Books, Quotes, and Memories

I have recently read a couple of books that were not so great and a couple that were. I won't bore you with the not so great ones, but I would like to offer a few insights from the others.

Margaret Feinberg is an author who is like a younger, more orthodox version of Anne Lamott or a female version of Frederick Buechner. She has a unique gift of taking the everyday, the mundane and shedding new light on it. It seems to me that that is most like God and the stories of the Bible. God uses a bush to call Moses. He uses bread and fish to feed people (physically and spiritually). Her book Organic God was a short, simply written book but with some very powerful truths and reminders for me. One that I want to share is her observations on Proverbs 14:4 "Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty, but from the strength of an ox comes an abundant harvest." Her paraphrase was "No oxen=No poop=No profit or Oxen+Poop=Profit" (74-75).


I shared this enlightened observation with my mission team in Boston on the first night, after an early morning and a long day of travel as we geared up to have over 100 kids for sports camp. To be sure, I got some funny looks at first, but I began to talk about how everything we do in life has "poopy" parts but just like this verse says, if we don't have that then we aren't going to see the profit. For us last week the profit is the harvest, not that we were witnesses of, but the harvest of the seeds that we planted in the lives of the boys and girls we worked with each day, even the ones that tried our patience to the nth degree. Our battle cry last week became "holy poop" as we worked like oxen to be faithful to the Lord of the Harvest! I certainly won't forget that verse any time soon nor will I forget the memories of watching students get excited about sharing God's love with others.

Charles Marsh and John Perkins are two men who have spent their lives promoting awareness about the need for reconciliation between blacks and whites and the ultimate need for reconciliation of sinners to the God who fashioned them in lovingkindness. Their stories are as different as their skin but the both have so much wisdom to offer. In a recent collaborative effort, Welcoming Justice, they traced the roots of racial reconciliation in the U.S., it's decline, and the renewed need and emphasis of it. In the last chapter Perkins offers this insightful observation based on a verse from Zechariah, "God's people have to offer some kind of alternative to the brokenness around us in the world" (112).


I was amazed last week as I watched some of our students from FBC offering an alternative to the broken world that surrounded many of our campers in Boston last week. They shared stories of difficulties at home, challenges for their family, strained relationships, etc. with our students who then shared them with me or in our group time each night. As we prayed for the campers last week, I couldn't help but be reminded that we are to reflect the better life, the Christ life for all to see around us.