Book Talk

This past weekend my husband mentioned the blog "firestorm" gaining ground regarding the new book by Rob Bell Love Wins . It won't be releasing until late March, but already verbal punchs are being thrown, sides are being taken and heretics branded. Zondervan opted not to publish the book so HarperOne is carrying it.  Fans flock to his Facebook page, his NOOMA videos have been viewed by millions, and his Sunday sermons are attended by 10,000 parishioners—with a downloadable podcast reaching 50,000 more. An electrifying, unconventional pastor whom Time magazine calls “a singular rock star in the church world,” Rob Bell is the most vibrant, central religious leader of the millennial generation. Now, in Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived , Bell addresses one of the most controversial issues of faith—the afterlife—arguing that a loving God would never sentence human souls to eternal suffering. With searing insight, Bell puts hell on t

Ever since grade one, when my teacher told me that "t" says "tuh" and "h" says "huh" and "th" says "thuh", I have loved books and reading.  Twice in my life I have been in a geographical place that did not have easy access to books.  I thought my heart was going to stop.  How can there be anywhere in the world that does not have books?  Horrid thought.   Imagine not being able to physically hold a cookbook, a Bible, a spy novel, a board-book for your toddler.  Imagine that libraries were only open between 1:00-3:00 on Thursdays.  Imagine your local bookstore closing for renovations and re-opening as say, a tree nursery or a car dealership. Imagine waiting at the airport without a book to while away the hours. Imagine the sun sending out a blip that rendered on-line access to books impossible.  Imagine being dependent on electricity to read a book.  Imagine a holiday without a book on the table beside your iced tea.  Imagine a

my husband asked me to marry him.  Well, to be precise, he asked me the day before on Feb 13 so that we could spend Valentine's Day in an engaged state.  We were married 3 months later.  We only had two dates, although I did spend a week with his family the previous Christmas, but that was only as "prayer partners"!  We had no pre-marital counselling although we did read a few books about s - e - x beforehand.   We had vastly different backgrounds although we both had praying parents. I was a city girl, he was an m.k. (missionary kid) from the jungle.  We are both head-strong firstborns.  We spent our first anniversary looking after a missionary guesthouse in Borneo and lived in Indonesia for the next 16 years of our married lives.  Our kids look at us and marvel. "We can't believe you made it!"  We look back over the last 35 years and are pretty surprised ourselves!  We could have saved ourselves some tears and trouble if we had read the following:    Fi

I am crazy about a new book that just showed up in the devotional section.  Our boss, Lando, pulled it off the shelf a few days ago to read during the staff prayer time and it has not disappointed yet.  The Book Lover's Devotional is the title and inside we "learn about life from sixty great works of literature". Today's reading was based on Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables .  Did you know that Anne has sold over 50 million copies since its publication in 1908?  Anne happens to be a personal favorite of mine, (after Pippi Longstocking), and for years I have tried to emulate her love for life, for words, and for her family.  In fact, at one point I was so obsessed with her that a godly, older lady told me to get my eyes off of Anne and onto Jesus! That aside, I have read every title in the series about Anne and her children over the years.  After reading today's devotional, I realized why these books strike such a comforting, familiar chord in no