We had a house full of friends and family with us yesterday and over dinner someone mentioned Tony Campolo's book, "Red Letter Christians." Immediately, one person replied, "communist Christians?" and someone else thought the title referred to the red light district. Funny how the phrase 'red letter' instantly brings up different associations for people!

Well, here's the actual book, for anyone who may be curious and hasn't heard about it:

The term "red letter" is a reference to Bibles where Jesus' words are printed in red ink, so basically it refers to his teachings.

And here's the gist of Red Letter Christians; it's a quote from the inside flap of the book:

I want it to be known that there are millions of us who espouse an evangelical theology, but who reject being classified as part of the Religious Right. We don’t want to make Jesus into a Republican. On the other hand, we want to say loud and clear that we don’t want to make Jesus in a Democrat, either. ...But Jesus refuses to fit into any of our political ideologies.

If you've read it, what did you think? I'd love to hear your take on it.

Book lovers: Want free Christian books? Want to spotlight your book reviews?

Here's what you do: Join any or all of these fabulous blogger review programs. Click the logos below for details:

Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.
- CS Lewis

I'm on a quest to read the classics -- both old and new. Want to join me on my reading challenge?

In addition to the Christian books already on my list (fiction, biographies, christian living, apologetics, etc.) my goal is to read the majority of the BBC's top 100 novels. I say 'majority' because a handful on this list hold no interest for me and there are just too many other good books out there that have been calling my name for years!

So how about you? Which of these have you read? Which are your favourites? Which ones do you really want to read? I'd love to hear from you.

And will you join me on this challenge? There's no schedule or deadline--just reading for pure pleasure and relaxation whenever you can fit it in. As for me, I'll be reading on my morning/evening commute on public transit, squeezing in the odd BBC novel between the other books I'm reading. Can't wait!

green "title, author" = I've already read this book

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

Read or listen to chapter one from The Constantine Codex by Paul Maier:

I'll be reading forever because ideas are my brain candy.

There's so much I love about our shared experience and the human imagination, from humor to history, fantasy to philosophy, the classics to critical thinking, science to self-help, politics to poetry, memoir to mystery...

I just can't get enough!

Book lovers: Want free books? Want to spotlight your book reviews?
Join any or all of these fabulous blogger review programs:

Defiant Joy: The Remarkable Life & Impact of G.K. Chesterton by Kevin Belmonte

Dr. Ravi Zacharias first introduced me to G.K. Chesterton. He quotes Chesterton often in his talks and seems to think highly of him. Since I think highly of Dr. Zacharias, it seemed obvious that I should learn more about Chesterton.

When BookSneeze offered this work to book reviewers I jumped at the chance. Well, at first the hair on the cover picture had me second-guessing, but then I remembered that I'd be learning more about the inside of Chesterton's head than the outside.

The author's intro was enough to hook me. Now I'm eager to pour over the rest of it. If you're interested in Chesterton's work but don't know much about it, keep checking back for updates. I'll post the best and most inspiring, thought-provoking quotes from this book.

In the meantime, check out this sleek blog dedicated to all things Chesterton: Chesterton.org

A Trail of Ink made me laugh.

Hugh de Singleton, a medieval surgeon with a gift for solving mysteries, inherits a delightfully dry sense of humor from his creator, Mel Starr. It's a pleasure to witness the irony, the wit, and the tongue-in-cheek remarks from the viewpoint of the book's humble protagonist. This is one impression that's stayed with me after finishing this excellent work.

History buffs will fancy another outstanding aspect of the book: the skill with which Starr relates intriguing details about the time and place of 14th century Oxford, England.

I noticed it first in the language, which is no surprise, given that Starr has studied medieval English. The book is clear and understandable to the average reader, but Starr treats us to a writing style that brings medieval England to life. Here's the opening of chapter one to show you what I mean:

I had never seen Master John Wyclif so afflicted. He was rarely found at such a loss when in disputation with other masters. He told me later, when I had returned them to him, that it was as onerous to plunder a bachelor scholar's books as it would be to steal another man's wife. I had, at the time, no way to assess the accuracy of that opinion, for I had no wife and few books.

He also has a pleasantly subtle way of teaching little-known facts about everyday life for people like Hugh. I didn't pick up the novel to learn history per se, but I sure picked up some interesting gems along the way. I learned about the St Scholastica Day riot, for instance, as Hugh enters a tavern one morning in pursuit of a suspect:

The place was newly opened for business but had not yet attracted custom. I ordered a cup of wine and settled myself at a bench. The wine was well watered and I wondered that the mayor and sheriff did not fine the fellow. Just such practice caused the terrible St Scholastica Day riots that took so many lives when I was new come to Oxford.

Meanwhile, I enjoyed how Starr weaves the Christian faith into the story through Hugh's first-person perspective. Hugh is much like the rest of us in that the challenges he encounters lead him to reflect on questions of faith, like when a friend in need compels him to put his faith into action:

Master John believes in prayer, but my promise to petition our Lord Christ on his behalf seemed to bring him small comfort. I think he would rather have my time and effort than my prayers. Or would have both. Prayers may be offered cheaply. They require small effort from men, and much from God. The Lord Christ has told us we may ask of Him what we will, but I suspect He would be pleased to see men set to their work, and call upon Him only when tasks be beyond them.

This is the first I've read in the three-book series. I heard it was a great stand-alone novel, and it is. I look forward to catching up on the first two and to the release of book four.

I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for a review. My thanks to Monarch Books and LitFuse Publicity.

About A Trail of Ink:
An excellent medieval whodunit by the author of The Unquiet Bones and A Corpse at St Andrew's Chapel

Some valuable books have been stolen from Master John Wyclif, the well known scholar and Bible translator. He calls upon his friend and former pupil, Hugh de Singleton, to investigate. Hugh's investigation leads him to Oxford where he again encounters Kate, the only woman who has tempted him to leave bachelor life behind, but Kate has another serious suitor. As Hugh's pursuit of Kate becomes more successful, mysterious accidents begin to occur. Are these accidents tied to the missing books, or to his pursuit of Kate?

One of the stolen books turns up alongside the drowned body of a poor Oxford scholar. Another accident? Hugh certainly doesn t think so, but it will take all of his surgeon s skills to prove.

So begins another delightful and intriguing tale from the life of Hugh de Singleton, surgeon in the medieval village of Bampton. Masterfully researched by medieval scholar Mel Starr, the setting of the novel can be visited and recognized in modern-day England. Enjoy more of Hugh s dry wit, romantic interests, evolving faith, and dogged determination as he pursues his third case as bailiff of Bampton.

About Mel Starr:
Mel Starr was born and grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan. After graduating with a MA in history from Western Michigan University in 1970, he taught history in Michigan public schools for thirty-nine years, thirty-five of those in Portage, MI, where he retired in 2003 as chairman of the social studies department of Portage Northern High School. Mel and his wife, Susan, have two daughters and seven grandchildren. www.melstarr.org

Visit the Facebook blog tour for A Trail of Ink.

Buy the book at Amazon Canada or Amazon US.

If you enjoy historical fiction, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien & the Inklings, 1940s England, or Arthurian legend, you just might like this new book. I enjoy everything on this list, surprise, surprise. (When I recently told a friend about my interest in ethnomusicology, she said she wasn't surprised because, in her words, "you're interested in everything!" Ha! It's a blessing and a curse, let me tell you!) So anyway, I guess I don't really need to say how happy I'd be find a copy of this book someday.

This excerpt is by Shauna Niequist, from her chapter called "Coming Home" pages 101-105:

One month ago today, the movers were unloading our furniture and boxes. We were trying to figure out the locations of light switches and where to piano should go. We slept fitfully that first night, because of the funny noises and silences in an unfamiliar home, and because Henry [her son] was sleeping in his big-boy racecar bed for the first time--a new bed and a new room. And now, somehow, it's been a month.

In the long expanse between teh planning and the actual moving, I dreamed about this house, and specifically, I dreamed about cooking in this house. I was so excited to stop traveling for a while, and to really live in a home, to be able to buy vegetables and not worry that they'd go bad while I was gone, Aaron [her husband] eating frozen meals night and day in my absence. I wanted people around our table, after a season of eating most of my meals in airports and hotel rooms, or collapsing onto the couch with hummus and crackers to watch a movie with Henry at the end of a hurried day.

And yesterday I realized that my dream has more than come true. On our very first night, my mom brought over thick roasted vegetable soup, and we sat around our table with my parents and Aaron's parents, telling funny moving stories, filled with gratitude for this home, and for all the answered prayers that it represents.

Since then we've had polenta with rosemary tomato sauce with Matt and Casey and their kids, eggs and bacon and blueberry sausages when Joe and Emily visited, and a long, lazy breakfast with scones and roasted potatoes with Alan and Sara and their family when they visited...

Before we moved, I had been dreaming about three things: feeding people, quiet writing mornings, and lots of time with Henry. Check, check, check. Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude.

I know, really, that a month is nothing--a blip, a flash. But I also know that a few of the things that have been frantic and running around in me for the last few years are slowing down. And of course, a few aren't. I'm still the same old me, wriggling with self-doubt most days, and that's not something you leave at the state line, as much as I wish it was. But at the same time, some very important things have shifted.

Recently I saw a friend I hadn't seen in years. "I heard you're engaged!" I cried as I hugged her, exuberantly. "Congratulations!"

"I'm not engaged," she said. "I was, and I'm not anymore." Oh, heavens. I started to apologize, but she put her hand on my arm and interrupted me.

"It's all right," she said. "Breaking the engagement was the first conscious decision of my life." What an extraordinary statement. And as I spent time with her, I could see the truth of her words, the bloom of her eyes and skin and spirit. She had made a fundamental, defining choice, and it brought life and hope to her words and her world.

Her words rang in my ears because I wanted to make a conscious decision of my own, and her words gave a name to something I'd been aching for for a long time. Many of the key decisions in my life have been pretty natural--they sort of fell into being, or came about as I traveled life's path. Many of them just seemed like the next right thing, the most natural progression. But this move back to my hometown and the church I grew up in, as much as it looks natural to the outside observer, this move was one of the first conscious decisions of my life. This is what I wanted, what I prayed for, what I asked for from my husband.

For one of the first times in my life, as I thought and prayed about the possibility of this move, I became very quiet and still, and looked over my life like I was panning for gold in a river, seeing every single thing, the dirt and the water and the slubby green moss on the rocks. I looked and listened and wrote, and what I found is that I wanted to be home. Not everyone, I'm learning, has a deep sense of home. But for me, even after four years in Santa Barbara and six years in Grand Rapids, Chicago is still my home.

I was wrestling with the idea of home, and by wrestling, I mean I asked everyone I knew or ran into, drove them crazy with questions about their own sense of home, their memories and associations with the topic. We had dinner with our friends Doug and Shelley, and after dinner over a rich baked rice pudding I still think about, I asked them about home. They both grew up in Minneapolis, got married and had kids there, and then life and work took them to Dallas. But Doug realized that whenever he watched the weather, wherever he was, he was looking at Minnesota on the weather map. Whenever his plane arrived at the Minneapolis airport, even if he was just connecting to go on to another place, he felt like he was home.

That's how I feel about Chicago. Even after six years in Grand Rapids, when people asked me where I was from, I said Chicago, and then added that I currently lived in Grand Rapids, making it sound like I was cooling my heels there for six weeks or so, not that I owned a home and a lawnmower and a tailor, a pediatrician, and a regular breakfast place there.

And it wasn't that I didn't like Grand rapids. It's something under that, something a little more wiggly. It's that Chicago is familiar to me on a deep level, like when you recognize the melody of a song before you even realize there's music playing. Grand Rapids grew on me, in all sorts of ways. I settled in, had a baby there, found a few coffee shops and restaurants and friends that made me feel like we were building a little life there. But when the topic of home came up, home was Chicago.

And after the chaos and wildness of the last few years, I wanted to be home. I wanted a small house with lots of windows and no mice. I wanted to write, and to be with Henry, to travel less and cook more. I wanted to be a part of a church again, to volunteer and show up every week, to feel connected to the rhythm of it.

And today I'm filled with gratitude. For a woman who doesn't always know what she wants, I believed in a deep way this time around that this decision would lead us to our best future. I thought about it, wrote about it, prayed for it, talked to Aaron and to the people we walk closely with every step of the way. And here we are, one month into this beautiful new season, the one I held in my heart and my mind for so long. It isn't perfect, but I wasn't looking for perfect. This is what I've wanted, on a very deep level, and on an icy cold winter day, I'm overwhelmed by the sweetness of it. It feels good to be home.

I just realized the irony of posting a quote about gluttony on Thanksgiving weekend (Canadian Thanksgiving, that is). Trust me, this wasn't planned!

In The Pursuit of Holiness, Jerry Bridges reminds us:

20th century Christians, especially those in the Western world, have generally been found wanting in the area of holiness of body. Gluttony and laziness, ...for example, were regarded by earlier Christians as sin. Today we may look on these as weaknesses of the will but certainly not sin. We even joke about our overeating and other indulgences instead of crying out to God in confession and repentance.

How has the western Church come to this point where we wink at things God has told us clearly are sins?

This is just one example showing the reason doubters and critics and 'revolutionaries' within the Church deserve our attention these days. The Church is complacent, too many patriarchs and matriarchs of the faith subordinate voices of concern and dissonance in their midst. More often than not, I think, the Holy Spirit is the drive behind those voices, and in the Church's complacency we don't recognize His voice anymore.

It's all too easy, but we can't let ourselves slip into the same complacency we're seeing all around us in Christianity these days. It's far too easy to go with the flow than it is to swim against it, but sometimes general consensus, the status quo, popular opinion, whatever you want to call it, can be rebellious and unholy, yes, even in the Church.

If you're concerned about the Body of Christ and feel God leading you to say something about it, don't let yourself be shamed or discouraged for doing so. If He calls you to shine a light on some of these neglected, unseemly sins that seem to be staring you in the face, then don't lose heart: Keep following His lead, keep listening to His voice, and keep shining that light. You're not alone.

The evangelical Church: Can't live with it, can't live without it. But lately it seems major shifts are happening that should make it just a little easier to live with.

The Hearts & Minds blogger explains.

Most of the titles in my library were recommended to me and are still on my To Read list. If I find especially important, fun, or life-changing books, I'll review them on my blog.

I'll also cover a few of the other kind--the scandalous and/or flatulent works deserving special mention. ...Not that I'm a professional critic or anything. So review my critiques with a grain of salt, and feel free to critique my reviews while you're at it!

On another note, one of my BIG life goals is to read the entire suggested reading list from Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. I've made an RZIM category at my LibraryThing account, and all 268 books have already been added to it. Now all that's left to do is READ!

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Our household has begun the "We Shall Yet Triumph Cable Countdown", aka the "Boob Tube Wake": In December we cancelled our basic cable package; the cable company gave us three months of free cable in case we wanted to change our minds (as if it were that easy). As of today we have 29 days left with free basic cable channels. When the clock strikes twelve on March 24th any filmed entertainment we catch will be brought to us by our home VHS/DVD collection, YouTube, CBC Newsworld online, BitTorrent, the local public library's VHS/DVD free rental section, the local public library's free Saturday afternoon matinées, other websites that are kind enough to post video clips (what would we do without the internet, eh?), and of course our trusty-dusty set of rabbit ears.

So now that cable's death knell has rung, it's beginning to sink in and I'm already seeing life from a new perspective. To tell the truth I think our culture has gotten us all addicted to visual entertainment. How many of us would go NUTS if we were stuck in a house for any length of time without television? Would we know what to do with ourselves? Think about it: No evening news, no documentaries or live sports. Forget the rental movies, Saturday morning cartoons, reality shows and game shows, not to mention the edge-of-your-seat dramas and cheesy teenage sitcoms... not that I watch cheesy teenage sitcoms; I don't. But that isn't the point. The point is we'd probably go dotty and stick our head in a microwave, or go totally stone age and pick up a book or take up a hobby like gardening, weight-lifting, or chess. We might even go beyond imbalanced and volunteer in our community. Heavens to Murgatroid!

Here's a question for you: If you had to give up either television or the internet, which would you choose?

There is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children
by Melissa Fay Greene

Thank you, Judy, for drawing my attention to this book on the problem of AIDS. The quote from your blog (below) which presents the African AIDS issue through the lens of reality TV made me think of the role of human suffering in entertainment - hence the U2 quote as the title of this post. Some extreme, though lesser known, reality TV shows that were spawned out of Survivor's success did cross the line. They used physical and emotional pain as a basis for shocking and entertaining the masses, and ultimately for making money. I once read a book on this topic called Shooting People: Adventures in Reality TV, which explored the dark depths to which people will go to entertain or be entertained. It made me wonder whether the flavour of our reality shows was beginning to resemble the Roman Empire's famous Colosseum, which, as we all know, found its pleasure in human death.

Our other collective reaction to human suffering seems to be such deeply ingrained apathy and neglect that nothing less than a shocking reality TV show could cause in us an emotional or even a helpful response.

Consider the following scenario comparing African clinics to popular reality TV:

These programs are "reality shows."
In Africa, by the hundreds and thousands and millions, but one by one, a person sits in a clinic waiting room, jumpy or still, feeling fine or feeling nauseous, coughing or not coughing. Or she squats outside in the dirt yard, holding her head in her hand, occasionally looking up and calling to her children not to wander too far. Each waits to hear his or her name called. Inside the examining room, a doctor or nurse or nurse's aide examines a slip of paper and looks up. The eyes speak first.
Negative: You advance to the next round. See you tomorrow.
Positive: America has voted. Your journey ends here.
There are no television cameras.
No viewers at home are cheering or weeping.
No viewers at home phoned in their individual votes. Most never knew anything was at stake.
"I have heard there are treatments," a woman will whisper.
"Not in our country," the doctor will say with a sad smile.
"Does it mean I will die soon?" a man will ask.
"Yes, I'm afraid that is what it means."
"I thought perhaps I just had a cold."
"No, I'm afraid not."
"...I have heard that there is holy water which is effective?"
"No. That is a myth."
"As I supposed. Thank you, Doctor."

So this is MY preferred premise for a reality show on human suffering: Us rich folk in the West give up any one frivolous expense of our choice, and see how many lives we save overseas from preventable causes of death. Here are some examples of what families might choose to do:

- giving up 5 manicures or 10 movie tickets could save someone's life (e.g. by providing leprosy medication)
- giving up highlights/lowlights or gourmet coffee for a year could save several families (e.g. by providing these families with goats - a source of milk, food, and income)
- the excess cash from buying an economy car rather than a luxury vehicle or SUV could save an entire village (e.g. by providing a clean water well, which ultimately saves thousands of lives and dollars by preventing diseases related to water contamination)

TV crews would visit kind-hearted individuals and families in numerous wealthy nations around the world who'd decide which of their usual trivial expenses they'd be willing to give up, and how they would donate the extra cash. Then our TV crews could follow these donations right to the offices of the NGOs (non-government organizations) and onward to their intended recipients. In the end we'd be counting the smiles that would otherwise have been wiped out by illness or death. It would be like a World Vision telethon with an Extreme Home Makeover twist, and it would be fabulous! What's more, I believe it would educate and inspire a solid portion of the Western population to follow suit. So, when do we start?

~*~

Blog Tag is a game I've just been introduced to today! Another blog I read from time to time introduced me to the concept of "literary lucky-dipping." It's similar to "a different kind of quiz" - a game we played a while back at a message board I frequent, which some of you will recognize below:

1. Grab the book closest to me.
The closest book to me at the moment is The Treasure Principle: Unlocking the secret of joyful giving by Randy Alcorn.

2. Quickly turn to page 123,
Problem: this book finishes at 120 pages. So I grab the next closest book - The Maker's Diet by Jordan S. Rubin.

3. Find the fourth sentence from the top of the page, and --
Mhmm...

4. Post the next three sentences:

While I do not consider myself a miracle worker, I do have great confidence in my Teacher, affectionately called "the Great Physician," who heals all our diseases (Ps. 103:3). Nothing matches His wisdom concerning His creation, including the ideal human diet and natural treatments for our most common ailments. Before you examine the 'nuts and bolts' of the Maker's Diet, I wanted you to consider its effect on these people who were desperate for any glimmer of hope in their health situation--including my own grandmother, who prayed for just a few more months of life!

I still haven't finished this book; instead I've been leafing back and forth through the pages, reading about nutrition history, checking out the recipes, pondering his theories, and eyeing his 40-day health plan, all in a delightfully random approach that I like to take with some things in life. I'll track down the remaining unread pages sooner or later and finish it up. ...Now, if you were to ask my husband, he'd tell you that I can be a little impatient. True, I couldn't read the rest of the book before skipping ahead to the recipes. Oh well...

5) Tag an indefinite number of people to do the same (so, it could be '0').
Judy, Tina, ellie, photogal938, cheriet, twiga92, kalipay, Jeffrey74, Julie, and anyone else who wants to join in! =)

~*~

Photo: Romeo Dallaire
Source: pbs.org


Knowing something of Romeo Dallaire's story, I know that his convictions are born out of a first-hand, 'in-your-face' kind of experience with the horrors that humans are capable of committing against one another. This is why I sense the sincerity of his recent pleas to collectively arrest yet another tragedy in the Third World. What got my attention was the urgency in his voice (for anyone who heard him on televised or radio news) which was significantly different in tone than the 'urgency' we hear from various politicians or radical activists. He's warning us not to commit the mistakes of our recent past; he knows we're capable of letting that happen, but he also knows that there is still a ray of hope. Although, it must be frustrating, even infuriating, to try to reason with some of the world's top governments about an issue involving life and death, an issue that has exposed their hypocrisy in the past, and one that may very well do so again.

Retired Canadian general Romeo Dallaire blasted the U.S. and Canada yesterday for failing to rally the world and provide the political will to save people in Darfur. The reason so many people have been allowed to die in Sudan already, Dallaire told a Senate subcommittee, is simple. "There's no self-interest. Who cares about Darfurians? They're sub-Saharan Africans. They're like Rwandans."

"(It's) the fear of casualties in a country that doesn't count in an area that doesn't count," he said. "Not one of us is more human than the other. [...] Why did the Yugoslavians count when we poured in tens of thousands of troops and billions of dollars? Why do others count and why do these Africans in Darfur not count?"

Dallaire also said it's not up to the United States to send troops to end the genocide in Sudan. "Why do you always want to set yourselves up?" asked Dallaire, who led the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Rwanda in 1994. "Why should you necessarily have to commit all those capabilities? Why can't the Chinese provide (soldiers)? They've got them."

Dallaire, who pleaded unsuccessfully for 5,000 UN troops to stop the Rwandan genocide that killed some 700,000 people, was hailed by Senator Dick Durbin as a 'hero.' "If more people had listened to him, maybe things could have been different in Rwanda. I hope people listen to him now." Durbin, a Democrat, chairs a new Senate subcommittee on human rights, a first for the country.

While U.S. President George W. Bush was quick to call the Darfur violence genocide, little has been done to quell it. The United Nations says more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes in four years of fighting, rape and plunder.

Durbin introduced legislation yesterday authorizing state and local governments to divest funds from businesses working in Sudan. He noted that Bill Clinton has said his inaction on Rwanda was the worst foreign policy mistake of his presidency. "Now that we have acknowledged for more than four years that this horror is happening on our watch, we must summon the courage and act to stop this carnage."
Canadian Press. (2007, February 7). Dallaire pleads to U.S. for Darfur. KW Record, p. ?.

~*~

I got a Chapters/Indigo gift certificate for my graduation, and today I finally cashed it in! Here's what I bought:

The Discovery of Time - An illustrated anthology of the history of time (i.e. historical, philosophical, scientific, and cultural thoughts about time, measurement of time, time and the stars, time and religious books, time and the human body, how the invention of the clock has influenced society, and science related to time travel or bending time) - Edited by Stuart McCready

The Child That Books Built - The author considers his own favorite childhood books including Wind in the Willows, Little House on the Prairie, and the Narnia Chronicles, and examines the way childhood fiction shapes the imagination and makes us who we are. - By Frances Spufford

Asian Cooking - 383 beautifully-illustrated pages of Indian, Chinese and Japanese recipes. I think it's time I get a set of personalized chop sticks!

Dickens: Public Life and Private Passion - The first Biography I've ever purchased!! It's also an illustrated book, with plenty of photos and illustrations of Dickens, his family, his homes, places of work, etc. Did you know that his Dad worked for the British navy and as a result until the age of about 10 his family moved to a new town every couple years? Almost sounds like the life of a TCK... - By Peter Ackroyd