Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling Youth
My admirable cousin, Jimmy Davis, has reviewed a Baker Books reference guide to youth counseling for Breakpoint.org. Here’s my entirely biased post on it. He writes:
Like the biblical book of Proverbs, this handy reference book brings together hundreds of wise, God-inspired sayings about the practical issues of living. Unlike Proverbs, this book categorizes its insights under almost one hundred different sub-headings making its collective wisdom easier to find. Why didn’t Solomon think of that?
…
Rather than dump dozens of verses about sexual purity into a box labeled “sexual purity” without any other helpful arrangement, the Millers have carefully sorted the verses related to each topic into smaller groups headed by a simple statement of truth. For example, under the heading “Dress/Clothes” the authors have organized twenty passages underneath ten simple statements such as “1. God has promised to supply our necessary clothing” and “2. He knows that we have need of clothing but asks that we give him priority in our lives” or “10. Spiritual qualities are the most important ‘clothing’.”
This particular topic was one of my favorites in the book because it summarized an excellent “theology of clothing.”
Read the rest of his review on the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling Youth.
Hey, have I told you about my test?
Is there anything more tedious and self-indulgent than a middle-aged man telling you all about a medical procedure he’s been through? And yet here I am, and at least some of you seem to expect a report. (More sensitive and tasteful souls are advised to stop reading here.)
I shall not name the procedure I went through yesterday. That low I will not descend. Many of you will guess. The rest of you are better off in ignorance.
The worst part of this particular procedure is preparing for it. It involves two days of eating low-fiber food, and then one day of what’s called a “clear liquid diet,” capped off by the liberal use of certain medicaments which have prompt and dramatic effects.
I had a lot of opportunity to read during that last preparation day. I fear that I will always hereafter associate the reading of The Fellowship of the Ring with… rather intense physical sensations.
The day of the test itself was pretty easy. They don’t allow you to drive yourself, due to the sedatives used. As a certified urban hermit, I was entitled to a cab ride to the clinic, and a shuttle ride back, paid for by the study (there was a bad moment at the front desk where the receptionist told me they didn’t provide rides—I should have been told that. Turned out it was a misunderstanding, and the study people had my ride scheduled. Right hand uninformed by the left hand, as it turned out).
I had to undress and put on a hospital gown and robe (we all know they design those things to deprive us of all human dignity, don’t we?). In the operating room they gave me intravenous drugs for pain control and relaxation. I was told that one effect was amnesia in regard to the test itself, and I was interested to find out what that would be like.
They did their thing, and it was a lot less unpleasant than the preparation had been. Also quickly over. I did not get amnesia. I remember the whole thing, what it felt like and what it looked like on the monitor.
Once again a psychotropic medication has failed to have the promised effect on me. I seem to have superhuman resistance to such things. I think I’ve mentioned that antidepressants do nothing for me at all (except for the side effects).
I should probably be a spy. I can see myself bound to a chair, like Jack Bauer, saying, “I’ll tell you nothing! Your puny sodium pentathol is powerless against me! Uh, what are you doing with those pliers…?”
But I must admit the Valium component did relax me. So much so that I actually made conversation with the shuttle driver on the way home. Or rather, he made conversation and I (uncharacteristically) went along with it. It still took an act of will for me to ask a couple questions, but I did it.
And I had the nicest afternoon nap I’ve had in years.
I could have made a blog post after all, but I’d been through a soul-searing ordeal, and the day was mine, mine, mine! Or at least what was left after the nap was mine. As long as I didn’t drive anywhere.
Auster’s Travels in the Asylum
“Say what one will about Auster’s repetition of devices – the book within a book, the off-stage tormentor, the loss of memory – he has become frightfully good at manipulating a good story out of them.” John Freeman reviews Paul Auster’s Travels in the Scriptorium.
Auster's Travels in the Asylum
“Say what one will about Auster’s repetition of devices – the book within a book, the off-stage tormentor, the loss of memory – he has become frightfully good at manipulating a good story out of them.” John Freeman reviews Paul Auster’s Travels in the Scriptorium.
The Global Pleasure Dome
Since I blogged about the ugliness on the Big Brother TV show in Britain, I should link to Bryan Appleyard’s comments on it and related matters. He’s right, and I almost feel sucked into the shallowness he criticizes. “This is, remember, only an unusually mindless TV show about nothing.”
Are Online Books Really Books?
Here’s a report on books, libraries, and the Interweb from Bryan Appleyard (by way of Frank Wilson): The final chapter in the life of the book? He makes a good point about teacher, which Frank quotes, but let me point out something else. Mr. Appleyard writes:
Intellectual property is the big difference between the developing and developed worlds. But intellectual property rights and the internet are uneasy bedfellows. Google’s stated mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. The words “universally accessible” carry the implicit threat that nobody can actually own or earn revenue from any information since it will all be just out there.
This is one reason an Interweb library search, like Google Book, won’t take over the literary world. Publishers and writers, who can’t afford to work for free, won’t allow it. At the same time, I won’t be surprised if users won’t allow it either when they realize the Interweb can’t offer everything for free (it doesn’t even today) and what they want to read or know won’t be online.
From Treading Water to Walking on It
Lynne Scanlon has darkly roasted and robust conversations about modern bookselling at this post: “Wicked Witch of Publishing Takes Over Pretend Independent Bookstore. Will She Thrive—or Just Survive?” Post and comments, all very interesting, such as:
- Find ways to save money and make money simultaneously by renegotiating your building lease and subletting to authors or anyone who needs a bit o’ space.
- Answer the question “What would you have to believe about my store to be willing to come here and spend money here?”
- In the comments: what on earth does this say about the basic premise of even having an indie if you have to do all this to prop it up?
- If we had been voracious business people instead of voracious readers we might have had a chance — maybe.
- I believe that anybody should work for a minimum of 12 months alongside an experienced bookseller who has a proven sales record.
New meme for 2007
Which of these two statements do you believe to be either true or closer to the truth?
1.
a. The best things in life are free.
b. If money can’t buy happiness, then maybe I don’t need to be happy.
c. Both of these statements are equally true.
2.
a. Perception is reality.
b. Reality is what you trips you when you’re walking through the dark.
c. Both of these statements are equally true.
3.
a. When I fall in love, it will be forever.
b. Hello. I love you. Will you tell me your name?
c. Both of these statements are equally true.
4.
a. The glass is half full.
b. The glass is half empty.
c. Both of these statements are equally true.
5.
a. Life is too short to drink the house wine.
b. The small garden of a free gardener was all my need and due.
c. Both of these statements are equally true.
Bestsellers Dealing with Commerce
A new magazine, The American, has written up a list of “Best Business Novels,” meaning well-written books with “some connection to the world of commerce.”
Theodore Dreiser, The Financier, Honoré de Balzac, A Harlot High and Low, and William Dean Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham, among others. That last one is on my list of Books I Have Intended to Read for Years.