Post 22-Your Second Most Favorite Book

                                            

On Sun, Jan 8, 2017 at 12:21 AM, John Wrote

Hi Dana      

            I will be praying for you today.

            I hope you're well and you and all you love and care about are healthy. Have things improved at all for Trish?

            I read something recently that has me thinking. It was about my second most favorite book after the Bible. So I have a question for you. What is your second most favorite book after the Bible? It can be either secular or spiritual, it doesn't matter. I'm just wondering about your second most favorite book.

The Lord bless you.

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Dana Initially Responded on Tue, Jan 10, 2017 at 5:01 PM

       I'm going to need to study on this one--good grist for the mill though.  My problem is that I have several second favorite books. 

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John Answered on 1/11/17

Hey Dana

            Do you remember the American author Louis L'Amour, writer of the frontier, American west- cowboys and Indians, gunslingers and outlaws, and of course the lawmen to keep the peace?  When I was writing, I kept his autobiography in my trunk of travelling books. It was titled Education of a Wandering Man. In that book, he mentioned how he kept of list of books that he read. So I decided to do that for one year. I think I read somewhere around 40 to 45 books that year.

            Perhaps you’re asking yourself, what is that “trunk of travelling books” he mentioned? Well, after I began writing, for a number of years, I was homeless. I moved from place to place: several months here, more or less time there, periodically a year plus someplace else. A very kind lady in my church stored my things in her basement all that time, with the exception of a few clothes, and a trunk that held my old IBM, moveable carriage typewriter, and a number of books that I felt were very important to me. The books were an eclectic mix. Several dictionaries. Webster’s Instant Word Guide—containing 35,000 words spelled and divided. This was before the internet and one had to actually get a book, and look something up. I used this one so often (as I used to say, ‘I’m a writer, not a speller,’ but of course we know that writers must spell correctly and this book helped me do it) that I actually wore a hole in the pages in the front.

            And there were others. Kenneth Roberts, a one-time well known writer of the genre known as American historical novels, wrote his autobiography and titled it I Wanted to Write. That became my text book. A couple of World War II sea novels, one by Nicholas Monsarrat titled The Cruel Sea, about British corvettes fighting German U Boats for seven years on the cruel Atlantic, and The Good Shepherd by the king of nautical fiction C. S. Forester who is best known for his Captain Horatio Hornblower series, but this book was about an American destroyer captain. And speaking of WWII, I always carried David Nichols’ book Ernie's War: The Best of Ernie Pyle's World War II Dispatches. Pyle knew how to write and wrote about the everyday soldier and what he was going through.

            You probably remember in our introductory blog post, how I talked about Margery Williams children’s book The Velveteen Rabbit, or How Toys Become Real. Surprisingly, I would get this out and read it often.  http://foxholecowboysblog.blogspot.com/2016/07/introduction-1.html  

            Another of my travelling trunk favorites was The Man Who Planted Trees, a story by Jean Giono. This is a story about a widowed man who moves to a desolate part of France after WW I, who daily plants acorns. Many years later, because of his steadfast, unwavering focus of planting acorns, this lifeless and desiccated region brims with life and hope and humanity. For the longest time, I thought this was a true account of the shepherd, Elzeard Bouffier, but it is an allegorical tale of what the human spirit can accomplish through never ceasing selfless deeds.

            Do you remember old Brother Robert E. Tourville, professor and author from Valley Forge Christian College? Remember how he took the sabbatical to write the first Pentecostal commentary on the Book of Acts?  I always carried my autographed copy (To John Calsin, my friend and a dear Christian brother I appreciate very much. Signed and dated, with this reference John 1:4) Unfortunately, I believe this is out of print but I have read it and referred to it so often I’ve had to duct tape the spine to keep it from falling apart. It is a verse by verse commentary from the classical Pentecostal point of view in plain English.  (Sometime we’ll have to address Pentecost, being not only for today, but absolutely necessary for the church to grow and be what it can only be through Pentecost. Why do you think God included it in the New Testament? There wouldn’t be a New Testament church without Pentecost.)

            And of course, there was my paperback Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, Student Edition.

            Now many years later, there is a book that was not in my travelling trunk. For each of many of the past twenty winters, I’ve read the book When the Water Smokes: Tides and Seasons on a Wooden Boat by Bob Simpson. (Carol’s daughter Elizabeth, who is an on-line book seller, sent it to me.) The author, Bob, and his wife Mary, buy a sunken wooden boat, fix it up and then explore the “sounds, creeks, waterways, and inlets of the Carolina coast.....” They live simply, cooking on a tiny boat stove and have oil lamps for light at night. They wander, loving each other and life and boats and the natural world around them. Each chapter is a story, or an experience, and after all these years I never tire of reading it. This ritual is always in the winter when the snow often coves the ground and there are freezing temperatures and cold winds blowing. It is then that I dream of summer and boating and years gone by. Sometimes I remember old girlfriends and old boats I’ve owned or sailed on. Pleasant dreams before I turn the light off next to the bed. (Carol and I have dreamed of winning the lottery and chartering boats on the Chesapeake and on Puget Sound. It’s fun to dream....)

            And for the past few years, (again, a book not in my travelling trunk, but it also should have been) my winter reading includes The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod  by Henry Beston. It is one of the classics of American nature writing. For a year, back in the 1920s Beston lived alone in his 20 x 16 beach cottage and watched and studied nature from the porch of his little cottage. He was almost within spitting distance of the beach and rolling Atlantic Ocean. Susan, my first wife, and I spent time on that 20 plus mile strand of Cape Cod beach. We had been exploring the Cape and were on our way back, when the fiery orange-red sunset turned the dunes and lighthouse into a breathtaking scene.

            But after all the above books, many of which I still cherish and read periodically, or often, what is my second most favorite book after the Bible? It was always in my travelling trunk of books. For many years I read it almost daily, sometimes in place of whatever Bible I was reading that year. Once, in a conversation was a pastor acquaintance, I think I surprised him when I told him that I had a copy. I have often told people that if I could take only one other book besides a Bible if I were to be marooned on a desert island, it would be this book. The cover is faded and worn, so much so that with the current state of my eyes, I can’t hardly make out the words on the back cover. It is A Modern Study in the Book of Proverbs. Or, as many refer to it as Bridges Book of Proverbs. This is Charles Bridges classic edition revised for the modern reader.

            My copy of Bridges is the poster child of what parents tell their children not to do to a book. It is underlined. I didn’t use just one color. The inks are reds, blues, and blacks. Yellow highlighter (and even orange periodically) is used throughout the book. Some of the lines are ruler straight, and others are wavy freehand. If something is really important, there are even multiple underlines to help me get the point. And I have notes, comments, warnings and prayers written on the pages in the margins, at the top, at the bottom and even scrunched into the middle of a page. Things are circled, marked VIP or marked with a hand drawn asterisk.  I have devoured this book.

            Bridges Proverbs book has been around for more than 100 years. He wrote it because many people who read the Bible don’t find Proverbs “spiritual” enough, like other Biblical books. He wanted to make it practical to men and women and boys and girls—everyone. Bridges felt that “the life-changing truths of Proverbs should be presented so meaningfully as to become practical in the lives and walks of his readers.”

            One of the sins I continue to struggle with is laziness. Proverbs both condemns this and gives the lazy person the scriptures to help overcome this.  For example, Prov 12:23 is The hand of the diligent will rule, but the slack hand will be put to forced labor.  Bridges writes concerning this Proverb that it is the “royal road to advancement” but a “lazy spirit brings a man under bondage.”

            I know that as a Southerner, you don’t have a problem with anger. J  But I do. In Bridges’ book, people can read and meditate on multiple scriptures that deal with this sin, thereby saving a ton of money otherwise spent with a counselor, psychologist or psychiatrist and let the Word change their lives. For example, take Prov 16:32, “He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city.” Lest someone think I am against outside help—e.g. counseling—we contribute regularly to the ministry of New Life http://newlife.com/ , and since I was first saved over 39 years ago and heard Dr. Richard Dobbins, the founder of Emerge Ministries, now Emerge Counseling Services, https://www.emerge.org/ I have regularly contributed to it. So I also know there are times, when outside help is necessary, and I have used it.

            Does Proverbs talk about an honest life? Proverbs might help keep us out of jail. I’m thinking of Prov 28:20 A faithful man will abound with blessings, but he who makes haste to be rich will not go unpunished. Bridges writes how a faithful man “would rather be poor by God’s design than rich by sin. This is the man of faithfulness.”

            Or finally, would you like your life to count in light of eternity? I would. Proverbs 4:18 is  But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter the full day. For this verse, Bridges chapter heading are: “Your choice candle, meteor, or sun?” “Walk in the clearer light.” “Expanding light—increasing love.” “No setting sun.”  Bridges develops the idea that as we walk with God we’ll be more than a candle or even a meteor, which flashes bright  and is gone. But our influence through God and with Him will be like the sun, which slowly rises and brings light, but then continues to burn brighter and hotter all day, “widening his circle.”

            I want to touch more lives for Christ and a frequent reading of the Proverbs can help me do this.

Yours for the Harvest

John

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Then Dana Answered John’s Question on Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 11:05 AM

Hi John

     Attached is my response to the second favorite book e-mail question. I had fun with it, and could have turned it into a small book of its own...but didn't.  Even though I couldn't hold it to one second favorite book, still with all the books you and I mentioned, readers may get some ideas for reading books to which they are not acquainted.

     Years ago, I remember on NBC’s The Tonight Show, Johnny Carson used to play a game with the audience called “Stump the Band.”  If my memory serves me well, Doc Severinsen, master trumpeter and the show’s band leader would field obscure song titles from the audience, and he or one of his band members would try to come up with, and then play the tune—something like that.  Well with your question about my “second favorite book after the Bible,” you’ve successfully…”stumped the band,” as it were.

     In my previous response, I mentioned that I had several second favorite books, which, and upon much reflection, that “several”seems to have grown in number.  I guess I must conclude that my second favorite book is the one I’m reading at the time.  OK, I realize that’s a cop out, of course, but whether for edification, education, or enjoyment, there are many author’s and their books that have impacted me to a great degree over the course of my life, and to narrow it down to one favorite, would woefully be excluding so many equally worthy.

     So, I’ll take a hike down book memory lane, and list several books that I’ve greatly enjoyed, or that have positively affected my life, which, in a sense, they all have.  Here goes, and please keep in mind that these are in no particular order or rank.

     Along with you, I greatly enjoyed Louis L’Amour’s “Education of a Wandering Man.” One of the things that made his fiction so compelling, was that he had “lived the life” before he wrote.  Now he hadn’t lived in the old west, obviously, but his many travels and adventures in the world certainly provided some of the necessary “grit” that enabled him to write convincingly about the characters that populated his landscapes.  You gave me a copy of that book, and it’s one for which I’ve always been grateful…. 

     …which leads me to this thought concerning that book and the underlying thought, that L’Amour’s adventures provided a certain reality or authenticity, evident in his writing.  In 1977 I graduated from film school, you know, with stars in my eyes, and a burning desire to turn Hollywood upside down with my blazing artistic presence…not!

     True I did graduate from film school, and initially it was my desire to make movies professionally, but I hit a major life snag.  Bear in mind, that I wasn’t living for the Lord in those days.  In 1967 I had been saved and baptized in a Christian church, and had been raised in a Christian home by Christian parents, but the combination of some extremely disillusioning events (within the church I attended) and my overwhelming lack of Biblical knowledge and any semblance of Christian theology by which to parse or give meaning to those events, I left the Church, and consequently Christianity. 

     It wasn’t that I had officially or declaratively renounced my belief in God or Jesus; it’s that, in reality, I didn’t know enough about Them or the Scriptures to have an iron clad belief system.  In my teenage angst, all I could think was, after what I witnessed going down in my church, that Nazis treated each other better than Christians did, and that being the case (to my immature mind,) I didn’t want to have anything further to do with Christianity.  So I strayed from all expressions of Christianity until my early to mid 20’s, when God mercifully drew me back into the fold.

     So, back then, while away from any religious endeavors, I pursued living the hippy dream, and looking back now, much of those years were like a dream—profoundly “colorful” and exciting at the time, but not making much sense the next day.  Being that “colorful” experiences were the coin of the realm in those “daze,” it only seemed appropriate that music should provide much of the background score for my life—remember, I was in film school, so a great deal of life I envisioned as having a theme song.  Good movies have good musical scores.  Having played much classical music in my high school band, I had an appreciation for good music.  And honestly I cannot ever remember a time in my life where music wasn’t in the picture for me. I listened to music all the time.

     My musical tastes were eclectic, ranging all over the map.  One thing that got me was that much of the rock or folk music to which I listened, featured artists who got paid more money than the Rockefellers, and yet sung about all the hard times they had to endure.  Then I ran into Woodie Guthrie.  

     Growing up in Mayberry (Mt. Airy, NC—the real Mayberry,) while in elementary school, we sang Woodie Guthrie songs in class, and the words and feel of what the words conveyed have never left me. There I was, a dorky kid in the back of the class, spitting dust from vicarious years of riding the rails with Woodie, while my poor, frustrated teachers lamented that I could have made better use of my time in the application of reading, writing and arithmetic. Like it was said of Woodie Guthrie, “He could never be cured of just wandering off….” I was similarly inclined.  But then, once upon a time in my early 20’s, I managed to get hold of a Woodie Guthrie record, and a copy of his book, “Bound For Glory.”  And can you say “ZAP!”?

     Woodie, who was one of Bob Dylan’s (another of my favorites) inspirations, was the real deal.  He never made much money to speak of.  Rather than being a rock star of his day, he hoboed on the railroad, lived with migrant workers in labor camps, and ate more road dust than solid food.  He wrote a song, titled “Hard Travelling,” that was, in my estimation, his musical autobiography, along with his official written one, “Bound for Glory” (another influential book at the time).

     One day it just came to me that I was listening to all these pampered, self-indulgent, over paid, prima donna musicians who made millions singing about how rotten their lives were.  They sang about living on the road, and being in jail, and being down and out, while in reality, their lives were the exact opposite.  Woodie was the real deal.  He probably wrote his hard scrabble songs (several of which he actually traded for food) while riding in a boxcar. 

     Suddenly I had a life crisis.  My loathing for hypocritical rock stars writing about their tough lives from a window seat in their private jets, ended up pointing the finger back at me.  Here I was ready to go off to Hollywood and make movies about subjects and people who I knew absolutely nothing about.  No doubt, I could have made gritty Westerns (they still made Westerns back then), but the truth was, I didn’t have the grit myself. It seemed everything I had been doing was a sham, and I was no better than those who I criticized.

     So the day I graduated from college, I put my degree under the dog’s bowl for a blotter, stuffed a well-worn copy of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” in my knapsack, and hopped a freight train to who knows where…but that’s a story for another time.  I never made it into the world of the cinema, and looking back on that, knowing that the Hollywood has to do more with Babylon than the Bible, God, in His mercy, spared me from a potentially terrible end by so directing my paths during that time, even though unbeknownst to me. 

     All that to say that when you gave me “The Education of a Wandering Man,” it was oh so much more meaningful than you could have known.  But then again, as you so painfully know, I’m one of those guys who if you ask what time it is, I’ll tell you how to build a watch.  And I used to wonder what my English professors meant when they wrote, “WORDY” in red on my returned essays.  But, I digress….

     Talbot Mundy’s writing always amazed and enthralled me.  He was an English author who had spent time in India and Africa, and the Mid-East, before and after World War 1. Perhaps it’s legend (if it is don’t tell me), but he was reported to have walked the length and breadth of India, Africa and Mexico. While his wordsmith abilities with the English language were just phenomenal, his adventure stories had a sort of gritty authority that echoed his life and experiences abroad.  “King of the Khyber Rifles” is probably his best known work, but all of his books and short stories had something to say to me, and had the effect of translating me (in my imagination) to sweeping Himalayan vistas and putting me  (the reader) in desperate and dangerous situations not easily overcome.  He reads well, and is lots of fun.  I wish I had met him.

     Dr. Brown, of whom we have oft spoken, turned me onto a book that was influential to me in my early ministerial days.  In a class on preaching, or some such, I don’t remember, he mentioned a book “The Autobiography of Peter Cartwright.”  The good Rev. Cartwright was a circuit riding preacher for the Methodist Episcopal Church, traversing the hostile hills and hollers of the Kentucky frontier in the early 1800’s.  His relating of his own experiences and adventures was as stark as it was humorous—he had an entertaining style to be sure, and he was ever as much a “character,” as were the people of whom he wrote.  I wish I had met him too.

     While in Bible College, I had another life crisis.  This isn’t a criticism, as I understand that every one of God’s people have to follow their own calling as He reveals it and directs them.  But the big push in the school in that day and time was to get a degree, then scurry off to some big city church of thousands of people, and get in with some bigshot preacher, become said preacher’s clone, and then go off and start your own mega-church in hopes of making huge financial contributions to the denomination HQ.  And while several of my colleagues set their course to do just that, I realized that just wasn’t for me.  I have never been good at “lockstep,” no matter who was calling the tune or beating the cadence. Old Brother Grazier, my greatly missed Professor, mentor, and friend, used to often say in reference to Christian life and ministry, “The way up is down.” And to that, I paid particular attention.

     That became my life slogan, so instead of emulating the renowned Right Reverend So and So, and his church of 5,000 with a budget the size of a small country, I headed off to the Bowery Mission. Got paid all of $15.00 a week with room, board, and all the coffee I could drink...and I loved it!  Had I gone the way in which I was being groomed, I could, right now, be looking at a comfortable retirement, having a framed portrait of myself adorning the wall in some church hall or district office, and a lot less aches and pains from hard physical work.

     But, while I don’t have anything in my bank account to brag about, and I don’t have much to put on a resume, or my in my memoir by way of professional accomplishments, one thing I do have, is that by the grace of God I can look at myself in the mirror, without seeing a wealthy rock star who sang about hard times, looking back at me.  Peter Cartwright’s autobiography showed me that God could use me, just like I was (and am) whether it met with someone’s ideal of what I should be or not.  God made us individuals, and He uses us as individuals.  Sometimes it takes a good book other than the Bible to drive home a Biblical point that you may have missed the first time around.  God is not limited in what He can use to get one’s attention.

     Switching gears, a decade or so ago, facing the ever intense grape harvest, I went to the book store (yes, dear friends, there really used to be book stores) to find some books of short stories.  A novel or lengthy non-fiction at harvest time is about as much use as a screen door on a submarine. Good intentions notwithstanding, the fact of the matter is, that for at least three months out of the year, the most reading one can do is during a lunch break, or while in the bathroom—oh come on now, you do it too.

     So that said, short stories really fit the bill as they do not require the investment of time and energy that a more involved book requires.  As I was perusing the aisles of the book store, I found two volumes of short stories, one about hauntings at sea, and the other of pulp adventure tales from famous writers of days gone by.  Being an “Indiana Jones” junkie, and the fact that Brother Grazier shared many of his pirate and sea story books with me, these two books really promised to fit the bill.

     In the intro to and acknowledgements of the adventure book, the editor shared some of his own personal real life adventure favorites, which he said inspired his love for the “Indiana Jones” character.  One of those was the book “Lost Trails, Lost Cities” by Percival Fawcett.  Fawcett was an English military man who went to the Amazon at the behest of the Royal Geographical Society to map the disputed border regions of several adjoining South American countries.  He briefly ceased his duties to return to Europe to fight in World War 1, and then resumed them once again when the war was over. 

     From his experiences, Fawcett became convinced that there was an advanced civilization living (hidden) in the jungle whose technological advancements were something akin to being out of this world for that day and time.  Several prominent English fantasy, science-fiction, and adventure novelists of the day borrowed heavily from the fantastic, but true adventures that Fawcett meticulously noted in his journals, which became the book mentioned above. 

     Later, when in his 50’s, Fawcett and his son, and his son’s friend made one last excursion to the Amazon region to try and locate this lost city, which he called “Z.” They went into the jungle and…just disappeared, never to be heard from again.  Mystics and military men, notables and ne’er do wells of all stripes launched numerous missions over the years into the regions mentioned in his book, to try to find Fawcett, or find out something regarding Fawcett’s disappearance, and all of them ultimately ended in failure. David Grann authored the more modern, exhaustively researched, and quite engaging book on the Fawcett’s mystery entitled, “The Lost City of Z,” which along with Fawcett’s writings are the inspirations of an upcoming motion picture scheduled for release later this year—which I absolutely have to see.  Like Talbot Mundy, Fawcett’s writings have thoroughly captivated my imagination.

     I would be remiss at this point, if I didn’t mention the writings of Jack London, another sort of larger than life guy who wrote great and noteworthy fiction, mostly based on his own experiences as a sea farer in the South Pacific, a prospector for gold in the Yukon, and a railroad hobo.  Again, he had the gift of hard-earned “grit.”

     Another interesting mention, might be Robert Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”  While on a camping trip out west, I sort of followed the path he wrote about taking in his book.  The book was about his motorcycle trip across the west with his young son, on one hand, and on the other hand, the literally maddening philosophical pursuit of the definition of the word “quality.”  At that time of my life I wasn’t interested in Buddhist esoteric thought, but I had my own personal struggles with the whole idea of what “quality” meant, and how I thought it should apply to my life and work.  The answer at the end of the book, I won’t give away [NO SPOILERS HERE] but it has stuck with me for a l-o-n-g time, and whatever else one may think of Pirsig’s work, in that instance he was spot on, and no one that I’ve read has come up with a better definition.

     William Hendrickson’s “More than Conquerors” really spoke to me at a time when I was in theological turmoil during my early ministry.  While he made a very reasoned case for his particular views on the subject, he did so in a way that to me, gave me a glimpse into his heart.  He was neither dry in his approach, nor condescending to those who may have differed with him.  He was a true believer, a gentleman and a scholar, who genuinely loved his Lord, and the subject matter about which he wrote.  A worthy successor to Dr. Hendrickson’s legacy, who I am reading presently, is Dennis Johnson, and his book “Triumph of the Lamb.” Highly recommended.

     My love for the writings of the Reformers of the Protestant Reformation could fill a book in and of itself.  While there are too many to present an exhaustive list, let me say that when I read Martin Luther’s “The Bondage of the Will,” I had my own private little Pentecostal experience, in a manner of speaking. It truly is a Christian classic that it wouldn’t hurt any believer to read.  J.I. Packer’s translation is quite readable, among all the editions available.  While a brilliant Augustinian scholar, Luther’s humanity and proclivity towards being quite a “character” adds a lot of “color” to the writings of that period, which many avoid as being too laborious. Gold is of great worth, no doubt, but you have to dig it out.

     While not a Reformer of old, the Reverend Dr. Sinclair Ferguson’s writings are as beautiful in style as they are profound in thought.  This Scottish Theologian, Professor, Pastor, Preacher, and Author both possesses and shares a wealth of depth and warmth in his insights into the Bible that few accomplish.  His writings are a blessing.

     Elizabeth Elliot’s “Shadow of the Almighty” and “Through Gates of Splendor” are a must, both for this amalgamation of books I love, and, in my opinion, for every Christian who can read. Her husband Jim’s martyrdom, along with that of his brave and committed missionary colleagues in the Ecuadoran jungle is an inspiring story in and of itself.  The fact that Mrs. Elliot went to the same people who murdered her husband, and saw the man who killed Jim converted to Christianity…well if that doesn’t inspire you, then you better have someone call the funeral home, and cart you away, because you’re dead, and no one has had the heart to tell you.  One of the most famous Christian lines outside of the Bible was written by Jim Elliot, and I paraphrase, “He is no fool, who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”  Can I get an “Amen” somebody?

     Of late, the writings of Dr. Michael Heiser have been some of the most intriguing subject matter I’ve come across.  He is a scholar’s scholar, who has the rare gift of making the benefits of his scholarship imminently accessible, enjoyable and profitable to any of us not holding PhD’s in ancient languages.  It is said, and he might have even said of his book, “The Unseen Realm,” that reading it will cause you to “read your Bible again for the first time.”  I’m finding that to be true.  Who says you can’t teach an old dog a new trick? He’ll rock your comfort zone, to be sure, but then again, as I’ve so often found, so will God.

     What an engaging topic John!  I could go on and on. After reading all of this, you’re probably sorry you presented the topic to me, but I’ve had fun.  Thanks!

Dana