God laughs and plays, book review

I have been on vacation, not just from blogging, from everything. I had plenty of time to read, so I finished “God laughs and plays” by David James Duncan. I really can’t say enough about this book. I circled and marked many places in this book and created my own index in the back. I will be referring it many times in the future. Many thanks to one of my early commenter’s for referring it to me.

David James Duncan’s is well documented. He was raised Seventh Day Adventist and abandoned it fairly early on, as has much of his family now. He spent many days fly fishing in the rivers of Oregon and found a connection to all things there. But instead of naming that connection and becoming an evangelical for fly fishing, he found a way to express it that many could relate to regardless of their favorite pastime or indoctrination.

Here is a sample:

There are agnostic and atheist humanitarians who believe as they do, and love their neighbor as they do, because the cruelty of humanity makes it impossible for them to conceive of a God who is anything but remiss or cruel. Rather than consider God cruel, they choose doubt or disbelief, and serve others anyway. This is a backhanded form of reverence a beautiful kind of “shame”.

The book is a collection of essays, interviews and personal stories. Some of them sweet yarns from his youth, others are heavy analysis of the problems caused by mixing fundamental Christianity and politics. For young people just coming in to voting age, the essay “When Compassion Becomes Dissent” should be required reading.

Well, I don’t want to drag on too long about this. I think you get the idea that I liked it.