Catching up with the stuff on the right side of the blog

If you are a close follower of my reading list, it may look to you like I have given up on reading. Honestly, I really have been reading a lot less since finishing all my work related to covenant connection. That seems sort of illogical because covenant connection took up so much of my time I would have thought I wouldn't be reading. However, I think there were two things driving my pretty voracious reading habits during the process. One was that I was mentally overwhelmed to the point with the ordination process, the adoption process, etc., etc., that I needed to slip into some other storyline besides my own especially at bed time. The other thing, I realized was something about my own insecurity. Knowing that I was being evaluated and had a number of high-pressure interviews ahead, I had this overwhelming need to continually put new knowledge in my head hoping that it would help me better articulate my answers. All in all, this might not have been a bad plan. I wouldn't say that, in my time preparing for my ordination interviews, I really gained a lot of new knowledge but I did continue to enhance my contextual framework. As a pastor and amateur theologian, I think about nearly everything in theological terms. When I am processing new stuff, even stuff marginally related to what could be understood as theology, I am expanding and strengthening the bridges of my own understanding. So when faced with a particular question of faith, practice or thinking about God, my answer has a better chance of making some amount of sense to the questioner.

Anyway, this is a really long way of getting to moving another book from my "What Will is Reading Now" list to my "What Will Read Last" list.

I finished James Morrow's Towing Jehovah a while ago but just picked it up off my nightstand to blog about. I think I delayed so long because this book is fundamentally blasphemous. If you have any predilection to being offended especially regarding matters of faith, PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. If me writing that got you interested, this might be for you. The book is wildly irreverent, and brilliantly written. To test the level at which you are offended, the general premise of the book is that God has died and fallen into the sea and needs to be towed to his final resting place. It gets worse.

But let me tell you how I, as a pastor, found enjoyment in this book. First of all, it is pretty funny at times. Second of all, books that sort of tromp on the fringes of my belief system are really healthy for me. When I read something that offends me, I have to think about why. When I think about why, I think about what I believe. When I think about it those terms, I am usually left standing in a stronger place about my beliefs. If am not, I have to question why a silly book would raise such a doubt.

That is all I am going to write about that. If you read the book and enjoy it, let me know. If you read it and get horribly offended, please remember I warned you!

peace,

will