Reading Update

The Cost of Discipleship is proving to be one of the toughest books I've read. I'm having to read each chapter four times just to process them. This is not the book you read in bed after midnight. It will give you a migraine. I don't know if it's because it was written in the 30's or because it was translated from German, but it's just tough to read at times. Generally, by the second time I read a chapter I understand what he is saying. The third time I read just to argue with him and myself about what he is saying. Finally, it starts to come together for me about the fourth walk through. The real reason I find the book so hard is that it challenges most everything I think I know about following Christ. If it were any other author, I'd dismiss parts of it and keep reading, but this is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. While he is not infallible, his words are weighty enough that they demand to be wrestled with and worked out in my life.

I just got Dallas Willard's book The Diving Conspiracy. I'm excited to start reading it after hearing what a friend of mine said about it, plus seeing it quoted so many times in blogs and books. I think it will be my bedtime reader. Bonhoeffer will be reserved for those moments when I'm alert and my brain cells are firing in synch. After hearing quite a few Einstein quotes and theories in a movie recently, I decided to get his book, Ideas and Opinions, which appears to cover a broad range of topics beyond science.

I watched Kingdom of Heaven with Orlando Bloom last night. It was an awesome movie about the fall of Jerusalem to the Muslims between the Second and Third Crusades. The movie helped to put the Middle East conflict in historical perspective and has great discussion starters about tolerance and diversity. I'm a history nut, but I thought it was an awesome movie. I stayed up till almost 2:00 a.m. reading 10 chapters of Church History covering the rise of Christendom in Europe, the medieval Church, and the crusades.

The library called this morning to say that my book(s) were ready to be picked up. I think there's at least three. I like to multi-task my reading to keep it interesting. Life's too short to be ignorant.