Catching Up On Some Books

I have been reading, as the list on the right continues to grow. Here are some thoughts on the books I have recently completed:

Gilead is an award-winning novel (2005 Pulitzer and National Critics Circle) that is in the form of a series of letters from an aging minister to his young son. It takes place in the early 1950s which allows the Civil War to be but a couple generations past. Marilynne Robinson uses a voice that reflects the ages back in the day when preacher's and their lives were lived like that. It was hard at first to believe it was only from the mid-20th Century. It seemed older than that. But the central character, John Ames, was 76. It really was a world on the edge of a major change- but it hadn't happened yet. The book tends to plod at times, but the insights are interesting and keep you moving forward. It is spiritual in a deeply personal sense, never dazzling, often quite banal. But that is where the spiritual may most be at work in most of our lives.

Losing Moses On the Freeway is Chris Hedges ponderings on the Ten Commandments and what they may mean in our contemporary world. I am discovering that Hedges is a remarkable essayist. He has an ability to put things into words that shatter and slice and open up new paths in our daily lives. No one gets away easy. He makes you think! The first chapter about his time in an inner city church while attending Harvard Divinity School is worth the price of admission. Liberals and conservatives, pro-war or anti-war, Christian or atheist- you will find something to resonate with- and to vehemently argue with. As he deals with each of the commandments in order it is a reminder that they were - and could be - the most impossible to meet commandments possible. Yet it is in the attempt that we learn more about who we are and who God is.

The Canon bu Natalie Angier is subtitled "A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science." It is a that and more. Angier has a way of playing with words that while sometimes forced and silly allows her to deal with the very basics of each of the branches of science in ways that are interesting and intriguing. Creationists and Intelligent Designers won't like it- which is fine by me. What I found in her writing was a deep and profound appreciation for the scientific process, scientific inquiry, and the ever changing, ever developing ways science makes our mysterious world easier to understand- and an even greater mystery of awe and beauty.