The Glass Castle

Jeannette Walls' memoir is lightly written tale of a childhood lived below the poverty line, surviving on barely enough calories, with unwashed clothes in a makeshift shack. The parents are educated and pass on a love of learning and books, but intermittently unemployed and irresponsible, they do not provide the basic necessities for their children. From the Jacket,

What is so astonishing about Jeannette Walls is not just that she had the guts and tenacity and intelligence to get out, but that she describes her parents with such deep affection and generosity. Hers is a story of triumph against all odds, but also a tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that despite its profound flaws gave her the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms.

Similar memoirs include Frank McCourts Angela's Ashes, and Helen Forrester's series, beginning with Twopence to Cross the Mersey . All of Forrester's books make excellent reading.

A Definition of a Memoir

A memoir is a piece of autobiographical writing which is often shorter than a comprehensive autobiography. The span of time covered in the memoir is often brief compared to the person's complete life span. The memoir often tries to capture certain highlights or meaningful events in one's past. Included in the memoir is a contemplation of the meaning of that event at the time of the writing. The memoir may be more emotional and descriptive, and concerned with capturing the feelings of the event, rather than documenting every fact and detail of a person's life. A memoir usually has a particular focus of attention, focusing on the selected events from a perspective that may not include other facts and details from the person's life. In other words, the memoir is highly focused and selective in the memories it includes.

John Buchan

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the incipient racism of John Buchan, a much admired British statesman and author. I often find that the inner dialogue of the fiction writer displays subconsciously the social context of his period in intriguing ways. In my first post I showed how Buchan, writing in 1940, characterized the First Nations as fungi, the halfbreeds as grassy filaments, the American as a shrub with deeper roots, and the British as a solid oak.

While this is of particular significance in Canada, it is representative of the racism of the 1930's elsewhere. I cannot help but find Buchan's views so pervasive as to be unremarkable in his time.

Here is what Grumpy Old Bookman has to say about Buchan and his attitudes. He rightly points out Buchan's about face on Jews. However, I shall not be so forgiving because of his attitudes, expressed in 1940, towards the Native people of North America.

But one cannot, I suppose – and I say this with a deep sigh – one cannot leave Buchan without touching, briefly, upon his alleged ‘anti-semitism’ and racism.

It is perfectly true that the 2005 reader, who has had an awareness of political correctness injected into his veins, will wince a bit at some of Buchan’s throwaway remarks. There are references, for example, to a ‘nigger band’ playing in a nightclub. And there are indeed derogatory references to Jews, as in the description of the same nightclub’s clientele: ‘the usual rastaquouère crowd of men and women… mixed with fat Jews and blue-black dagos.’

Before we get too excited about this, we do have to remember that we are talking about the English (a term which in this instance includes Scottish) upper classes here. Buchan married into the aristocracy, and he mixed with the greatest in the land. It is undeniable that, in the 1920s and 1930s, such people were typically arrogant, and were dismissive of almost everyone on earth apart from those few who came from their own select background. See the film Gosford Park if you want to know how they treated their servants.

Furthermore, we need to bear in mind that words such as Frog (for Frenchman), and Wog (for an Arab) were in frequent use well into my lifetime. Indeed, when I was a boy we were sometimes cautioned that ‘Wogs begin at Calais’. In other words, you can’t trust anyone but an Englishman; and you can only trust him if he went to the right sort of school.

With the benefit of hindsight such attitudes are unattractive; but in their day they were commonplace, and it is a little hard to abuse Buchan for being a man of his time.

Once anti-semitism, in its virulent form, appeared in Nazi Germany, Buchan was quick to condemn it publicly; so much so that Hitler promptly added him to the list of men who, after the proposed German invasion of England, were to be imprisoned for ‘Pro-Jewish activity’. In due course Buchan realised the sensitivity of some of his earlier (and entirely trivial) references to Jews, and eliminated them from his later work. If you wish to know more, the issue has been dealt with in Roger Kimball’s valuable essay on Buchan.

It would be unfortunate, to say the least, if such a remarkable body of work, by such a remarkably far-sighted man, were to be ignored, or, worse, condemned, on the strength of a few lines here and there.

My intent is to move next to an examination of Archibald Flemings experiences with the First Nations of Canada.

Jesus H. Christ

Is it Jesus H. Christ or Jesus J. Christ, I wonder? Iyov has blogged about a case of litigation in which Jesus is mentioned as Jesus J. Christ. I am puzzled. Earlier this year I blogged about the anagram JHS or IHS. This has possibly lead to the name Jesus H. Christ, but I don't know where the J. could have come from.

The IHS monogram is an abbreviation or shortening of Jesus' name in Greek to the first three letters. Thus ΙΗΣΟΥΣ, ιησυς (iēsus, "Jesus"), is shortened to ΙΗΣ (iota-eta-sigma), sometimes transliterated into Latin or English characters as IHS or ΙΗC.

The symbol is said to appear rarely in the catacombs, only in the catacomb of Priscilla and the atrium of the Capella Græca (Greek Chapel).1 It was popularized in the fifteenth century, however, by Franciscan disciple Bernadine of Sienna as a symbol of peace. In 1541 St. Ignatius Loyola adopted the symbol with three nails below and surrounded by the sun as the seal of the Jesuit order.

Contrary to some authors, the monogram originally stood for either for Iesus Hominum Salvator ("Jesus Savior of Men") nor for "In His Service." Some attribute its origin to Constantine's vision, where he saw a cross with the inscription "In hoc signo vinces" ("in this sign you shall conquer,"2 which is abbreviated, according to them, as IHS. However, this seems to require a stretch, as do claims that it is really a pagan symbol.3 The simplest explanation, as an abbreviation of Jesus' name, is best.

Now for the fun stuff. This symbol is the centre of much discussion in Silas Marner by George Eliot, chapter 10,

Dolly sighed gently as she held out the cakes to Silas, who thanked her kindly and looked very close at them, absently, being accustomed to look so at everything he took into his hand -- eyed all the while by the wondering bright orbs of the small Aaron, who had made an outwork of his mother's chair, and was peeping round from behind it.

"There's letters pricked on 'em," said Dolly. "I can't read 'em myself, and there's nobody, not Mr. Macey himself, rightly knows what they mean; but they've a good meaning, for they're the same as is on the pulpit-cloth at church. What are they, Aaron, my dear?"

Aaron retreated completely behind his outwork.

"Oh, go, that's naughty," said his mother, mildly. "Well, whativer the letters are, they've a good meaning; and it's a stamp as has been in our house, Ben says, ever since he was a little un, and his mother used to put it on the cakes, and I've allays put it on too; for if there's any good, we've need of it i' this world."

"It's I. H. S.," said Silas, at which proof of learning Aaron peeped round the chair again.

"Well, to be sure, you can read 'em off," said Dolly. "Ben's read 'em to me many and many a time, but they slip out o' my mind again; the more's the pity, for they're good letters, else they wouldn't be in the church; and so I prick 'em on all the loaves and all the cakes, though sometimes they won't hold, because o' the rising -- for, as I said, if there's any good to be got we've need of it i' this world -- that we have; and I hope they'll bring good to you, Master Marner, for it's wi' that will I brought you the cakes; and you see the letters have held better nor common."

Silas was as unable to interpret the letters as Dolly, but there was no possibility of misunderstanding the desire to give comfort that made itself heard in her quiet tones. He said, with more feeling than before -- "Thank you -- thank you kindly." But he laid down the cakes and seated himself absently -- drearily unconscious of any distinct benefit towards which the cakes and the letters, or even Dolly's kindness, could tend for him.

Dear Dolly, I assume from this that she couldn't read but maybe she understood well the meaning of the gospel, to love your neighbour.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Here are excerpts from two different reviews of The Memory Keeper's Daughter which I just finished reading.

From The Washington Post

My first daughter was born lifeless and gray-blue. "Like a seal," I remember thinking as the room went bright white and the doctor started suctioning her mouth. I pushed my wife's head back onto the pillow so she wouldn't be able to see the slick form down below. The oxygen tank hissed angrily. In the minutes that followed, as we waited and waited for my daughter to cry, all the hopes we'd stored up were suffocated under the weight of our new future that filled the room with fear.

Mercifully, few parents experience the shattering birth moment we did, and it may be that memories of my daughter's birth magnified the emotional impact of Kim Edwards's debut novel. But I think anyone would be struck by the extraordinary power and sympathy of The Memory Keeper's Daughter.

-------------------------------------

I don't read a lot of fiction and I most especially do not read romances. I'm not sure how this book is categorized but it is the most compulsively readable, emotional, and memorable book I've read since "Gone With the Wind" over 40 years ago. This is an epic story of a doctor who, in an emotional moment and with all his medical knowledge telling him to protect those he loves, makes a decision that affects him and everyone around him forever.

On a blizzardly night in 1964, David Henry helps his wife give birth to twins, one a perfect boy and the other a girl with Downs Syndrome. At that time, imperfect children were "put away" in institutions where they died young and families and friends spoke of them in shame-filled whispers, if at all. David grew up with a very sickly sister whose death at age 12 ended all meaningful life for his parents. With all good intentions of sparing his wife and new son the pain he and his parents endured, he made a fateful decision and told his wife the little girl had died at birth. It was a decision that, once made, could not be redeemed nor remedied.

This is a book about the family of a Down's syndrome child and examines the disasterous effect of maintaining silence about her existance and not accepting this child into the family. It is poignant in that it deals with a very real dilemma. It is beautifully written with delicately developed imagery and well drawn emotional and psychological character sketches. The author writes as a Christian although we only get glimpses of this through a few lines of Bible quotations, in the KJV, and other brief references.

The book is easy to read and provides numerous characters to identify with. I would highly recommend it for those with handicapped children or those who know someone with a handicapped child. However, I find the treatment of the Down's syndrome child herself to be disappointingly undeveloped. The book is more about her birth family. It is still an important book about a very important topic and I'm glad that I took time out to read this book. It is a good read for anyone. Lots of romance, family drama, strong visual imagery and exquisite language. Okay, there were a few improbable events in the storyline but I managed to enjoy it just the same.

Sick Heart River

Going through my books recently I happened on Sick Heart River, John Buchan's final book, written shortly before he died in 1940. This book is available to buy or read online.

John Buchan is best known as the author of the spy thriller Richard Hannay series. He also wrote Prester John, many biographies and other books. Buchan was a British politician and the Governor General of Canada from 1936 to 1940. He had been a correspondant and speech writer in WWI and it was with great reluctance that he signed the papers which entered Canada in WWII.

Buchan was the son of a Scottish minister and was himself later twice Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. He was influential as a writer, politican and Christian and was greatly loved by those who knew him.

Sick Heart River is a dying man's last conversations with God. In this story Buchan's familiar hero, Leithen, undertakes a journey to northern Canada in search of an American businessman who has disappeared into the wilderness. After many adventures, worthy of such an author, Leithen finds the American. He realizes that this is not the end of the journey, but turns his attention to reflecting on the will to live. A nearby group of Hare Indians are dying of an epidemic. Leithen aids their village, saves lives, loses his own through ill health and overwork, but in the process experiences redemption. Buchan himself died shortly after writing this book.

Although there is much to admire in this book it is also fraught with conflict and rebellion against human frailty and mortality. Buchan contemplates Job,

As he lay wakeful, scarcely conscious of the dull pain in his chestor of the spasms in his breathing, but desperately aware of hisweakness, he felt the shadow of eternity deepening over him. Like Job, the last calamities had come on him. Thank Heaven he was free from loquacious friends. Like Job he bowed his head and had no impulse to rebel. The majesty of God filled his universe. He was coming face to face with his religion.

Like Job, he was abashed by the divine majesty and could put his face in the dust. It was the temper in which he wished to pass out of life. He asked for nothing--"nut in the husk, nor dawn in the dusk, nor life beyond death." He had already much more than his deserts! and what Omnipotence proposed to do with him was the business of Omnipotence; he was too sick and weary to dream or hope. He lay passive in all-potent hands.

and then rejects the lesson of Job.

There had been a sense of his littleness and the omnipotence of God, and a resignation like Job's to the divine purpose. And then there had come a nobler mood, when he had been conscious not only of the greatness but of the mercy of God, and had realised the vein of tenderness in the hard rock of fate.

He will not submit to his circumstances but must triumph. He believes that God has given this to him. Leithen is empowered to reach out to his fellow man and give himself to them. The writing is powerful and comes directly from the heart of a man who knows that he himself is dying.

On a more disturbing level, one must consider the role which Leithen takes as he steps in to organize and rehabilitate the demoralized Indian village. Instead of writing of the white man as the cause of the epidemic, Buchan paints Leithen as saviour, although at the same time experiencing his own redemption. Buchan writes,

And yet . . . As Leithen brooded in the flicker of the firelight before he fell asleep he came to have a different picture. He saw the Indians as tenuous growths, fungi which had no hold on the soil. They existed in sufferance; the North had only to tighten its grip and they would disappear. Lew and Johnny, too. They were not mushrooms, for they had roots and they had the power to yield under strain and spring back again, but were they any better than grassy filaments which swayed in the wind but might any day be pinched out of existence? Johnny was steadfast enough, but only because he had a formal and sluggish mind; the quicker, abler Lew could be unsettled by his dreams. They, too, lived on sufferance. . . . And Galliard? He had deeper roots, but they were not healthy enough to permit transplanting. Compared to his companions Leithen suddenly saw himself founded solidly like an oak. He was drawing life from deep sources. Death, if it came, was no blind trick of fate, but a thing accepted and therefore mastered. He fell asleep in a new mood of confidence.

So in this one book we can celebrate both the human opening himself up to God, and at the same time, the hero Leithen offering his superior British cultural heritage as a remedy for the disease and misfortune of others. It is significant as it represents the dying thoughts of a leading and influential British statesman going into WWII. The war has begun as Buchan writes and he reflects on the news in this novel.

Buchan is revered as a great man and I don't intend to tear that down. In fact, I don't find Buchan's attitudes out of line with the way others were writing in the 1930's. But we must also look into our heritage and be willing to see the vein of self-worship and incipient racism, and be critical of the ways that we defend our own traditions.

I recommend this book as a representative conversation with God. However, I intend to write next about another man who encountered Buchan in the north, a man who actually lived his life among the native people of northern Canada and left us his autobiography.

Archibald Fleming, a contemporary of Buchan, was able to reflect on and reject the racism of his own era. His book represents the flip side of the racism of the 1930's, the thoughtful reaction of a sensitive and honest Christian leader. If Buchan's book presents the problem of racism within oneself, then Fleming's book reminds us that there is another way to live.

Simone Weil

I am reading a biography of Simone Weil, a French philosopher of the early twentieth century. Weil was a women from a privileged secular Jewish family who had extraordinary intellectual gifts and devoted her short life to understanding poverty and affliction. She worked as a teacher and volunteered her time in the evening to giving lectures to workers and promoting trade unions. She spent several years on and off in hard physical labour, something for which she was particularly unsuited. She had immense difficulty with fine motor control, and only acquired legible handwriting as a child through prolonged effort. She also suffered paralysing migraines.

Weil was driven by her desire for social justice. She moved from a position of strict pacifism to action, and participated in the Spanish civil war and the French resistance. She converted to Christianity and in her later writing expressed the plight of the worker as "affliction" rather than "oppression". She died of tuberculosis in 1942 at the age of 34. She had restricted her food intake out of sympathy for those in occupied France.

Oppression and Liberty , her first significant work, made a tremendous impact on me when I read it years ago; more recently I read The Need for Roots, her last work. Notes from her lectures on philosophy were later published and are still used today as a university philosophy text.

In Waiting for God she wrote about human relationships,

He who treats as equals those who are far below him in strength really makes them a gift of the quality of human beings ... As far as it is possible for a creature, he reproduces the original generosity of the Creator. ... The supernatural virtue of justice consists of behaving exactly as though there were equality when one is the stronger in an unequal relationship.

And on faith and religion,

We must have given all our attention, all our faith, all our love to a particular religion in order to think of any other religion with the high degree of attention, faith and love that is proper to it.

She said,

when from the depth
of our being,
we need, we seek a sound

which does mean
something: when we cry out
for an answer

and it is not granted, then,
we touch the silence of God---

Some begin to talk,
to themselves, as do the mad;
some give

their hearts to silence.

from Stephanie Strickland. The Red Virgin.

Russ Moore and Rosie the Riveter

Sometimes, too often, I sneak a peak at the conservative blogs, the patriarchal blogs, and sometimes I just do a double take. I blink, I wrinkle my forehead and I ask why I am struck with profound dissonance. Take this. Here is a post by Russ Moore on Evangelical Same-Sex Marriages. Apparently he has taken it into his head that egalitarian marriages are "same sex" marriages. Bizarre. Why are these guys out to throw scorn on an egalitarian relationship? As if a man should be ashamed to treat a woman as an equal.


But even more bizarre is the fact that this illustration was posted with his post. This image was in the original post, here, scroll down to May 1, 2007, but does not show up in the link to the full post here . However, there she is, Rosie the Riveter, who more appropriately serves as an icon on this site , which has the following goal.

To recognize and preserve
the history and legacy of working women,
including volunteer women, during World War II;
to promote cooperation and fellowship
among such members and their descendants;
and to further the advancement of patriotic ideals,
excellence in the work place,
and loyalty to the United States of America.

Is there something here that Russ Moore is against - patriotism, volunteerism, excellence in the workplace? Probably not. It is just the image of a strong woman that these men - Stinson, Dever, Mahaney, and Moore, cannot abide. They don't want women who can stand on their own, and provide for and protect, and particpate and support others with their strength. God help us.

Oh right, I forgot, they don't want women in the workplace, because, you know, if there is a war, women should just stay home - in the house and not participate, not build weapons, not test fly airplanes, not keep industry moving. Especially a widow like Rosie the Riveter has no business in the workplace.

I am uneasy knowing that there is another image conference this weekend.

"Word for word"

Yesterday I finished my post with this quote and implied that I did not agree with it.

The application may be right from the text, but it is not applications or ideas that are inspired. It is words.

And I don't agree with it. Here is why. First, Jesus and the writers of the Christian scriptures quoted the Hebrew scriptures in a way that can be called eclectic and paraphrastic. Not word for word. Here is the article that I am planning to write about some time on the BBB. Which Old Tesament did Jesus prefer and quote from? So why should we differ from what Jesus did?

Next, what was the model of translation given to us. The Greek Septuagint, I would suppose. After all this time I would have thought that I would know that there is no "word for word" concordance between words in the Hebrew and words in the Greek. But I really thought that people who argued for "word for word" had something up their sleeve.

Lately, I've been reading a few Psalms in the Greek and Latin and then checking a little on the Hebrew, just a word here and there. And finally I realised that there are 4 words for "man" "human being" in Hebrew and 2 in Greek, and there is no set pattern as to how to translate them. In fact, each Hebrew word is translated into Greek by both Greek words. So, that's it - no "word for word" translation there.

Well, at least there might be the same number of words in Greek as in Hebrew, right? No, actually there seem to be twice as many words in the Greek Septuagint as there are in Hebrew. So, not "word for word" in that way, either.

Eclectic, paraphrastic, good enough for Jesus, good enough for me. That's why I don't worry about Bibles being "word for word".

Ruth Tucker

About 15 years ago I read Women in the Maze by Ruth Tucker. It was one of about 5 books which I read at the time which supported women's equality in the church. I gave or lent out all of those books and only remember them when I come across a related story. This is what happened today.

I discovered a new blog called Parchment and Pen and sat and read few posts. I then took a look at the contributors and saw Ruth Tucker's name in the sidebar. Ruth had been teaching at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids until recently when she was forced to leave under very unpleasant circumstances. This story was publicized last summer and I read it at the time but did not have time to post about it.

It is a detailed account of gender discrimination in the church and seminary and leads to other issues such as whether one should expose wrong-doing in the church. Her different sites and posts dealing with the issue of when to go public are thought-provoking and insightful.

The wrong doing that most concerns me also relates to gender discrimination. However, the people most maligned are for the most part men. These are the translators of the TNIV Bible translation, which has been accused of creating a translation which allows God's image to be distorted. Or in the words of the executive director of the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, as reported on this blog,

Christians should respond by purchasing Bibles that reflect an essentially literal translation. Will we read translations that reflect the most accurate depiction of God or will we read translations that provide room for His image to be distorted? The application may be right from the text, but it is not applications or ideas that are inspired. It is words.

I guess this post has wondered a bit from one topic to another, but the issue of when and how to speak out is a tough one and deserves reflection.

Reading Lolita in Tehran

by Azar Nafisi. This is a recounting of a "lady professors" experiences in Iran through the 80's and 90's. As a professor of English literature she exposes her students to "decadent" western novels. Her passion for freedom of opinion and literary expression is contagious and I read every page in wonder that I did not value this much the books which were freely available to me.

It is only when the freedom of choice is removed and thought and opinion are prescribed that one becomes sensitive to the value of reading as transformation.

Here are her thoughts on wearing the veil,

The issue was not so much the veil itself as freedom of choice. My grandmother had refused to leave the house for three months when she was forced to unveil. I would be similiarly adamant in my own refusal. Little did I know that I would soon be given the choice of either veiling or being jailed, flogged and perhaps killed if I disobeyed. page 152

A stern ayatollah, a blind and improbable philosopher-king, had decided to impose his dream on a country and a people and to re-create us in his own myopic vision. So he had formulated an ideal of me as a Muslim woman, as a Muslim woman teacher, and wanted me to look, act and in short live according to that ideal. Laleh and I , in refusing to accept that ideal, were taking not a political stance but an existential one. No, I could tell Mr. Bahri, it was not that piece of cloth that I rejected, it was the transformation being imposed on me that made me look in the mirror and hate the stranger I had become. page 165

Christian women also have the right not to be objects molded according to someone else's vision. Is there anything more revolting than the stereotype of "so-called" biblical men and women. When will we remember how Paul nurtured the younger Christians and Phoebe protected and provided for him?

Speaking Out

I recently read this post, To Speak or Not to Speak ? which mentioned R. Groothuis thoughts on speaking out.

I recently re-read an article by Rebecca Groothuis where she categorizes people into 3 groups concerning biblical equality. She discourages conversation with people who are very vocally against what they term ‘worldly feminism’ and says it is most often a fruitless exercise to try to convince a person whose mind is made up.

Those who hold to hierarchy but accept that Christians who have other views are also concerned for being true to the scriptures are good candidates for some discussion but here again, it seldom convinces them to change their view. The most profitable group to speak with are those who have genuine questions and are willing to discuss different ways of translating certain passages and are open to learning what we have to communicate.

If I wonder why other women are not speaking out in the conservative blogosphere, I guess this post gives me a clue. For me, I feel that I am happy to write as long as it represents problem-solving for my own thinking. I am not simply repeating myself for the fun of it.

I know it may look as if I am sometimes, but each time I tackle an issue I seek greater depth or competence in some way. I have been surprised at how rewarding it is to comb through footnotes, etc, trying to get at the core of someone else's thinking. If nothing else, it is an academic discipline that I feel sure will pay off when applied to other areas.

It is interesting though that Jimmy Carter in Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis, called for more women to speak out. He writes,

Women are greatly abused in many countries in the world, and the alleviation of their plight is made less likely by the mandated subservience of women by Christian fundamentalists. What is especially disappointing to me is the docile acceptance by so many strong Christian women of their subjugation and restricted role. page 93

So I speak out and wonder in what way I can impact on the condition of women in other countries and cultures. I remember recently Stephen Lewis, a Canadian politician, returned from Africa and was speaking on the radio about the condition of women in places in Africa he had visited. He started to cry and was unable to continue speaking for a few minutes.

It is not only there but here, and not only women, but men and children, it is the lack of human rights and dignity anywhere that should call to us.

This is in answer to a recent comment on my blog.

Between Two Worlds: "Why Is There No Respect for Motherhood? Why Does the West Not Value Its Women?"

Between Two Worlds: "Why Is There No Respect for Motherhood? Why Does the West Not Value Its Women?"

I live in a very mixed ethnic society. I have one student whose mother was murdered by her father-in-law; this mother is one of many women murdered routinely by family members in our city. I have another student who was whisked overseas to be married at the age of 14. I have seen other things I wish I had not.

But I feel proud to know that a Vancouver beauty queen is heading up this campaign.

This website was created to spread information about the 19-year old Iranian girl Nazanin Mahabad Fatehi, who was previously sentenced to death by hanging for killing a man who ambushed and tried to rape her. At the end of May, the Iranian head of Judiciary overturned her death sentence, and sent the case back to a lower court. Nazanin's re-trial ended on Jan 10 2007.

Nazanin was released on Jan. 31 after three years of prison. In Iran girls are considered adults at the age of 9 and can be married off to old men or found guilty of immorality.

So I was just bowled over to find out that the plight of one adult female in combat fatigues has influenced certain so-called Christian males to make common cause with the president of Iran. One adult woman decides to exercise her contitutional freedom and some people forget that 9 year old girls can be legally married and impregnated according to the laws of this regime.

No wonder Catherine Booth makes more sense to me as a preacher and defender of women than this bunch of chumps who wish to set themselves up as models of male leadership.

Susan Wise Bauer on Stackhouse.

Here is an excellent review by Bauer on Finally Feminist by John Stackhouse. I recommend it to anyone who wishes to know more about his book.

HT Jim Hamilton.

I commented today on Jim Hamilton's post where he mentions Bauer's review of Stackhouse's book but Jim deleted me. I had been involved in a discussion on the original post by Bauer as well as some other blog threads on the topic so I was familiar with the discussion.

I later received an email from Stackhouse, who wrote to commiserate with me on the sad treatment that some of us former Plymouth Brethren have suffered for expressing our so-called 'feminist' views! I include John's email as encouragement for myself and others as an example of Plymouth Brethren who extend their egalitarian views on church government to women. F. F. Bruce is another. God bless them both.

Dear Sister Suzanne,

We have not met, I don't think, although I have picked up clues that we almost have! I have come across a little correspondence you have had with members of the ****[a blog which shall go unmentioned] on-line.

Wow. ..... Your composure in the face of attacks by ****& co I find frankly astonishing--a tremendous tribute to the grace of Christ and your submission to him. Bless you for this excellent example, that both convicts and encourages me.

I hope we do meet someday,

John

===
John G. Stackhouse, Jr.,
Ph.D.Sangwoo Youtong Chee Professor of Theology and Culture
Regent College

And yes we did later meet.

The Places in Between

by Rory Stewart

I felt great sympathy with this man's mother before I finished the book. He did not get enough to eat, nor did the dog! A harrowing story of a lone walk across Afghanistan in 2002. But a engaging narrative with a perfect blend of contemporary characters, history, culture and landscape.

And this is why I loved this book. He wrote these lines,

As we ate, our host, Khalife Amir, played a tamboura lute made from a small, yellow plastic oil bottle, a table leg and two wooden awls. He fingered only the lower string. I had not heard music for a month. My days had passed in silences with flurries of thought in a landscape that changed slowly.

Note by note the music brought a sense of time back to me. Each pause was charged with anticipation of the next note and the slow revelation of a tune. Khalife Amir measured silence, dividing each minute into a succession of clear notes from the string and then weaving time together again with his tenor voice.

Here is the NY Times review.

An interesting character mentioned in passing in this book was Nancy Dupree who wrote An Historical Guide to Afghanistan. I had not heard of her before. Another historic personnage who figured in this book was Babur.

After reading this book the traveller knows that there is always somewhere to go to get away from the crowds.

Catherine Booth Resources

I have enjoyed rereading this biography of Catherine Booth, Catherine Booth — a Sketch by Colonel Mildred Duff , which was given to me by one of my sisters when I was a teenager. It is written in an easy style and I find is quite engaging.

However, it does not compare with reading the actual writings of Catherine Booth. They are powerful and articulate. Some of her works here are sermons recorded in shorthand and edited by Booth and then published. I highly recommend reading some of her sermons and other writing.

Here is a piece that I found particularly moving. In this short paragraph taken from The Iniquity of State Regulated Vice (1884) we get a glimpse of Catherine Booth as a mother (she had 8 children), as a preacher, as a social reformer and a women who was not afraid to confront parliament in a time when women did not have the right to vote. She knew what it meant to care for widows and orphans. In a A Speech Delivered at Exeter Hall, London, on February 6th, 1884,on the Iniquity of State Regulated Vice,

I did not think we were so low as this--that one member should suggest that the age of these innocents should be heightened to 14, and that another suggested it should be not so high. Another that it should be reduced to 10, and oh! my God, pleaded that it was hard for a man--HARD--for a man!--having a charge brought against him, not to be able to plead the consent of a child like that.

I would not tell what, but for the grace of God, I should feel like doing to the man who brought that argument to bear on my child. (Applause.) I have a sweet innocent little girl--many of you have also--of 14, as innocent as an infant of any such things--what, if a man should make an application of this doctrine to her. Well may the higher classes take such care of their little girls? Well may they be so careful never to let them go out without efficient protectors. But what is to become of the little girls of poor unprotected widows?

I highly recommend these writings - they are as pertinent today as when they were written, is some cases sadly so.

Female Ministry, Or, Woman's Right to Preach the Gospel (1859)

Female Teaching: Or, The Rev. A.A. Rees versus Mrs. Palmer (1861)

Godliness: Being Reports of a Series of Addresses Delivered At James's Hall, London, W., During 1881

The Iniquity of State Regulated Vice (1884)

Papers on Aggressive Christianity (1880)

Papers on Practical Religion (1879)

Popular Christianity: A Series of Lectures (1888) (2nd ed.)

Laura Margolis

I am watching Shanghai Ghetto about Jewish refugees from Germany in Shanghai during WWII. I have read more about the Russian Jewish community in Shanghai, but this is a detailed documentary with interviews from those who lived as children in the Shanghai ghetto.

I decided that I had to check out more information about Laura Margolis who was featured in this film. She died in 1997 at the age of 93. Here is a bit about her life,

Born in Istanbul, where her father was a doctor to the Sultan of Turkey. Ms. Margolis came to the United States with her family in 1907. She worked with Settlement House helping immigrants in Buffalo, N.Y. and for Jewish Social Services in Cleveland before becoming the first female field agent of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in 1937.

The JDC first sent her to Cuba to help refugees fleeing Europe who were not being permitted to come directly to the USA. She tried to find a port of entry for a ship, the St. Louis, carrying Jews, but it was forced to return to Europe. In 1939, she was sent to Shanghai, where tens of thousands of fleeing Jews found refuge.

Ms. Margolis, at considerable personal risk to herself, saved the lives of some 4,000 Jewish refugees who, close to starvation, precariously survived in the Heime (camps) in the Shanghai ghetto.

The White Countess is a drama that gives a more atmospheric notion of pre WWII Shanghai. I enjoyed it.

The abuses of slavery

This is in reponse to a discussion in the comment section of the BBB that physical abuse is a distortion of an otherwise just relationship of headship and submission. I have heard the argument that it is not fair to judge a practise by its distortion.

In my experience the psychological effects of submission outweigh by far the physical cruelty of abuse, however painful that may be. Teaching your fellow human that he or she is created by God for subordination is the true cruelty, not the physical act of enforcing submission.

I was relieved to see this exact point being made in so many words by the controversial philospher Kwame Appiah. He writes,

When I think about how the world of the Ashanti remains etched and scored by slavery, an odd question arises: What is it about slavery that makes it morally objectionable? European and American abolitionists in the 19th century tended to focus, reasonably enough, on its cruelty: on the horrors that began with capture and separation from one’s family, continued in the cramped and putrid quarters below the decks of the middle passage and went on in plantations ruled by the lash.

William Wilberforce, the evangelist and Tory member of Parliament who was as responsible as anyone for the passage of the 1807 Abolition of the Slave Trade Act, was not an enthusiast for democracy when it came to expanding the franchise, and he railed against the “mad-headed professors of liberty and equality.”

It was the torments of slavery’s victims that moved him so. (He was also a founding member of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.) Once freed slaves had been properly Christianized, he believed, “they will sustain with patience the sufferings of their actual lot.” In the United States, abolitionists mainly shared his perspective, naturally emphasizing the abundant horrors of plantation slavery.

Slavery’s more sophisticated defenders had a response. They agreed that cruelty was wrong, but, they maintained, these horrors were abuses of the slavery system, not inherent features of it.

What if their paternalist fantasies had come true, and a world of kindly slave masters had developed? Would slavery be acceptable? Of course not. Even a well-treated slave is diminished by his status. As a social or legal institution, slavery has built into it a denial of the social basis of self-respect: it defines the slave as lower in status by denying that she could have personal aims worthy of consideration and rejecting the enslaved person’s right to manage his or her own affairs.

When you’re a slave, someone else is in charge of your life. What keeps the wound from healing is that this subordination is something you inherited from your parents and will pass along to your children.NY Times March 18, 2007

I can only thank this writer for articulating so well the problem of a headship - submission relationship. Maybe one day we will all understand better that the core teaching of the scriptures is found in Lev. 19:18, Matt. 22:39, Mark 12:31, Rom. 13:9, Gal. 5:14, James 2:8.

Thou shalt love thy neighbour (thy next one) as thyself: I am the LORD.

Ilse Fredrichsdorff

It seems that I have reopened this blog. I don't have many aspirations for writing here, but I do wish to use this space to keep track of some of the books and other material that I am reading.

Today I remembered that I wanted to have a record of this post by Michael Bird.

Who the heck is Ilse Fredrichsdorff?In reading over Robert Yarbrough's excellent book, The Salvation-Historical Fallacy (p. 342, n. 9) he gives this quote from the preface of M. Albertz, Die Botschaft des Neuen Testament (1947-57) which left me gob-smacked:


"This book is dedicated to the young brethren of the Confessing Church. I was united with them in my office as leader of the Office of Theological Examination of the Confessing Church in Berlin-Brandenburg. I was all the closer to these brethren, whose status was illegal from the start, in that perforamnce of my ministry resulted in the loss of my freedom as well as my ordination, withdrawn by a bogus ecclesiastical authority. This book's dedication bears two names [one is Erich Klapproth, the other is] Ilse Fredrichsdorff ... When the church struggle began she was a young girl belonging to the Confessing Church congregation Nicolai-Melanchthon in Spandau. Through our congregation she came to take up theological study. She studied in our theological college and in Basel with Karl Barth. She became curate of the only truly evangelical confessional school that could be established under the Third Reich, the school for non-Aryan Christian children who were no longer permitted to attend the public school. During the war she reamined in congregations northeast of Berlin, in that region where the last battle prior to Berlin was waged. She was so much in demand for her pastoral skills that the major of the troop emplacements behind which lay the villages she served repeatedly requested her aid among the troops. Later she led the displaced congregations with the word of God, went back to the hunger zone as much as possible, and, after she had buried hundreds of the thousands who perished, succumbed herself to starvation (II/1, 13-14)."

Catherine Booth: Adaption of measures

I found this afternoon a book of sermons called Aggressive Christianity by Catherine Booth. These sermons were taken down in shorthand and appear in the book as she preached them.

This one, Adaption of Measures relates well to a post I recently published on the BBB.

People contend that we must have quiet, proper, decorous services. I say, WHERE IS YOUR AUTHORITY FOR THIS? Not here. I defy any man to show it. I have a great deal more authority in this book for such a lively, gushing, spontaneous, and what you call disorderly, service, as our Army services sometimes are, in this 14th of Corinthians than you can find for yours.

The best insight we get into the internal working of a religious sevice in Apostolic times is in this chapter, and I ask you - is it anything like the ordinary services of to-day? Can the utmost stretch of ingenuity make it into anything like them? But even that is not complete. We cannot get the order of a single service from the New Testament, not can we get the form of government of a single church.

Hence one denomination think theirs is the best form, and another theirs; so Christendom has been divided into so many camps ever since; but this very quarelling shows the impossibility of getting from the New Testament the routine, the order, and the fashion of mere modes. They cannot get it, because it is not there!!

Do you think God had no purpose in this omission? The form, modes, and measures are not laid down as in the Old Testament dispensation. There is nothing of this stereotyped routinism in the whole of the New Testament. Why? Now there may be some who may have difficulties in this matter.

I said to a gentleman, who came to me with this and that difficulty about our modes and measures,

I will meet your difficulties by bringing them face to face with the bare principles of the New Testament. If I cannot substantiate and defend them by that I will give them up for ever. I am not wedded to any forms and measures.

To many of them I have been driven by the necessities of the case. God has driven me to them as at the point of the bayonet, as well as led me by the pillar of cloud, and when I have brought my reluctance and all my own conventional notions, in which I was brought up like other people, face to face with the naked bare principles of the New Testament, I have not found anything to stand upon! I find things here far more extravagant and extreme, than anything we do, looked at carefully

Here is the principle laid down that you are to adapt your measures to the necessity of the people to whom you minister: you are to take the Gospel to them in such modes and habitudes of thought and expression and circumstances, as will gain for it from them a HEARING. You are to speak in other tongues - go and preach it to them in such a way as they will look at it and listen to it! Oh! In that lesson we read what beautiful freedom from all set form and formula there was!

Combining Diacritics vs Precomposed Greek

Well, here I am back at combining diacritics. I may have to change the title of this blog to Suzanne's doodlepad. This is probably not a post of general interest.

To keep a long story short, most polytonic Greek is posted in precomposed form and displays well in IE7. But sometimes Greek text has been produced using combining diacritics. It is a pain because that makes two standards and you can't tell with the naked eye which is which. At least if they display properly you shouldn't be able to. But you can see in the first image how they both look in IE7.

The second image shows both kinds of text in their correct display form in New Athena Unicode and they should look identical.(Are you bored yet?)

The third image is of the two kinds of text displayed by individual glyph.You can see that the combining diacritics text has the ability to decompose, the other kind does not.

There are many pros and cons to all this, but I believe that the usual way to display Greek is by precomposed text. This is the opposite to Hebrew.

As far as Polytonic Greek is concerned, the best resource is Rodney Decker's resources. This page will take you from the age of the dinosaurs up to the present, so I would recommend starting to read this paper on page 10 or 11. The relevant stuff is on pages 14 and 15. Read point 4.3.3 and on footnote 3 on page 15. In fact, if you have to decide in any paper which part to read, I would recommend the footnotes.

In short, most polytonic Greek text is produced in precomposed text. Zhubert produces precomposed as well, so no problem. This is what the MS Greek keyboard does too and probably most of the others. But sometimes there is a bit of the combining diacritics stuff around. For some reason IE does not handle this well, although Firefox, as usual, has no problem. Go figure. BTW, here is a MAC biblioblog.

Anyway, IE7 now does font substitution like Firefox so fonts are not the problem - codepoints are. I use Babelpad to look at things like this along with Babelmap, from Babelstone, along with reading Babelstone Blog, which is a pretty cool blog about Unicode. Except that Andrew is writing about the Morrison Collection right now, so you have to check his archives.

Note: This post has been edited with new images.