So much to write... So little time

All the complexities of life have caused me to slack on writing about the books I am reading. This causes me other headaches because I refuse to put the book back on the shelf or lend it out until I have written something about and moved it from my What Will is Reading Now list to my What Will Read Last list.

Stuck on my desk is one of the most fun books I have read in a while, A.J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically, One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible.

I had seen this author on television after the book came out last year but didn't get a chance to pick it up until a friend of Alisha's who works at Simon & Schuster sent it our way. I didn't know what to expect. The premise is pretty simple an author, who happens to be a non-practicing Jew decides try to live the words, laws and instructions of the Bible as literally as possible for a year and write about it as he goes. The main thing this book accomplishes is being hysterically funny and oddly not irreverent. But the writing also does some other things. For me, as a Christian and a person who struggles to live faithfully it gave me an opportunity to see my struggles through the eyes and experience of someone else, someone else who takes to the project without nearly as many preconceived notions of what living faithfully is supposed to look like. Oddly, as hysterical as it was to read about Jacobs dealing with unruly facial hair and building booths in his living room and someone maintaining a relationship with his wife, the book actually increased my belief in the life changing power of scripture. It was fascinating to see how someone who engaged the Bible pretty much just to write a book, was radically changed. His efforts to be faithful were inspired by his commitment as an author but they still had a profound, altering effect on him. Don't get me wrong, he has not become an orthodox Jew or a born-again Christian, but it seems that he was a profoundly different person by the end of the book. And at the end of reading the book, I had an even deeper respect for the complexities and power of the Bible.

I think open-minded Christians could do a great small group book study on this. This is a fantastic book, I highly recommend it.

peace,

will