This Is What Love Looks Like.

October 29, 2012October 29, 2012 / Erin Kirk / Leave a comment

I can’t remember how I stumbled across my new favorite book, Love Does by Bob Goff.

Maybe I read Bob’s bio which said he is an attorney and honorary US consul to Uganda, who offices at a picnic table in Disneyland. When he’s not in Uganda representing imprisoned children caught in a legal vacuum, he invites people dying of cancer to his house in British Columbia, so they can make good memories in the time they have left.

Bob is a ripping good storyteller and every one of his capers originates in the whimsy and extravagant love of Jesus. He doesn’t quote a lot of scripture, he just lives it and tells us what happens.

Try not to chuckle about the trips he takes with his kids or how he snuck into the Library of Congress, at midnight; or how he sent flowers to the woman who totaled his jeep, just so she wouldn’t feel badly. He didn’t replace his Jeep either, he bought a long board instead. When he’s in LA, he skates to work at Disneyland and relies on the kindness of others to get him where he needs to go.

Who lives like that?

Jesus did.

Oh and in case you’d like to be friends with Bob, he included his cell phone number in the back of his now New York Times Bestseller. He says he answers it. So, I’m going to call him. I’ll let you know what happens.

Where Do the Righteous Rush?

October 26, 2012November 4, 2012 / Erin Kirk / Leave a comment

Author, speaker, blogger Jen Hatmaker, posted recently about the upcoming election. She took to task Christians on both sides of the political fence for cozying up to their chosen party’s un-Christlike shenanigans.

And, she was pilloried for it. (Pause here for a moment of surprise.)

(Photo credit: Cap’n Brian)

The week before, Hatmaker was in Haiti blogging on behalf of Help One Now a Christian relief organization, attempting to address, among other things, the conditions in Haiti’s tent cities which have earned them the nickname “rape camps.”

Did those posts go viral? Engender outrage? Nope. The response, Hatmaker says, was sincere but small.

Why are we comfortable with a version of Christianity that bears so little resemblance to Christ? What do we think we are doing? How can you call yourself a ball player if you don’t actually play ball?

“Yah, take that,” I can hear the non-Christians saying.

Well, wait a sec. It cuts both ways. When I was not a Christian, I still considered myself a socially conscious, defender of the poor. Unfortunately, that mostly meant I sat around with my socially conscious friends and talked about the problem of poverty, but none of us did that much about it. No ball playing there either.

Hatmaker considers this in thoughtful post about our priorities as followers of Christ – especially those of us to whom much has been given, ie: most Americans.

“It’s so easy to get incensed over American politics; that pill goes down like a dream compared to rape camp. Identify with Jesus in His sufferings? Pass. Identify with a political party? Sign me the freak up.”

Her post is worth a read for the solid reminder that God cares a great deal about widows, orphans and the poor. Hatmaker suggests that God cares less that we defend His honor during election season and more that we defend theirs in rape camps.

The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart. Meanwhile, the lot of widows and homeless children is very hard, and it is to their defense, not God’s, that the self-righteous should rush.” ~Life of Pi (quoted in Hatmaker’s post)

Need a Good Read?

October 4, 2012October 5, 2012 / Erin Kirk / 1 Comment

I read books like a freak. I’ve probably got six stacked next to my bed and every night I pick whichever one suits my mood.

But all of them gathered dust last week after I bought Ann Patchett‘s State of Wonder – a novel so good, that when it was over, I wanted to go to her house and force her, like Kathy Bates in Misery, to write more pages, even if it meant breaking her ankles.

And this isn’t the first time she has done this to me. I was similarly undone after reading Bel Canto and The Patron Saint of Liars. While reading them, I alternated between utter captivation and stopping to say, “wait, how did she do that?”

This woman was born to break your heart, change your mind and escort you to places you simply cannot dream up without her.

Do you have a favorite author that wrecks you like Ann Patchett does me? Please reply (Comment bubble up top.)

I need help getting over this.