The Ironic Christian's Companion: Finding the Marks of God's Grace in the World - Hardcover

"Arresting imagery ...surprising insights". -- The Philadelphia Inquirer

"As in The Canterbury Tales, the reader will meet an uncommon mix of seekers....The blend of the spiritual with the rational will delight many readers, some of whom may meet a God full of surprises." --Library Journal

"I'm happy to report that I've found the third in a series of recently published books that takes up the study of God and his grace and does it in a readable and inspiring fashion. (The other two are Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris and Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott.)" --Jon Hassler, The Minneapolis Pioneer Press

To expand horizons and loosen stiff spiritual joints
It matters what to say. It matters more when to say it. And it matters most of all to shut up, at least now and then. It has taken me a long time to learn all this, especially the shutting up part. A white, well-educated, middle class, Protestant, American male, coming of age in the can-do Texas of the Eisenhower 50s, I was programmed to take charge, set agendas, explain the world, and know what was best for everybody. I was overloaded with entitlements.

I wasn't unhappy but, pathologically self-sufficient, I was pretty rocky ground for God's grace to fall on. I had friends but didn't think I needed them. There were a few moments when the wall cracked—most notably when I rather cravenly missed a tackle in a critical high school football game and the coach shouted (it turned out to be prophetic): "I hope that no matter what success you have in life, you'll never forget what you did to me today." What he said was unfair, but here I am more than forty years later replaying it.

How do we learn from the past, from our own life and from the experience of others? The precondition for any learning is listening without interrupting. I've been carefully trained to be an interrupter, so I've had to unlearn in order to learn. In therapy, the fruitless times were when I went in to "report" what "happened" during the week. The electric sessions were the ones when I felt stuck and couldn't "explain" anything. When I shut up, something could happen.

I'm twice divorced, and my father committed suicide. That's close to average trauma these days, not enough to either excuse anything or warrant pity. But I do have an automatic shock-proof cheap grace detector, and am neither consoled nor edified when someone dumps Bible verses or happy faces on me. Christians who too easily invoke the grace of God should remember that it was Job's "comforters" who felt the sting of God's rebuke.

This all sounds a little heavy. I'm not really that way. As a kid I devoured adventure stories. I read everything I could get my hands on about climbing Everest and exploring the Nile. In later years I've dreamed of galaxy-hopping with Kirk and Picard and Janeway. I've not been to the top of the earth or the bottom of the sea or galaxies where no one has gone before, but I've been to high places and low places and far places, and have found a world full of surprise. Candid and concrete are what I like books and people to be, and that's how I try to write and hope I am.

I haven't found the grace of God easy, but I know it can be trusted. And a Christian life lived with little certainty but boundlessly curious is not a second-best option for those who just can't manage a no-loose-ends conviction and a no-second-thoughts commitment. The Ironic Christian's Companion: Finding the Marks of God's Grace in the World tries to convey the excitement, the tension, the mystery, the clarity, the growth, and above all the delight that I have found woven through my days lived with the God who can be trusted but not taken for granted. I wouldn't want it any other way.

A letter I got from a student included this sentence: "Thank you for being a freedom fighter for me." I'd like my book to broaden horizons and expand territory for the reader to move around in, and loosen up stiff spiritual joints so movement can be free and spontaneous. And I have another hope for The Ironic Christian's Companion—that it passes the Zen test: Speak only if you can improve on the silence.