2-28-12

What Should Kester Read? selections

• The Dog of the South by Charles Portis
• The Evolution of a State by Noah Smithwick
• Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
• The Postmortal by Drew Magary

What else is Kester reading? selections (Lenten reading)

• The Daily Bible (NIV version)
• Living Into Focus by Arthur Boers
• Prayers by Peter Washington (editor)

Danse Macabre

    When I was just a tike (somewhere around my son's age, say between 6 and 8), my brother babysat me for what would end up being the last time. It was supposed to be a pizza and movie night, special treats provided by our not so well to do parents so that our night in was as fun as their night out. Pizza was ordered, movie was ready, but my brother had other plans. Whatever kid friendly fare was supposed to be on (I still can't get this memory to make sense in my mind, I know that we wouldn't have owned a VCR in 1984, but I can't imagine this movie played on network television), my brother had decided that we were going to watch John Carpenter's Halloween. And watch we did.
    That would have been bad enough. But my brother lived to torture me at the time, so he went on, post-film, to explain that the story of Michael Myers was based on an actual boy and actual events, events that had taken place in the south Chicago suburb in which we lived, and a boy who had never been captured. Oh! Look at the time! We need to get you to bed!
    Cut to me, in bed, and my brother, on his way out of my room whispering, "What was that?" He grabbed the wooden nunchucks that he had fashioned in wood shop (who lets a troubled teenager make nunchucks in shop?) and said, "I'll be right back." I pleaded with him to stay, but he wasn't having it. 
    Cut to noise from the kitchen. Cut to my brother stumbling into my bedroom with his shirt and his nunchucks covered in fake blood. Cut to me screaming. And screaming. And screaming.
    Cut to me at age 35 having a serious love/hate relationship with the horror genre. Love for all the reasons that people love to be scared, it thrills and chills and (ultimately) relieves. There's chaos followed by catharsis. We made it. We survived.
    Hate for the reason you'd guess. It scares the hell out of me.
    Stephen King's Danse Macabre was written in the early 80's and serves as a great lead in (or, if you're just now getting to it, follow up) to his excellent writing memoir, On Writing. In Macabre, King explains and explores the horror genre; why we love it, why we hate it, when it succeeds, when it fails, and why it succeeds and fails when it succeeds and fails. King knows his stuff, he's a nerd, he's a fan, but he's also enough of a scholar to have some perspective and enough of a teacher to help us see it.
    Breaking the chapters into commentary on films, television, and books and then further exploring themes and morality (yes, King argues, there is a morality to good horror fiction and an utter lack of it in bad), King is like a favorite professor, showing you things you never knew and giving you a taste for more. Perhaps the real testimony to the greatness of this book is the number of films and books I now want to discover or rediscover. How have I never read Shirley Jackson's Haunting of Hill House? Will my childhood fears continue to keep me from watching Halloween again (that's right, kids, I haven't seen it since)? You can be sure that I have Jackson's book on order at the bookstore. Whether I see Halloween again or not, this is the first time that I've ever really wanted to. Danse Macabre is a reminder that the horror genre is a chance to face our fears with the knowledge that we'll come out safely on the other side. But my fear isn't really what I might see on my TV screen, it's who I might see out the window when I'm done. Because that story is a true story, the bogeyman is out there, and a viewing of Halloween might just be a way of letting him in.

2-26-12

Finished up the books that I was reading (George Martin's Feast For Crows -this series gets less interesting by the sentence) and decided that I'd get a three day head start on Chris Hoyt's picks for March. 
What Should Kester Read? selections

• Danse Macabre by Stephen King
• The Dog of the South by Charles Portis
• The Evolution of a State by Noah Smithwick
• Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
• The Postmortal by Drew Magary

What else is Kester reading? selections (Lenten reading)

• The Daily Bible (NIV version)
• Living Into Focus by Arthur Boers
• Prayers by Peter Washington (editor)

2-24-12

What's Kester reading?

• The Daily Bible (NIV version)
• A Feast For Crows by George R.R. Martin
• The Great Shark Hunt by Hunter S. Thompson
• Living Into Focus by Arthur Boers
• Prayers by Peter Washington (editor)

2-20-12

What's Kester reading?

• The Daily Bible (NIV version)
• A Feast For Crows by George R.R. Martin
• Four Novels of the 1960s by Philip K. Dick
• Prayers by Peter Washington (editor)

Lenten Reading

    The season of Lent begins this week with Ash Wednesday on the 22nd. Lent is a season to assess what needs sweeping out; in our habits, schedules, and lives. But Lent is not a celebration of emptiness for emptiness' sake, it is a time to fill up on what truly matters. We give up food or films or facebook with the intention of deepening our faith, and our connection to God and to humanity. 

    One of the practices many churches and Christians embrace is the reading of a specific book through the season of Lent. Needless to say, it is a practice that I fully embrace. So, for those of you looking for Lenten reading; here are a few suggestions:

• Free of Charge by Miroslav Wolf. Wolf's underlying thesis is that we are at our most human when we are giving and forgiving. His book is about how to be more gracious in a culture stripped of grace.
• The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Warning; this is one dense read. That said, it is also one of those "besides the Bible" books that changed my life. Bonhoeffer lays out what it means to follow in the way of Jesus, a way that always comes with a cost. 
• Our Sound Is Our Wound by Lucy Winkett. Winkett's book on contemplative listening helps to clear up the misunderstanding of stillness as time wasted and then fleshes out what active listening can mean for a world filled up with noise.
• Sacred Rhythms by Ruth Haley Barton. Barton explores the spiritual disciplines not as a set of rigid rules, but as activities that open us up to God's transforming love. Her Invitation To Solitude and Silence is also excellent.
• New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton. I'll let Merton speak for himself; "Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the soil of freedom, spontaneity and love."

Other favorites include N.T. Wright's Simply Christian and Surprised By Hope, Henri Nouwen's The Wounded Healer and In The Name of Jesus, Brennan Manning's Ragamuffin Gospel and The Importance of Being Foolish, Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, Elaine Heath's Mystic Way of Evangelism, and Esther de Waal's A Life Giving Way. Soren Kierkegaard and Martin Laird, John Howard Yoder and Dorothy Sayers, Karl Barth and Simone Weil; I recommend them all. If yours isn't necessarily a Christian leaning (and even if it is), you're sure to enjoy David Foster Wallace's This Is Water or Annie Dillard's Pilgrim At Tinker Creek or Ralph Waldo Emerson's Walden. Regardless, pick up a book this season that will call you to use up less time, space, and resources on those things that matter less so that you can commit them to those that matter more. Something that will help you to remember and to celebrate what is best about being human.

2-11-12

What's Kester reading?

• The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
• The Daily Bible (NIV version)
• The Damage Done by Hilary Davidson
• A Feast For Crows by George R.R. Martin
• Four Novels of the 1960s by Philip K. Dick
• Paul's Idea of Community by Robert Banks
• Ralph Ellison: A Biography by Arnold Rampersad