We Escape A Fire

From about kindergarten to second grade I lived in a rambling two story house that was called the 'parsonage'. Now a thing of the past, a parsonage was a house owned by the church for the pastor or 'parson' to live in. We had a big garden, with sweet corn, tomatoes and rhubarb. The church people, almost all farmers in rural Nebraska, would bring fresh cream to our front porch every morning.

I never heard of a shooting, a robbery, or any other crime in our little town. There was a community freezer that they called the 'meat locker' and everyone kept their meat there, which was usually local beef. I can remember the feeling of walking into it with my father on a warm summer day, nostrils constricting. We walked there, and walked home, as I recall.

We didn't own a TV although I had seen one at our neighbor's house. I spent long, lazy summer days playing in an empty lot we called 'the cliff', a section of raised earth that could have been no higher than six feet. All the kids in the neighborhood met there. We made roads in the dirt, and came home when we heard our mothers calling. It must have been close to home, but it seemed a world away.

My next door neighbor was a boy named Bobby, and he went to Catechism every week. Since we were Protestants, I wasn't sure what that was, but he brought home an individually wrapped pack of pretzels and usually shared them with me. Something about Catachism was good, I thought.

When I was in first grade, our garage burned down.

Fortunately, it was a detached garage, and the fire was caught before it spread to the house. But I remember coming home and blistered paint on the side of the house and feeling very relieved. For a long time after, when I heard a siren pass by at school, I was a bit scared.

Reading Cahill is Like Watching a Movie!

 How The Irish Saved Civilization

In cinematic-like prose Thomas Cahill presents images of history breathtaking, absorbing, and sometimes disturbing. While culling from a wide variety of sources, and presenting it in a way that tempts the literary palette for more, this work spans the history of more than a millennium to tell the story of the link from ancient Greece to the twentieth century. 

I suppose being Irish aids my fascination with the subject matter, and being a contemplative type Christian doesn’t hurt either. Still, Cahill’s description of life in the early centuries provides illumination into what have been termed the Dark Ages for more reasons than one. The reader feels as if he had sat by an ancient fireside, complete with smells and sounds. 

It remains to be seen what we will do with this illumination. I’d love to read Cahill’s thoughts on modern culture. 

Seldom have I read a contemporary work of this magnitude and complexity, with such ability to engage. Happily, it is one of five in a series titled Hinges of History. I’ll be going back for more!

Finding Our Way Illuminates

A Review of:

Finding Our Way Again

by Brian McLaren

Like the aging actor, fumbling lines he has long ago committed to memory, America’s sense of faith seems to have forgotten the lines. We’re in danger of being lost in a watered down soup that could only be described as postchristendom.

Brian McLaren sounds a warning that is at once heartening comfort food for the wandering spiritual traveler, and a gentle wakeup call for sleeping souls.

Finding our way is about integrating ancient liturgical practices of the Catholic and Anglican tradition with the individualized spontaneity of Protestantism. The broken marriage between Catholics and the Reformers has divided the church for centuries and produced a spiritual disorientation that McLaren believes can be made whole by a return to practices that have only been preserved in certain denominations. Far from a book about reviving dead ritual, the book sparkles with meaningful suggestions about transforming each day into a new worshipful experience with God. 

One fly in the ointment for the average Christian is McLaren’s inclusion of Islam as one of the three Abrahamic religions. While he doesn’t develop this idea, it stands out as an odd grouping to a westerner. 

Questions at the end of each chapter provide opportunity to interact with the book. 

I received  a copy of the book from Thomas Nelson Publishers through the booksneeze program in return for my honest opinion.