Category: Reviews

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Two Books: A spy thriller and a self-congratulatory humorous look at gumption

Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer (2014) 

This is the story narrated by an unnamed man who doesn’t fit in, anywhere. A bastard. His father was a French Catholic priest and his mother a Vietnamese maid. In many ways, the narrator is of two minds. Given the opportunity to study in the United States, he learns the ways of the West. But he’s still Asian, even though never fully accepted into his country. A Captain in the military, and an aide to a General, he is also a member of the Vietcong. Fittingly, the reader never learns his name. We only know him as “Captain.”

Woven into this story is the narrator’s boyhood friendship of two other boys: Bon and Man. As they studied in a Catholic school, they promised to look out for each other. This they do, despite the fact that two of them become undercover Vietcong while the third is a diehard supporter of the South Vietnamese government.

Synopsis

The story begins in April 1975. South Vietnam collapses. The General assigns the narrator the task of creating a list of those to be evacuated. Their plane will be the last to make it out of Vietnam. The refugees end up in Southern California where they gradually rebuild their lives. But the General is intent of returning to Vietnam and freeing his country from Communism. This happens but ends in disaster. However, the disaster expedition allows for a reunion of the three boys who had pledged their allegiance to one another. 

There are many disturbing scenes in this book. Being undercover means the Captain has to consent to the torture of fellow Vietcong. He even is called to carry out murder of those suspected of Vietcong activity in America. While the narrator doesn’t participate, he describes the brutal rape of a suspected Vietcong woman.  There are also other sex scenes in the book. We learn of how he “comes of age” with a squid (the scene is enough to make me forgo such food). Later, there are encounters with prostitutes and a Japanese American lover. The Captain, in a manner, appears to be a chauvinist. 

Recommendation

Much of this book is about the cultural differences between the east and the west. In a way, the story criticizes everything. This is an honest book as the faults of all sides can be seen: communism and capitalism; the South, the Vietcong, and the Americans; eastern and western philosophy, atheism, Buddhism and Christianity. The author often brings in art (especially music) and literature to make his point. Graham Greene’s The Quiet American receives several references in the novel. 

I enjoyed this book and while the likelihood that all three boys would end up in the same place at the end seems far-fetched, it’s a powerful story. I listened to the unabridged edition of the book on Audible. The actor doing the reading was exceptional. 13 hours and 53 minutes in length. 

Favorite Quote:

“I like my Scotch undiluted like I like my truth. Unfortunately, undiluted truth is as affordable as 18-year-old Scotch.” 

Nick Offerman, Gumption: Relighting the Torch of Freedom with America’s Gutsiest Troublemakers (2015).  

Why this book

I was drawn to Offerman from his book, Paddle Your Own Canoe. However, I had a hard time purchasing a book in which the author appears on the cover in a canoe with terrible paddle-form. (Get on your knees, Offerman!). Instead of being impressed with his craftsmanship in building a canoe, I saw a lazy canoeist. After looking at his other works, I decided to listen to this book. The author reads the book. This, I always consider a benefit. The book consists of a series of essays on Americans who have, according to Offerman, shown “gumption.” The characters in the book could serve as models for us. Early in the book, I came to see Offerman as a grumpy redneck liberal.  

The Good

There is much I like about Offerman’s writings. He encourages hard work that creates things for which we should be proud. He appreciates skill and those who see mistakes as just a way to learn more about how to be successful. He loves nature and simple things such as solid wood, a good book, and basic food. He finds solace in nature, loves his wife, and acknowledges the superiority of North Carolina barbecue. And he appreciates the writings of Wendell Berry and Michael Pollan and the vision of Frederick Law Olmsted. While acknowledging the failures of our nation in dealing with slavery and Native Americas, he sees something good in folks like George Washington.

The Bad

There is also much I dislike about Offerman’s writings. His use of obscene language is over the top. Obviously understanding that some don’t like his use of language, he even defends himself. This book constantly advertises for Offerman, Inc. Over and over again, the quality craft from his wood studio finds its way into the book. You can purchase such work. He continually promotes his TV show, “Parks and Recreation,” of which I had not seen. (I streamed a few episodes of the show. I wasn’t overly impressed even though the deadpan style of his character—Ron Swanson—was a highlight). And he promoted his wife and her television work along with the work of those he highlights in the work. Furthermore, Offerman seems to take great pleasure (and admits it) at meeting his heroes. 

The Ugly

I almost gave up on the book because of his disdain for the church. He seems to have made his mind up about the uselessness of religion from his own Catholic upbringing and the antics of the politically active right-wring Christians in the media. The few caveats offered about the good done by the faithful, or the beauty of Scripture, far overshadows the condemnation he preaches. Yes, the church has not always upheld to the standards of Jesus, but in its truest form, he has acknowledged its own sinfulness.

The thing I disliked the most is Offerman’s oversexualized references to entertainers (of which he’s one). This trend is best seen in the last third of the book. Here, we learn that Carol Burnett has constantly rejected his invitation of a three-some with him and his wife. He also expresses his love of and marriage proposal to Jeff Tweety (despite the fact they’re both married to women). I know this was supposed to be funny, but I wasn’t amused.

Part 1: “The Freemasons”

The book is divided in three sections. The first and the shortest are the “Freemasons,” which focus on three of America’s founders (Washington, Franklin, and Madison), along with Frederick Douglas. Not only does Douglas show gumption by fleeing slavery, educating himself, and working to free other slaves. He was also, at one point in his life, a boatbuilder (something Offerman appreciates.

Part 2: “The Idealists”

The “Idealists” is the label applied to the second section. We meet Theodore Roosevelt (later in the book we learn Conah O’Brien introduced Offerman to TR). Others include Frederick Law Olmsted, Eleanor Roosevelt, Tom Laughin (the writer and star in “Billy Jack” and the first of this list that I didn’t recognize), Wendell Berry, Barney Frank, Yoko Ono, and Michael Pollan. This was my favorite section of the book.

Part 3: “Makers”

The last third of the book is titled “Makers.” Here we meet those who excel in different crafts from making tools and boats and furniture, to authors, musicians, and comedians. This list includes Thomas Lie-Nielsen, Nat Benjamin, George Nakashima, Carol Burnett, Jeff Tweedy, George Saunders, Laurie Anderson, Willie Nelson, and Conan O’Brien. The first two of the “Markers,” are the others that I did not know before reading/hearing this book. This was my least favorite section of the book.

Concluding evaluation

As I like the idea of everyone excelling and doing good work, there can be much gained from Offerman’s words. I just wish he could realize he could be funny and less offensive, while sharing the same ideas. 

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Two books on Pilgrimage

 Lisa Deam, 3000 Miles to Jesus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life for Spiritual Seekers 

(Minneapolis Broadleaf Books, 2021), 211 pages including notes and a few drawings and maps

Early pilgrims

In the centuries between the crusades and the Reformation, there were many devout Christians who made pilgrimages. While Rome and Santiago de Compostela (the Way of Saint James) were the popular destinations, there were also hardy souls who attempted to make the trip to the Holy Lands. 

The journey to Jerusalem was hard and expensive. They traveled overland across Europe and climbed the Alps, in an era before guidebooks and maps. Without travel insurance and credit cards, they had to be careful as they made good targets for thieves. Once they reached Venice along the Italian coast, they bargained for a berth in a ship sailing for Joppa or another town along the Palestinian Coast.  It was not a plush cruise. No one served them umbrella drinks on the veranda. Instead, they were cramped in the bowels of a sailing ship for five or so weeks, eating dried bread meats and hoping they had enough fresh water. 

Once they arrived, they had to deal with customs. Muslims controlled the region and could friendly or not. Amongst these strangers, they had to hire guides to lead them to Jerusalem. Once they arrived, they had to pay a price for everything they did (In the centuries since Jesus, the Holy Lands had become a tourist trap).

Many had ecstatic experiences when walking the paths Jesus trod. They saw the signs. Some poured wine into embedded footprints that supposedly belonged to Jesus. On their knees, they would drink the wine (I suppose lapping it up with their tongues like a dog). Others were depressed. Jerusalem, 13 or more centuries after Christ, didn’t impress them. 

Deam’s pilgrims

Deam follows three such pilgrims. Margery Kempe was from England. She was a wife and the mother of twelve children. Yet, she found support to make the journey. Swiss friar Felix Fabri and Italian Pietro Casola are the other two pilgrims Deam’s focuses on. Deam also draws from other pilgrim accounts as well as the writings of those contemporary to the pilgrims, such as Walter Hilton and Dante Alighieri. In addition, she draws from modern theologians such as Eugene Peterson and Howard Thurman.

Recommendation

This is not a just a history book. The purpose is for the reader to realize how he or she is also a pilgrim in this life. While informed by historical pilgrims, this is essentially a devotional book. One of my complaints of the book is that there could have been more historical background and stories. But then, the book might have been less appealing as a devotional book and more for academia.  

I have often thought about leading a trip to the holy lands where, in addition to the Bible, I would draw from the writings of Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad. If I ever take that journey, I’ll add Deam’s book to the reading list and maybe the first hand account written by those who travelled there in the 13-15 centuries. Deam’s provides a bibliography of “medieval voices” that have been translated into English in the back the book.

Additional reading on pilgrimage

I have read a lot about pilgrimages over the years.  In addition to Twain’s The Innocents Abroad (I’d also suggest Roughing It and Following the Equator), I recommend Phil Cousineau, The Art of Pilgrimage (see below), Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking, Rolf Potts, Vagabonding, and the anonymous 19th Century Russian who wrote The Way of a Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way. Deam mentions this last book, which was given to me by a Hindu friend from Malaysia.

Quotes:

“In the broad sense, a ‘pilgrim is one who is a stranger.'” Dante (11)

“Our pilgrimage on earth is an image of the glorious pilgrimage to the celestial city.” (17)

“Because Hilton had both secular and sacred vocations, he is the ideal guide for contemporary Christians on their journey of faith. He understood that some people are suited for religious live and others for vocations of the world, yet that all are called to a spiritual life of contemplation and prayer. (2-21)

“Whether en route to the physical or the interior Jerusalem, a pilgrim never walks alone. All need guide and companions for the journey.” (23)

“A paradox of pilgrimage,…, is that we are journeying toward a home we have not seen.”

“So much in life remains uncertain, but our destination does not.” (37)

“This practice of settling debt and writing a will-and indeed the whole enterprise of pilgrimage-flies in the face of our risk-averse culture.” (50)

“Old habits and ingrained ways of thinking tempt us to believe we are better off where we are (or were), even though Jesus beckons us to a better place.” (64)

“I am nothing; I have nothing; I desire nothing but the love of Jesus’ alone.” -Walter Hilton (68)

“‘We all long for [Eden], and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, it gentlest and most humane, is still soaked with the sense of exile.’ The grief that we feel is part of our history, a symptom of our shared humanity. And something would be desperately wrong if we did not long for our lost home.” -quote from Tolkien (121-2)

“Only when we are stripped of all that falsely shores us up can our soul stand naked before Jesus with a pure motive and clear vision. (138)

Phil Cousineau, The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker’s Guide to Making Travel Sacred 

(New York: MJF Books, 1998), 254 pages

I wrote this review in 2010 and am republishing it here.

This book makes a lot of sense to me.  Travel should be so much more than just sightseeing and crossing off places on our bucket lists of sites to see before we die. To me, it is instinctive to learn more about the places I travel in an attempt to connect with the “soul” of the land and the people. 

In this book, Cousineau draws upon a wealth of pilgrimage literature as he encourages his readers to be attentive in their travels. Cousineau seasons his book with stories and quotes that come from the breath of humanity.  He draws upon pilgrims of all ages. Most are religious, but not all. It seems there is an embedded need within our psyche to connect with something deeper. Included in the pilgrims reported on are visits to Jim Morrison’s grave and baseball fans who seek out Ty Cobb’s cleats. Cousineau is familiar with the writings of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhist, and Hindu pilgrims, but he also is knowledgeable about native tribes and the legends of mythic journeys and what they have to tell us about pilgrimage.

What pilgrimage does to us


Pilgrimages change us. They can also bring political changes as Cousineau points to when writing about the “hill of crosses” in Lithuania.  The hill, the site of a Lithuania victory of Sweden, had been an important site for the country since the mid-19th Century. Crosses adored the hill, but after the Soviet take-over in 1917, they removed the crosses. Yet, people regularly replaced the crosses, often by those who travelled many miles and risked their lives. Finally, in 1985, the Soviets stopped bulldozing the crosses and a few years later, Lithuanian students began to protest for independence.  Looking back on his country’s long struggle, one Lithuanian commented on the importance of the Hill of Crosses.  “Just knowing that it was there made the fight for independence much easier.” (44-47)


Cousineau grew up in a family that traveled frequently.  His father felt that travel was good for the mind and his mother thought it was good for the soul. (xv)  Cousineau combines the two perspectives.“Pilgrimage is a journey that moves us from mindless to mindful, from soulless to soulful travel.” (xxiii) The chapters of the book follows a pilgrim’s path: the longing, the call, departure, the pilgrim’s way, the labyrinth, arrival, and returning. He speaks of the pilgrim’s lamp, the tower, the satchel, the well of refreshment, and the need to give gifts and make offerings. I recommend this book and include some quotes to tempt you to read it:

Quotes:


“If you truly want to know the secret of soulful travel, we need to believe that there is something scared waiting to be discovered in virtually every journey.”  (xxii)

Beauty is a ‘by-product of ordinary things,’” quote from Joseph Brodsky (22)

“Questions tune the soul…”  “Ask yourself what mystery is being guarded by your longing.” (24)
The tarot card for a pilgrim is “the fool.” (49)

“’It is not so much what you do,’ wrote Epictetus in his study of happiness, ‘it is how you do it.’” (92)

“The practice of soulful travel is to discover the overlapping point between history and every day life, the way to find the essence of every place…  Curiosity about the extraordinary in the ordinary moves the heart of the travel intent on seeing behind the veil of tourism.”  (121)

“Do not seek to follow the footsteps of the men of old, seek what they sought. –Matssuo Basho” (173)“…savored the melancholy beauty, what the Japanese call sabi, the ‘sigh of the moment’” (176)

A question for my readers

Have you ever taken a pilgrimage? How was it? If you have not taken one, would you be interested?

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Haw River: a short memoir and a book review

Haw River 1975

I pause, standing in the door of the gas station at the edge of Pittsboro, a Coke in one hand and a pack of peanuts in the other. Ripping open the peanuts with my teeth, I shake a few from the bag into my mouth, chasing it with a swig from the bottle as I look out into a gray and dreary February day. 

A sheriff deputy pulls up in his cruiser. I watch as he jumps out of his car, fitting his wide brim hat covered with a plastic rain protection on his head. He heads toward our cars, where my Uncle Larry checks the rope tie-downs on his canoe. 

Stepping out, the screen door slams shut behind me. Dodging mud puddles in the pavement, I head over toward our vehicles to see that the deputy wants.  

“Y’all boys ain’t going to run that river today, are you?” he asks.  

We plan on it,” Larry answers.    

“That ain’t a good idea. We’ve gotten a lot of rain and that river’s angry.”

“We’ll check the gauge before we put in,” Larry assures him. 

 “Well, if y’all boys go down that river, I ain’t gonna go lookin’ for you.” 

“We’re not asking you to,” Larry responds.

The deputy looks at the canoes on the two cars, then looks back at the two of us. Patting his pistol on his hip, he continues, “I ought to save y’all boys lives and shoot some holes in those canoes.” 

I envision him drawing his gun like a deputy from Dodge City, and firing from his hip, ruining my prize possession. Larry wastes no time, responding immediately, “Please sir, don’t do that.”

Paddling the Black River in the Spring of 1975 (photo by Donald McKenzie)

It’d been raining for days and is still drizzling. My dad and brother leave the store and join Larry and I as the deputy leaves. We discuss his concerns. None of us have paddled this river, but Larry has friends who have been down it. He says that as long as the river is at less than 6 inches on the gauge at the bridge, we should be okay. We drive over, parking along the edge of the highway and walk down under the bridge. The river is muddy and shrouded with fog. The waves of the water rushing pass the bridge abutment to which the gauge is attached are above the three foot mark. We decide to not to run the Haw.  

Running the Haw

Two years later, my brother, uncle and I would run the Haw River and would do it many more times, but always in a kayak.  It was an exciting in a closed boat when the water was three feet on the gauge. At the first big rapid, Gabriel’s Bend, the river flowed hard into a rock wall and made a ninety degree turn to the left. In high water, one would have to punch through an eight foot  standing wave as soon as the left turn was executed, an obstacle that would have swamped and swallowed an open canoe.

What we did that day…

On this day, in 1975, at a time there were few river guides, we looked at a map and decided to run a section of the Rocky River which paralleled the Haw about a dozen miles to the south.  We had no idea as to what we’d face, but the river didn’t look nearly as angry as the Haw.  We made quick time out of the six or eight mile run. It was evident we could not have made the run at a lower level as there were many rock gardens where the river, even at this height, was only six inches deep. 

Toward the end of the run, in sight of the 15-501 bridge, we had to cut across a rapid in order to stay in the main channel.  I was in the bow and my dad, who’d never paddled fast water, was in the stern. Suddenly the boat stopped, and water poured in.  I looked back at Dad and he was standing in the middle of the river, in knee deep water, holding the boat. He tried to crawl back in, but as he did, I was flipped out.  We were both floating through the rapid.  I turned around so I was facing down river and pulled my legs up, holding tight to my paddle. It was quite chilly, but at the bottom of the rapid, we were able to beach and dump the water from the boat. 

Dad and I paddled the last couple hundred yards in humbled disgrace. 

Coming off the Waccamaw River, 1981 (Photo by Philip Morgan)
I haven’t found my photos of the Haw, yet. There were never very many in that pre-digital age.

Down Along the Haw

Anne Melyn Cassebaum, Down Along the Haw: The History of a North Carolina River (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2011), 229 pages including maps, photos, notes and index. 

When I learned there was a book on the Haw River, it went on my to-be-read list. Cassebaum is a professor emerita at Elon University (which I still thought was a college), where she taught environmental and American literature along with writing.  In this book, she explores the Haw River from many different viewpoints. 

The history of the river

The Haw is an old river that cuts through the rock of a wide fall line. Native Americans fished in the river. Early colonists set up mills along the river and its tributaries. The river plays a role in the ending of the Revolution. Because it was at flood stage during the closing days of the Civil War, it formed a natural boundary between Union and Confederate lines. In the years after the Civil war, the river became home for a large number of textile mills. During this time, the river would take on the hue of the fabric being dyed. It was a polluted mess. After the Clean Water Act of1972, the river slowly cleaned itself. In the 70s, kayakers and canoers began to flock to its waters (see my above piece on my experience on the Haw). Then, in the 80s, with the closing of the B. Everett Jordan dam, named for a US Senator from North Carolina who owned a textile mill along the Haw, the lower part of the Hall was submerged into Jordan Lake.

Other topics explored

In this book, Cassabaum explores the full length of the river, from its headwaters to the confluence with the Deep River to form the Cape Fear. She covers both human and natural history, along with inserting her own stories of paddling and exploring the river. We meet authors who connections to the river’s headwaters including Catholic priest and environmentalist, Thomas Berry, and slave poet, George Moses Horton. Tales of paranormal experiences and haunted islands are shared. We learn of how the river has been “cleaned up” but how threats continue as lawns and agricultural lands pump more and more nutrients into the waters of the Haw. Having last paddled the Haw in the early 1980s, before the floodgates of the B. Everett Jordan dam were closed, I was glad to know that one of my favorite rapids (Gabriel’s Bend) was still available for paddling. Sadly, the Pipeline has long been flooded by the waters of Jordan Lake. 

Recommendation

I appreciated the opportunity to learn more about my home state and a river I once knew. For anyone interested in rivers or North Carolina history, check this book out.

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About This Life

Barry Lopez, About This Life: Journeys on the Threshold of Memory (New York: Random House/Vintage Books, 1999), 273 pages. 

This is a wonderful collection of essays.  I listened to an abridged edition as well as read the essays. The Audible version of the book was wonderful because the late Lopez read his work. 

The collection (in the book and on audible) begins with a memoir essay titled “A Voice.” In this wonderful piece, Barry tells the story of his young life, from his early years in New York, to moving and living much of his school years in California, and then back to New York for a few years before he headed off to Notre Dame. During this time, Barry experienced the world (often through his mother’s husbands and boyfriends). He even gets a first-hand view (although a somewhat skewed view) of what the writing life is about as he meets John Steinbeck at a summer camp. Steinbeck’s boys were at the same camp. I came away with the appreciation that Lopez never lost his childhood curiosity and these early experiences helped him develop a voice that has made him a beloved storyteller. This is the second book I’ve read of Lopez. Many years ago, I read River Notes. 

One of the unifying themes running through these essays is the journey. While many of the essays highlight travels to faraway places (Hokkaido, the Arctic, Antarctica, Galapagos), others focus on the journey itself. In “Flight,” he jets around as a passenger on air freight planes while collecting information for a story. One day in Asia, the next Europe or South Africa, and then he’s back in the States. The whirlwind of travel informs the reader about modern commerce, but we also see how Lopez was intensely interested in everything, from walking the streets of Seoul in the early morning hours to learning from the pilots. 

The essay “Apologia,” focuses on bits of travel around the United States as he stops to remove dead animals from the highway. This is not just a good deed as he has interest in each of the animals. 

In “Speed,” he drives his brother’s Corvette from Chicago to the Amish Country of Northern Indiana, taking a friend who is scouting out locations to film a documentary. But the shooting location is a side-story. The main story centers on driving this muscle car on rural backroads. I found it intriguing that one known as an environmental writer would enjoy speeding in a Corvette, but then remembered stories of Edward Abbey tossing beer cans out of the window of this truck. 

The essay, “Murder” finds Lopez driving from Sante Fe to a summer job in Wyoming. In Moab, Utah, he meets a woman who asks him to kill her husband. He quickly flees, racing through the sagebrush of the America West. 

Another common theme About This Life are the skills displayed by others. Whether it is the building and flying of airplanes in “Flight,” or the firing of pottery in a dragon kiln in “Effleurage: The Stroke of Fire,” or the gracious naturalist author in Hokkaido, Lopez appreciates talent. He also is constantly aware of his natural setting, whether it’s hearing the occasional “staccato cry of a pileated woodpecker” or the change in the air in the summer of ’76 in New York. As the nation celebrated the bicentennial, his mother was dying.  Lopez always catches the details.

“The American Geographies” was my favorite essay in the collection. Part incitement of our lack of knowledge of geographies, Lopez acknowledges the “local nature” of geography. Few people have the time or opportunity to full appreciate the diversity of America’s landscape. He invites us to be more intimate with our surroundings, knowing the geology and the natural world from firsthand experience. 

Now I want to pull River Notes off the bookcase and reread it along with other books by Lopez. 

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The Carroll County Courthouse Tragedy

Ronald W. Hall, The Carroll County Courthouse Tragedy (2013 printing, Hillsville VA: Carroll County Historical Society,1998). 272 pages including sources and a few b&w photos. 

This is another book that I’ve read in order to learn about my new locale. In March 1912, there was a shooting at the Carroll County, Courthouse in Hillsville, Virginia. When all the smoke cleared, there were five dead, seven wounded. Two were executed and a number went to prison for their part in the tragedy. For a while, Hillsville was at the top of the nation’s newspaper. It would take another tragedy, the sinking of the Titanic, to remove the focus from Carroll County. 

The shooting

The shooting began after the jury had found the defendant, Floyd Allen, guilty of forcefully releasing two prisoners (his sister’s sons) from law enforcement as they were bringing the prisoners back from Mt. Airy, North Carolina. The sentence would have had Floyd do time. Supposedly Floyd said, as the Sheriff and the Clerk of the Court approached to take him into custody, “I’m not going.” The shooting then started. There is still question as to what happened and who shot first. Was it Floyd’s son Claude? His brother, Sidna? Or the Clerk of Court Dexter Goad, who seems to have first pulled a gun?  In the confusion there was a lot of shooting. Floyd, with a concealed pistol, began to shoot, but only after the mayhem began. When it was over the judge and the sheriff laid dead. Floyd had been seriously wounded. Those involved on the Allen side ran away. Some later turned themselves in. Others were captured. Two of whom, Sidna and his nephew Wesley, in Des Moines, Iowa where they were starting a new life. 

What led up to the shooting

There are many questions as to what led up to this event, but it seems to have begun with Wesley Edwards getting a “red ear of corn” at a corn shucking. To find the “prized ear” meant he could kiss any girl there. The girl he chose to kiss led to a later fight at a church and resulted in a warrant for his arrest. The author also hints there were issues between the Democratic Allens and the Republicans who made up much of the “courthouse crowd.” If that’s the case, those against the Allens saw a way to get back at them.  Family loyalty also played a role as the Allen/Edwards family stuck together to protect the Edward boys and later Floyd. 

After the Edwards were charged with assault, they fled across the North Carolina border to Mt. Airy. The sheriff in Hillsville had the boys arrested there and handed over to his deputies at the state line. However, no extradition order was issued. As the deputies were taking the Edwards back to Hillsville, Floyd “released” the boys from custody. There are even questions as to what happened here. Did Floyd force their release or were they released into his custody? After all, he agreed he’d have the boys in court? Floyd even paid their bail. 

newspaper copy from the Carroll County Historical Society website

The aftermath

The police of 1912 were not exactly professional. Officers often had a violent past. And forensic science was almost non-existent, at least in rural areas. No one secured the courthouse as a crime scene. Soon afterwards, folks dug bullets buried in the walls as souvenirs. Such tampering hindered the ability to link bullets to the guns fire or the direction from which they came.

With the death of the Sheriff and so many of the Allens on the loose, the state sent help. It also hired Baldwin-Felt hired detectives (a group like the Pinkertons). These mostly came from recent labor disputes in coal country and their mannerism didn’t endure them to anyone, it seems. Some of the detectives bragged about how many miners they’d killed. As if entitled, they took what they wanted or needed. In one case, after having ridden their horses to death, two of them took a man’s mules from his plow in the middle of the field.

After the shooting, because of the number of Allens in Carroll County, they housed the prisoners in Roanoke. Their trials took place in Wytheville. Convicted on capital murder, both Claude and Floyd were sentenced to death. Other members of the family received long sentences. There was a massive effort for the governor to commute the sentences of Claude and Floyd, including a petition with over 100,000 signatures. But the governor refused. The execution of father and soon occurred in 1913. The remaining prisoners received pardons (from a different governor) in the 1920s.  

My recommendations

This is an interesting story of a time long past. There are still questions to be answered, but they probably never will be answered. The author is honest and at many times in the book admits we won’t know for sure what happened. Hall has done an outstanding job researching this subjectt.

I enjoyed the book even though it took me a while to get into it. The book begins with character sketches of the various parties involved. Not knowing all the details, I wasn’t sure what to do with this information. However, once the story began, it flowed better. This story could have been written in a Creative Non-Fiction genre. Doing so, the “opening details” could easily be incorporated into the larger narrative. Also, there were places where the author seemed to go out onto a tangent, such as explaining how electrocution became a means of capital punishment used on Floyd and Claude. This sideline didn’t add to the story. That said, I am glad to have read the book and I’ve learned more about this area. 

From the Carroll County Historical Society website
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Where Goodness Still Grows

  

Amy Peterson, Where Goodness Still Grows: Reclaiming Virtue in an Age of Hypocrisy (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2020), 197 pages including notes.

Fifteen years ago, I read Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue by Paul Woodruff. Since then, I’ve read it several times and have spent considerable energy thinking about virtues. Perhaps this itch drew me to this book. In this age when truth seems so elusive, we need to have a conversation about virtue and how to ground society in that which is good.  

In her Introduction, Peterson writes about growing up in an evangelical Christian home in the later part of the 20th Century. As a teenager, she watched as church leaders lambasted President Clinton as unfit for office. As a child, she was nurtured with stories of virtue collected by William Bennett. Later, she served a missionary stint in Southeast Asia. But she began questioning what she had been taught. The watershed moment was the election of Donald Trump and the flipflop of evangelical leaders who accepted or willingly forgave Trump’s behavior. She began to question if those who claimed to be virtuous in the 90s were only doing so as a way to “preserve power and keep everyone in place.” This soul-searching led Peterson to “reimage” a world built on Biblical virtues.  And, it appears, her faith has become stronger and grounded more firmly in the Biblical tradition.

What a virtuous world might look like:

Lament

Where Goodness Still Grows is Peterson’s attempt to outline what a virtuous world might look like. She explores nine spheres, as she tells her own story as well as digging deep into the Biblical story and the story of others. Lament is the first area explored. Having been steeped in “praise services,” lament becomes a useful tool for crying out to God for what is wrong in our world.

Kindness

The second area explore is kindness. She breaks apart the word that has evolved from an Old English concept of maintaining one’s position along the economic ladder. This leads her to come to an uncomfortable understanding about how her parents and grandparent’s “kindness” provided her with a status not enjoyed by many within minority groups. Her Biblical understanding of kindness requires her to see God’s image in everyone and may possibly require a redistribution wealth. 

Hospitality

Peterson explores includes hospitality, where she questions how evangelicals can be so against immigration. 

Purity and Modesty

She challenges the evangelical church’s link to purity and modesty only to sexuality. She finds no support for this within scripture. the Bible ties purity to the Temple. Modesty is often about not flaunting wealth. By linking modesty to how women dress, is to miss the Biblical view and also to create a low standard for men who need to have women dress themselves in a modest manner to keep their “animal instincts’ in check. 

Authenticity

Peterson recalls her desire to be authentic. Within the church she grew up in, praying spontaneously was viewed as authentic. Rote prayers were inauthentic. As she matured (and later found a home within the Episcopal Church), she understood a different view of authenticity. Writing about authenticity, she comes back to the evangelical support of Trump. She believes his ability to be spontaneous and having fresh ideas drew evangelicals. Instead, Peterson ties Biblical authenticity to being a disciple of Christ, clothed with the virtues of Colossians 3:12. However, this does not mean that one can’t be authentic if one isn’t a believer.God’s image allows us the ability to be authentic. At the end of the chapter, she makes the case that spontaneity shouldn’t be tied to authenticity within the church. “Authentic Christians” practice daily the role given. We are sinners, “saved by and growing in grace.” 

Love and Hope

Another areas Peterson explores is love. She finds love often contradicted in evangelism training that tended, in her experience, to objectify others. Another area is discernment. We cannot logically prove everything. There must be room for mystery. Finally, she investigates hope through an extended metaphor of raising chickens, which gives her a whole new understanding on Jesus’ lament on how he’d like to be a mother hen and protect Jerusalem under his wings. As a mother, this image is powerful for Peterson. Her chickens and other “homesteading” projects helps her understand our humanity. There is hope in being “gathered like children under a mother’s wing.”

My recommendation

In her introduction, Peterson suggests that her work isn’t the “definitive answer about virtue.” But she hopes it will raise questions. This she does. Peterson also leaves those of us who have never brought into a more simplistic view of the world as presented by fundamentalist Christianity with a little more hope. Hopefully, her book will encourage Christians to think about truth and what God wants for our world. If you read this book, I’m curious as to your take on it.

Reviews of other good books on similar topics:

Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies
John Kasich, It’s Up to Us
P. M. Forni, The Civility Solution: What to Do When People are Rude

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Wrapping Up 2020 (my reading summary for the year)

The “Christmas Puzzle” at the house which was completed a little over an hour before midnight on New Year’s Eve

2020 has come to an end. It was a year that we’ll not forget. Personally, it didn’t rise up to the trauma of 2016 (when I ruptured my quad-tendon, was in the hospital with sepsis following a prostate biopsy, and dealt with a tropical storm and later Hurricane Matthew), but it was still a terrible year. Stuck at home with a pandemic and unable to escape from the political rhetoric made for some long days. Vacations were cancelled. I still haven’t been to Fenway Park (which was scheduled for mid-June). And we enter 2021 with much of the same going on. The pandemic is raging and the political rhetoric hasn’t tone down. Maybe the best thing to do is to escape into a puzzle or a good book.

The puzzle above was done in our house between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. It is of Shakespeare’s London and you can see snippets from 16 or so plays within the puzzle, along with others from his era (Queen Elizabeth I, John Donne, Sir Walter Raleigh, Francis Drake). It wasn’t the easiest puzzle but a icy rain on Christmas Eve that turned into snow meant there was no reason to get out, so time was put into finding the pieces.

2020 Reading Summary:

Number of books: 53 of which 37 were reviewed in my blog
Categories: History, Biography and Memoir: 18; Bible, Theology, Church: 11, Poetry: 7; Fiction: 6

A few insights into my reading:

-I have now read the first four volumes of Robert Caro’s biography of Lyndon Johnson. Like a lot of others who are interested in this man and this period of history, I am impatiently waiting for his fifth volume (the fourth just got us through John’s first year in the White House after Kennedy’s death).
-Four of the authors I’ve read are good friends and I have met another six of the authors.
-With the racial troubles our country faces, I found myself reading several African American theologians and a new history of the 1898 Wilmington (NC) racial troubles (or atrocity). One of the books on my TBR pile deals with the Tulsa race war.
-I am spending more and more time with poetry (and I alway read books of poetry at least twice).
-It appears I need to read more fiction!

My favorite books:

In my opinion the best book I read during the year was Andy Rooney’s My War, followed by S. C. Gwynne’s biography of Stonewall Jackson. This is my second book by Gwynne (I read his biography of Quanah Parker, Empire of the Summer Moon, in 2017). If God is willing, I’ll read whatever else he publishes. My favorite fiction book was Steven Pressfield’s Gates of Fire, which is a historical fiction account of the Battle of Thermopylae. If you don’t remember that battle, don’t worry. Ii occurred a few years before our time…

Here’s My listing of books read (posted by the order I finished the book), along with links to those I reviewed:

James Clavell, Tai-Pan
Patrick McManus, Kerplunk!
David Swift, Swift: New and Collected Poems
David Sedaris, Theft by Findings: Diaries
Chad Faries, Drive Me Out of My Mind
Marcia McFee, Think Like a Filmmaker: Sensory-Rich Worship Design for Unforgettable Messages
Daniel Okrent, The Guarded Gates: Bigotry, Eugenics, and the Law that Kept Two Generations of Jews, Italians, and Other Europeans Out of America
W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking, Like War: The Weaponization of Social Media
Andy Rooney, My War
John Leith, From Generation to Generation
John Leith, Introduction to the Reformed Faith (2nd read, first read in 1989)
John Leith, The Reformed Imperative (2nd read, first read in 1993)
S. C. Gwynne, Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson
David Hallerstan, Summer of ‘49
Laura Davenport, Dear Vulcan: Poems
N. T. Wright, Surprised by Scripture
P. M. Formi, The Civility Solution: What to Do when People are Rude
David Foster Wallace, This is Water
Eric Goodman, Cuppy and Stew: The Bombing of Flight 629, A Love Story 
Paul Willis, Rosing from the Dead: Poems
Nancy Koster, Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Spiritual Life
Harlan Hanbright, The Idiat and the Odd-yssey
Steven Pressfield, Gates of Fire: The Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae
Dave Moyer, Life and Life Only
Rick Wilson, Running Against the Devil
Michael P. Cohen, Granite and Grace: Seeking the Heart of Yosemite
Alice Outwater, Water: A Natural History
Richard Davids, The Man Who Moved a Mountain
Gary Snyder, Rip Rap and Cold Mountain Poems
Nancy Duante, Slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations
Nancy Bevilaqua, The Gospel of the Throw Away Daughter: Poems
David Zucchino, Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy  
James Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree
Robert Caro, The Years of Lyndon B. Johnson: The Passage of Power
Myrlene Hamilton, All I Need to Know About Ministry I Learned from Fly Fishing
Chrys Frey, Tsunami Crimes
David Lee, Mine Tailings: Poems
John Barry, The Great Influenza
Jesse Cole, Find Your Yellow Tux
Ralph Wood, Contending for the Faith: The Church’s Engagement with Culture
Craig Barnes, Diary of a Pastor’s Soul
Tim Conroy, Theologies of Terrain (Poems)  
Joseph Klaits, Servants of Satan: The Age of the Witch Hunt
Robert Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent
Esau McCaulley,  Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope
Nancy Bevilaqua, A Rough Deliverance: Collected Poems 1863-2013
Aaron McAlexander, Shine on Mayberry Moon
Billy Beasley, The Girl in the River
Alyce McKenzie, Novel Preaching: Tips from Top Writers on Crafting Creative Sermons 
Gary Schmidt, Orbiting Jupiter
Aaron McAlexander, The Last One Leaving Mayberry
Jim Casada, editor, Carolina Christmas: Archibald Rutledge Enduring Holiday Tales

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Notes on my reading during the past month


Gary D. Schmidt, Orbiting Jupiter 

(Boston, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015), 183 pages. 

This young adult novel is about Joseph. A teenage father, he’s sent to a foster family who own a farm in rural Maine.

The family has one other boy, Jack. After getting off to a shaky start, the two become like brothers, watching out for the other. The story centers around what happened to Joseph in his past. When he was 13, he fell in love with Madeline. While Joseph was from a broken family that economically lived on the margin, Madeline’s family was well off. When she became pregnant, they sent her away where she gave birth to a daughter she named “Jupiter.” The planet plays a prominent role in the story as Joseph had pointed it out to Madeline and he often looks for it in the sky. The story’s conclusion occurs around Joseph attempt to find his daughter.

Upon Joseph’s release from Stone Mountain, a juvenile detention center, he find himself with chores to do on a farm. He works beside Jack and makes friends with Dahalia, one of the orneriest cows in the barn. Thereafter, he’s the one who milks her. At school, he struggles with some teachers who think he shouldn’t be in school, but others see promise in him. Joseph is exceptionally strong in math and a prospect for the track team. The story occurs in winter. Schmidt captures the the cold of Maine. When milking, the boys lean in on the cows to capture their warmth.The frozen landscape makes the river dangerous, but also creates an opportunity to ice skate on the family’s pond.

Christmas is especially meaningful for Joseph as he attends church with the family and learns about Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father. He also learns of Mary’s early age. While Schmidt doesn’t mention it, it’s traditionally assumed the Virgin Mary was 14 when she gave birth. This is Madeline’s age when she gives birth to Jupiter. I won’t spoil the ending. However, this book is sad, and I found tears in my eyes. Yet, there’s hope in the child, Jupiter. 

Alyce McKenzie, Novel Preaching: Tips from Top Writers on Crafting Creative Sermons

(Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2010), 180 pages. 

As a “working preacher” who has also taught homiletics on a graduate level, I try to read at least one book a year on the craft, along with another book on writing. This year I chose this book, written by a professor of homiletics at Perkins School of Theology, a Methodist seminary in Texas. 

Writer’s Conference

This book is divided into three parts. The first two deal with the practice of preaching, where the author attempts to provide the information in a creative manner. In the first part (which is what I thought the book was about from its title), she images being at the Breadloaf Writer’s Conference. Taking her readers along with her, we go from conversation to conversation with fiction authors. As we overhear their discussions, we gain insight into how preachers might us some of the tools of authors to engage his or her congregations in their sermons. We learn about noticing and being aware of what’s important in the text and in our sermons. McKenzie draws from a number of authors including Annie Dillard, Natalie Goldberg, Frederick Buechner, Stephen King, Isabelle Allende, Toni Morris. We gain insight into character, plot, and shape along with picking up ideas of how to journal and to capture such insights into the human condition. 

A Cooking Show

The second part of the book involves a cooking show. Here, she draws from well-known (and some not so well known, at least not for me) professors and writers of homiletics.  Each one teaches how they approach a sermon, and the reader gets to pick up a recipe card at the end of their presentation. By the time I got to this part of the book, I was a little over with the cuteness of McKenzie’s writings. The writer’s conference wasn’t quite as overblown as this imaginary journey through some kind of convention with all kinds of “chefs,” a few of whom I’ve met, many of whom I’ve read and heard lecture. Those I knew before reading this book include Charles Rice, Fred Craddock, Tom Long, David Buttrick, Richard Eslinger, Henry Mitchell, Paul Scott Wilson, Nora Tubbs Tisdale, Justo Gonzalez, Eugene Lowry and Mike Graves. To her credit, McKenzie draws from across Western Cultures including African American, Korean American, men and women, Protestants and one Catholic example. 

Best part of the book–Sermons

I found myself wondering about those not included: Tex Sample (who focuses on the language of the working class), Cornelius Plantinga, Jr (who has written about preaching and literature long before this book’s release), Robert Smith, Jr (an African American who has strong grasp of doctrinal preaching), and Haddon Robinson. The latter really surprised me as his Biblical Preaching may be one of the most popular books on preaching and is the “bible” of expository preaching.  

The final section of the book was my favorite. The section consists of a number of creative sermons written by McKenzie. Who’d ever think of angels as UPS workers (after all, angels deliver messages from God which ties into the packages delivered by a UPS driver. I’ll come back to these sermons, I’m sure. McKenzie is able to touch on her audiences fear and concerns and offer a helpful word of reassurance from scripture. I would have preferred to have read more sermons and less of her “tidbits” of information from authors and homiletic professors. 

Caroline Christmas: Archibald Rutledge’s Enduring Holiday Stories

edited by Jim Casada (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2010), 225 pages. 

Archibald Rutledge was the poet laureate of South Carolina for decades. He was a well-known poet and author writing about nature and hunting during the first half of the 20th Century. Having read several of his works beforehand, I waited till a week before Christmas to read his collection of “Christmas stories.” This book was a gift from my staff in Georgia. 

While the book is filled with Rutledge stories, Jim Casada selected the stories included within the collection. Casada also provides insight into when the selection was written, the circumstances around the story, and where it had previously been published. Many of these stories have been published multiple times. First, in magazines (especially Field and Stream, Outlook, and Outdoor Life), and later in collections published by Rutledge. 

The book is divided up into six parts. The first section all deals with Christmas stories at Hampton Plantation. Rutledge spent thirty years teaching at Middlebury Academy in Pennsylvania. During these decades, he would always come home for Christmas. In one story, he writes about catching a train during a blizzard up north and arriving on the Atlantic Coast Line early the next morning in the sunny South. His brother meets him at the train station in Charleston and two hours later they’re hunting. Such descriptions brought back memories of me, as a young seminary student, catching a train from Pittsburgh during a snowstorm, heading south to visit my sister the week before Christmas in Florida. When the train arrived in Savannah early in the morning, wearing shorts, I went for a walk along the platform. 

A Natural Christmas

The second part of the book, titled “A Natural Christmas,” has selections where Rutledge describes walking in the forest and fields of coastal South Carolina during the Christmas break. Known as a hunter, we are provided a glimpse of Rutledge’s vast knowledge of wildlife, especially birds. While most of these stories are about watching birds, he mentions dove hunting. During such a hunt, in 1896, he shot a bird twice the size of the others. It turned out to be a passenger pigeon. Before Rutledge’s time, these birds flew in vast numbers that would darken the sky. But even by the time Rutledge came along, they were rarely seen. This story was published in 1911. That was just three years before the last of passenger pigeon died in a Cincinnati zoo. I find it interesting the world Rutledge describes had not yet been impacted by chemicals like DDT. Such chemicals have been destructive to birdlife. Reading his prose is to be taken back to a more primeval world. 

Deer Hunting

Deer hunting is the focus of the third part of the book. Such hunting on the coastal plain is done with shotguns. In telling the dangers of using rifles in such flat terrain, he draws on a familiar form of transportation of his day. “Express bulletins don’t make no local stops,” he humorously notes. Around Hamilton, deer hunting was also done with dogs who would chase the deer out of the bays and swamps. While I never hunted with dogs, I did go a few times with my father. I was not yet old enough to carry a gun. We were stationed along a remote road. We froze while waiting and listening for the dogs to drive the deer out way. While my dad did shoot several deer, he never did when he had my brother and me in tow. Again, these stories are filled with wisdom and insight into hunting. My favorite of his deer hunting stories was the last. In this story, he prepared to take his son hunting when he returned from Europe after World War Two. 

Other Game

There is a small section of stories about hunting other wild game, especially turkey and quail. He mentions squirrel, rabbit, duck, and ‘coon hunting, but his stories are mainly limited to deer, quail and turkey. There is also a very short selection of seasonal poems. Casada feels his poetry hasn’t “aged” as well as his prose. One of the three poems, “Christmas Eve on the Rapidan (1863)” was set om the Civil War. Rutledge’s father was one of the youngest colonel’s in the Confederate army. The last section of the book has a number of recipes. 

Rutledge is a master at describing the land in which he’s hunting and the “chase” of the deer. His stories often contain humor, and the hunter doesn’t always come away with dinner. On one occasion he notes that after a week, they were still eating pork. In another story, he writes about a turkey hunter who followed a bird into a tree. Moving closer on Christmas Eve, as the light drained from the sky, he saw two dark figures in a tree. Not able to determine which was the bird and which was a clump of mistletoe, he fired and guessed wrong. The bird flew as a chunk of mistletoe fell to the ground. He picked it up to carry home for decoration. I also remember shooting mistletoe from a tree. It was an easy way to harvest the seasonal green, however the white berries often don’t survive the fall.

Rutledge and African Americans

 These stories are dated by Rutledge use of the term Negro for African Americans. While they were no longer slaves, they were still bound to the land and held a subservient role. During deer hunts, white hunters were stationed around a swamp or bay, while African American men led the chase. Using dogs, they’d go into the swamps to flush out the deer. One has to remember that Rutledge is writing from another age. While he often speaks highly of African Americans as a race, especially his childhood friend Prince, there is a separation. He lived in the big house and they lived in the shacks around the plantation. These stories were all written in the first half of the last century. At the time, long before the Civil Rights Movement, Rutledge saw no problems with such relationship. Anyone reading this book today needs to understand time has changed and realize Rutledge was blind to such injustices. 

Aaron McAlexander, The Last One to Leave Mayberry

(Stonebridge Press, 2011), 219 pages, a few b&w photos.  

McAlexander’s family is from Mayberry even though he grew up in Meadows of Dan, which is located three miles north of Mayberry. In this book, he along with others from his family tell of their ancestor’s moving to this hardscrabble mountain terrain.

Today, there’s not much in Mayberry. There’s the church and there’s the store. Even in the good old days, there wasn’t much to Mayberry. The store also had a Post Office, but that closed in the 30s. There was a tannery and a number of diaries along with a school. Although the community is sparse, it created many good memories that McAlexander mines to create this collection of short stories. 

If you read this book, you’ll learn about trout fishing, the first telephone in the community, and the depression (that Mayberry seemed to experience long before the rest of the country). There are stories about men going off to World War 2 and a training flight over the mountains that crashed in the dark hours of morning in 1945. You’ll learn about a “suck-egg dog” (beside being a nasty term for one’s enemies). You’ll learn of the influence of the Blue Ridge Parkway, which divided farms, and about a blacksmith who became a Presbyterian preacher, who occupied the pulpit I currently attempt to fill. You’ll learn of mysteries that still remain mysterious. You’ll read about people who make a break for the West, only to come back home. McAlexander himself headed off as a physics professor, but upon retirement maintains a cottage in the community in which so many of his relatives reside (many of whom are below ground).  This is a delightful book with good stories. 

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What I’ve been reading lately: 3 Reviews

Billy Beasley, The Girl in the River: The Grief of a Widower, The Hope of a Child (Abbeville, SC: Moonshine Publishing, 2020), 226 pages.  

Billy Beasley tells a great story. Several of the characters in his first novel, set in the late 1960s, reappear here. We learn what happens to them fifty years later, as they play a supporting role to Clint Hurley, the protagonist of this book. A simple man, Clint finds himself wooed by Allie, a younger woman. They marry, have a family, and a near perfect relationship. Then Allie dies. Clint, who always assumed he’d be the first to go, finds himself alone except for his dog. He moves to a cabin on the Northeast Cape Fear River where, on the first Christmas after Allie’s death, he and his dog rescue a girl who’d fallen out of her kayak into the river. The girl had run away from her foster parents. As the cliché goes, no good deed goes unpunished. Soon Clint finds himself charged with child abuse and his dog, Josie, fights for her life. But everything works out. The closing epilogue, written thirteen years later by Jasmin, the girl who rescued from the river, tells of Clint and his dog’s death. They are both old and die together.

Evaluation

In a way, the story fits into the old ars moriendi (art of dying) genre. Clint shows his family and friends (and readers) how to have a “good death.” In another fashion, the story reads like a Hallmark Christmas movie.  We have a log cabin, snow, special Christmas memories, and fires in the hearth and firepits out back. Christmas is an important theme as it is on Christmas that Allie dies. A year later, on Christmas, Jasmin floats into Clint’s life and saves him. For those who love dog stories, this book is also for you. The book also deals with race relations, another topic that Billy addressed in his first novel. 

This book is a fast read. Billy writes about things he loves. Sports (especially Duke basketball), dogs (especially Australian Cattle Dogs), the Bible, and church. The book shows the possibility of love and reconciliation, something the world needs desperately these days.  

Personal Connection to Author

Billy often puts into his stories people he knows. The doctor, who treated Clint’s heart attack, was Nicky Pipkin. This doctor shares a name with a friend of both of us, Nicky was a heart surgeon. In 2018, I officiate at Nicky’s funeral, just a few days before Christmas. I met Billy and Nicky at the beginning of the fourth grade at Bradley Creek Elementary School, shortly after my family moved to the Wilmington area. 

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M. Craig Barnes, Diary of a Pastor’s Soul: The Holy Moments in a Life of Ministry (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2020), 235.

Written as a weekly diary, the novel begins in July as the pastor decides to retire the following June. While fictionalized, there is little doubt that many of these stories came from Barnes life and the lives of other pastors. In this book, one gets to see into a soul of a pastor. You see how much of ministry is mundane. However, there are also those special times when parishioners invite ministers into special times of their lives.

In this book you will see: 

  • The pastor’s struggle within his own family as well as confessions of things that didn’t work out as planned.
  • Wrestling with what to tell to a congregation, including informing them on his prostate cancer.
  • The difficult decisions about staff and how sometimes the pastor finds themselves in a no-win situation. 
  • The hurt felt by betrayal of members of a congregation who move elsewhere, often give false reasons for the move. 
  • The pain pastors feel over the death of parishioners.
  • How parishioners attempt to pull pastors into awkward situations, such as attempting to use the pastor to encourage a son to go to a particular college. 

At the end of the year, it’s over. There is a retirement party and its time to move on. Not everything wraps up neatly. 

Evaluation

This is a very honest novel. I recommend it for anyone wanting to know what it is like to be in ministry. I have read most of Barnes book and have enjoyed them all. His book, When God Interrupts, is my favorite. I have probably handed out numerous copies of this book to those battling cancer over the years. When God Interrupts was written shortly after Barnes survived a bout with cancer. All his books contain significant theological and pastoral insights. 

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Aaron McAlexander, Shine on Mayberry Moon (Columbia, SC: Stonebridge Press, 2018), 221 pages. 

McAlexander grew up in Mayberry. While he found his way off the mountain and into the halls of academia (spending his working years as a physics professor), he always considered Mayberry his home. In addition to some physics texts, he has written many books set in this area, several of which have gone through multiple printings. 

Shine on Mayberry Moon is about moonshine. There used to be a lot of moonshine made in this area (there was even legal distilleries in the area before prohibition). McAlexander provides the reader with a history of moonshine, along with many humorous stories. We learn about all kinds of things that might go into the mash. Of course, corn is essential (especially sprouted corn to help the fermentation). But if you want to speed up the fermentation, you add sugar which in times (like during the Second World War) could be hard to get. Sometimes moonshiners, who tended to be practical folk, found other means to make their mash. Cow, hog, and chicken feed were often added to the mix.  And you can also use things like apples, which are abundant in the fall of the year. 

In these stories we see how people reacted to the manufacture and (limited) trade in illegal spirits. Some looked the other way, while others were teetotalers who despised the practice. While this area has often been poor, there are times it has experienced an economic boon, such as during the Depression with two government projects: a dam for Danville, VA and the Blue Ridge Parkway. With many workers moving into the area, the local entrepreneurs found ways to satisfy needs. One story tells about a wife discovered there is a house of ill repute operating near the dam construction site. Taking matters into her own hands, she gathers up some dry brush and set the building ablaze. Customers and working women in various stage of dress flee.

McAlexander has a chapter on running moonshine. This wasn’t done much from Mayberry as the ‘shine distilled for local consumption. Sheriffs and revenuers didn’t mess as much with small-scale operators as long as they weren’t marketing it to a large area and made a product that didn’t cause anyone to get sick.  He suggests that some of the legend of running moonshine, which was supposedly a training ground for stock car drivers, was probably just a legend. Of course, some illegal liquors were transported out of the area. It was that most wasn’t hauled in fast cars. McAlexander comments on “Thunder Road,” the movie which helped promote this legend.” While I’ve not seen the movie, the directors undoubtedly didn’t think enough of the audience’s wisdom. They kept changing the year of the car used in the chase scenes. While he suggests it’s not a good movie, I’m curious about it. However, I don’t think I could tell the difference between a 1950 and a 51 or 52 Ford. 

The author suggests there are few if any stills burning in these hills today. Why would someone take the legal risk when you buy cheap liquor for less than it would cost you to make. 

Evaluation

This book will give the reader some insight into mountain life in the early and mid-20th Century. The stories are entertaining and often humorous. I recommend it. When I move into an area, I always try to read and learn as much as I can about the local community and culture. It’s for that reason I picked up this book, written by one of the members of the Mayberry Church which I serve as a pastor. 

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Reading as Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope

Esau McCaulley, Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope (Downer’s Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2020), 198 pages including a discussion guide, bibliography, scriptural index and index.

McCaulley provides an interesting insight into the struggles facing African American theologians today. Coming from an evangelical tradition, he quickly notes the failure of evangelicalism for those of his race. He acknowledges that most black churches accept the four pillars of evangelicalism (a born-again experience, missionary efforts, high regard for Scripture, and emphasis on the atoning sacrifice of Jesus). But, he notes, there are two unwritten pillars among most evangelicals. One is to downplay injustices of the American past. The other is to remain silent on issues of racism and systemic injustice. (10-11)

He also has a problem with progressive Christianity. He sees this movement “weaponizing” African American theologians to support their own positions. Both sides, he believes, “tokenize” Black theologians. He criticizes the evangelical movement use of black evangelical theologians to attack black progressives. While disingenuous, it keeps the evangelical movement from being labeled as racist.

McCaulley argues for an authentic African American theological voice that takes Scripture seriously while addressing the need of community. Citing examples, he notes how slaves first heard the gospel tempered and misused. They were encouraged to be happy with their lot in life. But instead, the Bible’s overarching story of a God who frees people couldn’t be tempered. From this background, African Americans developed their own churches and theological traditions.

McCaulley focuses on the teachings of Paul. Some may suggest that Paul never challenged the slave culture that existed in his time. However, McCaulley cites many places where Paul does challenge the culture even though he (or the early church) was in no position to change it. McCaulley also draws heavily on the Old Testament, especially laws concerning slavery, and the Exodus.

Five of the chapters of the book lay out ideas for a more comprehensive African American theology. One is a theology of policing. McCaulley admits the need for policing but also for it to be done in a manner that supports and not destroy the community. He tells his own story of being stopped by police in high school. He and his friends were forced out of his car and searched for no reason. Such experience is truer for those in his community than in mine. In this chapter, especially as he deals with Romans 13, he balances the way his community and the police need to deal with the fear they both feel for the other.

In another chapter, he looks at how the New Testament supports the need for protests. Blacks are not just to be submissive. They need to work for a vision that is set in the Exodus and Prophetic traditions of the Old Testament and taught by Jesus (and Paul). This is followed up with a chapter on justice.

In a chapter that critiques of many in the African American community who have abandon Christianity (seeing it as a white/European religion), McCaulley makes the case for an African American witness in Scripture. Such tradition continued in the early church which found a stronghold on the African continent. Then, in a final chapter focusing on the need of his community, he explores rage and what should be done with it.

McCaulley finds solace in Scripture. Like his ancestors, he senses that God is on the side of the oppressed. God’s desire is for freedom (real slavery as well as bondage to sin). This is the hope his community needs to move forward. It is the author’s hope that other members of his community will step up as they offer their witness to hope of the gospel. Such a witness doesn’t have to depend on white interpretations but can draw from Scripture and the experiences of his race.

This is a book that needs to be read. I image it will be helpful for those within the African American community. However, even those of us who are of others races should read it to better understand the rage felt by African Americans. Perhaps we can catch a part of their vision of a theology that encompasses all of us.