"The Year of Living Biblically" book review

I just finished my book for my Friday morning book club discussion. This month's book was my choice: "The Year of Living Biblically" by A.J. Jacobs.

Jacobs is an agnostic living in New York who decides to try to live out the rules of the Bible as literally as possible. He spends 9 months in the Old Testament and 3 months in the New Testament.

His admitted goal was to show how ridiculous these biblical rules and regulations are. And, of course, he succeeds in that since he is living them completely out of the context of ancient Israel and out of the context of a relationship with Jesus. There were parts of this book that were so ridiculous that he had me laughing out loud.

There were also parts that I found very profound. It was very good for me to view Christianity and the Bible through the eyes of an agnostic. It provided me practical insights into a worldview that I'm unfamiliar with. It was also fascinating to see what parts of religious life truly affected him in positive and profound ways. I was reminded in a new way from his experience the value of sabbath and the joy of giving.

Sadly, the book doesn't have a happy ending. He starts the year as an agnostic and he ends the year as an agnostic -- although now "a reverent agnostic". He recognizes sacredness now in life and prayer and thanksgiving, but that sacredness is in the ritual and not in any relationship with God. He admits, "I'm not sure whom I'm thanking, but I've become addicted to the act of thanking."

I've already used this book in one sermon and will probably reference it again. It was good for me to think for a few moments as much of our culture does. It challenged me to not only care about people who don't have a personal relationship with God, but to also make sure that my own walk with God and interaction with the world around me is such that if Jacobs were writing about me he would clearly see God through me.

Math Puzzle

Here is your math puzzle for the week. Erin and I were trying to figure it out and are stumped.

Make a 3X3 grid using 9 boxes. Adding the top digits with the middle digits to come up with the bottom sum, use the digits 1-9 once in each "window" to make as many true equations as possible. Make sense? Basically, add two 3-digit numbers together to come up with another 3-digit number using 1-9 only once.

By the end of the week, Erin needs to come up with as many correct solutions as possible (and know how she got them). Anyone who wants to help with this challenge is invited to do so!

Snow Fort Contest

We finally got enough snow to make some good snow forts! (You California friends should be jealous!) So we spent this afternoon creating and perfecting forts. Below are the entries for 2008.

You be the judge on your favorite fort of 2008 (or what you like about each one).

Brant's Fort



Erin's Fort



My Fort

God's Eye View

A friend of mine sent me this link entitled "God's Eye View". This artist recreated biblical events as God would have seen them (assuming the traditional and not so correct viewpoint that God is way up in the sky somewhere).

Click on the link above and weigh in on which image you thought was most interesting, impressive, cool, etc. I'll then reveal mine.

Not for the faint of flying...

Bill's Blog on woodtv.com has a link to a 4 minute video showing various airplanes trying to land in highwind conditions. It is amazing (and frightening) to watch! Click on the link above if you wish appreciate pilots' skills even more than they do already!

It's the Hair!

You know your son's hair is getting long when...

2 New Family Members

Well, our family grew by two over the weekend. For Christmas the kids got a hamster cage and Saturday afternoon we went and got 2 teddy bear hamsters. They were only 3 days old. (I didn't know you could separate them from their mother that soon, but they seem to be doing fine.)

They certainly aren't the smartest of critters. They aren't used to being handled by humans yet, so they will jump out of your hands no matter how high you may be holding them. The kids spent some time holding them today and both got nipped -- oops!

For rodents, they really are quite cute!