Book Review: Grace for the Contemplative Parent #SpeakeasyContemplativeParents

One of the spiritual formation concepts most dear to my heart is Brother Lawrence's practicing the presence of God. It is core to the Incarnational stream that Richard Foster describes in Streams of Living Water and feels like my spiritual home. For these reasons, Lily Crowder's book, Grace for the Contemplative Parent: A Practical Guide for Mothers Practicing the Presence of God caught my attention.

Crowder does a nice job of applying Brother Lawrence's concepts to the daily life of parenting. She will also probably make many mothers feel quite validated through struggles of the daily grind of life with kids. The points were good and could be powerful, although I didn't feel like there was anything particularly new in what I heard, even though I need to remember to give myself room for grace in many of these same circumstances. Many of the ideas were similar to ones I have conveyed to parents during the course of family therapy, which was validating to me, but not necessarily helpful in my own growth. Since I can still struggle with practicing God's presence, I was hoping this book would give me some new outlook that would translate to transformation. One of my reflections during the book was remembering that insight doesn't necessarily lead to behavior change. Learning something new about ourselves and the world is good and important, but sometimes we need practical skills to actually experience something different.

Even though the main title is "parent," the subtitle is "guide for mothers," and Crowder acknowledges early on that these principles are relevant to all parents, but she is targeting mothers. This is my biggest complaint. During our adoption process, almost all adoption resources were targeted at mothers (you'd be amazed at how many were pink and literally flowery--and my wife doesn't really like either). I felt really left out and invalidated, and I was just as active. Most parenting resources are similarly targeted toward mothers. Thankfully, there is increasing recognition that fathers are often active (and important) in parenting. I don't think it would have been that difficult to make this book more inclusive of fathers, and it would open up another huge audience. And believe me, fathers need grace, as well.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Audiobook Review: Love Walked Among Us

A theme of this blog is exploring what it means to love in Christ. Paul E. Miller's book, Love Walked Among Us: Learning to Love Like Jesus, is a good addition to that discussion. Miller fills his book with many illustrations from both the biblical narrative and his and friends' lives. This approach really helps ground the principles, brings many of them to life, and creates a real-world application.

Unfortunately, that's where my praise stops, although I have to say at the outset that it was very difficult to pay attention to the content. I repeatedly have said that I love it when the author reads his/her own work when it's nonfiction. Miller has good inflection and sometimes displays his passion. However, this very well may be the worst produced audiobook I've ever listened to. Miller's pressured speech and regular stumbles and misreadings made it very challenging to listen to. I love audiobooks and listen to them regularly, plus my wife has narrated and edited some audiobooks, so I have some familiarity with the production process. Stumbles are normal, but that's what going back and re-recording the line and editing is for. The narration was so bad I actually contacted the publisher to ensure I didn't accidentally receive a draft version. I was told they attempted to fix what they could but were unable to re-record.

The errors and narration were distracting in the way that a poorly written paper with frequent spelling and grammatical errors are distracting (at least to me), preventing the core message from coming through. When I could hear the content honestly, I'm not sure I really heard anything particularly new or challenging. There were some good lessons, but I think there's other resources that are more effective at sending this message.

The complaint I had about content was that Miller seemed to make regular assumptions about various things that are not always reasonable. I recall during one biblical example, he said something like, "Jesus thought..." Except that Jesus' thoughts weren't in the biblical narrative. We can guess what Jesus thought, felt, etc., but we need to acknowledge that we're speculating and cannot be absolutely sure. It is this type of presentation that leads to rigidity in theological interpretation. There are also times when he gets facts wrong about people and fields. For instance, he talked about how psychologists look to Freud as a source of wisdom and guidance. Sorry, Miller, psychologists largely haven't relied on Freud for several decades. These kinds of statements, along with the poor production, made the book lose credibility to me.

If you're interested in this book, read it, don't listen to it. I cannot recommend the audiobook version at all, and the content is just "okay" from my perspective...

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Identity in Love

Yesterday, I had the privilege of giving the sermon at my church. The title was Identity in Love, exploring how the development of our moral identity formation makes a difference in justice and how we approach people, with the goal of the Gospel being to have our identities rooted in love. You can listen to it below or at http://fbcr.podomatic.com/entry/2014-07-06T13_31_38-07_00.