Ally's #37: The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus by John Cross

In preparation for teaching this upcoming semester through PWOC (Protestant Women of the Chapel) on Fort Riley, I was asked to read this book. Pretty much from the start, it wasn't my favorite. Part of it was my problem, and part of it was the author.

The goal and purpose of this book is to give a broad overview of the entire Bible and squeeze it into 275 pages. Not an easy task. It took me several chapters to force myself into a readjusted perspective that this tool could be helpful in reaching cultures wholly unfamiliar with Christ, Christianity, and the Bible. I could see portions of it being helpful in explaining certain concepts to new believers, but I would do so with caution, always emphasizing that what is in this book is simplified, and that the real meat and substance is found in Scripture.

I also found myself irritated with the author's oversimplification of certain Bible characters or historical events. He also threw in random tidbits that I thought detracted from the goal and focus of the book. For example, in a chapter that deals with atonement, Noah, and Babel, he writes:

At least part of Heaven will be occupied by a large city. It has been calculated that if only 25% of the city was used, 20 billion people could be accommodated with plenty of room to spare. This city is called the New Jerusalem.

Say what?! Of course, there were no footnotes, so there was nothing I could refer back to to see what these "calculations" were based on. After this point, I struggled not to shut down mentally and just criticize the rest of the book.

The one chapter I made it through without putting question marks in the margins was the chapter on the Tabernacle, the unbelief of the Israelites, and the period of Judges, Kings, and Prophets. The latter portion was the most helpful, and is something that I will refer back to when my chronological Bible class gets to the portions of Scripture that deal with this time period. I also love the 2-paged family tree at the end of this chapter, that traces Jesus' lineage all the way from Adam and Eve. It highlights important historical events, like the splitting of the Northern and Southern kingdoms, the prophets, the kings, and various empires. It would almost be worth it to buy this book just for this map, but I'm still glad I got it for free.

The final two chapters are a serious plea to the reader to place his/her faith in Christ. Chapter fourteen begins with a recap of the entire book, and chapter fifteen outlines the believers responsibilities, obstacles to faith, and resources for building one's relationship with God.

Again, not my fave, but that certainly doesn't mean God can't use it for His glory.

Ally's #35: Many Waters by Madeleine L'Engle

Once again, L'Engle hones in on different characters from the Murray family. This time, the twins who typically keep to themselves are the focus. The time frame has changed, and rather than being grown adults, we see Dennys and Sandy as boys of fifteen. While searching for cocoa in their mother's lab, the boys stumble across one of their father's experiments in progress and manage to whisk themselves away to a desert oasis.

I was slightly annoyed by how long it took the boys to figure out they were in the middle of the story of Noah's Ark. They knew they had traveled to a different time, but assumed that the drastic change in climate and small stature of the people they encountered meant that they had also traveled to a different planet or galaxy. The twins are a little dense, if you ask me.

To their credit, they did come across some pretty strange creatures in desert: nephilim (fallen angels that can marry humans), seraphim (angels that take the form of desert animals and do not intermarry), tiny wooly mammoths that serve as house pets, and manticores (man-lion-scorpion). They were also on the brink of death after getting scorched by the sun. Sandy was taken in and cared for by Grandfather Lamech, and Dennys was looked after by Lamech's son, Noah.

The book is basically one long episode of what the author thought took place pre-flood in and around Noah's family. There's definitely some drama mixed in, but the one element of the story that I thought had the greatest potential just kind of fizzled at the end. The whole ending was anti-climatic and much too brief for my taste.

Both Sandy and Dennys are pragmatic skeptics. They don't believe in anything that can't be 100% proved to them via the scientific method. Even after they rode a unicorn, they had difficulty believing it was real. Sheesh! One would think that living through a Bible story would be pretty serious proof for those two, but they continued on rather dismissive of all that took place around them. I guess not all the Murray's are equally malleable.

Here's hoping the last book in the series knocks my socks off!

Ally's #34: A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle

While the first two books in the L'Engle series were about space travel, A Swiftly Tilting Planet was about time travel, and I loved it! The focus shifts away from Meg, now a grown woman married to Calvin and expecting their first child, and centers around Charles Wallace, a young man of 15 who still looks like a boy.

I really appreciate how the author highlights different characters I had written off and shows that, well, you shouldn't really write anyone off as being insignificant. In the last book, it was the sourpuss principal, Mr. Jenkins. In this book, it's Mrs. O'Keefe, Calvin's drab, indifferent mother with missing teeth and cobweb hair who is incapable of speaking in full sentences. Without these characters, members of the Murray family would not be successful in their missions of saving whomever or whatever they've been called to save.

This time the task is simple--Charles Wallace has to help redirect moments in history that impact the world's present predicament: a blood-thirsty politician from Vespugia, a fictional South American country near Patagonia, is threatening to declare nuclear war on the U.S. It's Thanksgiving, of all days, and the entire Murray family spends a restless night waiting for the axe to drop.

Charles Wallace, on the other hand, is given a mysterious, ancient rune from Mrs. O'Keefe and the charge of doing whatever is necessary to bring peace. Aided by the guidance of a unicorn named Guadior, the two ride the wind to the very distant past. At each junction, they're attacked ferociously by echthroi (forces of evil), who want to prevent Charles Wallace from changing history, however minutely, so that the world is still on track for nuclear disaster.

When Charles Wallace enters a new era, there is an influential person chosen for him to "inhabit." In doing so, he helps the particular person make the necessary choices to keep evil from propagating. The story and CW's travels closely follow the lineage of Welsh princes, Madoc and Gwydyr, two sons of a deceased King who left their homeland to escape the bloodshed and pain of competition for the throne. Madoc, the kind and gentle brother, marries into a Native American family and remains in the North East. Gwydyr, power hungry and overflowing with pride, heads south and decides to colonize land near Patagonia. While the author made every effort to keep the family lineage clear despite multiple travels for CW, it became tiresome and a bit confusing to have variations of the same names used repeatedly (i.e. Bran, Brandon, Branwen, Zyll, Zylle, Zillah, etc).

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and though it was a bit longer than the previous two in the series, it flew by just as fast. This is a great series thus far. Two more to go!

Ally's #33: A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle

Mitochondria, farandolae, echthroi, cherubim, and kything. If you know what one of those words means, give yourself a pat on the back. If you know what all five mean, you've either read this book, or you are a genius and shouldn't be wasting your time reading my review. Go cure cancer or something.

While L'Engle's last book, A Wrinkle in Time, felt like a children's story with an interesting scientific spin, A Wind in the Door felt more sophisticated both scientifically and theologically. In fact, the author intertwines the two; the forces of evil in her story (echthroi = Greek for enemy) seek to convince all elements of creation, large and small, significant and seemingly insignificant, that you find the most freedom and joy in destructive self-centeredness.

The temptation for farandola or for man or for star is to stay an immature pleasure-seaker. When we seek our own pleasure as the ultimate good we place ourselves as the center of the universe. A fara or a man or a star has his place in the universe, but nothing created is at the center.

Another tactic of the echthroi is to take any one of the objects or persons in creation and to drive them into nothingness by un-naming them--which is effectively stripping them of their uniqueness and significance in creation.

An Echthros can be as large as a galaxy and as small as a farandola. Or, as you have seen, a replica of yourself. They are the power of nothingness, those who would un-Name. Their aim is total X--to extinguish all creation.

Once again, Meg Murray finds herself at the center of a rescue mission. In the first book, she, Charles Wallace, and Calvin were sent to rescue her father from a distant universe via time-bending. This time, Meg, Calvin, the loathsome school principal, Mr. Jenkins, and a multi-eyed, multi-winged cherubim named Proginoskes are sent to save Charles Wallace. He becomes deathly in when the (fictional) farandolae of his mitochondria refuse to function as they should, effectively killing him as they slowly deprive him of oxygen.

The story gets really bizarre when the rescue team is inside Charles Wallace, so small that they would be undetectable even by the strongest microscope and unable to see or communicate with one another verbally. For several pages, we see them struggle to kythe (communicate telepathically) and fight a battle of sorts while being severely handicapped with these limitations.

The author does a good job of foreshadowing in this story, setting the reader up for the weight of responsibility the members of the Murray family will carry into future stories. In fact, the statements sounded downright prophetic. I'm eager to read the rest of L'Engle's books and to see how the stories mature as the characters age. That little Charles Wallace is the most intriguing, considering that he could probably attend Harvard at the age of six!

I close with some final, fun quotes:

It is only when we are fully rooted that we are really able to move.

Communication implies sound. Communion doesn't.

War and hate are [the Echthroi's] business and one of their chief weapons is un-Naming--making people not know who they are. If someone knows who he is, really knows, then he doesn't need to hate. That's why we still need Namers.... When everyone is really and truly Named, then the Echthroi will be vanquished.

Ally's #32: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

  A Sunday afternoon just isn't a Sunday afternoon without a fun book to curl up with. A girlfriend brought this to me at church and assured me that if I loved the Narnia series, I would be delighted with L'Engle's science-fiction/fantasy stories. I'm so grateful for friends who enjoy reading!

This book started out commonly enough, with the author introducing us to the children and (temporarily) single parent of the Murray household. The family was known for its intelligence, but the eldest daughter (Margaret) and youngest boy (Charles Wallace) were thought to be apples fallen very far from the tree of genius possessed by both their parents. Mr. and Mrs. Murray are scientists...scientists of such caliber that Mr. Murray heads up Top Secret government missions exploring such scientific theory as time-bending. One such mission has kept him away from home for more than a year without so much as a letter to comfort his family in his absence.

Even still, the family hopes beyond hope, and little Charles, Margaret, and a new friend, Calvin, have the opportunity to aid in Mr. Murray's rescue. Guided by the mysterious instruction of Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which (former stars and angelic beings), the children are shown tangibly that which their mother and father had studied for so long--the tesseract. It is the fifth dimension that allows one to bend time and travel faster than the speed of light, to galaxies far beyond the Milky Way.

To help the children understand the enemy that holds their father and their world in its shadow, the three Misses take them to a planet where they can see and asses the darkness that lingers between worlds. The children recognize it as pure evil, and become even more determined to save their father from it. Little Charles has a gift of understanding unlike his sister, and Calvin has the gift of communication that sets him apart from the Murray children. Calvin also has a special interest in Margaret, lovingly protecting her every step of the way. Margaret, sadly, has the "gift" of her faults to rely on. Her stubbornness, her impatience, and her quick temper are predicted to bring her through the journey alive.

Without giving away the whole story, I'll say that what the children encounter is frightening. It's not violence, it's not death, and it's not a big, scary monster waiting for them...it's an insidious, penetrating wall of lies that threatens to consume them, heart, mind, and body. It beckons to them with promises of freedom from all responsibility. Indeed, the decision to enter into this evil is the "last difficult decision" they ever need to make, because once they've been consumed, the darkness thinks for them and dictates their every thought, move, and breath. They would become less than a shadow of their former selves.

This book was an easy read, and falls into the category of books that I'd love to read to my children some day. While the Narnia books symbolically offer theological truths, A Wrinkle In Time has direct quotations from the Bible that offer God's truth to young readers. I'm very curious to see where the author takes this series, and where the Murray family goes from here.

Ally's #31: The Strategy of Satan--How to Detect and Defeat Him by Warren Wiersbe

I can't remember how long ago I purchased this book or why, but I'm glad it was sitting on our bookshelf waiting for me. Now that Jim and I are moving forward in  serving as missionaries in the Czech Republic, we've found ourselves (namely, our marriage) under attack. I picked up this book hoping that Wiersbe would be able to shed some light on the devil's strategies so that we can better guard ourselves.

While the cover and title are a little eerie, the content is straightforward, extremely practical, and packed with supporting Scripture. Wiersbe starts focusing on four Old Testament figures who encountered Satan: Eve, Job, King David, and Joshua. In addressing each encounter, Wiersbe lays out Satan's target, his weapon, his purpose, and our defense.

In the garden, Satan attacked Eve's mind, feeding her lies in an effort to make her ignorant of God's will. With Job, Satan attacked his body in the hopes that his suffering would make him impatient with God's will. Satan utilized David's pride to encourage independence from God's will. Finally, Satan used accusation to bring indictment against Joshua.

In chapters five through ten, Wiersbe offers some practical application on topics like the Armor of God (Ephesians 6) and recognizing Satan's tactics in the church and home. While I appreciated the bullet-point type feel of Wiersbe's structure, I thought he could've done a bit more to give the book better closure. It seemed to just drop off with a scant five pages of Satan's strategies within the home.

I'm grateful that this book wasn't super heady or mystical. Instead, it focuses solely on Scripture and the knowledge God has provided through His Word. I liked Wiersbe's writing style so much that I might have to explore some of the 150 other books he's written.