My (Supposed) Reading List

When I finally get down to reading books, I'm working through two right now. "Working through" is overstating it a bit though. The first book I'm mostly ignoring is "The Left Hand of God" by Adolf Holl. This book is what Tom and Matthew and I work through at our "Book Club." (Book Club is another a bit of overstatement - we mostly drink wine, catch up with each other, speculate theologically and sit around a fire out back. Wednesday nights are partly why I am not a total bitter crank.) I started the book a while back and was not terribly impressed.

Holl is not saying anything I haven't heard about or read before, but the manner in which he says it is a bit, uhhh, unique. The subtitle of the book is "A Biography of The Holy Spirit." Holl starts with the baptism of Jesus. In the beginning of the book, he generally follows the New Testament timeline with side stories from the 20th century that illustrate the movement of the Spirit. His general thesis is that the Spirit is unpredictable, and what we claim as indwellings or manifestations of spiritual possession (tongues, etc.) are by in large indistinguishable from psychosis. Meh. That's not new or terribly interesting to me. When discussing the book with T & M, I couldn't tell them if I found the book edifying or merely titillating. His idea that the Spirit might simply be psychosis is reflected in his rather scattershot, throw-something-out-and-see-if-it-sticks style. I must say that Holl does a nice job of giving a brief description of Wesley/Finney/Azusa Street holiness movement without any snobbish European dismissiveness of American sects and praxis. I actually should be reading the book now instead of writing this drivel.

The second book I'm currently reading is "Crabgrass Frontier" by Kenneth Jackson. Once again, I'm not really reading it carefully. I'll bite off a few pages before falling asleep or as in the case on Monday, I took it to karate and tried to read while 'Nika was screaming and punching at air. The problem with Mondays is that more often than not, there is parent there in the sitting area who is constantly complaining to another parent about the liberal agenda that is hiding behind every bush and coming out to get her and her family. Help! Help! I'm being repressed. If you don't like it, move. Perhaps you could find happiness and succor in Riyadh, Singapore or least Salt Lake City. I'm all for everyone holding their own opinions, and I realize that democracy needs to have all kinds of ideas to thrive, but lady, your constant stream of complaints in a shared space like this is simply, utterly annoying. Next time I'll bring my iPod to tune you out. Literally. Anyway, back to Jackson. He writes about the suburbanization of the U.S. He's been referenced in a lot of other books, so this not terribly new stuff for me. He reaches back in history noting that suburbanization is not a 20th century phenomenon. He compares city growth in the U.S. with British and the Continental cities. Lots of interesting tidbits that I'll have to reread since I've been so distracted or tired when I read it the first time.

Mostly though, I spend a lot of time on the computer reading political blogs, transit forums and blogs and to a lesser extent bike stuff. Too much time on the computer? Yeah probably. A waste of time? Mostly no. Do I feel like a more informed citizen? As a matter of fact, yes.