Adam Shields

Many Ways to Say I Love You: Wisdom for Parents and Children from Mr Rogers

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Many Ways to Say I Love You: WISDOM FOR PARENTS AND CHILDREN FROM MISTER ROGERSTakeaway: Mr Rogers really was wise.

Purchase Links: Hardcover, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

Over the weekend there were a bunch of sales on kindle books.  I picked this up for $0.44.  And at that price is was a steal.  The kindle price is now up to almost $10 so much less attractive.

This is a very short books, in paper it looks like a gift book size.  In audio it is only 75 minutes.

It was edited by Fred Roger’s wife from various speeches and articles that he wrote.  Each page has a few lines, just one thought. There are a couple roughly themed chapters, but really this is intended to be browsed through looking for the nugget that will speak to you where you are right now.

I do not have kids of my own, but nanny my two nieces (2 and 3).  I think I highlighted about a third of the book.  What Mr Rogers seems to be good at is encouraging parents to be good parents.  This seems to be the theme of the book:

Looking back over the years of parenting that my wife and I have done with our two boys, I feel good about who we are and what we’ve done. I don’t mean we were perfect parents. Not at all. Our years with our children were marked by plenty of inappropriate responses. Both Joanne and I can recall many times when we wish now we’d said or done something different. But we didn’t, and we’ve learned not to feel too guilty about that. What gives me my good feelings is that we always cared and always tried to do our best. Our two sons are very different one from the other; yet, at the core of each of them there seems to be a basic kindness, a caring, and a willingness to try. I’ve heard young parents complain about the way they were treated by their own parents, and they say, “œI’ll never make that mistake with my kids!” And probably the most honest response to that is, “œPerhaps you won’t make that mistake, but you’ll surely make your own different ones.” Well, we certainly made our share of mistakes.

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Isaac Newton by James Gleick

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Isaac NewtonTakeaway: Sometimes it is ok to give up.

Purchase Links: Hardback, Paperback, Kindle Edition Audible.com Audiobook

I am intrigued by science.  But I really do not know much about science.  My science education was either quite poor, or I am just a poor science student (or both.)  My high school biology class was taught by a teacher that had two sections, one was for people that had already failed biology once and the second was taught with the same outline.  I never received less than a 90 on any test or quiz, but I am not sure I learned anything either.  My chemistry class I remember distinctly people cheating off of me, but I have no memory of the class other than the oddity that was my teacher.  I took AP physics but remember it even less than the other two.  In college I had one science class which I hated.  It was filled almost entirely by music majors because of off scheduling and a professor that did not like students.

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How to Pray by R. A. Torrey

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Takeaway: There is something unique about the authors on Prayer in the late 19th and early 20th century. Purchase Links: Google Books (free ebook), christianaudio.com Audiobook, Kindle Edition, Paperback I found this as a free audiobook somewhere (I think it was christianaudio.com but I cannot find a free copy right now.)  So when I was looking … Read more

Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Life Together and Prayerbook of the Bible (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 5)Takeaway: This is one of the classics that everyone should read.

Over the past few years there has been renewed interest in Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  There is a very good documentary (available for streaming on Netflix).  Then two biographies of Bonhoeffer have been published in the last two years (I reviewed Eric Metaxas’s  and have now read but have not read the Ferdinand Schlingensiepen biography, which has been much better received in the academic world and I think is a better biography.)

Much of the interest and resources for Bonhoeffer study is a result of a new 16 volume series of Bonhoeffer’s works.  Previous, to this series that is published in English by Fortress Press, there were only limited editions of Bonhoeffer’s books that had significant translation issues.

I have purchased three of these volumes (they are not cheap, so many people are still purchasing older editions.)  The volume that includes Life Together (Bonhoeffer’s most read book) also includes his book on the Psalms (Prayerbook of the Bible).  I am not reviewing Prayerbook of the Bible here, but will later.  There is a significant amount of extra material in these books to give context and understanding to these two short books.  Life Together is only a bit over 100 pages, but page for page I think is one of the most useful books I have ever read about spiritual growth and the role of community within the church.

The book has only six chapters (Preface, Community, Day Together, Day Alone, Service, and Confession/Communion.)

One of the most useful things that I heard on this reading (I have read this at least twice previously, but not in the last 10 years) was Bonhoeffer’s understanding of the limits and strengths of community. These are two long quotes, but I think shows that Bonhoeffer is not being idealistic about his view of Christian community:

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Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World by C.J. Mahaney

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Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen WorldTakeaway: We should pay attention to sin and spend time thinking about whether we are focusing more on loving the world or loving God.

Purchase Links: Hardcover, Kindle Edition, christianaudio.com MP3 Audiobook

It is hard to review a book on worldliness.  Not nearly as hard as writing one, but still hard.  The tension is viewing worldliness as not anti-world, viewing holiness as a worthy goal, a desire to avoid legalism, the need to focus on the grace of Christ and the tendency to focus on a fairly narrow set of outward sins makes for a book on worldliness easy to take shots at.

I did not realized when I started this book that it was a series of essays by different authors rather than a complete work by Mahaney.  And that makes a difference.  What I liked so much about Mahaney’s book Humility (my review) was that it was so tightly pastoral.  And that seems to be a bit missing in some of the essays.  It also seems like it might be oriented toward young Christians.  After all the chapters are about media, music, consumerism and how to dress right.  (The chapter, my Mahaney, on dress really was inappropriate, it should not have been in the book and the focus seemed to be blaming women for being attractive.  Guys can lust if a woman is in a Burka.  The sin is the lust.  The women are the victim of the sin, not the perpetrators.  Yes, women can be immodest.  Yes, that is a sin, but having a chapter about modesty without talking about the sin of lust means that you are picking on women without dealing with the root issue.  After all if Adam and Eve were naked, without either shame or lust, then lack of clothing is not the issue.  Unfortunately, the long section on immodest wedding dresses really crossed the line for me.)

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Eastertide: Prayers for Lent Through Easter from The Divine Hours

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Eastertide: Prayers for Lent Through Easter from The Divine Hours (Tickle, Phyllis)Takeaway: One of the few books where I am more disappointed by the publisher than the book

Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition

I like fixed hour prayer.  I think more Christians should participate in it.  But I am far from a regular user of it.  I am a nanny for my two nieces and having a 3 and 2 year old running around the house 8 to 12 hours a day makes fixed hour prayer difficult.

So I viewed Lent as a time to try to get back on track again.  It did not really happen during Lent either.  I was definitely an occasional rather than regular user of this book.

But I do love the prayers and choices that Tickle uses.  No prayer book is perfect and there are always some things that I would not choose.  But I think the variety and choices of prayers and scriptures I would not choose is on of the benefits.

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Sacred Unions Sacred Passions Chapter 3

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Chapter 3 has three basic points as there is a shift in the book to a more positive description from a reactive teaching model.

I think the first point is the weakest and least helpful. The chapter opens with a description of the changes in social understanding of inter-racial marriage. This is interesting and I have just finished reading about the same thing in the book Committed. Committed, I think actually makes the argument of the changes better. When the Supreme Court decided Loving vs Virgina, overturning the Virginia ruling and allowed inter-racial marriage, 70% of the US disagreed with the ruling. But just a generation later, you will be hard pressed to find anyone that would say that inter-racial marriage should be prevented by law.

But the argument by really does not make a difference because friendship is not marriage and race is not gender. Yes, social conventions change. But the church, nor sin, is bound by societal convention.

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