The last two or three BookNotes have described books around themes that are very important to us. They were long (naming a lot of books) and truly important. We got some rewarding feedback and have had some good conversations with customers and friends. Thanks for caring.

In this BookNotes we have a special theme we think you’ll enjoy, one we offer from time to time. We’re listing titles by authors you may not know, or know well, mostly on publishers you haven’t heard of. These books are by friends of ours, produced by indie outfits or perhaps even self published. Each, though, deserves a shout-out they won’t get from the bigs. So here we are, serving self-published indie authors we care about.

And some of these are very good.

We hope you appreciate this seemingly random array of new books, the connecting piece being that the authors are personal friends of ours (or with whom we’ve at least crossed paths with) who we can vouch for. (Believe me, whether they are friends or not, I wouldn’t champion these titles if I didn’t think they were deserving of your attention.) These folks have done good work putting out useful books and even if you haven’t seen them advertised or listed elsewhere, Hearts & Minds is thrilled to tell you about them now. Here’s to the indie DIY spirit, from our small-town, family-owned shop in central Pennsylvania.

ALL ARE 20% OFF.

Among the Lilies: The Song of Songs Ned Bustard (Square Halo Books) $20.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

We so enjoy the great privilege of promoting all of the new releases from the Lancaster-based boutique publisher Square Halo Books. They are indie, for sure, but nothing at all like self publishing. Like their comrades-in-arms in their publishing venture of going against the odds, they do classy, creative, outstanding books, published as a labor of love, solo Dei gloria.

That they have a very talented artist as their main manager and designer means SHB releases always look great and most often are illustrated or enhanced with fine art illuminations; they certainly create an excellently made book, small as they are. And so it is with this annotated — it’s not quite a commentary — rendition of the Biblical book often called “The Song of Songs.” It includes woodcuts and lithographs and art pieces by (mostly women) printmakers, Laura Ashley, Ned Bustard, Tanja Butler, Rachel Durfee, Craig Hawkins, Elizabeth Carton and Kathy D Mills, Eric Gill, and others. One of my favorite small pieces is in the solid footnotes section (yep, even that includes an illustration, “Cathedral (After Rodin.)” It’s a great looking book.

You should know that Mr. Bustard has studied this book of the Bible for years. He’s a careful Bible reader and explains a bit about the various approaches to this often erotic text. He’s sharp enough to understand the literature, the symbols, the way (of course) the Christ-centered gospel of redemption shines through; he also knows it is a book about marital sexuality, what he calls “holy erotica.” Some of the black and white lithographs or woodcuts are themselves hinting at a mature sort of erotic art. Kudos to Square Halo Books and their bold willingness to explore what the Holy Scriptures actually portray and teach. And, as they put it, “The book opens with an explanation of the various interpretive approaches that have been applied to the Song of Songs and ends with a chapter addressing some of the challenges to marriage that stifle the pleasures of lovemaking for married couples this side of Eden.”

For what it’s worth, one of Ned’s heros is the late Calvin Seerveld, the Biblical scholar, philosopher, aesthetics teacher, and art collector who wrote (in the 1970s) a play with several voices based on this Biblical book, entitled The Greatest Song. It offers a close reading of “Song of Songs” and includes some excellent stylized woodcuts. One might think that Ned modeled his new Among the Lilies on Seerveld’s treasured Greatest Song but, in fact, he told me, he disagrees with some of Cal’s interpretation. To disagree with the bold and sometimes provocative renderings of the multi-language saint is no sin, so I was eager to dive into Ned’s own notes; knowing that Ned is a bereaved husband who lost his beloved wife, Leslie, gives these reflections a certain poignancy as he listens to the (love) Song. I first thought of this as an art book but it has lots of keen insight into the Hebrew Scriptures with what Curt Thompson calls a “jarringly redemptive” approach.

FREE BOOK OFFER IWHILE SUPPLIES LAST / I’ll tell you what: Seerveld gave us some extra copies of his handsome book The Greatest Song so if you order Bustard’s new Among the Lillies: The Song of Songs Annotated and Illustrated (at our BookNotes 20% off) we will enclose a free Seerveld book. The Greatest Song is a great, creative supplement to the exceptional Square Halo one which you will value as both a Bible reflection and an bone-fide art book. Hooray. While supplies last.

Following Jesus Christ: A Guide to Growing in Authentic Discipleship — Building a Faith and Fruitful Life Thomas A. Tarrants (C.S.Lewis Institute Press) $16.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $13.59

We have known Tom for years, not intimately, but enough to know I respect him immensely. We’ve crossed paths repeatedly over the years at events sponsored by the C.S. Lewis Institute (out of Washington DC.) Although rooted in Lewis’s quip about being “mere Christians” the CSLI does studious work to mentor thousands of people through reading groups focused on some of the best of evangelical thought. Less about Lewis, as such, but more about offering a balanced and Biblical worldview that takes up the call to whole-life discipleship, Tom’s work over the years directing CSLI has born fruit.

I have reviewed two books Tom has written over the years — he was understandably very

reluctant to tell his story for decades. He is a converted-to-Christ leader who had previously been incarcerated for charges stemming from his work with the KKK. With shoot-outs with the police and a trial which found him guilty of attempted arson of a Jewish person’s home, Tom was rightly in jail where— in a long story — he was truly transformed by an encounter with the living Lord Jesus Christ. Through yet another miracle his sentence was commuted and he was released where he became friends with the black civil rights activist, John Perkins. They co-wrote a book showing how Christ transformed both of them, entitled He’s My Brother: Former Racial Foes Offer Strategy for Reconciliation; Tom’s fuller story was later told in Consumed by Hate, Redeemed by Love: How a Violent Klansman Became a Champion of Racial Reconciliation. I was shocked when I first realized the backstory of my gentle friend, a soft-spoken and gentle Christian leader, drawn to serious books and gospel-centered ministry.

I saw all that just to tell you we’ve known Tom and long time and have seen such amazing grace in his life that I’d read anything he wrote. We chatted about this brand new book from time to time over the past years and he poured himself into with care and carefulness. He sincerely wanted to get it right, offering a book that was faithful, helpful, comprehensive, and filling a need for a handbook for basic Christian growth. It is for anyone wanting to know the basics of how transformation happens in Christ (in community) and for anyone who is tasked with mentoring others.

It is so new that I have not studied it carefully, but I can assure you it was done within the context of Tom’s years of mentoring others through the CSLI and with his own collaboration with a handful of experts in these matters of how people change. It is for those who want to experience Jesus’s presence in a more daily way but also for those discipling others.

The first 12 chapters are under the rubric of “Being a Faithful Disciple of Jesus” and the next 8 are guided by the heading “Becoming a Fruitful Disciple of Jesus.” The first section has chapters on the nature of God, why we follow Jesus, what sort of Kingdom vision should inform our prayers and use of the Bible and such. The second part is about the Holy Spirit, , experiencing life in the Spirit and being guided by the Word and Spirit. It’s over 300 pages.

Nearly anyone who has written wisely about all of this has endorsed Following Jesus Christ. His meticulous care is seen in this as he was seeking feedback from those who have done this kind of work well. From Michael Wilkins to Donald Whitney to Greg Ogden to Tom Schwanda to Dennis Hollinger, my, my, so many rave. It is refreshing and faithful and practical and mature.

One woman (known only as Cynthia) used a beta type manuscript for her women’s group and she wrote this:

Following Jesus Christ exposed holes in the fabric of our beliefs, showing where our actions were inconsistent with our theology and challenging us to think harder about the “why” of our spiritual practice. The women in our study group ranged widely in spiritual maturity and educational levels, but the book was accessible and stalemating to all. We read it aloud and the discussion that followed was deep and inspiring.

Unlikely Good: Keys to Tackling Big City Problems Plaguing Your Small Community Aaron J. Anderson (PublishU) $14.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

Oh, my, I’ve been eager to tell you about this one for weeks — for those who need it, it is a remarkably wise, interesting, basic sort of guidebook to getting involved in social entrepreneurial work.

Aaron has been a good local pal for years and years; he has pastored an urban PCA church plant, become the head of a very innovative and respected multi-cultural, urban, Christian school (Logos Academy in downtown York, PA) and also is a lead pastor at a very good independent / evangelical church [that follows the preaching schedule of the lectionary, btw] near us in Red Lion, PA.  We’ve watched him emerge as one of the most respected nonprofit leaders in our county and in the city of York. He tells some of the stories — successes and those projects that didn’t fly — in Unlikely Good — which is only half the fun of this inspiring book. The stories are vivid and moving, but the lessons he draws from each story are instructional and full of hard-won wisdom. I’m not kidding: this is a must-have book for anyone in the trenches doing work for the common good, whether you are in a rural area, smaller town, or mid-sized city.

Aaron’s stories (and the texture of this book) are set around York, Pennsylvania, a town notorious for serious racial riots and ongoing disparities. He’s worked helping bring together a Black Ministerium and local police chiefs for hours of tense but (thankfully) ongoing deep and collaborative relationships. He’s done stuff on housing, on job training, on child abuse prevention, educational justice, and more.

Unlikely Good is both a theologically-influenced resource affirming the need for action in society for the common good, but is more a hands-on guide to leadership for nonprofits and social entrepreneurs. Strengthening civil society is vital but Anderson doesn’t just site the big-name sociologist affirming mid-level institutions but gives you tools to take practical steps to create or bolster helpful organizations and communities doing “unlikely good.” He lists books and articles to read, questions to ponder, checklists for planning and growing your efforts, concrete steps to take. From the likes of the famous insights of Leading Change by Harvard Business School guru, John Kotter to Gino Wickman’s plan for systems of traction (in Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business) to Jim Collin’s “hedgehog” notions, Anderson knows his stuff. Besides his MA in Religion from Reformed Theological Seminary, he has a M.Ed from the important Urban Educational Leadership program at Lehigh University. Impressive.

And did I mention he’s a lively speaker, good preacher, and good writer — a great storyteller?

Aaron is quick to admit that most serious social problems are exceedingly complex. Most small towns are large enough to have “big city problems” and, frankly, he seems drawn to these intractable structures of brokenness, eager to make a meaningful difference. This is an actionable guide to doing just that. Highly recommended to Hearts & Minds friends and dreamers wishing to seek the creation of “unlikely good.”

Breathing Christ: Experiencing Jesus in an Exhausting World Marsha Roscoe (Charles Bruce Foundation) $20.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $16.00

Beth and I adore Marsha, a local spiritual director and winsome leader of congregational and personal formation for the local ELCA Synod (that’s the central Pennsylvania region of the  mainline Lutherans.) She is beyond lively, a blast to be with, and delightfully dedicated to bringing the light of Christ’s presence to her work in the world of the local mainline denominations. As you’ll see in this book she is (as I said in my own endorsing blurb on the back) Breathing Christ is “charmingly inviting — gentle and honest.” It is a good, simple read, fully of just that — gentle, honest, guidance about embodied spirituality.

I’ll be honest: when I heard Marsha was doing a book I was delighted (hooray for her and for those she serves) but also wondering if, really, we need yet another book on contemplative living, deeper spirituality, and the like. We love her a lot but figured her book would only be useful for those going through her retreats of formation classes.

What a joy to tell you that this is good for anyone — the deeper, seasoned contemplative to the novice in taking up spiritual practices. You will be refreshed and you will be inspired. It is exceptionally clear, practical, and very down to earth and keeps coming back to the glad truth that we are God’s beloved.

In part what I mean by that is hinted at by the title. It is somewhat about breath, after all, and finding rhythms and habits that enable us to make space for God. Although she is informed by the best and deepest mystics and prophets, she speaks of her journey as a suburban housewife, a fairly normal woman, with the ups and downs and struggles and hassles that we all have in daily life. She gives us good guidance not just on our deepest spiritual longings but on important (and often not explained) stuff about nutrition and hydration and sleep. She tells about the Vegas nerve and offers concrete steps to re-habituate you automatic habits of your day. “Small shifts add up,” she notes. She continues:

“Maybe that shift is how you start your morning. Maybe it’s how you end your day. Maybe it’s something as simple as where you set your phone while you eat dinner or what you say to yourself when the to-do list doges unfinished.”

I generally don’t love books with bullet points and steps and lists. For some reason, I was so invited into the refreshing tone of this one that I wanted to keep reading, pondering, re-arranging my own lifestyle to be more aligned with my own desires of knowledge of God and union with Christ. Come Holy Spirit, indeed! Breathing Christ is a quiet little gem of a book!

Gary Neal Hansen (former professor at Dubuque Theological Seminary and author of, among other great resources, the masterful volume on prayer called Kneeling with the Giants) suggests that we:

“Go with Marsha and find yourself taking gentle steps towards a renewed and more focused discipleship.”

Whose Love Knows No End: A Christian’s Life with the Psalms Thomas Sweet (LionScape) $14.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $11.99

Speaking of well respected Central Pennsylvania authors, I have been eager to talk about this book for a bit, now, too. Thomas Sweet — a retired PCUSA pastor living in Harrisburg — actually came out of our own church (First Presbyterian in York, PA.) That was before our time there (Beth and I started going there shortly after moving to Dallastown to open our bookstore in the early 1980s.) But Tom grew up in our church and has returned to preach a time or two. His wife is an artist, he’s a good, solid preacher, and has a life-time of wisdom as a working pastor. I do not think I’m wrong to connect him in my mind’s eye with our mutual friend, the late Eugene Peterson. Tom is that sort of stable, mature, friendly, and prophetic saint.

And, not unlike Peterson, he has been journalling from his prayerful reading of the Psalter most of his adult life. Not all pastors, let alone all congregants, are rooted in this daily time of reading the poetry of the Psalms, and not are all adept at hearing God speak through these ancient songs. Reverend Sweet gets it. He’s earned the right to be heard.

So, I was delighted when I heard he was self-publishing a book offering his meditative insights on each of the Psalms. He calls it “a contemporary collection of contemplative meditations on the Psalms” altough it is more than mere meditation. He invites us to grappled with the lyrics, the literature and historical and social context, with simple nods to his deep learning about Hebrew culture and the formation of the Scriptural canon. But, yet, he wears his learning lightly, and Whose Love Knows Know End is not primarily an intellectual commentary. These are almost like solid, meaty devotionals, homilies, lived reflections with an eye to faithful application.

Sweet loves the Psalms and knows them well. He suggests that he want to “encourage a wider and deeper engagement with them that leads to a more liberating and love-centered life and living.”

He got this report from another author and pastor, The Reverend Angus Miles Watkins, who wrote:

I am gobsmacked by the thoughtfulness, tenderness, and strength of your journaling on the Psalms. As I read and pray them along with your reflections, they now melt me and touch me pretty deeply. What comes through for me as I read is an essential humility vis-a vis God and an ardent appetite to deepen your life within the Beloved Community. — The Reverend Angus Miles Watkins

 

The First, The Few, and the Only Michael Thornhill (VAWZEN Rising) $36.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $28.80

This is an amazing book and as Michael has been doing book talks and author events around the country, some have said it was one of the most moving books they’ve ever read. I think, especially, some young, black readers have been grateful for it. He’s shared some of the good reports he has gottenand as a self-published, first time author, I’m sure it is good for him to hear. Bravo, Michael. Right on.

Here are three or four things you should know about this oversized, very creative, and in some ways aggravating book. Besides the typos and run-on sentences (and lack of italics when listing books) and page design issues often endemic to self-done works, there is a really informal vibe to the book. He does lots of storytelling, sharing from his black (Afro-Cuban, actually) youth (in Western Pennsylvania) and as young adult living and working in largely white spaces. He is down-home colloquial at times, inviting us into the details of his life in Western Pennsylvania. This makes for a fun and easy ready, and I smiled hearing him tell of white dudes and caping and hella and missing a dap. It’s just cool reading about a guy’s life.

Some of this, though, includes hard micro aggressions (just downright dumb stuff people do and say) that are the daily lot of most BIPOC folks and some of it is about him coming face to face with gross human hurtfulness and institutionalized racism in school, church, and higher education. He often talks about being beat down and explains his discouragement and weariness. He names names and places giving the memoir a very real feel (although some might think it feels sort of gossipy.) I happen to know some of the people he mentions (some given nicknames from movie characters.) The sad failures in their relationships with Michael (that he sees as painful betrayals) are maybe more complicated than in his telling.

But then I saw his sidebar of this great quote by therapist J. Park:

I don’t need your lectures and lessons. I need you to lean in and listen. My wound is not your thought experiment.

The First, The Few, and the Only is firstly for people of color who are the first to move into a position or place; the few or only who are mostly surrounded by white culture. The cover speaks volumes once you get that that is what the book is about. (Had it been done by a mainstream press, they would have insisted on a subtitle!) As a white guy reading this stunning memoir loaded with analysis (or cultural studies analysis loaded with stories) I want to learn to listen. You too, maybe? These stories are often really sad, exploring hard examples of brokenness in our world — from family hardships to friendship failures to work-place indignities to toxic religion. DEI work being marginalized. The exhaustion experienced by black bodies. Michael explains it all.  If you do not have many black friends who speak honestly to you about their own traumas and multi-layered experiences this will serve you well.

Here’s another thing that makes The First, The Few, and the Only such a good resource, especially for younger readers. It has little full-color pictures, screen shots, historical photos, art pieces, album covers, cartoons and movie scenes on almost every other page. I can’t tell you how unusual these sidebars and illustrations make this book — you will have a blast reading it, believe me. And, further, there are QR codes every now and then that lead to videos and book lists and songs and all kinds of extra stuff packed in. You could spend hours cruising around the internets looking at all the extra visual and auditory content these links provide. Wow. Thank you for pulling all that together, Michael, from pop culture clips to the heavy dramatization of Trick Baby by Iceberg Slim to the Bernie Mac link. And all that stuff about Black Superheros, from Stan Lee to Jack Kirby.

Making the book even more interesting (and useful) are little icons scattered throughout. One is a little blooming green plant and that little leaf, he tells us, is placed in a spot where you may want to catch your breath. Literally, as Resmaa Menakem (author of the important book about racialized trauma My Grandmothers Hands) puts it: “Where’s your breath?” Thanks, Michael, for making the reading of this often breath-taking book, such an embodied experience, inviting us to feel what we feel in our bodies as readers and attend to that. He has another little icon offering “Side Quests” which are said to be further reflections for the curious. As he happily promises, “if a section really lands for you but you want more about the topic…. I got you.”

Further, I suppose you should know that Michael reveals that he has been diagnosed as somewhat neurodivergent, so there’s that. (Which explains, maybe, the wide-ranging free-for-all nature of this sprawling volume.) He offers “Random Links” which he calls “the neurodivergent off ramp” which might help you see how a neurodivergent author’s mind works. He says it is totally optional, of course, “but more fun for sure.” As if you need even more content. Nobody is going to say they didn’t get their money’s worth here.

So. My friends explosive book is jam packed not only with personal stories and black history and his views on white evangelicalism and excursions on all sorts of stuff — blacks in TV, introductions to random characters (his little bit on Thurgood Marshall is lovely to see and I’m glad for his honoring Tommie Smith & John Carlos of the 1968 US Olympic Team.) You’ll learn about 8 archetypes of white leaders in largely white organizations (mostly from recent kid’s films like Toy Story and Frozen and The Incredibles) and you’ll learn about “The White Imagination.” And your learn about that famous jouster against wind-mills, Don Quixote de la Mancha.

Michael’s lessons here are poignant, sometimes poetic, and often in-your-face: there is a price to be paid for standing for decency, for justice, for inclusion. And yet, for men and women of color, too often, they don’t honor themselves, playing the role of hero or token and code-switching so much that they lose something of their very souls. It shows up in their very bodies. Michael, in reporting about this so well, is in line of other prophets from James Baldwin to Andre Lourde to, well, Elphaba, the so-called Wicked Witch of the West who Michael says is “the first, the few, and the only, personified.” Ha! It’s that kind of book and it will make you smile, make you feel, maybe upset you, and will make you want to learn more about our world, your culture, and your own — cue music from Man of La Mancha — impossible dreams.

A Freedom Like No Other: America 250 and the Restoration of the American Republic Os Guinness (Kildare Press) $19.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99

Os Guinness has been a forty year friend, a gentleman whose many books have meant very much to me; he is by far the most famous and most prolific of the authors I’ve listed in this BookNotes but this one is, in fact, self-published, so I can name it here. I just talked about this a bit in our recording of the next “Three Books from Hearts & Minds” bi-weekly podcast, that episode dedicated to thinking about the 250th anniversary of our Republic. Look for it next week. For now in this BookNotes — naming recent works that are self-done by friends of the shop — we have to celebrate Os’s most recent work.

He’s been doing a number of important volumes in the last decade about the distinctives of the intentions and ideas of the founding of the United States. (Alongside others, such as the great long-awaited sequel to The Call entitled Carpe Diem Redeemed and two brilliantly nuanced invitations to thoughtful living called The Great Quest and Signals of Transcendence.) As a grateful Brit with a global vision (he was born in China, seeing first hand as a child the awfulness of the Maoist revolution) he is exceptionally positioned not only to comment on the importance of American visions of pluralism and justice and freedom, but of the uniqueness of our Founder’s robust ideas that shaped our grand experiment as a nation.

In books such as Last Call for Liberty (2018), The Magna Carta of Humanity (2021) and Zero Hour America (2022) Os shows with excellent prose the genius of the “magna carta of humanity” which is so clearly rooted in the best of Greco-Roman jurisprudence but, more, importantly, in the Hebrew worldview. In the new A Freedom Like No Other, Os shows, again, his keen devotion to Hebrew philosophy and social theory rooted in the covenantal perspective of the Old Testament. It is no surprise that he had become friends with the late, great Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and draws on Sacks’s Biblical and social theology to frame how he appreciates the genius of the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the ordered liberty that arose from these declarations.

If you have not read his work on America, you could start here, easily. It is serious but less than 200 pages. If you have read his others, you will not be surprised by much here but you will be (again) struck by its passionate and punchy urgency. And while Os tilts conservative on many important, foundational matters (he has been very hard on the militant, post-modern left) some will be glad to hear him criticize President Trump (not least for his large leadership failures in the world.) It is the most blunt he has been, I think.

The plea Os offers in this book is pithy and right: if we want to “make America great again” we have to know and articulate what made her great in the first place. Without sweeping under the rug America’s huge failures (not least the evils of slavery and the brutality of the colonialists treatment of indigenous peoples) there is much that has to be taught and lived to make America great again. It seems as if Guinness fears that the MAGA movement has little energy to devout to the first things of American liberty.

In A Freedom Like No Other, Guinness has 12 chapters, each exploring a unique principle (from what he sometimes calls “the Bible’s covenant politics of freedom and responsibility.” Want to make American great? Sound the shofar and start with notions of authority, dignity, sanctity, liberty, responsibility, morality, reciprocity, harmony, fallibility, accountability, civility, and fidelity. Wow; every chapter is well worth reading.

As his mentors Francis Schaeffer and the sociologist Peter Berger have taught, it seems that as a people we are caught in the tensions of “the extremes of chaos on one side and control on the other.” One side seems to want too much irresponsible freedom and others value freedom not enough. He worries about worldviews and movements that erode ordered liberty —and, added to that, he warns, their are the exceptional dangers of unregulated artificial intelligence. Can we bring reformation to this mess of late modernity, shoring up our polarized culture in “the secular age” with values of truth, character, and, yes, self-government? This book is a serious call — issued passionately in this season of America’s 250 celebrations— for “self-examination, needed correction, and national rededication.”

Christianity and Your Neighbor’s Liberty Scott Miler (Covenant Books) $14.95 // OUR SALE PRICE = $11.96

If Guinness is a major scholar and passionate critic, crying out about our culture’s inability to shore up America’s best ideal, based on her clearest and most vital principles, then Scott Miller’s recent book is perhaps an word of good news. Scott is an ordinary citizen — who has worked in politics, with excellent local Republican representatives in DC and in our state capitol, Harrisburg — who is thoughtful, modest, pleasant. In a way, he says, this is “a book of apologetics as well as a book with a theology of liberty.” That is, it offers a concise and clear-headed guide to doing some of what Guinness so urgently calls unto. Scott walks readers through both the public tradition of social philosophy undergirding the Founding documents, and makes a case that the Biblical influence was significant.

And yet, this doesn’t come across as zealous or dominionist. Miller— who had a personal renewal in his own faith a few years back and made his home in a local Episcopalian congregation — starts with the notion of the Golden Rule and what it means to love one’s neighbor. Isn’t that unique — of the many books and speeches and protests these days of those on the Christian right, most are about our freedom, our liberty. Scott is clear that a Biblical orientation of the sort that shaped the foundational documents of America calls for respect of others.

And he tells a few good stories of local history here in York, the place where the Articles of the Confederation were drafted.

I like how he tells his own story of coming to deeper faith as an adult (in part, Scott reports, by reading books by the New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson, specifically The Real Jesus, The Living Jesus, and his book The Creed. If you know that impressive Catholic scholar and those works that translate scholarship about Christ to a living faith in and with Christ, you’ll appreciate Scott’s journey.) In any case, some of this book is about his own believes as they’ve come alive, but also, then, how that relates to his work as a civil servant, one who has worked in politics, and so values religious liberty and freedom for all.

He has come to try to integrate law and religion, the Golden Rule and his study in law school. The book is mostly Biblical reflections, though, and while there are hints of his compassionate views about free markets or what can be legislated (and what ought not be) but, to be honest, this is most a delightful introduction to how this good guy learned about his faith, studied Scripture, developed habits of prayer and how to think about everything from angels to Christ’s Last Supper and more. Always moving towards a reasonable, Biblical-based perspective, Scott has given us a truly lovely set of essays, almost like homilies or wise Sunday school classes. Not too deep, but engaging and useful, Christianity and… is a book we are happy to stock.

The Screen and the Mirror: What Movies Show Us About Ourselves, the World, and God Gina Dalfanzo (Cascade) $23.00 // OUR SALE PRICE = $18.40

Gina has been an author we’ve admired for many years, and she has ordered books from us and even invited me to do a Zoom webinar interviewing her about her Plough book, The Gospel in Dickens. (Maybe you attended that, back in the fall of 2020.) We loved her very nice study Dorothy and Jack: The Transforming Friendship of Dorothy L. Sayers and C. S. Lewis, a rare and upbeat work. Through her books and online conversations we’ve come to know that she is a real film buff. What fun! She’s a good pick for this entry in Cascade’s “Pop Culture and the Sacred” series.

The Screen and the Mirror is brand new and we’ve not gotten it into the shop yet, but hope to have it here within a week. The publisher had send me an early e-edition, so I’ve got it! And, man, what a great read. I was hooked with the first honest few pages as she pondered the horrific ending of Chinatown. (And I don’t even know all of the films she discusses. So what? What fun!)

Gina is not the first to do a book like this. (In fact, esteemed film critic Jeffrey Overstreet also just published Lost and Found in the Cathedral of Cinema: A Spiritual Journey published by Broadleaf which could be described as a “film-focused memoir.”) But yet, somehow, Dalfanzo has a touch, an angle of vision, and a tone that is utterly accessible. She’s a very smart woman (again, she’s written about Dickens and Sayers!) but her enjoyment of film is delightful, even when she’s asking pretty significant, worldviewish questions about heavy films. She does a nice job inviting us into films she enjoys as she describes them, sometimes in enchanting detail. But her take on what to take from a film (or any good art) is a bit surprising. And, I think, has some truly striking insights.

One of the important things going on in this study of media, pop culture and the movies is that she gentle criticizes a typical posture that tries to find heros and villains in a film (with us drawn to identify with the hero, of course, even searching for inspiration from the story’s virtuous character.) It’s a bit complicated, but the truth is, that isn’t exactly how storytelling and movies and formation work. And it isn’t the most faithful or fruitful mode for watching.

Here is how the publisher puts it:

Maybe the inspirational model, though it has its good points, isn’t always such a helpful way to view great films and great art in general. Can we learn to watch and think of films in a different way—a humbler way that seeks to learn something about ourselves from the faults and frailties of their characters? This book is an experiment in watching films this way—and a guide to how to take that approach from watching and thinking about films, to how we live our lives.

Speaking of friends of Hearts & Minds, three great pals who write about art and film have exceptionally thoughtful endorsements on the back of Screens and Mirrors — none other than Terry Glaspey, Crystal Downing, and Mary McCambell. If they recommend it, trust me: you should get your popcorn and order this book today.

Encountering the God of Hope: Hope Is Closer Than You Think Connie J. Milchling (PublishU) $15.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $12.79

Okay, again, we are absolutely honored to tell you about this simple book by a long time friend of the store, a customer we’ve known for decades. She is a delightful, strong, mature Christian and I would say this tender book is both a memoir about her coping with the death of her husband and an example — I mean this — of how a Christian person can grow in their faith by focusing much on Christ and His Word. Does that sound like a cliche?  Let me explain.

There is afoot a movement (which I understand and in some ways am a part of) that deconstructs cheesy and even harmful theology and cliches about faith, God, theodicy, and more. I adored Kate Bowler’s witty and powerful memoirs about her terminal cancer diagnosis  and think the her title Everything Happens for a Reason And Other Lies I’ve Loved says so much. No, God doesn’t zap people with disease or cause evil in the world. No, we do not have to be glib about pain (our own or others.) Doubt is fine, dissent is healthy, we should have the scruples to think for ourselves and not comfort to a doctrinaire or toxic church. We should move away from that sort of fundamentalist stuff.

But some have, it seems, thrown the baby out with the bathwater, and we have people of faith who hardly turn to their Bibles for insight and comfort. They avoid classic disciplines of faith formation (what we used to call piety) because that is legalistic or what those fundies do.

Connie, I want to say, and her marvelous book, shows us a good way to be an evangelical, a healthy way to hold dear to the notion that God speaks in His Word, that the Holy Spirit can comfort us, that we can memorize Scripture and journal and pray and talk with others about our deepest hurts and longings and what we discern God is saying to us.

Have you ever felt hopeless? Connie sure did when her husband died suddenly (while in Guatemala on a mission trip, helping, as he so often did.) Can you imagine her journey needing to get the body? Can you imagine the shock of such grief? She tells the story without drama — it is a hard story and doesn’t need embellishing — and her pain was eventually (eventually) healed as she found encouragement from Biblical truth. As he leaned on God. As she did what her church helped her do: trust God, find renewal, grow in hope, even as lament colors just about everything.

I love this book and read it in one sitting. It is what her pastor called “profoundly moving work, sacred in the reading.” That’s how I felt, watching her do this hard grief work by being increasingly transformed by Christ through Scripture: it is sacred. I thank her for telling this story of a hope rediscovered and how it is, as another writer put it, “a gift to be received.”

Connie has remarried a guy named Greg and is a still serving as a pastor and teacher at Living Word Community Church in Red Lion, PA.  We are glad for this simple story of her pain, her struggle for real hope, her use of Scripture in her journey, and how God found her, helping her keep hope alive. Along with Biblical teaching and fine storytelling, there are a few poems, as well. It’s a nice book for anyone, but certainly anyone needing an evangelical guide to recovering from tragedy.

The Great Reawakening: Humanity’s Return to Its Spiritual Roots Matthew L. Camlin (Matthew L. Camlin) $21.99 // OUR SALE PRICE = $17.59

I’m going to switch tones and perspectives, here, just a bit. Matt, too, is a friend, a young, but recently retired PC(USA) pastor in Western Pennsylvania. Some readers of BookNotes will know him from his ministry in New Wilmington where the famous missions conference is held and where Westminster College is located. Other readers surely will know him from playing guitar at our annual retreat for those from small churches, the Wee Kirk Conference. I think the last time I saw Matt was at a retreat I was leading for Presbyterian clergy in his area about reading and the reading life.

I like Matt a lot, in part because of his stellar musical taste (he’s younger than me by decades but we track on a lot) and his literary loves. (nd, he studied with Kenneth Bailey and some other amazing scholars. His MDiv is from Princeton Theological Seminary.

Matt retired recently due to his evolving symptoms from MS. Damn.

Yet, his last years have been give to writing this book; it literally just arrived today so I have not read it in full, but I can tell you from what I know that it is broadly spiritual, generous, perhaps what some might call progressive. It certainly rejects fear-based religion and invites us to the sacred, to connection.

I am sure I’m going to appreciate much of The Great Reawakening in part because it is written both for followers of Jesus (he was a pastor, after all) but also to skeptics and seekers. He is familiar enough with interfaith conversations and world religions to handle those sorts of nuanced matters well. Unlike the above title — straight, lovely, tender evangelical faith at it’s pious best — Matt is edgy, a bit prophetic, and writing with a voice that seems to also tap into global trends and a consciousness that may be emerging in these days of late modernity.

As he puts it on the back The Great Reawakening “is a bold, beautiful invitation to reimagine faith in a time of global unraveling and sacred possibility…. (It) traces a spiritual reawakening already underway across traditions and cultures.” And so,  yes, he is looking also at evolutionary science and indigenous spirituality alongside ancient Christian mysticism.

If you are (or know someone who is) a spiritual refugee or one eager to reimagine our response to life’s most demanding matters, this is both intellectually interesting and, well, soulful.

I like that the very first opening citation comes from the great Kendra Creasy Dean, from her lecture at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary entitled, “Knee-Deep in Flotsam: Reimagining Ministry Now That Everything Has Changed.”  The book looks really interesting, quoting everybody from Stephen Colbert to Robin Kimmerer to papers on religious trauma to Bede Griffiths, Raimon Panikkar, and (of course) Richard Rohr. If only Phyllis Tickle were alive to see this one piece of the “great emergence” she wrote about before her death.

Homegrown Mystics: Restoring Our Nation with the Healing Wisdom America’s Visionaries Bruce Epperly (Anamchara Books) $16.99 // OUR SALE PRICE =13.59

Bruce Epperly used to live around here and has taught at the UCC seminary in Lancaster. We’ve cross paths a few times here and there and it is remarkable to me how many self published and indie press books he has produced in recent decades. Of his several unique and sometimes eccentric works are remarkably sane resources for mainline pastors (published, for instance, by The Alban Institute, the sadly now out of business church research publisher.) Since he is known by us and many of our local friend (especially UCC pastors) and works now mostly with very indie presses, I wanted to celebrate this 2024 volume. It’s fascinating and really entertaining, too. I learned a lot and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Homegrown Mystics is pretty much what it promises: every chapter tells of a different mystic, spiritual leader, religious poet or prophet, and then offer take-away insights (not simplistic) and prayer ideas. In this sense it is almost like a meaty devotional, with inspiring stories and deep calls for spiritual engagement. The closing prayers at the end of each chapter are often profound. These reflective chapters are informative and evocative, helpfully explaining (almost the way Richard Foster does in, say, Streams of Living Waters) the context, spiritual themes, and ministry of the person under consideration.

Not all of the visionaries he writes about are in the Christian tradition, but many are. You have fabulous chapters on these leaders of uniquely American awakenings and the “homegrown mystics” he invites us to learn from are folks like Emerson and Thoreau and Whitman, Emily Dickinson (her chapter is called “Spirituality without Certainty”) and Ann Lee (one of the founders of the Shakers) and the mystic Quaker John Woolman. Naturally, you’ll get Black Elk and John Muir. Moving towards more modern folks he has fabulous chapters on Howard Thurman and Abraham Joshua Heschel. I loved the chapters on Madeleine L’Engle, Mary Oliver, and Maya Angelou.

These wonderful chapter-long reflections are framed by a very good introduction about the spirit of America and our prophets and poets. Are we really a nation of mystics? I wouldn’t have considered that before discovering this little book. It is closed by a really important (if short) chapter called “Mysticism and the Healing of the Nation’s Spirit” about “awakening to our better angels.” Yes, he quotes Lincoln, beautifully so. I would have wished for a citation of Parker Palmer, here, a vital resource for those of us wanting to think in deeply spiritual ways about our public lives and civic engagement, but still. A truly lovely, provocative book.

Wow! The book is amazing! I am an American, and I love my country, but I must admit I’ve been increasingly heartbroken about the state of my country over recent years. Bruce Epperly’s new book brought my American heart more healing than anything else has . . . ever. I can’t recommend it highly enough. It is a gift to the soul of our nation and the soul of each citizen. Enthusiastically recommended! — Brian D. McLaren, author of Faith After Doubt and Life After Doom

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