Book Review: Liturgies Of The Wild

An author whom I read regularly is Rod Dreher.  I have spoken of him more than once and have four of his books (How Dante Can Save Your Life, Live Note By Lies, The Benedict Option, Living in Wonder).  I enjoy his writing style and makes me think.  He also publishes a Substack (you can find it if you look) - I will simply say that I do not always agree with everything he writes, but he always makes me think.

One of the things that comes from his Substack is the amount that he reads.  He is a prodigious  reader and puts my reading list to shame.  He also freely shares what he reads and makes recommendations, which I confess have added to my own bookshelf (as if I needed another excuse).

One of his recent recommendations was Liturgies Of The Wild:  Myths That Make Us by Martin Shaw.

Shaw is quite a man of contrasts.  Originally a troubled youth (he alludes to being in a rock band at one point and going nowhere), he found himself attracted to myths, eventually receiving a Ph.D. and teaching at a number of schools and universities.  He has spent (and apparently spends) a great deal of time out of doors, either leading people on a form of retreat or on retreat himself.  He defines himself as a "mythologist".  Originally fallen away from the Christian faith, he later found his way back and is now a practicing Orthodox.

I do not quite know to describe Shaw's intention except to allow him to describe it himself:

"What kind of book have you opened?  A book with two intentions. Firstly, to provide you with mythologies that are expert in ushering people through life's travails, that do in fact speak in an initiatory tone, that provide a seam of ideas and images to gird your ways in troubling times.  Something you can hang your heart on.  Secondly, to show you that by nesting in those great myths you in turn start to sift the subterranean narratives of your own life to consciousness.  If your story is a river, then myth is the ocean it should naturally lead to."

He notes:

"This is a book in which we begin to regather our lost stories.  We regather them this way: We become conscious of how the great themes of myth speak through our own years.  When this happens, our own stories gain a shape and purpose that we may never have dreamed of.  This is a book about how to get home.  Home in our bones, our wonder, our eccentricity, our steadfastness.  Home in our curves, wrinkles, opinions, and grief.  The sheer, humble nobility of being lucky enough to be born at all.  There are many of us with second houses and pensions who are nowhere near anything that feels like home."

We have lost our stories and myths, suggests Shaw, and are left wandering through a world where, like his impression of much of church, is almost entirely indoors and cut off from Nature and the stories that once upon a time, gave humanity grounding.

By myths, I should note, Shaw is not just talking about what we would now consider mythology, gods and goddesses and heroes.  He consider what we now call folk tales or fairy tales as myth as well - something, again, we seem to have abandoned in a modern world where we can look through the heavens into depths of space but never really "see" the wonder.

Shaw organizes the book into a series of subjects - things like initiation and death and passivity and passion and prayer and guilt and envy and limit and evil.  He generally shares a story of interest from himself or involving him, pivots to a myth he feels is related, and then draws the lesson between the myth and the subject matter.

I will hesitate from speaking of some specific passages - because those specific passages have actually become part of what seems to be this impending feeling that there are things that I need to confront and (likely) change in my life (and thus, we will review them in due course).  So speaking in general, what did I think of the book?

It was....thought provoking.  Some of the chapters made me really think.  Some of the chapters essentially fell flat, at least for me - especially some of the later ones on the book, which I cannot tell if is due to the motif of story, myth, application was just an idea that got old after time or that they simply did not work as well as with some of the other sections.

What might wonder how, as a re-Christianized Christian (Orthodox tradition) and a mythologist with a huge gap between his childhood in a mainline denomination and his rediscovery of God, his view works.  The answer is kind of.  Certainly as someone that has delved deeply into stories, he sees them in ways that perhaps those that are not so deeply read in such things will not - and, I will say, I learned more of some types of "myths" (as defined above) than I had ever known about.  And yet, parts of that story telling did not work in reference to the Christian story.  Using the name Yeshua - which, while technically correct, I have always found as a bit of an affectation - was a little off-putting, as was the idea of Him as the story archetype of a Druid (again, perhaps right in terms of a story based observation, but again, off-putting).

I think his underlying points are good:  that we have lost story in our own lives - after all, some of the most inspiring and thought provoking items I have ever read were stories and, yes, myths - and have replaced it with a literalism that both binds and enervates us; that to integrate story and looking at the world outside of us (back to that idea of our church, and our life, being indoors) has the potential to change how we relate to God and His Creation.  The delivery is a bit uneven, though.

It is worth a read - as long as you are willing to hold the tension of a man who sees Christ and follows Him, but perhaps in a very different way.

Book Review: Be Unstoppable

 One of the things I enjoy looking for are success parables: fictional stories which are meant to be instructional in matters of success or business.  

I enjoy looking for them, because most of the ones I have read are poorly designed fables masquerading as tales "cleverly" giving guidance and advice in a fictional format.  The standard industry one, once upon a time, was Who Moved The Cheese? which I read once and wondered what all the fuss was about.  Another was a similar book that I no longer remember the title of which presented ones career as a fantasy quest (as an old Dungeons and Dragons fan, I was not impressed).  The best by far I have read is The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldblatt (which introduces the Theory of Constraints).

Today we will review a success book written as a fable.

(Note:  This edition is a later one.  I have the earlier, first edition published in 2013)

Be Unstoppable takes us to Hardwork Harbor, where everyone goes to school and at the end of their schooling is given a boat.  From there, they are to make their way in the world, learning to travel different routes and building their careers. In a reflection of their careers, their boats come to reflect their owners and how they spend their lives.

Our protagonist is Tim, a recently graduate of UpToYou University, who is just starting his career.  Tim works hard upon graduation to learning the routes and winds and sandbars of Hardwork Harbor.  He begins to venture out until on his first trip to the North, he runs aground on a Harbor and has to be towed back.  Disgraced in the eyes of his classmate Ted to whom everything seemed to come easily, a remarkable ship pulls into the harbor and docks next to Tim. Named Persistence her Captain, Peter, invites Tim to dinner and makes him an offer:  would he like to learn the Master and Commander Code, the code that teaches young seamen like Tim how to become captains that chart their own course and sail the world?

His answer of "yes" - and his commitment to do whatever the code requires - leads to a day and half of conversation with Captain Peter aboard the Persistance, learning the 8 principles that make up the code (seen on the paddle above as UPERSIST).

At the time (2013) this was Mills' first book.  He uses his experiences, from starting out as an asthmatic child to rowing team to attending the Naval Academy to becoming a SEAL to founding his first product, The Perfect Pushup (Now the Perfect Fitness Company), as a background and supplement to the story.  After each of the 8 steps, he lists a personal story of how he applied this principle to a personal challenge.

The principles? 

Understand the why

Plan in three dimensions

Exercise to execute

Recognize your reason to believe

Survey your habits

Improvise to overcome

Seek expert advice

Team up

The book is a relatively easy read and - if this was Mills' first writing effort - is well done. Although the world is somewhat contrived, the characters are all authentic and real.  Captain Peter, for all the fact he knows the answers, comes across as someone one might actually meet (I suspect, undoubtedly, a compilation of such men in Mills' life).  His crew members Jacques (the chef) and Robert (the Engineer) fill particular roles to move the story forward, but are not quite the cardboard cutouts that such characters can be.  Tim, as an eager student, is written to be not too naïve - sometimes he makes connections before it is fed to him by Captain Peter which is a realistic touch.

Is there anything novel here?  If you read the principles above, you will probably find things that you have seen in other motivational or success materials.  I do think the building of the 8 elements one another works well - after all, if you do not not why you are doing something for example, why plan for it?  And his personal applications help to demonstrate each principle in action.

(Warning:  As a former SEAL and founder of a fitness company, Mills is pretty physically focused.  At least one of his principles - Exercise to execute - really is about physical fitness, and it is mentioned more than one time in other parts of the text.  The idea - that physical health helps drive performance both mental and physical - is sound; it may ring a bit hollow to those whose health is not the best.)

Bottom line, of course, is what did I think?

I re-read this book at the beginning of this year; that I can recall, this is first time since I read the book (in maybe 2016).  The things I underlined then still applied, and I highlighted a great many more.  While there is nothing necessarily novel in the book, the story is real enough that the lessons sort of slide into the general flow of the narrative - which is exactly the sort of success or life lessons fiction book that I think can relay these lessons the best.

Verdict:   Worth a read at 140 pages, especially if you are looking for a different take on principles to do better.  It is enough of a fiction book to be enjoyable and the lessons are simple enough that even 10 years after reading it, I still had things to learn.

Book Review: Letters To Freya

 As you might remember from my Pre-Review of a month ago,  the book Letters to Freya was originally recommended to me via the book The Call by Os Guinness. The reference in Guinness' book was to the writer of the letters in the book, Count Helmuth James von Moltke, a great-grand nephew of the famous Prussian (and German) general  Helmuth von Moltke (The Elder)  and his nephew Helmuth von Moltke (The Younger), a German General of World War I.  Helmuth James was a lawyer by trade, not a military man, and became one of the major figures in the resistance to Hitler during World War II, leading a group called The Kreisau Circle, who discussed policy and prepared a series of papers about the policy Germany should take following its defeat in WW II (which they all seemed to believe would work out about as it did).

Over the time of von Molke's marriage to Freya, they wrote hundreds of letters to each other, letters that were carefully preserved by Freya in beehives to hide them from the Nazis.  The span of the letters in the book cover 22 August 1939 (just prior to the formal declaration of War by Germany on Poland) to 11 January 1945, written the day after his sentencing and just before his execution on 23 January 1945.

Over the scope of the years 1939 to 19 January 1944 (when he was arrested for being present at a party where National Socialism was criticized openly), he writes letters to his wife  (sometimes two a day!). They cover the gamut of his life:  his work at the Abwehr (German Army Intelligence) where he used his background in international and martial law to argue for the lives of prisoners of war and civilian prisoners (including those of Jewish descent), his trips abroad to France and Demark and Belgium and Norway and Poland and Turkey, where he worked to make contacts with both local resistance and the Allies (he was never very successful in this regard), and his living arrangements including the increasing pace of Allied bombing.

He also writes of seemingly very small things as well.  He is very engaged and interested in the agricultural goings on of his ancestral estate of Kreisau, asking Freya details about planting and yields and preparing for rationing and beehives.  He writes to her about their family, including their two sons.  He writes to her specifically to her, anticipating her visits or reflecting on how much he loves and misses her.

He also writes of his "work":  I do not know why, but it took me until mid-1943 to realize that he is writing about this work in the resistance.  He talks about many of the contact he has made, some familiar to us even today - Dohanyi, Canaris, Stauffenberg - and many who likely remain unknown to most of us today, some of whom survived and others who were executed as political prisoners and "traitors" to the regime.  He writes of discussions and arguing and documenting policies for what a post-war Germany might look like.

After 1944 and his arrest, his letters in this volume are much abridged, mostly due to the request of Freya who summarizes his time in prison, noting that there were still letters (although quite censored) but given the personal nature of them, were not included in the time of this volume (1990) and might be released after her death.  

In reading the letters, any number of things come across:  von Moltke's genuine humanity and kindness, his intellectual brilliance and courage (arguing against policies supported by the highest levels of Nazi government), his understated but religious convictions, his honestly in being overwhelmed at times but never truly being hopeless about the ultimate outcome.

In the last letter written to Freya, he ends with the following:

"Dear heart, my life is finished and I can say of myself:  He died in the fullness of years and life's experience.  This doesn't alter the fact that I would gladly go on living and that I would gladly accompany you further on this earth.  But then I would need a new task from God.  The task for which God made me is done.  If he has another task for me, we shall hear of it.  Therefore, by all means continue your efforts to save my life, if I survive this day.  Perhaps there is another task.

I'll stop, for there is nothing more to say.  I mentioned nobody you should greet or embrace for me; you know yourself who is meant.  All the texts we love are in my heart and in your heart.  But I end by saying to you by virtue of the treasure that spoke to me and filled this humble earthen vessel:

'The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ

and the love of God and the fellowship

of the Holy Spirit be with you all.'

Amen, J."

---

I have to confess that the German resistance to Hitler during World War II remains a fairly unknown subject to me.  I know elements of it - The White Rose Movement, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the 20 July 1944 plot - but probably like a great many in the West and of my generation and later, the assumption is often such movements were minimal at best.

Letters to Freya helped change that for me.

From the very early letters of this book, von Moltke is opposed to Hitler and the War.  Over the course of his non-arrest life - almost four years August 1939 to January 1944 - he works tirelessly and at great personal risk to push back where he can push back and begins to build a movement - a non-violent one, although it involved military officers - to oppose Hitler.

The names of those he meets with are many.  The editors of the letters do the kindness of identifying them, as well as giving their histories and fates.  A small number survived the war; most were imprisoned, tried before so-called People's Courts, and executed, sometimes up to the ending weeks of the war.

What comes through in his letters is a man of many interests and talents who is thrust into a situation that he did not expect, but does his duty as he sees fit under tremendously difficult circumstances (imagine the modern equivalent of convincing others to push back on a so-called Fuhrer Order from the very top in the modern world merely by force of personality), risking the disapproval of his superiors (and disapproval then meant much more than a sharply worded e-mail) in defense of captured enemy combatants, resistors, ordinary citizens.  He clearly wishes he were back on his beloved estate, thinking on agricultural matters and enjoying his wife and children, but understands that his calling in that time was to be somewhere else, pushing back against the darkness in the position that God had placed him.

Von Moltke was a man of non-violence, at one point in his final letters he notes "Just think how wonderfully God prepared this, his unworthy vessel.  At the very moment when there was danger that I might be drawn into active preparation of a putsch (Ed. note, the 20 July 1944 plot) - it was the evening of the 19th that Stauffenberg came to Peter - that I was taken away, so that I should be and remain free from all connection with the use of violence". 

He then goes on to relate everything else God did to prepare him for his hour in the courtroom:  giving him socialist leanings to remove him from suspicion as a Land owner of interests; humbling him "...as I have never been humbled before, so that I had to lose all pride, so that at last I understand my sinfulness after 38 years, so that I learn to beg for his forgiveness and trust to his mercy; putting him in prison with enough time so that his family can arrange their interests and his earthly thoughts; that he experienced the pain of parting and terror of death and then filling him with love and hope; that he talked with friends to resolve issues and friends escaped; that his case was arranged such that he bore the brunt of the court and not his friends, and that "...your husband is chosen, as a Protestant, to be above all attacked and condemned for his friendship with Catholics, and therefore he stands before Freisler (the presiding jurist of the trial) not as a Protestant, not as a Prussian, not as a German - all this was explicitly excluded in the trial... - But as a Christian and nothing else."

"For what a mighty task your husband was chosen:  all the trouble the Lord took with him, the infinite detours, the intricate zigzag curves, all suddenly find their explanation in one hour on the 10th of January 1945.  Everything acquires its meaning in retrospect, which was hidden. Mami and Papi, the brothers and sister, the little sons, Kreisau and its troubles, the work camps and the refusal to put out flags or belong to the Party or its organizations.  Curtis and the English trips, Adam and Peter and Carlo, it has all at last become comprehensible in a single hour. For this one hour the Lord took all that trouble (emphasis mine)."

---

Letters to Freya is a number works rolled up into one. It is a love story between a man and his wife. It is a history about World War II as seen from the inside of both Germany and government apparatus.  It is a moral work about the art and practice of non-violent protest and building consensus. It is a book about what one tries to build knowing the bottom is falling out of the current paradigm.  It is a religious work about a man and his God and how he served Him.  It is an underground work about living through a sort of occupation.

It is a painfully honest story of a man and his failings and his moral courage.

Would I recommend this book? Without question.  Clocking in at 412 pages, it is perhaps a little long for those that do not enjoy long non-fictional works - but being broken as it is into individuals years and letters, it makes it much easier to read in short chunks.  Even with the helpful footnotes, one can become lost in the names and places.

But the work rewards the reader who sticks with it (or like me, is likely going to need to read it one more time).  Its ending -von Molke's ending - is both tragic and triumphant.  In the end, he wins the ultimate victory after having to pay the ultimate earthly price.  In 38 years, he arguably accomplished more than many do in twice that many years.

A great many people would believe they have moral courage and are resisting evil.  Von Moltke actual did it.  And for that alone, the book is worth your consideration.

Book Review: The Last Days of Socrates

One of the great issues in my mind about a general dearth of knowledge on and thoughts about philosophy is the fact that, on the whole, philosophy is presented in either isolated parts or large chunks of reading that manage to convey nothing of actual philosopher themselves.  Philosophers - at least the Ancient ones which I read - are best approached almost in a sort of "pop-star" approach.  

For example, if I had started reading Epictetus the Stoic Philosopher (A.D. c. 50 - 135) by starting with his Discourses instead of his much shorter and more pithy Enchiridion, I likely would have never been as taken with him as I am.  In the same vein, had I started with some other work of Lucius Annaeus Seneca ( 4 B.C. - A.D. 65) other than Letters from a Stoic, I would have never had the pleasure of coming to appreciate his works (nor would I have had a main character for The Collapse!).

Similarly, I would not have truly discovered Socrates had I not started with The Last Days of Socrates

(Author's photo of his edition - Apparently they issued a new cover.)

Socrates (c. 470 B.C. - 399 B.C.) is probably the best known of the Ancient Greek philosophers by name, even in our age.  A citizen of the Athenian Democracy, we actually do not know a great deal about him as he himself wrote nothing that is preserved.  What we do know is a short line of him from a play of the playwright Aristophanes (The Clouds) and what was written about him by two of his disciples, Plato and Xenophon, who themselves could not agree in their descriptions of him:  Xenophon tends to paint him in a light not nearly as interesting as that of Plato, who paints a picture of a man who is self-effacing, claims ignorance yet through his claims elucidates his opponent's beliefs and positions, is fearless in his criticism of all sides, and always claims to be seeking truth.

Plato presents Socrates through a series of dialogues, typically between Socrates and those who have brought him a question or whom somehow becomes engaged with.  In The Last Days of Socrates, we are given four of the dialogue, which represent the last part of Socrates' life when - in 399 B.C. - he was sentenced to die by a court in Athens for accusations of impiety.  Rather than try to escape, he accepted the laws of Athens and the judgment of the court and voluntarily consumed hemlock as his sentence.

The four dialogues - Euthryphro, The Apology, Crito, Phaedo - deal with Socrates' last days and are linked through his trial and impending death. In Euthryphro, he deals with the nature of impiety, something that will become relevant in his defense before the court in The Apology  In Crito, he walks through with an old friend why he feels himself bound by the laws to remain and accept the sentence of the court rather than escape.  And in Phaedo, we walk through Socrates' facing of death and his belief in the afterlife and the implementation of the sentence of death.

At 180 pages (plus notes), the book is a short, solid, and reasonable introduction to Plato and Socrates.  Some quotes from the various dialogues:

"The truth of the matter is this, gentlemen,.  Where a man has once taken his stand, either because it seems best to him or in obedience to his orders, there I believe he is bound to remain and face the danger, taking no account of death or anything else before dishonor." - The Apology

"No man on earth who conscientiously opposes either you or any other organized democracy, and flatly prevents a great many wrongs and illegalities from taking place in the state to which he belongs, can possibly escape with his life.  The true champion of justice, if he intends to survive even a short time, must necessarily confine himself to private life and leave politics behind." - The Apology

"Well, really Crito, it would hardly be suitable for a man of my age to resent having to die." - Crito

"I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good; which would be a splendid thing, if it were so.  Actually, they have neither.  They cannot make a man wise or stupid; they simply act at random." - Crito

"In that case, my dear fellow, what we ought to consider is not so much what people in general will say about us but how we stand with the expert in right and wrong, the one authority, who represents actual truth."  - Crito

"No, you must keep up your spirits and say that it is only my body you are burying; and you can bury it as you please, in whatever way you think proper. - Phaedo

If you are looking to find an introduction to Greek Philosophy or a simply meet a fascinating individual (whether he is as he was or partly imagined), I cannot imagine a better volume to start with.  

Book (Pre) Review: Letters To Freya

 For what may be a first for me, I am doing a pre-review of a book.

Helmuth James (Graf) von Moltke (1907-1945) was the grandson of Helmuth Von Moltke The Younger  (German General of WW I) and the Great Grandnephew of Helmuth Von Moltke The Elder (victor of the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian Wars of the 19th Century).  A jurist by trade (having trained in both Berlin and London), at the age of 31 he was drafted into the International Law Division of the German Abwehr (The Intelligence Unit).  

He used his position both to mitigate where he could the deportation and murder of Jews and other refugees and capture soldiers by using his legal experience to throw "bureaucratic wrenches" into the operations of the German Reich.  He also, at his ancestral home Kreisau (now in Poland, but part of German Silesia at the time), began what became known as the Kreisau circle, an opposition group which not only opposed Hitler but planned for a post war Germany (Von Moltke and the Kreisau circle believed that Germany would lose the war).  

Von Moltke was driven by his Christian beliefs and his political beliefs in his opposition to violence.  This opposition did not save him; as a result of the July 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler, 7,000 who were considered enemies of the state were rounded up.   Almost 5,000 of those were killed.  Von Moltke, who had been arrested before the attempt in January 1944 for suspicion of anti-regime actions, was caught up with them.

His crime - since he did not condone violence -was created out of thin air:  Having discussed a post-war Germany based on moral and democratic principles, it was construed that this represented treason as it assumed the defeat of Nazi Germany.  Von Moltke was sentenced to death on 11 January 1945 and executed by hanging 12 days later on 23 January 1945 at the age of 37.

Besides all of this, Von Moltke wrote letters.

His correspondence with his wife Freya spanned over 1600 letters.  These letters - he wrote in very small script and rather illegibly - were hidden by his wife in beehives on the Kreisau estate and taken with her when she fled Germany following the war.  Many of the letters, dated from 22 August 1939 to 11 January 1945 (the day of his sentencing) constitute Letters to Freya.

I know what you are thinking:  This seems like a great deal of lead up to a book you have not read.  And what the heck is a "Pre-Review"?

In fairness, I have read 20% of it.  And by "Pre-Review", I wanted to capture my pre-completion impressions, because I really value the description of this man and what I am reading.

Some quotes from the what I have already read:

"But soldiers can never win this war; they can only lose it; only civilians can win it." - 01 September 1939

"As for the question of our allegedly putting our heads in the sand at Kreisau, I have this to say:  It is our duty to recognize what is obnoxious, to analyze it, and to rise above it in a synthesis which enables us to make use of it.  Whoever looks the other way for lack of ability to recognize it or of strength to surmount what he has recognized, is indeed putting his head in the sand....Peace is not complacency.  Whoever lets black be white and evil good for the sake of outward calm does not deserve peace and is putting his head in the sand.  But whoever knows at all times the difference between good and evil, and does not doubt it, however great the triumph of evil seems to be, has raised the first stone for overcoming evil." - 01 June 1940

Reading the biography of his life and starting through his own words, I realize that I need this book. I need this man.  I need to understand how one processes and deals with a world that is rushing headlong towards an appointment with destiny it thinks it desires, but does so without understanding what that actually means.

Book Review: How To Grow Grain On The Homestead

 (Author's Note:  I have been sufficiently please with the outcome of my series of Essentialism and the kind comments of you, my readers, on that particular idea of a deep dive into a particular book, that I am planning to do it again.  I have a couple of books I am thinking of; I ask for your patience as I work through the next steps.)

The first year I grew grain was in 2005.

It was, as I recall, a combination of Winter Wheat, Emmer Wheat, Jet Barley, and Oats.  The Oats did not take.  Everything else did, and my interest in grain growing was born.  I believe that every year since then, I have at least tried to grow some kind of grain, no matter what my success rate.

Imagine my pleasure to find, in Permies crowdfund benefit package, a new book on growing grain:

Beyond sharing her experiences along with her husband Dan on their blog Five Acres & A Dream, Leigh is an FOTB (Friend Of This Blog) whose comments are regular and always thoughtful.  

As a result, this is probably not going to be a completely neutral review.

This book is a part of a smaller set of volumes which Leigh has written for specific items of the homestead (her book on Ginger, for example, is excellent as well).  I would also be remiss in mentioning that she also has "regular" books (Five Acres & A Dream - The Book and The Sequel).

I will start with the punch line first:  if you are looking for a book to ease you into what I consider the high satisfying world of growing grain, this is a great place to start.

The book covers all the basic questions, supplemented by examples from Leigh and Dan's experience:

- Why you should grow grain
- The basic steps of growing grain:  planting, harvesting, threshing, winnowing. The threshing part is especially interesting, as Leigh shares the six methods they have tried over the years to thresh grain, some of them pretty innovative.

- Grains themselves:  Leigh gives a review of 11 kinds of grains and pseudograins, including planting suggestions, usages, and harvesting/processing suggestions.

At 45 pages and a price tag of $3.99, it is a very reasonable "gateway book" into the wonderful world of grain growing.

Leigh's works are described at Kikobian.  Her longer books are available at all the usual online places.  Her e-publications (including the one listed above) are available via Smashwords.com; her author page is here.  

If you are looking for a "how to start" book that will stay with you as you increase your planting (because of course you will), this book is the best deal anyone could have to an introduction on grain growing.

Book Review: Rachel's Folly

Folly (ˈfä-lē):  

- A lack of good sense or normal prudence and insight; 
- Criminally or tragically foolish actions or conduct; 
- A foolish act or idea; 
- An excessive costly or unprofitable undertaking; 
- An often extravagant picturesque building erected to suit a fanciful taste

I have long been a fan of the writings of Patrice Lewis.

I originally found Lewis sometime after I started "getting into" the InterWeb; I cannot remember precisely how long ago but easily over fifteen years now at her website Rural Revolution. I have, over the years, spent time via her writing with her husband Don and her two daughters (Older Daughter and Younger Daughter) and their homesteads (Old and New) in Idaho.  Her writing has always been enjoyable, a sort of mix of advice, explanation, and sharing of the life she and her family have chosen.

That Lewis is a writer was not a surprise:  when I first started reading her, she was both posting on her blog as well as on other sites.  It was through her that I discovered the now defunct National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), the organization that encouraged the idea that anyone could write a novel in 30 days (1500 words a day, in case you were curious).  It was from there that she landed a contract with Harlequin Romance and launched into a novelist career while still working at her and Don's homestead and managing a relocation.  

I purchase her first effort as well as a later one.  They were both enjoyable but - let us be honest - I am likely not the prime target market for Amish Romances.

My interest was piqued, then, when I read on her blog that she was trying a slightly different tack for a novel which did not fit neatly into that category and was going to be self published:  Rachel's Folly.

The protagonist (or at least one of the protagonists) Rachel Tresedor works at a production company which is starting up a Pioneer-style reality show in which a family has to live in mid to late 1800's conditions. As part of the interview process, she is challenged by one of the interviewees - Samuel Finn, a professor whose area of expertise is American pioneer living in the late 19th century - to come experience the pioneer lifestyle for four months on his property in Idaho.  Her boss thinks this is an amazing opportunity; under the twin hammers of her pride of not failing a challenge and a possible promotion, she heads to Idaho to effectively travel back in time.

Finn's property is a sort of living history experiment:  he lives as a 19th century pioneer would with mostly 19th century technologies (a modern Amish cook stove being a notable exception) and to the best of his ability provides for himself as much as possible.  Tresedor is thrown into this mix:  donning a prairie dress, she stumbles into learning to live in the 19th century.  She learns to cook and bake using a wood stove.  She learns to milk a cow.  She learns to harvest a garden and cut wood.  She visits the nearest neighbor, an older widow named Bernadette who offers her practical skills and sage wisdom on both living on the edges of civilization and about life.

Behind the scenes, of course, is a budding attraction between Rachel and Samuel.  Could she stay? Will they fall in love?  Or will she head back to modern civilization, largely untouched by her experience except the novelty of it?

Well, of course I am not going to reveal the ending.  You will need to read the book for that conclusion.

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As I mentioned before, I have been a long time reader (happily so) of Lewis, so I cannot give a truly unbiased review of the book. That said, in terms of fiction and readability (compared to other fiction), it stands up.

The characters are well developed, with motivations and personalities and agendas in place.  If they are a sort of "trope" of the hard driving female executive and eccentric college professor, they are very well written ones and hardly seem stale.  The background characters that are there are equally well fleshed out.  There was never a time that I said "That is not something a reasonable person would do".

Descriptions of living in the 19th Century are done in an interesting combination of intense detailed explanations (making a pie crust, starting a wood cookstove, milking a cow, cutting a log using a bucksaw) and generalized descriptions (making cheese, gardening, activity in a barn). The detailed descriptions are not surprising to me, as these all reflect tasks Lewis has written about in the past.  And I like the mix of specific and detailed; too often books of this kind can get bogged down in detailed descriptions of everything which both demonstrate the author's knowledge of arcane skills and fail to move the story forward.

The descriptions of the land, the cabin they live in, the property they are working on - again, all well done and reflective of the fact that Lewis has lived for years in this neck of the woods.  If the setting for Rachel's Folly is not a real place, it should be.

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Whenever I finish a New-To-Me fiction book, I like to consider three questions:

1)  Would I read it again?

2)  Does it speak to issues or spark thoughts that are applicable to my life?

3)  Will I miss these characters?

1)  Would I read it again? 

A resounding "Yes".  At 296 pages (print edition), it is an easy read and enjoyable read, just light enough that one need not pay too much attention yet deep enough that there is a great deal to consider.

2)  Does it speak to issues or spark thoughts that are applicable to my life? 

Also a resounding "Yes".  Besides just the story of "Eccentric Man teaches Modern Woman about life 150 years while each sorts out their feelings about things and each other", the book touches on issues like the fragility of modern living, sustainability, committing to goals.  Some quotes:

"Many (the pioneers) wanted free land, some wanted gold, some wanted to escape a shady past...but they were all united by the common inability to drive to the drugstore for aspirin, or run down to the nearest convenience store for a quart of milk.  It's this inability to go to outside sources to solve minor problems that fascinates me." (Samuel Finn)

"He (Samuel) nodded.  'I thought so. But here, I make everything. I grow, or raise, or till, or preserve, or create, or build. Everything.  And that, 'he concluded, 'is the most powerful pull a man can feel for what he does.'"

"'We live in a modern society that's nothing but rules and regulations. The longer I live out here, the more I resist the thought of returning to civilization and all those societal expectations.'  He gazed out at the damp, quiet woods. 'I like living by my own terms', he concluded." (Samuel Finn)

"Too much stuff becomes little more than clutter.  Junk.  You said you were interested in environmental issues.  Don't you think a resistance to shopping is one of the best places to start?" (Bernadette, Samuel's neighbor)

"'Won't that be nice. It means you'll be able to work for longer hours at a job you probably like but may not feel passionate about.  But you'll make more money, whoo hoo.  That way you can buy more...what did you call it?  Stuff.  Is that how you want your life to unfold?'

She scowled at him.  'It's how life unfolds for millions of people, buster.'

Samuel gave a little flick of his fishing rod.  'Then maybe you should challenge the prevailing assumption of what life should be and start considering what life can be.'"

Suffice it to say, there is enough for anyone to chew on in this pages.

3) Will I miss these characters?

One of the saddest things for a reader is one comes to the end of a book and realizes that there is either no sequel or the status of the sequel is unknown (I have commented before that this same experience happened for me with David Drake's The Forlorn Hope).  We will never meet these characters again, we will never hear them (in our mind), we will not see their new undertakings.  That can tinge with sorrow the happiest ending.

And honestly, I will miss Samuel and Rachel.  They seemed like the sort of people I would like to know  and I would wish that I could read more of what happens next (instead, of course, of revisiting what happened before).  Here is hoping a sequel is in order.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I strongly recommend this book.  Yes, it is an enjoyable read - and for a romance, not too overly "romantic" for those of us that are not into it.  But its ideas and characters make it something that will make the reader think in turn - something, arguably, every author hope for.

(Post Script:  Rachel's Folly, as self described on the back cover, is her going on this adventure.   As noted above, there are at least five definitions to the word folly. I would argue any one of them will work for the title, depending on how one's interprets the outcome.)

Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture III: Profile of a Culture (Part II)

When we last left our review of Foolishness to the Greeks:  The Gospel and Western Culture by Lesslie Newbigin, he had established two items:

1)  The Enlightenment both propelled forward the scientific revolution by explaining the universe in terms of cause and effect and natural laws, but had stripped the creation of purpose;

2)  By stripping humanity of higher purpose than their own selves (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness), the nation-state (which was the remaining institution after the Church retreated from the public sphere) became the only vehicle for ensuring that purpose - and since life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness can be limitless to the individual, the nation-state as guarantor will become all encompassing.

Newbigin moves to point out the impact of these two ideas.

With the establishment of the principle of scientific laws and cause and effect, the world comes to be viewed solely in this manner - including "human behavior, work, and society".  Human labor is transformed as the craftsman becomes the human laborer, working on the smallest division of labor - "His work assimilated more and more into the repetitive actions of a machine rather than the purposeful work of the craftsman" - and is without purpose, as the universe of Newton does not allow for it.  Work - an act of creation that "leads to something that will endure after the worker is dead - an artifact, a poem, a system of laws" -is gone, replaced by labor, "an unending cycle of production for the sake of its consumption.

This change of labor led to the division of labor.  Suddenly, production was not for the local family unit or the local economy but rather for the "market" economy with money becoming the main unit of exchange.  The market, not the local exchange of goods, becomes the main factor.  The modern social science of economics is born - again, removing teleology and sense of purpose from the economic realm.  The market now exists under a series of economic laws, functioning like the Newtonian Universe.

From here, says Newbigin, two additional factors occur.  The first is that the family is no longer the main unit of work and the home is no longer the main place of work.  The focus has shifted:  work is the "outer" or public world and home the "inner" or private world.  Externally, workers become anonymous, replaceable parts (we are all replaceable at some point in the modern job market); it is only at home that they are irreplaceable parts of something more. And the second development, coming from both the division of labor and the idea of working outside of the home, is that urbanization increases dramatically.  Not only does this impact the family unit; it also has the impact of placing the individual in "a multiplicity of human networks, each controlled by a single purpose".  Before, most individuals lived in typically rural societies with a single society which defined all their activities - work, worship, play, friends, family (our proverbial "small town").  Now, the individual has a plethora of options - but they are not integrated into a whole.  Work is one, but religion may be a second and the apartment building a third - each not related to each other, each serving a separate purpose. 

The final factor introduced here is the fact that as an outcome of division of labor, development of a market economy, the growth of public and private worlds, and urbanization, bureaucracy develops.  In a way it has to exist, given the complexity which has been introduced:  "It provides the machinery in which there is a high degree of division of labor, of specialization, of predictability, and of anonymity." But - and this is important - "It is of the essence of bureaucracy that it sets out to achieve a kind of justice by treating each individual as an anonymous and replaceable unit".  It has taken the outcome of the Enlightenment - reduce everything to its smallest possible component and understand how to manipulate it - and applied it to the human relationships and existence which can be expressed in the terms of mathematics - or ultimately, a computer (timely in our age of Artificial Intelligence): "In its ultimate development, bureaucracy is the rule of nobody and is therefore experienced as tyranny.  The attempt to interpret human behavior in terms of models derived from natural sciences eventually destroys personal responsibility".

The Enlightenment, posits Newbigin, provided a lot of things, allowing for the voyages of discovery that opened the world, of the growth of technology and the application of science to every area (of which we are a beneficiary).  However, it comes at a cost:

"But we shall not be wrong, I think, if we take the abandonment of teleology as the key to the understanding of nature for our primary clue to understanding the whole of these vast changes for the human situation.  I shall argue that this is what underlies the decisive feature of our culture that can be described both as the division of human life into public and private, and the separation of fact and value."

(Apologies, this seems to just keep extending out.  Newbigin's thoughts are so dense, I cannot do them justice by smashing them together.)

Foolishness to The Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture II: Profile of a Culture (Part I)

 "As a people who are a part of modern Western culture, with its confidence in the validity of its scientific methods, how can we move from the place where we explain the gospel in terms of our modern scientific world-view to the place where we explain our modern scientific world-view from the point of view of the Gospel?"

This is the question Lesslie Newbigin starts with in the second chapter of his book Foolishness to the Greeks.  In fact, he embeds in the very name of this chapter:  "Profile of a Culture".  To see where are, he states, we need to look back to how we got here.  And that road, he points out, leads straight through The Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment was based on a number of preceding factors:  the re-discovery of Europe of lost texts of Greece and Rome, the developments in science of the period (Tyche, Galileo, Newton), and even the new philsophy of Rene Descartes.  Primary in this, Newbigin asserts, were the developments of Newton: suddenly, the universe was seen not to be governed by divine purpose, but by laws of cause and effect.  Suddenly teleology - the study of purpose - no longer had a place in the world of thought:  things no longer served God's purpose in their actions and movements, they were moved by scientific laws.  There was no need to go farther:  "To have discovered the cause of something is to have explained it".  

We had entered The Age of Reason.

Medieval society, states Newbigin, was "held together by a complex reciprocal network of rights and duties..." - and the most treasured of human rights - The idea of human rights "..apart from this actual web of reciprocal duties and rights, would have been unintelligible".  In other words, man took the idea of cause and effect and extended it to the individual, who suddenly has the "right" to determine their own rights, apart from any obligation to others.  Primarily defined as those rights are ones that we Americans are very familiar with:  Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Happiness.  Add to this the fact that modern science provides no means for belief in life after death, and the rights of the individual become paramount  -after all, this is all there is.

Rights, says Newbigin, only exist where there is "a legal and social structure that defines them.  Anyone can, of course, assert a need or express a wish apart from such legal or social structure.  But a claim to a right must rest upon some judicial basis."  In the Medieval world, this was found in the reciprocal obligations between tenant and lord (no matter how lousy that relationship could have been).

  In the modern world?:

"Who, then, has the infinite duty to honor the infinite claims of every person to the pursuit of happiness?  The answer of the eighteenth century, and of, of those have followed, is the nation-state.  The nation-state replaced the holy church and the holy empire as the centerpiece in the post-Enlightenment ordering of society.  Upon it devolves the duty of providing the means for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  And since the pursuit of happiness is endless, the demands upon the state are without limit.  If - for modern Western peoples - nature had taken the place of God as the ultimate reality with which we have to deal, the nation state has taken place of God as the source to which we look for happiness, health, and welfare."

Add to this the view of eschatology.  Suddenly the state becomes the end of existence - and the power of treason and progress the means for it.   The Enlightenment replaced the Gospel with the doctrine of Progress.  Hope for a future world has been replaced by the reality of a future which ultimately those now living will never see.  The nation-state, the guarantor of rights which - as noted above, are now infinite - now has the justification for expanding its power and reach; after all, it is the promise of tomorrow.  From this thinking, Newbigin says, the basis of the totalitarian state was laid.  Worse, makes the young the focus of the state as they are the future; the old "can be neither objects nor subjects of hope but only an increasingly burdensome embarrassment."

Newbigin ends this section (and I have to close it partway through; there is still too much to discuss) with this statement:  "The transmission of traditional wisdom in families from the old to the young is replaced by systems of education organized by the state and designed to shape young minds toward the future that is being planned."

Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture I (Book Review)

 Last week I had mentioned a concept from a man named Lesslie Newbigin, someone that - prior to March of this year - I had never heard of.  A quote of his was used in a sermon and it was so thought provoking I ended buying a book or two.

Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998) was born in England.  A convert in college, he entered the mission field in 1936 and went to India, where he remained until 1959.  After a spell at the Internal Missionary council, he returned to India in 1965, remaining there until 1974.  Of note, both in 1947 and 1969 he was named a bishop of an ecumenical church in a country not his own - a rarity in the day.  He returned to the UK in 1974, where he lectured, wrote, and preached up to his death.  (Fuller biography here.)

Newbigin is a rarity, a man who became completely immersed in another culture who had the ability to compare two cultures and their concepts, practices, and understandings of Christianity.  The two books of his I purchased - Foolishness to the Greeks:  The Gospel and Western Culture and The Gospel in a Pluralist Society  - are in a way both books on a similar theme:  the nature of what Western Civilization has become and the idea that we, as Christians, need to view our own society as a mission field.  

His writing is excellent, thought provoking, and dense.  Rather than try to press it all into a single review, I propose to space it out to a chapter a week.

A note:  Newbigin is an excellent writer, well read, and has very well developed arguments.  All errors and misrepresentations of them should be charged to my account, not his.

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Newbigin, in the first chapter - "Post-Enlightenment Culture as a Missionary Problem" - lays out the following statement:

"My purpose in these chapters is to consider what be involved in a genuinely missionary encounter between the gospel and the culture that is shared by the peoples of Europe and North America, their colonial and cultural off-shoots, and the growing company of educated leaders in the cities of the world - the culture those of us who share it usually describe as modern".

Studies of missionary culture, he suggests, miss the mark in not focusing on the West, as "it is this culture that, more than any other, is proving resistant to the gospel".  Why is this?  This is one of the questions he spends time on developing.  At the moment, he simply recognizes it as a problem.

The Church, posits Newbigin, exists in a culture.  It originally started in a Jewish culture, then expanded to a Roman-Greek culture, and from there expanded into the cultures of what became medieval Europe before being transmitted to larger world mostly (but not entirely) during the Age of Discovery (The Thomasine Churches of India, for example, being an exception).  The communication of the Gospel, has to include communication in the language the receptor culture understands, calls for a change (metanoia or turn in direction in the Greek, which we call repentance in English) - but also has to rely ultimately on a work of God. We cannot make anyone convert; we can only call them to it.

The classic view of the missionary involves someone that goes to a culture and communicates in the language of that culture (Newbigin's first point) and calls for a change in the individual's direction, repentance and salvation (Newbigin's second point).  The third point - the work of God - is beyond the missionary's scope of control.

To those who are accepting Christ, they accept Him through the one that presents Him - if a missionary, then how the missionary views and experiences Christ.  But as the Christian grows in faith and in the reading of Scriptures, 

"...he will gain a standpoint from which he can look in a new way both at his own culture and at the message he has received from the missionary.  This will not happen suddenly.  It is only as the fruit of sustained exposure to the Bible that one begins to see familiar things in a new light.  In this light the new convert will both see his own traditional culture in a new way and also observe that there are discrepancies between the picture of Jesus that he (from in his culture) finds in the New Testament and the picture that is communicated by the missionary."  

What can happen?  In one version, the new convert retreats to his own culture, seeing the Gospel as merely a tool for the missionary's culture to implant itself in the converts culture and take power or take over - or in turn, converts the Gospel into a vehicle for the new convert's message (such as Liberation Theology).  In the other version, the new convert reflects back to the missionary how the missionary's culture has influenced his vision of Christ.  Taken this way, suggests Newbigin, lies the possibility of mutual correction - no one culture has a monopoly on Christ; we all interpret him through the culture that we live in.  

The modern world has what Newbigin (taking from Peter Burger) calls a "plausibility structure", that which can be normally taken for granted without argument and from which dissent is considered heresy (in the old definition, of the individual deciding making a decision instead of following the given tradition) - in the modern world's case, it has developed this structure such that the public world of facts are considered different from the private world of beliefs, opinions, and values.  We, as the self center of our own universe, are ourselves heretics because "we make our decisions about what to believe".

But herein lies the issue.  In the modern world, says Newbigin, there exists a world of "facts" distinct from "values":  "Values systems embodied in styles of living are not right or wrong, true or false.  They are matters of personal choice.  Here the the operative principle is pluralism, respect for the freedom of each person to choose the values that he or she will live by". 

But in the world of facts, everything has to be tested.  Pluralism is not allowed; "No place is given to the possibility that what was given in the religious experience could provide an insight into the truth that might radically relativize the presuppositions of the scientific disciplines." In fact, Newbigin suggests that the modern world will not consider them as such because it takes two things for granted:  that Christianity is the same as all other religions and that all religions have to submit their truth claims to the discipline of science.  Whether or not the discipline of science will consider them remains for further discussion later.

It is Newbigin's belief and argument that the claims of the Risen Christ can be checked as a historical event - and if historical, then true and a "fact".  But the plausibility structure will only allow personal beliefs to be a value (and thus not in the public realm).

"This separation of value from fact is reflected in the separation of private from public life that is one for the characteristics of our culture." And the Church, he suggests, accepted this dichotomy due to the challenge of the Enlightenment and retreated into the world of the private sector and values.  By doing so, he says, it insured its survival as an institution, but at the cost of surrendering "a crucial field":  "And yet the claim, the awesome and winsome claim of Jesus Christ to be alone the Lord of all the world, the light that alone shows the whole reality as it really is, the life that alone endures forever - this claim is effectively silenced.  It remains, for our culture, just one of the varieties of religious experience".

The result of this, says Newbigin, is that modern Western culture and Civilization is not a secular society:  "It is a pagan society, and its paganism, having been born out of the rejection of Christianity, is far more resistant to the gospel than the pre-Christian paganism with which cross-cultural missions have been familiar.  Here, surely, is the most challenging missionary frontier of our time."

Newbigin foresaw that the coming greatest mission field for Western Civilization is not abroad.  It is literally in our own backyards.  We as the West have become the people we need to send missionaries to.  And to do that, he posits, we need a more fuller understanding of our culture not as we live in it, but as a third party would understand it.

Book Review: Dirt To Soil

 In an earlier blog post last year, were discussing Masanobu Fukuoka's One Straw Revolution and the practicality of organic farming.  Friend of the blog Leigh Tate from Five Acres and A Dream suggested a number of authors to review along with Fukoka.

Another book on agriculture by a new author.  I was up to the challenge (to be fair, I am up to any challenge involving buying a new book).

Gabe Brown is a rancher and farmer in North Dakota.  He and his family manage 5,000 acres of land near Bismark, North Dakota.  In his book Dirt to Soil:  One Family's Journey into Regenerative Agriculture he (with the very able assistance of a writer from Chelsea Green, Courtney White) chronicles their almost accidental stumbling into regenerative agriculture, the evolution of their farming business as a result of this journey, and the principles of regenerative agriculture and their application.

The background is that Brown and his wife, Shelly, entered farming by purchasing land from her parents and entering the traditional farming practices of his background and his in-laws.

Then, disaster struck.  A back to back to back run of bad luck - hail damage, hail damage, a blizzard - reduced him to almost quitting but also forced him almost accidentally to begin the process of regenerative agriculture simply because he did not have any other option.  It was during this time that he continued his study into soil and range management (Allen Savory's method).  At one point he heard a rancher from Canada, Don Campbell, speak at a conference and one line from that speech comes up several times in the book (and is actually a rather life changing statement):

"If you want to make small changes, change the way you do things.  If you want to make big changes, change the way you see things".

From this point, the first half of the book then relates his journey as they continued to modify their practices away from traditional agricultural and livestock management to regenerative agriculture and livestock management that more reflects how the American plains once looked with the great Bison migrations.  It also follows their journey as they modified and expanded their business practices to extract more income from the products they produced (in a comment elsewhere, I noted that Brown states that the average American farmer only receives around $0.14 of every dollar that their final product nets).

The second half of the book discusses the five steps that Brown calls "The Five Principles of Soil Health":

1)  Limit Disturbance

2)  Armor the Soil Surface

3)  Build Diversity

4)  Keep Living Roots In the Soil

5) Integrate Animals

He discuss each of this principles in depth, including data backing up the claims made by him and others on the practical, demonstrable improvements of their soil and their operations.

I have to confess, I really like this book.

In the preface to the book, Courtney White writes that Chelsea Green Publishers had approached Brown about writing a book, but time was always an issue - thus White's involvement.  And to that extent, it is somewhat hard to judge how much of the voice we hear is Brown's and how much is White's - it sounds like how I would imagine he would speak and if so, more kudos to White for her light touch. 

The style is engaging and has the sort of easy discussion that I find in other author's I like, such as Gene Logsdon or Joel Salatin.  Brown discusses his practices openly and gives examples.  It is clear that he is excited about the discoveries he has made and wants to share them with everyone he can because he believes in them and has seen their transformative power.

If his five principles sound a bit like Fukuoka, it is because they are similar to them - but adapted in some ways to the American plains.  And, Brown thinks a great deal of Fukuoka.

It is clear from the book as well that Brown is a man of continual learning, even if he may not have the philosophical insight of a Logsdon or Wendell Berry.  He is constantly discussing reaching out to government bodies dealing with soils, university professors, other individuals in the fields, and conferences to gain more knowledge.  And he encourages the reader to do the same.

The last chapter of the book is simply entitled "Do Something", and relates the guideposts that he and his family have lived by:

- Trust God

- Keep an open mind

- Do not be afraid to fail

- Understand your context

- Do something

It is really not a bad list not just for regenerative agriculture, but for life in general.  

I highly recommend this book.  It is not only practical, it is inspirational.  Almost makes me want to take a trip to North Dakota to visit his farm.

Book Review: Louisa May Alcott's Christmas Treasury

Charles Dicken's is well known for his 1843 story A Christmas Carol.  For the mass of individuals today,  this is the most familiar both of his overall writings as well as his Christmas stories (of which he wrote several more).  The story has proved itself so popular that it has never been out of print since the year of its publication and has been the subject of multiple big screen and small screen interpretations.

What was unknown to me - until this Christmas - is that Louisa May Alcott also did the same thing.

Louisa May Alcott's Christmas Treasury (published 2002) is a compilation of stories written by Miss Alcott (1832-1888) and edited by Stephen W. Hines.  I would not have known of this book at all but that I was sorting through my mother's books. This was on the same shelf as innumerable cat themed Christmas books and comfortable Christian Romance Christmas stories.  Knowing of Dickens' stories and at least recognizing Alcott's name, my interest was piqued.

Miss Alcott remains a lacking point in my literary education (to be fair, my overall 19th Century author and authoress knowledge is minimal at best).  Most have heard of her books Little Women and Little Men, but these are the sorts of books that have (I suspect) fallen out of general literature reading curricula and now are the province of the specialized major class or of the individual (like myself) in need of remediation.

I knew a bit of her story:  born into poverty, she single-handedly worked to pull her family out of poverty by her writing.   Remaining unmarried, she lived with and cared for her family until her own death.

The book itself is a compilation of short stories and novellas (including the Christmas scene in Little Women) that have been "adapted" by the author (how adapted is never explained).  The stories are a mix, with young children, teenagers, young adults, and even older adults all having some kind of main role - a reminder that it is never too early or too late to show the Christmas Spirit.

The poverty of Alcott's youth and her family's involvement in early social reform shows through in the stories.  Poverty is described, not in the 21st Century Western World as it is known, but in 19th Century America where there were no social nets. As these are Christmas stories, they are all set in Winter, and the brutality of a New England Winter is not trivialized.  Cold, a lack of food, worrying about where the next day's meal is to come from (let alone the next year) - all of these are present.

And yet this is not the main focus of the stories.

"It is no wonder then that so many of her stories feature practical charity and happy endings.  Such was the shape of her life.  Do not reject charity, nor look down upon it, but be worthy of it, and if you rise to a higher station, do not forget to show charity to others. (Introduction)"

These stories are all quite different from what passes as "Christmas Stories" in this modern, privileged, post-Christian, materialist age.  In general, the characters realize there is some deficiency in an upcoming Christmas - but rather than bemoan their fate or cry out about things being unfair, they go to work to remedy the situation.  In some cases, this is done directly by efforts they make; in others, their generous spirit enables others to find the Christmas spirit that they have lost and in so finding, reward the protagonist in ways they could have never hoped.

What spills forth from these stories is kindness, other centeredness, generosity, initiative, hard work, and looking to one's self first before looking to others.  One cannot help but feel more generous and inspired after reading these stories (I certainly was).

The stories also provide a window in Christmas in 1860's and 1870's America.  A piece of fruit is often all that is initially available as a stocking stuffer or present.  New clothes (especially shoes) are also coveted but less available; new toys or other items even less so.  I remember my mother telling me stories of how, within her lifetime, an orange was perhaps the gift one got in their stocking; our "loaded up" version of Christmas is a quite recent development.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

For all of the "adapted by" notices, the editor's hand seems very light indeed.  The stories, at least to my reading, resound with the voice of the authoress.  The lessons they teach - kindness and other centeredness and generosity yes, but also individual effort and virtue - seem sorely lacking in so many of what passes for today's Christmas entertainment.  These stories are written in such a way as to be accessible to children but are not childish (as so much of Christmas has become); they are suitable for all ages.  And, every story has a happy ending, which while not being as true as it should be in real life, is something I love.

It is not often I can say I left a book feeling more virtuous and that I should be more generous.  The fact that I found a book full of such stories is even more remarkable - such stories that should be read not just at Christmas but throughout the year so that we, as was said of Dickens' Scrooge, might keep Christmas every day in our heart.

Book Review: Almost Amish

 My knowledge of Amish culture is pretty thin.  I, like many Americans at the time, watched Harrison Ford in "Witness" (my traditional sending off of people, "Be careful out there among the English", dates from that time).  Gene Logsdon has impressions of and interviews with the Amish woven in through several of his books.  The Ravishing Mrs. TB and I took a vacation in Ohio that included Amish country in the early 2000's.  And, of course, I am a reader of Patrice Lewis' Amish Romances (yes, even us mid-fifties guys can enjoy a happy ending).  

That said, the culture and their way of life is fascinating to me - not just because many of their principles, at least as I understand them, are similar to my own, but because they have managed to maintain an effectively thriving counterculture in the press of the modern world.  So imagine my joy when I found a book called Almost Amish:  One Woman's Quest For A More Sustainable Life. 

Nancy Sleeth and her husband Mark, a former MD, formed a non-profit organization called Blessed Earth, which originally focused on Christian involvement with the environment (but seems to have branched out in their website). In the backstory, Sleeth explains how she and her husband were faced with a series of events - death of her brother at a family gathering, a talking patient, and a particularly hard death in the ER - that caused them to re-evaluate their life choices and decide to go into Christian Ministry full time.  

The book divides Amish beliefs into eight areas - homes, technology, finances, nature, simplicity, service, security, and community - gives a high level application on Amish beliefs, and then applications of these beliefs in the Sleeth's life as well as biblical teaching that correspond to each section.

I really wanted to like this book.  But I went away with almost nothing new.

The book set me off on the wrong foot in the first paragraph of the introduction:

"'What are you, Amish or something?' a large man with a booming voice asked from the back of the room.  I was not surprised by the question, but the tone rattled me a bit.

Open your eyes!  I wanted to reply.  Am I wearing a bonnet?  We arrived in a Prius, not a pony.

The question came at the close of a long day, at the end of a demanding speaking tour.  I was tired, but that's no excuse for my less-than-gracious thoughts.  It was not the first time my family had been compared to the Amish, nor would it be the last.  So why did this question stay with me, long after the seminar ended?"

The Authoress obviously feels that ultimately her response was the wrong one - but to start out her book with both assumptions about people (Large man, booming voice, rattling tone - one can almost see the "person" being described her) and what feels like virtue signaling ("We arrived in a Prius, not a pony") almost immediately, in turn, gave me an impression about what I was going to read.  Simply put, there were other ways to phrase this that would have conveyed the same information without setting the tone that was set - as a blogger, I myself spend a rather surprising amount of time choosing words to communicate precisely what I want to say and avoid giving a different impression than what I intend.  Words, as it has been said, mean things.

The reality is that I had purchased the book under the assumption (mistaken on my part) that this was a book about a woman and her family that had been directly exposed to Amish culture and had made changes in response to it.  Instead, it was a book about decisions their family had made and how it mirrored Amish culture.

The structure of each chapter is as follows:  A story about the section from the authoress' point of view is related. Then high level concepts about Amish culture is relayed, then applications from the authoress' life about how they had already implemented these practices.  Lots about the authoress and her family, not a lot about how the Amish culture influenced it or them.

Another fairly disturbing thing about the book is the apparent lack of actually interaction with actual Amish.  I do not know if the Amish or Mennonite cultures have an issue with interviews or research, but the book seems to be almost completely devoid actual of actual interviews or practices by actual Amish or Mennonites.  Attendance of a Mennonite church service is discussed, and a very brief reference to critical books of the Amish - The Ausbund (Hymnal), The Martyr's Mirror, the Dordrecht Confession of Faith, and the Ordnung (the order of the Church and daily life) - is mentioned as well as brief (two page) history of the Amish - and some interview and listening which is alluded to but neither of which are specifically defined.  The Acknowledgements section seems remarkably free of any thanks to Amish or Mennonite sources (that I can tell), and the references largely consist of a website a single text, Amish Society, and a reference to the movie "Amish Grace", covering the 2006 shooting in a Amish school in the community of Nickel Mines, PA.

I suppose all of this bothers me because it is as if I, with my limited knowledge of Japanese culture, proposed to write a book on the subject having read a single study, some articles, and watched the movie "Shogun".  It would be correct to suggest of my book that it had done nothing but take limited secondary sources and proposed to present them as definitive when a plethora of primary sources are available.  It is at best a weak research methodology.

The book is less about actually Amish practices and thoughts and more about the how the authoress and her family lived according to principles which they decided were important to their family - and how they realized that they were "almost Amish" principles.  Which was less about at the Amish and much more about them.

As I said, I really wanted to like this book.  The ideas that are presented as "Amish" - homes, technology, finances, nature, simplicity, service, security, and community - are ones that I actually resonate with (and I think many of my readers do too, as well as the bloggers on the right over there).  For me at least, it is also written from a Christian point of view - again something I value.  But other than the presentation of some concepts, there was nothing new here I did not know.  Literally, I knew more just based on fictional reading from Lewis and interviews and impressions by Logsdon.

So why does this book exist?

Interestingly the authoress makes an almost throwaway comment in the first paragraph of the first chapter: 

"Last Summer, our daughter interned with a publishing company.  Emma's mentor assigned a wide range of challenging projects, and she learned a lot from them all.  But the assignment where she felt that she felt as though she had the most editing input was an Amish Romance novel."

She then goes on to discuss the popularity of the movie "Witness" and the overall popularity of the so-called "Bonnet Romances" as well as the continuing popularity of tours.  

All of a sudden, what came across to me is this was less of a passion project and more of a suggestion by the publisher of a way to capitalize on a trend.  And capitalization on a trend, especially a surface treatment of it, just never sits well with me.

I really wanted to like this book.  

What will I do with it?  I have not fully decided. There were some sections that really did get me to think and so the book - at least for me - is not without some value.  At the same time, it is highly unlikely that I would consult this book again as I will likely go back and review the other books I have or find some additional primary sources (Amish Society, as it turns out, is still available as a used book for a very reasonable price).

The assessment?  Save your money and start with Logsdon and Lewis, who treat the Amish in the actual context of their practices, not as a comparative study.

Book Review: Live Not By Lies

 "What does it mean to live by lies?  It meant, Solzhenitsyn writes, accepting without protest all the falsehoods and propaganda the state compelled its citizens to affirm - or at least not to oppose - to get along peaceably under totalitarianism.  Everybody says that they have no choice but to conform, says Solzhenitsyn, and to accept powerlessness.  But that is the lie that gives all other lies their malign force.  The ordinary man may not be able to overturn the kingdom of lies, but at least he can say that he is not going to be their loyal subject." - Rod Dreher, Live Not By Lives

Western Christianity, suggest Rod Dreher, has blind spot.  Having never been subjected to a totalitarian system, it has no ability to recognize the signs of one occurring.  To those that lived under the rule of the European Communist Party and the Warsaw Bloc (1917-1989), the signs are quite clear that such a thing is coming.

This recognition, by an old Czech woman living in the United States, prompted Rod Dreher to write Live Not By Lies:  A Manual for Christian Dissidents.  Surely, posits Dreher, if this has in fact happened before, there are both ways to prepare for it and survive it, because people of the Eastern Bloc did exactly this.

The title is take from a 1974 article by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, one that triggered his final arrest and eventual exile from the Soviet Union. In it, Solzhenitsyn presents that if we cannot fight lies, we cannot at least act as if we believe them and enable them.

Dreher starts by reviewing where we are at the writing of the book (published in 2020, this is effectively hot off the presses in terms of what I read) by identifying three areas that are converging to create a culture of lies:  Our Culture, which it pre-totalitarian; the state of Progressivism, which is now treated as a religion; and the current economic model of Capitalism, which Dreher refers to as "Woke and Watchful".  In reading this, Dreher lines out what he sees as pre-cursors to totalitarianism:  loneliness and social atomization; loss of faith in hierarchies and institutions; the desire to transgress and destroy; propaganda and the willingness to believe useful lies; a mania for ideology; a society that values loyalty more than expertise.  

Add to this then Progressivism, defined by Milan Kundera as "A Grand March":  "The Grand March is the splendid march on the road to brotherhood, equality, justice, happiness; it goes on and on, obstacles not withstanding, for obstacles there must be if the march is to be the Grand March". Based on the inevitability of progress, anything that stands in the way of progress or is perceived to stand in its way is:

"...to stand against the future - indeed, against reality itself.  Those who oppose the Party oppose progress and freedom and align themselves with greed, backwardness, bigotry, and all manner of injustice.  How necessary - indeed how noble- it is of the Party to bulldoze these stumbling blocks on the Grand March and make straight and smooth the road tomorrow."

If you are reading this blog - or many of the blogs over to the right - you can likely guess which side you will be considered to be on.

Add to this then an Economic System that - free of government bidding - has adapted all of the features of a totalitarian system.  It is not enough to be skilled to enough to add value or earn income for the employer, nor to have money to purchase items: one must believe in what the Corporation believes and to not believe is to be cut out or shut out of opportunities, advancement - or even goods and a job itself.  And, Dreher notes, we helpfully guide Corporations in this by opening our homes (through listening devices and cameras) and our lives (by giving away our information for free and letting them follow us everywhere; at least one survivor of the Communist system Dreher interviews is aghast at such careless treatment of personal space and information.

So what to do?  Dreher suggests that instead of wondering if it will happen or pretending it will not happen, we begin to prepare as if it will happen.

Dreher's suggestions - perhaps not surprisingly - come across in some cases the same as what he has proposed in The Benedict Option:  Value nothing more than the truth; Cultivate cultural memory; Strengthen the family; Religion as the bedrock of resistance; Standing in solidarity with other believers (and those who, while not believers, share a commitment to truth and individual liberty); and Embracing the gift of suffering. The conquest is coming, says Dreher, so we are wise to build the underground resistance now to "keep alive the memory of who we were, and who we are, and to stoke the fires of desire for the one true God.  Where there is memory and desire, there is hope."

God and Christ are shot throughout this book.  A great many of the people interviewed and the stories told are of Christian believers - priests and lay people - that suffered for their faith.  Especially in the chapters on religion and suffering, Dreher interviews and quotes those that were imprisoned and in some cases suffered torture for their faith.  Reading these stories, and how their belief in God and Christ  and how there were present in their circumstances, is awe inspiring and humbling at the same time.

But this sobriety spoken by survivors is laced throughout the entire text,  stories of actual survivors of living under these conditions in the Communist Bloc.  For most of these memories, they are not memories of long ago but of recent times - within living memory, even my own.  To the end, the concept of "It cannot happen here" is foolish, as Central Europe mid-20th Century was as liberal and democratic and civilized as the rest of the Western World - and yet it became a prison camp (including torture) for thousands of its citizens.

To be clear, Western Christianity - specifically North American Christianity (sorry, Alta Canada) is not ready for this level of  overbearing totalitarianism.  So many churches which are today thriving and growing under the veneer of Christian Seeker Sensitivism or Feel Good/Self Empowering Christianity or Societally Hip And Socially Aware Churchness will simply melt away or become something which, though retaining the name "Christian", will not be the Church.

This was a sobering book for me as I am old enough to remember the Eastern Bloc/Warsaw Pact before it fell.  I remember Solidarity and Brezhnev and Andropov and the Hail Mary of Mikhail Gorbachev.  I remember the Velvet Revolution in (the old) Czechoslovakia and the hail of bullets that ended in the Ceausescu's what was begun in Timisoara.  I have spoken with an unrepentant Stalinist ("Stalin was misunderstood, not evil) and seen the bullet holes in buildings from the 1956 Uprising in Hungary.  Once upon a time, I studied Communist Governments as a living, breathing system, not just as a historical oddity.

These things were real.  These things happened.

I said it yesterday, and I will say it again today.  You need to read this book.  Even if you are not Christian, you need to read this book if you have concerns about what might be coming and how to resist it.

Dreher ends with another quote from Solzhenitsyn's article "Live Not By Lies" as if to offer hope even as Solzhenitsyn did to his fellow Russians to a day they did not think they would see - and warn them if they refused to act:

"And so:  We need not be the first to set out on this path.  Ours is but to join!  The more of us set out together, the thicker our ranks, the easier and shorter will this path be for us all.  If we become thousands - they will not cope, they will be unable to touch us.  If we grow to tens of thousands - we will not recognize our country!

But if we shrink away, then let us cease complaining that someone does not let us draw breath - we do it to ourselves!  Let us then cower and hunker down, while our comrades the biologists bring closer the day when our thoughts can be read and our genes altered.

And if from this we also shrink away, then we are worthless, hopeless, and it is of us that Pushkin asks with scorn:  'Why should the cattle have gifts of freedom?  Their heritage from generation to generation is the belled yoke and the lash.'"