Our small group decided to tackle 7 as our next book and will start discussing it next week.  I am so excited!  As part of reading the book, we are individually doing a week long fast in the spirit of the month long fast Jen Hatmaker did.  The first fast was a food fast.  Jen and her husband ate only 7 foods for a month as part of their food fast.  Mine (and my husband’s) is a little different.  First of all, we started Friday because the week we would be doing our food fast is the same week that we will have company for my daughter’s baptism.  Since feeding people kind of stresses me out, I want all my options open when we have family here.

Also, for our fast we will be eating food.  Only food.  Before you start laughing at me, here is a small sampling of foods we cannot eat this week:  almost all commercially sold bread, almost all cereals including the Kashi cereal that I like, lunchmeat, creamed corn, preshredded cheese, coke and diet coke, hotdogs, chicken nuggets, and pizza.  We are not eating any foods that contain bleached enriched flour, corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup, preservatives, or any ingredient with a chemical name (besides vitamins and minerals) or with the word “modified”.    I am very thankful for wikipedia for helping me decipher ingredient lists.   Also we are not eating ice cream or chocolate even if it is all natural since it seems wrong to eat those during a fast.

This is day 3.  The night before we started, I baked a loaf of wheat bread.  There is a pretty good chance that I messed up the recipe since someone interrupted me between cups of flour demanding a band aid for a non-existent injury.  Anyway, it was NOT good.  Gross and hard as a rock, in fact.  So, day 1 involved a trip to Kroger.  Our Kroger has a pretty lame natural foods section.  I found 1 loaf of bread in line with our restrictions, so I paid $4.59 for a loaf of German dark wheat.  I also paid the same amount for organic flour (ingredient contents: wheat), so I could bake something that tasted better than German dark wheat.  So, $9 for the privilege of eating peanut butter with something besides a spoon.  The first night, we ate whole wheat spaghetti with spaghetti sauce, cucumber, salad, and a much yummier version of bread courtesy of my bread machine with real butter since margarine is NOT allowed.

Yesterday, was day 2.  I had oatmeal for breakfast with lots of fruit and a glass of milk (lactose free even if it is slightly modified milk).  I do not like oatmeal.  Even with brown sugar–yuck.  Lunch was pretty manageable since pita chips and hummus are both on the good list.  Last night we managed to eat steak, baked potatoes, green beans, yummier version of bread, and spinach salads.  This definitely does not seem to be much of a fast except there is not steak marinade that does not include corn syrup or soy sauce.  Somehow, I was hungry when I went to bed and woke up hungry this morning.

The hardest part so far has been going without caffeine, we finally broke out the regular caffeinated tea so that my head would stop pounding and I could stay awake in the afternoon. In my head, I kept thinking that everything would be better if I just had a can of diet Coke.  Um, yeah.  That was what I missed the most.    Anyway, the first big test will be the church super bowl party this evening.

So, what is the point in all this?  I feel like this past year I have spent a ridiculous amount of time thinking about food.  Because I am picky about food (I do have brand loyalty on some items) and our grocery stores are not very good (by American standards), I generally shop 2-3 stores each week to feed our family.  Also, we have kids activities 4 nights a week, so I rely pretty heavily on quick cooking food for dinner.  So much of American life is centered on convenience and this is particularly true in what foods we eat.  Also, this fall our Compassion child asked us in our letter if we were involved in agriculture.  I would hardly call my somewhat successful attempt at a garden “involved in agriculture”.  I am a consumer,  plain and simple.  By removing the convenience, I am hoping to make room for God to talk to me about the work it is to feed people.  I am feeling a little guilty about digging up the garden, but that is a topic for another time.

Hopefully, this “fast” will help me gain perspective on food so I want to keep it up after the week is up.

One of the magazines I read (I don’t know which since I read way too many to keep track), mentioned that it takes 21 days to change a habit.  The point was to sell us on an app or website that will help you with changing your habit, but the take away I got was that it takes 3 weeks to change a habit.  For instance, if you made it your resolution to stop cussing and made it to today without cussing, you should be cured of your potty mouth.  Great, right?

Based on this reasoning, if you have kept your resolution all the way to today, you are in the clear!  You are already a winner!

Whether or not that is actually true, after 3 weeks I can already tell that I have changed some habits.  As I have mentioned before, I am doing weight watchers.  I haven’t lost very much weight so far, but I do love it.  In fact, I love it more now than when I quit 2 years ago after losing much more weight.  I plan to quit again in March, so I do not love it enough to continue to pay for it, but I do love the way they have changed it since I quit last time.

Some time between October 2009 and December 2011, the point system changed so that most fruits and veggies are free.  Before, I would cut fruits and veggies out so that I could eat other things.  Actually, that was their suggestion when my weight loss slowed down to nothing.  Now, they are my go to foods.  That in itself is a new habit.  Yea me! Also, I ate an oreo last week and it tasted gross.  Isn’t that awesome??? Don’t get me started on the Sonic menu that I spent 10 minutes with on Thursday waiting for my soon-to-be-free iced tea! I have some other go to foods that unfortunately can only be purchased at Walmart.  This I am less excited about, but since I fantasize about hummus and pita chips and feel uncomfortable about eating anything but my Kashi hot cereal for breakfast, I do what I have to do.

I have also noticed that my thoughts travel much more frequently to ways to help people.  This is obviously an improvement over being selfish, but some of my thoughts have been a little bit scary.  I am not going to share any of them yet since my husband reads this blog and I don’t want to frighten him.

I have also been thinking less about shopping.  Yesterday, I spent almost all day at home doing nothing.  Part of the reason was that my back hurt, but ordinarily I would have used a free day to go to Target at the very least.  Yippee and thank you God–less crap in my house!

So, anyone else doing good with breaking or making habits for the new year?

In doing these sharing activities, I am expecting some of them to be spontaneous.  A need arises—> we do something to help.  Other activities are going to be planned because I think we should also be making an effort to find ways to help others instead of waiting for them to show up at our door.

I plan to write about some of this.  I am not doing it so that others will look at me and think any differently about me.  I am doing it because writing is a form of accountability and because I am hoping that many of the things I write about will be easy to do and you can do it too.  I am expecting that some of it will be hard to do too.  So far, it has been easy and hard.

I have a few rules for myself.  First,  it is not a generous act if it costs me nothing.  For instance, I got a free t-shirt on Saturday for not giving blood and  I donated it today.  That doesn’t count because I did NOTHING to deserve that shirt and I don’t need it.  Also, no money is required.  There are lots of ways to share that do not involve money.  Third, my children have to know about it.  If I can’t tell or show my kids, it doesn’t count.

So far, this is what I have done.

Week 1: I made dinner for a family with a new baby.  This cost me the cost of a box of mac and cheese, so about $2.  All the other materials were already in my kitchen.  For a lot of people, this would not be a big deal, but I really do not enjoy preparing meals to deliver.  It really stresses me out.  Knowing from experience what a blessing meals are, I was happy to share even if I did not get to hold that baby.

Week 2: My plan was to donate blood.  There was a blood drive on Saturday, and I showed up ready to be drained.  It was not to be though since my iron was too low.  I appreciate the vampires not wanting me to pass out on them, but giving me a t-shirt for my willingness did not help.  January 14th, and I had already failed.  I am not giving up though.

Week 3:  So far, I have been able to do two.  First, I wanted to do something nice for my husband’s cousin who saved up her own money to buy gifts for everyone on Christmas.  My kids were really impressed with her, so I wanted to emphasize that they do not have to be grown up to share with others.  We got her (and her little sister) a gift card for clothes.  Even if she doesn’t need winter clothes, she can use it whenever she does need clothes.  She lives where there are 4 seasons, so she may actually need more clothes than those of us biding our time until it is shorts weather again.  This was my first use of money, but I was very happy to do it and to write her and tell her why.    Second,  I donated some clothes from my and my husband’s closets.  This is something most of us can do especially if we get honest about what we have in there.  Anything that doesn’t fit should go. Even if you are on a diet and having some success, when you reach your goal, you will want new clothes.  This is experience talking.  Also, if you haven’t worn the clothes in the past 12 months, you won’t miss them.  I donated ours to our local mission, but any ministry that operates a thrift shop is a good place to donate clothes.  Even if they are stained, some places will take the clothes and sell them bulk. We also donated sheets.  Our linen closet was out of control and since I am of the remove sheets, put in wash, put in dryer, put back on bed cleaning style, we did NOT need 8 sets of sheets for our bed.  Also my son no longer has a twin  bed and no longer loves Thomas–those over priced sheets had to go.

I also tried to get registered to be a bone marrow donor, but I am not qualified to donate bone marrow.  As long as you are healthy and do not have an auto-immune disease or dangerous lifestyle, you should see if you qualify. The website is marrow.org.

What are you doing to share this year?

So, it is a new year!  I thought I was all clever in coming up with my goals (not resolutions) for the new year until I looked at my published resolution and goals for 2011.  My resolution for 2011 was to enjoy my life more.  I am going to claim complete failure on that one.  I specifically hated February, April, and September.  The other 9 months were just okay.  My plan to enjoy my life more included:

1.  Spend more time with God and memorize scripture. (I was great with the scripture for about 6 months.)

2. Get the clutter out of my house.

3. Spend less time on facebook.

4.  Eat better and exercise.  (This included giving up Diet Coke which DID NOT HAPPEN.)

5.  Email less and have more conversations.

6.  Spend less time shopping.

7.  Read more.

So, you can see how un-clever my 2012 list is:

1.  Live more generously.  I plan to do something generous each week of 2012. I am overwhelmed by how much stuff we have, and I refuse to let the fact that it is not nearly as much as other Americans have numb me to the fact that my blessing are excessive.  I want to share.

2.   I want to be more healthy.  So far, I have started back up doing weight watchers (I took this week off since I am pretty sure I burned 1000 points pulling up tile in my kitchen.).  I did ww back in 2009 and have jumped back  in at the weight where it was grueling to lose any weight at all last time.  I am talking 1 pound every 3 weeks grueling.  So far, I have lost 2.5 pounds in 3 weeks.  I plan to do ww for 2 months or so.  I am so glad that since the last time I did ww, they started making fruits and veggies free–such a huge improvement.  The ironic thing is that my goal weight is more than what I weighed when  I was in high school.  You know, back when I was fat.  Also, I am giving up Diet Coke for lent.  I really hope that a few months free of that nasty deliciousness will break my addiction to calorie free carbonated bliss.

3.  Spend less time shopping.  I really want to spend less money and buy better stuff.  I think that it will work if I am spending less time shopping period and get what we actually need instead of seizing good deals.

4.  I am going to write our will.  This has been on our to do list forever.  Now that I have bought the software, I need to pull a Nike and just do it.

5. Spend less time on facebook.  I am giving it up again for lent this year.   Woohoo! Oops, I mean I am SO going to miss you guys…

6.  I am also reading the Bible this year.  I don’t have a reading plan besides writing the books down after I have read them.  I am in the middle of Psalms so my list is very unimpressive/nonexistent.

Besides setting goals, I made a list of what I am looking forward to in 2012 back in December.  I am so excited about:

-my nephew arriving!

-resolutions to 2 big unresolved prayers from 2011

-my daughter being baptized-  she is so eager for us to set the date for that so she can send invitations to her friends!

-curbside recycling – ours started this month.  Just seeing our recycling bin in front of our house makes me giddy!

-some of my clothes fitting again in a few weeks.

-seeing the girls dance in their recital

-new floors in our kitchen – we installed them this week!

-my husband not having 8 o’clock classes this spring!

-not going to Disney World!

What are you looking forward to this year?

The book we finished most recently is Kit’s Surprise: A Christmas Story.

In this book, Kit’s father has lost his job and her family has taken in boarders to make end’s meet.  Kit deals with her pride being hurt when her friend gives her a hand-me-down dress and working for her great-uncle to help her family to be able to pay the electric bill as a surprise for her mother.  There is no particular christian perspective in this depiction of Christmas, but it is really great in giving some perspective in gift giving at Christmas.  Kit’s dad repaired her typewriter as her gift, her brother gave her some sheets of paper, and her mom gave her a pin that she received as a child.  According to Kit, it was the best Christmas ever.

The thing that really gets me is the fact that if I wanted to get my daughter a Kit doll, it would cost $100.  Ro doesn’t really get too much into dolls, so I don’t feel bad for not trying to get her one.  (I did find her a miniature Samantha though–only $20!) The outcome of reading the Kit books for her was really wanting a typewriter so she could make newspapers like Kit.  If she did love dolls though, I would really struggle with spending $100 for a doll.  Doesn’t this seem a little weird?  This character depicts making do with what you have and really seeing what is important, but her doll seems to depict a lot of what disgusts me about our culture.

In our culture, there really seems to be a need for us to take a look at our lives and realize that most of what are just commonplace parts of our existence are truly luxury items even in first world countries.  Maybe, we would all enjoy our lives a little more if we had fewer luxuries and more ability to share with those around us.  I am not talking about extravagant artwork or vacation homes.  I am talking about massive tvs with hundred of channels and nothing on, phones that keep us connected to everyone at every moment,  a car that comes with lots of features and a big payment, a house that is full of stuff but not full of people, or a $100 doll of a girl from the depression.  I am sure that we all have things in our lives that are nice, but we would not miss if they were gone.  Thank you American Girl for helping our family to enjoy what we have a little more even if we don’t get your $100 dolls.

Bedroom

Recently, I have had two strangely complementary hobbies.  First, we have been getting our house ready to sell.  Over a year ago, we were looking at buying another house and decided not to for several reasons.  The biggest reason was that we did not want to rush the getting our house ready to sell process.  We have done several necessary projects to make our house more sellable in the past several months.  The other hobby has been cleaning and decluttering our house, so that I can handle living here.  I have just been so tired of the stuff that a family of 5 manages to have.

This morning when I got up, our bedroom was clean.  I had finally conquered my nemesis a few weeks ago, and we have been enjoying our clean room.  Today’s project was to stain the cabinets in the kids/guest bathroom.  Unfortunately that bathroom has the interesting distinction of having the most storage space in our entire house.  Honestly, it is ridiculous how much storage there is in that little bathroom.  Since we were going to be sanding, I went ahead and pulled everything out of the bathroom cabinets and moved it to our bedroom.  The picture above was the result.

While my husband stained, I went through the cabinet stuff hoping to dispose of much of the contents.  Seeing as several boxes were sealed from our move here 5+ years ago, I figured there would be much to throw away.  Instead, I found TREASURE!

First, I found my ASC folder from college.  I had been wanting a “new” binder to organize some of my recipes and this binder even had dividers!  Second, I found the spiral notecard book that had the Bible verses I was memorizing in college.  A quick flip and I was shocked to see that I was learning some of them this year.  Really!  My brain must be somewhat fried that I didn’t recognize them as verses I had learned before.

Third, I found my husband’s glasses, and gave them to him.  The frames are totally dated, but now at least 5 years later, he can see!  Next, I went through a box of letters I received in high school and college (not including letters from my husband–he gets a special box!).  Every time I see the box, I wonder why I still have it.  Then I open it and remember.  The letters are shockingly hilarious.  I despise the expression LOL, but it would definitely apply here.  Judging from a quick flip, I should have dated a lot more back then.  I think that my family and life now are much better off that I didn’t though.  In the mess of letters from primarily boys, I found letters from my grandma, parents, and other family members that are definitely keepers.

Other notable finds included letters from campers from when I worked at Pine Cove,  Pine Cove medallions, crib bedding (anybody need this?), a birthday card signed by everyone who went on the Godspell choir tour in 1991,  and all the christmas card pictures we received in 2005 (sorry those are in the trash now).  I also realize that I have my wedding shoes,  hosiery, and garter, but not the sixpence that was in my shoe.  It would be nice to know where that ran off to.

My husband is going through his boxes and I can hear him laughing from across the house.  So much fun coming from such a small bathroom….

Today is different.  I am jealous.  Before, I didn’t really care that only like 8 people read this blog because I write because I want to write not necessarily to be heard.  Now, I care.  Today, there are 5 bloggers in Ecuador writing about their experience on a Compassion trip.  Since I heard about their blogger trips a few years ago, I thought that it would be so awesome to go.  I figured I needed to actually have a readership to apply so I haven’t applied.  I wouldn’t be jealous except they are in Ecuador and so is my Marcelo.  I don’t know how long we have sponsored Marcelo, but when we signed up we wanted a boy Eli’s age, and Marcelo was the youngest one we could find.  Marcelo will be 10 in January. He also had the surliest expression on his face, and we still, years later, have not seen a picture of him smiling.

I have to confess that if I was in Ecuador, I would have to sheepishly confront the fact that I have not done a great job writing Marcelo.  We got a letter a few weeks ago that made me realize that he doesn’t know much about us at all.  I sat down and wrote him a rather long letter (the translators can’t complain–we are not regular writers) explaining things to him like where we live (in the US, in Texas) and that we are not agricultural except for our drought and laziness ravaged garden.  He keeps asking us to visit him, but telling him we can’t afford it seems silly when he experiences such intense poverty. That doesn’t mean that we don’t want to visit him though.

So, in honor of a missed opportunity to see my surly faced boy Marcelo, I will wear my surly face for a while and then try to live vicariously through the bloggers who get to go.  And not totally hate them.

Based on my not-so-clean break, I actually probably need a real year off from leadership, but I have found that I don’t  enjoy followership so much either.  Before I get too far into this, I need to make clear that I have no criticism of the leadership of the people that have taken over my old stuff AT ALL.  Not a bit.

So here goes….  I am actually a born leader.  I have tried in the past to avoid admitting it, and let insecurities keep me from leading.  Now, I am saying it–  I am meant to lead.  I am also a born leader with a pride problem, so, yes, I am probably thinking “I could do that better.” at some point for just about every leader I know.  Isn’t that a beautiful confession?  This goes from Barack Obama to my daughter’s girl scout leaders and everyone in between.    Now, of course, just because I have thought that at some point does not make it true.  AND, even if it were true that I could do that better, it does not mean that I should do it. Especially when I have committed to not leading for my “time off”.

Here is my top 5 least favorite things about following:

1.  Not being intimately aware of all the details at all times- Do I sound like a control freak or what?  Can you see how God and I might butt heads from time to time about my plans?  Honestly, I am a pretty relaxed person, but part of the relaxing part is knowing what the plan is ahead of time.

2. My suggestions are just suggestions – I am not someone who feels like I need to be obeyed, so I am not saying that I want to be obeyed.  What I mean is that when I get an idea, I can’t just do what needs to be done to make it happen.  I have to tell the leader and respect her/him enough to let her/him decide what to do.  As a doer, this is not my natural approach to life so not doing is actually work for me.

3.  Leaders don’t always plan around my schedule – When I was leading more things, often I would I plan things around other people’s schedules.  Often, they did not show up, and I was inconvenienced (this is me being nice).  I can think of 3 memorably bad ones.  One time was the very bad start to a weekend that took me several months to get over.  Another involved me doing everything for an event when I had the flu, and no one was there who could cover for me.  This spring, I decided I was done planning around other people’s schedules, but then I stopped leading. Eventually, I would like to plan around my own schedule and see what it is like.

4.  People who were jerks to me-the-leader aren’t any nicer to me-the-follower – I don’t know why I expected a few people to be nicer to me now.  Jerks are jerks.  I just don’t enjoy being talked down to, and I get more of that now.

5.  I end up thinking, “I could do this better” – This time I am really meaning, “I hate putting up with other people’s lack of organization”.  Seriously, I don’t know of any children’s activity (besides church and school) in our town that has the calm of being well organized.  Every time I take my kids anywhere, it feels like we walk into a whirlwind of chaos.  I suppose we should be used to it by now, but mostly I just get excited if some adult addresses my child by their actual name in the first 5 minutes of arrival, and otherwise, appear grumpy.  I guess I just don’t handle chaos well.

Even though I have this list, the fact is that as much as I am called to lead, I am also called to follow.  I am supposed to follow Jesus who has never done things the “normal way”, my husband whether I agree with him or not, and the leaders and authorities God has placed over me.  This is a good thing.  Also, it is exciting for me to see people take ownership of ministries that I love, helpful to practice humility, and peace to not have all the details to worry about.

Before I get too far into the book, I wanted to mention something about the author.  I kind of recognized his name when I bought the book, but did not know why.  Well, it turns out that I already own some of his work.  Here is one off our bookshelf.

We also have Lyle the Kindly Viking which he also co-wrote.  One of his other biographies was one on William Wilberforce.  I read the author bio after I read the Bonhoeffer book and was a little shocked at how diverse his writings are. Eric Metaxas is very talented.

So, back to my German friend.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived from 1906-1945 in Germany.  He was a theologian, a christian pastor, a writer, a staunch opponent of naziism, and for his part in an assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler, he spent years in a Nazi prison before being killed.  I found most everything about his life interesting.  Because it took 648 pages for Metaxas tell about his life, I am not going to try to do it in one blog.  Instead, I want to give a brief descriptions of what I got out of it.

First,  reading about a “good German” during the time of Naziism is refreshing.  I guess it just makes me feel better knowing there was a large (but not large enough) population of Germans that were fighting the nazi atrocities.

Second, a currently popular topic in Christian circles is the idea of religion being tied to national identity.  This is one of the ways that Hitler was able to control Germany.  As soon as he came in and seized power, he sought to eliminate any pro-Jewish sentiment from the Bible and paint Jesus as an Aryan hero.  This, of course, is blasphemy, but since many of the Germans considered their christian faith to be tied to being a good German instead of a passionate pursuit of God, it was difficult for those of true faith to overcome the changes to the German church.  Bonhoeffer was a passionate fighter of the changes the nazis were making to the church and was part of starting a separate church and seminary.  However, there were too many people that saw Hitler as the strange combination of too powerful or not truly evil enough to counter.  Besides, no one wanted to give up their reputation as a good German.

Third, I find bigotry to be an interesting international problem.  Dietrich spent a year in the United States with a fellowship at Union Seminary in New York City.  He wrote home and frequently discussed with disgust the race situation in the United States.  The international community saw the treatment of American blacks during the first half of the 20th century to be deplorable, especially from a nation that boasted of equality.  This was of course well deserved, but ironic since Europeans murdered millions of each other in the name of ethnicity around the same time. How such issues would come to a head at the same time in many different places around the world seems incredible to me, and a great example of a plank in the eye.

Next, the reason that I seem to see a lot of Bonhoeffer quotes in books I am reading is because the ideas that many of the recent “emergent church” books are not new ideas.  In fact, I am very eager to read to read some of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s books because much of what I have read so far seems so much more scholarly and well thought out than what I have been reading from contemporary writers.  This is not a universal judgment, but just as an overall impression, his emphasis seemed to be much more on God and scripture and less on making Jesus palatable to Gen X and Y or telling me that I don’t know Jesus enough.  In fact, I am actually trying to learn German so I can read his work in German.  I am not very far into that process (and please don’t ask me to pronounce anything!), but, now I have a goal!

So, ready for some quotes?

” ‘The religion of Christ”, he said, “is not a tidbit after one’s bread; on the contrary, it is the bread or it is nothing.  People should at least understand and concede this if they call themselves Christian.”"

“There is no way to peace along the way of safety.  For peace must be dared, it is itself the great venture and can never be safe.  Peace is the opposite of security.  To demand guarantees is to want to protect oneself.  Peace means giving oneself completely to God’s commandment, wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of the Almighty God, not trying to direct if for selfish purposes.  Battles are not won with weapons, but with God.  They are won when the way leads to the cross. “

“God was bigger than everyone imagined, and he wanted more of his followers and more of the world than was given him.  Bonhoeffer recognized that standard-issue “religion” had made God small, having dominion only over those things we could not explain.  That “religious” God was merely the “God of the gaps,”  the God who concerned himself with our “secret sins” and hidden thoughts.  But Bonhoeffer rejected this abbreviated God.  The God of the Bible was Lord over everything, over every scientific discovery.  He was Lord over not what we did not know, but what we knew and were discovering through science.”

After that I read two books that I would classify as Bible fiction.  Is that a genre?  Anyway, what I mean by Bible fiction is books based on actual Bible stories but filled in with back story and details that could only be speculation at best.  The first was Gods and Kings: Chronicles of the Kings #1 which followed the ascent of Hezekiah to becoming king of Judah.  I have never really been interested in these kind of books, so I was surprised how interesting it was.  The time frame covered by Kings and Chronicles in the Bible is marked by the cycle of idolatry that God’s people seem to fall into time and again.  The picture of idolatry in this book was certainly frightening and yet it was easy to see how the people slid into it time again.  I don’t know that I will read any more of these, but this one was a pretty interesting read.

The second Bible fiction book I read was Luke’s Story from The Jesus Chronicles by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins–those Left Behind guys.  The book was a fictionalized biography of Luke who wrote the gospel of Luke and Acts. Since Luke did not actually meet Jesus, the book presented the perspective of a christian follower of the early church and why the message of Jesus was so appealing and spread so quickly. Once again, pretty interesting.  I particularly liked how human all the disciples and early church leaders were and how there was a measure of awe of meeting with Jesus’s mother.  I am definitely not a Mary worshipper, but I love the reverence with which she was treated.

Next up for writing will be Dietrich.