The Things He Carried and The Things He Said by Stephen Cottrell

Buy The Things He Carried from Hive.co.uk and support local booksellers 

Buy The Things He Said from Hive.co.uk and support local booksellers 

This is a buy one get one free review, covering this two books of reflections by Stephen Cottrell, one for Lent and the other for Easter.

I read The Things He Carried on and off last thing at night during Lent, while I dipped in and out of The Things He Said over week (on holiday in Barcelona), and found the “slow” reading of them allowed the ideas to dwell deeper in the mind.

As usual Cottrell crafts the reflections in such a way that there is great simplicity but also great depth. The cover familiar themes and yet are remarkably fresh.

There are many Lenten books and The Things He Carried is a strong contribution to a crowded shelf, but Easter books are less common and therefore The Things He Said is perhaps a greater gift.

The Things He Said is divided into 2 sections, the first focused on Mary Magdalene's encounter with Jesus at the Tomb, and the second focused on the Emmaus road.

It was the first part that I found most powerful, the way Cottrell captures Mary's pain and grief as she comes to the Tomb, and the confusion of finding it empty, was a new insight for me into the story.

I really felt myself being drawn into the moment. The desire to cling to Jesus in the midst of a troubled world is familiar to me. I will be honest and say that I am struggling with “Church” right now and that the lost and lonely feelings of Mary that morning indeed echo for me.

I think the second part, for me, lacked that power, perhaps it is harder to capture the emotional state of two disciples would have left Jerusalem for Emmaus, but also there was much longer dialogue on the road, it is not the imitate and intense exchange of Mary and Jesus in the Garden.

Cottrell provides questions etc to allow these books to be used by study groups, which is a useful addition, but for me the encounter prompted more of a meditative than a discursive response.

The 39 Steps by John Buchan

Buy it from Hive.co.uk and support local booksellers 

As with Cold Comfort Farm this was in a boxed set of “Essential Penguins” and its inclusion also puzzles me a touch.

It has more than once been made into a film, and the plot in the hands of a Master film maker such as Hitchcock undoubtedly became a classic.

I enjoyed the book in the same way that I enjoy occasionally reading Biggles, and that feels like the appropriate company for it to keep.

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

Buy it from Hive.co.uk and support local booksellers 

It is an enjoyable read, but it is unclear to me why this is held up as a classic work.

Perhaps the trouble is that Cold Comfort Farm is a parody of various novels of which I have had fairly slim encounters.

I would bracket closely with the film Clueless, fun but not generally considered worthy of critical praise...

As a fan of Clueless I would support the case that it is somewhat under rated but that is perhaps a separate discussion?

Creative Ideas for Frontline Evangelism with Young People by Simon Rundell

Buy it from Hive.co.uk and support local booksellers 

Unlike his two earlier contributions to the “Creative Ideas for...” series this one is almost exclusively a source book rather than a discussion on principles and practice. It is made up of reflections on, mostly, Gospel events with accompanying activities to help explore and embed the message.

This is a useful collection, for a wide range of contexts – I could see plenty of these fitting well into the monthly “informal” service in my own parish, which if I am honest is some way from “frontline evangelism” and is not by any means primarily made up of “young people”.

If you were hoping for some radical new approach this isn't it – Simon Rundell's approach is fundamentally age old – “tell the story, let God do the rest” - but then again maybe there is good reason that Christians have been following this pattern so long...

High King of Heaven, Aspects of Early English Spirituality by Benedicta Ward

Buy it from Hive.co.uk and support local booksellers 

This volume provides various facts about the influences on, and development of, English Spirituality, but for me it lacked any meaningful sense of the what the essence of that Spirituality actually was.

There is also an unhelpful tendency to quote source material at great length which, given the total is only around 100 pages, leaves little room for analytical reflection.

The Good Worship Guide by Robert Atwell

Buy it from Hive.co.uk and support local booksellers 

In many ways this book captures my own inclinations about worship. That what we offer as worship to God, and offer as a context for one another's encounter with God, should be the best it can be.

“Informal” is a current buzz word about worship, but too often informal worship becomes casual worship, under-prepared worship, and ultimately lacklustre. I don't believe worship must always be rehearsed to the n^th degree, there is a place for chaos in worship, but Godly chaos is distinct from worship that has merely become shambolic. And so the first section “Worship Matters” is useful whatever your style as it sets out the principles of “Good Worship” as Atwell sees them.

The remainder of the book is a sort of ritual notes and therefore is much more closely tied to a particular churchmanship. Atwell admits there is a certain middle-class quality to the approach to worship he is advocating. There are certain assumptions that he makes as a former Vicar of St Mary's Primrose Hill which don't translate easily even to other “liberal catholic” settings which are not populated by the muesli munching urbanites of Primrose Hill (I say that with a certain affection for I myself would probably count as such a muesli muncher...).

One aspect I found irritating was the sense that preparing and leading worship is not really the business of lay people. Atwell offers “A beginner's guide for lay people” on leading public worship, which runs to 3 whole pages in a book of nearly 300. It is clear that lay people leading worship is viewed as a last resort – for those times when the Vicar is ill. There is also a list of what lay people “can and can't do” which is almost entirely a list of can'ts.

I think this underplaying of the laity's role is perhaps because “liturgists” who start with Atwell's assumption about order and dignity in worship tend to be control freaks. I call to mind Richard Giles who certain appears to have adopted fairly dictatorial methods to realise his vision of renewal within the liturgy. Now I accept this is a part of key difference between a “visionary” and a mere “dreamer”, the capacity to push the vision into reality, but we must hold that in tension.

Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson

Buy it from Hive.co.uk and support local booksellers 

I took a Facebook quiz about “what childrens' book are you” and the answer turned out to be Harold and the Purple Crayon, which I had never heard of.

Therefore I simply had to get it out the library and read it in case Facebook was offering me a significant ephiany of self-understanding (ok it was a long shot but I felt even long shots should not be overlooked).

There is great whimsy in this book, of the best kind. Harold has a certain god like status, the world he walks through is perhaps not strictly created Ex nihilo, he needs the crayon as a vehicle of creation, but it is clearly his thought that is the primary determiner of what is created.

The book leaves some key questions unanswered, what are the nine kinds of pie that Harold liked best? And what exactly was it about the porcupine that made it deserving?

And then, if this book is a prefect summary of my being, or I a summary of it, as Facebook claims what might I like it to be saying about me?

Harold clearly has a strong capacity for wonder, something I would like to claim.
Harold is restless until he finds his rest in his own bed... and I certianly like my bed.
Even though Harold created the Dragon he was still frightened of it, he had an imagination big enough to go beyond his own comfort zone – and I believe if we do not allow ourselves to be scared we will never grow.

 So I would never suggest Facebook is a custonian of universial truth, but on this occasion it didn't do a bad job!