Classic Literature

All throughout college and seminary, I always expressed a desire to have free time to read some of classic works of literature. I promised myself that once I was done with school, I would certainly devote time to this. Well, I am happy to report that I am taking active measures to fulfill this goal. I have compiled a list of 100 great pieces of literature and I hope to get through the list in the next 3-5 years. I have put the list below in case you were curious about what I will be reading.

I started on the list and it is already paying off huge dividends. I am currently reading "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn. This thought provoking book recounts American history with special attention given to the voice the oppressed. For example, the first part of the book focuses on the colonization and settlement of America through the eyes of the Native Americans. A quote in the first chapter has been rolling around in my head since I read it: "The cry of the poor is not always just, but if you don't listen to it, you will never know what justice is."

Good Stuff!

1. A People’s History of the United States Howard Zinn
2. The Wind Up Bird Chronicles Haruki Murakami
3. The New York Trilogy Paul Auster
4. The Crying of Lot 49 Thomas Pynchon
5. Lord of the Rings J.R.R. Tolkien
6. Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
7. Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell
9. One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
10. The Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger
11. Crime and Punishment Dostoevsky
12. On the Road Kerouac
13. Alice in Wonderland Carrol
14. Brothers Karamozov Dostoevsky
15. The Age of Innocence Wharton
16. Don Quixote Cervantes
17. Perfume Suskind
18. Ulysses Joyce
19. Anna Karenina Tolstoy
20. Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor
21. Cry the Beloved Country Paton
22. Dracula Stoker
23. The Eagles Die Marek
24. Emotionally Weird Atkinson
25. The Handmaid’s Tale Atwood
26. Infinite Jest Wallace
27. Kitchen Yoshimoto
28. London Fields Amis
29. Moise and the World of Reason Williams
30. Movie Wars Rosenbaum
31. Paradise Lost Milton
32. Persuasion Austen
33. Tortilla Curtain Boyle
34. Visions of Excess Bataille
35. Where the Wild Things Are Sendak
36. Wild Sheep Chase Murakami
37. Beloved Morrison
38. Counterfeiters Gide
39. The Bell Jar Plath
40. Blind Owl Hedayat
41. Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe
42. The Count of Monte Cristo Dumas
43. Dealing With Dragons Wrede
44. The Earthsea Trilogy Le Guin
45. The Ecology of Fear Davis
46. Franny and Zooey Salinger
47. History of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides
48. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents Alvarez
49. Kabuki: Circle of Blood Mack & Jiang
50. Of Human Bondage Maugham
51. The Satanic Verses Rushdie
52. The Sheltering Sky Bowles
53. Tristam Shandy Sterne
54. Well of Loneliness Hall
55. Wicked Pavilion Powell
56. Collected Stories of V.S. Pritchett
57. War and Peace Tolstoy
58. Babel 17 Delany
59. Dora Freud
60. Empire Falls Russo
61. For Whom the Bell Tolls Hemingway
62. Girl in Landscape Letham
63. Goodbye to All That Graves
64. Ham on Rye Bukowski
65. Life Like
66. Mao II Delillo
67. Random Family Leblanc
68. Revolutionary Road Yates
69. The Stranger Camus
70. Humboldt’s Gift Bellow
71. White Noise Delillo
72. Atlas Shrugged Rand
73. Bastard Out of Carolina Allison
74. Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills Bukowski
75. Delta of Venus Nin
76. Fast Food Nation Schlosser
77. Ficciones Borges
78. Go Ask Alice Anonymous
79. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Adams
80. Iliad Homer
81. On Photography Sontag
82. Republic Plato
83. Shockproof Sydney Skate Meaker
84. Society of the Spectacle Debord
85. Strangers in Paradise Moore
86. The Sun Also Rises Hemingway
87. A Wrinkle In Time L’Engle
88. Dubliners Joyce
89. The Breakfast of Champions Vonnegut
90. No Logo Klein
91. Aeneid Virgil
92. Ariel Plath
93. Charlotte’s Web White
94. Curious George Learns the Alphabet Rey
95. Enormous Changes at the Last Minute Paley
96. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter McCullers
97. Henry VIII Shakespeare
98. I, Claudius Graves
99. The Lost Continent Bryson
100. Master and Margarita Bulgakov
     

The Bible in 1 Year

Well, I did it. Last night I put the finishing touches on my quest to read through the Bible in 2007. It really helped to clear my reading list and to just focus on reading the Bible. I have a few comments/reflections on my journey these past six months.

• Reading through it has left me amazed at the breadth and scope of this amazing piece of writing. I really believe that if you took an infinite number of interpreters/commentators and gave them an infinite amount of time with the Bible, they still would not be able to uncover all that is contained within the text. The Bible really mirrors God in this way.
  

• I am convinced more than ever that the Bible should not be read alone. At the very least, you need to look at books that interpret the Bible to at least have some other voices to offer insight. I think it is a wonderful idea to read the Bible in a group setting, particularly in a diverse group. We really must assume a posture of humility when approaching the Bible.

• The thing that stuck out to me the most in this reading was the marriage metaphor between God and God's people. Perhaps this is because I ended with the OT prophets and Revelation, but it just seemed like over and over again this metaphor kept popping up. Along the same lines, "prostitute" was a common term used describe the people of God in their relationship to God.
  

Even though I have completed reading the Bible, it is not as if I will put it back on the shelf to collect dust. The Bible is not really a book in this sense - where you only read it once because that is all you need to read it. I would now like to focus on studying specific parts of the Bible. I think I may start with Jonah. When reading it through, I was really surprised by its brevity. It is only 4 short chapters long. I think in my mind it was always this huge epic story that was presented to me in Sunday School as a young kid, so I just assumed it was longer than it was. But, even though it is short, I really think that there is a lot there.

Looking forward to continuing to wrestle with the Good Book.

Bullet Holes and Baseballs

There are so many aspects of our society that I find completely unacceptable. In order to keep things organized, I am going to create a list. This list is based on previous posts, so look through my blog archives to find why I find the items on this list unacceptable.

1. Wearing a cell phone on your hip
2. The idea that a nice smile is the "normal" way to pose for a photograph
3. People who cut to the front of a traffic back-up when they know they need to get over
4. Local TV Newspeople
5. Confirmational Reactionist
6. Wearing a blue tooth headset as a fashion accessory

Well, I have a few things to add to this list.

Putting bullet hole stickers on your car. Come on, seriously? I cannot possibly imagine why anyone in their right mind would do this. Are there seriously people in this country who think it is humorous to pretend like your car got shot up? Or perhaps they think it will make them look cool and tough? For the majority of people, their vehicle is one of their largest assets. Why in the world would you intentionally do anything to reduce the value of one of your greatest assets? Putting bullet hole stickers on your car not only decreases your car's value, it also makes your car look ridiculous and calls into question your mental stability. Please do not do this.

Placing a fake baseball on your car that gives the allusion that it has shattered your window. Doing this is right up there with bullet holes. In fact, doing this is basically the less-ghetto form of placing bullet hole stickers on your car. I can just imagine someone trying to show off to his friends his new gag: "Hey guys, check it out. It totally looks like a baseball shattered my car window and I was too lazy to do anything about it, but guess what? It's fake! I am serious! Don't you think it is awesome!"
I am not sure what is more tragic: that people are actually doing these things to their cars, or that we live in a country where people are making money off of selling garbage like this.

Miracles

I have had the privilege of witnessing some pretty amazing things so far in my young career as a minister. One of the more memorable experiences came during the summer of 2004. I was providing the pastoral care for a Nazarene church in Durham, NC. Through a random set of circumstances I met Jana Sheets and her husband Eric. They had moved to this area from Florida with the hopes of Jana receiving a lung transplant at Duke.

Receiving a lung transplant is wild enough, but Jana's case was further complicated by the fact that she had a rare disease (lymphangiomatosis) and no one with her disease had ever received an organ transplant. I will never forget the day I walked into the ICU shortly after she received her new lungs. Tons of machines were hooked up to her body and she was covered by a blanket of wires. The first thought that went through my mind is "there is no way this girl is going to make it." I said a prayer over her and then proceeded to have a long conversation with Eric.

I visited Jana several times a week over the next few months. There were so many instances where things look dark, but she gradually improved and slowly regained her strength. Finally, after several grueling months, Jana left that hospital on her own strength. But, it was not really her own strength. Jana was merely embodying the strength that could only come from God. Throughout the whole ordeal, I was blown away by her faith (a faith so contagious her husband Eric caught it), and there is no doubt that I witnessed a miracle.

Eric and Jana still live in the the Raleigh/Durham area (Bahama to be exact), and they have become dear friends to Laura and I. Jana will probably never be free of her disease in this lifetime, but she is living her life as best as she is able. Every time I am around Jana, I am reminded of the sanctity of life and how precious each day is.

I am reflecting on this because recently a newspaper in Jana's hometown in New York did a write up on her. You can find that story with more details about her journey here.

Below is a recent picture of Eric and Jana.

Welcome Steve!

Many of you who check this blog also know my friends Tony & Angie Metz (you know, the ones who bought the minivan). Well, I am happy to announce that last Sunday Angie gave birth to Steve Lucas Metz. I thought you might want to see a picture of the little guy. Also, Tony has started a blog to chronicle his life. You can find a link to it in my "Other Blogs" section. Thanks for making me an uncle Tony & Angie!

Blue Tooth

In a previous post, I mentioned that I finally broke down and got a cell phone. Even though I was unable to resist this evil piece of technology, I did make a rule that I would never wear my cell phone on my hip. Well, I feel that I need to make an addendum to this rule (FYI: at some point I plan to release an entire Manifesto on cell phone etiquette, be looking for that in the future).

Lately I have noticed that it has become fashionable and trendy to wear your blue tooth receiver as an accessory, as some sort of giant earring. I am sure it starts innocently with someone forgetting that they still have the receiver in their ear, but at some point, people are coming to conclusion that it is acceptable and even cool to leave the receiver in their ear even though they are not using their cell phone. I want to be one of the first people to publicly declare that not only does it make you look like an idiot, it is unacceptable. I have come up with at least two reasons why I will never wear a blue tooth receiver in my ear as a fashion accessory.

1. It makes you look like you are trying too hard to be cool.

2. It makes you look too much like Lando Calrissian's aide, Lobot, in The Empire Strikes Back.









The resemblance is striking, is it not? Please spread the word that this is not cool, and please feel free to punch me in the stomach if you ever see me doing this.