what are you reading?

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I've been eyeing the movie now that it's up on Netflix. It's been getting a lot of buzz for being a rare major release with an all-East Asian main cast. And singer Kina Grannis, of whom I am a huge fanboy, appears in it singing "I Can't Help Falling In Love" (Kina is half-Japanese, so sort of fits in).

Yobo and I tried to catch the movie at the theater when it was on but it was sold out. :(
 
hmmm At Mendalla I couldn't find it on netflix but will look again. I did like the book and for my edit it was "Crazy Rich Asians"
 
@Pinga, "Educated".

Sorry, I didn't quote, and then Luce slipped in there with his Fear recommendation, which I do not want to read, because if the mere sound of his voice can make me twitch, I suspect I'd be rather tortured at the end of an entire book...

Fear and anger are two of the forces that can separate curiosity (interest) and joy ... thus as we can't deal with good news and bad news as parts of a balanced life ... it warps our vision in regard to great visions that are beyond those adhering to a shell-shocked structure ....

If such a thing can be constructed on the tar Mac ... you may be tarred and run out of reality as something unseen ... an abstract thought is like that ... and few believe in thought process in an emotionally driven world!

Isn't that an out-of-here conception of spontaneous altruism as a virtue? Perhaps even super fluid as quantum energy in a superfluous state of mind ... beyond contemplation for those entangled?

It is so fine to investigate things that other people reject because it is peaceful there ... sort of like getting into Trump's mind ... there's nothing there to distress the scholar one transcending that barrier ... FEAR!

Many Classic Philosophers enjoy this kind of silent friend ... and thus we hide behind crazed leaders ... and in due portion say nothing about their MO's! It is a spatial reciprocation like RL Stevenson's machinations of steam ... sometimes redacted to humble esteem as differing from pride by several notches and niches ... appearing as "v" instead of ^ there ... the humor medium as devinated, Devonian Period! This old and the spot still goes on ... transmuted of course!

Remember that my processing is psychological and many believe the psyche is essence of existence and thus ghostly gestalt in nature ... inky as the test regime that must be unreal as it it only theorized ... according to some antithesis on the pickled sol ... otherwise it could be mythical! These projections are thus trashed as those believing in the disposal and burial of all things not MO'd! Grass roots spontaneity ...

Thus PTSD is an accrued matter ... and humanitarian concepts as considered disposable as well ... where does the mysterious power place dispositioned thoughts? Sort of suppports the out-of-here projection as a tamping of the cannon ... poke at the Big Bang item ...

BA'AL's ... what a myth that is ... when Trump really appears to be built up on insecurity ... and few are cognizant ...
 
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hmmm At Mendalla I couldn't find it on netflix but will look again. I did like the book and for my edit it was "Crazy Rich Asians"

Hmmm. Maybe saw it somewhere else and misremembered it as being NF. It's not even on the coming in January lists.
 
I am reading, "White Fragility" Why it is so hard for white people to talk about racism.' by Robin Diangelo.
It is quite a read. We were to read and pass it along, so will eventually. It is a lot to absorb.
Mainly about the Black population in the USA, but still reaches into what Canada is doing and has done with
First Nations. I can see how intricately it is interwoven into society's sight, and lack of insight.

This book is a good book for balancing what we know, what we think and the truth.

The other book I just got is for our study group. "And She Said" Monologues on Biblical Women in the Bible.'
This is by Betty Radford Turcott. It looks good and am looking forward to this study.
 
Recently finished Galore by Michael Crummey - if you love Newfoundland - he writes some amazing stories.

Just started "Seven Fallen Feathers" by Tanya Talaga - re youth who died, "went missing" in Thunder Bay and the racism encountered there. I rec'd the book last spring when I retired, and I've picked it up a few times, but knowing it would be a heart wrenching read have put it down again. I think now is a good time for me to read it.

Also just started "The New Parish - How Neighborhood churches are transforming Mission, Discipleship and Community" by Sparks, Soerens & Friesen. American. I think it will be similar to some of the books by Alan Roxburgh re meeting God in the neighbourhood.
 
Recently finished Galore by Michael Crummey - if you love Newfoundland - he writes some amazing stories.

Just started "Seven Fallen Feathers" by Tanya Talaga - re youth who died, "went missing" in Thunder Bay and the racism encountered there. I rec'd the book last spring when I retired, and I've picked it up a few times, but knowing it would be a heart wrenching read have put it down again. I think now is a good time for me to read it.

Also just started "The New Parish - How Neighborhood churches are transforming Mission, Discipleship and Community" by Sparks, Soerens & Friesen. American. I think it will be similar to some of the books by Alan Roxburgh re meeting God in the neighbourhood.

Roxburgh is excellent. Read a couple of his books in seminary - "The Missional Leader" and "Missional Map-Making."
 
Roxburgh is excellent. Read a couple of his books in seminary - "The Missional Leader" and "Missional Map-Making."
I like Roxburgh too. I think those are some of his older books. In his more recent offerings, he comments that he may have 'got it wrong' in the past, and now is taking a bit of different focus on joining God in the neighbourhood - understanding what God is up to & how we can catch up - be getting out of our staid church focus and asking very different questions. You may find it interesting to read some of his newer stuff.
 
I like Roxburgh too. I think those are some of his older books.

2006/2009.

Carolla said:
In his more recent offerings, he comments that he may have 'got it wrong' in the past, and now is taking a bit of different focus on joining God in the neighbourhood - understanding what God is up to & how we can catch up - be getting out of our staid church focus and asking very different questions. You may find it interesting to read some of his newer stuff.

Hmm... I thought that's what he was largely talking about before.

I may read eventually read some of his more recent works. There's a couple of other books I want to finish first though - "Echo" by Jonathan Fisk, and "How to Grow" by Darryl Dash.
 
Imagine a joining god in the neighbourhood instead of that one that comes between folks over nothings ...

Such voids can still some folks excessively ... like wry in church as the twist? NoD antes ...

Past was given up for fear of learning something ...
 
I'm just slogging through the end of The Great Work by Fr Thomas Berry. It's a good book, but it's not easy reading, and it's the heart of a book study that feels like it has gone forever. Every "session" that the study guide describes as being done in an hour takes us 2 weeks - we're talkers.

I'm reading the Oord book for the book study here. I'm reading Spong's latest in prep for our next series on Tuesday nights.

When I'm too tired for any of this, I have a Neil Gaiman short story collection and a Karen Armstrong on my library app.
 
I am reading “ Run, hide, repeat” from the e library- by Pauline Dakin. Telling her own story of growing up on the run from something she didn’t know what it was until well into her 20ties- mind boggling story - and how it affected her life and relationships.
 
Been on vacation with no Internet so I did plenty of reading.

The Favorite Game, Leonard Cohen

Mentioned upthread I was finally reading Cohen's first novel (no idea why I have not read it before). I finished it on the trip. I wouldn't say it's his best work, but it's a solid story with some good characterization. As with its successor, Beautiful Losers, it's the writing that stands out. Perhaps not surprisingly for a novel about a Jewish poet from Montreal written by a Jewish poet from Montreal, it's quite poetic at times. The ending feels forced, as it basically explains the whole underlying premise of the novel in a couple paragraphs. Not really a strong way to end a story IMHO.

God Can't, Thomas Jay Oord

Okay, we have a whole thread on this so I'll limit my comments to saying that it's one of the best plain English intros to open/relational theology (which includes process) I've ever seen. Not much new to someone like me who has read about process before (I first encountered it 30+ years ago in an undergrad RS course on the relationship between science and religion taught at St. Paul's College in Waterloo) but a good intro to how process deals with the theological problems of evil and suffering. Oh, and if you read through the copious acknowledgements, you may note the name George Hermanson, who we knew as the user Panentheism on the original Wondercafe. See @Pinga's book study thread if you want to learn more about the ideas presented by Oord.

Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie

In a totally different vein, Ancillary Justice is space opera at its finest. Big setting (a huge interstellar empire called the Radch), big ideas, and a big story about a hidden conflict that could destroy an empire. It's the first in a trilogy that garnered a lot of attention when it came out a few years including, IIRC, some major awards. The plot is basically a conspiracy thriller but with transhumanism playing a major role. Even the protagonist is an AI that once controlled a troop carrier and all its troops but is now reduced to a single human body, the reason being a major part of the plot.
 
we did "Seven Fallen Feathers " In our work book/video club from an indigenous perspective. Check out her on-line talks as well.

Just finished "Son of a trickster" by Eden Robinson-a young adult novel also for our book club from an Indigenous Perspective.
 
Patient H.M. by Luke Dittrich ... supposedly on a man with; "live one day at a time syndrome" due to medical treatments.

Really a brief treatment of the history of the experiment of medicine! One grand quote that raises eyebrows and opens eyes and questions: "Man is not poorer as an experimental animal merely because he can talk."

Opens much to discussion before the men of point shut it down ... thus shafts of silence in the calmer host! Tis all metaphor ... sometimes ecphory ... a word that some people would refuse to recall as part of the darker thing! It may lead to echo/ego in the heavenly state of psyche ... far out there? Maybe not!

Then a wall was created by Planck when he said we could not know ourselves as mystery due to proximity status when dealing with emotional state of stress about the other being different ... god is diverse and Mort hates difference ... thus the hate and fear of God ... in the longer stretch something to know and not shrink from ... thus we return to there ... becoming nothing as something to make up ... out of the zero sum rule ... thus explaining the adolescent enigma of runaway endocrines that infect some folks for some time. I have relatives of great age behaving that way ... standards?

Then there is pressure to support orthodoxy ... no change allowed ... rise to the call ... learning is beyond us! All this through para Belles and metaphor ...
 
As all too often seems to happen these days, I'm reading an old favorite instead of something new. Carnacki, the Ghost Finder by William Hope Hodgson dates to the very early twentieth century. It's a collection of stories published between 1910 and 1912 and first collected in 1913. Each story features the title character, an occult detective and researcher, recounting one of his investigations. Some are legitimately supernatural, some end with a mundane explanation of the events in the story. Hodgson does develop his own paranormal milieu, frequently referencing the fictitious "Sigsand Manuscript" and "Saamaa Ritual" and other made-up supernatural terms and concepts. Entertaining, light reading even if the get a bit repetitive at times. An elevator pitch might be "Sherlock Holmes meets Ghostbusters with a dash of Lovecraft" except that of those three, only Holmes existed when Hodgson was writing.
 
I'm reading the third and final book of the Century Trilogy by Ken Follett. It's a great read. The first book started just before WWI. The second book is around WWII and the characters are the adult children of the characters in the first book. The third book is from 1961 to the 80's Characters are in Russia, Germany England and the US. I'm going to go through withdrawal when I'm done this. I've read the second two books one after the other.
 
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