afterword: Vote with your fork, The Omnivore’s Solution: Some Tips for Eating, Q&A with Michael Pollan, Further Resources, Acknowledgements, Sources and Index. I found these end materials helpful in both summarizing and accessing the ideas presented. ...more |
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| unknown
| 2022
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it was amazing
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This publication structured a nine month Bible Study for the 2022-23 school year. I was blessed to work through it with an online group. Even by rigoro This publication structured a nine month Bible Study for the 2022-23 school year. I was blessed to work through it with an online group. Even by rigorous BSF standards, Kingdom Divided is a heavy work load, particularly the weeks where the entire book of Isaiah (66 Chapters) and the entire book of Jeremiah (52 Chapters) are assigned. This ambitious overview covers sections of 1-2 Kings, 1-2 Chronicles and the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah and Habakkuk. Parts of Malachi are also discussed. In comparison, for the 2021-22 school year, we covered the book of Genesis, 50 Chapters for the entire year. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... This is not to say this is not an excellent study, just that it is difficult to keep up with. I had the added blessing of participating in a simple Sunday morning study of the minor prophets during the same time frame. Each week, we read aloud a chapter, and discussed it, working our way through the minor prophets. It was a wonderful complement to this study. The prophets have a lot to say about how and why a civilization steeped in the JudeoChristian culture collapses. Israel's history in the land and these prophetic books have a tremendous amount of encouragement for us, as well as instructing us about God, mankind, the rise and fall of nations and the coming kingdom. The Bible Study Fellowship study for school year 2023-24 has been announced as: The Gospel of John You are invited to join in, if you'd like. If the somewhat local group I was in this year doesn't resume an online study, I will join an international group. Interested? You can use this link to access BOTH local, in-person groups, and online groups. https://join.bsfinternational.org/ ...more |
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| 006290521X
| 9780062905215
| 006290521X
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| Jan 07, 2020
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it was amazing
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I first read this book in January of 2020, right before life slid into the big change of the COVID-10 pandemic. I had begun learning about intermitten
I first read this book in January of 2020, right before life slid into the big change of the COVID-10 pandemic. I had begun learning about intermittent fasting from the health/ medical field, but was stunned by the silence of Christians, who have practiced fasting as spiritual discipline for thousands of years. Into this void writes Jay Richards. The book summary released Nov 2019 referenced that Richards had written on this topic for The Stream, so my husband and I started reading the 14 articles we found there in the fall of 2019. Link... https://stream.org/tag/fastingbodyand... Then, my husband and I read the book together. Richards also did numerous interviews (podcasts, articles, etc) to promote the book, which can be found around the internet. My initial 2020 impression was: “If I could get this book delivered during the pandemic, I’d be sending it to several friends and family members. Richards presentation is even better than I hoped. My husband and I read it. Then, we worked on a Lenten fast that has ended in an Easter feast, with preparation to continue developing a fasting lifestyle.”--- end I have since revisited the book in January of 2021 and now 2022, and plan on soaking it in again as Lenten preparation for as many years needed until these ideas become a strong foundation for fasting practice. As with his book on economics (Money, Greed and God, link below), Richards provides thorough research of a topic – in this case fasting and nutrition – and then examines the information in light of historical Christian teaching/ practice and Biblical study. Money, Greed and God: Why Capitalism is the Solution and Not the Problem (10th Anniversary Edition), Richards, 2019. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... In Eat, Fast, Feast, Richards questions both his Biblical interpretations with scientific discovery and his scientific interpretations with Biblical truth, covering common questions and concerns believers have in the practice of fasting. Some chapters are focused on the pragmatic plan Richards has developed for personal fasting (a KETO diet gradually implemented via intermittent fasting throughout Lent, culminating in a Holy Week fast of longest duration), while others share the Biblical and historic practice of Christianity (including healthy and unhealthy practices and what distinguishes the two). I greatly appreciate Richards’ sensitivity to the entirety of Christian practice by Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant believers. I’m also appreciative of the detailed work done on the Appendices (1 Additional Books, 2 The Six Week Plan at a Glance, 3 How to Prove your Burning Fat for Fuel), Notes, and Index. I have been told on numerous occasions that fasting is not for my complex medical situation. However, recent studies have indicated fasting might be beneficial. Coming from a family that practiced Lenten fasting through generations, I have long desired to try. Richards’ book gave me enough information to make intermittent fasting a regular part of my life. As for the physical… The text is helpfully researched, cited and indexed. I could never fully implement the keto diet (how does one get 80% of calories from fat? pg. 95), but rigorous cutting of carbs has been beneficial in both resetting my body and making longer fasts attainable. I feel better after fasting, even though it’s gotten harder after our initial success in Lent 2020. I’ve also had fails where I intended to fast, but my body/ mind would not let me, forcing me to choose between fasting and functionality in daily duties. Richards’ approach has helped me to become physically (and spiritually) comfortable knowing when to change my plans to fast and how to get back to moving toward long-term goals. Richards practical direction is intended as a starting point on your own fasting journey. As such, the pragmatic tips are well researched and tremendously helpful, but not authoritative. You may need to discuss with your doctor (which I did) if you are medically complicated. While Richards sparingly comments about his wife, Ginny’s, experience with fasting, (and mentions a friend with PCOS going through the protocol pg. 208-209), Richards’ own practice is the focus. I have the impression their children are (almost or completely) launched and their childbearing years completed. Therefore, his insights are perhaps more applicable to men (both body and lifestyle). As a wife and mother, who has complicated health diagnoses and is raising growing children, I quickly recognized I was unable to implement Richards’ practice entirely. There is also a significant discussion around women’s health and fasting that Richards does not cover. Women must change fasting practice throughout our life cycle in ways that men do not have to consider (beyond their relationship with their wife). I needed to do more research into how to navigate these personal female and familial dynamics. I found secular articles such as the following helpful, but long for a scholarly spiritual + nutritional practice guide for women. Jarreau, Dr. Paige. “Your Menstrual Cycle on Intermittent Fasting.” LifeApps.io, October 6, 2020. Accessed April 2, 2022 https://lifeapps.io/fasting/your-mens... For the spiritual… I’m thrilled to be able to engaged in fasting as spiritual discipline as my progenitures, and no longer feel separated from the discipline due to my chronic health problems. I appreciate how Richards covers pitfalls encountered by previous believers. His insights have helped me work through areas where my belief or practice were pulling me away from walking more closely with the LORD. Of course, being more intentional about eating has also curbed my greediness for sweets, as I make the practice of setting aside my physical desires to pursue spiritual vitality a regular rhythm of worship. I particularly found the chapters, 9 Fasting for Discipline, Sacrifice, and Holiness, 11 Fasting for Better Prayer, and 16 Fasting to Clear your Mind, valuable in growing my understanding of fasting as spiritual practice. I’m still wrestling with the ideas of 16 Fasting for Spiritual Warfare every time I read through in preparation for Lent, which is tribute to the orthodoxy upon which the chapter is based. My husband and I read the book and worked through the posted study guide for Lent 2020. Though we haven’t done it again, we recommend, especially if you are discussing/ implementing with a spouse or small group... https://dk4dsgfbgkmll.cloudfront.net/... In the last 3 years, Eat, Fast, Feast has become my go-to guide for Christian fasting and Lenten preparation. In this book, Jay Richards has served Christians across denominations in helping us develop a spiritual practice the contemporary church has neglected. Highly recommended. ...more |
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| 1430031972
| 9781430031970
| 1430031972
| 4.40
| 40
| Apr 15, 2014
| May 2014
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liked it
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Although this study is a bit Bible-lite, psychology heavy, we enjoyed Recovering Redemption more than the previously disappointing... The Apostle's Cre Although this study is a bit Bible-lite, psychology heavy, we enjoyed Recovering Redemption more than the previously disappointing... The Apostle's Creed: Together we Believe, Chandler & Maxfield, 2017 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Did Pastor Chandler write this Member Book himself? I notice Apostle's Creed was published 3 years AFTER this book and cites a co-collaborator. Perhaps accountability forced a recognition of the work of writers in publishing the sermons of mega-church pastors? I cannot tell. Our small group discussed the weekly study, which is broken into 3 days of work. The three days is somewhat arbitrary as some "days" consist of about 10 mins of work, while others could take 40 minutes due to lists of passages to locate and analyze. We then would watch the video and have a brief prayer time afterward. Most of the principles discussed in the video are then incorporated into the study for the upcoming week. I think the improvement was some combination of the following: 1) Our previous experience lowered our expectations for this installment of Pastor Chandler's teaching. Rather than being annoyed with his topical analysis completely untethered from any Scriptural reference, we anticipated it. 2) The topic of relationships in a hip self-helpy psychological presentation, is a strong one for Pastor Chandler, one might even say his strongest thematic. 3) Pastor Chandler leans heavily on the scholarship of other authors in this series. I never did go back to the Lesson 6 video to pull out the individual whose work he referenced on the difference between shame and guilt; I could not find any citation in this Member Book. Later lessons lean heavily into the work of Ken Sande, particularly this title: The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict, Sande, 2004 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... 4) I no longer used this study as a primary Bible study. I followed along to interact with the group, but devoted myself to meatier endeavors, specifically the highly recommended Bible Study Fellowship group/ curriculum. The Unexpected King: The Gospel of Matthew, Bible Study Fellowship, 2021 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ...more |
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Jan 27, 2022
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May 14, 2022
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Jan 27, 2022
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| 0310238358
| 9780310238355
| 0310238358
| 4.38
| 448
| unknown
| Oct 01, 2000
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it was amazing
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This is an excellent book dealing with topic of why God allows us to suffer and how to work through it. The fact it is written by someone who knows pe
This is an excellent book dealing with topic of why God allows us to suffer and how to work through it. The fact it is written by someone who knows personal suffering so deeply (Joni became was paralyzed in a diving accident when a teen) only contributes to the books poignancy and authenticity. There are no easy answers here, but there are answers. A book to read and re-read as needed and perhaps not even when "needed" but able to be pondered. The highest recommendation possible. For a later title that explores chronic pain specifically, see: A Place of Healing, Tada, 2002 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ...more |
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| 1539506584
| 9781539506584
| 1539506584
| 4.50
| 947
| Oct 2016
| Oct 12, 2016
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it was amazing
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Living with a rare birth defect, early childhood illness, and chronic pain, I occasionally read books about how others cope with the physical, spiritu
Living with a rare birth defect, early childhood illness, and chronic pain, I occasionally read books about how others cope with the physical, spiritual, and social challenges of disability. But I do not do it often. There are not many voices I trust, and a long look down the train tunnel of physical challenges can add, instead of unburdening, heavy freight. Veneetha Risner’s The Scars that Have Shaped Me: How God Meets us in Suffering is one I would recommend. This is an intensely personal testimony of how God has used illness from an early age to shape her life. It is also the story of a women who literally embodies exceptional challenges she would not have chosen for herself. This is a prolife book that avoids pity. Risner illustrates that even a disabled life is a life WORTH LIVING, that is formed in God’s image, walking in God’s presence, and dependent on God’s gentle shepherding. Risner presents an authentic struggle that restricted people engage if we are to be matured through our suffering instead of destroyed by it. The field of this engagement is more apparent for those with physical limitations, while the challenges of those physically whole come in other arenas. The Scars that Have Shaped me took me into the deepest struggles of my soul. As with Risner, I have found that while the source of the difficulty is physical, my deepest battles are in the immaterial soul, not necessarily when the physical pain is the highest, but when the growth of endurance is most painful. Risner writes of despair when life piles on relational, financial, and spiritual struggles – from which the physically disabled are not immune. She asks honest questions of God, some of which I have never discussed with others. And she finds the blessings of illness. Isolation becomes a way to draw near to God alone. Pain forces you to prioritize what you can and cannot do. Insecurity reveals the reality of our complete dependence on God. Our weakness and neediness brings us to a loving Father Who provides, a gentle Shepherd Who guides. Later chapters reference the ministry of Joni Earickson Tada, another trusted source who has buoyed me in my darkest storms. Risner is writing in the same vein. Other books I’ve read by Tada that I particularly recommend include: When God Weeps: Why Our Sufferings Matter to the Almighty, Joni Eareckson Tada, 1997 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Joni: An Unforgettable Story, Jone Eareckson Tada with Joe Musser, 1976 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... And to these Risner’s recommendation added the following to my to-read list: Beside Bethesda, Joni Eareckson Tada, 2014 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... This is not an easy, happy-happy-clap-clap book. Rather, it is one that is good, true and powerful, because it focus’ on a God Who is good, true and powerful. Authentic truth is a salve to authentic pain. This is the God you need when you are living on the cusp of your strength every day. I highly recommend The Scars that Shaped Me to people struggling with chronic illness, who are Risner’s stated primary audience. Rather short chapters allow for reading as you have ability. Somewhat repetitive, you won’t notice when reading through a flair up requires reminders, or when you’ve left it on your nightstand for a few weeks. I was weak and heavy laden. Risner led me to soul rest in Him. I hope you will find soul rest, too. ...more |
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| 1913896153
| 9781913896157
| 1913896153
| 4.42
| 71
| Jul 2021
| Jul 2021
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really liked it
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Liz Parker chronicles the challenges and joys of family missionary life. After meeting in England (he from South Africa and she a native Brit), the Pa
Liz Parker chronicles the challenges and joys of family missionary life. After meeting in England (he from South Africa and she a native Brit), the Parker’s feel called to missionary work in Africa. The journey of getting to the field is full of risks emotional and financial. Once they arrive, Mrs. Parker explores the uncertainties of their life as Christian missionaries, such as contract assignments of limited duration (2-5 years in one location before moving to another), disease, civil unrest, cultural challenges (language, food supply, household help, economic navigation), education, and family separation. Along the way, she also shares how God has led, met and provided for their family. Though the book maintains a light tone, deep issues are contemplated, though sometimes only in the abstract. For example, there are vague references to internal strife and organizational challenges within the missionary community. While Mrs. Parker doesn’t air dirty laundry, there is enough for an adult to notice some parts of the story are left out to dry without examination. Care is also taken to preserve the privacy of other families. Only individuals mentioned more than once are given last names. Many people are not named, but rather referenced as “a friend from church” or “a friend from Youth With A Mission (YWAM).” The photos included in the middle of the book are delightful and follow the same naming conventions as the text. One imagines Liz Parker had to send out inquiries throughout Africa to determine who was desirous or resistant to be named in her family adventures. These details are tactfully handled, but sometimes the narrative can feel evasive or lacking depth. In contemplating this obfuscation, I was reminded of Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa. Sharing African settings and shadowy references to friends and acquaintances created an association between the books. Although Ms. Parker’s account is more of travelogue and Ms. Dinesen’s a love letter from Africa with literary flourish. Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), 1937 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... As for her own personal difficulties, Mrs. Parker is more – though not completely – forthcoming. Her struggles as wife, mother and missionary supporter well told. This book covers the couple’s courtship, preparation, missionary assignment, addition of children and first decade or so of African adventures. One looks forward to another book on the middle or later half of the Parker’s African service. That is not to say the book is slow or boring. The lively pacing, through brief chapters and chronological sections, was engaging to two teenage students, who devoured this narrative in late night reading. Interesting details of a completely different way of life (mission work plus Africa and the UK) are interspersed with exciting stories of the family’s numerous contextual challenges. In a way, this book is a direct support to missionary service generally and the Parker’s specifically. I don’t mean simply financially, though I assume that to be the case. Not everyone who serves on the mission field has the capability or interest to write an account of their experience as Mrs. Parker has done. In addition, while popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, contemporary accounts of missionary life have become increasingly rare. Immeasurably More provides a fresh look at the challenges faced by families engaged in Christian mission in our times, with emphasis on the perspective of wives/ mothers/ women and homelife. Immeasurably More is a wonderful resource for young Christians exploring God’s call on their lives. Every young Christ follower should consider where the LORD will call them to serve, whether in his work directly and/or indirectly (by supporting His work), whether at home and/or abroad. Immeasurably More also provides a somewhat promotional glimpse of the mission field for those who support this Christian witness from far locales. For additional missionary accounts from the field, see…. Things as they are: Missionary work in Southern India, Amy Carmichael, 1905 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6... Through the Gates of Splendor, Elizabeth Elliot, 1957 Ecuador, South America https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5... Give me this Mountain, Helen Roseveare, 1966 Belgium Congo – now Democratic Republic of Congo https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ...more |
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| unknown
| 5.00
| 7
| unknown
| 2021
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it was amazing
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This title is part of the Bible Study Fellowship International 12 year cycle. I studied it with a group of ladies in an online small group for the 202
This title is part of the Bible Study Fellowship International 12 year cycle. I studied it with a group of ladies in an online small group for the 2020-2021 school year. This book was available in English, Spanish and Mandarin. Bible Study Fellowship only makes the current year study available, so this study would technically be "out of print" today. The study next available for 2021 - 2022 is Matthew: Unexpected King. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... The study is excellent and a significant foundation for the Bible Study Fellowship ministry. But what makes this Bible study approach extremely rich is the quality of the small groups achieved through careful training and selection of the leaders. Womens, mens and childrens groups are available. Because of COVID, the ministry made a signficant online move. If you can get into a remote or in-person group, BSF provides an effective and enriching way to study the Bible. ...more |
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| unknown
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it was amazing
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This 2020-2021 Bible Study on the Gospel of Matthew is another excellent stimulant for thorough Bible Study and group discussion. Matthew consists of
This 2020-2021 Bible Study on the Gospel of Matthew is another excellent stimulant for thorough Bible Study and group discussion. Matthew consists of 28 chapters that follow Jesus from his genealogy and birth through his death and resurrection. The overview of Jesus’ place in prophecy as well as His teaching is profoundly life changing. Studying the Gospel of Matthew is recommended. This book, and even better a small group to work through the entire book over 9 months, enhances individual study of the Scripture both through the collective insights of the group and the accountability to prepare for meetings. The program consists of listening to a lecture, studying the Scripture, reviewing commentary & answering questions (both of which are provided in this resource), and discussing the questions in a small group. It is a time commitment. Though I was able to faithfully complete the Bible Study weekly, attend most (but not all) of the weekly discussions, I had to give up trying to find time for the lecture. Though this program has been run as an in-person weekly event for decades, the extension of groups to Zoom has allowed me to participate when my other responsibilities would prevent me being out of the home every Thursday morning. I’m delighted they have opted to continue to the online format. The study selected for the 2022-2023 school year is: People of the Promise, Kingdom Divided, Bible Study Fellowship, 2022 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ...more |
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it was amazing
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Sep 18, 2024
|
Feb 16, 2024
|
|||||
|
| 4.50
|
it was amazing
|
not set
|
Jun 29, 2023
|
|||||
|
| 3.74
|
really liked it
|
Apr 29, 2023
|
Feb 05, 2023
|
|||||
|
| 3.97
|
not set
|
Nov 26, 2022
|
||||||
|
| 4.00
|
it was amazing
|
Jul 2023
|
Nov 26, 2022
|
|||||
|
| 4.54
|
it was amazing
|
Jan 17, 2023
not set
|
Oct 21, 2022
|
|||||
|
| 4.22
|
liked it
|
Sep 27, 2022
|
Sep 14, 2022
|
|||||
|
| 4.50
|
really liked it
|
Sep 21, 2022
|
Sep 14, 2022
|
|||||
|
| 4.31
|
liked it
|
Sep 21, 2022
not set
|
Sep 14, 2022
|
|||||
|
| 4.39
|
it was amazing
|
Dec 2022
|
Aug 01, 2022
|
|||||
|
| 4.33
|
really liked it
|
Aug 12, 2022
|
May 30, 2022
|
|||||
|
| 4.18
|
it was ok
|
Aug 30, 2022
|
May 26, 2022
|
|||||
|
| 4.66
|
it was amazing
|
Apr 29, 2023
Apr 29, 2023
|
May 14, 2022
|
|||||
|
| 4.05
|
it was amazing
|
Apr 15, 2022
Apr 15, 2022
|
Mar 05, 2022
|
|||||
|
| 4.40
|
liked it
|
May 14, 2022
|
Jan 27, 2022
|
|||||
|
| 4.38
|
it was amazing
|
not set
not set
|
Jan 18, 2022
|
|||||
|
| 4.50
|
it was amazing
|
Feb 2022
Jan 11, 2022
|
Jan 11, 2022
|
|||||
|
| 4.42
|
really liked it
|
Jan 18, 2022
|
Jan 11, 2022
|
|||||
|
| 5.00
|
it was amazing
|
Apr 2021
not set
|
Dec 14, 2021
|
|||||
|
| 5.00
|
it was amazing
|
May 14, 2022
|
Dec 14, 2021
|
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