The Story of Iona

The Story of Iona by Rosemary Power is a welcome and informative look at the long history of a famous location that is west of Glasgow in Scotland, and northeast of Ireland. A small island in the Inner Hebrides, surrounded by water, Iona can be reached by ferry from Oban in Scotland, to the Isle of Mull and then by bus to Fionnphort, and another ferry from there to Iona. It’s not a long distance, but it may be a wet day, or a very cold and windy day. Patient travelers will be rewarded.

Author Power begins with the early days of life on Iona, offering ideas and suggestionas as to who was there, what was their daily life like, were they farmers, what language was spoken, were they people who came from Ireland or from Scotland? Power has done her research and she is also a member of the current community there, knowledgeable and eager for visitors to know what she has learned about the history of Iona, a place of pilgrimage, as well as tourism.

She begins with describing Iona before the Irish Saint Columba arrived. He came to the island in the sixth century, in 563 AD, and began a monastery there. The monastery continued for many years, but Columba died in 597. So in chapters 1–8, Power describes changes that occurred in every hundred-year period. Using descriptions and photos of physical remains of the buildings and artifacts found, as well as written sources, she helps readers imagine life as it was on Iona.

After the Columban period, there were 350 years of Benedictine and Augustinian monastic life. The buildings changed and some were rebuilt by the monks of their time. Chapters 9 and 10 tell their stories. And in the Afterword, we hear of what happened during and after the Reformation, and the continuing life of the community that lives there. Power includes poetry, prose, and prayers of the early, medieval, and high medieval monastic communities.

A group called the Iona Community is not an official monastery but does live by a Rule, which includes daily prayer and Bible study, music and worship, as well as concern for justice and peace. There are other local residents who make a living by farming, fishing, and tourism. There are many visitors, some of whom are there for pilgrimage, some for historical interest, and some come as tourists. There are a few hotels, bed and breakfast places, a golf course. If you plan to go, The Story of Iona, published by Canterbury Press, would serve as a helpful guide.

—Lois Sibley

The Glastonbury Grail Series

Near Glastonbury Tor is the town where, in the 16th century, one of the monasteries of the Church of England, so named and claimed by King Henry, is located. Tor means hill. Glastonbury is the town. Glastonbury Tor is the first in a three-part series of fiction called the Glastonbury Grail Series. Author LeAnne Hardy begins her story in Wales, where Colin, a young man angry with his father, blaming him for his mother’s death, attacks his father and accidently wounds him. Colin thought he had killed his father, but not so. Yet, his brother Walter tells him he better leave, giving him a special ring to identify himself and a purse of money, advising Colin to go to the monastery at Glastonbury across the River Severn in England, where one of the monks is their cousin.

When he is almost there, he sees the Tor ahead of him. Colin meets Wilfrith Thatcher, a local farmer, who offers him a ride in his cart. Tired from many miles of walking, Colin accepts. When they reach Thatcher’s home, Colin is invited for supper and overnight. To his surprise, this family has a Tyndale Bible in English and several family members, including daughter Alice, can read it. They read a portion every night after supper. But that is against the law and Colin will be expected to report them. Of course, he does not. He is surprised and pleased to see and hear a Bible read in English rather than Latin.

Colin stays with them for two days and then finds his way into town and to the monastery, meets his cousin who is now known as Brother Arthur, meets the Abbot and explains his situation, and is granted permission to remain at the monastery for a time, not as an official novice, but just as a person who needs that kind of care for awhile. Colin’s mother had always wanted him to join the church, be involved in a monastery, so he takes his time to look at it and think about it.

King Henry is sending Lord Cromwell’s men around to all the monasteries to inventory goods that might be given or taken for the king’s coffers. Glastonbury Abbey is rich, and Colin is assigned to help secure, and perhaps hide, some items the monks do not want to have taken away from them. Colin soon finds other concerns as well. As monasteries are being closed, monks are being turned away though some want to stay in their areas and continue to help the poor and any who need help. There is talk of petitions to the king. Some of the monks want to march as pilgrims, thinking the king will then change his mind and keep them in their places. There is much more...I haven’t even told you about the special cup yet, the olivewood cup that may have come from Israel with Joseph of Arimathea, long ago when perhaps he came to Glastonbury.

There are many mysteries here. And there is a second volume available, called Honddu Vale, in which Colin returns to Wales to try to reconcile with his father and has further adventures there. And there will be a third book in this series. LeAnne Hardy has been a missionary in six countries on four continents. Her plots and settings are inspired by these locations. She has also  written for children affected by HIV/AIDS. Her books are available at www.leannehardy.net.

—Lois Sibley

One Woman's Spiritual Life

Here it is the last day of Black History Month and I am trying to squeeze in a review of the biography of a famous American woman, Harriet Beecher Stowe. She was author of many short stories, articles, and books, but probably best known as author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, a singularly influential work of fiction against the practice of slavery in the U.S. in the 1850s.

Published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., the book title is Harriet Beecher Stowe, A Spiritual Life, and it is available at www.eerdmans.org. The author is Nancy Koester and she is an ordained Lutheran minister who teaches religion at Augsburg College in Minneapolis.

Harriet Beecher was born June 14, 1811, the sixth child of Lyman and Roxana Beecher. Her father, Lyman, was known as a fiery, evangelical Calvinistic preacher. He was a Congregationalist and served a church in Litchfield, Connecticut. In those days, boys had access to formal education, girls, rarely. But next door to the manse was the Litchfield Female Academy, so Harriet began her education there. She and her sister became teachers though Harriet also knew she wanted to write. And she did: many articles, short stories, books and whatever she could, whenever she could along with her teaching and her rising interest in social action. She was active in helping her sister Catharine gather signed petitions in favor of the Cherokee Nation when they were threatened with removal from their territory. She also became more and more concerned for those who were slaves and she began gathering stories and experiences as she became acquainted with slaves and their stories.

In January 1836, Harriet married Calvin Stowe from Natick, Massachusetts. A graduate of Bowdoin College in ME, and Dartmouth in NH, Calvin taught at Lane Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Lyman Beecher was president. Calvin had been married to Eliza, but when cholera swept through Cincinnati, she died and he then married Harriet.

Through correspondence with Editor Gamaliel Bailey, who started a new anti-slavery paper, called the National Era, Harriet began submitting articles to him. They agreed that attacking slaveholders was not helpful. It was better to show the effects of slavery more broadly, and to try to persuade those who were wavering to give up the practice of having slaves. Stowe’s articles in Bailey’s paper began in 1850 and continued weekly for some time.

In those days, women were not expected to speak in public, especially on issues like slavery, and those who did were shunned as fanatics. But Bailey encouraged Stowe to continue her writing and he continued to publish it.

 In June of 1851, when Stowe was in her 40s, Bailey began to advertise Stowe’s weekly installments in his paper as Uncle Tom's Cabin. She began with her own material, gradually weaving in appropriate Scripture passages, newspaper clippings, anti-slavery writings and other sources. The book was finally published on March 20, 1852. Within the first year, the book sold 300,00 copies in the U.S. and 1.5 million in Great Britain. Thousands of “Stowe’s readers were changed, converted to Christ and to anti-slavery at the same time.” Stowe said “she wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin to ‘awaken sympathy and feeling for the African race.’” She wanted readers to know slaves as human beings in their own right. Slavery was a heavy subject, so Stowe decided to add humor and readers laughed and cried their way through the pages, unable to stop reading.

Reviews, reactions, discussions, disagreements went on for a long time. Stowe continued her writing. She also traveled abroad, first to Britain, then Scotland, and Paris. She and her husband, Calvin Stowe, made three trips to Europe before settling down at home. She continued to write until she suffered the effects of stroke. Author Koester says of her: “She changed the world with her pen.” Harriet Beecher Stowe died on July 1, 1896. Koester has given us Harriet's life in remarkable detail and I for one am grateful.

 —Lois Sibley

Lent, Year A

From Ash Wednesday through Easter Saturday, author N.T. Wright, who is Chair in New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, bids us follow Jesus, his friends, disciples, and enemies, through the Gospel of Matthew with its stories of love and redemption, deep sorrow and loss, but “victory unlike any other, love unlike any other, and a God unlike any other.”

Lent for Everyone, Matthew, Year A by N.T. Wright and published by www.westminsterjohnknox concludes Wright’s series called Lent for Everyone. The earlier two books were Mark, Year B and Luke, Year C. Wright provided his own translation of the Scriptures for each of the books, as well as a reflection on each passage and its application to the culture of that time as well as to our culture in these days. Each day’s reading ends with a brief prayer. I love the prayers. They are so simple, so ordinary, and so reaching out to Jesus.

In Year A, on Ash Wednesday, March 5 this year, Wright begins with his study of Matthew and except for Sundays, when he introduces and applies a Psalm, he continues, ending this Gospel on Easter Saturday. This is the story of “a king coming into his kingdom in a strange and unusual way.” Perhaps we misunderstood it earlier, but now Wright gives us opportunity to study it carefully and “to learn that the whole Gospel story of Matthew, from start to finish, is about the strange way in which Jesus became king.”

In the first three chapters, both Matthew and Wright are saying that “Jesus is the king from the line of David,” and in the close of this Gospel, it is clear that “Jesus, with his resurrection and ascension, has now come into his kingdom.” Jesus says, “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” But maybe our problem is that, looking back, we do not see it. After all that has happened since then, perhaps we don’t see that Jesus IS king of the world. Do you? Do I? Do we live that way? Matthew and Wright and many others have been trying to explain that to us. We are hard-headed and in need of learning so that we may believe it is true, and may live in ways that show others that Jesus is King of all the world. The Gospel of Matthew and Lent, Year A should help us to know and to believe: Jesus is Lord and King of the Universe.

—Lois Sibley.   

The Godly Play Program

It’s about Christian education for children but Jerome W. Berryman calls his new book The Spiritual Guidance of Children. Subtitled Montessori, Godly Play, and the Future and published by Morehouse Publishing at www.churchpublishing.org, Berryman starts with early history of providing Christian education for children, both in the U.K. and the U.S.

Many of us may have heard of Robert Raikes and his first Sunday schools in England in 1780 and on. Children learned to read via Bible stories, learned the catechism and attended worship services. In America, the American Sunday School Union was begun in 1824 in Philadelphia, while the Sunday School Society began in Boston in 1831 and both spread across the country.

A little later, an alternative program for children’s spiritual quest and from a tradition outside the Sunday school movement, was being started by Dr. Maria Montessori in Rome in 1907. Montessori believed that children are “inherently spiritual,” and her teachers were trained to guide children in their spirituality. The assumption was that children have an inner faith from their beginning and they should be supported life long on their journey toward spiritual maturity.

Berryman provides a detailed history of the Montessori tradition and those who were searching  for teachers with the right combination of religious interest, educational talent, confidence and skill to express Montessori’s ideas, and realization of the importance of religion to a young child. When little children respond to something new or beautiful in nature, we may see on their faces that they believe and they want to know more.

A prominent name in this history is Sofia Cavalletti of Rome, author of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program and its teachings, plans, and helpful books. A little later in the U.S., Berryman and his wife Thea were putting together the Godly Play program. There are both similarities and differences in the two programs, though both built on Montessori’s earlier work in the Roman Catholic network. Berryman says that neither program is finished, and both continue to try to find better ways “to help children help themselves to know God.”

Begun in the Episcopalian community, the Godly Play program is quite ecumenical today. The final chapter provides information on ten examples of how Godly Play is being used and diffused into the mainstream of Christian education around the world.

—Lois Sibley

A Tale of Two Maps

Let’s begin the New Year with a fascinating book about maps called How Maps Change Things. A subtitle informs us that it is a “conversation about the maps we choose and the world we want.” Written by Ward L. Kaiser and published by Wood Lake Publishing Inc. under its imprint as Copper House, it is available at www.woodlakebooks.com in Canada, or through WestminsterJohnKnox at www.wjkbooks.com, where I saw it in their catalog.

Author Kaiser asks “What’s a Map For? Keep an open mind. And keep asking. Maps send messages...” says Kaiser, and have always been, more or less, “propaganda.” An example of a map sending messages is the Mercator, which was first produced in 1569, a map for navigation. When used for navigation, the Mercator is a dependable and useful map. For other purposes, Kaiser and other map people claim it is not accurate. The Mercator “enlarges some parts of the world and diminishes others. (Greenland is the same size as Africa!) Where size is concerned, better not depend on the Mercator.”

This book is full of copies of maps of the world done from different perspectives, and it’s easy to see what Kaiser is saying about the Mercator. Even so, many teachers, schools, mapmakers are still using it. On the other hand, after years of growing discontent with the inaccuracies of the Mercator, in Germany in 1974, the Arno Peters map was first published, claiming to be an “equal area map...for the equal value of all peoples.” It was soon in English and is now “widely available in French, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, and Danish.”

This new map produced by Peters has encountered “heated opposition as well as enthusiastic welcome.” The earlier Mercator map, “widely used, was often uncritically assumed to be ‘the truth.’” Peters claimed there was no fairness in it and there was great need for an equal area map. Kaiser has included quotes from many geographers and professional cartographers, who give cogent reasons for accepting and promoting the Peters map over the Mercator.

Included is a study guide for four sessions, providing material for discussion on:1) introduction to the conventions of map making; 2) how maps affect the user’s point of view; 3) what some demographics maps don’t show, such as poverty, energy use, water consumption, life expectancy, religion; and 4) new ideas, encouraging participants to dream about how they could get involved in creating a better world.

This is not a religious book, which is what I usually review on this blog. But....this book is about so much more than just maps. It is about politics, and faith and the values we hold dear. It is about human relations, about justice and peace and budgets and environmental concerns. I think we cannot look at this map book without looking carefully, each with our own worldview, or as the Germans say: Weltanschauung. Our value system will go with us, no matter what we are thinking, discussing, sharing, reading, reviewing. God bless you as you read through 2014.

—Lois Sibley

Christmas Joy to Twelfth Night and on...

Joy to the World,The Forgotten Meaning of Christmas by Isaac Watts and Paraclete Press is an old poem with a new look, available at www.paracletepress.com. Watts (1674–1748) was a Noncomformist in England, a pastor and one who had been a poet since childhood. He wrote about 750 hymns, some of which are still popular and we sing them in our churches today.

Probably the best known hymn by Isaac Watts is Joy to the World. His poetry and hymns were known and popular both in England and in America. It may have had other music in England, but this particular poem was put to music in 1839 by Lowell Mason, an American musician whose name is familiar to any who notice who wrote that music as they read or sing through their hymn books. Paraclete counts Joy to the World as “the most popular Christmas hymn in the world.”

In 1719, Watts was finishing up a project of his to “retranslate” the Psalter into modern use. He wanted people to sing the words of the ancient Psalms in everyday English. Watts was not attempting to “rewrite” a part of the Bible, as some claimed, but rather, he hoped that hymns like Joy to the World would inspire people and encourage them to praise God. He had not thought of it as “a Christmas hymn.” Watts “intended his hymn to be about the second coming of Christ the King,” based on Psalm 98. He might be surprised to hear it called one of the Christmas hymns.

The first four chapters of this little book each use one of the first lines of the four verses of the hymn as a heading, followed by comments by an anonymous writer/editor on the birth of the Christ child, the coming of sin into the Garden of Eden, Christ’s death on the cross, his resurrection, his presence at the right hand of God the Father, and his coming again to judge as King over all. The final chapter is called “For the Twelve Days of Christmas,” and includes brief Scripture passages, plus reflections on Christ the King from the sermons of Isaac Watts. There is no name of an illustrator but the illustrations are appropriate and beautiful on every page.

—Lois Sibley