Baggas' Blog

Just finished reading Super Freakonomics, which is a quick enjoyable book to read over the summer. Now contrary to what you might be thinking, it’s not an expose on the economic fortunes of Super Freak Rick James – actually it’s a book written by an economist and a journalist as a sequel to their previous great book Freakonomics.

There’s plenty of interesting stats in there. Some of the highlights include :

• why drunk walking may be more dangerous than drunk driving
• that child safety or booster seats for children over 2 offer no safety benefit over just wearing seatbelts alone
• a cheap and relatively easy answer to the problem of global warming by specifically targeted additional pollution (with Sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere) – now why aren’t they discussing that at Copenhagen? A few hundred million and problem solved – maybe.

Other interesting analyses include the statistical profiling of terrorists, and the economics of prostitution in Chicago. Definitely a great book to read, or give as a gift this Christmas – or try the original Freakonomics book if you haven’t read it. Or if you don’t want to buy a book, just check out the Freakonomics blog for more on these, and other interesting issues.

Finally, for your listening (not viewing) pleasure, here’s the Super Freak (as a child of the 80s/90s I can’t help thinking of MC Hammer…)

“Don’t invest in things; invest in experiences”

This quote, or something similar, was mentioned by Mark in his message this morning. And what a great piece of advice! In fact I would say this principle is one of the key ideas in how I try and live my life and bring up my kids.

I’m currently reading a great book by Donald Miller, the author of Blue Like Jazz. That book is one of my all time favourites – a book that presents Christianity in a real, down-to-earth, imperfect, not knowing all the answers kind of way. Don has written a few other books since then, but non have come close to catching the vibe of Blue Like Jazz until his newest, called A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. A major premise of this book is that we should lives our lives as a story, not just moving aimlessly from one day to the next, but being intentional about the plot of our life and our character development. The chapter I was just reading fits perfectly with the quote above – Great Stories Have Memorable Scenes. We better remember things that happen to us if there is an interesting backdrop, or an unusual experience to go along with it. Making our lives “interesting” in this way requires intentionality, thinking about how we can invest our time and resources to move out of the mundane and construct a meaningful story out of our lives.

I want to make sure that when I get to the end of each year I can look back and say that that year has advanced the story of my life in some way – decisions made, journeys or adventures embarked upon, lessons learned. Life is a gift, and it’s too short to waste it.

Anyway, I’ve hardly done it justice but check out that book – it’s fantastic. And also do yourself a favour and read Blue Like Jazz if you haven’t already done so. Some of the best Christian books this century!

Just read on Rodney’s blog that the Amazon Kindle book reader is finally being released in Australia, which is good news.  We tend to lag behind the US in so many bits of cool technology so it’s always nice when we finally catch up.

It seems Amazon have reached an agreement with one of our mobile networks here to provide 3G coverage without needing a contract – more details in this story from CNET.

While this is good news I won’t be rushing to buy one – partly because I can’t afford it at the moment, partly because I’m not convinced the eBook reader idea has reached maturity, and mostly because I still love reading and accumulating proper physical books! Also if I am going to read a book in electronic format I’d rather do it on a multi-purpose device like my iPhone or the possibly upcoming Mac tablet. See my previous post on these matters.

Now what I’d really like to see is for amazon to finally open an Australian version of their store – although an amazon.com.au site would not be healthy for my finances. I’m currently doing my best to avoid going near amazon and eBay so as to control my book and gear buying habit. It’s been several weeks since my last purchase so not doing too bad

The difficulty I have with Salman Rushdie is that he’s just too good. His magical shorelines, suspenseful narratives, and fascinating characters make me want to just keep turning page after page – but the richness of his prose, and the depth of language and meaning in every paragraph make me wish I could slow down and more fully appreciate this amazing writing. The Satanic Verses, Rushdie’s most famous novel, is no exception to this. He draws the reader deep into the minds of his two main protagonists, where the border between fantasy, reality, and psychosis becomes blurred. For most of the book it’s difficult to distinguish between hero and villain. As always there’s a colourful cast of supporting characters, a constant flow of cultural and literary allusions (most of which went right over my head), and a blend of natural and supernatural, intertwining tales of India and 1980’s London, and ancient Arabia.

I’d still say Midnight’s Children is my favourite Rushdie novel, but this is close. And I can appreciate why this generated much controversy in the Islamic world, with it’s very human and less than flattering portrait of Mohammed and his first followers. But although devout Muslims might feel rightfully insulted and angry with this book, surely that doesn’t justify officially sanctioned death threats against the author? There’s plenty of books written saying things about Jesus that Christians would find blasphemous, but we don’t go around threatening to kill the writers. The Pope never sent death squads after Dan Brown for writing the Da Vinci Code. Anyway I’m glad Rushdie survived to write more brilliant books. If you’ve enjoyed some of his other work then make sure you check this one out, but I probably wouldn’t advise starting with it.

It’s funny how sometimes it’s easy to spot other Christians in a group of people. Yesterday Jen and I were at a seminar about adoption (one of the early steps in a very very long process towards adopting a child) where everyone in the group had to give a brief introduction to themselves. There was one couple that I tagged as probably church people just by some of the little words and phrases they used, and apparently they came to the same conclusion about us! Over the morning tea break we discussed what churches we went to etc. Now these  phrases were subtle things that probably no-one else in the room noticed like “have a heart for” (that’s such a churchy phrase), but enough to alert my ‘Christian radar’ – like an unintentional ’secret hand-shake.’ I’m not saying this is a bad thing or a good thing – it’s just interesting. Wonder if other subcultures have the same thing? I’m sure they must.

Here’s a funny video I found a few weeks ago which looks at a similar topic – ‘Christianese’

Anyway I’m off to Busselton for a weekend with my small group – much fun and games, much food, much wine, much music, and much ‘fellowship’ (one of those Christianese words).. and also much 4WD!

Time to get a little mud on the tires!

I just wanted to make a few random observations while I’m reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together. This is a powerful book written by Boenhoeffer in the 1930’s in Nazi Germany. He was later matyred by the Gestapo in 1945 after being part of a failed plot to assassinate Hitler.

Anyway I’d reading this book slowly because it’s so rich (and also because I’m reading three other books and am also theoretically supposed to be studying…). For my my own memory as much as anything, I just want to list some key points and quotes here. I may or may not continue to post more on this but here’s a few quotes and insights from the first chapter, on Community :

Firstly, we should not take Christian community and fellowship for granted – it is actually a great blessing and privilege.

“it is only by a gracious anticipation of the last things that Christians are privileged to live in visible fellowship with other Christians. It is by the grace of God that a congregation is permitted to gather visibly in this world to share God’s Word and sacrament.” (p18)

“The prisoner, the sick person, the Christian in exile sees in the companionship of a fellow Christian a physical sign of the gracious presence of the triune God.”  (p20)

“What determines our brotherhood is what that man is by reason of Christ. Our community with one another consists solely of what Christ has done to both of us.”   (p25)

“Because God has already laid the only foundation of our fellowship, because God has bound us together in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ, long before we entered into common life with them, we enter into that common life not as demanders but as thankful recipients. We thank God for giving us brethren who live by his call, by his forgiveness, and his promise. We do not complain of what God does not give us; we rather thank God for what he does give us daily.” (p28 – this page contains some of the context if you are interested)

“Even when sin and misunderstanding burden the communal life, is not the sinning brother still a brother, with whom I, too, stand under the Word of Christ? Will not his sin be a constant occasion for me to give thanks that both of us may live in the forgiving love of God in Christ Jesus? Thus, the very hour of disillusionment with my brother becomes incomparably salutary, because it so thoroughly teaches me that neither of us can ever live by our own words and deeds, but only by the one Word and Deed which really binds us together – the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. When the morning mists of dreams vanish, then dawns the bright day of Christian fellowship.” (p28)

In this passage Bonhoeffer counsels us against entering Christian community with our own “visionary ideals” of what we wish that community to be like. He welcomes the inevitable disillunsionment we will have with others and with ourselves and sees dealing with this disillusionment as a necessary step towards authentic Christian community which is bound together only and entirely by Christ, rather than any extraneous human concerns….
“The more genuine and deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, and for all eternity.” (p26)

“Prayer is basic because it provides the primary language for everything that takes place on the way of Jesus…  prayer is not something added on to the Christian life (or any life for that matter). It is the language in which that life is lived out, nurtured, developed, revealed, informed; the language in which it believes, loves, explores, seeks, and finds.”

Eugene Peterson – The Jesus Way – p 264

Interesting piece on Slate here about ebooks and the Amazon kindle, a devide we are yet to see here in Australia but which has started to take the US reading market by storm. For the first time, after several unsuccussful forays by companies like Sony, ebooks are starting to get some mass traction.

I can see the advantages of eBooks, especially from the point of view of not having to carry books around, copying and pasting notes, purchasing books instantaneously etc. Especially for students the benefits are potentially huge.

However I’m still sold on the idea of “one-device-to-rule-them-all” – phone, book reader, media player, computer, camera, video recorder etc If only we had such a device so we don’t have to carry all these other things around… the iPhone is the closest we have (although it’s camera/video functions remain grossly inadequate) and there are some good ebook readers available for it. The best I have tried is Stanza, which links to a lot of free and commercial online catalogs to download books. You can also sync with your computer for books you’ve downloaded elsewhere. I’ve found it to be quite usable for novels – quite easy to read and navigate. At present I have the Stainless Steel Rat on there which I am slowly reading when I get a spare moment, plus I’ve downloaded a load of classic literature as well. The biggest downfall of the iPhone for book reading is that it’s small screen makes it unusable for textbooks…

Perhaps the rumoured upcoming Apple Tablet computer will be the ideal device for book reading – smaller and easier to carry around than a laptop, but with full computer functionality (in contrast to the Kindle and other ebook readers) and with a touch screen please! I digress but imagine if they make it so you can use your nifty iPhone apps on the Mac tablet as well, thus bringing the coolness, utility,  and diversity of the App store from the smartphone world to the computer world! Now that would be cool. And I’m only guessing but it probably wouldn’t be too tough on the programmers as the iPhone and OSX are built on the same basic core anyway (or so I’ve been led to believe…) If you haven’t already thought of that Steve Jobs and crew, you can thank me for the idea… (I’m sure Steve’s a big reader of this blog so he’s sure to take notice…)

[take a look at this concept picture.. how awesome does that look. I want that!]

Anyway back to eBooks… there’s still a big big reason why I’m not sold on the whole idea – I love books. And not just the content of books. I love the physical cardboard and paper things which sit in my library and cause me the constant challenge of shuffling them around to make room for new books. I love just sitting in that room surrounded by them looking at all the cool ones I’ve read and have yet to read. I love having a book on my lap, with a led pencil handy to underline useful or witty insights or quotes (still haven’t come up with an effective solution to remember my underlinings though…) I like collecting and hoarding books that I think one day I might find interesting, or fancy well bound ones from the Folio Society. I love big books with hard covers. I love all my leather bound bibles. If I had more time and money (mostly time) I’d be one of those people who likes looking in secondhand bookshops trying to finding classic antique books. If I had more money I’d be buying classic guitars, but that’s another story.

SO the gist – ebooks are a good idea; still need the right device to be released (c’mon Steve!); but will never replace the charm of actual, physical books for me..

This book, published in 1994, is one I’ve had on my shelf for some time but only just got around to reading. It is one however, that I’ve often seen referenced by other books, and it seems that has become somewhat of a classic, albeit one that is already a bit dated.

Noll looks back at the history of American evangelicalism and the factors that led to the failure of the movement to contribute to, or engage meaningfully with, ongoing intellectual discouse in the fields of science, philosophy, politics, the arts, and academia in general, which has resulted in the lack of any contribution of Christian thought and principles in these areas.

Some of the historical factors which Noll pin-points as having a negative effect on the evangelical mind are

• the influence of revivalism and individualism
• the wholesale adoption of some elements of Enlightenment philosophy such as the “Scottish common-sense philosophy”
• an emphasis on primitivism with almost complete ignorance of Christian thought since the first century
• the destructive inward looking theologies of fundamentalism, including premillenial dispensationalism and to a lesser extent Keswick Holiness (“let go and let God”) and pentecostalism
• along with these theologies a jig-saw puzzle approach to scripture and a pre-occupation with prophecy
• the development of creation “science” and further marginalization of evangelicals due to a refusal to engage constructively with scientific data relating to the biologic and geologic history of our world

Noll examines the effect of these factors leading to the effective marginalization of evangelicals from public debate; or of isolated pockets of political activism spurred more by populism and erroneous theology rather than serious intellectual engagement with the issues.

“evangelicalism has remained a deeply populist movement, the most visible forms of political reflection have still been intuitive – carried on without serious recourse to  self-conscious theological construction, systematic moral philosophy, thorough historical analysis, or careful social scientific research.”  p 169

The sad part of the book is where Noll, in 1994, is seeing some rays of hope for renewed evangelical intellectualism. He mentions the decline of the Religious Right and the waning influence of traditional premillenial dispensationalism (with “progressive” dispensationalists such as Blaising and Bock articulating a theology that is increasingly convergent with traditional Christian orthodoxy)…. sadly this was all before the unbelievable popularity and influence of the “Left Behind” novels and the history of the Religious Right’s relationship with the Bush presidency. Would be very interesting to see how Noll would revise and update this book in the light of the last 15 years…

I’ve been thinking and reading a lot about India lately, and reading Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance has been the culmination of that process. In fact this book is so vivid and real and gut wrenching that after reading I feel like I need a rest from my Indian phase (though not from the food, of course).

The book follows the stories of four central characters who find themselves living together in a large Indian city in the 1970s, an incredibly corrupt and dark time for India. We are taken deep into their psyche, their past and present, and their dreams for the future, and we are drawn into their pain when those dreams are shattered over and over again. An amazing achievement of this book is that not only do we have these four well fleshed out characters but there is a cast of numerous interesting supporting characters who we also get to know very well. Mistry is a master of characterisation, and even those who at first glance would be entirely despicable earn some measure of sympathy and even liking. The picture Mistry paints (or the quilt he sews..) is not at all black and white – it is a range of colours and emotions, good and evil all washed together, although ultimately it is the darker shades the are most dominant.

A Fine Balance is a brilliantly crafted book that will take you captive on a roller coaster ride of emotions. At the end I was left with a feeling of admiration/satisfaction with the novel, but mixed with a melancholic mood. Big tip : don’t read the end of this book if you’re already feeling a bit down and lonely to begin with… Or maybe I shouldn’t say that… it only makes it more poignant. Don’t let me disuade you at all though, this is and incredibly rewarding and powerful book to read.

Another great book from Scot McKnight, The Blue Parakeet challenges us to examine the way in which we read the Bible. Taking the obvious examples of the Mosaic law code, Scot forces the reader to acknowledge that no-one follows the Bible in a 100% literal fashion and we ALL pick and choose which parts we follow and which parts we ignore or sideline (these are the “Blue Parakeets” of the Bible that we cage up – if you read the book you’ll get the analogy). In particular Scot looks at some misguided methods of approaching the bible, like as a law book or manual for life, or as a puzzle to work out – these misguided methods too often result in fixed interpretations that become hardened traditions.

McKnight’s preferred method of reading the Bible is to read scripture as story and then discerning how to apply what we read to our lives in our days. In this we are ultimately guided by the Holy Spirit and also by history and tradition, although we should not be enslaved by these.

To demonstrate in a more practical way how the “reading the Bible as Story” approach works, McKnight tackles the issue of women in ministry where he effectively argues that the overall trajectory of the Biblical narrative, and the roles of women in the story, would strongly support female leadership and teaching roles. To this overall thrust we should then subordinate those few passages which seem contradictory and in favour of keeping women silent. While not ignoring these passages McKnight places them within the context of the Story and the cultural situations of the churches to which Paul was writing.

The Blue Parakeet challenges the way we read the Bible, forcing us to acknowledge that this reading is a matter of choosing and prioritising. The reading as Story approach and considering how each wiki fits into the overall narrative, is a good, although not necessarily simple, method of discerning how we are to apply the word.

The Savage Detectives is an original and challenging read. Roberto Bolano is supposedly one of the greatest writers to emerge from Latin America and if Latin America has a characteristic feel then I imagine this book captures it more than adequately – wild, chaotic, revolutionary… stands in stark contrast to the ordered philosophising of the Russian novel I read before it.

The novel loosely follows the story of the lives of two young poets, beginning in Mexico in the mid 70s and roaming far and wide. One of these poets is strongly based on the author himself so you find yourself wondering as you read just how much truth there might be mixed in with this fiction. It’s a challenging novel because  it doesn’t really give a clear idea of where it’s going and what plot there is is presented by a large number of different narrators with different perspectives and who between them manage to leave considerable gaps in the story. Although the 2 principal characters can be seen as representing the “savage detectives” in the end I felt that the term detective could be even more fittingly applied to us as the reader trying to piece together this story, or to the silent, questioning author who compiles all the disparate voices and views represented here.

Because I felt like I was hanging on for dear life trying to keep a grasp on the plot remembering who’s who, the more pervasive themes of the story weren’t  always clearly front and centre. Unlike the blatant philosophy of a Russian novel (although there is a little of that, although always from the characters’ perspective rather than any omniscient author) the deeper themes here are ones that are easier to view from the end of the story, taking a step back from the constant intimacy of the writing. And in this respect that’s a lot like real life too. But deeper themes are there, and The Savage Detectives touches upon friendship, the idealism and rebellion of youth and how they are tempered by age; love, relationships, art and literature. This is a book that I imagine would yield a lot from a second reading, when one is not so concerned with  wondering where on earth it is going to go next. But my time will not permit a re-read any time soon.

It’s quite a raw book – plenty of violence, coarse language, drugs, sex and gratuitous poetry – so not for kiddies or people who are sensitive to such things. But if you can get past all that and you’re willing to go on a literary adventure then this might be worth reading for you. I say might, and present my recommendation with a disclaimer, because I can easily imagine many people not enjoying or actually hating this book, so don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’s not for everyone. For me though, it was a thoroughly worthwhile read, and I look forward to tackling Bolano’s magnum opus 2666 which is sitting on my shelf, later in the year, perhaps in my next Uni break.

Over the last week or so I’ve been reading something a little different – some christian fiction. Now there’s two words I usually don’t like to see put together “Christian” + “fiction” – too often that means some pretty trashy, low quality, often dodgy theology content that fills the shelves of our Christian bookshops. But “The Lazarus Effect” is different.

The Lazarus Effect is written by acclaimed New Testament scholar Ben Witherington III and his wife Ann. Ben is one of my three favourite NT scholars, the other two being N T Wright and Scot McKnight. All three write a combination of serious scholarly books and Christian books aimed at the rest of us. And like McKnight, Ben Witherington has his own blog, which is one of my top reads.

Briefly, the story is set in modern Israel, where an American archaeologist Dr Art West discovers the tombstone of the biblical character Lazarus, as well as manuscripts linking him to the authorship of the gospel of John (an interesting proposition that Witherington has discussed in other places as well). A range of characters of multiple religious and ethnic backgrounds get involved as a fast-paced thriller/detective/court-room drama ensues. Despite it’s Christian authorship, the novel is very generous and respectful to those of other faiths. Short chapters and a simple style make this a quick and enjoyable read. I found this novel good to read in short sharp burst of a couple of chapters at a time when I was busy, but also good to sit down with for longer periods as well.

So for a novel written by a couple of Professors in non-literary fields, The Lazarus Effect is pretty good. It does have a feel of a first time effort and realistically is not going to win any serious literature awards, but I found it very enjoyable and a little bit thought provoking. I’d been exposed to Witherington’s ideas about Lazarus before so that didn’t strike me as being too surprising but for someone who hadn’t heard these ideas previously this could be a little controversial and very stimulating. Certainly the authorship of John and the identity of the “beloved disciple” is one of those biblical mysteries that it would be fascinating to discover an answer to. In this novel Witherington provides his answer, and in a most entertaining fashion. Well worth reading.

ob1 has posted a great checklist of symptoms of that serious malady – Bookaholism. If you fear you might be a fellow sufferer, make sure you compare yourself to the list.

There’s no doubt I have a pretty bad case of it (as you can see from my library) but I’m afraid there’s no obvious cure. Anyone know of any B.A. meetings around town for me to attend? …only on the condition that I can bring a book, of course  

Over the past couple of years I’ve been regularly entertained by LaHaye and Jenkin’s “Christian” fiction novel Left Behind. Well actually not by the novel itself, but by the excellent commentary provided by Fred on his slacktivist blog. Over the last few days Fred finally reached the end of the book – a momentous occasion. His post on the final pages gives his usual humorous analysis of the events (or non-events) contained therein, but more importantly he goes back and looks at some of the larger issues surrounding the book and gives his reasoning why this should be considered as the “Worst Book of All Time.”

Somehow it seems a little sad. Although slacktivist is still high on my list of must-read blogs due to his great political, religious and journalistic commentary, it just won’t be the same without “Left Behind Fridays” Hope Fred doesn’t take too much of a break before he delves into the next book Tribulation Force – could this book be any worse than the “Worst Book of All Time”? I guess we’ll have to wait and see…

Nice start to the working week today – nothing too taxing, keeping on time with all the patients. Hopefully this week should be a little less hectic than last week – not expecting as many babies.

I’m going to start making a few brief notes on here about some of the books I’m reading. I never seem to have the time to do a full review but I’ll try and make some quick, one paragraph comments. Of course, as I realised talking to Jen the other day my reading habit may have to be curtailed once I start Uni in a month or so. Trying to fit in 12 hours or more of study a week will be a challenge, and reducing the amount of time I spend reading other books will have to be one of the first changes I make… So in the next month or so I’ll try and churn through as many books as I can while I have the chance

Two books I want to mention today :

1. The River of Lost Footsteps : A Personal History of Burma by Thant Myint-U. Reading books like this makes you realise what a big world we live in and how there are vast swathes of human history that I haven’t even thought of. Well written narrative history with lots of little stories to keep it interesting. Looks at Burma’s history from ancient times to the current regime. Ordered this when it looked like I might be going over there. I’m doubtful that will happen now but it’s still a fascinating read. Hope to get the chance to visit there one day.
2. Arminian Theology : Myths & Realities by Roger Olson. I’ve been thinking a bit lately on Arminianism and Calvinism and this is not a bad book on the subject. Olson does a good job at articulating some of the core Arminian beliefs and debunking some commonly held myths about Arminianism. Along the way he also takes a few good-natured swipes at Calvinism. It’s a worthwhile book to read but I have a couple of criticisms. Firstly it tends to be repetitive as he examines the theology of a range of historical Arminians from Arminius and Wesley down to the present day. Secondly, although he makes it clear what classical Arminians do and do not believe, I didn’t feel he interacted enough with scripture. This may not have been his main aim but for me it would have been nice to have more written on the Biblical basis for Arminian concepts (like that of prevenient grace, for example) and also a more thorough critique of Calvinist exegesis of key passages. Overall though it’s a well written, fairly easy to read, irenic, and generally convincing treatment on the subject. Worth reading for both Arminians and Calvinists and also those who aren’t sure.

Along similar lines to my last entry about wild west cowboys to be blamed for legalism in 20th century evangelical/fundamentalist churches, one of my favourite bloggers Fred the slacktivist weighs in with his take on C.S. Lewis’ book Prince Caspian :

I haven’t seen Prince Caspian yet, but since it was the “No. 1 Movie” this weekend, let’s revisit what that wonderful little book was about:

Prince Caspian is about beer.

He then goes on to quote Lewis from Mere Christianity discussing this very issue of legalism, especially relating to alcohol. And Lewis, as you may or may not know, enjoyed his beer. Fred’s interpretation of Prince Caspian is that the bad guys (Telmarines) represent excessively legalistic “anti-beer Christians” and the mission of the Pevensie children is to help Caspian and Aslan restore joy and wildness to the land.

It’s a long long time since I’ve read the book, and I’m also yet to see the movie (not sure when it comes out here in Australia) but it’s an interesting take on a classic children’s book. I’ll have to try and revisit it sometime soon.

You can read Fred’s post here.

You know the old taboos that used to abound in Christian circles (and still do in some ultra-conservative or fundamentalist groups) – like no playing cards, no dancing, no alcohol at all, no going to movies etc? Well according to the following quote from a book I’m currently reading, this sort of thing might be directly attributable to the excesses of the American Wild West! Who would have thought that all that stuff we know so well from old cowboy movies could have such a big impact on the 20th century church?

The origins of the dos and don’ts in American evangelicalism go back to the revivals in the frontier days of the nineteenth century. All of us have seen the western movies and the depiction of life in the western spread of the American frontier. The center of town is a bar with it’s heavy drinking, gambling, card playing, and lewd women. As Christianity spread west in the revival tradition, it was imperative for Christians to distinguish themselves from the crude, boisterous, drinking, smoking, dancing, card playing, gambling, and lascivious crowd. Christians, therefore, swung the pendulum to the other side and insisted on a cleaned-up life as a demonstration of a converted life and a spiritual walk with God. In time these outward expressions of a cleaned-up life turned from sin became the external marks of the spiritual life.  While abstinence from wordly practices was a genuine choice of an original generation of Christians, the dos and don’ts became for the second and especially the third generation of Christians an imposed structure of spirituality. The inner convictions that generated the original choice to refrain from wordly practices was lost. In it’s place now stood a legalistic ethos, that is, restraint from wordly practice became the sum and the substance of the spiritual life.

Unfortunately these dos and don’ts oten get in the way of seeing the real ethics of Christian spirituality such as the growth of character, the concern for justice, and the care of the poor and needy.

~ Robert E. Webber – “The Divine Embrace” p81

Ever become aware of a stupid habit you have when someone mentions it in themselves? This happened to me this morning in church where Mark mentioned the habit he has of packing far too many books whenever he goes travelling, even if it’s just for the weekend. I too am seriously guilty of this – I pack 4 or 5 books in my suitcase if I’m going away, only to get maybe one or two of them read.

But what’s worse, no matter where I am, I’m always drawn to look in bookshops and wind up bringing back several more books in addition to the ones I took with me. The last 3 times I visited Uganda I brought back at least 4 or 5 books each time (with the justification that ‘you just can’t buy these books back home’) – one of which was a massive 3kg textbook that I ended up having to pack in my luggage the other 3/4 of the way around the world through another 3 countries! Crazy. I can see one attraction of Cambodia (where ob1 was) perhaps being that there is less likely to be a big English language press there and hence less books to tempt me.

The other stupid thing I do is that I am too ambitious in my choice of reading material for travelling. Rather than picking something quick and light, I have a tendency towards choosing books of serious literary or theological cred, only to find that airplanes, airports and even hotels (especially when the kids are around) are not the best settings to try and tackle these sort of tomes.

So, my take home lessons for travelling readers (or reading travellers) are :

1. Choose fairly easy to read, (relatively) lightweight books.
2. Only take 1 or 2 books maximum. If you run out, you can always buy more along the way.
3. If you’re like me, factor in the fact that you almost certainly will acquire more books in your travels, and accordingly allow room in your luggage for that eventuality.
4. Guidebooks can be useful but I’ve found photocopying the relevant sections to be worthwhile. If you know you are only going to be in a couple of cities in a country, then copy those pages and leave the other 90% of the book at home. That way when you move on from that country you can simply leave your photocopied pages in the rubbish.
5. Taking novels set in the country you are visiting is a good way to prepare yourself for your visit, and might also lead you to reading some books you might otherwise have not considered (for example I’ve read a few excellent novels set in Uganda that I probably would never have read otherwise)
6. Consider books in digital format…. I haven’t done this travelling but a few years back I went through a phase of reading PDF books on my Palm Pilot whilst doing long quiet ICU shifts. I read the entire Dune and Wheel of Time series in that way.  Great for saving luggage space but for me this idea has one huge drawback – it violates my whole “books as furniture” principle – just like I prefer a physical copy of my music rather than a purely digital one, I like having books to hold and put on a shelf. There’s just something about holding a book in your hands and turning those pages that a digital reader can’t replicate. This is perhaps why, although I have 19 different bible versions on my PDA phone, I still do virtually all of my Bible reading in physical Bibles (preferably leather ones that sit nicely on my lap but I’m getting way off topic now…)

Anyway if anyone have any other tips they want to add to the list I’d love to hear them. All this talk, and following ob1’s blog of his travels over the last week has got me a bit “travel sick” (I doubt that’s the correct term but I’m using it in the sense of the opposite of “homesickness” wherein I’m actually seriously missing being in airports and on planes and in strange countries – Jen would say I’m crazy). I’ve got no plans to go back to Uganda this year, since we have a newborn baby and wouldn’t want to leave Jen and 3 kids for 3 weeks or so – plus I haven’t heard at all from them if they are actually doing a Watoto medical team this year.. but if another opportunity was to present itself for I’d be seriously tempted to jump at it…

Well in it’s own way the book I’ve just read attempts to answer this classic question. War is a force that gives us meaning is written by Chris Hedges, a long serving war correspondent for the New York Times. He draws on his own experiences in multiple conflicts including Iraq, Palestine and the Balkans as well as a range of literature through Homer and Shakespeare through to the present day to discuss the devestating allure of war and it’s addictive qualities for both individuals and societies. Hedges peels back the layers of myth and misinformation surrounding war, and exposes the complicity of journalists in perpetuating these myths, and that of the public in going along with it. War has little to do with heroism and it truth the vast majority of people would act in quite unheroic, selfish and often savage ways if thrust into that sort of environment. No-one escapes an experience of war unscathed – all bear the psychological scars of the victim or perpetrator (or often both). Hedges ultimately concludes that the only antidote to war is that of love, but the overall balance of this book is a pessimistic one, and love comes across as a weak flower standing in the onslaught of the hurricane of war.

This is a brilliant book – full of anecdotes and thus a flowing, easy read – and yet at the same time a harrowing, difficult read in view of the confronting nature of it’s topic. The sort of book it would do good for all of us to digest. It will be hard to look at the glamorous news stories or even those old war docos in the same light again. I’m not a journo but I would imagine this should be required reading for them – to examine their motives and their potential to succumb to the addictive naroctic nature of war. Hedges mentions the fate and admissions of several of his colleagues who almost seem driven towards death -  an idea struck home to me last night when I heard a Reuter’s cameraman had been killed in Palestine yesterday.

Once in a while a book comes along that really makes you sit up and take notice and might even change the way you think – this is one of those sort of books. Read it.

[Hat tip to Fred aka the Slacktivist for suggesting this book on his blog, which is one of my favourites - check it out]

So ob1 is raving about Apple again, specifically how much of a pleasure it is to use the Apple store.

My latest Mac win is another piece of great software I downloaded last night. After the fire the other day (which actually didn’t even come close to threatening our home – my brother’s house was much closer to his fire) I got to thinking a little bit about insurance and replacing all our stuff if it was lost. Aside from the fact that the insurance probably wouldn’t come close to covering it all, I was reminded of the need to keep track of things – specifically all my books, CDs, DVDs etc. Well books are already taken care of by my online catalog at LibraryThing (which I have recommended a number of times already – awsome site). Unfortunately I couldn’t find any comparable online catalog for my DVDs and CDs – if anyone has any suggestions I’d be glad to hear them. So I decided to go with a software solution.

After looking at a few alternatives I settled on the ‘pedias’ from Bruji. They have a suite of four programs CDpedia, DVDpedia, Bookpedia, and Gamepedia for cataloguing those things. Very powerful software with a host of options I haven’t explored yet. Data entry is easy – you can scan the barcodes of your CDs using the iSight camera on your Mac – which works quite well, just takes a few goes to get used to. Or you can use a handheld scanner like a cuecat (which I have and works reasonably well). It then uses the barcode data to look up your CD, DVD, book etc on an online database like Amazon (or many others) to retrieve the cover art and lots of other info. You can customize your library with various custom fields and of course tags. All of this is integrated with spotlight for easy searching. There’s plenty of other features which you can check out on their website but already I’m finding this software a joy to use.

One feature I’m yet to try is the web export function which lets you export your catalogs to a website. I’ll do this once I’ve entered all my data and will post links in a few days. But this is perhaps my one disappointment with this (and other similar) software. What would be really great would be if you could somehow dynamically synchronise your library from this software with an online catalog (akin to LibraryThing) so as to have your data permanently available on the web and up-to-date. Maybe this is possible somehow but I’m yet to see it. If not perhaps they could look at making this part of a future version.

But overall, yet another very useful piece of Mac software

Fittingly for Easter, I’m currently reading N.T. Wright’s ‘Surprised by Hope – Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.‘ If, like me, you have enjoyed some of Wright’s other books, then this may be the one you have been waiting for him to write. Drawing heavily on his previous scholarly works (especially his magnum opus, The Resurrection of the Son of God (RSG)) he outlines what the New Testament teaches about the Christian future hope, both for us as individual Christians and for the world as a whole. In contrast to this he examines several errors which the world and the church often hold about this hope, principally that of our souls going to an eternal ’spiritual’ heavenly abode immediately after we die rather than a final physical bodily resurrection at the return of Christ at which time the heavens and the earth will be recreated. He examines the doctrine of the second coming, and how various segments of the church have made the mistake of reading this in either an overly metaphorical (ie some ‘liberal’ Christians) or an excessively literal fashion (eg. fundamentalist dispensationalism ala Left Behind) – Wright contends that Jesus will indeed return, but not in order to rescue his followers from a doomed world, but rather to restore and renew his creation. Hence how we act on this Earth and how we treat it do matter incredibly as it is not just a sinking ship that we will eventually escape from or leave behind.

Central to this work (as indeed it seems to be to all of Wright’s theology) is the fact of Easter. Jesus did indeed physically rise from the dead, and this fact is both the firstfruits of, and the power behind, the ultimate renewal of all creation. And in the same way that Jesus was resurrected, with a transformed physical body, we Christians can look forward to being resurrected at his return. Wright reiterates his compelling arguments from RSG that a physical resurrection of Jesus is the best historical explanation for the development of the early church. For anyone who doesn’t want to tackle that massive book, this one gives a good summary of it’s main points and it’s critique of much ‘historical Jesus’ scholarship.

I still have the second half of the book to go, but already I’ve found this book incredibly enjoyable, easy to read, and stimulating. As I said this is the book that I’ve been waiting for from Wright, bringing together themese hinted at throughout his other works. I look foward to being challenged by the second half of the book where he moves on to the practical implications of this sort of biblical future hope for us as Christians and as a Church living and working in our world today. Awesome stuff.

I’ve discussed this site before, but on the occasion of passing 800 books catalogued I thought I’d give another mention to what is perhaps my favourite website – LibraryThing. This is a simply brilliant site with which you can keep track of your book collection, as well as interact with other book lovers in a number of ways. You can get book recommendations, write or read book reviews, and interface with online stores such as amazon, and even local bookshops if you live in the USA. But it’s not completely American focussed – you can search for your books in the catalogues of a huge number of libraries internationally (including several in Australia) and in a variety of languages.

I especially like the way you can use your LibraryThing data to interface with other websites, like I do with this blog. They also offer widgets and plugins for a variety of other web spaces, although as yet I haven’t found a really good one for Facebook.

Anyway if you have a book collection, take a look at LibraryThing. And if you want to see my profile, as an example of what it looks like then go here.

Last night I finally finished reading Peter Brown’s biography, Augustine of Hippo, which I started in October and have been reading a little at a time since. This is very slow going for me but it’s been a busy few months and I’ve knocked off plenty of other books in the interim. Contrary to what my pace might suggest this book is not such a difficult read – it’s well written and holds your attention. It’s just not a gripping “can’t wait to read the next chapter” book but then when your subject is a late Roman bishop what do you expect? Anyway it gives a very vivid portrait of St Augustine and the times in which he lived. I also found it interesting to read the epilogue, in which Brown examines new discoveries in Augustinian studies over the last 30 years since the biography was originally written, and revists some of his conclusions and emphases in the original book (which remains unchanged) – it’s fascinating to see an author humbly change his mind and admit where he might have gone wrong in his earlier work. The only thing I personally found lacking in the book was a bit more of a rounded synopsis of Augustine’s theology (which is only briefly touched upon in it’s relation to the events and controversies of his life) and a discussion of the ongoing impact of Augustine’s work through the ages up til the present day – but then these were not the intention of the book so I can’t really complain too much.

Now that that’s finished, on to something a little more current – “The Audacity of Hope” by Barack Obama; and then Eric Clapton’s autobiography. Got a long weekend down in Denmark this weekend so should be able to knock those two off in fairly short order.

Yesterday I happened across a news story about how one of Hillary Clinton’s aides had been fired for asking indiscreet questions about her rival Barack Obama’s history of drug use as a teenager. Coincindentally, it turns out that the day before I had just started reading the memoir in which he admits to these things. And far from making me think he’s an unfit person to contest high office, after reading this book I am very impressed wth the man. It’s been a little while since I’ve finished a book in three days.

Dreams from my Father is the story of Obama’s life up until the early 90s, when he went to Harvard Law School. It is the story of the child of a white woman from Kansas and a Kenyan man, growing up in Hawaii, Indonesia, and Los Angeles before finally settling down to work as a community organizer in the poor south-side of Chicago and then going back to Kenya to explore his roots. This is a brilliantly written book – easy to read yet profound. In it is revealed a deeply intelligent man who has struggled to define his own identity, especially in the context of the ongoing disadvantage of many black people in America, and also in Africa. In some ways it is also the story of a journey to faith – faith in himself, faith in other people, faith in family, and faith in God (although this is only gently alluded to in this book). Obama’s honesty about his struggles make him seem real – he comes across as someone who will be able to sympathize with the poor and disadvantaged in America and across the world. The drug use he mentions in relatively minor – he never had a “drug problem” as such – it was just something he played around with as a teenager like many other people. I probably wouldn’t have even mentioned it now if I hadn’t heard the story of that Clinton Aide.

Anyway it’s a fascinating book which is incredibly thought provoking on multiple levels – personal identity, American (especially black American) culture, the problems of Africa and a post-colonial world, and how to break the cycles of generational social disadvantage. And if nothing else it’s worth reading to get an idea of the character of a man who may well be the next “leader of the free world” – and in case you haven’t guessed my impressions are overwhelmingly favourable. Could you ever imagine George W writing such a powerful piece of literature as this?? Almost makes me wish I was eligible to vote in the US elections… I look forward to reading Obama’s other book, Audacity of Hope.

And so it ends. Finally today after two full weeks of clinic, we saw our last patient. Actually my last patient was a home visit to a mother with HIV/AIDS who was in pretty bad shape. Hopefully they will get her to a hospital for some more intensive testing and treatment and she will be okay. Her case illustrated another obstacle to adequate HIV treatment – superstition. She, like many other people, was in denial about her HIV status, rather believing that she had been cursed by a witch or something along those lines. Just last night I was reading in my book “The Shadow of the Sun” by Ryszard Kapuscinski, about how prevalent such beliefs are in Africa. Even amongst Christians, they still hold on to a lot of these traditional beliefs as well.

Now that I’ve mentioned this book, let me just say that this is one of the best books on Africa I’ve read thus far. Kapuscinski is a Polish journalist who spent over 40 years in Africa as a correspondent. The book contains a series of vignettes – portraits of everyday Africans and everyday African life from all over the continent – combined with brief historical lessons and philosophical musings.  It’s amazing how much of what he writes rings true, especially reading it whilst over here. And he really gets into the unseen life of the African populace like no other author I’ve read. Not just touching on the shakers and movers, he visits the homes of the millions upon millions of people eking out a meagre existence and ponders why? For anyone who has ever been to Africa or has any interest in the place, this is a must read book.

As I said, today was our last clinic. I think we probably saw over a thousand people in the last two weeks, and I believe we made a difference in the lives of many of those. If nothing else we showed them that somebody cares. Tonight the girls on our team are at a Women’s Conference at KPC church, whilst the two of us men caught a boda boda to the shops, did a little shopping, had a nice pizza, and then discovered that the “best” internet cafe in town was again not working. But not to be deterred we walked down the hill into Kampala central and found an ever better one – the most productive half hour I think I’ve ever spent on the net in Uganda. Tomorrow we are heading off to Jinja to raft the rapids of the Nile, Sunday it’s church and then a concert in the evening, and early morning on Monday I leave on my journey home. Can’t wait to see my family again. This trip has been great, but I have missed them so much.

I’m reading a very interesting book at the moment. It’s a travel book, which is a genre that I have a growing enjoyment of, being well and truly infected with the travel bug (my case of travel bug continues to grow, although Jenni is well and truly over it, no doubt in part due to the rigours of early pregnancy…)

Anyway, it’s a travel book with a difference – Tony Wheeler’s Badlands. In this book Tony, the founder of Lonely Planet, describes some of his experiences in some of the world’s dodgiest countries – Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba, Libya, and North Korea, among others. It’s a fascinating read that describes some of the problems he saw in these countries, but also many of the lesser known tourist delights to be found there. I’ve just read the chapter on Iran and it comes across as being a really great place to visit, with heaps to see and very welcoming people, quite different to the scary image we see in the media all the time. I must say all the Iranians/Persians I’ve ever met here in Australia have always been very friendly. This book makes me really want to go there (though I can’t see that happening any time soon) – it also makes me hope even more that Bush & Co don’t embark on another crazy military misadventure by bombing or invading Iran – political disasters aside, it would be a shame to see the people of that country (which is relatively stable internally) be drawn into a mess like we have in Iraq.

Anyway I digress. This book is an enjoyable, easy read and well worth checking out if you have an interest in out of the way places. Just be warned, the dreaded travel bug is definitely lurking within these pages too…

Less than 3 weeks to go now until we head off on our trip, or to put it another way, 13 more days of work. The first, and most important, stop on our journey will be Kampala, Uganda, where we will again visit the Sanyu Babies Home.

It’ll be good to get back to Uganda again. My enthusiasm to see the country again was piqued last night when we finally got around to watching the Last King of Scotland DVD which was filmed almost entirely in Uganda. In addition to the film itself we watched an excellent featurette about Idi Amin, and the movie’s treatment of him. Much of the countryside, architecture, and some of the city sites were very familiar. Can’t wait to be there again.

As for the movie itself, it was very good. Forrest Whitaker’s Oscar winning performance as Amin was superb, and James McAvoy (aka Mr Tumnus in Narnia) was excellent as the central character Dr Nicholas Garrigan. Having read the book on which it was based though, I must say I was a little disappointed. In many ways the plot deviated significantly from the book – many key events and characters were left out entirely and certain events were completely changed. There’s always a challenge in making a movie out of an excellent book and while this movie certainly is very very good, I’d have to say the book is much better. If you haven’t done either I’d say watch the movie first, and then read the book – that way you might not find the movie to be a bit of a let down. You can read my initial thoughts on the book from last August here.

Aside from that the weekend was pretty good. Owen’s soccer match on Saturday was an intense, high standard game (well by 6 year old standards it was), and we spent the afternoon shopping before watching the classic movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Sunday at church we had an excellent sermon preached by Pastor Julie and then went up to our nephew Jason’s 4th birthday. Almost a shame to be back at work but I’ll just keep counting down those days – 12 work days to go after today…

Google continues to surprise me with it’s innovative services.

A few minutes ago, after getting a bit of a heart wrenching email about Africa, I was searching for a book on Amazon – the Manual of Tropical Pediatrics. Sadly the book is out of print (even though it was only published in 2000) and they only have 1 copy for US$130. So I did a quick Google, and found it only the publisher’s site for A$275!! But then I looked again and found that they actually have a scanned copy of the book in Google books, a service I haven’t seriously looked at before. Unfortunately not all of the book is available to view, but there’s a useable chunk of it there.

And then I discovered another Google service I hadn’t seen before – Google Product search, which scans a bunch of shopping websites to find what you want at the best price. The results are here, sadly the cheapest is still US$120 which is still too expensive for a single book, but I liked the idea of the site and it works really well.

So Google Books will keep me busy for now and I’ll keep scouring to find a cheaper copy of this book somewhere. It’s somewhat disconcerting however, that this seems to be the only book on tropical paediatric medicine, and that even this is out of print. A sad indictment on the priorities of the medical community  and broader western scoiety overall – or maybe I’m extrapolating too much. Either way that’s how it makes me feel.

One of my favourite authors is Tom Wright (as in N.T. Wright, New Testament scholar and Bishop of Durham) – when I saw this book, Hospital for Sinners, suggested on my amazon front page I was immediately interested. Although the subject matter of taking American religious leaders to task over “fleecing the sheep” seemed an usual topic for Tom, I was interested to see what he might have to say…

Unfortunately I was mistaken. This is a different Tom Wright, who was a Baptist prison chaplain in Virginia. And in contrast to the well thought out, well resourced and referenced writings of the “real” Tom Wright, this book is a scattered polemic against virtually anyone who’s anyone in American religious public life. Some of the critique I don’t disagree with, especially when he targets the televangelists, Jimmy Swaggart, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Pat Robertson etc. However he broadens his focus to attack more mainstream leaders such as Rick Warren, Willow Creek church and just about anyone who has been the slightest bit successful, and much of his critique is narrow-minded fundamentalism. According to him 99% of “Christian” rock music is evil.

Amidst this confused mass of negativity (some warranted, some not) it’s hard to find anyone that Mr Wright actually likes. I finally did when he favourably mentioned some charities working against poverty in the US and internationally. I agree with the idea that we Christians should be using our wealth constructively and doing as much as we can to fight poverty, disease, and injustice, however sowing negativity against anyone and everyone is not going to contribute to that.

SO buyer beware. I will definitely look a bit more carefully when I order my next “Tom Wright” book.

On the weekend, between delivering babies, I finished reading Long Way Round, which is an excellent book by Obi-Wan Kenobi Ewan McGregor and his actor friend Charley Boorman. It tells the story of a trip they made where they spent four months riding motorcycles across Europe, Asia, and America. They went well and truly off the beaten track, visiting places such as Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Siberia, enduring innumerable difficulties but ultimately succeeding in an interesting and fulfilling journey. Along the way they also made a TV series about their travels and I simply must get my hands on the DVD of it.

Reading about this journey just added further fuel to the burning itch I have to travel (one of my two current obsessions – the other is a renewed interest in guitars), especially to out of the way places like the ones these guys visited. I think I’d take a car though, not being a bike enthusiast like these two. Jennifer has risked further fuelling this firstly by giving me another travelogue type book by Nicholas and Micah Sparks, and secondly by getting the movie Beyond Borders with Angelina Jolie, which we watched last night. This excellent movie was more about humanitarian travel, involving a doctor who worked in areas like Ethiopia, Cambodia, and Chechnya – but then again that’s a big part of the sort of travel I want to do also. I seriously think if someone offered me a job travelling and doing full time medical aid work I would take it, but then again I’ve got two kids, two cars (well one at the moment, but still two payments) and a mortgage to think of. But if anyone form the UN or WHO or world vision or whatever can think of the perfect job that balances all those things, give me a call. Once again, it’s nice to dream…

It is with some sadness this week that I finally bid farewell to some dear friends. After 2 years of roaming the world together, circumnavigating the globe multiple times, and sharing in innumerable adventures, I have finally reached the end of the 20 novels in the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian. It’s time to say goodbye to Captain Jack Aubrey of the HMS Surprise and his companion, physician/surgeon, and intelligence agent Stephen Maturin. This has to be one of the grandest series of books ever written, up there with the greats of English literature. The strength and depth of all the characters, the elegant prose, the incredibly detailed research and descriptions on a wealth of topics such as the 19th century Royal Navy, medicine, biology, and music; and above all else the gripping twists and turns of adventure and intigue in the plot make these books difficult to put down. Aubrey and Maturin would have to be two of the most well fleshed out and intricate characters ever written about.

I probably would never have even picked up a book like this if it weren’t for Jenni giving one to me as a gift, and for that I am exceedingly greatful. Historical fiction about the British Royal Navy in the time of the Napoleonic Wars would never have been my first choice as a genre, but now I’m well and truly hooked.

Adding to the sadness of finally coming to the end of this series of books is a sense of “what might have been” had the series continued. Patrick O’Brian died whilst writing the 21st book in the series and we are left with a few brief chapters collated together as “The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey” In this we are given a few glimpses of the key characters in their element, at the culmination of their dreams, both professional and personal, surrounded by their loved ones… yet still with hints of intrigue and adventures to come… sadly adventures in which we will not be able to share. I almost had tears in my eyes as I read through the last few handwritten pages of O’Brian’s manuscript.

I look forward to picking up these books again in the future, maybe in another couple of years time when it will all seem brand new again. But in the meantime if you have never entered the world of Captain Jack Aubrey may I urge you to do what Jenni did for me – go and get yourself a copy of the first book, Master and Commander (or even see the excellent movie of The Far Side of the World with Russell Crowe first) and begin this long and interesting voyage. You may find the prose a little heavy work at first, since it is written in authentic 19th century style, however persevere and soon it will read naturally and you will race through page after page, book after book, like I did. And if you stick through right to the end, I guarantee you’ll feel the same way I do right now – a mixture of achievement and bitter-sweet emotion, like saying goodbye to old friends after a long voyage together.

It’s a gloriously wet Sunday evening here in Perth. In fact it’s rained quite heavily all day – the first big wet day of the year. Usually I like to have music playing permanently no matter what I am doing, but on days like this I turn the stereo off and let the rain be my music – there’s few things more relaxing than listening to the rain falling outside. It’s not particularly cold so I’ve actually opened the window next to the couch here so I can hear it all the more – heavy rain, occaisional thunder, and a strong wind blowing in off the ocean.

This kind of environment seems perfect for the book I started reading tonight. I started it an hour ago and am already about half way through. Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza, subtitled ‘Discovering God amidst the Rwandan Holocaust.’ This book is a simply written yet powerful story of a young woman’s survival in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, sustained by her strong Catholic faith. Whilst thousands are brutally murdered by their former neighbours and friends, Immaculee and some other Tutsi women are sheltered inside a tiny hidden room by a kindly Hutu pastor. If you’ve seen Hotel Rwanda then you’ll have an idea of what this is about. So far I’ve found this book utterly compelling (aside from the pseudo-Christian new-agey spiritualistic babble by Wayne W. Dyer in his foreword to the book). She doesn’t go in depth into the politics of it all but to me it’s a reminder that at least part of the reason why this occurred is that the world turned a blind eye to this disaster. The only way to prevent catastrophes like this, and the similar troubles in Darfur, Chad and north Uganda, is for western countries and western individuals to actively engage with the people of Africa (and other similarly impoverished nations), to take an interest in their problems and show them that they really matter. Unfortunately it’s all too easy for the problems of the third world to slip off the radar, being buried by the latest political scandals, celebrity gossip and sports results. It takes work to keep pushing these issues towards the spotlight, not just in the media but also in our own awareness. Reading books like this one is just one way we can work at that awareness. And hopefully in some sort of way, big or small, that awareness will ultimately translate into action…

Yesterday was a super hot Tuesday here in Perth with the temperature hitting 42 degress Celsius. Luckily for me I had pre-arranged the day off to get my car serviced and for the Foxtel man to come and so I ended up being home most of the day, of which a lot was spent in the pool. Today is forecast to be just as hot but I haven’t been outside since I got to the surgery this morning so I can’t verify that. Will be jumping straight back in the water when I get home though.

For now, let me give you my weekly round-up of what’s happening in my world…

READING : for some reason I haven’t had much time to read over the last week or so, but the book I’ve started most recently is Jeffrey Sach’s The End of Poverty – this is a book on global poverty and the economic causes and possible solutions. Only read the first couple of chapters so far but it seems really good.

WATCHING : for a couple of years now we’ve had Foxtel, which is a Satellite pay TV system, but haven’t really made good use of it, aside from the kid’s channels. Partly this is due to the fact that when we sit down to watch there often doesn’t seem to be anything appealing on, and if there are good shows they are not on at a suitable time for us. Primarily this is a symptom of the time delay, since Foxtel is based on Eastern Australian time (ie. when their prime time shows are coming on at 8PM, it is still only 6PM here) – well now these problems are solved for us. Yesterday we had our Foxtel unit changed over to the new Foxtel IQ which is a satellite receiver box which contains a hard disk recorder. This means we can now scan the guide for the programs we want to watch and with the press of one button set them to be recorded. You can record two programs at once and even playback a third recording at the same time. It also allows pausing and rewinding of live TV which is handy. This, combined with my use of Windows Media Center for recording free-to-air digital TV, means we now have no excuse for missing anything on TV (aside from the little fact that we have very limited time to watch it…)

WORKING : first day back at work today after 4 days off and it’s been psycho. Funnily enough though virtually all of my consults have been one of three things – pregnancy, babies (most immunisations), and mental health. I got considerably behind this morning, mostly due to the latter, but managed to catch up so I was only 10 minutes behind at lunch time. On the obstetric side of things, after a quiet month in February, things are starting to get busy again. I have a number of inductions booked in over the next week or so, which has been a bit tricky co-ordinating since Jenni is off to Sydney next week. Still it’s all good – helps keeps me busy and helps pay the bills.

Also today I was given a free electronic blood pressure machine, courtesy of the government and a drug company. I vaguely remember filling out a form a couple of months ago for it, and it was delivered today. Very nice $1500 machine – I normally prefer to check BPs the old fashioned way but this machine is the best I’ve seen. Nothing like another gadget to keep me happy. Might be the last for a while though, unless more freebies come along – I’m now on a serious financial-restraint effort. We’ll see how it goes.

Anyway that’s enough, I’m getting a bit behind again. I would mention what I’m eating today but there was no drug lunch so my stomach is empty! Oh well, time to keep plowing along.

The Dawkins Confusion – Books & Culture

- this is an excellent article by philosopher Alvin Plantinga, discussing Richard Dawkin’s recent book, The God Delusion, which has got a lot of attention in the last few months. Plantinga systematically and very effectively deconstructs many of Dawkin’s arguments. I’ll confess I haven’t read Dawkin’s book (I’ve got too many other, more interesting, books piled up waiting to be read) but this article is well worth checking out for anyone who has read it, has been involved in discussions about it, or is even vaguely aware of it.

Time for my weekly round up of what’s happening in my world :

LISTENING : my artist of the week this week would have to be Alison Krauss, who was suggested to me by a commenter on this blog. She’s an American singer and fiddler who, with her band Union Station, plays a combination of slow country and more up tempo bluegrass music. The bluegrass stuff is fine, but it’s her slower songs and haunting country ballads that have really got me hooked. She has a wonderful soprano voice which is far more pleasant and nuanced than most other country and pop artists. Perfect music to chill out to for a while.

WATCHING : still enjoying working our way through the TV series Heroes, although we’ve only got two more episodes left to watch before we’re caught up to the US, after which time we’ll have to suffer only watching one episode a week. I don’t know how I’ll be able to handle the suspense.

READING : on the weekend I started reading Sarah Sumner’s Men and Women in the Church. This is a book which tackles the sometimes contentious issue of women in ministry. While she gives a fair hearing to both the conservative and Christian feminist sides of this debate, ultimately Sarah comes to the conclusion that women should not be restricted from using their God-given gifts in whichever manner they are called, including preaching and church leadership. I found her reasoning quite convincing as she methodically works her way through the relevant Biblical texts (such as 1 Tim 2) whilst maintaining a clear hold on the bigger picture of the Bible as a whole. She helps expose how thousands of years of cultural bias against women and indeed the teachings of some of the church Fathers like Augustine and Tertullian, have influenced the way in which these texts are read. Now I would never claim to be a feminist, but I found Sarah’s case compelling and balanced, and a comfortable fit with our overall beliefs about God’s love and the equality of all humans in his sight (Gal 3:28). This book is an important one to read. It’s also very easy to read. Although academically rigorous, it’s written in short chapters and contains plenty of illustrations and personal anecdotes, making it fairly easy going. Also see some of Scot McKnight’s discussion on the book in 2006.

TREATING : work has been fairly calm this week, which is a good thing since I don’t have much inclination or motivation to be here this week. No babies born thus far this week and no serious health crises – just lots of straightforward consultations (which is why I can write this blog entry by 10am and still not be behind with my patients. Yesterday throughout the work day I managed to get done our home group study on Colossians, and still finished on time at 4 o’clock.)

Finally, let me leave you with a clip from Alison Krauss & Union Station so you can get an idea of why I like this music so much …

And if you enjoyed that take a look at this clip – Alison Krauss : When you say nothing at all (live)

After reading it on and off over the last few weeks, last night I finished Martin Meredith’s The State of Africa – A History of Fifty Years of Independence. This book is an interesting, though ultimately rather depressing read, giving snapshots of the histories of most African nations since independance from colonial rule in the middle of the last century. The calvalcade of disasters and horrors is unrelenting, from the rule of Idi Amin and many other dictators, to famine, disease, and the scourge of AIDS, in the midst of an unending succesion of wars and conflict. Meredith doesn’t settle for simplistic answers as to why this has all happened – no one gets off without some share of the blame – European colonial powers like France and Britain, other Western countries like the US and communist Russia, but primarily corrupt and greedy African rulers are the main culprits.

It’s an easy to read book – one that’s quite good for quickly getting through a chapter or two at a time. It’s got some great maps and glossy photos. If you have any interest in Africa I’d recommend this book – well worth reading despite it’s depressing tone. Maybe it’s because of humility or maybe a lack of boldness or just utter hopelessness, but I was disappointed that Meredith didn’t offer any ideas or hope for the future. The book finishes by saying just how bad Africa is right now and that’s it – there is no further analysis or suggestions as to where we might go from here. That’s perhaps my only quibble with what is overall an excellent book.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll resurrect another old feature of the blog – a (theoretically) weekly list of what I’m currently feeding my brain :

LISTENING : Continuing our current country music kick ahead of a possible visit to the home of country music later this year, we’ve been listening to Keith Urban (esp his albums The Ranch and Golden Road) and the Dixie Chicks‘ latest album Taking the Long Way which is great, especially the song ‘Not Ready to Make Nice.’ I can’t believe this band lost fans and airplay over their stance against George W Bush and the Iraq war – what kind of free speech is that? Anyway their music is great and it’s a shame people’s narrow-mindedness is causing them to miss out on a great band. I’ve got hold of some other country music, from Jenny Watson, Alison Krauss, and Hank Williams, which I’ll be listening to more over the next week, as well as some of the Dixie Chicks’ older stuff.

WATCHING : At the moment we are in the grips of the TV series Heroes, as recommended by Father Roderick and my brother Scott. Courtesy of the latter, we have been watching some downloaded DivXs of the show, which is a good thing, as I would hate to have to watch just one episode a week. The suspense and plot development draws you in so much that you feel compelled to keep watching. Plus watching 2 or 3 episodes at a time makes it easier to remember who’s who and who can do what. A great show – very different and very addictive. Just wish they showed more of the Japanese guy Hiro – he’s so cool! Scrubs fans might recognize him as the lab tech, Franklin.

READING : currently I’m reading an interesting study on Colossians, Colossians Remixed, a history of Africa over the last 50 years, and I’ve just started N T Wright’s Reflecting the Glory, which is a series of daily readings for Lent.

EATING : Made some pancakes for the family last night since it was Pancake Tuesday, though I’m afraid they didn’t turn out all that good. Maybe I’ll try again at the weekend.

Now I’m probably not legitimately qualified to be critical of the Left Behind series of religious novels, since I haven’t read a single page. I’ve heard they can be semi-entertaining in a comic book kind of way, yet all I hear of their theology and it’s ramifications is quite disturbing. But someone is is qualified to comment is the Slacktivist, a well educated American Christian blogger and writer, who is slowly working his way through the first book on his blog, in addition to his other insightful and sensible comments on US politics and other subjects. Following his blog is like getting the Left Behind novel in serialised form – I’m able to follow the story while at the same time Slacktivist mercilessly demolishes it – his criticisms are not just theological, but also ethical, logical, and above all literary. He has a large following and gets plenty of comments, the majority of which agree with him, so I’m not sure how the Left Behind fans would find his site. For me, I’ve found it very entertaining (quite humorous at times), thought-provoking and illuminating, and will continue to keep a regular eye on it.

On a related issue, the book I’m currently reading by Ben Witherington III (who also has an interesting blog) called The Problem with Evangelical Theology systematically debunks the theology behind Left Behind. His arguments are relatively easy to follow and make a lot of sense, despite the depth he goes into in his detailed analysis of scripture. A little denser (and perhaps more unsettling) is when he takes on some more theological heavyweights in his criticisms of the theology of Calvin, Luther, and Augustine. Once again his arguments are logical and seem to make sense, but I feel out of my depth in making any judgement as to who’s right about these things. As a layperson dipping fingers into the deep well of theology, it’s important to remain humble and not just blindly accept whatever I read. However much I wish otherwise, I just am not well enough educated or qualified to make these sort of judgements (and will probably never be). All I can do is say to myself what feels right and logical and scriptural and say what system seems best to me, whilst acknowledging that I don’t know for sure. For example Witherington’s views on perseverance and apostasy are quite challenging and confronting and his exegetical reasoning seems to make sense – but I am not in a position to confidently conclude whether I believe him or not. The sensible reaction for me is to ask myself not “Is he right or wrong” but “what if he is right? what ramifications does that have for the way in which I conduct my life?” and thinking in that way is both sobering and worthwhile. Some might say it’s dangerous ground for a layperson to go exploring in matters of theology, but I think as long as I maintain a healthy level of “epistemological humility” and realisation of my own limitations, it can be a valuable enterprise.