SUMMIT BOOK REVIEWS

THE DOG THAT TALKED TO GOD & THE CAT THAT GOD SENT by Jim Kraus

2013-05-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

Here are a pair of books from Abingdon Press Author Jim Kraus. Summit Book Reviews gets many offers from publishers in exchange for honest reviews and passes on most of them. These titles intrigued me and I was curious. How can you write about a talking dog or cat and make it work? Believe it or not, it does!

THE DOG THAT TALKED TO GOD

The cover says you will be charmed by this story and I was. I didn’t want to put it down. If you think a dog talking to God and to his mistress is silly, then you don’t have to believe that he did. It’s possible that all the brief conversations took place in the heroine’s mind. Or not.

Jim Kraus creates an emotionally charged story of Mary Knopf, a woman who has lost both her husband and her only child in an auto accident. Angry over the pain she’s had to endure, she refuses to speak to God any longer. Years later she acquires a miniature schnauzer that helps her back onto her path toward God.

Will she ever love again, or strike out on her own away from the sorrow and grief she’s suffered? After some futile attempts, it appears so. This is a heartwarming story of endeavoring to carry on in spite of adversity. If you love dogs, you’ll adore this pooch and will enjoy the human insights Mr. Kraus provides through Rufus.

THE CAT THAT GOD SENT

Disillusioned and unsure of himself, Pastor Jake Wilkerson arrives at his new parish to be met by an injured stray cat. He’s never had a cat, but this one needs his help and he takes it in.

The cat’s internal dialog will keep you laughing. I particularly like the cat’s comments about dogs.

A single man, Pastor Jake has a past to overcome, and a present to protect. A homeless young woman takes up residence nearby, and there’s a beautiful veterinarian who treats the new cat. She’s responsible for naming him Petey. Will Pastor Jake settle in and be accepted? Will he find love again after a broken engagement? Will Petey succeed in what he believes is his mission through direction from God?

Read this novel and you’ll enjoy it, whether you’re a cat lover or not.

—Gail Lewis
Follow the Blog Tour for Jim Kraus' Books HERE

FREE REMINDER: Thurs., May 2, is the last day to get these two Excellent eBooks FREE

2013-05-01T22:08:00.001-07:00

Available worldwide for free download for the Amazon Kindle until midnight, Pacific Standard Time, Thursday, May 2, 2013.

Includes bonus chapters on Aviculture, Apiculture, Ancient Beers and Wines, Olive Oil, Manna, the Gladiator’s Diet and lots of Ancient Recipes you can try at home. At Table with the Lord - Foods of the First Century revised and expanded.

Download it for free HERE.

Gather the kids and join author Sheila Deeth as this long-time Christian Educator and Sunday School Teacher leads a fun and educational field trip through the Book of Genesis. Designed for independent reading by middle-graders, or reading aloud to younger children, each one of this series of linked short stories is not too long, not too short…but just the right length.

All your favorites are here. She begins at the beginning with God, of course, then come Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel, Seth, Methuselah, Noah and others. Proceed on to the age of Patriarchs where you meet Terah, Lot, Melchizedek, Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael, Sarah and Isaac, Rebekah, Esau and Jacob, Laban, Leah, Rachel and many more. From there, continue on to the story of Joseph, his brothers who sold him into slavery, and his life in Egypt where he eventually rescues the fledgling nation of Israel.

Genesis People contains nearly 50 separate stories, each one the ideal length for reading at bedtime or before a nap.

Download it HERE

FREE BOOKS! APRIL 28th - MAY 2nd, 2013.

2013-04-24T15:35:00.000-07:00

I want to make you aware of two books (one of them mine) that will be available worldwide for free download for the Amazon Kindle. By the way, both books have been ranked Number One on Amazon Kindle in the past.

Readers say —“A great read that makes the First Century come alive. I particularly liked the recipes”…“Everything is well-documented with surprising depth of detail. I feel like I’ve lived there alongside these ancient peoples.”…“This little book, so chocked full of information, is deeply-researched. Serious at times and humorous at others…” “A wonderful resource for the home-schooling Mom…”

Synopsis: Relying upon the Bible and extensive research for his popular Seeds of Christianity™ Series, E. G. Lewis presents an interesting and informative study on foods, cooking and day-to-day life in the early Christian era. All major food groups are covered with specific chapters on Spices & Herbs, Fruits & Nuts, Grains, Vegetables, Salad Greens, Fish & Fowl, Meat, Milk & Cheese, Sweets and Sweeteners, and even one on What They Didn’t Have.

Includes bonus chapters on Aviculture, Apiculture, Ancient Beers and Wines, Olive Oil, Manna, the Gladiator’s Diet and lots of Ancient Recipes you can try at home. At Table with the Lord - Foods of the First Century has been revised and expanded. Download it for free HERE.

Gather the kids and join author Sheila Deeth as this long-time Christian Educator and Sunday School Teacher leads a fun and educational field trip through the Book of Genesis. Designed for independent reading by middle-graders, or reading aloud to younger children, each one of this series of linked short stories is not too long, not too short…but just the right length.

Make learning fun as you and your children come to know these Biblical characters in ways you never have before. All your favorites are here. She begins at the beginning with God, of course, then come Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel, Seth, Methuselah, Noah and others. Proceed on to the age of Patriarchs where you meet Terah, Lot, Melchizedek, Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael, Sarah and Isaac, Rebekah, Esau and Jacob, Laban, Leah, Rachel and many more. From there, continue on to the story of Joseph, his brothers who sold him into slavery, and his life in Egypt where he eventually rescues the fledgling nation of Israel.

All-in-all, Genesis People contains nearly 50 separate stories, each one the ideal length for reading at bedtime or before a nap. Using her insights, masterful storytelling skills and gentle way with words, Ms. Deeth creates a series of stories that will have your children begging for “Just one more.”

Genesis People is a wonderful way to introduce youngsters to the Bible. Download it HERE

10 PRAYERS YOU CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT by RICK HAMLIN

2013-04-18T14:54:00.001-07:00

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!

Today's Wild Card author is:

Rick Hamlin

and the book:

10 Prayers you Can't Live Without - How to Talk to God About Anything

Guideposts Books (April 1, 2013)

***Special thanks to Rick Roberson for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Rick Hamlin's books include his memoir Finding God on the A Train and several novels. He is the Executive Editor of Guideposts Magazine and has been a contributor to Daily Guideposts since 1985 and blogs about prayer at Guideposts.org. He and his wife Carol live in New York City.

Visit the author's website.

SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Real-life encouragement for a very personal relationship with God.

In 10 Prayers You Can't Live Without, Guideposts executive editor Rick Hamlin shares ten real-life ways of praying to our loving God. It includes the practical insight Hamlin has gained about prayer from the everyday men and women in the pages of Guideposts magazine and from his own lifelong journey in prayer.

Readers will be encouraged that prayer is an ongoing conversation, that God wants them to talk about anything. They'll read about the power of prayers around the dinner table, how to give themselves a time and place for prayer every day, praying in a crisis; asking for forgiveness, praying the Psalms, and how to listen to the spiritual nudges God gives us.

Product Details:
List Price: $14.99
Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Guideposts Books (April 1, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0824932188
ISBN-13: 978-0824932183

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

Pray at Mealtime

“Bless this food to our use, us to your service, and bless the hands that prepared it.”

It all started with a nightly blessing.

My father’s rambling graces were famous in the neighborhood. Whenever one of us invited a friend over for dinner we usually warned, “Dad always starts dinner with a prayer. Just bow your head. Don’t eat anything until Dad says amen.

“And it might take him a while to get there.”

I was one of four kids, each of us two years apart. We lived in an LA suburb that looked like any suburb we saw on TV. Our street was lined with palm trees that wrapped themselves around my kites. We had rosebushes in front, an orange tree and a flowering pear that dropped white petals in January like snow. The flagstone walk was lined with yellow pansies leading to a red front door.

We ate dinner in a room Mom insisted on calling the lanai. It had once been a back porch and had been converted with the help of plate glass, sliding glass doors, screens and a corrugated fiberglass roof that made a tremendous racket when the rain hit it. But this was Southern California so it wasn’t often.

Dad came in from his commute on the freeway, kissed Mom, hung up his jacket, poured himself a drink, checked out the news on TV. One of us kids set the table. Mom took the casserole out of the oven with big orange pot holders and set it on the counter. “Ta-da!” she exclaimed. She tossed the salad in a monkey pod bowl they had picked up on a trip to Hawaii. “Dinner!” she called in her high-pitched, musical voice. “Dinner’s ready.”

We converged on the lanai from different parts of the house, my sisters from their rooms upstairs or the sewing room where my older sister, Gioia, was always re-hemming a skirt in the constant battle of fashion vs. school rules. I seem to remember a three-by-five card being slid between the floor and the bottom of her skirts when she was kneeling. The hem had to touch the card or the girls’ vice principal would send her home. My older brother and I slept in a converted garage, which was convenient for whatever motor vehicle he was working on. Howard could roll the minibike or go-cart right into the room from the driveway. No steps to climb. I slept with the familiar smell of gasoline, and my brother had to put up with the old upright piano next to my bed.

We were as different as two boys could be. He never held a tool he didn’t know how to use. I never heard a Broadway show that I didn’t want to learn the lyrics to. He was physical, mechanical. He could fix anything. He was outdoors racing the minibike up and down the driveway with his neighborhood fan base cheering him on. I was inside, listening to a new LP, learning a song inside my head. I was overly sensitive. He pretended to be thick-skinned.

It’s a wonder we didn’t pummel each other, although as the older brother by twenty-two months, he pummeled me enough. I didn’t circulate in his orbit. Not even close. Howard would wake me up early in the morning to go work on one of his forts and I would find an excuse to return to the house to work on a watercolor. Sometimes we had great talks as we were falling asleep. Most of the time, though, we did our own thing, Howard soaking an engine part in a Folgers coffee can of motor oil, me studying the liner notes for a record album.

Then came the blessing.

Dad’s graces were a call to worship, an effort to pull these disparate family members together, to get us all on the same page. We gathered at the big teak table and the dog was sent outside to bark. We squirmed, we giggled, we kicked each other under the table, we rolled our eyes, but we were forced to see that we were all one and we had to be silent for a minute or two. We scraped our chairs against the linoleum floor (eventually it was covered with a lime- green indoor-outdoor carpet). We left homework, the kite caught in the tree, the news on TV, the seat for the minibike, the Simplicity pattern laid out on the floor, the rolls in the oven. We rushed in from school meetings and play practice and afterschool jobs. My younger sister, Diane, put her hamster Hamdie back in his cage and we could hear the squeak of the animal running to nowhere on his wheel.

“Let us reflect on the day,” Dad began. We closed our eyes.

Then he paused.

There was a whole world in that pause. Silence. Nothing to do but think. I have been in Quaker meetings where we sat in silence waiting for the Spirit to move and it was just like that pause. I have worshipped in churches where the minister was wise enough to be quiet for a moment as soon as we bowed our heads. Every Monday in our office we gather in a conference room at 9:45 and read prayer requests that have come in to us over the past week; then we close our eyes, pausing in silence before we remember those requests.

At first all you hear is ambient noise. The drone of an air conditioner, the hum of a computer, a car passing by, my sister’s hamster squeaking in his cage, your stomach rumbling. You think, “That hamster wheel needs some WD-40. . . . That car needs a new muffler. . . . Boy, I’m hungry.” Then you listen to what’s going on in your head.

Back then my head was spinning with a million thoughts. I was replaying what my best friend and I had talked about under the walnut tree at school or what Miss McGrath had said about my paper in class or what I wished I could say to the cute girl who sat behind me. What I wished she thought about me. Reflect on the day? There was too much noise going on inside. What did that have to do with prayer?

All we had to do was listen to Dad. Like a great preacher warming up, he cleared his throat and began, usually with something he heard on the radio or saw on TV.

“God, I ask you to be with us in the coming election,” he prayed. “May the voters make the right choices in the primary.”

“Remember our president as he makes his State of the Union address.

“Be with our astronauts in tomorrow’s flight. “Remember the Dodgers in tonight’s playoffs.

“We are sorry about those who suffered from the recent tornadoes. “We mourn the death of your servant Dr. Martin Luther King.” “It’s like the six o’clock news,” one of my brother’s friends said. “You

don’t need the radio or the TV. You can get all the headlines from your dad’s grace at dinnertime.” Prayer can be a way of conveying information. It can be the means of processing history, even recent history. Think of all those passages in the Psalms that rehash the Israelites wandering in the desert:

“Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways: Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest” (Psalm 95:10, kjv).

A modern-day psalmist in a button-down shirt and a bowtie, Dad prayed us through the 1960s and 1970s, the Watts riots, the flower power of Haight-Ashbury, the turmoil of the Vietnam War, the stock market’s rise and fall, inflation, Kent State, Cambodia, Watergate, Nixon, Agnew, Ford, Carter. Dad dumped everything in his prayers, all the noise in his head, all the stuff he worried about. They were throw-everything-in-but-the-kitchen-sink prayers.

Let me extol the benefit of such prayers. First of all, this is a great way of dealing with the news.

I have friends who get so riled up about what they’ve seen on TV or read on the Internet or in the paper that they can’t sleep at night.

The first moment you see them you have to let them unload, let them chill. “I can’t believe what a terrible trap our president has got us into,” they’ll exclaim, or “Congress is ruining our nation” or “I just read a terrible story about corruption in government.” They’re so anxious that you can’t have a normal conversation until they’ve let go of their worries.

Of course, the news can be devastating. The headline splashed across the front of a newspaper in bold type sends a chill through me. The nightmarish scenario on the TV news has me double-locking the doors and tossing and turning at night. But most of those news stories were crafted to make us scared. Fear sells newspapers and magazines. The cover line about the ten most dangerous toys that can hurt your children makes you want to pick up that parenting magazine at the supermarket checkout. Fear about how your house might have a poisonous noxious gas seeping into it keeps you glued to the TV. Scary Internet headlines are designed to make you click through. You’re supposed to get upset.

I do. All the time. If I read too much bad news it puts me in a foul mood. Talk about controlling my thoughts. I once stared at a provocative headline in a tabloid at a newsstand and screamed right back at it. My nerves were jangled. Something about the wording set me off there at Madison and 34th Street, right around the corner from the office. I was so shocked I slunk away hoping no one had heard me. Who was that jerk making all that noise? What got into me? The tabloid could have winked and smiled back at me: Gotcha!

Bad news can become a dangerous loop in my head. It’s usually about stuff I have no control over: the national debt, the unemployment rate, the decline of the dollar, war, the weather, the poverty level, the stock market, the trade imbalance, the decline of the West, the decline of civility, growing pollution, the polar ice cap melting. It’s essential to be well informed. I’m a junkie for all kinds of news. Good thing all those reporters and columnists keep me up-to-date. But there’s no reason for the bad news to consume me.

If the news pulls you down it can rob you of the creativity you need to get your best work done. A study has shown that getting your blood pressure up by reading a depressing story in the news- paper or watching a disturbing report on television prevents your mind from doing the intuitive wandering it needs to make creative connections. That sounds like the work of prayer to me (and no, the article didn’t put it that way). Save the news for times when your mind doesn’t have to be at its best. Or take it in early and then toss it away.

Dad put the news back into God’s hands. He asked God to intervene in places God was not necessarily considered. What did God know about the Dow and runaway inflation? What would God think about Nixon and Watergate? The point was, if we were thinking about it, the good Lord deserved to hear it. The good Lord would care.

As Dad’s graces continued, he moved on to matters closer to home. “We look forward to seeing our daughter Gioia march in the drill team at the football game tonight, bless her,” he prayed. “Bless Rick at the piano recital on Sunday.”

“We’re grateful for the new minibike Howard bought. We pray that he uses it safely and ask him to receive your blessing.”

“We’re thankful for Diane’s good tennis match today.”

“We look forward to Back to School Night and meeting our children’s teachers. We know you know what good work they do. Bless them.”

What a valuable lesson in prayer and parenting. Dad prayed for us. He noticed what was going on in our lives. Not the secrets that lurked inside, like my crush on the girl who sat behind me in fifth grade, but the events that were on his radar. The football game, the homecoming parade, the senior class musical, a tennis tournament, finals, dance class, the prom. He paid attention. At Back to School Night he graded our teachers and came back home to tell us how they measured up, which was to say how we measured up. He wrote it all down on a piece of paper with letter grades. When he gave my fourth-grade teacher, Miss McCallum, an A, I felt like the luckiest kid on earth. You can never underestimate a child’s need for love and attention from his parents.

Francis McNutt, the great advocate for healing prayer, would often ask when he spoke to groups how many people remembered their parents praying for them. How many had heard their mother or father pray for them when they were sick, for instance? How many remembered a time when a parent had prayed out loud for them? Maybe twenty percent could recall a moment when their moms had prayed for them, but their dads? Only three percent of them.

I read that figure in astonishment, wondering how my father man- aged it, especially for a man of his generation, a buttoned-up World War II submarine veteran, the suffer-in-silence type. How did he ever learn to open up like this to us? How did he get over the natural embarrassment that comes from praying out loud in front of your loved ones? I’m far more the wear-it-on-my-sleeve sort, and even I fumble when I have to pray extemporaneously with my family. For Dad it came as naturally as breathing. There must have been something healing in it for him, blessing us and dinner every night.

I thought of Dad’s graces recently when we ran a story about a dad, Kevin Williamson, who, with his two teenagers, was celebrating his first Thanksgiving after his wife, Bev, had died of cancer.

Kevin didn’t want to get out of bed that morning, let alone celebrate. Long before his children were up, he trudged into the kitchen and got a cup of tea. The only sound was the rumble of the refrigerator. The quiet time reminded him of Bev and the mornings they had spent planning their days and their future, a future that had turned out different from what he’d ever imagined. The phone rang. It was their neighbor who was having them over to dinner. “Can I bring anything?” he asked.

“Just yourselves,” she said. “And bread . . . we could use some bread.” “Sure.” He figured he’d go out and buy some at whatever super- market was open. Then his eye landed on his wife’s recipe box still sitting on the counter. He thought of Bev’s yeast rolls, the same recipe that had been handed down in his own family for generations. His mother had taught Bev to make them. He could remember

the scent of them wafting from the wood-burning stove at his great- grandmother’s home. Kevin found the recipe card, written in his own mother’s handwriting. He put on an apron, got out a mixing bowl and lined up the ingredients on the counter.

“What are you making?” his daughter asked, wandering into the kitchen sleepy-eyed.

“Mom’s yeast rolls.” He stirred the yeast into warm water, beat an egg, added the flour, kneaded the dough and let it rise. He separated the dough in balls and put them on a baking sheet. Perfect for dinner. But there was still some left over.

Bev had always made an early batch just for the family. Maybe he could do the same. With the leftover dough he made a few more rolls and put them in the oven. Soon the kitchen smelled like all those Thanksgivings of the past. He thought of Bev, how she made her family laugh, how she taught them to love and to live. The timer buzzed. He took the pan out of the oven, then called his kids into the kitchen.

“Let’s all have one,” he said, putting the rolls on a plate.

They sat at the kitchen table and joined hands, and he bowed his head to say grace. “God, it’s been a tough year for us. We miss Bev so much. We thank you for the time we had with her. We’re grateful for the little reminders, each day, of her presence in our lives still. And we’re blessed that we have one another.”

The story was from Kevin’s point of view, not the kids’, but I don’t doubt they were suffering the loss of their mom just as acutely and were comforted by their dad’s grace. They knew they had been loved and still were.

My dad’s prayers were filled with his love for us and for Mom. He prayed for President Nixon, the astronauts, Sandy Koufax and us. We were on equal footing with the famous people who dominated the news. We were stars. What he couldn’t always articulate in a conversation he could say in a prayer. He bowed his head and his heart opened up. He told us the good things he thought of us.

Dad was a far more complicated person than my straightforward, sunny-tempered mother. He worried more, hurt more, suffered more and internalized most of it. He smoked, he drank—the clink of ice cubes in a glass was an enduring part of the soundtrack of my child- hood. He could be self-involved. He got angry and didn’t know how to express the anger. He could burst out in a frightening tirade, most often directed against himself. The sound of Dad throwing his tennis racket against the fence and chastising himself—“Thornt!!”—was a familiar feature of Sunday’s mixed doubles with Mom. You could tell which rackets were his in the hall closet because they were usually bent or patched up with tape. But in his prayers he loved and was lovable.

From Dad’s graces I picked up a tool I use almost every day when I pray. It’s one of the most valuable things I know and it was a long time before I recognized how helpful it was. When you close your eyes to pray and start listening to your heart, you’re going to face a slew of distractions. You’ll hear a kid bouncing a basketball down the sidewalk, a radiator will rattle, a bus’s brakes will squeak. You’ll start thinking of all the stuff you need to get accomplished that day, and soon you’ll exclaim, “Geez, what am I doing? I haven’t prayed at all.”

Dad’s graces were frequently interrupted. Our dog Andy barked. The next-door neighbor’s dog barked. The phone rang. A passing car honked. Mom’s kitchen timer went off. We started to giggle.

Dad put the interruptions right into the prayer: “God, be with our dog Andy. Help him protect us.”

“Thank you for our daughter’s popularity. We know that whoever is calling for her will call back.” In case Gioia hadn’t dashed to the phone already.

“Bless Mom’s rolls in the oven. We look forward to eating them.” In case Mom hadn’t gone to get them.

“Bless our children’s high spirits. You know their energy is a good thing.”

If you fight an interruption in a prayer, it becomes much bigger. If you fold it into the prayer loop, it becomes part of the weave of your thoughts, the cord that becomes your lifeline. Even monks who devoted hours to meditation, star athletes in the spiritual life, get distracted in prayer.

Thomas Merton, the brilliant writer and Trappist monk at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, wrote one of the greatest modern prayers of spiritual yearning: “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. . . .”

Reading his journals, you see evidence of how even someone as spiritually focused as Merton could be distracted. In one passage he mentions staring at the pattern of lariats and cowboys on a visitor’s shirt during worship, his mind wandering. If Merton could get distracted like that, so could I. Just because you’re trying to be other- worldly doesn’t mean that the worldly won’t slip right into your head. Don’t fight it. Listen to it. Pray your way through it.

“Praise the Lord from the earth,” goes the psalm, “fire, and hail, snow, and vapors, stormy wind fulfilling his word, mountains, and all hills, fruitful trees, and all cedars, beasts, and all cattle, creeping things, and flying fowl” (Psalm 148:7–10, kjv). You praise God for everything you see and hear, everything on your wavelength. Andy barking, horns honking, the timer buzzing, the phone ringing, the hamster on his squeaking wheel, the kids giggling, praise the Lord.

The end of grace came with the single line that Dad repeated night after night: “Bless this food to our use, us to your service, and bless the hands that prepared it.” There was the blessing.

“Amen,” Dad finally said. “Amen,” we responded. Mom went off to rescue her browning rolls, the mac-and-cheese made the rounds from the cork trivet, we asked Dad about what he heard on the news. Soon dinner would dissolve into a three-ring circus. We got up from the table to demonstrate some exercise we’d learned in phys ed. Diane did a somersault on the lime-green indoor-outdoor carpeting. Howard did a handstand and then showed us how many push-ups he could do. “Not on a full stomach,” Mom exclaimed.

If we failed to appreciate the tomatoes in the salad, Mom would remind us, “These tomatoes cost nineteen cents a pound,” as though that would add to our pleasure. If we wondered why we were getting an unfamiliar brand of cookies or brown-and-serve rolls, she would say sheepishly, “They were on sale,” a holy refrain in a family with four growing children.

Our manners deteriorated. We made a boarding-house reach across the table, grabbing the butter. “No, no, no,” Mom said, tapping the back of a hand with the back of her knife. Dad would go into a lecture on etiquette. “When I was in submarine corps during the war,” he began, “some of the fellows told me I should give up on ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘please pass the rolls.’ Well, I told them I wasn’t planning on spending my life on a submarine. I would say please . . .” We hardly listened. We were in a rush. If there was any light left after dinner we would go back outside for a game of kick the can or freeze tag. There would be baths to take, books to read, bedtime. Still we’d had this quiet moment together when Dad asked God to bless our food and to bless us.

The idea of blessing anything is not that common today. It means stopping and slowing down. We usually like to jump in and do some- thing. We want the car to start right away, we want the computer to be ready to go, we hate delays when we get on the Internet. We want dinner now. But blessing is as ancient as faith and central to it. What did Jesus do before he fed the five thousand? He blessed the bread and broke it. What did he do when all the disciples were gathered in the Upper Room for the Last Supper? “Jesus took bread and blessed it and broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’ And he took the cup and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank of it.”

This was the opposite of fast food. A nutritionist I know makes the point that saying grace is good for the digestion. It gives us a chance to slow down before we eat. We smell the casserole cooling or the steak waiting to be cut, the gastric juices get going but we don’t start shoveling in immediately. “Bless this food to our use” could be a prescription on the back of the bag of groceries. Thankfulness at the dinner table is good for the body and soul. You certainly enjoy your food more when you season it with gratitude. You’ve thanked God and the cook.

Getting dinner on the table is a nightly miracle and in families it’s so easy to forget the miracle makers or even to acknowledge them, especially if they do their duties well and effortlessly. Efficiency can make the work dangerously invisible. I was a newlywed when I worked on a story from a writer who was listing the reasons for her fifty years of happy marriage. “Tommy has never once forgotten to thank me for a dinner I’ve cooked,” she wrote.

Note to self: thank your wife for dinner. Be like Dad blessing Mom. We are not wholly responsible for the food on our table. Not only are there the “hands that prepared it,” but also the farmers who toiled, the rains that watered, the soil that nurtured, the sunshine that blessed and all that help we got to earn the money we spent at the supermarket. The self-made man is a fiction, the luck we credit for our good for- tune an illusion. Thankfulness reminds us of that. Even the most rudimentary grace has the essential ingredient of gratitude, whether it’s the standard “God is great, God is good. Let us be thankful for our food” or the summer camp classic, “Rub-a-dub-dub. Thanks for the grub. Yeah, God!”

Asking for a blessing means acknowledging that someone has power over you or can give you something you want. Now it’s just a courtesy to ask your future in-laws for their blessing on your marriage, but there was a time when it was a make-or-break conversation. When a minister or priest blesses the congregation it’s a reminder that God is the great source of our well-being: “May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his countenance shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn his countenance to you and grant you peace.” In the Bible, Esau, the firstborn, came in from the fields so hungry that he sold his birthright to his younger twin brother, Jacob, for a bowl of lentil stew. (My wife, Carol, likes to remind me of this every time she serves up her lentil stew.) When Esau was away, Jacob fooled his blind father Isaac by pretending to be Esau. At his mother’s urging, he dressed in his brother’s rough clothes so that he would smell like Esau and put goat hair on his arms so he would be hairy like Esau. (As a kid in Sunday school I thought that Isaac must have been pretty dense to mistake a furry hide for a hairy forearm.) The ruse worked and Jacob won his father’s blessing: “May God give you showers from the sky, olive oil from the earth, plenty of grain and new wine. May the nations serve you, may peoples bow down to you . . . Those who curse you will be cursed, and those who bless you will be blessed” (Genesis 27:28–29, ceb).

Enigmatic and deceptive as it is, the blessing holds. Jacob becomes the patriarch of a new nation after wrestling with the angel who changes his name to Israel. I think the longing for a parent’s blessing is just as deep and hard-wired in us today, even if we might not use that word. To hear your father bless you night after night is bound to have its effect. Sometimes I wonder why I was never tarred with the brush that turns religion into a dark thing and God into the big scary Father in heaven ready to condemn us for our least faults. If I knew that God loved me, it wasn’t just because I was told so—and I was, countless times—but also because I experienced the love of God through Dad’s prayers.

Monasteries observe the offices of the day, praying at specific times. “Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous laws,” says the psalmist in Psalm 119:164 (niv). Making grace a habit keeps prayer on the agenda.

As brave as I am in writing about prayer, it’s taken me years to be brave about saying grace in public. In a New York restaurant where there are waiters hovering, ready to sprinkle some parmesan cheese on your pasta or grind some fresh pepper, I won’t ask my friends or colleagues to bow their heads before we dig in. When I’m with some holy person in a clerical collar I’ve learned to pause before lifting my fork. “Is he going to say grace?” I wonder. Will we be like that grand- mother and kid in the Norman Rockwell painting who are praying to the rest of the diners’ bemusement? I’m self-conscious. Are all eyes on us, the only two people praying in this restaurant?

I’ve decided it really doesn’t matter. First of all, it’s magnificently self-centered to think that anybody else is looking at me in a restaurant filled with people who all have their own concerns. Second, self-consciousness is often a prelude to prayer. “Who am I to pray this? Why would God be interested?” you wonder and then you jump in. Faith often requires an attitude of “I can’t believe I’m doing this but I’m going to do it anyway.” Be bold. Mighty forces will come to your aid.

At home when we have friends for dinner, I have fewer qualms. I used to wonder, “Should I say grace if they’re not believers?” Will they find it awkward? Will they be bored? I’ve given up that too. Let them see this as my little eccentricity, like people who collect paper- weights or make their dogs do tricks at the table. I say grace at dinner. Who am I to guess what they believe or don’t believe? They won’t mind. I might go a little faster when guests are here or give them a signal so they don’t eat half their salad before I’ve bowed my head, but grace is what we do. It’s the habit of the house.

Carol and I started saying grace at home when our two boys were young, the apple falling not far from the tree. I couldn’t then and I still can’t extemporize a grace as sweet as the ones I heard in my childhood. As the boys grew older, I asked them to participate. We went around the table, each of us in charge for a night, Carol, Tim, Will, me, then back to Carol. If you want to know what’s on your children’s minds, ask them to say grace. Like my father, I could see all those reasons for gratitude.

I remember pausing outside our apartment and looking in one winter night when the boys were young. Carol was boiling water for spaghetti, the steam already fogging up the windows. William was sitting at the kitchen table, writing in a school workbook, his hand curled around his pencil, his mouth forming a word. Timothy was dashing in from the living room, the tuft of his milkweed hair moving across the bottom of the windows like a duck in a shooting gallery. The light was on above the piano and Carol was reaching in the cabinet for the box of pasta. She wouldn’t pour it in until she saw the whites of my eyes.

At once I could see my life from the outside, how fortunate I was, how blessed. Soon I’d be on the inside. A kiss to Carol, put away the briefcase, hug the boys, settle any fraternal disputes. It was always a race. Could we get it all done? Set the table, eat dinner, wash the dishes, read to both boys before bed, hear their prayers, get them to sleep, talk to Carol, pay the bills, get to sleep ourselves. There was hardly a moment. But this. I could see my life from a different view, as others might have seen it, maybe as God saw it. I was the luckiest guy on earth.

It made me understand why Dad would sometimes pause during grace, overwhelmed by emotion. If only we could see how beautiful our lives are. If only we could just reflect on the day. Dad was the weeper in the family. He had what my wife would call “the gift of tears,” a trait that has been passed along to my older son, Will.

Let me not gloss over Dad’s outbursts of anger, but when they occurred at the dinner table we usually found something funny in it. When he threw his fork down after a bite of Mom’s chicken broccoli casserole with a risky teaspoon of curry in it, he barked, “Who put that India stuff in here?” Mom said meekly, “I wanted to try something different.” We giggled, then laughed till tears rolled down our cheeks. Even Dad laughed.

I once provoked Howard into throwing a fork at me—the argument was about Bill Cosby, if you must know. I cried. Then some- one pointed out how funny it was, and we laughed. Even Dad got his chances back. He could come up with a one-liner that put us in stitches. In old age, he moved mighty slow, his joints aching from arthritis, his back bent over from spinal stenosis, his feet in their clunky lace-less white sneakers. He followed several steps behind our energetic tennis-playing mom.

“I just pray and pray for patience,” Mom said.

“That’s one prayer God hasn’t answered yet,” Dad muttered from his walker.

We laughed then and we laughed again when Howard retold that story at Dad’s memorial service. Everybody in the packed church laughed. Mom laughed from the front pew. Laughter is as healing as gratitude, maybe even more so.

When I hear Paul’s extraordinary statement in Romans 8:38–39— “For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”—I think of my family. It’s the feeling of safety and security that I grew up with. It’s the satisfying love I find at my own dinner table when I say grace with my wife and my children. Here is love. Nothing can separate me from it.

Dad’s graces continued through his mid-eighties. Wracked with pain, he got to a point where the only place he was comfortable was lying in bed. The neuropathy in his feet made walking downstairs for breakfast a trial. Still, whenever the family got together for dinner or even if it was just him and Mom in the breakfast room, he said grace. The words came haltingly, the thoughts were briefer. There was little of the six o’clock news but more of us, our spouses, his nine grand- children. He always ended by saying, “Bless this food to our use, us to your service, and bless the hands that prepared it.”

Mom and her much-blessed hands took magnificent care of him until the day he simply couldn’t get out of bed. He spent the last five months of his life in a nursing facility on the lush grounds of a home for retired Presbyterian ministers that took in local residents when they had an empty bed. He flirted with his nurses and befriended his roommate. We pushed him in his wheelchair through the gardens of oaks, palms, roses, citrus trees, birds of paradise. He was confused sometimes and he slept for hours, but he wasn’t unhappy.

I flew out to visit every month. Once, our younger son, Timothy, and I drove straight from the airport to his bedside. “We just flew in, Dad,” I said.

“From Puerto Rico?” he asked.

“No, Dad, from New York,” I said.

“Close enough,” he responded, as though it was a nice joke. Why should he have to bother with such geographic details when he was on a larger cosmic journey?

I remember thinking we should have some big profound conversation about the end of things. Perhaps he would want to pass on some advice or share some memory of his childhood. He didn’t. We would sit in the sun by his old convertible that I drove on my visits and he would point to a passing truck or admire the statue of Jesus in one corner of the garden. The last time I saw him still conscious, I kissed him good-bye on his forehead, the same place he kissed me as a boy after my bedtime prayers. “I love you, Dad,” I said.

“Tell your wife,” he said, the cylinders in his brain moving slowing, searching for the right words. “Tell your wife,” he said, “that I am loved.”

He was loved. That much we knew.

Less than a month later my sister Gioia had the last conversation anybody had with him. He was in hospice care and too weak now to go on wheelchair jaunts. He didn’t move from his bed. “Dad,” she said, teary-eyed, “I’m going to miss you so much.”

He looked up at her and asked, “Am I moving?” Yes, sort of. He slipped into a coma or some state of minimal awareness and I flew out to see him for the last time.

We sat by his bed for five days while he slowly left us, his vitals winding down, his hands getting colder, his feet getting bluer. He could squeeze hands, but then his hand became weaker. He had no water, no food, no nourishment. Every day we thought would be his last, but he rallied when we appeared, his four children, our spouses, his grandchildren, their spouses, talking around him and above him like we did at dinner. He waited until four in the morning, when none of us were present, to die. Never the first to leave a party, he wouldn’t go when we were still there.

We all spoke at the funeral, each of us wearing one of his bow ties (the girls wore them on their wrists). Gioia talked about following in Dad’s footsteps in her career, becoming a professional fundraiser and non-profit executive like him. Diane described his generosity of character and his tireless volunteer work. Her husband, Mike, spoke of his submarine service, three war patrols in the Pacific during World War II. Our son Will confessed that when he was eleven and his fifth-grade teacher asked the class what their goals were, Will said that he wanted to have four children and nine grandchildren, just like his grandfather. I sang a song that Dad loved and then reminded the packed church how he had prayed for all of them. “I’ll hold a good thought for you” was how he put it.

But Howard got it just right, Howard who had sat holding his hand at his bedside, hardly letting go.

“When I was sitting with Dad these last few days,” he said, “I tried to think if there were any things that I needed to talk about. Were there any things I still needed to say?

“All I could come up with was thanks. You see, Dad let me be me. That’s what he gave all of us. He let us be ourselves. He encouraged us to do just what we wanted.”

I don’t know what comes to people’s minds when they say, “We were blessed.” But what comes to my mind is a childhood when Dad prayed for us night after night at the dinner table. Such prayers must be called grace because they offer a heaping serving of God’s grace. We were blessed by them, richly blessed.

Our Review Having been a Guidepost Magazine subscriber for 30 years, I was excited to get the opportunity to review Rick Hamlin's book. I will admit I was curious as to exactly what these prayers might be. In reality, rather than providing a script, he provides real-life examples in the easy style Guidepost readers have become so familiar with. Never preachy, I found the book both enjoyable and inspiring. Highly recommended. -E G Lewis

THE CHURCH byCARDINAL DANIEL WUERL & MIKE AQUILINA

2013-03-27T21:46:00.000-07:00

Today's Wild Card authors are:

Cardinal Donald Wuerl

AND

Mike Aquilina

and the book:

The Church:
Unlocking the Secrets to the Places
Catholics Call Home

Image (March 5, 2013)

***Special thanks to Rick Roberson for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

DONALD CARDINAL WUERL is the Archbishop of Washington, DC, and the bestselling author of The Catholic Way. He is known nationally for his catechetical and teaching ministry and for his efforts on behalf of Catholic education.

MIKE AQUILINA is the author of over 20 books, including The Mass of the Early Christians and Fire of God's Love:120 Reflections on the Eucharist. He appears regularly on EWTN with Scott Hahn.

Visit the Mike's website.

SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:

From the bestselling authors of The Mass, an insightful and practical guide that explores the architectural and spiritual components of the Catholic Church.

Your local church is not only a physical place, but a spiritual home. In this thought-provoking book, Wuerl and Aquilina illuminate the importance of the Church in its many guises and examine the theological ideas behind the physical structure of churches, cathedrals, and basilicas. How is a church designed? What is the function of the altar? What does the nave represent? What is the significance of the choir loft? With eloquent prose and elegant black-and-white photography, these questions and many more will lead to answers that illuminate the history and practicality of Catholic life. CATHOLIC DREAM TEAM: In a pairing that brings together the best of the pastoral and the secular, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the Archbishop of Washington, DC, is teaming up once again with beloved author Mike Aquilina to bring us a unique vision of one the most important aspects of the Catholic faith.

Product Details:
List Price: $21.99
Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: Image (March 5, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0770435513
ISBN-13: 978-0770435516

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

L OV E IS T H E BU I L DE R

Catholics love their churches. We build them with love. We make them lovable.

If you visit a remote village in Latin America, the people will be pleased to show you their church—the church that they or their ancestors have raised to the glory of God. Step inside and you’ll ﬁnd a sanctuary adorned with precious items: skillfully wrought woodwork, stonework, and metalwork, and paintings and statues in the local style. If you linger for Mass, you’ll see a chalice and plate of gold or silver, enhanced perhaps by gems.

The inside of the church may be lavish and rich, while the homes outside are simple and unadorned. And that contrast sometimes shocks people who are visiting from more prosperous lands. It has become a cliché of anti-Catholic prejudice to say that such precious objects would serve a better purpose if they were sold to raise money for food.

The people in the village know better. They know that the money earned from such a sale would feed them for no more than a few days, while the loss would leave them impoverished forever. Without their church—their church—they would be spiritually and culturally destitute. For they’ve built and furnished their church with love, as Catholics everywhere do and always have done.

Such love ﬁnds expression in the smallest details of construction and decoration, and in a seemingly inﬁnite variety of styles. You’ll see it in Ethiopia’s ancient churches—carved out of a single massive block of black stone, the size of a small mountain. You’ll see it in Cappadocia’s cave churches—occupied during a time when Christianity was illegal and the faith was forced under- ground (literally). You’ll see it in the play of dark and light in the Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages. You’ll ﬁnd it in the most ordinary suburban churches in the United States.

These churches, in all their diversity, are built according to a common plan, furnished with similar items, and decorated with remarkably standard symbols, scenes, and images. The elements bespeak a love shared by Catholics from all over the world, regardless of language, culture, wealth, or historical period.

Catholics build their churches with love; and our love has a language all its own. Like romance, Christian devotion follows certain customs and conventions—a tradition poetic and courtly—hallowed by millennia of experience.

This book is about that silent language of love. In these pages we’ll examine the structure of a church and its furnishings. We’ll consider the historical and biblical roots of each element in a church, providing basic deﬁnitions, and we’ll explain each element’s meaning in the Christian tradition. Why, for example, do churches have spires and bells? Where did we get the custom of using holy water? How does an altar differ from an ordinary table? What are votive candles for?

Every part of a church is rich in meaning and mystery, theology and history. Every furnishing or ornament reveals some important detail of the story of our salvation. Through two millennia, Christians have preserved and developed a tradition of building and decoration. The tradition is supple enough that it could be adapted by local cultures as the Gospel spread to new lands, yet solid enough to protect and preserve the essential heritage received from the Apostles and revealed by God.

If you were making a movie and you wanted your audience to identify an interior immediately as a Catholic church, what would you do? You’d show sunlight streaming through stained glass. You’d angle your camera heavenward, looking upward past monumental statues of the saints. You’d pan across a bank of red votive candles with ﬂickering ﬂames, and then focus on an array of seemingly surreal images: a human heart surrounded by thorns; an eye; a disembodied hand raised in blessing; a painting of a woman standing on a crescent moon; a carving of a dove descending; a lion, an eagle, and an ox, all crowned by similar halos; and a throng of angels.

In the popular imagination, these elements add up to a Catholic identity. But what exactly does each of them mean?

And how do all the elements work together? What’s the sense of the symbols? What are we trying to say through the medium of human body parts and exotic animals? Late in the fourth century Saint Augustine, who would go on to become a builder of churches, wrote: “I know that a truth which the mind understands in just one way can be materially expressed by many different means, and I also know that there are many different ways in which the mind can understand an idea that is outwardly expressed in one way.”

The African saint gives us an important insight for “reading” our churches: One image can convey many layers of meaning, and the same idea can be expressed in manifold ways.

Everything we see in a Catholic church is there for a single purpose: to tell a love story. It is a story as old as the world, and it involves the whole of creation, the vast expanse of history, and every human being who ever lived. It involves Almighty God, and it involves you.

Art and architecture are means of communication. Our churches speak of something remote, beyond the reach of human sciences—what Dante called “the Love that moves the sun and the other stars.” But our churches speak also to something deep inside us—in our souls and in our senses—because, as Dante added, the same Love that moves the cosmos also moves “my desire and my will.”

To understand our churches is to begin to understand a love at once unmistakably divine and profoundly human, faraway and yet intimate. When we begin to understand that love, it begins to light up our view of our churches and their symbols.

The love story appears in compressed, poetic form in the Gospel according to Saint John.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the dark- ness, and the darkness has not overcome it. . . .

The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the ﬂesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became ﬂesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten Son from the Father. . . .

For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. ( John 1:1– 5, 9–14; 3:16)

John begins his Gospel by describing a God of awe- some power, remote in space and transcending time: a Spirit, a Word. This is the God whom even the pagan philosophers knew: the Prime Mover, the One. Yet, precisely where the pagan philosophers stalled, John’s drama proceeds to a remarkable climax: “And the Word became ﬂesh and dwelt among us.”

From beyond the distant heavens, existing before the beginning of time, God himself broke into history, took on ﬂesh, and made his dwelling—literally, “pitched his tent”—among his people. Yes, God is eternally the Word, but a word is elusive, and not everyone may grasp it.

God, who reigns in heaven, and who transcends all creation and all time, assumed the life of an ordinary la- borer, who could be seen and heard and touched. God transformed all creation by his healing touch. He took up residence among his people.

The early Christians said that when Jesus descended into the river Jordan he sanctiﬁed—made holy—all the waters of the earth, commissioning them for the task of baptism. In his mother’s womb he sanctiﬁed motherhood. At a family table, God handled ordinary food and made it to signify an otherwise unimaginable heavenly banquet. He wandered in the desert and traveled in boats and visited towns and cities. In doing all this, he blessed creation and hallowed it as a sign of his own eternal life.

Every Catholic church is built to tell this story, the story of how “God so loved the world.” Every church is built to dispense the life-giving water and magnify the light that shines in the darkness. Every church serves the heavenly banquet at its family table: the altar. Every church is built as a memorial of God’s sojourn among his people—and of his people’s rejection of him. Front and center we keep the cruciﬁx.

Our churches tell a love story, and they bring us salvation, and so we love them all the more. So much of Catholic identity is built into the houses we build for worship. Everything about our churches, inside and out, is a unique material token of the most profound spiritual love. Jesus has spiritualized the world, but he has done it by putting ﬂesh on pure Spirit. That reality is reﬂected on the walls of every Catholic church.

Saint John of Damascus, writing in eighth-century Syria, pondered the things in his church and was moved, he said, to “worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake, and willed to make his dwelling in matter, and who worked out my salvation through matter. I will not cease from honoring the matter that works my salvation. . . . Through matter, ﬁlled with divine power and grace, my salvation has come to me.”

Theologians call this the “sacramental principle.” Other authors, speaking colloquially, refer to it simply as “the Catholic Thing.” That’s how closely a Catholic’s spiritual identity is tied to these material realities.

The sacramental principle tells us that, since the Word became ﬂesh, God has begun to heal and restore his creation. Spiritual light can now shine through the material world. Because of the touch of Jesus Christ, matter can now convey God’s grace. On one level, bread and wine; on another, oil, candles, fabrics and paint, bricks, blocks, and ﬁligree—all these can mediate God’s presence in the world.

Jesus’s disciples, still today, can sense the dramatic effects of the Incarnation. With the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins we can look upon a world “charged with the grandeur of God”—and we can reﬂect that grandeur through the material objects and symbols present in our churches.

Reﬂecting God’s grandeur is something we are drawn to do. It fulﬁlls a need we have as Christians who have been redeemed. We want to praise and thank the Lord who has saved us. But it also fulﬁlls a basic need we have as human beings; for the God who redeemed us is the God who created us, and he designed us to love beauty, to ﬁnd delight in it, and to make beautiful things that tell us of the greater beauty of divine glory.

Christians need churches. It is said that for centuries the Benedictine order forbade the founding of a new monastery until the group of founders included a monk who could make bricks—and another who was trained in turning those bricks into church walls, raised according to the ancient models. From generation to generation they passed on the tradition of beauty, love, and wisdom that they had received, a tradition that libraries could not contain, yet one that we’ll try to survey with you in the chapters that follow.

Our Review: Every Catholic, if not every Christian, should read this book. In this day of modernistic buildings that could just as easily be a Rec. Center as a Church, this wonderful book serves to remind us of the story within the story. The Churches of old were built to a model, an underlying theme that expressed a love of God in brick and mortar, paint and plaster. Every part of the structure became an integral piece of the whole and served to re-inforce the worship experience by elevating the mundane to a higher purpose. This is why Churches were laid out as a cross, and why they had stained glass windows and all the other things that tells us we have entered God's domain. I encourage everyone to read this book thoughfully. In so doing, perhaps we can recapture some of what was left behind a generation or two ago in our rush to embrace the future. Very enjoyable reading. Highly recommended.

Nick Vujicic's New Son, Kiyoshi James Vujicic

2013-03-27T10:38:00.001-07:00

Since we reviewed Nick Vujicic's books, Life Without Limits and Unstoppable, we thought you might be interested to see his new baby son, Kiyoshi James Vujicic. Blessings to Nick and his sweet family.

Link to our Review of LIFE WITHOUT LIMITS

Link to our Review of UNSTOPPABLE

Peace and Blessings to All.

SO SHINES THE NIGHT by TRACY L HIGLEY

2013-03-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

Today's Wild Card author is:

Tracy L. Higley

and the book:

So Shines the Night

Thomas Nelson (March 12, 2013)

***Special thanks to Tracy L. Higley for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Tracy L. Higley started her first novel at the age of eight and has been hooked on writing ever since. She has authored nine novels, including Garden of Madness and Isle of Shadows. Tracy is currently pursuing a graduate degree in Ancient History and has traveled through Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Italy, researching her novels and falling into adventures. See her travel journals and more at TracyHigley.com

SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:

On an island teetering at the brink of anarchy, Daria finds hope among people of The Way.

She escaped a past of danger and found respite in beautiful Ephesus, a trading center on the Aegean coast, serving as tutor to Lucas, the wealthy merchant who rescued her.

But the darkness she fled has caught up with her.

The high priests of Artemis once controlled the city, but a group of sorcerers are gaining power. And a strange group who call themselves followers of The Way further threaten the equilibrium. As Daria investigates Lucas’s exploits into the darker side of the city, her life is endangered, and she takes refuge in the strange group of believers. She’s drawn to Paul and his friends, even as she wrestles with their teachings.

When authorities imprison Lucas for a brutal crime, Daria wonders if even Paul’s God can save him. Then she uncovers a shocking secret that could change everything—Lucas’s fate, her position in his household, and the outcome of the tension between pagans and Christians. But only if she survives long enough to divulge what she knows.

“Meticulously-researched, spellbindingly written with luscious prose and compelling and complex characters.” —Tosca Lee, New York Times best-selling author of Havah: The Story of Eve

Product Details:
List Price: $15.99
Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Thomas Nelson (March 12, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1401686826
ISBN-13: 978-1401686826

SUMMIT BOOK REVIEW:

After reading and enjoying Tracy L. Higley’s Garden of Madness and her Isle of Shadow, I was eager to read So Shines the Night. It did not disappoint. She has the ability to bring historic places to life with her vivid description. Well done, Ms. Higley! — Gail Lewis

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

Prologue

I am an old man, and I have seen too much.

Too much of this world to endure any more. Too much of the next to want to linger.

And though I have nearly drowned in the glorious visions of those last days, yet I know not when it shall come, nor how many years I must tread this barren earth before all is made new.

There is a Story, you see. And we are still in the midst of it, ever striving to play our roles, battling on for the freedom of hearts and souls and minds yet enslaved by darkness.

But I have seen a great light. Oh yes, I have seen it. Even now it is breaking through, as it did on that grassy hillside so many cool spring mornings ago, when Moses and Elijah walked among us and my Brother shone with the glory He had been given from the beginning and will rise up to claim again at the end.

You will wonder, perhaps, at my calling Him brother. And yet that is what He was to me. Brother and friend, before Savior, before Lord. In those days when we wandered the land, going up and down from the Holy City, we shared our hearts, our lives, our laughter. Oh, how we laughed, He and I! He had the irrepressible joy of one who sees beyond the brokenness, to the restoration of all.

I loved him. And He loved me.

But I speak of beginnings and of endings, and these are words that have no meaning, for the day of His birth was both the beginning of the Kingdom and the end of tyranny, and that magnificent Day yet to come—it is the end-which-is-a-beginning, and my eyes have seen such glory in that New Jerusalem, my very heart breaks to tell of it.

And yet they come, young and old, to this tiny home in Ephesus that is to be my last dwelling outside that New City, and they beg me to tell the Story again and again.

And I do.

I tell of seals and scrolls, of a dragon and a beast and a Lamb. Of music that makes you weep to hear it and streets that blind the mortal eye. Of a Rider on a White Horse with eyes of blazing fire, whose name is Faithful and True. It is a great Story, and greater still to hear the final consummation of it, for how often we forget that we are living it still.

But I have another tale to tell. A smaller story within the One True Story that began before the creation of this world and is echoed at its end, as all our stories are. It happens here, in this port city of Ephesus but many years ago, when the darkness lay even heavier than it now does upon the people, and their souls cried out for relief from anyone who could give it.

This smaller story does not begin here in Ephesus, however. It begins a day’s sail away, on the sun-kissed shores of the Isle of Rhodes, where the light first began to break upon one woman and one man, even as they walked in darkness . . .

Chapter 1

Rhodes, AD 57

In the glare of the island morning sun, the sea blazed diamond-bright and hard as crystal, erratic flashes spattering light across Daria’s swift departure from the house of her angry employer.

She carried all she owned in one oversized leather pouch, slung over her shoulder. The pouch was not heavy. A few worn tunics and robes, her precious copy of Thucydides. She clutched it to her side and put her other hand to the gold comb pinning the dark waves of her hair, her one remaining luxury.

The bitter and familiar taste of regret chased her from the whitewashed hillside estate, down into the squalid harbor district. Why had she not kept silent?

Along the docks hungry gulls shrieked over fishy finds and work-worn sailors traded shrill insults. The restless slap of the sea against the hulls of boats kept time with the anxious rhythm of her steps against the cracked gray stones of the quay.

She had run once, haunted and guilty to a fresh start in Rhodes. Could she do it again? Find a way to take care of herself, to survive?

“Mistress Daria!”

The voice at her back was young and demanding, the tenor of a girl accustomed to a world arranged to her liking. And yet still precious, still malleable.

“Mistress! Where are you going?”

Daria slowed, eyes closed against the pain, and inhaled. She turned on the sun-warmed dock with a heaviness that pulled at her limbs like a retreating tide.

Corinna’s breath came quick with exertion and the white linen of her morning robe clung to her body. The sweet girl must have run all the way.

“To the School of Adelphos, Corinna. I will seek a position there.”

Corinna closed the distance between them and caught Daria’s hand in her own. Her wide eyes and full lips bespoke innocence. “But you cannot! Surely, Father did not mean what he said—”

Daria squeezed the girl’s eager fingers. “It is time. Besides”—she tipped Corinna’s chin back—“you have learned your lessons so well, perhaps you no longer need the services of a tutor.”

Corinna pulled away, dark eyes flashing and voice raised. “You do not believe that, mistress. It is you who says there is always more to learn.”

They drew the attention of several young dockworkers hauling cargo from ship to shore. Daria stared them down until they turned away, then circled the girl’s shoulders, pulled her close, and put her lips to Corinna’s ear. “Yes, you must never stop learning, dear girl. But it must be someone else who teaches you—”

“But why? What did you say to anger Father so greatly?”

Only what she thought was right. What must be said. A few strong phrases meant to rescue Corinna from a future under the thumb of a husband who would surely abuse her.

Daria smiled, fighting the sadness welling in her chest, and continued her trudge along the dock toward the school. “I am afraid discretion is one of the things I have not yet learned, Corinna. Your father is a proud man. He will not brook a mere servant giving him direction in the running of his household.”

Corinna stopped abruptly at the water’s edge, her pretty face turned to a scowl. “You are no mere servant! You are the most learned tutor I have ever had!”

Daria laughed and looked over the sea as she walked, at the skiffs and sails tied to iron cleats along the stone, easy transportation to the massive barges that floated in the blue harbor, awaiting trade. Papyrus and wool from Egypt, green jade and aromatic spices from far eastern shores, nuts and fruits and oils from Arabia. Her eyes strayed beyond the ships, followed northward along the rocky Anatolian coast to cities unknown, riddles to be unraveled, secrets and knowledge to be unlocked. More to learn, always. And somewhere perhaps, the key to redeeming the past.

They approached and skirted the strange symbol of the isle of Rhodes, the toppled Helios that once stood so proud and aloof along the harbor and now lay humbled, its bronze shell speckled to an aged green, reflecting the impenetrable turquoise sky. The massive statue had lain at the quay for gulls to peck and children to climb for nearly three hundred years since the quake brought it down. Daria found it disturbing.

“May I still visit you at the school, Mistress Daria?”

She smiled. “One challenge at a time. First I must convince Adelphos that he should hire me.”

Corinna’s tiny sandals scurried to keep pace. “Why would he not?”

“It is not easy to be an educated woman in a man’s world of philosophy and rhetoric. There are few men who appreciate such a woman.”

“How could anyone not appreciate someone as good, as brave, as you?”

The child gave her too much credit. She was neither good, nor brave. She would not be here in Rhodes if she were. Though she was trying. The gods knew, she had been trying.

Corinna lifted her chin with a frown in the direction of the school. “I shall simply explain to Adelphos how very valuable you are.”

And how outspoken? Interfering? But perhaps the girl could help in some way.

“Will you demonstrate some of what I have taught you, Corinna?”

The girl’s eyes lit up. “Just wait, mistress. I shall amaze and delight that crusty old Adelphos.”

Daria studied the impetuous girl and bit her lip. But it was a chance she must take.

The School of Adelphos lay at the end of the docks, its modest door deceptive. Daria paused outside, her hand skimming the rough wood, and inhaled determination in the sharp tang of salt and fish on the breeze. Who would believe that such distinguished men as the poet Apollonius and Attalus the astronomer had studied and written and debated behind this door? Sea trade had kept Rhodes prosperous for centuries, but in the two hundred years under Roman control, the Greek island had grown only more beautiful, a stronghold of learning, of arts and sciences and philosophy.

Inside its most famous school, she blinked twice and waited for her sun-blind eyes to adjust.

“Daria!” Adelphos emerged from the shadows of the antechamber with a cool smile and tilt of his head. Tall and broad-shouldered, he was several years her senior, with the confident ease of an athlete, a man aware of his own attractiveness.

She returned the smile and straightened her back. “Adelphos. Looking well, I am pleased to see.”

He ran a gaze down the length of her, taking in her thin white tunic and the pale blue mantle that was the best of her lot. “As are you.”

“I have come to make you an offer.”

At this, his eyebrows and the corner of his mouth lifted in amusement and he gave a glance to Corinna, still at the door. “Shouldn’t we send your young charge home first?”

She ignored the innuendo. “My employ as Corinna’s tutor will soon come to an end, and I desire to find a place here, in your school. As a teacher.” She swallowed against the nervous clutch of her throat.

Again the lifted eyebrows, but Adelphos said nothing, only strolled into the lofty main hall of the school, a cavernous marble room already scattered with scholars and philosophers, hushed with the echoes of great minds.

She gritted her teeth against the condescension and beckoned Corinna to follow, with a warning glance to keep the girl quiet, but the child’s sudden intake of breath at the fluted columns and curvilinear architraves snapped unwanted attention in their direction, the frowns of men annoyed by disruptive women.

Adelphos disappeared into the alcove that housed the school’s precious stock of scrolls—scrolls Daria had often perused at her leisure and his generosity.

Daria spoke to his back. “Do you doubt my abilities—”

“What I doubt, my lady, is a rich man’s willingness to pay a woman to teach his sons.”

Daria waved a hand. “Bah! What difference does it make? I can do a man’s work just as well. And if they learn, they learn!” But a cold fear knotted in her belly.

Adelphos traced his fingertips over the countless nooks of scrolls, as if he could find the one he sought simply by touching its ragged edge. “And you, Daria? Do you want to live a man’s life as well as do a man’s work? What woman does not long for love and family and hearth?”

Her throat tightened at his words, too close to the secrets of her heart. Yes, she longed for those comforts. For a love that would accept her abilities, complement rather than suppress. But for now, for now she had no one and she must assure her own welfare.

She coughed to clear the dryness of her throat and stepped beside him, examined the great works of philosophy and literature, their tan Egyptian papyri wrapped in brown twine, sealed in waxy red.

Adelphos reached past her to a nook above her head, and his muscled arm brushed her shoulder.

The touch was intentional, clearly. Manipulative. Even so, his nearness left her breathless and her usual sharp-tongued wit failed. When she spoke, it was a harsh whisper, too raw with emotion, though the words emerged falsely casual. “And why should I not have both?”

At this, Adelphos huffed, a derisive little laugh, and turned to lean his back against the shelves and unroll the scroll he had retrieved.

“A woman of ambition. Does such a breed truly exist?” His gaze darted to hers. “But what am I saying? You have already wedded a husband, have you not?”

Daria pulled a scroll from its recess and pretended to study it.

“You are interested in the work of Pythagoras? That one is newly arrived from Samos.”

Daria shrugged. “I find his work repetitive. What new has he added to Euclid’s previous efforts?”

“Indeed.” Adelphos pulled the scroll from her hands and replaced it in its nook. “But you have not answered my question.”

“I am a widow, yes.”

“A widow with no sons. No dowry.” He glanced at Corinna, clutching the doorway. “And no employment. Is there anything more desperate?”

Daria lifted her chin and met his gaze. “It seems you are in an enviable position, then, Adelphos. You have found a skilled teacher, available for a bargain.”

Adelphos circled to Corinna, an appreciative gaze lingering on her youth and beauty. “And this is your prize specimen? The pupil of whom I have heard such wonders?”

The girl straightened and faced Adelphos with a confidence borne of knowledge. “Shall I demonstrate the superior skill Mistress Daria has given me with languages?”

Daria silently cheered and blessed the girl. “Corinna has been working hard to master the tongues of Rome’s far-flung empire.”

Adelphos’s brow creased and he opened his lips as if to speak, then sealed them and nodded once. No doubt he wanted to ask what use there might be for a girl who could speak anything but common Greek. As Daria herself was such a girl, the implicit question struck a nerve. She turned a shoulder to Adelphos and nodded encouragement to Corinna. “Let us hear Herodotus in the Classical first, then.”

The girl grinned, then gushed a passage of Herodotus in the proud language of her Greek forebears, the language of literature and poetry, before Alexander had rampaged the world and equalized them all with his common koine.

“And now in Latin, Corinna.”

The girl repeated the passage, this time in the tongue of the Romans, the new conquerors.

Adelphos tilted his head to study the girl, then spoke to her in Latin. “Anyone can memorize a famous passage in a foreign tongue. Few can converse in it.”

Corinna’s eyelashes fluttered and she glanced at her hands, twisted at her waist. When she answered, it was not in Latin, but in Persian. “Fewer still can converse in multiple languages at once, my lord.”

Adelphos chuckled, then glanced at Daria. “She does you proud, lady.”

A glow of pride, almost motherly, warmed Daria’s chest. “Indeed.”

Corinna reached out and gripped Adelphos’s arm, bare beneath his gleaming white tunic. “Oh, it is all Mistress Daria’s fine teaching, I assure you, my lord. I wish to be an independent woman such as she someday. There is nothing she cannot do.”

“Corinna.” Daria smiled at the girl but gave a tiny shake of her head.

Corinna withdrew her hand and lowered her eyes once more. “I have told my father this, but he does not understand—”

“Her father has been most pleased with her progress.” Daria tried to draw Adelphos’s attention. “He saw a superior mind there from an early age and was eager to see it developed.”

He waved a hand in the air. “I have seen enough. You may go.”

MEDICINES THAT KILL by JAMES L. MARCUM, MD

2013-03-07T15:17:00.000-08:00

This is not a dry, clinical book. It’s easy to read and entertaining as well as informative. Whatever you thought was dangerous about prescription or over- the-counter drugs, multiply that at least a hundred fold. Expect to be shocked.

Dr. Marcum fills this book with true-life stories of drug interactions gone bad. More importantly, however, he gives warnings that all of us should pay attention to. He shines a light on the highly profitable pharmaceutical business that is in a hurry to mainstream drugs, very often before their potential side effects are adequately documented. He also discusses many of the more commonly prescribed medications that have been on the market for decades, yet still carry high risks. He points out that the number one cause of death in this country is actually medications.

Ultimately, in Medicines That Kill, Dr. Marcum examines some of the most commonly prescribed drugs and offers healthful ways to get off them. He discusses what harms our health the most: anger, stress, inactivity, being overweight, smoking. He could have ended his book there and it would have been highly successful.

Yet, he bravely goes farther and openly the talks about the best solution to obtaining good health. It is Love. Especially love of God. The Bible holds the key to this understanding. To quote the author, “…by understanding the important connection between who we are (God’s created children) and how we are to live (a lifestyle designed by that same God), we can open the door to some incredible insights.” He goes on to discuss the “Laws of Health.”

I highly recommend this book to everyone. I, for one, am going to try to laugh more often, love more freely, limit my use of pain relievers, continue to exercise and lose weight in order to throw away my high blood pressure medicine, and nurture an attitude of gratitude.

We thank Tyndale House Publishers for providing us with a review copy in exchange for an honest review. —Gail Lewis

Format: Paperback, 256 pages

Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers; 1 edition (January 17, 2013)

Language: English

ISBN-13: 978-1414368856

CATHOLICS COME HOME - God's Extraordinary Plan for Your Life by TOM PETERSON

2013-02-16T14:15:00.000-08:00

Author, apologist and founder of the lay apostolate Catholics Come Home, Tom Peterson provides a mixture of personal anecdotes and case histories in entertaining fashion in his new book. He begins by tracing his own Christian walk and the ways the Holy Spirit worked in his life once he let God direct his steps.

Rather than being dull and dry, I found his inspiring book entertaining and humorous to the point of being laugh-out-loud funny at times. Peterson packs a lot of wisdom in this little book. Each chapter concludes with a short summary of thoughts to reflect on. Besides laying out a plan for personal holiness, Peterson also provides tips and encouragement to those who are reluctant to take those first steps toward evangelization plus an appendix chock full of resources. I highly recommend it.

—E G Lewis

Disclaimer: Image Books provided a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Product Details

Hardcover: 160 pages

Publisher: Image (February 19, 2013)

Language: English

ISBN-13: 978-0385347174

IN THREE DAYS: The History & Traditions of Lent and Easter - FREE from Amazon.com Until Thursday, 2/7/13.

2013-02-03T10:06:00.001-08:00

Easter comes early this year, but this book is right on time!

Take this opportunity to download a free copy of E G Lewis' 5-Star, #1 Ranked Book, In Three Days - The History & Traditions of Lent and Easter. It will be free for the Kindle from Sunday, 2/3/13 until Thursday, 2/7/13. Click HERE to get yours now.

Critics say: “Amazing in its breadth and depth”…“Fun and educational, something new on every page”… “Until I read In Three Days I didn’t know how much I didn’t know.”

Take a fact-filled journey through the Lent and Easter Season from beginning to end in twenty-eight fascinating chapters that cover a wide variety of topics: Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, Fasting, Pretzels, the Lenten Food, Prophecies of Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter, How the Date of Easter is Determined, Maundy Thursday, The Practice of Foot Washing, Burial in the First Century, and The Three Marys. Also includes designated chapters on each of The Four Men who Tried Jesus: Annas, Caiaphas, Pontius Pilate and Herod Antipas, along with individual studies of the Three Relics of the Passion: Veronica’s Veil, The Sudarium, and The Shroud of Turin. Special additional chapters deal with Shekers or False Messiahs, Baptism in the Early Church, Did Jesus Wear a Toga, Did Jesus Have Long Hair, The Way Jesus Dressed, The Names of God, and The Names of Jesus. Plus a fun Bonus — What to do with all Those Easter Eggs.

EVERYBODY NEEDS TO FORGIVE SOMEBODY by Allen R. Hunt

2013-01-25T01:00:00.000-08:00

Everybody Needs To Forgive Somebody is an easy, enjoyable and inspiring read. We are given many examples of forgiveness, not the least of which was Christ's forgiveness of Peter.

The story that most moved me was the forgiveness example of Bud Welch, father of 23-year old Julie Marie Welch who died in the Federal Building in Oklahoma City when Timothy McVeigh bombed it. How do you forgive something horrific like that? It isn't easy, yet forgiveness has nothing to do with forgetting and everything to do with faith.

Read how and why Bud Welch met with Timothy McVeigh's father, who was also grieving. This was a touching story, as were many others in this inspirational book. This is a quick 92 pages and well worth reading.

Author, Allen R. Hunt, is a former Protestant minister who converted to Catholicism. I am eager to read his book, Confessions of a Mega Church Pastor.

-Gail Lewis

PRODUCT DETAILS:
Paperback
Publisher: Beacon Publishing (September 15, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1937509281
ISBN-13: 978-1937509286
Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.3 inches

UNSTOPPABLE by Nick Vujicic

2013-01-22T21:37:00.000-08:00

I was excited to see if Nick Vujicic could possibly add anything to Life Without Limits. His first book was full of encouragement and told of many challenges throughout his astonishing life. It is a remarkable read and I wondered if he would match it. He did.

Unstoppable continues with amazing first-person stories about Nick, including how he met and won his beautiful new wife. It includes lovely color photos. In addition to his own tales, much of this book also includes incredible narratives of the challenges faced by others. There are many surprising, life-changing accounts in this book.

If you’ve seen Nick’s portrayal in The Butterfly Circus, you’ll be very interested in co-star, Eduardo Verástegui. His story is extremely inspiring, as are so many others. You’ll meet people overcoming addictions, thoughts of suicide, cutting themselves and more. Their poignant stories and Nick’s are moving and touching. Then there is little Daniel, who was also born without limbs.

This entire book is inspiring and uplifting. Get it, read it and share it! We were delighted to receive a free copy of Unstoppable by Nick Vujicic in exchange for an honest review. We also recently learned that his wife, Kanae, is pregnant. Ultrasounds show that this baby boy has all his limbs, fingers and toes. God bless this burgeoning family.

To Read our Review of "Life Without Limits"

Check out the Links below.

Product Details:

Hardcover: 256 pages

Publisher: WaterBrook Press; 1 edition (October 2, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0307730883
ISBN-13: 978-0307730886

THE BUTTERFLY CIRCUS Entire Movie on YouTube.

SOMETHING MORE Nick's Music Video

LIFE WITHOUT LIMBS Website

THE TAINTED COIN by Mel Starr

2013-01-21T12:02:00.002-08:00

When Kregel Publications offered a free review copy of The Tainted Coin for our review it immediately caught our interest. Turns out it was a book well worth reading, very much so, in fact.

This novel is the fifth in a chronicle of surgeon, Hugh de Singleton, and takes place in Bampton, England in 1367. As bailiff to the Lord of the area, it is his duty to investigate crimes. Awakened early in the morning, he is summoned to a grisly scene where a man has been beaten. The man ultimately dies, but before he does he whispers his last words, “They didn’t get me coin.”

When examining him, Singleton finds an ancient Roman coin hidden in his mouth.

What follows is a chase to locate the villains and the family of the deceased. With the help of groom, Andrew, Master Hugh discovers further mystery in the victim’s home. Ultimately, Master Hugh’s wife and small daughter are threatened, requiring protection for them and further motivating him to locate those responsible for the murder.

His exploits result in the unexpected rescue of a rather disagreeable young woman who has been held captive for ransom and then the ultimate rescue of one of the men who was guarding her. This subplot alone makes the book worth reading.

The only criticism I have of this novel is that I expected something more mysterious regarding the ancient coin. It had no magical powers and didn’t lead Master Hugh to any satisfying conclusions about it. Why hide an ancient coin in your mouth while you’re being beaten? It wouldn’t have revealed the location of an ancient treasure. Maybe our victim realized it would verify to his attackers that he actually had found a treasure? I wanted more clarity on that one facet of the story. Meanwhile, Master Hugh doesn’t locate the source of treasure either, but it is out there and might figure into a future novel, perhaps?

Eventually, our hero’s quest discovers the guilty men and provides a bright future for a poor widow, her two children, and the man she marries. To tell you anymore would give too much away. Read the book, it’s an enjoyable read.

I hope to go back and read the first four books in the Series that chronicle the life of Master Hugh, The Unquiet Bones, A Corpse at St. Andrew’s Chapel, A Trail of Ink, and Unhallowed Ground. The titles are intriguing and Master Hugh de Singleton is a fascinating character.

—Gail Lewis

FYI: The Tainted Coin's blog tour runs until Friday, Jan 25th. During this period, Kregel is offering the Kindle version for just $5.00. Click HERE to go to Amazon for savings.

Product Details:

Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Monarch Books (December 3, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0857212508
ISBN-13: 978-0857212504

THE LEAVING by Ruth Crews

2013-01-14T09:10:00.000-08:00

This is one of those books you know you're going to finish before you have any idea where the plot is going. The writing is that fun.

The second in the "Gatekeeper" series, The Leaving picks up where Gatekeeper leaves off, with our heroine, Anna Merritt, a senior at Hope College, facing graduation and a highly uncertain future. Having returned from England the term before--correction, most of her returned from England the term before. Her heart remained behind. And therein lies her conundrum. Faced with the typical English-Lit major's fears of how on earth to market her vanilla degree, she does what many of us do: cling to the past, the known, the familiar and attractive. In Anna's case, that's England. But moreover, she clings to the hope of getting back to the UK as soon as possible. But how? (the conundrum)

Each chapter begins alternately with a letter from Anna to her erstwhile companion in adventure at Oxford, Eddie, and his responses to her. She bares her soul and its dreams to him, and he returns his wit and wisdom concerning where Anna should be focusing her efforts; that is, where she is and the life she's living now, lest she at best miss it, at worst screw it up. Undeterred, Anna presses on, barely tolerating her studies and her fellow students in her fixation on the isle across the Atlantic. And she gets a little annoying in that fixation, quite honestly. But ya still gotta love her.

This is a tale of an inner journey, one that is so believably delivered that you wonder how much of it is autobiographical. (Ruth...?) So, if you're looking for jeeps blowing up, blood-dripping knives, or Landcaster County intrigue, read no more of this. But if you enjoy an incredibly fresh, young, witty voice learning life and how it should be approached, well, settle in for a chuckle and a shake of the head.

While it would be helpful to read Gatekeeper first for background character identification, it's not vital to enjoying The Leaving. The joy is in the present, not the past.

Oh, and if you are, like I am, an unabashed Anglophile, you'll get even more out of the matchless repartee between Anna and Eddie. Cheers to Ms. Crews for quite a lovely read.

—Bruce Judisch

Product Details

Paperback: 160 pages

Publisher: OakTara (November 9, 2012)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1602903328

ISBN-13: 978-1602903326

PSALM STORIES FREE for Download thru Monday.

2013-01-12T15:15:00.002-08:00

Download PSALM STORIES FREE at Amazon.com

only through Monday, January 14, 2013.

A mix of contemporary, ancient, fanciful and fun stories

based on the first 75 Psalms of the Bible.

FREE for Kindle from January 10th to 14th.

Click Here: Link to Amazon.com for FREE Copy of PSALM STORIES

How can you resist?

FREE FOR KINDLE! Don't Miss These Excellent Books!

2013-01-09T21:42:00.001-08:00

Don't forget that "Witness, Book One of the Seeds of Christianity Series" is free to download for your Kindle ending at midnight PST, Thursday, January 10. Link to Amazon.com for WITNESS

In case you missed "Genesis People, Book One of the Five Minute Bible Story Series" when it was starting at midnight PST, Thursday, January 10.

Link to Amazon.com for GENESIS PEOPLE, $3.99

Link to Amazon.com for FREE Copy of PSALM STORIES

Download Psalm Stories, a mix of contemporary, ancient, fanciful and fun stories based on the first 75 psalms, FREE for Kindle from January 10th to 14th.

How can you resist it?

free, or if you got it and loved it, there's a new free promotion coming up on Amazon.com for Sheila Deeth's Psalm Stories,

WITNESS Going Strong

2013-01-08T08:57:00.002-08:00

Update: WITNESS by E.G. Lewis is #1 in the Christian Historical category on Amazon.com among all free books. It's #4 in all Historical titles and out of over 55,000 books overall, it is currently #45 and still advancing. Only an exceptional book can do this.

Download your free copy before midnight Thursday!

Read it, love it, and get the rest in the Series for $3.99 an eBook. Print versions also available. Each book stands alone, however, following Rivkah's family chronologically through events in the First Century is highly entertaining.

WITNESS, by E.G. Lewis is FREE to Download for next 5 Days!

2013-01-06T11:39:00.003-08:00

WITNESS, Book One of the "Seeds of Christianity" Series, can be downloaded for FREE during the next five days (until midnight PST, Thursday, 1/10/12). Go get it at the Link Below, and tell your Friends! Smile.

Click Here to download free from Amazon.com

Includes romance, suspense, and amazing details, with characters you will grow to love. Read how the Christian church began, and what both Jewish and Roman life was like in the First Century. An accurate, historical novel, excellently written.

Try it, you'll like it!

Peace and Blessings.

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN by Harriet Beecher Stowe

2012-12-31T09:32:00.000-08:00

Uncle Tom’s Cabin is one of the classics I missed reading. I’d heard of little Eva, Eliza and Topsy and thought I knew something about the characters. However, this novel was very different from what I anticipated. Since it was first published in 1852, I expected to have to trudge my way through it. That was not the case at all. This book kept my interest throughout. It’s easy to understand why it was so successful.

An early printed report says that when they first met, Abraham Lincoln said to Mrs. Stowe, “Is this the little woman who made the great war?” Certainly her portrayal of the cruel treatment of Uncle Tom, and other slaves, had a great impact on society of that era. The Civil War was horrible, but it brought about an end to slavery in America.

I recommend that everyone read Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It brings home what slavery was really like to those of us who are far removed from that period. At the end of the Kindle version I read there are notes about Mrs. Stowe’s background and it says her characters were gleaned from stories of real slaves and the trials they actually faced.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

As a young woman.

It surprises me that the term, “an Uncle Tom,” is meant as a negative slur today. Her character, Uncle Tom, does obey his masters, yet when one insists he give up his Christian faith Tom is a true martyr, willing to suffer pain and death before giving in. That and other acts of courage, make Tom a character to emulate, not denigrate.

It’s my belief that history will judge today's society as a time of great cruelty and moral apathy. Since I'm currently working on a novel, Cast Me Not Away, that shines a light on the horrors of abortion, I thought it appropriate to read the book that led to an end of another horrific period in American history. I have high hopes my novel will open people's eyes as Harriet Beecher Stowe's did.

God bless America and may this country once again choose to take the high road and get off the low road we’re presently on.

—Zara Heritage

FREE KINDLE BOOKS! Dec. 26 to Dec. 30, PROMISES by E.G. Lewis and GENESIS PEOPLE by Sheila Deeth

2012-12-26T10:09:00.000-08:00

For 5 days only, Wednesday, Dec. 26 thru Sunday, Dec. 30: Two FREE KINDLE eBooks. "PROMISES," by E.G. Lewis or "GENESIS PEOPLE" by Sheila Deeth.

"PROMISES" offers great Romantic Suspense. Link to Amazon.com for free book is below:

PROMISES:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002S527E2

"GENESIS PEOPLE," Book One of the 5-Minute Bible Story Series, by Sheila Deeth. Remarkable stories for children and adults alike. Excellent!!! Link to Amazon.com for free book is below:

GENESIS PEOPLE:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ANV941M

ABOUT PROMISES: A Recipe for Trouble--Take one jilted Supermodel on the rebound, Add an unscrupulous businessman who'll do anything to save his floundering business, Agitate until both are steaming, then keep at a low simmer. When looking for love sometimes you find it...and sometimes you don't!

Smooth as a sip of Kentucky Bourbon, PROMISES eases you into Kentucky's Appalachian hill country. That wonderfully wild place of mountains and hollows, creeks and rivers, with its hardscrabble life and whiteboard churches where roots go deep, family matters, and Granny Wright's never wrong. A place where King Coal still rules and beneath its veneer of respectability lies a hidden web of treachery.

Mary Jane Combs may have gotten her Momma's good looks, but her strong-willed determination came straight from Daddy. Growing up in Kentucky she dreamed of a simple life with a loving husband, a home of her own, and healthy kids. Instead she's become an international Supermodel, swapping the Appalachian coal country for New York City's Upper West Side and traveling the world in her private jet.

But, she'll need all the determination she can muster when her ex-husband sets out to destroy everything she's accomplished. But two questions remain to be answered: Can she do what needs to be done and still remain true to the promises she made at her mother's deathbed? And when the dust settles, will she at last find the loving relationship she always dreamed of as a girl?

Product Details

Paperback: 336 pages

Publisher: Cape Arago Press (October 16, 2009)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0982594917

ISBN-13: 978-0982594919

Product Dimensions: 6 x 9 x 0.7 inches

ABOUT GENESIS PEOPLE: Readers say, “Charming…Delightful…A marvelous teaching tool…” Gather the kids and join author Sheila Deeth as this long-time Christian Educator and Sunday School Teacher leads a fun and educational field trip through the Book of Genesis. Designed for independent reading by middle-graders, or reading aloud to younger children, each one of this series of linked short stories is not too long, not too short…but just the right length.

Make learning fun as you and your children come to know these Biblical characters in ways you never have before. All your favorites are here. She begins at the beginning with God, of course, then come Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel, Seth, Methuselah, Noah and others. Proceed on to the age of Patriarchs where you meet Terah, Lot, Melchizedek, Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael, Sarah and Isaac, Rebekah, Esau and Jacob, Laban, Leah, Rachel and many more.

From there, continue on to the story of Joseph, his brothers who sold him into slavery, and his life in Egypt where he eventually rescues the fledgling nation of Israel. All-in-all, Genesis People contains nearly 50 separate stories, each one the ideal length for reading at bedtime or before a nap. Using her insights, masterful storytelling skills and gentle way with words, Ms. Deeth creates a series of stories that will have your children begging for “Just one more.” Genesis People is a wonderful way to introduce youngsters to the Bible. Includes Author’s Notes.

Product Details

File Size: 259 KB

Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited

Publisher: Cape Arago Press (December 12, 2012)

Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.

Language: English

ASIN: B00ANV941M

A CHRISTMAS THOUGHT from NICK VUJICIC

2012-12-19T09:27:00.000-08:00

Putting Your Faith in Action
by Nick Vujicic

Having faith, beliefs, and convictions is a great thing, but your life is measured by the actions you take based upon them. You can build a great life around those things you believe and have faith in. I’ve built mine around my belief that I can inspire and bring hope to people facing challenges in their lives. That belief is rooted in my faith in God. I have faith that He put me on this earth to love, inspire, and encourage others and especially to help all who are willing to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. I believe that I can never earn my way to heaven, and by faith I accept the gift of the forgiveness of sins through Christ Jesus. However, there’s so much more than just “getting in” through the Pearly Gates. It is also about seeing others changed by the power of His Holy Spirit, having a close relationship with Jesus Christ throughout this life, and then being further rewarded in heaven.

Being born without arms and legs was not God’s way of punishing me. I know that now. I have come to realize that this “disability” would actually heighten my ability to serve His purpose as a speaker and evangelist. You might be tempted to think that I’m making a huge leap of faith to feel that way, since most people consider my lack of limbs a huge handicap. Instead, God has used my lack of limbs to draw people to me, especially others with disabilities, so I can inspire and encourage them with my messages of faith, hope, and love.

In the Bible, James said that our actions, not our words, are the proof of our faith. He wrote in James 2:18, “Now someone may argue, ‘Some people have faith; others have good deeds.’ But I say, ‘How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.’”

I’ve heard it said that our actions are to our faith and beliefs as our bodies are to our spirits. Your body is the housing of your spirit, the evidence of its existence. In the same way, your actions are the evidence of your faith and beliefs. You have no doubt heard the term “walking the talk.” Your family, friends, teachers, bosses, coworkers, customers, and clients all expect you to act and live in alignment with the beliefs and convictions that you claim to have. If you don’t, they will call you out, won’t they?

Our peers judge us not by what we say but by what we do. If you claim to be a good wife and mother, then you sometimes will have to put your family’s interests above your own. If you believe your purpose is to share your artistic talents with the world, then you will be judged on the works you produce, not on those you merely propose. You have to walk the talk; otherwise you have no credibility with others—or with yourself—because you, too, should demand that your actions match your words. If they don’t, you will never live in harmony and fulfillment.

As a Christian, I believe the final judge of how we’ve lived is God. The Bible teaches that His judgment is based on our actions, not our words. Revelation 20:12 says, “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.” I act upon my beliefs by traveling the world and encouraging people to love one another and to love God. I am fulfilled in that purpose. I truly believe it is why I was created. When you act upon your beliefs and put your faith into action, you, too, will experience fulfillment. And please, do not be discouraged if you aren’t always absolutely confident in your purpose and how to act upon it. I have struggled. I still struggle. And so will you. I fail and am far from perfect. But deeds are merely the fruit—the result of the depth of a true conviction of the truth. Truth is what sets us free, not purpose. I found my purpose because I was looking for truth.

It is hard to find purpose or good in difficult circumstances, but that is the journey. Why did it have to be a journey? Why couldn’t a helicopter just pick you up and carry you to the finish line? Because throughout the difficult times, you will learn more, grow more in faith, love God more, and love your neighbor more. It is the journey of faith that begins in love and ends in love.

Frederick Douglass, the American slave turned social activist, said, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” Your character is formed by the challenges you face and overcome. Your courage grows when you face your fears. Your strength and your faith are built as they are tested in your life experiences.

CHECK BACK FOR OUR REVIEW OF NICK'S NEWEST BOOK - UNSTOPPABLE

DIVIDE BY ZERO by Sheila Deeth

2012-12-12T01:00:00.000-08:00

Divide By Zero may sound like an unusual title until you realize that author, Sheela Deeth, is a Mathematician. So how did this left-brained person write a novel? Very well.

Sheela Deeth’s outstanding writing skills, her descriptions and precise attention to detail have always impressed me.

Divide by Zero is filled with realistic portrayals of family dynamics. As the book unfolds, many fascinating characters are introduced and I began to worry whether I’d be able to keep track of them all. Not to worry, Ms. Deeth weaves them together in relationships that work while carefully reminding us who each person is. One special participant is a white cat—a cat some dubbed an “angel cat”—who wanders through chapters seeming to bring about subtle miracles here and there.

These typical people in an ordinary neighborhood experience life from a perspective that makes us stop and consider our own. We get to view the personalities of family members, and the people in their neighborhood, through their thoughts and feelings. Sheila Deeth does this with remarkable ability and insight.

Through four generations of men, we gradually learn of their self-destructive behaviors and, for some, their redemption. We sympathize with one whose childhood was dreadful, but then later learn how he hurt others. Will his son or grandson do this too?

We watch a daughter sacrifice her happiness to care for an ailing mother. And, although she was stricken by a stroke and unable to successfully communicate, we see through the mother’s thoughts how much she appreciates and cares about her daughter and grandson. She is a human being with feelings and definitely is not useless.

We watch the mother of an autistic child cope and adapt. We fear for some characters and cry for others. There is death and there is love. And, in the end, there is hope and joy.

Ms. Deeth manages to enter the heads of many characters and successfully portray their thoughts in ways few authors attempt. She brings us insights into the thoughts of all kinds of people and does it extremely well.

I highly recommend “Divide By Zero.” —Gail Lewis

Product Details:

Paperback: 254 pages

Publisher: StoneGarden.net Publishing (August 20, 2012)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1600763405

ISBN-13: 978-1600763403

SEARCHING FOR SARA by NONA KING

2012-12-09T00:00:00.000-08:00

ABOUT SEARCHING FOR SARA

Sara Little has ached to live in America. But being born of a single mother in London’s working class, she could only dream. Then, scrawled in hasty intensity, Sara receives an invitation to America. Drawn to the possibility of a new beginning, she follows God’s whisper and steps forward into the unknown. But more awaits than the realization of her dreams. Sara’s benefactor is handsome widower Christopher Lake, a philanthropist dedicated to helping the less fortunate redefine their future. Though devastated by the loss of his wife, he dedicates himself to her last request: To provide Sara the means for a brighter future. Sara’s gift of art inspires Christopher’s sponsorship, and he is determined to protect her gentle heart while propelling her into artistic society. Even if he must press her forward beyond her shy nature. But when a local paper weaves tales of a romantic entanglement, Sara is stricken by the stark reality of a growing devotion. Caught in the whirlwind of debuts and dinner parties with prospective patrons, she has fallen in love with the one man she believes she does not deserve. Could a servant girl hope to bless such a noble man to happiness?

Hello and Welcome:
Summit Books Reviews is participating in the Blog Tour celebrating the release of friend and fellow author, Nona King’s newest novel, Searching for Sara. We decided to forego our usual review format. Instead, let’s pour a cup of tea, settle into a comfortable chair, and learn a little more about

Searching for Sara and its author, Nona King.

Nona, can you tell us why you write?
I cannot imagine doing anything else. These characters and stories are so real that I feel I let them down when I do not put their tales to paper. The motivations are simple, either I write their stories so they can find love and redemption, or their experiences are more for me than for anyone else…a way for me to work out a challenge in my own life. They are like my friends, because they help me discover things about my own character that need to be enhanced or changed.

How did your new book, Searching for Sara, come into being?

Searching for Sara has been in the works in some form or fashion since 2001. At first it was a sequel to Broken Angel (not yet released). In this first version of Sara I killed the heroine, Rachel Samson, and inserted Sara Little as a new love interest for our grieving hero Robert Trent. This appalled my sister, who insisted I rewrite it.

To be honest, the only reason I killed the heroine was because I wanted to experiment with the intense emotions of grief and sorrow. When my sister scolded me and tasked me with rewriting that storyline, it gave me a sense of relief and became the best project I have ever undertaken. It helped that I was able to create our new grieving hero, Christopher Lake.

What are a few of your favorite parts/scenes of the book?

I enjoyed writing the scenes between Sara and Christopher’s five-year-old daughter, Gwynnie. Not having children of my own, it gave me an opportunity to write a different type of devotion. Another favorite were the scenes between Sara and Christopher when she helps him rediscover his inspiration for art. God used those scenes to show me how the meek could be strong.

What do you hope readers will take away from Searching for Sara?

My hope is readers will see the blessing which comes from walking in obedience to God’s will. In addition, I wanted them to see that facing our fears is the best way to open ourselves to the blessings God has waiting for us.

How did writing this book change your life?

Because of writing the life lessons for Sara and Christopher, it gave my own mind and heart the opportunity to see the cause and effect of facing fear. I took Sara’s experience to heart and, as a result, found the love of my life in 2006. I have been happily married ever since. The journey was not easy by any stretch of the imagination, but it was worth the love and joy I have found.

What are you working on…what’s coming next?

For November I am devoting my time and effort to a fantasy adventure, Para Sedi, a prequel to the the 2008 National Novel Writing Month contest winner To Save A Soul. Come December, I will be working on two sequels, the continuation of Sara’s story in Releasing Yesterday, and the next installment in Para & Mun’s story in Silver & Iron (a 2009 NaNoWriMo contest winner). My goal is to have Silver & Iron release next May and Releasing Yesterday next December.

ABOUT NONA KING

Nona King is an independent writing professional for Angel Breath Books. She has dedicated herself to writing true-to-life characters, be they villain or hero, so her readers can experience life and its many passions. All her stories focus on faith, honor, and the importance of communication and trust in our relationships with others.

FINDING NONA & SEARCHING FOR SARA ON THE INTERNET

Searching for Sara: nonaking.com/searching-for-sara/
Nona's Fiction: www.NonaKing.com
Nona's Blog: www.WordObsession.net
Nona King at Amazon: amazon.com/author/nonaking
Nona King at Barnes & Noble: barnesandnoble.com/c/nona-king
Nona King at Smashwords: smashwords.com/profile/view/nonaking

Win a FREE copy of JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE INFANCY NARRATIVES. Place a Comment Below to be Eligible.

2012-11-30T18:06:00.002-08:00

Leave a Comment at the end of this post to be eligible to win a hard copy of this book. Be sure to leave an email address so we can contact you when you win!

We have exciting news to share. Pope Benedict's new book JESUS OF NAZARETH; The Infancy Narratives was released on the 21st of November. Summit Book Reviews is participating in the kick-off by giving away three free copies of this book.

It's easy to get your name into the pot. After you have viewed the trailer above, leave a comment along with your email address. As soon as we receive the books from the publisher we'll draw out the winners and arrange to get them to you just in time for Christmas.

Be sure to spread the word. FREE is a very good price. Comment below with your email address so we can ask for a mailing address.

Peace and Blessings!

ALL THINGS CHRISTMAS by E.G. Lewis

2012-11-29T10:10:00.000-08:00

Last day to get this wonderful non-fiction, Christian eBook FREE from Amazon.com!

Hard copies are $9.95.

ALL THINGS CHRISTMAS, The History and Traditions of Advent & Christmas –

Click Here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004DNWIHI