IVP - Strangely Dim - April 2010 Archives

Celebrate Earth Day with a FREE BOOK!

In honor of Earth Day and because we like giving away free stuff, we're giving away a free download of Julie Clawson's book, Everyday Justice, today (April 22nd) only! Head on over to the Amazon Kindle store and download your copy asap. Don't have a Kindle? No worries; you can also download a Kindle app for your computer, so there are no excuses!

Why do we think you'll love Everyday Justice as much as we do? Because Julie Clawson takes us on a tour of everyday life and shows how our ordinary lifestyle choices have big implications for justice around the world--and we know you care about that. She unpacks how we get our food and clothing and shows us the surprising costs of consumer waste.

Of course, you understand that how we live can make a difference not only for our own health but also for the well-being of people across the globe. The more sustainable our lifestyle, the more just our world will be. So why not grab a book that will help you love God and your neighbor by living justly? After all, it's free!

When you're done reading, we'd love to hear your feedback. And if you like the book, we have to admit we wouldn't be upset if you passed the word along to your friends, too.

Likewise Is Three--and a Half!

This may be news to you, but Strangely Dim is the semi-official blog of Likewise Books, a line of books from InterVarsity Press. And Likewise books just turned three--and a half!

In our short life (thirty-two new books since the line's launch) we've managed to make our mark in a number of ways. Among many other things,

• The triennial Urbana Student Missions Conference has selected nine Likewise books as "Books of the Day," including Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers by Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove.
• Three fourths of our authors--including Chris Heuertz, international director of Word Made Flesh and author of Simple Spirituality--count their Likewise book as their first book--and several--including Scott Bessenecker, author of The New Friars and How to Inherit the Earth--are counting their second book in the same way.
• The Likewise book Love Is an Orientation, by Andrew P. Marin, proved to be a game-changing proposition for the evangelical-gay conversation and has been honored with five awards since its release.
• With Trent Sheppard's God on Campus, Likewise joined with Campus America in the vision for 24/7 prayer happening at every college and university in the United States.
• James Choung's Likewise book True Story offered Christians a fresh way to talk about their faith that, since the book's release, has been in wide practice.
• Working with Haiti Partners, whose codirector Kent Annan is author of Following Jesus Through the Eye of the Needle, Likewise Books will be sending a team of readers to Haiti in May, to learn more about how we can support struggling people there.
• Likewise books have earned multiple awards and accolades, including Hearts & Minds Bookstore's "Memoir of the Year" for Margot Starbuck's The Girl in the Orange Dress.
• Not that it's about the money (it's totally about the money), but Likewise has sold more than a quarter-million books with over $1 million in total sales.

Our favorite thing about the line, however, has been the relationships it's generated--those of us who work here with those who are writing books for us, our authors with one another, our authors and their readers, even their critics, and even us and our readers. Speaking of which, if you're not in touch with us on a regular basis, please consider this your invitation: join us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or subscribe to our newsletter, the Likewise Notebook. (One of our friends in South Africa recently told us "I read every word! I always find them informative and humorous." You might too; you might even win a book every now and then.)

Our agenda from the beginning has been, in response to the constantly changing culture we inhabit but inspired by the biblical vision of a better world, to be a different kind of publishing program--to be not only for but with our readers, and together to be different and make a difference. So far, we think, so good; here's to keeping it going for the next leg of the journey!

The Arcane Scrutiny

Earlier this week, in a bit of correspondence, I crafted what we in the biz call a "homonym substitution." On purpose. That's how clever a wordsmith.I.am.

For the uninitiated among you, a homonym substitution is a word that sounds like, but has an entirely different meaning from, another word or phrase. Mine, for example, was "That's like comparing tangerines to oranges. Both have appeal." See what I did there? "Appeal" sounds like "a peel." Please, save your applause till the end . . .

Anyway, I recount this example of wordy-nerdiness as an introduction to a little survey I heard about today via a network of editors I'm apart of. (See what I did there?) Here's the text of the e-mail:

There are two kinds of words we'd love to get your feedback on:

1. What words peculiar to Christian books seem to get mispronounced a lot (in sermons, conversation, and audio books)? For instance, I occasionally hear Frederick Buechner's name pronounced "BUKE-ner" (first syllable rhyming with FLUKE) instead of "BEEK-ner." One time I even insisted to the recording engineer that Simone Weil's name was pronoucned "VEY"--but they didn't believe me and recorded it as "WHILE" anyway. It doesn't have to be just proper names--are there other theological or religious words you hear mispronounced frequently?

2. General pet peeves about common words (non-religious) that get mispronounced. For instance, for me the word "err" is correctly pronounced "UR" (rhymes with SPUR) not "AIR." (Although Webster's gives "AIR" as a secondary pronunciation.) Some studios provide whole books of pronunciations for their voice talent, but that doesn't mean they necessarily read them.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what editors do. A lot. We scrutinize not only the English language but people's use (and abuse) of it. This isn't mere self-indulgence, however; we're providing a good service to society--protecting the language from its mishandlers, preserving a literary history unmarred by careless diction. You may not appreciate it, but your great-great-great-great grandchildren . . . well, they probably won't appreciate it either. Sad, I no. (See what I did there?)

Anyway, please feel free to post your suggestions here; I'll make sure they get into the write hands. (Ha! I can't stop!)

Re:Lentless

Lent is, traditionally, thought to be a time of reflection. This year, however, I find myself reflecting on Lent after the fact. This is a consequence of circumstance: I'm currently "between churches," and my churchlessness left me this year in a state of relative Lentlessness.

It's now Easter, of course--a happier time for Christians, however sad their current state of churchlessness makes them. Lent is now a done deal, which means thinking about Lent is less a crisis of faith and more a "teachable moment."

Lent was weird from the beginning this year, and it ended as uncomfortably as it began. In the past, I've marked Ash Wednesday by getting marked--by having someone I know well look me in the eye while smearing the ashes of last year's Palm Sunday palm fronds onto my forehead and whispering conspiratorially to me, "Remember you are dust." This year, while the fact of Ash Wednesday was not lost on me, the experience of it was; instead of being marked as an icon of Christ's suffering, I sat at home and watched American Idol.

And then, before I knew it, along came Holy Week. I spent the evening of Good Friday with non-churchgoing visiting family members in a comedy club being consoled by the performer that it was OK to be there with "all the other heathens." Well-intended friends tried to pietize our entertainment choice with the thought that "that's probably where Jesus would be." No, on Good Friday Jesus would not be in a comedy club; on Good Friday Jesus would be on a cross.

Being between churches, my wife and I struggled to decide how to mark Easter, with what community we would share the good news that "Christ is risen--he is risen indeed." We opted for a large church in our community that has a decidedly more traditional mode of worship than we're generally accustomed to; we got there late and sat in the last row of the overflow; we sang the Hallelujah chorus under our breath, as the folks all around us seemed to think that singing in an overflow room was unseemly.

Over the course of this year's Lenten season we've visited a number of wonderful churches with wonderful people doing wonderful things in their communities. But we were never not visitors, never not outside observers--never not critics. Oh, we were gracious critics, I promise you, recognizing the good in each fellowship. But we were critics nonetheless--too wise to the ways and wiles of church ministry to marvel at the sheer oddity of so many people coming together on a weekly basis to sing, pray and learn together; too spiritually sophisticated to be awestruck by the integrity between the life of Jesus, the prophecies of the Old Testament and the realities of contemporary everyday life; too jaded, in short, to be moved. 

This, brothers and sisters, is not how Lent is intended to be lived. Lent is a time in which we prepare our hearts for the gravity of Good Friday and the ebullience of Easter. During Lent we face the disillusionment of ourselves in order to be reminded afresh of the grace of deliverance from our sins. During Lent people give things up or take things on in order to make room in their hearts for a fuller, truer, purer understanding of the saving work of Christ. This Lent it could be argued that I gave up being a part of the church. Now that we're in the season of Easter, here's to hoping I can take it back up again.

Easter Goes On

Likewise author Kimberlee Conway Ireton has been a gift to us here at Strangely Dim, reminding us that Christianity is a faith practiced in time and space. The subject of her book Circle of Seasons is the church calendar--not the one on the back of your Sunday bulletin but the one that infuses our days and weeks and seasons with meaning. Reposted from last year, here's an excerpt from her chapter on Easter, which, apparently, goes on . . .

***

The closest I've come to the astonishment of the disciples when they heard the good news of Jesus' resurrection occurred the Easter my son was two. Jack's Sunday school teacher had brought a huge bouquet of helium balloons and let each child choose one to take home. Jack chose red. Proudly and joyfully, he carried his bobbing balloon down the church hallway to the Fellowship Hall, where Doug and I stopped to chat with our associate pastor, Steve, and his wife about our recent visit to Steve's hometown. A few minutes into our conversation, Jack let out a piercing wail. He had let go of his balloon, and it had floated to the top of the Fellowship Hall, some twelve feet above our heads.

"Oh sweetie." I picked Jack up as he began to sob. "That's so sad."