Favorite Books, 2005 edition. I went back and re-read a lot of old books this year -- no real classics, but some old Stephen King (Carrie, The Shining) and Pat Conroy (Lords of Discipline), among others. There was no real new fiction I read that really stands out -- the aforementioned Lords of Discipline was probably my favorite read for last year.*

If I had to pick the best of the new was The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason -- this is best described as a thinking person's Da Vinci Code. The new Jasper Fforde -- I don't even recall the title -- was boring and disappointing; I didn't even finish it. Ted Dekker's Ring trilogy was so-so. Charlotte Simmons was okay. Etc.

On the other hand, I read several good non-fiction books. If I had to pick one favorite it would probably be No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah by Bing West. This is an excellent book that allows one to grasp the confusion of the policy, the war, tribes, factions, men, soldiers and Marines, insurgents, terrorists, the battles and skirmishes of Fallujah. West gives you the feel of the frontline and the perspective of the overall battle(s). Truly an amazing feat standing by itself, but so close to the actual battles makes it even more amazing.

The NF runner-up would be Loving Homosexuals As Jesus Would: A Fresh Christian Approach By Chad W. Thompson. (This could easily be titled "Loving ___ as Jesus Would.") Here's a good review by Doug LeBlanc.

My 3rd favorite non-fiction was Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies -- and What It Means to Be Human by Joel Garreau -- very thought provoking.

Other favorites: Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age by Kevin Boyle (the trial of Ossian Sweet); Hammers & Nails: The Life and Music of Mark Heard by Matthew Dickerson, Between Good and Evil : A Master Profiler's Hunt for Society's Most Violent Predators by Roger L. Depue & Susan Schindehette, and The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History by John M. Barry.


*Duh!

I can't believe I overlooked Harry! Yes, I really liked Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6) by J.K. Rowling, Mary GrandPré (Illustrator). I also re-read Order of the Phoenix and Goblet of Fire.

Other re-readings of excellent books included the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and the Last Battle. Also, I read the last two Brian Haig novels -- these weren't bad.

More on the Narnia "Allegory." I meant to mention this earlier, but just forgot. While I was at my parents for Thanksgiving, my nephew, Brian, passed on his New Yorker magazine and I read an interesting essay by Adam Gopnik on C. S. Lewis. In the essay, Gopnik demonstrates considerable knowledge of the Lewis oeuvre, yet he misses the fact that Lewis was emphatic that the Narnia series was not an allegory:

When “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” (magical title!) opens, four children who have been sent to the countryside discover an enchanted land on the other side of an old wardrobe; this is Narnia, and it has been enslaved by a White Witch, who has turned the country to eternal winter. The talking animals who live in Narnia wait desperately for the return of Aslan, the lion-king, who might restore their freedom. At last, Aslan returns. Beautiful and brave and instantly attractive, he has a deep voice and a commanding presence, obviously kingly. The White Witch conspires to have him killed, and succeeds, in part because of the children’s errors. Miraculously, he returns to life, liberates Narnia, and returns the land to spring.

Yet a central point of the Gospel story is that Jesus is not the lion of the faith but the lamb of God, while his other symbolic animal is, specifically, the lowly and bedraggled donkey. The moral force of the Christian story is that the lions are all on the other side. If we had, say, a donkey, a seemingly uninspiring animal from an obscure corner of Narnia, raised as an uncouth and low-caste beast of burden, rallying the mice and rats and weasels and vultures and all the other unclean animals, and then being killed by the lions in as humiliating a manner as possible—a donkey who reëmerges, to the shock even of his disciples and devotees, as the king of all creation—now, that would be a Christian allegory. A powerful lion, starting life at the top of the food chain, adored by all his subjects and filled with temporal power, killed by a despised evil witch for his power and then reborn to rule, is a Mithraic, not a Christian, myth. (emphasis added)

As I note below (and please see the references), this was not an allegory. Yet, even if it was, I think Gopnik misses the central point of the Gospel story -- in fact Jesus is the King Lion. Yes, he came to us as a Lamb, last time, in the incarnation. He was not originally a lowly and bedraggled donkey. As is expressed in the letter to the Philippians while Jesus was,

... in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

Philippians 2:6-8 (New International Version) (See also, the Message version of this passage).

The central point is that God became human, lived as a human, but being the only sinless and innocent human was able to die in our place to redeem us, so "death itself would start working backward." The central point wasn't a rallying of underclass animals to lead a rebellion against the ruling classes -- that's been done before.

The thing I think I still like best about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is that is shows that Aslan would be willing to die for even one to redeem that one. Similarly, I know if we had some vast Garden of Eden and everyone else passed the test and lived sinless and I was the only one who sinned (yeah, I know I'm cutting big swatches in Christian Theology, but bear with me), Jesus would come and die in my stead to redeem me.

That's the central point.

He died for me.

He died for you.

Still more:

As I was checking this before posting, I came to this interesting post (and series of comments) by LaShawn Barber, where she argues "..."'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' is most assuredly an allegory." Interesting web journal (why hadn't I noticed this before?).


Finally and almost completely unrelated to any of the above:

This SNL rap on Narnia.

Narnia. We've been dying to see this one for years. In fact, due to some fortuitous circumstances, we've been praying about it since we learned of the meeting(s) of different principals. We had a couple of chances to see an early release, but just couldn't get everyone together to go.* Having viewed the trailers, it looks wonderful.

Some thoughts before we go see the movie. The Narnia series was never meant to be an allegory. As Peter J. Schakel writes:

To take the Chronicles as allegory, however, raises the danger of breaking their spell, either by destroying the independence of the imaginary world, as we begin looking outside it for the completion of its meaning, or by leading us to use our heads rather than our hearts in responding to the stories, or both. There are passages in the Chronicles which allow allegorical readings: Aslan’s death in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Eustace’s transformation in Aslan’s well in The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader,” and the final judgment and destruction of the world in The Last Battle, for example, have close parallels in Christianity and their meaning inevitably will be shaped to some extent by those parallels. But a brief comment by MacDonald puts them into proper perspective: “A fairytale is not an allegory. There may be allegory in it, but it is not an allegory.” [Notes omitted]

Peter J. Schakel, Reading with the Heart: The Way into Narnia (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979), pp. 2-3. [As I mentioned earlier, Schakel's book is one of the best books about the Narnia series and you may find it on-line here.] Interestingly, there is a very good discussion of Lewis, Narnia and Allegory in the Dummies series which can be found on-line here.

Kids seem to pick up on the essential truths communicated in the Narnia stories -- I recall C.S. Lewis commenting on this. Adults seem to try to force it into an allegory. I say to see this movie with a kid and then listen to what they have seen as opposed to telling them what Lewis was trying to say.

More on communicating with kids:

I was originally going to tie this in to an excellent note by Peter Sean Bradley on the Catholic Church's efforts to pass on the faith to kids, but I'm still thinking about this. When I grew up, the Church of Rome was not doing a good job of communicating the faith to kids -- a large part of it, in my opinion, was they were jettisoning the richness of the heritage (no mention of Augustine or Aquinas). Passing on the faith to kids is easy, because entering the Kingdom requires us to come like a child. Yet the richness of faith in all it's complexity makes the most wonderful of libraries look like a mere roadside outhouse.

See also this note by Iain Murray:

The other day we set up our Christmas Tree while the children were asleep. The next morning, Helen, our five year old, was so delighted that she said, "Daddy, you surprised me with joy."

More on Narnia, the movie:

Mother Frederica's review

* [12/18/05] I didn't realize I had only posted this in draft version -- a week agoon Saturday afternoon we finally got to see the movie -- it is excellent!

Getting my feet wet. After being gone so long, please give me a chance to get my feet wet, before I get back in the water.

When I was 17 and the beaches were much less crowded, I surfed the Banzai Pipeline.

Once.

That is, one ride -- and body surfing, not on a board.

You see, while it's got beautiful waves, what makes it especially difficult is the water almost completely drops out when the wave breaks -- you're riding down the face of the wave and you're seeing coral below you instead of water. It's not safe.

Earlier this week, pro surfer, Malik Joyeux died in the surf there. Very sad -- he was a good rider. And young...

To borrow from and paraphrase C.S. Lewis; it's not a tame sport.

[very distantly related -- it's getting much more expensive.]

Grey Tuesday. I'm not a big Green Day fan -- they're poseurs who can't hold a candle to the orignal punks (what was it Pete Townsend said: "...we ... meant it"). Nevertheless, I'll begrudgingly admit their album American Idiot rocks.

Even better is the mash up by Dean Gray: American Edit. Now, here's the problem -- Green Day, their record label (Warner) and the RIAA have all cracked down on American Edit -- within days of the website with the production being made available, it has been shut down. So, there's a day of protest and civil disobedience set for next Tuesday. Click on the banner below next week for a (variable) list of sites which will have DG:AE available for download. In .mp3 format, it's about 67MB (192kbs).

I'm alive. Work has been a bear -- lot's of 12-15 hour days, lot's of travel (a trip every 3 weeks or so). It should be letting up soon, so I may be back. I hope everyone had a blessed Thanksgiving -- I'm with my parents and most of my sisters in NC.

See you around.

The Boy Who Lived. I'm getting ready to take the number one daughter to Borders where she will be waiting for the release of the sixth book just after midnight. She finished Phoenix in less than 24 hours, so I imagine I'll be reading this one starting Sunday.

I'm trying to decide whether to wear my Eskimo Joe's "Joey Potter" T-shirt to take her -- should I really embarass her? The Maruader's T-shirt, if I had one, would be cool. This one is so over-the-top, it could trigger the nerd-dad factor.

You may have seen the stories from earlier this week about the Pope supposedly condemning the Potter series -- when I read the letters, I saw this was hype. Now that has been confirmed -- see here and follow the links.

Next to the Narnia Chronicles, the Potter books may be the best kids books ever written. See John Granger's book "Looking for God in Harry Potter." See also, this article posted on-line by Christianity Today and this essay in Touchstone.

And who is the Half-Blood Prince? My stretch guess is Dean Thomas, but Granger's guess, Godric Gryffindor, makes a lot more sense. I guess I'll know by this time next week.

(the title of this post is the title of Chapter One from the first book -- one of the great chapter titles in history, in my opinion.)

More.

Jonathan Last: Appeasement fails with warlocks too

Programming (and prayer request). I had hoped to be around for more blogging than my semi-retirement notice indicated (do I qualify for emeritus status?); nevertheless we have had some setbacks.

In particular, while we were out for the reunion, a very close friend of ours had a massive heart attack. She is relatively young (40) and a mother of two kids under 5. She has slowly been recovering, but it has been especially tough for her husband; at one point he was told he was going to have to make a decision about removing her from the respirator. She has since come out of a coma, but has severe memory problems, not remembering much after 1996. Fortunately, my wife's relationship with her predates that and she has a really good relationship with the kids. We have been taking care of the kids and helping the husband in minor ways; we are willing to do more.

Prayer request: Please pray for Darlene, her husband, Matt, and their kids, Ryan and Michelle. Thank-you!

I'm mostly American...

You Are 78% American

You're as American as red meat and shooting ranges. Tough and independent, you think big. You love everything about the US, wrong or right. And anyone who criticizes your home better not do it in front of you!

How American Are You?

The Long List. Looking back over the most recent SupCt. nominees, most have been "non-surprises." David Souter was a minor surprise and Sandra Day O'Connor was a big surprise nominee. Nevertheless, most come from the short list.

If there is a nominee who is not on the short list, who could it be?

Herewith, are ten names who should make the long list* being considered by a conservative Republican president:

• Mary Ann Glendon, who I've flogged many times before. The major drawback for her is her age (67).**
  
• Leroy Roundtree Hassell, current Chief Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court. Liabilities (as a candidate being considered by a conservative Republican): he's a moderate Democrat. Liabilities (to the Left): he's long been a visiting scholar at Regent University, Pat Robertson's grad school, he dissented from the Davenport v. Little-Bowser decision (compelling the issuance of a birth certificate with two persons of the same gender listed as parents). (See also the Arlington Co. v. White case, where he would have invalidated Arlington County's expansion of health care benefits to domestic partners as a disguised attempt to legitimize same-sex unions.)
  
• Judge Frank Easterbrook, 7th Circuit. Surprisingly (to me anyway), he hasn't been making the short lists -- a good choice, perhaps too moderate for some.
• Judge Karen Williams, 4th Circuit. A sharp judge; endorsed by Southern Appeal.
  
• Judge Alice Batchelder, 6th Circuit. Endorsed by Todd Zywicki of the Volokh Conspiracy.
  
• Robert F. Nagel, Professor of Law, University of Colorado. Identified by First Things as "...one of our most forceful critics of judicial supremacy."
  
• Robert P. George, Professor of Law, Princeton University. "Conservative Heavyweight" - Crisis Magazine.
  
• O. Rene Diaz, Attorney and State District Judge in San Antonio, Texas. He is also the General Counsel for the Republican Party of Texas.
  
• Eugene Volokh, Geek, UCLA -- he has the reverse problem of Glendon: at 37, he's too young for this vacancy. (William O. Douglas was 40 when appointed; when the court was less important, Joseph Story was named at 32).
  
• Stephen L. Carter, professor of law at Yale. While a liberal, as a columnist for Christianity Today, he's probably too conservative for a Democrat to appoint.

-----

* I'm purposely bypassing the usual suspects mentioned on the published short lists, as well as others, such as Alex Kozinski or Richard A. Posner, who deserve more mention than they've been getting, yet appear to be making some of the more extended "short lists."
** Some others who will not be considered due to age: Judge John Noonan [with his criticisms of Scalia et al, he wouldn't be considered, I gather], 9th Circuit Court of Appeals; Charles E. Rice, Professor of Law, Notre Dame (all three of these are devout Roman Catholics, which could also pose a problem for the notoriously anti-Catholic Democrats on the Judiciary Committee).

My nominee. To replace Justice O'Connor Mary Ann Glendon, for reasons stated here.

Sandy Baby. Sandra Day O'Connor was a brilliant choice by President Reagan -- a surprise -- never as popular with the conservatives as Antonin Scalia, but far better than Anthony Kennedy. I had the pleasure of meeting her on two occasions -- she was always pleasant and gracious. Despite what John Riggens said, she had no need to "loosen up."

My favorite opinion was her concurring opinion in Johnson v. Transportation Agency. In this case, the liberal bloc essentially upheld quotas in hiring no matter what and the conservative bloc would strike them down. Justice O'Connor noted that the Santa Clara transportation agency had not ever hired a woman for the skilled position. Moreover, the woman (Diane Joyce) who had been selected scored a 73 on the qualifying test whereas the man who sued seeking the job scored a 75. The qualifying grade was a70 or above. This was not merely a case where O'Connor split the difference -- she looked to the record. It wasn't just a matter of sex (which the liberal block saw) or test scores (the conservative block) -- it was a consideration of all factors, including experience, background, education, and, yes, the fact that the County had failed to ever hire any women for that position.

She was a judge of common sense. Unfortunately, she didn't always apply it. My least favorite opinion was when she joined with Kennedy and Souter in Planned Parenthood v. Casey where she wrote this accursed phrase:

At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.

Gag.

She was at her best in the 1983 Akron case, a dissent:

The Roe framework, then, is clearly on a collision course with itself. As the medical risks of various abortion procedures decrease, the point at which the State may regulate for reasons of maternal health is moved further forward to actual childbirth. As medical science becomes better able to provide for the separate existence of the fetus, the point of viability is moved further back toward conception. Moreover, it is clear that the trimester approach violates the fundamental aspiration of judicial decisionmaking through the application of neutral principles "sufficiently absolute to give them roots throughout the community and continuity over significant periods of time . . . ." A. Cox, The Role of the Supreme Court in American Government 114 (1976). The Roe framework is inherently tied to the state of medical technology that exists whenever particular litigation ensues. Although legislatures are better suited to make the necessary factual judgments in this area, the Court's framework forces legislatures, as a matter of constitutional law, to speculate about what constitutes "accepted medical practice" at any given time. Without the necessary expertise or ability, courts must then pretend to act as science review boards and examine those legislative judgments.

It's too bad she lost her nerve...

Travelogue. I'm in Austin today -- we've spent the weekend in Bandera, TX at the Dixie Dude Ranch for a family reunion. Naturally, with the 10 commandments decisions coming out today, I'm heading for the state capitol building to see this controversial display. A good discussion blog here.

More.

Here's a picture of us with the monument (My middle daughter, Sarah is next to me, then my son, Joe, our baby, Emilie and our oldest, Joy):

Headlines. Accurate, but misleading:

Rich Gannon throws 5 TD Passes in Super Bowl XXXVII

Anglicans Won't Censure Wings of Church

Okay, you can make an argument that both of these headlines are accurate -- Rich Gannon did have 5 of his passes end in touchdowns, it's just that 3 of them were interception returns by the Bucs.

Similarly, as this AP story by Jill Lawless uses the "Anglicans Won't Censure Wings of Church" headline and begins this way:

The Anglican Communion on Wednesday rejected an attempt by traditionalists to punish the U.S. and Canadian wings of the church for their stance on homosexuality, watering down a resolution that called for the North Americans to be suspended from all church bodies.

But that wasn't the story. The story is more accurately written by Ruth Gledhill of The London Times; who explains in her first three paragraphs:

THE Anglican Church moved closer to schism yesterday when members of its central administrative council formally asked the Churches of Canada and the US to go.

Unconvinced by the justifications offered by both Churches on Tuesday for their actions in ordaining an openly homo- sexual bishop and authorising same-sex blessings, members of the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Nottingham asked them to leave the council and its central finance and standing committees.

Although the motion invites the Churches to withdraw voluntarily, it amounts in effect to a punishing expulsion. The debate was held behind closed doors at Nottingham Univers-ity yesterday, and the motion was passed 30 to 28 by secret ballot, with four abstentions.

Some things can be spun; Jill Lawless should learn that this story isn't one of them.

I took it...

If you blog, you can too.

The theology quiz -- Spurred on by Mark Byron and Peter Sean Bradley, I have taken the theology quiz. Although my "named" results are different, my percentages are very similar to each (my results below). For example, Peter clocks in at 75% Catholic, I'm 68%. Mark is a 75% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan, Peter scores 71% there. That was my top score -- 86%. (And that subject has lead Mark to do a series, which you can see here in Parts 1, 2 and 3). I am 79% Neo-Orthodox, Peter is 71%. Yes, we have our differences, Mark is 79% on the Reformed Evangelical, I am 46%. Peter is 39% on the Fundamentalist scale, I'm 57% (Mark is 68%). And I guess, befitting an Episcopalian, I score equally high (57%) on the PoMo scale.

Interesting...

You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan. You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists. Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 86% Neo orthodox 79% Roman Catholic 68% Fundamentalist 57% Emergent/Postmodern 57% Charismatic/Pentecostal 54% Reformed Evangelical 46% Classical Liberal 32% Modern Liberal 25% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

Oklahoma -- I've been in Oklahoma for the past two weeks for work. I spent some time in Tulsa in the early 1980's -- it's changed a lot. I visited All Souls in Oklahoma City -- very high Episcopal (can you say more Catholic than the Pope?). I dodged a lot of tornadoes and visited places from Jay to Bartlesville (Price Tower -- ugh!) to Stillwater (Eskimo Joe's) to Norman to Ada to Ardmore and all places in between.

The folks there are still as friendly as ever.

And the Joads and the dustbowl are still a myth.

R.I.P. Eddie Albert. I am a huge fan of Green Acres, yet an even bigger fan of the actor who played Oliver Wendell Douglas, Eddie Albert. Eddie Albert Heimberger passed away on Thursday, right before this Memorial Day weekend. It's fitting to remember his service to his country. He was an actor living in Hollywood and had been acting in movies since "Brother Rat" (a Ronald Reagan movie) filmed in 1938. After the attack at Pearl Harbor, he joined the Navy and was awarded a Bronze Star with a "V" for the rescue of about 70 Marines at the battle of Tarawa.

He was a good man; may he rest in peace.

Best News of the Week: The Corcoran Gallery announced it was shelving the planned Gehry addition. You have to understand that this was to be built right across from the Old Executive Office Building, half a block from the White house. And with it's sprawling sheet metal design, with it's very dark color and shine, it looked horrible. This was sort of a sculptural variation on Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2) -- I call it Darth Vader falling down a staircase.

Now, if only we could get rid of the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art.