MIPC Library News
Newsletter Article: Library
This month's library article is related to our Women's Retreat, October 2nd - 4th. They will be cataloged and ready for check out by the second Sunday of this month. "Ordering Your Private World" by Gordon MacDonald and "99 Things to Do Between Here and Heaven" by Kathleen Long Bostrom and Peter Graystone.
"Ordering Your Private World", or OPW, as the author calls it is a national best seller written by a Pastor. As a young man he was the gifted pride and joy of his home church and family. Everyone saw him as being on the fast track to success. He was smart, witty, charismatic and enthusiastic about his call to ministry and to his first church. Over time, however, he became so over committed and over promised that he began to feel like a house built on a Florida sink hole-the weight of his obligations to his family and job were so heavy, and he noticed that his foundation was so unsupported, that he feared he was about to have the ground open up beneath him and that he would shortly sink and collapse under the weight. "The Florida sinkhole is a physical picture of a spiritual problem which many Western Christians must deal....Is there a private world beneath the noise and action at the surface? ....Can strength and resilience be developed that will bear up under the growing pressure at the surface?" Gordon MacDonald recognized the warning signs-he would only be capable of giving the caring and doing the good he wanted to do if his own spiritual foundation was strengthened. He was inspired by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, author of last year's retreat book "Gift from the Sea" and by a Navy Captain who could remain calm at the helm. He decided he wanted to be a person who knew himself and his purpose, was capable of giving and receiving love, and who could be calm and clear headed in times of challenge or crisis. He decided he needed to "order his private (or inner) world." Check this book out whether you come to the retreat or not. It was written by a Christian who was willing to admit the mistakes he made, claimed Christ's forgiveness, and chose to step back into life in closer relationship to our forgiving and guiding big brother and Savior, Jesus the Christ. It is timely, helpful, and important book for any Christian man or woman. On a lighter note, consider checking out "99 Things to Do Between Here and Heaven." This "Bucket List" of affordable, touching and fun ideas will help every Christian experience joy, meaning and perhaps even a surprise or two as you make time for the kinds of experiences you will want to share with others and that just might draw you closer to God!Have you heard the growing voices that complain that “Religion is no solution. Religion is the problem.”? In our MIPC Library's collection we strive to help provide you with resources to answer such accusations. We have not only Presbyterian-related books but books on other denominations and books written by scholars from other world religions, especially those religions that have strong ties to our roots. In that vein are the two new books highlighted for this month (one for adults and one for children), both are linked to Judaism but could be of of great value to Christians as well. "Why Faith Matters" by Rabbi David Wolpe, (Call # ) is an articulate defense of religion in America, making the case for faith and showing its relationship to history and science. Refuting the cold reason of the atheists and the hatred of the fanatics with a vision of religion informed by faith, love, and understanding, Rabbi Wolpe follows in a literary tradition that stretches from Cardinal Newman to C. S. Lewis to Thomas Merton--all individuals of faith who brought religion and culture together in their own works. Drawing on the personal and powerful story of his battle with cancer, Wolpe offers a moving statement in support of religion today. In a response to the new atheists, Wolpe takes readers through the origins and nature of faith, the role of the Bible in modern life, and the compatibility of God and science. He concludes with a powerful argument for the place of God, faith, and religion in today's world. For the children there is a new, lavishly illustrated book "Something for Nothing" by Phoebe Gilman (Call # C 96), the retelling of a traditional Jewish folktale about the gift of a baby blanket by a Jewish tailor to his grandchild, Joseph. As he outgrows the baby blanket stage, his relationship with his grandfather grows in love and trust. When others tell him to “Throw it out!” his grandfather is always able to transform the blanket into ever smaller items that Joseph continues to treasure. This wonderful story about relationships between children and Grandparents also has a strong message encouraging recycling, the making of home made gifts from the heart, while combating prejudice. Every child will see that people with customs, clothing and beliefs that are different from ours can nevertheless bless us with an example of family love! We hope you will enjoy both of them.
This month's library note will highlight one of the books that will be read by the Women's Small Group, Heart's Alive": Bad Girls of the Bible by Liz Curtis Higgs. Liz Curtis Higgs has always been a great person to hang out with for a laugh or for a good time, but she wasn't always the kind of girl a Christian would turn to for advice. Liz turned 16 in 1970 and "did everything that teenagers did in the 1960's and everything you don't want your daughter to do." Between 1970 and 1980 she moved from stealing cigarettes from her Mom's purse to becoming sexually promiscuous and experimenting with a wide variety of "mind altering substances". A lot of people gave up on her, but God didn't. When she finally started coming to church she had a hard time holding on to the incredible feeling she had experienced at her baptism of having been cleansed and reborn. ("In my church they believe in holding you under until you bubble....so I was really clean when I came back up out of that baptistry!") When she heard the stories of women like Mary, the mother of Jesus, she thought "Get real! I can't even imagine being THAT sticky sweet. I wouldn't even LIKE someone that sweet!" It wasn't until she heard Bible studies about women like Rahab the harlot and the Samaritan Woman at the well that she felt the Bible had anything she could relate to. "Then I happened upon Jezebel, and something inside me clicked. I identified with her pushy personality, I understood her need for control, I empathized with her angry outbursts....she was a Bad Girl, all right, but boy did she teach me what not to do in my marriage!" Today Liz is married to a missionary/pastor/Bible scholar who fell in love with her heart and hilariously "wicked" sense of humor despite her past. Bill Higgs encouraged her to claim Christ's forgiveness without shame and to use her understanding of how women can get side tracked into "a season of badness" by temptation, jealousy, rebellion, or a desire for revenge to help "bad girls" get back on track. Her stories can also alert "good girls" to recognize the pot holes and curve balls of life so they can avoid them and be more compassionate of those that have not! Once I cracked the cover of "Bad Girls of the Bible," a series of contemporary stories, I could not put put it down. Liz was an English major in college and has become a very good fiction writer. She takes the characters found in the Bible and tries to find the life circumstances present today that help us understand the woman we read about from ancient times. Each contemporary story is followed by an exploration of the Biblical woman the story was based on. I had never understood the story of Lot's wife until I read Liz's story about the woman who was asked to leave her Dream Home on the slope of Mt. St. Helens. I can no longer read the story of the woman at the well, to whom Jesus offered living water, without thinking of the hardened, wise cracking bar tender in Liz's story of a woman who has experienced much betrayal and pain and yet whose heart could nevertheless be touched when she met a stranger with an uncommon wisdom and compassion who truly saw her as a human being and a child of God. Check out "Bad Girls of the Bible," CL 25 and "Really Bad Girls of the Bible," CL 24 or DVD 24 (by the same name) of Liz telling her own story. You will be glad you did!
"Ordering Your Private World", or OPW, as the author calls it is a national best seller written by a Pastor. As a young man he was the gifted pride and joy of his home church and family. Everyone saw him as being on the fast track to success. He was smart, witty, charismatic and enthusiastic about his call to ministry and to his first church. Over time, however, he became so over committed and over promised that he began to feel like a house built on a Florida sink hole-the weight of his obligations to his family and job were so heavy, and he noticed that his foundation was so unsupported, that he feared he was about to have the ground open up beneath him and that he would shortly sink and collapse under the weight. "The Florida sinkhole is a physical picture of a spiritual problem which many Western Christians must deal....Is there a private world beneath the noise and action at the surface? ....Can strength and resilience be developed that will bear up under the growing pressure at the surface?"
Gordon MacDonald recognized the warning signs-he would only be capable of giving the caring and doing the good he wanted to do if his own spiritual foundation was strengthened. He was inspired by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, author of last year's retreat book "Gift from the Sea" and by a Navy Captain who could remain calm at the helm. He decided he wanted to be a person who knew himself and his purpose, was capable of giving and receiving love, and who could be calm and clear headed in times of challenge or crisis. He decided he needed to "order his private (or inner) world." Check this book out whether you come to the retreat or not. It was written by a Christian who was willing to admit the mistakes he made, claimed Christ's forgiveness, and chose to step back into life in closer relationship to our forgiving and guiding big brother and Savior, Jesus the Christ. It is timely, helpful, and important book for any Christian man or woman. On a lighter note, consider checking out "99 Things to Do Between Here and Heaven." This "Bucket List" of affordable, touching and fun ideas will help every Christian experience joy, meaning and perhaps even a surprise or two as you make time for the kinds of experiences you will want to share with others and that just might draw you closer to God!
This month your MIPC library team is recommending some wonderful Christian fiction books on fathers and fatherhood. Two novels, both by Marilynne Robinson, have been highly recommended by several of our church members. "Gilead" (Call number CFic 37) is a Pulitzer Prize winner in which the narrator is a 76 year old preacher who has lived almost all of his life in Gilead, Iowa. He is writing a letter, precipitated by his failing health, to his almost seven-year-old son, the blessing of his second marriage. It is a summing-up, an apologia, a consideration of his life. Robinson takes the story away from being simply the reminiscences of one man and moves it into the realm of a meditation on fathers and children, particularly sons, on faith, and on the imperfectability of man. "Home" (Call number CFic 38) is the companion piece to "Gilead"--a variation on the parable of the prodigal son's return. The derelict son is Jack Boughton, one of the eight children of the former Gilead, Iowa pastor, who now, in 1957, is a dying man. It is an ancient drama of grace and perdition in which Robinson stakes a fierce claim to a divine recognition behind the rituals of home. In a non-fiction vein, don’t forget an important book on fathering and mothering boys that we highlighted a few months ago: "Losers, Loners, and Rebels: the Spiritual Struggles of Boys" by Presbyterian fathers, pastors, and professors, Robert C. Dykstra and Alan Cole and Donald Capps Call #: CL 114. Lastly, lest you think we forgot the women-consider adding “Mary Magdalene: A Biography” by Bruce Chilton to your summer reading list. This entertaining but historically and theologically reliable book will give you lots of interesting counter points to add when friends start discussing the next Dan Brown movie! Call #: Bio 16.