But You Can't Hug an E-Book

All the buzz in the publishing world of late is e-books. E-books on the Kindle, e-books on the iPad, e-books on the Nook, e-books on the Sony Reader, e-books everywhere except on  bookshelves, which apparently will soon become obsolete pieces of furniture because the printed books that they hold now will be displayed in museums, along with ancient Greek pottery, Native American arrowheads, and bullets from the Civil War.

When writers and publishers get together, the future of the printed book becomes the topic of conversation. Will it survive?

As an editor, I'm not worried. Like wedding rings, framed college diplomas, and the family china tucked safely away in a cabinet, books represent something deeper than just the information and stories they contain.  If you're a book lover, stop right now and think about a book that you own. It has a story beyond its story, right? So that when you see that book, you think about the story inside, but you're thinking about other things too.

Two books do this for me, and one is Heidi by Johanna Spyri, particularly the edition pictured here. I probably read this book five times during my grade school years, and I loved Grandfather, Heidi, Peter, Clara--and even Heidi's aunt who meant well, but was just a little uptight. But the reason I loved this book so much was that it was a gift from my dad--one of two books that he sent to me when he had to go away for some training for his job. It was the only time he travelled for his work, and he was gone for a couple of weeks, as I recall. But he sent me Heidi and a collection of Anderson's Fairy Tales, and I read them both over and over.

A tattered copy of the Norton Critical Edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn holds a special place on my bookshelf and in my heart. It was required reading for freshman composition. I fell in love with it, and I wrote papers about Huck Finn whenever it was appropriate in my literature classes. For me, Huck Finn represents the joy of learning,  an English major's adventures in analyzing and writing about literature, and memories of one of the best teachers I have ever had.

True book lovers will keep the printed book alive. We need tangibles to remind us of the intangibles. That's why we wear wedding rings, save those Christmas ornaments our children made in kindergarten, and treasure our grandmother's handwritten recipe cards. These things are precious to us because they stand for something far more valuable than what they're made of--someone else's love for us and the times of joy that we have shared.

God recognizes our human need to have tangibles to represent the intangibles. That's why He gave us baptism and the Lord's Supper. The water that we see and that our child feels reminds us that we are impure and need  Jesus to wash away our sins, and the bread and wine of communion remind us of Jesus' broken body and shed blood, which provide remission of our sins. Tangibles to help us remember the intangibles.

Books are more than paper, ink, and glue, but that paper, ink, and glue allow us to see, touch, and remember the significant people and moments of our lives. E-books are here to stay, and both their producers and consumers will learn how best they can be used in time. But no one will ever curl up with a good e-book by a fireplace on a cold, rainy day, and grandchildren won't snuggle up with Grandma as she reads from a Kindle. You just can't hug an e-book.

What's your book story? Share it in the comments, please.

Education and the Gospel

An Internet rabbit trail last week led me to a website that I wish I hadn't found: Cedarville Out. Cedarville University, a Christian college near Dayton, Ohio, is my alma mater, and Cedarville Out, the website explains, is a group of "gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered (GLBT) alumni of Cedarville University. We are straight alumni who support our GLBT friends. And we are bound together in our belief that everyone's sexuality is a precious gift from God." The group is not in any way supported by the university.


Included on the website are pictures of the alumni members of the group along with their stories and statements, recounting their experience of finally embracing their homosexuality, many of them believing now that there is no conflict between being a Christian and being a homosexual.


I recognize many of the faces on that site. In fact, one of the women influenced my academic choices, and I'm grateful that I knew her. She was a unit mate my freshman year, and I listened carefully as she advised me to take classes from the best professors--the ones who taught me to think biblically, the ones who themselves were Calvinists. One time she invited me, with a group of her friends, to go to a church where Dr. Grier was preaching.  In a Baptist college where Calvinism was not well respected by most, Dr. Grier, along with several others, helped shape my thinking about theology, and their influence pointed me in the direction of Reformed theology and the faith that informs all that I think, do, and believe.


I'm sad for the people on the Cedarville Out site--both the ones who have come out and those who support them. Although there are many denominations, institutions (Calvin College comes to mind), and individuals who want to debate the matter, homosexuality is a sin. Like worshiping idols, taking God's name in vain, lying, murder, adultery, and coveting, homosexuality is a sin. It's not necessary to be a New Testament scholar to read Romans 1 and understand that the apostle Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is declaring homosexuality to be a sin. It's not a question of whether the Bible says it's a sin; it's a question of whether a person believes that the Scriptures are the Word of God--that they are authoritative and undeniably true when they tell us that homosexuality is a sin.


As I read some of the stories, I found it interesting that one alumna credited professors like Dr. Grier and Dr. Ron and Mrs. Jody Grosh with teaching her how to think for herself, to think "outside of the box," enabling her to realize that God is a God of diversity, of gay and straight people alike, and that He blesses gay people with loving partners.


And I credit those same professors, and one other, Dr. Jim McGoldrick, with teaching me how to think Christianly. They taught me to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. In fact, I remember an exercise that Jody Grosh used in my freshman comp class to demonstrate to us students that truth is not a relative thing--that God is the definer of truth. Scripture alone is the source of truth and morality, and to twist God's Word to suit our own purposes, to justify our own sinfulness, is to believe a lie. I would say that these same teachers helped me develop the thinking skills that help me understand that homosexuality, most certainly, is a sin.


What was re-enforced for me through this experience is something that I already knew: education cannot save us. In our Reformed circles, we value education and learning--and we should. God would have us develop our intellectual abilities as well as we can to bring glory to Him. We Reformed parents take vows at our children's baptisms that we will train our children up in a way that is consistent with the Word of God and our confessions.  Some of us place our children in private Christian schools and some of us home-school and a few of us take advantage of public schools, but all of us are motivated by the desire to see our children grow in the faith that they have been baptized in, to have dominion over the world God has created. We know that it's critical to a life of faith that we learn and develop our minds. 


But lest we become too confident in education and start to believe that the right type of education will guarantee our children's faithfulness, we must remember the true source of our salvation. The most faithful Christian education, the instruction of the most godly teachers, which I believe I received from certain professors at Cedarville, cannot create in us faithfulness and obedience and submission to God's Word. If what we get from our education is the ability to justify our sins rather than repent of them, we have missed the message of the gospel, which is the only thing that can truly save.   

Toys

If you have a pulse, you're probably aware of the variety of toys out there: iPhones, iPods (and the iPod Touch), and now the ridiculously named iPad. (I like Henry's name for all of these--iPoofs.) And those are just the toys that Apple brings to us. My son still is often attached to his Nintendo DS, and when Katie's boyfriend is waiting for her to get ready (often the case), rather than making awkward conversation with the parents or just sitting around uncomfortably not knowing what to do, he pulls out his phone and starts playing games.

So whatever did we do back in the day--before joy was only a start button away? However did parents who had to wait with small children keep them quiet in those pre-pocket computer days?

Someday a children's history book in its section on culture and society will attempt to describe the toys children of the twentieth century played with, those poor, backward souls who knew nothing of pocket-sized electronics, those who thought that color television was an amazing development in entertainment technology and couldn't think of anything that could be better. Here's what it will say:

Children in the mid-twentieth century knew nothing of handheld electronic devices. In fact, none of them even had personal computers in their homes yet--they hadn't been invented! Most of the toys they played with back then cost less than ten dollars, but they didn't come with any apps. It was a challenge for them to find fun things to do because they had to do more than turn on a start button, and yet they managed, like children of any time, to play games and have fun.

Girls especially enjoyed playing a game called jacks, in which they tossed small metal objects on the ground and attempted to pick them up while bouncing a small rubber ball. Sometimes a group of them would get together and stretch out a long rope, and with one girl standing on each end, they would swing it while another player would stand in the middle and jump. Sometimes they would sing a song or recite a fun chant while they were jumping.

Children would play games like you do now, but they actually had boards that they would put on a table or floor. There would be cards they would hold in their hands and plastic pieces that they would move around the board, depending on the game they were playing. Games often involved small cube-shaped things called die that players would throw to find out how many spaces they could move on the board. Another game involved gathering a number of sticks together and then letting them randomly fall. Players would take turns attempting to pick one up at a time without touching any of the others.

There were small pocket toys that they could carry with them, but they weren't electronic at all. They had a cardboard back and a plastic cover on top. Inside were small holes and  small silver beads. Children would move the game around, trying to make the beads stay put in the holes.

And children of this era did have television. But they had only a few channels--two or three at the most. And cartoons were on only on Saturday mornings and for a short time after school.

Sometimes children during this era were expected just to sit quietly, with absolutely no entertainment at all. These were stringent times for children.

Despite these entertainment challenges, children of the mid-twentieth century managed to grow up and become productive members of society. In fact, some of them learned that life couldn't be constant, 24/7 entertainment. Sometimes they did chores, went to school, did homework, and, yes, sometimes they did sit quietly.

How great the technological advances since then! No children today ever have to be without amusement or entertainment--even for a few seconds--like the poor children of the mid-twentieth century.








 

Shameless Plugs

Here are, admittedly, a couple of shameless plugs for two very creative, entrepreneurial ladies. The first is Miss Katie Selden, my very own red-headed daughter, who has just created a new website for her photography business. Katie has had a passion for photography for several years now, and even though she's all grown up and in college now, majoring in a sensible degree like Humanities with an English emphasis, she ultimately wants to be a photographer. (You'll have to ask her to explain, and you can probably do that if you go to her website or contact her on Facebook.) She's accepting appointments for prom photographs now, and she's even come up with her own idea, a take-off on the weirdly popular trash-the-wedding-dress concept: trash the prom dress. Be the first of your friends to have a trash-the-prom-dress portrait, but don't tell your mom!

My other plug is for an author that I've enjoyed working with on two book projects, Christy Bower. Christy's second book, Best Friends with God, which I edited, will be releasing soon, and Christy is planning a pre-release book party this Friday, April 9, at her blog and on Facebook. You can interact with her, and she even has a contest going to win a signed copy of her new book. Get the details on when/how to enter her contest and join the party at her blog. Christy is a great person and an excellent author--both my experiences working with her have been a lot of fun. So pay her a visit, and win a free book!

Needing the Resurrection

One of the blogs I read this week asked its contributors to write, in a hundred words or less, why they need the resurrection. It sounded like a great writing/thinking exercise, so here’s my attempt:


Like Eve, I want the things I cannot have. And like Sarah, I sometimes doubt the promises of God’s Word. I often speak without thinking and say offensive things, like Peter. I grow impatient with others like Martha. And like Mary, I’ve stood by the side of loved ones as they’ve died. I’m one of the “none righteous” that Paul writes about. So I need to be made alive like Christ, raised up with him, so that I can bear the image of the man of heaven, so that I can have the victory—with him. I need the resurrection.

A blessed Resurrection Sunday to all! May you know your own need for Christ's resurrection--and know that that need has been overwhelmingly and powerfully met.