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by Rachel Held Evans, 2015

I heard about this author on NPR, Fresh Air (I think), when another author was being interviewed and he mentioned how influential Rachel Held Evans was in his life. She died at the age of 37 on May 4, 2019 from an allergic reaction to medication for an infection that caused her brain to swell. This is eerily similar to how her aunt died, which she describes in this book.

This book is about her disenchantment with the Evangelical church, her decision to leave it, and her return to church eventually–an Episcopalian church. She’s from Tennessee and was raised in a southern Evangelical church. She was on fire for God throughout her youth. She grew angry and began having doubts about her faith first when it said innocent Muslims who died at the hand of suicide bombers were going to hell, and then when her church became political and posted political signs to vote against gay marriage. She and her husband spent a while not going to church, then visiting different churches once a month or so, then starting their own church which failed a year or so later, then finally settling on an Episcopalian church.

The book starts out really well and I thought, I must own this book, but she lost me about halfway through. It’s her story, and it’s good, but the way she organized it, via the sacraments of Baptism, Confession, Holy Orders, Communion, Confirmation, Anointing of the Sick, and Marriage, confused me. She did not mention seeking the Lord in prayer throughout her faith crisis. Her focus was on the Church: where faith is practiced, with all its trappings, and how she lost faith in that, but then found it again.

Two main takeaways for me:

1. Christians cannot do their faith alone.
2. Accept that the church will never be perfect; forgive it.

by Jonathan Sandys & Wallace Henley, 2015

Jonathan Sandys is the great-grandson of Winston Churchill. Along with Wallace Henley, a Christian who has served in the White House and is a columnist for the Christian Post, he writes about Winston Churchill’s conversation with a fellow Harrow student named Murland de Grasse Evans, at age 16 (in 1891) that:

This country will be subjected somehow, to a tremendous invasion, by what means I do not know, but I tell you I shall be in command of the defences of London, and I shall save London and England from disaster.

Winston Churchill, Age 16

The book details Winston’s life, showing how our sovereign God saved him, groomed him, brought him up to save the world from Hitler. He was never paid attention to or loved by his parents, but he loved them deeply. He wrote them letters to which they never responded. But he remained an optimistic and happy boy. In his early childhood, he had a nanny named Elizabeth Everest, who taught him all about God.

He became a soldier, and in 1896, there was an accident when Winston was getting off a tender boat in India that dislocated his shoulder. He never had it looked at and it healed badly. He fought in North Africa in the battle of Omdurman (September 2, 1898). Because of his bum shoulder, he fought on horseback with a gun instead of a sword, and having a gun allowed him to kill two enemy soldiers that would have surely killed him if he’d only had a sword.

He went through adversity and had humbling experiences that helped to make him the great leader he was when he finally became Prime Minister (for the 2nd time) in 1940. He saved the world from Hitler.

The book was recommended on the library’s monthly biography email.

by Josh Rogin, 2021

Nate told me about this book. It’s about what went on with China during Trump’s presidency. It’s written by Josh Rogin, a columnist for the Washington Post and an analyst for CNN. He knows of what he speaks (writes). He’s meticulously detailed. He is not partisan. I’m glad I read this because I learned a lot. But it was a very difficult read – so many names and events. I didn’t know China was as bad as it is – ‘It is evil and it must be destroyed.” That about says it all. China is into the USA politically, technically, corporately, educationally, financially; they want to be the ruler of the world. They are committing atrocities and denying freedoms of speech, religion, even thoughts. They give people and other entities a social credit score. They are watching them 24/7– “Orwellian.”

The way Trump handled China was impulsive, immature, chaotic. His advisors changed all the time and they were from different camps – wanting to play nice (because of the money they made off of China) vs. wanting to be tough and bring the hammer down on China. China is perpetrating human rights abuses against the Uyghurs, Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and their own people; They are stealing our technology and intellectual property, infiltrating Wall Street, our educational institutions, our media and social media. Something had to be done. Obama was the same as preceding presidents – soft on China in hopes they would come around. Trump desperately wanted to make a deal with Xi and called him a great friend, then he would get mad at him and slap tariffs on China and make threats.

Josh Rogin credits Trump with waking us up to the threat that China is, but Trump and his administration were so dysfunctional, nothing of consequence could be done. There’s no going back, however, to the way it used to be with China – looking for cooperation and ignoring its bad actions – and Rogin believes the tariffs need to remain as some sort of leverage over China.

Trump could care less about the human rights abuses of Xi and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He even told Xi that he thought the camps Xi was building for the Uyghurs were a good idea.

One other interesting thing I learned is that the coronavirus did not originate in a seafood market in Wuhan. There was a huge cover-up, of course. Much evidence was destroyed. There are theories but no one really knows where it came from.

Good, informative book. Glad I read it.

The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need

by Bill Gates, 2021

Everything you need to know about climate change and what to do about it. We add 51 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the earth’s atmosphere every year. We need to reduce that to 0 or there will be floods, famines, droughts, massive storms, wildfires, no coral reefs. We need to reduce our emissions to 0 by 2050. We need to convert everything possible (industry, transportation, heating and cooling) to run on electricity, but it needs to be clean electricity, and only nuclear can provide the 24/7 clean energy in the amounts we need. The 3rd world countries need to be able to modernize in everything they do, and we need to allow them to do so and help them to do so without increasing carbon emissions.

There are so many solutions out there (from page 200): next-generation nuclear fission, Nuclear fusion, low-emission fuels (Electrofuels and advanced biofuels), zero-carbon cement and steel and fertilizer, plant and cell-based meat and dairy, zero-carbon plastics, geothermal energy, thermal storage, grid-scale electricity storage that can last a full season, hydrogen produced without emitting carbon, zero-carbon alternatives to palm oil, Coolants that don’t contain F-gases, pumped hydro, thermal storage, underground electricity transmission, carbon capture (both direct air capture and point capture).

The main things people can do involve getting involved politically; telling our representatives what we want, and not just saying “do something about climate change.” Tell them policies that need to be updated, incentives that need to be in place, tax money that needs to be spent, etc. Research and Development are key items and government can invest in R&D for the long haul.

If we don’t do anything and we get to a tipping point, then geoengineering may need to happen: “distributing extremely fine particles–each just a few millionths of an inch in diameter–in the upper layers of the atmosphere…Another approach to geoengineering involves brightening clouds. Because sunlight is scattered by the tops of clouds, we could scatter more sunlight and cool the earth by making the clouds brighter, using a salt spray that causes clouds to scatter more light.”

by Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D. Revised edition 2005

Interesting book! Shines a light on how and why students who live in poverty think and behave the way they do; and how teachers, counselors, and administrators can provide the necessary supports which would enable them to move out of poverty. Schools are almost the only hope for poor students to move out of that culture.

There are different types of poverty; not just financial: 1. Financial, 2. Emotional, 3. Mental, 4. Spiritual, 5. Physical, 6. Support Systems, 7. Relationships/Role Models, 8. Knowledge of Hidden Rules.

“Emotional resources are the most important of all resources because, when present, they allow the individual not to return to old habit patterns.”

People living in poverty tend to live for the moment, to spend money when they have it, to value entertainment. Their families tend to be matriarchal. Their language is in the “casual register,” and they may not know or understand the formal register, which is the register the middle class and wealthy people use.

The story structure of the “casual register” is not the same as the “formal register.” The formal register goes from beginning to end. The casual register starts with the end or the most emotional part of the story and relates the story in parts with audience participation in between the parts.

Relationships are very important. Schools could help by allowing students to stay with the same teacher two years in a row.