Sex God

Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I am obsessed with anything Rob Bell. I was of course then the first to pick up his newest book Sex God when it came out at the beginning of March. It was a quick read, and I easily finished it that week over Spring Break, but it is definately worth the high $20 charged for it. The book's title is interesting enough and certainly had me wondering, and its subtitle, "Exploring the Endless Connections between Sexuality and Sprituality," made me even more curious. Nevertheless, Rob Bell crafts a wonderful commentary on a new (or he would probably say really old) view on sex, love, and lust. Following on the heels of his first release, Velvet Elvis, this book has the same cordial and conversational style and feel but is a little more focused. It has something for everybody: for the single, the dating, the married, the never to be married, the married for 20 years. It's really fantastic and I can't wait to read it again to catch all the things that I missed (it's loaded with new info and insights in every sentance). Perhaps my favorite part was...hm... you know what, it's kind of hard to find a favorite part. It's all good!!!

Here's what Publishers Weekly had to say about it: "Bell raises the bar with this evocative follow-up to last year's bestseller Velvet Elvis. "Is sex a picture of heaven?" he wonders. It's all about God and sex and heaven, he says: "...they're connected. And they can't be separated. Where the one is you will always find the other." Bell's book isn't a sex manual, an exploration of the differences between men and women or a marriage how-to, though all of that is here. Instead, it's the story of God becoming human, of humans mirroring God and love made manifest in the chaos of our humanity. Sex God is about relationships revealed in a way that elevates the human condition and offers hope to those whose relationships are wounded. In Bell's spare, somewhat oblique style, he addresses lust, respect, denial, risk, acceptance and more. His love for God and the Bible is clear, as is his ability to ask probing questions and offer answers that make readers think deeply about their own lives. He does a fine job using the Bible and real life to show that our physical relationships are really about spiritual relationships. This book joyfully ties, and then tightens, the knot between God and humankind. "

So go out and buy it, read it, and pass it on! It'll be worth it.

Frederick Buechner Quote

I have recently finished Now and Then, a memoir by one of my new favorite authors, Frederick Buechner. He has a knack for writing all of the things that you've wanted to say but never been able to put into words. I highly suggest his writing. I want to highlight an extended quote from the book that I found quite interesting and ponderment-worthy.

"For that reason only the most radical dissenters attended, and it was one of those -- a lean, freckle-faced senior -- who turned to me once, thin-lipped with anger, and said, "So what's so good about religion anyway?" and I found myself speechless. I felt surely there must be something good about it. Why else was I there? But for the moment I couldn't for the life of me think what it was. Maybe the truth of it is that religion the way he meant it--a system of belief, a technique of worship, an institution--doesn't really have all that much about it that is good when you come right down to it, and perhaps my speechlessness in a way acknowledged as much.

"Unless you become like a child, Jesus said, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and maybe part of what that means is that in the long run what is good about religion is playing the way a child plays at being grown up until he finds that being grown up is just another way of playing and thereby starts to grow up himself. Maybe what is good about religion is playing that the Kingdom will come, until--in the joy of your playing, the hope and rhythm and comradeship and poignance and mystery of it--you start to see that the playing is itself the first-fruits of the Kingdom's coming and of God's presence within us and among us."

--pg. 73, HaperCollins Publishers