Mikhael
Maybe four and a half stars. I enjoyed this, and I am thankful to have grown up in a place where things actually got dark and bugs and wild animals and plants were part of everyday (or should I say everynight) life. I'm still on a nature high after visiting some national parks, so this was a good book to fuel that wonder. Only critiques are that she sometimes she tries too hard to be profound and edgy by romanticizing darkness, but like, duh humans aren't nocturnal animals so don't expect us to be as appreciative of the night as the day. I do appreciate that she came closer to balancing it yin-yang style at the end, dualism but make it circadian.
Maybe four and a half stars. I enjoyed this, and I am thankful to have grown up in a place where things actually got dark and bugs and wild animals and plants were part of everyday (or should I say everynight) life. I'm still on a nature high after visiting some national parks, so this was a good book to fuel that wonder. Only critiques are that she sometimes she tries too hard to be profound and edgy by romanticizing darkness, but like, duh humans aren't nocturnal animals so don't expect us to be as appreciative of the night as the day. I do appreciate that she came closer to balancing it yin-yang style at the end, dualism but make it circadian.
Added to listOwnedwith 1 book.
Read most of this on a flight, occasionally looking out over sunlit desert hills, pretty scenic. This is some rich poetry, and my biggest takeaway was I think my brother is an unintentional Taoist, which if Lao Tzu is to be believed, is the perfect kind. Do without doing; be without being(?)
Also Le Guin’s footnotes for almost every chapter were helpful and sometimes contained nuggets more valuable than the poems they comment on.
Also kept in my mind that “Tao” is the same word used to translate “Logos” in the famous John 1 passage. Makes for a sort of Jesus-centered mysticism of the Tao, about which I wanna read more in the future
Read most of this on a flight, occasionally looking out over sunlit desert hills, pretty scenic. This is some rich poetry, and my biggest takeaway was I think my brother is an unintentional Taoist, which if Lao Tzu is to be believed, is the perfect kind. Do without doing; be without being(?)
Also Le Guin’s footnotes for almost every chapter were helpful and sometimes contained nuggets more valuable than the poems they comment on.
Also kept in my mind that “Tao” is the same word used to translate “Logos” in the famous John 1 passage. Makes for a sort of Jesus-centered mysticism of the Tao, about which I wanna read more in the future
My brother gifted me this back in November, but I'm glad I waited til break to read it. Felt bizarre how much the details resonated generally or even specifically with my life:
- UIUC, and specifically my current town Urbana
- Polynesia (although I've mainly been studying Polynesian languages, not the actual land)
- French, which I started learning last January
- AI (my advisor and I have had several discussions on this)
- Friendship among two avid readers of different cultural backgrounds, one of whom introduces the other to Go (subtle nod to my buddy Tanfu who taught me the game last January)
- Taoism, about which I just started reading this week (also at Tanfu's recommendation)
- Lady Wisdom. Literally YESTERDAY at church the pastor discussed Proverbs 8, of which verses 22-31 Powers inserts into the funeral scene before closing the book
My brother gifted me this back in November, but I'm glad I waited til break to read it. Felt bizarre how much the details resonated generally or even specifically with my life:
- UIUC, and specifically my current town Urbana
- Polynesia (although I've mainly been studying Polynesian languages, not the actual land)
- French, which I started learning last January
- AI (my advisor and I have had several discussions on this)
- Friendship among two avid readers of different cultural backgrounds, one of whom introduces the other to Go (subtle nod to my buddy Tanfu who taught me the game last January)
- Taoism, about which I just started reading this week (also at Tanfu's recommendation)
- Lady Wisdom. Literally YESTERDAY at church the pastor discussed Proverbs 8, of which verses 22-31 Powers inserts into the funeral scene before closing the book
Very good book. The (based-on-a-true) story is worth five stars, but somehow the writing cruised between dry and sappy. 2024 was unintentionally the year of historical fiction for me (Faceless Old Woman, Babel, The Satanic Verses, The Sea and Poison, One Hundred Years of Solitude, All the Light We Cannot See), so I think my tastes are changing because I'd never though of myself as a fan of these generational tales.
Very good book. The (based-on-a-true) story is worth five stars, but somehow the writing cruised between dry and sappy. 2024 was unintentionally the year of historical fiction for me (Faceless Old Woman, Babel, The Satanic Verses, The Sea and Poison, One Hundred Years of Solitude, All the Light We Cannot See), so I think my tastes are changing because I'd never though of myself as a fan of these generational tales.
This made me want to go back to working at a library and pick up the story I started writing during covid
This made me want to go back to working at a library and pick up the story I started writing during covid
Every chapter, I'm thinking to myself "so close!" In this book, Stavrakopoulou has a field day with ancient artefacts. Everything is of equal value, there's no notion of one description/artefact being more authoritative than another. That said, the pieces are still cool. The photos of idols, documents, paintings, mosaics, etc all remind me of my visit this past year to the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures in Chicago, where ancient people's beliefs are transmitted and almost certainly misinterpreted by us modern folks. Stavrakopoulou has amassed a ton of "evidence" in this book, but her story is sorely mistaken. She gets it right when in acknowledging God has a body; she gets it wrong in concluding it's a dead one. The most baller epilogue I've ever read synthesizes millenia of revelations of God's body, and yet, she doesn't have faith. She chalks up as mere stories the descriptions of the Son from thousands of years ago, failing to trust the prophecies and failing to see that her "ancient" God is actually the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow
Every chapter, I'm thinking to myself "so close!" In this book, Stavrakopoulou has a field day with ancient artefacts. Everything is of equal value, there's no notion of one description/artefact being more authoritative than another. That said, the pieces are still cool. The photos of idols, documents, paintings, mosaics, etc all remind me of my visit this past year to the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures in Chicago, where ancient people's beliefs are transmitted and almost certainly misinterpreted by us modern folks. Stavrakopoulou has amassed a ton of "evidence" in this book, but her story is sorely mistaken. She gets it right when in acknowledging God has a body; she gets it wrong in concluding it's a dead one. The most baller epilogue I've ever read synthesizes millenia of revelations of God's body, and yet, she doesn't have faith. She chalks up as mere stories the descriptions of the Son from thousands of years ago, failing to trust the prophecies and failing to see that her "ancient" God is actually the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow
Apostolic Preaching of the Cross
Above my pay grade. This is much more academic than I thought it'd be and assumes proficiency with Biblical Hebrew and Greek. I powered through, and I'm glad I did. Morris takes clear stances on the important of capital concepts like Justification and Substitution while also not using absence of evidence as evidence of absence (regarding certain perspectives on the mechanisms of salvation). Readers with a one-dimensional belief regarding atonement will be challenged to ditch the myopia and embrace something closer to Eastern holisticity, while those who chalk Christ's death up to an opaque mystery never to be explained will be challenged to plant a stake where things are elucidated with Western, academically rigorous interrogation of the documents.
Above my pay grade. This is much more academic than I thought it'd be and assumes proficiency with Biblical Hebrew and Greek. I powered through, and I'm glad I did. Morris takes clear stances on the important of capital concepts like Justification and Substitution while also not using absence of evidence as evidence of absence (regarding certain perspectives on the mechanisms of salvation). Readers with a one-dimensional belief regarding atonement will be challenged to ditch the myopia and embrace something closer to Eastern holisticity, while those who chalk Christ's death up to an opaque mystery never to be explained will be challenged to plant a stake where things are elucidated with Western, academically rigorous interrogation of the documents.