Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God

Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Crazy Love by Francis Chen is a wake-up call to 21st century, comfortable, wealthy Christians, particularly in North America. Chen’s challenge is to recognize the fact that we have been given a treasure beyond our ability to even grasp—but it is given in order to share, not hoard. Even more, we are to share with those who can’t or won’t give back. Chen lays the groundwork by first reminding us to get our eyes away from ourselves and our minuscule worlds, to fasten our gaze, instead, on the breathtaking, vast awe of God. Then, he challenges us to take a hard look at the “lukewarm Christian.” As Chen adds more and more detail to his painting of the lukewarm Christian, I challenge you not to squirm. I would venture to guess that most Christians in America will see some version of themselves in some of Chen’s descriptions. Lest you despair, Chen is quick to add that there is a difference between sometimes acting in ways that are “lukewarm,” which we all do, and living a life that is generally characterized as “comfortably Christian.”

Chen argues that we say we trust God, but we live in such a way that we really never have to trust God. We buy insurance to cover all our risks; we build up retirement funds to cover us in old age; and we make sure we have a healthy savings account for emergencies. Do we ever do what the disciples did—literally leaving their lives and livelihoods behind to follow Jesus, with absolutely no guarantees as to what was next? No. Not really. Not often, anyway.

Chen provides modern examples of those who have stepped out on very long limbs—so far out, in fact, that trusting God had to be part of the equation. His aim is to provide pictures of what a genuine leap of faith looks like, particularly when that leap involves serving something bigger than self. He encourages us to consider what we might do if we stepped out in service, putting ourselves in positions where we had to trust God to come through. He tells of how a trip to Africa led his own family to a decision to downsize so more funds would be available for giving. Chen challenges us to keep our eyes on a very big and capable God who catches us when we leap.

I admit that I felt a little beat up at times as I read, and I wondered if Chen was overstating his case now and then. The book, though, was published in 2008, so we can safely assume that much was written well before the recession had really crippled the country and so many people, who might have at one time been more than comfortable, are now finding themselves in new positions of having to trust God. Even so, the idea of “cutting back” or “doing without” is all relative and carries vastly different meanings depending on your geography. There are people in the world who could eat for a week on the amount that we cut out of our “dining out” budget.

Chen’s book, in the end, is a call to look for opportunities to offer God’s love and grace to others, through tangible and intangible means, and to not be bothered if we don’t know how we can actually make it happen. If the job seems beyond our ability, it simply means we will have to rely on God, and that is never a bad thing. And if people say we are being crazy or extreme, that’s okay too. God loved us relentlessly and beyond all reason. Why should we love any differently?


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Permission to Speak Freely

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Anne Jackson's book, Permission to Speak Freely, is part confessional and part invitation to confess. Her book started as a question on her blog: “What is one thing you feel you can't say in church?” The question struck a nerve and went viral—a blogger bonanza.

When the responses piled up and went global, Jackson wanted to understand why. Her conclusion is somewhat obvious: We keep things to ourselves out of fear—fear of rejection, of being judged, of losing friends or reputation. You name it. We're scared to be real and, thus, vulnerable, and sometimes, we sadly have experiences to back up those fears. What is not so obvious is why Christians have a hard time either being real with other Christians or allowing other people to be real? Isn’t the whole point of our faith to acknowledge our need for grace, to accept grace from God, and to then offer it, in turn, to others? Let's face it, though. In a Facebook world, we have all become our own PR agents. We post our best and happiest moments, and our pithiest comments. We don’t post our shame and brokenness. Maybe we feel it’s bad PR for Christianity to admit our failures. That’s where we have it wrong. Our faith is exactly about how God sees us at our worst and offers us his forgiveness even in the midst of it—even before we acknowledge we need it!

Jackson does not focus on trashing Christians or the church. Her intent, instead, seems twofold: First, by being brutally honest about her own darker sides, she bravely provides a poignant model for Christians to confess their shortcomings and give God credit for being fully able to deal with our failures. Second, by challenging Christians to be the first to confess, she believes we offer to the world the "gift of going second." People will know they are safe to be real with us when we have the courage to lead the way.

My only caution, as I read, is that sometimes we like to live—even wallow—in the muck of our confession. Confession itself can be sickeningly self-involved and inert. We have all fallen short in loving God or others. Only Jesus got those two things right. He loved God perfectly by loving us. And he loved us perfectly by taking the penalty for our failures, and then freely giving chance after chance to get it right by allowing him to live and love through us. What a gift! Confession should lead us to accept that gift and (the important part) move on to live in a way that reflects such inexplicable mercy. If we stop at confession and live there, we are as full of crap as when we began. We are just better at talking about it. When Jesus forgave a prostitute for a lifelong pattern of debauchery, his parting advice to her is surprisingly abrupt. It wasn’t about getting counseling, support, or new job skills. He simply said, “Your sins are forgiven. Go and sin no more.” And with that, he announced that the time for confession was over. The time for reflecting a life of God-filled grace had begun.



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The Help by Kathryn Stockett

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

No doubt, there will be those who will hate this book and say that Kathryn Stockett was presumptuous to write it in the first place. But I will not be one of them. Stockett's story about “Skeeter,” a young white Mississippi woman in the 60s who decides to secretly interview the household help of her junior league friends so she can write their stories is brave and remarkable. The book provides a glimpse of Stockett’s own effort to understand what it was like for "colored women" to work for white families like her own. It is brave because she recognizes her own family's lack of understanding and appreciation for the painfully unappreciated lives of swallowed pride these women led. And Stockett also sees and understands the irony in the inexplicable love that sometimes developed anyway between “the help” and their white employers.

At the same time, while Stockett does not give her white characters a pass for their prejudices, she also does not turn them all into one-dimensional villains. She reveals their foibles, pride, misguided thinking, and fears, and in the process she reminds us that they, too, are simply human—sometimes grand and sometimes pathetic. Stockett's story is about so many white Southerners who grew up with prejudices that a new generation would take a lifetime to unlearn. Those who cherish those prejudices are hateful. Those who learn to discard them—well, it turns out they were just prejudiced, not hateful. There’s a difference.

I, too, grew up in the South, in Tennessee. While we never had hired help, my mother has often talked of the maid she had back in Alabama. Ruby was her name, and Mama, like Stockett, thought Ruby was family. No doubt Ruby had her own thoughts about that, but I am certain that my mother and grandmother loved Ruby the best they knew how, which, like all human love, very likely fell short of perfect.

My parents grew up and lived in Birmingham through the worst parts of the civil rights struggles, and they determined that their children would not grow up hating people because of the color of their skin. For all their efforts, I'm sure they unwittingly passed on prejudices they didn't even know they had, but I love them for trying. Like the time they invited a black man to stay in our home. There was no talk, or even thought, of separate bathrooms and eating utensils. He was a bona fide guest and was served as such. I’m sure it was a big step for my parents—maybe for our guest too—but I look back and love the fact that I don’t remember that much about it. I guess I just thought it was okay, and I suppose that was the point. I have no idea what their friends, or my grandparents, thought about it. They never told me.

Stockett does a painfully beautiful job of portraying the reality of what it might cost to reach across racial barriers to extend a hand of friendship. It might mean you lose friends. It might mean you’re at odds with people you love—and you do love them, even when they are wrong. It means that too many times you aren't sure if you are reaching across racial lines because you really do love color, or you just feel guilty for being white. Probably both. But the alternative is to live in a one-color world—and that just isn’t an attractive option.

The point of Skeeter's book, and Stockett's, is that we have more in common than not, so with this book she issues a gracious invitation to both sides to come to the table to find that common ground and, hopefully, find new friends. I applaud Stockett for making the effort. I hope she finds a lot of people willing to join her at her table.

Note: I listened to this book on my iPod, and I have to say this is a book worth listening to. The readers, Jenna Lamia, Bahni Turpin, Octavia Spencer, and Cassandra Campbell, bring Stockett’s story to life with such compelling voices, you feel as though you are sitting at the kitchen table with them, and you don’t ever want to leave. I highly recommend it.

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How The Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In by Jim Collins

Another great read from Jim Collins. In this short read, Collins starts with a basic question: How do great companies lose it? Are there common signs to indicate a company--once considered high performing--is now in decline? If so, what are they? And when is it too late to stop the downward slide?

It's a fascinating little read, actually, containing nuggets for all of us. Collins identifies 5 stages that precede a fall: 1) Hubris Born of Success 2) Undisciplined Pursuit of More 3) Denial of Risk and Peril 4) Grasping for Salvation and 5) Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death. The titles alone read like a great novel, don't they? And there's plenty of drama in this little book to back up that feeling. In his storytelling style, Collins breaks down the numbers to show us what they look like in real companies, but Collins is ultimately optimistic. He believes and demonstrates that it is possible for companies who are on the path of decline to reverse that process. Smart companies may fail miserably at times, but a little humility and a lot of reality can go a long way to fixing things.

In this book, as in Good to Great, I was struck by some very basic age-old wisdom that Collins continues to unearth: Treat others the way you wish to be treated. Honor other people just as you would honor yourself. Don't think too highly of yourself. Be brutally honest about the facts and deal with reality. Find, recognize, and use the gifts of those around you. There are principles of wisdom here for anyone in just about any enterprise. A worthy read...


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Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


While O'Brian is clearly thorough about his research and is passionate about the subject matter, I just could not get into this story. I listened to this book on an audio download, and that may have been part of the problem, but O'Brian's focus on the riggings of a ship and his detailed descriptions of Aubrey's sea battles and escapades left me caring little for the characters themselves. I still don't understand the whole point of Mr. Dillon. He was there. There seemed to be conflict between him and Jack Aubrey, and then suddenly he wasn't there. I suppose if you want to know something about 18th century British ships, this is the book the read. If you're looking for a great story, though...maybe not. Or at the very least, don't listen to this on one audiotape unless you already know a lot about the above.

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Review: I am Hutterite

Born from Anabaptist sentiments in the early 1500s, the Hutterites were followers of Jakob Hutter. Similar to Mennonites and Amish, Hutterites differed in their belief that they should share all their goods communally--and they still do. During the early 20th century, Hutterites, who had fled east to Russia over the years, began immigrating to the U.S. and Canada, where more than 400 Hutterite communities exist today. Hutterites have no particular aversion to modern tools and equipment, but they are still, in terms of dress, custom, language, and their self-sustaining communal lifestyle, very much a peek into the past.

I Am Hutterite, by Mary Ann Kirby, is the story of one 20th century family that came to believe they could no longer stay in the community. If you assume the author's goal is to expose and condemn the isolated and sometimes narrow minded ways of the Hutterites, you will be surprised. Instead, Mary Ann Kirby clearly loves and appreciates the best aspects of Hutterite society while simultaneously understanding she cannot go back.

When her family left the community, Kirby struggled, as anyone would, to transition from a fully communal lifestyle to one where she and her immediate family were on their own. She paints an almost idyllic picture of the Hutterite community from a child's perspective. It's a place of plenty and safety. It's a place where she has a plethora of "aunts" and "uncles" to care for her. It's a place where she can run and play in carefree innocence with friends. It's also a place where everyone contributes in some way to the common good. Even a boy who is mentally handicapped has a job that makes a real and meaningful contribution to the community.

Kirby also writes, though, as an adult who has come to understand and appreciate the reasons for her parent's choice to leave--even though the consequences rendered painful results for many years. They went from a place where they had no money at all, yet they wanted for nothing, to a place where they wanted for everything and needed money. They immediately lost every support system and human network they had ever known. They left a place where they fit in and moved to a place where they were completely odd. The contrast could not have been more stark or shocking.

While Kirby and her family suffered from the choices of others and sometimes of their own, Kirby found a way to glean the best from her past and lay the ghosts to rest. I Am Hutterite is a fascinating read that is ultimately about faith, human nature, cultural differences, and a willingness to allow grace to bring your heart safely through them all.

What Difference Do It Make?

What difference do it make? - Stories of Hope and Healing by Ron Hall

If you have not read Same Kind of Different as Me, the predecessor to this book, you can still enjoy this follow-up that continues the story of the unlikely friendship between millionaire art dealer Ron Hall and sharecropper-turned-homeless man, Denver Moore. This book details how their continuing journey and friendship have taken them to some very surprising places indeed--including a luncheon with at the White House! While that vignette itself leaves the reader feeling as stunned as they must have been, even more remarkable is the impact that Denver and Ron's story has made on readers across the nation.

This book is as much about the readers as the writers. It seems there was a similar reaction among those, nationwide, who read of Ron and his wife, Deborah, and their journey to "the other side of the tracks," where they volunteered to work with a homeless ministry in Houston. Ron and Deborah thought they were coming to help others, but they learned, as so many of us do, that the grace and presence of God is found in the strangest and most unlikely places, and that there are lessons to be learned from the most unlikely teachers.

Clearly, Denver Moore has been a teacher to Ron Hall. At the same time, Hall becomes our teacher through his willingness to expose his initial disgust, disdain, and pre-judgments for those he came to "assist." His honesty provides just enough of a nudge to make the reader question,"Would I be any different?" For most of us, the answer is--probably not.

Hall goes further, though, to reveal how much more work he had to do, even once he had dropped his prejudices and learned to love the homeless without condition. Over time he realized that he freely offered them something that he had withheld from his own father for many, many years. In a surprising twist, Ron learns that loving homeless strangers can sometimes be easier than loving members of our own family, but his continued lessons in love are poignant, sometimes hilarious, and unforgettable.

Hall's startling honesty and Moore's simple humility and wisdom permeate the pages of this book. Along the way, we hear the stories of other readers whose lives were changed and moved to action after reading the first book: a young girl who opens a lemonade stand to raise money for the homeless; a marriage restored; an entire church challenged to "go out," and much more.

Books are a dime a dozen these days, but the wisdom in this book and its predecessor make these two worth their weight in gold. There are lessons for a lifetime here; perhaps the most important from Denver, who reminds us, "You never know whose eyes God is watching you through."

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My First White Friend

Friendships that transcend color and culture barriers have always fascinated me, so when I first heard the title of Patsy Raybon's book, My First White Friend, I knew it was a reading list priority. Normally, I would go into the book itself here, but my personal interest in the book will explain much of my reaction to it.

My parents, Alabama born and bred, were careful to raise my sister and me with the belief that we were no better and no worse than anyone else. They taught us to respect people of all colors and to appreciate differences.

When I was 18, I worked with an international mission organization in Amsterdam. I was smitten with cross-cultural life. I thrived on the discovery of living and eating like the locals, enjoying their traditions, customs, and quirky sayings. In turn, I learned to appreciate the quirks and eccentricities of my own culture and language in the process.

The fun of cross-cultural and interracial friendships is in the exchange. Once you get past all the little nuances, though, you realize that we're all just people. The rest is secondary. Fun. Intriguing, Fascinating. Sometimes frustrating. But always secondary.

But when it comes to African American culture, I learned over the years just how hard it is to reach across the fence and find someone willing to reach back. I learned, in fact, that this fence isn't so much about language or culture. Rather, this is a well-fortified wall of mistrust, hurt, and anger over any number of insults that African Americans have suffered. I also sense that there is, within the African American community, some sort of active teaching that goes something like this: "Be polite. Be kind. But don't trust."

My black friends (the few brave enough to reach back across the fence--all gold to me) taught me, through their stories, what racism looks like on a very personal level, and that's what Raybon's book does as well. I have heard stories like hers before from friends, colleagues and even students. It always shocks me. I know racist behavior happens, but because I am eager to transcend barriers, I'm still surprised that some are not. It's a shame. They miss so much.

Eddie Huff was the first black friend who reached across that fence to me. Actually, he jokes that I was his first teenage daughter. I lived with Eddie and his wife Vickie, a petite white woman, while serving with the mission I mentioned earlier. Vickie was a little nervous when I first moved in. Here I was, this young white girl from Tennessee that the mission had placed in their home. (Ironically, my roommate, yet to arrive, was a white woman from South Africa!) Eddie wasn't home when I arrived, suitcases in hand. Vickie helped me move in.

Suddenly, she stopped and said, "There's something I need to tell you about my husband." (All kinds of scenarios raced through my head. He's a paraplegic. He's deaf. He's a paranoid schizophrenic!) After a beat or two, Vickie smiled sweetly and said, "He's black."

I laughed outloud. "Is that all? Geez, you scared me to death." I was thrilled! Growing up in the South in the 70s was a long, long way from Bull Conner's Alabama, but there still wasn't a whole lot of interracial friendships in my schools. So this was my first chance to have a real black friend. Even better, I was part of their family. They had two small children--Talitha, who was 4 and Eli, who was about 3. I became the big sister, and I listened and learned.

I learned that though Eddie's mother was a white German, he was black as could be, and the hardships he faced had nothing to do with his white mother and everything to do with his color. He experienced many of the same snubs and insults that so many others have experienced. Yet, maybe because he had lived part of his life in Germany, maybe because his mother was white, maybe because he actually spoke another language for the first few years of his life--maybe all of that together made him willing and able to reach across that fence to befriend anyone willing to reach back. I'm grateful for that.

Racial relationships have come a long way, but each time an African American is ill treated, it reinforces that mantra: Be polite. Be kind. Don't trust. And sometimes the walls go higher.

Raybon's book provides deeper insight into what it feels like to walk around in black skin. I once had a dear Guatemalan friend tell me that she had experienced racist behavior from some of my colleagues.

"Really? I don't see it," I was genuinely surprised.

"Why would you?" she reminded me, "You're white."

Indeed. I had missed that very obvious fact. The world looks and responds to me differently simply because I am white. Oh sure, I've had my own share of insults for other reasons, but Raybon's book provides just a taste of what it means to live within dark skin and be targeted for no other reason, and this is a valuable perspective for white readers.

But Raybon's book is ultimately about forgiveness--which transcends all colors. Someone once said that unforgiveness is the poison we drink, hoping our enemy will die. Despite the ways she was treated, Raybon realized that if she did not forgive, she could never be whole. She began to see that her life was false and reactionary. A life all about proving herself to be worthy--no, even better--than those on the other side of the fence. After all, hadn't her anger produced "good" things like career success, achievement, and recognition?

Remarkably, she finally named her behavior for what it was: bitter spite. And she courageously concluded that it provided a poor platform for an identity. She challenges us all with her willingness to do the hard work of rebuilding her identity on something far more profound--the grace of God. As a Christian, Raybon realized that the "love thy neighbor" bit included white people. Still, the reader feels the struggle and weight of the truth that Raybon slowly discovered: The journey of forgiveness is costly and lasts a lifetime.

One irony and sadness to me in this book was that the "white friend" in the title is barely a blip on the radar. I thought I would be reading a story about a wonderful journey of discovery and love between this writer and her white friend. Instead, the book is about Raybon's growing awareness of her need to forgive and let go so that such a friendship could even be possible. I admit it: I was really disappointed, but in fairness to Raybon's very personal journey, I left the book knowing that as she embraced mercy, God would give her new friends of all shapes, colors and backgrounds. (Her latest book, I Told the Mountain to Move, does indeed reveal beautiful and moving glimpses of how colorful her world has become.)

I'm not sure who Raybon had in mind for her reading audience: People of color? White people? I'm not sure it matters. There are nuggets of wisdom here for anyone, and her considerable writing skills--powerful, rhythmic, lyrical, filled with a rich voice--make the reading a pleasure. We all have our biases, whether against another race, or another culture, or even another socio-economic group. The lessons of forgiveness cannot be taught enough, and Raybon's willingness to reveal her honest struggles to forgive provide encouragement to us all that we can do the same.

Same Kind of Different as Me

Same Kind of Different as Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together by Ron Hall


Wow--talk about a challenging book. You cannot walk away from this book without feeling compelled to re-examine how you view "the least of these."

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Julie & Julia

Just finished reading Julie and Julia, and I’m left with mixed feelings. It’s a fun story with an engaging “what if” premise: A frustrated anonymous cubicle dweller is in need of a creative challenge. (Ok, we’re with you so far. We all get that). Insert the self-imposed challenge by said cubicle dweller, Julie Powell, to take one year to work her way through quintessential Julie Child cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Vol. 1). Like a good recipe for a cocktail, add to the mix Julie’s high-strung, slightly neurotic personality, her monotonous day job, her personal attempts to create her own Cordon Bleu in Queens by night, an accountability group/cheerleading squad of blog followers, and one incredibly long-suffering husband, and you have the makings for a story that keeps readers happy for days! And it almost holds up, but Powell, unfortunately, allows herself to get in the way.

The story, when not obscured, is highly entertaining. The descriptions of the shopping trips alone were fascinating, leaving would-be gourmets nodding their heads and wondering, “Where DO you find beef suet? And what is beef suet anyway?” Anyone with a love for culinary adventures is automatically on Julie’s side, cheering her on, especially if, like Julie you may not even own decent knife—much less a gourmet kitchen. We want her, like Cinderella, to escape the cubicle and arrive in time for the grand ball (which in this case is a kitchen—so the analogy breaks down a little, but you get the point).

Powell is also charmingly honest about her own failures. We feel her pain through grey, gloppy sweetbreads, failed poach-egg goo, crepes that refuse to un-adhere themselves from the pan, and Boeuf Bourguignon that burns to a crisp when Julie passes out from one too many gimlets. We sort of love her for all the failures and find them completely understandable and forgivable. We cheer her on to try again; and we’re elated with each culinary victory.

On her current blog, Powell herself warns her book may offend some for two reasons: 1) Her coarseness, and 2) Her belief that all Republicans are ignorant and evil. I agree and, unfortunately, both of the above detract significantly from the story. I found myself wanting to breeze through certain bits to get back to the story. She rambles extensively about her friends, whose moral compass is pretty much whatever feels good. The depictions of one friend’s torrid affair with a married man, another who goes through boyfriends like water, combined with Powell’s propensity to look for some way to shock at every turn only detract from the story versus adding anything to it.

The better story is the married romance (an unusual and even brave topic) of Julie and Eric, living a rather unglamorous life, and, against all odds, making it work—even in Queens. By focusing too often on the lurid, the story loses focus from all that Julie is learning about commitment and seeing things through and creating magnificence in the midst of the mundane. Instead, numerous portions of the book seem to scream, “Look how liberated I am. I can talk about steamy sex, I can swear like a sailor, and I hate Republicans. Damn! I’m cool!”

Readers are willing to embrace a writer’s depictions of human foibles and character flaws. We get that. It is more difficult when the writer becomes so “in your face” that we find ourselves wanting to say to the writer, “Ahem…terribly sorry, but you’re standing just in front of the story. Would you mind stepping aside?”

Clearly, a key ingredient is missing in Powell’s writing: Graciousness. It is one lesson she has yet to learn from her guide and mentor, Julia Child. Perhaps, in time, she will.

Julie Powell is funny, intelligent, remarkably adept at turning a phrase, and clearly ill-suited for cubicle work! We all cheered her on and found genuine excitement in her personal challenge and in her frustrating but hilarious journey to victory. So our message is this: We’re with you. You are a writer! You don’t need to shock us (or bash us over the heads) to join you. We’re already here, eager to hear your story. So stick with the story. We’ll be back to cheer you on.