Review: Character in the Garden

Character in the Garden, Doris Erika Brocke. Brocke House Enterprises (ISBN: 9780991835515), 2021.

Summary: A compilation of photographs from the author’s surroundings combined with quotations focusing on the qualities of character.

Doris Erika Brocke and her husband Dale live in northeast British Columbia. Both are photographers and gardeners. Dale is also a stained glass artist and Doris a writer. Doris has entertained a dream for fifty years of writing a book on character. In Grade 5 she was given a Gideon’s Bible with a list of character qualities and associated Bible verses. Twenty-eight virtues in all. Over the years, she used this list to examine her own character and how she might improve as a person. And she dreamed about writing a book about these qualities, a dream realized in this book.

She created a book that combines so many facets of her life: the place where they live with its gorgeous gardens and woodland surroundings, stunning photography by her and her husband, a plethora of quotations organized by character qualities, and shaped by the faith and love shared by the two of them.

The book begins with an introduction and five sections on thoughts, purpose, actions, habits, and character. This is followed by twenty-eight sections ordered alphabetically of those Gideon Bible character traits beginning with Cheerfulness and ending with Truthfulness. The book concludes with five more sections on nature, trees, God, destiny, and death. Each page has one to four photographs paired with quotes. Sometimes a quote will be set aside on its own. Quotations are drawn from the Bible and writers from Augustine to Voltaire. An index at the end lists authors alphabetically.

The photographs feature various animals from squirrels to deer and moose. There are a number of exquisite shots of hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees on flowers of every imaginable species. I love one of a bumblebee covered in hollyhock pollen under the section on “Honor.” In his diligence, this bee truly has covered himself in a kind of honor. That brings me to an observation. Each section on character uses a number of photographs of the same type of flower, bird, animal, etc. The section on “honor features hollyhocks, The one on “Patience” focuses on apples–I guess patience is involved in awaiting their ripening. And of course, “Love” features deep red roses. The bleeding heart photographs in the section on “Discretion” were exquisite.

A collage of a few of the photos in the book. From the Rhubarb to Roses Glass & Books Facebook page.

If I were try to capture for you all the quotes I loved from this book, it would be a very long review. I will share one I particularly appreciated by Iris Murdoch:

“Love is the very difficult understanding that something other than yourself is real.”

I’ll be thinking of that for a while.

This book is a feast for the eyes and nourishment to the heart. There is so much wrong in the world, so much devastation, and so much deceit, that we may quickly lose sight of goodness, truth, and beauty. Yet many people of character quoted in this book distinguished themselves as they upheld goodness, truth, and beauty amid the world’s troubles. Often, the virtues they displayed were cultivated in the “hidden years” or even failure experiences. We so need works like these that focus on the goodness we would cultivate in our lives and relationships, the truths we will live by, and the beauty around us that inspires us and which, in turn, we must tend and protect.

I’ll leave the final words on this book to the author and others who have read the book.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author for review. It was deeply appreciated!

Review: God’s Revolution

God’s Revolution: Justice, Community, and the Coming Kingdom, Eberhard Arnold. Plough Publishing (ISBN: 9781636080000), 2021.

Summary: A collection of the writings of Eberhard Arnold, describing the life of discipleship embodied in the Bruderhof, as a radical alternative to the institutional church.

I was in an online conversation today, provoked by posting an image of a new book titled Claiming the Courageous Middle. The person who responded thought I was talking about the idea of being a political moderate and wondered how many biographies have been written about great moderates. I remarked that none of those labels fit what I’m talking about and I rather agree with the implied characterization of moderate as being something like insipid. As a Christ follower, I have a different allegiance, to God’s kingdom and a way that is far more radical than anything politically on offer, the way of Jesus. If I were with the person, I would just offer him a copy of the book I’m reviewing by Eberhard Arnold and say, “Read this, if you want to understand what I’m talking about.”

Eberhard Arnold is the co-founder of the Bruderhof, “an international movement of Christian communities whose members are called to follow Jesus together in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount and of the first church in Jerusalem, sharing all our talents, income, and possessions (Acts 2 and 4).” Writing in the 1920’s and early 1930’s as National Socialism was rising in Germany, he articulates the defining features of this alternative Christian community, differentiating it from the institutional Christianity of his day, increasingly identified with and supportive of the state. Eventually the German community fled to neutral Switzerland, while other Bruderhof communities flourished in England, Canada, the U.S. and eventually South America. This work was drawn from his notes as he taught the German community and is organized thematically with the date the message was given.

This work is organized into four parts. The first reflects his own sense of the crumbling civilization of his time and contrasts this with the inbreaking of the kingdom of God. He describes the Church as “an embassy of God’s future reign.” that looks for the day when that kingdom will extend to the whole world, uniting all under Christ in peace. The Sermon on the Mount reflects the way those who embrace the hope of the kingdom live, and the early chapters of Acts, on which the Bruderhof is modeled, reflect the living out of the sermon.

The second part talks about the fleshing out of this new order heralded by Jesus. The church was established and continues to be established by an outpouring of the Spirit, forming her as a community and empowering her for mission. He writes about the community, that it must be built by God in contrast other communal efforts built on human effort. He recognizes the evil power of money as the reason for the sharing of possessions and no private ownership or savings. Entry into community comes through repentance, a “recognition of the gravity of what we have done.” Baptism represents our break with the status quo, reflecting our spiritual rebirth. The Lord’s supper is a feast of bread and wine, remembering not only Christ’s perfect sacrifice but our communion with each other, one cup, one loaf. Arnold takes seriously the scripture saying we ought not worship if we have a quarrel with someone in community; we should settle it first. Finally, the expectation of the coming kingdom of Jesus calls every one of us in some way into the church’s shared mission.

Part three focuses on the individual in relation to the community. Our bond is not our intention or vision but the Spirit who unites very different people, and fits them, with their gifts, together. Arnold doesn’t speak of leaders but elders who are servants of the word (and housemothers responsible for the women and their work–it appears there was for Arnold a real gender division in the communities). Arnold emphasizes how important is the heeding the leading of the Spirit in one’s speaking in the community. This is a community that practices discipline–“straight talking with love.” At the same time, life in community is always voluntary. If one wishes to leave, they may. All are expected to work, health permitting, according to their gift. Arnold considers marriage a sacrament to be enjoyed in unity and purity between man and woman. Life is to be revered, children welcomed. He denounces abortion. Singleness is also honored. He discusses the high value the Bruderhof place on education although his emphasis is one the formation of character through consistent discipline. The aim of education is to help children see Christ everywhere, in every field of study.

The final section concerns the commitment to peacemaking and non-violence. What is striking is that this commitment rules out work in government, which only makes sense for these self-sustaining communities. While not anti-government, the call is one of “hands off,” of no political involvement. I do wonder how, beyond personal service to humanity and in the order of Bruderhof communities, justice is pursued. What is clear from the final chapter is a deep call to identify with Christ’s sufferings in the suffering of humanity.

I certainly have not captured all the nuances of Arnold’s thought here. He offers bracing challenges to the comfortable traditional church, foremost of which is, do not the scriptures call us to this kind of life together? Nor do I know the extent to which this describes present day Bruderhof communities, although the description on their website sounds consonant with the teachings of Arnold. What is striking to me though is that Arnold thought and taught deeply about how the kingdom life should be lived out among God’s people, particularly around the issues of money and property, as well as the renunciation of violence in any form (including corporal punishment). He challenges all the excuses we make for why we don’t pursue this life. He reminds us of how radical it really can be to say, “I have decided to follow Jesus.”

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: How to Know A Person

How to Know a Person, David Brooks. Random House (ISBN: 9780593230060), 2023.

Summary: An exploration of how we might see people deeply and help them know that they are seen.

Most of us would want to be known as people who help people feel seen and to be deeply seen ourselves. But in our most honest moments, we have to admit we are not very good at this. We don’t listen well. We are far more capable of trying to impress others with our stories, our wit, our accomplishments. One of the most winsome aspects of this book is David Brooks candid admission that this characterizes his relationships far too often, even during his journey to explore this subject.

With his trademark clarity mixing research and personal narrative, Brooks describes the nature of good relationships, where people are seen by each other. He organizes this inquiry into three parts. The first of these is “I See You.” He speaks of how important and how lacking this is. He writes about the ways we often size up and diminish others. By contrast, he describes the qualities of an Illuminator, a model he will hold up and develop throughout the book: tender, receptive, actively curious, affectionate, generous, and holistic, seeing the whole person. Such people also are skilled in the practice of accompaniment, a relaxed awareness of the other as we share life with them. He discusses the marks of good conversations, where we loop back, actively listening, and avoid being the “topper.” He distinguishes between unhelpful questions where we stay superficial and the questions that take us deeper, that invite people to share something more of themselves.

The second part of the book goes deeper in seeing others in their struggles. One of the most powerful chapters in this section concerns how you serve someone in despair, and Brooks narrates his efforts to do this with a friend who eventually ended his life. He writes about what it means to empathize, describing it as mirroring, mentalizing, and caring. He speaks of how Illuminators are both aware of how they’ve been shaped by suffering and allow others who are suffering to process this question.

The final part of the book explores what it means to see people in their strengths. He summarizes personality with “the Big Five” ((he’s not much of a Myers-Briggs fan): extroversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism, agreeableness, and openness. He has a chapter on life tasks, reminding us that people are in a lifelong process of growth and that knowing someone involves discerning where in that process they are. He explores how we listen to and understand life stories and watch for how ancestors show up. He concludes with asking about the nature of wisdom and how it is acquired over a life, and how that changes our relationships.

In a time where we are so divided, where depression and anxiety are skyrocketing and our Surgeon General has named loneliness as a public health crisis, David Brooks has written a book that represents both a way to address many of these concerns and that appeals to “the better angels of our nature.” He writes as a fellow-learner on the journey, not as an authority. He speaks to one of the basics of life that often is overshadowed by the glitzy and the glamourous. He reminds us of the qualities of a good friend. He encourages me to want to be one.

Review: Ethics@Work

Ethics@Work, Kris Østergaard, ed. Re:humanize Publishing (ISBN: 9788797284100), 2022.

Summary: An anthology of essays on workplace ethics in the context of near future challenges, focusing on the systemic context, the inner life of an organization, and the humans at the core of every enterprise.

We are operating in a rapidly changing world with environmental challenges, the digital integration of all of our lives, and the digital extension of human capabilities. What this means for companies as they operate in this changing environment, how this affects the internal life of a company, and how technological advance will shape our understanding of what it means to be human, and even how this impinges on human agency and selfhood are vital questions. They are ethical questions. As Google once framed it, “don’t be evil.” But what does that look like?

This anthology by business and technology leaders connected with Denmark’s Re:humanize Institute believe ethical business behavior will not simply be advantageous but essential. The authors explore a range of topics from the environment to peacemaking to data transparency. They consider the uses of AI, and human-machine convergence, including neural rights. I can’t touch on every essay but I will highlight some I found thought-provoking.

The anthology is organized into three parts. The first is systemic, where workplace ethics are set in the context of the global marketplace. Adam Pantanowitz opens with an essay dividing our lives into natural, conceptual, and digital layers. He outlines the challenges as our neural/conceptual context may merge with digital technologies in way that directly impinge on other minds as well as the natural world. David Bray addresses the explosion of data and our capabilities to use it and advances an OARS framework (Obligations, Acknowledged biases, Responses to Obligations, and Safeguards related to potential biases) to address ethical use of our databases. Nell Watson argues that organizations must stop deferring environmental costs to future generations. Brian David Johnson argues that the need is not to develop ethical AI but to make AI compliant with the ethical culture of an organization (I think it may be argued that AIs, for better or worse will, through the implicit biases built into algorithms, reflect the actual ethics of an organization).

Part Two goes inside the organization, into the machine room as it were. Tiffany Vora draws three principles from biomedical ethics and considers their bearing on business: Justice, Doing Good, and Respect. Again, the management of data-driven solutions arises and governance, accountability, transparency, and explainability are discussed with a valuable list of questions to consider. Guendalina Donde’ outlines a similar set of human values to drive technology application and Ray Eitel-Porter offers a list of seven principles with AI: soundness, fairness, accountability, transparency, explainability, privacy, and sustainability. A fascinating essay explores the tension between “backdoor” access to encryption and the inevitable weakening of privacy with any such move., and the looming danger of quantum computing to all encryption. Arash Aazami describes his effort to build a company that profited by selling less energy. A couple essays featured activist companies like Patagonia and Ben and Jerry’s.

Finally, part three looks at the humans at the center of the emerging business environment. Divvya Chander’s opening essay on neural sovereignty and human rights raised questions I never thought about because, until now the capability didn’t exist. Emerging technologies allow us to read one’s brain activity and to write to the brain. What happens when the ability to read my mind, or to change my mind exists? If brainprints are used as IDs, could this be used, perhaps along with genetic data, to create a truly scary deepfake of any of us? What happens when my thinking can be surveilled? Roger Courage Matthisen offers practical principles for embodying anti-racist leadership. I thought the top suggestion was “showcase your mistakes,” creating a learning environment that allowed space for mistakes. Nathaniel Calhoun acknowledges that “business ethics” is often an oxymoron and describes the practices he coached Silicon Valley startups to use to make ethics endemic to those companies, where individuals were celebrated for raising ethical concerns.

This is a fascinating collection, exploring questions most of us are just starting to think about. At the same time, it seems to assume that we know what is ethical and why one ought live ethically rather than expediently. The authors seem to assume that we bring an ethical conscience to work that needs to be honed by consideration of particular ethical challenges. This betrays the humanist assumptions at the core of this work. Yet the scary reality, touched on in the essays on encryption and on neural imaging is that there are bad actors–those whose ethics are impaired. How does the ethical workplace create robust safeguards that reflect their existence? How do we distinguish good and evil?

It also seems worth exploring the question with all the data scraped about us and the capacities to even surveil thought, what should remain private? Do we have a conception of the self irreducible to bits and bytes? How do we recognize the blind spots in the algorithms that shape the lives of millions?

You see what this book has done? It’s made me question and think. And that seems something needed in our brave new world.

Review: Hope Ain’t a Hustle

Hope Ain’t a Hustle, Irwyn Ince (Foreword by Christina Edmonson). InterVarsity Press (ISBN: 9781514005743), 2024.

Summary: A series of messages from the book of Hebrews making the case for the confidence we may have in Christ, our great high priest who endured the storm, who sustains our hope, and calls us to enduring faithfulness.

There are a lot of hustles out there–on the streets, in business, and even in our email. Sometimes even Christianity has appeared to be a hustle, promising a good life, as long as one enriches the congregation’s coffer. Irwyn Ince contends that this is not true of God when he writes:

“But God is not a hustler. And the hope he calls us to cannot be built on naive expectations that people will start seeing the things the way we do. Our longing cannot be built on the arrogant assumption that we are completely right in the positions we take. It cannot even be built on an expectation of steady improvement. If the arc of the moral universe does indeed bend toward justice, that arc will never be smooth and straight from a human perspective. It will have twists and turns, ups and downs, starts and stops. Our hope, if it is to be enduring, must be rooted in the glory of Jesus Christ.” (p. 9).

In this book, Pastor Ince works from the book of Hebrews to show that hope grounded in the person and work of Jesus will never disappointment and will sustain us through the greatest of life’s challenges.

The book is organized in three parts. The first, “The Storm Before the Calm” addresses the storm the readers of Hebrews may be facing and the supreme authority of Jesus as Son amid the storms. Not only that, Jesus was made like us and entered the danger zone where we live. He came to liberate, to intercede, and to help as high priest and son over God’s house, superior to Moses. Through our hope in Jesus. we may rest in the danger zone, like John Lewis and Diane Nash as leaders of the Nashville sit-ins. As we rest in Jesus who went before us, we may rest while we suffer, knowing we will share in the rest of his glory.

Part Two, “Keep Hope Alive” begins with those words from Jesse Jackson at the 1988 Democratic Convention. Ince explores the unreasonable hope of Abraham and the arc between Melchizedek and the greater high priest Jesus, reflecting on unreasonable hope in the face of prison and plundering that the Hebrews faced, and the assurance they have in a great high priest who offered himself. He was the high priest who became perfect for us through his obedience, who is able to perfect us. His ministry, covenant, and promise are better than all who came before him. There is no better place to go, no better person in whom to find hope, than Jesus. To him we need to return, and he will keep our hope alive.

Part Three, “In Need of Endurance” speaks of the dogged persistence our hope in Jesus sustains. Endurance is built on upward confidence, inward confession of hope, and outward commitment. Ince points to the teaching of Hebrews to endure by faith, in need, and in joy. He uses the example of Superman’s X-ray vision to describe the kind of faith that sees Jesus through the challenges we face. Those who endure by faith live for the heavenly city, the better country, like Freedom Rider Jim Zwerg who suffered a terrible beating while praying to remain nonviolent and to forgive his attackers. Those who endure run through exhaustion by staying with the crowd, by dropping the weight of sin, by keeping our heads up, and fixing our eyes on the future with gratitude, lighting up the darkness.

Pastor Ince writes a book on hope that doesn’t see the world with rose-colored glasses. He writes how the hope that doesn’t hustle that we have in Jesus helps us face dark times without retreating into either fantasy or despair. For those dismayed by the slow progress toward justice in so many aspects of life, he bids us to keep hope alive through Jesus who went there before us and is both the son who reigns and the great high priest who intercedes. He challenges us that hope endures. It never gives up, so certain is it in the promise of God. Through the text of Hebrews, tales of courage from the Civil Rights movement, and personal life, Pastor Ince offers the gritty instruction we need to live into our hope in a “wearying world.”

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Judge Frank X. Kryzan

Frank X. Kryzan (l.) being sworn in for his first term as Youngstown mayor. Youngstown Vindicator, January 2, 1954 via Google News Archive

He was the mayor of Youngstown when I was born and one of the political names I grew up hearing in Youngstown. He served as mayor during a time when Youngstown was still a developing community. The new Chaney High School, an addition to East High School, North High School, and Cardinal Mooney would all open during these years to serve the Baby Boom generation. A new Playhouse building was under construction as well as residential homes and urban housing projects. Market Street and Oak Street bridges were replaced. Exits from the Ohio Turnpike were opened and plans for Youngstown’s freeway system were underway. He was mayor during the time when population began to shift from the city to the suburban townships around Youngstown.

It was a time of rising organized crime activity in the Valley. Kryzan and his new police chief Paul Cress (who was later police chief at YSU during my student years) warned gambling interests not to set up in Youngstown. On one hand the Jungle Inn was fined for delinquent taxes. On the other, bombings related to organized crime were on the rise. It was a challenging time to be mayor and federal law enforcement in this era was not focused on organized crime.

Frank X. Kryzan was born on November 27, 1913 in Youngstown. He graduated with a law degree from Youngstown College. He served in World War II in the United States Army, receiving the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star and two Combat Stars for his service. He married Carolyn Siembieda of Campbell and they had two children, Carol and Alice.

Prior to winning the mayor’s office in November of 1953, he served as president of City Council. He won a hard fought race against three-term Republican mayor Charles P. Henderson, edging him out by 1796 votes. Henderson had become increasingly unpopular because of his police chief Edward J. Allen, who aroused controversy over his law enforcement efforts, including a campaign against pornography. One of Kryzan’s first decisions was to replace him with Paul Cress.

Kryzan served three terms as mayor, deciding to run (unsuccessfully) for a judgeship in 1959. His wife Carol passed away in 1970. In 1971, he married Tina Siembieda Zbell, to whom he was married until her passing in 2009. In 1972, Ohio Governor John Gilligan appointed Kryzan to a vacant position on the bench of the Youngstown Municipal Court. He served in this position until retirement in 1987.

Charles Bannon, a Mahoning County Common Pleas Court judge was long a friend of Kryzan’s and paid him this tribute in the Vindicator obituary: “I had a ton of respect for Frank Kryzan. I was always impressed with how he handled himself. When you saw him he commanded respect.”

In the last six years of his life, he moved to Crown Point, Indiana. He passed on March 13, 2010, at age 96, surviving his second wife, Tina, by a year. He was buried in Youngstown.

War hero. Popular mayor in the Baby Boom years. Respected judge. And mayor during my earliest years growing up in working class Youngstown as one of those Boomers. Seventy years ago.

To read other posts in the Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown series, just click “On Youngstown.” Enjoy!

Review: Fundamentalists in the Public Square

Fundamentalists in the Public Square (Studies in Historical and Systematic Theology), Madison Trammel. Lexham Academic. (ISBN: 9781683597186) 2023.

Summary: A counter-argument to the contention that fundamentalists retreated from activism in the public square after the Scopes trial, based on a study of newspaper reports.

Much of the history that has been written about fundamentalism contends that following the Scopes trial, there was a fundamentalist retreat from activist concerns. Madison Trammel, on the basis of a study of newspaper reporting in four states, proposes that at very least, this is an incomplete picture. his methodology was to focus on newspaper coverage of the two major social issues fundamentalists were engaged with during the period of 1920 to 1933, Evolution and Prohibition, to see if there was a drop off in coverage after the 1925 Scopes trial.

Trammel begins by reviewing the historiography of this period and the two streams, one of retreat and one of continuing activism, indicating his own research’s support of the second stream. Then chapters 2 and 3 take each issue, Evolution and Prohibition, and offer an analysis of the reporting. In general, activism in promoting opposition to the teaching of evolution and upholding Prohibition once it was enacted into law remained high during the period after Scopes.

In these chapters, I found quite striking the public role both William Jennings Bryan and pastor John Roach Straton played as public spokesmen for fundamentalist positions on both Evolution and Prohibition and that their deaths (Bryan in 1925 and Straton in 1930) may have played a greater role in stalling activism than the trial itself. More disturbing were the alignments between fundamentalists like Aimee Semple McPherson and the rejuvenated Ku Klux Klan in appealing to the same constituencies.

Chapter Four explores the influence of Dispensationalism on activism. Biblicist concerns and concerns about sin drove fundamentalist opposition to Darwin and drink. On the other hand, eschatological concerns de-emphasized social action for efforts in personal evangelism. It was striking to me that fundamentalism didn’t seem to have the resources to address the grinding poverty of the Depression, or the changing fabric of America shaped by immigration from both without and within as Blacks moved from the South to northern cities and to the west.

I wondered about the research methodology. Being from Ohio, I noted the heavy weighting of newspapers toward rural outlets. Many of the major papers in Ohio’s larger cities were not a part of the database used. I wondered if this might skew the accuracy of the analysis. I also wonder if New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois, all northern states, offer an accurate national profile.

This book raises larger questions as well about the narrowness of activism in the public square and the paucity of intellectual resources to meet modernist challenges, which require more than oratorical and political suasion skills. At the same time, Trammel helpfully challenges the over-simplifications of fundamentalist history in this crucial period. This is worthwhile in understanding matters as diverse as the continuing anti-science, and particularly evolution, stances in conservative churches, the focus on hot-button issues, and the approaches to societal influence in the public square.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Down the Valley

Down the Valley, Edith M. Humphrey. Cascade Books (ISBN: 9781666772067), 2024.

Summary: Further adventures beyond the gate of the white fence where the children at “Gramgon’s” house and an older friend meet the saints after whom they are named.

In Beyond the White Fence, we are introduced to “Gramgon” and the extended family who come to visit her capacious Pittsburgh home. In that story, the children explored beyond the white fence, bordering Gramgon’s property, encountering fauns, who led them on adventures to other times where they met the saints after whom they were named, and then were escorted back by a peacock, a kind of guide and protector. On one adventure, they pick up a peacock feather, which they conceal under a rock by the gate, and take on future adventures, considering it a connection that will ensure them getting home.

Well, in this story, there are more children who have not yet encountered their saints (and lots more saints to be encountered). And there is an older neighbor boy who has been drawn to this family, but who wonders whether he is too old to meet a saint, even were he to believe. His name, fittingly is Thomas (nicknamed TJ), and he feels himself always late to the party.

Three of the boys, James, Kevin, and Isaiah are especially close, and try to keep their secrets from the girls. They call themselves “the Three Musketeers” and in the course of the book, each has an encounter with the saint for whom he is named. James, interestingly meets the Apostle James as he was finishing his letter and enlists James to carry a copy to the Apostle Paul–an interesting idea. Both James and Paul were in Jerusalem and the boys witness Paul’s close run escape from those seeking his life. Later, on his own, Isaiah encounters Isaiah the prophet just after his temple vision of God. Later Kevin meets the Irish saint, who dwells in caves and has a special bond with the animals.

Perhaps the centerpiece story belongs to young Allie, one of the younger cousins. She had been recently adopted and didn’t quite fit with the older girls, and wondered what was so interesting to her boy cousins down in the valley beyond the gate. Then she sees the bucks in the meadow and follows, but fails to take the feather. She awakens in a temple of Apollo, just when a servant, George is brought from prison and challenged to recant his faith in Christ and worship Apollo. George stands firm before Diocletian and even rebukes the demon inhabiting the statue of Apollo. Then the Empress Alexandra asks George’s God to save her and publicly repudiates her husband Diocletian’s gods. declaring “the true God is Christ.” Allie witnesses the courageous faith of George and Alexandra not only here but in the dungeon where they await execution. Allie was swept up with those arrested. Meanwhile, Naomi, Rachie, and Kevin realize Allie is missing and hadn’t taken the feather. The bucks are waiting, and we wonder how they will rescue Allie and get back.

The last adventure belongs to TJ, who with the Three Musketeers ends up in Kerala with the Apostle Thomas who he discovers has also been late to a few parties and also has struggled to believe.. The encounter, along with the embodied faith of Gramgon’s family is working on his heart and mind.

Interludes between adventures offer time not only for food and the family circle, awaiting the news of a birth. It affords time with Gramgon’s books, who like Edith Humphrey, is a seminary professor. They research the saints, and this along with the encounters, serves to tell the stories of each saint.

There was, at least for me, no discernible plot, unless it be TJ’s journey to faith. Gramgon’s valley provides the framing device for this series of encounters between the children and their saints. What we have is a great collection of adventure stories by which the children and readers learn both about the saints, and the God and Savior they trusted. And for grade school children (and maybe the parents reading aloud) this is perfect.

I’m left wondering if there are more adventures at Gramgon’s in the offing. There are more cousins, and certainly more saints. I for one will be on the lookout, even if I lack a peacock feather!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

My review of Beyond the White Fence may be accessed at: https://bobonbooks.com/2021/12/03/review-beyond-the-white-fence/

Review: Beyond Ethnic Loneliness

Beyond Ethnic Loneliness, Prasanta Verma. InterVarsity Press (ISBN: 9781514007419), 2024.

Summary: An Indian American immigrant describes the distinctive experience of ethnic loneliness and steps those experiencing that loneliness and those who care for them can take toward healing.

” ‘Go back to Indiana, or wherever it is you came from!’ she hissed.

Imagine you are the little girl whose only memories are growing up in Alabama, whose family immigrated from India. It was a devastating message that the author of this work has never forgotten, even with the mistaken notion that Indian Americans must be from Indiana! She spoke English like an American but looked “different” from others. She found herself asking the question “What am I?” And in living in this place on the margins, it led to a peculiar kind of loneliness–ethnic loneliness. It is the loneliness that Blacks, Indigenous people, Latinos, Africans, Middle East and North Africans and Asian American and Pacific Islanders who live in a White majority country struggle with.

In Part One of the book, Prasanta Verma takes this question of “what are you” and delineates the particular nature of ethnic loneliness. In defining ethnic loneliness, one of the striking aspects to me was its chronic, rather than episodic nature that may be experienced as cultural isolation, lack of connection, identity conflicts, loss of cultural identity, social exclusion, marginalization, language barriers, and integration and assimilation. Verma discusses the experience of disbelonging, being uprooted from a place where one belongs to and with others. She poignantly describes her own struggle where her particular beauty clashed with the dominant white culture–she with dark skin without tanning and dark curly hair. She wrestles with identity theft, being the perpetual foreigner in America and a tourist with an American passport in India.

She shares what it is like to be isolated and othered in a racialized society–the racial stereotypes (in her case, the model Asian) and the microaggressions (“where are you from?” which is asked because of one’s different appearance). There is even the struggle of names–does one choose an American name to fit in, making one a traitor to one’s own ethnicity. She chronicles how ethnic minorities are marginalized in institutions: lack of diversity and representation, cultural insensitivity, discriminatory policies, microaggressions, lack of access, language barriers, and more. She concludes this part with summarizing the experience as one of exile. Throughout, Verma draws on how scripture addresses such loneliness, and here points out how God was with exiled Israel, the despised Samaritans and others on the margins.

Part Two of the book explores what may be done. Her focus is on the ethnically lonely person and a key is moving from disbelonging to belonging.. She begins with the healing of different forms of racial trauma, which she names, as a kind of belonging to oneself. She also encourages finding people to be safe with while also setting healthy boundaries in one’s life. She emphasizes the importance of stories, including reading the stories of others, offering a great bibliography. A good rule in such situations (and especially for majority culture people) is: “Don’t deflect racism/Don’t defend racism/Don’t deny racism.” She discusses the ways individualism and fear create barriers to moving from disbelonging to belonging and offers an extremely helpful list of what churches and community organizations can do. Her concluding chapter describes living in the already/not yet of longing for “the better country” of Hebrews 11:13-16–the loneliness that opens us up to the beauty of community, the glimpses and the long haul to see the changes we dream of.

At the end of each chapter (along with questions and a writing prompt) is an answer in verse to the question “So, What are you?” which are wonderful meditations allowing the chapter’s truth to sink deeply into one’s life. Here is the one from the final chapter:

SO, WHAT ARE YOU?

You are beloved
You are not invisible
You are whole
You are wanted
You are seen
You are loved
Just the way you are
You belong to yourself
You belong to others
You belong to God
So, what are you?
You are a gift of joy
You eat at the table
Of belonging
You are a Home
Of belonging
To others
And yourself

Prasanta Verma addresses hard realities of loneliness and trauma with stories of her own life and those of others. She offers biblical re-framing and practical suggestions wrapped in beautiful rhythmic prose and verse. This is an important book not only for those who struggle with ethnic loneliness but for any who care enough to want to understand and accompany those who struggle. And I can’t help but wonder if the insights and practices in this book, if applied, might also begin to address the larger loneliness pervading our society.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride. Riverhead Books (ISBN: 9780593422946), 2023.

Summary: A story centered around a grocery store in the midst of Pottstown’s Chicken Hill district, inhabited by immigrant Jews and the local Black community.

In 1972, a body is found at the bottom of a well, but swept away by Hurricane Agnes. In one sense the rest of this novel answers the question of how that body got there (and so I won’t). But this is a rich story about so much more, that all centers around a Jewish grocery, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. Jewish immigrants with a daughter Chona owned the store. She married a struggling theatre owner, Moshe Ludlow. Eventually Moshe figured out that the money was in Black acts, that the Black residents of Chicken Hill as well as surrounding areas would attend.

Chicken Hill was where those living on the margins, trying to get a toehold, lived–Blacks, immigrant Jews, and later, Latinos. Moshe and Chona lived above the store. While his theatres profited, the store lost money, mostly because Chona was generous with extending credit and slow to ask repayment. As more Jews moved away, Moshe wanted to join them but Chona refused. Today, we would call her a community activist. She was greatly loved, whether by the Jewish immigrants or Black residents, many of whom McBride introduces us.

Nate Timblin worked for Moshe, doing repairs. He had a dark past, according to rumors, but Moshe knows nothing of this. So when he asks Moshe and Chona to help a bright child deafened by a stove explosion to hide from white authorities who want to institutionalize him at Pennhurst, they agree. Dodo quickly becomes beloved by Chona, and a great help as she was weakened by periods of illness. This was not a child who needed institutionalization. They succeed until the town’s white doctor visits the store. Dodo defends her against an assault by the doctor, who flees only to return with the police, who take Dodo to Pennhurst, which is as horrible as all the rumors.

Nate and Addie, the woman he has been seeing, figure out what happened to Chona. And an amazing thing happens. Two communities touched by this evil act come together to rescue Dodo, honor Chona, and to get back at the city councilman, Gus Plitzka, who controls their water supply. And this underscores the larger context of this story. Pottstown is controlled by its white establishment. In these incidents, two ethnic communities, each in many ways self-contained, except by the generosity of Chona, come together to shrewdly resist the white establishment in plots with many moving parts. As kind of a dark counterpart to Chona, Nate chooses to risk all to deliver Dodo from the horrors of Pennhurst.

It’s not hard to see why this book has won numerous recognitions. McBride paints a rich portrait of these two communities that stand against white power and venality. We see two communities galvanized by attacks on an innocent boy and a generous and righteous woman. But all this was sown through years of care and generosity where heaven and earth met at a grocery store.