Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading ~ by Eugene H. Peterson, 2006, religion, xii + 186 pages
Eat This Book challenges us to read the Scriptures on their own terms, as God’s revelation, and to live them as we read them. Peterson offers greatly needed, down-to-earth counsel on spiritual reading. He draws readers into a fascinating conversation on the nature of language, the ancient practice of lectio divina, and the role of Scripture translations. Included here is the "inside story" behind Peterson’s own popular Bible translation, The Message.
You can probably see I've been going through another box I got from my friend Donna's apartment after she died. This one seems to have a lot of her books about religion in it.
Evolution of the Word: The New Testament in the Order the Books Were Written ~ by Marcus J. Borg, foreword by Bishop Lowell Erdahl, 2012, religion, viii + 593 pages
Borg presents the New Testament books in the chronological order in which they were written, and highlights how what began as a radical Jewish faith transformed itself into Christianity. He emphasizes the vital importance of seeing the documents in their ancient setting and provides valuable contextual commentary on each of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament.
Huh, this is the first I've heard of this book, which was among the books I inherited from Donna after she died. I'm surprised because Borg is one of my favorite authors, and he wrote my favorite theological book: The Heart of Christianity.
Mary Magdalene's gospel starts with missing pages. These are the words we can't get back, this is the wisdom, the voice of Christ from the heart of a woman, that was torn out and most likely destroyed before the rest of her gospel was buried. There was something so incendiary in these first six pages that her gospel starts on page seven.
Mary Magdalene Revealed: The First Apostle, Her Feminist Gospel and the Christianity We Haven't Tried Yet ~ by Meggan Watterson, 2019, religion, 264 pages
I started by reading the short introduction of the author on page 239, and then I read the introduction on pages xiii - xvi and watched an interview between the author and the managing director of Hay House on YouTube (click this link, if the video below doesn't work for you). The author's website is https://www.megganwatterson.com/
"The message is to LOVE each other." That's a quote about 6 minutes into this 38-minute video, which I think gets to the point that LOVE is what it's all about. Believing certain things is not the point, worshipping the right way isn't it, either. Just LOVE one another. That's the Christianity we haven't tried yet, in my opinion. Then I was ready to really get into this book and see if that's also what "the first apostle" says in her book.
Book Blogger Hop asks a question each week. Here's the one for Dec. 16-22, 2022:
Which time of day do you prefer to read:
morning, afternoon, or evening?
Hmm, I'd just have to say, "Yes." I always prefer to read. I read in the morning when I get up, I read throughout the day, and I read in bed before falling asleep. Being retired, I'm not limited by WHEN I can read. Unless I plan to go somewhere with a friend or have to get groceries or something like that, you'll probably find me reading. I do occasionally have to do things like wash dishes or clothes, but I'd rather be reading. Who wouldn't?
(*Note: I like that we can plan ahead by reading the upcoming questions HERE.)
1. Look what I got in the mail: A package from my daughter that was wrapped in JOY.
2. Time for a confession. Everyone knows that old age is our "second childhood," and everyone also knows that you can't trust children around Christmas gifts.
3. When I realized my daughter didn't actually say it was for Christmas, even though she used Christmas wrapping paper, I went ahead and opened the gift.
4. And what was inside? More JOY, which is now hung on the wall where I will see it every day.
5. When I texted her to thank her, she wrote back that she wanted me to have a bit of Christmas.
6. I told her I'll hang JOY on my cart, when I go to the Circle@Crown Café to eat.
7. Oh, by the way, Clawdia wanted to play with that tassel on the bottom. Nope, nope, nope! This one's not for you, Clawdia.
8. Let's make more connections to the word JOY, some of which I have shared before. It's my favorite word, for one thing.
9. Why? Partly because I've spent a lot of time with this word; to wit: I presented a paper on "Joy or Despair?" at the Southeastern Undergraduate Philosophy Conference held at Emory University back in the early 1970s. I asked why existentialists seemed to focus on despair (Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus come to mind). If, as they say, we find our own meaning in life, why not choose joy?
10. One of my favorite phrases from the Bible is "make a joyful noise," so when I started a church newsletter, I named it Joyful Noiseletter.
11. I was so "into" the meaning of joy during my undergraduate years that my best friend addressed my mail to "Bonnie Joy Jacobs."
12. When my bank got its first teller machine, telling us to choose four letters or numbers to access it, I considered using B-J-O-Y. My young daughter Barbara said, "But Mom, anybody could figure out that's what you would pick."
13. At the top of my blog about words, I have these words: "Joyful Noiseletter — an exuberant newsletter to myself about joyful things, like words, which I enjoy."
I was reading an email which said: "Take a peak at Session 1..." Uh, I think she peaked ... I mean, picked ... the wrong word. Did I pique your curiosity? Which word should she have chosen for that email I read?
Prayers for the Dead ~ by Faye Kellerman, 1996, thriller, 406 pages
The brutal murder of Dr. Azor Sparks in an alley behind a restaurant is greeted with public outrage and a demand for swift, sure justice. But the investigation into the well-known surgeon's death is raising too many questions and providing too few answers for homicide detective Lieutenant Peter Decker. Why, for example, would the family of a man so beloved respond to his slaying with more surprise than grief? And what linked a celebrated doctor with strict fundamentalist beliefs to a gang of outlaw bikers? But the most unsettling connection of all is the one that ties the tormented Sparks family to Peter Decker's own and the secrets shared by a renegade Catholic priest and Decker's wife, Rina Lazarus.
Serpent's Tooth ~ by Faye Kellerman, 1997, thriller, 425 pages
A man walks into a trendy Los Angeles restaurant a disgruntled ex-employee with an automatic weapon and seconds later, thirteen people are dead and thirty-two more have been wounded. It is a heinous act of mass slaughter that haunts Homicide Detective Peter Decker. But, though eyewitnesses saw only the lone gunman who apparently took his own life after his bloody work was done — evidence suggests more than one weapon was fired. It is a disturbing inconsistency that sends Decker racing headlong into a sordid, labyrinthine world of Southern California money and power, on an investigation that threatens to destroy his reputation and his career.
The Confessor ~ by Daniel Silva, 2003, thriller, 400 pages
In Munich, a Jewish scholar is assassinated. In Venice, Mossad agent and art restorer Gabriel Allon receives the news, puts down his brushes, and leaves immediately. And at the Vatican, the new pope vows to uncover the truth about the church’s response to the Holocaust — while a powerful cardinal plots his next move. Now, as Allon follows a trail of secrets and unthinkable deeds, the lives of millions are changed forever — and the life of one man becomes expendable
The Unlikely Spy ~ by Daniel Silva, 1996, thriller, 752 pages
"In wartime," Winston Churchill wrote, "truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." For Britain’s counterintelligence operations, this meant finding the unlikeliest agent imaginable — a history professor named Alfred Vicary, handpicked by Churchill himself to expose a highly dangerous, but unknown, traitor. The Nazis, however, have also chosen an unlikely agent. Catherine Blake is the beautiful widow of a war hero, a hospital volunteer — and a Nazi spy under direct orders from Hitler: uncover the Allied plans for D-Day.
Two books each by two authors
I picked up her library book delivery for a friend: two thrillers by Faye Kellerman and two thrillers by Daniel Silva. Do you think she was thrilled with her library loot?
