I love these book covers for John le Carre’s novels. They sell the books well.
All posts by Phil
Dallas Willard: Conscious of Real Life
“For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep” (1 Thessalonians 4:14).
Tom Nelson wrote on May 8 about the life and death of Dallas Willard. He quoted him, in reflection on this verse, “The difference is simply a matter of what we are conscious of. In fact, at ‘physical’ death we become conscious and enjoy a richness of experience we have never known before.”
Not that this world isn’t real, as some say, but it is like an illusionist, distracting us with the inconsequential so that we miss the most important things. At death, we see through it all.
Poet Christian Wiman's Next Step
The editor of Poetry magazine is moving on. Tom Bartlett writes:
He’s not abandoning poetry—he’s not sure he could ever do that… This June he’s leaving his plum poetry gig to become a senior lecturer of religion and literature at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and the Yale Divinity School, a job that was offered to him a couple of years after he lectured at the institute. “My life has been aiming at this,” he says. “It seems to me incredibly exciting but also a necessary thing for me to put my faith more on the line on a daily basis.”
I’ve been thinking about that myself lately.
Two Sides to Pornography
We usually talk about pornography, if we talk at all, this way: “To be honest, I thought my addiction would go away with marriage, thought I had been prepared for the strong pull of lust and pornography by a four-month fast from my personal computer…” (That’s just part one of a three part take on porn’s destruction of a marriage.)
But we should also talk about it this way: “A growing body of evidence suggests that pornography fuels demand for prostitutes—and therefore, human sex trafficking victims, who often end up ensnared in both trades.” Not only that, many people making this stuff are in bondage themselves, forced to continue being exploited by all manner of manipulation while inspiring the exploitation of others.
Of course, this is all free speech, isn’t it? We are all just a bunch of healthy libertines, aren’t we, entertaining ourselves like intelligent adults, shunning the poisonous ideas of morals, shame, interdependence, selflessness, personhood, encouragement, hope, and most of all, love?
Just the Right Book For Your Flight
Qantas, an Australian airline, not only wants to give you a comfortable ride to your destination of choice, but they also want to give you a paperback to read on the way—a book you will be able to finish when you touch down. Figuring an average reading speed of 200-300 words a minute, Qantas offers several Bespoke books, each according to length. They call the collection “Stories for Every Journey.” Apparently, their subject matter has a wide range, with non-fiction, thrillers and crime short stories being most popular.
"Comes a Day Born of the Gentle South"
“After dark vapors have oppress’d our plains
For a long dreary season, comes a day
Born of the gentle South, and clears away
From the sick heavens all unseemly stains.
The anxious month, relieved of its pains,
Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May;
The eyelids with the passing coolness play
Like rose leaves with the drip of Summer rains.
The calmest thoughts came round us; as of leaves
Budding—fruit ripening in stillness—Autumn suns
Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves—
Sweet Sappho’s cheek—a smiling infant’s breath—
The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs—
A woodland rivulet—a Poet’s death.” — Keats
Every Poet Holds to These Dogmas
W. H. Auden explains:
Every poet, consciously or unconsciously, holds the following absolute presuppositions, as the dogmas of his art:
(1) A historical world exists, a world of unique events and unique persons, related by analogy, not identity. The number of events and analogical relations is potentially infinite. The existence of such a world is a good, and every addition to the number of events, persons and relations is an additional good.
(2) The historical world is a fallen world, i.e. though it is good that it exists, the way in which it exists is evil, being full of unfreedom and disorder.
(3) The historical world is a redeemable world. The unfreedom and disorder of the past can be reconciled in the future.
It follows from the first presupposition that the poet’s activity in creating a poem is analogous to God’s activity in creating man after his own image. It is not an imitation, for were it so, the poet would be able to create like God ex nihilo; instead, he requires pre-existing occasions of feeling and a pre-existing language out of which to create. It is analogous in that the poet creates not necessarily according to a law of nature but voluntarily according to provocation.
(stolen from Alan Jacobs)
Critics Abound for Renowned Dan Brown
Lars shared this article on Facebook, and I was moved–moved I tell you–to share it here, because you can’t get good writing like this often: “The voice at the other end of the line gave a sigh, like a mighty oak toppling into a great river, or something else that didn’t sound like a sigh if you gave it a moment’s thought. ‘Who cares what the stupid critics say?’ advised the literary agent. ‘They’re just snobs. You have millions of fans.‘”
Michael Deacon writes in response to the Dan Brown’s upcoming novel, Inferno
The novel is another unique take on art history and world conspiracy. From the book: “Against [the backdrop of Dante’s Inferno], Langdon battles a chilling adversary and grapples with an ingenious riddle that pulls him into a landscape of classic art, secret passageways, and futuristic science. Drawing from Dante’s dark epic poem
Dude! That is one unique thriller! I’ll go on record now by predicting this will tell of a Manx plot to manipulate world currency. Dante has been rumored to be Manx sympathizer among all the scholars who have studied him. Sorry, I should have given you a spoiler alert.
Deux Spocks
Risking Enough to Fail
Joel Miller writes about how we guard ourselves from all kinds of failure, even in our walk with Christ, but that won’t mature our faith. Referring to Patrick Henry Reardon’s comments on the publican and the Pharisee, he notes, “His point was that our failures do not keep us from heaven. Only our pride can do that.”