13 Books for Your Reading List

I grew up in home where reading was a natural part of life. My parent’s idea of reading was having four to five books going at the same time and being able to talk about each one at the dinner table. I kept that habit. Fortunately, I married someone who reads at the same pace. Our home is a veritable multi-dimensional library. Our two children adopted the same reading style. Whenever we get together, books are at the center of our conversations. And our two grandsons have already shown signs of having a ravenous appetite for reading.

A lot of the folks I hang out usually spend a considerable amount of time talking about the books we read. So I thought I would put together my top thirteen books I read in 2016. I have not included two books that I wrote reviews for Mike Morrell’s Speakeasy. You can find my reviews on this blog. Those books were The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings by Philip and Carol Zaleski and The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation by Richard Rohr and Mike Morrell.

Here are the other eleven books that fill out my top thirteen. I’m listing the books by author and not in any particular order. Hope you might find some of these titles intriguing.

The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability, Nancy Eiseland. This book should be mandatory reading for anyone with any leadership role in any religion. While Eiseland writes from a Christian perspective, she challenges the religious notion that God has a “perfect image.” She demands that the church create imagery of spiritual access for those who find simply getting inside the church building a challenge.

Charles Williams: The Third Inkling, Grevel Lindop. This is the first biography of the esoteric and eccentric Charles Williams. I have been fascinated with Williams’ novels and theology as well his involvement in the hermetic ideals. Lindop took years to research and write this book, which contains fresh materials unavailable to previous researchers. If you want to get a different insight on the Inklings, C.S. Lewis, T.S Eliot, and Dylan Thomas this book is not shy on detail.

Alchemical Psychology, James Hillman. He wrote, “Metaphor is the dream work of language,” and “Alchemical soulmaking is illuminated lunacy.” Either quote was enough to get me into the book. Hillman is a renowned Jungian psychologist that has brought his own brilliant insights to the world of depth psychology. This book is a collection of Hillman’s lectures on fives phases of alchemy. He includes a profound chapter on “blue” and his understanding of the value of living in the world of being “in between.”

How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human, Eduardo Kohn. My good friend, anthropologist and theologian Gaymon Bennett, recommended this book. Anthropologist, Eduardo Kohn, spent four years among the Runa people who live in Ecuador’s Upper Amazon. If you’ve ever wondered if your dog dreams or if trees think, Kohn takes on both subjects through witness and personal experience. The book has insights and implications for understanding the world as the presence of the divine, but never speaks of God.

Revelations of the Magi, Brent Landau. My daughter-in-law gave me this book for Christmas and I couldn’t put it down. Landau was a high school classmate of my daughter-in-law. He studied at Harvard and Cambridge. This book is a translation with his commentary on a rare and forgotten second century book written in Syriac. Landau’s conclusions shed new light on the universal nature of pre-Nicene Creed Christianity.

The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus, Amy Jill-Levine. Colleague, the Rev. Nordon Winger recommended I read this book. The author is an excellent storyteller. She uses her humor and personal stories to allow us access into the “Jewishness” of Jesus. This book is approachable while offering unique insights and details into Jesus’ world and his life.

Spiritual Doorway to the Brain, Kevin Nelson. My friend, Dr. Candace Lewis who is a neuroscientist recommended this book. Medical doctor and neuroscientist, Nelson has studied thousands of near death experiences. His open approach to the question of what happens at the moment of death is refreshing and enlightening. He uses his research in RIM sleep as a means of accessing a platform to analyze what happens as we approach death. As a scientist he makes no claims about the existence of God or the afterlife, but leaves the question open for the reader.

The Idolatry of God: Breaking Our Addiction to Certainty and Satisfaction, Peter Rollins. His most recent book, The Divine Magician: The Disappearance of Religion and the Discovery of Faith, is a follow up to this volume. Rollins writes in terms of Radical Theology. He is imaginative and is creating a new way to engage the biblical stories of God, Jesus, and Paul. A lot of “spiritual but not religious,” and “nones” are showing up to hear him speak.

The Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human, Daniel Siegel. My son is a psychologist and recommended this book to me. Siegel, a psychiatrist, if proposing some integrated pathways to understanding the mind as being more than confined to our brain, or even our bodies. His ground breaking work is proposing the mind as a relationship beyond the individual, both with sentient beings as well as creation itself.

Howard Thurman: Essential Writings, Howard Thurman. I had previously read some of Thurman’s work. This book is a compendium of his best writing. I used the book as a study guide on the issue of racism in America. The others in the group were taken with Thurman’s work and moved by his poetic style, interfaith understanding, and universal faith.

Time and Timelessness: Temporality in the Theory of Carl Jung, Angeliki Yiassemides. This is a unique, concise, and brilliant approach to a yet unstudied concept of Jung’s understanding of time. Jung never wrote specifically about the topic, making Yiassemides work much needed. This study brings some light to Jung’s ideas on life in the now and what might be to come. Her style is approachable, yet substantial.

Some Advice for Mr. Trump from the Baseball Gods

A few weeks ago, I wrote that the church had become politically irrelevant because it sat silent on the sidelines during the most continuous presidential election in history. I still believe that the church is politically irrelevant. I want that to change. So instead of simply being a critic, I want to offer some thoughts about how a follower of Jesus can make wise decisions concerning leadership in the state of our American political arena, one that is now being described as a post-truth, post-rational era.

Let’s start with some common sense advice from one of baseball’s most colorful managers, Earl Weaver. Weaver managed the Baltimore Orioles from 1968-1986. His teams played in the World Series four times, winning it in 1970. Following his retirement he was elected to the baseball Hall of Fame, having been one of baseball’s most winning managers.

Weaver was never at a loss for words. Regarding leadership he said, “There are twenty-five guys on a baseball team. As a manager you must realize that five guys love you and five guys hate you. The other fifteen guys haven’t made up their mind yet. Your job as manager is to keep the five guys who hate you away from the fifteen who haven’t made up their mind.”

In light of Earl Weaver’s words of wisdom, here’s some advice for President-elect Donald Trump.

Mr. Trump, 25% of Americans believe you are going to change their lives for the better. They believe you are going to return America to a previous era they enjoyed.
They believe you’re going to retool America’s economy so they will personally benefit. They believe you’re going to create a safer America by removing an unwanted element that they think are dangerous, specifically immigrants and Muslims. And they believe you will appoint Supreme Court Justices that will roll back the cloak on abortion and same-sex marriage.

On the other hand, 25% of Americans believe you have the potential to become a dangerous demigod that could lead America into the darkest days of its over 200-year history of democracy. These people believe that you have promoted racism, sexism, and homophobia that has emboldened your followers to act out against people of color, women, and those who are LGBTQ. These people are afraid they are going to lose their insurance, their Social Security, their freedom and their right to vote.

Mr. Trump, that leaves the 50% of Americans who haven’t made up their minds. They are waiting to see what you will do as the 45th President of the United States. They will make up their minds based on what you have done in their best interest.

In the words of Earl Weaver, my advice to you is to keep those who believe you are a dangerous leader away from the 50% who haven’t made up their mind. Of course, we all know that is an impossible task.

What will be more helpful is for you to take a page from Jesus’ leadership book. Jesus’ holy book was the Hebrew Bible, which had a lot to say about leadership. The Hebrew Bible was written and read in such a way as to be open for an interpretation, making it still relevant today.
Take for example the Book of Isaiah. (Today’s reading are from Isaiah 11:1-10.) The oracles of Isaiah were written about 2,700 years ago. Interestingly enough, their situation sounds very similar to ours. Isaiah’s community was suffering from political turmoil. The community was divided over who should be their leader. Eventually, because they had become a divided nation, both sides were defeated by foreign nations.

Isaiah was speaking to the remnant of people were still willing to listen to God. His oracle provided the people with some straightforward counsel about the characteristics of good leadership. Isaiah said a leader should be wise, understanding, and knowledgeable and be in an intimate relationship with God. Isaiah said that a wise leader should do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, and defend the helpless and the poor.

Isaiah said the wise leader should build bridges of peaceful reconciliation between those who stood in opposition of one another—those who were as opposite as a wolf and a lamb. Isaiah went on to say that the leader must be as gentle as a child who would be willing to reach tenderly into a den of snakes in hopes of making peace with the enemy.

I have found psychologist Edwin Friedman's books to be extremely helpful in understanding human relationships and how they work and why they don’t. In his book, A Failure of Nerve, Friedman offers leaders four guidelines that sound like Isaiah could have written them.

1. Playfulness will get the leader out of a rut more successfully than seriousness.
2. Pitting people against one another defeats communication.
3. Leaders must expect sabotage. (Friedman must have been an Earl Weaver fan.)
4. A colossal misunderstanding is to assume that rational thinking will work with people who are not motivated to change. Friedman said the best strategy of enacting change is: 1) stop trying to convert others to your way of thinking, 2) instead, build peaceful bridges of reconciliation through developing relationships with those who won’t listen to you, and 3) work on changing yourself before trying to change others.

Being a leader is extremely difficult. And being the President of the United States is an almost impossible task. But, to be a successful president requires a combination of opposing skills of leadership, boldness and humility, strength and mercy, power and grace.

Honestly Mr. Trump, I have yet to witness any humility, mercy, or grace from you.

But, instead of only being a critic, I vow to pray you, Mr. Trump as you begin your pilgrimage of being the President of the United States. And I also vow to share Isaiah’s leadership model with the remnant who are still listening to God.

I’ve taken up praying YHWH as a breath pray. Breathe in YH. Exhale WH. This prayer reminds me that God has given me the air to breathe. God has given my neighbor this same air I am breathing. God has given my enemies this same air. Everyone on this planet is breathing this same air. God has given Donald Trump this same air to breathe.

This prayer reminds me that we all have the same concerns about the earth, the air, our families, our children, and how to take care of all of creation. This breath prayer reminds me that we all have a responsibility to be leaders in the places God has called us to lead. And this prayer reminds me to heed the words of Isaiah; do good and seek justice.