New Year, New Direction

My blog is changing again.

I've written this post in my head a hundred times, but I can't quite seem to make myself sit down and actually post it, for fear that I'll change my mind about how the blog is changing or that I won't be able to deliver on the proposed changes. You might have noticed I've changed my name to Behold & Reflect. It's a nod to 2 Corinthians 3:18, which talks about how as we continually gaze at Jesus, we become more and more His reflections. This is one of a handful of my "life verses;" like the others, it has stuck with me since high school, but its meaning and application has grown richer and deeper along the way. As my new name suggests, my blog will primarily chronicle my thoughts and experiences beholding Jesus and the reflections that spring from basking in His multi-faceted beauty. Specifically, I plan to explore prayer through personal experience, through interviewing passionate, prayerful souls from across the Christian spectrum, and, of course, by reading lots and lots of books. But while previous iterations of this blog were primarily a repository of book reviews with a little bit of random reflection sprinkled in, Behold & Reflect will prioritize my prayer experiments (exprayeriments!) and journalistic pursuits, with book reviews playing a secondary role.

How can you help me?
Though I've always enjoyed blogging for personal edification, it would be so, so much better if some of my praying friends would follow me and perhaps join in on the prayer exercises I hope to post each week. I'd love to hear your prayer stories. I'd love to learn about new ways to pray. I'd love to connect with people you know who know a thing or two about prayer. I'm interested in gathering stories from other sources and presenting a well-rounded narrative about Christian prayer. Will you join me?

Mahtob's memoir is part psychological thriller, part a lesson in forgiveness, peace and gratitude

So, you remember the 1990s Sally Field movie Not Without My Daughter about Betty Mahmoody, the American woman who defied the odds and fled Iran with her daughter after being held hostage by her violent, radicalized Iranian husband? Mahtob Mahmoody is that daughter. It turns out she's as intelligent, resourceful, resilient and  as her mother.

Mahmoody's moving memoir, My Name is Mahtob (I totally did not mean to use that much alliteration) -- begins with the harrowing story through an exceptionally bright 5-year-old's eyes. The account is gripping. I found myself both appalled at the behavior of Mahtob's father and Iranian relatives and cheering for those decent strangers that were willing to help Betty and her daughter escape.

McKnight avoids pat answers to questions about heaven

A couple of years ago, several Christian authors started an eschatological fray with books about hell. Scot McKnight's newest book, The Heaven Promise: Engaging the Bible's Truth About the Life to Come, puts forth a hope-filled side of the afterlife, with the premise that the Bible contains clear promises about heaven, such its existence: there's a "first heaven" and a "final heaven" (46), what it will be like:"a utopia of pleasures" (76), and who will be there: "Jesus and those who are in him" (157). 

Goyer's "Prayers That Changed History" introduces grade schoolers to 25 world-changers

Advent began yesterday, and for a lot of Christians that means a season of waiting and expectation. I'm planning to begin a new series on the blog, focused on different ways to spend time gazing on Jesus in prayer. You know me, I'm always trying to connect my own interests, whether spiritual or otherwise, to my kiddos. I snagged a review copy of the newly released devotional "Prayers that Changed History" by Tricia Goyer. The book covers 25 men and women who made a direct or indirect impact on Christianity and the world at large, with an emphasis on their answered prayers. Before you might think this is a how-to manual with exemplary prayers that are effective at getting God to do something--the title kind of makes it sound like that--I want to clarify that Goyer writes about pray from a few different angles. She sees prayer as both petitioning and as spending time with God, open to His transformation. As Goyer says, "prayer changes things, starting with us," which indicates that the second view of prayer is the primary frame for most of the stories in this book.

At a Glance

This 223-page paperback is organized chronologically, with chapters on Polycarp, Constantine, St. Patrick, Oswald (King of Northumbria), Christopher Columbus, Martin Luther, Governor William Bradford, John Eliot, Susanna Wesley, John Newton, Robert Raikes, Mary Jones, Sojourner Truth, Catherine Booth, David Livingstone, Florence Nightingale, George Muller, Billy Sunday, Helen Keller, Amy Carmichael, John Hyde, Mother Teresa, The British People of WWII, Corrie ten Boom and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. 

4 picture books that explore what it's like to be a refugee

I'm a little late on this post as Thanksgiving Day has passed, but honestly, why should feelings of gratitude and thankfulness abruptly give way to the materialistic frenzy of Black Friday? They shouldn't. I'm still immensely thankful to have a lovely home and to have my family near me: safe, happy and healthy. And when so many in this world do not have a home and are not able to keep their families safe and happy and healthy, I hope I'll continue to be thankful regardless of the day or season. In particular, knowing that hundreds of thousands of Syrian men, women and children are terrorized and displaced by ISIS humbles me. The heated debates over this crisis in the news and on social media show that it's easy to let fear, mistrust, self-righteousness and self-love be the lens through which we see the world. But because of Jesus, I'm compelled toward compassion, and I hope to model it for my boys. So with these thoughts in mind, I bring you four moving picture books (found at my local library) that make the concept of a refugee a little more personal.

For me, How Many Days To America?: A Thanksgiving Story by Eve Bunting and illustrated by Beth Peck perfectly united both a sense of gratitude for our country's freedoms and bounties as well as a sense of duty to maintain our long tradition of receiving those who are fleeing religious and political persecution. For my kids, it tells a rather gripping tale of a family who leave all their possessions behind to escape their Caribbean island home by boat. They face rough weather, food shortages, pirates and rejection from other potential destinations before finally being received in the United States on Thanksgiving day. While I found the story engrossing and my boys aged 2-7 stayed tuned in to the end, they were mostly interested in knowing whether pirates still existed today and why the pirates in the book didn't look like the Veggie Tale variety.

Sink into your comfy chair and wile away the hours with "The Message 100" bible

I grew up with extreme loyalty to one bible translation, believing it was the most accurate. But as I've gotten older and less dogmatic, I've discovered the value in comparing passages across several versions to get a multi-faceted view of scripture. One of the main versions I like to use in my YouVersion Bible app, (along with NLT, NIV, NKJV and AMP), The Message is a contemporary translation created by long-time pastor and biblical scholar, Eugene Peterson and published by NavPress. It's not the bible most of us have lodged in our heads as memory verses from youth group, and Peterson often paraphrases by a few verses at a time, so sometimes entire passages seem quite different than what I remember. One example is the oft-quoted James 1:19 (quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger). Peterson translates it: 

"Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear." 

To me, the rendering isn't quite as catchy, but the unusual personification of anger did cause me to do a double take. For other verses, Peterson's metaphoric style really did add something special. Consider a few verses later in James 1:21: 

"In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life."

What a gorgeous word picture!

Berry's "Sabbath Poems" have become part of how I do church Sunday mornings

The Parrinos have made a pretty big transition in the last couple of months: We've moved states after nearly a decade living in Kentucky. We've both changed jobs and two of our boys have had to adjust to a new level of academic rigor. We've gone from small town to bigger city. We've moved from a modest ranch to a lovely home with three floors and many, many places to put people. Perhaps one of the most significant changes, and the one that probably raises the most eyebrows among both our "Kentucky people" and our "Ohio people," is a shift in our church community.