Expecto Patronum!

Madison, Wisconsin, is a delightful town.  The center of town sits on a narrow isthmus between two large lakes.  At the highest point is perched the majestic state capitol building.  Roads radiate outwards from this hub, one of which is the pedestrian only State Street, which links the downtown with the University of Wisconsin.  Bars, restaurants, clothing stores--everything a college town needs--line the street in abundance.

Five years ago my wife and I had the pleasure of ambling down State Street.  The greatest discovery (for me at least) was a used book store across from a Starbucks.  I don't know if it's still there today, but I'm glad it was that day.  For just a few bucks we came out with the first two books of the Harry Potter series.  I'd seen all the movies (four had come out at that point) and enjoyed them thoroughly.  But I'd never read the books.  I knew a lot of people who thought they were pagan, or something like that, but this wasn't my own view (I later noticed that all the people who objected to these books didn't read books at all, so I didn't find their objections very credible).  So we took them back to Wheaton where they sat on a bookshelf for several months.

I finally picked them up at the end of that year.  I was studying for finals but needed something to distract me from the academic drudgery.  Once I started I couldn't put them down.  I finished one and went right to the next.  After I finished the first two books I either borrowed or checked out the next four.  By the beginning of the next semester in January I had finished all of them (except of course the final book which had yet to be published).

The final installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, came out that summer.  My wife waited in line at midnight to pick up our copy from the now defunct Borders Bookstore.  The next two days we swapped the book back and forth, reading two chapters at a time.  As I finished it I felt a mixture of pleasure and sadness--pleasure because I enjoyed it so much, and sadness that it was over (and because sad things happen of course).

Then it joined its brothers on the bookshelf for a few more years.  Slowly, as time passed from this first reading, I felt the growing desire to return to them once more.  But this was during a time of long term unemployment.  I decided at some point that I'd wait until the job situation was settled to reread the series as a type of reward for my new job.

I had to wait until August of last year for this prize.  Three and a half years had passed since my first reading, and I had forgotten so much of the details.  But I enjoyed it so much (and read at the same pace as the first time) that I said to myself, "Self, you enjoy this so much.  Why not just read it every year?"  Thus the birth of an August tradition.  This August I began my third reading, and, yes, I'm still loving it (though life circumstances inhibit the earlier pace of reading).

I don't want to do review these books.  Two articles in Wayfaring by Alan Jacobs (English prof, author, Harry Potter lover) do it better than I ever could.  However, I do want to state the two biggest reasons why I find the series so satisfying.  First, they're just a lot of fun.  The plots are fun, the mystery elements are fun, and the narrative world of Hogwarts and the rest of the wizarding world is just a lot of fun.  There's so much charm and humor, which the movies don't always capture.  Second, I can't help but care about the characters.  Maybe it's because they're mostly kids, and maybe it's because so much evil has been perpetuated against them, but I have rarely identified so closely and rooted so hard for fictitious characters.

And, of course, I have to mention all those elements of Christian symbolism, especially in book seven that I personally find so intriguing:  the chosen one who defeats evil by his death and resurrection (of a type--you might have to make your own judgment about that--I disagree with Alan Jacobs on this point), the location where Harry and Dumbledore speak (King's Cross--say those words out loud and listen to what you're saying), and the two biblical quotations in the graveyard scene.  I really have no idea where J. K. Rowling identifies herself religiously.  I just think all this is really cool.

I enjoy reading (obviously), but I really enjoy Harry Potter.  I hope you do too.

Reading Update

Once again the busyness of life has distracted me from blogging.  Here's what I've been reading since my last review:

 Alan Jacobs, Wayfaring:  Essays Pleasant and Unpleasant.  Jacobs, an English professor at Wheaton College (IL not MA) is one of my favorite writers.  Wayfaring is a collection of essays previously published in various periodicals.  He's a fantastic essayist and writes on a delightfully broad range of subjects:  trees, Harry Potter (which he loves:  "the best penny-dreadful ever written"), Bible translation, friendship, and more.

 Stephen Mansfield, In Search of God and Guinness:  A Biography of the Book that Changed the World.  I love Guinness, but I only liked this book.  It tells the story of Guinness' founding in the 18th century all the way through to today but with particular attention to how much the Guinness family used their wealth for good, including providing wonderful benefits to employees (way before anyone else was doing it) as well as for the poor of Ireland.  The writing was competent but much less enjoyable coming off of Jacobs.

 Mike McKinley, Church Planting is for Wimps:  How God Uses Messed-Up People to Plant Ordinary Churches That Do Extraordinary Things.  Very good read on planting churches, or rather, one man's story of revitalizing an all-but-dead church.  Anyone interested in church planting should read and learn.

 Neil Gaiman, American Gods.  Gaiman is a fantasy writer.  At least I think so.  He's a bit hard to pin down for me, but not as hard as Neal Stephenson.  Anyway, American Gods tells the story about a battle between the old gods who came over to America with their former adherents (like the Scandinavian god Odin) and the new American gods like Media and the Internet.  I didn't find the story as intriguing as Gaiman's Anansi Boys and Neverwhere, and it was also a lot dirtier.  And, to my disappointment, it didn't give any substantial critique of our modern idolatries.  The gods in this book (including Media) are actual gods not false idols.

 J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  This deserves a blog post all of its own.

John Stott

During much of my college years I was convinced that God was calling me to an academic life rather than to pastoral ministry in a local church.  I enjoyed study and was decent at it, and this aspect of my personality seemed so different than the few pastors I knew.  But then a couple of books changed my perspective.  The first was Preaching and Preachers by Martyn Lloyd-Jones.  I can't remember where or why I bought this book but I'm so thankful I did.  Here I saw a great preacher--one of the greatest of the 20th century--who was devoted to study.  I don't know how many times I read the section on what books preachers should be reading (just the kind of books I liked to read anyway).  Lloyd-Jones showed me that I could be bookish and intellectual and still be a pastor.

So I decided to audit a class on preaching.  Our main text was Between Two Worlds:  The Challenge of Preaching Today by John R. W. Stott.  Here I saw much of what I had seen in Lloyd-Jones, only more of it.  He irreversibly convinced me that there is only one legitimate way to preach, what is called expository preaching.  Expository preaching is to take a text of Scripture (usually one text, but not always) and simply explain it and apply to the hearts of the congregation.  This means that what the preacher says is what God has already said in his Word, not the preacher's personal thoughts and opinions on (fill in the blank).  Between Two Worlds explained with wonderful clarity and conviction how to preach God's Word (and, happily for me, it meant the pastor had to read widely and voluminously).

John Stott was born in London in 1921.  He was converted while a student at Rugby School and soon felt called to pastoral ministry.  A few years later he became a curate (Anglican-speak for "intern") at All Souls, Langham Place, the central London church where he was raised.  His obvious gifting propelled him to a larger leadership role when the pastor's health declined.  At the pastor's death he became the rector (pastor) of All Souls.  This was in 1950, and he served the congregation until 1975, when he took the title rector emeritus in order to devote himself to his now global ministry.

And he wrote lots of books.  Many people have found encouragement or even conversion in his great work in defense of the credibility of the Christian faith Basic Christianity, oddly one of Stott's books I haven't read.  In grad school I read The Cross of Christ, a fantastic exposition of the penal substitutionary view of the atonement, the idea that Jesus' death on the cross was penal--it paid the penalty for sin against God--and that Jesus died as the substitute for sinners.  I don't know of a better book that explains why Jesus died.

Stott never married.  He wanted to and always assumed he would (doesn't everybody?), but one day he looked around and realized that it just wasn't going to happen.  It was God's way of calling him to celibacy.  The good news about his singleness was that it afforded him so much time to write and travel all over the world for various preaching engagements.  These travels made him increasingly concerned for the Third World (I guess that's not the right term anymore--"Global South," is it?).  He created a foundation to train pastors from these countries in English and American universities and seminaries for ministry and then send them back home.

On one of his many travels he came to speak at a retirement home in Carol Stream, Illinois.  This was in 2007 I think.  I was in school in Wheaton, just a few minutes drive away.  I sat with a hundred or so people much older than me and listened as Stott preached God's Word and encouraged everyone to support international missionary work.  He had to be helped onto the speaking platform, and at one point lost his train of thought (which he turned into a bit of self-effacing humor), but otherwise it was clear and compelling exposition.  I still have the sermon notes.  Afterwards I went up to him and told him how influential he had been to me.  "Are you a pastor?" he asked.  "Not yet, but I hope so one day," I said, or something like that.  Then I asked him to sign my copy of Between the Two Worlds, which he humbly obliged.  I felt like a kid getting a favorite star's baseball card autographed.

A few years later, when trying to decide what to name our first son, my wife and I easily settled on the middle name:  Stott.

John Stott died today.  He was 90 years old.  He wasn't a perfect man, but he was faithful.  He loved the gospel of Jesus Christ, and was the exemplary preacher of God's Word.  I thank God for him.

Colonel Mustard did it

Someone told me once, or maybe I read it somewhere, that Oxford and Cambridge professors dabbled in mystery stories so as to have something to read while in bed with the flu.  My memory of this fact is no doubt highly suspect.  I'm not positive that Oxford and Cambridge were specified.  It might have been a broader term like "English academics."  And I can't remember if these academics were supposed to be writing mystery books or just reading them.  And perhaps the type of illness which would afford reading opportunities wasn't limited to influenza.  My point in recounting this dubious memory is merely to make an observation:  the mystery genre is very English.  Or at least that's how it seems to me.

Some years ago I discovered Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey stories.  This woman impresses me.  She also wrote advertisements for Guinness (ever seen old posters of zoo animals enticing you to pint or two?), and she's most well known for her translation of Dante's Divine Comedy.  And she enjoyed a personal friendship with C. S. Lewis.

Agatha Christie audiobooks are a staple of our family road trips.  The venerable Masterpiece Theatre (Sunday evenings on PBS) has produced many excellent TV adaptations.  When the murderer's true identity is finally revealed it's always the last person I suspected, but, after seeing the facts laid bare and interpreted rightly, the only person it possibly could have been.  This is why the stories are so fun.

In the past few weeks I've managed to read two books that have been sitting idly on my shelf for years, both mysteries:  Sir Arthur Conan Doyles' The Hound of the Baskervilles (a Sherlock Holmes story) and G. K. Chesterton's The Scandal of Father Brown, a collection of short stories featuring the crime solving Roman Catholic priest Father Brown.  Both lots of fun.

All these stories share three patterns:  (1) The stories don't just revolve around the plot twists and solutions to the crimes but the eccentricities of the main protagonist as well.  Christie's Hercule Poirot seems to stand out in particular.  (2) The protagonist solves the crime by observing facts which anyone could have seen, if only he had eyes to see.  (3) The protagonist usually figures out the murderer's identity well before he reveals his/her identity, but chooses to keep his discovery secret until the final opportune moment.

Not all mystery books and stories are equally enjoyable, but if you've got the flu they're a great way to spend your convalescence.

Highlighting

Nothing like going under 40' latitude and over 5,000 feet elevation to balance the humors and steady the mind for blogging.

A few book reviews are in line, but until then consider this curiosity:

Evangelicals highlight Kindle books more than any other segment of the population.

HT:  Crossway 

I tried to call but you didn't answer

"Hello blog."

"Hello yourself."

"Don't do that to me.  You know how busy I've been these past two weeks."

"Not too busy to hang out with all your other friends."

"You're really bringing my son's birthday party into this?  That's cold, man.  Cold."

"Whatever.  It just gets lonely out here all by myself.  Nothing to do but smile when a few people stop by to have a look around--which isn't that often by the way."

"Alright, alright.  Well, I've got some blog post ideas, if you want to hear them."

"Yeah, sure, go ahead."

"Love the enthusiasm.  For starters, I've got two books to review."

"Ooh, two books.  You're a reading wonder."

"I'll ignore your sarcasm.  I also saw an interesting story about how evangelicals are the biggest highlighters on Kindle."

"And, pray you, where did you hear of this story?"

"On a blog."

"So your blog post will just be a link to another blog post?"

"No, well, um, I'll, you know, put my own comments and stuff."

"Your creativity astonishes me.  A real Picasso.  The Frank Gehry of the blogosphere."

"Who?"

"Look him up."

"I'm getting tired of this.  I tried to say I'm sorry, but you're obviously not having any of it.  Which reminds me of an idea I had for another blog altogether."

"What!?"

"A blog on life in the city.  Urban criticism, or something like that."

"Hold on.  Wait a minute.  I'm sorry for my tone."

"That's ok."

"I just hate the thought of you running off with some new hussy blog."

"I don't think my own idea that came from my own head could really be called a 'new hussy blog.'"

"You know what I mean!  Let's just put this behind us, ok?"

"That's what I've been trying to do the whole time!"

"Well, I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too."

Independence Day

It was unintentional, but I finished E. B. Sledge's War War II memoir With the Old Breed:  At Peleliu and Okinawa July 3 and now post this July 4.  Sledge, aka "Sledgehammer," of Mobile, Alabama, enlisted in the Marines in 1942.  With the Old Breed guides us through his experiences of basic training, traveling to the South Pacific, and his two combat experiences at Peleliu and Okinawa with the 1st Division, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, K Company.  Sledge survived combat and eventually became a professor of biology at the University of Montevallo, just south of Birmingham, Alabama.

Many rank With the Old Breed among the best war memoirs ever written.  It became one of the sources for the HBO miniseries The Pacific as well as Studs Terkel's The Good War.  I suspect this acclaim is due in large part to Sledge's cynicism and his depictions of the horror of war.  The reader will find no glory of war in this account.  At one point as Sledge's company is bogged down on a ridge in Okinawa under unending rain Sledge must endure the terrible view of the body of a Marine, in sitting position whose face seems to gaze directly at Sledge, slowly decomposing out in no man's land.

After his accounts of each battle Sledge sums up his thoughts.  After Peleliu:

None of us would ever be the same after what we had endured.  To some degree that is true, of course, of all human experience.  But something in me died at Peleliu.  Perhaps it was a childish innocence that accepted as faith the claim that man is basically good.  Possibly I lost faith that politicians in high places who do not have to endure war's savagery will ever stop blundering and sending others to endure it.

But I also learned important things on Peleliu.  A man's ability to depend on his comrades and immediate leadership is absolutely necessary.  I'm convinced that our discipline, esprit de corps, and tough training were the ingredients that equipped me to survive the ordeal physically and mentally--given a lot of good luck, of course.  I learned realism, too.  To defeat an enemy as tough and dedicated as the Japanese, we had to be just as tough.  We had to be just as dedicated to America as they were to their emperor.  I think this was the essence of Marine Corps doctrine in World War II, and that history vindicates this doctrine.

After Okinawa, and the conclusion to his book:

War is brutish, inglorious, and a terrible waste.  Combat leaves an indelible mark on those who are forced to endure it.  The only redeeming factors were my comrades' incredible bravery and their devotion to each other.  Marine Corps training taught us to kill efficiently and to try to survive.  But it also taught us loyalty to each other--and love.  That esprit de corps sustained us.

Until the millenium arrives [this was published in 1981] and countries cease trying to enslave others, it will be necessary to accept one's responsibilities and to be willing to make sacrifices for one's country--as my comrades did.  As the troops used to say, "If the country is good enough to live in, it's good enough to fight for."  With privilege goes responsibility."

Good words for Independence Day.