This morning before Sunday school and church I walked onto the upper deck and looked east after the storms had passed.

Completed Delbanco’s biography of Melville this week. It helped solidify my appreciation for Moby Dick, Billy Budd, and “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” especially.

I’m reading Moby Dick again in 2023, and like the best of the classics, it reaps massive dividends upon deep slow rereadings.

If you appreciate Moby Dick and Melville’s other masterpieces, Delbanco’s bio is worth your read.

My friend Jim shared with me again. Enjoy.

Not unlike a lot of Christian chaplains and believers, I would imagine, I have lots of Bibles. And I always read with a pencil, pen, or marker in hand, even when reading books other than Scripture. So my Bibles are marked up. Some passages are marked for homilies. I may have tiny sermon outlines in the marginalia. I may have people’s names that I know about written by a particular verse or paragraph. I have other passages underlined that I have memorized. On and on it goes. What follows below is a short story of encouragement from reading from one of my old Bibles today. It involves a man God brought into my life during a deployment in Iraq and of how God and my friend still minister.

This morning I was in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians as part of my time in Scripture. But for some reason, I used one of my older Bibles that is falling apart. I used it for years as my main Bible from which to study and from which to craft homilies, etc. It has tons of my notes in it. As I came near to the end of chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians, the pages were all marked up with different colors of ink, and Post-it notes, and marginalia. And when I got to verse 58 of 1 Corinthians 15, a flood of memories washed over me, and I was about to get even more encouragement that I could have hoped for. Follow me.

Context: 1 Corinthians 15 is, of course, one of the New Testament’s greatest apologetics for the bodily resurrection of the crucified Christ. It is nearly 60 verses of empirical evidence of Jesus’ resurrection and of the guarantee of God raising all either unto life in Christ or unto condemnation due to rejecting the gospel. It’s one of those chapters in the Bible where even pagans read it and are moved either unto belief or hardened further into unbelief. How do I know? Because I have seen how people react in services where I have read the whole chapter stratight through and I have watched them. The Spirit acts upon people and one can see spiritual warfare occur right before one’s eyes.

In verse 58 of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul gives the imperative: “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Cor 15:58 ESV). My copy was underlined and emphasized and all of a sudden, a deluge of memories washed over me of the stalwart believers and buddies God sent me during that deployment. Then, at that very moment, I received a text message from one of those guys. He writes devotionals that he sends out to folks based upon his time in studying Scripture. True to my friend’s nature, it was a message of encouragment, of truth unvarnished, but with his remarkable gifting for motivating people unto action. I’ve known some bundles of energy in my life, but this friend of mine rivals any of them for sheer will and motivation. He’s as tough as they come and there is no quit in him, as the saying goes.

Encouragement: Why did I receive that text message from my friend at just the moment I was reading 1 Corinthians 15:58? Why, when I was letting all the emotions and memories and past Bible studies and choir rehearsals and devotionals and sermons and times of the Lord’s Supper, etc., why then?

The pagan could look at this and go, “Bah, humbug! It’s sheer accident, man. Get over it.” Okay, that could be. But then, if one is to be logically consistent, could I not turn around and say to the pagan, “Bah, humbug. You are a sheer accident. And your counsel is mere matter in motion. Dispense with you, you self-contradictory blob of protoplasm!”? See, the unbliever feels like he matters, that his words matter, and that I ought to pay attention to him. But if he were logically consistent, he is nothing. So he should just hush up. But it is interesting how they don’t hush up, the vocal bitter pagans. They just keep yammering.

But there I was … still looking at 1 Corinthians 15:58 in my old worn Bible. And I was remembering the ways my friend in Iraq motivated me amidst trials in ministry, and of how God grew the body of believers there, and of how those whom God gripped are still fighting the good faith of the faith. Paul’s words of encouragement are so clear: “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58, ESV).

I think I know why I received that text message from my friend at just this moment, and just when I was in this particular copy of Scripture, one of those where I’ve all kinds of notes by 1 Corinthians 15:58, and of why my buddy is still engaged in ministry, and of how iron sharpens iron, and on and on. Yes, I think I know why. And I bet you know why, too.

I suppose most folks’ resolutions for 2023 (if given to resolutions) involve laudable goals–exercising more, improving one’s diet, sleeping better, etc. All good goals, I readily concede. But I have learned that nothing repays my labor, time, and mind–my soul–quite like reading. Specifically, reading well.

Reading the great books and living with them via a contemplative life is precious. And finding a select few who share the unique joys of reading deeply is a joy. I’ve met several via our Sunday school class who bring encouragement and interaction by way of a life of reading deeply and reading well.

Below are books I’m reading in 2023. Some, like Moby Dick, I have read several times before. But the more I dive into (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun) Moby Dick, the more I discover its depths. Books of that caliber are inexhaustible. Other books I am reading for the very first time. And then there are some authors whose oeuvre I aim to complete.

If you’re so inclined, join me. And if you’ve volumes you recommend, let me know. Other than talking of books and/or ideas that interest me via my YouTube channel and my little blog, I don’t do social media. I found that social media was prone to being quite unsociable, petty, and snarky. It tended to steal my joys rather than increase them. Plus, it was just a waste of valuable time.

And I’m old enough to know that time is short, that our days are numbered, and I’ve only one lifetime to do what I was created to do.

All that to say this: Below is a glimpse into some of my 2023 reading regimen. I hope it encourages you to perhaps read more, yes, but especially to read well.

Biographies:

The Narnian by Alan Jacobs

Dickens: A Biography by Fred Kaplan

The Life of John Milton by Wilson

Jonathan Edwards by Marsden

Classics of Literary Fiction:

Little Dorritt by Dickens

Love in the Time of Cholera by Marquez

Everything That Rises Must Converge by O’Connor

Stories from the Attic by William Gay

War and Peace by Tolstoy

Snow Falling on Cedars by Guterson

Moby Dick by Melville

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway

The Mansion by Faulkner

Love by Toni Morrison

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Hawthorne (complete)

History/Historical Fiction:

Twilight Warriors by Kitfield

The Solzhenitsyn Reader: New and Essential Writings (1947-2005)

The 13th Valley by Del Vecchio

Yesterday as I hiked up a ridge south of our home, I took a couple of pictures with my iPhone–visual reminders to me of what I love, of those I love, and of why I do what I do.

Press on.

After church today, my wife and I went to one of our favorite local places for lunch. The kids were away, and so we had quiet to ourselves. We got home and walked the dogs. She walked Lady down the road and I took Brewster for a jaunt in the woods and down by the creeks. Then I hit the trail for a few miles after the sun burned the clouds away.

Ascending the hills, a group of joyriders on four-wheelers sped up the ridge behind me, loudly climbing their way to the perches above.

I kept ascending another half mile or so and again I heard the group. They had a loud speaker blaring at the rocky perches at the top. I took a spur to the north and could see out. A flock of vultures threw shadows on the trail. I’d passed a rotting deer carcass down by the creek earlier that Brewster sniffed out. Perhaps the vultures were circling that, I was not sure.

Walking the spur the rocks were slick at times with bright moss.

Thankful for day one of 2023. Grateful for simple pleasures. Cognizant of beauty and aiming to steward well.

Sorry for the intense face. But I love this book.

This book was so good I read it in a night/early morning. It is “country noir.” That is, its characters and themes explore the corruption of government; the down-and-out poor white folks of the Ozarks; the love of the land by those who understand stewardship of creation; the countless tragedies that come by way of methamphetamine and America’s love affair with narcotics, and more. A really fine novel. It spawned a film by the same name starring Jennifer Lawrence as the protagonist, and even the Netflix show Ozark has ripped off much of Woodrell’s novel.

Below’s an 11-minute intro and some thoughts of the way ahead. Thanks for tuning in, liking, subscribing, etc. (My apologies for the yucky face.)

Context: It could have been all the hours in the car over the last few days around Christmas. The family and I hit the road to visit family in Tennessee. But for whatever reason, after many hours behind the wheel, sleep just would not come tonight. So I got up in the wee hours of the night, showered and shaved, made a pot of coffee, and completed my reading of Toni Morrison’s 1992 novel Jazz.

 Introduction to the novel/plot overview: Jazz is the story of a love triangle between a 50-something-year-old man (Joe Trace), Joe’s wife (Violet), and of Joe’s mistress (Dorcas). Joe is a cosmetics salesman in 1920s Harlem. He grows bored with his wife and commits a season of adulteries with a girl young enough to be his child. Dorcas eventually breaks off the relationship with Joe. But unwilling to accept his rejection by the girl, Joe shoots Dorcas. Dorcas dies from her wounds. But Joe’s wife, Violet, harbors ire that must be expressed, and she slashes the face of the dead Dorcas at her (Dorcas’) funeral. Violet is a wife not to be underestimated.

     So a lot is going on here. Joe is a cosmetics salesman. So we have the motif of external beauty, a veneer of attractiveness, etc. And Violet is a hairdresser. Many passages in the novel are given over to describing the texture of black women’s hair, and the shocking levels of judgmentalsim black culture places upon women’s hair. And of course, Dorcas is a biblical character from Acts in the New Testament. She was raised by Peter during the apostolic era following Jesus’s bodily resurrection and ascension. Dorcas (see Acts 9) brought relief in the New Testament. Ironically in Morrison’s Jazz Dorcas not so much brings relief as she is the vessel for bringing out others’ inner demons. 

Style: It was quite clear that Morrison emulated the stream of consciousness technique of Southern gothic titan William Faulkner. It seems no one escapes Faulkner’s massive influence. Perhaps the only writer to match and arguably surpass Faulkner has been Cormac McCarthy in his best novels—Suttree, Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain, Child of God, The Orchard Keeper, and Outer Dark. Like Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, for example, Morrison’s chapters in Jazz are told from different characters’ perspectives. And time is not sequential; it flashes back and forth depending upon the characters’ various states of mind. At one moment, a character will be talking about the current events of 1920s Harlem in New York City, and the next moment, we readers are transported into 1880s Virginia where memories haunt the narrative voice of a particular character, etc.  

Voice: I think my favorite part of this novel was listening to Morrison’s ear for black speech. Because of the shameful political racialization of our day, it is nearly impossible for non-black writers to pen black speech the way it is actually used and not be labeled as racist. But Morrison was able to do so. She was faithful to speech. It was not just because she was a black woman, but she demonstrated in the novel a precision of rhythm and cadence of the spoken word in black American culture that was accurate and completely believable. 

Takeaways: Jazz plays upon several motifs: jazz as interplay and musical expression; 1920s Harlem and NYC; race; movement (from rural to urban, e.g.); a stable family (or lack thereof); and violence. Jazz as a novel is not Morrison at her best (read Beloved and Song of Solomon for that) but it does demonstrate why Morrison was so valued not just by black readers but by lovers of literature. She writes well, and illuminates very unbeautiful realities beautifully.