I've been tagged - book meme

I’ll second Paul’s disclaimer that the Bible fits every category below, but here goes:

1. One book that changed your life: John Polkinghorne, Faith of a Physicist (Princeton University Press, 1994), which I read while in graduate school. This book started me off in the field of “science and Christianity” before the Templeton Foundation really got rolling, and while I do not accept all of Polkinghorne’s views (e.g. on the nature and impact of the fall), I continue to appreciate the Christian orthodoxy of the theoretical physicist turned Anglican priest over-against many other contributors to the field, as well as his clear opposition to panentheism.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once: I rarely read books more than once, except when I read them to our children. I’m reading C.S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia (the full set) to our youngest now, which will be my third time.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island: Stretching the definition of “book” a little, I’d want The Collected Works of John Steinbeck, if such a volume exists. I’ve read a couple of his books, but (unfortunately) not all. And I would want to read something new on a desert island, not only repeats.

4. One book that made you laugh: My wife will attest to the fact that I laughed out loud several times recently while reading Yann Martel’s The Life of Pi. The writing is particularly colourful and uses surprising similes, and the main character’s situation is utterly exotic.

5. One book that made you cry: Me, cry? Well, I got a lump in my throat quite a few times while reading Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance for its clear depiction of the slums of India and for the horrors and injustices experienced by its characters. (Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, about Kabul, affected me similarly.)

6. One book that you wish had been written: How To Smoothly Move Between Canada and the US. Both times we did it (south in 1996/97 and north in 2005), there were lots of surprises (some quite costly and inconvenient), and there doesn’t seem to be a single resource which would help avoid them. But surely it’s much more difficult between any two other countries, except within the EU.

7. One book that you wish had never been written: Andrew Dickson White, A history of the warfare of science with theology in Christendom (New York, 1896), for because of it far too many people believe that science and Christianity are opposed to one another, or at least are two separate entities. And the myth it propagates about Calvin continues unabated, despite clear debunking by articles such as Keith Sewell, “Calvin and the stars, Kuyper and the fossils: Some historiographical reflections”, Pro Rege v. 32 (September 2003), pp. 10-22 (online here).

8. One book you’re currently reading: Tim Morris & Don Petcher, Science & Grace: God’s Reign in the Natural Sciences (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2006). Actually, I just finished reading this excellent book by two Covenant College science faculty who are squarely in the Reformational tradition, offering excellent analysis of the impact of Modernism on our habits of mind as well as solidly Biblical ways of thinking in a Trinitarian way about science. In fact, I highly recommend this to any academic, because many aspects of its discussion of “science” can be applied to “scholarship” in general. I’ll publish a review in the March 2007 issue of Pro Rege.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce. (We bought this book in the same order as buying Larry Crabb’s The Marriage Builder as a wedding gift for a friend, and I hope the amazon.com box-stuffer raised an eyebrow!) If you’ll allow me another one, I should read David Snoke’s brand new (August 2006) A Biblical Case for an Old Earth.

10. Now tag five people: Rick, Wes (hoping he gets his blog back up soon), Sarah, George, and David.

Vedder Mountain

Monday afternoon, while the three girls were on the beach at Cultus Lake, we boys climbed Vedder Mountain via the ridge trail. The 18-km round trip was rewarding in many ways, particularly in reaching the summit to this view of Mt. Baker (the white stuff above the other mountains, near the centre) and in discussing how mountain-hiking is a metaphor for life. 

15 years and counting

Saturday was our 15th anniversary! We spent the evening in Vancouver: Indian take-out and Italian ice cream at Granville Island, watching the crowds and the fireworks, zipping among the pleasure-craft on the False Creek Ferries, and recounting our blessings. Little did we know when we moved out to BC during our honeymoon that we would have had two children in BC, one in Florida, spend eight years in Iowa, and return to BC for this chapter of our lives. God is so good to us!