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They Smell Like Sheep: Spiritual Leadership for the 21st Century © 1997 Howard Books (Simon & Schuster) 236 pages I’ve unintentionally (and unfortunately) discovered the single greatest reason to shop in a physical bookstore rather than online. You can quickly see whether or not a book has pulled-out and enlarged quotes in the sidebar—and avoid [...]

There’s something attractive about brutal honesty. I’ve been revisiting Snodgrass’ Stories With Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus. In the introduction, he classified the parables of Jesus into different categories. One of the categories he rejected is allegory. Here’s how he introduced his case: Tremendous effort has been expended trying to distinguish [...]

When I arrived in Bracebridge about a year ago, I began preaching on the four parables Jesus taught about discipleship. This fall it seemed appropriate to return to Jesus’ parables, particularly his two stories about grace: The Unmerciful Servant (Matthew 18:23-35) [Audio clip: view full post to listen] Who Are You? (Luke 7:36-50) [Audio clip: [...]

The Girl Who Played with Fire © 2006 Viking (Penguin) 2009 503 pages This is one fast-paced, gritty, heart-breakin’ ride. I bought it as soon as it was released and finished it a couple days later. 500 pages never went by so fast. This second novel comes quite close to living up to the glory [...]

Confession time: I’ve never watched Mel Gibson’s Passion. Most people are surprised to hear that since it was such a media sensation a few years ago. I could never really articulate why I avoided it until now (in Tell It Slant:). Sexual pornography is sex without relationship, the intimacy of sexuality reduced and debased into [...]

Have you checked out Open Culture yet? You really need to. I returned from a weekend away at Silver Birches camp by Kirkland Lake and found these two brilliant videos on Bach and Beethoven. Enjoy! Bach: Beethoven:

Listening: Last Poems © 2009 McClelland & Stewart 80 pages Reading Avison is meditation. From 1960s Winter Sun right through these last poems, Avison understood the world and conveyed its meaning in a language far more powerful than mere prose. These poems bypass intellect (although there’s plenty to think about) and connect with the soul. [...]

Here’s a fitting quote for 9/11 (from Violence): The appeal to and use of violence in Christian action increase in exact proportion to the decrease in faith.

Downtown Owl: A Novel© 2008 Scribner (2009) 275 pages I was flipping through Klosterman at Chapters when an employee came up behind me and started gushing about him. The bookseller compared Klosterman to Douglas Coupland—I was sold. Downtown Owl is a story about three people in a small town in 1983/84 North Dakota. Mitch is [...]

Here are some old words with increasing contemporary relevance (in Letters to a Spiritual Seeker) If words are invented to conceal thought, I think that newspapers are a great improvement on a bad invention. Do not suffer your life to be taken by newspapers. All we have to do is replace “newspapers” with “television news [...]