Books

A roundup of some of the things I've been reading recently:

• BONE: This is a series of graphic comic books by Jeff Smith that were published between 1991 and 2004. It follows the Bone cousins (Phoncible, Smiley, and Fone Bone), who have been cast out of Boneville and find themselves lost in a valley. They end up getting involved in a war with rat creatures and other unfriendly beasts. It's fantasy, and very well told. There's a good sense of humor about the series, though the tone does get much more serious and scary as the series progresses. There are nine collected volumes available published in black and white (the original version) and colored (though only the first seven are currently available in color), as well as a 1300+ page collection of the entire series in original B&W. It's very much aimed at younger readers, but there's a lot for everyone to enjoy. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys fantasy. (I hear a movie is being planned. Originally, Nickelodeon Studios were going to do it, but their plan was to use child actors for all the voices and to include pop songs by artists like Britney Spears and N'Sync. Thankfully, Jeff Smith hated the idea, so now the project is with Warner Bros.)
• ONE CHILD - When I was in college, I took a class about emotional and behavioral disorders. The books assigned by our teacher were all by Torey Hayden, an educator who has chronicled her adventures with some of her more challenging students over the years. The first one we had to read was One Child, the story of Hayden and a six-year old named Sheila who was awaiting placement in the state hospital for burning a three-year old boy. The story is about how Torey broke through her shell and helped her start to achieve her potential. It's a beautiful, if disturbing book. I recently reread the book, and am currently rereading the follow-up, The Tiger's Child, which tells of Hayden meeting Sheila again while working on One Child. It really helps complete the story of the first book, especially since we find out that there was more going on we never found out in One Child. Hayden has a website where you can find out more, and even find out where the people in all her books are now.
• THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS - I'm actually listening to this one on audiobook right now, but I've read it before. This is by C.S. Lewis, author of the Narnia stories, and is a collection of letters from one demon (named Screwtape) to his nephew, a junior tempter named Wormwood who is trying to procure the soul of a young man. The book is a very well thought out treatise on the intricacies of temptation and vice, and I wonder what a letter about me would look like. Read, think, laugh (the chapter where the young man finds his true love is very funny), and enjoy.

Happy reading.

Lunatic, Demon, or God

I picked up a couple of books on the recommendation of Head Butler a couple of weeks ago. One was The Unknown Terrorist by Richard Flanagan, published in 2006. I didn't get very far in it. It begins with a statement that love is never enough, and proceeds to call Jesus a madman, and the predecessor to the modern suicide bomber. I have no idea what Mr. Flanagan's agenda is, whether this is his belief, or a character's belief, or what. Page two, that's as far as I got.

Here's the passage that inspired this post, beginning from page one: "The innocent heart of Jesus could never have enough of human love. He demanded it, as Nietzsche observed, with hardness, with madness, and had to invent hell as punishment for those who withheld their love from him. In the end he created a god who was 'wholly love' in order to excuse the hopelessness and failure of human love. Jesus, who wanted love to such an extent, was clearly a madman, and had no choice when confronted with the failure of love but to seek his own death. In his understanding that love was not enough, in his acceptance of the necessity of the sacrifice of his own life to enable the future of those around him. Jesus is history's first, but not last, example of a suicide bomber."

Flanagan proceeds to draw comparisons to Nietzsche's philosophy and Jesus', but I've seen enough. I'll cite C.S. Lewis now, from his collection of talks entitled Mere Christianity, originally published in compilation form in 1952. This comes from Book 2: What Christians Believe, chapter 3: The Shocking Alternative. "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice: Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

This is reminiscent to me of Joshua's statement in the Bible. The book of Joshua, chapter 24, verses 14-15 (from the New International Version). "Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."

In Mr. Flanagan's statement that Jesus was clearly a madman, it appears he has made his choice. Mr. Lewis made another choice, as shown in the beginning of chapter 4: The Perfect Penitent. "It seems obvious to me that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend; and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God." This seems to me to be the obvious path as well, but I understand not everyone can accept it. Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 18: "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

These are just a few of my disjointed thoughts. I really just wanted to put some opposing viewpoints in here. Any other thoughts are welcome. Even if someone wants to defend the rest of Mr. Flanagan's book, since I'm not planning on finishing.

Six posts for the Bloglish Blog! Whoo hoo!