50 Book Challenge 2009
So, last year I completed 12 books. My goal this year is 20. I don’t read super fast, so I am not sure 50 will ever be a reasonable goal, I 20 most definitely is. This year I have a few subgoals within the goal of reading 20 books.
- I want to read at least one book that is outside of my comfort zone and challenges me.
- I want to read at least five non-fiction books (normally not what I read).
I have started off the year by reading The Shack by William P. Young. This was definitely a book that was outside of my comfort zone. It is very Christian based and I there were several times that I put the book down for a few days because I was a bit appauled by what I was reading. However, upon completing the book I found that I really enjoyed reading it for the very fact that is forced me to articulate more clearly in my mind what it is that I do believe.
There is an author that I heard speak a few months back named Michael Dowd. He wrote Thank God for Evolution. In his presentation he talked about what he calls Night language vs. Day language. Night language is the lanuage is which stories are told, metaphores are used, and where the fantastical and miraculous are true. Essentially, night language is the language which we would use to describe our dreams. Day language on the other hand is the language of facts, of science, of mathematics. It is how we would describe things that happen during the day. Dowd explained how a lot of religion theology has classically/historically been explained in night language because we lacked sufficient day language to describe what we saw. For example, without knowledge of viruses and bacteria and how disease spreads, how might we explain who in a village becomes infected with a deadly virus and who does not. We might talk of witchcraft or describe those who died as being punished for there sins, etc.
Okay, so why did I bring all this up? I bring up Michael Dowd and night language vs. day language because I had to do a lot of translating from night language to day language for many things in The Shack to sit right with me. I really enjoyed the underlying themes of the book, which I believe are underlying themes in all religions (or at least the major world religions and what I know of them). But the language in which the themes were told were hard for me accept without some serious thought as to their translation into day language.
So, what is up next on my reading list? I have couple of different books on queue: Ominvor’s Dilemma, The Tipping Point, and Two for the Dough. The first, Bryan is reading right now, and I think we have decided to read at the same time so we can be appauled at our nations industrial food system together (awwww).
So, 50 Book Challenge for 2009 list so far:
- The Shack by William P. Young
January 12th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
[...] Erin’s post her thoughts about The Shack in her blog. [...]