50books_poc | Entries tagged with religion/spirituality

If you can get ahold of this idiosyncratic little memoir, it's pretty fun and light.

R.K. Narayan was a South Indian author, mostly of fiction, during the twentieth century. One year, in the 1950s, he travelled around the US (thanks to a Ford Foundation grant), and got two books out of it. One is The Guide, a novel about a tour guide. The other is My Dateless Diary, his diary of his travels from New York through Chicago, Berkeley, Hollywood, the Grand Canyon, and more.

He has a ton of wry observations about different bits of the US, comparisons to stuff back home in Mysore, conversations with celebrities (Greta Garbo and Aldous Huxley, for example), sitcom-esque misunderstandings, poignant conversations with strangers, etc. He runs into discrimination on a bus in the South, he has trouble finding vegetarian food, people keep asking him for spiritual advice and for his opinion of Nehru. And he drafts his book along the way and submits it to his publisher. He has fun, he runs into some worries and difficult situations but nothing ever goes deeply wrong, and his descriptions of various scrapes and angsts reminds me of Wodehouse.

seekingferret.livejournal.com

50) Can Smart People Believe in God? by Michael Guillen

I don't know why I'm drawn to these books. They're not written for me, and they offer me little. Guillen's answer to his title question, in any case, is yes. He really didn't need 160 pages to make his case. Here, let me distill his whole book into a simple proof:

Assume that smart people can't believe in God. Isaac Newton believed in God. Isaac Newton was smart. We arrive at a contradiction, so our assumption must be wrong and smart people can believe in God. QED.

In truth, there isn't much more to his book than that. Guillen is a person who, as a college physics professor, television science correspondent, and author of popular science books, has dedicated his life to making scientific knowledge more accessible to people who are disposed to be mistrustful of science. Here, even though he seems to be addressing atheists, it's clear from his churchy rhetoric and appeals to new-agey ideas like "Spiritual Quotient" that his real audience are American anti-science evangelicals, whom he is trying to persuade that science is Godly. Guillen's basic tactic is pitching the Catholic Church's long history of involvement in scientific advancement to an American Protestant audience that has traditionally distanced itself from such efforts. And if he can package his book as a rebuttal of Dawkins and Harris and the rest of our present generation of radical atheists (whom he terms Arrogant Atheists), so much the better for book sales.

In any case, it took me nearly 2 years (I started in March '09), but I have finally hit 50! Um... time to start again at 1, I suppose. :P Maybe this time I'll finish Beloved and The Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand and all those other books I started and didn't make it through in the past two years...

sanguinity

15. Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve, When Thunders Spoke.

It's tricksy to summarize some of Sneve's books: by the time you've laid out enough of the different threads to be able to give a sense of what's happening and why it matters, what you've written isn't really a "summary" anymore. However...

Norman is fifteen, poor, and Sioux. In one thread of the story, Norman struggles with the white owner of his reservation's trading post, Mr. Brannon, who has been systematically cheating Norman over the agates that Norman collects on Thunder Butte. In another thread of the story, Norman's grandfather has had a holy dream that Norman should climb the traditional vision quest route on Thunder Butte -- a request Norman is happy enough to fulfill (in part because that side of the butte has been heretofore forbidden to him, and forbidden things have allure, but also because doing the climb is a simple way to please his grandfather).

...and it's hard to take the story any further than that without flattening it.

I liked When Thunders Spoke very much in its own right, but I also like it as a contrast to Alexie's Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian -- which was a very good book, indeed, but one which appears to be running the danger of becoming the single story about teenagers and reservation poverty.

16. Tom Charging Eagle and Ron Zeilinger, Black Hills: Sacred Hills.

(Both of these authors are obscure. I'm somewhat confident that Tom Charging Eagle is Native; I have no idea about Ron Zellinger. If someone has better info, please let me know so I can correct this entry.)

Child-compatible^* picture book about the Lakota relationship to the Black Hills. Written in free verse, plural first person (such that "we" refers to the Lakota), with full-page black and white photographs of the Hills. Production values are low -- some of these photos are grainy at this size -- but I don't really care that much, because its mere existence kinda blows all other considerations away for me. Sure, low production values, yes, it's a cottage press, but who else would care enough to publish this? (The publishing house, Tipi Press, closed a few years ago, but apparently was part of St. Joseph's Indian School.)

Interestingly to me, the book repeatedly builds parallels between aspects of Christian faith and Lakota reverence for the Hills, using Christianity both as an analogy ("It is like the holy places of the Jews and Christians...") but also as validation for Lakota beliefs: "Our people today know / that it was the rock with held the body of Jesus / for three days after he died, / and it was the rock which Moses struck / to bring forth water to keep his people alive. / For all of us, / regardless of race and creed, / the rocks have a spiritual meaning." Christianity and Lakota spirituality are not in opposition here; in many ways, this book strives to ease any conflicts that Christian Lakota might feel between the two spiritual traditions.

Black Hills: Sacred Hills was published in 1987, not too long after the final ruling in United States v. Sioux Nation, in which the U.S. offered cash compensation to the Sioux for the Black Hills. The book's introduction walks through a timeline of the dispute, from the Fort Laramie treaty through the lawsuit and Bradley's act. The book ends with an allusion to the lawsuit, and the Sioux resolve with respect to it:

Our proud
and spiritual people
have been deprived of this sacred heritage,
yet they continue to cling to the belief
that this is a nation of law and order.

They believe
that in this land guided by the Constitution,
that all men are created equal
and blessed by their Creator with rights and liberties.
Therefore,
they seek to regain what is rightfully theirs
according to solemn treaties.

The book then closes with a quote from Frank Fools Crow's speech, "We Shall Never Sell Our Sacred Black Hills."

* I'm loathe to say it is a children's book, mostly because of the way that traditional Native stories are systematically and inappropriately repackaged as children's stories by non-Native authors, editors, and publishers. This isn't a traditional story, per se, but the "could be for kids, thus is for kids" error could as easily apply to this volume as a traditional story, I think, and thus my hesitation.

(additional tags: Lakota)

sweet-adelheid.livejournal.com

#35 - Michelle Cooper, The Rage of Sheep
YA lit by an author I already loved, but only recently discovered was a POC. Hester (like the author) is Indian-Fijian/Australian, growing up in a country town in NSW. The characters are marvellous, as are both plot and subplots. More here

#36 - Waleed Aly, People Like Us: How Arrogance is Dividing Islam and the West
Thinking a book is fabulous does not necessarily mean that one agrees with every word. This is one of those books. I think I'm more willing to mentally argue with the author because we're so very much of the same generation that we were in the same law school class. More here

#37 - Edna Tantjingu Williams and Eileen Wani Wingfield, illustrated by Kunyi June-Anne McInerney, Down the Hole Up the Tree Across the Sandhills...: ...Running from the State and Daisy Bates
Heart breaking. Heart shattering. Just as it ought to be. A really great, and effective, story of the realities of the Stolen Generations. In English with use of Yankunytjatjara, Kokatha and Matutjara languages (with translations and pronunciation guide). More here

#38 - Mary Malbunka, When I Was Little, Like You
The story of growing up as an indigenous child in a remote community: of moving around, of living as much as they could off the land. Beautiful illustrations, also by Malbunka. Uses Luritja words as well as English: as with Down the Hole the book includes a glossary and pronunciation guide. This is going to be one of those books I automatically buy as presents for every little baby I have a connection with. More here

Tagging - a: malbunka mary, a: williams edna tantjingu, a: wingfield eileen wani, a: cooper michelle, a: aly waleed, i: mcinerney kunyi june-anne, fijian-indian-australian, egyptian-australian

sweet-adelheid.livejournal.com

#28 - Desmond Tutu, No Future without Forgiveness (1999, Rider & Co)
Appointed by Nelson Mandela to be co-Chairperson of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up in South Africa following the transfer of power from the Nationalist Apartheid Government, Desmond Tutu writes in this book about the history leading to the Commission, the progress of the Commission itself, and his thoughts on forgiveness. Link here.

#29 - illustrated by David Diaz, Smoky Night, words by Eve Bunting (1994, Harcourt Brace)
The illustrations are stunning. The backgrounds are mixed media collage: including shards of glass one the page that mentions "smash and destroy", half-crushed rice cracker snacks on the page about the destruction of Mrs Kim's shop. Link here.

#30 - illustrated by David Diaz, Just One Flick of a Finger, words by Marybeth Lorbiecki (1996, Dial)
A beautiful example of the way picture books are meant to work (no matter what age group they are aimed at) and I credit a lot of that to Diaz' design and layout work in addition to his illustrations. Link here.

#31 - Adeline Yen Mah, China: Land of Emperors and Dragons (2008, Allen & Unwin)
It is a *very* basic introduction to Chinese history; very much an overview. It (allied with some Avatar-related posts I've been reading around LJ, and IBARW stuff) has made me realise how much I don't understand about China, and how I do tend to view the entire Imperial era as some sort of pretty fantasy "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" world. Which is a major failing on my part. Link here.

Tags needed: a: tutu desmond, a: mah adeline yen, i: diaz david, (and if we're still going to do whitefella tags, w-a: lorbiecki marybeth, w-a: bunting eve.

sweet-adelheid.livejournal.com

This is the book that has held up my other reviews. Which is probably a good thing, because my initial opinion of it is certainly a little different now than it was when I first read the book about six weeks ago.

Summary: Deep beneath the land is the Rainbow Spirit or the Rainbow Snake, the eternal source of life and spiritual power. [The authors] identify God the Creator with the Rainbow Spirit and they see in Christ the incarnation of the Rainbow Spirit in human form, which for them is Aboriginal Australian.

My first comment is related to authorship. I puzzled initially over whether this book "counted", even though my gut feeling is that it does. The people who physically wrote the words down are white: Rob Bos and Norman Habel. But the group who came up with the words, whose work is behind this, and who have (as the introduction states) approved the final version of the words, are all Indigenous Australians: George Rosendale, Nola Archie, Dennis Corowa, William Coolburra, Eddie Law and James Leftwich. Jasmine Corowa was the group's artist. (I know Dennis and James a little, and hugely respect both them and George - of whom I've heard - and have been on a committee with Rob for the past three years.) In the end, I think saying that this *doesn't* count would be infantilising the Rainbow Spirit Elders; essentially saying that they didn't "really" participate in this work.

( Comments on content )

Ultimately - this book is a way that I can listen to the Elders, and I need to view it in that light. I will benefit greatly from re-reading this book and contemplating it further. Of that I am absolutely certain.

wordsofastory.livejournal.com

26. Faith Adiele, Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of a Black Buddhist Nun

Faith is the daughter of a Swedish mother and a Nigerian father; she grew up in a small town in the Midwest. She is smart, motivated, and involved, and her drive to succeed gets her a scholarship to Harvard, where she is involved in social work in addition to her classes.

And the pressure quickly causes her to fail and drop out.

This book is a memoir, mainly focusing on the time Faith spent in Thailand, where after leaving Harvard she went to work on an Anthropological research project about the status of women, particularly Buddhist nuns. Faith eventually decides to live as a nun herself for a season. The book jumps around in time a great deal, following a chapter about daily life as a nun with one about Faith's childhood, and then with another about prostitutes in Thailand's big cities. This style sometimes made things a little hard to follow, but it also was great for focusing on thematic issues instead of narrative. Another thing I disliked was that the book is published in a style that has quotes from scholars, Buddhist practitioners, and Faith's journal along the edges of the pages, making it look more like a textbook than a memoir.

However, I did like this book a lot. It's written in a style that accommodates both people who know nothing about Thailand or Buddhism with those who have more knowledge. Faith's comparison of the pressure and the succeed/fail mentality of Western culture against the more internal processes of Thai Buddhism are also pretty insightful, although they can be a bit simplistic at times. I really enjoyed her descriptions of meditation and mindfulness. She is a very vivid writer, and very readable. I really enjoyed this book.

Also recommended: If anyone is looking for more recommendations of books by POC, I really liked this podcast/blog post. Three African-American women talk about books they like. Not all the books mentioned have POC authors, but many do. Plus, though I'd never listened to this podcast before I stumbled on it today, these guys are really funny.

Current Mood: lazy

whereweather.livejournal.com

#16. Bless Me, Ultima, Rudolfo Anaya
1972, Quinto Sol

It is the 1940s. Antonio, who is almost seven, lives with his family in a small riverside community in "the llano" -- a vast, green plain where sheep, goats and cattle graze, and vaqueros make their living herding them out in the freedom and silence. Antonio's father comes from the Márez family, which has always roamed the llano, but his mother comes from the Lunas, settled farmers and town-builders, and she wants her youngest son to become a farmer or a priest. Antonio doesn't know which way his blood will pull him, but he is on the brink of many changes: he's about to start making the walk across the river every day with his sisters to attend the school up in town, where, the kids say, they make you learn English; he will start catechism in preparation for his first communion, and enter into the privileged community of those with whom God shares secrets; the end of the war might bring his older brothers home; and -- most immediately and excitingly -- Ultima, known as la Grande, the venerated curandera, is coming to live with them. Ultima is a medicine woman, a healer, and a sage -- not, Antonio is convinced, a witch, as some people call her. But not everyone agrees with him...

( More on magic, rivers, wide plains, fish... )

anitabuchan.livejournal.com

I've already read Sanchez's Rainbow trilogy, but hesitated over getting this until I read

sanguinity's review here. It basically says everything much better than I will, so you should go and read it!

I enjoyed this very much. Paul is a devout Christian, as is his girlfriend and most people in their high school. He's never met anyone openly gay before - until Manuel arrives. He's also Christian, but he doesn't believe homosexuality is a sin - and is prepared to argue with anyone who says otherwise!

I loved the developing relationship between Paul and Manuel: there were no big flashy moments of epiphany, just Paul's initial denial then slow realisation that, actually, he was gay. It was slow and sweet, and I found it very believable. Both of them were struggling with their own issues (Paul moreso than Manuel) which got in the way of them getting together.

I liked that there was no demonisation of Christianity. It was several members of the Bible club who were most supportive of Manuel (although several of them were the most hostile as well). If you know the non-homophobic interpretations of the Bible, then much of the discussion of Scripture will probably be familiar to you. It was to me, and I've not studied it in all that much depth.

It's not perfect, of course not, but it's a book that left me with a happy glow and a desire to recommend it to everybody - although it's probably most suited for LGBTQQA teens, especially those who are Christians, I think others could enjoy it too.

sweet-adelheid.livejournal.com

Quick-version reviews:

#22 - Infidel: My Life by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Hirsi Ali grew up in Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Kenya. Her experiences of Islam cross a spectrum from her (mostly-absent) father's approach, which in some ways allowed interpretation and debate but in other ways was highly traditional, through to devotion to the calls for the renewal of Islam by the Muslim Brotherhood. She's now become in/famous for her calls to consider ways in which Islam may be problematic.

#23 - The Dreaming, Vol 1-3 by Queenie Chan
Although manga is enough of a departure from my regular type of reading that I feel justified in posting it here, I couldn't count the three volumes as separate books. Only the third volume took more than an afternoon/evening to read. In the end, I can't recommend this book, because of what I (ymmv) see as a very problematic treatment of Indigenous Australian cultures and traditions. More info at my LJ.

#24 - Inside Black Australia: An Anthology of Aboriginal Poetry, edited by Kevin Gilbert.
Published in 1988 as a "Bicentennial" year protest, this collection is full of anger, and I found most of it very hard to cope with. I did persevere through to the end though, and I'm glad I did, as Gilbert's own poetry is last in the collection, and despite the fact that his introductions both to other poets and himself had angered and alienated me, I found that some of his poems were *beautiful*, and that they portrayed their anger in a way that allowed me to process it, rather than just putting up a wall. Note: many readers of this comm may find my review difficult or potentially offensive, particularly on "tone argument" grounds.

#25 - The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
I started reading this before the election, but only just finished it, for the simple reason that I own it, and thus it wasn't subject to library due dates. It is a great book, and I'll have to boost Dreams from my Father further up my To Read list.

sweet-adelheid.livejournal.com

Somehow - I don't remember how - The Miracle at Santa Ana caught my eye, and was on my mental list, at least, for this challenge. And then, browsing the biography shelves at one of the public libraries to which I belong, The Color of Water caught my eye. Santa Ana is now most definitely on my list.

Every so often you see an interview question - or an internet meme - that asks what books have stayed with a person throughout their life.

I hope that this is one of mine.

I hope that what I think I've learned from reading this book stays with me: that God is the color of water; that there's always more to someone else than you think. I hope that the lyricism, the simple beauty of McBride's writing stays with me. I hope that the image of Ruth McBride, riding her bike through Brooklyn, tall and proud and indomitable, stays with me.

( Read more... )

waelisc.livejournal.com

Full title: A Time to Speak: How Black Pastors Can Respond to the HIV/AIDS Pandemic.

The intended audience for this book is leaders of African American faith communities, so it's maybe of limited interest to everyone else. However, I thought the author was very effective at describing why the moral authority of the Bible is so deeply important to black congregations. The promise that God's justice will eventually prevail was a profound source of strength all the way from the time of slavery, through the civil rights movement, and up to the present day. Social movements that deny the authority of Biblical teachings get very little traction in the context of this history.

wordsofastory.livejournal.com

I was away from the internet for most of the beginning of this year, and so I've written some short reviews for the books I read during that time. At the link are my reviews of:

1. Natsuo Kirino, Grotesque
2. Alexandre Dumas, Twenty Years After
3. Shereen Ratnagar, Trading Encounters: From the Euphrates to the Indus in the Bronze Age
4. Dalai Lama, How to Practice
5. Lalita Tademy, Cane River
6. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, The Palace of Illusions
7. Wendy Lee, Happy Family
8. Randa Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big In This?

All reviews here!

I enjoyed all of them, but the short summary is: if you only read one, I recommend Does My Head Look Big In This?

Current Mood: cheerful

waelisc.livejournal.com

Full title is My Mercy Encompasses All: The Koran's Teachings on Compassion, Peace, & Love. Shoemaker Hoard, 2007.

The main body of this book is selected verses of the Koran, which I'm halfway through. The portion I'm addressing here is the introduction by Reza Shah-Kazemi, a scholar and founding editor of the Islamic World Report. I've done a bit of reading on the history of Islam before, but never on the theology of Islam. The 25-page introduction has very much drawn me in to wanting to read more. One of the reflections that struck me most was: "The boundaries separating oneself from all others are rendered transparent in the light of the intrinsic oneness of humanity. And this unity of humanity is itself a reflection of the oneness of God."

It mentions in the notes that Shah-Kazemi is also the author of (among other publications) The Other in the Light of the One: The Universality of the Qur'an and Interfaith Dialogue. I'm going to look for that soon.

sweet-adelheid.livejournal.com

Books #16-19

16. The Trouble with Islam, by Irshad Manji
Manji is a Canadian of Indian ancestry whose early life was in Uganda before Idi Amin expelled the Asian population. The book (which I read in an original edition - it was later renamed as The Trouble with Islam Today, although I don't know if that involved any changes to the text) was first published in 2003. I liked it, and found a lot in it to make me think, and that I admired. However, I also know that this book is *not* highly thought of in many quarters. (It was, therefore, refreshing to find Randa Abdel-Fattah saying pretty much the same main argument in The Age newspaper on the weekend.) More here.

17. Stradbroke Dreamtime, by Oodgeroo Noonuccal and Bronwyn Bancroft
A beautiful book - part memoir of Oodgeroo's childhood, and part collection of stories from the Dreaming. Bronwyn Bancroft's artwork is an absolute highlight and, for me, really makes this book something special. More here.

18. Secrets of the Red Lantern: Stories and Recipes from the Heart, by Pauline Nguyen
Far more than a cookbook. A memoir of Nguyen's family, a beautifully produced book, mouthwatering food photography... I can't recommend this highly enough. More here.

19. Daisy Kutter: The Last Train, by Kazu Kibuishi
My first ever comic book/manga! Set in a world that's pretty much Firefly crossed with Star Wars, Daisy is a retired gunslinger lured out of retirement for a Train Job. There's clearly a lot of backstory, but I'm fairly sure that this is the first (currently only, unfortunately) Daisy Kutter comic. As I think both Daisy and her unfortunate sidekick Tom are fabulous characters (very white, though, for those who would find that a problem), I rather hope there are more to come. More here.

maebeth.livejournal.com

Finally we are through the dead white guys (I exaggerate some, they are not all dead yet.)

So, some words on What it means to be church:

Lee, Jung Young, Marginality: The Key to Multicultural Theology. (Fortress, 1995).
We've all been trying too hard to be in the center. True church is at the margins. This is an excellent book, hurt only by Lee's hyperbole when it comes to who is "in" and who is "out" of church. Yes, white churches are almost always focused on centrality, and have little experience on the margins. But that does not mean that ALL white people are trying to stay that way. Still, the basic theology is excellent and helpful.

Cone, James, Black Theology, Black Power (Orbis 1997).
This was actually written in 1969.
Excellent explanation of how white and black churches are tempted to buy into the idea of church as part of the status quo, and a radical call to give up that role. Sexist language was hard, but the preface to this addition includes an apology for that and an explanation that to have edited for this edition would have been to pretend he didn't have that very sexist past.

Bujo, Benezet, African Theology in its Social Context (Orbis 1992).
Radical idea of how Christian faith COULD be permitted to really adapt to local cultures, including an excellent section on how ancestor worship can be redeemed as ancestor appreciation and the idea of Christ as our common ancestor. This would lead to the idea that different tribes have the same ancestor and therefore can learn to cooperate. I don't have the knowledge to evaluate the African context, but appreciated the idea of radically removing the "christian" and "european culture" connection. This text was so sexist it was hard to read. Its hard to believe that Bujo even knows that women exist.

sairaali.livejournal.com

After months of lurking and reading reviews, I decided to actually start keeping track of my reads. My first four (possibly five?) reviews are here.

The list and just the list:

1. An African Prayer Book Desmond Tutu
2. Anatopsis Chris Abouzeid (although I'm not sure how the author identifies so I'm not sure whether to count it)
3. The Sinner Tess Gerritsen
4. Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits Laila Lailami
5. Radical Welcome Stephanie Spellers

waelisc.livejournal.com

I bought this about seven years ago, looking for something to supplement our denominational prayer book for a youth group gathering at my church. At the time I scanned through it in a hurry and never went back to it, but this challenge motivated me to go back and read it properly.

Desmond Tutu was the (Anglican) bishop of Lesotho, South Africa when he won the Nobel Peace Prize (1984) for his leadership in the anti-apartheid movement. Soon after, he was elected Archbishop of Capetown, which put him at the head of the Anglican Church in South Africa (their first black archbishop ever). He's still alive, though retired from being Archbishop now.

The prayers here are collected from many different sources. He says in the intro the intent was to represent "African Christian and non-Christian spirituality." The majority of the prayers seem to be from African traditional religions and from African Christian traditions. Many of the attributions are just to a location, or an ethnic group, so I wasn't always sure. There are also some prayers written by whites who either grew up in Africa or made their lives there. There are several hymns and quotes from African Americans. There are several from the Caribbean Council of Churches. There are a dozen or more from early Christian theologians who lived in Egypt or North Africa in the days of the Roman Empire: Augustine, Origen, Athanasius.

I was rather sorry to see so much room given to Augustine even though, yes, he lived in Africa, because his writing is available in so many other editions. I was also dismayed that there was nothing (identifiable to me) to represent Islam, which does have a long tradition in many parts of Africa.

Nevertheless there were many beautiful prayers. ( Here are a few of the ones that I read and re-read the most. ) As I recall I used several prayers from this collection with my kids at church, but the one they responded to most was a long meditation called Lord, The Motor Under Me Is Running Hot - because it had a narrative, I expect. It's told by a bus driver, reflecting on the challenges of his day and praying for the safety of his passengers and himself on the road.

sanguinity

27. Alex Sanchez, The God Box.

Paul, his girlfriend, and all their friends are Christian; together, they make up the core of their high-school's Bible club. Paul genuinely loves his girlfriend -- they've been dating since middle school, and she's his best friend, to boot -- but he doesn't feel sexual passion for her. He has hopes that passion for her will kick in someday; after all, a footnote in his high school health ed book had suggested that "sexual curiosity toward others of the same sex" is only a "temporary phase." So Paul waits, and prays, and hopes that his prayers will be answered.

And so, perhaps, things would have continued, had not Manuel arrived in town. Manuel who wants to attend Bible club because he, too, is a Christian. Manuel who is gay, and out, and doesn't believe that homosexuality is a sin.

There is so very much I loved about this book. Because I intend to ramble in an ultra-spoilery way, let me first summarize my reasons for love: being queer isn't drawn as being in opposition to being Christian (even despite the ubiquitousness of the traditional queer/Christian tension driving the book); the characters are drawn with much compassion, making them a joy to read; coming out was portrayed as being about integrity and ethics in a very true-to-life way, and not as a quest to be understood and accepted by the larger society.

( In which I ramble, and drop many spoilers )

I would absolutely recommend The God Box, especially to Christian queer or questioning youth, as well as their allies, whether adult or youth, Christian or non-Christian, queer or straight. I'm not entirely sure how well The God Box would read outside the LGBQQ + allies group -- after all, it is definitely written to validate a particular experience of (allegedly) conflicting identities -- but for readers within that group, it could very well be one of those ever precious no estoy loco books.

puritybrown.livejournal.com

49: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

I get the feeling I'm the last person in the Western Hemisphere to read this book (a feeling I'll presumably get again when I finally get round to reading Dreams From My Father). It's an astonishingly vivid, moving and eloquent memoir of Angelou's childhood in the 1930s and 1940s, mostly in Arkansas with her hard-working, principled, and deeply religious grandmother, but also in St Louis and San Francisco with her mother. a glamorous figure with a practical approach to life and a somewhat hands-off parenting technique. Every page rings out with the truth of her experiences, sometimes joyful, sometimes painful, sometimes merely puzzling; it's a riveting read.

50: The Buddha and the Terrorist: the story of Angulimala by Satish Kumar

Satish Kumar, founding editor of Resurgence magazine (one of the best magazines on sustainable living and alternative economics you're ever going to find, if not the best) recounts a story from the Buddhist scriptures that tells how the furious murderer Angulimala ("finger necklace") met the Buddha and transformed into Ahimsaka ("the nonviolent one"). A story of finding peace by refusing to fight fire with fire, which is both timeless and timely.

~~

I wasn't going to do a second 50 -- and considering I took a lot more than a year to do the first, that might be a sensible decision. But something interesting's happened: the other day I wandered into a bookshop that was having a sale and cast my eye over the discount books, and thought to myself "ooh, look, they have Starbook by Ben Okri and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See and The Black Album by Hanif Kureishi and The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, and... ohhh. I see what you did there, brain." So it looks like I will do another 50 after all. But I'm not going to approach the reading or the writing-up with the stern "this is a Duty" approach I sometimes took with this 50, because that's the perfect way to drain the pleasure out of anything. No, this time I'm just going to let myself enjoy it. And I will, I'm sure of that.

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Writers of Color 50 Books Challenge

Entries tagged with religion/spirituality

R.K. Narayan's "My Dateless Diary"

Can Smart People Believe in God?

When Thunders Spoke; Black Hills: Sacred Hills

#35-#38: Cooper, Aly, Williams & Wingfield, Malbunka

#28 - #31: Tutu, Diaz (illus), Mah

#27 - Rainbow Spirit Theology (by the Rainbow Spirit Elders)

Faith Adiele, Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of a Black Buddhist Nun

#16. Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya

11. The God Box by Alex Sanchez

#22-25: Hirsi Ali, Gilbert (ed), Chan, Obama

#20 - "The Color of Water" by James McBride

A Time to Speak by Marvin A. McMickle

Multiple Reviews

"Shorts" #1 - Reza Shah-Kazemi, introduction to My Mercy Encompasses All

Manji, Noonuccal & Bancroft, Nguyen and Kibuishi

Christian Theology

#1-#5(?)

#3, Desmond Tutu (ed), An African Prayer Book

The God Box, Alex Sanchez

49-50: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and The Buddha and the Terrorist

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