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| Lift every voice and sing |
Below are the first lines of the books I
finished reading in January and February. Several of them were books that I read in February, in honor of Black History Month.
Book 1
If I had a dollar for every time I heard
someone say, “I am spiritual but not religious,” then I might not be any wiser
about what that means – but I would be richer.
Book 2
Yeongdo, Busan, Korea
History has failed us, but no matter.
At the turn of the century, an aging
fisherman and his wife decided to take in lodgers for extra money.
Book 3
When I was a child, my ambition was to be
pope. I remember watching the funeral of
John XXII and asking my mother, “Who was that man?”
Book 4
In honor of my dear, beloved friend Reb
Sholem Aleichem, may God grant you health and prosperity together with your
wife and children, and may you have great fulfillment whatever you do and
wherever you go. Amen. Selah!
Book 5
Four young girls busily prepared for their
big day. It was September 15, 1963, the
day of the “Youth Day” Sunday service at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in
Birmingham, Alabama, and the girls, along with the other young people of the
congregation, would spend the next few hours singing songs, reciting poems,
praying, and giving encouraging messages in front of hundreds of beaming parents.
Book 6
A Movement
There’s something moving inside the walls of
my body. It’s tiptoeing across the high
arches of my feet, break-dancing on my kneecaps, running figure eights around
my hips as if they’re orange cones at recess, skipping up my sides, and
climbing up to my shoulders’ peaks before swinging across my chest, back and
forth, to a steady beat.
Book 7
The fate of America – or at least of white
America, which was the only America that seemed to count – was at stake. On the autumn evening of Thursday, October 7,
1948, South Carolina governor Strom Thurmond, the segregationist Dixiecrat
candidate for president of the United States, addressed a crowd of one thousand
inside the University of Virginia’s Cabell Hall in Charlottesville. The subject at hand: President Harry S. Truman’s civil rights
program, one that included anti-lynching legislation and protections against
racial discrimination in hiring.
The titles and authors revealed:
Book 1
An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, by Barbara Brown Taylor. ©
2009.
Brown Taylor takes us through a series of spiritual
practices, such as The Practice of Paying Attention, The Practice of Wearing
Skin, The Practice of Saying No. I
already need to re-read it.
Pachinko, by Min Jin Lee. © 2017.
Fictional history of a Korean family living under colonialism in Japan,
a topic I know little about. I read it
for book club. The characters and plot
were intriguing and sympathetic. But
when it got to the fourth generation of the family, I was done and wanted the
book to end.
Book 3
The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish
Jesus, by Amy-Jill Levine.
© 2006.
© 2006.
My second reading of this book. The basic point is: don’t set up
Judaism to be the foil to prove Christianity virtuous. Christians must realize the polemic nature of
the gospels and other New Testament writings.
Book 4
Tevye the Dairyman by Sholem
Aleichem, Translated from the Yiddish by Aliza Shevrin.
Sholem Aleichem is the pen name of Sholem Rabinovitch
(1859-1916). This translation first published in 2009. The “Tevye
der milkhiker” monologues were written (in Yiddish) in 1894-1910.
The stories are the basis for “Fiddler on
the Roof.” The stories are not always
the same – some quite sad ones have been left out of the musical. The main purpose of women in this society is
to get married. Tevye’s main goal is to
not become emotional like a woman, and he keeps repeating that phrase, which
got annoying. But overall, Tevye is an amusing character.
Book 5
The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s
Complicity in Racism, by Jemar Tisby. © 2019.
This book sought to address a particular audience - American Christians - on a difficult topic. It's an important effort to make. The book helped me understand the complicity and hypocrisy of early Europeans, in how evangelism in the American colonies was entangled with colonization and paternalism. However, I felt the book was short on concrete examples of racism in the modern
church and also short on explaining structural racism. Yes, we need it spelled out for us, because
our definition of racism for years has been that it is an action by one
person against another, and it is very hard (for some of us) to see the racism in how a system operates. An example from the
news just yesterday: Minorities Likely To Receive Less Disaster Aid Than White Americans. Certainly the American church has been
complicit in racism, both in history and today.
The book does offer some ideas on how the church can move forward away
from complicity.
Book 6
Calling My Name, by Liara
Tamani, © 2017. Young Adult novel.
The author is an African-American writer of
Young Adult fiction. This was
a coming of age story of a girl in Texas making her way through school and
church and teen angst. It seems to
portray well the crushing insecurity and budding power of adolescence, and the
repercussions of how teens act on that insecurity and power. There was some portrayal of racism, but
mostly the point is made, once again, of how girls and women bear the brunt of
the consequences of both male and female actions.
Book 7
The Soul of America: The
Battle for our Better Angels, by Jon
Meacham, © 2018.
Meacham tries to calm
our souls by proving that America’s democracy has been through perilous times
before and has survived. He says that
what brings us through is ordinary citizens stepping up to protect democracy,
and leaders doing the right thing. Furthermore,
US democracy has been far from perfect, and mostly undemocratic for a large portion of its
people. But, I ask, have we ever been in
such a time as this, with a fiercely polarized electorate, a kleptocratic
autocracy-admiring president, and a complicit Senate who exists simply to
rubber-stamp the destruction of democracy envisioned by the Liar-in-Chief? I was not overwhelmingly convinced that
American democracy will pull through. We have met the enemy of democracy, and it is us. We have met the savior of democracy and it is us.
“When we are dancing with the angels, the
question will be asked, in 2019 what did we do to make sure we kept
democracy intact? Did we stand on the sidelines and say nothing?” - U.S.
Rep Elijah Cummings, Feb 27, 2019
As always, I like to hear what you are reading these days.
2 comments:
Ah, your reading is always so thoughtful. And I always take a few notes so I can get some of the books you mention.
I am reading The Poison Squad by Deborah Blum, gross and fascinating history of how the FDA came about.
I read Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfeld for book club--we all LOVED IT. Gorgeous writing, the story was magic and the plots blended together magnificently. The Suspect by Fiona Barton was a real page-turner and made me think what I'd do as a mom in the same situation.
Meet Me at the Museum (forgot the author's name) was sweet. Kinda reminded me of that Major Pettigrew book.
If you haven't read it in a while (I hadn't read since I was a young teen), I recommend That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis. It's feeling like these times are upon us once again.
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