With thanks to my local library’s interlibrary loan program, I’ve just picked up a book that will keep me occupied during Advent and probably well into January: A Testament to Freedom: the Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (ed. Kelly and Nelson, Harper San Francisco, 1995). Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor who was part of the German resistance to Hitler – a commitment for which he paid with his life. I’ve encountered his sermons and other writings in bits and pieces over the years, and it’s time I read his work in context even if not quite in full. He deserves more than the occasional quote in a meme.
I’ll alternate chapters of Bonhoeffer with chapters of a much shorter work that’s an old favorite of mine. Confessions of a Twentieth-Century Pilgrim (Harper & Row, 1988) is by Malcolm Muggeridge. He was a distinguished journalist who came to the Catholic faith fairly late in life, and Confessions is his account of how he got there. Meeting Mother Teresa in the course of his work was an important factor, but conversion of heart and soul was a years-long process. The book is pithy and brief, as befits a journalist who’s accustomed to getting a point across quickly. Muggeridge’s own style and humor make this conversion story compelling.
Who knew that hikers had book clubs? I do now, having discovered an organized group of hiking bookworms in my area. I just attended my first meeting with them via Zoom, where we discussed The Salt Path by Raynor Winn (Penguin Books, 2019). I was intrigued by what I’d heard about the book, which is on one level an account of a trek along England’s Coastal Path by the author and her husband. Reading the book was a revelation: the long trek was the backdrop, not the feature. The Salt Path is a moving memoir about a devoted couple dealing with a pair of personal disasters that turned their lives upside-down and left them homeless. Winn’s story isn’t about fun or romance or adventure, but rather about tenacity and mature love. It’s also an extended meditation on how people treated her and her husband as homeless people. Her evocative descriptions of the harsh and beautiful coast never overshadow her personal story.
I won’t wish readers a Merry Christmas just yet. Let’s not rush through Advent. May this time of preparation be one of prayer, peace, and good reading for you and yours.
Open Book is a blog roundup hosted by Carolyn Astfalk at My Scribbler’s Heart and by CatholicMom.com.
Header photo: Gerd Altmann/Pixabay
Ellen Kolb 