A Christmas Carol

"There's the saucepan that the gruel was in!" cried Scrooge, starting off again, and going round the fire-place. "There's the door, by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley entered! There's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas Present, sat! There's the window where I saw the wandering Spirits! It's all right, it's all true, it all happened. Ha ha ha!"

I really enjoyed this little book.  Even though the story was so familiar from watching so many movie versions I still found that reading it felt like a novelty.  A perfect, heart-warming, nostalgic Christmas story.  It was cliched, and soppy and cutesy but somehow still beautiful and effective. I think I will be re-reading this again for future Christmases.  Although perhaps once a decade or so will be often enough.

Cloud Atlas

An amazing book.  A mesmerizing, absorbing, memorable book.  I loved it.  Mitchell is a wonderful story teller.   He has written a masterpiece which shows the best and worst aspects of human nature are pitted against each other

Warning: spoilers!

I really enjoyed the devices he used to connect the stories.
I loved the double Matryoshka doll layering of the stories with time advancing and then peeled back.
The nested stories are beautifully crafted and sandwich together perfectly. 
I liked the subtle (and not so subtle) references to the comet shaped birth mark.
I loved the Sci Fi sections (but then I am always a sucker for a good sci fi story).

The Manor

This is the first book I have read by Singer and I really enjoyed it.  It was loaned to me by a work colleague who is a self confessed non-reader.   Despite being someone who "doesn't like to read" he said that this was one of his favorite books.   I wasn't sure if this was a good recommendation for a book or not!  However, within a few pages I was hooked.

The scope and the treatment of morals, values and societal pressure reminded me of Anna Karenina. 

I found the insight into Jewish society and family quite fascinating.  It is set in Poland in the late 19th Century.  Singer examines the conflicting pressures on Jewish families to rigidly continue their Jewish culture or integrate with the wider Polish society.  For individuals there is then the further pressures to conform to expectations placed on them or break out and pursue other dreams.  The consequences, perhaps predictably for many of the characters, are often disastrous either way.

As I came close to the end of the story I started to worry about how Singer was going to tie up all the loose ends in the remaining pages.  When I finally reached the end I felt cheated, as though the story had been suddenly snapped closed without resolving much of the tension.  I complained about this to my husband.  So imagine my relief when he told me, after a quick google search, that there is a sequel.  I promptly ordered a copy of The Estate from Better World Books and I look forward to reading it.

I did some googling about Singer myself and was interested to find out:
1. He won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978, "for his impassioned narrative art which, with roots in a Polish-Jewish cultural tradition, brings universal human conditions to life".   Nobel Prize Web Site  The fact that I have never heard of him before this is proof (yet again) of my uncouthness!
2. All his work was written in Yiddish and later translated to English.
3. He became a vegetarian in the mid 1960's and was a strict vegetarian for the last 35 years of his life.  He is responsible for some fabulously insightful and quotable statements about the ethics of vegetarianism. 

The International Vegetarian Union has a page about Singer and reports that

"He was fond of saying that he was a vegetarian for health reasons - the health of the chicken." 

Some further examples all lifted from the Wikipedia page about him (showing that I am not only uncouth but lazy):

"How can we speak of right and justice if we take an innocent creature and shed its blood?"

In The Letter Writer, he wrote:

"In relation to [animals], all people are Nazis; for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka."

In the preface to Steven Rosen's "Food for Spirit: Vegetarianism and the World Religions" (1986), Singer wrote:

"When a human kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice. Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why should man then expect mercy from God? It's unfair to expect something that you are not willing to give. It is inconsistent. I can never accept inconsistency or injustice. Even if it comes from God. If there would come a voice from God saying, "I'm against vegetarianism!" I would say, "Well, I am for it!" This is how strongly I feel in this regard."

Open City

I struggled a bit with this one at first.  It was for book club and I was rushing to try and finish it in time for book club so perhaps that made it a bit harder.  Possibly if I had taken my time with it I would have enjoyed it more.

As it was I found it a bit tedious, pretentious and not very engaging. 

I enjoyed some of the conversations, particularly the political conversations that take place in Brussels.  And looking back now I can see that the book is well crafted and I suspect deserves more credit than I originally gave it.

I guess that overall I just couldn't get away from the feeling that the book, and by implication the author, was taking itself a bit too seriously.  But perhaps I was influenced by the photo of Cole in dust jacket.  I don't know why, and I know it is immature of me, but there is just something about the photo that I really don't like. But I am sure that indicates something wrong with me not Cole.  However, I really like his photography. 

Here's a link to his web site: tejucole.com/
If you want to see some of his photos: flickr - Teju Cole
And if you want to see the one of the most prolific twitter streams I have ever come across: Teju Cole on Twitter

Maestro

First impressions?
Misleading, of course.  As always.  But unforgettable.....

A miracle was occurring.  In the span of one lunchtime, music, the universal common language, would come to provide me with permanent protection in the schoolyard, and a safe conduct pass into even the darkest corners of the Covered Area.

Coming of age novels can be tedious and formulaic.   And certainly there are some predictable elements in Maestro.  However overall I really enjoyed this book.  A perfect holiday read. (I read most of it reclining in a spa bath.)

Overcoming the Fear of Fear

I encounter a lot of people who live with heightened anxiety in my professional and personal life.  A friend suggested that I read this book so that I could better understand what it is like to live with anxiety, which can often be disabling, and be able to offer more constructive support.  I am grateful for their recommendation because I think it has helped a lot.

The authors develop the concept of "Anxiety Sensitivity."  They define it as "the tendency to respond fearfully to the bodily sensations associated with fear and anxiety. .....  In other words, anxiety sensitivity is the fear of fear."

We all experience fear or anxiety from time to time.  Something shocking or stressful occurs (the trigger), we have an adrenaline surge and we have associated physical sensations such as an awareness that our heart rate has increased.  For most of us we do not focus on these sensations as we know that they are harmless.  We deal with the situation at hand, then the sensations and any fearful thoughts abate, usually pretty quickly, and we get on with our day. 

Unfortunately for some people it does not work like that.  The sensations such as quickened heart rate, or faster breathing, seem catastrophic in themselves and lead to a cascade of various mental and physical events that can culminate in panic.

The book gives a very in-depth analysis of how and why the trigger leads on to this over reaction in some people and not others.  It also explores why some people are prone to this (including a good summary of childhood and family of origin influences) and why very minor events can be enough to trigger the cascade in them.

As with any good self help book it doesn't stop there.  It goes on to give a program to overcome this, based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).  The book is well researched and referrenced.

From the cognitive angle they look at unhelpful thought patterns and how to challenge them, particularly:

• Catastrophizing
• Overestimating the probability
• All of nothing thinking 

From the behavioral angle they look at the counter-productive "coping" strategies that people often employ, particularly many forms of avoidance.  They suggest the use of interoceptive* exercises to help people "to be in anxiety".  The theory goes that exposing yourself to the feared sensations will help reduce your fear of them.  I have to say, that even as someone who does not suffer anxiety, I think that some of the interoceptive exercises they suggested sound awful.  I will be incorporating a lot of the information I learned from the book into my clinical practice but I don't see me recommending any of these exercises to anxious patients anytime soon, unless they are first performed in a therapy session with a good therapist:

• Shake head from side to side for thirty seconds.
• Breathe through a narrow drinking straw for two minutes.  Combine with running on the spot or stair climbing to evoke more intense sensations.
• Place a tongue depressor at the back of the tongue for thirty seconds.

The book includes some good sections on the importance of a healthy lifestyle (stress reduction, sleep regulation, good nutrition, exercise and the benefits of humor), and the Stages of Change (pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance and relapse).

Overall, I think the book would be a great read for anyone suffering with anxiety, or wanting to understand/support someone they are close to who has an anxiety disorder.  I think the chapters on addressing the "cognitive" side of CBT, particularly challenging the unhelpful thought processes that are often the trigger for anxiety, are really good.

However, I think that more of a Graduated Exposure Therapy approach may be more acceptable and manageable for a lot of people, than the interoceptive challenge approach that the authors advocate.  I think that perhaps these exercises need a "Don't try this at home - alone - without therapist supervision" caveat, otherwise, if not followed through correctly the exercises carry the risk that people's anxiety sensitivity may be increased rather than abated.

For a good description of Graduated Exposure Therapy (also called Systematic Desensitisation) see: Overcoming Anxiety for Dummies

*Interoceptive - of, relating to, or being stimuli arising within the body and especially in the viscera.  From Merriam Webster Dictionary

Love Wins

"Does God punish people for thousands of years with infinite, eternal torment for things they did in their few finite years of life?"

"Not all Christians have believed this, and you don't have to believe it to be Christian."

"It often appears that those who talk the most about going to heaven when you die talk the least about bringing heaven to earth right now, as Jesus taught us to pray: "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."  At the same time, it often appears that those who talk the most about relieving suffering now talk the least about heaven when we die."

- Rob Bell  

Bell makes some astute observations and very good points in this little book.  So why are so many "Christians" gnashing their teeth and denouncing him?  One word: Universalism!

There has been so much furor about this book that my interest was piqued.  I just had to read it for myself - unlike many of it's critics who have slated it without bothering to read it.

Love Wins is an incredibly short book for one that has caused such a stir.  It could be read in one sitting.  However Bell has managed to stretch the printed version to a standard book size with his

annoying habit

of spacing out the text

so that a few sentences

cover one page.

And then,

he leaves gaps between paragraphs 

to make it clear where you should 

pause

and get all contemplative.

Grrrrr....  Annoying isn't it!

I felt like yelling "I'm an adult.  I can cope with a few sentences per paragraph!"  It's like he hasn't quite decided if he is writing prose or poetry.  How very emergent of him!

The sleeve carries a strong endorsement from Eugene Peterson (of The Message fame) which includes a description of the book as being "without a trace of soft sentimentality".  Rubbish!!  I can't remember the last time I read such soppy, sentimental and emotive writing.

Putting aside pedantic ranting about his style, how about the content?  Well I certainly can comprehend his point of view more than the opinion of the majority of evangelical Christians who want to cling to their view that many/most of the people they know will be punished infinitely and consciously for finite sins.   

I really like his treatment of the story of the Prodigal Son.   He uses the attitude of the older brother to confront the view of those who cling to the fundamentalist, evangelical view of hell. He shows the self-satisfied "them vs us" mentality for what it really is.

He claims that his father has dealt with his brother according to a totally different set of standards.  He thinks his father is unfair.  He thinks he's been wronged, shorted, shafted.  And he's furious about it.

The older brother has been clinging to his version of events for so long, it's hard for him to conceive of any other way of seeing things.

My question is: why haven't there been more Christian leaders in the last two centuries advocating for Universalism, or at least expressing that they hoped Universalism to be true.  As Bell aptly puts it "one has to admit that it is fitting, proper and Christian to long for it."  Support for this view in the modern church would have saved me a lot of confusion, angst and pain in my teens and twenties. 

The only evangelical theologian I know of, or at least theologian accepted by the evangelical community, who came close was John Stott.  But even he shied away from fully endorsing it:

Emotionally, I find the concept [of eternal conscious torment] intolerable and do not understand how people can live with it without either cauterising their feelings or cracking under the strain. But our emotions are a fluctuating, unreliable guide to truth and must not be exalted to the place of supreme authority in determining it . . . my question must be — and is — not what does my heart tell me, but what does God’s word say?

And C.S. Lewis of course - but evangelicals are so selective in their Lewis reading that they often miss it.  Interestingly, in his acknowledgements, Bell thanks his parents for "suggesting when I was in high school that I read C.S. Lewis."  I will whole heartedly endorse reading Lewis to make the journey from childish (often idealised as "child-like") faith towards a more  consistent view of reality, with less delusion and denial.  

That's not to say I have embraced a belief in Universalism.   I am still at the starting point of questions.  Like: Is there a God?  Is there any form of existence after the death of our body?  If there is a God, then why the problem of evil?  Does God, or would God, reveal himself to humanity through any (or all) of the world religions?

As I can't seem to get a convincing yes answer to the first 2 questions, it seems pretty pointless to bother about the rest at the moment.  And I think that anyone who claims to have a water-tight, uncontestable view on those two questions, whatever answer they arrive at, is deluding themselves.

But........, if there is a God, I sure hope they believe in Universalism.  I just cannot see how they could possibly live happily ever after with some, while imprisoning the rest of their human creations in eternal, conscious punishment.  Surely the double pre-destination inherent in that view would be as abhorrent to any kind of omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent being as it is to me.  (Avoiding male pronouns sure makes for some awkward writing at times!)

One last favorite quote from the book to end my little rant:

This is why Christians who talk the most about going to heaven while everybody else goes to hell don't throw very good parties.