In the very first sentence of his memoir Nothing to Be Frightened Of (2009) Julian Barnes writes the following;

“I dont believe in God, but I do miss him”

The disciples were full of questions about God.
Said the Master, “God is Unknown, the Unknowable. Every statement about Him,every answer to your questions, is a distortion of the Truth.”

The disciples were bewildered. “Then why do you speak about Him at all?”
“Why does the bird sing?” said the Master.

Not because he has a statement, but because he has a song.
The words of the Scholar are to be understood. The words of the Master are not to be understood. They are to be listened to as one listens to the wind in the trees and the sound of the river and the song of the bird. They will awaken something within the heart that is
beyond all knowledge.

I have just finished reading this remarkable little book of parables by Anthony De Mello. You can find “the song of the bird” here. It is my favorite book this month.

Amoz Oz was recently in Gothenburg (where I live) promoting his newest book “Rhyming life and death”.

It made me pick up a copy of  Amoz Oz`s “how to cure a fanatic”. If you haven’t read it, it is a must read (and short read) for anyone interested in finding common ground with people you don’t necessarily like, and how to find a way to live together with people you dont really want to live together with!

If you dont want to read it have a look at some of his thoughts on the Palestinian/Israel conflict.

Part one:

Part two:

I have read so many fantastic books 2008, old and new. Here are a few that are outstanding:

Fiction:

Midnights Children by Salman Rushdie

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostevsky

Nonfiction:

Let your life speak by Parker J. Palmer

The bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad

Biography:

a billion lives by Jan Egeland

Theology:

The CS lewis book on the bible by Schriftman,

Christian thought revisited by Gonzalez

Doxology by Geoffrey Wainwright

The new Christians by Tony Jones

The fingerprints of God by Robert Farrar Capon

What are your top books this year?

I saw a documentary about Amos Oz tonight. You can watch it here.

He says the following towards the end of the movie;

“we live now in a world where people work harder than they should be working in order to make more money than they really need, in order to buy things they don’t really want in order to impress people they don’t really like. this will lead to a certain reaction, and this reaction will brings back some kind of voluntary collectivist spirit.”

Amos Oz

Read more about this remarkable writer here, and read an interview with newsweek here.

” Many denominations, movements, and individual Christians hold to a certain position not because they have honestly examined all possible viewpoints and then arrived at their conclusion; they simply believe what they believe because they have never heard anything else. Or, if they heard of an alternative, they immediately dismissed it without serious consideration – because they felt threatened in their beliefs and were perhaps frightened that their strong fortress would turn out to be a house of cards.”

Jacob Schriftman in his book; “the C.S. Lewis book on the bible”

Read my review of the book here.