From the Salmon Library

Editors note: I added an Amazon widge-gidget to the sidebar and as I rotate out the old selections for the new I would like to briefly comment on those selections from The Salmon Library.

“Patience with God” by Frank Schaeffer

This book was a Christmas gift lovingly pilfered from my Amazon wish list. It found its way onto the list when I was searching for insights into the New Atheist movement. Had it not been for the wife I’m not sure I would have ever purchased it. That said….

A reader hoping to gain insight into atheism or religion for that matter will find that this work will not do much to enlighten. The first half of the book is a screed directed at atheism and organized religion alike and those that the author sees profiteering from it; the Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Rick Warrens of the world.

The second half is part memoir part spiritual journey. Under the direction of his parents he was a once a famous child evangelical who at one point fell away from the evangelical life, Where he landed is somewhere he calls the “Church of Hopeful Uncertainly.”

I was left with the impression that Schaeffer believes, like Soren Kierkegaard which he quotes throughout, “that the human race has outgrown Christianity.” In which case I fail to see how he is much different than those that he spent half a book berating.

UPDATE: Our friend at KingShamus found a recent video of Frank Schaeffer.

“Orthodoxy” by G.K. Chesterton

In this classic Catholic apologia Chesterton makes a reasoned case for Christian faith. Not from the view of religion but from the view of a man in search of religion. In fact he begins with the story of a yachtsman that sets sail and because of a series of miscalculations unwittingly finds himself back where he began delighted in his accomplishment and amazed at the things he discovers there.

Along the way Chesterton dismantles the dominate ideologies of his day, equating those that are unable to believe as nothing more than inmates in the asylum. He also shows how it is the paradoxes of religion that non believers find so troubling that are at the core of truth. Truth summed up in the Apostles Creed.

It is not a book for the faint of heart as his rhapsodic and metaphorical style takes more than a few reads to unravel. It was however a challenging but fruitful read and I believe that if catechism class had been as enlightening many a Catholic would not have had to take the same voyage as Chesterton.

“Patriots” by James Wesley Rawles

Rawle’s operates one of the internet’s most popular survival web sites and this book is part novel about the end of the world as we know it and part handbook for would be survivalists.

In this book economic collapse leads to the total collapse of civil society. Fortunately for the main characters they had spent several years preparing for just such a calamity by stocking up on guns, bullets, and beans while honing their military skills and acquiring a northwest redoubt where they could sit out the catastrophe.

Like most books of this genre there is inevitably a faceoff between the survivors and the tyrannical government trying to retake control of the country. As expected truth justice and the American way once again prevails. This book was an enjoyable change of pace in these uncertain times.

Facing Ali

There has been a large amount of work dedicated to Mohammed Ali and his career but this documentary looks at the man and the times through the eyes of the fighters that faced him over the course of his amazing and controversial career.

The movie interviews 10 former fighters that were pivotal in Ali’s career; George Chuvalu, Henry Cooper, Ernie Terrell, Joe Frazier, Ron Lyle, Kenny Norton, Ernie Shavers, George Forman, Leon Spinks, and Larry Holmes. The interviews are intertwined with digitally re-mastered archival footage of their fights.

From a historical standpoint the first hour of the film does an excellent job of placing Ali in the social, racial, and economic context of the 1960s. (This half of the film could be a useful source for an Am. History course) However, after his 3 year suspension from boxing and return in 1973 the film shifts into a fight by fight chronicle of his comeback and eventual decline. It was actually a little painful to watch his final fight with Holmes.

The one failure of the film is in my opinion it's lack of emphasis of the the Frazier -Ali rivalry that produced three of the greatest fights of all times and made that era the pinnacle of the sport.

These 10 fighters were products of the depression (except Spinks perhaps) and each used boxing to escape their hardscrabble conditions. As one fighter noted, nobody from the middle class goes into boxing. Each fighter was acutely aware but at the same time grateful that they were allowed to be bit players in the larger drama which was Mohammad Ali. As Ron Lyle succinctly put it, “If it wasn’t for Ali you wouldn’t be here talking to Ron Lyle today.”

To the films credit the intimate focus on these men highlights that they each have their own life stories which are as compelling and in some cases as personally tragic as the man remembered as The Greatest.

From the Salmon Library

Editors note: I recently added an Amazon widg-gidget to the sidebar and as I rotate out the old selections for the new I would like to briefly comment on those selections from The Salmon Library.

“The Shack”, by William Young

This best seller drew criticism from some corners because I think there were objections to the main character, despondent over the murder of his young daughter, spending a week end with the Holy Trinity. No doubt the embodiment of God, in what I pictured as a jolly Oprah Winfrey, cooking the four of them dinner and doling out bits of Divine wisdom over coffee could be viewed as some sort of heresy by some.

That said, I personally liked the book and I think it was commercially successful because it focused on the importance of Love above everything else. If you can simply follow the instructions of Jesus and love your neighbor as yourself, or better yet go so far as to love your enemies, everything else will more easily fall into place. For me it circumvents the human bias or institutional and doctrinal elements that can be so troublesome in organized religion today.

As someone once wrote “All you need is love, love, love is all you need.” How hard can that be?

"The Box Car Children" by Gertrude Chandler Warner

You are probably wondering how a children's book ended up in the Salmon library. A funny thing happened at the used book store I frequent. Arwen went with me and I planted her in the kids section while I browsed the store. When I came back, I couldn't find her which of course scared the heck out of me, thankfully I located her two aisles over in the kids "chapter book" section.

She had her heart set on a Hannah Montana book so I quickly looked around to find something a little more literary if that is possible in the kids section. I looked up from where she was sitting and lo and behold there was an assortment of the "Box Car Children" series , a book I remember from my youth.

This is bit ridiculous perhaps but this book was something (along with an overdose of John Wayne movies) that I think helped shaped my world view. Here was a group of orphans during the depression that stick together as a family and through hard work and self reliance set up house in an old boxcar. Of course, just like in real life, they discover they have a rich grandfather and they all live happily ever after.

After a few minutes of negotiation I convinced Arwen that this was way cooler than Hannah Montana and that we would read a chapter a night. She really latched on to the adventure as I related our own camping trips. Our nightly reading session became a hit. Now in my quest to turn her into a mini-me I am thinking we might move on to the adventures of Tom and Huck.

"Do You Believe in Miracles? The Story of the 1980 U.S. Hockey Team" (2001)

From the library's video section I have added this HBO documentary about the 1980 Olympic Ice Hockey gold medal win. I wrote on this several years ago when it was presented as part of an American History course I was in a the time. I recently found a copy at our local second hand store for four bucks and couldn't pass it up. If this story doesn't bring a tear to your eye you got to be a commie;)