Everyday Saints

Book Review by Amy Cogdell

The Lord first began calling me into the ministry of reconciliation through a series of dreams in the late 1990’s.  In one of the dreams, I found myself in an unfamiliar church served by bearded priests dressed in long black robes.  The priests were chanting in a foreign language I did not recognize. The only words I could make out were “Kyrie Eleison.” 

“Greek!”  I thought.  “Greek Christians!  They don’t seem to be Catholic.  What are Greek Christians called?”

The answer, of course, is that they were Orthodox.  The Orthodox Church is a branch of Christ’s Body I knew nothing about at the time.  Through the dream I felt Jesus impart His love for my Orthodox brothers and sisters.  Since that time, I have prayed for the Orthodox Church (which is comprised of many languages and patriarchates) and longed for a closer connection with Orthodox believers.

This fall the Lord gave me a gift along these lines through our friend Marianna Gol.  She sent a book called Everyday Saints written by Metropolitan Tikhon of Moscow.  It is the story of his conversion to faith during the Soviet era, followed by stories about the monks who formed his faith, nuns who were imprisoned during the communist years, and lay people who remained faithful to God in times of persecution.  The book is engaging and easy to read.  Some of the language and practices described in the book may feel foreign and mysterious, but Christ’s faithfulness to those who trust Him is the same in Russia as it is in America, as it always has been and ever shall be. I found the book to be a helpful window into a part of Christ’s body which is usually closed to our sight.  I recommend it to all who might be discouraged about the darkness of our days.  This stories Fr. Tikhon tells bear witness to the fact the darkness cannot overcome the Light of Christ.

Imagine Heaven

I never before realized that the Prodigal Son is one of Jesus’ parables about money. Why do I say this? Immediately after the parable, Luke 16 begins with this:

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property …”

Squandering property … sound familiar? Just a few verses earlier:

“But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!”

The older son is focused on money and possessions. The father doesn’t seem to regard the lost family wealth as important at all.

“…we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

Jesus crystalizes the difference between these two outlooks with a single piercing phrase later in Luke 16:

“What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.”

When I was making these discoveries in Luke’s gospel, I was also reading John Burke’s book Imagine Heaven, which catalogues and analyzes thousands of near-death experiences that have been studied by scientists and confirmed as legitimate in various ways. (For example, a blind person who was able to describe in detail the operating room that his body was laying in.)

A consistent theme from these “NDEs” (near-death experiences) stood out to me, in light of my readings in Luke. During the “life review” portion common to most NDEs, as God was presenting the person’s life to them so they could review the decisions that they had made, their actions that accumulated wealth, prestige, fame, and fortune counted for nothing. “What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.” But their actions in service of others whom God brought them into relationship with, counted for everything. This is what God values highly.

Here is an example passage from the book, from an art professor who had a heart attack while leading students on a tour of Paris.

In my life review, I had to turn away numerous times when I saw myself treating my children in unloving ways. … The most disturbing behaviors I witnessed in my life review were the times when I cared more about my career as an artist and college professor than about their need to be loved. The emotional abandonment of my children was devastating to review. … I begged them to stop it because I was so ashamed of my failure to live lovingly and because of the grief I caused God, Jesus, and the heavenly beings. The only reason I could bear to proceed was because of their love for me. No matter what we watched me do in life, they communicated their love for me, even as they expressed their disapproval of the things I did.

And another, from a young Australian who was in a surfing accident:

Every detail of twenty years of living was there to be looked at. The good, the bad, the high points, the run-of-the-mill. And with this all-inclusive view came a question. It was implicit in every scene and, like the scenes themselves, seemed to proceed from the living Light beside me.

What did you do with your life?

This made a profound impression on me. Where have I neglected relational love and service for others? How can I live differently?

I can recommend Imagine Heaven just for the impact of this message. But the entire book Imagine Heaven is fascinating. Who doesn’t want to read about other people’s glimpses into the afterlife. John Burke’s approach comes from his background as an engineer, so he carefully presents various points of view, but explains how the evidence points to the biblical narrative as the best explanation for what is commonly experienced during NDEs.

Another very interesting conclusion he reaches is about the Biblical theophanies (when the heavenly realms are revealed, such as in Isaiah 6 or Revelation 4). He had always interpreted them figuratively. But as NDE after NDE reported seeing a heavenly city, gates made of pearl, streets of transparent gold … well, he began to wonder if these theophanies are not much more literal than he had realized. This should encourage us to gaze on “the Beauty Realm” in ever more fervent hope.

Read Imagine Heaven! Then pass it on to some friends, especially those who have doubts, are discouraged, or are afraid of death.

2 Novels

This year it’s been my pleasure to read two novels. One was very Catholic - Fr. Elijah. The other was, I would say, from a Protestant point of view - Charis Colony: The Landing. But they were connected in a certain way, because each had a unique perspective on the second coming of Our Lord. That makes them very appropriate Advent reads … and also wonderful Christmas gifts!

Charis Colony: The Landing was written by a member of the CTR Community, John Martin - his first novel. Set on another world but very much inheriting the problems of ours, Charis Colony charts Raj and Shirin’s whirlwind romance, and its consequences for each them. From the moment Shirin’s machete whistles a half-inch from Raj’s chest, I was hooked. As the fantastic story unfolded, I must admit I kept wondering, “Where is the Christian part of Christian SciFi?” And then … the end!

Enough said … buy this book and read it for yourself.

Fr. Elijah: An Apocalypse is one of a series by Michael D. O’Brien. I was first introduced to this series more than a decade ago, with Eclipse of the Sun, and was astonished to find that Catholics wrote about the end times! Who knew?

Fr. Elijah traces the path of a Catholic priest who is a Jew. He is called to the Vatican and sent on a perilous mission. The novel follows him into danger, out again, and into worse danger as the Vatican confronts evil outside, and evil within. Like Charis Colony, the book is well written and gripping. Don’t pick it up until you have a few days of holiday relaxation on the schedule!

Unoffendable

As the United States awakes to an uncertain result of a bitterly contested election, we seem more divided than any time in recent memory. Have the followers of Jesus succeeded in remaining united in love in the midst of the partisan division? The answer is “No” - Christians are publicly divided. Even more grievously, this division is marked by pride, anger, and contempt on both sides.

This month would be a good time to rediscover Paul’s characteristic of love as “not easily offended.” What if followers of Jesus were unoffendable - by each other, and by the world?

A conservative radio talk show host would seem to be the least likely person to help us here. But help us Brant Hansen does - and conservative radio talk show host, he is.

His radio show gave him a birds-eye view of the lack of maturity in the body of Christ - for example, an email sent to him that read in part:

u are a theological mess! and i could possibly get past the ‘stoner bert and ernie shtick’ and the coy flirtations with the women that call iff you ever had one intelligent or spiritual thing to say … what a shame, u have such an opportunity to help change lives, and you use it just like an apostate.

How to respond? That is the topic of this book, as Brant unfolds his journey from anger and resentment to discovering that he could choose to be unoffended. We all need to learn this lesson!

In the process, Brant tackles a number of hard questions, such as “What about righteous anger?” Clearly, he has been presenting his ideas over the air for years, and listened carefully to those who call / write him, so his responses are not theoretical but highly practical.

Throughout, Brant uses funny stories and an informal style to engage his readers.

You can purchase the book on Amazon, or the audio book on Audible.

• Inside tip: Caroline Owens tells me the audio book is great, because he reads his own book - and, being a radio personality, he has a very engaging voice!

Transforming Austin: A God Story

[In] 1998 … then Mayor, Kirk Watson, called together a group of leaders to draft a “Commitment to Racial Reconciliation” in response to a racially charged police event in the city. That document declared the equality of the races and the evil of racism. [It] used much of what had already been worked through by a small group of Christian pastors and their wives in 1996 in writing the “Pastoral Covenant for Racial Reconciliation.”

…

The team consisted of Pastor Geno Hildebrandt … Pastor Rick Randall … ; Pastor [Joseph] Parker … and Ashton Cumberbatch, a lawyer, pastor, and civic leader, both of African-American descent; and their spouses. Ashton Cumberbatch described the document: “It took a year. It acknowledged that racism is a sin and set out some scriptures that supported that. It said that we have fallen short of the glory of God in that area, and it talked about things we could do in our individual congregations, and what we could do collectively to combat that. we presented our document to a larger group that existed at the time - Austin Pastors Prayer Fellowship. They thought there was merit, so we had a signing event. I think originally 65 to 70 pastors signed the document.”

This story is found in Transforming Austin: A God Story, a wonderful little book written by a friend who works for ABBA, Thana Rolph. While on a skiing trip in Colorado, she heard God invite her to write His story - specifically the story of God’s work in Austin. Thana starts with the founding of Austin but focuses mostly through the last 50 years.

Prayer and unity are two of the key themes run throughout the book - and of course these themes are dear to our heart at CTR. And the story also has so many names of people who are also dear to our heart - Dan Davis, Cindy Vana, Vicky Porterfield, Daniel Geraci, Barb Bucklin, Rick Randall, Joyce Tait, David & Bethany Martin, Steve Hawthorne, Marivel Reyes, and on, and on, and on. It is lovely to read Thana’s writing about each of them, as her affection and appreciation for each of them comes shining through.

As I read, I tried to imagine the layers and layers of God-stories beneath each sentence of Thana’s brief story. I of course am intimately familiar with the history of Austin House of Prayer - the dreams and visions, the struggles and failures, the breakthrough prayer times, the people God brought, the worship that arose, the miracles of provision. And yet I am also aware that I do not know the full extent of the impact of AHOP, because we get only glimpses of the glory in this life. This reality is true for each of the churches, ministries, movements and organizations that Thana covers - The Well, St. David’s Episcopal Church, Holy Cross Catholic, Perspectives, March for Jesus, Pastors in Covenant, Campus Renewal Ministries, ADRN, ABBA … each of them has backstory after backstory and impact after impact, mostly untold and often unknown even to those who were there. Praise the Lord for the fruit He has brought forth from cross-pollination in the city of Austin!

Most of that cross-pollination is on the Protestant side. While Thana uncovers a few Catholic stories, they are primarily ones that touch the Protestant world. It would have been a delight if Thana had turned her prodigious researching skills towards the history of the Catholic Diocese, tracing the rich legacy of those brothers and sisters. Not to mention the Eastern Orthodox! What has their contribution been? These are further steps forward in God’s story of Transforming Austin. To use one of Thana’s analogies, may these three tapestries be woven together more tightly in years and decades to come.

It seems appropriate to close this book review with the last words written by Thana in the Epilogue: “… God writes His story through the pages of our lives. It takes all of us.” Amen, and amen!

You can purchase Transforming Austin on Amazon by clicking here.

Because of Winn-Dixie

This year our Reconciliation Bridge Prayer includes this collect:

Dear God, thank you for warm summer nights and candlelight and good food.  But thank you most of all for friends.  We appreciate the complicated and wonderful gifts you give us in each other.  And we appreciate the task you put down before us, of loving each other the best we can, even as you love us.  We pray in Christ's name, Amen.

- "The Preacher" from Because of Winn-Dixie

This resulted in an email from one community member - What is Because of Winn-Dixie?

This book review is my lengthy answer to that short question! Because … Because of Winn-Dixie is a delightful and profound children’s book.

It tells the story of a 10-year-old girl named India Opal who has just moved to a small town in Florida with her father, who has taken a job as pastor of a small church that meets in an abandoned convenience store.

India’s mother left when she was a small child, and her father is wrapped up in shame and sadness - but he can’t share it with his daughter. It is locked up inside of him, and he “pulls his head into his shell, like a turtle.”

As a result, India calls him “The Preacher” instead of “Daddy” - for most of the book. But the story tells how grief is unlocked - for him, for India, and for other members of their small town. Everyone has their own private grief - and learning to make it public is “both sweet and sad”, like the famous Litmus Lozenge candies that the town used to produce. And of course Winn-Dixie, the dog that India finds, plays an important role as well.

Learning to grieve is such an important part of reconciliation. This book communicates powerfully to children and adults alike.

The book has also been made into a wonderful movie of the same name, which stars AnnaSophia Robb as India Opal and Jeff Daniels as “The Preacher.” Both the book and the movie are highly recommended!

Be The Bridge

One of the many, many good aspects of Be the Bridge are the prayer liturgies at the end of each chapter. It’s so encouraging to see a book on racial reconciliation that highlights the importance of prayer in the work of reconciliation!

Another connection of this book with CTR is that the author, Latasha Morrison, lived here for many years. In fact, her ministry Be the Bridge (same name as the book) was founded here in Austin, based on her experiences as the only black pastor at a well-known church in the city. She tells the story in the first part of the book - how her Austin experience led to the ministry, and how the ministry led to the book.

She published the book in 2019, and it won a Book of the Year award from Christianity Today - which I was so happy to see. Then 2020 happened … and after the George Floyd killing white people all across the nation went looking for books about racial reconciliation. Latasha’s book shot up on the New York Times bestseller list and went out of print! “For such a time as this …” How wonderful for a Godly, honest, well-crafted book to become a national resource in time of crisis.

Be the Bridge is also one of the best books on reconciliation I have read, period. She lays out a map for racial reconciliation that can be applied to many other contexts. For example, she focuses on the importance of shared lament - which we practiced in Wittenberg 2017. She doesn’t skip over the need for repentance, but also doesn’t stop there - moving on to cover how God can heal past wounds and make all things new. No “perpetual white guilt” can be found in this book - it is filled with hope. And practical steps that can be taken, now. And probing questions at the end of each chapter, perfect for a small group meeting or a personal examination of conscience.

If you haven’t read Be the Bridge, prayerfully consider doing it sooner rather than later.

Difficult Conversations

We Americans seem to have lost our ability to talk to one another!

This short book is easy to read but challenging to put into practice. It primarily addresses personal conversations (between spouses, parents & children, co-workers & bosses, etc.) - but certainly applies to online social media discussions that are so prevalent in these days where we can’t meet face-to-face.

Practical tips abound for getting to the point without offending or reacting. There are multiple examples of extended conversations, with each one broken down into the three different conversations that are taking place:

• The “What Happened” conversation - what are the facts

• The Feelings conversation - how do we feel about what happened

• The Identity conversation - what are the implications for who we are?

Meaningful reconciliation requires conversation. This book is a great aid in having these conversations without sabotaging the relationship or making the situation worse.

A Man Called Mr. Pentecost

When Fr. Peter first visited our community (then called AHOP) in 2010, part of the discussion with him was about our library. He asked about how we chose the books in our library, and recommended that we change from “everyone’s discarded books that they drop by the prayer room” approach, to a more curated library of books we can enthusiastically recommend. Felipe asked him for books that he would specifically recommend, and one author he mentioned was David du Plessis.

A Man Called Mr. Pentecost is the wonderful and easy-to-read autobiography of this important man. David du Plessis was born into a Pentecostal missionary family in South Africa in 1905. Chapter 1 begins with a prophecy given to David du Plessis by Smith Wigglesworth in his early 30’s, that David would see the Pentecostal movement spread into the established churches (mainline Protestant & Catholic) … which was unthinkable at the time.

The first half of the book then traces his childhood, conversion, baptism in the Holy Spirit, and early ministry and leadership experiences. The chapters are short and filled with a combination of the excitement of the Holy Spirit’s activity and the disappointment of immaturity in himself and other Pentecostal leaders.

Everything turns in Chapter 18 - Revolution. God does a serious work in David’s life, that prepares him to begin to work with the mainline churches. The remainder of the book is a remarkable account of the doors that open to him in church after church, as the Holy Spirit blows through the windows of the established churches in the 60s and 70s. One highlight is the invitation from the Roman Catholic leadership to be an official observer at Vatican II.

I highly recommend A Man Called Mr. Pentecost for our community. It is important to understand the Pentecostal movement, and the history of David du Plessis is a wonderful on-ramp to this important topic, that will be highly accessible for Protestants and Catholics alike. (Note that is seems to be out of print, so you will need to search around for a used copy to purchase, or come to CTR to read the one that is in our library!)

Stories of the Saints

Stories of the Saints: Bold and Inspiring Tales of Adventure, Grace, and Courage

By Carey Wallace, illustrated by Nick Thornborrow

Review by Brie Tschoepe

“Who is a Saint? Saints aren’t born better or braver than the rest of us. Saints aren’t people who are always good and never afraid. They’re people who believe there must be more to life than just what we can see. This world may be hard and unfair, but saints believe in a God who is bigger than the world, whose law is love, and whose justice is mercy. And this faith gives them courage: to stand up to evil kings, to care for people everyone else forgets or hates…”

For years, I and others prayed with the author for Stories of the Saints, that it would become the book that God wanted to bring into the world to inspire readers with the exciting and marvelous stories of faithful ones.

The book that finally made it to publication is deliciously beautiful and enthralling. The great effort of distilling the stories of 70 saints into a coherent series that is accessible and meaningful to both young and old(er) is brightly evident.

Where the stories seem to have melded with “legend”, Carey accepts the possibility of a mysterious Truth that may not seem probable, but magnifies the nature of the God they served. As she puts it,

“Are these stories true? That depends on what we mean by true stories...just because we can’t be sure a story really happened doesn’t mean it isn’t true in another way. These stories have been told for generations, some for thousands of years...They come from many sources, but they are among the best-loved and most enduring stories in the world because of the deep truths they contain.”

She might have sought to provide “historically accurate” accounts--which no doubt would have left her scant material. Or she might have painted the most fantastical elements, as if these were merely Christian “Fairy Tales.” What she birthed is instead a melding of the two that represents the very mending of divisions our community prays toward. She maintains the Mysteries and Wonders that the Catholic church accepted and preserved, while anchoring each individual in actual place and time and culture. We can marvel that their legacies still influence our expressions of worship and knowledge of God, and yet, in Carey’s rendering, it is abundantly clear that we are invited and welcomed to join their ranks, to “bring the better world to be” by even our own faith as well.

Postscript by Thomas Cogdell

My 8-year-old daughter was inspired by this book to write a song and create a video! She read in the book about Pachomius, a saint of whom I had never heard. Below is the video that she made to describe this unusual man of God.

A Garland for Ashes (new Audio book)

The book of the month for April 2020 is Hanna Miley’s new audio book! Her powerful memoir, A Garland for Ashes, has just been released as an audio book.

Here is the publisher’s summary of the book:

Torn from her homeland...her parents murdered.... How could she cope? 

When little Hannelore (Hanna) Zack left Cologne, Germany, on a train bound for London as a seven-year-old mädchen (young girl) on July 24, 1939, she had no way of knowing that she was part of the Kindertransport, an epic rescue effort that would save 10,000 Jewish children from Hitler's Nazi regime by granting them safe passage to England. In the coming years, Hanna would learn the painful truth: After being stripped of their business, forced from their Zuhause (home), and deported to endure six months of inhumane conditions in the Lodz Ghetto, her parents were gassed in a brutally efficient killing operation in a remote, forested area near Chelmno, Poland, on May 3, 1942. 

Written over a four-year period beginning when Hanna was about 75 years old, A Garland for Ashes is both a gripping detective story recounting the heartbreaking process of discovering her family's fate and a poignant account of her journey from vengeful hatred to forgiveness and release from bitterness.

Here is the review I posted on Audible:

Stories from the Holocaust are so important, so as to not forget what happened, and what could happen again. But this story ... this story should be next on your list.

Why? It offers a beautiful example of how to respond when terrible events happen in our lives. Heaven forbid we have to deal with something on the level of the Holocaust again - but all of us have ways in which we have suffered loss, betrayal, and hidden darkness. A Garland For Ashes not only recounts the history in a precise and powerful manner, but lays out the process of forgiveness and reconciliation that Hanna went through as she wrestled with these memories and the powerful emotions that they evoked in her soul.

In terms of production, I haven't listened to too many audio books (I generally prefer to read visually), but this one is really good. The narrator outstanding (apparently her father also escaped the Holocaust). The violin music in the opening was like a musical interpretation of Hanna's story.

Highly recommended!