Harris, Joshua - Boy Meets Girl

Wooo corny blah de blah. Joshua Harris. Mixed bag. Too much.

I confess up until now I'd heard a lot about 'I Kissed Dating Goodbye' (bit late for that) and even this title. But never actually read any of it. Anyway I managed to find this one reasonably cheap the other day and gave it the 'read in one hit' treatment. I think it was actually two sittings that it took (but the three last pages don't count) not that, that is relevant whatsoever.

I was, oddly enough, quite surprised. It was actually a pretty decent read with some excellent principles. It is true that I wouldn't ever exactly replicate their possibly a little too formal method of going about things. It did push me to consider a few things and evaluate myself and my relationship - simply poking the stick at a few things I've already thought/talked about. At the same time, the book recognises the fluidity of relationships and the differences in people etc.

I think it's possibly worth going back through a bit slower. As with all things. Read widely and never go exactly by the book (unless it's the Bible and even then there are all kinds of interpretation/translation issues).

A good word for this though. It's later Joshua Harris stuff. I'd be curious to get my hands on the earlier, "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" simply to feed my curiousity. I wouldn't mind having a look at "Not Even a Hint" or whatever that one's called.

I have no time for anyone who backhands his stuff without having taken the time to read it. (Now that I'm no longer one of them...)

Peck, M. Scott - The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace

I did the discourtesy of borrowing this off Tim a long time before I've actually gotten around to reading it. I'm wondering a bit if it hasn't come off a little worse for wear about travelling in my bag back and forth from uni.

Very interesting read. The community theories and every other little mind blowing other thing in there were rather facinating and hopefully feasable. I had the benefit of seeing at least one of these slightly more unusual tactics employed during a Wednesday night Young Adults. We took the chance to 'speak out' something a bit personal in front of the group with zero compulsion, let alone allowance to respond. Something clicked, and it made the whole experience (of both the book and the evening) more tangible. I had the 'why' background, an insider understanding. It was a beautiful and quite powerful thing to watch unfold.

The latter third of the book centres much more around the 'peace'. Unfortunately this comes with the bent on US Politics and the Arms Race (to which I am a tad ashamed of that in my twenty years, have never really heard much about before - and which I'm still not fully certain I know the extent or power grain in which the whole deal operates). It was interesting, but not quite as glove-hit-glove.

It's worth a read if you like to stretch your mind and be challenged about how you are living in relation to others. The Stages of Spirituality from 'Chaos to Mystic' take up a decent section of the book. Parts of it make a lot of sense. As with any Scott Peck book (and it's a bit absurb to claim to be an authority when this is only the second one of his I've read), take it with a grain - no, make that a pinch of salt, while not letting the good slip by. There is much good.

Miller, Donald - Searching For God Know's What

I really like this guy's stuff FAR too much.

BRILLIANT book.

Got a huge amount out of it to think about. Almost think that parts of it topped Blue Like Jazz (same author).

Very conversational. All about the God/man (that being human) relationship and not playing it out 'formula' style. Worth it's weight in whatever I paid for it and a bit more.