I saw a review of a book

Context
One of the tasks I perform at my library is looking over the new book lists in our catalog to make sure the items are displaying properly. Our catalog contains reviews of some items and sometimes I read those, even though it's not a necessary component of the task.

This is a quote I read today from the Library Journal review of Lynette Eason's Too Close to Home: "Readers who enjoy romantic suspense authors Suzanne Brockmann and Sandra Brown but who prefer their thrills with a little more conscience and a lot less sex will be thrilled with Eason's new series opener." Eason is classified as a Christian suspense author.

Commentary
I have been neglecting my calling. And as often happens with backsliding, I didn't realize it for a long time. I haven't posted to this blog for two and a half months, not because I haven't been seeing anything (I always see stuff), but because I didn't think I needed to say anything about it.

Here's an example: I was at a funeral visitation last weekend, waiting outside while a rosary was being said for the deceased. Some of the other people outside were making fun of the rosary. Yes, you read that correctly. At a funeral, there were people making fun of the rosary being said for the departed. Anyway, I didn't know anyone else who was around, so I didn't say anything to them about this appalling lack of respect. I figured it wouldn't do any good.

And this morning when I read the review excerpted above I had some thoughts about it, but I didn't plan to blog because I didn't think my opinions would be of interest to anyone. And then I remembered. The call was to open my eyes and open my mouth, not to be interesting or even effective. The words are my responsibility; the response is not. Luckily, repentance is always an option, so onward!

Although I am a Christian, I rarely read what is called Christian literature. I'm not using the conditional term above because I don't think the literature is Christian. It's just that, as with so many other parts of our culture today, it seems certain people have co-opted the term so that nothing outside their realm is considered Christian. In order to satisfy that segment of the population, a book has to uphold conservative values, particularly those pertaining to personal morality. It also has to say at its core that although there may be some ups and downs to life, correct religious belief and practice will eventually give you all the answers you need.

Which brings me to a Christian author I do like: C.S. Lewis. I read his works, you should pardon the expression, religiously. But apparently he's not quite Christian enough. A library colleague I respect in Arkansas, Lesley Knieriem, made this statement about him in response to a request for Christian authors: "Lewis's space trilogy [is] well known, but . . . once again would not be acceptable to the ECPA." The ECPA is the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association. I had to look that up.

I can see what Lesley means. The final book in the series cited has the Jesus stand-in (named Ransom, because Lewis is not a subtle man) utter this line about one of his companions: "He is our sceptic; a very important office." Somehow I can't see a Gilbert Morris protagonist making that kind of statement. Even less can I picture a contemporary piece of Christian children's literature containing a scene like the one near the end of the Chronicles of Narnia series, where a person who has been serving Satan (or Baal, depending on your interpretation) all his life is told that there is a place for him in heaven because his actions were virtuous, even though they were pointed at the wrong God!

In the end, I think they problem is one of intent. It seems to be that the current crop of Christian authors seek to comfort their readers, while Lewis was always in the business of challenging his, even the youngest of them. And when it comes to my religious health, I don't need a lot of massage. I need resistance training.

What did you see today?

I saw a passage in a Stephen King book

Context
Stephen King is my second favorite author, after C.S. Lewis. Because I've read many of his books several times, sometimes I just go back and read passages again, revisiting certain concepts rather than taking in the whole work. I did this today with Pet Sematary, and found a passage describing the horror (well, it is Stephen King, right?) of leaving a young child alone in the house with a dying relative.

Commentary
This is my 100th blog entry! Hope it's worth it.

The Stand is my favorite Stephen King novel; in fact I've already blogged about here and here. But Pet Sematary is hands-down the scariest Stephen King work I've read, right up there with The Silence of the Lambs in terms of "don't read it before you go to bed" creepiness.

The passage about the little girl left alone while someone passes away is horrifying not in a scary way, but more in the "What were these people thinking?" sense the protagonist muses to himself for our benefit. One of the qualities of childhood should be the nurturing presence of adults when dealing with the harsh realities of life.

In the New Revised Standard Version of the New Testament, people are referred to as the "children of God" 14 times (yes, I have a concordance), mostly in this passage in Romans. By contrast, there are only ten reference to the "people of God" and those are all in the Old Testament, where the "children of God" never make an appearance.

What's going on here? Did we suddenly become less mature with the coming of Christ? Did we come to realize that we needed more protection and nurturing than originally thought? Or is it just a translation quirk between Hebrew and Greek? I don't know; I just know I'm more likely to think of myself as a child of God than a woman of God.

If we're children now, do we ever grow up? Maybe. In fact, that may be what happens in heaven. I've been thinking about heaven lately, inspired by a fellow Friend in my meeting. She has little patience with mainstream Christianity, and I believe some of that is because of what she considers the ridiculous imagery associated with it. So she'll ask questions such as, "Do you really believe God is an old man with a white robe?" or "What is heaven like, really?", possibly referring to the "sitting on a cloud all day playing the harp" idea.

My current view of heaven (could change any minute, my ideas on matters like these tend to be capricious to put it charitably) thinks of it as where we get to become the adult children of God. And so our views of heaven now are often similar to the ways children think about growing up. There are plenty of "I'll get to stay up as late as I want and eat candy bars all day!" visions. The harp-playing idea may come from what children often see of adult behavior in church, mindlessly mouthing praises to God and not really doing anything useful. There are also people who are horrified by the prospect of heaven: "If I can't have my whiskey and tobacco, I'm not going!" These are like children who cannot conceive of being sexually mature: "I'm going to like boys? EWWWW!"

The point is, as children we really have no idea what being a grown up is like. We get glimpses, we have hope and fears, but the reality is that not only do our circumstances change as we mature, we do as well. We'll probably even see different things.

What did you see today?