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November 23, 2005
BookNotes
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I'm going to try to get through the pile of review copies I have, and let you know about good books out there. I've got Weigel, Farrell, Hasson and others waiting. We'll start with Bete and Torode, though:
In the Beginning, There Were No Diapers by Tim Bete is a delightful collection of humorous essays on parenting by an author who should be familiar to anyone who's been on the Net for while. I don't think he's ever had a blog, but Tim's been online with his wit for as long as I have with my non-wit. When I was flying to and from Lincoln last week, I thought of Tim, because at one point, I was actually changing a diaper in an airplane restroom. I didn't put the wipes behind my ears, though. And he's too young to be constrained by the Exit Monster. Read the book, if you want to understand that one.
Tim's book is very true, and because it's true and it's about life with little children, it's terrifically funny. Life with little ones can be so hard sometimes, it's necessary, I think, to have two things at hand: good spiritual reading and some parent humor. With In the Beginning, There Were No Diapers, you get a lot of the latter, and even a little bit of the former.
The second is Aflame: Ancient Wisdom on Marriage compiled by Sam and Bethany Torode. A very nice little hardback collection of quotes on various aspects of marriage. The perfect gift, as they say...for a newly-married couple, or even an old-married couple. Sam and Bethany are, you might recall, also the authors of Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Rethinks Contraception , converted to Orthodoxy, and Sam is currently working on a novel and is an excellent designer/artist as well.
Oh, and if you're interested in a "readings on marriage" kind of book, one that's more academic and a lot fatter is Wing to Wing; Oar to Oar compiled by Leon and Amy Kass. I reviewed it several years ago for OSV, and it's got a lot of good stuff in it, too.
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The Torode book also has lots 'o black and white photographs - lots and lots of flowers, a smattering of fruit...a very fertile collection. 'Course, there's Jesus on the cross in there, too...
Posted by: Lickona at Nov 23, 2005 10:51:43 AM
Aly remembered back to her days at Johns Hopkins where she studied under Girard. She found it curious that while Robert Langdon of Princeton fomented indictments against the Catholic Church, Girard converted as a result of his studies. Even then, Langdon was teaching Christianity as one among many world myths. Girard didn’t disagree. Instead he intensified the debate by declaring myths to veil actual murders. “The gospel writers say that Jesus was just like all the victims of mob violence. But they wrote their gospels from the point of view of the innocence of the victim.”
“Sir? Dr. Girard?” she asked one day after a seminar. “Don’t nature religions like the ancient near east fertility cults put us back in touch with what we have lost? You know, the cycles of nature, sex and nature’s rejuvenation?”
Girard had chuckled, she remembered. Then, looking her in the eye, he stated matter of factly, “My dear. The nature rituals that look innocuous to our modern eyes led invariably to the place of human sacrifice. The revelers may have enjoyed the cycles of nature, sex and rejuvenation, but their victim did not.”
Posted by: Jeff at Nov 24, 2005 10:05:15 PM
