Expect Delays, by the onset of college

This is no book. Indeed, this is life, and it will be mine for a while. I am at the beginning of my first semester at a small Bible college in the Midwest. Days will be full of reading, but not the kind i am used to, nor what i am intending to write reviews on. So, this post is a notice and a request. Notice: i am now a full-time student and i will have to be very disciplined with what little free-time i will have. Request: please be patient while you await my next book review. I actually have just a little bit to finish up before i could post my review of "Summer at Fairacre," so that could suffice some of you for a while yet. Otherwise, my "Coming Soon" column could be re-translated "Coming whenever i actually have spare moments in my day." :-) Thanks for understanding, and Happy Reading to all of you!

To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

This is an ideal "coming of age" story with wonderful lessons to be learned. Written in the autobiographical manner, it's very engaging. I've always loved the film version with Gregory Peck, but the book is so much more. Highly recommend it!
Some excerpts: (This one is after a visit of Atticus and the kids with his brother Jack. Uncle Jack had overheard young Scout saying d**m and h**l.)
"When supper was over, Uncle Jack went to the livingroom and sat down. He slapped his thighs for me to come sit on his lap. I liked to smell him: he was like a bottle of alcohol and something pleasantly sweet. He pushed back my bangs and looked at me. 'You're more like Atticus than your mother,' he said. 'You also growing out of your pants a little.' 'I reckon they fit all right.' 'You like words like d**m and h**l now, don't you?' I said I reckoned so. 'Well I don't,' said Uncle Jack, 'not unless there's extreme provocation connected with 'em. I'll be here a week, and I don't want to hear any words like that while I'm here. Scout, you'll get in trouble if you go around saying things like that. You want to grow up to be a lady, don't you?' I said not particularly. 'Of course you do,' he replied." (chapter 9)
(A child's description of their father, such a classic example of pre-experience that drastically changed her ideas of the kind of man her father truly was.)
"Atticus was feeble: he was nearly fifty. When Jem and I asked him why he was so old, he said he got started late, which we felt reflected upon his abilities and manliness. He was much older than the parents of our school contemporaries, and there was nothing Jem or I could say about him when our classmates said, 'My father--'...Jem was football crazy. Atticus was never too tired to play keep-away, but when Jem wanted to tackle him Atticus would say, 'I'm too old for that, son.' Our father didn't do anything. He worked in an office, not in a drugstore. Atticus did not drive a dump-truck for the county, he was not the sheriff, he did not farm, work in a garage, or do anything that could possibly arouse the admiration of anyone. Besides that, he wore glasses." (chapter 10)
(This one a reflection of Scout's regarding Dill, the young boy who came to their town every summer to visit his Aunt Rachel, one of the neighbors.)
"The fact that I had a permanent fiance was little compensation for his absence: I had never thought about it, but summer was Dill by the fishpool smoking string, Dill's eyes alive with complicated plans to make Boo Radley emerge; summer was the swiftness with which Dill would reach up and kiss me when Jem was not looking, the longings we sometimes felt each other feel. With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable. I stayed miserable for two days." (chapter 12)
(On her brother Jem's growing up.)
"Jem was twelve. He was difficult to live with, inconsistent, moody. His appetite was appalling, and he told me so many times to stop pestering him I consulted Atticus: 'Reckon he's got a tapeworm?' Atticus said no, Jem was growing. I must be patient with him and disturb him as little as possible." (chapter 12)

Originally published in 1961 by Harper & Row.

L'Abri, by Edith Schaeffer

This is the story of "a family of six, two of them sick children, [who] move into a beaten up chalet in a tiny mountain village without even a living-room...and pray that God will send them the people to talk to! They 'bury' themselves as far as this world's standards go, and should never be heard of again. And as they pray, the people come; the room is finally packed with fifty; doors are taken off and sixty are included within earshot; the chapel holds over 150 now and then some on balconies and steps. God has pushed out the walls in a very real way." (pg.228) This is the story of L'Abri (the French word for "shelter"), a Christian "think-tank" of sorts, located in the Swiss mountains among a grouping of chalets. It is the story of a work that only God could start, breaking down the barriers of local politics, working miraculously in the hearts of high-up officials in the country to secure long-term visas for the family after they'd been told they would have to leave the country in two weeks. There are many other instances of times of prayer and seeing that prayer answered by a living God! There were times when circumstances looked impossible, but in the end, God worked to make their ministry even farther reaching than the Schaeffers ever dreamed.
So, why do people visit L'Abri? In Edith's own words, "They have one main thing in common...most of them are truly serious in seeking the answers to the basic questions which bother any thinking person. Although they come from backgrounds and beliefs which can be diametrically opposed, there is the searching, the 'seeking' which is in some measure present in each one there." (pg.14) I enjoyed Edith's writing style, very journalistic (as in "keeping a journal") and yet flowed so nicely. Here is a sample from the beginning of a chapter, talking about the many surprises that they encountered in their work. "The thing about real life is that important events don't announce themselves. Trumpets don't blow, drums don't beat to let you know you are going to meet the most important person you've ever met, or read the most important thing you are ever going to read, or have the most important conversation you are ever going to have, or spend the most important week you are ever going to spend. Usually something that is going to change your whole life is a memory before you can stop and be impressed about it." (pg.53)
Like any ministry, L'Abri isn't perfect and the community there is no utopia, but what an encouragement is has been for me to read this story, to be reminded that I serve a personal, living God and Father who does indeed care about me, and His Word, the Bible, does contain all the answers!
~~Highly recommended
Tyndale House Publishers, 1972

Jesus & I Are Friends, by John Faris

The subtitle here is "The Life and Ministry of J.R.Miller."
I first came to know of James Russell Miller (1840-1912) through a book titled "Home-Making" many years ago. It was an exposition on the ideal Christian family life, and I was enthralled by it, stirring within me a desire that my own home would be like that someday. Several years passed and then I "chanced" upon an old book I found on the top shelf at "Charleville," the house I lived in for two years in Ireland. They had quite the library at this house, and I was drawn to the books on the top shelf because they were beautifully bound, all first editions, from the late 1800's. Well, I started reading this book titled "Life's Byways and Waysides," with its short chapters, filled with poems, exhortations of comfort and love, stories of ordinary people doing everyday kindness, and examples of Jesus and His followers walking in His steps. Everytime I read a portion of the book, I went away with a desire to show love to those around me and I was drawn to a pure way of life.
So, when I discovered recently there was a biography of J.R. Miller, I found it on Amazon and ordered it immediately. It has been a great encouragement to me to learn about the life of the man behind at least 60 devotional books, and various other writings. Some excerpts now:
(On his early work with the Christian Commission during the Civil War years)"'During the campaign the twofold object of the Christian Commission has been kept steadily in view. While caring for the body, and labouring to alleviate bodily sufferings, we have aimed to lose no opportunity to speak a word for Jesus. We have always borne in mind that our soldiers are beings for immortality; and, in going from cot to cot, among thousands, our delegates have not failed to remind them, if but by a hastily spoken word, that they have interests far higher than those of time. Prayer meetings and other brief religious services have been regularly held in all our hospitals; and a quiet, but powerful, work of grace has been constantly moving forward...The world will never know the nature, value, or importance of the work performed in the hospitals by our delegates. It was quiet, unostentatious work of mercy. Entering on their labours there in a time of greatest suffering, they worked by day and by night among the wounded thousands, washing, dressing, feeding, praying with the dying, burying the dead, and calling upon the living to repent and be saved.'" (pg.47-48)
"His ordination and installation took place September 11, 1867,[in Pennsylvania] and he at once devoted himself heartily to the work of pulpit and pastorate...From the first there was a persuasiveness in tone and message, and an earnestness in utterance which made his preaching--to use the words of an admirer--'peculiarly his own.' There was nothing stilted in his pulpit work, no straining after rhetorical or dramatic effect, but there was a simplicity, a directness, an elegance and richness in dictation and illustration, combined with the evident sincerity and earnestness that carried his messages directly to the heart." (pg.71)
"On June 22, 1870, Mr. Miller was married to Miss Louise E. King of Argyle, New York, whom he had met in May, 1868, while attending the meeting of the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in Argyle. From the day of his marriage Mrs. Miller was his inspiration and his helper in all his work. He was never weary of telling of his great debt to her. In his letters to young married people, he frequently told of what she was to him, and said that he could wish them no greater happiness than a home such as she was making for him. The secret of Mrs. Miller's helpfulness was not only her beautiful character, but her recognition of the fact that her husband belonged to those who listened to his preaching, who received him in their hom, who read the publications he edited, or who were inspired by his books. That he might be free to serve them she saw to it that he was relieved of all home cares which she could take upon herself. In these efforts she was most successful." (pg.76)
(a letter he wrote to a young pastor in 1910, who was seeking advice--and Dr. Miller evidently lived what he preached.) "'Cultivate love for Christ and then live for your work. It goes without saying that the supreme motive in every minister's life should be the love of Christ. "The love of Christ strengtheneth me," was the keynote of St. Paul's marvellous ministry. But this is not all. If a man is swayed by the love of CHrist he must also have in his heart love for his fellow men. If I were to give you what I believe is one of the secrets of my own life, it is, that I have always loved people...If you want to have success as a winner of men, as a helper of people, as a pastor of little children, as the friend of the tempted and imperilled, you must love them and have a sincere desire to do them good.'" (pg.87)
(what Louis F. Benson,D.D.,who was a fellow boardmember with Dr. Miller on the editing of numerous Christian periodicals, had to say about him)"He addressed literally millions of people, and each one of them felt his personal touch and was conscious of the ministry of love. He had only one theme, the beauty of being better than we are. It is said that he repeated himself; and that saying probably reveals one of the secrets of his success. He was no more afraid of repeating himself than life itself is." (pg.142)
(an excerpt from a letter he wrote to a stranger who was suffering) "'Your stationary shows that you are in sorrow. I may not intermeddle with your grief, but I may say at least that my heart goes out in sincere sympathy to you, whatever the greife may be which has touched your life. No doubt you have learned that sorrow is a great revealer. We never should see the stars in the sky, if the sun kept shining always; and the Bible is like a sky full of stars--stars of comfort, of divine revealing, of spiritual help, of which we never should know experimentally did not the sun go down for us and the darkness come on. Very much of the Bible remains like a sealed book to God's children until they are called to pass into the shadows of grief. That is what our Master meant in the Beatitude for sorrow, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." Comfort is one of God's highest and best blessings. But we never can have comfort till we mourn.'" (pg.175)
(and another letter he wrote) "'Love is never lost. Nothing that love does is ever forgotten. Long, long afterwards the poet found his song, from beginning to end, in the heart of a friend. Love shall find some day every song it has ever sung, sweetly treasured and singing yet in the hearts into which it has breathed. It is a pretty legend of the origin of the pearls which says that a star fell into the sea, and a shellfish, opening its mouth, received it, when the star became a pearl in the shell. The words of love's greeting as we hurry by fall into our hearts, not to be lost, but to become pearls and stay there forever.'" (pg.204)

~~recommended, along with J.R. Miller's various devotional books
(originally published 1912 by Hodder & Stoughton; this edition by Solid Ground Christian Books)

A Common Life, by Jan Karon

This is The Wedding Story of Cynthia and Timothy Kavanaugh, as only Jan Karon can write it, poetically beautiful. I loved how it was filled with little quotations and verses of poetry and Scriptures. We follow everyone involved the few months leading up to the wedding and hear about the various preparations, from Uncle Billy finding the perfect joke to tell at the reception, to Tim and Cynthia preparing their vows. It is a delight, even if you haven't read any of the other Mitford books.

~Recommended (2001, Viking Press)