Epiphany Books

I work in the computer industry and have tried 3 of the major Bible Software packages. I prefer Bible Explorer to all others I have tried or own because of its very friendly and intuitive interface. Have have used it weekly for over 6 years so I have used it a lot. It is very fast and virtually without bugs. (Heck, even Microsoft has some! BEx has less!) I like how it will sync a commentary to the Bible version you are reading so the commentary is constantly at the same verse. Greek language aids (for the layman) are also excellent - Strongs, Vines, and Robertson's Word Pictures. You can try it with one of the minimal packages and then get the full product when you see how nicely the program was done.

The writings and excerpts from the Bible seep into the reader after a time, inviting meditation and offering an education for Advent and Christmas. Certainly, an Advent and Holiday time reading, the works are not authored as a standard series of Advent readings, but they are traditional:

"It is our hope that this book will encourage profound exploration and contemmplation, but it is not, perhaps, a conventional Advent book of readings and prayers, for that the reader will have to look elsewhere."

Good. This is just the kind of book I wanted this past Advent and Christmas, one published by Morehouse Publishing. I must say that I have been looking at books published by the Episcopal publishing house, and for a few years have been intrigued by this one whose cover is a mother with her baby. It's an intimate cover, and so I was and am intrigued by the intimacy of the book. If you, like me, look for books for the season like Advent and Christmas, you will find this a good one with its readings and reflections for each day of the season, into the first day of Epiphany.

This "Come, Lord Jesus," had me thinking of the end of times, when we all go to heaven and are judged. Previous years I hadn't thought so much of it. Now I don't want to burden you with my own needs and interests so much, but this does more pointedly demonstrate how the readings go. First there is the Gospel, as this one of Day 4 in Advent. From Matthew:

"When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him..." This of the second coming, the end of the world, and the question asked by Christ is this, "...for I was hungy and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me..." Good thoughts for reflection about a man who taught important things and as the incarnate God would ask us to be with our fellow man in ways that are good and helpful.

The reflection, which is the second part of the reading, asks, "Such grace transforms situations, delivers from sin, heals our brokenness, floods our hearts with light and encircles us in the communion of love." Of course, for the sake of brevity, I must truncate the text. But you see that there is a grace offered to us, which we look forward to in the birth of Jesus, during the Advent season, that is "...that which goes byond that moral demand--God's accepting love, his forgiveness and mercy, his overwhelming free gift, his loving-kindness."

This seems like a kind of sermon, and it is a kind of sermon. "Passages for reflection were drawn for the most part from sermons, addresses and meditations on passion themes that I have given throughout my ministry both as chaplain for many years...and as a bishop." This from the Preface. Too, there are the reflections of musician Julien Chilcott-Monk. He, I think, wrote the Mary reflections and the shorter reflections for each day, a kind of note to the reading. The longer and introductory readings and remarks by Geoffrey Rowell, Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe (of the Anglican Church), and the almost point making writings of Julien Chilcott-Monk make this a team written book where the writing and the team impact is helpful to the meaning and for the writing of the book.

Like a prayer, "The Sequence" of each day focuses the reader. So these are really meditations and prayers, subtle sometimes. "With thy favoured sheep, O place me; nor among the goats secure me..." Perhaps you are not so steeped in the Bible, for the book relies on the Bible, and therefore here is the end of that quotation: "...but to thy side please upraise me." Asking to go to heaven, something most people who live their lives in a religious manner desire.

Continuing with the format, the book has an imaginative (fictional) statement by Mary on the Biblical text. Afterall, this is about Jesus and Christmas, and Mary is a key player. Here the writer gives mature thoughts to the young mother, and she is religiously profound. As I understand it, Mary was a Jewish woman who was well educated in her faith. That adds credence to her thoughts, as fictionalized here: "Is Jesus to establish the New Eden so that mankind can realize God's original intention for his creation? If so, mankind will have to turn, to respond." I found these very satisfying and they kindled in me the desire to imagine myself what Mary would think, and what kind of woman she was, as a mother to be.

The readings, which are not so long nor do they take a great deal of time, end with a statement for "...consideration..." In this reading, "The King is concerned with the reality of response to human need, not our tally for engagements."

As a means of inspiration, information, and intelligent readings for reflection and mediation, albeit guided worthily by the text, the book "Come, Lord Jesus!" makes a worthy addition for the season. The daily readings guide the pilgrim through Biblical and reflective texts, engaging the individual with the season, and educating him in the sense that these ideas can grow. I want to add a personl note about my own reading during this season of Advent in 2005. The book grew on me as I went through it, as I found it a gentle and easily taken series of introductions as guidance to the seasons of Advent, Christmas and entry to Epiphany.

--Peter Menkin, Epiphany

This was a very good book. It kept me interested until the end. The author has a gift for dialogue and a good ear for language and dialect. I could easily see this book being made into a movie with John Goodman as Dewey Hudlow and Samuel L. Jackson as nerdy Magnus Johnson!

This book provides an example of how to act as a spiritual director in a one-on-one situation through correspondence. The directee has made progress and is interested in how to proceed in the more advanced or deeper stages of the spiritual journey. The director, St. John of the Cross admits that he is trying to "explain things ultimately unexplainable." 2 The topic under discussion is about how to achieve union with God that is part of the purgation, illumination and transformation experience. Some of the language and terms that both writers used to describe their experience differ considerably from my own experience (such as our intellect "becomes a mind-divine" 50). I was very challenged by intimate experiences of God's love that Ana and St. John experienced. Speaking of God's love that one experiences in the deeper stages, John describes the intensity of it as unable to be contained by one's heart (2), as a "wound of love" that "is not distasteful but delightful" (35) , as the enjoyment of God that overflows "into every one of your faculties and senses." (39)

The most encouraging and yet sobering statement in the book was the following about what spiritual directors need not be: Not "highly educated but inexperienced, or one full of clever answers but indiscreet, not a listener but a controller, not a humble person but one proud of being so accomplished, not an experienced guide in spiritual matters but a counselor mainly trained in psychological techniques and personality analysis." 90

Both professional clergy and people in the pews will be inspired by this rich colection of sermons from Dr. Wing. Each sermon is powerfully illustrated with stories from a plentiful variety of sources and Wing's own personal life. For anyone seeking a word of hope and grace this book is the place to begin.

This book provides detailed understanding of the three ways in which God guides us: spiritual self-direction, direction-in-common and one-on-one spiritual direction.

Common to all three is the clear theme, that since each of us have unique personalities, family of origin experiences and life situational needs, there is no one "right way" to seek guidance or direction from God. Yet, Muto warns that individuals often feel the pressure to conform their spiritual practices to that of others in order to have similar experiences or because others are more advanced than themselves. This is a danger in self-direction but even more so in direction-in-common and in one-on-one direction. As Muto says, "The question is: What is God's way for them?" 55

I learned the most from the sections on direction-in-common and one-on-one spiritual direction. Group spiritual direction is something that I definitely would like to pursue more of in our church since it helps facilitate honesty, models some of the ways that God is at work in the body and helps us to appreciate the different ways God speaks to the body and so encouraging the diversity of gifts and talents in the church.

As I seek to continue to be involved in one-on-one spiritual direction, Muto's book encouraged me to do more reading in the area of therapeutic counseling. This would help me to understand some of the problems people bring when they request spiritual direction and enable me to know when to refer people to trained therapists. Muto helped me to understand that if I am to be an effective spiritual director, I must work on establishing trust, give focused attention to what is really being said and to express an appropriate compassion (and yet maintain a detachment to avoid the development of unhealthy and co-dependent relationships. This entire last section of the books served as both an encouragement and a warning about offering spiritual direction to others.

This book screams with artistic talent! Each page is a new look on life, each in it's own form of poetry. Some will have you laughing, some will deeply move you. I highly suggest reading this book and adding it to your collection.

This is not for those looking to avoid breaking out of the their numbing day to day ruts. If you are looking for something to entertain you, to help you continue to avoid thinking or feeling then watching some extra television may be more what you need.

When openly read and considered the book has the power to get you to bring you back to center and possibly reawaken feelings that you may have thought dried up and dead. It simply yet vivid stories have an uncanny ability to cause you to remember that which is truly important. And help you find beauty in the simple things. Returning you to to your focus on the simply beauty of your breath, a walk, the space around you.

Now we can add Robert Prochaska's name to the likes of William Butler Yeats, Gertrude Stein, Carl Sandburg, R.D. Schrage, Conrad Aiken, Marianne Moore, Stephen Spender, Robert Graves, Edith Sitwell, Wallace Stevens, and T.S. Eliot. No library or teacher or lover of poetry should be without this fine compilation of poems.

"Epiphany in the Modern Novel" is a thoroughgoing literary study of the first order, replete with convincing arguments carefully and eloquently argued, quiet and balanced in tone and yet instilled with a legion of inspired insights. To the best of my knowledge, it's also quite innovative; other scholars had noted the novelist James Joyce's appropriation of the term "epiphany," of course, but Beja, while indeed making Joyce's articulation of this concept the core of his study, goes further and fully demonstrates its very real (but varying) significance for other modern novelists and its role in their novels, both as technique and theme. Much of the later work I've read on this subject (by Ashton Nichols and Robert Langbaum) in fact seems to trace back to this seminal book, making it a key source in this line of inquiry.

Unlike the later studies though, which for the most part focus on poetry, Beja here is very much intent on just what his helpfully straightforward title suggests, the modern novel. He's very much aware of the poetry connection, of course, and outlines this relationship succinctly in the first chapter (noting Wordsworth's importance in this regard), which traces the prehistory of the concept from Saint Paul's experience on the road to Damascus and Saint Augustine's conversion all the way to the Romantic poets of the 18th and 19th centuries and then earlier novelists like Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and (lest ye doubt) Marcel Proust. The bulk of the book though consists of four chapters, each one extensively treating one specific novelist and his or her novels in great detail: James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Wolfe, and William Faulkner. In the process, 20th century developments in psychology and philosophy, especially as these relate to the nature and subjective perception of time or the qualities and characteristics of aesthetic appreciation, are explored to the degree that they influence this phenomenon. For anyone interested in the philosophy of Henri Bergson, he figures prominently in these discussions, though others like William James, G.E. Moore, and D.T. Suzuki pop up as well.

These are complex matters definitely, but Beja writes in wonderfully clear and understandable prose, bringing a self-assured erudition to bear on the subject and, unlike so many literary critics nowadays, writing in order to be understood rather than to impress his peers. For anyone who takes modern literature seriously, for anyone who suspects it is (or can be) profoundly spiritual though not necessarily religious, for anyone who sees it as a possible (if less than perfect) key to meaning and significance in this mixed-up, modern, crazy world, this book's definitely for you. Highly recommended--reading this fine study is almost an epiphany in its own right.