Book Review: Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

This is a brilliantly written biography of a true Christian hero, martyr, and saint--if Lutherans canonized saints, Dietrich Bonhoeffer would be among the first, although he would deny that he deserved it. Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor in Germany when Hitler came to power and was part of the Resistance (including the Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler). He was from a brilliant and aristocratic family, scientists on his father's side and theologians on his mother's side, and he became a theologian and committed Christian in the truest sense. Metaxas never leaves the reader in doubt about how this will end--with Bonhoeffer's execution by the Nazis--but the story of how Bonhoeffer became the brave, thoughtful, and faithful man he was is inspiring and so many of his teachings have the ring of truth. Always he tried to turn the attention of his followers and listeners away from himself and toward a personal relationship with the Lord. Metaxas builds on other biographies of Bonhoeffer and had access to sources and letters previously unavailable. (Metaxas wrote the biography of William Wilberforce that is the "companion book" to the movie Amazing Grace.) This book is has wit, insight, history, theology, and thought-provoking reading for any person of faith. Highly, highly recommended.

Resting on Laurels or Growing New Ones

Yesterday I read a great (brief) book called Life's Lessons Learned by Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2011). One of the chapters, "Transition to the Apostleship," has been on my mind.

Do you keep getting the same callings again and again? I do. We moved 13 times (and thus were in 13 different LDS wards) before we settled in our current home, where we have lived for almost 12 years. When I was younger, I was often called to be the Primary music leader or to teach or help others with family history. I taught adults in Sunday School and frequently was called to edit a ward or Relief Society newsletter. And I've always, it seems, been a visiting teacher and a member of the ward choir, and still am. Currently I'm also a family history consultant, co-teaching Marriage and Family Relations in Sunday School with my husband, and I was recently called to edit the ward newsletter (again). I've done it all before and I'm pretty comfortable with each calling.

What does this have to do with Elder Oaks' call to be an Apostle? Obviously, that's a call that only comes once. Before that, Elder Oaks had a distinguished career as a lawyer, law professor, president of BYU, and Utah Supreme Court justice, as well as serving in many callings in the Church. When he was called to the apostleship, Elder Oaks felt "inadequate and very apprehensive" (p. 99). To paraphrase, he felt that the qualities and skills he would need in order to serve effectively as an Apostle were not those he had become most comfortable with in his successful career. But he knew that we all tend to do that with which we are comfortable--and he could have fallen back on all those well-honed skills and qualities to be the former lawyer and judge who became an Apostle, rather than the Apostle who had been educated as a lawyer.

If I slide into old habits and methods of performing the callings that repeatedly come to me, I am becoming the "family history person" who's been called to be a family history consultant, rather than the family history consultant with some background in genealogy and family history research. And in an area that had grown and changed as rapidly as family history has (just google "family history"), the former is a recipe for ineffectiveness. If I create the ward newsletter the way I've always done it, I miss the opportunity to fulfill my current calling--to be the ward newsletter editor in this ward at this time--in the way the Lord and the ward members intend and need.

So each calling is a chance to grow into that new calling at a new time and in a new place, for new people with new needs, and to become the (fill in the name of the calling) the Lord needs now. Even in a longtime calling, like visiting teaching the same sisters for years, their needs change and the abilities and means of service the Lord wants us to develop change over time. Perhaps this is one meaning of "magnifying our callings"--not finding more things to do, but finding ways to fulfill the calling in response to others' and our own changing needs, seeking always to find out how the Lord wants us to serve now.

The lesson, borrowed from Elder Oaks (p. 100), is: "When called to a Church position, we should focus out efforts on being what we are called to be, not on what we feel qualified to do."

The Mortality of Zucchini

Columns, short stories, and even novels have been published about zucchini and its place in garden-happy cultures. When Alan was in grad school at Penn State, we would have to lock our car in the parking lot while we attended Church. After three hours in the unshaded summer sun, our 1974 Toyota (obviously a vehicle owned by a family in need) would bake us and the children to a convective crisp on the way home, but we didn't dare leave the car unlocked or the windows rolled down, lest we find our car filled with zucchini, post-services. In case you've been living in a world without dirt for a while, all it takes to grow zucchini--lots and lots of zucchini--is a little dirt, a few seeds, some water, and some sun. I'm not really sure the water is absolutely necessary if the humidity is high enough. The trouble is that well-meaning co-religionists would try to supplement our diet with baseball-sized squash, probably found under giant leaves after the small, tender, foodworthy zucchini had been harvested. We appreciated the thought, but the bigger the squash, the tougher and seedier it had become, and we didn't have the heart to pass it on to some even hungrier family. So into the dumpster it went.

All this came to mind when I discovered some zucchini that had died in our fridge, fortunately enclosed in an easily disposable plastic bag. I had purchased it a week ago--and it galls me to buy zucchini when you can grow it so easily and in such abundance, but it is January. An "easy" zucchini soup recipe had tempted me while I was planning the week's meals and making a shopping list. I promptly acquired a case of bronchitis and some saving-yet-sickening antibiotics and was down for the count for days. Alan made the dinners, but the zucchini languished in the back of a produce drawer, and yesterday I buried it in the trash, mourning the loss of its tender, perfectly sized greenness to whatever attacks squash neglected to the point of abuse.

So at dinner I reported that we would not be having zucchini soup any time soon. Alan was astonished. "Zucchini can't die," he said.

We thought zucchini was forever. We thought it just kept growing until it resembled a pod from an old horror flick and had to be hauled away by a HazMat team, or a young family in an old car. But it turns out that zucchini is mortal.

Fortunately, the generosity of those who know what it's like to be struggling financially lasts forever. (Sometimes people brought us wonderful, homegrown tomatoes and tender, succulent, ready-to-steam zucchini.) Lately the neighbors seem to know what it's like not to be successful gardeners, even of squash. They bring us stuff from their gardens and we take around cleaned-out margarine tubs of raspberries from our berry patch. (We save up the tubs all year.) Sometimes we have to explain that we are not giving our neighbors a tub of margarine in lieu of produce from the garden, but it's always good to have a reason to chat about mortality and immortality or other, less important subjects.   

Book Review: She Walks in Beauty by Caroline Kennedy

She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems by Caroline Kennedy

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is a wonderful book for those who enjoy poetry, especially women. This is the answer to "What do you want for your birthday/anniversary/Mother's Day?" or just to read next, although I recommend owning a copy so you can savor the book over time. (Thanks, Caiti!) Caroline Kennedy has compiled a variety of thought-provoking, excellent poems that evoke the stages and feelings of life. Each section (e.g., Falling in Love; Breaking Up; Beauty, Clothes, and Things of This World; Friendship; How to Live) is preceded by a brief and insightful essay into the editor's choice of poems and their significance to her and to us. Read it with a pen to mark favorite passages and a pack of sticky notes so you can record your favorites in your "commonplace book" or collection of favorite quotes.

Kennedy chooses poetry from sources as early as the Bible and Euripedes, through familiar poets like Donne, Keats, Sappho, Millay, cummings, and the Brownings, to poets you may not be familiar with and poems from traditional folk sources. Some of my favorites: Margaret Atwood's "Variations on the Word Sleep"; W. S. Merwin's "To Paula in Late Spring"; Rumi's "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing"; Barbara Ras's "You Can't Have It All"; St. Theresa of Avila's "May today there be peace within"; and Euripedes' "The Bacchae Chorus." This book is a treasure. Highly recommended.



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Book Review: As Always, Julia, edited by Joan Reardon

As Always, Julia: The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto by Julia Child

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


If you liked My Life in Paris and the movie Julie & Julia, you may really enjoy this book, which collects the correspondence between Julia Child and Avis DeVoto from their first contact when Julia was beginning to master the art of French cooking until and beyond the publication of her classic cookbook--a time during which they were "pen pals" and became best friends forever. The letters are well-edited and the editor, Joan Reardon, deserves recognition for doing a great job of filling in the blanks and identifying people and events mentioned in the letters that the reader might not know about. (She also translates the bits of French that creep into the letters.) Avis's letters are just as interesting, if not more so, than Julia's, as Avis was married to a famous and excellent writer, Bernard DeVoto, was a thinker and editor in her own right, and they knew many of the literary and other lights of society in their Harvard University/Cambridge, Massachusetts, community and throughout the country. In addition to the struggles and triumphs surrounding the writing and publication of Julia's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the two women give a great depiction of their daily lives in the 1950s and the political climate in the United States at the time. (Both were horrified by the Communist witch hunt being conducted by Senator Joseph McCarthy and his House Unamerican Activities Committee; both were delighted years later by the election of President John F. Kennedy.)

Avis is the perfect friend and encouraging editor; without her, Julia may not have had the wherewithal to endure the years and setbacks involved in completing and publishing the cookbook. Also interesting are the details of Julia and her husband Paul Child's postings around Europe with Paul's job for the U.S. Information Service and the two friends' family and travel experiences. In addition to being a valuable chronicle for those interested in Child, the book is another addition to the growing body of resources on the value of women's daily lives and thoughts (in a vein similar to the historical work of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich). Brava! Highly recommended.



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Book Review: Fair Game by Valerie Plame Wilson

Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House by Valerie Plame Wilson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Valerie Plame Wilson, an undercover operative for the CIA, was "outed" by the Bush White House (a federal crime) in retaliation for her husband's opposition to the President's statement that Iraq had tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger--her husband, Joseph Wilson, was a former ambassador sent to investigate the Niger story and had reported to the CIA and the White House that the rumor was false. Nevertheless, the President included the story in his State of the Union address. This was during the time when the Bush administration was trying to make the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction as a reason for the United States to invade the country.

The revelation of Wilson's status put an end to her career, undermined some of the intelligence she had worked on and placed other CIA personnel and helpers in jeopardy, and resulted in the waste of thousands of dollars that the CIA had invested in this experienced, talented covert operative. She tells her story with the parts the CIA "redacted"--wouldn't allow her to reveal, including how many years she had worked there--"blacked out," but the story is still a fascinating read. An "afterword" by a journalist tells the full story, all of which was part of the public record anyway, so the CIA had questionable motives for disallowing its publication.

I enjoyed learning about the workings of the CIA and was impressed with the hard work and patriotism of our country's intelligence agents. I was shocked by the illegal revelation of Wilson's status for political and retaliatory motives. Our national security depends on the intelligence services being able to operate free of any political agenda, and that didn't happen in this case. Recommended for those interested in real-life spy stories and in the integrity of government.

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Book Review: Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book is not an easy read, but it's a good read. The story of Ali's life and her journey from poverty and an abusive childhood and adolescence in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya, to her position as a member of the Dutch Parliament, would be enough. But her insights as a woman raised in Islam are equally fascinating. Based on intense, repeated study of the Q'uran, Ali determines that, unlike the fashionable "line" would have people believe, Islam is not at heart a peaceful, tolerant religion that has been interpreted or twisted to oppress women and girls and to lead to wars and death threats (some carried out) against Muslims and non-Muslims who preach against it or portray it in a negative light. Instead, Ali determines, the basic tenets of the religion allow the oppression of women and children and their subjection to men in the name of submission to Allah's will, as well as the other violence--moderation, peace, and tolerance are the "interpretations," although of course there are Muslims who try to live in the latter way. But Ali says they are not following the "true" version of Islam, which she determines is not for her, or anyone who wants to do more than "submit." 60 Minutes did a segment on Ali after the murder of Theo Van Gogh, the Dutch film producer who was murdered by Muslim fanatics after he and Ali made a film that showed Islam as oppressive to women, so her story may sound familiar, but the book is a great deal more than a short TV segment could show. Highly recommended, but not for the faint of heart.



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