Breaking the Conspiracy of Silence: Christian Churches and the Global AIDS Crisis by Donald E. Messer (2004)

Overall, a well-written book that is readable, challenging the lack of response by the Christian community towards AIDS, and hopeful. Although his view of sin might be disconcerting to some Christians, along with the concept of providing the best for people who are sinful (e.g. advocating condoms), this perspective is advocated with the hope of showing God's love to be people in a less judgmental means than the church has done in the past. His writing on the place of women, including sex workers, and the effect of AIDS on their lives is both gracious and motivating (along with fitting with other things I have seen written in this area). His book could possibly provide insight further into a point of contact with the exclusion found in the laws written in Leviticus.

The Business of Heaven: Daily Readings from C.S. Lewis, Edited by Walter Hooper (1984)

C.S. Lewis is a bit too black and white for me at times but it is black and white in directions that I tend to agree with. I’ve appreciated him tremendously.

His entries for 27, 30, 31 march all discuss sex [They are originally from Mere Christianity, Bk III, Ch. 5]. They provide provide a wonderful balance to some of the predominant views found in the books on prostitution. The last comment also provides a nice correction against the 'evil-ness' that many Christians make sexual sin to be (especially something like prostitution).

“the old Christian rule is ‘Either marriage, with complete faithfulnesss to your partner, or else total abstinence.’ Now this is so difficult and so contrary to our instinct, that obviously either Christianity is wrong or our sexual instinct, as it now is, has gone wrong…
The biological purpose of sex is children, just as the biological purpose of eating is to repair the body. Now if we eat whenever we feel inclined and just as much as we want, it is quite true that most of us will eat too much: but not terrifically too much. One man may eat enough for two, but he does not eat enough for ten. The appetite goes a little beyond its biological purpose, but not enormously. But if a healthy young man indulged his sexual appetite whenever he felt inclined, and if each act produced a baby, then in ten years he might easily populate a small village. This appetite is in ludicrous and preposterous excess of its function.
Or take it another way. You can get a large audience together for a striptease act. Now suppose you came to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let everyone see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was something equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?”

“Our warped natures, the devils who tempt us, and all the contemporary propaganda for lust, combine to make us feel that the desires we are resisting are so ‘natural’ and ‘healthy’, and so reasonable, that it is almost perverse and abnormal to resist them. Poster after poster, film after film, novel after novel, associate the idea of sexual indulgence with the ideas of health, normality, youth, frankness, and good humour. Now this association is a lie. Like all powerful lies, it is based on a truth … that sex in itself (apart from the excesses and obsessions that have grown round it) is ‘normal’ and ‘healthy’, and all the rest of it. The lie consists in the suggestion that any sexual act to which you are tempted at the moment is also healthy and normal. Now this, on any conceivable view, and quite apart from Christianity, must be nonsense. Surrender to all our desires obviously leads to impotence, disease, jealousies, lies, concealment, and everything that is the reverse of health, good humour, and frankness. For any happiness, even in the world, quite a lot of restraining is going to be necessary; so the claim made by every desire, when it is strong, to be healthy and reasonable, counts for nothing.”

“If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and backbiting; the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self, which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither.”

Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation by Ruth Haley Barton

it’s a practical look at how to open oneself to spiritual transformation. she explains spiritual disciplines for Christians today in our culture (who tend to use the Bible for information instead of a way for speak to our souls and tend towards either buying into popular culture’s obsession with the body or over-reacting against it). she uses much of her own story, sharing her downfalls, struggles and blessings in these areas and although this is generally helpful, she does tend a bit towards expecting everyone to have similar struggles. nonetheless, her words provide challenges and encouragements to both beginners and those more experienced in opening up their entire being to know God.

Archbishop Anthony Bloom, School for Prayer (1970)

This is part of my spiritual growth reading. I’ve read about half – in snippets of several pages. Anthony Bloom speaks as someone who prays. and his words awaken in me a longing to pray with my whole being and in every moment. prayer has been something that i have cared about for years, but i, like many others, struggle with prayer being just another interest instead of a way of living. and even with the daily prayers that i often join in with the community, i don’t participate fully – so often my mind wanders. i hope i may i have the grace to dwell with this book so i might also be one who prays.

closer to the finish: the best part is the realistic-ness of it. and the wonderful delight that God accepts and delights in as much as we are able to give. and yet even in the midst of all of our efforts, he expects us to be fully ourselves and come to Him delighting in Him.
several examples that stick with me –
concerning his words of advice about praying shorter prayers or through Scripture. we are not to choose something too difficult with the hope of repeating in the midst of our tasks all day for we will give it up after less than half an hour, but instead we are to choose something more manageable – and try it only for half an hour at first – and perhaps switch to something new for another short while later in the day.
his words of advice to an older woman who desperately desired to pray – and spent hours intensely trying to do so and had consulted many others to help her: he told her to stop trying so hard to pray but just to spend time knitting with God and noticing where she was. this, of course, seemed the opposite of what she had been trying to do but she did it nonetheless – and discovered that in the absence of her trying so hard to meet God that God was present in the world she had missed around her.

The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God by John Eldridge and Brent Curtis [and Wild at Heart]

I found John Eldridge's better known book, Wild at Heart, to be somewhat annoying. I think that book has a great analysis of the problem of how Christianity can often seem to promote nice-ness instead of adventure and courage and strength. But I didn't really like his solution - it sounded a lot more like a Christianized version of machoism than necessarily something that was inherently biblical. and even though the book was intended for a male audience (of which i am not), the book had no place in Christianity for me (an unmarried female who 'has not been rescued' and who has not focused her life on pursuing the beauty they seem to think i ought), which i have a problem with. this book seems to carry over a bit of that incomplete concept of beauty for females. although they never specifically say so, the beauty they talk about can easily be confused with niceness and being aesthetically pleasing. they never talk about some of the aspects in nature that make up what we call beautiful: the danger found in waterfalls, the strength and gumption found in a flower in the midst of everything else trying to choke it out, the grace and strength in a bird flying, and the so on. i have no desire to spend significant amounts of my life pursuing the niceties of what most of the world considers beauty, i want to spend my life being faithful to God, growing in faith, and strength, and courage, and knowledge - things that do not seem to fit so well with Eldridge's concept of the female 'desire to be rescued.' sure, i'd love to get married and have someone help me as i grow in faithfulness but i would be unfaithful if i did not also expect to be asked by God to help him as he is helping me.

- (back to The Sacred Romance) i again agreed with their analysis of the problem - many of us don't really realize that Christianity is not about 'shoulds' but about participating in God's deep love and joy. Being a Christian is equivalent to waking your heart and soul to God - and being open to what He's doing - and participating in it (The Sacred Romance). And Curtis and Eldridge, using the concepts of longings (glimpses into the delight that should be involved in Christianity) and arrows (lies that prevent us from living fully in that delight - and as Christians often cause Christianity to be about being a better person) to help people recognize and desire The Sacred Romance. i'm not sure if i would have used exactly the same terminology (even in this post i've interpreted what they mean my way), but i appreciated it and overall agreed with it. my problem is that the book didn't have a lot to say to people who have already recognized the longing and have been trying hard to participate in the healing God is doing in them and who are living (at least partially) in the Sacred Romance. it was a book of first steps but no much about the rest of the journey - and i wish it could have been both.

C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves.

I'm reading it as a way to learn more how to love other people and the language for doing so. I picked it up because I don´t hear a lot of sermons anymore and was looking for something to compensate for the spiritual encouragement I miss in that.

i´m now in the middle of the friendship section, and as i read i delight in how the friends in my life are such a blessing. my favourite part of this section was his idea that friends are something that are better with sharing - and that my joy in spending time with one friend increase when i spend time with her and another who brings out different parts of me and different parts of my friend. and it reminds me of dinners together last year - when it was a delight to eat with Brenda, but even more so with Brian, too :)
and i´m delighting in now reading Lewis's Prins Caspian :)