Twenty Years and Good Examples

I know I owe you readers an update on my readings (and next month we should have an even bigger nugget of news to pass along!), but today is a serious and joyful matter to share.

Twenty years ago today, Christina Marie Crowley said "I do" to me before God in Atlanta, Georgia. It's wonderful, surreal, and majestically glorious to know I have been with my bride for twenty years.

Christy and I were talking just last week how it has gone so quickly. In truth, years 10-20 have been the blur, especially as our tenth anniversary came when our youngest, Jordan, was still working through his issues in the NICU at St. Mary's Hospital in West Palm Beach, FL. That set in motion a zany, bone-jarring, heart-rattling three years of Jordan's health issues, Joshua's surgery, caring for Lindsay's needs in the midst of it all, Jordan's death, and then working through our complexities as a couple once we were picking up the pieces from it all. In truth, we've blinked and here we are.

It's especially staggering when I know of a number of people who didn't make it. Some divorces have been particularly ugly, some generally sad, but the dissolution of any union of that nature is tragic and is not what God intended, no matter how necessary a marriage's end might be given certain biblical conditions. Every marriage goes through cycles of joy and despondency; ours has been no exception. Thankfully, Christy and I have--by God's grace--faced each day with the mantra "I will never quit on him/her" at the center.

At its heart, love is a decision, a choice. Yes, there are emotional components to it, but we run into danger when we drag out phrases like "fallen deeply in love" (Because can you fall deeply out of love? What then?) or the Nicholas Sparks-inspired, vomit-inducing "soulmate" (don't get me started)...as if to suggest that love is primarily emotional. Yes, attraction and enrapturement (is that even a word?) and heart-thumping have their roles...no relationship begins to grow without them. But marriages are nourished when you choose to love your spouse every day, no matter what.

And for that, I have a lot of people to thank for their sterling examples. My parents have been married for fifty years. Uncle Bob and Aunt Judy (my mom's brother and sister-in-law) made it to fifty. On my dad's side, the fifty-plus club includes all his siblings, older brothers all. Uncle Walt and Aunt Dorothy. Uncle Glenn and Aunt Clarice. Uncle Red and Aunt Joan. Uncle Jim and Aunt Marlene. Not to mention Grandpa and Grandma Davis, who hit in the neighborhood of fifty-nine years before they died within a year of each other. And my maternal grandparents went past forty-seven years before Granddad Herron died, so coming up short there wasn't for lack of trying.

The amount of faithfulness in the above relationships, the marital determination to exhibit--to steal a phrase from Eugene Peterson--a long obedience in the same direction, is absolutely staggering in the midst of a culture that eats itself to death on narcissism, felt needs, and emotional drive while ignoring love's durability. The heart of love is not the dizzying thrills or the sexual memories (although those in great marriages would say those are pretty wonderful things!). Those events are the result of love that exists and grows rather than being its cause. It happens when the life of a couple becomes a display of Philippians 2:1-11 writ small.

I have a wonderful, beautiful wife, and I am in a gloriously happy marriage, one paved for me by the prayers and examples of those who have gone before. That's surely a matter for sober remembrance and exuberant thanks.

The Year of the Book, part 2

Back at it, I've been devouring the printed page lately and have a lot of blogging catch-up time. Detention hall today seems like an ideal time to share what I read during February.

(1) To Kill a Mockingbird: Yes, it's been an age since I worked through any portion of Harper Lee's classic, but I grabbed my daughter Lindsay's copy after she was done with it for freshman English. There are certain books that should be required reading for American citizens, and this tome definitely is way up that list. The principled Atticus Finch, kind yet firm in his resolve, is just one of the engaging characters, along with Jem and Scout, who lead you on the path of fighting injustice in the town of Maycomb, Alabama. While Lee is not my first choice of Southern author (that title is forever reserved for South Carolina's own Pat Conroy), her passion comes through in the characters, the Deep South setting, and--for me--the satisfaction felt in the humiliation of Bob Ewell and the heroism of Boo Radley.

(2) The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith by Peter Hitchens. The brother of the renowned late atheist Christopher Hitchens, Peter held on to his staunch atheism for some time before having a conversion experience to Christianity. If you are looking for a thorough apologetic in favor of the Christian faith here, that is not Hitchens' intent. Most of the book highlights his experiences of trying to work out his atheism and seeing the practical effects of godless Communism in the former Soviet Union. The book is reasonably well-paced, although I believe his strongest work is in chapter 10 on the topic of "Is It Possible to Determine What is Right and Wrong Without God?", and he lays out a very powerful argument that the "why" of morality rests in divine existence and goodness. Some readers may be frustrated that Hitchens doesn't present end-to-end apologetic arguments for faith in the book, but I made my peace early on that Hitch was setting the terms for his writing. Given his aims, I thought it was reasonably well done.

(3) Zachary Taylor by John S.D. Eisenhower. Military historian Eisenhower (son of the 34th President) sheds light on the oft-overlooked Presidency of the only man to represent Louisiana in the White House. A brave military leader in several American conflicts, Taylor had few political leanings and even fewer ambitions, yet he ended up being the Whig Party's winning selection in 1848. A slave-owning Southerner who decried slavery's expansion, Taylor was a complex fellow who was the first man to be elected to the Presidency without having held a lower office. His administration opted for a policy of preserving the Union (which the administrations of Northern presidents Pierce and Buchanan would later implode) and oversaw the momentum leading to the Compromise of 1850 and California's statehood. Taylor was in office only sixteen months before his untimely death, so his presidency isn't known for being in the tier of Lincoln, Washington, FDR, or Reagan. It is an administration heralded more for "what could have been" if he hadn't died. In my view, there could have been worse people to go toe to toe with Henry Clay.

(4) The Mistletoe Murder by P.D. James. This posthumously published short story collection by the reigning queen of crime fiction was time well spent. James hits all the right notes on the balance of plot, character, and setting in her novels, but that was more difficult to do in the short story genre while still maintaining the tension of crime fiction. James is forced to shave off some of her usual rich description of settings, and the pace of the short story causes her to push plot and character development faster than one is used to in her novels. But the mysteries are quality without being excessively cozy, and James fans will cheer that the last two tales of the four involve our favorite gumshoe in a younger Adam Dalgliesh. Hallelujah for this post-Christmas smattering of joy.

I've cranked things up during March and will have at least six or seven books in my upcoming report, so stay tuned for J. I. Packer, some more under-the-radar Presidents, and more!

The Year of the Book, part 1

The year has brought plenty of surprises and today was no different in shock disseminations. Lincoln City FC has just upset Burnley, 1-0, meaning that for the first time since 1925, a non-league side has advanced to the quarterfinals of the FA Cup. For those who need an equivalent illustration, that's like the Bristol Pirates of the rookie-level Appalachian League beating the Milwaukee Brewers to get into the National League wild-card game.

But this isn't about things that shock; it's about things that tend to stay the same. And the consistency is reading.

I'm still reading. I'm not writing, mainly because there are so many other things as a husband, father, teacher, and department chairman that require my attention. But I still read. I read, as David McCullough, Jr., would say, "as a matter of self-respect, as a nourishing staple of life."

So for the first time this year, I thought I'd let you know what I've read so far.

1. A Lowcountry Heart by Pat Conroy. A great capper for the man who gave us The Prince of Tides, South of Broad, The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline, and other classics. If you're looking for more great fiction, you won't find it here. Conroy takes you on a pleasant whirlwind look at his book tours, people he has known over the years, great author friends old and new, and through the salt-tanged low country of South Carolina. In fact, I can imagine the town of Beaufort laid out before me as a jewel, thanks to Conroy's impeccable descriptions. If you're not attuned to Conroy's work, you need to lay into his fiction before picking this work up, but if you are a Pat-veteran, make sure you've digested A Lowcountry Heart. My wife knew I pined for it and made sure it was a prime Christmas gift.

2. Richard III by William Shakespeare. The discovery of Richard III's bones underneath a parking lot in Leicester and their reinterment at Leicester Cathedral (coinciding with the meteoric rise of Leicester City FC to the top of the Premier League next season) sparked my interest in one day taking up the Bard's tragedy of this flawed man obsessed with kingdom. Plus, I wanted to dive into the War of the Roses and experience the distant lead-up to the English Reformation. Although not as well-remembered as King Lear, Macbeth, or Hamlet, Shakespeare's use of language and careful attention to the psychological moorings of the eponymous character make this a play well worth reading. Twin its reading, if you will, with a later viewing of the Richard III edition of The Hollow Crown series. Benedict Cumberbatch's performance of the twisted (in more ways than one) monarch dominates the screen from his opening line "Now is the winter of our discontent" to his final; "My kingdom for a horse!"

3. Turning Points by Mark Noll. If you love church history but need a resource to focus on the decisive moments in Christianity, Noll's opus is your go-to guide. While I believe the Crusades deserves to make the top ten list, and I would have found Christianity's rise in the Global South nudging the Edinburgh Missionary Conference off the list, Noll's poll tends to match my own. I found it to be well-written, crisp, and lively. Although some defining moments are missing (Pelagian controversy, for instance), Noll displays superior moxie when he provides the historical connections between turning points. No volume of church history can be exhaustive, and Noll doesn't pretend his will be, but he accomplishes the goals he sets out to reach. If you have any interest in church history, you need to make sure this is in your collection.

4. Submission by Michel Houellebecq ended up being more promise than performance, but not without value. Still, as I slogged through this work, I felt caught between some weird mash-up of Less Than Zero and The Camp of the Saints. In other words, nihilistic worldview concussion meets the transformation of France into Eurasia with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood into political power. Francois, a middle-aged literature professor who has a string of meaningless sexual liaisons with students, spends his days hacking through the ennui of life in 2022. The book, set as a political satire, displays how the blasé attitude exhibited by Francois is the catalyst that leads him to convert to Islam at the end of the novel as a way of retaining his university post for more money than a retirement buyout--not to mention take advantage of Muslim driven polygamy laws that get passed alongside gender inequality legislation. The passivity of the European soul in the face of Islamic penetration gives the reader a frisson of wonder as similar events might play out today. As an aside, the novel generated significant attention because it was coincidentally released on the date of the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

Hope that was manageable and digestible! I'll be back in due time with more gleanings.