Books

“Religion poisons everything.  As well as a menace to civilization, it has become a threat to human survival … As I write these words, and as you read them, people of faith are in their different ways planning your and my destruction, and the destruction of all the hard-won attainments [I am touching upon].  Religion poisons everything.”

Thus Christopher Hitchens, the British-born commentator and polemicist, in his immensely readable and provocative book published last year entitled God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.  What are we to make of such a trenchant claim?  Are we to put it down to the nature of the polemicist’s art, staking out the most extreme opposing ground possible and slug it out from there?  Or should we take him at his word?  Is he right?  I want to start by suggesting that he is not right, obviously.  Religion, like sex or food, can be used or abused.  We don’t find anyone in Austria calling for the state to legislate its way into the bedroom because one of its deranged citizens sexually assaulted his own daughter.  We don’t ban fish and chip shops just because some fanatics of the fat-fry choose to carry out suicide strikes on their own bodies. 

Adrian Plass has just published his latest book. Most of you will probably know.

The other day - I found a copy left at the bottom of my stairs for me.

As I delved....I thought...oh I think I love this man just a little bit more.....

I'll share a few extracts with you.... from the A-Z book on Christian Life.


Ashurbanipal: a name slipped into the fourth chapter of Ezra by God for the purpose of preserving humility in those who think they are such good sight readers that they don't need to prepare Sunday lesson.

 


ARAGON: Stay with the hobbits. I'll send horses for you.
ARWEN: I'm the faster rider. I'll take him.
ARAGON: the road is too dangerous.
ARWEN: I do not fear them.
ARAGON: Arwen, ride hard. don't look back.

Brought up by the red guards during the cultural revolution in China, Xinran was taught to disregard her parents as her 'true family' and pledge alligance first and foremost to the Chinese government. Years later, working as a journalist, she is given the opportunity to present a groundbreaking radio programme for women. For eight years she gave a voice to hundreds of women in China, for whom an outlet for their stories was previously unavailable.

I read a lot but there isn't a lot I read more than once. "Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold" is one of a handful of books I've read more than once.

1. I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost. I am hopeless. It isn't my fault. It takes forever to find a way out.


2. I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don't see it. I fall in. I can't believe I'm in the same place, but it isn't my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.


3. I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

I've just finished "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer, author of "Everything is Illuminated". I read all the time, (my mother is convinced my eyesight is so bad because I used to read in bed with the dim light from the swtich on my electric blanket - the dull orange glow provided enough light for two lines of text!), and the stack of books that is perpetually beside my bed grows with each passing day. But few have affected me so deeply as this beautifully crafted novel.

I devoured a book this weekend called The Camel Knows the Way by Lorna Kelly.  Lorna Kelly had a beautiful somewhat glamorous life in New York City in the 1970s; she was Sotheby’s first woman auctioneer.  But circumstances in her life led her to respond to God’s call, and go wherever he asked her.  And what he put on her heart was traveling to India to work with the Missionaries of Charity, the order founded by Mother Teresa.  Now, she doesn’t leave her life for good and become a nun, I don’t think I would have loved the book as much if she had.  (Nothing against nuns of course.)  Instead someone gives her a book about Mother Teresa for Christmas one year and she becomes entranced with her and decides to go to Calcutta for three weeks to work alongside the Sisters.  It’s an impulsive move but one that pays off in so many ways.

I'm currently addicted to Huraki Murakami's novel, Kafka on the Shore... If you've ever read anything by Murakami (Japanese author), you, like me, will have come to expect the unexpected.  Fish fall from the sky, people talk to cats, ghosts and illusionary characters interact together, and you're never quite sure what's real and what is surreal.  I think that's why I love Murakami, there's enough reality in the everyday to allow a little fantasy to creep in...