Good Books

Josh to Self: "Super good job at keeping up the blog. Way to really stick with it since moving to Colorado."

Self to Josh: "No one cares."

Josh to Self: "Touche."

The above is true, both in dialogue and content, but I'm going to venture another post.

I find that I have a stronger proclivity to write when I am reading good books, and I have recently read (or am currently reading) some great ones.

I read Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott back in October, and it was AMAZING! Ms. Lamott's writing is refreshingly authentic, and her faith story is in no way a "neat and tidy" Christian anecdote, making it very appealing to me. I read it in two days, crying on and off through the whole book. It ruined me for a good week or so, but in that way that we all so badly need to be ruined.

I'm in the process of reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck. I actually wrote a short post on my church blog about a line of dialogue that got my brain going. It's the first fiction book I've read since Harry Potter 3 back in the spring. No offense, since it's kind of apples and oranges, but Steinbeck can write circles around J.K. Rowling.

I'm also re-reading The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Talk about ruining me...with every page I feel like I'm getting smacked up side of my head...sometimes gently, sometimes by a 2x4. And yet I am compelled to keep reading. There is something exhilarating about being challenged, particularly when the challenge sinks in beyond the academic or intellectual realms and into the most guarded places of your being. Bonhoeffer hits me where I live, disassembling my carefully constructed comforts of complacency and leaving me with nowhere to hide from the truth that I can't stay the way I am.

I hope to write more soon, probably about those books or at least the ideas they have stirred in me. In the meantime, forget about my words and go read one of those books (insert Levar Burton, "But don't take my word for it" Reading Rainbow moment here).