From the category archives:

books

Short version: worth reading, but don’t give it to kids who believe in Santa.

The True Saint Nicholas: Why He Matters to Christmas is an easy and informative read. Bennett is a masterful storyteller, transforming what could be a dry encyclopedia entry into an engaging tale. The book is divided into three sections of three chapters each: Life of Nicholas, Legends of Nicholas, and Legacy of Nicholas.

In Part One, Bennett takes the sparse historical materials as well as the legends and hagiographies and combines them into an interesting story of Nicholas’ life, filling in cultural and historical details and making clear what’s certain and what’s supposition. I appreciated Bennett’s occasional use of Scripture and focus on Nicholas’ faith and service to God. This is not about a historical figure who happens to matter to Christians; this is about a Christian who happens to matter to history.

Part Two shows the transformation of Nicholas from godly man to saint invoked and capitalized on by virtually every group, from sailors to merchants to women trying to conceive. Part Three moves to the transformation of Nicholas into Santa Claus. Bennett gives some attention to European variants like the Dutch Sinterklaas, but his primary focus is the genesis of the American Santa of “The Night Before Christmas” and Coca-Cola advertising. I found this particularly interesting as I was unaware of the history and didn’t realize how very American Santa is.

The jacket states that in this book, “Most of all, you will discover why this saintly man who has influenced our most beloved holiday throughout the years is evidence of God’s love, and why he does, indeed, matter to Christmas.” Certainly Bennett makes good on the first claim: Nicholas’ life is an inspiring story of a loving God at work in and through a man submitted to His will.

I’m not so sure about the second claim, though. Here’s what Bennett has to say:

But the stories of Saint Nicholas and Santa Claus are arguably true in a more important way. They are morally true. They offer generosity, kindness, justice, and self-sacrifice over avarice, cruelty, injustice, and self-indulgence. They are about the celebration of human closeness and decency, and the caring for others. They are about families at the hearth. In their totality, they are about the raising of sights and efforts toward a better life.

Is Nicholas worth knowing about? Absolutely. And Bennett shows that Santa and a faith-oriented Christmas are not incompatible. But for me, this final statement about the truth that can be found in Santa is a bit of a stretch. Does that make the book less worthwhile? No. It was definitely worth reading, and I would recommend it.

On a side note, The True Saint Nicholas is a beautifully designed book. For those of us who want our books to be both intellectually engaging and aesthetically pleasing, it delivers. It’s also short: 114 pages of large print, so it reads quickly.

A final note about children: I bought this thinking I would share it with my kids, but the only one that will read it any time soon is the teenager. Our younger two still believe in Santa, and while Bennett doesn’t come out and say that Santa doesn’t exist, the explanation of Santa’s history might burst the bubble for some. I could see reading Part One about the life of Nicholas to my children–the style is very accessible, and they would enjoy the story. But I won’t be passing the book around the family for several years.

I’m still mulling how to be satisfied with God, so in the meantime I thought I would share this powerful passage from Facing East, by Frederica Mathewes-Green. She explains that life usually seems full of uncertainty,

But, oh, how sweet is anger. When I’m angry, I’m not in the wrong. Somebody else is in the wrong, and for once I have peace. A delicious peace that gnaws over the wrong like a lion with a ragged bone. It is delicious and compelling enough that it urges me to accumulate other wrongs and hold them greedily close. I love to be wronged; only then, for that brief moment, can I be sure I’m right. It is intoxicating in its sweetness, this brief joy in being right. It is good to be a victim, because victims are sinless.

As someone with significant and lasting “anger issues,” I can completely relate to this; anger, along with its cousins bitterness and resentment, is indeed intoxicating. read the complete post

a “fantastic mission” mindset

April 9, 2007

For Easter, I received Mother Angelica’s Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality, and so far I am very much enjoying it. It’s organized into topical chapters, and each chapter is a collection of sayings from Mother Angelica. Some are several paragraphs, but most that I have read so far have been fairly short, […]

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four lessons in prayer

March 9, 2007

I’m continuing to read George ¼ller’s Answers to Prayer, and I find myself encouraged and challenged at every turn. I’m encouraged because ¼ller’s story is such an incredible testimony of God’s faithfulness, not once or twice but over decades. And I’m challenged because I realize how far I have to go in learning to pray […]

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Lord, have mercy

October 24, 2006
This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series mercy

I never gave much thought to the mercy of God until this past weekend. “Lord, have mercy” has long been an expression of exasperation (as in, “Lord have mercy! What were you thinking?”) rather than a prayer. My first exposure to this was in sixth grade, when we moved to Columbus, Mississippi–my family’s first time in the South. My teacher that year–I can’t remember her name, but I clearly remember her face, her blue hair, and her rather unpleasant disposition–was a good Southern woman, and she used to exclaim, “Laaaw-zay mer-say may!” (translation: Lordy, mercy me!) when she was frustrated. Later, in high school, Sunday school teacher Dave Krebs suggested to us boys that “mercy” was a good word to say instead of a profanity. Not a bad idea, I suppose. The other place that I encountered “mercy” was in games of strength: you extend your arms upward, interlock fingers with the other guy, and try to push him down to his knees, making him cry for mercy.

The upshot of this, particularly using mercy as an exclamation, is that the word was emptied of meaning for me. I knew that it was a theologically important concept, as well as a potentially troubling one, linked as it always was to God’s sovereignty. God said to Moses, “I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy,” and I always wondered how He decided. Since I usually ended up scared when I pondered this, I decided not to think about it at all. So “mercy” didn’t enter much into my understanding of God or into my prayers.

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prayer: nourishing the life of God in us

October 19, 2006

If You Will AskI just got Oswald Chambers’ If You Will Ask, and I’m already loving it, one chapter in. According to Chambers, prayer “develops the life of God in us” and “nourishes” that life; in other words, if we don’t pray, we are starving ourselves. That’s a sobering thought!

He goes on to say the life of God in us

is nourished by refusing to worry over anything, for worry means there is something over which we cannot have our own way… Never let anything push you to your wits’ end, because you will get worried, and worry makes you self-interested and disturbs the nourishment of the life of God. Give thanks to God that He is there, no matter what is happening.…

He concludes his discussion of worry with this beautiful thought:

The secret of Christian quietness is not indifference, but the knowledge that God is my Father, He loves me, and I shall never think of anything He will forget, and worry becomes an impossibility.

I shall never think of anything He will forget: this is one of those Selah moments. Pause, and calmly think about that!

The chapter ends with a prayer from Chambers’ journal:

O Lord, this day may your beauty and grace and soothing peace be in me and upon me. May no wind or weather or anxiety ever touch Your beauty and Your peace in my life or in this place.

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humility: our participation in the life of Jesus

August 30, 2006
This entry is part 1 of 10 in the series humility

Yesterday, I got out Andrew Murray’s Humility: The Journey Toward Holiness, a wonderful and powerful little book (just over 100 pages). I read it back in early 2004, and it seems like a good time to read it again.

Murray starts by making the point that all most Christians know of humility is in regard to sin: we are humbled when we realize our sinfulness, but once we are saved, we hear nothing more of humility. In response to this misconception, he writes:

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