Sabbatical Reading

When I packed up things from my study to see me through three months of sabbatical, I hauled a stack of books home. Mostly these are books I’ve collected since January in anticipation of having some extra time for reading from April through July. I always overestimate how much reading I can actually get done. I’ve been know to take five books with me on an overnight trip. And I did it again.

Armed with more than thirty “must reads” I entered the sabbatical months. Of course, my dreams of having entire days to sit and read, sip coffee, and think were just that -- dreams. The first three weeks involved a frantic effort to finish a home remodeling project upstairs that had begun in early December. We managed that. During long days of painting, laying flooring, and nailing up trim work I did little reading. However, I had purchased an audio book I listened to – Tony Hendra’s New York Times Best-Seller, Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul. Hendra tells a moving story of his life-long relationship with “Father Joe,” an unusual Benedictine monk whose spiritual vision and direction saw this wayward soul through a struggling adolescence, a failed marriage, substance abuse, and a quest for meaning. Father Joe is a compassionate saint. That the book sold so many copies may indicate the spiritual hunger of a wayward generation.

Traveling to Mexico filled most of the next two weeks with more activity. Reading was done in the cracks of time that could be found in the early mornings, mostly. The fare was a little heavier. I read Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (Oxford, 2002). Jenkins is a historian who details a fascinating scenario of Christianity in our world. He demonstrates the ways in which Christianity is spreading rapidly in many places, with the result that it is moving south (away from Europe and North America as centers) and is becoming darker (African, Latin American, Asian). The “average Christian” today should be thought of as a woman living in a Nigerian village or a Brazilian favela. This shift from the Western and Northern Hemispheres to the Southern and Eastern ones is almost invisible to most Northern Christians. We still speak glibly of what “Christians think” or of what “most Christians believe” as if we represented the church in the world. Contrary to what we hear in the news, Islam is not on the verge of taking over the world. In Africa, Asia, and Latin America Christianity is making huge strides, and not because of the work of Western missionaries. In fact, Christians from the South may soon be working hard to evangelize North America.

When I got home three weeks ago, I had assignments to prepare for the journey to Africa and Thailand. That has kept me occupied during the day. But I have found the time to read a couple of other books that challenged my thinking. At Melinda’s recommendation, I read Sue Monk Kidd’s The Dance of the Dissident Daughter. I had read her Secret Life of Bees last year. Bees is a novel, and a good story. Dance is her spiritual autobiography. Monk tells of her journey from being reared in a Southern Baptist Church in the Deep South to her present understanding of the spiritual life in terms that incorporate a feminist spirituality. She rightly exposes the patriarchal system that has for millennia treated women as less than men, and deals with her own struggle against that system, especially in the church. I’ll probably read her new novel, The Mermaid Chair, before the summer is over. It is a fictional account of that same journey, I gather.

Today I will finish reading Walter Wink’s The Powers that Be. Wink is a biblical scholar who has produced a series of thorough studies on the power structures of our world: Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament; Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces that Determine Human Existence; Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination; and When the Powers Fall: Reconciliation in the Healing of Nations. I own these, but have not read them yet. They were not even in the stack of thirty I set aside for the summer. The Powers That Be is a popular summary of the ideas in the others. Wink exposes the way that human institutions inevitably fall to the myth of redemptive violence. We grow up believing that violence is the solution to our problems. It shows up everywhere, from abuse in homes, to the patriarchal system Monk wrote about, to conflict in the Middle East. He lays alongside that cultural myth the teaching of Jesus on non-violence (not non-resistance or passive-ism) and offers it as Jesus’ “third way” (between violence and passivity). He demonstrates how it has been an effective way of bringing change in many parts of our world, especially in the 20th century.

Along the way I have read “in” a couple of others that I hope to finish soon. Henri Nouwen’s Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life is a powerful one. He calls us to compassion through a life of obedience. Since God is the God of compassion, since God already has compassion on the hurts of people, we are simply called to live in relationship and obey God. As we do, we become expressions of God’s compassion in the world. But the challenge is to live with a responsive and listening relationship to God. Also, Nouwen insists, compassion is something we do together, in community. None of us can be the compassion of Christ to the entire world, to all its hurts, to all its needs. We do it together. I have only a couple of chapters left in this one.

Last fall I was given a copy of Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal and Delight in Our Busy Lives, by Wayne Muller. It has thirty-five short chapters with suggested exercises at the end of each. I’ve been reading a couple of chapters each week this spring. I’m about half-way through. I recommend it.

I have read about a third of Reggie McNeal’s A Work of Heart: Understanding How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders. He reviews the lives of Moses, David, Paul, and Jesus and identifies six influences that God uses to shape leaders’ lives: Culture (the times and environment in which one is raised), Call (the leader’s personal sense of call by God to mission), Community (the people who shape and sustain the leader), Communion (the leader’s personal relationship with God), Conflict (the leader’s engagement of destructive forces in life and ministry), and Commonplace (the daily choices of living). McNeal underscores that God creates leaders to share his heart with his people. So the spiritual formation of a leader’s life is not a private matter. It impacts the leader’s constellation of followers and extends beyond the leader’s own life and lifetime.

One other read this summer is Patricia Cranton’s Professional Development as Transformative Learning: New Perspectives for Teachers of Adults. She calls professional teachers (I’m reading it as “pastors”) to be involved in a self-directed program of “transformative learning.” Cranton teaches a path of constant reflection on our work and revision of our processes. It is a bit dry, but helpful.

And I continue my way through the Bible with you, reading Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase, The Message.

So what’s in the stack that may or may not make it by August? In no particular order, just the way they are lined up on my shelf:

Ed Friedman, Friedman’s Fables
Bruce Feiler, Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths
Kegan Lahey, How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work
Robert Lewis & Wayne Cordiero, Culture Shift: Transforming Your Church From the Inside Out
M. Rex Miller, The Millennium Matrix: Reclaiming the Past, Reframing the Future of the Church
Don Miller, Blue Like Jazz (because everyone I know is reading it)
Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart (a re-read)
Roberta Gilbert, The Eight Concepts of Bowen Theory
Tetsunao Yamamori and C. Rene Padilla, eds., The Local Church, Agent of Transformation: An Ecclesiology for Integral Mission
Erwin McManus, An Unstoppable Force: Daring to Become the Church GOD Had in Mind
Ronald J. Sider, Philip N. Olson, & Heidi Holland Unruh, Churches That Make a Difference: Reaching Your Community with Good News and Good Works
Eddie Gibbs, Church Next: Quantum Changes in How We Do Ministry
Ken Pohly, Tranforming the Rough Places
Ronald Sider, Good News and Good Works
Vinay Samuel & Chris Sugden, Mission as Transformation: A Theology of the Whole Gospel
Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church (a book written about a hundred years before its time. I read it in seminary and need to read it again)
Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st Century Church
Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology (the latest by one of my favorites)
Gary Jennings, Aztec (historical fiction that unpacks some of the Indian culture we saw in Mexico)
John Grisham, The Broker (because I’ve read all of his others)

I’ll post on them as I finish them. But unless Amazon.com goes out of business in the next couple of months, I’ll probably just be adding to the shelf.


Blessings,
rrc